Wow, we made it to 10 events in less than 3 years. There are days when it feels like 1 and days when it is like 100.
The constant about the events is that feedback is always very positive with a few critiques along the way on how to make things better, more engaging or new topics to cover.
Something I only spoke with a few people over the past year was that these events were starting to take a toll on me. I liked having them be free as we had sponsors who were willing to support the events and the group.
The issue was as the group was growing (now 2,000 on the email list) and planning an event was taking about a full week to do.
So with the support of the co founders, sponsors and asking some people from the group I chose to start charging $25 for each event.
Some suggested the fee be $40 and others $50 but all agreed something was in order.
Funny thing, after all the conversations and my worrying about it, turned out to be not such a big deal.
I want to say thanks for the support I received on this and all things related to the Minnesota Recruiters group.
To the event itself. We had a “smaller” group than usual, 170. Not due to the new fee so much as only having finalized our speakers 10 days in advance and another related industry group in town was meeting on the same day.
Turns out bigger is indeed not always better. Many people commented on how much more relaxed the room felt with few people. I think going forward instead of capping attendance at 250 we will go with 200.
Here are the event day slides:
Here is the formal invite:
We started the day with Jim D’Amico who was presenting for his second time. His presentation focused on the candidate experience and what has personally experienced during his job search. Jim is a well respected recruiting leader and he was able to talk about this topic from both sides.
Check out his slides as he some statistics to share but this was a highlight for me and something most (all) job seekers can agree with:
“The vast majority of companies have, in no uncertain terms, a craptastic candidate experience”
Here are some photos of Jim:
Jim’s slide deck:
Contact Jim D’Amico:
Next we had Jason Buss, VP Talent Acquisition and Diversity at Ameriprise Financial. Jason and I have been trying to get him to an event for two years and finally I was able to schedule an event around him. Yeah, that’s how we do it sometimes.
Jason gave a presentation that focused on how some Internet job postings and particularly those from aggregators like SimplyHired and Indeed.com are in Jason’s words “polluting the Internet”.
In particular Jason focused on how he found an Ameriprise job posting one one such site and was forwarded, and forwarded, and forwarded many times to a new site finally to submit a resume to a site that was (wait for it…) not the Ameriprise career site.
Photos of Jason:
Jason’s slide deck:
Contact Jason Buss:
bussjj@gmail.com – Blog – Twitter – LinkedIn
Last we had Steve Lewis, Director Talent Acquisition, and Stacy Van Meter, Talent Community Manager, at Deluxe Corporation.
Deluxe Corporation recently hired Stacy in this role and with so many companies thinking about going in this direction I thought it would be a good idea for Steve to talk about what steps were taken to get approval and how it is going for Stacy so far.
Steve and Stacy:
Slide deck:
And the video Stacy produced for senior management at Deluxe:
Contact Steve Lewis:
Steve.Lewis@deluxe.com – Twitter – LinkedIn
Contact Stacy Van Meter:
Stacy.VanMeter@deluxe.com – Twitter – LinkedIn
We had a bunch of announcements that are listed in the event day slides above.
But I want to note here that Minnesota Recruiters 11 will be an unconference event this summer (likely July) and will be held at General Mills. This will be our first event away from Best Buy and I am looking forward to the new location. We will be back at Best Buy in November.
Thank you to our Minnesota Recruiters 2010 Sponsors:
Yes, I caught Adam Sprecher doing some work doing the event. For more info see the slide deck above and by clicking Oberon
Gregg Dourgarian of Tempworks Software chatting with the group. For more info see the slide deck above and by clicking Tempworks Software
Thank you to our 10 time host Best Buy. They are so awesome to work with and I appreciate everything they do for us.
Thank you Arbita our Group Sponsor for all of their ongoing assistance.
Minnesota Recruiters Group Co-Founders and Volunteers
Paul DeBettignies, Managing Partner of Nerd Search LLC, MN Headhunter Blog
Don Ramer, CEO & Founder of Arbita
Nicole Bodem, Director, Search Engine Marketing at Bernard Hodes Group, HR Search Marketing Blog
Josh Kahn, Manager, Emerging Media Technology at Best Buy, find+attract Blog
Steven Rothberg, President & Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com
Toby Dayton, President & CEO of JobDig, Diggings Blog
Some more photos of the event:
Group photo
Photos of Paul DeBettignies. Why did I just name myself? For SEO purposes of course. And why photos of me? Seems I always get everyone else and not me.
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