3 Powerful Lessons from RecFest USA

I used to think professional development conferences were dull — then I went to RecFest.

Goodbye dreary conference rooms, stuffy clothes and uninspiring content. We’re talking a full-blown festival: circus style tents, buzzworthy speakers, sunny outdoor venues, cotton candy, carnival rides, you name it.

Who says HR departments are boring?

Since 2014, RecFest UK’s attendance has exploded from 100 to over 5,000, making it one of the Talent Acquisition industry’s largest and most-loved events. So much so that it’s now held in Nashville too.

During my two days in Music City this year, I rubbed shoulders with more than 2,000 industry movers and shakers.

And the jam-packed schedule of talks covered everything exciting happening across the TA and HR space.

Here are three main insights I took away from the sessions I attended.

Three takeaways from RecFest USA

1. You need to be a Swiss Army knife

In my days of working for a small non-profit, I had a boss who used to stress the importance of being a “Swiss Army Knife.” It was his way of encouraging us to develop a broad set of skills, rather than being limited to one specific focus.

It feels like the TA and HR professionals who succeed most in today’s landscape are Swiss Army Knives, and the talks at RecFest reinforced this. A phrase I heard more time than I could count: “Doing more with less.”

Sadly, recent economic outlooks have hit the industry hard, forcing many teams to downsize – only to be greeted with one of the most frenzied job markets in recent memory.

TA teams are being met with an impossible task: Perform better than ever for an avalanche of job seekers clamoring for a white-glove candidate experience, all while using fewer resources.

Enter, the Swiss Army Knives!

I heard so many stories at RecFest about creative hacks that TA, HR, and Employer Brand professionals – people who are seeing their budgets get pared down – have used to make every dollar count.

For example:

• An EB professional who hasn’t paid for a tool in over a year and exclusively uses free pilot programs.
• A sourcing specialist shadowing recruiter phone screens to learn the art of speaking to candidates actively interviewing.
• A recruiter leveraging ChatGPT to write email templates to make her candidate communications more streamlined.

It's time for everyone in the industry to ask themselves, “How can I become a Swiss Army Knife?”

2. It’s time to embrace AI

The first thing I noticed at RecFest? AI was everywhere.

From sponsor booths waving around their latest AI feature, to overheard conversations around its impact, the feeling around AI was buzzing.

What was refreshing was the tone of these conversations — less a story of man pitted against machine, more a strategy for how TA pros and AI can work in harmony.

It seems the industry has reached a bit of a turning point. Rather than being fearful or skeptical of AI, we have a healthy understanding of what AI can (and cannot) do for us.

Lots of the professionals I spent time with acknowledged AI’s usefulness in automating many of their daily admin - like scheduling interviews, sourcing candidates, running reports - but they agreed nothing could truly replace the human elements of recruiting.

Could you ever train AI to have the emotional capacity to disposition a late-stage candidate?

Could you ever rely on AI to ask the nuanced question that cuts to the heart of what a candidate needs to sign an offer letter?

Personally, I don’t think so.

But since the initial shockwave, it seems the industry is finally realizing AI has the incredible power to free up space for humans to double-down on the things we do best – creativity, empathy and making connections.

3. Data doesn’t tell the whole story

The words “data” and “ROI” have been criminally overused in the past few years.

I mean, are we earnestly striving to demonstrate value to our stakeholders and executives through data?

Or has our frantic obsession with tying every single experience, interaction, and emotion to a number made us lose sight of what is, and always will be, intangible?

It was interesting to listen to conversations around this at RecFest, where attendees represented every imaginable viewpoint on this spectrum. Number-crunchers and empaths – colliding in Nashville.

Admittedly, I’m not a data-first person. But having worked closely with many over the years, I’ve come to respect its place at work. And I certainly think the quest for data will continue to rise in prominence.

But do you know what’s interesting? Of all the sessions I attended at RecFest, not a single one ended with a data point. It was never the “parting thought.” Not once. Do you know what was?

It was a story of human connection. Of someone’s life being changed for the better. Of people working together to transform how they operate. Stories you can’t underscore with a number or percentage.

I don’t know what the future holds here, or the balance we’ll ultimately settle on, but I left RecFest assured of one thing: in a world of data, we’ll always make space to showcase the stories we can't quite measure, but know in our hearts that they matter.

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