As promised, I've gathered the data during the recent survey on the effectiveness of the job boards. The results are posted below. I wish I could attach a file with a pie chart of some sort but Yahoo groups do not allow any attachments, as far as I'm concerned. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this survey and contributed to the common good of all Happenites.
THE SURVEY RESULTS
===================
Number of participants -- 16
How many times in the month of May did your online applications through the internet job boards resulted in phone or face to face interviews?
Total -- 16 (coincides with the total number of participants)
Average -- 1 interview per member
Min -- 0
Max -- 5
0 interviews -- 50%
1 interview -- 31.25%
2 interviews -- 6.25%
3 interviews -- 0%
4 interviews -- 6.25%
5 interviews -- 6.25%
How frequently did you use internet job boards in May?
Daily -- 75%
Weekly -- 18.75%
Rarely -- 6.25%
Name three most useful internet job boards.
Workopolis -- 20.45%
Indeed -- 15.91%
Monster -- 13.64%
Eluta -- 11.36%
Career Builder -- 4.55%
Craigs List -- 4.55%
Charity Village -- 4.55%
Government of Canada job boards -- 4.55%
Other -- 20.45%
COMMENTS
==========
I expected a more vivid participation but 16 is also a nice group. I would like to thank all respondents for taking time to answer the questions for the common good of all Happenites.
So are the job boards efficient? It's hard to tell since there are no determinants of efficiency for a job board (at least I don't know any). But to my taste, they proved to be quite inefficient resulting in just 1 interview out of 31 days of applications for most of us in April.
It was no surprise to find out about the daily use of job boards. Many respondents indicated they were using automatic job alerts that they receive via email for convenience.
As to the most popular job boards, Workopolis gained the first place with 20% of respondents indicating it to be their job board of search. What was unconventional to see is the rise in ranks of Indeed -- the job search engine (not really a job board, think of Indeed as Google for job search). Indeed even outranked Monster in popularity. I presume it is the case thanks to Indeed's functionality to scan all major job boards as well as corporate sites for job postings, therefore, making it the most inclusive of all.
In conclusion, I can advise that our over-reliance on job boards and internet search proves to produce little success. And how much time do we spend behind the screen instead of going out there and grasping those opportunities by the horns?
With your approval, I'd be conducting similar surveys from time to time. What topic would be of interest to you?
Alex Povolotski, MBA
Corporate Finance
