8 out of 10 IT Jobseekers Fail to Find Work Through Professional Networking Sites

LONDON, April 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --

- Job Boards and Recruitment Consultants are the 'go to' Channel for Active Jobseekers

- New Survey From the IT Job Board Highlights Latest Recruitment Trends -

In spite of their rising popularity, professional networking sites such as LinkedIn are not replacing traditional job hunting and recruitment methods, according to 540 job seeking IT professionals, surveyed by The IT Job Board, http://www.theitjobboard.co.uk, in March.

Whilst IT professionals clearly use professional networking sites, their primary usage is to build up a portfolio of business contacts (53%), and to keep in touch with former colleagues and friends (33%), rather than to secure new jobs.

Half of all respondents said they have used LinkedIn to search for jobs and almost a third of IT professionals (32%) would like to be headhunted through such sites. However, in spite of this, eight out of ten jobseekers have failed to secure new roles via professional networking sites.

The favoured recruitment channels for IT professionals are job boards (42%) and recruitment consultants (30%). Just 8.5% of IT professionals view professional networking sites as the most valuable channel for job hunting, indicating that traditional 'core' recruitment methods are still preferred.

According to the research, the main barriers to finding work through professional networking sites are:

    - Poor experience - 42% don't know how to find employers
    - Confusion - 20% don't know how to approach recruitment consultants
    - Privacy issues - 15% don't want their employers to know they are
      looking for a new job
    - The sites are untargeted - 11.5% claimed they are not specialist
      enough

Alex Farrell, managing director of The IT Job Board, said: "Whilst there is a role for professional networking sites in the recruitment process, it is still evolving. There is still confusion around how to use professional networks effectively to find work. They are servicing the passive market, whilst active jobseekers are utilising both job boards and recruitment consultants.

"Making a success of professional networking is time intensive for both candidates and recruiters alike. These channels don't - as yet - provide targeted platforms. Today's recruiters would be better placed using pin-pointed CV databases, which provide a more targeted, effective and proactive way of finding candidates. I think it's a case of 'watch this space'," she added.

Notes to editors

About The IT Job Board:

The IT Job Board group of companies was set up in April 2002 in recognition that recruitment in the IT sector was increasingly dominated by the internet.

Today, The IT Job Board (http://www.theitjobboard.co.uk) is the UK's biggest IT specialist recruitment website with over 23383 vacancies advertised (as at April 2010).

Online technology enables sophisticated targeting - for example by skill, region or experience - of The IT Job Board's database of 800,000 IT professionals. The company always tries to get closer to candidates either via planned content campaigns, or through the use of social networks.

The site also offers employers services such as branded job postings, a featured employer zone, targeted email campaigns and guidance on advertising copy. The managed campaign service filters responses to provide companies with a shortlist of applicants most suitable for the advertised position.

http://www.theitjobboard.co.uk's clients include Deloitte, Accenture, BP, HM Treasury, Betfair, Amnesty International and MI5.

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SOURCE The IT Job Board