Very recently, I was asked to be a judge at an Awards ceremony for the Hospitality Industry. I was delighted and honour to be part of the judging panel amongst other industry experts. What I learned, is that filing award applications, is not everyone’s strength, and they can be an injustice to the actual applicant.
90% of the written applications we received were well below average. In some cases, the answers did not match the questions, or the explanation given was not factual, or the answer was just simply too short.
Thankfully, at this particular awards, we were allowed to shortlist several applicants and interview them face to face.
To be honest, I went into the interviews with low expectations, based on the applications we had received. But when I met the candidates, they blew my mind!
Every single person, had achieved a lot more than what their written applications reflected, and had I not met them face to face during the interview stage, most of them would have not been successful.
An award application needs to do exactly that, build you up, not mark you down.
An award application is the right place to boast and explain all those things you have achieved that you are proud off.
Maybe it is an Irish thing? Where we don’t like highlighting the positives in case we sound cocky and we rather play it down?
DON’T DO IT TO YOURSELF!!!
If you can’t boast on this type of platform you will never be in a position to win.
You might be saying to yourself, “Ah sure, those applications take a long time” and yes they can do. But the time you can dedicate to enter awards, is time well spent.
Winning awards can be of huge benefit to your business.
I personally LOVE awards. I have enter them for years now, some for me, some for my team, some for places I have worked on and some for clients. You could say I am an award addict really! Now, as I approach the big 40 in my life, I am been asked to judge the younger generations, what a blast!!!
So my advice to you today is, ENTER AWARDS!!! Have a look at your business, pin point what areas you or your team excel at, even if you don’t think you are the best, it all depends on the competition! And of course, a good written application.
Raquel
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