Hall of Fame - Talent Acquisition Award
Attracting the right talent takes more than a job ad
The Talent Acquisition Award recognises organisations that have met the challenge of talent shortages head-on, with innovative, well-executed strategies that deliver real results. This award is about more than a clever campaign, it's about organisations that have taken a fresh look at how they attract talent and backed that thinking with action.
Past recipients have demonstrated that when recruitment is approached with creativity and strategic intent, organisations don't just fill roles, they build a pipeline of people who genuinely want to be there.
In a competitive talent landscape, that kind of thinking sets organisations apart.
Has your organisation cracked the talent challenge? If your organisation has developed and implemented an innovative approach to attracting talent, we want to hear about it. Find out more about the upcoming awards and how to apply.
Talent Acquisition Award winners
Neptune Pacific Direct Line (NPDL)
Talent Acquisition Award 2025, in association with H2R Consulting
To help with a significant upgrade to NPDL’s international finance data platform, their NZ recruitment team was tasked with hiring 11 specialists in four months while maintaining business continuity. These roles were critical, the talent pool was limited, and core company values couldn’t be compromised in filling these specialised positions. By prioritising inclusivity and employee well-being, the team exceeded expectations and set up a framework for future recruitment—all from a team of two.
They met this challenge with SMART goals, leveraged social media, headhunted ERP experts, sourced niche Oracle specialists internationally due to a limited NZ talent pool, and backfilled critical roles by communicating with managers on immediate needs. The standout moment was filling every role with a week to spare.
The team conducted 77 interviews in three weeks. This speed and quality of talent recruited led to improved manager engagement and enthusiasm for future recruitment drives. NPDL’s commitment to diversity created new processes for recruitment worldwide. Most importantly, they ensured operational stability while positioning NPDL as an industry leader in recruitment.
Flight Centre Travel Group New Zealand
Talent Acquisition Award 2024, in association with H2R Consulting
Our team's initiative to combat the candidate shortage was marked by exceptional leadership, meticulous problem analysis and solution development. We emphasized diversity and inclusion and developed innovative solutions such as an Alumni communications channel, internal career pathways advice, and revamped advertising and interview styles, all while staying true to our people values. The result was a significant increase in our candidate pool and a more efficient hiring process. This initiative exemplifies our dedication to innovation, HR leadership, and an inclusive workplace.
Tonkin + Taylor
Talent Acquisition Award 2023, in association with Aims Global
Our ‘Suits me to a T+T’ a digital recruitment campaign was designed to attract some of the world’s best talent. With our borders slammed shut and knowing that the entire consultancy industry would be fishing from the same highly contested pool, we went into bat hard and early, with dynamic web-based domestic and international recruitment campaigns.
Key to our success was timing – bravely gate-crashing the market ahead of our competitors to build awareness and generate keen interest in what T+T and Aotearoa New Zealand has to offer.
Ryman Healthcare
Talent Acquisition Award 2022, in association with Aims Global
Ryman Healthcare’s ‘Pioneers Wanted’ programme won them the Talent Acquisition Award. Talent shortages meant Ryman Healthcare’s talent attraction methods needed to cut through the noise of a busy market and highlight Ryman as an employer of choice. The ‘Pioneers Wanted’ programme resulted in their attractiveness and awareness both increased compared to the year prior, in results of the Randstad Employer Brand Research in 2021.
Summerset Holdings
Talent Acquisition Award 2021, in association with Aims Global
Summerset Holdings won the Talent Acquisition Award in association with Aims Global for the implementation of their iLearn learning management platform. The Summerset L&D team fast-tracked iLearn, and repurposed it so that new staff could begin their onboarding/ orientation programmes from home while they self-isolated to meet their clinical risk mitigation plans, ensuring the health, safety, and wellbeing of our people.
2degrees
Talent Acquisition Award 2020, in association with Aims Global
At 2degrees, we champion different. We’ve proven that doing things differently both in the market and internally delivers. We welcome different ways of thinking, working and living. We won’t ask our people to fit-in, we encourage them to stretch-out and be themselves, and we support them to do great things and make a real difference through empowerment, flexibility and connection. Our Employer Brand "2degrees, it’s time for something different" showcases what makes us so different – it’s just the norm here but also what makes us such a special place to work. The initiative was designed to help us attract and retain the best people, to show people in an authentic way what it’s like to work here and for our internal people to celebrate us as an employer too.
Fonterra
Talent Acquisition, Development & Management Award 2019, in association with Lee Hecht Harrison
Fonterra is a global dairy nutrition company owned by 10,500 farmers and their families. We have built our expertise on the legacy of thousands of farmers who have made New Zealand a world leader in dairy. With a can-do attitude and a collaborative spirit, we are a leading dairy exporter with our products reaching 140 markets across 4 continents and we share our product with 1 billion people every day. There are 22,000 people working together to share quality dairy nutrition with the world through our innovative consumer, foodservice and ingredient solutions brands, and our farming and processing operations.
THRIVE is an innovative and unique learning experience using Serious Gaming for organisational development. Through an online game "Feeding Fareed" and a face to face simulation "Dairy Island Odyssey" learners gain deeper knowledge and understanding of Fonterra's grass to glass journey, understanding the importance of Farmers (Fonterra's owners) through to our end consumers. With greater awareness of complexities across the value chain (from milk to end products) learners transition to the "Game Changer" stage to shift mindset and behaviour to do things differently. Deployment commenced in November 2017 with Fonterra's Lead Team members and direct reports however THRIVE is suitable for all employees.
Farmlands
Award for Talent Development and Management 2018, in association with Lee Hecht Harrison
We want to ensure Farmlands has the leadership and sales capability to deliver its strategic business transformation goals. To achieve this, Farmlands needed to understand what success looked at a granular level and developed a ‘Good to Great’ framework. This framework defines the essential behaviours, outcomes, qualities and skills that will support Farmlands now and into the future. This work was validated via robust psychometric assessment, to reinforce what competencies we were looking for, while providing a baseline measure of current leadership and sales capability. This framework is now integrated into Farmlands’ talent management and development activities.
Department of Corrections
Award for Recruitment Excellence 2018, in association with CEB Talent Assessment
Due to accelerated growth in the prison population Corrections needed to increase its number of Corrections officers to maintain its high operating safety levels. The decentralised recruitment function traditionally recruited 200 Corrections officers a year to cover turnover, emerging forecasts estimated another 600 Corrections officers would be needed to meet operational requirements over the next 12 months.
In May 2016 a recruitment programme combining custodial and HR management was established to focus efforts on the emerging Corrections officer shortage. This partnership refined the existing recruitment process, utilised technology and raised the profile of the Corrections officer role through innovative advertising methods to exceed targets in reduced timeframes.
RWA Technology People
Award for Recruitment Excellence
The recruitment industry has an association with poor candidate care and often a lack of engagement with the industries we serve. We’ve always tried to provide our customers, whether clients or candidates, with the great levels of service they deserve. Our new strategy was formulated to go beyond this to also do our part to change industry perceptions. Our objective was to provide candidates and clients with relevant and useful resources whilst also giving them greater accessibility to our recruiters. We help people find jobs and companies find talent, and we provide both parties with advice to enable them to succeed with their own objectives.
The Warehouse Group
Talent Development and Management 2017, in association with Lee Hecht Harrison
The award-winning Leading Retail (NZATD Programme of the Year 2016) may well be the largest leadership development initiative in New Zealand. It is a 3-level suite of 6-month leadership programmes that build together to form a store leadership development pathway.
In 2015/16, The Warehouse Group has delivered 3360 face to face contact to more than 600 learners and we delivered it without professional trainers or programme managers. The results? Training so aligned to needs that we got the business choosing to increase the rollout process by nearly 400% and at 10% of the cost of an externally provided programme.