The Job Board Summit 2015 – Europe, Jobg8’s 7th international industry event, took place on the 12th and 13th November and from the feedback we’ve received it was, yet again, another roaring success!
The topics reflected both the location of the summit and the seniority and international nature of the audience. Day one saw an afternoon of regional and topical workshops which looked over subjects such as sourcing, big data, in-house recruiting and big industry regions like France, Belgium and Holland; the UK; DACH and the USA.
Stacy Chapman was passionate, inspiring and challenged the audience on what can be quite a thorny subject when she asked ‘what can a job board do?’ in the Sourcing workshop.
Monetising Data had over 60 people in the session highlighting the opportunity that people still see, to use the incredibly rich data that many job boards have. JobisJob’s Malali Busquets shared a lot of excellent data and insights.
Barry Flack, ran an exciting and lively session on the In-House Recruiter and with his experiences as HRD and Global Head of Talent at organisations such as Barclays and Primark he was well positioned to tell it as it is in a fantastic debate.
The international sessions, which have become a well-established part of the summit, were well attended, fun and insightful with experts from Germany, Holland, the UK, and the U.S all sharing local market insights to a global audience.
Day Two kicked off with a real big picture presentation from Mariano Mamertino, Economic Analyst at Indeed. Mariano looked at the economics and demographics of Europe and he left us with the positive take of: we can anticipate a good market for the next 3-5 years due to Europe and RoW moving to a talent economy, skill shortages and positive GBP growth.
Graeme Wright, Global Head of Strategy at Havas People shared an exciting and highly visual presentation which made the point that video in recruitment is going to be big. He also gave the best history of recruitment we've heard from a 1839 quote of Dicken's, through the world of print in the 80's, the job board age, the age of search, the world of LinkedIn, to the age of infinite candidates we see today.
The presentation looked at employer branding, trust, and personalisation, finishing with an overview of programmatic buying.
The first panel debate saw Jamie Leonard take to the stage with his panel including: Alan Whitford, Barry Flack, Jeremy Russon and Graeme Wright. A key subject throughout the debate was the need for more data, more proof that you work, the move towards sourcing, the building of an Employer Brand and marketing, therefore becoming a destination for candidates and less post and pray. Despite that, all agreed that job boards are a key part of the recruiting echo-system.
The final speakers before lunch were Norbert Furnion and Philippe Dufour from the French based HR&Recruiting Tec investor Edenred. Philippe shared five great tips for anyone building a business:
- Raise more money than you need
- Aim for Brand Association
- Invest in People
- Pivot or Die
- Be Passionate but don’t let it blind you
Norbert looked at the HR and Recruiting Tech space and observed that it has enjoyed a period of investor interest. With the likes of Workable, Jobsite, Zip Recruiter, HireVue and Talentsoft all enjoying $30m + investment the sector is booming.
Focusing on Candidate Engagement Technologies such as LaunchPad (Video Screening and Engagement) and Beamary (CRM) is the area that Edenred are currently focusing on.
After an excellent networking lunch we all assembled for an interesting session on data and the three speakers on the platform where all industry experts; Matthew MacArthur - JobisJob, Cory Kapner - Recruitics and Dan Martin – Broadbean Technologies.
The session identified the real questions for Recruiters/HR: What is the right data for your business needs? Do you have the skill set to interpret it so that it becomes meaningful management information? For a job board those question could be; have you ever asked your clients what data they'd like and do you really know who your customers are?
Sinead Bunting, UK Marketing Director at Monster, looked at an initiative that Monster have been supporting - Girls in Coding - and how these type of community based approaches can become powerful brand messages.
The event wrapped up with an amazing line up for the Future of Recruiting and HR Technology panel. Moderated by Alan Whitford included Stacy Chapma, SwoopTalent; David Bernstein, eQuest; Ethan Bloomfield, VitalFew and Maciej Noga, Grupa Pracuj.
The big topics were: job boards need to mashup and integrate to build new tools and products, move beyond posting, use the great data they have more intelligently, to name but a few.
People left the event feeling positive but challenged, inspired but cautious and most of all looking forward to a good 2016
