Using statistics to choose a job board You have a fistful of statistics but what do they mean and how can you use them in choosing the best recruitment website?

Comparing job board apples and oranges

In the previous articles we outlined how unique users, visits, job applications and the other statistics are often quoted by job boards to give an indication as to the popularity of a job board — with the bigger the total number being considered the better. But in truth, the statistics only give you part of the picuture.

Let us suppose, for example, that we are trying to fill an engineering job. We have two sites, XYZjobs.com with one million unique users, and ABCjobs.com with 50,000 unique users. We can see immediately that the former is a far more popular web site than the latter. But the questions we must ask is, "What is it more popular at?"

If the one million unique users using XYZjobs.com are looking for secretarial and administrative jobs, then not one of that one million users is really useful for us — in spite of its being a far more popular site. ABCjobs.com only has 50,000 unique users but these users happen to be engineers looking for engineering jobs. So, in spite of its small unique users statistics, ABCjobs.com is the more popular site for engineers. Although it has only 50000 unique users, these 50000 unique users are for more relevant for us.

The same argument applies for registered users, CV databases, audited statistics etc. The key is not the total number but how many of the candidates of that total are looking for your job. 

Relevant candidates leads to recruitment advertising success

For all the statistics that are used (and abused) in online recruitment and job board advertising, the most important thing to establish is the relevance. Whether it is relevant unique users, registered users, job applications, CVs, email subscribers or whatever other statistic comes along, a job board is only as good the relevant candidates it brings to your job advertisement.

Relevant candidates is the criteria that you should use in evaulating web site statistics. General statistics are useful but getting specific statistics on job borads will be of far more benefit to you. Unfortunately, in most cases job boards don't publish detailed information on their own sites. The reason for this is that there are simply too many permuations of statistic available.

However, the information is available. In order to find out if a job board really has the right audience for you, you'll have to ring them or email them to find out. Give them the basics of your vacancy spec and ask them how many candidates they'll have. Once you have that information, you'll be able to make a better comparison between job boards and find the site that gives you the best chance of filling your vacancy.

This concludes our series of articles on web site statistics. For more online recruitment help and advice go to the Recruiter Zone or look at our suggested reading below. 

Next steps. Try these articles

• Job board advertising for employers
• An introduction to job boards, job sites and recruitment websites
• Job Site Products and Services
• 10 questions every employer should ask a job board
• Generalist job sites versus specialist job sites

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