From the desk of Sam Y: “Wow... Recruit-adelphia.”

I have had so many thoughts flying through my mind since Recruit-adelphia a couple weeks ago - and I am finally [hopefully] able to put down on paper the impact it had on me. 

Nothing beats an in-person networking event or workshops that teach us how to do our roles better, or what is happening in the market. But up until Recruit-adelphia, as a Talent Acquisition professional, there has not been much of anything just for US. We tend to ride the coattails of HR networking events, attending their conferences - in some cases as a vendor if we are agency recruiters, or career fairs as the “face of the company” we work for. If you are a recruiter, talent acquisition professional, people finder - whatever you call yourself when it comes to this unique role most of us “stumbled upon,” I think I speak for all of us when I say (in my best Lizzo voice) IT IS ABOUT DANG TIME. 

I left Recruitadelphia feeling empowered, energized, and even more accountable for my role as a “face of the company” - a role that we cannot take lightly as Talent Acquisition professionals. 

It is not lost on me that recruiters function differently depending on where they are at and are in different stages of their careers. We saw early career recruiters, seasoned veterans, corporate recruiters, and agency folks at the event. As a mom, the first thing that comes to mind in a space such as Recruit-adelphia last week, I cannot help but think of the sesame street book “we are all different, we are all the same.” Too often do we find ourselves in - likely unspoken - competition with our peers in the industry. Whether you are an agency recruiter that is competing with an internal TA to fill roles in order to keep clients happy and gain a fee, or it’s the corporate recruiter that tries to avoid needing to partner with an outside agency to fill certain roles. (If you are questioning where this thought process is coming from, I speak from a unique place of once being an internal recruiter for a large organization that used external vendors often, as well as from my time in the agency leading our RPO division and having to partner with internal recruiters.) While it was not always the case, that unspoken competition was there.

However, what I saw last week was the TA community coming together to better ourselves, to bring tangible practices back to our respective organizations, and most importantly, I saw nothing but love and camaraderie amongst those in attendance. It was a beautiful sight to see, that's for sure. I am left wondering if what was missing, was in fact, an event made specifically for this community - subconsciously bringing us all together because we really are all here for the same reason. 

Anyway - off my soap box! 

As I continued reflecting on the event, I was so excited to see the common threads from some of the incredible panelists. Everything from it being our responsibility as Talent Acquisition to make an impact with potential folks joining the organization from the very moment we engage in the interview process. It is our role to be open and transparent with prospective talent, to share the opportunities at our organization, and to create a lasting impression leaving the candidates wanting to be a part of what we are doing. Too often does that first conversation fall flat and truly sets the tone for the rest of the process. We learned from our panelists that if we are not focusing our efforts of sourcing and interviewing on a diverse talent pool, we are doing our entire organization a disservice. IT IS OUR JOB - the power is ours to make an impact with who we bring into the organization. Before you start rolling your eyes and thinking to yourself, “Sam, you know we don't make the decisions, right? The hiring managers do. How can we impact this?”

As we learned in the very first panel (if you were not there, and want to see this incredible panel, click here!) We have to get back to basics as Recruiters and Talent Acquisition teams. It is our role to be an advocate for our candidates, to really capture their experience and background and the VALUE they and their skill set brings not only to the role, but to the overall organization. We have to do better as advocates for those that may not look or think like us. 

We also have the power to help diversify our internal recruiting teams - let’s face it, it is hard to attract great diverse talent if our teams show no diversity. I stand by this wholeheartedly as the team I built with Juno Talent Solutions is strong, talented, and constantly making an impact - all because the diversity of the team reflects how imperative is that we are living what we are trying to educate our higher managers - we are better when we have diversity of thought, experience, background and abilities. 

We have to be courageous when it comes to diversity that we are presenting to our hiring managers, and push - respectfully of course - our teams and hiring managers to start thinking differently about how to bring in top talent into our organizations at all levels. 

For now, I will leave you with these thoughts - stay tuned as I continue to attempt to wrap my head around the other thoughts I have on the remainder of panels and topics - there was just way too much good to capture it in one post. 

Meet the Author

Samantha Yanczak
Principal, Executive Search

Miss out on Recruit-adelphia?

Have no fear - we’ve recapped a few of the key takeaways from this year’s conference (plus there’s full videos of all of our panels). Make sure to subscribe to our email list so you don’t miss any announcements for our next event!