A small group of the UCP crew who have been working hard to bring you GradCornwall made their way up to London yesterday, to the Sway Club in Covent Garden for the awards ceremony.  We met up with our developers, Nudge Digital there.  It wasn’t the usual seated affair but the club was packed with on-line recruitment gurus and experts. So imagine our surprise and delight to have won!

The National Online Recruitment Awards have been going since 2001 and bring national recognition to this booming industry sector. We sidled up to the likes of representatives from ‘Linked In’ last night and the site was sponsored by ‘Broadbean’, so we walked and talked with the pro’s!

When I announced boldly (and after several glasses mind) that next year, I would like to go for ‘Best Innovation’ someone whispered, ‘You do know that Linked In won that this year don’t you?’ As if to insinuate that you need their massive budgets and national recognition to be innovative. That would certainly help, but isn’t that what Cornwall does? Isn’t that what Cornwall is best at? We have immense creativity, a wealth of new ideas and innovations and I would like to think we could take a punt at that next year… you have to have a bit of ambition don’t you? What do you think?  Have a read here about why we were shortlisted.

In the meantime, and regardless of what the future holds, we are immensely proud of this achievement. It feels like the icing on the cake, so thank you so much for the nominations – we couldn’t have done it without you.  Thank you also to the NORA team who put on a fantastic event last night.

Special thanks need to go to the following people/angels: Emily Trotter, Ben Organ, Joel Derbyshire and Luke Aikman from Nudge Digital who tirelessly developed the site for us, going above and beyond because they shared our vision and passion. Also to Martin Edmonson from Graduates Yorkshire which was the website that originally inspired us and our regional partners, GradSouthwest. There are many other people who have worked to help us bring our creation to life thanks to our filmmakers, Sideways, our designers, Liminal Design and Craig May from Merlin Cinemas. Blimey – I’m going on like we’ve got an Oscar, but it does feel like it and we are very very proud!

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I really cannot remember the buzz of excitement and anticipation being so great as it was at The National Online Recruitment Awards 2012 event this week.  Not only was the guest list a veritable Who’s Who of the online recruitment industry, but the very vocal support given by our Finalists was amazing.

Marking their 10^th anniversary, our awards partner and headline sponsor, Broadbean Technology, filled the venue with so many enormous balloons, there was a distinct possibility of the roof being lifted off.  This, and the raucous crowd, and the excitement (plus a modicum of alcohol) generated an instant party atmosphere.  Many people, including myself, particular love The NORAs event as a fantastic chance to meet so many old friends, and make even more amazing new ones.  Of course much of the audience had earlier attended the UK Recruiter Recruitment Conference upstairs, in the Grand Connaught Rooms, so a party was definitely in order.  You can see what a good time we had in our pictures from the event (photography by Keir O’Donnell).

THE AWARDS

In reverse order, the award winners were as follows:

BEST INNOVATION IN ONLINE RECRUITMENT – LINKEDIN APPLY

The introduction of the LinkedIn Apply button confirms the unique position LinkedIn are in, and their potential to disrupt the established job board market.

BEST NEWCOMER IN ONLINE RECRUITMENT

The launch of GradCornwall truly is about as refreshing as it comes, clearly driven by a committed and enthusiastic team, eager to engage directly with candidates. This very same team were a big feature at the NORAs, and made a lot of noise too!

BEST EMPLOYMENT ADVICE WEBSITE

When looking at services offered by websites, genuinely insightful career advice is unfortunately often the weakest link. Careerplayer are now multiple winners of this award, and use video extensively to help jobseekers through the recruitment process.

BEST TRADE PUBLICATION

Most successful trade publications have now transitioned to an online presence, to offer their industry sectors and their audience a uniquely insightful and targeted service.  Our winner, AccountancyAgeJobs does this in spades.

BEST CONSUMER PUBLICATION

This year, our deserving winner Telegraph Jobs has done so by making great strides in improving its functionality and career advice.

BEST SMALL EMPLOYER

Three of this year’s Finalists were recruitment agencies themselves, who had each built dedicated sites for the recruitment of their own staff.  Led by Dil Bakhar, Advanced Resource Managers are a fantastic example of how a smaller employer can really put themselves in the shop window, and engage candidates in their own very competitive job market.

BEST MAJOR EMPLOYER

Employers have made huge advances in the use of their own websites to connect directly with potential employees, and project their own “employer brand”. Jagex are an immensely successful games studio from Cambridgeshire, and have imbued their recruitment website with their company personality on every page.

BEST SMALL RECRUITMENT AGENCY

Small recruitment companies contribute the bulk of jobs advertised on the big job boards, but also must look to differentiate themselves with uniquely compelling websites themselves.  Marketing recruitment agency, Dylan, winning this award for the second time, actively promote the expertise of their recruiters, which job boards cannot compete with.

BEST NATIONAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY

Whilst up against much larger competition in this category, our winners Senitor Recruitment show that even larger agencies can avoid the “faceless format”, which has been so common in the recruitment industry. Jobseekers and clients alike want to take advantage of the expertise of a professional recruiter, and the Senitor websites reflects this.

BEST REGIONAL JOB BOARD
Throughout the history of The NORAs, this award has been dominated by sites from Scotland.  It is therefore fantastic to see that the huge steps taken in the last year by NIJobfinder to directly serve the needs of jobseekers in Northern Ireland have been recognised.

BEST SPECIALIST JOB BOARD

This year, we have had several outstanding graduate focused Finalists to choose from.  Our Winner, GradCracker really has to be seen, to be believed.  Not only does the website provide an amazing depth of jobs, programs and placements, as well as extensive advice, but they also transition this service from online to offline by sending teams around to country to meet directly with their audience.

BEST GENERALIST JOB BOARD

As one of the powerhouses of the UK recruitment sector, and globally if its plans are realised, Jobsite has an immense responsibility to the millions of jobseekers using its service every month.  This year, Jobsite has not only pushed the development of its technology and reach through mobile device access and social media, but also wider candidate engagement, as evidenced by being a Finalist for our Best Employment Advice award.  Whilst no job board at that level can rest on their laurels, Jobsite have pushed ahead to win our flagship award this year.

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We are an impatient lot, especially online, and even more especially when looking for a job.  So many of the so called candidate-friendly services appear to be anything but, and it seems no-one really calls them out on it. Yes, candidates and advertisers can vote with their collective mouse-clicks, but that takes much longer than we now expect online progress to be. Andy Headworth once famously wrote about Zombie job boards, which appeared to be alive, but were really husks of their former selves or bad copies.  Jobseekers too, often complain that job boards are essentially the same as 10 years ago, performing the same functions they always have, but with a dash of social media to freshen things up.

At the NORAs we try to focus on the other end of the scale, the powerhouse national job boards, niche websites synonymous with particular industries, recruitment agencies who actually engage candidates with their expertise, and employers who want to make direct contact with future employees.

The key elements don’t change. Employers only need one successful candidate to fill each single vacancy.  Everything else is about getting to that point in the most efficient and effective manner; and that includes treating candidates in a civilised adult fashion.

People say innovation in this sector has dried up, and that all job boards are the same.  Try saying that to Jack Tang, who launched The Student Job, or Grad Cornwall, or indeed LeavingUni, three distinct sites who cater to the graduate and student sector in an amazingly refreshing way.  These sites launched in the middle of the darkest recession, and are great examples of how to think differently.  That is why they are amongst the Finalists for the Best Newcomer category for the NORAs this evening, which in itself showcases the very best line-up of stellar recruitment websites in its 12 year history.

We could spend forever bemoaning the quality of the worst recruitment websites, by why should we, when we have the opportunity to celebrate the very best.  If you’re coming to the National Online Recruitment Awards tonight, be sure to come and say hello.

Tickets are only £20, and can be booked online here, or you can pay at the door.   http://nora2012.eventbrite.co.uk

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Almost as old as the NORA’s themselves, Broadbean Technology is positioned at the very centre of the online recruitment industry, and is therefore the perfect partner for the awards. Beginning with a simple, yet unique and essential service, the Broadbean suite of tools has grown enormously in breadth and sophistication. Broadbean now helps over 35,000 recruiters globally source candidates from a variety of online recruitment channels.

2012 is the twelfth year of The NORAs, which are firmly established as the definitive recognition of excellence in the field of online recruitment in the UK. This year, we have received over 164,000 nominations from the public for 583 separate recruitment websites. These nominations have been assessed by our shortlisting panel, and reduced to 5 Finalists in each of our 12 award categories.

The National Online Recruitment Awards, in association with Broadbean Technology, aims to recognise excellence and innovation in a fast evolving marketplace, where candidates and employers alike are more demanding than ever.

The Winners of the NORAs 2012 will be revealed at our awards event in Covent Garden, London on Wednesday 7th November.”

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At this time of year, and for the last 12 years, I am usually immersed in a sea of recruitment websites.  This is a lot less fun than you’d imagine, but far more fascinating too, and often involves very late nights squinting my eyes at spreadsheets and job boards.  Whose idea was it to start the bloomin’ NORAs anyway?  So for the first time, allow me to give you a little peek behind the curtains of the National Online Recruitment Awards.

The nomination process normally runs from early July to September.  I decided in 2001 that as a voting system is subject to easy manipulation of online submissions, open nominations would allow the general public (particularly jobseekers) a simple way of telling us which sites they liked, and why.  Anyone can nominate via the NORAuk.com website, or recruitment websites can display a banner, encouraging their own visitors to nominate them in a simple click.

Nominations for 2012 closed on Saturday 8th September, and we received 15,386 traditional nominations, and 148,962 One-Click nominations for 583 separate websites in total.  This is where it gets tricky for me.  I need to scrutinise all sites, and ensure they are nominated in the correct categories (yes, someone did nominate Monster in the Best Small Recruitment Agency category).  This means I need to visit all 583 websites.  Fortunately, I am already familiar with most of them, but a lot coffee is still consumed late into the night in the process.  Even more fortunately I now have a stellar line-up of Shortlisting Judges who then take most of the load, in pairing down the numbers to the 5 Finalists in each award category.  These judges are all experts in either traditional recruitment, online recruitment, or HR, and cannot have any direct connection with any sites they are assessing.  As people with very full schedules, this is an enormous commitment.  Every site is assessed from the perspective of a jobseeker.  We have no interest in whether any job board offers great value to its advertisers, but seek to determine the “candidate experience” of each.  We have always looked for great design, ease of use, available facilities, and of course number of vacancies advertised, but in addition, we now want to see how each website extends its reach through the use of social media, and usability on mobile devices.  Once the Judges have agreed upon a shortlist, the Finalists will be announced on Wednesday 26^th September.

Once the 66 Finalists in our 12 award categories are revealed, our second and very separate, judging panel set to work.  This is to ensure that every site is scrutinised on its merits, and any possible bias is prevented.  Again they will visit every website, and use it as a candidate would.  It is vital that the credibility of the awards is maintained, so that every Finalist and Winner can rightly say they deserved the accolade.  We appreciate that an immense amount of work has gone into developing the websites of every one of our Finalists, and we want to recognise the teams who have produced them.

In almost every industry sector in the UK, there are awards to recognise achievement.  Often these awards are big business in themselves, where companies pay to enter, and the event itself can be a costly black-tie and ballgown affair.  As the NORAs are initially nominated by jobseekers, sites can be entered whether they want to or not. Equally, a formal industry-only event would exclude those whose opinions we seek to represent.  Because of this, the NORAs event in London is open to all, and is a far less formal affair than you might expect.  Recognition, celebration, and a healthy dose of networking, are very much the order of the day (or night, as it were).

Now in our 12^th year, the NORAs have become the definitive recognition for recruitment websites in the UK.  This is due in large part to the involvement of the public in the nomination process, the enthusiasm of the participants, and of course the expertise and endeavour of our Judging Panels.

So tonight, I’m planning on registering with another 20 websites.  I hope my broadband holds out.

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