The value of practitioner only events

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for some time and today I’ve been spurred into action by something I see Katie McNabb (Talent Acquisition Change Lead at PepsiCo) has written about this week’s recruitment unconference (trulondon).

I go to quite a few recruitment conferences/seminars/training sessions, etc and I think there can be lots of value from an event in which recruitment practitioners mingle and learn from “suppliers” (by which I mean people who work for/at technology companies, job boards and/or offer consultancy).

However, I find that unless the ratio is right there is a lot of pointless pontificating. As per Andy Headworth’s comments on Katie’s post I think the ratio was right at the trulondon event. Like him I found some of the tracks to be almost utterly without merit but did think some very interesting learning points were coming out of others. In comparison I attended an event at the start of the year where I estimate over 60% of the audience were suppliers and that the event never really hit the mark for the recruitment attendees.

So, back to my point. I think there is great value in practitioner only events. We’ve actually been running some for nearly two years now in the form of our Directors Only learning and networking events; we get 60 Directors and 3 speakers (normally at least one is also a practitioner) and fill 3 hours with “learning sessions” (sometimes called presentations) and networking time. They’ve worked really well for us - here is a video montage from the most recent one. In fact we are introducing some Consultant Only events starting on 14th March.

Interestingly the major problem I have with these events is the, often very vocal, frustration, from “suppliers” that they can’t attend (well, not unless they sponsor). For all these events we’ve run we’ve had at least 95% positive feedback and whilst I love the idea of being all inclusive and allowing everyone to benefit from everything we do at the end of the day I think there is a really strong benefit to learning amongst your peers.

Comments

[Katie McNab]

Thanks Louise. I agree with you - practitioner only events are extremely valuable (hence my involvement in the FIRM!) - but there is definitely an important role for suppliers/consultants/vendors to play. As you say, it's all about getting the balance right.

[Charles]

Hi Louise, it depends on what you set out to achieve when you attend a networking event. But of course there’s more chance to ‘get down to business’ if everyone is a practitioner! - Charles