Interesting the variety of the replies - here was my question
Having worked as a media professional for 20 years it amazes me that their are so many different ways in which recruitment job boards measure their own traffic and as such it means that the only way you can really judge is by actual applications. NORAS, ABC, Comscore , Google - in other words pick the one which works best for your stats - you cant buy media on the back of different scales of traffic as you will never know the correct figure. I would say that applications are the only worthwhile judge, and in short what then happens to them wastage/interview/offer - as clients we really need to savvy up on knowing what these stats are - what do you think?"
And here are some of the replies
Alex Hens
Director at 3D MarComms
Job Board Traffic metrics are so open to varying degrees of interpretation and manipulation (both pre & post reporting) it's a close run thing to being no more, or even less, use than gut feel TBH.
The real reason metrics are needed? To cover the arse of the person who's consulting on or buying the media. People are desperate for certainty in an uncertain world, a fast moving world where so many factors influence response - so it's most often about making sure you've got a few figures to back up your thinking and you're safe from too much criticism if it doesn't pan out.
I've asked many media in the past why they subscribe to NORAS, which IMHO added little more of real value beyond the ABCe certification which they could have got anyway (although top level user activity behaviors are interesting). Whilst they always seemed to agree with my perspective, the reason they paid the extra for inclusion was simply that many clients they sold too took a disproportionate degree of comfort from having a logo to back up their advice / decisions - irrespective of what it stood for and/or the integrity of conclusions.
To twist a well known saying - "there are lies, damned lies and web traffic statistics", which means there will never be a harmonious agreement on which metric is the most valuable or which methodology / traffic monitoring organisation has the most true reflection of reality. It's only natural that every commercial entity when promoting themselves will only want to use that metric which is flattering to them when compared against who they view as their competition.
So the onus lies with the person collating and processing that response - and rightly so. Location, salary, perception of employer brand, time of the year, how you've written your ad, general state of the market, application process - all these things (and many more) affect response (both quality and quantity of), so unless you have in place a facility to report with maximum integrity where your traffic and, most importantly, interviews and hires came from in previous activity, then gut feel is pretty much as good as anything you've got.
And what should you look for in a gut feel assessment of a job board?
- Are any of your colleagues in that function / role aware of it?
- What's it's online (and potentially offline) profile like - where does it generate it's RELEVANT traffic from?
- How easy is it to use - putting yourself in the shoes of the candidate?
- Are there similar roles to yours advertised already? (great if they can provide info on these or similar too)
- And then ask how many relevant people they have subscribed to alerts and / or in their CV database.
The future has to be for recruiters to pick their ATS' with integrity of metrics and MI reporting as a fundamental underpinning requirement, taking responsibility for better knowing themselves what works and what doesn't - and I'm sorry, but reliance on "what media did you come from" drop down options is simply not good enough. (Note - am consciously staying away from pitching our solution here)
And I don't think this is really clients keeping this info close to their chest Wendy - the truth is that it's because they don't actually know themselves because of rubbish ATS. However you also need to be aware that, even where an ATS would allow seamless tracking, the JobServe application set up actually creates such a negative application and (from my personal & previous often discussed) direct client recruiter experience, that your metrics of ROI are going to be as flawed as anyone's (my reasons/experience set out here: http://www.3dmarcomms.com/blog/2010/01/new-year-new-recruit-some-clear-mi/ - which also includes why I found the PPA experience pretty rubbish too I'm sorry to say Nicole).
But, for what it's worth - ABCe was always my preferred "go to" for verified stats when I was advising / buying on behalf of clients.
Keith Robinson Co Founder and Chief Networking Officer at CareerSiteAdisor.
love this debate - having spent 10 years as a Media Director/ Board Director at two of the UK’s biggest Recruitment Advertising Agencies I saw $100's of million spent in print media, with little regard for response. We used to joke that “they only way we knew if an ad worked or not was when it wasn’t re run.
Media owners would often try to get response rates of the ads our clients had run, some would even incentivise us - why? a great testimonial was a valuable marketing asset. But this was almost an impossible task – most clients didn’t know and we were on to the next Campaign or ad
Media planning as such was non existent - media owners often had regional, local or niche monopolies and could charge huge premiums. The main decision was if the ad was $40k was it a local, national or trade or was it a Sunday Times or Telegraph. BUT in 90% of cases the client made the decision – “the ad went there last time and seemed to do OK…”
When the internet/ on-line came along my first response was "great" we can monitor, track and manage with our clients response rates and conversion rates (1997 thinking). I looked at early ATS’s with joy and anticipation. Little did I know that 13 years later we would be having these discussions.
In 1999 I joined Totaljobs and believed in transparency, we had to be “different” and our ability to track response and share was for me a great marketing message. I helped to found with the guys at Enhance the NORAS survey - not perfect but a great opportunity to develop "attitudinal, socio economic and other information" as a part of the planning process.
I have been a non exec of Broadbean and been able to analyse response rates and "boy was that an eye opener!!".
Three months ago I launched a site called ( http://www.jobsiteadvisor.com/ ) a free to use Job Site Directory and comparison site (therefore I have a vested interest in this area).
So the key issue - with all these tools that can track response, can track conversions (certainly if you have an ATS) is that this industry operates and survives on;
- the inefficiency/indifference of many In-House Recruiters/HR (no difference to the last 20 years) challenges include line managers, HR, poor use of technology or poor technology. All these aid the indifference.
- the inefficiency/indifference/lack of technical know how of the Recruitment Consultancy sector (they have response but do they use or share it?). Consultants focus on placements (not response) they have seen there cost of acquiring candidates go down as a result of job boards and expect to go even lower with social (not motivated to track, manage, share response)
- The fear of many media owners to share response data (Turkeys don't vote for Christmas)
BUT funny thing is if you make a market more transparent, if you educate a market and you make it less of "confrontational experience for the buyer you can grow an industry.
Agree with Alex re How to buy on-line - take a look at my "Guide to Buying on line recruitment" at ( http://www.jobsiteadvisor.com/article/hot-tips/users-guide-to-online-recruiting-26.html )
Some huge generalisations and there to be shot at but great debate though.
David Johnston
Online Recruitment Expert
The same was true before job boards. Publishers and Media agencies would quote circulation and demographics for periodicals and newspapers, but couldn't tell you how many people read the advert. At least the web allows the job board and advertiser to track vacancy views and applications, so they can start building key ratios. To be honest cost per hire is a core metric for direct, but profit per hire is actually the most important metric for recruiters. However you also need to bare in mind the volume of applications, its all very well providing placements and hires, but not if you then have to employ someone to sift the huge number of apps. A good media account manager should help their clients do this and feed the info back to the job board. As has been mentioned a job board will rely on its clients for the ultimate info and as such the advertisers themselves can actually help improve things.
Steven Lo Presti
Project / Digital Manager at Lighthouse Adcomms
You should look at all the stats available, and pay particular attention at the independent stats such as ABCe, Hitwise, Comscore etc. Ultimately though, as a media buyer my reccomendation (and in my job I get asked this very question every day) is also influenced by my past experience of working with a particular job board such as how successful have past campaigns been and if a job board delivered not only applications for my clients, but hires... Make sure you track your campaigns wherever possible using tools such as Google Analytics, the stats will give you an invaluable source of information and it will give you a few surprises too!
Full discussion is in the Futurology group on LinkedIN
My final thoughts and golden rules
1) Always know where your response is coming from
2) Always measure the response against all factors, cost , time taken, quality of response
3) All that glitters is not gold, applications without quality are not worth the "online" paper they are printed on !!!
4) Cost per interview is a good stat to know, it might be you that is the problem when recruiting not them ! so under the old phrase "take a horse to water etc " make certain that you deliver a job role that matches the candidates expectations !
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