RecruitCon 2019 - Nashville (BLR)


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Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/14/2019 - 11/15/2019
8:30 am - 3:00 pm

Location
Renaissance Nashville

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RECRUITCON 2019 – Nashville | The Nation’s Most Popular Talent Acquisition Event for Employers

November 14-15, 2019 – Nashville, TN

*** LIMITED TIME OFFER: FREE $100 AMAZON GIFT CARD! ***
REGISTER TODAY!

Want to attend HR Comply, Workforce L&D, AND RecruitCon in Fall 2019? Register for the HR World PowerPass and pick and choose your sessions across all 3 conferences. Register Today!

CONFERENCE SNAPSHOT: RecruitCon 2019 in Nashville is part of our biggest event, HR World. Come to RecruitCon Nashville for 2 days of jam-packed sessions lead by the leading recruiting minds in the industry.

RecruitCon 2019 – Nashville, will continue to help talent acquisition & management executives and leaders uncover new and emerging recruiting practices – while also offering access to new-tech, cutting-edge analytics, streamlining hiring as a process, and delivering data as a foundation for decision making.

With most teams struggling with delays or lags in ‘time to fill’, leading to a cost uptick of as much as $22,000 (over an average period of 44 days), RecruitCon is architected to introduce new strategic interventions in optimizing timelines and candidate experiences. Last year’s RecruitCon conference was a sell-out event, so be sure to register early for the recruiting event of the season and be on your way to landing (and retaining) those star candidates.

At RecruitCon 2019 in Nashville, you will discover how to:

Structure effective veteran recruiting programs

Create a team of employee advocates to strengthen your brand messaging

Build a sourcing strategy from the group up using proven strategies from winning brands like Amazon—including tools and funnel metric models that really work

Automate the time-consuming and mundane aspects on your job so you can maximize your efficiency and focus on innovation

Leverage talent relationship management (TRM) systems to save you time and money while driving measurable improvements in talent acquisition

Draft effective counter offers to secure top talent over the competition

Integrate storytelling into your recruiting strategy for better results

Isolate the most impactful data analytics to pinpoint hiring issues, optimize strategy and prove ROI

AGENDA

Pre-Conference Workshop | Wednesday, November 13, 2019

(Full day) Leader as Coach: Leadership Development Master Class
8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (lunch on your own from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.)
Presented by: Gregg Thompson, Bluepoint Leadership Development
This engaging, highly experiential course is designed for managers, leaders, and influencers who understand the necessity of superior coaching in today’s business ecosystem where leadership development has become everyone’s responsibility. The curriculum equips participants with immediately-usable skills they can use to cultivate collaborative talent development partnerships; engage in potent, performance-enhancing conversations; and create extraordinary engagement, alignment, productivity and innovation in their teams.

When you attend this action-packed workshop, you will:

Be introduced to a proven, very practical coaching model that can be effectively used throughout your teams and organization

Learn how to initiate and guide high-quality coaching conversations using Bluepoint’s Coaching Power Tools

Participate in real-life exercises that will allow you to hone your conversational coaching skills and receive direct feedback on your personal effectiveness

Understand how to apply the concepts of appreciation, constructive confrontation and accountability to your own leadership practices

Create your own professional development plan that will map out your leadership trajectory and set ambitious but achievable goals

Take away valuable course materials, tools, and a copy of Gregg Thompson’s popular book, The Master Coach

PM Preconference Registration
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

(P.M. only)
Sourcing and Interviewing Do’s and Don’ts: Tactics to Identify Ideal Candidates While Avoiding Legal Pitfalls
1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Facebook provides a tool that allows companies to filter out certain demographics when advertising open jobs. For instance, The New York Times reported that Verizon, when recruiting for financial planning and analysis positions, recently ran a promotion targeting Facebook feeds for users between the ages of 25 and 36 who lived within a specified region. The Times reported that hundreds of millions of Facebook users, many of whom are likely over the age of 40, weren’t aware the ad existed because it hadn’t been delivered to them. The article noted, too, that companies like UPS, Target, and State Farm all have targeted their recruitment ads as part of a comprehensive recruitment strategy to cast a net across all ages. But do such practices run afoul of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)? Your company could be at considerable risk for high-priced jury verdicts and settlements in the event you’re sued for these or other allegedly discriminatory sourcing practices. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg because there are a host of legal issues that could arise once you call in a candidate to interview. You must make sure you are asking the right questions to ensure that you are abiding by applicable legal requirements and that every candidate is given a fair and equal opportunity while also steering clear of questioning that oversteps and violates job candidates’ rights under the ADEA, the ADA, and other federal laws concerning equal pay and more. During this intensive workshop, you’ll learn:

Legal ways to source and interview job candidates

What questions you can and cannot ask

Which of your current sourcing practices may be exposing your company to legal risks

The do’s and don’ts of sourcing and interviewing through role-playing exercises and mock interviews designed to highlight legal pitfalls to avoid

Day 1 Main Conference | Thursday, November 14, 2019

Registration & Continental Breakfast
7:00 a.m. – 7:55 a.m.

Opening Remarks
7:55 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.

Opening Keynote | ‘Designing for the Disappointed’: The Next-Gen Talent Acquisition Strategy for Supporting Recruiting and Business Growth
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Presented by: Carol McDaniel, Delta Air Lines
Regardless of company size, there’s likely a disproportionate number of applications and resumes received from over-, under-, or well-qualified candidates based on the open requisitions you have to fill. That’s exactly what continually happens at Delta Air Lines where they receive a staggering 1 million applications each year. RecruitCon Fall 2019 kicks off with an insightful look at how the company spearheaded and designed its talent acquisition strategy around disappointed candidates who didn’t get selected for interviews or for jobs to flip the script on the company’s talent acquisition (TA) strategy. Through its TA platform design, which focuses on candidates who also hypothetically could be the business’s customers, Delta Air Lines has developed several principle pillars that its Director of Global Talent Acquisition Carol McDaniel will share. Regardless of your company’s size, these pillars are widely applicable to TA strategy success.

Recruiting Hacks
9:05 a.m. – 10:25 a.m.

#1. Boolean Recruiting: Operators for Active Sourcing Success
Presented by: Chris Murdock and Judson Lancina, IQTalent Partners, Inc.
Proximity, parentheses, an asterisk, a plus, a minus—and don’t forget “and” and “or.” And, what’s the deal with those quotation marks? This Recruiting Hack will give you the rundown on how to use Boolean searching techniques to engage in proactive sourcing to identify highly- qualified, active candidates.

#2. Google for Jobs: Want Your Job Postings to Rank Well in Google for Jobs? Follow These 7 Optimization Strategies
Presented by: Joel Cheesman, gSherpa
Longtime SEO expert Joel Cheesman, principal at gSherpa, believes optimizing for Google is an essential recruitment advertising strategy, and has been for over a decade—and it’s no wonder why: It’s estimated that 30 percent of Google searches are job-related, which means there are approximately 300 million job searches taking place on Google every month. The new challenge, however, is getting the most our of your job postings by optimizing them for Google for Jobs, the search engine’s latest foray into job search. In this Recruiting Hack, Cheesman goes over a variety of tactics to make sure you come out on top when job seekers use Google to find employment.

#3. Top Low-to-No Cost Tools for Building Your Own CRM
Presented by: John Beck, IQTalent Partners, Inc.
Repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails to candidates, can—and should—in many cases be automated. And, by developing your own CRM (candidate relationship management system) using free technology-based tools, you can shave off previous time, save money, and reap better results. This Recruiting Hack will teach you how to get started with using Google products and App Script, along with some other low-to-no cost APIs to make your day-to-day recruiting life better.

#4. Building The Campus Recruiting Machine
Presented by: Patrick Casey, Wayfair
This Recruiting Hack will teach you how to create a competitive advantage by building a lasting and effective campus recruitment program and strategy for techie/analytics-type roles. And, you’ll gain insights into how to apply the concepts covered to non-tech campus recruiting strategies. Wayfair’s campus recruitment manager has done all the heavy lifting on how to design and manage a successful campus recruiting program and during this talk he’ll show you how you can do the same!

Networking, Refreshments & Exhibit Break
10:25 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Employer Branding on a Budget: Crafting an Impactful Campaign to Boost Recruitment Without Breaking the Bank
10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Presented by: James Ellis, The Talent Cast
Hear from a seasoned employer brand and marketing expert on how to formulate and launch an employer branding campaign that your competitors will envy—all without adding budget or staff to do it!

Networking Lunch (Provided) & Exhibits
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Overcoming Talent Shortages: 5 Places to Invest Resources for Optimal Results
Presented by: Elaine Orler, Talent Function
1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
Times have changed in the job searching world. Ten years ago, candidates were lucky to land a job and companies could be picky with who they have hired. By 2014, the scale began to tip in the opposite direction. Now with more Boomers retiring, Millennials “job hopping,” and an 18-year unemployment rate low (4%), your talent acquisition group needs to take advantage of every opportunity to reach candidates. Since your company’s job opening demands may outpace your candidate supply, how can you, as a talent acquisition and recruiting leader possibly keep up with the influx of openings and employees’ lack of loyalty to their current companies? During this session, you’ll learn:

The obstacles that could be getting in way of your search for qualified candidates—and the tools and technology that can help you overcome talent shortages

The tools and technology that can help you overcome talent shortages

10 tips for increasing the top of your candidate funnel

How creating a candidate experience affects your ability to hire the best talent

Best practices for keeping your team on track and unified throughout the entire hiring process

Networking, Refreshments & Exhibit Break
2:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Getting Candidate Experience Right: Find and Fix Mistakes That Could Be Sabotaging Your Recruiting Efforts
2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Presented by: Kristy Nittskoff, Talent-Savvy, LLC
In today’s flourishing economy, jobseekers have the upper hand in many ways—and businesses need to adapt their approach to recruiting so that they can make the process as easy and impactful as possible. To succeed at recruiting, it’s important to pay close attention to how candidates perceive your organization and what their experience is throughout the process. By the end of this session, you’ll have a road map for evaluating how your company’s current recruiting practices are helping or hurting your goal of attracting talent that’s not only right for a given job but is right for your business’s culture, mission, and values. This session will cover:

How to evaluate the strength of your organization’s external-facing persona: What do you want to communicate—and how—to social media users, website visitors, etc.? And, what does your current persona really say about your company’s value proposition, your culture, and your brand?

How candidate personas can effectively be used to attract talent that aligns with your company’s present and future needs

The latest—and greatest—ways to create a candidate attraction strategy that’s engaging, easy to use, and stands out to candidates

How to walk through each step of your hiring process—from the application process to the offer or the rejection—to identify deficits that could be tanking your underlying recruiting strategy

Examples of well-structured candidate journeys and the biggest mistakes to avoid when designing or revising your candidate attraction strategy

How to bring your brand and strategy to life in all touchpoints of the candidate journey and ideas on how to break the mold and be innovative with candidate experiences

Effective ways to coach your hiring managers and interviewers through their role in the candidate journey

How to effectively use communication, coaching, and feedback loops to sustain solid connections with candidates

Live From RecruitCon, It’s The Predictive Analytics Show!
4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Presented by: Don Everett, Workforce Interactive
This interactive session will provide multiple examples of how recruiters can use predictive analytics to make better hiring decisions. In a game-show format, you’ll be entertained while reviewing actual predictive analytic models that can improve operating performance for your business partners, including higher employee retention, lower turnover, and/or better risk mitigation. You’ll discover tools and related techniques that enable insightful correlation of candidate and operational data for strategic decision support. Plus, you’ll learn how to:

Derive business metrics required to measure the achievement of the organization’s strategic goals and objectives

Source, interpret, and apply information from internal sources related to the organization’s operations to contribute to the development of the organization’s strategic plan

Apply predictive models to help protect the organization from risk

Networking Reception
5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Day 2 Main Conference | Friday, November 15, 2019

Continental Breakfast
7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.

Breakfast & Learn
7:30 a.m. – 7:45 a.m.

Keynote | Achieving a Transformative Hiring Strategy: What New Research Reveals about Key Metrics to Focus On
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Presented by: Mike Bailen, Lever
If you’re unsure where to start when measuring recruiting results, look no further! Day 2 of RecruitCon kicks off with a revealing look into the key talent metrics you should be measuring and strategies to achieve those metrics so you can take your recruiting strategy to the next level in 2020. Featuring Lever’s latest research on industry benchmarks, you’ll learn key findings for sourcing, hiring, and conversions. We’ll cover every metric needed to transform your hiring, and how to use them to effect change, so you gain the reach of a marketer, the forecast of a sales leader, and the insights of a finance leader. You’ll get answers to questions like:

Which source of candidates has the quickest time-to-hire?

How can you achieve optimal sourcing response rates?

What roles take the longest to fill?

Recruiting Hacks
9:10 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.

#1. Disability Recruiting and Hiring to Skyrocket Your Business
Presented by: TBD
The disability community is the largest single diversity group globally. It’s important for employers to recognize and embrace disability recruiting- and hiring-based initiatives because the business outcomes they yield set an organization well apart from its competition. The process of recruiting and hiring employees with disabilities may seem intimidating if you consider where to look for good talent and how to best support employee accessibility needs, but in just 15 minutes you learn where—and how—to start.

#2 How To Become an ATS Power-User of Data and Automation
Presented by: Michael “Batman” Cohen, Wayne Technologies, Paired Sourcing/Talent
As recruiters, we can often lose sight of the true function of our role. Yes, it is to help organizations’ fill talent needs. Yes, it’s also to help people find jobs to provide for themselves and their families and to further their careers. But, at its core the function of a recruiter is gathering and disseminating data. Whether it’s candidate data (reason for leaving, compensation, what they’ve worked on, etc.), or whether it’s company and job data (required skills, salary, culture fit, etc.), the best recruiters in the world are the ones who understand how to gather data, store data, recollect data, and report on it. This talk will teach you how to use an ATS to become a master of your data.

Panel Discussion: Recruiting and Empowering Women: A Panel Discussion with The Nation’s Top Female Recruiters
9:50 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Moderated by: Jenninfer Martinez, Consult HR Partners, LLC
Panelists: Elaine Orler, Talent Function; Kristy Nittskoff, Talent-Savvy, LLC; and Abby Cheesman, Skill Scout, Inc.
In 2017, 32 percent of chief executives on Fortune’s 500 list were women. In 2018, this percentage fell significantly to just 24 percent—a 25 percent drop overall. This decline is attributed to women in top positions retiring or changing companies—with fewer women in the pipeline to take their place. This panel, assembled of powerful and successful women in the recruiting industry, will discuss how talent acquisition and recruiting professionals can help reverse this declining trend. They’ll cover topics such as:

The decline of women in management positions, why it happens and how to overcome it

The “glass cliff” phenomenon

Retention levels of women in the workforce

Company characteristics that women value the most

How to boost your own career as a woman in recruiting

Networking, Refreshment & Exhibit Break
10:30 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Sourcing Metrics: Effectively Measure Conversion Rates and Optimize KPIs to Track Your Success
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Presented by: Andrew Gadomski, Aspen Analytics
How wide of a net should you cast when source candidates? And, how can you be sure that the ways in which you source are yielding favorable results—that is, connecting you with the right types of candidates for your organization’s talent pipeline both now and in the future? This session will outline what to measure and track and why. You’ll learn:

Why candidate pipeline speed is an important sourcing KPI metric to track

Indicators that provide information about your pipeline quality

How the interview-to-offer conversion rate factors into sourcing metrics

And more!

Networking Lunch (Provided) & Exhibits
11:45 p.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Lights…Camera…Film that Recruiting Video!
12:45 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.
Presented by: Abby Cheesman, Skill Scout, Inc.
Jobs are dynamic, but job postings are boring. The future of hiring is creating an experience that immerses candidates in what the job is like. Video and behind-the-scenes media are the tools to make this happen. Unfortunately, only 1% of job descriptions have visuals, despite the fact that video is slated to become the largest driver of internet traffic by 2020. So why not get ahead of it and use this trend to your advantage? During this hands-on session, Skill Scout’s Elena Valentine will show you how to use video to communicate a powerful message that attracts attention and buy-in from qualified candidates. You’ll learn the tricks of storyboarding, shooting, and editing video job ads that really work to create compelling recruitment video on any budget. We’ll cover how to:

Bring your job postings to life with photos and videos

Create realistic job previews with your phone

Integrate these practices into your current hiring system

Networking, Refreshment & Exhibit Break
1:45 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Closing Keynote: The Future of Recruiting: How the Way We Work is Transforming the Way We Hire
1:50 p.m. – 2:50 p.m.
Presented by: Matt Buckland, Workable
The way we work looks a lot different than it did even a few years ago. So, why doesn’t the way we recruit? RecruitCon’s closing keynote will explore how advances in technology, shrinking unemployment, and soaring tuition have transformed what employees expect from an employer, and vice versa—and how those changes can, and should, shape the way you hire. For example, with fewer people able to saddle the rising cost of higher education, coding academies are an increasingly popular alternative to college. Google, Apple, IBM, and others have already dropped their college degree requirements in response. So, how should recruiters respond? We’ll talk about the opportunities and challenges these changes present and how to make the most of both to move your hiring into the future.

You’ll learn:

The recruiting benefits (and challenges) of the rapidly evolving workplace

Creative ways to look beyond the resume to evaluate applicants

Why—and how—to tap into an increasing wealth of data about candidates

Wrap-up Announcements & Conference adjourns 2:50 p.m.

*Agenda subject to change.
*Sessions less than 1 hour in length are not eligible for HRCI/SHRM credit.

*Agenda subject to change.

PresentersAbout Your Presenters
Mike BailenMike Bailen
VP of People
Lever

Mike Bailen first met Lever while leading recruiting efforts for Eventbrite, where he drove the selection and implementation of Lever as the company’s primary recruiting platform. During his tenure at Eventbrite, Bailen overhauled the company’s recruitment practices across recruitment marketing, employer branding, candidate experience, and hiring manager and interviewer training. Bailen previously held multiple recruiting and HR roles at Zappos, where he led the company’s innovative decision to remove all job postings in favor of building talent pipelines among their passionate user base.In 2015, Bailen was named to LinkedIn’s “Next Wave” list, which recognizes the top professionals under 35 across different industries. Bailen often speaks on HR and recruiting topics, and has presented at multiple industry conferences including Lever’s own Talent Innovation Summit.

John BeckJohn Beck
Director of Technology
IQTalent Partners, Inc.

John Beck, IQTalent Partners’ director of technology, is the former Director of Technology at Metova and currently remains an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University. He earned his master’s degree in computer science from Southern Illinois University.

Matt BucklandMatt Buckland
VP Customer Advocacy
Workable

Matt Buckland has over 15 years of experience in HR, recruitment, and selection for a variety of businesses and industries across the world. Most recently he has led teams at rapidly scaling tech startups, as well as teams at Bloomberg, ThoughtWorks, Getco, Criteo, and Facebook. He has been named as a LinkedIn Power Profile and was the on-screen expert for a BBC-TV series on innovative recruitment methods. Most recently he has transitioned to a new role at Workable as Vice President of Customer Advocacy. With many years of experience as a Workable customer, his objectives will be to continue to build and develop our community and exemplify a customer centric approach.

Patrick CaseyPatrick Casey
Campus Recruitment Manager
Wayfair

Patrick Casey is a talent tactician, culture advocate, recruitment technologist, and employer brand strategist. As Wayfair’s campus recruitment manager, he focuses on building early career and campus recruitment programs for data science, algorithms, computer vision, supply chain, and Business intelligence teams. He previously worked for start-ups WilsonHCG RPO (first on delivery & then on RPO solution design) and gr8 People as employee #13 selling enterprise recruitment software (ATS, CRM, sourcing tools, and more). He then joined Capital One to lead its efforts on building and engaging an authentic “tech employer brand” for the bank. Relocating to San Francisco he worked at Uber’s HQ where he managed its RPO partners and programs supporting eight plus lines of business across of North and South America (US, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, etc.) plus additional project participation and consultation in EMEA & APAC (Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Philippines, India.)

Abby CheesmanAbby Cheesman
Co-founder
Skill Scout

Workplace storyteller, ethnographic researcher and IO Psychologist, Abby Cheesman is co-founder of Skill Scout. She spends her days bringing jobs to life on video and geeks out on new media techniques like 360 Video, Virtual Reality, Point-of-View Video, Silent Storytelling and Employee-Generated Video. She’s been featured in Crain’s Chicago Business, SHRM, and WBEZ Radio. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two kids. She holds a BA in Sociology & Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa and MA in Industrial Organizational Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Joel CheesemanJoel Cheesman
Founder
gSherpa

Joel Cheesman has over 20 years of experience in the online recruitment space. He worked for both international and local job boards in the late ’90s and early ’00s. In 2005, Cheesman founded HRSEO, a search engine marketing company for HR, as well as launching an award-winning industry blog called Cheezhead. He has been featured in Fast Company and U.S. News & World Report. He sold his company in 2009 to Jobing.com. Today, he is the founder of Ratedly, an app that monitors anonymous employee reviews, co-hosts the popular podcast The Chad & Cheese Podcast and is Principal of gSherpa, a firm that helps companies leverage Google for hiring. He is married and the father of three children. He lives in Indianapolis.

Michael CohenMichael Cohen
Founder
Wayne Technologies

Mike “Batman” Cohen is the founder of Wayne Technologies, a recruitment training and search firm with expertise in: contract recruiting, RPO, contingent recruiting, and retained search models. He also is the founder of Paired Talent, the industry leader in candidate screening automation.

Batman is considered an industry thought leader in the areas of emotionally intelligent recruiting, recruitment workflow best practices, process automation, and tooling and regularly speaks at recruiting industry events.

James EllisJames Ellis
Host
The Talent Cast

James Ellis is an employer brand and recruitment marketing strategist working in Chicago. He coded his first webpage by hand nearly 20 years ago and since then has brought social media marketing to non-profits, content management systems to state governments and content strategy to Fortune 1000 Companies. At his core, he is a digital marketing strategist, helping people and businesses define their audience and message. For the last four years, he has used that thinking to help companies of all shapes and sizes hire and retain talent.

Don EverettDon Everett
Founder
Workforce Interactive

Don Everett is the founder and CEO of Workforce Interactive. After a 20-plus year career in the technology sector with organizations like Oracle, he formed his own company and began providing HR Analytics services whereby emotional intelligence competencies are correlated with operating performance metrics. He is certified in Value Science—the social science advanced by Nobel Prize-nominated Dr. Robert Hartman, and his organization has assisted recruiters in evaluating hundreds of thousands of applicants. He is routinely requested as a featured speaker, especially in the HR community, and his entertaining presentations engage thousands of attendees annually.

Andrew GadomskiAndrew Gadomski
Founder
Aspen Analytics

Andrew Gadomski, the founder of Aspen Analytics (formerly Aspen Advisors), specializes in big data and human capital consulting. He started his company after a successful career in staffing and corporate HR, and he regularly peaks at talent-related conferences on human capital analytics, social data, and using data as evidence for process design.

Judson LancinaJudson Lancina
Knowledge Manager
IQTalent Partners, Inc.

Judson Lancina began his recruiting and talent acquisition experience at IQTalent Partners where he was the fourth member of the original IQTalent Partners team. He has played an integral role in building the firm internally from 4 employees to today’s 150 consultants, sourcers, and managers. During his tenure, Lancina has trained corporate recruiters at major corporations including JJill, Risk Management Solutions, and Singularity University. A noted speaker at conventions and college fairs, Lancina serves as the IQTalent Partners Knowledge Manager and member of the company’s Recruiting Excellence team. Lancina earned his BA from Vanderbilt University and is an elite level tennis athlete and member of the USTA.

Jennifer MartinezJennifer Martinez
President & CEO
Consult HR Partners

Jennifer Martinez is the president and chief executive officer with Consult HR Partners, a newly launched company, who provide operational and strategic HR outsourcing services and solutions for businesses of all sizes. As a role up your sleeves and business minded HR leader, Martinez’s approach is highly collaborative and customer service focused when working with her clients in both the public and private sector as an extension of their team to provide scalable solutions and services that tie directly to bottom line results.

Martinez has expertise in the areas of start-up HR operations, employee engagement and culture development, acquisition/due diligence and integration planning, organizational design work, developing and implementing strategic HR plans and leadership development programs.

In her 25-plus year tenure within the human resources field, Martinez held various HR leadership positions within the gaming industry at Scientific Games Corporation, Konami Gaming, Aristocrat and Caesars Entertainment Corporation. In her earlier career, she worked in hotel operations.

Martinez holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and a Master of Science degree in Organization Leadership. She was named a “Great Women of Gaming – Proven Leader” in 2004 by Casino Enterprise Management magazine, and she served as a key member of the Public Relations and Community Relations committee in 2007 and 2008 on the Southern Nevada Human Resources Association Board. She also recently served as a Board member for the Southern Nevada Chapter Red Cross from 2014-2017.

Carol McDanielCarol McDaniel
Director, Global Talent Acquisition
Delta Air Lines

Prior to joining Delta Air Lines as the director of global talent acquisition, Carol McDaniel served as the director of talent acquisition with Johns Hopkins Health System, where she oversaw, directed, and managed a team of 10 in the recruitment process for one of the most progressive organizations in the healthcare industry to meet the needs of a demanding pediatric hospital under the Johns Hopkins Health System.

After serving in the United States Air Force for ten years, McDaniel’s experience in the Talent Acquisition Industry began in Olsten Staffing, Lucent Technologies as a corporate recruiter, and she worked for Bernard Hodes Group for 12 years working with organizations to put talent acquisition strategies in place. Her background combines extensive human resource consulting, recruiting, marketing and advertising expertise. With her strong understanding of the many challenges in today’s competitive labor market environment, she is considered a subject matter expert in the employer marketing and branding process. This expertise has proved to play a crucial role in the development of talent management and acquisition strategies. She has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC Night News for her innovative strategies in “Geo-Fencing and Re-targeting” in the talent acquisition arena. McDaniel sits on the Talent Acquisition Special Expertise Panel for the Society of Human Resource Management as an advisor and contributor to SHRM’s talent initiatives. She is a frequent speaker at HR and SHRM events, national programs, and training seminars to focus on the areas of talent acquisition and talent communications.

Chris MurdockChris Murdock
Chief Sourcing Officer | Co-Founder
IQTalent Partners, Inc.

Chris Murdock is a veteran of the recruiting and talent acquisition industry with twenty years of experience spanning across multiple industries. Murdock founded IQTalent Partners in 2009 and now leads search execution and client relationships for his 150- person firm. Prior to establishing IQTalent Partners as a talent acquisition leader, Murdock worked with Yahoo!’s internal executive recruiting team, gaining in-depth experience across the technology recruiting sphere. He began his career working in recruiting and sourcing roles for Heidrick & Struggles and with TMP Worldwide. Murdock earned his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and resides in Nashville, TN.

Kristy NittskoffKristy Nittskoff
Founder & CEO
Talent-Savvy, LLC

Kristy Nittskoff is the founder and CEO of Talent-Savvy, LLC. She helps companies transform their recruiting programs, creating a straighter path from passive candidate sourcing to new hire onboarding. She focuses on recruitment process optimization, ATS configuration and enhancement, and employer brand. Her client list includes everything from small startups to global organizations, and she is a contributing author to The Muse and Inc Magazine.

Prior to starting Talent-Savvy, she held executive and senior leadership roles at Envoy Global and Mintel International. She has an MBA in Leadership and Change Management, and Business Strategy from DePaul, and a BS in Finance from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. She loves breathing life into tired recruitment processes, and helping companies fully realize their potential to find, attract, and retain top talent.

Elaine OrlerElaine Orler
CEO & Founder
Talent Function

Elaine Orler, the CEO and founder of Talent Function, has been developing and implementing HR solutions since 1993. With a keen analytical eye and passion about helping companies enhance their talent acquisition processes, she is uniquely able to identify how talent acquisition impacts both workforces and employers. One of the talent acquisition industry’s most sought-after thought leaders, she has helped global organizations transform their recruiting processes with actionable strategies and technology implementations that optimize talent acquisition for HR professionals, hiring managers, job candidates and the company overall.

Orler is also a well-respected talent acquisition and talent management expert who takes an active role in industry events and associations and is often quoted in HR and business publications. She continually works with practitioners and serves an analyst to the solution provider community to shape the way talent management and recruiting solutions are delivered. She is invested in all aspects of the market that improve recruiting performance from candidate experience (co-founder of Talent Board, the founding organization of the Candidate Experience Awards) to optimal candidate selection with TalVista (owner). She has presented one-of-a-kind recruiting and candidate experience thought leadership at some of the industry’s most innovative and popular events.

Elaine ValentineElena Valentine
CEO
Skill Scout, Inc.

Workplace Filmmaker and Design Researcher, Elena Valentine spends her days leading the team at Skill Scout to bring jobs and company culture to life on video. Every workplace has a story to tell about the team, skills, environment, and output. She helps tell those stories to attract the right candidates for the job and keep existing employees happily where they are. As CEO, she wears many hats, but really geeks out on: new media (360, VR, POV videos, silent storytelling), and building Skill Scout’s diverse workforce. She was recently named “HR Superhero of the Year” by the DisruptHR Chicago community. She’s also the founder of Mezcla Media Collective, an organization that provides opportunities for female filmmakers of color to connect, partner, and build their skill sets as leaders and storytellers. Ms. Valentine holds a BA in Spanish and Anthropology from Grinnell College and AA in Recording Arts from Tribeca Flashpoint College. She currently resides in her hometown of Chicago with her rescue pup Yofi and her husband Emilio (A.K.A. her 11-year-old neighborhood school crush).


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