Job Boards - Stats

Hi
Shortlist an online newsletter for recruiters recently published an article which I've cut and paste below (unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to access through hyperlink).
Online job ads still the top candidate source: Vedior Online job boards, and print job ads, are still the mainstay of recruitment advertising for Asia-Pacific employers, according to the Vedior Employment Trends 2008 report (see related article).

The survey of 1,044 companies found that 69% used online job boards, and 60% used newspaper advertising, to attract candidates.

Search techniques (42%), referral programs (34%), networking events (33%) and direct marketing (28.7%) were also popular means of sourcing candidates.

The data showed employers were still warming up to new media initiatives like social networking sites, and SMS campaigns, which were being used by 6% and 0.25% of respondents respectively.

Candidate web traffic slowing Traffic on the major job sites was down across the board during March, according to the latest Nielsen Online figures.

SEEK fell 2.7% to 191,471 average daily unique browsers for the month.

Traffic to News Digital Media (which operates CareerOne) was virtually flat, down 0.1% to 61,033 average daily browsers.

Fairfax Digital (MyCareer and The Big Chair) dropped more sharply, down 5.1% to 59,927 average daily browsers. The drop in MyCareer traffic allowed CareerOne to move back into second position.

My view is that there are lot of employers using job boards to post ads but number of applicants per ad has sharply declined in the last few years. This is due in part to a candidate shortage but also most people find new jobs not through job boards but through friends, family and work colleagues.   

In Australia, I think Job Boards like Seek are pretty effective. I think Australian Job Seekers would use Job Boards to find a job rather than using Google or Yahoo Job Boards. I don't have any stats though.

I use a jobs board for one of my clients and it's one of the most popular pages on their site.

Also, most of the traffic for that page comes from search engines, so people are obviously looking for jobs boards via search engines.

The client, however, does operate in a very specific niche industry, and they're wouldn't be that many boards dealing in this industry.