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If you’ve been working in recruitment for any time at all, you’ll know just how important recruitment conferences are to how the industry operates.
Recruitment is a people-focused profession, so any chance you have to connect with other recruiters facing the same challenges in a personal manner will be time well spent.
Most importantly, recruitment events offer an opportunity for you to learn directly from industry leaders. These events feature expert speakers who can provide insights into the latest recruitment tools, trends, and technologies, helping you stay ahead of the curve in an industry that's constantly evolving.
But there’s no denying it: there are numerous recruitment conferences out there. If you had a private jet (and no concern for the environment), you could feasibly attend a recruitment event every single week of the year.
So, how do you decide which recruitment events to prioritize attending? To assist you in making your decision, here’s a list of the best recruitment conferences happening in 2024.
1. SHRM Inclusion
Location: Denver, Colorado (and online)
Date: 4-7 November 2024
Brought to you by The Society for Human Resource Management, the SHRM Inclusion conference has become such an essential HR event that it’s sold out the last two years in a row.
As you can probably gather, this event is all about diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Despite how important DEI is to the recruitment industry, this is the only large-scale event exclusively dedicated to the topic.
Understandably, this event is less about big-name speakers and more about bringing a diverse scope of people in HR together to talk about some of the most important issues in our industry. Seminar topics cover everything from discrimination in the workplace to accessible technology, and all seminars qualify for professional development credits (PDCs) towards you getting an SHRM recertification. So if there’s any guarantee that you’d get a lot of value from attending this event, there you have it.
Tickets: https://store.shrm.org/INCLUSION-2024
2. HR Technologies Conference
Location: London UK
Date: 17-18 April 2024
The HR Technologies event in London is the UK's primary tech-focused event for HR leaders. It’s a free event that aims to explore how technology is currently shaping businesses and how it’s set to disrupt people management in the near future.
The key themes of this year’s event include HR's role in digital transformation, building digital dexterity, remote work, talent mobility and the future of the workforce.
With over 60 exhibitors, 20+ keynote speakers (including Sandy Shurin of Deloitte and Bill Boorman) and 70+ seminars, this event is perfect for any HR professionals looking to get a deep dive into the latest in technology and understand how it’s going to impact people management in the coming year.
Tickets: https://rfg.circdata.com/publish/HRTL24_visitor/
3. RecFest
Location: Hertfordshire near London (UK) and Nashville (USA)
Date: 11 July (London) and 12-13th November (Nashville) 2024
True to its name, this recruitment event is more of a festival than a conference. So best leave your suits at home for this one! RecFest has a festival-like structure and attracts a festival-sized crowd, with more than 6,000 attendees and 130 speakers across 11 stages.
Whether you’re attending the UK or the USA event, the aim is the same: to give TA professionals an opportunity to get inspired, get connected with others in their field and, most importantly, to have some fun!
No speakers have been announced for either of this year’s events yet, but previous lineups have included senior TA figures from Amazon, Meta and GitLab so you certainly won’t be disappointed.
Anybody who’s anybody in the UK TA space will be speaking at or attending RecFest, so it’s definitely one to have on your calendar.
Tickets: https://recfest.com/uk/tickets/
4. UNLEASH World Conference
Location: Paris, France
Date: 16-17 October 2024
A lot of events will call themselves the ‘#1 HR conference,’ but UNLEASH really is the main annual HR event.
Now in its 13th year, the UNLEASH World Conference in Paris is known for being a pivotal space for HR innovation and networking. The event has a super international attendance, with HR professionals from all over the world descending on Paris to discuss the future of work, discover cutting-edge technology, and gain insights from industry leaders.
The event offers rich content across both its main and breakout stages, addressing all kinds of HR challenges. The speaker lineup for the 2024 event is yet to be announced, but previous headliners have included senior HR executives from Nestle, Red Bull, IKEA and the UNHCR.
Tickets: https://www.unleash.ai/unleashworld/register-interest-2024/
5. SourceCon
Location: Orlando, Florida USA
Date: 9-10 April 2024
SourceCon has been running for nearly 2 decades now, and in that time it’s earned its legendary status as the go-to event for anyone who works in the world of candidate sourcing.
This annual event is like a convention of sorts; when sourcers from around the world get together to share knowledge and connect with a vibrant network of peers and mentors.
Compared to other recruitment events, SourceCon is very hands-on, with live sourcing hackathons taking place at every event. As an attendee, you also get post-conference access to a curated library of sourcing and recruiting videos that will help you up your sourcing game all year round.
Keynote speakers for 2024 include sourcing experts like Greg Hawkes, Kalifa Oliver, Pete Radloff, and John Sung Kim.
Tickets: https://conference.sourcecon.com/
6. Talent42
Location: Seattle, Washington USA (and online)
Date: 3-4 June 2024
If you’re thinking it’s not in your company budget to be sending recruiters off to the USA for a recruitment event, don’t worry – Talent42 has ticket options for virtual attendees too.
Talent42 is a tech recruiting conference focused on providing attendees with practical learning from leading tech recruiters, developers, and engineers. It’s a unique opportunity for you to take part in hands-on workshops, learn from real-world strategies, and network with industry leaders.
Talent42 caters specifically to those in tech recruitment, offering insights into the latest trends and tools for sourcing and engaging tech talent. So if you’re a recruiter who specializes in tech recruitment or you work in-house for a technology brand, this is the event for you.
This year’s agenda includes seminars from talent experts at Strava, Zapier, Visa, Etsy and Amazon, just to name a few.
Tickets: https://www.talent42.com/
7. Future of Work Series
Location: Multiple locations
Date: Multiple dates
The Future of Work is a global series of HR events that have been running since 2019. With conferences taking place in Canada, Dubai, USA, UK and Singapore throughout the year, you shouldn’t struggle to find an event close to you..
The Future of Work conference content focuses on sharing knowledge about leading-edge strategies in work transformation, including HR tech, culture, and employee engagement. You can expect to gain deep insights through senior speaker line-ups and extensive networking opportunities with industry leaders and professionals.
Attendee numbers are capped lower at FoW than most of the other events on this list (250+), making it a bit more intimate. These events are specifically curated for senior executives at larger corporations (with more than 2,000 employees) so it’s worth bearing that in mind.
Tickets: https://futureworkseries.com/tickets
8. Recruitment Agency Expo
Location: London & Birmingham
Date: 19-20th March (London), 9-10th October (Birmingham)
For a lot of recruitment agency owners and managers in the UK, the year revolves around these two expo events in March and October.
The Recruitment Agency Expo is structured by a combination of workshops, seminars, and the opportunity to visit a vast number of exhibit stalls where you can see demos of the most innovative technologies currently taking the recruitment market by storm.
The Rec Expo is an essential event for recruitment agency professionals to gather insights from leading voices in the sector, explore innovative services and tools, and connect with other agency recruiters (something that agency recruiters very rarely do).
Headlining the London event this year will be recruitment legend Greg Savage. Speakers for the Birmingham Expo are yet to be announced.
Tickets: https://recruitmentagencyexpo.com/
9. RecBuzz
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Date: 16-17th April 2024
RecBuzz 2024 in Barcelona is focused on the evolving field of recruitment marketing and talent acquisition – particularly in the digital and AI-driven landscape.
RecBuzz has been hosted in a few different European cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam, but 2024 sees the event taking place in Barcelona.
Most of the notable speakers at the event this year come from the job board giants (JobRapido and StepStone Group, for example) so you can expect a lot of actionable insights on leveraging AI and programmatic advertising to stay ahead in recruitment marketing.
RecBuzz is a prime event for those recruiters looking to enhance their marketing strategies with the latest technologies and trend-hacking.
Tickets: https://recbuzz.com/registration/
With AI technology changing the recruitment landscape at pace, you can’t afford to take your eye off the ball right now. Attending recruitment events like the ones mentioned in this list will help you stay in the know on recruitment trends so you’re always one step ahead in the competition for the best talent.
If you want to stay informed about the latest developments in AI and how it’s impacting recruitment, follow Carv on LinkedIn.
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