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 | Unique users, audited users, relevant users, registered users, email subscribers... What does it all mean? And is it important in choosing a job board to advertise your job? In this article we cover everything you need to know about job site statistics. | When you are choosing a job board or a recruitment website on which to advertise your job vacancies you are going to have to decide if it's right for you. The only way you can really be sure if it is, is to find out what people are using it to look for jobs. This is where website statistics come in.
Unique users and visits XYZjobs says it has 1.5 million visits and one million unique users. But what does it mean? According to the International Federation of Audit Bureau of Circulations (IFABC) a visit is "a series of one or more page impressions, served to a valid browser, which ends when there is a gap of 30 minutes or more between successive page impressions for that browser." Doesn't help much, does it? What about a unique user? Well, a unique user is defined as "a unique and valid identifier. Sites may use (i) IP+User-Agent, (ii) Cookie and/or (iii) Registration ID." Doesn't help much either, does it? Okay, let's try again in English. Let us suppose that you happen to visit whatjobsite. Once here, you read some of the articles and then, having got what you needed, you leave our site. For statistical purposes, whatjobsite has had one visit (by you) from one unique user (that's you too). Later, another person visits whatjobsite. They also read some of the articles and then leave the site. Now, there have been two visits (by you and the new person) and two unique users (you and the new person). A little later in the day, you come back to whatjobsite again. This time you do a search for some job sites and, finding the right one with our zippy search engine, you leave again. Now, for statistical purposes, there have been three visits to whatjobsite (two visits by you and one by the other person) but there have only been two unique users (you and the other person). There's the difference.
In other words, visits attempt to count all the times people come to the site in a period; whereas unique users attempt to count the number of individual people who come to the site in a period. (Do bear in mind, however, that while I talk about 'people' it's not quite accurate. The statistics measure technical things but for our purposes we can be a little loose.) Unique users and job site popularity The unique users statistic is the most commonly quoted job board statistic. The number of unique users can give you an indication of the user traffic on a job site and, thus, an indication of its popularity. When XYZjobs.com says it has one million unique users a month, and ABCjobs.com says it has 50,000 unique users a month, we know that XYZjobs.com is the more popular of the two. What are audited unique users? If the number of unique users gives an indication of the popularity of a job board, then what's to stop a job board making up or inflating its unique user figures to make itself appear more popular than it really is? In truth, there is nothing to stop this happening.  However, just like the readership of newspapers is audited by independent organizations, so many job boards have volunteered to have their sites audited too —usually by ABCE. Audited statistics mean that recruiters can be sure that the statistics quoted are accurate.
Job applications and audited applications In recent times, job boards have begun quoting 'application' statistics. Like unique users and visits, the statistic is a technical measurement and counts the "submission to a server of an application form or a CV by a valid user. The content of the application form or CV submitted is NOT reviewed as part of the audit. The site must provide auditable evidence of submission, such as a "thank you" Page Impression or a redirect to a "success" URL." Again, however, for our purposes we can take it as a rough count of the number of job applications made on a job board in a period. We have to advise caution in using this figure to evaluate a job site. Firstly, the use of this statistic by job boards is far from consistent. Some job boards 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 per month. Secondly, the bigger the number doesn't always mean the job board is better. You might expect many hundreds of applications for a secretarial job but for a forensic accountant with 10 years' tax experience you would expect far far fewer. Registered users 'Registered users' is another statistic used by job sites to give an indication of their popularity. A person becomes a registered user of a site by setting up an 'account' with that site. Registered users have enhanced use of the job board such as being able to receive jobs by email, upload CVs, save multiple job searches, and log in and out of their account to update their details. Now, while distinction is made in audits between 'registered users' and 'active registered users' (we have all registered for sites that we have long since forgotten about) few job boards profile this difference. That being said, registered users is something you can also use to evaluate a job board. Jobs by email subscribers 'Jobs by email' or 'job alert' or 'email' subscribers are job board users who have chosen to sign up for a daily /weekly/monthly email of new jobs from a job board. Again, many job boards quote email subscribers to give an indication of popularity. Relevant statistics - comparing apples and oranges
As we saw above, unique users, visits, job applications and the other statistics can give an indication as to the popularity of a job board. However, simple popularity isn't everything. When you compare XYZjobs.com, with its one million unique users, to ABCjobs.com, with its 50,000 unique users, we can see immediately that the former is more popular. But more popular at what?
Let us suppose, for example, that we are trying to fill an engineering job. If the one million unique users using XYZjobs.com are looking for secretarial and administrative jobs, then not one of that one million users are really useful for us. While ABCjobs.com only has 50,000 unique users, these users are engineers looking for engineering jobs. Clearly, these users far more relevant users for our purposes. So comparing these sites statistics against each other can be like comparing apples and oranges. Clearly then, for all the statistics that are used (and abused) in online recruitment and job board advertising, the important qualification for all of them is relevance. Whether it is relevant unique users, registered users, job applications, email subscribers or whatever other statistic comes along, a job board is only as good the relevant candidates it brings to your job advertisement. Be sure to find out if the job board you want advertise has the relevant candidates.
Article updated: September 2009 Next step? Check out these articles Photo © David Calicchio | Dreamstime.com
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