RecFest Uncensored - Issue 2

Cold Open

Almost 2000 of you clicked a button to read my dribble each week. I'm both touched and terrified!

Hope everyone stayed safe during Storm Eunice. I managed to bang up my toe chasing a paddling pool that decided to leave our garden without much notice. Send thoughts and prayers.

A big part of my focus this week has been speaker selection, a part I both love and hate, because, like any recruitment process, you say "no" to far more people than you say "yes" to.

Consider this; so far we've had 360 people apply to speak at RecFest and we only have 100 places. Then you factor in X amount of those slots for sponsors. Then factor in the people that do not apply, but who you really really want. Once you've got all of those you then need to consider the subject split. Not every talk can be about Employer Brand! You try to cover as many subjects as possible, that your audience has asked for. But then you need to cover things they don't know they need yet. Recruiting In The MetaVerse, anyone?!? That would draw a ton of people to the stage but the depth of content would be paper-thin at the moment. Then you need to make sure it fits into the budget. Flights, accommodation etc. It mounts up super fast. And throughout all of this, we're making sure our line-up is representative. Run an all-male panel and see how social media responds. And rightly so! Always call us out. It keeps us true.

Oh, and despite what Boris says, COVID is still around, which can stop those speakers travelling at any point. So, ya know, fun...

I get asked a lot "How do I get on stage at RecFest?" and answering that is really simple.

1) Apply to speak. There's a link's on the site. SO many people complain to me about never being asked to speak that never actually apply. How am I meant to know if you don't ask?! Put your hand in the air and we'll go from there.

2) Have something unique to say. Come with either a story no one has heard before or a different view on a given subject. Case studies are super popular with our audience, but make sure it goes somewhere and achieved something.

3) Demonstrate a base level of presentation skills. Either record yourself for a few minutes talking about literally anything or even better, present at a smaller event or webinar, get the host to record and send us that. Now we're lucky to have a public speaker coach within our team, who's always happy to offer pointers, but if it's your first-time public speaking, it would be irresponsible of us to put you on a stage with 500 people watching. For your benefit and ours. There are a ton of events in TA in the UK with much smaller audiences than RecFest. Start there, work your way up, and send us the videos.

Next week I'll tell you the quickest ways to NEVER be invited back to speak at any of our events. Spoiler Alert: It's a lack of respect and decency, for the most part.

Sneak Peak

Our first speaker gets announced this week. He's RL100 Member and former RecFest speaker and called me a few weeks ago to open up about his time through the pandemic and how mental health issues almost ruined his life. It genuinely rocked me and I'm SO proud of this individual for offering to be this honest at RecFest in July. He'll be joined by a well know TV personality to talk about that journey, mental health post-pandemic and how they're collaborating to help raise awareness of suicide to prevent more lives from being lost. Keep an eye on the socials for this announcement, it's going to be something special.

A Ducks Tale

So I promised last week that if we did Issue 2 I'd tell you how fishmongers almost ruined RecFest. So here we go.

Back in 2016, we hired Borough Market as a venue to host RecFest. I LOVE Borough Market. Pre-kids myself and Lois lived around the corner for a while and would eat and drink our way around the place on a Saturday. So many happy memories. You see, me getting drunk somewhere and deciding to host RecFest at that venue has happened with EVERY venue we've ever used, bar Mudchute and now Knebworth. RichMix, USS President, Borough Market and Hawker House, all were decided after drinking there for a few hours, leaving the team to work out the logistics. And Borough Market presented some BIG logistic challenges. We had to build a stage, AV and put an electricity grid in and create wifi from somewhere. That all pales in significance to the biggest issue; the fishmongers.

Borough Market is famous as a landmark food haven. One of the top 5 places for food in the world. The space we were hiring for the day was where the fish was usually sold and we were told by the site manager to not engage the fishmongers. Like, don't even look them in the eye. Borough Market works as a foodie venue because it has the best traders, and they know it, so they can be "difficult". Us coming in, as "corporate" people and making them move out for the day, went down like a fart in an elevator, and that's putting it as politely as I can.

On the day of the event, we arrived at 6am, ready to build. And none of the traders had moved. To their credit, they did leave soon after, but not before emptying a barrel of water they keep the fish carcass' in overnight, all over the floor. And it STUNK! And the sun was coming up, in June, and as the heat is hitting the tarmac, the smell is getting worse. So we did the only thing we could do. We sent two of the team to a local store, bought mops and buckets, a ton of bleach and went to work. To the credit of the Site Manager, he rallied everyone that owed him a favour that was there and at one point we have 30 people scrubbing the floors with bleach. It must have looked like the opening scene of Annie! We scrubbed for an hour to get that smell off of that floor. One of our sponsors walked in at 7.30, saw me with a mop in hand and said "Is it the money or the glamour you do this for?!" I'm still trying to work that out...

By the time recruiters were walking through the door, there we were, wide smiles and not a fishy smell in the air. Panic? What panic? Quack quack... ??

Answered Questions

Last week I asked you to post questions in the comments and our friend Dave Vinton asked the one and only question, all about the environment. Why a festival and not like another conference centre?

So, we're big on environment. When we launched most events in our space were not very good. If you blindfolded a recruiter and dropped them into any other TA event, when the blindfold came off, they wouldn't be able to tell you what event they were at. Conference room, tables, chairs, sponsors, bang average speaker. You could be at any event. We wanted RecFest to be different. We wanted that immediate recognition of the environment. "Grass underfoot, people in t-shirts, inspiring speaker, beers available? Yeah, I'm at RecFest." Environment makes a difference in the way you learn. By stripping back the business casual, crappy coffee and boring venue, we take down that defence. And allow people to be themselves and learn better. It's why RecFest is the first event most recruiters put in their diary and the last one they're willing to miss.

Free Stuf

As our new t-shirts have not arrived yet, here's a 100% not photoshopped image of someone modelling one. The first ones are going out to Claire Bush, Chantelle Jones and Dave Vinton for the great questions and even better shares! Snap a pic in your new t's and we'll make you famous by including them here in a few weeks.

And Finally...

That's it from me. This week is crazy busy but with a lot of fun things, so I'm not complaining. A few face-to-face client meetings (not Zoom!), an RL100 Dinner, an exciting meeting at LinkedIn HQ and I'm cold smoking salmon for the first time. ??

So tell me in the comments, what subject do you feel is criminally underserviced by events in this space and should be covered at RecFest? 3 comments will be drawn at random and will win these brand new t-shirts when they arrive!

Stay safe. Quack quack. ??

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This newsletter was inspired by?Hung Lee's This Week, In Recruitment

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Contact?Bobby Leonard ?for RecFest sponsorship opportunities