2009 TARGETjobs awards: all the winners
Friday, 22 May 2009Top comedian Alan Carr was on hand to host the presentation of no less than thirty trophies at the fifth annual TARGETjobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards, held at London's Grosvenor House on the evening of Thursday 21st May.
GTI's UK CEO Paul Sissons welcomed guests to "the biggest graduate recruitment awards on the planet", and there were further brief introductions from headline sponsor RBS's Nigel Bastow and media partner The Guardian's Helen Bird. Their general message was that, despite the tough economic climate, it was very important for organisations to continue to invest in graduate talent.
The first two awards were presented before dinner was served - the AGCAS award (for the outstanding contribution to developing employability and skills in the curriculum), which went to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the AGR award (the employers' award for best practice in graduate recruitment), won by the Civil Service Fast Stream.
Then it was time for a brief musical extravaganza from the cast of West End musical Chicago before Alan Carr came on to host the remaining awards. He began with a few house rules for the winners ("no speeches, or you'll get Tasered") and explained the judging process ("this could be the Da Vinci Code - I don't know what's going on!").
Nineteen sector-specific awards (voted for by a record number of students) were presented. These went to Atkins (construction & civil engineering), Accenture (consulting), Hilton Hotels (hospitality, leisure & tourism), Google (IT & telecomms), British Airways (logistics & transport), Saatchi & Saatchi (marketing & advertising), BBC TV (media, publishing & printing), Savills (property), Balfour Beatty (quantity/building surveying), Marks & Spencer (retail), the Science & Technology Facilities Council (scientific R&D), PricewaterhouseCoopers (accounting & professional services), HSBC (banking, insurance & financial services), Oxfam (charity & not-for-profit), Rolls-Royce (engineering, design & manufacturing), J.P. Morgan (investment banking & investment), Procter & Gamble (FMCG), Allen & Overy (legal) and Teach First (public sector).
The new award for engineering undergraduate of the year was won by Tom Astley, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Warwick, who stepped up to receive a cheque for £3,000.
Next up were the six student panel awards, judged by a group of AIESEC students mentored by a team of graduate recruitment professionals with Dr Paul Redmond, head of careers and employability at the University of Liverpool, as chief adjudicator.
The award for best graduate recruitment website went to the Audit Commission (agency: ThirtyThree). Nabarro then took two consecutive awards, for best internship/graduate programme and best marketing campaign for organisations recruiting fewer than 50 graduates, while in the more than 50 graduates category the award went to PricewaterhouseCoopers (agency: ThirtyThree). IBM (agency: greenlight) picked up the diversity award, while Lloyds of London's Bond campaign (agency: Euro RSCG Riley) took the award for innovation on campus.
The evening's penultimate award, for lifetime achievement, was presented to two people - GTI's joint founders Mark Blythe and Adrian Wood (a duo characterised as "southern flamboyance meets true Yorkshire grit").
That left just the big prize - graduate employer of the year - which was awarded to IBM.
With the presentations finally over, the festivities continued with a charity casino (in aid of Project Trust) and a disco.
Ri5 adds its congratulations to all the winners and commiserations to the runners-up. Further coverage of the awards will be provided in the Guardian's Work section on Saturday 23rd May, while photos of the awards ceremony will shortly be made available on the official awards website - www.targetjobsawards.co.uk.
