Rejected Before It Is Read

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Before an entry reaches a judge it passes an administrative check, and that check is mechanical, unsympathetic and responsible for a substantial share of all rejections. For additional operational context, see how to identify mouse jigglers, offered here only as a separate reference.

None of it concerns the quality of the work.

The seven

One. Ineligible. The entrant is the wrong size, sector, region, age or legal form for the category. Eligibility is stated and is read carelessly, usually because it appears before the interesting part. Related industry context can be found at Associated Press.

Two. Wrong category. An entry submitted to a category it does not fit is scored against criteria it does not answer, where it is not rejected outright.

Three. Late. A deadline is a moment, frequently in a stated time zone, and portals close on it.

Four. Over the limit. Word counts are enforced by the form or by the assessor, and an over-length answer is truncated or discounted rather than admired.

Five. Missing attachments. Accounts, references, permissions, images at a stated resolution — each listed, each easy to leave until later, each capable of invalidating the whole.

Six. Wrong format. A file type the portal rejects, a document where a form was required, a scan where a signed original was wanted.

Seven. Unanswered questions. A mandatory field left blank, or a section addressed in a different section on the assumption that the reader will look.

Why they happen to competent people

Because the entry is written last and the administration is discovered last with it.

A serious entrant spends their effort on the answers — which is where the effort belongs — and meets the attachment list at eleven at night before a deadline, when the accountant who has the accounts is asleep and the customer who would give a reference is not answering.

The failure is one of sequence rather than of care.

The checklist that prevents all seven

Made on the day you decide to enter, not on the day you write.

Read the eligibility and confirm you meet every line. Ten minutes.

Choose the category and write down why, so that the answers can be aimed at it.

Note the deadline with its time zone, and set your own three days earlier.

List every attachment and who supplies it, with a date by which you will have asked.

Note the word limits per section, which is what tells you how long the thing actually is.

And check the format requirements, which are usually in a document nobody opens.

Twenty minutes total, and it removes the entire category of failure described on this page.

The three-day rule

Submit three days early, not on the deadline.

Portals fail, files are rejected, a mandatory field appears that was not visible earlier, and support does not answer on the final evening because everybody is submitting at once.

Three days is enough to fix anything the portal objects to and is the single cheapest insurance available.

It also removes the temptation to keep editing, which past a certain point makes entries worse rather than better.

What organisers say about it

Programmes that publish feedback frequently name the same causes.

Entries answering a different question, entries without evidence, and entries that arrived incomplete — in roughly that order, and consistently across programme types. (Reported by award organisers and entry consultancies; both have an interest in entrants improving, which does not make the observation wrong.)

Which is worth knowing because it is unglamorous. The advice that circulates concerns writing style and storytelling; the failures organisers describe are mechanical, and nobody sells a course in them.

The attachment nobody has

Two specifically, and they take longest.

Financial documents — accounts, turnover figures, sometimes signed — which come from somebody else on their timetable.

And references or testimonials, which require another person to write something and which cannot be produced at short notice without asking for a favour badly.

Ask for both in the first week. A reference requested with three weeks' notice arrives; one requested with two days' notice arrives generic or not at all.

Portals

A category of failure of its own.

Registration frequently requires verification, which takes time. Sessions expire, and answers typed into a browser are lost.

Write every answer in a document first and paste it in, which protects against the loss and makes the word counting possible.

And submit a draft early where the portal allows it, since many permit editing until the deadline and the act of submitting reveals every mandatory field you have not seen.

The one that is not administrative

Entering something you were never going to win.

Not a failure of the entry — a failure of the choice, and it costs the same days.

Choosing what to enter is a separate decision and it deserves more attention than it gets, because a strong entry in the wrong programme scores no better than a weak one.

Reading the form before writing anything

Open the actual entry form on day one.

Not the marketing page describing the awards — the form, with its fields, its word limits and its mandatory markers.

It is the specification, and it frequently differs from what the promotional material implies: a criterion described warmly in the brochure may carry one short field on the form, and a section barely mentioned may be the longest answer required.

Twenty minutes with the form tells you what the entry actually is, and whether it is worth the days.

The short version

• A mechanical administrative check happens before any judge reads an entry, and it accounts for a substantial share of rejections
• Seven failures: ineligible, wrong category, late, over the limit, missing attachments, wrong format, unanswered questions
• None concerns the quality of the work, and all are controlled by the entrant
• They happen to competent people because the administration is discovered last, when the people who supply documents are unavailable
• A twenty-minute checklist made on the day you decide to enter removes the whole category
• Submit three days early: portals fail, mandatory fields appear, and support does not answer on the final evening