How Are You Staying Current?

I will be upfront about this, I am a consultant for HCMS; I am shamelessly marketing the Australasian Talent Conference in this blog. Yes, I work with the organisation, but also I really, really believe that this is a great forum to learn, and expand your thinking.

When I worked in-house as a recruitment manager, I did not stay current. I assumed that we did not have budget for me to attend external training and I didn’t think I had time. Now that I have attended three ATCs, I think this was a big mistake.

Sure, I regularly read feeds from ERE, and even contributed comments, but this does not compare to actually attending an event with my peers from across different industries.

So here are the reasons why you need to attend the ATC:

• Networking: I don’t mean having *drinkies. It is more about learning from other people, such as corporate recruiters, who are in a similar role to yourself, and are facing similar day to day challenges. Your peers are a great source of information and ideas, and you and I both know, recruiters LOVE to talk;
• Learn from the experts: the ATC makes a big effort to source and introduce leading talent management/acquisition professionals from both local and international corporations, to share their experiences. This year we have many case studies from Australia Post, Walmart, Sodexo, GE and more;
• Exposure to new advancements in Talent Management technology: At the Innovation Lab you can experience and try out different technologies including augmented reality, mobile technologies and gamification. How do these all relate to recruitment, and what are they anyway? Come and see – there may be some new tools that your organisation could really use;
• Exposure to new thinking about Talent Acquisition and Talent Management: Most Talent Acquisition functions are fairly siloed within an organisation, and it is very easy to stay insular – we usually have very few peers internally from whom we can learn our craft. The ATC will expose you to new and practical ideas that you can take back to your organisation and implement.
• Be motivated: I always come away from this conference motivated – motivated to learn, motivated to do my job better.

I hope to see you at the 8th Annual Australasian Talent Conference: New Wave Thinking. This year’s theme is about extending recruitment into Talent Management, and doing more with less. In addition to the main speakers, we will have several break-out sessions following three tracks: Analytics; Simplification; and Technology. All of these will expand your thinking, give you an opportunity to network with your peers and most of all, to learn and improve your value to your organisation.

*Don’t worry; there will be plenty of opportunities for drinkies 🙂

View the ATC 2014 agenda for more info on the speaker line-up at this event, or register here.