In keeping with my vow to get back to weekly blogging, but to be shorter and more informal, I’d like to reflect on the exciting time I had a couple weeks ago out in the Bay Area for the Social Recruiting Summit. More than 200 HR and recruiting pros swarmed to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA for the daylong Social Recruiting Summit. First let me say it wasn’t simply a “Summit”; I’d like to call it a mash-up. Now I know most of you know what a “mash up” up is, but for the few that don’t, it’s a combination of apps and data pulled together, usually through API’s, to create a new solution. For example, MapMyEvent is an example of a mashup made using Google Maps, Upcoming, Eventful, Zvents and Yelp APIs.
This Social Recruiting “mashup” started with a number of informal, small group “drive-bys” of various tech companies in the Bay Area, a tweetup, general sessions, breakout sessions, even “un-sessions”. Combine this with Google culture talks and tours, mini roundtables at breakfast, lunch and breaks, and group drinks and snacks in the evening. Couple that with live streaming video and tweets, archived content and many mentions and summaries in the various blogs, then top it off with new friendships made, old friendships renewed and virtual friends meeting IRL and you have the Social Recruiting Mashup 2009!
I’ll close by giving huge kudos to the speakers I saw, although I know the entire Summit was top shelf: Shannon Seery-Gude (@seerysm) who stressed the importance of listening to and participating in the dialogue; Laurie Reuttimann (@lruettimann) blogger at Punk Rock HR, who talked about and embodies authenticity; Chris Hoyt (@therecruiterguy) and Michael Marlatt (@MichaelMarlatt) who blew us away with their presentation on the handheld internet and mobile recruiting; and Joshua Kahn (@joshuakahn) who delivered his “Sacred Cow” presentation to the accompaniment of live tweets.
Finally, this groundbreaking Social Recruiting Summit/Mashup would not have been possible without the vision of David Manaster (@dmanaster), ERE, and Susan Burns (@talentsynch), Talent Synchronicity. Props to you both and to all who made this a great success. Let’s do it again!
Tags: ERE, Google, Social Recruiting Summit, Talent Synchronicity
