Five award shortlistings for Tile Hill (and more importantly, the people behind them)

I think it's really easy to write off industry awards as a vanity exercise or just an excuse to get dressed up and have an evening out together as a team - something that has no real lasting impact or meaning.

I've been involved with a wide variety of awards of various guises over the stretch of my marketing career and I can hand on heart say that it is more cumulative than that - the impact hits on many many fronts.

I think that perspective comes from seeing and experiencing how meaningful awards are to people, teams and organisations from both sides of the coin.

On one side, we sponsor and judge public sector industry awards, like the MJ Achievement Awards, Housing Heroes and Women in Housing Awards, LGC Awards and the Frontline Awards. This gives us a privileged opportunity to read and hear first-hand the impact of people and teams within the sectors we operate in - their realised ambitions, innovative projects, inspiring leadership and career journeys and then what that translates to on the ground for people in society and our communities.The judging processes are thorough and considered (and often really hard to select a standout entry to win!). The learnings we can all take from the nominees and winners, and examples of good practice, across the various categories is vast. 

On the flip side of that coin, my team and I are the ones who co-ordinate our own submissions to Recruitment Industry awards. In practice, this means strategically reviewing what we want to be known for and where we feel we have exceptionally strong evidence that meets the criteria to warrant a shortlist, let alone a win. We write, record and gather our evidence and work with teams and individuals recognised in the submissions to shape the story of each entry. That gives us in marketing a unique oversight and it's genuinely one of my favourite times in the year. I get to listen and read all the wonderful feedback and testimonials that support our entries. It's incredibly affirming. When we are shortlisted, and when we win awards, I then get to see what that means to the team ( I am often the one who gets to tell them too!).

Don't underestimate the boost in self-belief and pride that comes with a nomination, and the ripple effect of that on others and into their future work.

So, as you can see, I think awards absolutely have their place and will remain a staple of our marketing strategy - externally supporting our sectors and internally championing our teams and individuals within the recruitment industry itself.

On that note, I am really pleased to share that Tile Hill have been shortlisted for five Recruiter Awards this year.

We have been shortlisted for:

• Recruitment Leader of the Year – David Weir
• Most Effective Back Office Team – for our Operations team
• Best Candidate Care
• Best Public and Third Sector Recruitment Agency
• Most Effective Compliance Operation

Each of these entries drew on work happening across the business. They reflect conversations with candidates, the detail in our processes, the way our operations function behind the scenes, and the standards we hold ourselves to every day.

We are proud of the recognition (and of course have our fingers crossed 🤞).

What these shortlistings say about how we work at Tile Hill

The categories matter to us because they are closely tied to what we believe good recruitment looks like.

• Candidate care is not a separate initiative. It is the golden thread in how we communicate, how we manage expectations, and how candidates experience us at moments that matter in their careers. 
• Compliance and operations are what allow everything else to work properly. Clear processes. Attention to detail. Reliability when it counts. We have a brilliant operations team and are thorough in our compliance because that trust, once broken, is very hard to repair.
• Leadership, internally and externally, is something we  of course want to champion - we recruit the best leaders across the public sector after all. The shortlisting for our founder and Managing Director, David Weir, speaks to that. He is a brilliant leader and deserves to be recognised for how we continues to make Tile Hill an exceptional place to work.
• Our sector focus is central. Being recognised as the Public and Third Sector recruitment agency at last year's British Recruitment Awards was a real moment for us having expanded our executive search, interim and board recruitment practices beyond Local Government in the past few years to Housing, Government and Civil Society. Being shortlisted for the same category at the Recruitment Awards, well it's the cherry on top. 

In the context of the wider year

This builds on what’s already been a strong year for us at Tile Hill. We’ve seen that reflected in previous awards, and more recently in feedback from the interim community being voted Leading Interim Service Provider for a second year running.

Recognition is always appreciated. But what matters more is whether it rings true for the people we work with. Whether it reflects their experience of us, not just our view of ourselves. I know from helping compile our entries, and the feedback we get from our interim community every day, it does.

Looking ahead

For now, this feels like a good moment to acknowledge the team. The consistency, the care, and the way everyone contributes to the bigger picture, often without it being visible.

And yes, if there’s an evening out in our finest involved somewhere along the way, it’s well deserved.

If you’d like to hear more about the work behind the categories we've been shortlisted for, or the awards we've previously won, we’re always happy to share our experience.