A year in the online recruitment industry
A year in the online recruitment industry
It is fair to say that the last 12 months has been one of the hardest years to operate a business since the depression in the 30’s and the online recruitment industry has been particularly hit hard as unemployment has soared to almost 3 million.
As the indications are that the worst of the recession could be over I have been looking at why Simply Jobs Boards has seen an increase in revenues since May 09, widely considered to be the peak of the recession, even though unemployment continues to rise and I have written this report to outline my findings.
Overall position
Overall traffic levels Y-O-Y have increased this year. This is not purely down to the increase in jobseekers, although this will undoubtedly have helped, I believe it is partly down the ‘the survival of the fittest’. Our Hitwise market share across all sites but one has increased dramatically this year, with the best site increasing share by 41%. Some of this increase is down to competitors moving out of the markets we operate.
As of September 2009 the Y-O-Y number of jobs being advertised on our sites has reduced by an average of 50% except for Simply Law which has seen an increase of 7% Y-O-Y. The positive point across all sites is that the amount of jobs being advertised is growing healthily in the period Jul-Sept, even the sites that have shown a traditional decline, and this decline it is not to the extent of last year.
The number of job applications is perhaps predictably up, on some sites by as much as 150%
Breakdown
Traffic – Up 10%
Hitwise share – Up 22%
Traffic – Up 15%
Hitwise share – Up 21%
Traffic – Up 18%
Hitwise share – Up 41%
Traffic – Up 19%
Hitwise share – Up 10%
Traffic – Up 22%
Hitwise share – Up 6%
Traffic – Up 10%
Hitwise share – Same
Traffic – Same%
Hitwise share – Up 11%
Traffic – Same%
Hitwise share – Up 18%
In summing up I think that the reason why our business has started to do better is down to a number of positive factors:
- Confidence coming back into the market – companies are happier to sign off longer term deals
- They are happy to sign these longer deals on all sites because they deliver results due to our increased market share
- We have a good team of sales people who are driving high levels of new business in a difficult market
Here’s to a good finish to 2009 and a much better 2010