Back in 2002/03 we ran a series of networking events for recruiters and suppliers to the industry. Together with Marc Jones of RecruitmentJOBZ we set up The Recruiters Network. This was a non-profit making venture to help connect individuals within the industry at a monthly event.
We started off in a private room above a bar in London with an event attracting about 45 people. Our largest event was our Christmas 2002 "party" which had in excess of 200 attendees.
By the end of 2003 we were finding it was a lot of work to find sponsors, keep attendance figures up and do all the general admin associated with the events. On top of that I was meant to be on maternity leave and Marc’s wife had just had a baby. We decided to put the events on hold for a while.
2 years later…. Marc is now working at ExpressHR and I’m now living in Devon. However, I met up with Dan McGuire of Broadbean recently who put the pressure on for a revival. The result is we’ve spent the last few weeks trying to get the ball rolling.
The thing to sort first was the date. To cut a long story short (I know, too late) I didn’t think that we’d need to worry about clashing with any other recruitment events. How wrong could I be? We ended up in November before we could get a date that worked. I won’t list all the other events here, but be assured they are quite a few! Mind you, it didn’t help that I’m a bit limited on dates due to being quite some miles from London and that Dan is a chronic football fanatic who wouldn’t consider any date upon which any football match (it seemed involving any country in the world) was being played!
Finally we’ve got a date booked. 22nd November. And, I’ve got a plan. I’m going to create a diary of all the recruitment events in the UK. The conferences, seminars, networking evenings, golf days, REC and ATSCO meetings. It’s a dirty job (well, probably not) but someone has to do it!
PS, if you are interested in more info about the event it’ll be published on the website at www.recruitmentnetworking.co.uk
