Submitting a nomination for the Melbourne Airport Excellence Awards offers you the opportunity to bring extraordinary achievements to light.

Nominations take time and effort to reflect on and articulate your achievements and successes. The criteria for each category have been created to form the guidelines for the judges to use when reviewing and scoring each nomination. Ensure you allocate sufficient time to write an effective nomination, answering each criterion with as much detail as possible, collecting supporting documents if required, and edit and proofread before submitting.

Writing an award-winning nomination is about narrating a story in a compelling and authentic way that captures the attention of the judges.

Ensure your answers strictly align to the category criteria. Answer each section with as much accuracy and clarity as possible to ensure you give your nomination the best possible chance of progressing through the process and onto winning an award.

Following on from the previous tip, structure your responses succinctly and coherently; avoid going off on a tangent. This enables the judges to compare your nomination with other award entrants in the category. Judges want your responses to shine! Use the narrative style (with a beginning, middle and end) to tell the story.

Provide supporting evidence such as data, statistics and/or testimonials from your peers and clients.

Our judges love good news stories. Make sure your nomination takes them on a journey that has them cheering and wanting more. Add colour and tone to your nomination. Humour, if used correctly, can also make your nomination shine. These are the finalists that stand out from the crowd!

Sticking to the word limit can lead to powerful and compelling answers. Judges will struggle to mark your nomination highly if your answer says very little, is repetitive, or uses strategies such as “see above”. Conversely, responding with “see attached” and attaching a lengthy document will disengage the judges. Utilise the word limit wisely!

Don’t let spelling and grammar errors, or other minor mistakes, blemish an otherwise exceptional nomination. Starting your nomination early will leave you with plenty of time to return with a fresh perspective. From there you can proofread and polish it.

Importantly, do not hesitate to ask someone else to read it. Ask your colleagues, friends, or a communications professional to review and proofread it.

Once you are confident that your spelling, grammar, punctuation and tone are perfect you can click submit.

Don’t assume the judges are familiar with your area of expertise. To ensure impartiality, industry leaders, who may be external to the Melbourne Airport community, are engaged to be judges and they may be assigned categories outside of their fields. Avoid using acronyms.

Don’t embellish your story or exaggerate the truth. While judges may not be experts in your field, they can conduct their own research or have prior knowledge or access media reports and other resources.

It is important to detail extraordinary achievements and successes and provide specific examples. It is of equal importance to be authentic, as our judges will look favourably on nominations that are guided by values and beliefs, speak from the heart and are humble in their responses.

Each year, the Melbourne Airport Excellence Awards program concludes with a public showcase of excellence. The stories and experiences of our airport community, partners and suppliers are showcased at the gala event and in marketing materials. It is not in the spirit of the program and therefore not possible to request the containment and confidentiality of nomination content.

Good luck!