The results of NORAS 2009 are just out, this year's results feature more job boards than ever before (31) and use data gathered from more job seekers than ever before (52,667) - this is the last NORAS that I'll be involved in from an Enhance Media perspective, so on a personal level it's pleasing to pass on the NORAS baton in such a healthy state.
The results themselves throw up some interesting findings; firstly the percentage of online job seekers that say they only use the internet to look for jobs has increased to 14% up from 9% in 2008 and 6% in 2007 - this might not seem huge, but I think is significant - two years ago one in twenty job board users said they only used the internet and now that figure is nearer one in seven.
The results also show that one in ten online job seekers have actually used a smart phone or blackberry to look for a job. We changed the question about the use of technology this year, last year we asked 'do you have access to the following technology - desktops, laptops, blackberrys etc' and people quite rightly said - having access to these items is one thing, but do people actually use them to look for jobs? So this year we can definitely say that job seekers are using mobile devices to look for jobs (and not just to download ring tones etc) and whether or not 2009 will be the year for mobile marketing (either recruitment or consumer based), this is our little contribution to the debate.
Another question that we changed year on year was the question relating to whether or not people have applied for jobs, obtained interviews or obtained jobs as a result of an online application and as Julian points out, the figures have slightly decreased year on year - I'll have a more detailed look at this and compare a pool of job boards that participated in both 2008 and 2009 and try to get back with the results of this in the next couple of days.
In the meantime, you can download the NORAS results and use the interactive tool for free by registering at the NORAS website.
As a footnote (and also in the interests of research), I'm now deep into my fourth winter cold.
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