I am very excited to introduce Hodes iQ as the main sponsor for RecruitFest! 2009 in Las Vegas - May 19th. We have a great day planned.

Hodes iQ is an award-winning talent acquisition and management system that combines powerful e-sourcing capabilities with candidate and recruiter-friendly management tools. Adopted by hundreds of leading HR organizations, Hodes iQ has robust reporting, onboarding, OFCCP, and candidate experience features that bring a strategic advantage to your recruitment and retention demands. Hodes iQ offers Starter, Standard and Enterprise Editions.

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RecruitFest! 2009 is on. The place is Vegas and the date is May 19/09 - If you are flying in you will need to arrive on the 18th.

It's a day before the Kennedy Conference starts and before I get started here, I want to say thank you to Anna Brekka for working this through with me. Thanks for seeing how this is a good idea for both Kennedy and RecruitingBlogs.com and thank you for extending a very generous discount to those RecruitFest! attendees who want to stay for the Kennedy Show.

I'm a huge believer in the unconference model since participating in one a few years back that was put on by Jeff Hunter and Electronic Arts. It stuck and I always knew that if I were to put on a conference it would be either a carnival concept or an unconference concept or maybe the two together but if I leave the carnival part out of it, it's easier to do and I can deliver on it.

This is how it works (after the drumming circle of course.)

All discussions take place in the same room at the same time. The Track Leaders will facilitate the conversations in different parts of the room. There will be comfortable seating and I hope it's a little noisy. You choose where to go and when to leave. The idea is you get to take part in all of the conversations. There is a full day for this. There will also be a few surprises and injections of change from time to time during the day.

Track Leaders:

Taken from RecruitFest.com

John Sumser: John will open RecruitFest! John is the biggest influence I have had in this business. Everything he has told me over the years has come true. He sees things differently than most. When he talks you should listen because there is gold in his ideas and words.

Joel Cheesman: He knows a lot about Search Optimization and it is something recruiters need to think about and know about. He's an exciting guy in his own way, and will without a doubt leave you with ideas that will help your business. If you recognize that Google and Yahoo should be your recruiting friend, spend some with Joel. It will be time well spent.

Gerry Crispin: Gerry is a fountain of information and he is a story teller. You add recruiting into the mix and you get an experience that companies pay a lot of money for. Gerry wants to talk and he wants to network with people who share the belief that we should always aim for recruiting perfection but hope we never get there because if we do, what do we do next?

Maureen Sharib: Maureen lives telephone sourcing. Maureen eats telephone sourcing. Maureen knows that telephone sourcing for the certain type of recruiter is really all you need. No fancy stuff here. Maureen has built a business around her telephone. She produces a ton of content available almost everywhere and she will be yours for the day.

Steve Fogarty: Steve is smart. I saw Steve present at the Adidas Headquarters in Portland and he really blew me away. Steve loves brands and Steve loves making the brand work. Steve works at Adidas and I know it's probably bigger than your company but even a small recruiting company needs to think about brand. Steve will help in this department.

Dave Mendoza: Dave understands online networking. He has built a very large network of recruiters and can jumpstart your connections. There are many ways you can utilize the things he knows in order to build and maintain your network. It's a great opportunity for you to learn how to grow an online network at a dizzying speed.

Rayanne Thorn: Rayanne understands that we may recruit for a living but really, we are all just people looking to do our best for the most part. Rayanne is like a ray of sunshine and has the ability to make conversation easy and fun and she believes that every candidate is deserving of respect. It's an important conversation.

It's going to be an amazing day just like the last RecruitFest and my goal is to have 100 people there. I have set up a discount code which is RBCdiscount and it will save you $50. It's for the next 20 people who register.

I have no sponsorship for this event as of yet so if there are any companies out there who may be interested in discussing what it means and what you get for sponsoring RecruitFest! 2009 in Vegas, call me 416.995.3693


Hotel Information

Conference Accommodations:

The Mirage Hotel & Casino:
3400 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Room Reservations:
800.374.9000
General Information:
702.791.7111
A special room rate is being held in a block for conference attendees. Please say Kennedy Conference when booking hotel.