I wanted to wait a few weeks till I wrote my blog on what my takeaways were from #trulondon to let them sink in properly. For me, it was a great event. Logistically, we had a few problems and hands up, we made a few cock ups that we need to get right, mostly around communication and things like coffee and lunches. We have learnt plenty of lessons, and for that side of the event ,I would score 4/10. We went in to the event without a plan B, and when things didn’t quite work out we came a bit unstuck.
That said, we achieved all but one of our objectives and the general consensus is that we managed to stage a great event. We had 180 visitors over the 3 days. We created an environment where talking was easy and people were comfortable to dip in and out of tracks or just have their own conversations. Some great connections were made across the world that have been continued through the twitter stream, and some very smart people are sharing knowledge on a daily basis. On the last day I attended the Pub Track, and there were people from 9 different countries, HR, Technologists, Recruiters and others, all talking freely, no animosity and no barriers. Mission accomplished.

My learning points and questions: (this is a random stream.)

: Search for people not C.V.’s. A bit of a shift in my thinking.

: When we talk of presentations in the U.K. we are thinking Client, in the U.S, it’s Candidate.

: You need to be interesting to the targets in your network. Let the twitter cloud (twittersheep.com) help you to identify areas that may be of interest to people you are targeting or building relationships with. Identify common ground and talk.

: This one’s more of a question: Are Job Boards built for Job Seekers or Advertisers? From what I can see, many advertisers still use volume rather than source of hire as the major matrix. This leaves the Job Boards on a bit of a hiding to nothing. When trying to improve the candidate experience as more information and detail will make things better for job seekers but if it reduces volume, will this impact on sales?

: The main players in the job board market are developing sophisticated matching and searching capability for both candidates and clients to deliver targeted results to both. Making this service easier for corporate recruiters to interact with the right job seekers. It will improve the experience of both, and impact on recruiters. Time to offer lots more than post and pray, unless you are choosing a high volume, very low fee model.

:The smaller job boards and new launches are going very niche and looking to gain advantage by building communities around their offering in order to attract the right candidates. This is both on and off line.

: Events are as much about the on-line chatter and participation as the event itself. This is now truely global, with #trulondon becoming a twitter trend 3 times!

:I expect lots of different pricing models to be coming on to the market as recruiters look to differentiate. In particular, referral networks, flat fee, fixed charge by time rather than volume or results and other referral networks.

: The pace of change now means that nobody quite knows what next year will look like, never mind the next 10. We all have some good guesses, but we should really be concentrating on the now and worrying about using today’s tools properly without trying to be mystics.: The stages of the Social Media life cycle I will be tracking are Connect. Follow. Fan. Friend. The progression being from LinkedIn or a passing acquaintance on Twitter, engaged on twitter, fan or group on facebook through to finally being welcomed in to the private space on facebook. Forget cultural differences, I think we are all heading this way, it just might take a bit longer in the UK.

: As Jon Ingham pointed out, the examples of great work cultures in the UK are still the same. We need some new examples to emerge. There is lots of talking and nodding heads, and as with social recruiting, good practice may be going on in secret but there is no obvious proof of any real change in practice.

:LinkedIn Communities are much bigger than Ning networks and other communities. I think we need to do more with Linked In groups within #Tru, which has become an “accidental” community in its own right. We will be doing more to support this.

:In most communities no more than 5% of the members contribute. Most members are “lurkers” or occasional visitors. The challenge is to create triggers to get people involved by staging on-line events, monitoring trend topics and making it easy for the members to contribute.

: If you point chairs to the front of the room it becomes a presentation. If you put them in a circle people talk.

: HR and Recruiters have a deep divide and suspicion. HR see recruiters as a threat, largely out to cheat and deceive and just out for a quick buck. Recruiters see HR as the barrier to business intent on preventing access to line managers and sales. Continued dialogue at events and in social channels expose that there is much to learn from each. We need to keep challenging these long held beliefs.

: Google is the best place to start every search (once you’ve looked in your existing data-base or network.). I also intend to find out more about Google ad-words from Peter Gold.

: Corporate recruiting in the UK is going to continue to grow, particularly direct sourcing. (80% of attendees at #trusource were corporate. You would only attend this event for one purpose.). If this does continue it could change the landscape of U.K

:Recruiting, with corporate recruiters becoming the biggest competitors. Could become a bigger objection over the coming months as companies begin hiring cautiously and look to keep costs low.

: Referral recruiting will increase in popularity with more candidate referral networks and internal schemes emerging. Social media will pay a big part in this with higher bounties replacing agency fees.

: Recruiters will be looked upon to demonstrate real expertise in their marketplace and access either through search capability or candidate pool. Recruiters will be increasingly be selected and measured on this. Retention rather than placement volume will feature as a key measure in reviews.

: Facebook is increasingly becoming a business channel. A fan page could become as important as having a blog over the coming year.

: Linked In is vastly underused, with most recruiters using around 20% of it’s functionality, usually for “classified” advertising or a big name directory. Functions like questions, groups, box.net downloads, applications etc should be investigated to gain real benefit. More work needs to be done to raise awareness of functionality and the potential benefits.

: Mobile functionality will continue to feature highly on the agenda. 85% of new sign ups to the internet are via mobile access. A figure boosted by emerging markets like Africa, India and the like as well as the massive impact of products like i-phone. All new applications will automatically include mobile capability.

I could go on, but I’m sure you are bored of this list now. Hopefully it will provoke some discussion and thoughts. I will be expanding on these and other thoughts.

We have taken the lessons learned and the talking points in to our thoughts for #truUSA. Over the next week we will begin releasing the videos of the tracks. (we have 8 hours.) so you will be able to get involved by joining the discussion. Keep your eyes out for times and locations.

Be ambassadors in all you do and see you in Madison 19th/20’th and the 21st for #truSource.

Bill