After a cold, rainy spring, Philly has had a long stretch of nice, sunny days (well except for yesterday and today!) and it’s been great getting out and about visiting clients and prospects, attending association meetings and talking to people in our industry.
My car trunk is packed with laptops, projectors, portfolios, and of course, my kids’ softball gloves, bats and about a dozen balls that roll around and make a racket whenever I hit a bump. Up front I have KYW on the radio – Philly’s most trusted news, weather and traffic radio station – to try to avoid traffic mishaps, my embarrassing slate of songs on my iPod (I’m beginning to realize my love of 80′s pop – like Hall and Oates - isn’t really ironic after all) and of course, lots of HonestTea. Keep reading our blog regularly and you will soon learn of my deep, semi-disturbing addiction to HonestTea.
So where have my travels taken me since last checking in? Here’s a few highlights:
• Princeton, NJ, NJAHR (NJ Area Healthcare Recruiters): The May meeting is one of the most important and well attended as George Hebert, Executive Director of the New Jersey Board of Nursing, spoke and fielded questions about licensure, changing laws, continuing education, re-certification and so much more. While in past years the dialogue between different states’ boards and local recruiters can get heated (this one was pretty calm, drama-wise), I’m always struck by the passion and dedication both the recruiters and the boards show to the highest level of nursing care – and both groups have to achieve these goals with limited time, money and resources.
• Southern New Jersey: Alstin’s in the process of creating an employment brand for a new client just over the river. Strategic employment branding by Alstin is an amazing process – just check out the branding section of our website to view a selection of our award-winning work – and there is no shame in this plug, see for yourself! Our team presented the initial round of concepts and with some excellent feedback from the client, I can’t wait to see the final brand in action – it’s going to make a huge impact on their recruiting and retention initiatives.
• NJ State Aquarium – Camden, NJ: My first meeting in the month of June was at this awesome venue. Sponsored by our good friends at philly.com/monster.com and lead by Doug Hardy,GM/Editor of Monster Careers, the topic was Trends Driving Recruiting. While it was very hard not to stare at the sharks that were swimming in a tank ten feet from me, this was a very engaging and informative presentation. Doug talked about how smart recruiters are using the economic downturn as an opportunity to create loyalty, engagement and retention. Positive news included Monster seeing an uptick in their employment index in April, which hopefully points to a future recruiting rebound. I also learned an amazing stat about our advertising-driven culture: The average person sees a whopping 1,500 trademarks per day – unless, of course, they choose that day to go to the grocery store-then it jumps to over 35,000!
That’s all for now. I hope in a few weeks when my next blog appears, the summer-like weather will have continued (I just committed to doing a mini-triathlon in the beginning of August, so I need all the training time I can get) the economy continues to improve and I have more recruiting stories from the road for you.
“Where’s Tony?”
As VP of Client Development for Alstin, I (happily) find myself on the road a lot, talking to clients, prospects, people in the media, etc.–and I attend numerous industry functions each month. On Alstin’s blog, I’ll let you know where I am and what I’m hearing in the wonderful world of recruiting.
