1. IAEWS Benchmark Survey Summary Report of Findings
I appreciate the opportunity to present the top level results of the 2nd annual benchmark study.
This morning, a group of 20 companies who participated in the survey met to discuss the results of the survey and how leading edge boards are coping with the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunites within our industry.
Detailed results are available only to the study participants- butas the sponsors for the last 2 years, Peter asked that I present some top level results to the entire congress this afternoon.
- Let me start with a little background…
September 2012
Enhancing Job Board Performance Worldwide

2. Background and Purpose
2nd year for IAEWS Benchmark study- sponsored by Jobg8
Steering committee of 10 job boards (US and UK)
Measure relative effectiveness and efficiency across a number of performance metrics and classification features.
Data available to participants
Comparison by size, tenure, niche, region and # postings
Second year
- group of 10 fairly large job boards acted as the steering committee in May to re-work the survey from last year- great input- a number of new questions were added we very much appreciated the support.
- great data on trends within the industry as well as performance data – a chance to compare your board’s performance against others in the industry
the final report available to all participants was over 100 pages with comparisons based on job board size, location, and niche- so great data that enables a board to do an apples to apples comparison.
Let me touch quickly on methodology 2
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3. Methodology and Approach
Input regarding scope and questions solicited from many boards worldwide
Jobg8.com sponsorship allowed for no-cost participation from worldwide boards
Contracted service from professional research company (Critical Insights) to improve online data collection and ensure data security
Relatively short time frame to create/ distribute/collect/correlate and publish results
As I mentioned- committee helped with the preparation of the survey instrument
My company- Jobg8 agreed to sponsor the survey again this year- no cost for boards to participate
An independent market research company – Critical Insights collected the data, produced the final reports and ensured that all data was kept confidential- only aggregated data was released to participants
As we did last year- we all used May data and collected all the results within the month that the survey was open- which was basicvslly late July and early August.
Who participated? 3
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4. Participation and Response
Solicited all IAEWS members and Jobg8 clients worldwide in June and July
154 Job boards registered to participate
127 boards submitted some response
108 boards completed the online survey
Invited to participate in discussion of results
Survey closed on August 10th- results published and distributed August 30th
High Level results to all IAEWS members today
Several invitations were sent to IAEWS members and all Jobg8 clients worldwide in early summer.
154 boards originally registered and were sent links to their secure online survey form.
127 boards submitted some response
108 were deemed complete enough to be considered valid by CI
CI crunched the data last month and the final reports were sent to each participant last Wednesday via as a fairly large pdf.
- General profile of the boards that participated?

5. General Job Board Profile Data

6. Who Participated?
For what region / country is the data being submitted?
In terms of locations, about 40 % of the boards were from the US
The remainder were primarily from the UK but other worldwide regions were represented as well.
What type of boards were they??? 6
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7. Job Board Type What type of job board do you operate? 7
About 75% of the boards who participated classified themselves as niche sites- either by niche by industry or by region- about the same as last year.
Last year there was some concern that some of the boards were not “fee based” boards and their numbers may be squeing the results- so this year we asked… 7
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8. Job Board Posting Model: 2012
Is your primary model for posting a “free to post” model?
Unlike last year- 90% of the boards participating had a fee to post pricing model-
How long have these boards been operating?? 8
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9. Job Board Tenure
How long has your job board been up and running in this region?
2011
2012
Last year, about 45% of the boards had 10 or more years of operating experience- this year, that category is down a little, but the number of boards in the 3-10 year category was up substantially- so overall, the boards that participated have multiple years of operating experience. The median years of performance in 2011 was XX and in 2012 was YY.
Are these large operations based on employee counts??? 9
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10. Full Time Employees
How many full time employees are allocated to your board in this region?
2011
2012
No.
Although they have been around for awhile, the nature of the job board business means that we are not big employers- almost 60% had less than 3 FTE’s.
All this profile data is important because the survey results were also broken out based on type, size, region, employee size and tenure. More cross tab results could also be run if deemed important. 10
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11. General Job Board Data
That is the general profile of the participants- let me share some high level findings from the survey.

12. Sources of Unique Visitors
What percentage of the unique visitors that come to your site in this region originate from the following sources?
Again this year we asked about sources of traffic to your site. Direct traffic, Search Engine Marketing and links in outbound s (marketing campaigns or job alerts) accounted for 55% of the traffic. Interesting to note that traffic from aggregators was down about 4% from last year. During the 2 hour discussion group this morning with participants, the feeling was that the changes in the business models to more of a competitor has caused some boards to reduce the use of aggregators.
Also intersting to note that traffic from Social Media sites (Facebook and Linked in accounts/profiles or discussion groups) was less than 10%- - That option was not available last year so it will be used to develop trend data next year.
As it relates to traffic- we also asked about conversion of traffic… 12
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13. Conversion Rate: 2012
Do you track the conversion rate of traffic coming to your site?
If yes, what is your conversion rate from the following sources of traffic? *
The benchmark steering committee also felt it was important this year to get a handle on the quality of the traffic sources by looking at the conversion rate of the traffic reported. “Conversion rate” was defined on the survey instrument as the # of applictions generated vs the clicks that were paid for or delivered by that source.
Interesting to note that only 40% or so of the responding boards actually track conversion rate- which does make you wonder how they measure what they are paying for…
You can see the ranges of responses for the 42 boards that do track conversion rate- If you do the analysis to calculate the mean value for each source- it shows that Job alerts and outbound direct mail are the best source of traffic and generate a 19.2% conversion… the lowest being social media at 6.3% conversion. Aggregators were next to the bottom with 14.2% conversion.
Mobile use was also a topic that the steering committee wanted to investigate further this year…
* Asked of respondents who indicated they track the conversion rate (n=42). 13
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14. Percentage of Traffic From Mobile Platforms: 2012
What percentage of your total traffic originates from mobile platforms?
Although 16% of the participating boards do not track traffic usage from mobile, a vast majority of the 84% that do track reported mobile traffic of <25%. Again, if you calculate the mean response rate, overall it was 9.7%. Again there were differences in the mean value based on job board type and region. In the US, the mean response was 9.9% and in the UK, it was almost 14%.
- The steering group was also interested in defining the mobile platforms that were being used to access the site… 14
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15. Sources of Mobile Traffic: 2012
If available, what percentage of your mobile traffic is sourced from the various devices? *
Again, this is data from only about 46 reporting sites and it is basically an Apple (Iphone/Ipad) comparison vs. an Android phone/tablet comparison. You can see the range of responses shown here. The research company calculated he mean responses and it shows that almost 70% of the traffic originsated from an Apple product (amazingly split pretty evenly between Iphone and Ipads)- 20% from Andoid Smart phones –(only about 1% from Andoid tablets) and 10% from other platforms.
Obviously, the rise of mobile use is an intersting topics for job boards and generated great discussion at this morning’s session.
How job boards have responded to the mobile challenge is also represented in the next chart… 15
* Based on respondents who indicated data was available (n=46).
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16. Job Board Features: 2012
This question asked job boards if they offered one of these 16 features…
You can see that a vast majority offer features like “Job alerts” and “featured jobs”
over 70% now have Twitter and Facebook accounts (about the same as last year) but over 50% now have a group on Linked In- 34% have established a presence on Google+
at the bottom of the chart you can see that as it relates to the mobile response- 17% of the boards have now joined boards like CareerBuilder and JobServe and have developed an Iphone app- up from 10% in % have an Andoid app- up from 6% in although these were the average for all boards- significant differences by region with European and AUS boards at almost double that %
Also interesting to note that almost 40% have developed a .mob site – that % is 50% in the UK and 75% in AUS. (The bar in green in the middle)
One last point on features…19% of the responding sites have claimed that they have developed a “pay per application” pricing model- that will be an interesting trend to monitor next year as well
- Let’s move on to client reporting… 16
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17. Standard Monthly Reporting Features: 2012
This is a new question for 2012 as well
You can see that 78% of the boards report on things like job views per posting, 64% report on applications per posting but only 11% report on the cost per application delivered
For the job boards that feel they have a competitive advantage in this area, they felt that reporting on it framed the right kind of discussion with their clients
In our discussions this morning, client dashboards and reporting platforms were areas where job boards will be spending more resources in 2013
Finally, let me touch on a few performance metrics that were captured in the survey 17
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18. Job Board Performance

19. Applications per Posting: 2012
Do you track the number of applications or ATS redirects for each posting on your site?
A number of people on the steering committee felt that the ultimate metric for job boards was how many applications or better yet, quality applications were generated for the paying client.
Yet you can see here, that in this year’s survey 47% of the respnding sites state that they do not track ATS re-directs or applications- so clearly there is a disconnect on the importance of this metric?
For those that do report… 19
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20. Average Applicants per Posting: 2012
Please provide the average number of applicants per postings (either ATS or ) on your site (normalized for a 28 day posting cycle) during May 2012.
You can see the range in the number of applications generated per average posting
There were further questions on production by type of posting ( or ATS)- however, if you develop the median response for all postings, the median was 9 applications per posting. There was significant variations again by region and job board tenure, but overall, this number is up a little from last year. The steering committee was also considering a question to determine the application production based on idustry or classification where you would expect significant deviations. However, if this many boards do not consider application production important, then there may not be enough data statistically significant.
Again, this is average production for the 53% of the boards that track- the next question a board would ask- and one we discussed this morning is how many of these apps are qualified appplications and do you generate enough to satisfy your clients?
There were interesting comments from many of the members this morning on both topics.
Finally- asked questions about job board expenses. 20
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21. Job Board Expense Ratios/Percentages
We did NOT ask for any raw data- difficuklt to compare based on job board size difference- what CareerBuilder spends on Marketing may be a little different than what yo spend. So we asked for ratios of different expense categories as a perecentage of overall revenue for your board.

22. Expense Ratio Inc/Dec vs. 2011 Amount Advertising and Marketing
Expense as a Percentage of Job Board Revenue
Expense Ratio
Inc/Dec vs. 2011
Amount
Advertising and Marketing
Increase
.5%
Selling
same -
Technology
1.3%
The three categories we asked to measure were Advertising and marketing expense, direct selling epense and technology expense. The committee worked hard to provide very secific definitions in the survey instruemnt as to what was included and not included in each category.
The ratios were reported to all survey participants, but I can tell you that the Advertising and Marketing expense ratio (expense as % of revenue) was up slightly from last year, as was technology. Sales expense remained the same.
This is great benchmark data – looking at May 2012 expense- but looking ahead, what did the job boards forecast? 22
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23. Predicted Job Board Changes: 2013
Over the next 12 months, how do you predict the following elements of your job board to change?
This was a another new question in How do you expect the following elements of your board will change over the next 12 months?
-The blue responses are “increase” and yellow area is “stay the same”- If you look at “revenue drivers” within a company, ther is a very healthy percent of respondents that expect increases in Marketing, technology and sales staff. (the top three) Reflecting a generally optimistic outlook, very few expect further cuts in those areas – For an industry that has been called dead for years- that is pretty good news…
- And some final thoughts… 23
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24. Final Thoughts
Good participation – good actionable data for the serious job board operator
Detailed report allows comparisons against your specific niche
Interesting to validate the KPI’s used by many of the leading boards in the industry
If you are not using these metrics- then how do you measure success and improvement?
There was an enormous amount of data available for the serious job board operator- it takes a few hours to wade through the data and find the information that is important for your niche- for your size and tenure
For years you have hear the expression that you can’t improve what you don’t measure- so the steering committee had a lot of discussion about what are the right things to measure in the job board industry. It was thought that if you concentrtae on thes emetrics your board would be successful or yo would have compelling advantages vs. other competitive boards.
When we actually reviewed the data last week, we were surprised to see the number of questions that were marked as “unknown” or non-reported. So if these metrics are not the right ones- which ones are?
My final chart is food for thought…
August 2012

25. Job Board KPI’s What are you measuring??
Metric
% Unknown or Non-reported
Unique Visitors
10%
Source of Visitors
18%
% from Mobile
16%
Applications per Posting
47%
Traffic Conversion Rate
60%
Average Views per posting
22%
Expense Ratios
26-32%
I pulled a few of the questions from the survey- some I have already mentioned-
For instance- 10% of the respondents said that the number of unique visitors to their site was “unknown”
Where your vistors come from or if they use mobile was also a perplexing question for 1-18% of the respondents
The high rate of unknowns on the applications per posting and conversion rate was- as I mentioned a surprise to many as it was thought these were critical stats for any successful board
- Even the expense ratios generated a non response for 26-32% of the respondents.
Last year one of the comments we heard from job boards who participated in the first benchmark study was that one of the benefits was learnig what KPI other job boards use- I think that is true. A number of questions were then added this year and I would expect we will hear similar feedback.
This is a learning opportunity here and maybe a training opportunity for the IAEWS to tap some of the boards who have some great results in some of these areas and arrange training and discussion forums for serious job board operators to participate/ learn and improve their own operaions in these areas as well.
At Jobg8 we have appreciated the opportunity to be associated with this benchmarking effort- we believe in the value to the industry and the opportunity to sponsor the event for the last 2 years.
Thank you very much.
August 2012