About 150 people filled the Falls Church Marriott ballroom for the annual RecruitDC event. in Northern Virginia this week. The event is in person again after being on hiatus due to the pandemic. The attendees are mainly government subcontract recruiters and staffing folks who hunt for talent with security clearances.

The biggest challenge they face was ubiquitous: how to get cleared candidates to come work on site.

Ideas included a transportation reimbursement, free food, company sponsored pet walkers, move to a 4 day workweek.

Though the event was on the smaller side that’s better for networking anyway. It’s clear everyone is not ready to be back in person but we might as well start, so I was happy to attend. There’s no substitute for in person events. Virtual is great but I’m tired of sitting behind a camera.

Rochellel Gapere (Happiness coach) kicked off the day with a keynote about how to bounce back and reclaim happiness (post pandemic) … a few takeaways: don’t postpone your joy…I’ll be happy when i get that promotion, etc…put time for yourself in your calendar, keep positive influences in your life.

Recruiter Productivity Session

A TA exec reminded us that Time kills all deals, including hiring ones. So be ready to speed up your process. Also leverage technology to free up your time, i.e. use AI to rank and stack resumes.

He also talked about the importance of a good referral experience. Employee referrals need “white glove treatment”. He mentioned how Google solved for this. They realized employees weren’t motivated by money incentives. Rather they wanted their friend to have a great experience. It was more about maintaining their own reputation!

Sourcing panel

Tiffany Ballve, Engineering Talent Sourcing Leader at Netflix and Liz Whitehead Design Sourcer at Warner Bros led the sourcing discussion. Some key tips;

Personalize your approach, follow up with candidates,
80% of candidates need about 5 follow ups. (get a CRM)
Reverse the follow up—tell candidates its ok to pester you…put onus on them too.
Hang out where candidates hang out – ex. Slack channels

At the last session they workshopped learnings from the day. Event organizers ended with asking the crowd about key takeaways they learned throughout the day.

All in all it was a solid day of recruitment takeaways and I look forward to taking the train down again next year.