Now in its second decade, the National Online Recruitment Awards tonight demonstrated how the calibre of the sector has progressed in the past 12 months.

At the 11^th annual NORAs, held in Covent Garden London, 300 members of the online recruitment community celebrated the Finalists and Winners, as nominated by jobseekers, and judged by industry experts, including Neil Morrison, Group HR Director of Random House Publishing, and Emma Mirrington, Talent Manager at Mars.

I am delighted at the level of enthusiasm for the awards, and the outstanding developments being made by our Finalists and Winners.  Top marks must go to global employer, G4S, who won the Best Innovation award, and also the Best Newcomer Award, for the outstanding launch of their talent community project, which is being monitored closely by other major employers.  Other winners this year include Innocent Drinks, Monster, Only Marketing Jobs, Guardian Jobs and The Times Educational Supplement.  The highlight of the evening was when Army Jobs won the award for Best Major Employer for the third consecutive time.

The full list of winners are:

NORA 2011 Winners

Award Category / Winner	Sponsor
Best Generalist Job Board
Best Specialist (Niche) Job Board
Best Regional Job Board
Best National Recruitment Agency Website
Best Small Recruitment Agency Website
Best Major Employer Website
Best Small Employer Website
Best Online Recruitment by a Consumer Publication
Best Online Recruitment by a Trade Publication
Best Employment Advice Website
Best Newcomer in Online Recruitment
Best Innovation in Online Recruitment

The awards ceremony for the 11th annual National Online Recruitment Awards, on Wednesday 2nd November, will take place at the exclusive West End venue, Sway London, in Covent Garden, near Holborn. This spectacularly refurbished, venue has hosted the NORAs for the past 2 years, and is perfect for our type of event.  The fantastic turnout of over 350 attendees in 2010 ensured that it was the online recruitment event of the year!

The event will be held in conjunction with UKRecruiter, and will also involve extensive networking opportunities.  Please visit http://nora.eventbrite.com/ or order your tickets below.

A short walk from Holborn tube station, Sway is close to the theatres of the Strand and to Somerset House.

61-65 Great Queen Street,
London,
WC2B 5BZ

Telephone:
020 7404 6114

Website:
http://www.swaybar.co.uk

As you will know, nominations closed on Friday 9th September.  This year we recieved 17,717 nominations for 526 separate websites.  The NORAs Judging Panel are now in conclave, working on reducing these nominations to our shortlist of Finalists for each of our twelve awards.

This year, we will also be considering the wider range of channels utilised by job boards, recruitment agencies, employers and publications in order to deliver a wider range of recruiting services more effectively to candidates.  This will include their use of mobile websites, smartphone and tablet apps, and of course social media channels.  To paraphrase; “No website is an island”, and we will be scrutinising the efforts made to extend the reach and engagement of the best UK recruitment websites.

We will be announcing the NORA Finalists for 2011 at 12:00 noon on Tuesday 27th September.

The National Online Recruitment Awards event will be held in London on Wednesday 2nd November.

As we begin the second decade of the NORA’s, it’s worth reflecting on just how much the UK online recruitment sector has changed, grown and matured since our very first awards were presented.  Back in 2001, we were seeing the initial bloom fall from the cheeks of many online businesses.  The Dotcom Bubble, as it was called had inflated so quickly, that new online ventures were being formed every day, and often gaining investment on the basis of a “fag-packet” business plan.  By 2001, no-one was investing, and many companies, like BOO.com, had folded after burning through immense amounts of investment.  The online businesses that survived, and exist to this day, are those which were built on sound business principals and, more importantly, actually worked for the consumer.

It is in this light then, that we should look at the online recruitment services which were shortlisted as Finalists for the inaugural NORA’s, and especially our Winners.  Let’s take a look:

National Online Recruitment Awards 2001

1. BEST GENERAL JOBSITE

GoJobsite
Monster
Planet Recruit
Top Jobs On The Net
Workthing

Due to the Jobsite.com domain being temporarily unavailable, Jobsite.co.uk had rebranded as GoJobsite.  That aside, only Jobsite and Monster remain in the same space as the market leaders they were in 2001. In doing so, they have been instrumental to the development of the sector in the UK, and continue to be so.

2. BEST SPECIALIST JOBSITE

Jobserve
Activate
Careers in Recruitment
GAAPweb
Just Engineers

Jobserve is in the history books as the world’s first job board.  Whilst broadening their scope to include all other industry sectors, many still perceive Jobserve as an IT specialist job board. 3 of the other finalists are now owned by major publishing groups, who were late to recognise the threat and opportunities of online recruitment.

3. BEST REGIONAL JOBSITE

Northwest Workplace
EasyCareer
JobsNorth
London Careers
S1jobs.com

Whilst S1 weren’t winners in the first NORA’s, they dominated this sector for many years, demonstrating just how vital regional focus is to online recruitment.

4. BEST NATIONAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY WEBSITE

Reed
Adecco
Haysworks.com
Manpower
Pertemps

Of these Finalists, only REED were shortlisted again in 2010. However, all of these organisations still carry huge clout in the UK recruitment industry.

5. BEST SMALL RECRUITMENT AGENCY WEBSITE (3 branches or less)

RGB Consultants
Executive Connections
Intrinsica
IT Human Resouces Plc
Synergy Resourcing

From the beginning it was clear that inventiveness and innovation would be driven by the smaller, ambitious recruitment agencies.  RGB continue to this day at www.rgb.co.uk .

6. BEST NATIONAL EMPLOYER’S WEBSITE (recruitment)

Carphone Warehouse
Asda
BAE Systems
Royal Navy
Sage

Frankly, these Finalists aside, the major employers of the UK often disappointed the NORA’s judging panel in the early part of the decade.  Happily, most are now very much up to speed, and fully exploiting social media to source their ongoing need for talent.  PS. The Army and Navy websites, as you might expect, have always led the way in successfully using the internet for recruitment.

7. BEST ONLINE RECRUITMENT SECTION BY A CONSUMER PUBLICATION

Sunday Times
Financial Times
Guardian Unlimited
The Independent
The Telegraph

You could say that the Finalists for this award always include the same “usual suspects”; and you’d be right.  However, whilst the names of the UK’s largest newspapers never changes much (aside from the NOTW), the competition between them has never been more fierce.  These newspapers now derive very little income from traditional paper-based recruitment classified advertising.

8. BEST ONLINE RECRUITMENT SECTION BY A TRADE PUBLICATION

Computer Weekly
Careers In Construction
Caterer and Hotelkeeper
Electronics Weekly
(The) GrocerJobs

Trade magazines were amongst the very first to “get it” that online recruitment was the future.  As monthly publications they very much needed to offer a real-time recruitment service to their clients and readers, and were ideally positioned to do so.  We often find the most stylish NORA entrants in this section.

9. BEST EMPLOYMENT ADVICE WEBSITE

Careers Portal
Career-Ahead
Career Guide
Inside Careers
Prospects

It did seem for a few years that specialist career advice sites were struggling to survive as independent businesses. Increasingly, the major job boards have invested time and resources into providing fantastic candidate-focussed services. However, in the past 3 years, we have seen the emergence of new and very innovative contenders for this award.

Additionally, since 2001, we have added awards for Best Newcomer, and for Best Innovation in Online Recruitment.  The relentless advance of social media channels has meant that new ideas, and new ways to implement them are coming thick and fast.  This year, we expect the use of SM channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube to be strong factors in the decision making of our judges.  Additionally, the ability to access recruitment services from a far wider range of devices will be vital too.

It may well be true that the NORA’s were created during a very difficult employment market, but out of that was born immense innovation in online recruitment practices.  The same could now be said, as a result of the 2008-2010 employment recession that has spurred innovation.  Whilst there will certainly not be plain sailing from this moment on, we now have an industry that has matured over two employment recessions, and all but usurped historic methods of recruitment advertising.  I fully expect the second decade of the NORA’s to be as exciting as the first.

Looking forward to being a judge for The National Online Recruitment Awards – Guest blog by Katharine Robinson

Earlier this year, I was honoured to be asked to join the judging panel for this year’s NORAs (National Online Recruitment Awards). The judging panelconsists of a selection of independent judges from across the recruitment industry, all experts in their respective fields but none having an affiliation with a particular online recruitment site – so it is a massive honour to join such an illustrious group.

The NORAs are now in their 11th year, and are set to be bigger than ever. Nominations opened a few weeks ago, and anyone can go along and nominate the recruitment related websites they think are currently doing the best to in help job seekers find a new role. Last year the NORAs received over 28,000 nominations, covering more than 500 individual recruitment sites.

The initial aim of the NORAs was to give those using the web to search for jobs confidence that they were using quality sites. This is just as important now as it was 11 years ago, as there are new players joining the online recruitment industry all the time, giving job seekers a sometimes confounding wealth of options for their job search.

Being a judge will be really interesting for me. It will oblige me to try out hundreds of recruiting sites, no doubt discovering some gems along the way. I will also be asked to put myself in the position of the job seeker, judging the nominated websites based on how easy they are to use, and ultimately how useful they seem. I already focus quite a bit on trying to put myself in the shoes of “ideal talent” in order to search for them online – how do they describe themselves, where do they go online? Being a judge for the NORAs will take this one step further and, I hope, ultimately make me better at my job.

By far the most exciting categories will be Best Innovation and Best Newcomer. With players like Monster’s new BeKnown Facebook app entering the market in the last couple of weeks, we are seeing big shifts in the online recruitment world.

If you are currently searching for a job or you have recently found one – what sites have you found most useful? Take a moment to nominate them for a NORA 

Everyone, recruiter and job seeker alike, is welcome at the Awards Event on Wednesday 2nd November too – so look out for more information on that!

Ed: Katharine Robinson (aka @TheSourceress on Twitter) uses the Internet to track down tough to find talent. In January this year she joined Capgemini Consulting as Sourcing Recruitment Manager in their in-house recruitment team. Katherine is a frequent public speaker on the social web, and how it augments the real, social and professional worlds.

As is usual, at this time of year, we have been inundated with requests for information about his year’s awards.  I can confirm that preparations are indeed underway for the 11th annual NORAs, and that the schedule will be as follows.

20th June – Nominations open

9th September – Nominations close

27th September – Our shortlist of Finalists will be revealed

Wednesday 2nd November – This year’s Winners will be announced at our awards event in London

After months of nominations, shortlisting, and judging, the winners of this year’s 10th annual National Online Recruitment Awards have been announced.  The new venue was Sway London, in Covent Garden, and on Thurday 4th November, there wasn’t anywhere else any self-respecting online recruiter would have wanted to be.

Everyone who is anyone was part of the over 300-strong audience, including those from 66 Finalists for the 13 awards.  The 13th award was a particular high point, as it recognised the recruitment website that had made the greatest contribution to online recruitment since the NORAs began. The Recruitment Website of the Decade award was shortlisted to 8 Finalists, who all had video presentations shown on the night, between the usual award categories.  The winner, who can now claim bragging rights until 2020, was Jobsite, who also walked away with the Best Generalist Job Board award too.  Felix Wetzel, Jobsite’s Group marketing Director, was on hand to accept the awards with colleagues, and gave a great speech, including a promise of even better to come from the Portsmouth shirt sponsors.

All night the noisy crowd were particularly vocal, especially when their own sites were announced.  As ever, it’s great to see the genuine enthusiasm from our worthy winners. Of course, not every one left with a trophy, and there were healthy debates on the results.  However, all Finalists were clear that it was a great achievement to have got to this stage, and left further determined to return next year.

Stephen O’Donnell

NORA 2010 Winners

Award Category	Sponsor
Recruitment Website of the Decade
Best Generalist Job Board
Best Specialist (Niche) Job Board
Best Regional Job Board
Best National Recruitment Agency Website
Best Small Recruitment Agency Website
Best Major Employer Website
Best Small Employer Website
Best Online Recruitment by a Consumer Publication
Best Online Recruitment by a Trade Publication
Best Employment Advice Website
Best Newcomer in Online Recruitment
Best Innovation in Online Recruitment

You would be amazed at how many people are involved in the National Online Recruitment Awards.  As the most commonly identified person, I am always at pains to point out that there is an army of people who all make their own essential contribution to the NORAs.

To begin with, the jobseekers, on whose behalf we launched the awards, and who this year made almost 28,000 nominations for the recruitment websites they liked best (and told us why).  We then have a Shortlist Judging Panel of 9 industry experts, who visit every nominated site, and asses them from a candidate’s perspective.  Only then do our separate Judging Panel again go through the process of visiting and scoring every one of our 74 Finalists, from the point of view of a job seeker.

Of course an annual event like this needs quite some organising, and we have Louise Triance of UKRecruiter and the team at 1Job.co.uk to thank for that.  Some awards events in other industries are run as profit making exercises in their own right, and usually involve entrance fees, black-tie dinners, and whopping prices to buy a table for your company.  In the case of the NORAs, we always want to make them as accessible as possible, and not the least exclusive.  That’s why, with the help of our sponsors, we are able to keep the ticket price down to a nominal £20, which mostly goes towards the venue and bar bill.

Throughout all of this, however, we try to never lose site of the most important thing; candidates themselves, and how the myriad of recruitment websites are continually evolving to help them find what they are truly searching for.

I hope to see you at the NORAs on Thursday, and wish all of our Finalists the very best of luck.  http://www.eventelephant.com/recnet4nov

Stephen O’Donnell, Chairman

We are extremely proud to announce the Finalists for this year’s tenth National Online Recruitment Awards.  Now covering a full decade, the NORAs have become established as the standard by which all recruitment websites are measured.  Uniquely, the awards are initially nominated by job seekers themselves, in order that the perspective of those who utilise each site remains paramount.  This year we received almost 28,000 nominations for 592 separate websites.  http://www.norauk.com/finalists-2010

Our selection panel of industry experts (see below) then carefully assessed each site, from a candidate’s point of view, to arrive at the shortlist of tremendous sites in all 13 categories.  Our categories recognise all manner of recruitment websites, including not only dedicated job boards, but also recruitment firms, publications, advice websites and employers themselves.  We will also present awards for Best Newcomer, and Best Innovation in Online Recruitment.

This year, to mark our 10th anniversary, we have a very special award.  The “Best Recruitment Website of the Decade” award will recognise those sites which have made the greatest contribution to online recruitment during the last ten years.

To ensure absolute integrity, our Finalist will now be judged by a separate panel of Judges, and the Winners will be revealed at our awards event, in London, on Thursday the 4th of November.

Shortlisting Panel

To bring us to this point, we have a Selection Panel of industry experts, who have assessed all websites nominated by jobseekers, and produce our shortlist of Finalists.  To ensure transparency in the awards process, this group are quite separate from our Judging Panel, but just as vital to the NORAs.

Alan Whitford

Keith Robinson

Peter Gold

Alex Hens

Andy Headworth

Steve Evans

Ben Nunn

Lisa Scales