Katie Blaney, Marden-Kane Account Supervisor, contributed this blog post about how Marden-Kane finds the right judges for our clients’ contests.

Composed symphonies. International Space Station experiments. Fitness apps. These are examples of contest entries that Marden-Kane has been involved with judging yet we don’t have scientists or classically trained musicians on our staff. So how do we do it? As contest administrators one of our jobs is recruiting industry specific experts to assist with competition judging.

1. Define the industry segment, skill set, and experience level that is needed for the project.
2. Identify the specific type of person or job description that would fit the experience needed and brainstorm your recruitment strategy. For example, if the contest entries are ideas for science experiments, you could recruit teachers. If the entry content will be complex, you may want to search for college level professors who have a concentrated focus in that field, or conversely, seek graduate students if understanding the submissions will be simpler. The level of person recruited may also be in correlation with your budget.
3. Once an individual has been identified as a potential resource, request that they assist you with supplying other relevant individuals from their own network to help staff the judging team.
4. Confirm all interested individuals are qualified by reviewing their resume or creating a survey or questionnaire, as well as confirming their time availability during the hours and days needed.
5. Once judges have been approved for work they must sign non-disclosure agreements and any other contracts necessary to work for you and your client.
6. Hold a formal training session to review the program details, demonstrate how to use the online judging tool, review examples of qualified and disqualified entries, and clearly explain and discuss the judging criteria they will be using to score the entries.
7. Set up an escalation process for your judges to be able to notify you or the judging team lead that they are unsure of how to moderate an entry. This process should be seamless within the tool as to not hold up their overall progress.
8. Depending on how your contract is set up, track each judge’s work either by hours or entries moderated.

Keep a record of all individuals you have recruited to create a network of judges that you can tap into in the future. Some people will be able to crossover into different subject matters or even assist with more general moderation projects now that they have been introduced into the world of moderation and judging.

Need help with finding judges for your next contest? We can help! Contact us to discuss options.

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