Tell us about yourself Bill, where you work and your role.
My name is @BillBoorman, I'm the Tru storyteller, I run events which are called recruiting unconferences or #Truevents.  The events we run, go everywhere from South Africa, the UK, the US, are really centered and grew out of #TruLondon, we run about one event per month. I'm also involved in social media integration into recruitment and HR businesses so I help people understand where social media is going to fit into their business and actually socializing the business. I suppose my biggest area of expertise is around Facebook which I suppose is a bit different to other people, where I've won some awards for the likes of Hard Rock Cafe where we hired 120 people in four weeks, building the Oracle communities and laterally doing work with other corporate  businesses so I'm actively involved in implementation and integration of social media into the recruitment space. I also speak at events and travel a lot and it's global so I get a good handle on what's happening technology wise and I work with some vendors advising them. I'm a blogger and a continual conversationalist.

Had you ever imagined even three years ago that you'd be such an influencer and that you'd be running truevents around the world?
About three years ago I had about 50 LinkedIn connections and they were mostly friends and family. Then the recession came along and there wasn't a lot of work so that gave me the excuse and the time to actually get started and actually do something meaningful. Three years ago I wouldn't have dreamt it, I think if i would have planned it I could call myself a genius, it's simply a case of evolution. When I went into social at first I hadn't even thought that it would be events, I was expecting it to be a more traditional training product, I didn't imagine I'd be working with corporations like Oracle and Hard Rock and doing some of the work that I do and to be ranked 3rd by Trakkr/HRExaminer index of “Most influential on-line recruiters”, if you value that kind of thing, really came as a bit of a shock. Did I imagine I'd be running events around the world? No I didn't. Did I imagine I'd be an influencer? No I didn't. I don't consider myself an influencer, I think I have impact and I have impacted a lot of people because of my network and I don't necessarily think the term 'influencer' is quite right. People look at what I do and feel influence, It's been phenomenal and it's global which is a lot further than I ever anticipated.

The recruitment industry has undergone much change in recent years, what, in your opinion is the single biggest challenge facing the industry?
I think the biggest change globally is how candidates think and how candidates work.  It really lies in post-recession, the real challenge of skills gap. So if we talk purely about the numbers, let's start with the US there's going to be 70 million baby boomers retiring anytime over the next 5-10 years and there's 30 million Gen Y so we've got a demographic shortage and also a skill shortage. I think academic institutions around the world have failed significantly in preparing people for work and that's probably why we've got so much youth unemployment and I actually think the universities have more responsibility in that process than the banks actually. And because of that we have a real skills gap and we witness that wherever we look globally we can see that the numbers of reported jobs is rising but equally and sadly the number of unemployed is rising particularly among young people. We've a global situation where there has been some recovery but a jobless recovery and that has meant that the war for talent has become the war for other people's talent and it's really about how you attract people and that's where the growth of social media / social talent is coming in. I think the challenge is that there will be more emphasis on retention and businesses are having to relook at the whole model of  what we do and it's not just about putting bums on seats but thinking more long term and really getting involved in how you attract people from other businesses. I think it's a great thing, I think it's going to go really strongly this year from transactional into relationship which is what recruitment used to be about pre-Internet and I'm really looking forward to those times.

How are you/your company adapting to face this challenge?
I think the biggest change is probably more and more organizations are looking at direct sourcing, direct hiring and doing it themselves. Taking a longer term view over relationships and relationship technology in particular starting to build communities or talent networks and the technology is starting to evolve to do that. From our point of view, with the clients we're working with, i think it's a mindset - it's creating social organizations in which recruiting is just a part of what you do. I think referral recruiting equally is going to be a massive game changer. I think sourcing, because of technology, is getting easier and easier and because people are easier to find the relationship needs to be stronger so we're working much more on keeping up with technology and awareness making sure the client is kept up to date with the very latest technology and the very latest ways of doing things and finally global thinking, we have to think global rather than domestic and understand where we need to change.

Is there a person or company that you use to benchmark your future plans?
Well in the events space, it's got to be ERE.net, they run the biggest and best known events in the recruiting space so I follow that.
From a consultancy basis, there's a lot of people doing good work. From my thinking there's companies like Sodexho, Deloitte Grads New Zealand, I sort of look at what they're doing and where I sit with my clients. It's really a case of that.  It's a real collection of people in the market that I admire and take my hat off  to and that's people who I follow and that aren't always benchmarks and their thinking and what they're at and it really is a market you just have to be completely immersed into.

What’s the most exciting tech innovation you've seen in the industry?
There has been a few, things like BullHorn Reach which is really developing in a few areas around social recruiting and making social recruiting accessible and easier. And I really like the predicative internet bit, which is the Radar which looks at peoples' online behavior. I really like the Work4 Labs technologies and in particular how they've made  Facebook recruiting much easier and more importantly the targeted interest advertising which has made that element of recruitment very simple -  I really admire that technology and think it's been a game changer in bringing Facebook to the masses.
Also I'm impressed with the video interview technology I've come across. Also another technology I admire is TribePad for what potential that's going to bring in building community platforms. I'm really interested in lots of different apps that do jobs that make social easier. All social recruiting is probably about 90% psychology with 10% technology and that 10% is pretty key and everything is becoming more and more accessible. The referral stuff is going to be the big  one this year so I'm following the referral products and the people making them.

What’s the next industry event you plan to attend?
#TruDublin, my event in Dublin, as well as the #TruChristmas party which is all day and evening event, I love being in Dublin, it's a great crowd, thanks of course to Sonru for making it possible and also to Johnny Campbell from Social Talent.

If you had to come up with a one-line prediction for the recruitment industry in Europe for 2012, what would it be?
The recruitment industry in Europe  is going to be all about  relationship and referral over 2012.

What’s the best tip you could offer recruiters, HR managers or jobseekers for 2012?
Be social, and by social I don't mean social media, I don't  think social communities and connections which are not necessarily about technology. We can get caught up in the FaceBooks and YouTubes but it's more about creating a social organisation if you want to use social in your business and also looking at all social media and how you can integrate things.
I think for HR managers or jobseekers 'don't think failure, think research' and accept that in the words of Zuckerberg on Facebook you'll have to 'move fast and break things' so don't be frightened to do something that's radical. Some people might not like that but the key is getting to the ones that do, and for HR managers I'd say don't be afraid. Worry about the things you can do not the things you can't and if you trust people until they disappoint you you're going to be satisfied, as opposed to the attitude of not trusting people unless they surprise us. Let's trust people to be grown-ups in the workplace, educate them to enable them to do social, get rid of things like social media policies and just integrate it into our business and I think that's what is going to make things successful.

Last word
I think the last thing I want to add to this interview is really around this mindset of what you need to do to be be successful around this social recruiting space.

• Test practice rather than best practice - try new things, doing things differently.  Some of things we're doing now with some of our clients I could never have imagined, I think you just need to be brave and need to go out there and try things and understand what's going to be important.
• I think the other thing is recognizing that working in the HR/recruitment space or what I call the people space, even technology providers, is that we've got a great responsibility in that the most important resource for any business is the talent that they hire and for people the biggest decision they make is the job that they take and that will impact on every other aspect of their life and I think  we need to recognize that.
• We need to NOT undervalue the role that we do as recruiters and in the recruiting process and let's really work on building up Brand Recruiter, stop the knocking of each other and really get our heads round what we need to be doing, what we need technology to be doing, what we need to be getting right and let's really push Brand Recruiter on what we can do and let's influence business because that's really what we are all about. 

Tell us abour your career Bill.
My career has been 30 years in and around recruiting, that's pretty much all I've ever done. I was always an agency recruiter, I built my time up to become a director of a recruitment business in which I was the National HR and Training Director for Primetime Recruitment where we opened about 165 branches across the period of 12 years so very very active background in that respect and I was also responsible for integrating technology. Then I had a training business for 3 years where we trained and also worked as a non-exec director with some recruitment businesses and management consultancy to recruitment business on everything from technology, innovation and so on. Laterally i have  really developed the four key areas I work in which is

• TruEvents which is running an event every month;
• Consultancy working closely with people,  increasing my business moves from agency to direct hiring at larger corporate global companies like Oracle, Hard Rock and so on so I've moved into that area;
• Keynote speaker, I speak at quite a lot of events around human resources, social media, social recruiting;
• Commentator on the industry so I blog quite a lot, I work with some vendors looking at how they should promote their products or what their products should be doing.

My career, it's fair to say, is just starting. It's constantly evolving; involving constant reflection on how much recruitment has changed and recruitment has changed everyday and it's a privilege still to work in this sector and I'm looking forward to continue doing so.
 
As sponsors of #TruDublin2, Sonru have some Free tickets available for our loyal and lucky readers. Contact us directly to put your name on the door.