ERA Conference

Yesterday I was at the ERA conference "Perspectives on Research" at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.  It was a really good event with interesting speakers and a good number of delegates.  There were plenty of networking opportunities built into the day. However, one thing that struck me was the number of people who'd come without business cards.  Excuses included "I've only just joined the company", "they are being re-designed", "we've just moved offices" and "my boss won't let me have my own".  Networking is key in recruitment so having no business cards is a basic error (I did read recently that's it's better to collect cards than give them away - but that only works if you are the only one there with no cards!).  As a result of this I can't remember the names of everyone I met at the event.

However, I did meet a few people I'd spoken to/emailed in the past, but until but now never met (including Heather Travis who is joint Chair of the ERA and Jan Muir of Oaktree Consulting).  I also made some great new contacts (including Toby Grey of Connaught Search Solutions and James Miller of The Willis Partnership

I'm hoping to do some work with Heather and James via the ERA, but excitingly, it's all very hush hush for now.

In light of my current obsession with recruitment branding/goodies.  I scoured the exhibitors stand's for interesting items to report back on.

I think that LexisNexis did well with the mobile phone stand that lights up when your phone rings and the bottle opener from Capital IQ will certainly come in handy for those more "traditional" recruiters.  However, what I liked best was the offering from OneSource.  They had mints (in handy credit card sized boxes) and two sorts of pens.  The mints say "Keep it Fresh" on the box which is ultra cheesy (even their own people pointed out how cheesy it was).  However, they were coming in handy later as everyone quaffed the free booze and nibbles at the end of event reception.