Highlights from Arte Nathan’s fantastic keynote presentation:

On recruiters’ sometimes reluctance to do direct sourcing: “We’re there to steal people’s employees.”

On the frequent talk of “driving people” to your web site. “How about if you attract people to your site, how about if you attract people to your company?”

On assessing people: “We trained hiring managers to play poker — it’s a game of people - reading people - it’s about the bluff. A lot of interviewing is about the bluff.”

On what he told Steve Wynn when Wynn doubted if cooks and others would use the Internet to apply for jobs: “I’m willing to bet my career on it.”

On PeopleSoft: “Having PeopleSoft is like plugging your laptop in the tree.”

On recruiters: “Those are the real champions. They’re the heroes in our organizations.”

On drug tests: “I’m sure not sure why employers have to do drug tests.”

On what he said to someone who asked him what his “alternate dispute resolution” policy was: “I said, don’t have disputes. Train your managers to resolve the dispute.”

On convincing CEOs of the cost of turnover. “You have to know the financials, you have to know the economics. Track the cost of losing, track the cost of failure. You better be all about numbers. They don’t give a damn about time to hire.”

On what he learned from the slow hiring process in China. “We learned to have patience — Something we don’t have here in America.”