ERE Expo Fall 2008: "We will get through this."

The ERE Expo Fall 2008 concluded Thursday, October 30 in Hollywood Beach Florida. The unusually cool weather that overtook South Florida on Tuesday this week served to underscore the "chill" in the markets and its effect on the recruitment industry.

That said, the few days of professional development, networking, and deal-making became part pep-rally, group therapy session, reality-check, and opportunity spotting for the mix of professional and corporate recruiters, recruiting thought-leaders, service provides, technology vendors, and industry media.

Jan Hopkins, former CNN anchor, in offering a political, economic, and cultural sweep of America summed up the sentiment underscoring the entire conference: "We will get through this." She's referring of course to the myriad of problems that have beset households, businesses, governments, and our financial markets.

Ethan Bloomfield, vp of sales operations at JobTarget (a show sponsor and exhibitor) offered a compelling argument for increasing or at least maintaining business investment: "Either it's going to get better or the world's going to end." I personally like that strategy for conquering the fear associated with the downside risk of doubling down in a down economy.

While the general perception was that attendance numbers this fall were down from previous expos, ERE deserves to be commended for producing a high-quality event. I'm quite certain that the ERE Expo will continue to be among the top-tier events in this industry, and placed atop the very short list of "must attend" events for recruiters who can get a hold of the budget dollars to attend a professional development conference.

Here are a few bullet points from my conference session notes:

From Jason Warner, Head of Staffing, Online Sales and Operations at Google:

• The importance of talent is even greater in tough economic times
• Talent is available now and demand is still strong. That's good news for recruiters.
• Quoting Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, "Scarcity brings clarity." Every business, business-function, and individual must understand and focus on their essential value-add in the marketplace and organization.

More from Jan Hopkins:

• Quoting a high profile business executive, the US needs "more civil engineers, less financial engineers."
• As a country, we've been living beyond our means and as a country we're going to relearn the values past generations had mastered, in particular those of thrift and saving.
• HR professionals and Recruiters are on the front-lines; they have an opportunity to gain leverage through this great sorting out by finding creative ways to boost morale, keep the most valuable employees, and help develop creative compensation solutions.

From the participants, demonstrating the "wisdom of crowds:"

• Overcoming common relocation challenges associated with a down real estate market, one recruiter told how her company, in order to relocate a candidate, networked with other companies in their area found a candidate heading in the opposite direction. They found an opportunity for a "home swap."
• One company partnered with a local university to do statistical research to identify top engineering candidates who have a profile matching those most willing to relocate: post-graduate, married, non-home owners. The window of such a profile match is short so this organization works hard to find candidates while still in that sweet spot.
• Those who used to lose out on MBA talent to the financial industry are now able to compete. Real industry such has the opportunity to load up on talent while Wall Street is in its downward spiral.

Further reading of ERE Expo coverage:

ERE Keynoter Says Economy Offers Recruiters "Seat At The Table"

Vendors Reach Recruiters With Coffee Mugs, Rockets, and Information

The #ereexpo Twitter feed, a lively virtual exchange, complimenting the on premise action

Labels: ERE Expo, recruiting, recruitment and staffing