How the National Council Pivoted from Print to Digital for Their Annual Recruitment Guide

Every year, National Council for Mental Wellbeing hosts NatCon — the largest conference in mental health and addiction treatment. With thousands of attendees, NatCon offers next-level learning, connections to experts, and peer-to-peer engagement for professionals across the behavioral health care field.

The Challenge: A Printed Guide in a Digital World

A major benefit of attending NatCon events was the printed recruitment guide distributed to all attendees — featuring advertisements from companies looking to hire behavioral health professionals. For NatCon20, the guide was set to be distributed to 6,000+ attendees to connect them with new job opportunities and provide highly qualified candidate exposure for employers.

Then COVID-19 hit. With in-person events cancelled, the National Council faced a critical question: how do you deliver the same recruitment value in a virtual environment?

The Solution: Digital Recruitment Guide

Working with Web Scribble, the National Council pivoted from print to a digital recruitment guide — an interactive, online experience that actually outperformed the printed version in several key ways:

• Always accessible — attendees could browse job opportunities before, during, and after the conference
• Searchable and filterable — instead of flipping pages, professionals could search by role, location, and specialty
• Measurable — the National Council could track views, clicks, and applications for each listing, giving employers real ROI data
• Evergreen — the digital guide remained live beyond the conference dates, extending the value window for employers and job seekers alike

The Results

The digital recruitment guide delivered measurable value for all stakeholders:

• Broader reach — virtual access meant the guide reached beyond just in-person attendees
• Higher engagement — interactive features drove deeper exploration than a static printed booklet
• New non-dues revenue stream — digital listings could be priced and renewed independently of the annual conference
• Year-round value — unlike a conference handout, the digital guide continued generating traffic and applications for months

What This Means for Associations

The National Council's experience illustrates a broader trend across associations: strategic career centers and recruitment tools are evolving from conference perks into year-round member benefits. By going digital, associations can:

• Offer employers measurable ROI instead of estimated print circulation numbers
• Give members a persistent career resource that adds value beyond events
• Generate recurring revenue from digital listings and employer packages

Interested in learning how your association can make a similar pivot? See how career centers fuel association success, or request a demo to explore the possibilities.