Allison BarrettWhat an excellent way to spend some great time in the Bay Area at HR Tech World last Tuesday through Thursday. We had a lot of fun at our booth, but it was outside our booth where many attendees and our guests had so much fun!
First, we were really excited to host HR Tech World’s Official After Party. Fun? Absolutely! But also a bit bittersweet because we were saying goodbye to our old office.
We also were honored that Visa’s Senior Director of Talent Acquisition Tara Strebe joined us for one of our Keynote addresses – sharing some of the excellent improvements Visa has enjoyed since going live with SmartRecruiters back in 2016.
And we treated many conference attendees to the thrill of sailing the Bay on our SmartRecruiters Extreme 40 Racing Catamaran.
It’s hard to believe so much happened over just two days, and these are only some of the highlights:
Great party and fun games, but a touch of nostalgia
About 300 people came by our offices for the HR Tech World’s Official After Party Tuesday evening. Our drink menu? It speaks for itself. Smartinis, HR Tonics, and Recruiting Slammers were the specialties of the evening.
I’m sure we’ll have plenty more Smarty Parties, but this was the last one at our old 56 Tehama Street offices. As I said, it was a nostalgic party in many ways, but after 5 great years (filling 10 million jobs!), we’ve now moved only a few blocks away to 225 Bush Street and expect to help fill many millions more jobs here.
An excellent keynote session, “Life After ATS”
On Wednesday, our VP of Product, Rebecca Carr, and Visa’s Senior Director of Talent Acquisition, Tara Strebe addressed the conference — hosting a jam-packed keynote session on hiring success. They demonstrated how today’s ATS solutions simply don’t come close to supporting support modern workflow, with Tara explaining why Visa ditched its old ATS.
Yes, it was an honor to participate, but it was exceptionally rewarding to hear Tara explain how Visa – with 15,000 employees worldwide – is now enjoying so many benefits so soon after the organization went live with SmartRecruiters in 2016. Key metrics she shared include:
- 214,000 new applications and 1,200 new hires
- Quick interview feedback thanks to high adoption worldwide – from an average of 2 weeks down to just 3 days!
- Creating, approving, and sending offer letters in an average of just 2 days – down from an average of one full week
Her advice to organizations evaluating new technologies? Take the opportunity to integrate recruiting, hiring, and HR solutions to simplify business logic and clean up legacy data. She also emphasized the importance of training, gaining executive buy-in, and keeping an open mind in considering new technologies.
Extreme sailing in delightful Bay Area weather
On Tuesday and Wednesday, we offered rides around the beautiful San Francisco Bay aboard our SmartRecruiters Extreme 40 Racing Catamaran. What gorgeous views!
Talent executive Angie Verros said her ride was “amazing” and Pamela O’Leary Global Diversity Lead at Ericsson called her experience the “highlight” of her first day at the conference.
Oh yeah, we did give away seven Apple watches to a few of those who stopped by our booth to view our demo. Now they can view their candidate pipelines, open job status, analytics, and more right from their wrist!
Lee Ann Prescott
