Over a year ago Jim D’Amico and I started talking about how cool it would be to have a Recruiting only conference right here in our great state of Michigan! We had some models of how some others did it, primarily Paul DeBettignies out of Minnesota, and we decided to give it a try. HR has thousands of conferences! National, state, local. TA has somehow become the redheaded stepchild of HR! Jim and I love redheaded stepchildren so we wanted to change this!
The first one was held on Friday March 13th in Lansing, MI, onsite at Accident Fund who was a great corporate sponsor for our first event. We had over 100 corporate talent acquisition leaders and pros come in from all over the state. We had a great speaking group that included Paul and Jennifer McClure. It was everything we hoped for and more.
The 2nd Michigan Recruiters Conference will also be held on Friday October 2nd onsite at Spectrum Health System in Grand Rapids, MI. This time we’ve added more speakers including Kris Dunn, Lori Fenstermaker, David Dart and Troy Farley. As was the first event, the intent is to help develop and educate corporate talent acquisition pros and leaders to be great.
You can follow the action on the Twitters at #MiRecruits. Also, you can check out my Periscope throughout the day and I’ll bring some Live action to the social stream as well – which you can watch following me on Twitter @TimSackett and download the Periscope App on iTunes or Android.
If you’re just learning about this for the first time, I apologize. The reality is, the demand has been great. We sold out both shows without really even trying. Turns out, Corporate Talent Acquisitions Pros like development, and we all don’t have very many options! We hope this is a great option, that is close to home. Send me your contact information and I’ll make sure you get added to the contact list for the Spring 2016 conference. (timsackett@comcast.net)
So, What’s next?
Our original idea was to try and do this event twice per year. We keep it cheap through great sponsors like Velocity Resource Group and CareerBuilder, as well as corporate sponsors (who provide us with space to hold the one day Conference/Summit) like Accident Fund and Spectrum Health.
That means the next conference will be held in the spring of 2016 and we would love to have it in the metro Detroit area – we just need to find a corporate sponsor, who has a large conference/ballroom type space that can fit a couple hundred people. Hello, GM, Quicken Loans, Ford, Chrysler, Blue Cross/Blue Shield/ Detroit Medical Center/ Etc.!? If you have interest in being a corporate sponsor please reach out to me directly, I would love to answer any questions you might have. I promise, we try and make it painless! Plus, it’s huge boost to your employment brand within your market!
You can check out more at www.michiganrecruits.com!