Make the most out of attending a conference

Attending a conference can be a great opportunity to network – if you come prepared and focus on making good use of your time.

Attending a conference can be a great opportunity to network – if you come prepared and focus on making good use of your time.

You can make valuable business contacts, learn about your industry and just meet interesting people.

There is also the chance to embarrass yourself and discourage any other attendees who may interested in working at your company.

Most events wind up falling somewhere between the two extremes, but with only a little extra effort, you could considerably raise your rate of conference success. It's all about staying focused and using your time well.

In his blog Both Sides of the Table, entrepreneur Mark Suster explains that the most important part of having productive conference experiences is to be selective in choosing events. Being gone from the office for days at a time is bad for productivity. It's best to pick out only the most interesting or important events, prepare carefully and then focus on using your time well while you're there.

It's critical to plan out your schedule and set meetings in advance. The major advantage of attending conferences is that so many potentially valuable contacts will be in one place at the same time. If you want to have a meeting with a particular person then you should schedule one.

One good idea that isn't obvious to everyone is to spend a while hanging out in the lobby, rather than spending all your time taking meticulous notes on every single panel discussion. It's easy to meet people while milling around in the lobby and you may even be able to get in a word with someone who you wouldn't have been able to meet otherwise.

For executives who still don't feel like they are getting much out of their networking efforts, it might be time to consider hiring a firm of professional recruiters. This can be especially useful if your company needs to fill high-level positions. Working with a top-quality executive search firm holds distinct advantages. Conducting a financial professional search can be complex and time-consuming. Outsourcing to a recruiting firm frees up core staff to focus on their main responsibilities and has the added benefit that professional recruiters bring their hiring experience to the table, giving you the best chance to find the right candidate.

New survey foreshadows high demand for high-level executives

A new survey indicates that 2012 will continue to be a critically important time for businesses looking to fill executive positions.

A new survey indicates that 2012 will continue to be a critically important time for businesses looking to fill executive positions.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, included input from over 2,000 human resources professionals and hiring managers. Twenty-three percent of them said their company was planning to hire new executives within the next six months.

Those companies determined to gain an edge in this competitive hiring period would no doubt benefit from reaching out to one of the many headhunting firms with expertise in high-level recruiting. This is specially true for a company looking to fill more specialized positions. Working with professional recruiters can be a major advantage when it comes to filling executive positions or jobs in finance.

Experience trumped education in the eyes of the recruiters being surveyed. Among those whose companies were planning to hire executives, only 20 percent stated that they look for an MBA or a comparable degree. The number that looked for experience-related credentials was much higher. Sixty-two percent said they look for candidates with proven skills in problem-solving. Fifty-four percent said they want someone who has demonstrated that they are capable of motivating co-workers.

The survey also asked about recruiting from internal versus external sources. Eighteen percent of survey respondents indicated that they preferred to hire executives from outside the company. Thirty-five percent said they would even consider someone with no industry-specific experience. Demonstrable creativity and critical thinking skills appeared to be the most important qualifications in the eyes of the HR recruiters being surveyed.

However, these skills are extremely difficult to measure. This is one of the main reasons that using an experienced firm of professional recruiters can be such a huge advantage for companies looking to fill top spots. Especially when it comes to searching for great CFOs, an executive search firm can act as a major asset to any company.

Companies benefit from staying focused on basics

Each new task may seem like a good idea, but ultimately wind up detracting from a company’s ability to respond to new opportunities.

Every company looks for ways to save money, but many benefits can also be achieved by simply avoiding over-committing current employees.

Every new project that seems like a good idea at the time may turn out to restrict the brainpower that is available to take advantage of new opportunities or may even become a drain on the ability of employees to perform day-to-day tasks. A new distribution deal can turn out to necessitate technical support or place other ongoing demands on a company’s staff.

Companies looking to keep their employees free to focus fully on their main responsibilities should strongly consider reaching out to a professional recruitment firm, especially in the case of businesses searching for great CEOs or trying to fill other upper-level positions. In addition to the benefit of shifting the time-consuming work of recruiting managers away from a company’s full-time employees, there is also the experience that professional recruiters bring to the table. They do their job, which allows their clients to focus on running their businesses and doing what they do.

Beyond headhunting firms, there are many other services that can help a company keep their core staff focused on offering quality service to customers. For instance, hiring an internal audit consultant can also have the same effect of removing demands from a company’s staff. Hiring an outside firm to do financial project consulting may allow a company to postpone a full-time financial professional search or just get by while such a search is in motion.

Outsourcing has been used as a dirty word by some, but relying on outside resources is still an effective way to reduce the strain on a company’s employees, especially when it comes to complex or time-consuming tasks such as recruiting for auditing positions.

HR experts predict significant hiring, offer ideas on snagging top talent

According to a new survey of 500 HR professionals by relocation services provider Allied Van Lines, 2012 is shaping up to be a huge year for corporate recruiters.

According to a new survey of 500 HR professionals by relocation services provider Allied Van Lines, 2012 is shaping up to be a huge year for corporate recruiters. Two out of three of those surveyed said they planned to conduct “moderate” or “extensive” hiring this year. For businesses with over 10,000 employees, that figure is even higher at 80 percent.

Respondents also expressed optimism about the mobility of the U.S. workforce, with only 6 percent stating that they believed workers would be unwilling to relocate. The survey data suggested that professional recruiters acknowledge the importance of offering relocation benefits, but that their employers are largely either unwilling or unable to actually offer the kind of comprehensive package that would really be an asset in attracting top non-local talent.

Seventy-two percent of the companies offered only four of the 10 relocation-related benefits listed by the survey, such as information on local schools for parents. The lack of diverse relocation incentives was identified as a major barrier to long-range recruitment.

Those businesses looking to attract the best candidates should seek to set their company apart from the competition by offering a diverse package of benefits, including relocation incentives. Opening up a recruitment search to include a greater geographical area can be vital considering that even those describing their recruiting program as “highly successful” stated that they still lose around 25 percent of their top-choice candidates.

Of course, other benefits come into play in the recruitment process as well. A February 2012 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that many CFOs consider the quality of a company’s healthcare benefits to be closely linked to its ability to attract talented workers.

But, whatever benefits a business offers, it still needs to make contact with people before it can hire them. And finding good workers continues to be a challenge. Companies looking to bolster their chances of finding a perfect fit should strongly consider contacting a recruitment firm.