[SwellJoe]

For companies that are growing rapidly, it's a pretty common recruiting tool. You may notice that a lot of speakers begin and/or end their talk with, "I work on X at Y Company, and we're hiring!"

I've done contract work for companies at both extremes; there are many companies that consider speaking or participation in conferences as a part of the job, and there are those that don't even discuss it and would never consider sending employees to conferences.