At Top Echelon Network, we practice what we preach!  That’s why you’ll see us at a lot of recruiting industry events in 2012.

What we preach, of course, is networking.  How we’ll practice it is by attending a number of recruiting conferences and conventions around the country.

In fact, we’ll be in attendance at six industry events in 2012, and I wanted to take a moment to promote these six events in The Pinnacle Newsletter Blog.  In the interest of brevity, though, three will be included in this blog post, and the other three will be included in next week’s issue of the newsletter.

All three of the events in this blog post will occur during the month of May.  Those three are as follows, and I’ve included the name of the event, the date, the location, the website address, and the names of the Top Echelon employee (or employees) attending the event:

Illinois Search & Staffing Association (ISSA) Midwest Conference

Date—Thursday, May 3
Location—CareerBuilder offices in Chicago, Illinois
Website—http://issaworks.com
Top Echelon employee in attendance—Internet Strategies Manager Todd Bossler

New England Association of Personnel Services (NEAPS) Annual Conference

Date—Thursday, May 3, through Saturday, May 5
Location—Sheraton Harborside Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Website—http://www.neaps.org
Top Echelon employee in attendance—President Mark Demaree (yes, that’s me)

Ohio Association of Executive Search Professionals (OAESP) Spring Workshop

Date—Monday, May 14
Location—Embassy Suites-Columbus Airport in Columbus, Ohio
Website—http://www.oaesp.org
Top Echelon employees in attendance—President Mark Demaree and Hiring Hook Salesman Mike McCrae

I wholeheartedly encourage you to check out the websites of the above associations, and if you’re already a member or live in the area, to attend these upcoming events.  We believe in the value that these events offer, including the networking opportunities they present, and that’s why we’re proud to sponsor them.

We also hope to see you there!

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330.455.1433, Ext. 172
MDemaree@TopEchelon.com
Connect with Mark on LinkedIn.
Follow Mark on Twitter.

The 2012 Top Echelon Network National Convention is next week!  Specifically, it’s scheduled for Thursday, March 22, through Saturday, March 24, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tenn.

As you probably know, Top Echelon Network is represented well on the various social media websites, including Twitter.  As such, it’s common not only for us to tweet during special events like the upcoming National Convention, but it’s also common for the Preferred Member recruiters who attend such an event to tweet during it, too.

This makes sense, since we all want to share what we’re learning and experiencing.  However, to facilitate a more organized tweeting environment (if that’s even possible), I’d like to present the “Official Hashtag of the 2012 National Convention.”

First, that sounds more important than it actually is, which was by design.  And second, it’s easier to use than it sounds.

A hashtag is a tool within Twitter used to aggregate the conversation surrounding a topic, or in this case, an event.  You create a hashtag by combining the pound sign (#) with a word, acronym, or phrase.

As an example, this is the “Official Hashtag of the 2012 National Convention”:

#TENAT12

All you have to do is include this hashtag with every one of your tweets regarding the National Convention.  And you don’t have to actually be at the convention to do it.  You can use the hashtag even if you’re just tweeting your thoughts from the comfort of your own home . . . or while you’re at the office . . . or via your smartphone.

When I tweet this blog post, I’ll insert #TENAT12 at the end of my tweet.  Later, if you conduct a search in Twitter using #TENAT12, Twitter will find and present all the tweets that include that hashtag.  Once you do that, you can also view “Realtime” results for that hashtag.

So if you’re attending the convention, I look forward to seeing you there, and I encourage you to tweet heavily.  If you’re not attending the convention, shame on you, but I encourage you to tweet heavily, anyway.  (And as always, tweet responsibly.)

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330.455.1433, x125
MDeutsch@TopEchelon.com
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.
Follow Matt on Twitter.

At Top Echelon Network, we are ALL about continuous education and training.  After all, we traditionally hold two conferences a year (the National Convention and the Fall Conference), and we’ve been offering FREE online recruiter training webinars this year.

So in addition to joining us for the upcoming National Convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tenn., we’d also like to invite you to attend the Fordyce Forum 2012, a conference for search and placement professionals from the publishers of The Fordyce Letter.  This year’s event is scheduled for Thursday, June 7, and Friday, June 8.

However, for the first time in five years, there’s a new venue for the Fordyce Forum.  In years past, it was held in Las Vegas.  This year, though, the site is the Hotel Palomar in Dallas, Texas.  Below is a description of the conference, taken from the Fordyce Forum website:

We know your time is valuable, and we strive to bring you the best information from top recruiters and leaders in the third-party recruiting space.  We also know that change is important for you to take your business from good to great, and we’re doing things a little differently this year to help you with this.  Fordyce Forum 2012 will truly be a “working conference,” at which recruiters and recruiting firm owners will participate in activities and workshops to develop skills and thought processes that you can bring back to work and immediately implement.  And you’ll be networking directly with your peers and colleagues during these workshops.

As usual, the Fordyce Forum will boast some of the most popular speakers in the recruiting and staffing industry, including Jon Bartos, Barb Bruno, Greg Doersching, Jeff Kaye, Bob Marshall, and Rob Mosley, to name just a few.

Click here to see the complete lineup of speakers.

Click here to see the agenda for the Fordyce Forum.

Click here to see the sponsors for the conference.

Click here for more information about the location.

Click here to register for Fordyce Forum 2012.

If you sign up before Friday, March 2, you’ll save $300 off the price of Regular Registration, so register today!

Big Biller, the leader in online recruiting software; Hiring Hook, recruiting websites for recruiters; and Top Echelon Contracting, the recruiter’s contract staffing solution are all proud sponsors of this year’s Fordyce Forum.  So we hope that you’ll attend the event . . . and that we’ll see you there!

For those of you who plan to attend the upcoming 2011 Fall Conference in Chicago, we have an important announcement:

The Embassy Suites O’Hare/Rosemont is currently SOLD OUT for the dates of the conference.

Those dates are Thursday, October 20, and Friday, October 21.  We had a limited number of rooms blocked at the Embassy Suites, and those rooms are now gone.  We were hopeful that if the Embassy Suites did sell out, it would be after the end of our Early Bird Registration period.  Alas, that is not the case.

So . . . what does this mean?

Well, it means that those of you planning to attend the Fall Conference will have to book a room at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, which is basically located right next to the Embassy Suites O’Hare/Rosemont.  Below are some important points regarding this announcement:

• The rate for the DoubleTree is $169 per night.  With that in mind, if you have the opportunity to share the cost of a room with another Preferred Member recruiter, we encourage you to do so.
• We have blocked 10 room nights at the DoubleTree.  However, we expect those to get snatched up quickly, so book your rooms ASAP.
• Click here to visit the website for the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, where you can take a virtual tour and also book your room.

Remember, Early Bird Registration for the conference is still underway.  During Early Bird, you can register for the Fall Conference at the low price of $199 per person.  (This is still the lowest price we’ve ever offered for a full-blown Fall Conference, even after all these years.  We don’t raise the cost of attending our events, no matter what’s happening in the economy overall.  In fact, we’ve lowered them).

Once again, below is the registration schedule:

Early Bird Registration, from now until Monday, September 12—$199 per person

Regular Registration, from Tuesday, September 13, until Monday, October 10—$229 per person

Late Registration, from Tuesday, October 11, until the start of the conference—$249 per person

There are currently 39 recruiters signed up for the Fall Conference, and we expect many more to register before the end of Early Bird.  So don’t wait any longer—sign up now and do the things you need to do in order to make more money!

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View the preliminary agenda.
Register for the Fall Conference.
See who’s already signed up.

We can guarantee that there will be Top Producers in the Network at the upcoming 2011 Fall Conference.  That’s because some of them will be presenting sessions at the conference, scheduled for Thursday, October 20, and Friday, October 21 at the Embassy Suites O’Hare/Rosemont.

One of those Top Producers is Bob Wylan of R.A. Wylan & Co., Inc.  Wylan has been ridiculously consistent in the Network since he became a Preferred Member, making split placements each and every year, including this one.  Overall, he’s made a total of 15 Network placements, many of them with hefty split fees.

The secret behind Wylan’s success?  It really isn’t a secret at all.

“It’s all about establishing relationships and building trust,” said Wylan, who started in the recruiting industry in 1979.  “I’ve found that operating with honesty and integrity is the best way to conduct business.”

One of the unique aspects of Wylan’s session in Chicago is that it revolves around the game of golf.  That’s because Wylan, an avid golfer, has discovered a correlation between the way somebody plays golf and the way they conduct themselves in a business situation.  In other words, Wylan will know if he wants to work with you after playing with you (and observing you) on the golf course.

The best part is that Wylan has applied these principles to his recruiting firm and to his Preferred Membership in Top Echelon Network, and he’s done so with great success.  These principles are proven, timeless, effective, and applicable for other Preferred Member recruiters.  That’s one of the reasons we asked Wylan to present a session at the Fall Conference.  We want him to share his insight—and his wit—with those in attendance.  Below is a brief synopsis of what to expect from Wylan’s session.

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Session Title: “I Learned Everything I Needed to Know About Business from Golf” or “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Driving”

Presenter: Bob Wylan of R.A. Wylan & Co., Inc.

Date: Friday, October 21

Time: 3 to 3:45 p.m.

Session Description: How can the game of golf make you more productive as a recruiter?  Help you build better relationships?  Help you make more split placements in the Network?  Join Wylan as he educates you not only about golf, but also about how the game can help you to successfully deal with clients and other recruiters, especially in a face-to-face situation.  Regardless of whether or not you’re a golfer, everyone knows how many deals are sealed on the green.  Now you can find out how the game of golf can help you seal more deals, too!

(Editor’s Note: Wylan was recently profiled in The PinnacleNewsletter Blog because of his success as a Preferred Member recruiter.  Click here to access the “Recruiter’s Resume” feature about Wylan.)

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View the preliminary agenda for the conference.
Register for the Conference at the “Early Bird” Rate.
See who already signed up.
Access more information about the hotel.