5 Highlights That Will Make This Year’s Talent Connect Special

Talent Connect Las Vegas is just around the corner and we can no longer contain our excitement. Over 130 speakers are wrapping up preparing their TED-style talks and influencers are getting ready to unleash their knowledge. This year, we’re expecting thousands of companies represented and over 4,000 attendees.

If you’ve been to—or just heard about—past events, you know that just how much learning, inspiration, and networking are packing into the 3 day event and this year, we have some extra special things in the works. Below is just a little taste:

1. The legendary Sir Richard Branson will share his inspiring story in a fireside chat

We are thrilled to have nabbed the forward-thinking Sir Richard Branson as a Talent Connect keynote speaker. In his keynote, Branson will talk about a business’ most valuable asset: people, which he calls “the lifeblood of the brand.” If you get the right mix of people working for you, chances of success are far greater than you think.

The innovative businessman will walk through his own journey and lessons learned from founding Virgin Group, which today is made up of more than 200 companies in everything from hotels to space travel. He’ll also talk about the importance of company culture—and how talent acquisition leaders play a massive role in forming that culture and therefore, are crucial to a business’ future success.

2. New skill-building workshops to expand your professional horizons

Every year, we have different session tracks audience members can pick and choose from. This year’s tracks include Employer Branding, Leadership & Strategy, Recruiting Essentials, and Succeeding with LinkedIn where you can learn best practices and hear customer success stories. And, there’s one more track we’re particularly excited about: Expand Your Horizon.

The Expand Your Horizon track includes skill-building workshops aimed to help you overcome any challenge that comes your way, whether professional or personal. These sessions range from how to manage stress (we all need this, no matter what role we’re in!) to effective listening to thinking about how our body language robs us of our “leadership presence.”

In addition, the comedian-slash-inspiration-master Deborah Frances-White will host a workshop on the “Power of Play” to teach people how to unleash their inner child—what she calls one of the best moves anyone can make for their careers.

3. The stories of industry needle-movers that will inspire your own recruiting transformation

Talent Connect is a conference by recruiters for recruiters and our goal is to feature stories that will change the way you think about your job. And we are not saying this flippantly -- year over year we get feedback that many of you find ideas during the conference that have transformed your careers.

This year, we have selected some of the top recruiters and the hottest brands across the globe to share their wisdom. Those talks include Netflix speaking about how to form a true partnership with your stakeholders, GE Digital explaining how a century-old company has transformed itself as a techie heaven, Starbucks lifting the curtain to reveal how it has optimized its recruiting funnel by relying on ecommerce tactics and data. And these are just 3 out of 80+ breakout sessions -- there is so much to be learned.

4. The opportunity to network with peers from across the globe

Year over year, attendees tell us how thrilled they are to speak with and learn from peers from diverse backgrounds. And while in past years we’ve had several conferences in different regions, this year we’ve decided to combine our conferences and bring everyone together in Las Vegas for our first ever global Talent Connect. That’s thousands of attendees from all over the world who will share their diverse ideas and learn from one another on a global scale.

And for those of you who love networking, Talent Connect provides multiple opportunities to create new meaningful business relationships:

• The welcome reception: Starting at 6pm on Wednesday, October 5th, the welcome reception will be in the central gathering spot of the event -- the inLounge. This is a great opportunity to kick off the conference right and meet some of your peers on Day 1.

The welcome reception from Talent Connect 2015 in Anaheim

• Evening event at the Palms Resort: Talent Connect is known for throwing a really memorable celebration for recruiters on Day 2 of the event, and this year will be no exception. Make sure to join us for the evening at 7:15pm on Thursday, October 6th and get ready to socialize. Need a little visual evidence of the bonding opportunities from years past? Say hello to our giant foosball table from Talent Connect in 2013:

• During lunches and between sessions: We strongly encourage you to break out of your comfort zone and sit with people you don’t know during lunches and breakout sessions. This is a great time to exchange ideas and make new connections.

• Mobile app messaging: Once you arrive at the event, make sure to check out the mobile app. It will not only help you stay up to date with the agenda, and plan your sessions, but also message other attendees and exchange notes and ideas.

5. For the LinkedIn geeks: Expert advice to boost your and your company’s profile, and exclusive insights on LinkedIn products

Do you want to make your personal LinkedIn profile and your company page go from drab to fab (who doesn’t!)? Attendees at Talent Connect will have a chance to do just that at the My Story booth in the inLounge. Profile consultants will be available to give you key insights on your profile and will even provide new headshots then and there.

LinkedIn will also be showcasing extreme career page makeovers, displaying before and after snapshots of your LinkedIn pages. We all know employer branding is a BIG deal and this will help you make sure you’re marketing your personal and company pages effectively on LinkedIn.

Finally, as every year, we are excited to share with you the LinkedIn product roadmap and all of our latest innovations on the main stage. For those of you who want an even deeper dive into the latest products and how to make the most of them, check out the “Succeeding with LinkedIn” sessions.

Want to make Talent Connect memories of your own? It’s not too late to join us in Las Vegas on October 5-7.

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