March 28 - 30, 2023 was IAMPHENOM, and it was a great opportunity to hear from the industry's top visionaries as they reveal their best practices and insider knowledge on the future of hiring, retaining, and developing talent.
Valuable Sessions and Connections
Today, employer’s inboxes are saturated with messages from hundreds of point solutions, including career sites, chat bots, referral engines, and internal mobility platforms.
It’s a crowded space, and even more mind boggling to figure out how all the different tech stacks fit together. Employers are looking for solutions that can touch multiple needs within a single platform, which is one of Phenom’s differentiators: bringing industry-leading capabilities into multiple areas of the platform.
Regardless of the industry, all companies are experiencing a talent revolution, where they are moving away from a standardized "one-size-fits-all" strategy to a tailored and unique approach that meets the needs of each stage in the talent lifecycle.
This is why this conference was so valuable. Recruitment professionals were able to gather face-to-face to learn from one another about how to cater their recruitment needs to meet the new world of working.
The conference included:
- 100+ Speakers
- 300 Phenom Clients
- 25 Influencers
- 60+ Sessions
- 12 Product Launches
The Rise of AI
AI and automation were very common themes amongst many of the speakers, highlighting how the personalization of AI makes the lives of talent acquisition professionals easier. Think of how easy it is to find a product on Amazon, and with a press of a button it is delivered within days. Shouldn’t it be that easy to apply for a job?
The prime objective is to enhance the talent experience, and these sessions shed light on how employers have accelerated their candidate search, fueled the growth and transformation of their companies, enhanced their technical resources, and achieved other notable outcomes.
Day One: Optimizing Recruitment Strategies
After a “pinky promise” made with Sameer from Royal Bank of Canada the night before, Michelle woke up at 6am (3am for California folks) to run the same steps Rocky did.
The conference kicked off with Phenom’s CEO and cofounder Mahe Bayireddi with a discussion titled “The Rise of Intelligence & Automation to Transform the Talent Experience.” He spoke about connecting the dots of a company’s talent community, both internal and external, to make every experience within an organization an “Phenomenal Experience.” He also touched on how hiring teams are moving into the realm of specialization, with the increased desire to streamline and change.
There were so many great session, some of Michelle’s personal favorites from day one included:
- Matthias Leitzmann and Kerry Royer did a great job during their session “Launching the Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience Platform: A Conversation with Mastercard” discussing how they use Phenom for a personalized talent experience. They also spoke to the importance of implementing tools that accelerate current efforts and are scalable to grow with.
- Amy Ritter from Thermo Fisher spoke about how they used Phenom’s internal mobility module to help fill internal roles and boost their retention in her session called “Inside Scoop: How Thermo Fisher Scientific Filled Roles with Internal Talent While Boosting Retention.” She shared that, “At Thermo Fisher, our talent platform is comprised of talent acquisition, talent management, and learning and development – it’s a joint effort to ensure we create the right experiences throughout the talent lifecycle.”
- Darin Averill from Circle K had a session called “Connecting the Dots: How Circle K Integrated Their HR Tech and Aligned with Company Goals” and talked about how they integrate their HR Tech to align with the high-volume hiring needs of their organization.
- Joanna Ferrara and Alison Meland from Southwest Airlines hosted a session called “Southwest’s Ultimate Time Savings Hack: Automated Interview Scheduling.” Ferrara shared, “We hired 18,000 people last year and are on track to hire 7,000 more this year.” They spoke about how they use Phenom’s interview scheduler to increase the time to fill and save their recruiters time!
The day ended with a concert by Jesse’s Girl at Brooklyn Bowl. Michelle joined a few colleagues from Bayada and enjoyed their time!
Day Two: Revitalize the Hiring Process
The sessions kept getting better and better! Here are some takeaways from the sessions on day two:
- Rebecca Schoepfer from TruGreen’s session called “Seasons of Hiring: How TruGreen Grows a Thriving Workforce Each Year” was about the increased hiring needs of their organization year-over-year (500%) and how they significantly modified their talent strategies to align with evolving business needs. Schoepfer shared the innovative ways they are meeting these hiring demands and what they’re working on to establish a sustainable and replicable talent procedure that surpasses high-volume recruitment requirements.
- The session “Phenom One Global Delivery with Adobe and Special Guest” by Hiral Shah from Adobe was about their recruitment transformation endeavors, involving implementing novel HR technology into their existing toolkit. The session covered a wide range of topics, including implementation, onboarding, compliance, and change management, providing attendees with a comprehensive plan for success.
- Melinda Littleton with Regions Bank hosted a session called “Customer Value Realization with Regions Bank” and spoke about how successful value realization of new technology relies on two crucial elements: adoption and optimization.
- The session called “Redefining Talent Acquisition: How United Airlines Helped Better Hiring Practices Take Flight” was held by Jessica Austin and Alex Schemionek from United Airline. They acknowledged how United needed to change their approach to processes and technology to empower their teams for success. Austin spoke about how they helped better hiring practices take flight (see what they did there?).
- Adam Jacoby-Rankin’s session “Lights, Camera, Hire: How ScribeAmerica is Transforming Candidate Screening with Video” spoke about using video screening at ScribeAmerica and how automated video interviews can speed up the hiring process, create a better candidate experience, optimize team collaboration, and more.
The Big Announcement
One of the biggest announcements of IAMPHENOM was when the Phenom product team unveiled Phenom X+.
Phenom X+ is a generative AI capability for human resources that improves efficiencies by automating content creation, surfacing actionable intelligence, and eliminating time-consuming tasks for candidates, employees, recruiters, managers, HR, and HRIS teams.
Phenom also announced a new multi-tiered support model: Phenom Service Experience.
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Overall, IAMPHENOM 2023 was a success! This conference is a special place to have peer-to-peer connections that leave hiring professionals inspired, full of ideas, and invigorated. Keeping up-to-date with everything in the industry allows hiring professionals to plan in advance and be ready for the future of hiring.
From the overall production, to the networking and learning opportunities, it was a great event. Even though the donut wall was smaller, the content was much more robust. The Recruitics team looks forward to what IAMPHENOM will bring in 2024.
Read here for more information.
What were some of your major takeaways from IAMPHENOM? If you’d like to make your recruitment marketing strategies future-proof, reach out to the Recruitics team today. We’re here to help your brand thrive in the new reality.
