RecFest 2016: The Review

RecFest. Recruiters, having a Festival. I must admit, when I first received Jamie’s email flyer for RecFest2016, I didn’t know quite what what to think. My gut reaction was ‘probably not J’. I like recruiters - still am one really - and I do like festivals. But together? Sounded like an experiment I didn't need to be at. 

A call, a chat with one of the ReConverse team, and perhaps more FOMO than I'd care to admit and suddenly a ticket was bought and I was in. And I’ll say this to you now. It’s been one of the best decision I’ve made this year. If Jamie and his team were selling tickets for RecFest 2017 today, I’d buy half a dozen for me and the rest of the Workshape crew to go along. There are tons of reasons why I loved RecFest, but in this post, I'm going to pick out just 5. 

The Venue

When you call your event a festival, the first thing you have to get right is the venue. This can't be the local Regus. Place communicates to the audience what the event is going to be - and holding it open air in historical central London location told every delegate that this was going to be a different experience from your usual industry event. It takes real courage to book out Borough Market for a recruiting event. I'm sure very few would dare try and I doubt if any other team could have pulled it off. It is testament confidence of the Reconverse brand that the attempt was even made so kudos to Jamie and the team for taking this on and bringing it in!

2. The Food

Mankind has had no better idea that putting meat on the grill. And when you need to provision 400 people at a recruiting event, it becomes even more obvious that it's true. In keeping with the festival theme, Latin American flavours were dominant at both lunch and dinner. Think Chargrilled Chicken, Chorizo, Tortillas, Black Bean Stew and the rest. The timing was great, prep, execution and delivery was excellent and the quality very, very good. I suspect most of the delegates are not really precious about catering in events, but it was great to see small details being taken care of so well. 

3. The Speakers

No evidence has been forthcoming that much persuading was required for Ken Ward to go full Carmen Miranda for his turn as Master of Ceremonies but credit goes where credit is due - Ken you looked fabulous! 

The speaker quality was excellent - informative, inclusive and topical. It's always great to see practitioners as well as theoreticians on stage telling their stories, with real case studies backed with hard data. This is something even more impressive when you consider that the line lost several headliners at late notice through cancellations due to unforeseen circumstances on travel and health.

An interesting segue was the mid afternoon Silent Speaker session. An intriguing concept where two speakers on stage simultaneously deliver talks to an audience who could choose which speaker to listen to by toggling between two channels on the headphones provided. I’m not sure which speaker ‘won’ or even if there was ant sense of competition, but the idea presented some interesting techniques on how to get audience to listen to a broadcast message in the era of interrupt and distraction. 

4. The People

Friends old and new. Or in this case, old and older. Attending RecFest2016 was a constant reminder as to how incredibly dense a network we have in the UK recruitment / talent acquisition space. It's a sign of a truly thriving ecosystem that practitioners, content creators, event managers, software vendors, opinion makers and those who actually do the job - recruiters who hire people for their firms - could all mingle freely, in great spirit and with a genuine sense of camaraderie. 

Some serious camaraderie here. 

5. The Samba

How else to close an open air festival other than a dance party with a Samba band and a troupe of Brazilian dancers wearing mainly feathers? It was a perfect reminder to everyone who attended that RecFest2016 is primarily about celebration of industry. There are videos of recruiters doing their thing on the dance floor. I'm sure the Internet is better for it. 

As a final thought, RecFest2016 for me was a necessary reminder of the importance of community in the talent space. We are all too often overly focused on our own objectives and can miss out on the value that comes from simply refreshing your enthusiasm for the work. This post has turned into something of eulogy now, but I'm going to keep it that way because the Reconverse crew deserve it for bringing a lot of people together, who need each other to do better. So do yourself a favour the next time you're thinking about going to an industry event and yourself a ticket to RecFest2017. I know I will.