ERE Is Not Like Other Recruiting Events

The number of recruiting (or talent acquisition, take your pick) conferences has proliferated since ERE started putting on our events almost two decades ago. I would say you could now attend an event every day but Christmas and New Year’s, but you could probably find something those days too, now.

ERE will never be just another conference. We won’t allow it! We’d be bored. You’d be bored. We are determined to continue getting record-high ratings by making sure that what we give you is relevant, new, innovative, bold, and not the same 'ol same 'ol you heard in 2015, or 2005 for that matter.

We talk to our speakers regularly to make sure they’re going to give you just that. If they’ve got a slide or a part of their session that’s full of generalities, or common sense, or stuff about how “there’s a war for talent everyone! Employees are our greatest asset!” -- we tell them to scrap it, and they’re happy about that. Our speakers want ERE events to be as fresh as we do.

You’ll get people who are achieving results. You’ll get real-life examples, not theories about what the world of work might be like in 2075.

You will find a peer whether you are a VP of talent acquisition at a large company or a recruiter at a small company.

APRIL 2019 SAN DIEGO, AGENDA-AT-A-GLANCE

MONDAY, APRIL 22

• At the “meet the speakers and ERE.net writers” gathering, you’ll have a chance, before the event is fully underway, to talk one on one with industry experts. It’s particularly good if you’re a first-timer.
• The welcome reception is the first chance to really meet hundreds of recruiters and talent-acquisition leaders from every industry all coming to hear about recruiting in a candidate’s market.

TUESDAY, APRIL 23

We’ll see you at 6:30 a.m. for the weekend warrior workout. Yes, even for this event, the focus is on takeaways, providing ideas to keep in shape in the future when you’re swamped.

After breakfast, you’ll hear from our MC, Paul Freed, who brings 20 years of recruiting experience ranging from startups to public companies in technology, consumer, healthcare, manufacturing, and non-profits.

This conference will officially kick off with a comedienne, Sarah Cooper, whose 100 tricks to appear smart in talent acquisition, will leave you grinning, and thinking. Cooper’s an ex-Google user-experience employee I met in Austin who will provide a take on recruiting we don’t usually get.

John Vlastelica will also provide a few laughs, and a lot of lessons, right after Cooper, when he talks about 5 critical conversations with hiring managers.

The roundtable discussions are one of the perennially most popular parts of the event. You’ll talk to people with similar challenges to you, whether they be about high-volume recruiting, blue-collar and trade recruiting, employee referrals, TA leadership, or college recruiting.

TUESDAY BREAKOUT TRACKS / CONCURRENT SESSIONS

Marketing/Branding/Technology

• You may have seen Christine Del Regno’s video. She’ll talk about CVS Health’s college recruiting, a topic that doesn’t get enough play at many conferences.
• John Sullivan … you’ve read his columns on ERE.net. Hear this long-time superstar of the industry cover a topic live in San Diego.
• Employee referrals is another, and you’ll learn about it from Patrick Burke, who helped build the early iPhone engineering teams.

Leadership & Strategy

• From Google, Jeff Moore will talk about rapidly scaling recruiting.
• Shane Noe, head of recruiting operations at Box, will talk about cost-per-hire models. He’s a rising star who came from finance.
• For smaller companies and mid-sized companies, Kim Jones is here to help.

Screening & Interviewing

• I met Senior VP of People Megan Hansen recently in San Francisco and learned of her work hiring people at MOD Pizza who don’t get a chance elsewhere; hear about it at ERE.
• “Unconscious bias” is one of the most talked about topics in hiring. A people-operations leader, Lindsay Grenawalt, will help you with it.
• A session we just added that I'm super interested in: Legal Issues with Data, AI, and Recruiting: What Works and What to Watch For

Workshop (Included)

Jeremy Eskenazi will do a workshop on leading talent teams. Get there a tad on the early side, as he tends to draw a crowd.

End of Day General Session and Reception

ATAP’s Ben Gotkin will give you the “state of talent acquisition” – a great chance to hear what others are up to. He’ll cover a lay of the land as well as some best practices.

The Tuesday night reception will be not just another reception, because it’ll end with more comedy from Sarah Cooper, who I mentioned above.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24

Morning General Sessions

After breakfast Wednesday, MC Paul Freed will turn it over to the author of The Freak Factor, Dave Rendall, for a provocative look at how to stand out in a candidate’s market.

Julie Fletcher, chief talent officer at AMN Healthcare, will talk about diversity at one of America’s fastest-growing companies. Her TA team is involved in diversity in ways recruiters at many companies are not (preview: it doesn't end once people are hired).

WEDNESDAY BREAKOUT TRACKS / CONCURRENT SESSIONS

Recruiter Skills

• Engaging the passive candidate: Everyone’s talked about it for years, but it’s not getting any easier. Rick Girard will help.
• Hear about recruiting and leading growing companies from two interesting people, one who helped Virgin Hyperloop One grow, and is now at sweetgreen, and another who’s doing the same at Wag, the hot LA company in the pet-sitting, dog-walking business.
• Katie Weber will help you ensure that expectations are set from Day 1, skill sets are clearly defined, and hiring managers know when they've got the right candidate. 
• What you say in an interview may be less important than how you say it. Jeff Baird – one of the few true experts on this topic – will give you tips on using non-verbal communication to attract top talent.
• Recruiting has some aspects in common with sales, and Ann Wilkerson will tell you how recruiters can be better salespeople.

Marketing/Branding/Technology

• Kevin Wheeler will cover ethics in recruiting. If you haven’t read his articles, you should, as he has his pulse on the profession and its future.
• James Ellis will tell you that your job descriptions don’t have to suck.
• Talent-acquisition director Blake Thiess, of Prestige Care, will talk about healthcare recruiting. Expect non-traditional ways to connect with job seekers.
• Repelling talent, not attracting it, is a strategy. Charlotte Marshall will talk about it.
• Google’s new job-search tool is the talk of the recruiting town. Joel Cheesman tells how to rank highly on Google, which continues to grow in importance.

Leadership & Strategy

• One of many big company talent-acquisition leaders on the docket, Shelia Gray, global talent acquisition leader at GE Appliances, will talk strategy.
• If you’re reading this, chances are good you want talent acquisition to be the most valuable part of the company. Annette Carroll sure wants that.
• High-volume recruiting is the focus of Crystal Stanfield, talent-acquisition director at SAC Wireless. Yes, she says, you can do it without sacrificing the candidate experience.
• Greg Hauser, from Ingram Micro, will deliver a brutal lesson.

Screening & Interviewing

• Dell’s John Redmond covers a topic you told us in the post-conference survey after last fall’s conference you want more of: diversity in recruiting.
• Olivia Melman, recruiting operations manager at DigitalOcean, will discuss improving the candidate experience. She’s one of those many folks speaking you may not yet know of yet, but you’ll want to be connected with.
• Home Depot’s Mike Lee teaches you to build interview teams. He was hired to scale QuoteCenter, a software startup growing 7x within the company as The Home Depot moves from brick-and-mortar retail to a solutions provider looking to meet the world’s home improvement needs. Under his leadership, the team doubled in size twice over 18 months.
• You can hire for business acumen, or you can hire for technology skills. Or you can find out how to hire for both.

The early-bird discount for ERE ends February 15!

Todd Raphael, Editor-in-Chief, ERE and Brent Baker, Marketing Director, ERE