Recruitment Leaders want to inject more value into their staffing companies, and often recruitment awards are seen as an obvious tactic. We have 9 tips to share to help you win a recruitment award.
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!
Recruitment Training
We are passionate about training recruiters. We deliver the best Recruitment Training through live webinars and our online training platform Recruitment HIIT.
Our recruitment training helps new and experienced recruiters qualify their jobs, speedily source and advertise, and improve their screening. It boosts CV to interview ratios, whilst giving great tips to prevent counter offers, and secure the placement and beyond.
Plus, if you have Bullhorn, Analytics, Automation, SourceBreaker, LinkedIn, Calendly, Teams, Daxtra, Broadbean, idibu, Hinterview, Paiger, Adapt, and more... we train on those too!
TRY HIIT FREE HERE
media centre
Read more-
Blog
Recruiters! 10 Reasons Why Candidate Engagement is Critical
Recruiters and their leaders who want to spend less time and money sourcing, and more time placing, need to read this blog and think about why they need to create a virtuous circle of talent.On our recent Bullhorn Tips webinar, where we focused on candidate management tips, we asked the attendees about their current candidate management strategy.The results were unsurprising, but also disappointing.They told us that their candidate database was...And that their candidate management strategy was...In other words, not future proof or focussed on creating a robust, easy to deliver pipeline. It's mainly focussed on live, active candidates who are imminently placeable... and Linkedin / Job Boards continue to win at the expense of the recruiter and their profits.Recruitment Data Wealth💵💶💷If we've learned anything (at least since 2008) we need a clean, warm databases to see us through easy and tough times.We need engaged, loyal, happy candidates who are easy to find, happy to recommend, refer, and show up!Some recruiters call this "Data Health" - I call it "Data Wealth".I've seen a lot of tech and data hitting the recruitment market, but still do not see enough process improvements to capitalise on it. We just keep buying more, rather than exploring how we actually need less, but need to work it better.It's Time to Move from Vicious to Virtuous!Recruiters still waste crazy amounts of time sourcing and advertising, but not enough time engaging and managing.And ironically, by not engaging, and letting hot data cool off, the industry creates silos of "cold" data. Hence sourcing is key and reliance on external systems is high, costs increase, placements take longer... Vicious cycle!What if, though, we take a moment? Let the stats below sink in, and engage with our systems and data in a proactive way. Could recruiters create a virtuous circle of engaged candidates staying loyal and placeable, meaning less need for job adverts, Linkedin, sourcing, and insanity?Yes!🔢Candidate Management Stats Every Recruiter Should Know78% of placed candidates are already in your CRM. – Yet many recruiters go straight to LinkedIn or job boards before checking their own database.Only 30% of CRM records are typically up to date. – That means 70% of your candidate data might be incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date.60% of recruiters admit to rarely revisiting past candidates. – This leads to missed opportunities and duplicated effort.It costs 6x more to source a new candidate than to re-engage an existing one. – Save budget and time by starting with your CRM.43% of recruiters say poor data quality negatively impacts their ability to place quickly. – Dirty data slows down sourcing, shortlisting, and matching.48% of candidates who apply to a role never hear back. – Proper candidate management helps ensure consistent communication and better candidate experience.80% of candidates say they’d reapply to a company with a good hiring experience. – Engagement doesn’t stop at “not selected”—it builds your future pipeline.Recruiters spend up to 1/3 of their time on admin. – Automation and smart candidate management free up time for relationship-building and placements.Re-engaged candidates are 2x more likely to be placed than cold-sourced ones. – Prior placements and silver medalists are often your hottest leads.Companies that nurture candidates improve quality of hire by 20%. – Keeping in touch with passive talent builds a stronger, more prepared pipeline.The stats above are from a variety of sources, including IBM, TalentBoard, Bullhorn, and LinkedIn.Even just one of the stats above should be enough to make you stop and think "how can I create a virtuous circle of happy, engaged, and placed candidates?"And then ask - "I wonder how Barclay Jones can help with me Bullhorn RoI, Training, and Automation to help me engage my candidates more, and reduce reliance and time/money wasted on Linkedin and Job Boards?"Then arrange a chat with us😇ARRANGE A CALL BACK Watch Our Candidate Engagement WebinarRecruitment and Bullhorn TrainingWe deliver the best live Bullhorn ROI webinar training, and you'll find other tips and tricks in Recruitment HIIT, our online recruitment training platform.Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.TRY HIIT FREE HERECONTACT US ABOUT BULLHORN ROI
-
Blog
Automation RoI Webinar Series: Unlock Bullhorn Part 2 ~ Create a Virtuous Circle of Candidates
Recruiters and leaders — ready to do less admin and make more placements?Do you need to be less reliant on LinkedIn and Job Boards, and have a more engaged, valuable database of candidates?Then Part 2 of our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" webinar series is for you. We'll fixate on candidate management and engagement.REGISTER NOW💡 Why Candidate Management and Engagement MattersIn our recent Bullhorn Tips Webinar, we asked recruiters about their candidate management strategies.The results?🙈Most recruiters said their CRM was out of date.🙉Even more admitted their candidate engagement was reactive at best.🙊And LinkedIn and job boards still dominate, draining time and budget.AKA vicious cycle. You source externally, internal data gets colder and becomes irrelevant, sourcing becomes slower and costlier. And the cycle repeats.📊 Candidate Management by the Numbers:70%+ of placed candidates already exist in your CRM.It costs 6x more to source a new candidate than to re-engage.Recruiters spend up to 1/3 of their time on admin.Re-engaged candidates are 2x more likely to be placed.Now ask yourself: What if that cycle could be flipped?💥 From Vicious to Virtuous: Using Automation to Flip the Recruitment ScriptInstead, imagine a virtuous circle where:✅ Your CRM is rich with warm, engaged talent.✅ Your pipeline is always ready, without needing a new job ad.✅ Candidates actually reply to your emails.✅ Admin drops, and placements rise.That’s the power of Bullhorn Automation.Join us for this free webinar and learn how to use Bullhorn Automation and smart workflows to build—and sustain—a thriving talent pipeline.This is part of our "Unlock Bullhorn" Automation webinar series.📅 Webinar Highlights🛠️ Real-Life Automation Tips to Drive Recruitment Workflows:Automate outreach to dormant candidates (without sounding robotic).Keep silver medalists engaged for future roles.Trigger real-time updates when candidates change jobs or locations.Build loyalty with consistent communication at every stage of the journey.Drastically reduce sourcing times and costs.💸 Turn Data Health into Data WealthThis Webinar is for you if:You’re tired of LinkedIn / Job Board over-reliance.You want to scale your placements—not your sourcing costs.You want a Bullhorn CRM to be a database and not simply be a data dump.📍 Save Your Spot!When? 21 May 2025: 15:00 BSTREGISTER NOWPS. Want to go even further? Check out our "Unlock Bullhorn with Automation" series.🔍 24 April 2025: Automate sourcing to find qualified candidates faster and with less effort.Watch the recording💬 21 May 2025: Engage with candidates on autopilot and nurture relationships effectively.Register Now📈 Date TBC: Boost lead generation using automation to improve conversion rates.💡 Date TBC: Streamline your recruitment processes for maximum efficiency and profitability.Automation Buddy / Bullhorn RoIWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to increase speed and sales.We coach to inspire, and build your automations so you can recruit and sell!Plus, through our Bullhorn Vision service we help generate serious ROI from your Bullhorn, data, and people.READ ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICECONTACT US ABOUT BULLHORN ROI
-
Downloads
Your Recruitment Training Playbook