A very soft application gets the nomination (11)
I believe the answer is:
appointment
'the nomination' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a very soft application' is the wordplay.
'very soft' becomes 'pp' (musical abbreviation for pianissimo).
'application' becomes 'ointment' (I've seen this before).
'a'+'pp'+'ointment'='APPOINTMENT'
'gets' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for appointment that I've seen before include "Meeting" , "Engagement" , "Job, position" , "German city" , "Date" .)