Latest results from NORAS Winter 2005

The results from the latest wave of the National Online Recruitment Audience Survey include information on 24 online recruitment sites taken from questionnaires completed by 18,235 online job seekers. In addition to providing advertisers with transparent and comparable data so that they can make informed online recruitment advertising decisions NORAS also identifies key online recruitment trends.

Online recruitment is successful

The latest results, published in February 2005, show that 64% of online job seekers that have applied for a job they found online obtained an interview as a result of the application and that 51% got a job as a result of the interview. These figures are up from 59% obtaining an interview and 44% obtaining a job in 2004 - demonstrating the increasing success of the internet as a recruitment medium.

The internet offers a diverse range of candidates

The NORAS Winter 2005 results also show that UK online job seekers broadly represent the UK population in terms of ethnicity ñ an important factor for recruitment professionals wishing to contribute towards addressing diversity issues in the workplace through recruitment advertising. NORAS shows that 83% of online job seekers are from a white ethnic group, 5% from an Asian group, 4% black, 2% mixed and 1% Chinese.

NORAS also shows a diverse range of candidates are using the internet to look for jobs in terms of seniority. 5% of those using the internet to look for jobs are Chief Executives, Owners or Directors and 30% are Senior Managers or Managers. This reinforces the message that the internet is a viable recruitment tool for all levels of seniority, not just graduates and second jobbers.

The online recruitment market is changing

The way that online job seekers use online recruitment sites is also changing. The average number of sites visiting by an online job seeker when looking for a job has decreased from seven to six year on year. The results also show that 11% of repeat visitors are choosing to revisit sites because they have previously obtained an interview of job through that site. This demonstrates an increasing brand loyalty amongst online job seekers as the online recruitment market matures and job boards establish an increased identity and reputation.

The NORAS results can be downloaded for free

The latest NORAS results, in addition to all historical data, can be downloaded for free from www.noras.co.uk. Recruiters registering to download the results also gain free access to the basic version of NORAS interactive. NORAS interactive is an online tool that allows recruiter to easily compare the audiences of job boards in order to choose the job board with the most relevant audience for their recruitment needs. The tool works by allowing recruiters to specify their target audience through a series of drop down menus and then run a query against the research results.

In addition to the basic version of NORAS interactive recruiters can also subscribe to the advanced version and take advantage of additional functionality from 99 VAT via new ecommerce functionality launched by the owners of NORAS, Enhance Media, for 2005.

Users can download all the results at