As far as I can remember, it was the first time ever that I had received one. Writing thank you notes is part of the conventional wisdom about doing business. I assumed that it was theory from people with no experience until I got Steven’s note.

As you can see, I remember the note very clearly almost six months later.

Steven got me started. I’ve been following his lead and hand writing Thank You notes. What’s amazing is the effect it has on me.

Thank you, Steven.

John Sumser. – © 2007 Two Color Hat, Inc. Santa Rosa, CA

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His presentation at the Dallas Recruiting Roadshow was fascinating especially for those who were being introduced for the first time to some of the wider implications of social media and its potential value to recruiters.

Bill touched on how recruiters — like marketers — need to understand how to harness the power of Web 2.0 technologies. One of the points Bill made was that when building a profile the data should be as complete as possible.

That’s a good idea for sure but some caution should be exercised. After all, you wouldn’t someone taking your LinkedIn profile and making a dogs dinner of it, now would you?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJl9EEcsoE&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=0]

There were so many people involved in the Dallas Recruiting Roadshow, people who went above and beyond to make sure that the experience was a good one. So may people to thank..

On the ground and in the trenches, Dennis Smith and his team took care of the logistics, marshalling people and resources. Following suit, our fantastic sponsors, whiz-bang presenters, caterers, the University of Dallas and Roadshow visitors all played an integral part in making the day a huge success.

To each and everyone of you — from the heart — thank you, thank you, thank you!

In the coming days I will be posting some updates and some really useful links so stay posted.

The Houdini like magic trick was orchestrated by Bill Vick, the fabled Internet Recruiting pioneer as a waxed, waned and demonstrated Web 2.0 in a presentation on Social Media. (Bill can be found here, here, here and here. He seems to only live online.) Bill has been building and contributing to the Recruiting Industry for a very long time. Bill received a special award for compacting his talk into a very tight space.

His presentation was a blend of skype based interviews and introductions to the art and science of Social Media.

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General Stuff

• Time and Place
• Directions & Map
  
• Program Schedule
• Roadshow Sponsors
• Dallas City Guide

Internet Access

Free wireless is available.

The fact of the matter is that all of the expenses to put this event on have been covered by John Sumser and his friends.

That means that Hank Stringer is not only sharing his time and expertise leading one of our networking workshops but his company itzbig is underwriting the event as our charter sponsor.

Don Ramer CEO of Arbita — who we hope will be showing up in person — is paying for lunch and refreshments. Don has supported the Roadshow from the get-go providing first-class fare for over 250 Roadshow delegates and doing more behind the scenes, cooking up other stuff.

Recruiting heavy-hitters Bill Vick and Martin Birnbach are not only waiving thousands of dollars in appearance fees but they are providing a host of other valuable things, most of all their training and coaching which — if applied — is priceless.

T-Mobile are providing the venue for the day and making sure everyone is comfortable and well taken care of.

Steven Rothberg and CollegeRecruiter.com, Bill Vargas with Diversity.com with Martin Snyder and Bill Kubicek of Main Sequence Technologies/PCRecruiter, Dennis Smith with WorldLink, Matt Martone with Yahoo! HotJobs and Camille Roberts with ZoomInfo have all given generously with financial contributions and material support.

Without these people and organizations — and more in the pipe — getting access to the quality of thinking, training, networking and community for the session we have planned would be cheap at $600 a head.

There is no quid pro quo. The giving from the Recruiting Roadshow’s sponsors is generous, gracious and without strings attached.

So, take a moment to consider this:

“What kind of people and what kind of organizations would want to do this for me?”

“Are they the kind of organizations I would do business with – socially responsible and on top of their game?”

I know, you want to know how to return the favor for being sponsored for the Dallas Recruiting Roadshow, right?

• Show up ready to share, learn, participate and laugh — or cry if needs be!
• Take at least one thing away from the experience that will leave you better equipped, more sharply focused, more intensely committed and/or better connected with your recruiting neighbors
• Take a look at who your sponsors are, understand what they do and go to them when the opportunity arises — not as vendors but as new and valuable contacts in your expanding network of Recruiting Roadshow friends.

Nothing is free, no, not even lunch. But on Tuesday, December 4 — if you are in Dallas or from around those parts — you’ll be well taken care of! That’s a promise.

Register here…

Posted by: Amitai Givertz

Hank Stringer has over two decades of experience as a successful high-tech industry recruiter, entrepreneur, and innovator in the use of information technology in the recruitment and employment process.

Forecasting a talent shortage in 1994, Stringer applied his energy and experiences to start Hire.com. There, he and a team of entrepreneurs created the first ASP business model, utilizing the Internet to scale and automate interactive recruiting relationships and processes. Under his tenure, Hire.com’ revolutionary approach dramatically changed the way companies such as Federal Express, BP, Allianz, Raytheon and Prudential recruit, hire, and retain talent.

Prior to founding Hire.com, Stringer was president and co-founder of Pedley-Stringer, Inc., a high-tech recruitment firm. Stringer previously served as an internal recruiting consultant for Tandem Computers and Dell Computer, where he was responsible for a number of special recruiting projects in the U.S. and Asia.

Stringer has authored many articles about recruitment and the future of talent management in the workplace, and is an accomplished speaker who has appeared at numerous international industry-leading events.

Stringer holds a B.A. in Journalism and Government Studies from Texas State University and currently serves as President of the Advisory Board for the McCoy School of Business at his alma mater. Hank lives with his wife and two children in the hill country outside Austin, Texas.

• Homepage: Talent Force
• Blogs:  Cheezhead Xtra, Recruiting Trends
• Roads traveled: Dallas

You know a real marathon runner when you see them effortless pass you by, still carrying the torch as if they had just left the stadium, running to the horizon and looking ahead. It is rare that a good marathon runner can be equally good in the team effort of running a relay. However, on the track or on the road, you know a winner when you see one because they are generally ahead of the pack.

Oh, look — its Bill Vick!

Bill is one of the very few leaders in the recruiting business who can run with the batons of vision, strategic planning, effective execution, monetization and reinvention while looking far enough ahead to know which batons he should be handing off where and when. I think he describes that as being a “serial entrepreneur,” modestly omitting the words: “Among recruiting’s most successful” in describing himself.

What makes Bill so remarkable is that he runs the distance, pacing himself over the long haul. While he is managing his numerous ventures, Bill is also cultivating an expanding network unusual for its number of personal relationships, building community and fostering growth in both agency and corporate environments, and still managing a recruiter’s desk – excuse me, a headhunter’s desk.

On Tuesday, December 4 – if you register for John Sumser’s Dallas Recruiting Roadshow in enough time – you can visit with Bill and enjoy his interactive presentation…Getting from Here to There: Technologies, Tools and Techniques for Advancing Recruiters’ Effectiveness.

Bill will be joined by seminal figures from the recruiting industry’s inside track. They will share their insights into elements of the technologies and techniques that Bill will be showcasing in his workshop:

• Steven Rothberg will talk with Bill about using social networks like MySpace and Facebook for recruiting. Of course, Steven is no stranger to the Recruiting Roadshow and his company CollegeRecruiter.com is a sponsor of the Dallas event.

• Matt Martone will talk with Bill about using search engines and social media to optimize your recruiting efforts and ensure you have a competitive advantage over the recruiters who think “posting’ starts and ends with a job board. Like Steven, Matt is no stranger to the Recruiting Roadshow having run his own workshop in Atlanta. He also committed Yahoo! HotJobs to sponsoring the Dallas Roadshow, supporting us all in so many ways!

• The affable “barn raiser” Jason Davis will talk with Bill about blogging and how to use blogs to promote your organization, advance your professional interests, recruit hidden talent and much more. Jason was not only one of the founders of leading industry blog Recruiting.com but now presides over the fastest growing social network of recruiters on the planet – RecruitingBlogs.com. Jason also leads The Fordyce Letter and its expansion program.

• Chris Russell will talk to Bill about how to incorporate multimedia in your recruitment campaigns touching on everything from video resumes to podcasting your jobs! Like Bill, Chris is a pioneer who always pushes the envelope, bringing new technology and methods to competitive recruiting practice. And, like Bill in other ways, Chris is a publisher and a teacher too!

In keeping with his “really getting it,” Bill will be hosting his guests via satellite, or something like it! When we say the Recruiting Roadshow is about “bringing physical community to social networks” you can expect Bill to run ahead of the pack and lead by example.

Don’t miss this! Mark your calendars for Tuesday, December 4, 2007 and register now!

Posted by: Amitai Givertz

When recruiters complain that sourcing online fails to produce candidates who match the requirements and/or fit-in in other ways they echo the complaints of candidates who face similar frustrations.

Posting resumes on any number of job boards and creating profiles on any number of professional or social networks — being cut and pasted, searched, tagged, indexed and archived — simply means that recruiters have more pools in which to find more frogs to kiss.

The problem is this: Kissing frogs sucks.

Normally it doesn’t take very long to realize that some frogs are easier to pucker-up for than others. The more “baggage” the candidate has – on paper at least — the harder it is to kiss that frog.

For candidates, being treated more like a frog rather than the other half of happy-ever-after simply leads them to stay out of the water. Besides, the last thing this new breed of “quiet working professional” wants is to be kissed by an employer to find they’ve been lumbered with an ugly sister.

itzbig is the first network of its kind which allows these quiet working professionals to anonymously look around and see what opportunities exist without having to jump in and make a lot of ripples.

In the same way, recruiters can focus on only those people who best match their selection criteria. And, once the match has been made it’s up to both to the candidate and recruiter to take the next step, a kiss perhaps.Having Austin-based itzbig underwrite the John Sumser’s Dallas Recruiting Roadshow is a big deal — we’re excited!

Recognizing in this experiment the same potential to change how we think about building community that itzbig’s leadership has delivered doing the same with HR technology is a good thing.

itzbig’s willingness to ensure that local recruiters have access to a day of real networking and learning without having to pay themselves the hundreds of dollars it would otherwise cost to visit one of the industry’s annual conferences — or to suffer the sales pitches that go with all of that – is also a measure of their forward-thinking.

When you come to the Recruiting Roadshow in Dallas make sure to look up itzbig’s Hank Stringer and Jim Hammock who along with our other great sponsors are making it happen!

Posted by: Amitai Givertz