National Online Recruitment Audience Survey

Background to NORAS

NORAS has been launched in response to demands from the HR community and from recruitment advertising agencies, both felt that the lack of comparable data on online recruitment sites made differentiation difficult and therefore did not encourage advertising on such sites

NORAS aims to facilitate differentiation between sites by giving recruiters comparable data. There are two key principles behind NORAS; firstly that the data collected from all sites uses a common methodology and is collected over a common time period and secondly that the data for all the participating sites is freely available to everyone. These two principles ensure that meaningful comparison of sites is possible for the first time. The Association of Online Recruiters (AOLR) is also supporting NORAS as a way of moving the online recruitment industry forward and encouraging HR professionals to advertise online.

What’s included in NORAS

There are two elements of NORAS. The first is the user profile of participating sites. This is gathered via a demographic questionnaire that is served on each site via pop up technology. Representatives of different areas of the online recruitment industry, including HR professionals, recruitment advertising agencies and the job sites themselves, have all contributed to the content of the questionnaire, ensuring it includes the key criteria that enable differentiation and ensuring buy in from all parties.

The second element of NORAS is audited user numbers. All sites participating in NORAS will undergo a traffic audit by Electronic ABC, the UK’s leading independent auditors, from which the NORAS user numbers are taken.

NORAS data will help advertisers choose the best online recruitment site

By combining audience profile and audited user numbers, NORAS gives advertisers valuable information on the profile and the reach of leading UK online recruitment sites. This user information can play a vital role for recruiters when selecting the best online recruitment site with which to advertise vacancies. Obviously other factors are still important, for example levels of customer service, the suitability of advertising packages and client testimonials, but NORAS is an important part of the site selection jigsaw.

NORAS participants

The NORAS fieldwork is taking place in April and the results will be available in May. The results will contain data on all participating sites – currently Fish4Jobs, GoJobSite, Guardian Jobs, PeopleBank, PlanetRecruit, Top Jobs, Total Jobs and Workthing.

For more information on NORAS or to receive a NORAS results booklet in May please email noras@enhancemedia.co.uk