While national HR conferences have the capability of drawing popular business owners and renowned speakers, they often lack the sort of personal interaction that really helps you learn and grasp what’s going on throughout the industry.

For that reason, there has been a trend as of late toward smaller, more intimate conferences. These still allow industry newcomers to soak up all the information the industry has to offer, and experts to share everything they know, but within a setting that is more conducive to learning and sharing.

One of the newest local HR conferences is The Recruitment Symposium, which will help you learn about how the newest technology can benefit your organization’s hiring efforts from the brightest industry professionals.

This HR conference will give you the chance to partake in the same educational opportunities you would find at a national recruiting conference, but from the comfort of your own hometown. You’ll have access to everything from presentations to roundtables to breakout sessions.

Just like a national conference, The Recruitment Symposium brings together the most recognized recruitment leaders, industry experts and national speakers. Unlike a national conference, however, it brings these professionals together in a unique, intimate setting.

What will you learn at The Recruitment Symposium? Most importantly, you’ll learn how to adapt to the consistently changing technology that effects the recruiting industry. As the best candidates no longer use the newspaper or a single job board to look for their next job, you’ll learn how to find the right audience when you need them the most, and make your organization visible everywhere your candidates live, work and play.

The Recruitment Symposium, presented by Jobing, will be held bi-annually in order to bring you the latest recruitment trends and topics from the best and most recognized local leaders, industry experts and national speakers.

Local professionals who have been successful in implementing social networking to their recruitment practices are still being sought to serve as speakers for The Recruitment Symposium. Speakers will be provided a forum to reach local decision-makers and leaders in the recruitment community.

A number of speakers are scheduled for this year’s Recruitment Symposiums, including keynote speakers Kat Drum, global employment brand manager for Starbucks Coffee Company, and Sebabi Leballo, organizational development manager for HCSS, as well as Jobing.com industry professionals.

So far, there are nine Recruitment Symposiums scheduled for 2010, including: South Florida on March 4; Houston on March 8; Denver on March 9; Dallas-Fort Worth and Tucson on March 18; San Diego on March 25; Phoenix on March 30; Tampa Bay on March 31; and Los Angeles on April 1.

The program, dubbed Agent Day in the Life, is an online experience that virtually presents a day in the life of an independent insurance agent. Candidates using the program are asked to complete a variety of typical job challenges and identify important career motivators.

Agent Day in the Life is useful to job seekers because it helps them decide if the role of an agent is right for them. The program is useful to recruiters because it provides them with a candidate profile that contains useful information about an individual’s qualifications above and beyond that provided on a resume.

“It is an honor that The Virtual Job Tryout has been sought out by market leaders and brand conscious firms seeking to create a unique candidate experience,” Joseph Murphy, vice president of Shaker Consulting Group, said.

Shaker Consulting Group’s Virtual Job Tryout can provide a valuable candidate experience on any company’s career page. Despite the fact that candidates realize the program is a type of pre employment test, 90 percent of job seekers who complete the program say they would refer the job to others based on the valuable and insightful nature of the experience.

Even though the number of mobile users and mobile devices is growing, mobile advertising and marketing dollars are falling behind. However, the report predicts that mobile ad spending, including messaging-based formats, will reach $416 million this year, but that number will increase to $1.56 billion by 2013.

“As an emerging advertising channel, mobile will continue to see lofty growth rates through 2013,” Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, said. “Mobile will grow considerably more quickly than online ad spending as a whole, more in line with emerging online formats such as digital video.”

Although eMarketer has revised downward its projections for mobile advertising to account for the economic downturn, the overall long-term outlook for mobile is still optimistic. Other companies have predicted varying estimates for mobile ad spending.

Yankee Group predicts $184 million will be spent this year, while the Mobile Marketing Association predicts $1.7 billion will be spent this year. Experts say the difference in predictions reflects the immaturity of mobile advertising and marketing.

When it comes to spending share for various mobile formats, eMarketer predicts search will see an increase from $57.6 million, or 18 percent, in 2008 to $577.2 million, or 37 percent, in 2013. Display is expected to grow from 22 percent of the total to 35 percent, while SMS is predicted to decline from 60 percent of the total to 28 percent.

“Disparate hardware and software platforms, competing app stores, rival search engines and a large, fragmented universe of agencies and service providers make the mobile ecosystem more daunting than the desktop environment,” Elkin said. “But overcoming this complexity pays dividends.”

The biggest difference, the survey found, is that only 19 percent of Android users download apps, compared to 40 percent of iPod touch users and 50 percent of iPhone users.

“However,” the report said, “users who purchase paid apps on either platform exhibit similar downloading and spending habits, indicating the potential for paid apps on Android Market as it develops.”

The report further found that each month, Android and iPhone users download about 10 new apps, compared to the 18 apps that iPod touch users download. More than half of both users spend more than 30 minutes per day using apps.

In addition, more than 90 percent of Android and iPhone users browse and search for apps directly on their mobile device. Users who regularly download paid apps spend an average of $9 on five paid downloads each month.

iPhone users still outrank others, representing 60 percent of America’s smartphone usage in AdMob’s network during July, followed by RIM at 13 percent and Android at 12 percent.

This year, 91.4 percent of the U.S. population is a mobile phone subscriber. That number is expected to increase to 95.3 percent by 2011 and again to 96.7 percent by 2013, according to “Mobile Users and Usage: It’s Personal,” a new study by eMarketer.

“With mobile usage now pervasive, eMarketer believes that mobile will develop into a ubiquitous platform for messaging, social networking, entertainment and Web access,” eMarketer Senior Analyst Noah Elkin said.

The study found the mobile subscriber population is not uniform. According to ComScore, 53 percent of mobile phone subscribers are women, while 47 percent are men. However, there are more male subscribers in the 18 to 44-year-old age range. There also are variations in usage by age, income, ethnicity and device type.

Text messaging has surpassed voice calling as the most popular means of communication on mobile devices. Nielsen found that during Q1, the average American mobile phone subscriber sent or received 486 text messages per month, but only made 182 calls.

During that same time, those 13 to 17-years old sent and received more than three times as many texts on a monthly basis as those 18 to 24-years old, and more than 50 times as many texts as those 55 to 64-years old.

In addition to text messaging, mobile Internet usage also has been steadily increasing. eMarketer found this growth will continue during the next five years, with the number of mobile users accessing the Internet to rise from 73.7 million this year to 134.3 million in 2013.

The mobile Internet user population is about one-third the size of the population that uses wired Internet, and smartphones have helped to bridge the gap between mobile Web and desktops.

“Growing sophistication in users, devices and usage patterns will mean increased opportunities for marketers to connect with consumers, particularly among the growing population of smartphone users,” Elkin said. “Yet marketers must take seriously the highly personal relationship users have with their mobile devices, and respect the need for a value exchange.”

Research in Motion was ranked number one on the list, with a three-year average earnings-per-share growth of 84 percent and revenue growth of 77 percent. Shares of RIM have a three-year annual total return of 45 percent.

Apple, which is three times the size of RIM in sales and market value, only came in at number 39 on the list. In fact, IDC recently reported that the bestselling smartphone in America so far this year by units is not the iPhone, but the BlackBerry Curve, which is made by RIM.

RIM has a 56 percent share of the $12 billion U.S. smartphone market. During the past 10 years, the company has sold about 65 million phones to its 28.5 million subscribers, increasing its stock market capitalization from $96 million to $42 billion.

Even though the BlackBerry was once considered a business tool, it has made large gains as a consumer product, and now appeals to many markets and age groups. During Q4 2008, 80 percent of the company’s new subscribers came from the non-business crowd, which could have something to do with the company launching its first television campaign targeting a mass audience at the same time.

A new report from Gartner found that 286.1 million mobile phone units were sold during Q2, a 6.1 percent decrease from Q2 2008. However, more than 40 million smartphones were sold, a 27 percent increase from last year.

One of the reasons smartphones remain popular is that most people buying new phones want either a QWERTY keyboard or a touch-screen. But people are still buying new phones based on price, and the current state of the economy is making it a tough time to sell phones.

“The recession continued to suppress replacement sales in both mature and emerging markets,” the report stated. “The distribution channel has dealt with lower demand and financial pressure by using up 13.9 million units of existing stock before ordering more. Gartner expects the gap between sell-in to the channel and sell-through to customers will reduce in the second half of 2009 as the channel starts to restock.”

The report found that Nokia is the market leader throughout the globe, as it sells almost as many phones as its next four competitors combined. In the United States, however, Nokia faces tough competition from the popularity of the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android.

The report also touched on the Palm Pre, which only sold 205,000 units, despite the amount of media attention the new phone attracted. Palm currently ranks 10th in the smartphone market.

The two companies have often been considered rivals in the cellphone industry, with Nokia operating Symbian software instead of Windows Mobile. However, both companies could benefit from the partnership, as both are working hard to cope with increasingly competitive industries.

Nokia, which is the world’s largest cellphone maker, is struggling in the smartphone market against rivals such as the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android.

Many think the partnership is a direct shot at Google, which offers its own Office-similar suite of e-mail, writing, graphing and presenting tools online and mobile devices. Microsoft is set to release its latest version of Office next year, including an online version that will allow users to access Word, Excel and PowerPoint over the Internet.

A recent copy of The Journalist, a German magazine, featured a recruiting ad from Siemens that included a QR code. Users who scan the barcode with their mobile phone are taken to an Internet site providing further information about the company and its positions.

QR codes are 2D bar codes that contain data. In order to read a QR code, a mobile phone user simply launches a reader on their device and takes a picture of the image. The software then triggers the appropriate response, which can include launching a URL in the phone’s browser or streaming a video or MP3.

While QR codes have mainly been used in Asia so far, they are beginning to gain more popularity throughout Europe and the United States.