Unique users, registered users, relevant users... Everything you wanted to know about job site traffic...but were too afraid to ask. Unique users, registered users, relevant users, audited users and applications: there is a lot of jargon in online recruitment. What does it all mean? And is it important in choosing a job board?

What is a unique user?

If there is one bit of online recruitment terminology that it is worth getting a fix on it is "unique users." In the land of job sites, unique users are what everybody talks about. But why are unique users important? And, more importantly, what are they?

According to the International Federation of Audit Bureau of Circulations (IFABC) a unique user is "a unique and valid identifier. Sites may use (i) IP+User-Agent, (ii) Cookie and/or (iii) Registration ID." Doesn't help much, does it?

Okay, let's try again. Let us suppose that you happen to visit whatjobsite. Once there, you read some of the articles and then, having got what you needed, you leave the site. Your visit to the site would be counted as 1 unique user.

Later, another person happens to visit whatjobsite. They also read some of the articles but also go on to search for job sites for their vacancy. After that, they leave the site. Now, the total number of unique users has gone up to 2.

A little later in the day, you come back to whatjobsite. This time you do a search for some job sites and, finding the right one with our zippy search engine, you leave again. Although you have visited whatjobsite twice, you are still only counted a single unique user. The total unique users, therefore, remains 2.

Unique users and job site popularity

Why is this unique user figure important? Well, the number of unique users can give us an indication of the user traffic on a job site and, thus, the popularity of a job site. When abcjobs.com says that it has 50,000 unique users a month (unique users figures are almost always counted over the period of a month) and xyzjobs.com says it has one million unique users, we know that xyzjobs.com is the more popular of the two sites.

What are audited unique users?

If the number of unique users gives an indication of the popularity of a job site, what's to stop job sites making up or inflating their unique user figures? In truth, there is nothing to stop this happening. However, many reputable job sites have taken it upon themselves to allow their site traffic to be independently audited by an outside party, such as ABCE. This allows advertisers to be sure that the traffic statistics quoted are accurate. In our view, an independent audit is a stamp of confidence and should be one of the key factors you look for when choosing a job site.

What are relevant unique users?

As we saw above, unique users can show us the popularity of a job site. However, simple popularity isn't everything. Let us suppose, for example, that we are trying to fill an engineering job. If the one million unique users using the generalist site xyzjobs.com are looking for secretarial and administrative jobs, then not one of that one million users are really useful for us. Abcjobs.com, on the other hand, turns out to be a specialist engineering job site. It has only 50,000 unique users but the majority of these users are engineers looking for engineering jobs. We can see now that although abcjobs.com might have fewer unique users, it has more relevant users. This is important because relevant users are the only users that are actually going to apply for our vacancy.

What are registered users?

'Registered users' is another statistic used by job sites to give an indication of their popularity. A registered user is different to a unique user in that a person becomes a registered user of a site by providing some personal information (usually a username or email) and a password. Being a registered users often gives added functionality to a site. Registered users can receive jobs by email, upload their CV, save multiple job searches etc.

There are two main concerns with using registered users statistics as an indication of site popularity. First of all, there are no independent audits of registered users so figures quoted have no way of being verified. Secondly, it is not uncommon for registered users to stop using the jobs site and yet still be counted as registered users. We have all registered for sites that we have long since forgotten about.

In spite of issues, registered users are something you can use to evaluate a job site. But again, getting to the number of relevant registered users is going to be key in choosing your job site.

What are "jobs by email" subscribers?

“Jobs by email” or “job alert” or “email" subscribers are job site users who have chosen to sign up for a daily email of new jobs from a site. Again, many job sites quote email subscribers to give an indication of popularity. Like registered users above, there are no independent audits of email subscribers. What's more, it is hard to know how “active” or “live” these email subscribers actually are. We all subscribe to many things and simply forget to unsubscribe.

That being said, the number of relevant email subscribers is something you should investigate when evaluating a job site.

What are "Applications" and "Audited Applications"?

This figure counts the number of people that actually apply for a job and is beginning to be quoted by job sites as a key metric. Again, we have to advise caution in using this figure to evaluate a job site.

Firstly, the use of this statistic by job sites is far from consistent. Some sites say that they have an average of 14 applications per job; others say that they have a total of 3,000 applications per day; while still others say that they have 1.5 million applications a month. How does one compare these dissimilar figures?

Secondly, all jobs and job sites are different. You might expect many hundreds of applications for a secretarial job, but for forensic accountant with tax experience you would expect far fewer.

Thirdly, the figure gives no indication of applicant relevance. One of the common criticisms of job sites is applicant overload, where too many irrelevant candidates apply for a job. Too many applicants might seem like a wonderful problem to have, but when you have to spend time going through all of these irrelevant applications and reply to them, it soon becomes trying.  

That being said, the number of applications can serve one really useful purpose for you: it can let you know how your job advertisement is performing. If your account manager tells you that an engineering job gets an average of twenty applications on a particular site, and if your engineering job only got one or two applications, then you know there is something wrong. In other words, you can use the number of applications to evaluate your response.

Conclusion: relevance, relevance, relevance

For all the statistics that are used and abused in online recruitment advertising, the important qualification for all of them is relevance. Whether it is relevant unique users, relevant registered users, relevant email subscribers or relevant applications, a job site is only as good the relevant candidates it brings to your job advertisement. A good job site should be able to give you an indication of how many relevant candidates they have for a particular job and thus give you an indication of whether to advertise with them or not.

Article updated: October 2007

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