workthing's online recruitment survey results - 02/2001

There have been some interesting and significant developments in the online recruitment industry over the past six months. This is the message from workthing's latest Online Recruitment and Employment Survey (ORES), the largest study into employment and the Internet in the UK.

Use of the Internet has increased over the last half a year, but the good news for our industry is that online recruitment is ahead of the curve. There are now 14.3 million Internet users in the UK, up 7% from six months ago, and 38% of these have been online to look for jobs during this period. This means that 5.4 million people have used online recruitment services, an increase of 29%, which shows that recruitment is one of the fastest growing sectors on the Internet.

The good news is that the research reveals growth in consumer confidence. Internet users are performing more complex activities on recruitment sites and feel more comfortable about posting their personal details. One in five have now uploaded their CV onto a site where it can be read by employers, compared to one in eight six months ago. This increase can only be good news, but there is still more that can be done to encourage job hunters to take their first steps onto Internet.

It appears that competence is growing! Internet users are beginning to use recruitment sites to search for specific jobs more than just browsing for anything that might be relevant to them. In fact, 68% of online job seekers have used the Internet to look for a specific job, using search engines and refining searches to get the best possible results.

When it comes to the crunch, the figure that online recruitment is judged upon is the number of positions that it actually fills. The research highlights the growth and potential of the industry. 8% of online job seekers, or approximately 400,000 people, have already obtained a new job via the Internet.

This figure is increasing dramatically all the time - a strong indication that online already has a strong foothold in the recruitment industry and that its strength is increasing all the time. Perhaps this should not be surprising: as people become more confident with using the Internet, they will turn to services that fit the medium well. The fact that the growth of online recruitment is ahead of the Internet in general underlines the suitability of the recruitment industry to the medium.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the ORES research was the potential that it showed for further growth in Internet recruitment in the near future. We asked all Internet users how they thought that they would get their next job. Their answers showed that over two million people, 14% of all Internet users, thought that they would find their next position this way. It was not just the increasing number of people that was so promising, but also the way in which the figures compared with other more traditional recruitment practices.

A considerably smaller proportion of Internet users thought that they would find their next job through the routes that they might have used before. Only 7% thought that they would use national newspapers and only 6% expect to use trade publications. Our audience is rapidly finding faith in the Internet and turning to this medium to advance their careers, as illustrated by the fact that the number of people expecting to use the Internet next time they are job seeking exceeds the combined figures for two of the most traditional routes.

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