What do you get if you lock 120 Recruitment thought leaders in a room with a truck full of pick & mix? #TRULondon!
There have been loads of articles written before, during and after the mind blowing event last week. If you want to know more, simply review the #trulondon hash-tag on twitter it will guide you through a whole array of useful thoughts and articles or check out Martin Couzins Blog for a list of them all.
This was the second #TRUEvent I had attended, and when I came back from the first one; #TRUManchester, I had a list of 5 action points to implement. However, after #TRULondon, not only have I got a list of 20 points to action personally, but also 10 new pieces of software to research too (more about those later). Although there were at least 50 take-aways to come out of the event, I thought for starters, I would just list 5, (maybe another 5 each week for the next 12 months 
1. SEO: More companies should be doing it and focusing on WHAT their target audience will be searching on, not what they THINK they will be searching! To see what your web/career/blog page looks like on google; go to www.Wordle.net and type in your url. With realtime search being promoted to the top of searches on Google yesterday, your twitter and LI accounts will have even more weight!
2. FACEBOOK:: Can be used effectively for recruitment and there are case studies to prove this. Check out Matt Alder, Craig Fisher and Mark Rice for their input. However, many people still think it is for social and not for business… For those of you who have personal and business profiles – BEWARE!! The Facebook police have just launched a clever piece of kit that searches all photos and content (even tone of voice) and if they find any possible duplicate profiles they will be in touch telling you to remove one of them! (Ref: Stephen O’Donnell)
3. BOOLEAN SEARCHES: Yes it is agreed that social recruitment should be about engagement, but that doesn’t mean that searching twitter and LinkedIn for talent shouldn’t be a key activity for HR & Recruiters. 2 points to raise here are a) BING does a much better job of indexing than Google and b) Don’t just go for the low lying fruit, think of what you did not search for to get the top pickings! Thanks Glen Cathey for a really informative track!
4. RECRUITMENT BLOGS: Miracles can be performed! It may take a bit of effort to get the momentum going but once you have got existing and future staff engaged, the possibilities are endless! It does need a little bit of monitoring, but the best results come from allowing freedom of the authors. Check out TGI Friday’s & Rackspace . Thanks to Gavin McGlyne & Michael Long for revealing all.
5. RPO: The landscape of today’s RPO (Recruitment Process Outsource) model has changed. From what was an on-site approach is now very fluid and can incorporate just about any part of the of HR or Recruitment process either in its entirety or as a single support module… Should we now be calling it HRO? A note to employers: Outsourcing for cost alone is a mistake – think about the efficiencies.
I would just like to add that cream eggs should be present at all #TRUEvents from now on because we all eat our #TRU’s differently!
Cheers for reading & thanks to everyone I met! I look forward to seeing you at the next #TRUEvent & I hear there is going to be a #TRULeeds in June!
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Lis Wilson is E-Recruitment Director of HR Connexions, a unique Online Recruitment Company who have pioneered the Flat Fee Recruitment model. Lis advises and supports HR Managers and Directors of fast growing businesses to reduce the cost of recruitment, streamline their processes and improve their employer brand in the market place.
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