Home : Newsletters : 2008 : February
The results of NORAS 2008 use data from questionnaires completed by 40,601 online job seekers across 25 of the UK's leading job boards. You can use the data to help understand the audiences of these sites in more detail and this can help you identify the right job board for your recruitment needs. You can download the results for free by registering at NORAS . If you've already registered then you can log in to access the results (and if you can't remember your password, you can use our 'lost password' tool).
The results are available in three formats - the full results booklet (that contains over 70 data tables and a full explanation of the methodology used), the highlights booklet (that features 12 essential results tables) and NORAS interactive (the online tool that allows you to easily compare the audiences of the participating job boards). You can also view a quick summary of the results of each participating site by using the links from the page that lists the participating sites.
In addition to looking at the audience profiles of the 25 sites, you can use the NORAS results to gain a good overview of online job seeking in the UK. Here are a couple of key things that we took away from the research:
1 - Online job seekers continue to visit fewer job boards. The results show that active online job seekers visit an average of 4.8 job boards. This is down from 5.3 in 2007 and shows a downward trend that has continued for five consecutive years (starting at an average of 7.0 in 2004). Our interpretation of this is that online job seekers are becoming more and more familiar with the job boards that do (and don't) deliver what they want in terms of relevant jobs and functionality. This also seems to be a function of a maturing market place.
2 - Online job seekers are becoming more dependent on the internet. The percentage of online job seekers that say they only use the internet to look for jobs has increased by 50% year on year (from 6% in 2007 to 9% in 2008) - this might not seem that significant an increase, but remember that because NORAS uses such a large sample size (40,601) the results are very robust and reliable. If the trend continues at the same pace then by 2010 over 20% of online job seekers won't use any other medium (recruitment consultants, newspapers, magazines etc) to look for a job.
3 - Only a limited number of job seekers are using web 2.0 style tools. As part of NORAS we ask about what else online job seekers visit job boards for (in addition to looking for jobs). The most popular activities are registering CVs (33%) and setting up email job alerts (31%). Interestingly only 1% say they visit to set up RSS feeds, 1% to download podcasts or read blogs and 3% to network or participate in forums. Although it's tempting to get excited about new technology and new tools it appears that, for now, job seekers are sticking to more tried and tested methods of finding out about new jobs and presenting their CVs to employers.
4 - One third of online job seekers have applied for a job in the last three months. For the first time in NORAS 2008 we asked job seekers what they'd done on the site they were using (i.e. the one they took the survey on) in the last three months. 34% said that they'd applied for a job from the site, 19% had uploaded or updated their CV, 16% had set up an email alert (in the last 3 months) and 12% had referred a job to a friend.
5 - Online job seeking continues to be more successful. 76% of online job seekers say that they have ever applied for a job they found online (up from 72% in 2007), 69% of those got an interview (up from 65% in 2007) and 60% of these obtained a job as a result of the interview (up from 56% in 2007).
We're publishing the NORAS results every month in 2008 - this gives participating job boards the chance to update their ABCe figures as often as they like and gives new job boards the chance to come on board before 2009. You can check the publication date of the next booklet on the NORAS site; if you're a job board and you'd like to get involved in NORAS then please email us.