Coming off of a year of layoffs, pay and hiring freezes, bankruptcies, and bailouts, one would think it’s not the year for a recruiting award.

Think again.

ERE Recruiting Excellence Award applicants found creative ways to redeploy employees, including recruiters, avoiding layoffs and saving money. Others used the recession to redo their career websites, build a new employee-pipelining tool, and change its sources of hire to upgrade the technologically savviness of its workforce.

The judges were impressed. They were diligent and inquisitive, too, so to all judges, thanks.

Here are this year’s finalists. As always, you’ll hear a lot more about them throughout the year — in the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, on this site, at ERE’s Fall Conference in Florida (October 26-27-28), and in the Spring.

As for the Spring ERE Expo in San Diego, there’ll be a reception Monday night where some information on the finalists will be available. The next day, the winners will be announced in front of the whole conference audience, and you’ll be able to ask them questions.

This year’s finalists, in alphabetical order within each category:

Best College Recruiting Program

EY: intern leadership conference

Rosetta: more applicants, less money

Best Corporate Careers Website

DaVita: not resting after past victories

Intuit: interactive Flash presentation

Best Employee Referral Program

Accenture: higher quality, less money

Aricent: high quality of hire

Best Employer Brand

EY: embedded in all touch points

UnitedHealth Group: higher new hire satisfaction

Best Retention Program/Practices

Paychex: consistent follow-up by recruiters

PNC Bank: redeploying recruiters

Most Strategic Use of Technology

AT&T: iPhone app

KeyBank: “virtual job tryout”

Tata: online campus portal

Recruiting Department/Function of the Year

CACI: hiring disabled veterans

Sodexo: social media success