Audited figures, revealing for the first time the number of responses to vacancies advertised on job boards, are to be included in the next National Online Recruitment Audience Survey (NORAS).
The new response rate measures, which have been agreed by the Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS) and will be audited by ABC ELECTRONIC, herald a first for the recruitment industry.
Tim Elkington, managing director of Enhance Media, who manage NORAS, said the job applications and referrals metrics would be a major boost to advertisers.
He said: “When the NORAS 2008 results are published next January, advertisers will be able to see precisely how many online applications and online referrals have been generated by participating sites.
“Auditing responses to recruitment advertisements hasn’t been possible before, this is a major breakthrough that will significantly improve advertisers’ ability to target the right job board.”
Andy Flint, head of client services at ABC ELECTRONIC, said the new metrics were a genuine first for the recruitment sector, which was leading the way in ensuring that transparent and comparable data was available on the effectiveness of recruitment websites.
The new application and referral metrics are:
NORAS collects data from 27 of the leading job boards and provides a detailed snapshot of how the UK’s 12 million online job seekers search and apply for work.
Enhance Media now has comparable data going back six years, taken from interviews with over 100,000 online job seekers.