Nine Tips for Winning a Recruitment Award

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Recruitment Leaders want to inject more value into their staffing companies, and often recruitment awards are seen as an obvious tactic.

Winning a recruitment award can increase the value of your business by 37%.

Plus they can make your business attractive to your 3Cs (candidates, clients, colleagues).

I have been a judge for some of the best recruitment awards. My experience of recruiting awards led me to create a valuable Recruitment Awards Toolkit full of practical tips to help you win over the judges.

I want to share my insights whilst being a judge, sharing time with other judges, and being on panels interviewing recruitment leaders.

What Judges Say and Think Whilst Judging Recruitment Awards

Take note of the list below. It gives some insight into what you need to do with your award entries to make them at least become shortlisted.

I like the way they’ve structured this – it makes it easier to read
This has caught my attention
The client testimonial is anonymous!
Where are the financials?
This is different and interesting
This is difficult to read
Nice and succinct case study
Did anyone actually proof read this?
Paying the minimum wage – when did this become award-winning?
I like the way they seem to be really proud of what they’ve done
There’s quite a lot here that you would hope that everyone does…
I like how they have got their internal stakeholders testifying
This one is really personal – I like how they are telling me about the individuals in the business

My 9 Tips to Help You Craft a Winning Recruitment Award Entry

Let me summarise some key rules for recruitment award submissions:

Don’t use only 800 words when you are given 1000 words, unless you totally nail it.
Don't leave it to your marketing department to draft your entry. An awards entry is a business case for winning, so the business needs to be involved, especially the stakeholders.
Don't turn your submission into a clickfest with lots of links!
Be passionate and real. Be proud. A passionate entry is more compelling than one simply based on facts.
Stick to sanity stats (sales, speed, cost, growth) and if you need to add vanity stats (web clicks, social media engagement), show how the vanity translated into sanity.
If you can, format it cleverly and ensure accessible. Make it an engaging read.
Read the question, and answer it. Then once you've answered it, read the question again and critically and coldly judge your answer.
If you are asked to provide financials, add them. I've seen submissions thrown out when these vital facts are missing or glossed over.
If you say you have improved, increased, decreased, reduced, be sure to evidence these statements with facts and / or testimonials.

The ONE Recruitment Award that Every Recruiter Needs to Win

And a bonus tip for recruiters who want to use awards to improve their business. Focus on the awards that your candidate and client communities value. Read my blog "How to Use Awards for Sourcing and Selling" for tips on generating ROI. I also talk about how to find awards that could add the most value to your business. (Hint - they are NOT the usual recruitment awards...)

Good luck!

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