OME Digital Seminars

Recently completed the latest in our event series sponsored by the Telegraph - this time the theme was 7 Pillars of Successful Digital Recruiting - but with a particular focus on business networks. Guest speaker was Simon Kelly UK Sales Director of LinkedIn. Masses of interesting comments pre, during and post event but just going to highlight a few here
1. It was a mixed room of recruitment companies and direct recruiters (prob 60-40 in favour of direct) - and LinkedIn are pitching their commercial effort squarely at direct market which led to interesting Qs from the floor from the recruiters. It was almost like recruiters were a "necessary evil" (my phrase) for LinkedIn - but the direct model was the Holy Grail - probably a reflection on the US ownership.
2. Simon expressed some concern about how this message was going to go down but my view was surely we can all see that if LinkedIn allowed unfettered access to profiles to all rec cons it would be the surest way to kill their growth stone dead as the back lash to receiving loads of unwanted contact via LinkedIn would cause quality candidates to remove their profiles. To be fair most of the rec con attendees understood that fully.
3. Nobody was prepared to state it too loudly but there was an unmistakable air of slight optimism in the air - certainly compared to unremitting gloom of some January events i attended.
4. Yet more confirmation that these days it is all about a direct sourcing model for companies - reducing cost per hire etc. When OME launched 3 years ago - it was all about migration from print to online - it feels a bit quaint saying that sort of stuff in 2009
5. Telegraph is a great place to host the event - the delegates are all massively impressed with how modern a set up they have here and the paper, online, TV, Mobile products all work together.
6. Definite pick up in the amount of delegates doing some Search Engine Marketing activity - it has become part of the established tool set now for companies - however as we always say it is not just about doing it - its about doing it brilliantly!