Meet the Winners: 2025 Rally Awards for Recruitment Marketing & Employer Branding

Introducing the winners of the 2025 Rally® Awards™! Join us in celebrating the practitioners, teams and solution providers who are setting new benchmarks in Recruitment Marketing and employer branding, and inspiring us all to keep innovating.

The Rally® Awards™ is a global competition that recognizes excellence in Recruitment Marketing and employer branding, drawn from our growing community of over 50,000 professionals. Now celebrating its sixth year, the Rally Awards spotlight the achievements of creative, strategic and forward-thinking practitioners who are helping their companies attract, recruit and retain top talent. Each year, our community pushes the boundaries of what’s possible, and this year was no exception.

In a live virtual ceremony, we honored the 2025 Rally Awards winners, whose work reflects the evolution of our profession. This year, 30 awards were bestowed across 17 categories, including three new categories: Best Careers Site, Best Technology Partner and Best Agency Partner. The winners demonstrated the increasing importance of leveraging AI, personalizing the candidate experience and showcasing authentic employee voices.

The Rally Awards is a peer-reviewed competition, judged against rigorous criteria including strategy, quality, innovation and results. We owe a huge thank you 🙏 to our esteemed panel of judges:

• Megan Claar — Recruitment Marketing and Employment Brand Manager, Sheetz

• Sarah Osborne — Senior Recruitment Marketing Specialist, Mutual of Omaha

• Jessica Minter — Digital Recruiting Manager, nVent

• Collette Litzinger — Manager, Employer Brand Strategy, Jamf

• Katie Newland — Director, Global Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing, Syneos Health Commercial Solutions

• Katherine Manansala — Director, Talent Acquisition and Talent Attraction, Macy’s

• Monica Medina — Employer Brand Lead, Capgemini

• Jenni Teaters — Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing Manager, Premise Health

• Mark Acquaye — Recruiting Strategist, Accenture

• Amanda Wheaton — Recruitment Marketing Manager, Precoa

• Courtney Reun — Director, Talent Attraction, Sound Physicians

• Rob Ryan — Group Recruitment Marketing Lead, Babcock International Group

• Maria Rigou — Global Talent Attraction, PepsiCo

• Zakiya Nashid — Sr. Manager, Global Talent and Employer Brand, Twilio

• Jessica Collins — Recruitment Marketing & Employer Brand Leader, Walmart

• Lindsay Wolins — Recruitment Marketing Manager, Esri

• Kelsey Becker — Recruitment Marketing Manager, SelectQuote Insurance

• Keisha Fowler — Recruitment Marketing Manager, Eli Lilly & Co.

• Michael Rizzi — Senior Manager, Recruitment Marketing, DraftKings

• Shannon Smedstad — Director, Global Recruitment Marketing, Fresenius Medical Care

• Dani Laven — Recruitment Marketing Strategist

• Lesley DeWitt — Recruitment Marketing Manager, Morley

Their thoughtful evaluation helped ensure that each winning entry represents the best of the best.

Now, without further ado, let’s introduce the winners of the 2025 Rally Awards! 👏

Meet the 2025 Rally Awards Winners: Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding Excellence

Celebrating the teams, practitioners and solution providers moving our industry forward.

Best Employer Brand Video

• First Place: ATB Financial — “More Than Work Campaign”
• Second Place: Westpac Group — “For Uncommon Minds”
• Third Place: CBRE — “EVP Manifesto Video”

Best Use of Employee Generated Content

• Winner: ADT — “Heroes Behind the Octagon: Celebrating ADT’s 150th Birthday”

Best Talent Newsletter

• First Place: UBS — “Get Recruitment Ready with UBS”
• Second Place: Baylor Scott & White Health — “The Pulse E-Newsletter”
• Third Place: ADT — “Talent Network Newsletter”

Best Use of Organic Social Media in Recruitment Marketing

• First Place: UBS — “We See Your Abilities”
• Second Place: Baylor Scott & White Health — “Organic Social Strategy”

Best Use of Paid Social Media in Recruitment Marketing

• First Place: BAT (British American Tobacco) — “Fueling Innovation: Battle of Minds”
• Second Place: Baylor Scott & White Health — “Leveraging Paid Social Media”

Best Use of Video in Recruitment Marketing

• First Place (tie): ATB Financial — “More Than Work Campaign”
• First Place (tie): Credicorp — “Believe, Create, and Grow”
• Second Place: Citadel — “Julia, an Extraordinary Colleague”

Best Recruitment Marketing Campaign (Small Team)

• Winner: Ingredion — “Celebrating Recruitment Marketing Excellence”

Best Recruitment Marketing Campaign (Large Team)

• First Place: AS Watson / Kruidvat — “Apply with Your Bestie!”
• Second Place: UBS — “Recruitment for Client Migration Project”
• Third Place: UBS — “Apprenticeship Campaign, Switzerland”

Best Content Marketing Program

• First Place: Ascension — “Part of a Bigger Story of Care”
• Second Place: Credicorp — “Connecting Today’s Leaders with Tomorrow’s Innovators”
• Third Place: AS Watson / Kruidvat — “Apply with Your Bestie!”

Best Employer Brand Launch

• First Place: Vulcan Industrial — “Winning Big”
• Second Place: Verizon — “The V Team Life”
• Third Place: Highmark Health — “Remarkable Together”

Best Careers Blog

• Winner: Mutual of Omaha — “Transforming Talent Attraction”

Best Use of Recruitment Marketing Technology

• Winner: Allianz SE — “Next-Gen Recruitment: All-in-One Talent Ecosystem”

Best Careers Site

• First Place: Delaware North — “New Global Careers Site”
• Second Place: Credicorp — “Redefining Talent Attraction”

Best Agency Partner

• Winner: exaqueo

Best Technology Partner

• Winner: Phenom

In addition to the awards given to practitioners and teams, the 2025 Rally Awards honored outstanding individual achievement with our distinguished awards. These honors recognize the rising leaders and top practitioners who are shaping the future of Recruitment Marketing and employer branding.

2025 Recruitment Marketing Rising Stars

• Winner: Sherri Hamilton (Baylor Scott & White Health)
• Winner: Raven Hazlett (Eaton)

2025 Recruitment Marketer of the Year

• Winner: Kristin Oravec (Eaton)

2025 Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding Trends: Insights from the Rally Awards

Looking across all the winning work, clear trends are emerging that show how our strategies are evolving and what’s driving results today. Compared to the 2024 Rally Awards, the 2025 winners highlight important shifts shaping the future of Recruitment Marketing and employer branding:

• A surge in AI-driven innovation: In 2025, we saw a clear increase in the use of AI to personalize messaging, optimize content and improve targeting. AI was called out directly in many strategies and campaigns among winning entries.
• Elevating candidate nurturing strategies: 2025 winners placed more emphasis on talent newsletters, refreshed careers sites and multi-channel strategies to engage and nurture passive candidates over time — a shift from 2024’s heavier focus on direct response campaigns.
• Employee-generated content went mainstream: In 2024, employee-generated content was a standout tactic; by 2025, it became the expected standard for winning campaigns, demonstrating how authenticity is now foundational to employer branding.
• Greater integration of organic and paid social media: The 2025 winners showed a more unified approach to campaign strategy by having both an organic and paid component, leading to broader reach and stronger overall visibility.
• Expanding global leadership in Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding: More practitioners are now leading global RM and EB efforts, ensuring their employer brand and EVP resonate across regions through thoughtful localization strategies.

Together, these shifts show that Recruitment Marketing and employer branding are becoming more data-driven, employee-led, globally minded and collaborative — with technology as an essential partner in attracting, engaging and converting talent.

Watch the 2025 Rally Awards Ceremony: Recruitment Marketing and Employer Branding Winners

Missed the live ceremony? You can catch the replay! The 2025 Rally Awards ceremony was streamed live on LinkedIn on April 24, 2025, and remains available for on-demand viewing. Watch the ceremony to see the winning campaigns and celebrate the incredible talent driving our profession forward.

Lessons from the 2025 Rally Awards Winners to Shape What’s Ahead

As we reflect on the 2025 Rally Awards, here are a few important lessons for all of us:

• Embrace AI to personalize and optimize your talent attraction strategies.
• Prioritize authenticity through employee-generated content and real experiences.
• Invest in long-term candidate nurturing, not just immediate hires.
• Build stronger connections between your organic and paid social media efforts to expand your reach.

A heartfelt thank you to all the companies, agencies and practitioners who participated in this year’s Rally Awards. Your creativity, innovation and collaboration are what continue to move our field forward.

What’s ahead for Recruitment Marketing and employer branding is even more exciting: a future where authenticity, technology and community-driven innovation lead the way. Together, we’ll keep redefining what’s possible!

We look forward to sharing more insights from the winning campaigns here on the Rally Recruitment Marketing blog throughout the year. Let’s keep learning from each other, pushing boundaries and raising the bar for how we can make an impact on talent attraction and retention!

To learn more about the Rally Awards and how to enter the 2026 competition, visit RallyAwards.com.