Blog Content
I was honoured to attend theAPSCo Awards for Excellence. A massive room at the RBS offices, full of recruitment professionals trying to act cool, whilst waiting for the decisions about their awards entries.
I was doubly honoured to be shortlisted for the Affiliate of the Year – and WE WON! I did not act cool when they read Barclay Jones out… I was a proper giggly girl (and so was Wayne!)
“Barclay Jones showed very strong evidence of commitment, investment and support of APSCo throughout the year. Very supportive of APSCo ideas and helping them to explore new initiatives.”
Plus, what an honour to listen to David D’Souza from theCIPDtalk about dinosaurs, tell really funny jokes, and also ask some pretty pertinent questions about recruitment and the future.
The Association of Professional Staffing Companies
The APSCo awards are close to my heart. We talk a lot about Recruitment Awards on our blog and have created an e-bookto help you win (and of course place more candidates and make more money!). We ran a webinar all about awards with APSCo earlier this year.
“These awards are now firmly recognised as the most prestigious accolade in professional recruitment and are a unique indicator of standards throughout the sector. The annual event has become the premier showcase for innovation, best practice and outstanding achievements which acts as a catalyst for firms to attract publicity and build their brand amongst key stakeholders.”
The APSCo awards process seems to be the most rigorous in the recruitment sector. Not simply an application form rigorously nurtured by an already busy marketing team – but an opportunity to sit in front of a gruelling panel, sweat, shake and justify your existence… yes an “opportunity”.
This interview really sets the tone for the APSCo awards – they are professional and they force the applicants to get involved and take them seriously. Don’t dare send anyone other than the leaders of the business for the grilling – APSCo will simply blink at you! (And rightly so!)
When Wayne and I left our interview, we were hyper, terrified, on fire, elated… talking about your own business is an emotional process!
“I’m absolutely ecstatic! The APSCo Awards for Excellence are very well respected in the industry and it was wonderful to be a part of the event. It’s a credit to our team for all their hard work delivering great services to our clients and partners over the years.”
Look in the Mirror, Recruiters!
I tell my clients that one massive benefit of going through an awards process is that it forces you to look in the mirror. Recruiters (you) spend all your time (too much of your time) servicing your clients, and not enough on your most important client – your own business!
Not enough time is spent having process health checks, training your people or generating ROI from your systems… but these are the three most important assets in your business. Going for an award can really get you thinking about all three: people, process, systems.
Risky Business – APSCo Awards
Going for a recruitment award is a risky thing to do. What if you don’t get shortlisted? What if you don’t win? What if you mess up the “exam”? So much risk that the majority of recruiters shy away with excuses like:
“They’re fixed” (they’re not… and if you know otherwise – call them out!)
“They’re time consuming!” Running a business, making a profit, getting great client testimonials – time consuming too, but necessary for sustainability!
“I’m not sure which category to go for…” Being a judge on the Recruitment International Awards I can vouch for the fact that when only 4 recruiters apply for the “Best candidate Service Award” – the one that every recruiter should be wanting to win… there is a category for every recruiter.
Think about it – Barclay Jones, a tiny team of 6, stupidly busy with our clients, writes an ebook on how to win and generate ROI from recruitment awards. I put my money where my mouth is and entered… then I realised that if I didn’t win, that wasn’t a great testimonial for my advice.
So a big “Phew!” from Wayne and I – now onto the next phase – going through my ebook and following my own advice to generate ROI from winning an award. Watch this space.
BTW – best joke of the APSCo Awards:
There is a zoo in my village – it only has a dog. It’s a Shih Tzu.
(thanks David!)
Recruitment Awards season is officially upon us.
Discover how you can generate ROI from recruitment awards events – whether entering, winning, or simply attending!
Download Our Awards ROI Toolkit
HIIT Us, Recruiters!
Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate clients, and colleagues (3Cs).
TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREE
Find out how we help recruiters and recruitment leaders get ROI from their time on LinkedIn
BOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
Extra Content
Blog Image
Extra Content 2
media centre
Read more-
Lisa Jones
Blog
How to Make Your Recruiter the Coolest Tool
Recruitment leaders want a sustainable recruitment business: high-performing trained recruiters, delivering profitable and speedy placements.Recruiters need more time to bill, cleaner data, and engaged clients and candidates.Recruitment leaders often ask me:What are the coolest tools in recruitment?My answer?The coolest recruitment tool is the one that makes the placement - the recruiter.The issue we have is that as an industry we seem to love investing in perceived cool tools - recruitment tech - but poor adoption means the tech fails to deliver. Not cool!Your Recruiters Are Your Coolest ToolAs trainers in the recruitment sector, our experience gives us an invaluable view of the industry with its issues, goals, and ideal strategies. We offer recruiter training and tactics to help improve recruiter performance and recruitment tech ROI.The one thing my clients have in common is they want to do more with less.Less cost, more profit.Less data, more placements.Less systems, more process.The stats below tell a powerful story about the need for your recruiters to be smart (and cool)!How Can You Make Your Recruiters Your Coolest Tool?As a recruitment leader, you want to place the candidates you already have. You want to reduce reliance on external systems, as well as reduce costs. You want your recruiters to be more productive. You want to scale your recruitment business without necessarily hiring more recruiters.How?Make it ok to be cool. Make it an accountability and / or a value to work smart and be "less is more"! You could even aim for a 1% improvement...Don't buy recruitment tech and "hope". Hope is a strategy that rarely works. Only continuous training drives continuous improvement.Continuous training needs to be quick (minutes not hours), accessible, and cost-effective. Not lengthy, difficult to access, difficult to track ROI.Our Recruitment Training Playbook is Cool!Your recruiters need to be super effective and not just crazy busy. You need to lead them to be cool tools!Try our tips in our recruitment training playbook and make your recruiters cool! The playbook is packed full of ideas that we use in our recruitment training, our Bullhorn training, and our automation training. And keep an eye out for the 2nd coolest tool - Recruitment HIIT. Speedy 10min turbo-charged training to help with recruitment best practice, Bullhorn training, Adapt Training, and more.DOWNLOAD YOUR RECRUITMENT TRAINING PLAYBOOKSpeaking of Recruitment Training...Recruitment HIIT trains recruiters and resourcers so you can speedily onboard new starters, and improve performance of experienced recruiters.Job qualification, screening, sourcing, job advertising, and counteroffer immunity, are just some of the 10-minute topics our clients love.We’d love you to try Recruitment HIIT free.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FREE
-
Lisa Jones
Blog
How to Use Recruitment Awards to Drive Your Sales Pipeline
We’re passionate about recruitment awards! Whether you’re entering, winning, attending or spying, there’s ROI to be had for recruiters, beyond simply having a recruitment award trophy.There are 3 things I want to talk about today:A top sales tip on how to run your recruitment sales strategy with awards, without even submitting an awards entry!Industry Awards you can use within your niche sector to increase your pipeline.2023 Recruitment Awards you may want to focus on to improve your recruitment business.We are proud to be triple award winners, including the APSCo award for Affiliate Member of the Year, so know how awards can help you improve your sales pipeline and grow.1. Sales Tip - Use Recruitment Awards for BD and Account ManagementLet's face it, now more than ever, your sales strategies(business development and account management) are absolutely crucial in a post-pandemic world where the war for talent is raging, counter offers are rife, and clients need recruiters that they can trust, who understand their niche.By definition clients that are entering awards tend to be high growth, ambitious, and likely have money and time to spend on recruitment too! Surely?My top tips to add turbo to your business development and account management: 1. Speedily research which awards are prevalent in your niche sectors.2. Plot the dates into your diaries (the submission dates, shortlist dates, date of the event, day after the event).3. Make a noise, connect with the VIPs, shout out about these events - they are important to your niche sectors.4. Use this data by at least sending LinkedIn messages to the VIPs of these businesses when they are shortlisted, and then begin networking using your CRM and automation.5. Have targets and goals to convert these high-growth businesses into retained clients.Clients entering awards are "sure things" - be sure to have them in your BD and account management pipeline.We have plenty of other sales tips, as well as sourcing tips, candidate management, job qualification tips in Recruitment HIIT, too.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREE2. Recruitment Industry AwardsYou can utilise the upcoming awards within your niche sector to ensure you find, engage, nurture, and retain your clients. That's right, you can use the awards within your industry to generate sales without even submitting an awards entry. Your ideal clients are likely to enter awards within their sector to drive growth. Use the UK Industry awards list to spot potential clients you can engage with to improve your BD, account management tactics, and your pipeline.This is a great opportunity for you to show you understand your target client's niche. The UK Industry awards list alongside our sales tips in step 1 is a surefire way to improve your awards sales strategy. 3. 2023 Recruitment AwardsIf you want to use Recruitment Awards to attract attention and drive sales, you can of course enter some awards.Check out our 2023 list recruitment awards list below! (Have we missed any recruitment awards for the remainder of 2023? Contact Usto get them added.)This year recruiters need to do more with less. The goal could be to win an award, but it's actually more likely to be bigger than winning. The goal is to generate more speed and pipeline (whether you enter, win, or simply attend!).Investing in Talent AwardsJanuary 2023 - The annual Investing in Talent Awards asks: Do your recruiters love working in your business? Is your company the consultancy of choice for contractors and temporary workers? If so, it’s time that your business receives well-deserved recognition for Investing in Talent. Onrec AwardsMarch 2023 - The prestigious Onrec AwardsCeremony has cemented itself in the calendar as a must-attend event. Not only is it an opportunity to celebrate the very best in Online Recruitment but it is also a chance to network with the very best suppliers in recruitment.Recruiter AwardsSeptember 2023 - The iconic Recruiter Awardsis the UK’s largest event for the entire recruitment community, recognising outstanding achievements by agencies and in-house recruiters. Achievements in recruitment marketing and technology also are spotlighted.APSCo AwardsSeptember 2023 - The APSCo Awards for Excellenceare a prestigious accolade in professional recruitment. The awards celebrate outstanding achievements in the professional recruitment sector and are a unique indicator of professional standards. They are widely recognised by clients as well as the recruitment sector. The awards are free to enter and open to all APSCo members.TIARAOctober 2023 - The TIARA Recruitment Awards recognises excellence in the UK’s best-performing recruitment companies with revenues above £5m.The Global Recruiter AwardsNovember 2023 - The Global Recruiter Industry Awardscelebrates the best of the best in recruitment. The Awards are totally free to enter, which means that the smallest and newest players in the industry have the chance to be recognised alongside established organisations.NORAsNovember 2023 - Established in 2001, the National Online Recruitment Awardsacknowledge and reward excellence in online recruitment practice. They are dedicated to the continual improvement and evolution of the candidate experience. ... and for Other Sales Tips for Recruiters...Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters and resourcers source, convert quicker and develop healthy pipelines. We aim to save every recruiter and resourcer at least 1 hour per day (6 working weeks a year). Hence, more billing time and more fees!We’d love you to try Recruitment HIIT for free. Or book a call to discuss your recruitment training.TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT FOR FREE
-
Downloads
Your Recruitment Training Playbook
-
Rebecca Anderson
Webinar
How to Build a Winning Candidate Attraction and Client Partnership Strategy
-
Lisa Jones
Webinar
Recruitment Automation: Less Content, more Recruitment and Sales
-
Wayne Barclay
Webinar
6 Top Tips to Drive Speedy BD and Recruitment Sales - SMACKDOWN! Lisa does 3 Rounds with Darren
