San Ramon, Ca. — November 13, 2012 — A recent report conducted by eQuest’s Big Data division reveals that job seekers are no longer performing job searches like they used to. eQuest is a middleware company that delivers jobs on the Internet for the majority of the Global Fortune 500. Job board, social media sites, and candidate view, response, application and hiring data is collected and stored for statistical research. Its database currently holds over 1.1 billion records.
A sample study of over one million jobs posted on the Internet over the last 90 days indicate that job seekers are searching and submitting resumes at a fairly consistent rate from Monday through Friday between the hours of 10am to 2pm with an additional jump occurring after the dinner hour from 7pm to 9pm. This is a dramatic difference from only a year ago when candidate searches and responses were primarily occurring, and at their highest rate, on Tuesday and Wednesday between 10am and 2pm.
The report also found a significant jump in weekend activity, normally a dead period for job seekers. Saturday and Sunday activity jumped by over 100% from 2011.
Although the report indicates that overall traffic has become more consistent, a deeper analysis revealed a huge variance in candidate response rates depending on several characteristics — the type of job, the type of career site, the location of the job, and the method of device being searched from by the would-be job seeker.
For example, jobs posted to Twitter experienced its highest level of searches and responses from mobile devices on Sunday, Monday and Tuesdays — while Monster, CareerBuilder and Indeed.com were at their strongest Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from computers, during the lunch hour.
Healthcare job postings were most active when posted on Wednesdays, retail jobs on Saturdays, and technology jobs were at their strongest Tuesdays and Fridays.
“It’s clear that companies must now consider the right day to post a job,” said David Bernstein, vice president of eQuest Big Data division. “Data must be utilized that can capture the highest level of candidate traffic for the right industry; at the right job board; for the right location; at the right moment. Jobs posted on the wrong day could mean the difference between a hire and a missed opportunity.”
This release is the first in a series of reports eQuest will be publishing as part of its Big Data for HR.
About eQuest
eQuest is the world’s dominant and most utilized job posting distribution company. Its primary customer base consists of the majority of the Global Fortune 500. It also provides job deliveries on behalf of the world’s largest Applicant Tracking Systems, ERPs, and job boards — managing another 20,000 companies through these channels. Present job posting deliveries average 250 million annually. Its Big Data for HR division collects approximately 5 million job board performance statistics weekly — making eQuest the Nielsen Ratings company of the HR industry. Other products include consulting, OFCCP compliance and audit protection, technology services, data analytics, Interactive media representation, SEO, and various predictive tools. eQuest was established in 1994. eQuest can be reached at www.equest.com.