Job board con­fer­ences are known for net­work­ing…and par­ty­ing. Most of the time, those in our indus­try are siloed into their own lit­tle world, keep­ing their busi­ness­es afloat, and watch­ing the indus­try from afar. Job board con­fer­ences help you bridge the gap between being on your own – and meet­ing up with like-mind­ed folks. Many of my clients have gone to con­fer­ences and come home with a few deals under their belts (as well as some inter­est­ing swag).

These con­fer­ences are a clas­sic exam­ple of ‘you get out of it what you put into it’. If you go ready to learn – well, most of the time, you will learn a lot. And if you go to net­work and per­haps cook up a few new deals – you will. The two job board con­fer­ences described below are designed to opti­mize both learn­ing and net­work­ing. One is rel­a­tive­ly new, and one has been around long enough to go through a name change! But both are run by expe­ri­enced folks who know the job board indus­try. Let’s take a clos­er look:

• Job Boards Con­nect: I wrote about this last year, and since then, the two orga­niz­ers – Louise Grant and Louise Tri­ance – have expand­ed from once a year to twice a year.  The next one is May 11th, in Lon­don, and is billed as ‘Unplugged‘ (are they pay­ing roy­al­ties to MTV? I don’t know). The 1‑day event has mul­ti­ple tracks and an infor­mal set­ting, which I sus­pect will allow for lots of inter­ac­tion with par­tic­i­pants and speak­ers. It of course ends with a drinks recep­tion! The annu­al con­fer­ence is Octo­ber 12th (again in Lon­don), and in addi­tion to the usu­al line up of ses­sions, includes both break­fast and lunch. Food is gen­er­al­ly an attrac­tion at con­fer­ences, I’ve found. Both con­fer­ences tend to attract pri­mar­i­ly UK and EU folks, although there will be some from North Amer­i­ca and else­where, I imag­ine. Although I haven’t attend­ed this con­fer­ence in per­son, the feed­back I’ve got­ten from those who have has been uni­form­ly pos­i­tive. The last one sold out, so if you’re inter­est­ed, I would sug­gest act­ing quick­ly.
• TAt­e­ch North Amer­i­ca & the World Job Board Forum: TAt­e­ch as an orga­ni­za­tion has been around since the mid-2000s (back then it was called the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Employ­ment Web­sites, or IAEWS), and although some aspects of its con­fer­ences have changed over the years, it is still a pop­u­lar event for meet­ing and min­gling with oth­er job board­ers. This mul­ti-day con­fer­ence is in Austin, TX this year (May 22–24), and in addi­tion to job board­ers, it will also include folks from aggre­ga­tors, pro­gram­mat­ic plat­forms, and tal­ent mar­ket­places. The agen­da includes a ses­sion on sell­ing and exit­ing your com­pa­ny (sure to be pop­u­lar!), diver­si­ty in the indus­try, and a roundup of star­tups. I imag­ine there will be inter­est­ing after-hours get-togeth­ers as well – Austin keeps a per­son busy!

These two job board con­fer­ences are def­i­nite­ly the ones to vis­it if you are plan­ning on attend­ing one this year. If you go, tell ’em that the Doc­tor sent you!

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