Enhance Media have released the results of the first wave of the National Online Recruitment Audience Survey (NORAS). The release of the NORAS results means that recruitment is the first online sector in which major players have co-operated in the provision of information to advertisers in order to encourage use of the medium.
Developed and managed by the online recruitment specialists Enhance Media, NORAS is the UKís largest ever piece of online recruitment research and the results draw on questionnaires completed by approximately 8,000 internet users.
NORAS provides advertisers with demographic profiles and audited unique user numbers of eight of the UKís leading online recruitment sites; Fish4Jobs, GoJobsite, PeopleBank, TopJobs, Total Jobs, Workthing, Anderselite and Jobs AC.
The data was gathered across the sites over a common time period, using a common methodology, enabling the meaningful comparison of recruitment sites for the first time. The ability to compare sites in this way makes it much easier for recruiters to choose the best recruitment site when advertising vacancies online.
Demographic data was collected from each site via pop up technology, administered by Virtual Surveys (www.virtualsurveys.com). Audited unique user numbers are provided by ABC ELECTRONIC (www.abce.org.uk)
In addition to providing details of the distinct audiences of the eight sites surveyed, NORAS gives a valuable insight into the characteristics of online job seekers. NORAS shows that the average online job seeker is aged 32.2 years and on average has had 10.5 years of work experience since leaving full time education. They last started a job for a new employer 3.9 years ago and will visit an average of 4.7 online recruitment sites when looking for a job online.
Enhance Media Managing Director Tim Elkington commented, ìWe believe that NORAS is a highly valuable piece of work and will enable recruiters to make informed advertising decisions, based on credible and independent data. The eight sites that participated in the first wave all recognise that it is important to provide advertisers with information about their users and I would encourage more sites to participate in the next wave, which is scheduled for October 2002.î
Tim added, ìWe would like to expand the second wave of NORAS to include metrics that would help recruiters gauge the likely response levels from participants, possibly by including audited numbers of online applications that each site generates. Weíve established a working party, including recruitment sites, advertising agencies and HR professionals to investigate this ideaî.
NORAS is supported by the Association of Online Recruiters (www.aolr.org), the industry body for online recruitment. The AOLR seeks to advance online recruitment in the UK and to promote the highest ethical standards amongst its members. It sees the provision of meaningful data to online advertisers as an important step in achieving its mission.
The NORAS results, which feature details on all of the eight sites are freely available to everyone.
NORAS results enable recruiters to choose the best online recruitment sites
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