The Onrec Online Recruitment Awards are moving to Park Lane, London!

The 2009 Onrec.com Awards - the Online Recruitment Industryís most prestigious Awards Ceremony will take place at The Sheraton Hotel on Park Lane on 25th March this year.

Celebrating the success, growth, innovation, talent and achievements within the Online Recruitment Industry, the Onrecs are now in their fourth year and are a firm fixture in the calendar. They are a fantastic opportunity to celebrate together and also a networking opportunity not to be missed!

Onrec.com, the leading supplier of global online recruitment news and comment is proud to host this annual ceremony. Winners have been chosen from a list of shortlisted nominees by a panel of judges, and these award winners will be announced after dinner. There is also a Charity Auction taking place in support of Whizz-Kidz, a charity that provides customised wheelchairs, tricycles and other specialised mobility equipment to disabled children across the UK.

The Onrecs are the perfect time to reflect on past successes, trials and tribulations and to evaluate for the future. We asked some of the award nominees to consider 2008/9 from their perspective. Obviously the global economic situation is not far from anyoneís mind, but these people are successful because they are positive and forward thinking, so itís not all doom and gloom!

Alex Paterson, Website Director, Check4Jobs.com says: ìMy memories of 2008 are probably going to stay in my mind for more good reasons than bad. I mean you would have to be on another planet if you werenít thinking of the worldwide financial crisis but letís put that aside and talk about our industry and what changed significantly there. Over the course of 2008 there where small but very significant changes in the way online jobseekers are using job search. There are probably few people outside the aggregator and job search industry that noticed but vertical search engines have started to grow fast in the UK especially when searching via Google.î Patrice Barbedette from Jobpartners agrees: ìNo one could have predicted the financial crisis and we cannot overlook it as the event of 2008. Whereas many organisations have previously focused on the war for talent in late 2008 they began to think of the need to react to the economic downturn by restructuring or changing their business models.

For some this may mean redundancies, with the risk of losing good talent, de-stabilising the remaining workforce, and negative publicity. And for those in the midst of a merger or acquisition, identifying key talent continues to be a challenge in itself, let alone knowing how to best redeploy them. These issues are affecting all sectors so we have developed a redeployment module for our clients so that they can maximise redeployment opportunities allowing them to retain valuable talent, improve employee loyalty, and reduce their recruitment and redundancy costs.î

Many companies had a good year in spite of the economic climate. Simon Appleton of Workcircle says: ì2008 was the year Workcircle came of age, and it was a busy, inspiring time. Our business grew rapidly, and aggregators became an important part of the process for both jobseekers and job boards alike.î Jonathan Hedger, Marketing Manager Totaljobs Group says it was a great year for Caterer.com too: ì The continual migration of recruitment from traditional means to online within the hospitality sector enabled Caterer.com to achieve record levels of customer numbers, partly thanks to the successful opening of a number of regional offices across the UK. 2008 also saw the launch of the ëLittle Gordoní viral campaign which proved a massive hit with audiences across the globe, gaining over 1 million hits in the first 10 weeks as well as widespread international media coverage including Chris Moyles and The Jay Leno Show in the US.î Broadbean is also pleased with their results: ìDespite speculation in the industry about the direction of the recruitment market, weíve generated a great deal of new business and our renewal rate has been stable throughout. Broadbeanís progress was recognised by Deloitte and Broadbean is now the seventh fastest growing technology company in the UK.î However, Martin Edmondson, CEO of Graduates Yorkshire says his memories of 2008 will be having to become more and more resourceful and innovative in an increasingly difficult climate. No doubt this will be the same for many others.

Highlights of the year

Particular highlights of the year for our nominees have been landmarks for their businesses and of course the Onrec awards. Jeremy Pemberton-Piggott, MD at Previsor says: ìOne of our highlights for 2008 was winning the Best Technical Innovation Award at the Onrec 2008 awards. Also at the beginning of the year ASE was acquired by PreVisor from Granada Learning and we became the UK office for PreVisor. We look forward to presenting the Best Graduate Site Award this year as the 2009 Corporate Sponsors.î Anthony Sherick at Technojobs Ltd says winning the online marketing award at the OnRec Awards ceremony in 2008 was a particular highlight of the year as the specialist category is extremely competitive. He says: ìWhat is pleasing in 2008 is the continued feedback from recruiters and candidates that specialist jobsites are still very much favourable for skilled vacancies and producing high quality targeted candidates. This reflects the strategy of Technojobs, focusing on targeted online marketing.î Director of CV- Library, Lee Biggins hopes to be lucky this year, saying: ìOf course we would love to win the Innovative Online Marketing Award as this will give such credibility to the site that the team has been working so hard to create.î

Other highlights for our nominees have been landmark achievements for their businesses. Lee Biggins says their main highlight of 2008 was hitting one million CV registrations on the database. He says: ìWe started in 2000 and it took us 7 years to hit 500,000 CVs, so to double that figure in just a year shows us how quickly CV-Library is growing and confirms we are marketing our service in the right places to the right candidates.î Alex Charles, Founder and Product Director of iProfile launched their online CV to consumers: ìOur free service provides jobseekers with a tool to build, update and save their CV securely. Job seekers can also see when a recruiter has reviewed their CV and receive valuable feedback to help them find the right job more quickly. As a result we reached a significant milestone – more than 2.5 million people now have an iProfile.î For Jobsite, the highlight was their launch onto the wider platform of television. ìWith over 90 websites within our network (including newspaper partnerships) covering almost every sector and region the time was right for Jobsite to reach out to a broader audience whilst continuing to focus on the network and partnership strategies that have made us so strong. Our first burst of TV in October 2008 was very successful with significant growth across searchable CVs, registrations and applications, exceeding even our highest expectations,î says MD Keith Potts.

Alex Charles also suggests one of the more memorable events of last year was the revelation that Apprentice winner, Lee McQueen, had been caught lying on his CV. He says: ìThe incident highlighted the embarrassment candidates could face if they put themselves in this situation. Most importantly it brought the potential severity of the issue to the forefront of the public agenda – highlighting the need for more effective verification of candidatesí qualifications throughout the recruitment process.î

What will 2009 bring?

For 2009, the industryís best are focused and are looking forward with renewed enthusiasm to a year of undoubted challenges and opportunities. Howard Grosvenor, Head of Consulting at SHL Group says: ìLooking forward, a significant factor in the growth of online testing will be the usability of tests and their results by non-trained user groups such as line managers and candidates. We will see ever more creative ways of giving access to the powerful results tests provide, for example in interactive development plans and feedback reports. In addition, we are beginning to see the creative use of Applicant Tracking Systems in the Talent Management space; and undoubtedly this trend will continue as organisations increasingly ask the question ëHow can we make the most of the talent we have?í, as opposed to ëHow can we identify the talent we need from outside the company?íî

Tim Cook, Managing Director of Hays (UK) believes: ìOne of the major challenges that we will have to confront in 2009 will be to reach the very best candidates in the marketplace, not just the growing number of available jobseekers. By embracing and strengthening our suite of advertising solutions, for example in the social networking domain, we can continue to provide companies with tailored solutions and that jobseekers can make the most of the opportunities provided, despite the difficult economic conditions. On a technology front, we are already starting to see the convergence of mobile technologies towards common standards for hardware and software. Once this aspect of the technology market crystallizes, we will see the rapid development of the next generation of assessments.î Patrice Barbedette also sees social media being important. He says: ìWe are likely to see a further increase in initiatives over the next year, for the use of social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for recruitment related activities. Because we believe that organisations will start to put greater emphasis on their own internal social networks we have developed ActiveNetworker – a corporate internal network solution - to meet this need. Finally, organisations will begin to develop their own social networking communities such as alumni groups as a source of candidates such as return employees or referrals, alongside the development of creative candidate relationship-based online recruitment channels to attract the best talent.î

Anthony Sherick is looking forward to what will be another hugely competitive year. He says: ìDuring a recession the market can often produce fundamental change and new unplanned opportunities arise. Companies will need to be in a good position to take advantage of those opportunities and be pro-active in the market rather than putting up the shutters. Due to the fragmentation, there may be consolidation in the market or smaller sites falling by the wayside. It may also be back to basics for a lot of companies that in the past had the luxury of resource on ideas that would never pay their way. Whilst the overall number of vacancies is likely to fall in 2009 for the market, history shows that the contracting market can benefit and this is an area of strength for Technojobs.î Simon Appleton predicts 2009 is going to be the year when the industry becomes more effective and 'fitter'. Those who can't adapt to a different world will not last long, but those who can will find there's still much business to be done. We're excited by the prospect!î

Keith Potts is looking further ahead than this year: ì It looks like 2009 will continue to be a challenging period across the board in the recruitment market, but at Jobsite we look forward to investing further in our brand with the continuing rollout of our 15m brand campaign across TV, print and online media. This helps us attract new candidates and clients now but is also a long term strategy to ensure Jobsite will be in a strong position to withstand any future threats.î Alex Paterson also has confidence about building for the future: ì2009 is going to be a difficult year but at the same time there seems to be a bond growing between businesses as we are all sharing a common problem. Strong relationships will be forged this year and when the UK does start to recover good solid performers who have continued to impress and offer value to their market will reap the rewards that are on offer in a growing and vibrant economy.î

Such ëDunkirk Spirití will be invaluable in difficult times, as will the innate ability of the industry to constantly change and adapt. Congratulations to all our nominees. We look forward to celebrating the industryís success at the Onrec awards with you all.