Rules

The rules for the 25th National Online Recruitment Awards are as follows.

The categories for which public nominations have been invited are:

1. Best Generalist Job Board – definition – An online job advertising website, advertising vacancies across a wide range of disciplines throughout the UK.  These sites must operate independently of recruitment firms or publications. Aggregators and wider career sites will be considered in this category.

2. Best Specialist Job Board – definition – An online job advertising website, advertising vacancies within a defined range of disciplines.  These sites must operate independently of recruitment firms or publications.

3. Best European Job Board – An online job advertising website, advertising vacancies within Europe.  These sites must operate independently of recruitment firms or publications.

4. Best National Recruitment Agency – The website of a plc and/or international recruitment firm.

5. Best Large Recruitment Agency – The website of a recognised multisite major recruitment firm which has more than 100 recruiters.  N.B. The size of an agency may be assessed on different criteria, dependant upon circumstances.

6. Best Small Recruitment Agency – The website of a recognised recruitment firm which has up to 100 recruiters.  N.B. The size of an agency may be assessed on different criteria, dependent upon circumstances.*

7. Best Major Employer – The recruitment section of a website for a major employer, with over 500 employees.

8. Best SME Employer (under 500 employees) – The recruitment section of a website for a small or SME employer.  Not a PLC, and having fewer than 500 employees.

9. Best Online Publication – The recruitment section of a consumer or trade publication such as a newspaper, magazine or similar.

10. Best Candidate-Centric Platform – Previously titled as Best Employment Advice Website, this award has been expanded to recognise products or platforms which put the candidate at the heart of the hiring journey—helping research employers, providing career advice, simplifying applications, CV optimisation, personalising interactions, and offering innovative tools that help users apply smarter, track better, and navigate the job market with confidence.

11. Best Newcomer – This category will recognise newly launched recruitment sites in the past 18 months. This can include long established companies with new websites.

12. Best Innovation in Online Recruitment – This category will recognise sites which have developed new methods of improving the online recruitment experience for job seekers, recruiters and employers.  This could include social media sites, be a technical development or simply a new twist in what facilities are made available to candidates. This can also include services which are not normally visible to jobseekers, but still deliver benefits to candidates.

13. Best ATS / CRM – This award recognises both Applicant Tracking Systems (used by employers), and Candidate Relationship Management platforms (used by staffing agencies) to manage the entire application process of jobseekers: from their website and other sources, and throughout the interview stages.

14. Best Job Distribution Platform – This award category recognises the recruitment marketing platforms utilised to distribute vacancies ads to multiple job advertising websites. These usually deploy programmatic technology to optimise the calibre and volume of applications, as well as the cost of advertising.

15. Best AI Sourcing and Messaging Technology – This new award category identifies and recognises technology platforms which are specifically designed to find and engage with candidates according to the requirements of employers. As this is a new category, we expect to refine this definition next year.

16. NORA Academy Award – Members of the NORA Academy will vote for the recruitment website which they believed best represented the industry in that year. Only websites which have been shortlisted as Finalists in the NORAs this year can be contenders for this award, but it will ultimately be voted for by their peers in the industry.

For each award, and where applicable, we will also recognise the work of the developers of each website – in particular for job boards, employers, and for recruitment agencies.

Anyone can nominate any sites they choose, and give their reasons for nominating.  These nominations will be considered by a panel of independent industry experts, and reduced to a shortlist of 5 to 8 Finalists for each of these categories.  You may nominate a website, or websites, for each award category by clicking HERE.  Nominations close on 6th September and the finalists will be announced on 10th October.  Award winners will be announced on Wednesday 6th November.

The criteria to be used in judging will include:

1. Ease of use, design, layout & speed.

2. Volume of available vacancies – (appropriate to your intended audience).

3. Volume of claimed visitors. – essentially, apparent popularity.

4. Available facilities for jobseekers.

5. Prominence in targeted market.

6. The mobile website and any application for a mobile platform will be taken into account. Sites which are NOT considered mobile-friendly will NOT be eligible for consideration.

7. Use of extended social media channels to reach candidates.

8. Use of additional media to engage with candidates, including video and audio.

These criteria are applied in terms of a site’s relevance to, and facilities appropriate to, it’s intended market.  Sites will be assessed from the point of view of a jobseeker, and what benefits candidates best.

Our Finalists and Winners are entitled to display these logos on their site and literature.

Two independent panels of JUDGES will use the same criteria, and their knowledge of the online recruitment sector, to select our Finalists and Winners in each category.