The Real September Surge

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This Week’s Breakdown

The September Surge is here! No no, not the made up thing people (including myself) love to make content about!

The surge of conference season is officially up on us and I once again want to encourage all of you to participate as much as possible within your budget and work schedules.

For years, I avoided conferences. Too much travel, too many people, too much “networking.” I told myself I was too busy, that I’d learn more by staying heads down at work, that it wasn’t worth the time.

I was wrong.

Over the last year, actually showing up has been one of the best decisions I’ve made as a recruiter. Conferences have given me a sense of community I didn’t realize I was missing, helped me make some amazing friends, and honestly they’ve made me better at this job.

You can scroll LinkedIn all day, argue in comment sections, and even read newsletters like this one, but nothing compares to being in the room. You build real connections. You hear unfiltered takes. You get reminded you’re not alone in the chaos of this work.

And now, heading into fall, conference season is in full swing.

I’ll be speaking at GovTech Con in DC this week, then heading straight into HR Tech in Vegas next week where I’ll be part of a panel discussing using sociail media as a recruitment tool. I’ll also be speaking at Disrupt Minneapolis on October 6, attending RecFest, and participating in TalentNet Live in Dallas on November 7.

This is a lot, as I type it I now realize how this is probably way too much. But If you’re local to, or travelling to any of these, come find me, I’d love to meet you in person. If you’re thinking of attending and aren’t sure about the cost, reach out to me, I can probably get you a discount for most of them. It’s also worth noting many companies have budgets for events like this.

There are also plenty of other online events and conferences that aren’t even on my list, the point is find some that work for you!

Us recruiters spend so much time being yelled at online, it’s easy to forget there are thousands of us who get it. And when you get in a room full of people who actually understand, it changes how you see the work.

So yeah, conference season is a grind when you say yes to every single one like I seem to be doing. But it’s also where I’ve found some of my best ideas, strongest relationships, and most needed reminders that this job doesn’t have to be done alone.

Recruited in the Wild

Seen on LinkedIn, overheard in Slack, or posted without shame.

I’ve been waiting for a whole week to make fun of this one! I even commented about how excited I was to have identified this week’s in the wild post so early in the week.

I’ve seen a lot of silly green banner open to work debates on Linkedin, I’ve been interviewed by the media about it, we all know it’s been done to death.

But I’ve never seen a recruiter actively brag about not working with Open To Work Candidates before, and as a selling point to potential clients!

My good friend Amy Miller (who was of course tagged in the post) said it far better than I can in her comment:

Posts like this are what makes it so frustrating to be trying to do a good job and know that this is the image most people have of recruiters. I think we will need to talk about egos in hiring in a future issue (something Amy and I dive deep into on the debut episode of the Is This Still A Good Time Podcast, date tbd)

Horror Stories

True recruiting nightmares from the field.
Want to share yours anonymously for a future issue? 

Submit your story Here - It won’t even ask for your name or email don’t worry!

This reader story doesn’t even need to be edited:

Oh goodness.... Well.... there was the time I interviewed a guy who had a sports jersey on. And I am not* a sports person, but I did know enough to know the team (and that they lose a lot). He mentioned at the beginning of our interview that he was super nervous so I was trying to build rapport to make him feel more comfortable. I jokingly asked if he wore his good luck jersey for the interview because with their losing streak - it may not be good luck anymore. He laughed and then we continued with the interview. He seemed more engaged afterwards so I felt like my little jokey joke helped. But then he asked if I was married to which I showed my wedding ring and said "yes! going on three years now!" and his follow up question was "happily?". I cringed and just nodded with a bright smile (a feeling I'm sure many women can relate to). We still had four questions to go and the company I worked for at the time would not count your interview towards your metrics if you didn't fully complete it. So I kept pushing through as he complimented my hair, my smile, and told me repeatedly how lucky my husband was. But the true horror was after the interview was over and I immediately went to tell my boss how creeped out and uncomfortable I was, her telling me that I "should appreciate it while I'm still young enough to get those kinds of compliments"....

Hey, at least someone didn’t hate this recruiter right?

Cope of the Week

Because it’s either this or scream into a pillow.

Conference season is a grind. The travel, the expense, the endless “What do you do?” conversations, it’s enough to make even the most extroverted recruiter want to crawl back into their inbox.

But I’ve realized that showing up at these events has been one of the few things keeping me sane in this job. Because the truth is, recruiters spend most of our time getting dunked on. Online, in meetings, in candidate emails, we’re the punching bag of the hiring process.

At conferences, that flips. You get to walk into a room full of people who get it. People who know what it’s like to wrangle five stakeholders, lose a unicorn candidate, or get blamed for a hiring freeze you didn’t cause. You’re not defending yourself, you’re building community.

That’s the cope this week: find the rooms where people actually understand what you do. For me, that’s been conferences, speaking gigs, and even the projects I’ve been heads down on like launching Yes, You Are Being Judged and recording the first episodes of the Is This Still a Good Time? podcast.

Those things don’t make the chaos go away. But they make the chaos easier to survive. And sometimes, that’s enough.

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