Acumen Fieldwork named a finalist for Recruitment Excellence at the MRS Oppies 2026

There is a moment on most fieldwork projects when recruitment stops looking quite so straightforward.. The brief might seem simple enough at first. Then the audience becomes more specific, the criteria tighten, the timelines shrink, or the people we need to speak to turn out to be rather harder to find than anyone hoped.

And that's where our team gets excited!

We are incredibly pleased to share that Acumen Fieldwork has been named a finalist for Recruitment Excellence at the MRS Oppies, recognising our overall work in market research recruitment. 🥳

It is a category that means a great deal to us because recruitment sits at the heart of what we do. It's not just "the bit before the research starts". It's the work that shapes everything that follows.

Behind every strong interview, focus group or research session is a long trail of conversations, decisions and judgement calls. There are screeners to unpick, audiences to understand and plenty of questions that cannot be answered by ticking a box on a form.

Does this person genuinely fit the brief? Will they feel comfortable contributing? Have we understood their experience properly? Is there something in the criteria that looks fine on paper but may cause problems further down the line?

The best recruitment often comes down to noticing those things early. Sometimes that means challenging part of a brief. Sometimes it means changing the way we are looking for people. Sometimes it means picking up the phone, having a proper conversation and listening carefully to what is actually being said.

It also means knowing when to be honest.

Research recruitment is rarely improved by pretending everything is easy. Some audiences are difficult to reach. Some projects need more time. Some projects are sensitive. Some criteria create tensions that need to be discussed. Our job isn't to nod enthusiastically and hope for the best. It's to spot the risks, explain them clearly and find a practical way forward.

A lot of this brilliant work happens quietly.

It happens in the follow-up calls that confirm someone is right for the research. In the regular updates that keep clients informed. In the team conversations where we compare notes, test assumptions and decide whether a recruit feels right rather than merely looks right on a spreadsheet.

It also happens in the way participants are treated. People are giving us their time, their opinions and, in many cases, personal experiences that are not always easy to share. We want them to feel informed, respected and looked after from their first conversation with us to the moment the project is complete. That care matters. Not just because it creates a better experience, but because people who feel comfortable and valued are far more able to contribute openly to the research.

Being named a finalist feels like recognition of all those small, careful decisions that rarely make it into the final debrief but have a huge influence on the quality of the work. It recognises our recruiters, project managers and wider team, who keep asking questions, solving problems and refusing to settle for “close enough”.

We are very proud to be finalists.

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