In case you missed it the National Online Recruitment Awards (NORA) 2008 were announced at the end of last week. The debate has already raged (e.g. on the UK Recruiter blog & globally on Cheezhead) about how contentious these awards are (we also took issue with the results last year). Anyway - in case there's any interest out there and the news hasn't filtered through to you already you can pick up all the results here.
Anyway - congrats to all winners (it's nice to get an award even if no one can really work out how some of the decisions are arrived at).
My focus is looking at Employer activity and I still stand by my comments on the quality of the Best Employer website shortlist (left this in response to Andrew Baird's blog post on the nominations) and in particular the stand out favourite (in a poor quality field) Innocent:
Yes Innocent has a quirky tone and good written content because it's clearly got it's employer proposition right - but the delivery is as flat as a flat thing. The only media rich element is the video of a TV interview which (not sure about your browser) but for me was so distorted it was pretty much un-viewable and would have been better, at this quality, stripped down to just audio.
Perhaps NORA judges are looking for something different to myself - but I have this, perhaps quirky, feeling that awards should be awarded for "best in class", not just "quite good". We're living in a world where rich media and true creative engagement is not just possible but all around us - so flat careers sections with an animated button or two just shouldn't be held up as anything other than "awright" or a "decent effort".
Now I don't profess to have my finger on the industry pulse for best work coming out, but I do know there's far far better out there. Perhaps the problem is how NORA draw up their shortlist, maybe they're not seeing the full picture either - but however you cut it for any of these to win "Best Employer Website 2008" will do the Recruitment Communications industry a massive disservice in regards to the strides we have made with creative digital execution.
So - the "massive disservice" was of course followed through (as it had to be) and Innocent was proclaimed 'best employer website of 2008'. I suppose the positive for this year is that it was without doubt the best of the flawed shortlist - where as last year the disservice was done by the shortlisted (and truly excellent) Royal Navy site losing to a flawed Police site, so let's check back in 12months and see if Stephen O'Donnel has listened or is impervious to the very public feedback this years awards has stirred up - or whether the controversy storm that is now associated with these awards more than the results is such that it doesn't actually warrant whatever benefits running such an event provides Stephen & his interests.
Maybe it's a result of what was entered. I don't know. I got quite vocal about it last year - mainly because based on the competition, I didn't really understand how they'd arrived at their decision, but this year I almost just can't be bothered.
I think the result reflects the quality of the awards and the judging. I can reel off several sites that could be entered, and certainly are of a far superior standard, but as I mention at the start, I guess if they aren't entered (much like with any other awards) then they aren't going to be judged. And that's not the fault of the awards themselves I guess.
As a site, the innocent one is alright, but the best in the market? No, not really. But congratulations to them, and the team that built it. It's not my cup of tea, but then maybe it's doing it's job as I'm probably not theirs! Oh well.
Posted by: Ben | 18/11/2008 at 04:48 PM