Surfing for a living: accountants seek jobs online
The typical online jobseeker is an accountant
His name is Marcus Lee and he fits to a tee the average profile of the 12
million people in the UK now searching the web for work.
Marcus is 34, has 13 years’ work experience and uses over five online
recruitment sites, including, of course, AccountancyAgeJobs.com.
Marcus emerged during our National Online Recruitment Audience Survey 2006,
in which 18,724 online jobseekers revealed their tactics. It was one of the
biggest samples of its kind.
In accountancy, 74% of people looking for work have applied for a job they
found online, with 68% obtaining an interview and 50% getting the job. As in
other professions, it highlights a transformation in how firms fill vacancies.
The average online jobseeker has been using the internet to look for jobs
since about 2000. What’s good about the web for them is the speed at which the
jobs come through. The daily update is brilliant, especially for those in the
media, because the jobs that they look for are positions in film, TV and music.
Everyone of this age looks on the internet for jobs. It’s not totally online,
but roughly 80% of searches would be on the web. People are able to customise
what they’re looking for, so they only receive daily emails of relevant jobs.
The ability to attach a CV every time is an added bonus.
Online recruitment has been going for just over ten years and is now worth
approximately £200m in the UK, a year-on-year increase of 50%.
In banking and financial services, for instance, 86% of people looking for
work have applied for a job they found online, with 75% obtaining an interview
and 45% getting the job. Overall the results showed that just 6% of respondents
put a hard copy of their CV in the post.
Online recruitment is steadily attracting more senior candidates, a strong
indicator that this way of finding work has now come of age.
Since the survey began in 2002, 67,000 online job seekers have been
interviewed. It provides recruiters and employers with trend data, tracking the
changing habits of people searching the web for jobs. The number of websites
candidates visit continues to decrease marginally, demonstrating increasing
loyalty to particular job sites. However, one in five jobseekers will visit more
than ten sites when looking for work.
Tim Elkington is managing director of Enhance Media