As the #TRU London unconference draws to an end, my thoughts turn to what I have learned. This was my first ever unconference and whilst day 1 followed a slightly more established footprint, with most speakers using some form of PowerPoint slides to begin with (much to the chagrin of some of the unconference hardliners), the next few days were much more freeform.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, an unconference is an event where the content and subject matter is driven by the participants and attendees. Typically sessions are facilitated conversations around themes, as opposed to formal presentations and the audience is actively encouranged to contribute, challenge and criticise.

The anarchic nature of the sessions took some getting used to. Tracks could be organised, re-arranged or changed on the fly to suit the whim of the audience. Or the speakers. Attendees came and went freely in the midst of sessions in an never-ending quest for more compelling discussions. Bloggers tweeted furiously. Audiences panned speakers with equal parts vitriol, intelligence and humour. Friendships were made, timetables vaguely adhered to.

As one became more comfortable with the format, the quirkiness and lack of formalised structure started to appeal. The lack of sales pitches meant that the no time was wasted on information that added no value; the ability to engage with and directly challenge speakers (and other audience members) allowed for a much deeper investigation of the core issues than you would normally expect; the ability to move freely within tracks meant that track leaders learned pretty quickly about their ability to engage an audience.

This last point might sound cruel but it’s actually much more logical than it seems – audiences pay good money to attend these events and they don’t pay money to suffer poor presenters. Rather than receiving feedback weeks after an event has finished, running multiple tracks at the same time allowed attendees to move to where they felt they were getting the most value and forced speakers to up their game. As a facilitator, it’s quite unnerving and very un-British, but it helps you focus on changing the direction to suit the audience needs at the time.

So, what themes arose? Here are a few (and there are plenty of jounralists who will have picked up many more, so it’s worth checking the #trulondon twitstream)

• whilst some employers are using social media, they still seem to be using it as a channel for push communications, as opposed to actively engaging with candidates. Those organisations that have implemented social medai recruiting campaigns (e.g. ITV and Staples) discovered that the candidates and hires were of a much better quality. They also discovered that they needed to rethink about how campaigns were manned, as many took place outside of working hours.
• There is a vast amount of confusion still about the rules of engagement – on behalf of employers, recruiters and candidates. Too much of the rule setting is based on assumption. It would be great to see someoe, somewhere place a flag in the sand.
• Tactical recruiters are a dying breed. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the service that recruiters offer candidates (e.g. interview training, personal branding, reputation monitoring etc.). And having seen the number of successful recruiters here, I’m sure that many are already doing so
• People still think about recruitment in classical terms (i.e. organisation posts job, candidate sends CV, interviews etc, are conducted) Very few people seem to have thought about how to overhaul the process to make it better
• The people who (appear) to be driving the industry forward are the recruiters, the job boards and the agencies. There was a disappointing dearth of clients here and these are the people who really should be involved in (and dare I say, shaping, such discussions.

So, many thanks to Bill Boorman for organising such a great event. If you haven’t been to a #TRU I’d definitely encourage you to do so. And if you take my advice, then leave your inhibitions at the door…