Police Now won Best Graduate Recruitment Strategy at last night’s Recruiter Awards, for its You’ll be there campaign.

Police Now’s campaign ‘You’ll be there. Visible, Reliable, Proud’ launched on 17 September 2020 and showcased voices from participants on the National Graduate Leadership Programme, encouraging graduates to ‘be the change’ they want to see in society through joining the policing frontline. The campaign featured across TV, radio and social media advertising, and was supported by digital mentoring and live chats.

The Best Graduate Recruitment Strategy recognises ‘outstanding creativity, innovation and effectiveness in developing and executing a graduate trainee recruitment programme that has led to the achievement of strategic business goals.’ Despite being established just 6 years ago, Police Now was up against well-known industry names in the shortlist – including Vodafone, Pepsico Europe, Nationwide Building Society and Accenture. It also recently rose to number 28 in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers – up 62 places since joining the rankings in 2018.

The campaign was also shortlisted for Most Effective Recruitment Marketing Campaign for its digital innovation, developing an entirely virtual and immersive 360 neighbourhood during the Coronavirus lockdowns, in partnership with RMP Enterprise. The virtual neighbourhood was designed to provide candidates with an insight into the realities and challenges of the role of a neighbourhood officer and the Police Now programme.

Following the campaign, Police Now saw high application numbers to the National Graduate Leadership Programme and strong diversity and inclusion across the cohort of successful candidates, who were attested across the Police Now training academies in August. Data shows that 25% of the cohort identified as coming from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background and more than half (52%) identified as women – higher than the national average.

Clare Power, Recruitment and Marketing Director at Police Now, said: “A career as a neighbourhood police officer is challenging but rewarding and we aimed to reflect the realities of this across our campaign. Despite the significant challenges that graduate recruitment and policing has faced over the last 18 months, including the Coronavirus pandemic, we continue to achieve high application numbers and strong diversity across our programmes thanks to hard working and passionate graduates who wish to lead change within policing and in their communities. None of this would be possible without the considerable support from our partner forces and the Home Office, who help us achieve our mission to transform communities, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and increase the public’s confidence in the police service by recruiting, developing and inspiring outstanding and diverse individuals to be leaders in society and on the policing frontline.”

The Recruiter Awards ceremony was held on Thursday 23 September at JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London. Established in 2002, the Recruiter Awards gala is the UK’s largest event for the entire recruitment community recognising outstanding achievements by agencies and in-house recruiters. Achievements in recruitment marketing and technology also are spotlighted on the night.

Police Now also recently picked up three Institute of Student Employers (ISE) awards for its You’ll be there campaign, including Innovation in Attraction, supported by RMP Enterprise, and Best Attraction Campaign. Commitment to Improving Diversity through Student Resourcing was awarded not only for Police Now’s You’ll be there campaign but also its ‘aspirational, holistic and human-centred’ approach to diversity and inclusion across the National Graduate Leadership Programme and National Detective Programme recruitment and marketing campaigns – including attraction, assessment, selection and post-offer process – as well as its Change The Story campaign last year. Please see here for full details.