News from Nashville

I spent the early part of last week at the SHRM Staffing conference in Nashville. Around 1500 people attended - most were corporate recruiters although we did meet with some recruiters from colleges and universities looking to hire for faculty and staff positions.

First of all, the conference site - the Gaylord Opryland resort - was humongous! Every time I stepped out of my hotel room into the 9 acres of atrium-enclosed indoor gardens, waterfalls, conference areas and 3000 rooms, I got lost (seriously, I am not kidding). If it were not for the trusty map they handed me when I checked in, I would probably still be there.

When I actually got where I wanted to go, I learned a few things:

I heard Pat Summit, the head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team give the conference keynote. She is the winningest coach in NCAA history. She talked a lot about attitude, teamwork, team ownership of a goal, loyalty and accountability - values that she has tried to instill in her team to get them to the next level and to tackle their next challenge together. What a powerhouse!

I also saw Kevin Carroll, the author of the Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. His session was on Rediscovering Play : Bringing Fun and Passion to Your Work and Life. Kevin interjects fun and play into work environments to spur creativity and breakthroughs - his stints include working at Nike (where he was the catalyst behind this ad spot), ESPN and Starbucks (his words adorn coffee cups everywhere). His main message was to "resign as an adult" (we actually had to raise our hands and swear) and use your "eyes of a child" to turn ideas into reality. A breath of fresh air.

I also enjoyed 2 sessions on Gen Y. Amy Lynch of Bottom Line Conversations talked about retaining Gen Y workers by understanding their expectations ("paying your dues" versus "learning") and providing opportunities for career and skills growth through lattice/lateral moves. Marie Artim of Enterprise-Rent-A-Car shared her company's approach to giving new college hires what they value - location, career paths (ERAC has a nice interactive career map that explains this) and training.

Of course, I also enjoyed hanging out with industry notable such as Mark Mehler of CareerXroads, Joel Cheesman of Cheezhead and Danielle Zittel of ERE (who incidently got her job through Experience- yay!), all of the other recruiters that we met over the 2 unbelievably packed days at our booth, as well as my fabulous colleagues from Experience.

That said, I am glad to be back in Boston, where it is finally spring!