Apparently enough to have a private conference!
And they didn’t invite me.
But that’s ok – I’ll write about it anyway…
Right now in fact
Today’s the middle day of LinkedIn’s corporate customer recruiting conference.
That is – if your company has signed up to use LinkedIn as a recruiting platform, you would have been invited to spend three days learning how to find better candidates, do it faster, and hobnob with recruiters from big-name companies.
It must be a happening place – I can’t see the pricing details as it apparently sold out, but there was an extra four hour workshop covering sourcing passive candidates on the first day that went for $495. (Looks like I’ve got to re-examine my own pricing structure!)
Big time users
Microsoft is perhaps the biggest name to use LinkedIn corporate recruiting, and they are by no means alone.
Check out the speakers – dozens of companies represented there, and you can be certain that they’re speaking because they use LinkedIn for recruiting.
Do you think this should affect your own job search strategy?
Second annual
The promotional material mentions that this is the second time they’ve held the event – and had positive feedback from the first.
And they didn’t invite me then either…
Well, I suppose it could be because I’m not a corporate recruiter.
And maybe, just maybe, they hold some sort of grudge over the fact that I write articles in a small niche helping users figure out how to use LinkedIn…
Some behind the scene manipulation
Here’s an interesting tidbit.
I became aware of the event through my automated search tool – it clues me in when other people write about LinkedIn. John Zappe wrote a nice little article about the conference – “LinkedIn Opens Conference Amid a Changing Social World“.
That was fine and well, except I first clicked on an article of his with the title “LinkedIn Conference Opens As Challengers Abound“. You see this second article starts off quite differently: “Sun-Tzu advised keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. So it’s not much of a surprise, therefore, that among the plenty of friends at LinkedIn’s conference opening today in Las Vegas will be more than a few competitors. The sessions the company has planned for the three-day event are heavy on the training …”
It’s quite interesting to see an article quoting the Art of War, and there can be no mistaking the intent – that other companies are also present in the old Sin City these few days… Perhaps they have setup competing displays, events, and the ever-popular hospitality suite…
The interteresting thing is that this second article no longer exists.
I’d say a call was placed and it was made to disappear as if it never existed. Now who would want to make that happen?-)
[But since I have the teaser from it in my mailbox, I know it was there at one point]
Paying the bills
People have long known that the LinkedIn platform is a very fine place to find candidates – and LinkedIn is pulling in somewhere on the order of a half a billion dollars a year in revenue from companies doing just this.
If you’re a recruiter, and coming to this realization just now – please let me know. I’d like to figure out if I can focus information on how to use LinkedIn for recruiting to help you along.
But in the mean time – to your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
How funny, I read both articles as well and then got really confused as to whether it was one and the same!
Jorgen – it get’s better. Since the one headline is out there, clicking on that link now takes you to the “revised” article;-)
It is the same…
Nope, nothing to look at here, just keep moving along please…
steve
Sorry to burst the conspiracy bubble, but what you saw was an initial draft. I revised it after learning that 2 of the LinkedIn competitors I had heard would attend had decided against it. The old version was posted in error. After discovering what happened, I had the correct version posted in its place. Most professionals have drafts that get revised as the facts require.
John,
Many thanks for coming here to set the record straight.
It was an interesting situation, and quite easy to float the theory – especially when the link to the missing article dropped right into the replacement;-)
Your explanation makes perfect sense, and I retract any suggestion that pulling of the article was coerced.
My point about the strength of LinkedIn for recruiting – that I stand behind.
steve
(And I won’t even make the conspiracy people upset by suggestion that someone other than John could have offered that explanation – I mean, this could go on forever – like most conspiracy theories!)