Talent Leaders Connect.  27^th April 2017.  Foyles bookstore.  The topic – Emerging Talent.  A host of great speakers from Centrica, L’Oreal, Cognizant, LaunchPad, TMP, Bright Network and Chemistry Group.  Plus bacon sarnies.  What else do you need?!

Here are our top ten takeaways.

Female graduates expected basic salary is £10,000 less than male counterparts – research from Bright Network highlighted this glaring pay gap.  Every employer needs to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Apprentices can have an exceptional impact on a business – Centrica shared how their apprenticeship scheme has had a great impact on the business.  Apprentices in their customer service team achieve 6% better productivity and 20 more NPS points than their competitors; and there is 7% better retention of apprentices over peers.

Most employers have a diversity issue of one sort or another – L’Oreal can’t recruit enough men; and two of my table companions said they can’t get enough women into their businesses – a beer company (!) and a strategy consulting firm.

AI can help with skin cancer, legal contracts and unconscious bias – Launchpad showed the inevitability of AI impacting on our lives, whether that is helping to treat skin cancer, demystify legalese or take the bias out of recruitment.  Food for thought.                                    

Content in recruitment needs to be a more precise science – We saw some interesting case studies from TMP on content, but the nagging question still remains – how can you make content more of a science than an art.  We think this is where AI will again come into its own.

Data is everything for early careers recruitment – Brian Sinclair from Cognizant talked (amongst other things) about the importance of data and how to measure true cost per hire.  Some handy models to follow.

Prestige matters more to men than women – we go back to Bright Network’s research.  Men are more interested in prestige and pay; and women are more interested in the role they will be doing.

Early talent recruiters don’t use Twitter very much – it was pretty quiet on the Twitter front. Not much on Instragram either.  Perhaps just prefer to listen!

Never present last – a few of us had to leave before the last presentation – sorry.

And what a place is Foyles – it may have changed a bit over the years (thank goodness), but it’s still got that beautiful smell of books.

Special thanks to the lovely people at Talent Leaders Connect for hosting the event and allowing us to come along.  Henry will be speaking at the next event.  Don’t miss it.  Get your tickets ‘ere.