My First HUG: The Hireserve User Group

Almost exactly one year ago, I was walking wide-eyed through the doors of the Hireserve office, filled with excitement and trepidation. 

It was the first day of my apprenticeship with Hireserve, and I wasn’t sure exactly what was in store for me over the coming year.

It’s now a year later, and what a year it’s been: full of new experiences and new opportunities, as well as the odd steep learning curve! I couldn’t count how many new skills I’ve learnt – not least how to make coffee (although I’m sure some unfortunate Hireserve visitors would disagree…).

When I came in for my interviews, I remember the words “Hireserve User Group” repeatedly uttered in excited (albeit apprehensive) voices. I didn’t really know what it was all about, other than it seemed to be the biggest event on the Hireserve team’s calendar.

As I soon discovered, the Hireserve User Group (HUG) is a yearly event in which our customers come together to share and solve common in-house recruitment challenges, gain inspiration from industry speakers and presentations, and speak face-to-face with members of our team about how to get the most of our system, Hireserve ATS.

And this year I was part of the User Group team.

This was the first time I’d helped to organise anything larger than a birthday party or night down the pub, so as you can imagine I was a little nervous.

My first task was to find a venue that ticked all our boxes. Big enough, light enough, close enough to great transport links, and inspiring enough. After shortlisting a few venues, scrapping all of them, finding a few more and scrapping all of them too, we found a great venue in central London that was just right.

Soon it was time to start inviting customers, and embracing the communications plan that spanned from composing emails and scheduling phone calls to preparing LinkedIn updates. Having the opportunity to speak to our customers directly, and getting to know a little more about them and what they needed from the User Group, was fantastic.

From there, it was organising the little things needed to make the event run smoothly; name badges, table numbers, delegate packs, all those essential touches.

And then, in what felt like no time at all, the day was here.

And what a day it was! The agenda kicked off with a fascinating presentation from Jon Round on the upcoming GDPR laws that could impact in-house recruitment, moving onto a Q&A with customer StepChange, which gave detailed insight into how our software really does make a difference to third sector recruitment.

They were followed by a thought-provoking presentation by Arran Stewart, exploring the future of in-house recruitment and what impact mobile technology will have. And of course, there were also presentations on Hireserve ATS and upcoming developments from our inspiring Founder, Jeremy Ovenden.

NB: All customers can access the slides from this year’s User Group here.

Throughout the day, it was wonderful to see the passion that Hireserve ATS users had for in-house recruitment, whether they were discussing common challenges through a coffee break or getting stuck in during a roundtable discussion. Theirs is a community so supportive and innovative; users relish the opportunity to gain inspiration from each other, share knowledge, and continually evolve their recruitment strategy.

And then, just as it had started, the Hireserve User Group was all over so quickly.

My feet were hurting, I could barely keep my eyes open, and I’d eaten one too many biscuits – but I’d had a fantastic day. Seeing all our efforts come to fruition, and enjoyed by our customers, gave me such enormous pleasure.

And, as Hireserve have now offered me a permanent position with the company, I can already start looking forward to next year’s! Bring it on…

If you’d like to find out more about this year’s Hireserve User Group, and what our customers get from the event, watch our short vlog of the day:

Find out more

Who attends the User Groups? Take a look at who we work with

Read about last year’s Hireserve User Group here

Discover our definition of exceptional customer service, and how we deliver it to customers