We all love technology. The promise that we can do things faster, the promise that we can do more things, the promise that life can be better.

And the HR and recruitment world is buzzing with new ideas at the moment.  So many technologies promising to revolutionize the way we attract and manage talent. Clouds, SAAS, big data, analytics, automatic, learning, semantic, gamification, modular, social, interactive, teamware, self-service etc etc – and when you hear about these technologies from the founders their enthusiasm can leave you breathless. You hear yourself agreeing that this is the app that the world has been looking for and that this could save 100s of man-hours and euros within 6 months. Their enthusiasm is infectious.

But once that glow has gone it seems that many of the ground-breaking ideas turn to dust  Only the very strong remain. Those that remain usually have some key things in common:

1. A simple to understand idea and an obvious benefit
2. Simple to use interface – as users we don’t want to learn new languages or new processes to benefit from the technology.  We want to plug and play
3. A dash of genius – that “wow” moment

The Netherlands is well known in the world of tech and recruitment as being an early adopter and innovator. As part of the Dutch Recruitment Innovation & Networking Club I have seen some of the companies who are on the verge of something big – we seem to excel in this and must have a higher proportion of innovators than other countries.  And any great companies from outside The Netherlands prove themselves in our market before expanding to the rest of Europe. 

We know we have exciting tech developments here but at the eRecruitment event this year we are wondering, “Have we missed out on any great technologies from outside The Netherlands?” Is there a tech company that we should know about – but somehow have missed? It’s difficult to know – you don’t know what you don’t know – and so you need other people to help. And so we are asking – using social media and “crowdsourcing “ – for people’s recommendations on important technology that we should invite to Amsterdam. 

The most popular and compelling companies will be invited to eRecruitment on April 17^th to introduce themselves and their company to 3-400 important corporate recruiters from the Netherlands. They will get the chance to do a 2-minute introduction and then spend the day demonstrating their product to the audience. At the end of the day we will select some winners and give them some more time and exposure on the stage.

Win-wins are great. We might just find that technology will is going to make those targets come true. And the tech companies might find an important foothold into one of the world’s most important recruitment markets.

Follow the hashtag #erecruitment for ideas and post your favourites too – we will be following them all up.

Dit gastblog is geschreven door Warren Hammond in zijn hoedanigheid als lid van de redactieraad voor het eRecruitment event van Emerce op 17 april.