Recruitment Trends

Annual Overview

How many words Where are applications

should my advert have? coming from?

What are the best Which industries are

times to post jobs? in highest demand?

January 2019

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2 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019
Recruitment Trends
Annual Overview

January 2019

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 Contents
05 Executive Summary

06 Introduction

07 Employment Overview

09 Job Posting and Applications

11 Distribution by Industry

13 Distribution by Region

14 Distribution by Platform

16 Advert Length

19 Distribution Over Time

23 Summary

24 Further Reading

25 About WaveTrackR

26 About Wave

4 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Executive Summary
2018 has generally seen a stable trend in
recruitment. Whilst job posting has small
variations, with the exception of a drop in
December, applications fluctuate more,
with peaks in January, May and September.
The skills gap is more noticeable in some
industries, ‘IT & Internet’ and ‘Engineering,
Utilities’ have the most offering, but
application numbers don’t match up to
the demand.
When it comes to jobseeker behaviour,
candidates are more active on weekdays
between 10am and 6pm, this doesn’t
change much depending on which part of
the country or which job boards they are
applying from.
Finally, with job copy being ever more
important, adverts with around 142 - 214
words receive the highest application rates.

Region wise, the South East and the

North West have the most jobs posted,
with applications on the latter vastly
exceeding jobs.

With job boards still being recruiters

first choice of platform, on average,
recruitment websites and social media
also take a piece of the application share,
so are worth considering.

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 Introduction
2018 was a good year in the UK for
jobseekers. According to official statistics,
the employment rate reached 75.7%,
which is the highest figure recorded to
date. It was also a year which saw the
lowest unemployment rate of 4% and the
highest average salary increase since 2008.
This was good news for those who were
looking for new job opportunities.

Although 2018 was a positive year for

candidates, recruiters faced a different
story, encountering many challenges with
finding the right talent for their roles. A
decrease in the number of received CVs,
the skills shortage, Brexit and decreasing
migration of people from the EU were
just some of the issues that affected the
recruitment industry.

With the start of a new year in 2019,

we look back at data from the whole
year to review and gain insight into the
employment situation in the UK. We also
look at stats from Wave’s job distribution
tool, WaveTrackR, to check the latest
tendency for job posting and applications
as well as investigating other aspects
which might be helpful for recruiters in
making their job advertising more efficient.

6 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Employment Overview
Currently, there are around 32 million
working people in the UK, an increase
of 1.2% compared with 2018. Amongst all
full-time positions, 62% are occupied by
men, whereas women fill 73% of part-time
jobs. There are still more unemployed
men (54%) looking for a new position
than women, and a higher percentage
of women is classified in the economic
inactivity (Source: ONS, UK labour market:
December 2018 report).
Last year, the UK had fewer people who
are not employed and are not actively
looking for work. The inactivity rate of 21%
for people aged between 16 and 64 years
old, was the lowest since 1971 (source:
Labour Force Survey, Office for National
Statistics). Examples of those not working
and not looking for work are typically
students, people who are looking after a
family, or those who are off on long-term
sickness or retired.
For those who are employed, the
situation improved last year. The low
unemployment rate pushed the wages up
and the UK pay growth rose to 3.1%, which
was the highest over the last ten years.
The increase in the average earning was
good news for workers since the darker
days of the economic crisis in 2008.
The UK employment market still faces
huge uncertainty related to Brexit, which
leads to a lack of clarification about the
business economy, for all EU employees
already working in the UK and and those
who wish to enter the country after
March 2019. This situation doesn’t make
it easy for business owners who rely on
EU labour. Data from ONS shows that
between July and September 2018 there
were 5% less EU people working in the UK
than the year before and this trend has a
decreasing tendency.
However, the recruitment industry isn’t
slowing down and with businesses looking
for more new employees, there is more
work for recruiters. Just in 2018 alone,
nearly 4,000 new recruitment companies
were registered, and overall there are
currently around 40,000 recruitment
agencies in the UK.
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 Jobseekers and Recruiters
return from holidays

Graduates looking for jobs More Graduates

and School Leavers

Temporary
New Year Construction sector Christmas
New Job picks up jobs

End
of Year

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Jobs Posted Applications

GRAPH 1 | Job posting and applications trend throughout the year. Source: WaveTrackR

8 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Job Posting & Applications
Graph 1 represents recruiters’ activity for
job posting over the last 12 months and
the response from candidates on those
job adverts.
Job posting experienced a stable trend in
2018, with the exception of a slight drop
in December. This coincides with a drop
of applications at the end of the year,
especially in the second part of December.
What could affect this behaviour amongst jobseekers?
One of the reasons might be the seasonal
trends within recruitment.
The beginning of the year seems to be
the most active time for recruitment. An
urge for change, on both individuals and
companies, pushes people to consider
new opportunities, resulting in a job-
hunting peak. The chain reaction caused by
individuals moving jobs is new people will be
needed to refill those positions, raising the
number of job adverts posted.
In the spring, the numbers start to pick
up again, with construction work being
in more demand around the UK and the
The first quarter of the year recorded
the most significant drop in the number
of applications. The situation stabilised
as we progressed through the year until
September, where there were again more
candidates applying for jobs. Interestingly,
the spikes in January, May and September
are a common tendency amongst
candidates, as a similar behaviour was
also observed in the year before.
influx of graduates in the market. This is
followed by a drop in application numbers,
with jobseekers and decision makers in
companies going on holiday, slowing down
the recruitment process.
September sees the third peak of the year,
with candidates and employers coming
back from holiday and more graduates and
school leavers start looking for new career
opportunities. With a stable trend, as Winter
and Christmas approach, candidate interest
drops with most offers on the market being
temporary Christmas positions.
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 IT & Internet Engineering, Utilities Manufacturing

20.14% 6.64% 9.81%

22.79% 10.86% 10.31%

Sales Transport, Logistics Secretarial, PAs, Administration

7.44% 7.93% 13.53%
8.44% 7.35% 5.20%

Construction Customer Services Health, Nursing

2.87% 5.87% 1.10%

3.62% 3.29% 3.24%

Marketing, Advertising, PR Finance Recruitment Sales

4.01% 2.90% 1.46%

3.05% 2.72% 2.21%

Social Services Catering & Hospitality Retail, Wholesale

1.08% 1.33% 1.81%

2.14% 2.04% 1.36%

Travel, Leisure, Tourism Insurance Property

1.92% 0.92% 0.97%

1.16% 1.14% 1.14%

Agriculture, Fishing, Forestry Education Accountancy

0.65% 1.02% 0.89%

1.10% 0.93% 0.91%

Public Sector & Services Human Resources Electronics

1.71% 0.83% 0.31%

0.83% 0.71% 0.70%

Not For Profit, Charities Media, New Media, Creative Legal

0.87% 0.91% 0.28%

0.67% 0.58% 0.50%

Management Consultancy Science Telecommunications

0.15% 0.18% 0.09%

0.29% 0.18% 0.15%

Banking Graduate, Trainees Senior Appointments

0.06% 0.15% 0.15%

0.14% 0.06% 0.06%

Oil, Gas, Alternative Energy

0.00%
0.00%

Jobs Posted Applications

GRAPH 2 | Jobs posted and applications distribution per industry. Source: WaveTrackR

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Distribution by Industry
WaveTrackR’s data indicates that across
all industries, the highest job demand is
within the IT sector. This in demand sector
sees the broadest spectrum of skills,
roles and career progression. Some of
the many different areas include machine
learning, cybersecurity, mobile and web,
app development, database architect and
digital marketing related vacancies. It is a
sector with plenty of career choices and
for people with varying technical skill levels
and experiences. As seen on Graph 2,
the difference between IT jobs posted
and applications, means recruiters are
struggling to find candidates for their jobs.
High demand of IT professionals
The machine learning area is becoming a
bigger focus for businesses who are turning
to technology to help them improve their
processes using artificial intelligence. This
will be an essential aspect for any business in
the near future. Today, more recruiters are
using AI in their candidate searching process,
regardless of the size of the company.
Cybersecurity jobs are also in high demand.
Fast growing IT development demands a need
for a higher level of digital security. We are
living in a world where it’s not only important
to expand technology but more importantly,
to protect users, businesses and their data.
Similarly, the other industry where
employers might struggle to find the right
skills is the Engineering/Utilities sector. As
displayed on the graph, there is quite a big
gap between the percentage of advertised
jobs and the rate of received applications.
At the other end of the scale, Admin or
Customer Service jobs appear to be easier
to recruit for, with recruiters receiving a
higher number of applications.
Despite being in high demand, the IT industry
is one of the sectors that is currently facing
problems placing candidates, with a growing
skills shortage. This means recruiters are
not receiving enough applicants with the
right experience or qualifications to fill the
vacancies. In such a competitive environment
for candidates, recruiters need to use better
and smarter strategies, to make their adverts
stand out and put in more effort and/or
money in order to attract jobseekers before
they are captured by competitors’ jobs.
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 The South East and
North West receive
the most applications

12 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Distribution by Region
We analysed a sample of nearly 13,000 The high figures of employment and the
jobs posted and over 121,000 applications decrease of people in economic inactivity
received last year via WaveTrackR. in the area, compared with the previous
Amongst all those jobs 33% were published year, might be attracting more people to
in the South East, followed by the North work in the North West. London continues
West and South West with 17% each. to be one the most attractive regions for
jobseekers, with business diversity and the
When we examine the most popular highest earning increase in the country.
regions amongst jobseekers, the South
East and North West have very similar
popularity with 25% each. The North West
and London are areas where the demand
for finding a job amongst jobseekers is
higher than the number of new vacancies
offered by employers.
33.49%

25.88%

25.25%
17.06%

16.88%

13.58%

13.57%
9.79%

7.40%

6.66%

6.27%

5.40%

4.86%

4.06%

2.02%

1.75%
1.60%

1.12%

1.08%

1.02%
0.82%

0.44%

0.01%

0.01%

South North South London West East Yorkshire Wales East Scotland North Northern
East West West Midlands Midlands Anglia East Ireland

Jobs Posted Applications

GRAPH 3 | Regional distribution of jobs posted and applications. Source: WaveTrackR

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 Distribution by Platform
Job boards are still the number one
platform of choice for recruiters to post
jobs. With 8.5 million visitors on average
per site and a combined database of
27 million candidates (Reed, Stepstone
and CV-Library), job boards are the
number one source of candidates, almost
guaranteed to get a successful hire for
every job posted.

Recruitment Websites

5%
Social Media

1%

Where Job Ads

Are Posted
Job Boards

94%

GRAPH 4 | Percentage of jobs posted by platform. Source: WaveTrackR

The analysis of job posting behaviour 5% on recruitment websites and 1% on

from the recruitment companies included social media platforms (such as Facebook,
in our sample shows that 94% of these Twitter or LinkedIn).
jobs were posted on job boards, with only

14 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019


Recruitment
Websites 5
Average
Application
per Job
GRAPH 5 | Average application per job posted per platform. Source: WaveTrackR
Beyond the job board
With job boards still being front of mind for
recruiters, it’s important to expand your job
posting strategy beyond them. Surprisingly,
it appears that recruiters still give lower
importance to their websites as a means
to promote jobs. Recruitment websites
are, after the initial cost of building, an
inexpensive platform to post jobs. The same
can be said for social media; promoting
vacancies on social media channels is
1 Social Media
10 Job Boards
completely free of charge, but you can
always boost these further with social media
advertising.
Multiposter tools can remove the hassle
from having to post to multiple platforms
at the same time. You can post to your job
boards, your website and your social media
platforms all from one single place, making
it incredibly easy and convenient.
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 Advert Length
What are the recommendations on how
long a job advert should be? What should
be included in the copy to make it more
interesting for candidates to read and
click apply?
We investigated jobs posted during 2018
to answer these questions and examine
the relationship between the length of
a job advert and the application rate for
those jobs.

30%

20%

13%

9%
6%
5%
3% 4%
2% 2% 2%
0% 1% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0%

0- 259 - 500 - 750 - 1000 - 1500 - 2000 - 2500 - 3000 - 3500 - 4000 - 4500- 5000 - 5500 - 6000 - 6500 - 7000 - 7500 -
249 499 749 999 1499 1999 2499 2999 3499 3999 4499 4999 5499 5999 6499 6999 7499 7999

Length of Job Description (Char)

GRAPH 6 | Application percentage per job advert lenght in characters. Source: WaveTrackR

According to our data, adverts with 1000
-1499 characters (around 142 - 214 words)
received the best performance in the
number of received applications. The
application rate was lower for adverts that
had more or fewer characters, indicating
that too short job adverts might not give
enough details to convince candidates to
apply. On the other end of the scale, copy-
heavy adverts risk losing the candidates
interest even before they finish reading
the entire advert, lowering the chances of
applying.

16 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Improving the content of your advert
Tools like Grammarly, Textio and Yoast
SEO are a great way to improve your
job advert copy. The length of your
sentences, the formatting and the tone
of your advert can be the difference
between a successful and a failed ad.
When it comes to adverts on your
website, SEO is of exceptional
importance. Any job that is advertised
online should be optimised for a search
engine so it can be easily found when
someone types a job search related
query into their browser. As an example,
Yoast SEO’s tips include the length of the
paragraphs, keywords optimisation or
suggestions for meta descriptions.

Be Google for Jobs ready

It is also important to make sure your
advert is optimised for Google For
Jobs (GFJ). Most job boards are already
optimised for GFJ, but when it comes to
your website there are some steps that
need to be taken to make sure jobs on
the website can be found by Google.
The copy of the advert takes special
importance for Google, the higher your
job ranks the more chances are that
you’ll receive applications coming from
Google For Jobs.

FURTHER READING
How to get your website Google For Jobs ready and make sure your jobs
can be found: bit.ly/gfj-wave

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 Candidates are
most active between
10am and 6pm

18 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Distribution Over Time
In the next part of the report, we focused when candidates are more active and does
on jobseekers’ behaviour by looking at the this relate to the time when job adverts are
time when candidates typically apply for posted?
jobs. Is there a particular day of the week

14.6
15

13.6
12 11.5
10.3
9.6

9.3
8.9

9
8.8
8.3

7.9
7.7

7.6
7.2
7.1
6.4

6.4
6.0

6
5.7

5.7
4.8

4.0

4.0
3.9
3.7

3
2.7

2.3
2.1
1.6

1.5
1.3
1.3
0.7

0.6
0.6
0.5

0.5
0.4

0.3

0.3

0.1
0.1
0.1

0.1

0.1
0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Jobs Posted Applicattions

GRAPH 7 | Distribution of jobs posted and applications by time of day. Source: WaveTrackR

Our data showed that candidates seem during the afternoon. Recruiters can use
to be more active between the hours this information to deliver fresh jobs to
of 10am to 6pm, with the greatest candidates at the time they are most
number of applications being around active.
5pm. Jobs, however, are posted mostly

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 25%

19% 19% 19%

18% 18% 18% 18%
17%
16%

7%

3%
1% 1%

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Jobs Posted Applications

GRAPH 8 | Distribution of jobs posted and applications by day of the week. Source: WaveTrackR

%
30

25

20

15

10

0
East Anglia East Midlands London North West South East South West West Midlands Yorkshire

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

GRAPH 9 | Daily distribution of jobs posted by UK Region. Source: WaveTrackR

20 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

Candidates are more active during the Looking at the regional behaviour there
week from Monday to Friday with a similar seem to be different numbers depending
intensity but more so on Thursdays. There on what side of the country applicants
are still candidates who prefer to apply for come from, but the overall trend persists
jobs at the weekend, but this is more likely with a decrease of applications on
to happen on a Saturday than a Sunday. weekends.

With job postings, however, the trend

looks slightly different as recruiters tend to
post the most jobs on Fridays.

21%
20% 20%
19% 19% 19% 19%
18% 18% 18% 18% 18% 18%
16% 16% 16% 16%
14% 14%
13% 13%

9%
8%
6% 6%

3%
2% 2%

Reed CV-Library Monster Jobsite + Totaljobs

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

GRAPH 10 | Daily distribution of jobs posted by job board. Source: WaveTrackR

Amongst the main job boards, the while Monster breaks the pattern for
pattern of received applications varies. applications over the weekend, registering
Thursday is the most popular day for CV- the most applications for these days.
Library, Monster, TotalJobs and Jobsite,

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22 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019
Summary
The employment situation in the UK is
improving, with the low unemployment
rate and an average increase in pay for
people in employment.
In this report, we could see that there is a
relatively stable trend for job posting over
the last 12 months, but the number of
received applications is inconsistent. The
most significant drop in the number of CVs
received was noted in the first quarter of
2018, with these numbers stabilising later
in the year.
For a recruiter, being aware, and
understanding the different seasonal
patterns, can help them plan their
recruitment strategies and be more
effective with their budget. It is also
important to understand that, although
each candidate is different, with a unique
set of skills and experience, there are
observable patterns for where and when
they are looking for jobs and applying.
With the skills shortage acknowledged
in this report, this is a big challenge
for the recruitment industry. In such a
competitive environment, data-driven
decisions are becoming a crucial factor
for success. Knowing when, where, how to
write and post jobs based on factors like
industry sector, region or salary can be an
essential part of recruiters job advertising
strategies. Following the latest trends,
news and recommendations from other
experts with insight into recruitment data
and statistics should be something that
all recruiters do. Today’s strategy is more
about tailoring and targeting your job offer
to jobseekers rather than using a ‘spray
and pray’ approach.

Over the last few years, the recruitment

industry has shifted from a job-driven to a
candidate-driven focus. Candidates, with
more opportunities on offer, are harder
to please and recruiters need to put more
effort into finding not just a candidate, but
a potential employee with the right skills
for the job.

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 Further Reading
WaveTrackR Quarterly Report
bit.ly/wtr-qrt3

UK Labour Market from ONS

bit.ly/uk-labour

UK Pay Growth
bit.ly/pay-growth

UK and Non-UK People in the Labour Market

bit.ly/uk-non-uk

UK Employment Rate from Trending Economics

bit.ly/employment-rate

Google For Jobs

bit.ly/gfj-wave

24 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019

About WaveTrackR
WaveTrackR is a job board management and distribution tool that allows you to get the
most from your media choices. From making more placements to reducing advertising
costs, WaveTrackR makes advertising on job boards, faster and easier.

By collecting application and hire data, WaveTrackR provides detailed analytics of which
job board will give you the best ROI, and even offers recommendations on where to post
to get more hires.

WaveTrackR houses everything you need to know about a particular contract, such as
costs, inventory levels, burn and expiry dates, allowing you to make more informed
recruitment decisions and stay in complete control of your media.

About our Data

We collect anonymous data, via WaveTrackR, from thousands of job posts and
applications. This data is, in return, fed back to WaveTrackR users in the form of
recommendations on where to be most effective with their job posting.

All data includend in this report was collected between January and December of 2018.
Wave’s data analytics team actively looks into this data to identify job posting patterns,
as well as jobseeker behaviour.

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26 WaveTrackR Annual Report - January 2019
Attract More Talent
Wave attracts talent to your business using data and creativity to maximise your
candidate attraction. Our suite of services gives businesses the power to connect the
right people to the right opportunities faster than ever before, meaning that you’ll never
miss out on the talent you need again.

Our core offering comprises recruitment website builds, media buying on all job boards
and job distribution and analytics.

We are the only agency to offer this ‘Build, Buy, Post’ approach to candidate attraction.
Our services are simple, affordable, easy to use and most importantly extremely high
performing, to get you the talent you need.

Find more about Wave at wave-rs.co.uk

© Copyright Wave. 2019. All rights reserved.

Data Analysis and Writing: Kamila Fitchett

Editing: Jenny Falzon and Luis Cajao
Design: Courtney Dyer and Luis Cajao

For information please contact us at:

E-mail: hello@wavetrackr.com
Phone: 01189 868 900

To find the latest content and register to receive these reports, please visit wavetrackr.com

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 wavetrackr.com

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