People are NOT finding most jobs at Monster, Career Builder and other job boards.
A survey was done in 2013 of companies with over 5000 employees. These are companies that keep great records of where they find people. These companies employ every possible method of finding new employees. The details are at
http://www.careerxroads.com/news/SourcesOfHire2013.pdf
The biggest job filler was internal candidates already working there – 42% .
There were an average of 74 applications per hire. Frightening, isn’t it?
Outside hires
From here on out, I’m going to talk only about percentages of the external candidates hired. The ones who came from outside the company.
Referrals were the biggest source of external candidates at 25% of all jobs filled. Of those referrals, 95% were referrals from people who worked at the company. You are 3-4 times more likely to get hired if you can get someone inside the company to refer you.
The company website got credit for 23% of candidates. This is a suspect source according to the study authors, who suspect other things drove people to the website, but I’ll accept that number for the sake of argument.
Online job boards filled 18% of jobs. The most significant job boards were Indeed and SimplyHired. They found more people jobs than Monster and CareerBuilder.
It is simple mathematics, job boards are useful, but they are not the main way people find new jobs. Just going to company websites and submitting resumes blindly appears to be more effective than the big job boards.
Social media only got credited with 3% of hires, but it influences, drives, or combines with referrals, company career sites, job boards, direct calls into competitors, college recruting, temp-to-hire, and career fairs.
Recruiters like me only accounted for 3% of hires. They use recruiters only for the jobs that are begging for people. They don’t want to pay my fee unless they just can’t find the right person easily.
Print is dead. Print ads only filled 2%.
What it all really means?
The real key, however, is networking. It may not be easy, but it is still the main way jobs are filled. Even in giant corporations. You are 3-4 times as likely to get hired if you network your way into a company.
Something To Do Today
Bite the bullet. Do something in your job search other than rely on internet job boards.
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Tomorrow: Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune