Today is the last day of Kennedy’s Recruiting 2007 Conference in Orlando. It marks the closing of the industry’s conference season which has seen the annual pilgrimage to SHRM, ONREC getting down in San Francisco, coast-to-coast gigs from ERE, and HRTechnology blowing hard in the windy city – again.
SourceCon made its debut in Atlanta while other “focus groups” gathered under their respective banners of exclusivity: Recruiting Excellence 2007 in Boston, The Fordyce Forum in New Orleans, the DirectEmployers Association whooping it up in Vegas, the National Association of Personnel Services (NAPS) dusting things off in San Antonio.
Road warriors like Don Ramer, Gerry Crispin, Joel Cheesman, Shally Steckerl, Kevin Wheeler, Lou Adler and an army of vendors, sponsors and assorted groupies will be heading home to gather round their Thanksgiving tables, many thankful for the fact that the circus is over, at least for this year.
The recruiting industry’s conference business is big business. In so many ways, it embodies the industry’s infrastructure and creates the channels along which ideas, innovation, favors, contracts and money flow. From the podiums, assorted speakers, pundits and industry celebs promote their reputations as subject matter experts and as sometimes saviors of the human race.
In workshops and forums opinions are formed, behaviors are influenced, best practices honed. Over hurried snacks or fine-linen tablecloths friendships are kindled and rekindled, relationships formed, forged and sometimes soon forgotten.
The network of vocal and visible people – the publishers, promoters, speakers, track leaders, commentators, vendors, sponsors and the lucky delegates who follow the circuit – each year consolidates its position as the industry’s core.
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