Job boards and the tyranny of statistics

Telegraph Media Group’s digital editor, Edward Roussel, is reported in the Grauniad as saying that they are moving away from unique users as a driving objective of its online business and, instead, are going to focus on the  “three Cs”: content, commerce and clubs. In other words, for the Telegraph it’s no longer about the stats: it’s what you do with people.

Oddly, very recently whatjobsite had a heated argument (which we lost) with an independent job boarder over the use of stats in selling online recruitment advertising. Their point was similar. It’s not the volume of unique users that matter, but the people. It’s quality and relevance.

It seems obvious really. Why should unique users or application stats matter for someone trying to fill a job? 100 applicants for a job from one job board is no better than 2 applications from another — if it is from the latter that the hire comes.

And yet, all we hear about is statistics. And even whatjobsite profiles perpetuate this tendency — which is why we lost the argument.  How did we get to the point that we are judging job boards on volume stats? When did ABCe audits so important? And why?

Well, in truth, ABCe audits are tools for marketers and media buyers to assess competing media as advertising options. The more eyeballs, goes the logic, the better. Recruitment advertising agencies will contest this claim, I am sure. But job boarders themselves will know that recruitment advertising agencies used to love their stats. How many unique user in x job in y location at z salary etc was often a question in a booking call. How many clickthroughs could be expected? What can we do to increase page views?

It was the desire to attract the valuable advertising agency market that made job boards start quoting stats. Once they started quoting stats, however, they then had to do audits to verify them. Later, as recruitment agencies professionalised their online activities, stats became KPIs for them too. Little by little, without anybody really noticing, stats became the de facto assessment criteria of job boards.

Now we face the sad truth that ABCe audits and Hitwise are little more than badges for effective search engine marketing. Job boards choose when they want to be audited. Turn on a Pay Per Click advertising campaign for a month and get your new flashy “audit.” For large generalist sites, it can sometimes be just a week.  But what does it really mean? How much of this traffic is real? How much is relevant?

More important, for the average SME or company with a job to advertise, these stats are meaningless. Even the Guardian uses the misleading word  ‘Hits’ in the title of the piece. For SME employers there is only one stat that matters: 1 successful hire. What could be better than one job view, one application and one hire?