What a Day!
For those that don’t know Silicon Milk Roundabout (SMR for short) is a recruitment fair held in London for tech start-ups started by a company called Songkick who were facing a struggle like a lot of tech start-ups, How do you get good, talented and motivated people interested in working for start-ups.
Well it works, this is the third event and it has grown from strength to strength each event has doubled in size which is pretty amazing in its self.
I went on the Sunday with Alfresco to help fill some Java developer rolls we have and to get details of people interested in working with us when we have rolls available, I think giving away a free iPad 3 helped get some details.
Was it hard work?
You bet!, there was a lot of people to talk to and so many people seemed really interested in the culture Alfresco has and how they reward their staff and it was good for us to meet people that were engaged and passionate about their area of expertise. I personally think that if you’re passionate about what you do, you never really work, and if you’re not passionate you shouldn’t be doing it, do something better with your time… Luckily all employers want passionate employees that are willing to go that extra mile, and where better to find them than in a building with no air-con on a scorching May day at 26 Degrees celsius on a Sunday; I mean they have to be passionate to still want to go to recruitment fair when the weather is perfect out side, and it looks like to me there was as many people as the time before especially on the day I was at.
There was a certain amount of prep work we decided to take upon ourselves for the event; some of it was worth while, some of it not so much, but that in its self was invaluable, it had to be done, we didn’t want to be a company standing there with no branding or anything to sell what it was that we were about. Other companies took a lightweight approach some had much more elaborate stands involving rigging for lights, one even had a juggler.
I would recommend that anyone spends a little time working out how they wish to come across and then learn from their experiences, for example, we now know taking chocolates on a hot day is not a smart idea.
Was it worth while?
It’s early days to say for sure wether or not it worked out for us from a recruitment point of view but regardless of us filling any roles, we got the details of a lot of people that were passionate and interested which we can hopefully pull on for future vacancies to save us relying on recruiters and LinkedIn.
The other benefit, outside of recruiting is that I’m sure it helped raise the profile of Alfresco, which should have more of a “Buzz” about it, even I learnt new and interesting facts, most importantly it is the 2nd largest open source company in the world. Thats something we should be bragging about a bit more than we are.
Summary
It was a good day, a long day and definitely a worth while day; one which I hope to do again soon anyway.
soimasysadmin 