My RecFest 2025: How Being in a Field in Knebworth Keeps TA Future Focused ☀️🎡
I spent the day at RecFest with the wonderful team at AudienceLink to talk about change, adaptation, and the future of talent acquisition [and have some fun in the sun!]
There's something special about RecFest.
Take a recruitment conference, smash it together with a festival atmosphere, and you get thousands of TA professionals trading suits for sunglasses, networking over G&Ts, and having the kind of honest conversations that just don't often happen at your average conference!
I spent the day at RecFest 2025 with the brilliant team at Audience Link, and what I loved the most wasn't just the talks (though Rory Sutherland's keynote was predictably brilliant), but the conversations happening off-stage.
Everyone I spoke with had one thing on their mind: change.
There's something special about RecFest.
Take a recruitment conference, smash it together with a festival atmosphere, and you get thousands of TA professionals trading suits for sunglasses, networking over G&Ts, and having the kind of honest conversations that just don't often happen at your average conference!
Everyone I spoke with had one thing on their mind: change.
The Perma-Crisis Era
As one RecFestival Goer put it to me: we're living in a "perma-crisis."
The last five years have thrown everything at us – pandemic hiring freezes, the Great Resignation, economic uncertainty, and now AI reshaping everything we thought we knew about talent acquisition.
But here's what I found fascinating: the best practitioners aren't just surviving this chaos – they're thriving in it. They've learned to be adaptable, nimble, and most importantly, they've embraced change as a competitive advantage.
Rory Sutherland: Your Optimising The Wrong Thing
Watching Rory Sutherland speak is always an experience. The Ogilvy genius dropped some behavioural science bombs that should make every TA professional rethink their approach:
Stop optimising for the wrong thing. Instead of hiring for one perfect role, hire for three or four potential roles. Take a punt on someone. Rory himself was the "weirdo in the room" when Ogilvy hired him – and look how that turned out.
He shared a brilliant story about bees: 20% of bees don't focus on producing honey. They explore. They discover new sources. They're the innovators that ensure the hive's survival.
The question for talent leaders: Are you hiring enough explorers, or are you just optimising for honey production?
Soft Skills are The New Hard Skills
One conversation that stood out for me was about hiring for the stuff that’s much hard to teach and learn.
Values-based hiring (which, let's be honest, is most hiring), is an imperative when you need a workforce that can face the changes facing the organisations they work for.
You can teach the nuts and bolts skills, but finding people with the right values, the right vocation – that requires human connection.
The Strategic Imperative: Be Proactive About AI
At some point, someone is going to sell an AI TA solution to your CFO. They'll promise to replace your team with technology.
If that happens and you're caught off guard, you're on the defensive. Game over.
The smart play? Get ahead of it. Develop your AI strategy now. Show how technology amplifies your team rather than replaces it. Be the strategic advisor who talks business impact, not just hiring metrics.
The Power of In-Person Events
Walking around RecFest as the sun set, watching thousands of professionals networking over drinks, sharing war stories, and building real connections, I was reminded of something crucial: we're in the people business.
Yes, AI will change everything. Yes, we need to be more strategic, more data-driven, more efficient. But at its core, talent acquisition is about human connection. It's about finding the right people who will thrive in your culture and drive your mission forward.
Events like RecFest work because they create space for these in-person moments. The conversations that happen in the shade between talks, the insights shared over a beer, the chats on a Ferris wheel – these are the things that move our industry forward.
Looking Forward
Everyone wants to see the industry more advanced a year from now. The question is: what are you going to do differently?
Are you hiring explorers or just honey producers? Are you proactively building your AI strategy or waiting for someone else to define it for you? Are you having strategic conversations with leadership or just order-taking with hiring managers?
The future of talent acquisition isn't just about surviving change – it's about leading it.
What changes are you seeing in TA? Hit reply and let me know – I'd love to feature your insights in a future newsletter.
P.S. – If you missed RecFest this year, put it on your calendar for next year. Some conversations are worth the sunburn.