As you close the books on 2014 and peer across the office at all the bright talented faces you placed, think back on all the tools, professionals, and information 
that helped shape you into the stud recruiter you are today. Where'd you learn about those tools? Where'd you network with all those awesome recruiters who helped you hone your craft and maybe even sent a candidate or two your way? If you were lucky, you may have rolled all of that into 48 hours at one of the many Recruiting and HR Conferences over the years. 2015 is chock full of events featuring the most insightful speakers, the biggest companies, and the brightest and most exciting new tools on the market. Below, we've compiled the details on the year's unmissable events, so get out your calendars and book your flights!
TalentNet Interactive
The 5th edition of TalentNet Interactive is headed to Austin, and this one is stuffed to the raftors with influential speakers. SourceCon's (see below) Jeremy Roberts, Matt Charney of RecruitingBlogs, Will Thomson of Rosetta Stone, Glassdoor's Will Staney, and IBM's Bryan Chaney are just a handful of the presenters, all of them established pros who have been through the trenches of sourcing and recruiting and come out on the other side with wisdom to share.
Date: March 13
Location: Austin, TX
Cost: $199
SourceCon Seattle
SourceCon is the original Sourcing event in the US, and it's grown every year in a remarkable fashion. This March, SourceCon will feature keynote speeches from two of my favorite recruiting tweeters, Social Talent's Johnny Campbell and KForce's Glen Cathey, as well as breakout tracks for sourcers of all persuasions: the Fundamentals Track for the newbies, the Sourcing Lab for the latest and greatest tricks and strategies, and a Leadership Track to help you develop strategic sourcing initiatives. What's not to love?
Date: March 24-25
Location: San Diego, CA
Cost: $995 with early bird discount, $1295 after Jan 15
ERE Recruiting Conference
It's impossible to be engaged in the recruiting space without keeping a beat on ERE. ERE's conference is even more important and valuable than their superb content and thought leadership, because it not only disseminates invaluable information, but also is just packed with recruiters. This year, ERE is introducing a new segment titled TAD (Talent Acquisition Development) Talks, which is aimed at discussing hot-button issues, such as social media recruiting, using non-recruiters to recruit, and how to glean value from rejected candidates.
Date: April 27-29
Location: San Diego, CA
Cost: $1495
SHRM Talent Management Conference & Exposition
The Society for Human Resource Management is one of the big dogs when it comes to recruitment, and their yearly conference is no different. Held concurrently with ERE, if you make your way to San Diego you might just be able to hit two birds with one stone on the networking front. Judging from the agenda, SHRM is a more polished and end of the hiring/onboarding funnel focused event, so this could be the one for you experienced Recruiters to highlight:
Date: April 27-29
Location: San Diego, CA
Cost: $995-$1670
HCI Strategic Talent Acquisition Conference
As the role of big data in the workplace continues to swell, recruiters must work deep metrics into their strategies or be left in the dust. This appears to be a theme of HCI's Talent Acquisition Conference this year, as many of the breakout sessions focus on metrics and putting reason to your recruitment rhyme.
Date: June 22-24
Location: Boston, MA
Cost: $1495-$1995
Australasian Talent Conference
The 9th annual ATC in the land down under will focus on the intersection of recruitment and marketing, exploring areas such as content creation, new technologies, and data analytics. The keynotes this year are promising, featuring the respective Heads of Talent from Zappos and Amazon, Mike Bailen and Todd Davis. Also speaking is Kevin Wheeler, the Director and Founder of the Future of Talent Institute.
Date: June 23-25
Location: Sydney, Australia
Cost: $1750-$1950
Talent Connect
If you live on LinkedIn, and many recruiters do, then you simply can't miss the social network behemoth's annual event. In 2014, Talent Connect dug deep into the acquisition process, exploring issues such as sourcer personas, employee value propositions, and much more. The presentation list was an impressive lineup of the highest level recruiters, and we can only expect them to build upon it in 2015.
Date: October 13-15
Location: Anaheim, CA
Cost: $925
HRTech
Each year, HRTech sets the bar for insight and coverage of HR innovators. Experiencing considerable attendee growth in each of it's last 5 years, HRTech has emerged as the premier destination for recruitment coverage and networking. This year, I'm particularly excited for the event because of the keynote speakers. HRTech has foregone the celebrity factor and instead brought in NYT best-selling authors of groundbreaking metrics driven works such as The Decoded Company (Rahaf Harfoush), The Second Machine Age (Andrew McAfee) as well as a panel on data and analytics moderated by CNN Senior Analyst David Gergen.
Date: October 18-21
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Cost: $695-$1945
Which events are you excited for in 2015? Which ones did we miss? Leave a comment!
