Went along to an event run by LinkedIn group Irish Recruiters yesterday billed: The Future of Recruitment Part 2: The Road Ahead yesterday in Dublin's Westbury Hotel. This is the second in a series of conferences and other events run by Declan Fitzgerald, full time global sourcing manager at Microsoft, blogger and consummate tech evangelist.

The theme of the conference was very much cloud recruitment and Declan opened proceedings with a presentation on where he sees the industry going along with a whistle stop tour of the killer apps and tools available to professional recruiters today. Personally I couldn't see the recruitment angle on QR Codes but as a marketer they're certainly very interesting. Other tools such as Qik (offering free live video streaming) and Augmented Reality Browsers such as Layar and TAT. He also introduced us to his pet iphone recruitment apps and most of us agreed that the majority are not mission critical offering tips and guides rather than solving any major pain points with the exception of beamME CV which allows job seekers to apply and send cloud CVs via apple mobile devices. Excellent round-up of what's on the market all the same.

Then an exceptional presentation from Bill Fisher who spoke about his latest project TwitterJobSearch and to be honest it's a must for any serious recruiter or job seeker. It was so refreshing to see such high quality high brow technology being deployed in the recruitment industry and I'm definitely signing up for that. His presentation style was quirky and he's very funny - a breath of fresh air for us all.

Last slot before the break was another hugely professional recruitment professional, Martin Cerullo from AMS. If they deliver even half of what he told us yesterday well then this is the benchmark we should all strive towards. He spoke about RPO and just the ends and creativity to which they stretch the scope of their role within organisations (marketing, business processes, streamlining, efficiency, smart smart smart work) so beyond the traditional siloed definition of recruitment or sourcing elsewhere. Really really good.

I didn't network during the 30 min break at 4 as it'd been many hours since my porridge in Wexford so we trotted down to Avoca Cafe on Suffolk Street for an uber nourishing tomato and lentil soup.

After the break we were split into break-out sessions to solve the Jobs Boards Vs Social Networks dilemma. The general consensus was that job boards as they are today are nearing obsolescence and must simply evolve to stay in the game. All of us recruiters know that social networks are big, really big but our particular group felt corporate social networks such as LinkedIn and Xing are contenders but felt the more social ones were too cluttered for meaningful sourcing to take place. Personally as a biased job board owner, I believe they aren't mutually exclusive and are complementary and some sort of hybrid integrating the two is probably the best (aka we all agreed at the end that LinkedIn is in fact a jobs board). Great discussion all the same.

Sonru's newly appointed CEO Fergal O'Byrne gave an excellent presentation on his personal journey throughout his 15 years in the web industry and how video was where he wanted to be hence his recent departure as CEO of the IIA. Engaging, informative and personable, his talk made you believe in online video and then he wowed us with their remote video interviewing tool which is and will save many companies much time and money in screening candidates. Sonru is not yet one year old and they're selling in about 8 countries, have an enviable client list and what's more they're adding value - a must for our industry today.

Last up was a duo from Cork based EMC and regrettably their names now escape me, apologies. They gave an evangelical presentation on their experience of a recent Salesforce.com CRM implementation and were very pleased to discover the HR/recruitment bundle that was included. It was getting late, I'm not a multinational, I know CRM tools can literally change peoples' lives (working lives) but I'm from start-ups all the way so the topic didn't engage me but is relevant to multinationals or any company looking to streamline their business processes so check them out. I'll stick with my beloved and uber affordable 37signals.

Then to the bar for a glass of Guinness (driving), quick chat, network, nice to hook up with a few people - good conversation, excellent content all day. Overall worth the 120k round trip. Thanks to Declan. Keep it up.