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NORAS 2009, the largest ever online recruitment survey, has revealed that online job seekers are interested in seeing more than just job adverts when they visit job boards.

The results show that only 32% of online job seekers visit job boards just to look for jobs. In comparison, 34% are also using these sites to make themselves more ‘findable’ by registering their CV. The findings form part of NORAS 2009, the UK’s largest online recruitment research project, which surveyed more than 50,000 candidates across 31 online job boards.

Interestingly, a significant proportion of online job seekers are now using recruitment sites as a source of information, not just to aid their search for a new job, but also as a means of keeping up to date with developments within their industry. Almost one in five online job seekers visit job boards to obtain general career advice and 15% are now using them to make salary comparisons. In addition, 14% of online job seekers also visit these sites to acquire information and general news about their industry sector.

Helen Bird, Sales Director of Guardian Jobs commented, “These figures from the respected NORAS research demonstrate the higher expectations of today's online jobseeker. In order to give candidates what they want, sites need to be able to offer more: CV and interview advice; user forums for career guidance from peers; and specialist knowledge of market sectors and industries. Career sites, not just job boards, are being demanded by modern online jobseekers."

The importance of this additional content is reinforced further by the fact that one in ten online job seekers return to a job board because of its editorial content and career advice and not just because of the selection of jobs on the web site.

Giles Guest, Managing Director of Enhance Media, the online recruitment research and strategy company that produces NORAS commented, “The NORAS results show that online job seekers are increasingly looking for added value when visiting job boards. NORAS is the only independent, third party verification of job board audiences and our goal is to provide information like this to participating job boards so that they can deliver a more intelligent, targeted service to their clients and candidates.”

The NORAS 2009 results are free to download at www.noras.co.uk