Press releases
AGR Awards 2008ASSOCIATION OF GRADUATE RECRUITERS ANNOUNCES ITS 2008 ANNUAL AWARD WINNERS
- The Bank of England wins the Best of the Best Award (and also wins the Best Graduate Development Programme Award, new this year)
- The Audit Commission is named winner of the Best Website Award
- Best Literature Award goes to Accenture
- Barclays Bank wins the Best Integrated Marketing Campaign Award
- The Graduate Selection & Assessment Award is won by the Financial Services Authority
- The 2008 Innovation on Campus Award winner is RWE nPower
Last night (Monday 7 July) the winners of the 2008 annual Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) awards were announced at the organisation’s annual conference at the Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales.
The awards, now in their 27th year, recognise and reward graduate recruiters for creative and innovative campaigns that attract the best graduate talent to their organisations. They are designed to highlight best practice in terms of graduate recruitment and to ensure standards within the industry remain high.
The awards, which are free to enter for AGR members, are unique in the industry as they are judged independently by both industry professionals and students.
This year’s Best of the Best Award goes to the Bank of England, who also won the brand new Graduate Development Programme Award. The judges were particularly impressed by the training that managers were given to support their graduates, and also by the manual they used which was “very thorough, and one that other companies could do well to emulate.”
The Audit Commission’s graduate recruitment website was overall winner of the Best Website Award. The judges praised it for being simple and easy to navigate and visually creative. JP Morgan picked up the best website award for the company employing over 100 graduates, while the award for the company employing less than 100 went to Freshfields.
The overall Best Literature Award was won by Accenture. The Best Literature award for the company recruiting over 100 graduates went to Allen & Overy and to Eon for under 100 graduates. Accenture’s literature was praised as being very creative and professional, with an excellent level of information and good photography. The judges were impressed with how good an insight into the company the literature proved.
The Financial Services Authority was named as this year’s winner of the Graduate Selection & Assessment Award. Judges noted the FSA’s “thorough and confident approach”, as well as their emphasis on quality throughout the process. One judge commented that the team that wrote the submission “obviously lives and breathes graduate recruitment.” Merrill Lynch’s selection and assessment process also received a high commendation in this category.
The Integrated Marketing Campaign Award 2008 was a closely fought affair, but the prize eventually went to Barclays Bank whose entry was praised as conveying a clear and consistent message, as well as being “inspired and insightful”. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was highly commended for their entry, while the National Audit Office and KBC Financial Products both received a commendation.
The judges felt that this year’s submissions to the Innovation on Campus Award 2008 were “vastly impressive”, but in the end a clear winner emerged in the form of RWE nPower. Their campaign was described as “hugely creative, imaginative and innovative”, as well as being both challenging and in tune with students’ concerns about the environment. PricewaterhouseCoopers were close runners up, as they offered something “decidedly different” with their graduate recruitment campaign.
Carl Gilleard, Chief Executive of the AGR, comments: “This year, the AGR’s 40th anniversary year, has once again seen an incredibly impressive field of entries to the awards, and I know that the judges have really been tested in selecting the winners. Graduate recruitment remains an extremely competitive business and the quality of the winners’ entries is a reminder that employers must continue to be ever more creative and innovative to make sure that they stand out from the crowd.”
For further information please contact Anya Matthews or Henry de Rougemont at Colman Getty on 020 7631 2666 or email firstname@colmangetty.co.uk
Notes to Editors
The AGR (Association of Graduate Recruiters) is the recognised national voice for all employers involved in graduate recruitment. This year sees the 40th anniversary of the AGR, which now has more than 800 members, including a significant number of public and private sector businesses. Collectively they provide a large proportion of the graduate vacancies available in the UK. The AGR has a reputation built on a tradition of networking and sharing of information on best practice. Resources include research publications, benchmarking reports, training events and sector focus groups.
The AGR has a growing membership and a reputation built on a tradition of networking and sharing of information on best practice. To find out more about AGR membership and to join, visit www.agr.org.uk and click on ‘Join AGR’ or call Genevieve Cropper on 01923 623 263.
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