The notes to the latest Seek Employment Index report that on a year-to-year basis job applications are 5.5% higher compared to a corresponding 35.8% increase in news job ads posted to their site. I assume that the numbers for the other two biggest job boards show similar trends (set me straight if I am wrong please)
If I were to stick to the Seek numbers, the stats are saying that a typical/average advertiser is getting @ 22% less applications per ad; which implies less candidate processing work, less job-application-related exchanges, etc; so this is in itself not a bad thing from a processing cost and churn side of the equation.
The problem arises when with the available candidate pool (constantly fed by your applications flow) you cannot fill the role. What this means in turn is that the candidates that make up the 22% that are NOT applying to the roles you advertise happen to be the ones you needs to make a placement or fill a vacancy. So you could be receiving 22% less applications but in fact you may be losing up to 100% of your quality applications (placeable candidates).
What do you do if you are an advertiser?
What advertising advice do you have to give if you are a job board?
If you find flaws in my reasoning, pls give me a shout… and kudos to Seek for their transparency with the trends.
