Jeff Hunter, the Director, Talent Strategy & Technology at Electronic Arts, Inc., is hosting the "Talent Unconference" in a few weeks out at EA's global headquarters (Redwood Shores, CA).

Here's the lowdown from Jeff's blog:

We all get calls. Lots of calls. Same old products, same old services. And yet somehow every one of these products and services is “innovative” and “serves your unique needs in astounding and special ways.”

We all read articles. Lot of articles. Same old people, same old story. And yet somehow every one of them has “redefined recruiting” or “changed HR” and “is truly leading pioneering work in talent.”

And then we meet people. A lot of people. New and exciting people. They really are innovating. They really are redefining the field of talent. Not the popular kids. These are the people in the chess club instead of the football field. They aren’t using the same old product or service, and they aren’t the same old people. They are tired of the same old ideas being sold as “new and innovative.” They get a thrill out of challenging the status quo. They live to create exciting new ways to transform the field of talent. Many times they aren’t in recruiting or HR but have a real passion around talent because the understand that it really is a game changer. They translate talent innovation into amazing business results.

I think it is time for these new people to teach and learn. It is time for an unconference.

One of the cool things about this conf...err, unconference is that you need to apply to attend. It's not just pay and show up. In other words, you need to add some value. In Jeff's words again:

On January 25 Electronic Arts is going to open its doors to those who can teach and learn about innovations in talent. I am calling this “Talent Unconference” or Taluncon for short. The ground rules are simple but absolutely unbendable. If you would like to show up on January 25 you have to do three things:

* Clearly define what you want to learn about how to attract, locate, connect with, work with, leverage the value of, measure the value of and / or reward talent. It has to be something that you have tried to learn somewhere else and weren’t able to because it just isn’t talked about, and it has to be something that has some connection to “business” (P&L).
* Clearly define what you can teach about how to attract, locate, connect with, work with, leverage the value of, measure the value of and / or reward talent. It has to be something that you can’t find a lecture or speech about anywhere else. And it has to be “innovative.” How do you know if it is innovative? Go to the next step.
* Write me an email telling me about those two things (see last line of article for details).

Here's what I wrote for my "application":

We want to both learn and teach about how companies and recruiters value, manage, control, understand the candidate experience from application to offer.

At TheLadders, we always say we “work for the job seeker”. We have a team of 20 in-house “Community” (customer-service) members that focus exclusively on the job seeker – responding to emails, answering phone calls, conducting live chats. The most common complaint that we hear from job seekers is that they never hear anything back from recruiters (both corporate and agency). But the most common refrain we hear from our recruiters is that they don’t have time/don’t want to respond to all applicants. What is the cause of this rift and what can be done to bridge the gap?

Given those questions, we want to learn what are companies doing to manage the candidate experience? How much is actually put into practice and how much is just lip service? How do companies manage their employment brand and candidate experience when so much of it is given over to 3rd parties – job boards, 3rd party recruiters, ATS providers, hiring managers? What defines a good candidate experience? What are companies doing after the hire is made to measure the experience? What other stakeholders are involved in defining and shaping candidate experience?

We can teach the same – we have thousands of interactions with job seekers and recruiters every week. The goals are the same – get jobs/make hires. But the methods and messages are different. We bring a unique job-seeker-focused viewpoint that no other vendor in online recruiting is capable of matching. Many companies manage the experience well but most do not. Why is that? By showing the true job seeker experience through our records of emails, phone calls, chat transcripts etc., we hope to engage in an honest dialogue of what is an acceptable candidate experience, how is this reconciled with the demands of the average corporate recruiter, and what standards can we all (vendors, candidates, hiring companies) adopt to bring everyone’s work up to a higher standard.

Hopefully I'll get in. I didn't mention that I want to see how they make Madden and Tiger Woods Golf, but that would be cool too :-).