Reviewing the 2007 Creative Excellence Awards winners was an interesting exercise, not unlike looking at the ERE REA winners. At the conclusion of this program, I get to make my personal awards for the best of the best. This award is the MBA (Modified Bettinger Awards) Best Corporate Careers Website. Had I been able to make it to New Orleans on 23 April, this would have been my presenter’s speech:

Full disclosure – I was one of the many judges for the 2007 CEA program. I did not judge the Online Media “E2-Corporate Employment Web Site” category.

“In the Creative Excellence Awards (CEA) program, four web sites have been recognized as finalists for MBA Best Corporate Careers Web Site. Each of the sites is good, but only one site can be the best. And the best of this year’s entries is:

FedEx!”

Here are my ranking (the link goes to my site review):
1st: FedEx, Agency: Bernard Hodes Group (CEA rank 1st)
2nd: CSC Consulting, Agency: Computer Sciences Corporation (CEA rank HM)
3rd: Verizon Business, Agency: NAS Recruitment Communications (CEA rank 3rd)
4th: Intrawest, Agency: Bayard Advertising (CEA rank #2)

The tiny, fixed-size window killed Intrawest’s score. Verizon got nailed for the cheesy stock photos. The Hodes IQ engine really helped FedEx. None of the CEA participants used Taleo.

Go take a look at these sites for yourself. Then let me know your thoughts.

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
CSC’s CareerSource site got an Honorable Mention in the 2007 Creative Excellence Awards. Their career page is an in-house effort built in using the Lotus Domino® architecture. Perhaps because they use in-site tools, CareerSource runs fast.

Full disclosure: CSC Intellicom was a client of mine back in my headhunter days in the early 1990’s.

SITE DETAILS
+ Direct Link on Front Page? Yes
+ Using www.csc.jobs domain? Not really – csc.jobs redirects to csc.com
+ Present benefits information? Yes
+ Present Company Culture Information? Yes, in a Life @ CSC section.
+ Present Job Preview Information? No
+ Response sent to applicant? Yes

JOB POSTINGS:
+ ATS Engine: CSC built it in house
+ Postings Dated? Yes
+ Show Specific Work Site? No. City locations only
+ Show Explicit Travel Amount? No. Application asks candidates to state how much travel they want.
+ Show Salary Information? No. Application asks candidates to state salary info.
+ Consistent posting formats? Yes, but… (see below)
+ Steps to apply: 1 screen

IMPRESSIONS, THOUGHTS AND WHINING:
+ OVERALL: Very good effort for a home-grown system. I’ll take CSC’s application over Taleo anytime. Since this is an in-house project, they can do some tweaking to make it better.
+ GOOD: Can click a link to see all jobs posted in the last 24 hours – a nice feature.
+ GOOD: can browse by location, browse by function/title or do a search.
+ BAD: Job postings have some of the largest paragraphs known to mankind.
+ BAD: “CareerSource is CSC’s virtual recruiting site” misuses the word virtual. They mean “Internet recruiting site”. Or maybe they mean virtuous.

Verizon Business
NAS Recruitment Communications did the work on the Verizon Business site, which came in third in this year’s Creative Excellence Awards. Part of Verizon Communications, Verizon Business delivers telecom solutions to big businesses. They have some challenges since they have to recruit around the world. Although the slowest of the four, their site did a pretty good job.

SITE DETAILS
+ Direct Link on Front Page? Yes
+ Using www.verizonbusiness.jobs domain? Yes – the main domain
+ Present benefits information? Yes
+ Present Company Culture Information? Yes
+ Present Job Preview Information? Yes – general information for some positions
+ Response sent to applicant? Yes

JOB POSTINGS:
+ ATS Engine: StepStone’s i-GRasp
+ Postings Dated? No
+ Show Specific Work Site? No. City locations only
+ Show Explicit Travel Amount? No
+ Show Salary Information? No
+ Consistent posting formats? Yes
+ Steps to apply: 6

IMPRESSIONS, THOUGHTS AND WHINING:
+ OVERALL: Verizon stresses their diversity, so the images show a mix of people of different ages, ethnic backgrounds, and sex. Since they sell to the Feds, they must comply with the OFCCP rules. The site is slow, with significant wait times to surf. The application section was concise and organized.
+ GOOD: Navigation is clean and clear, with one exception, which is:
+ BAD: On the main menu, they use the word “Search” to mean “Job Search”. Looks like it could be “Site Search” or “Web Search”. They have the space for the three characters in “job”.
+ BAD: SLOW! SLOW! SLOW!
+ BAD: Overuse of stock photography. From the images, it appears that playing in the fountain and rolling your co-workers around on chairs are big benefits to working for Verizon.
+ UGLY: Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are not countries, but they show up in the country drop-down. Someone at NAS or Verizon failed geography.
+ TTMYSH*: The images show a wide variety of people representing different age and ethnic groups. The only time a 20-something white male appears is on the diversity page.

* Things that make you say “Hmmmmm….”

Intrawest
Intrawest came in second during the 2007 Creative Excellence Awards. Bayard Advertising did the site for Intrawest. Bayard seems to have let the graphic designers run loose at the expense of usability. The site is visually very cool, with a lot of Adobe Flash googaws. Unfortunately, Intrawest/Bayard shoehorned everything into a tiny tiny window.

SITE DETAILS
+ Direct Link on Front Page? Yes, but buried at the bottom, then requires another click to get to the real employment site: http://www.wework2play.com/
+ Using www.intrawest.jobs domain? No
+ Present benefits information? No specific information offered, just two generic paragraphs.
+ Present Company Culture Information? Yes
+ Present Job Preview Information? Yes
+ Response sent to applicant? Couldn’t apply.

JOB POSTINGS:
+ ATS Engine: Seems to be something custom.
+ Postings Dated? Yes, earliest one dated 23 Feb 2007
+ Show Specific Work Site? Yes, down to details about specific resorts.
+ Show Explicit Travel Amount? No
+ Show Salary Information? No
+ Consistent posting formats? No – all over the map
+ Steps to apply: 2 (could be more depending on if a candidate wants to enter or upload a resume.)

IMPRESSIONS, THOUGHTS AND WHINING:
+ OVERALL: Visually pretty, but slow. Has a lot of Flash which may slow down the views. Content suffers from a noticeable lack of consistency.
+ GOOD: Good FAQ and cultural presentations
+ BAD: Poor connection between corporate web site and recruiting web site.
+ BAD: Vague recruiting descriptions and inconsistent formatting.
+ BAD: Many jobs are stale. I found posted jobs over 2 years old.
+ BAD: No consistent travel or salary details. A few postings did list salary.
+ UGLY: That tiny window with no navigational tools or resize ability. This little feature just screams “We’re a huge corporation! You’ll do things the way WE say to.”
+ VERY BAD: After this review, they’ll probably never let me ski at Copper or Winter Park again!

Last week’s Creative Excellence Awards (CEA) recognized four web sites as finalists for Best Corporate Careers Website:

1st: FedEx, Agency: Bernard Hodes Group
2nd: Intrawest, Agency: Bayard Advertising
3rd: Verizon Business, Agency: NAS Recruitment Communications
HM: CSC Consulting, Agency: Computer Sciences Corporation

Because I visited and reviewed the REA sites, I’m working on visiting and critiquing each of the CEA sites. Like before, I’ll look at some standard areas, and then point out the good, the bad and the ugly. I encourage you to visit and share your thoughts in the comments.

The CEA choice for best web site, Fedex was also my personal choice for the best REA web site. I stand by my previous opinion, which can be found here.

An interesting note from this week’s review of the Recruiting Excellence Awards (for corporate recruiting) and the Creative Excellence Awards (for advertising/branding agencies) is the lack of crossover. I expected to see some of the same names of the top REA winners on the top CEA client lists. It didn’t happen.

It looks like only five companies show up on both lists:

Fair Isaac (NAS)
FedEx (Hodes)
Microsoft (JWT)
Sodexho (TMP)
Starbucks (NAS)

Granted, the CEA listed 60 companies, and REA only listed 18. Also, the military recruiters in the CEA list are not in the same class as the corporate warriors in the REA. However, it is interesting to note the differences between the two lists.

When the CEA data is sliced another way, we see that the CIA and TMP cleaned up in several categories.

Client	Agency	Grand Prizes	1st Place	Total
Central Intelligence Agency	TMP	2	6	8
Microsoft	JWT	1	4	6 *
Monster	TMP		3	3
Advertisers of The Houston Chronicle	self	1	1	2
Comcast	Alstin	1	1	2
Conoco Phillips	TMP		2	2
Evercare	Rada Adv.	1	1	2
Fairfax County Public Schools	TMP	1	1	2
FSC Securities Corporation	Hodes	1	1	2
Invitrogen	J. Morrison		2	2
Nevada State Bank	Review-Journal	1	1	2
Orange County Dept. of Social Services	JWT	1	1	2
Rabobank	Hodes	1	1	2
US Navy	Campbell-Ewald	1	1	2

* Microsoft and JWT received the special Dansker Award – it is counted in the total.
Statistical note: Only Clients with a total of at least two (2) are shown.

A few pivot tables later, here is the promised box score from the CEA event:

Agency/Company	1st Place	Grand	Dansker
TMP Worldwide	23	3
Bernard Hodes Group	15	2
JWT Employment Communications	10	3	1
NAS Recruitment Communications	3
Shaker Recruitment Advertising	3
Alstin Advertising	2	1
Campbell-Ewald	2	1
J. Morrison Group	2
Maximum	2
Houston Chronicle	1	1

Statistical note: all results for one company have been combined. This means that results from international companies have been combined with their parent.

Only the top 10 1st place awardees are shown. To be truly accurate, I’d have to know how many entries each agency submitted in each category, but I don’t have that information.

The CEA Results are In! Check them out here.

I’ll dig in and provide some commentary after I have a chance to dice the statistics, but you can start by looking yourself.

The folks at who attended the Creative Excellence Awards at SHRM’s Staffing Management Conference & Exposition in New Orleans had a great time at the party. Maybe they all partied hard, and are still recovering, because no results have been posted on the CEA site.

Stand by…