On April 30th almost 600 of Ireland’s graduate recruiters, course providers and influencers came together in the Round Room of the Mansion House to celebrate achievement and innovation in the graduate recruitment area, on the back of a year which has seen the market rebound considerably as a result of the continuing economic recovery. 2015 marked the largest ever gradireland Graduate Recruitment Awards, which were conducted in partnership with the Association of Higher Education Careers Services (AHECS) and the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
Hosted by RTE’s Brian Dobson, the awards ranged throughout the graduate recruitment spectrum and also acknowledged achievement in the postgraduate course provision area. Indeed this area saw the first awards of the evening, the AHECS awards, being presented, the winners being:
Employability Award (Small and Medium Services Category)
Galway-Mayo IT
Careers Module: The Next Step – Transitioning to the Workplace
Silver
Cork Institute of Technology
Joint Mentorship Programme
Employability Award (Large Services Category)
Joint Winners
DIT
Connect, Commit, Communicate: Transition into First Year
Trinity College Dublin
Career Pathways – Transition to Employment Project
Engagement Award
Deloitte
Prior to the awards, guests enjoyed a gala dinner and were addressed by gradireland publisher Mark Mitchell and Minister for Business & Employment, Mr. Ged Nash TD. The Minister was enthused by the efforts of those in the careers advisory and graduate sector, which he said had ‘refused to give up hope’ during the dark days of the economic crisis.
“It is that holistic approach and amalgamation of talents and roles, which has helped rescue this country and pull it out of the worst economic crisis we have ever faced. The people in this room together with all of your colleagues continued to invest in the future. Companies continued to look for better ways of doing things. You took gambles and invested in new technologies. Most importantly you continued to invest in people, hiring graduates even if initially you could only offer internships. You also maintained the continuing professional development of your existing employees assisted in this by our professional bodies. Our universities and institutes of technology continued to produce excellent graduates and tailored their programmes so that these graduates walked away from the campus equipped with the knowledge and skillsets needed for the modern workplace,” he said.
The award winners on the night represented a broad spectrum of Irish and international industry. KPMG landed the award for Employer of the Year, while Google was once again named Ireland’s Most Popular Graduate Recruiter. Stryker was deemed to have the Best Specialist/Professional Graduate Training & Development Programme and Accenture was awarded with Best Internship Programme. The dynamic of the graduate recruitment sector was evident everywhere in the room. Stakeholders in industry rubbed shoulders with course providers, tasked with providing the next generation of talent. Semi-state and public service organisations won awards, testament to their ability to evolve and change in the midst of recent turmoil to make their careers attractive to graduates at a time when recruitment levels were very low. That ability to evolve was referred to by the Minister; “change must never stop and it won’t stop so long as our graduates continue to be guided and shaped by organisations and individuals of the calibre, dedication and talent of those celebrated and honoured in this room tonight.”
The full list of winners (and silver and bronze awards) at the gradireland Graduate Recruitment Awards 2015:
| The most popular graduate recruiters |
| Accountancy/Professional Services |
| Winner |
| PwC |
| Banking, investment & financial services |
| Winner |
| Bank of Ireland |
| Consulting |
| Winner |
| Accenture |
| Engineering |
| Winner |
| Intel |
| FMCG |
| Winner |
| Jameson – Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard |
| IT |
| Winner |
| Law |
| Winner |
| A&L Goodbody |
| Logistics, transport & supply chain management |
| Winner |
| Aer Lingus |
| Online retail services and telecoms |
| Winner |
| Amazon |
| Retail |
| Winner |
| Lidl |
| Science |
| Winner |
| Boston Scientific |
| Utilities, Energy, Renewables |
| Winner |
| ESB |
| Ireland’s Most Popular Graduate Recruiter |
| Winner |
| Best Graduate Recruitment Website |
| Winner |
| Gradpublicjobs.ie |
| Silver |
| Jameson – Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard |
| Bronze |
| PwC |
| Best Innovation on Campus |
| Winner |
| Deloitte |
| Silver |
| KPMG |
| Bronze |
| Jameson – Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard |
| Best Student Marketing Campaign |
| Winner |
| Lidl |
| Silver |
| Glanbia |
| Bronze |
| Version 1 |
| Best Graduate Training & Development Programmes |
| Specialist/Professional Training & Development programme |
| Winner |
| Stryker |
| Silver |
| William Fry |
| Bronze |
| Kerry |
| Business/General Training & Development programme |
| Winner |
| Paddy Power |
| Silver |
| Jameson – Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard |
| Bronze |
| EMC |
| Business Support programme |
| Winner |
| Graduates 4 International Growth |
| Silver |
| InterTradeIreland |
| Bronze |
| Ibec’s Export Orientation Programme |
| Best Internship Programme |
| Winner |
| Accenture |
| Silver |
| EY |
| Bronze |
| KPMG |
| gradireland Diversity Recruitment Award |
| Winner |
| Dell |
| Silver |
| Enterprise rent-a-car |
| Bronze |
| Accenture |
| Postgraduate Course of the Year 2015 |
| Business |
| MSc in Information Systems for Business Performance |
| University College Cork |
| IT |
| H.Dip in Software Design & Development |
| College of Engineering & Informatics, NUI Galway |
| Engineering |
| Master of Engineering with Business |
| UCD College of Engineering & Architecture |
| Science |
| MSc in Computational Biology |
| CIT School of Science and Informatics |
| Best New Course |
| MA Festive Arts |
| University of Limerick and Irish world academy of Music and Dance |
| Graduate Employee of the Year |
| Overall winners |
| Gráinne Dunne |
| abbvie |
| Kirstie Gaynor |
| EMC |
| Graduate Employer of the Year |
| KPMG |
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