The 14th annual HR Technology Conference begins in less than a week and we are getting prepared for all the HR & recruitment marketing goodness that will be happening in the wonderful land of Vegas!  There is so much to do but we can’t help but get excited for this year’s event for a few great reasons:

1) To See Other Awesome Technologies - We are technology company at our core and we are really always excited to see what new technologies other vendors are coming up with.  We look forward to cruising the expo hall and talking with other vendors and seeing what partnerships we can form to enhance our own current product offering.

2) To Learn from Break-out Sessions - There are so many great breakout sessions to attend at HR Tech, I’m torn on what ones I am going to attend.  The ones at the top of my list this year are:

• Walmart Embraces Video Interviewing with Mike Grennier (@mgrennier)
• Time Warner programs pre-employment assessments
• The First Candidate Experience Awards by Elaine Ohler (@elaineorler), Gerry Crispin (@gerrycrispin) and Ed Newman (@newmaed)
• The Great Technology Debate with Naomi Lee Bloom (@InFullBloomUS) and Jason Averbook (@jasonaverbook) (always a show-stopper)

Here’s the full list of HR Tech Breakout Sessions.

3) Networking during the event & after parties - There are so many great HR and recruiting professionals that I guarantee you will meet someone that you will want to keep in touch with in the future.  Make sure to have business cards in a convenient place (I always keep them in my front shirt pocket) and connect with others via social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) so that you can keep in touch after the conference!

If you are looking for after parties Laurie Ruettimann (@lruettimann) has put together a great list of events happening after each day of the conference that you can check out here.

4) Meet and Hang out with those Twitter connections - One of my favorite aspects of going to these events is meeting the Twitter connections that you interact with online in real life.  It is always great to put a face to username and always ends up in great conversations.

If you are looking for people to follow on Twitter at this year’s HRTech follow the hashtag #HRTechConf.

5) To test out new product concepts – This one is a little selfish, but we are extremely excited to get feedback from HR professionals on our new product features and enhancements we have cooked up over the last few months.  This year, we’re excited to talk with organizations about our new recruiting metrics dashboards with accurate “source to hire” data in addition to full scale improvements to our Recruitment CRM.

The 2010 HR Technology Conference has a lot to offer and we are extremely excited that we are attending.  If you see the SmashFly team walking through the Expo Hall or in a breakout session, make sure to say hi and ask us about our Recruitment Marketing Platform!

If you are interested in setting up some time with us during the conference, please email me at chris@smashfly.com and we can find a time that works for everyone.

We will also be active on the #HRTechConf hashtag during the conference so feel free to connect with us on Twitter @smashfly.