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Learning Series: Finding Judges for Your Awards Program

You know the categories, you know the winner outcomes, but, do you know the judges? You should, considering judges are a major source of notoriety, prestige, and marketing materials for your program.

But before you can select the judges, it’s important to consider how to segment entrants and how this will affect the judges you choose.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• How and why to segment entrants;
• How to find judges; and
• Ensuring uniformity around juges

How and Why to Segment Entrants

The process by which you select winners matters. After all, it must be fair and entrants must feel as if the entire process is balanced. This means you must have a consistent way of selecting winners and you must limit the number of winners too.

There are multiple ways to do so, but the most popular is to create a fairly broad – approximately 25 to 40% of your total applicants – pool of finalists and then select just 1 or 2 winners per segment. Doing so is fair because you’re selecting a limited number of winners and making it so that those who are finalists but don’t win will return next year in hopes of winning.

To create your own audience segments, you must return to the idea of who is entering your program in the first place. Typically, this will help you determine the different types of entrants you have and how you can easily sort them into categories.

How to Find Judges

Once you have a clear idea of who is going to enter your program and how to segment these groups, you need to consider the most appropriate, prestigious judges to judge the entrants. This is the most important step because judge prestige will directly translate to your program and vice versa.

Just as you can turn to outside resources to recruit entrants, you can do the same for judges. Here are some of the most respectable places to find judges for your program:

• Find previous winners of programs similar to yours in your industry;
• Find popular speakers or other figures in your industry who are already respected; and
• Find successful business leaders or trade leaders in related companies

Remember, you can always ask judges from previous years to return to your program. Over the years, you’ll build an esteemed judging pool doing so and have a simpler time recruiting judges in upcoming years.

How to Guarantee Uniformity Amongst Judges

Each judge will bring a unique perspective and preference to your program. And, while judging biases may seem like a major problem, most entrants expect a certain level of bias.

To reduce biases and guarantee uniformity amongst judges, it’s in your best interest to create a rubric or other criteria for judges to use. This doesn’t mean putting together a simplified “1 to 10” judging system either.

Instead, it’s best to have a series of questions on a 1 to 3 score. This allows judges to consider each question and to choose a good (3), bad (1), or neutral score (2) for each criteria. This is the best way to reduce biases and keep your program fair.

Don’t Skip Steps in This Critical Part of Your Program

While every component of your program is critical for success in one way or another, it’s important that you focus a decent amount of time on segmenting your audience, finding appropriate judges, and defining an unbiased way for the judges to evaluate entries.

Doing so will boost the prestige of your program, make winning more meaningful, and attract more entrants year over year.

Are you interested in more information about launching or refining your awards program? Check out our free online course Awards 101: The Missing Manual for Awards Professionals for the guidance you need!

Ashley Surinak

Ashley Surinak is the resident OpenWater expert on all things content. From the blog to guides and beyond, you'll find her at every turn in your OpenWater journey.

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