This was a question posed today on the UK Recruiter Group on LinkedIn.

Naturally, as RCE will be launching a series of national and international events in 2009, and we will be highlighting and covering other events across the recruitment spectrum (such as Enhance Media’s Online Recruitment 2009 - The Year Ahead Conference on 29 January in London, I felt I had to step up and defend the well run conference, on behalf of all participants.

Ricky Wheeler of Broadbean presented a very good analysis of some of the decision making that vendors should be utilising before committing to a conference. He highlighted benefits that Broadbean has seen over the past couple of years and also some of the reasons that many vendors may take on less events in 2009.

One of the other comments essentially stated that conferences were of no real value, as any information you needed to find could all be found on the Web or directly from the vendors.

For conference attendees, I find the "I can get the information free" argument to be essentially self defeating. I have spent many years on all sides of the conference spectrum - vendor/sponsor, speaker/chairman, delegate and conference organiser. (and not just in recruitment, but in such diverse areas as financial services and decision support technologies).

So, here is my two cents: First and foremost, there is nothing like meeting people in person, having both direct and group discussions. No amount of web research, reading brochures or even telephone calls can replace the learning experience from conversations that you have at a well attended and run event - with the speakers, other delegates and the exhibitors.

Why should you attend a recruitment conference?

1 For the Exhibitor/Sponsor:
Do you have new products/services to promote? Are you trying to penetrate a new business sector? Are you using this as a chance to meet clients/prospects that you have not been able to spend enough time with? Are other vendors potential partners/clients? Can you attend the conference sessions and actually learn something new and valuable? (Not all conferences welcome the active participation of sponsors/exhibitors)

2 For the Delegate:
See new products/services demonstrated first hand. Meet prospects for your business. Meet prospective employer (as Ceri mentions). Reconnect with other colleagues. Share your experiences and knowledge with others. Learn that others are having the same challenges that you are facing and how they cope. In other words, broaden your horizons. Engage with people.

3 For the Speaker
Meet other like minded thought leaders. Share your knowledge, experience, success - and even your failures. Engage with the vendors - they have the leading edge knowledge in the market. Get out on the floor with the delegates and learn from them. Keep your eyes open for prospective new employees.

Of course, I declare a vested interest in this topic. We have started Recruitment Community Europe to create an EMEA wide community where the online sources of information can meet and complement the off-line events - such as our Global Recruitment Conference in Amsterdam last November. UK Recruiter has been a long time leader in providing a forum and information to our community, and along with Broadbean, has a regular series of evening events where recruiters actually meet up. To me, that proves the essential point of conferences: It is all about the people.

If we get enougth interest/feedback on this topic, we will set up another poll.

Thanks for listening
Alan

Last update : 18-03-2009 09:59

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