July 13 2010 - Since England’s exit from the World Cup, there has been a 23 percent increase in employment searches online, according to Experian Hitwise, the leading global online competitive intelligence service.

And, it seems the IT community has played its part in this trend. Reinforcing the Hitwise statistic, the UK’s largest IT jobs site, The IT Job Board, www.theitjobboard.co.uk, has undertaken its own research – analysing the two weeks pre- and post-England’s knockout against Germany.

Comparing the week before and after the match, the site saw an 18 percent increase in natural traffic, and a 10 percent rise in total site visits. Did the World Cup distract IT pros from their job searches? Or did they choose to just put their hunting on hold?

When it came to the all important CVs, there was a 20 percent increase in new CVs being uploaded to the site, and 25 percent of existing documents were updated.

Alex Farrell, managing director of The IT Job Board, commented: “Looking at the stats, it seems the World Cup acted as a real distraction from UK job searching; with the IT sector proving to be no exception.

“Our recent World Cup survey highlighted tournament fever was failing to distract UK IT departments, but this doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to IT pros’ job searches. Since the Germany match, The IT Job Board has seen a real increase in site visits, and in the number of CVs being uploaded and updated online. Perhaps an early bath for the team has stimulated movement in a traditionally sluggish summer period.”

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Notes to editors
About The IT Job Board:
The IT Job Board group of companies was set up in April 2002 in recognition that recruitment in the IT sector was increasingly dominated by the internet.
Today, The IT Job Board (www.theitjobboard.co.uk) is the UK’s biggest IT specialist recruitment website with over 17,000 vacancies advertised (as at June 2010).
Online technology enables sophisticated targeting – for example by skill, region or experience – of The IT Job Board’s database of 800,000 IT professionals. The company always tries to get closer to candidates either via planned content campaigns, or through the use of social networks.
The site also offers employers services such as branded job postings, a featured employer zone, targeted email campaigns and guidance on advertising copy. The managed campaign service filters responses to provide companies with a shortlist of applicants most suitable for the advertised position.
www.theitjobboard.co.uk’s clients include Accenture, Bloomberg, TOMTOM and Britvic.

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