The Institute of Job Aggregators (IJA) launched earlier this year to support, grow, and drive change with the leading players across the Global Job Aggregator Industry. To help raise awareness of the importance of job aggregators in the recruitment process the institute has commissioned an extensive survey to understand how job seekers are searching for roles.

The results of this survey have highlighted that the vast majority of job seekers (87%) are unaware of the difference between job boards and job aggregators when searching for a role online. According to recent global job search data job aggregators make up 23% of job seeker traffic making them a vital tool in the recruitment industry.

Job sites and job aggregators are still the most popular way to find a job according to the survey with over half of workers (52%) still using job sites and aggregators to look for their next role, making it the most popular way to find a job. This was followed by job seekers applying directly on company websites (28%), using recruitment agencies (23%) and word of mouth (22%). Social Media closely followed these more traditional solutions with a fifth (20%) of job seekers stating this was their preferred way of finding a role.

The new institute is supported by leading minds in the recruitment and technology industry and is chaired by former CEO of Jobsite, Mike Wall and is helping to raise the importance of job aggregators to both the recruitment industry and the global job seeker market.

As these results show the industry’s lifeblood is still job seeker traffic and in a world of ever-advancing AI and bots running rampant across the internet, it is vital that this traffic is validated, and the quality is monitored. As a multi-billion-pound industry and such a key part of global recruitment, it is essential that this specialised sector is kept credible, and transparent and that the leading players support each other to maintain, grow and reassure clients.

Mike Wall, Chair of the IJA, commented, “We commissioned our extensive survey to get a clear overview of how job seekers are looking for their next role and it is certainly encouraging to see how vital online job traffic still is to the global industry.

At the IJA we believe as AI becomes more prevalent, and bots continue to expand their reach across the internet it is vital that the leading players in the industry have a voice to support them and help show clients and jobseekers which sites are credible and monitor quality and offer validated traffic.”