Recently, we have attended the recruiting conference Hiring Success in Berlin. It was a very inspiring experience and also a great opportunity to learn and network. Our business development managers, Ann Trubitsyne and Asmik Sargsyan, shared their impressions of the trip.

*Ann Trubitsyne and Asmik Sargsyan at Hiring Success

Main topics

Three major topics of the conference: inclusion, innovation, and hiring success.  There were plenty of interesting reports on inclusion in recruitment. The thorough discussion of this topic is one of the distinguishing features of Hiring Success. The speakers talked about the importance of building community, gender equality, hiring refugees and former prisoners.

It is imperative that professional recruiters should discuss these issues openly and steer the industry in the right direction while sharing experience and knowledge. In order to grant the participants such a valuable opportunity, the hosts of the conference took serious pains to discover and invite the most competent and interesting speakers in the field of inclusion and volunteering in prison. An unforgettable impression of the diversity in action was left by the interactive session “Synchronicity” held by Mehmet Baha. During this event, all the participants played different musical instruments, striving to create a common melody.

*Mehmet Baha “Synchronicity”

Among other main topics of the conference were technical recruiting and the digital skills of a recruiter. This area remains one of the most challenging for the recruiting community. Several reports were devoted to reviewing the best tools for recruiters, the impact of these tools on candidate experience, the use of non-obvious resources, such as Amazon, Tinder, and Alexa, in recruiting campaigns. One of the most memorable sessions named “Battle of the Bots” was hosted by Ivan Stojanovic and the founders of various companies which drive the bots industry. They held a real-time competition of bots on stage. The participants asked them questions on behalf of the candidates and chose the bot that was most successful in solving the tasks.

*Ivan Stojanovic, Nikolay Manolov, Aida Fazylova, Mario Paladini and Luc Dudler “Battle of the Bots”

The majority of the vendors at the conference represented the HR Tech industry. During workshops, the companies, together with their customers, analyzed cases of automation of various aspects of the recruitment process. Together with Piret Luts, we spoke about how 4finance has built its sourcing function with AmazingHiring.

*Ann Trubitsyne and Piret Luts at the workshop

Several presentations were made by founders of various companies. They addressed global challenges and business problems from a recruitment perspective. For example, Adam Kostyál from Nasdaq spoke about how an IPO impacts a company’s processes and what HR needs to do to ensure further business success. The talent team from Zalando and the managing director of Movinga presented the strategies implemented in large companies when they need to radically change the direction of their business. Ronan Mooney, Chief of Staff & Head of HR at Dublin’s Web Summit, and Anna Jakovleva, Head of HR at adjust.com, made a presentation on how a successful pitch can help attract the best candidates. They identified the positive characteristics of enterprises that recruiters usually fail to highlight to candidates properly.

Atmosphere and organization

Smart Recruiters create a truly stylish event. Wooden stands for vendors, guest DJs, delicious snacks – every detail has been thought over and executed beautifully. The speakers made presentations on two stages simultaneously, there were also roundtable talks and panel discussions. 300 participants were expected at the conference, but in the end, there were about 400 of them, and everyone was happy and content. The conference hosts managed to strike the right note with each guest and were helpful and supportive if something went wrong.

A special shout-out should be given to the venue of the conference – Glashaus, the historical event hall in the heart of Berlin on the banks of the River Spree. Thanks to the unique design of this place, the participants could listen to presentations both indoors and outdoors, enjoying beautiful views.

*Hiring Success conference

Networking

The сomfortable atmosphere was very conducive to networking. The participants got acquainted with each other and then communicated non-stop: during the roundtable talks and panel discussions, at vendor stands, while having a snack or waiting in line for coffee (by the way, it was the most delicious coffee in Berlin 🙂

The most important networking event was the conference after-party. Berlin has a reputation as the capital of techno, and at the Hiring Success party, all participants could really enjoy electronic music – the whole event was held in a nightclub, there was a line-up of 10 DJs, everyone danced and had fun. We also had the opportunity to watch two exciting performances – a drum show and an aerial silk dance.

When it comes to informal networking, Hiring Success is unrivaled!

*Hiring Success party

Recruiting Startup Award

We participated in the Recruiting Startup Award contest. During the online vote, we outdid 100 other applicants and become finalists! In the final stage of the contest, our main competitors were: Landing.jobs, an innovative tech career marketplace; ExpertLead, a database of technical freelancers; Studydrive, an educational platform for students that helps companies hire the best specialists right out of the university, and Enboarder, a platform for automating the onboarding process.

In the final round, each contender was to present a pitch, which was evaluated by opinion leaders, investors, and representatives of venture companies. The main award was € 9,000 for media promotion, sponsorship of the next Hiring Success conference, and a publication in Business Insider. The winner of the competition was Enboarder; the founders of this startup made a high-quality presentation of their business.

Despite the fact that we did not win, we were very happy to be among the finalists – this has been an incredible experience. First, it is a great opportunity to tell the target audience about your product. Second, giving a pitch at the conference is an excellent training exercise for startup founders, as this format is often used when communicating with investors. In addition, the participants can communicate with the founders and employees of other companies directly, learn more about their business, and share experiences.

*Ann Trubitsyne at the Recruiting Startup Awards

Why you should go to Hiring Success

The conference agenda was very eventful, the reports were useful and interesting, and each guest was able to learn new things and apply them to their work. At the conference, we discussed both global HR challenges and the current tasks of sourcers and recruiters and got acquainted with the solutions developed by HR Tech. New knowledge and exchange of best practices are among the most important reasons for participating in Hiring Success.

Another notable fact is that this conference is centered around communication 🙂 You can talk shop with like-minded people, professionals, and leaders of the recruiting community. It is great to meet people who inspired you face-to-face and ask burning questions (and also take a selfie :). Moreover, you have a wonderful opportunity to converse with your customers. We took every chance to do just that and shared with the participants the results of the research on German developers, which we prepared specially for the conference. We also conducted a lottery, the winners of which were granted access to AmazingHiring for 3, 2 or 1 month.

*Hung Lee, Andrew Stetsenko and Ann Trubitsyne at Hiring Success

See you at the next Hiring Success conference!