An Unofficial Guide For Attending The London Recruitment Agency Expo 2024

The London Recruitment Agency Expo is just under a week away and I never see that much advice around attending the exhibition so I’ve got you covered. Trust me this guide will be useful no matter how many times you’ve attended or haven’t attended. Take this as an unofficial guide on The London Recruitment Agency Expo from someone who has attended the exhibition too many times over the past 10 years. 

Website

You can find the main website here, which will give you the bulk of the information. 

Where & when?  

It’s taking place at The ExCeL London in East London on Tuesday 19th March and Wednesday 20th March (next week!). 

Tickets

Pretty basic but make sure you register for your ticket. Here’s the link, it only takes a few minutes and will save you a bunch of hassle on the day. 

Travel

You’ve got three main options, the DLR, driving or a taxi there (or a plane to City Airport if you’re minted!). 

If you’re taking the DLR, which is probably the best option, make sure you travel to Custom House Station. This is the closest station to The ExCeL London and it’s just a short walk up the stairs. Just follow everyone who gets off the train, they’re all going to the same place - there’s nothing else at Custom House. 

Getting a taxi around London between 8am - 9am is always tricky. Depending where you’re coming from you can grab a black taxi or download a taxi app such as Uber or Bolt on your phone and use that.  

If you are driving down then you’ll need to pre-book a spot here. 

Hotels

If you’re attending the exhibition on both days, then you’ll probably need a hotel room nearby. There are hotels all around The ExCeL London but they tend to be pretty expensive, around £200-£550/night and the nicer ones may already be booked out for those dates. The ExCeL is unfortunately located in between Canary Wharf and City Airport so they can get away with crazy prices. Plus they tend to be aimed at the exhibitors more so than visitors. 

It might be worthwhile looking at a 3 or 4 star hotel for around £100-£200/night in Tower Bridge or around St. Katherine’s Dock and grabbing the DLR straight to Custom House (maybe a 10-15 minutes journey). I hate the logistics of booking holidays and hotels so I’m probably the worst person to ask on this subject. 

The day before

It might be an idea to save your LinkedIn QR code as your mobile phone wallpaper or screensaver, which will hopefully mean making connections and adding people to LinkedIn will be a whole lot easier. 

Reach out to anyone who you think might be going and arrange to meet up - reach out to any suppliers or recruiters you know who are based in London as I’m sure they’ll be popping by for a few hours at least. Exhibitions are always so much better when you get a chance to meet up with business partners and old colleagues. You can search for people who may be going by searching for hashtags such as #recruitmentagencyexpo, #recexpo or #recagencyexpo. 

On the day

On the morning of the exhibition make sure you post on LinkedIn that you’re attending the event, you’re bound to have a few people get in touch asking to catch up. 

You’ll probably want an outfit that’s smart with comfortable shoes - I’m always surprised at the amount of walking I do at exhibitions. I always wear chinos, a shirt and a pair of trainers - I don’t think I could do the full day in formal shoes. And bring along a jacket, bag and umbrella - you can always leave them in the cloakroom if need be. The weather in London hasn't been great the last few days and it looks like it’ll be raining for the next week or so, although it is quite mild. 

If you can avoid it, don't bring your laptop - it's just an extra hassle and I doubt you'll get much work done there anyway.

Last year they had a huge queue stretching miles back just to get into the show so you may need to factor this in too. Everyone’s really friendly so chat away to pass the time. 

Remember to take breaks from the event, the ExCeL and the exhibition can be a little overwhelming so pop out of the hall and the centre and grab some fresh air or grab a coffee. 

Merchandise

As with any exhibition there’s going to be a hundred exhibitors trying to lure you into a conversation with the promise of merchandise. Bring a rucksack, hand bag, laptop bag, basket, suitcase, shopping trolley or Santa sack for all the free swag everyone is giving out. You can expect all the usuals such as pens, notepads, sweets, bottle openers, keyrings, and so on. A lot of exhibitors are moving towards competitions too and some of the prizes are amazing - we’re talking PlayStation 5 level (more on that later)! 

Food & drink

The ExCeL isn’t particularly great for food or drinks but you’ve got a fair number of options within the exhibition centre that line the main corridor through the venue. You can check out some of the options here.  

Also there’s only one main pub, The Fox, which is located just outside the main venue down a flight of stairs. I still can’t believe they have a complete monopoly on The ExCeL. Everyone after the event will be here and it will be packed! I’m talking 5 deep at the bar packed so make sure you send up the best looking person from your group to get served because if you’re short & ugly like me it’s going to be a lot harder. 

RecWired will also be hosting their event there so make sure you sign up! Also Recruitment Accountants are throwing an “Executive Mixer” at The Fox too and you can sign up here.  

According to one of Bullhorn’s recent posts it looks like they have coffee and snacks available at their stand. 

If you need a little pick me up then CloudCall are also offering free coffees so swing by their stand for a coffee and a chat. 

Rocket Recruitment, the onboarding & compliance tool will as usual have their mixologist on hand serving up some brilliant cocktails to keep the conversations flowing. 

Broadbean have their renowned cocktail bar with the same mixologist I believe they’ve had since day one.  

I haven’t seen anything specific yet but JobAdder usually has pancakes at their stand. Sonovate have typically had pancakes too in the past but I haven’t seen a mention of this on their socials so don’t hold me to it. 

There’s a few bars dotted along the main corridor outside of the hall so sometimes you’ll see visitors congregating there over lunch for a quick pint or some of the exhibitors have a drink there just after the show has closed for the day.  

Speakers

Before turning up on the day make sure you take a look at the speakers here and work out who you want to see. It’s easy to get wrapped up chatting away with friends and old colleagues and end up missing out on some great talks.  

When you first arrive at the venue, I’d recommend walking around the circuit to get an idea where all the stages are. There’s nothing worse than wanting to attend a talk then running around frantically 2 minutes beforehand trying to locate the stage. 

Also be sure to take notes during the talks, whether you record them, take notes on your phone or in one of the many notepads you’ll be given by the exhibitors. 

Here’s a link to the programme to make it a little easier for you. 

Exhibitors

A major part of the exhibition is obviously the exhibitors. The reason we can all attend free of charge as a guest is because the event is sponsored by tens of recruitment industry suppliers. Yes they’re trying to sell their products and services to you but I see it as more of an educational piece. These are companies that can make your recruitment agency better, they can increase your productivity, efficiency, reduce costs and so on. They can offer better finance rates for your contract recruitment agency, legal advice as your recruitment business scales, recruitment CRM providers offering new services (AI, ML, integrations, etc.) that your current provider just can’t. Essentially these are companies that can help increase the efficiency of your consultants and increase your agency’s profits. Have a chat with them - it will definitely be worth your time. 

Take time to look through the full list of exhibitors and determine which services might be of benefit to your agency and make a note of any companies that specialise in those areas.

Giveaways

On top of all the free merchandise there’s normally a bunch of competitions and giveaways.

Idibu are apparently running their "Data Booster" game where you'll navigate through cyberspace, competing for top of the leader board and be in with a chance to win a pair of AirPods!

JoinedUp by Beeline and RECRUSO have both mentioned some “goodies” but your guess is as good as mine. And RedKnows has some “free stuff too”. 

Lawspeed, a law firm specialising in the recruitment sector, is offering the chance to win a package of contracts. 

LogicMelon is giving away their fabulously vibrant notepads. 

You can be guaranteed there’ll be loads of competitions and some brilliant prizes so make sure you engage with all the exhibitors! 

Afterwards

A day or so after the event, put some time aside to reach out to all the new connections you’ve made and would like to make. Leaf through the show guide and any industry supplier brochures & leaflets you picked up and reach out to them via LinkedIn or their website. Also get in touch with any speakers you really enjoyed and thank them for their time and effort - remember that 95% of the speakers aren’t paid for their time on stage. 

Be sure to go through your notes from the talks and put plans in place to implement them. It’s just a waste of time attending the expo and listening to the speakers if you don’t take on board and implement their advice - this is just as important as attending the show.  

And of course it goes without saying but if you see me walking around then feel free to grab me for a chat!