The arrival of the statistically ‘most depressing day of the year’ – Monday 16th January – drove a 505% increase of traffic to our job site – suggesting that disillusioned employees chose that day as the first day of 2011 to start the search for a new job.
With terrible weather not helping the mood and causing some commuters difficult journeys and delays, people with a long way to travel may have decided to look for something closer to home.
‘Blue Monday’ traditionally falls on the third Monday of January, when the memory of Christmas revelry has dissipated and the harsh reality of summer a good few months away leaves people cold.
It is no coincidence that as people wind down over December, traffic levels to recruitment sites slow dramatically in comparison to the rest of the year. But with January bringing New Year’s resolutions to find that perfect job, it is no wonder that site traffic is on the up.
So far, January has been both candidate and job-rich, with an increase in both finance and accounting professionals looking for work and employers creating new roles.
Jobseekers know that there is generally an influx of new exciting roles after the end-of-year lull, and since ‘Blue Monday’ is the third Monday of the month, it has given recruiters the time to source and upload their roles onto their sites. The peak of visitors hit a high between 12pm and 2pm, the lunchtime slot, suggesting that the majority of people are already at work when they are looking.
We have been able to note that, with the rise of the smartphone and mobile-friendly technology, jobseekers are now logging onto job sites at all times of the day – accessing the web when on their commute and even at their desks without fear of being caught in the act.
The amount of traffic also rises between 6pm and 9pm, when people can sit and watch TV or eat dinner with full access to online jobs and mobile apps at their fingertips. We are looking forward to seeing how jobseeking trends progress as technology advances throughout 2011.
Dan Jones is Manager of the Accountancy & Finance Division at Alexander Lloyd.
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