Fierce Competition at the 2005 SEEK Annual Recruitment Awards

Australiaís favourite recruiters were honoured last night at the SEEK Annual Recruitment Awards (SARAs), after three months of fierce competition.

The SARAs, a popular choice award, were launched in 2003 to acknowledge the value the recruitment industry provides both clients and candidates. The award categories cover a range of industries and ensure small, medium and large recruiters are all considered.

At a gala event held at the Sydney Hilton, Kelly Services won the Generalist Recruiter: Large category and Staff It won the Generalist Recruiter: Small to Medium category. Other winners included Hudson in the Executive Recruiter category, Greythorn in the IT Recruiter category and Xpand IT in the IT Recruiter: Small to Medium category.

This year two new categories were added to the awards, Favourite Niche Recruiter and Favourite Healthcare Recruiter. AAAI Group (Engineering) took out the Niche category and Kelly Scientific Resources won the Favourite Healthcare Recruiter award.

Winning a surprise award was Mark Limbrick of Ambit IT & T Recruitment who received the most individual votes from job seekers and was crowned as this yearís Favourite Individual Recruiter.

SEEK researched international industry award programs before developing the SARAs. Now in its third year, the SARAs have been embraced by the recruitment industry with many organisations encouraging their candidates to vote for them on their websites, by email or in print materials during the three month voting period.

Matthew Rockman, SEEK Executive Director said a 50 per cent increase in the number of votes received this year shows that jobseekers have been highly supportive of the SARAs. 9,000 job seekers voted in the 2005 SARAs, up from 6,000 last year.

ìThe SARAs highlight how competitive the recruitment industry is and the value jobseekers place on personal service. This yearís voters have voiced their opinions on what makes a good recruiter and this includes a prompt response, valuable advice and excellent post placement service,î said Matthew Rockman.

The New Zealand SARA winners will be announced on Tuesday 21st September.