#truEdinburgh 27th April – What to Expect

You know when people say “expect the unexpected”? Usually it means everything will be exactly the same, but with small changes, or that things are totally unorganised. Let me tell you that #truEdinburgh is neither, even though not one of the hundreds of #tru recruitment unconferences held worldwide in the past 6 years has ever gone exactly to plan.

By design, and from the very beginning, all #tru events have had an element of unpredictability baked into them. In large part, this is due to Bill Boorman who founded the events all those years ago. With a lifetime in agency recruitment, and training recruiters behind him, Bill had grown weary of the standard fair of recruitment conferences, which had become dull as ditchwater, and frankly satisfied no-one. Attendees would typically pay handsomely for a ticket, get their name-badges at the door, and sit quietly while selected keynote speakers thumbed their way through a PowerPoint deck for the 20^th time that year. Many speakers were clearly pitching products, and not imparting any valuable information to make a recruiter’s life any easier. In fact, the only benefit of those events were the break times, and the after event socialising, where serious networking could be done.

#tru events turns all of that on its head. The rules are simple; no pitching, no PowerPoint, no name badges. A recruitment event which brought together professionals from agency recruitment, in-house talent acquisition departments, human resources and industry suppliers would automatically have an immense amount of knowledge and experience under the one roof. By enabling every attendee to have a voice in active discussion tracks, everyone can glean immeasurably more practical insight, market knowledge, and recruitment lessons than ever before. Our Track Leaders are not keynote speakers, but more like instigators and moderators of the conversation, who are experts in their own right, and ensure everyone gets the very benefit from every Track.

There will be at least three Discussion Tracks occurring simultaneously, on a wide variety of topics. Plan ahead to make sure you get to the most relevant ones, and get to network with those most important to you. Altogether there will be 6 time slots throughout the day, making 18 Tracks in total.

Whilst #truEdinburgh is happening for the very first time, cities all over the world have had their very own events, from London, to Sydney, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Dallas, New York, Paris, Dublin, Cape Town and almost everywhere in between. The crucial ingredient has always been the local element brought by active recruitment practitioners from the surrounding area, mixed with the global expertise and experience of our international guests and Track leaders. This is what makes every #tru event so unique.

In Scotland, we have already hosted two very successful events at the Hard Rock Café, in Glasgow. In keeping with the unusual nature of our events, #truEdinburgh will be held in an extremely unlikely venue for a conference, The Ghillie Dhu, in the heart of the city. We know from experience that this lends itself to the relaxed nature of our format, and allows all attendees to relax into the day that little bit more. Please feel free to leave the suit at home, or at least set aside that tie for one day, and immerse yourself in the very best recruitment unconference you’ll have ever attended.

PS. If you’re wondering about the hashtag in #tru, it’s because our events are extremely social media friendly, and are always very active before, during and after on all channels, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The hashtag for the day is #truEdinburgh, and our twitter handle is @truEdinburgh
PPS. The reason for the cowboy hat in the logo, is that our founder Bill Boorman is almost never seen without one.

Here’s a short video of our last event in Glasgow.