Online recruitment sector consolidates industry research

The online recruitment sector has again come together to participate in NORAS 2005 (The National Online Recruitment Audience Survey), which is taking place between September and November 2004 with results available in the first quarter of 2005. This latest wave of NORAS, produced by Enhance Media, will be the fifth time the survey has been undertaken, and is the only annual survey of its type that provides recruitment advertisers with comparative user data across the key sites in the online recruitment sector.

Now a well established brand in the online recruitment sector, this year has seen a significant increase in the number of sites participating in the survey. 25 sites are participating in NORAS 2005, up on last yearís 18 sites including:

Anderselite
Blue Arrow
Brand Republic
CW Jobs
Doctor Job
Eden Brown
eFinancial Careers
Exec-appointments
Fish4Jobs
GAAPweb
InPharm
JimFinder
jobs.ac.uk
jobs.telegraph
jobsgopublic
mad.co.uk
Manchester Online
Office Recruit
Prospects
S1 Jobs
Scotsman
Secs in the city
Times online
TipTopJob
Total Jobs

Each participant in NORAS 2005 will receive a detailed demographic profile of their users, collected from questionnaires issued using Survey.comís pop-up technology, and will also undergo ABC ELECTRONIC certification of its traffic, verifying Unique User figures to industry agreed standards.

Survey updates ñ building on NORAS:

The NORAS 2005 questionnaire has been updated to include questions designed to provide HR professionals for the first time with information relating to diversity amongst online job seekers, including ethnicity and disability.

In order to reflect the evolving needs of the recruitment industry, NORAS has also established a ëdevelopment committeeí to manage and consult on the expansion of the project. Through the committee NORAS encourages the industry to get involved, to ensure the study delivers the intelligence needed by advertisers to evaluate online recruitment sites.

Previous NORAS reports can now be downloaded for free from the website (www.noras.co.uk), which is also offering users a free trial of NORAS Interactive.

NORAS 2005 is being supported by industry organisations such as the Association of Online Recruiters (AOLR), the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR). The AGR have 600 members, including 400 of the UK’s top corporate employers and is keen for their members to learn more about online recruitment so they can recruit graduates more effectively.

Tim Elkington, Managing Director of Enhance Media comments: ìThe industryís support for this study and the fact that there are even more sites participating in this wave of NORAS shows an appetite by recruitment advertisers for reliable and independent data in order to assist their advertising decisions. This is the most accurate and reliable way for advertisers to evaluate online recruitment sites and to gain a greater understanding of the types of users who will respond to their adverts. NORAS provides this information by providing easily understandable, comparable, independent and impartial information on the size and profile of a siteís audience.

ìTo push the success of NORAS further, the online recruitment industry should start asking those sites who donít participate what they have to hide, and why they arenít also a part of NORAS 2005.î

Richard Foan, Managing Director of ABC ELECTRONIC comments:
ìItís great to see the increased commitment of the online recruitment industry in providing robust data to the market, by realising the true value that independent and comparable data can deliver. Transparency of traffic data is key to growing online spend, and itís encouraging to see more sites in this sector supporting industry standards.î

Alexandra White, Director of AOP comments:
ìBy encouraging the sites to work together, the NORAS study has evolved into an important measurement model. AOP welcomes this drive by the online recruitment industry to provide comparable traffic figures and relevant demographic information that are really relevant to the market theyíre targeting.î

Danny Meadows-Klue, Chief Executive of the IAB comments:
Itís fantastic to see that so many sites standing up to be counted. Online properties offer the potential for a much deeper understanding of how people behave when using a site, and combining demographic data with site centric traffic data creates a powerful tool to give marketers even greater confidence in the value of their media spend. Our role is to grow the medium and give our advertisers the confidence to invest more money in the channel, and the NORAS study is a real step in helping us to achieve this.î

Further information regarding NORAS can be found by visiting www.enhancemedia.co.uk or www.abce.org.uk