More companies are looking to bring on new recruiters as they prepare for the typical end-of-the-year hiring surge.

A recent report from Wanted Analytics found that the number of job postings for recruiters and other staffing professionals increased by 12 percent in September when compared to 2011 and by 29 percent when compared to 2010. This is also a good sign that the recruitment industry has officially recovered from the effects of the economic recession.

When it comes to overall growth in recruiting jobs, San Francisco takes the lead, with a 36 percent increase in job postings when compared to last year. The top five cities with the most recruiting jobs listed during September were:

  1. New York, N.Y.
  2. Washington, D.C.
  3. Chicago, Ill.
  4. Los Angeles, Calif.
  5. San Francisco, Calif.

And if you’re looking for a recruiting job, make sure you’re brushing up on your negotiation and social media skills, because it’s not enough to just know the basics anymore:

We’ve been watching hiring demand for Recruiters for a while and noticed that job requirements continue to evolve for this profession. In addition to traditional recruiting skills – like experience with applicant tracking software (ATS) and full lifecycle recruiting – there are several emerging skill sets that are gaining more traction every month. Two of these include negotiation and social media skills. The number of job ads that look for candidates with strong negotiation abilities is up 13 percent compared to September 2011. Job ads with social media requirements have grown even more incredibly, up 52 percent since last year.

To learn more about ATS and other important recruitment tools, check out www.pcrecruiter.net.

With the 2012 Presidential Election less than three weeks away, we’ve officially entered the dreaded zone of back and forth debates, non-stop trash talking commercials, and endless political posts on Facebook. Even though this time of year can be annoying, there are some things that recruiters can learn, especially from the Presidential debates.

Americans don’t simply let someone walk into the White House without an intense screening process, the same way that you shouldn’t hire new employees without knowing all that you can about them. While the vetting process isn’t quite as intense for normal job candidates, there are still a lot of similarities.

Here are five things recruiters can learn from the Presidential debates:

  1. Interview your candidates thoroughly. Just as Americans want to know as much as they can about each Presidential candidate before they make a decision, recruiters should learn as much as they can about each potential employee before choosing who to hire. Keep in mind that it usually takes more than one interview to learn everything you need to know about a candidate – you not only want to know about their experience and their skills, but their attitude and how they will fit in with your company culture – so it helps to have a series of different types of interviews with different people in the company.
  2. Understand what each candidate’s strengths are. By thoroughly reading through their resumes and conducting several interviews, you should eventually be able to pinpoint what each candidate’s strengths are. Once you know each candidate’s skills and abilities, you can more easily decide who’s talents align with the job and your company as a whole.
  3. Understand what each candidate’s weaknesses are. Just as you need to know what each candidate’s strengths are, you also need to know what each candidate’s weaknesses are. You can unveil a job seeker’s weaknesses by simply asking them what they think their own weaknesses are and by asking a number of other behavioral-based questions. You shouldn’t always discount a candidate because of their weaknesses, but instead ask yourself how you might be able to help that job seeker overcome their weaknesses and whether or not they’re willing to grow and learn within the position.
  4. Check the facts. Just like Presidential candidates, most job seekers will say almost anything to make themselves look good, which is why you need to check all the facts. Make sure you verify a potential employee’s education and employment history, try to speak to a few references about the candidate, and maybe even conduct a thorough background check so you can be assured the person is who they say they are.
  5. Pick the person that’s best for the job. Once all the interviews are complete and your fact-checking is done, you might be left with several candidates that you think have enough experience and are qualified for the position. This is where you need to use your gut instinct to pick who will be best for the job at hand, not necessarily who has the most experience or the most education.

A huge number of Americans are currently looking for new job opportunities – is your recruiting team ready?

Earlier this week, Jobvite released its Social Job Seeker Survey 2012, which found that a whopping 75 percent of Americans in the workforce are looking for new job opportunities. This is a 6 percent increase from last year.

The survey polled more than 2,100 adults – 1,300 of which are considered to be in the workforce, meaning they are either employed or unemployed and looking for a job. Of those who are employed, 69 percent are looking for a new job, up from 61 percent last year.

Some other interesting findings of the survey include:

  • About 33 percent of job seekers are less optimistic about finding a new job this year.
  • 61 percent of job seekers think finding a job is more difficult this year.
  • 41 percent of job seekers think they are overqualified for their current positions.
  • 83 percent of job seekers use Facebook to look for work, a slight jump from 82 percent in 2011.
  • The number of job seekers using Twitter to look for work increased from 37 percent to 46 percent over the last year.
  • The number of job seekers looking for work on LinkedIn grew from 32 percent to 41 percent between 2011 and 2012.
  • 88 percent of all job seekers have at least one social media profile, while 64 percent have two accounts, and 44 percent are using three or more networks.
  • 24 percent of job seekers have been asked for social media info when applying for a job.

“With fierce competition for jobs, which now includes a majority of employed people on top of active job seekers, social media has become a critical tool for job hunting and career growth,” Dan Finnigan, President & CEO of Jobvite, said in a press release. “One in six job seekers polled credited a social network for leading to their current/most recent employment.

“Maintaining your online presence and keeping employment top-of-mind at all times are vital to professional success,” he continued. “With technology and social networking rapidly evolving, those who don’t engage through Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter will quickly find themselves falling behind.”

A new employment community in Australia – Insidetrak.com.au – recently launched. The service links job ads and workplace reviews by employees with the aim of helping Australians find the jobs that fit them best.

The combination of tens of thousands of live job ads with answers to the big question, “what’s it really like to work there?” makes a convenient location and information-rich experience for people considering a change of employer.

“InsideTrak will give job seekers a more complete view of a potential workplace and also allow employers to participate in the conversation about their company,” said founder, Mike Larsen. “Ultimately, we see InsideTrak helping to achieve an Australian workforce better suited to their place of work and reducing staff turnover.”

InsideTrak’s founding principle is anonymity – a safe place where anyone can give their honest, no-holds-barred opinion of their current or former employer.

“We see InsideTrak as a community, since we ask members to provide a review before they can see everyone else’s. We want people to feel comfortable about giving their honest opinion and we are asking people to think about how they can help others to find the workplace they deserve, and that fits their specific needs.”

Employers and recruiters are encouraged to join the conversation. “We are looking for candidates to socialise with employers and recruiters directly – we don’t recycle jobs from traditional job boards, rather we connect them directly to the advertiser’s own site,” Larsen explained.

And, naturally, InsideTrak can accept the RSS 2.0 feeds that PCRecruiter offers, thereby allowing InsideTrak to automatically update its site with the current job listings from any PCRecruiter database. PCRecruiter users can ask their trainer or consultant for info on setting up the feed.

For more info, see http://www.insidetrak.com.au or follow on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/InsideTrak

The Human Resource Executive’s HR Technology Conference & Exposition is coming up next week, October 7-10. We’re excited about the event and want to make sure that everyone can check out the conference schedule on their phones or tablets, so here you go:

 

Sunday, October 7
5 – 6:30 p.m.

  • The HR Technology Connection Reception

 


Monday, October 8
8:45 – 10 a.m.

  • OPENING KEYNOTE – Rethinking The Cloud in Human Terms
    • Tom Koulopoulos, President and Co-Founder, Delphi Group — the 20-year-old consulting group focused on innovation, knowledge and process management; author of seven books, the latest published in May — Cloud Surfing: A New Way to Think About Risk, Innovation, Scale and Success
      • With technology changing at light speed, how can we possibly predict what the future holds for us and our organizations? While predicting the future of technology is never easy, the harder part is actually predicting how technology will change behavior. Tom Koulopoulos, recognized by InformationWeek as one of the world’s six most influential consultants and author of his just-released seventh book Cloud Surfing: A New Way to Think About Risk, Innovation, Scale and Success, opens this year’s conference with his keen insights on The Cloud, one of our major themes. Weaving a tapestry of storytelling and expertise, Tom will explore what The Cloud really is and what it means for today’s employers. And why taking the human element into account as you shape and execute your HR technology strategy matters more than ever. Tom will debunk some of the more common myths surrounding The Cloud and shed much-needed light on specific steps organizations can take to maximize its value as a platform for attracting, retaining and growing talent.

 

11 a.m. – 12:15

  • Sixth Annual Talent Management Panel (SV1)
    • Moderator: Jason Averbook, Co-Founder & CEO, Knowledge Infusion
    • David Adrian, Senior Director, Global Talent Management, Walmart
    • Vicki Colaneri, Director, Global Workforce Technology, Motorola Solutions
    • Dan Guaglianone, Global Leader, HR Operations, Merck
    • Heathre Moler, Global Director of HR, ETS-Lindgren
      • The world of Talent Management has never been more confusing but at the same time more important to the business. During the life of this annual panel, we have gone from best-of-breeds leading the way to a focus on the Talent Management suite to the more unified HCM focus we are living with today. Now let’s add some game-changing solutions to the mix, including gamification, Big Data, and radical new rewards and incentive systems. Panelists are using each of the methods mentioned above to deploy Talent Management to more than 2 million employees in 74 countries. What have they learned? How can you avoid their mistakes? These questions and more will be answered by some of the world’s most influential HR operations and technology practitioners.
  • Neiman Marcus Helps a Loyal Workforce (TM1)
    • Nina Kern, VP, Associate Relations & Associate Development, Neiman Marcus Group
    • Keith Meyerson, Director, Learning & Development, Neiman Marcus Group
    • Adam Miller, President & CEO, Cornerstone OnDemand
      • With over 15,000 associates, the iconic Neiman Marcus Group is recognized not only for its exemplary customer service, but also for having some of the lowest turnover in the retail industry. Based on shifting demographics and the impending exodus of the Baby Boomer generation, the organization realized there was an opportunity to leverage technology to both capture the vast knowledge of its tenured workforce, as well as empower associates to share best practices. Nina Kern, a 29-year veteran and Keith Meyerson, with less than 3 years tenure, partnered to leverage their diverse experience to navigate the selection of an integrated Talent Management Solution and the implementation to a very tenured workforce. Come learn how they navigated this minefield of challenges to introduce new technology that was readily accepted and demonstrated immediate impact.
  • Marsh Transforms Itself With Social Technology (SE1)
    • Laurie Ledford, CHRO, Marsh & McLennan Companies
    • Ben Brooks, SVP & Global Director, Enterprise Communications & Colleague Engagement, Marsh Inc.
      • After five years of jawboning about social technology (mostly for recruiting and learning), some companies are stepping up to use it throughout the enterprise — finally — to get other real work done. Amazingly, a prime example comes from the world of insurance, probably the most conservative industry vertical. Hear how Marsh, the world’s leading insurance broker and risk advisor with 25,000 employees in 100 countries, is leveraging state-of-the-art social technologies to harness the expertise, networks, resources and ideas of all its employees and how it now “delivers the whole company” to clients, rather than just the local office. Plus, what you always suspected — that technology was the easy part and getting employees to collaborate in new ways was the most challenging. But if an insurance giant can do it?
  • Relieve the Guilt! A Starter’s Guide to Workforce Analytics (WFA1)
    • Brian J. Kelly, Partner, Global Commercial Leader of Metrics & Analytics, Mercer
      • Normally our breakout sessions are not labeled “beginner, intermediate, advanced.” But after offering Workforce Analytics solo presentations, case studies and panels since 2005 — without a notable increase in corporate adoption — we’ll try anything. So consider this Workforce Analytics 101. Brian Kelly will outline a comprehensive roadmap and practical guide to getting started and achieving success. He will share, in very practical terms, how to engage senior business leaders to support analytic initiatives, how to choose the metrics and analytics appropriate for your organization’s objectives and strategies, whether to purchase or develop enabling technology solutions, and how to deliver all this insight across the organization. All just to help you stop feeling guilty about not seriously doing Workforce Analytics!
  • Four Seasons Consolidates to One HR & Talent Management System (HCM1)
    • Mary Sullivan, SVP, Corporate HR, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
    • Dave Duffield, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Workday
      • As companies expand globally, sometimes it seems that consolidating all the acquired HR systems is the last thing thought about. And in the hotel business, chains often don’t own the buildings but have management contracts to run (and brand) properties for private individual owners — sometimes with their own IT infrastructure. Last fall, Four Seasons had 86 hotels in 35 countries, about 50 different HR systems with plans to add 55 more… hotels, that is. By conference time, SVP Mary Sullivan is hoping her final phase of consolidation onto one HRMS and Talent Management solution is complete when it goes live in Arabic for Egypt, Jordan, Beirut and Ryadh. Naturally, the goal isn’t just to have one HRMS but to be better at managing the talent of 36,000 employees. And maybe also to stay on Fortune’s “100 Best Places to Work”; list for the 16th year in a row.
  • McDonald’s Modernizes Corporate Recruiting (RR1)
    • Mike Chernesky, Talent Acquisition Director, Corporate HR, McDonald’s
    • Ray Bixler, President & CEO, SkillSurvey
      • McDonald’s operates over 33,000 restaurants circling the globe in 119 countries serving nearly 68 million customers every day. At global corporate headquarters 45 minutes west of McCormick Place, Mike Chernesky is responsible for keeping 2,500 positions filled with a small team to help him do it. Last year he hired 400+ people. This year, he expects 500+. Strictly by the numbers, he’s working for an small-medium business with the resources to match! Since he started six years ago, he’s been modernizing Talent Acquisition, just as the company has been modernizing its restaurants. He’ll tell you about all the challenges and roadblocks he’s faced, including adopting automated reference-checking that, like self-service, puts it in the hands of the person who cares most: the candidate.
  • Cisco Uses RPO to Help Hire Up to 15,000 a Year! (OS1)
    • Mark Hamberlin, VP, HR Global Staffing, Cisco
    • Rebecca Callahan, President, RPO, Randstad Sourceright
      • Cisco continues the endless acquisitions that first made it famous, still doing two or three a year. The 64,000 global positions that VP Mark Hamberlin worries about can bump up by 5,000 or more at any time. He already fills 13,000 to 15,000 positions a year (3,000 to 4,000 each quarter) in Cisco’s hugely competitive networking market. Come hear about the flexible and adaptive model he’s devised to manage changing recruiting volumes and the changing role of RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) in it. Sometimes he uses RPO in a traditional manner to get more recruiters for sourcing and selecting applicants; other times as a supplier of sourcing data. And now he even has his RPO provider actually hire some candidates he selects, rent them back to him and pay them for him!
  • Mobile (ED1)
    • Josh Bersin, CEO, Bersin & Associates
      • Four of the world’s “Most Powerful HR Technology Experts,” selected by Human Resource Executive® magazine, host small group discussions on their favorite topics. Together, they have spent about 120 years working in and advising others about HR technology. They are facilitating un-conference group discussions where you should expect to participate. And learn.

 

12:15 – 2 p.m.

  • Top HR Products of 2012 Awards Luncheon
    • Sponsored by Epicor
    • Luncheon Entertainment from Mike Rayburn: “What If …?”
      • For 23 years, Human Resource Executive® magazine has annually recognized excellence and innovation in the HR vendor community with its Top HR Products Awards. Don’t miss this year’s selections and why they made the cut at Monday’s luncheon – it just might include the exact solution you’ve been looking for.

 

3:15 – 4:30 p.m.

  • Public Debut of the 15th Annual CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey (SV2)
    • Lexy Martin, VP, Research & Analytics, CedarCrestone
      • Lexy has always tracked the adoption, the planned adoption and the value companies have received from 30+ HR technologies. For the 15th anniversary of her Survey, she will also review adoption trends over the past 15 years and forecast adoption for the next three years. Lexy believes this year may mark an inflection point for users switching from upgrading their core systems of record to replacing them, not to mention the increasing impact from all things social and mobile. So she will share an emerging blueprint to sit alongside the blueprint provided for the past five years. In addition, the survey has begun tracking three new technologies: Big Data, collaborative knowledge sharing and work management software. Lexy also will attempt to answer Co-Chair Bill Kutik’s nagging question: Just how pervasive is social, mobile and analytics in enterprise HR technologies?
  • Come Back to the San Diego Zoo Six Years Later! (TM2)
    • Tim Mulligan, CHRO, San Diego Zoo Global
    • Paul Loucks, President & CEO, Halogen Software
      • Lots more than names and titles have changed since Tim Mulligan first presented at the conference about the world-famous San Diego Zoo. The former Wild Animal Park has become “The Safari Park,” which better describes what you do there. With research and conservation activities, the organization is a $300 million non-profit with 1,800 full-time employees and 3,400 at its seasonal peak. Tim started with paper, like many SMBs, but now has six years of experience to share with you about getting every employee onto Performance Management, Goals and Pay-for-Performance — and getting them all aligned. And that’s with half his full-timers and all his part-timers being in the Teamsters!
  • Third Annual Social Media Panel: The Rise of Collaboration Tools in the Enterprise (SE2)
    • Moderator: Kris Dunn, VP, HR, Kinetix
    • Todd Chandler, VP, Learning and Performance, Helzberg Diamonds
    • Ben Brooks, SVP & Global Director, Enterprise Communications & Colleague Engagement, Marsh Inc.
    • Phoebe Venkat, Director, Digital and Social Media Communications, ADT
    • Oliver Marks, Founding Partner, The Sovos Group; Industry Analyst; Collaboration 2.0 blogger
      • Social media sure was cute, and the corporate Twitter account and the recruiting blog were fun, but they had no scale. In this panel, four experts will discuss the role of collaboration networks (think Yammer, Chatter, custom platforms, etc.) deployed across the enterprise with an eye toward adoption and getting real work done. The panel will consider why organizations decide to deploy collaboration tools, how to drive adoption once a network is launched and the role of social functionality in the success of any tool used. They will also explore the role of recognition and how organizational expertise can be featured and enabled via collaboration tools. The session will wrap up with notes on the elephant in the room — the need for transparency and tolerating dissent and sharp opinions as the use of any collaboration network grows.
  • CH2M HILL Explains Workforce Planning 101 (WFA2)
    • David Sutherland, Director, Workforce Insight, CH2M HILL
    • Jay April, Chief Development Officer, OptTek Systems
      • Global construction and engineering giant CH2M HILL has been doing advanced Workforce Planning for years. The complexity of its business — delivering some of the most challenging projects around the world — coupled with an aging workforce, shrinking talent market and retention challenges absolutely requires it. David Sutherland, a leading workforce analytics expert and enthusiast (after his time as an FBI Special Agent), is helping CH2M HILL effectively plan for these challenges With a passion for educating others on this business imperative, he has agreed to KISS. Probably a good idea to attend Brian Kelly’s WFA1, since you can’t do Workforce Planning without Workforce Analytics first. But maybe you don’t need an introduction to Analytics before diving into Planning with David.
  • How Aeropostale Manages Teenage Employees and Customers (HCM2)
    • Kathy Gentilozzi, SVP, HR, Aeropostale
    • Stuart C. Harvey, CEO, Ceridian
      • What would you do if you had to help schedule almost 20,000 17- and 18-year-olds (many part time, of course) working in nearly 1,000 stores across the country selling clothes to teens not much younger than themselves?!? You’d put it all on a smart phone, right? That’s what Kathy Gentilozzi did after she arrived at giant Aeropostale and saw paper schedules covering literally an entire wall at some stores. She also knew Workforce Management software would be a big win because it enabled Aeropostale to pay employees through cash cards, thereby eliminating the need for them to drive to their store to pick up a paycheck and then dash to the bank to cash it. Employees now even have the ability to see how much they’ve earned so far each week at any time. How awesome is that?!?
  • The Second Annual Candidate Experience Awards — The CandEs! (RR2)
    • Elaine Orler, Co-Founder & President, Talent Function
    • Gerry Crispin, Co-Founder, CareerXroads
    • Ed Newman, VP Strategy, iMomentous
      • Fortune has its “Best Companies to Work For.” The Candidate Experience Awards are for the “Best Companies to Apply to Work For.” Everyone knows, especially the three recruiting experts who founded this competition and are presenting this session, that most companies treat job applicants awfully. In an attempt to make that better, find role models and identify best practices, last year 59 companies entered the competition by filling out a lengthy questionnaire. Many agreed to have their candidates surveyed (11,000 surveys in all!), and 25 companies got awards at the conference, five with distinction. Those top five included PepsiCo and State Farm Insurance. This year getting an award will be a lot tougher with triple the number of companies interested, especially after three articles in The Wall Street Journal. Certainly attend to find out this year’s winners, but more importantly to hear how they do it so well, so maybe you can too. And this may be your last chance because in 2013, the CandEs may have to move to the former Kodak Theater!
  • Ericsson Outsources Global Payroll in Manila (OS2)
    • Mark Howes, HR Director Asia/Pacific, Ericsson
    • Mary Sue Rogers, Global Managing Director, HR Managed Services, Talent2
      • HR people used to complain about the complexities of dealing with 700+ taxing authorities in the 50 American states. But with every company going global, now the challenges are paying workers in Brunei, Sri Lanka, Manila and their neighbors, in this case, 14 countries altogether. Coupled with this is dealing with allowances in developing countries as compared to the allowances of industrialized countries. These are the challenges Mark Howes faces as the Australian head of HR for the 4,500 people communications giant Ericsson employs in Asia Pacific. “We manage the cultural HR complexities and global standardization requirements that arise when working across First, Second and Third World countries,” he says, “all within a professional services environment and varied change management expectations.” Howes will explain how he took on a managed service partner to outsource payroll with a focus on the implementation issues, governance and, of course, languages.
  • Big Data (ED2)
    • Thomas Otter, VP Research, Gartner
      • Four of the world’s “Most Powerful HR Technology Experts,” selected by Human Resource Executive® magazine, host small group discussions on their favorite topics. Together, they have spent about 120 years working in and advising others about HR technology. They are facilitating un-conference group discussions where you should expect to participate. And learn.

 

6:30 – 10:30 p.m.

  • No Boundaries – SAP & SuccessFactors Better Together (Evening event at House of Blues)
    • Join us on Monday evening at the House of Blues® for a fun filled evening of food, drink and great music! We are excited to announce the entertainment will be “The Gold Coast All Star Blues Revue” featuring Jerry Depizzo from O.A.R. on sax, Big Head Todd from Big Head Todd and the Monsters on guitar and vocals, Rob and Jim Bonocorsi from the Freddy Jones Band on guitar/vocals and bass respectively, Nick Kitsos formerly of the Bodeans on drums, and Danny Chaimson (formerly of O.A.R., Jem, Solange Knowles and many others) on keys and vocals. It’s an all-star group of big name musicians who come together through their mutual love of the blues.

 


Tuesday, October 9

8:45 – 10 a.m.

  • Bringing HR Into The Cloud – Naomi’s Master Panel
    • MODERATOR: Naomi Lee Bloom, Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace
    • Steven Miranda, SVP, Applications Development, Oracle
    • Sanjay Poonen, President Global Solutions, SAP
    • Stan Swete, CTO, Workday
    • Mike Capone, VP for Product Development and CIO, ADP
    • John Wookey, EVP, Social Applications, Salesforce.com
    • Adam Rogers, CTO, Ultimate Software
    • HR technology moving to The Cloud is no longer a question. The momentum — sales, investment, M&A, new product delivery, customer preferences, and more — is clearly on the side of subscribed, hosted, cloudy (and, ideally, real SaaS) applications. But getting the full business benefits of The Cloud — for vendors, their direct customers, and your entire workforce — is going to take considerable effort on everyone’s part. To sort this all out for you, our world’s favorite expert, Naomi Lee Bloom, has assembled an elite group of senior industry executives together for the first time on any stage. They are ultimately in charge of making the technology, business and product decisions shaping the future of HR in The Cloud, as well as your own. Will they have differences of opinion? Given how they compete for your business in the marketplace, they certainly will. Join them to learn how we all will collectively pioneer this next frontier in HR technology.

11 a.m. – 12:15

  • SaaS Contracts: How Not to Get Ripped Off! (SV3)
    • Thomas Otter, VP Research, Gartner
    • Industry Analysts exist because the hardware/software business is too complicated for anyone to have the time to understand adequately while holding down another job! While their focus most often is on competing products and technologies, Thomas Otter (four years at Gartner after many at SAP) is going to focus on something often overlooked these days: the SaaS contract. So different from the old on-premise model of a large perpetual license fee paid upfront plus yearly maintenance, which has held sway for 40 years! Gartner experience indicates SaaS contracts signed by HR leaders without IT procurement support are usually at least 30 percent more expensive and lack adequate provisions for renewal, changing user numbers, new functionality, data retrieval and much more. Come learn the typical blunders SaaS buyers make and how to avoid them.
  • Learning Systems: Where Are We Now? (TM3)
    • Josh Bersin, CEO, Bersin & Associates
    • The Learning and Development industry has changed dramatically — traditional LMS vendors have been gobbled up by Talent Management and ERP providers – while attention has rapidly shifted toward informal, social and mobile learning. Training, leadership and employee development continues to be the single biggest challenge CEOs (and thus HR) face. In this research-based presentation, Josh Bersin will give you the absolute latest on the learning-technology landscape, an area he knows better than anyone. He will discuss today’s vendor marketplace for LMS platforms, social and mobile learning systems, and the fast-growing market for integrated learning and talent platforms with examples and solutions from some of the world’s leading companies. Don’t miss your chance to find out how best to develop a modern, integrated learning technology strategy.
  • Salesforce Recruits on Social Steroids (SE3)
    • Brad Warga, Former VP, Corporate Recruiting, Salesforce.com
    • Social technology first penetrated the enterprise in recruiting. For years, many companies have experimented using various technologies, some doing little more than throwing them against the wall to see what stuck. (Doug Berg will be more specific about the risks they created in RR4.) But if you want a role model for how the modern VP of Recruiting uses social technology, come hear Brad Warga. It’s not just that he works for a cool software company (Salesforce.com) in the most competitive tech recruiting city in the world (San Francisco). No, it’s that he has organized his team of 50 into five roles and built a virtual hiring machine, with each staff member sitting in a cockpit that includes every appropriate technology lever at their command. If he doesn’t tell the story about the 10,000 Oracle salespeople, ask him!
  • Demystifying Predictive Analytics Panel (WFA3)
    • Moderator: Jac Fitz-enz, Ph.D., CEO, Human Capital Source
    • Laurie Bassi, Ph.D., CEO, McBassi & Company
    • John R. Mattox II, Ph.D., Director of Research, KnowledgeAdvisors
    • Eugene Burke, Chief Science & Analytics Officer, SHL
    • Natalie Tarnopolsky, SVP, Analytics and Insights, Wells Fargo Bank
    • Blame it all on Jac Fitz-enz. He was the first, nearly three decades ago, to say HR had to measure what it did. Now, of course, he (and his panelists) have gone way beyond “What should we measure?” They each have at least a dozen years of practical experience in metrics and analytics. Their focus is no longer on what has already happened, but on the predictive side, examining analytic applications around Performance Management, engagement, retention and the predictable effects of human capital investments on business outcomes. Yes, with three doctoral degrees on stage, this session would have to be considered “advanced,” but Jac will be distributing a template for conducting predictive analytics so at least there will be a cheat sheet to what they’re talking about.
  • McAfee Protects Its Customers But Focuses on Its People (HCM3)
    • J.C. Herrera, SVP, Global HR & Learning, McAfee
    • David Ludlow, Group VP, HR Line of Business Solutions, SAP
    • For a company of 7,000 people, McAfee, the famous maker of anti-virus software, is astoundingly global. It sells its McAfee All Access and other products in 120 countries with sales and development employees in more than 45. Every department in the company has people in India. It still operates on its own after being acquired by Intel last year and is still very acquisitive, buying one or two companies a quarter. A very early adopter of SAP HCM, McAfee has since added a line-up of Talent Management best-of-breeds: SuccessFactors Performance, Taleo Recruiting and SilkRoad Onboarding. Despite being tech-savvy, SVP J.C. Herrera is more concerned about how these applications will all enable his “Focus on People,” a strategic initiative to create a global, comprehensive hire-to-retire process for employees while building talent from within. With lots of emphasis on analytics. Should he get a suite instead? He’ll tell you.
  • Informatica Modernizes Recruiting and Takes It to Russia (RR3)
    • Brad Cook, Global VP, Talent Acquisition, Informatica
    • Robert Hohman, CEO & Co-Founder, Glassdoor
    • If you feel that your company doesn’t have all the latest technology to meet its recruiting needs, Brad Cook has been in the same boat. After working at Cisco, he arrived at Informatica, a provider of data integration software, and found eight recruiters with no ATS, no employment branding, a website that didn’t sell, no SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and (now) nearly 2,600 employees spread around 27 countries. Join him to learn how he modernized his recruiting organization, expanded his group to 38, and drove up awareness and visibility for his company among potential candidates. And how Informatica is one of just four foreign companies permitted to recruit at the Saint Petersburg State University, one of the oldest and largest in Russia!
  • Benefits in a Time of Uncertainty – A CHRO Panel (OS3)
    • Moderator: Mark Stelzner, Principal/Founder, Inflexion Advisors
    • Artell Smith, CHRO, Aon Hewitt
    • Brian Johnson, EVP, HR, Fidelity Investments
    • Norbert Englert, CHRO, Mercer
    • Gail McKee, CHRO, Towers Watson
    • Tom Maddison, Corporate SVP & CHRO, Xerox Corporation
    • As a nation, we spend more on health care than food, clothing and national defense combined. As employers, we constantly strive to balance the physical well-being of our employees against the fiscal realities of rising health care costs. To address these challenges, your company may lean on one of our panelists’ organizations for a variety of benefits consulting and outsourcing services. Despite their firms supporting tens of millions of your employees and retirees every single day, have you wondered how they collectively care for their own employees across the globe? Mark Stelzner has collected a panel of senior HR leaders to candidly explore the changing role of benefits amidst a backdrop of unpredictable legislation, increasingly complex regulatory compliance, the rise of consumerism and the question on many employers’ minds: What would happen if we stopped offering benefits to our employees? Whatever the Supreme Court decides about the Affordable Care Act, this panel is not to be missed.
  • How to Deploy Software to Achieve Your Strategy (ED3)
    • Jason Averbook, CEO, Knowledge Infusion
    • Four of the world’s “Most Powerful HR Technology Experts,” selected by Human Resource Executive® magazine, host small group discussions on their favorite topics. Together, they have spent about 120 years working in and advising others about HR technology. They are facilitating un-conference group discussions where you should expect to participate. And learn.

1:45 – 3 p.m.

  • Awesome New Technologies for HR
    • Technology for HR has remained incredibly innovative for 15 years. What everyone calls SaaS started in Recruiting at least that many years ago. Silicon Valley may love its new consumer apps, but we think it’s way cooler to come up with a new enterprise application (or recreate an old one) that might change the lives of hundreds of millions of people at work. That’s what you’ll see here: live demonstrations of the most awesome new software and tools from every corner of HR. We spend July and August watching online product demonstrations. Send us new companies: use the LinkedIn group or email bill@kutik.com. We don’t end the search until early September, when the final products will be announced. Some may be bleeding edge, but others will be available immediately to help you get the job done in ways you might never have imagined.

4 – 5:15 p.m.

  • Going Global Panel: Executives on Route (SV4)
    • Moderator: Karen Beaman, Founder & CEO, Jeitosa Group
    • Cory Scott, Corporate Manager, Global HR Technology, Corning
    • Nicole Radil, Senior Business Leader, MasterCard
    • Kathleen Kennebeck, Global Payroll Operations Lead, Monsanto
    • Leon Kenny, Director Global HR Shared Services, InterContinental Hotels Group
    • Being successful in a global environment requires striking a careful and creative balance between local needs and practices and global goals and strategies. While there is no one right approach for doing business globally, there are leading practices that can be learned from other organizations at different stages in their global journey, which is exactly where these leading executives find themselves. Moderator Karen Beaman will begin with a brief description of the four global business models and how they apply to the HR technology landscape. The panelists will then focus on questions in three key global areas: Talent Management, Payroll and Metrics & Analytics, and of course your questions. Learn from their real-life examples demonstrating solutions to some of the global HR technology challenges all companies face as they pursue business opportunities abroad.
  • Aligning the Workforce at The Dow Chemical Company (TM4)
    • Cathy Brubaker, Global Director, Human Capital Development, The Dow Chemical Company
    • Jason Blessing, SVP, Talent Management Applications, Oracle/Taleo
    • When you’re Dow, you have special problems as a result of selling 5,000 products in 160 countries, making them in 36 and having yearly sales north of $60 billion. At the end of 2010, the company decided to transform itself from a focus on producing and selling commodities (what do we make that we can sell?) to a focus on the market (what do people want to buy now and in the future that we can make?). Cathy Brubaker saw that perceptions outside and inside the company were different. She needed to get the almost 53,000 employees aligned. She took the company’s existing core competencies and changed them so they could be applied to selection and later assessment. She admits the project was “hugely difficult,” and she’s ready to show you how she changed the course of an oil tanker.
  • eHarmony Finds Compatible Employees (SE4)
    • Kristen Martin, VP, HR, eHarmony
    • Dan Finnigan, President & CEO, Jobvite
    • Even popular internet companies face the same challenges you do. Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, where a growing number of them are putting down roots, eHarmony finds itself in a highly competitive market for recruiting top talent. The company’s famous matching methodology to determine compatibility for love does not extend to recruiting new employees. Instead VP of HR Kristen Martin has her team focused on generating referrals from her 270 employees and says the social aspects of recruiting are a natural evolution for finding high quality, compatible candidates. With expansion into international markets, the stakes are rising. Come hear her plan.
  • Workforce Planning Goes Global at International Paper (WFA4)
    • Quinn Thompson, Director, Global Talent Acquisition, International Paper
    • Peter Louch, CEO, Vemo
    • International Paper, the global leader in paper and packaging, made three failed attempts at Workforce Planning, says Quinn Thompson, because it never had a strategy. Now two years into its latest effort, IP has pilots working around the world from the U.S. to Russia, Morocco to China and Brazil to India around its 60,000 employees. Come learn how to launch a similar program to drive better talent acquisition and management, which can change HR’s game and impact across the organization. The steps to be outlined are hardly easy – try reaching consensus on a particular job in a dozen countries – but success can result in more revenue directly to your company’s bottom line.
  • ConAgra Foods Becomes One Operating Company; HR Gets Modern Tools (HCM4)
    • Tim Jones, VP Talent Management, ConAgra Foods
    • Sheryl Johnson, Director & Fusion HCM Practice Leader, PwC
    • Steven Miranda, Applications Development, Oracle
    • With a history going back more than 90 years, ConAgra Foods fills your pantry and freezer with prepared foods, including its famous brands Orville Redenbacher, Hunt’s and PAM. In building the food giant, dozens of companies were acquired, creating many independent operating units. They were stitched together by an ancient PeopleSoft Ver. 8.0 system so heavily customized by consultants, no one internally knew how to support it. In 2005, new CEO Gary Rodkin demanded one integrated operating company, and HR eventually upgraded to Version 9.1 in a new implementation. Then in 2008, Rodkin (the CEO!) asked for a Talent Management strategy and a system to support it! That process led to Tim Jones becoming VP of Talent Management, and the decision to purchase new Fusion SaaS applications. Come hear the best part of Tim’s story: how they tested the strategy first before buying!
  • Social Recruiting 2.0: Avoiding the Shipwrecks (RR4)
    • Doug Berg, Chief Recruiting Geek, Jobs2web/SuccessFactors
    • Companies have had five years to make mistakes with social recruiting and have even created a new set of problems for employers not using social networks! Just about everyone agrees that Doug Berg gets social recruiting like no one else. Now come hear how it might get you! Doug will explain how the social networks will impact your employer brand, create social spam among your employees and candidates, and surface radioactive referrals. Also how social APIs will be hijacked by people pirates, causing you new worries about your own social assets being stolen. Plus new issues that will come into play with Facebook’s IPO. And naturally, what you can do about it all. Anybody want to place a newspaper classified ad?
  • Whirlpool Leverages RPO to Transform Talent Acquisition (OS4)
    • Lynanne Kunkel, VP, HR, Whirlpool North America
    • Rudy Karsan, CEO, Kenexa
    • VP Lynanne Kunkel will be the first to tell you she’s no recruiting expert. An engineer by training, she spent 21 years earlier at Procter & Gamble, where her only brush with recruiting was entry level. Appliance giant Whirlpool still has nine manufacturing plants in the U.S. and four in Mexico, so only 5,000 of its 23,000 U.S. employees are exempt. Part of her strategy for a new HR operating model was taking transactions off HR generalists in the operating units and centralizing processes and functions (like recruiting) with experts. She has been experimenting with the various uses of RPO: first for early-to-mid-career exempt hiring, then with managing her internal hiring process, either through the conversion of contractors to permanent or the use of internal talent sourcing instead of external job postings. By conference time, she’ll be able to tell you what has worked.
  • HRMS Upgrades & Replacements (ED4)
    • Naomi Lee Bloom, Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace
    • Four of the world’s “Most Powerful HR Technology Experts,” selected by Human Resource Executive® magazine, host small group discussions on their favorite topics. Together, they have spent about 120 years working in and advising others about HR technology. They are facilitating un-conference group discussions where you should expect to participate. And learn.

 


Wednesday, October 10

9 – 10:15 a.m.

  • The Social Enterprise: New Tools Transform How Work Gets Done (SV5)
    • Yvette Cameron, VP & Principal Analyst, Constellation Research; Founder, NextGen Insights
    • Our newest Industry Analyst has seen HR enterprise software from many sides. Yvette Cameron first held senior leadership positions with PeopleSoft, then JD Edwards (after it was acquired), Oracle (after it acquired them both!), SAP and Saba (twice). All this after being an HR person for more than 10 years! Yvette’s experience is perfect for her new role of telling us what to think. With her research focusing on next generation HCM processes and technologies, her conference debut subject is, appropriately, about using new social tools for the management of work. She’ll explain how core business processes are being transformed, and how “Work Management” tools are changing work in every department while changing the game for HR. She’ll also cover the roles of mobile, gamification and workforce analytics in the new social enterprise model.
  • NASDAQ OMX Supplements TM Functionality with On-Premise Core HR (TM5)
    • Michael Neglia, Senior HRIS Director, NASDAQ OMX
    • Roy Altman, CEO, Peopleserv
    • How many on-premise HRMS customers have dismissed their vendors’ Talent Management offerings to buy the applications from a suite vendor? Certainly more than the big HRMS vendors would like. Witness SAP’s acquisition of SuccessFactors and Oracle’s purchase of Taleo. Michael Neglia bought a suite, too, at NASDAQ, which four years ago went from 1,000 to 2,500 employees while on an acquisition spree, culminating in the merger with Sweden’s OMX exchange. But then he reconsidered. He carved out what he needed from his core on-premise system, and supplemented with point solutions that best fit their needs – regardless of vendor. If this describes your situation – or perhaps your dearest wish – come find out how and why he did it.
  • HRevolution: How Social Tools Can Empower a Global Organization (SE5)
    • Trish McFarlane, Director, HR, Perficient
    • Steve Boese, Director, Talent Management Strategy, Oracle
    • Help create the conversation about how organizations can use the commercial social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Google+ – inside their firewalls to get more work done, more efficiently and with fewer resources. Tell us your experiences using those networks for idea generation, information discovery and collaboration, including both your external and internal ecosystems of partners and suppliers. Has your organization moved from understanding the potential of these networks to actually using them? Come share your experience with your colleagues, who are also looking for meaningful examples and suggestions.
  • Bissell Now Cleans the World! (HCM5)
    • David Dart, VP, Global HR, Bissell Homecare
    • Shafiq Lokhandwala, CEO, NuView Systems
    • For 136 years, family owned and operated Bissell Homecare has been famous for its carpet sweepers and now for a full line of floor care products. For us, it is the classic example of an SMB (fewer than 1,000 employees, just shy of $1 billion in revenue) having all the same HR challenges as much larger companies, but without all the resources. From its base in Grand Rapids, Mich., Bissell Homecare manages employees and contractors in 31 countries with a goal of moving its global revenue from 8 percent to 51 percent of its yearly total. “The technology we had was simply holding us back,” says VP David Dart, who looked at systems both large and small that would eventually meet his needs to manage both efficiency and scale. By conference time, his process mapping will be finished in Russia, Germany and China.
  • What’s Next? What Talent Acquisition Challenges Are Seeking Technology Solutions? (RR5)
    • Moderators: Gerry Crispin, Principal & Co-Founder, CareerXroads
    • Sarah White, Principal & Founder, SW & Associates
    • Reginna Burns, VP, Workforce Strategy, People Analytics & Global Talent Acquisition, Lockheed Martin
    • Mike Grennier, SVP Talent Acquisition, Key Bank
    • Sheila Stygar, Senior Director, Talent Acquisition, PepsiCo
    • Frank Wittenauer, Associate Director, Global Talent Solutions, Deloitte
    • Talent Acquisition is HR’s tip of the spear on the 21st century battlefield for the best and the brightest. The most successful recruiting teams have had the best technology to take into the field, but they are the first to admit that Shiny Objects aren’t the whole story. In recent years, all the attention has been on the hottest technology tools ranging from “proprietary search & matching algorithms” and “candidate experience platforms” to “mobile-enabled career sites” and “social recruiting aggregation strategies.” Have these advanced capabilities made a difference … or not? What is missing? What is needed? Join staffing leaders from some of the most competitive and best-known global corporations to discuss the context and merits of their technology investments and, equally important, to hear their insights into the next generation of technology solutions they want.
  • Talent Management & Social (ED5)
    • Lisa Rowan, Program Director, HR, Talent, and Learning Strategies, IDC
    • Four of the world’s “Most Powerful HR Technology Experts,” selected by Human Resource Executive® magazine, host small group discussions on their favorite topics. Together, they have spent about 120 years working in and advising others about HR technology. They are facilitating un-conference group discussions where you should expect to participate. And learn.


10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

  • CLOSING KEYNOTE: How HR Can Drive the New Social Business
    • Marcia Conner, Best-selling Author, Industry Analyst and Expert on Collaborative Business Culture
    • Organizations are finally adopting social media tools for new collaborative practices and relationship-oriented work. You’ll hear about this from many presenters at the conference. But in many companies, HR is not even included in the conversation, let alone driving the strategy. You’re in a position to change that. Marcia Conner has shown some of the world’s largest companies how. She’ll help you understand the power of social tools to refocus on people as the pivotal source of prosperity and value in organizations that have functioned like machines for too long. HR leaders are in the catbird seat to demonstrate how people and organizations can be business-minded and interconnected at the same time. Her forward-looking and interactive keynote examines emerging trends, looks at their impact on every organization and addresses how HR leaders should react. You’ll walk away knowing how to overcome objections and feeling ready to actively drive social business as the ultimate expression of HR.

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