Job Seekers Search for More
August 13, 2009 by Emma Sorensen
UK online recruitment survey NORAS 2009 has revealed that online job seekers are interested in seeing more than just job adverts when they visit job boards.
According to the survey, which polled more than 50,000 candidates across 31 online job boards, only 32% of online job seekers visit job boards just to look for jobs. 34% are also using these sites to make themselves more ‘findable’ by registering their CV.
A significant proportion of online job seekers say they are now using recruitment sites as a source of information, to aid their search for a new job and as a means of keeping up to date with developments within their industry. Almost one in five online job seekers visit job boards to obtain general career advice and 15% are now using them to make salary comparisons. 14% of online job seekers also visit these sites to acquire information and general news about their industry sector.
One in ten online job seekers say they return to a job board because of its editorial content and career advice and not just because of the selection of jobs on the website.
Helen Bird, Sales Director of Guardian Jobs commented:
“These figures from the respected NORAS research demonstrate the higher expectations of today’s online jobseeker. In order to give candidates what they want, sites need to be able to offer more: CV and interview advice; user forums for career guidance from peers; and specialist knowledge of market sectors and industries. Career sites, not just job boards, are being demanded by modern online jobseekers.”
Giles Guest, Managing Director of Enhance Media, which runs the NORAS added:
“The NORAS results show that online job seekers are increasingly looking for added value when visiting job boards. NORAS is the only independent, third party verification of job board audiences and our goal is to provide information like this to participating job boards so that they can deliver a more intelligent, targeted service to their clients and candidates.”
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I think a big part of this move toward candidates seeking more than just jobs at job boards revolves around the “Web 2.0″ movement that saw more interaction between employer and potential employee. Even the sites themselves were more interactive, often utilizing AJAX to make actions simpler for users. This emphasis on a more “personal” feel, espoused by networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and various others, is really moving the job board industry as well, so that job boards are evolving to be both more targeted in terms of particular industries and more interactive. Some have evolved so far as to be half job board and half social media platform.