Barminco’s CandE Award Submission Journey – Part 2

Sydney – Wednesday 24 February 2015, the date was set for the very first Asia Pacific Candidate Experience (CandE) Award Reception!
Tickets, flights and accommodation – Check!
I boarded my 4-hour flight from Perth to arrive in a hot muggy Sydney on Tuesday afternoon. The CandE Awards was to be held Wednesday at 5pm, and the half day workshop the following morning. As the CandE Awards are a Not-For-Profit organisation, you could attend both the Awards and Workshop for no cost. ‘Yes, that’s right at no cost’ so anyone that complains about having no budget to attend these things, and doesn’t then show up… well ‘I’m not so sure how serious you are about the candidate experience”. Thank you to the sponsors for your support.
So I suited up, navy velvet dinner jacket with white shirt and bow tie combination finished up with grey slacks and brown dress shoes. I felt like a winner, even if we weren’t successful at our first bid for a CandE. There was no dress code on the invitation, so I wasn’t sure what to wear, cocktail, black tie, corporate attire, the latter was the preferred choice.
It was a relaxed evening with some big company names present. Accenture, Dell, Intel, CA Technologies to name a few. It was a great opportunity to network and hear about what others were doing over a few quiet drinks and nibbles.
Elaine Orler welcomed us. An overview of Talent Board, the CandE’s and of course the Sponsors. Without them, this would not happen. What was apparent was how excited Talent Board were in relation to the first Asia Pacific CandE Awards. 10 Countries participated, 24+ Companies, and over 3000 candidate surveys completed to leave them with 11 inaugural winners. Not bad for a first time around.
Elaine then moved to announce the winners in alphabetical order. Thankfully we were B and did not have to wait too long for the potential bombshell.
Accenture – Alexander Mann Solutions – BARMINCO Ltd – CA Technologies – Dell Inc – Intel Corp – Intuit – Sapient – SNL Financial – Spark New Zealand Trading Ltd, Sunglass Hut.
WOW, just wow. I was stoked. So proud of my team and what we have been trying to achieve one small step at a time. To be included with the likes of Intel, Dell, Accenture who are more likely to have a much larger budget (big assumption) it just goes to show, that you can do a lot with very little.  I was so chuffed, even my photos show how happy and surprised I was.

More networking and a social dinner at Mr Chows followed. A great night was had.
The following morning was the CandE Awards Workshop. Where we would see more of the data from the Asia Pacific entrants and some of the comparisons with other regions. We heard from award winners and what they were doing, we got through one of two activities to take away and apply a few quick wins back at the office in terms of the candidate experience.
The time flew by. As the CandE continues to grow in stature, you can see the value of the workshops increasing. It’s FREE to attend for crying out loud. Tell me where else you’ll hear real stories from CandE Award Winners, network with Talent Acquisition Leaders from Corporate Giants like Accenture, Dell etc., and obtain information on how to improve FOR FREE! If you are in town, and you are too busy…SHAME ON YOU, ADVANTAGE ME.
What now? Well for Barminco, it’s a case of get hold of the baseline data. Look at where we can improve, develop a plan of attack. And as Elaine put it ‘Rinse and Repeat’ with the 2016 submission.
Some of the other organisations take the CandE a step further. Especially those companies where the candidates are also their customers. Linking the experience to marketing efforts. Difficult for us to do something like this, but our candidates could be our clients at some point in the future.
One of the more challenging issues for us now, is the move to agency hire for higher volume roles. I’m looking to include them into the survey, because from my perspective they are an extension of your business and your recruitment process. The great thing here is that you can provide them with unique URL’s to then make comparisons between your suppliers and you. The same can be applied should you have a multi-regional business. Further enabling you to compare and improve consistency across businesses.
Perth Talent Acquisition and Talent Management people, the CandE Workshop is coming to town. Stay tuned.
When does the 2016 CandE Award Submissions open? March 1^st 2016. I hope to see a heck of a lot more companies exposing themselves, then sharing and learning from one another.
Sharing is caring after all.

Read Part 1 of Barminco’s CandE Award journey here.