Nominations have now opened for the National Online Recruitment Awards 2010 (NORAs).  This marks the first full decade of the NORAs, which have closely plotted the emergence and growth of the UK online recruitment sector since 2000.  Devised to recognise the very best recruitment websites, from a candidate’s perspective, the NORAs are respected as the definitive award in the industry, and a tangible achievement for those sites which truly excel in satisfying job seekers.

The 12 awards recognise dedicated job boards, recruitment agencies, employers, and publications which advertise vacancies online, over the past 12 months.  The NORA’s also seeks to recognise the best employment advice websites, best newcomer, and the best innovation in online recruitment.  This last award will surely be hotly contended, with the emergence of recruitment channels via social media, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many others.  Mobile applications and websites will also be taken into account.

Nominations are open to anyone to contribute, and will be open until 10^th September, via www.NORAuk.com.   In 2009, there were over 24,000 nominations for 654 separate websites.  The judging panel this year includes Luke McKend, Head of Classifieds at Google, Matt Alder, former Head of Digital for Penna Barkers, Helen Reynolds, HB RIDA and former Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, and Dan McGuire MD of Broadbean Technology.

Stephen O’Donnell, Chairman of the Judging Panel says “Given the innovative responses to dramatic changes in the employment landscape in the UK, it will be fascinating to see which sites are serving candidates best.  In the past year we can really see that the online recruitment industry is embracing many new media channels to deliver a promise of smarter, effective and efficient candidate experience.  Never before has this industry been quite so focussed on the needs of each individual candidate. “

Stephen O’Donnell, Director AlljobsUK.com (Chairman of Judging Panel)

TUI Travel PLC, the BBC and learnpurple are some of the best places to find an internship as the National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) announces the winners of its annual Awards.

TUI Travel PLC, the world’s leading international leisure travel group, beat more than 250 companies to be crowned overall winner at yesterday’s (23 March 2010) ceremony at Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London. Gordon McKenzie, director for the office for graduate opportunities for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills presented 23 NCWE Awards* across 11 categories, rewarding companies that have demonstrated exceptional work placements.   

Award winning organisations came from a range of sizes and sectors including Barclays, BBC and Audiences North East. This year saw the introduction of the Best Work Placement Diversity Scheme category, which was won by Pinsent Masons LLP. 

TUI Travel PLC also won Best Work Experience Provider in the ‘new scheme’ and ‘over 250 employees (long-term placements, employing less than 20 students)’ categories. Talent retention specialist, learnpurple received a Highly Commended Award in the ’10-250 employees’ category.

Heather Collier, director of the NCWE comments: “We’re now in the seventh year of the awards and their increasing popularity reflects the growing importance of work experience in allowing students to develop skills while providing companies a talent pool for recruitment. With more companies competing than ever before our winners have done exceptionally well, demonstrating best practice for others to follow.”

Rachel McAneny, trading assistant for TUI UK and Ireland said: “We were delighted to have won both categories, but to have been crowned overall winners was the icing on the cake. We believe we provide an exceptional experience for our students, offering a well-planned approach, exciting opportunities and a supportive environment, so it’s fantastic to receive recognition from the National Council for Work Experience.”    

The NCWE Awards encourage and reward employers who take the lead in the provision of valuable work placement opportunities for undergraduates; setting high standards for others to follow by offering fulfilling work placements that help students to bridge the gap between education and the world of work.

This year’s sponsors include Changeboard, AGR, GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica.

For further information visit www.work-experience.org/awards

Technical and engineering recruitment specialist, CBSbutler has been shortlisted for no less than four awards in the 2010 Recruiter Awards for excellence!

The firm, which has already won two major awards this year – ‘Best Employer’ at the London and South East Recruitment Awards and ‘Recruitment Company of the Year’ at the APSCo awards, has been shortlisted for: Agency of the Year; Best Technical Recruitment Agency; Best Client Service and Best Recruitment Agency to Work For.

“We are absolutely delighted,” said Managing Director David Leyshon. “It’s testament to the whole team and the tremendous amount of enthusiasm and buy in to our behaviour and values model which really does influence the way we work with clients, candidates and our own people.”

Naveed Ahmed, Managing Director of Goldteam, the specialist recruiter in the fmcg, hospitality and healthcare sectors has been named Entrepreneur of the Year at the Slough Chamber of Commerce Awards.

Naveed, 32, started off contracting in an electronics organisation and soon realised the benefits of recruiting other contractors to work for him – and then supplying them to the industry. He formed Goldteam Recruitment in 2002 as a one man band. Today the company has a turnover of over £8m and has enjoyed significant growth even during the recession.

The award recognised Naveed’s and Goldteam’s commitment to providing employment to local people. “We deal with a low skilled candidate group but have been able provide ongoing temporary work to 700 people from the local economy”, he said.  “By providing this low skilled group with free training in the areas of hygiene and health and safety, we have been able to ensure continuous assignments for what is usually an underprivileged section of our local economy as well as ensuring that they have the necessary skills to be able to secure work. This is a win/win situation providing local employment and obviously at the same time facilitating our own growth and has been made possible by my team who consistently deliver high standards”.

The award also recognised Naveed’s vision is to grow the business to £100m turnover by 2016 whilst achieving an unrivalled reputation for compliance, ethics and innovation. “I want to do this in order to  set a benchmark for our industry as a company that not only cares about making money – but which also cares about how that money is made – a quality I find sadly lacking in our industry today”, he said.

Interim Partners, a leading provider of interim management solutions, has been awarded   preferred supplier status by Buying Solutions,* the national procurement partner for public services in the UK. Interim Partners is confident that gaining this accreditation will help it achieve strong growth in its revenues through increased opportunities of working with the public sector.

The award of the framework agreement recognises Interim Partners’ quality as a specialist service provider and means the Company will now play a key role in helping to source high calibre interim managers across a wide number of disciplines within the public sector. 

The accreditation was awarded after a rigorous evaluation and selection process and means that public sector bodies can turn to Interim Partners for the placement of highly experienced individuals into specialist assignments at short notice.

Doug Baird, Managing Director of Interim Partners comments: “This is a substantial step forward in the development of our business.  We’re delighted that the quality of our work and the value it delivers has been recognised by this accreditation.  This is a great opportunity for Interim Partners to expand our delivery of interims to the public sector. Interims are increasingly vital for the public sector as a cost-effective way of managing projects, vacant periods between senior staff replacement and delivering institutional change.”

According to Interim Partners, budgetary pressures mean that the next five years should see the public sector turn increasingly to interim executives as a cost effective and flexible method to deliver senior management skills exactly where they are needed to improve productivity and performance levels.

In 2009, for the first time ever, the public sector’s use of interim executives equalled that of the private sector.  And during Q2 and Q3 2009 the public sector made 49% of all interim executive appointments.**

In the public sector the biggest user of interims is the health service (31% of all public sector interim assignments), followed by Local Government (29%) and Central Government (13%).**

Doug Baird says: “The public sector as a whole is turning increasingly to interims as part of its efforts to help improve efficiencies and raise frontline standards. Public bodies are looking to manage costs on project work by hiring an interim to oversee project consultants and to ensure they are working efficiently to meet key milestones on budget.”

* The accreditation was originally awarded by the Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA), which is now part of Buying Solutions.

** Ipsos MORI research, Q3 2009.

With the debate gathering momentum on the quality of internships and student exploitation, the National Council for Work Experience (NCWE) Awards announces its 2010 finalists*.

Microsoft, IBM, BP and Fujitsu are just a few of the organisations shortlisted and six companies will be competing in the new category, Best Work Placement Diversity Scheme.

Heather Collier, director of the NCWE comments: “We are thrilled at the record number of entries this year and that so many organisations have entered the new category. This is good news for any students worried about the possibility of taking on internships and feeling exploited. There continues to be a huge number of companies offering quality experiences and our finalists are a good indication of what’s out there.”

The winners will be announced on Tuesday 23 March at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London where Gordon McKenzie, director at the Office for Graduate Opportunities for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will present the awards.

The shortlist covers a complete spectrum of companies, from well-known multi-nationals such as The Co-operative Group to under 10 employee organisations like ethical PR company, Blue Rocket.

The Co-operative Group has been nominated for Best New Work Experience Scheme. The company’s Graduate Recruitment Officer, Rachel Rotherham said: “Since the launch of our placement scheme last year we have strived to maintain a market-leading programme ensuring the absolute highest calibre of experience for our students and graduates. It is extremely rewarding that our commitment to work experience is being recognised by the NCWE.”

This year’s sponsors include Changeboard, AGR, GlaxoSmithKline and Centrica.

For further information visit www.work-experience.org/awards .

Europe’s largest online recruitment survey NORAS, once again shows that the number of people exclusively using the internet to look for a job is still on the increase.

The annual National Online Recruitment Audience Survey (NORAS), published later this month, surveyed job seekers between September and December 2009. The results show that 1 in 5 online job seekers now use only the internet to look for jobs – more than doubling the figure of 1 in 11 from 2008.

The 2010 NORAS survey has had a massive response having been carried out by over 86,000 participants, up from 50,000 participants in 2009.

The NORAS 2010 results will be available to download free at www.noras.co.uk later this month. The information will include how jobseekers look for a job, how successful online recruitment is for them and how they use different online channels. Plus what is most and least important to jobseekers on a recruitment website.

Giles Guest, managing director of Enhance Media – the online recruitment research and strategy company that produces NORAS commented – “NORAS is an essential piece of research helping employers and agencies choose the best job boards for their roles – saving them time and money”.

Over 62 Job Boards took part in NORAS 2010 including:

Bristol Jobs and Cardiff Jobs

Careers & Jobs UK

Careers in audit

Changeboard

CIMA global

eFinancialcareers

Employment 4 Students

Exec-appointments (incl MBA)

Executives on the Web

Fish4Jobs

Guardian Jobs

Gumtree

ICAEW Jobs

Jobs AC

Jobs4Medical

JobsGoPublic

Jobsretail

Law Society Gazette

Legal Week

LondonCareers.net

Milkround

Nuclear Careers

Pharmiweb

Prospects (graduate)

Sales Recruitment Agency

Security Cleared Jobs

stvjobs

Telegraph Jobs

thejobsmine

Times Online

Top-Consultant

Trinity Mirror Digital Recruitment

Trinity Mirror REGIONAL (not same as TMDR)

VCJobs

William Reed