The first installment of the Recruitment Genome Report 2009 titled "Act While Others Wait: Savvy Recruitment Marketing Strategies Now Ensure Success While Others Wait for Better Times" was released yesterday by Arbita. The reports authors are leading US industry figures who compiled the survey data between Jan 23 - Mar 16 2009.
I was not surprised by the findings for "Search Marketing and Social Media", infact the US is way ahead of Australia in sourcing via social networks and search engines.

The Recruitment Genome Project 2009 Trends Survey uncovered this glaring truth: A large percentage of recruiters and recruitment strategy decision-makers are behind the curve when it comes to taking advantage of the kind of technology job candidates are moving toward.
  • 85% do not have an effective strategy for finding candidates on blogs.
  • 51% do not have an effective strategy for finding candidates on social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • 53% do not have an effective strategy for finding candidates using major search engines such as Google or Live.com.
  • 82% do not have an effective strategy for Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
  • 74% do not have an effective strategy for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
As the report title states “Act While Others Wait”, signup for our Online Recruitment Webinars and learn how to use these mediums in your recruitment strategy.


The key findings of the report were:

Respondents overwhelmingly will spend the same or less in 2009 on recruitment marketing strategies, technologies and training.
  • 93% will spend the same or less on job boards.
  • 81% will spend the same or less on recruiter training and development.
  • 73% of respondents will spend the same or less on search marketing and social media change.
Recruitment goals are strongly believed to be tied to strategic business objectives, and recruitment marketing strategies are believed to be driving recruitment goals.
  • 82% of respondents believe their recruitment goals are tied to their company’s strategic business objectives.
  • 70% are satisfied that their company’s recruitment marketing strategy is driving the achievement of overall recruitment goals.
Companies don’t have good metrics to support their recruitment marketing decisions, but they won’t pay to improve them in 2009.
  • 38% of survey participants feel they have the right metrics and reports to support their recruitment marketing decisions.
  • 33% expect to improve their metrics in 2009.
Companies are lacking effective strategies for the most cost-effective recruitment solutions, which ironically are the strategies experts expect an increasing number of candidates to use.
  • 15% of survey respondents have an effective strategy for finding candidates on blogs.
  • 26% have an effective strategy for using SEO for recruitment; 18 percent for using SEM.
  • 47% have an effective strategy for using social networks, and the same percentage for using major search engines.
A huge share of companies are dissatisfied with their job board performance, but a very small minority will invest more on improvements in 2009.
  • 47% of respondents are dissatisfied with their overall job board performance.
  • 9% will spend more on job posting solutions in 2009 over 2008.
A majority of companies are dissatisfied with their current recruiter and sourcing capability, but only a small percentage will pay more in 2009.
  • 53% are dissatisfied with their current sourcing capability.
  • 18% of survey respondents will spend more on recruiter and sourcing training and development n 2009.
An overwhelming majority of companies conduct direct marketing to candidates, but most don’t think their capabilities are up to the task.
  • 55% of respondents conduct direct marketing to candidates.
  • 51% are dissatisfied with their capabilities.
Although nearly all companies believe using the Internet is a key recruitment strategy, a huge majority handle the job internally, and nearly half feel their team is inadequately trained.
  • 81% feel Internet sourcing is a major part of their recruitment strategy.
  • 79% manage Internet sourcing internally.
  • 47% feel their team has inadequate training on Internet research and sourcing.