Many Job Seekers Using Recruiters and Word of Mouth to Find Jobs;
Currently Employed Job Seekers Use Recruiters at Nearly 3x the Rate of the Unemployed

PHILADELPHIA, PA - December 16, 2021: As the Great Resignation continues and increasingly more Americans are leaving their existing jobs for better options, employers are looking for the best ways to attract and identify new employees to fill their talent gaps. Now, new survey data from Yoh, a leading international talent and outsourcing company and part of Day & Zimmermann, has revealed that nearly three-quarters (67%) of job-seeking Americans (both those who are employed and not employed but looking) are using job boards to search for job opportunities, while just over half (51%) of that same group is using social media to find job opportunities. The survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of Yoh, among 889 Americans ages 18+ who are employed full-time/part-time/self-employed and currently looking for a job or not employed but looking for work.

While the fact that job seekers are turning to online avenues in their job searches shouldn’t come as a shock in the digital age, what is valuable for employers is that relationships, in the form of word of mouth and recruiters, remain valuable tools for those looking for a new job or a job change. In fact, just under half (48%) of employed and not employed job seekers are using word of mouth to find job opportunities. For those highly-sought-after employed workers looking for jobs, more than one-third (34%) are actively using recruiters to find their next job. This indicates that currently employed Americans aren’t just passive job seekers browsing job boards but are actively using their relationships with talent professionals to find their next job.

“It’s no secret that we are in the midst of one of the biggest candidate markets we’ve ever seen, and this data is an indication that employers can and should use multiple methods, strategies and resources to identify and secure the best talent available to build their teams,” said Emmett McGrath, President of Yoh. “We’ve always known that referrals and relationships are the key. As we move forward into this new frontier of employment, it’s more important than ever that businesses partner with talent experts who have deep talent pools and have the experience needed to secure the highly skilled workers in such high demand. At Yoh, our talent acquisition teams have built these relationships and bring an impressive and constantly growing toolkit of innovative techniques and capabilities for discovering the very best talent for our clients.”

Additional findings from this survey of job seekers include:

• Americans who are employed and looking for a job are nearly three times as likely as those who are not employed and looking for work to be using a recruiter to find new job opportunities (34% vs. 12%).
• Among job-seeking Americans, women are more likely than men to be using job boards to search for job opportunities (72% vs. 62%).
• Those job seekers with higher household income are more likely to use a recruiter to find new job opportunities than those with lower household incomes.
  • 18% of job seekers with household income under $50,000 are using a recruiter
  • 27% of job seekers with household income between $50,000-$74,999 are using a recruiter
  • 36% of job seekers with household income between $75,000-$99,999 are using a recruiter
  • 40% of job seekers with household income of $100,000 or more are using a recruiter
• College graduate job seekers are nearly twice as likely as those with only some college or a high school degree or less to use recruiters to find new job opportunities (45% vs. 24% and 22%)

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Yoh between Nov 9-11, 2021 among 889 US adults ages 18+ who are employed full-time/part-time/self-employed and currently looking for a job or not employed but looking for work. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Allen Vickers at allen@gobraithwaite.com.