Conferences are where the recruiting, HR and AI worlds actually collide — where the next sourcing tool gets discovered, where a cold lead becomes a coffee, and where you find out what everyone is quietly betting on for next year. The back half of 2026 is stacked. Here's the shortlist that's worth your travel budget — and where you'll find the Yena team in person.
Where to meet Yena: VivaTech 2026, Paris
First things first. VivaTech returns to Paris Expo Porte de Versailles from 17–20 June 2026 for its 10th-anniversary edition, and Yena will be there. VivaTech is Europe's largest tech and startup event — think 180,000+ attendees, 14,000 startups, and most of the investors, operators and decision-makers who set the agenda for the year.
If you build or buy recruiting technology and you want to see where AI is genuinely heading — not the keynote hype, the working products — this is the room. Come say hello. We'd love to show you what an AI-native ATS and recruiting CRM actually feels like in 2026.
The recruiting & HR-tech events worth your second half of 2026
Beyond VivaTech, here are the events we think matter most for recruitment agencies, in-house talent teams and HR-tech builders for the rest of the year — in calendar order.
TechBBQ — Copenhagen, 26–27 August
The Nordics' flagship startup summit, with roughly 10,000 visitors filling the Bella Center. Strong for founders, investors and the wider Nordic tech-talent scene — and a good read on where Scandinavian hiring is heading. techbbq.dk
Zukunft Personal Europe — Cologne, 15–17 September
If you attend one HR event in the DACH region this year, make it this one. Zukunft Personal Europe is Europe's leading HR trade fair — around 700 exhibitors at Koelnmesse, with Recruiting & Attraction as one of its core themes. For German-speaking recruiting and HR teams, it's the anchor on the calendar.
UNLEASH World — Paris, 20–22 October
The global flagship for HR and WorkTech. UNLEASH World at the Paris Convention Centre is where HR leaders go to see AI, talent and employee-experience technology at scale. If your job is buying or building HR software, this is the one to circle.
HR Technology Conference — Las Vegas, 20–22 October
The North American counterpart, at Mandalay Bay. HR Tech sets much of the agenda for HR software in the US, and it's the fastest way to benchmark the European market against what's shipping stateside.
Web Summit — Lisbon, 9–12 November
The largest tech conference in the world by attendance — 70,000+ people across the Altice Arena and FIL. Not HR-specific, but unmatched for breadth, investor access and spotting the cross-industry AI trends that reach recruiting a year later. websummit.com
Slush — Helsinki, 18–19 November
Founder-first, famously intense, and one of the best places in Europe to meet investors and early-stage operators. Slush at Messukeskus is two days of unusually high-signal energy.
GITEX Global — Dubai, 7–11 December
The world's largest tech and AI show closes out the year — and in 2026 it moves to a new home at Expo City Dubai, with 200,000+ attendees from 180+ countries. If your market reaches the Middle East, Africa or Asia, GITEX is the gateway.
Already wrapped for 2026 — put these on your 2027 list
Two more we rate, even though their 2026 editions have already happened: TechChill (Riga, March) is the Baltics' main tech and startup event, and Latitude59 (Tallinn, May) is the New Nordics' most international startup gathering. Both deserve a slot in your 2027 planning.
How to actually get ROI from a conference (a recruiter's checklist)
A conference is only as good as your follow-up. A few things separate the recruiters who close deals from the ones who collect lanyards:
- Build your target list before you go. Know the 20 people you actually want to meet, and why.
- Capture every lead the same day — into your ATS and CRM, not a stack of business cards that dies in your bag.
- Personalise the follow-up while it's fresh — reference what you genuinely talked about, not a template.
- Treat speakers and exhibitors as a sourcing pool, not just vendors. Some of your best future placements are on those stages.
This is exactly the work that falls apart when your tools don't talk to each other. The reason a great conversation never becomes a placement is rarely the conversation — it's the 48 hours afterwards, when the context lives in five different places.
However you spend your second-half travel budget in 2026, we hope some of it brings you to Paris in June. Stop by, and let's talk about what recruiting feels like when your stack finally catches up to the year on the calendar.