We’re here to help! Stop by and pick up your conference pass and program for the event. If you have any questions, this is the place to find us.

For the first time, lawyers from leading employment law firm Ogletree Deakins will be available to offer one-on-one information sessions for ERE attendees, for free. On a first-come, first-served basis, you’ll be able to meet with Ogletree Deakins attorneys for 20 minutes. You’ll be able to ask them what the law says about the recruiting, screening, interviewing, testing, and other questions most vexing you.

email todd@ere.net with questions or to schedule your one-on-one session

visit http://ogletreedeakins.com/about/index.cfm for more information about Ogletree Deakins

Start the conference off with appetizers and beverages with your fellow attendees, speakers, and exhibitors.

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For the first time, lawyers from leading employment law firm Ogletree Deakins will be available to offer one-on-one information sessions for ERE attendees, for free. On a first-come, first-served basis, you’ll be able to meet with Ogletree Deakins attorneys for 20 minutes. You’ll be able to ask them what the law says about the recruiting, screening, interviewing, testing, and other questions most vexing you.

email todd@ere.net with questions or to schedule your one-on-one session

visit http://ogletreedeakins.com/about/index.cfm for more information about Ogletree Deakins

Conference Chair Matt Jeffrey kicks off ERE Expo Spring and sets the stage for two days of learning and collaboration.

Can a recruiter make you cry? Traditional recruiters are in danger of becoming obsolete as companies look to build emotional relationships with both employees and external communities. Recruitment 3.0 focuses on the building of communities of talent that modern recruitment marketers will need to engage and nurture. Recruitment marketers who can inspire their communities will be at a premium in the online age as social media starts to replace traditional media and traditional recruitment attraction techniques as the strategy of choice. In this visionary session, Matthew Jeffery will get you thinking about the future of recruitment, with some pretty startling conclusions.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and mingle with fellow attendees during the coffee break between sessions.

Forget those corny awards presentations where all the audience gets is to watch people smile and accept a trophy. This will be an interactive learning experience where you can ask your questions to the innovative companies leading the way in our industry. John Vlastelica moderates.

Enjoy a buffet lunch in the exhibit hall – mingle with other attendees, chat with speakers, and check out the latest and greatest from the recruiting industry’s leading vendors.

You’ve scoured the planet, run Boolean search strings until your eyes crossed, used every social media app available, even made a few cold calls, and you’ve finally found THE ONE. This is the candidate you’ve dreamed of in what precious moments of REM sleep you’ve managed to squeeze in since you began this search. This could be the sort of difference-maker hire that will have your hiring-manager client nominating you for Recruiter of the Century…if you make the hire.

All of your sourcing skill means NOTHING if you don’t close the candidate, yet too many recruiters don’t have a repeatable process or methodology for closing high-value candidates. As an executive recruiter, Jen Lambert doesn’t get paid until the candidate is hired. Worse, she fails to land the high-value candidates she brings to her clients, she doesn’t get invited back to the dance. In this session, she’ll teach you the “elements of the end game” that will allow you to go close all the candidates you want without relying on four-leaf clovers, high-pressure tactics or manipulation. Less than 3% of her job offers get turned down, and it’s not by luck.

Are you intrigued with the potential of using social media to enhance recruitment marketing efforts? Do things like blogs, widgets, QR codes, apps, videos, Facebook, and Twitter get you thinking creatively? If so, come hear a case study of how Deluxe Corporation is using social media to attract and engage candidates online. It has created a comprehensive social media recruitment marketing strategy that Van Meter will share with attendees. You’ll learn the reasons Deluxe got involved in social media recruiting; steps for creating the community and online marketing platform; and results of its first year with the program. There’ll be an open discussion about best practices for developing a talent community.

Dan Jessup, the HR VP at Groupon and an improv actor in Chicago, will talk about interviewing at what is perhaps America’s fastest-growing company … ever. He’ll tell you how Groupon operates during the recruiting lifecycle in such a way to affect job satisfaction, retention, and productivity on the job. He’ll talk about the company’s style and tone it uses in job descriptions and phone screens, and how that carries through to in-person interviews and onboarding. He’ll tell you how Groupon has retained its culture all while growing more than 10 times the size in two years. Expect a short presentation followed by a lot of discussion, so arrive with your questions!

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and mingle with fellow attendees during the coffee break between sessions.

A look at the number and nature of recruiting jobs today and over the next 12 months. A panel of experts will provide hard numbers on the current recruiting jobs that are being advertised, what kind of recruiters are being sought, the industries most likely to be looking for recruiters, and where in the world the demand is. You’ll get insight on the future demand for recruiters and HR professionals, and on the industries where the need is likely to be strongest. A recruiter of recruiters will talk about who is getting hired and what the demand is.

One of the fastest ways to leapfrog in any territory is to learn from the best and copy from them. The direct marketers in the U.S. and around the world have developed unique systems to identify target audiences, to impress their prospects, and to motivate them to respond. The same process can be implemented by organizations that want to build a community of potential candidates, bonding with them long before they become interested in working for your company. Dramatic changes can happen within days when recruiters simply change the headline or the text in a publication, or ask their candidates questions about their needs. Morit Rozen – who has used direct marketing systems to dramatically grow her business in Israel – will present these systems, the gaps she has identified that most recruiters she has worked with have when they communicate with candidates, and the different ways they can create a long-time connection with their specific audience.

You’re tweeting, you’re sourcing on LinkedIn, and you just hit the 1,000 fans mark on your Facebook page. Now what? How are you measuring your presence and success in the social media arena and what are you doing to optimize? These are the questions Intel asked itself not too long ago. This session will be a peek behind the curtain at Intel. It empowers its employees to engage in social conversations to market its products, amplify its employment brand, and source great talent. Come and learn what social channels it is using in the U.S. and globally, see how it is engaging with candidates, and take a deep dive into the data and results it’s getting.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and mingle with fellow attendees during the coffee break between sessions.

Raise your hand if you are tired of hearing about social media. Yeah, me too. That said, social media is here to stay. Most HR & corporate recruiting professionals have seen this story play out once or twice … with the advent of the fax machine, the Internet, and email. Social media IS Pandora’s Box, or at least the next incarnation of Pandora’s box. Most HR professionals already know this and have largely avoided the corporate use of social media. Until now.

We’ll discuss scenarios that highlight ethical and moral dilemmas that social media can create for HR & corporate recruiting professionals. Using real-world scenarios, attendees will have the opportunity to explore what impact social media will have on their own workplace, and how they can create opportunities to maximize the benefits of this technology while minimizing the negatives. The session will be fun, interactive, and everyone will come away from the session knowing more about social media and how it potentially intersects with their role in HR & corporate recruiting.

It’s uncertain whether the relationship between recruiters and HR generalists is like siblings, spouses, or parent-child (if the latter, it’s also unclear who’s the parent and who’s the child). What is clear is they’re all part of the same family. And it’s mutually beneficial that they get along.

So please join us as we explore this relationship in our session! We will begin as you would in therapy by getting all feelings out on the table, hearing from both parties, and looking at both sides of the “debate.” We will then get down to work to look at how both sides can and should engage, how any gaps can be bridged, and how doing so is vital to increasing the individual value of both parties to the company. This will be a lively conversation about the relationship between corporate recruiting specialists and HR generalists: what’s working, what’s not working, and why. Join recruiting guru Jeremy Eskenazi as he explores the reasons for success and failures in this age-old relationship saga with two special guests: a senior HR leader with a generalist background, and a senior recruiting specialist leader. The dialogue will include opportunities for the audience to weigh in with questions and comments. The gloves will come off. But the doctor is in.

The key to finding top talent is not to look for anyone: you need to find the people who fit your company. Seems obvious, right? Who are they? What do they look like? In order to figure out who the right people are, you need to recognize that your employees are working as much to meet their needs as meet your needs. Which needs do you satisfy? How do you tie them to the needs of the company? Do you appeal to risk-takers, or those who seek safety and stability? Is your company focused on teams or do you emphasize individual performance? Very few companies take the time to look in the mirror and see themselves as others see them.

Become one of the few who understand who they want and how to get them. In this talk you will learn the six key factors that matter to every potential employee, how to recognize which ones you provide, how to use that knowledge to attract the people who will fit your company, and how to convince them to join you.

Wind down the day with drinks and appetizers in the exhibit hall — a great opportunity to see what fellow attendees learned that day. Don’t miss out on this chance to engage your colleagues in discussions about the challenges facing our industry.

For the first time, lawyers from leading employment law firm Ogletree Deakins will be available to offer one-on-one information sessions for ERE attendees, for free. On a first-come, first-served basis, you’ll be able to meet with Ogletree Deakins attorneys for 20 minutes. You’ll be able to ask them what the law says about the recruiting, screening, interviewing, testing, and other questions most vexing you.

email todd@ere.net with questions or to schedule your one-on-one session

visit http://ogletreedeakins.com/about/index.cfm for more information about Ogletree Deakins

The Conference Chair recaps yesterday’s sessions and highlights today’s discussions.

In 2008 AMN Healthcare began the journey of building a strategic and integrated talent management strategy. Despite the economic conditions and a shrinking workforce in 2009 that could easily distract an organization from focusing its efforts on talent development, AMN continued to balance current realities with future needs to engage, retain and prepare its workforce for tomorrow.

Achieving a state of truly integrated talent management isn’t easy. It takes sustained executive commitment, strong HR capability and simple and intuitive programs, processes and tools. But the prize is a talent management approach that is greater than the sum of its parts and delivers real, measurable business value.

Join Julie Fletcher, Senior Vice President of HR, as she shares her story of AMN Healthcare’s journey through the recent recession and how AMN stayed the course on its commitment to integrated talent management.

Mingle with fellow attendees and grab a coffee or hot tea, while taking a quick break from the sessions.

Take a look at how Hyatt has redefined its talent acquisition strategy using these important principles.

Learn how to use social media to attract and hire candidates that fit your company culture. Understanding a candidate’s expectations of your company and its culture is critical from the very start. If a disconnect exists between a candidate’s expectations and the reality of the situation, it can quickly lead to problems with engagement, performance, and business productivity in your organization. The candidate needs to know what is expected of them as well as feel a sense of strong company culture that is not only clear but inviting.

The key to this process is having an open conversation with your target audience from the very beginning. This policy of open and effective communication should extend from your branding efforts, to your initial interactions with candidates, all the way through the hiring process, onboarding, and performance management. Consistency is important.

In this session you will learn:

The strategy of building and leveraging a positive talent brand.

How to communicate with potential employees about your company�s culture and goals.

Best practice solutions to engage high potentials through social networking channels.

Using technology to further your brand outreach, alignment to business, goals, and people insight.

Human resources departments are traditionally left out of the planning stage for sales and strategic growth. HR is traditionally called in for workforce planning and succession management, in medium to large companies only, but rarely for the strategic development of new business and especially not for product development. In this session, you’ll examine companies whose top executives currently ask their recruiting departments to participate in business planning. You’ll see how their HR/recruiting departments contribute to their business goals and achievements. You’ll see what separates their staff from the tradition HR/recruiting departments. You’ll learn what would executives like to see change in their departments within the next five years.

The three longest-running and most prolific ERE writers answer your toughest questions. They’ll take a stab at answering them — but we can’t promise the big three of Adler, Sullivan, and Wheeler will always agree with each other! Submit questions in advance (todd@ere.net) or bring them with you to San Diego.

Enjoy a buffet lunch in the exhibit hall – this is the last chance to check out the cool gadgets, gizmos, and technology available from our exhibitors. It’s not about what you need today; it’s about finding that answer to the challenge you will be facing tomorrow.

Mary Wright will help you navigate the sea of legal issues that come up when using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media to 1) find employees, and build followings, fans and followers, as well as 2) look up information about employees you’re considering hiring. She’ll give suggestions on how to handle “too much information” about candidates, such as video resumes and Facebook posts that tell you more than you feel like you should know. She’ll talk about issues that go beyond race, religion, orientation, and gender discrimination, and tell why managers and recruiters’ viewing of casual job-candidate posts about political preferences, weekend activities, or other random personal details can get you into hot water.

In this engaging and interactive session, PNC’s Melissa Mounce, senior vice president of corporate talent acquisition, is interviewed by Jason Warner, former recruiting leader at Google and Starbucks, on topics related to Mounce’s leadership through transformation in the face of today’s changing talent landscape. If you have ever been faced with driving change in your organization, this is a session you won’t want to miss.

Kat Drum will moderate a panel of managers at RIM – a leading designer, manufacturer, and marketer of innovative wireless solutions such as BlackBerry and Playbook – who will talk about how they use various global strategies to meet the demands of RIM’s growing success. You’ll hear how RIM implemented change-management tactics into the global talent acquisition team, as well as about its social media strategy, and how it has (should be is) transforming global recruiting. Panelists: Simon Moore, manager, global talent acquisition strategic sourcing/EMEA; Carrah Johnston, manager, global talent acquisition/change management & learning; and Kim Gerrard, manager, talent acquisition operations.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and mingle with fellow attendees during the coffee break between sessions.

The amount of user-generated content available on the web today is amassing at an unprecedented rate. In order to be able to extract relevant candidate information you need to have the best tools available in your sourcing arsenal. This session will cover using browser extensions, creating a recruiting desktop, investigating new search engines and automating the internet sourcing process.

During this session you will:

Learn the best and most impactful browser extensions available to streamline your daily recruiting performance.

Discover best in class tips for creating and organizing a recruiting desktop to drive relevant candidate information and competitive industry intelligence to your pipeline.

Explore new search engines available today that are shaping the way people are conducting viable research to locate the best talent available on the web.

What employers do with their employee referral programs isn’t always what they should do. How much they pay for it sometimes has unintended consequences. Employee referral practices that have evolved in the last 20 years aren’t necessarily the best choices for the next 20.

Join the conversation at ERE this Spring in an unusual back and forth between Gerry Crispin and Master Burnett. Both bring and contrast fresh data about critical practices that firms use to benchmark each other while simultaneously questioning the common wisdom of common (and uncommon) practices. Bring yours to this session. You’ll have a chance to share it and join the conversation.

You saw the Egyptian revolution on television, and knew it was the start of something big. But what does the collapse of an Egyptian dictator have to do with recruiting? Joe Shaheen, a recruiting strategist of Egyptian heritage who was in close contact with protestors, explains in this short but inspiring closing session.