INNERGISE!

Yesterday, I attended the 2014 Global Recruiter UK Summit, held at 30 Euston Square in London, both as a delegate and as a speaker. The theme of the conference was around ‘Delivering the Future’, building on last year’s theme of ‘Accelerating and Achieving Growth’, now that the markets have since opened up and become far more buoyant for recruitment organisations as a whole.

The morning speakers included Kevin Green of the REC discussing and reviewing the changing jobs market and how we can better influence our customers. Kevin provided an interesting insight into the current state of the recruitment market, all details pointing to some very positive growth factors in place. Kevin was followed by Dave Hazelhurst (aka Google Dave), who gave an insightful and inspirational presentation on digital marketing ecosystems and how to create positive customer experiences using great content.

Following the morning break, where delegates had the opportunity to mingle with an excellent line up of industry suppliers exhibiting at the Summit (including Daxtra, Cube19, Broadbean, Capital Consulting, BlueSky PR to name but a few), I then took the stage to talk delegates through the Formula (One) of Highly Valuable Recruitment Organisations. I utilised the analogy of Formula One to outline the six key success factors that make both Formula One teams and recruitment organisations outperform the market, those being:

• Strategy 
• Leadership 
• People
• Control 
• Range
• Momentum

The morning was then rounded off by John Chaplin (Ernst and Young) imparting his knowledge around the legislative developments affecting recruitment organisations (‘comply or die’!) and then a lively Denis Pennel (MD of Ciett) clarifying for the audience how the different employee profiles and generation mix requires recruitment organisations to challenge the way they engage jobseekers and employees, and the roles agencies play “in supporting companies to place the employee at the heart of the employment relationship”.

As delegates enjoyed lunch, networking with exhibitors and other recruitment company owners and suppliers, the afternoon schedule was being prepared, kicked off by Dan McGuire (CEO of Cube19) sharing invaluable insights into how data analysis should change the way recruitment organisations make decisions, using some real life data examples of how this has worked in practice. The rest of the day was filled full of insightful information and insights from James Taylor (Macildowie) on how people are the key to creating success in recruitment, Andrew McNeilis (Phaidon International) on vision, values, culture and growth on a regional and global scale, and Jon Dweck (Pod Talent) on how they attract some of the best talent in the industry and retain them.

As always with Global Recruiter’s events, this was another quality, packed programme full of information, insight, industry best practice and networking opportunities. The calibre of attendees is demonstrative of the level of value and quality of content that Global Recruiter put on and the conversations on the day between peers, suppliers and industry experts ensured that every delegate took away something of value that will enable them to ‘deliver the future’.