Let’s take a peek at what Kennedy has in store for its upcoming Recruiting2008 Conference in Orlando this month. With over 55 presenters, 33 sessions, seven pre-conference workshops, two post-conference summits and seven tracks, it is shaping up to be a very comprehensive show.

Its theme, The New Recruiting Mandate: Defining True Talent, sets the stage for exploring a broad spectrum of timely topics – from identifying critical skill sets, to new sourcing channels, to reinventing offline strategies.

Fear not the power of the brand
"Pull, grab, tear the essence of brand from your corporate bureaucracy and bring it to life!" This is how the adidas team of Steve Bonomo, Head of Global Recruiting, and Steve Fogarty, Recruiting Captain describe the process of employment branding.

Drawing from Frank Lane’s book, Killer Brands, in their keynote address, the two Steves will explore how to "derive a disproportionate amount of success… because of a compelling and differentiated expectation that comes to be associated with its name." A true Killer Brand, according to Lane, "will be chosen over competing brands—in any category, in any country, at any time, and often at any reasonable price."

Adidas itself is a killer brand on a powerhouse corporation. Which came first? Maybe it’s a chicken and egg thing, but maybe not. What can small and mid-size companies glean from the notion that Killer Brands are made not born? The adidas team will explain how they build Design, Simplicity and Beauty into their employment branding initiative at all levels. Essential to their strategy is the premise that these core elements – Design, Simplicity and Beauty – are not afterthoughts, but key drivers of the process, no matter how big the company or the budget.

Check out the following excerpt of their Kennedy Recruiting2008 Killer Brands presentation, which explores how design elements derived from Tom Peters' book, Design, can help companies build their employment brand.

Recruiting to win
Rose Dougherty, Staffing Director at LeapFrog Enterprises will also keynote Kennedy's Recruiting2008 program, exploring what "Recruiting to Win," really looks like. Rose’s central argument is that key to successful recruiting is successful partnerships. When hiring managers reach out to you first, when your internal business partners share organizational information in a strategic fashion, when your compensation partners validate salary and job description data, and when external agencies contact the recruiting department first, then you’ve achieved a winning recruiting function.

How do you get there?
Rose will look at two (and a few others) key relationships – with hiring managers and internal business partners to explain what LeapFrog does, and what every recruiting function needs to do to win. What are the partnerships, tools, accountability and measurement strategies that work?

The most central partnership, perhaps, is that with the hiring manager. "They’ll be your biggest fan or worst nightmare," Rose says. But if you show them your "toolkit" and let them see what you can do for them, you’ll have a much better chance of getting them to hold up their end of the bargain – reviewing resumes, returning your calls, and so forth. Being clear with hiring managers about what part of the process they own helps build a partnership founded on shared expectations.

Sustainable sourcing
By focusing her lens on her team’s relationships with LeapFrog’s internal HR partners – those closest to the entire organization, Rose is able to create a sustainable sourcing strategy. She can know what positions are coming open, who is moving where internally, and as the economy continues its current decline, they can strategize effectively to offset any reductions in workforce that may be on the horizon.

For Rose and her team at LeapFrog, working continuously behind the scenes to manage these vital relationships is the essence of building a pipeline of talent. I look forward to hearing how Rose and her team nurture these partnerships in her Keynote Address in Orlando.

Kennedy Information's Recruiting 2008 Conference & Expo is at The Florida Hotel and Conference Center in Orlando on November 16 - 19, 2008.