Looking at the rolling summaries again, something interesting is happening. Applications are on the rise as are new candidates registering, even tho’ there are fewer vacancies going on to the system.

+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
| ## | Logins | Vacancies | Apps | Actioned | Deact | New Reg |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
|  0 |    772 |       221 |  400 |       24 |     5 |      96 |
|  1 |    838 |       321 |  347 |       27 |    10 |      61 |
|  2 |    918 |       299 |  398 |       42 |    12 |      70 |
|  3 |    876 |       251 |  338 |       26 |    10 |      69 |
|  4 |   1088 |       371 |  537 |       74 |    23 |      71 |
|  5 |    860 |       267 |  449 |       40 |    20 |      74 |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+

Be interested to know if this is seasonal or credit crunch related (!)

Monthly Statistics for (PharmaCareers) showing (8461) candidates, thought I’d post an update as we are definitely seeing an upturn, certainly in candidate interest. New registrations are up, applications per vacancy are up, but unfortunately the number of available vacancies is down. Are we suffering from a global vacancy shortage , or do we not have enough recruiters using the system?

+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
| ## | Logins | Vacancies | Apps | Actioned | Deact | New Reg |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
|  0 |    786 |       221 |  375 |       20 |     5 |      91 |
|  1 |    913 |       346 |  388 |       33 |     9 |      71 |
|  2 |    929 |       303 |  410 |       43 |    14 |      74 |
|  3 |    899 |       220 |  387 |       48 |    16 |      65 |
|  4 |   1018 |       396 |  437 |       54 |    17 |      80 |
|  5 |    665 |       198 |  395 |       29 |    14 |      58 |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+

Well, we’ve been running for about 2 weeks now (on the new website) , so how do things look? We were sort of coming from a standing start as the old UKCareers site was just being used  for publishing a few articles and wasn’t getting much by the way of hits, so 762 visits does seem like quite respectable growth over what is a relatively short period of time.

These stats were pulled off the local WordPress dashboard which gives a very handy view of what’s going on.

Here it is, the first live preview of the UK Careers Vacancy Search Widget. Please take a look and let us know what you think, and in particular whether is works for you or does anything strange. It’s been tested on the latest versions of FireFox and Internet Explorer only, so if you’re using an older browser and are having problems – please do let us know. [don't forget to mention which browser you are using and the version you have]

We already have a few minor user interface changes in mind, but if you have any suggestions, send them through and we’ll look at what we can roll in to the next version.

I’ve just turned on permalinks (so page URL’s no longer contain question marks), reindexed the site and re-submitted to Google webmaster tools .. which might help Google’s search index rating. I’ve also installed DB Cache which should make the site a fraction quicker ..

We’re now getting started on the new Jobs board user Interface and things are going fairly well. The decision is to use WordPress (as per “this” site) as the base for the new software with administrative tasks being handled by ExtJS with the data remaining in MySQL. There are a host of reasons for this and a huge number of benfits. Take a look at this initial screenshot of the new “search widget” [which is working!] and then the features listed below …

Search Widget feature summary

• The widget uses “light box” technology to overlay any pre-existing webpage, hence can be embedded on “any” site
• It is implemented as a WordPress “plugin”, so installation is totally menu driven for WordPress users
• Searching and displaying results pages is done “inline” using AJAX, so there are no page refreshes to display the results!
• The database will search / match / display 12,000 vacancies in under a second
• All the columns are clickable and clicking on a column will sort the result set by that column, 12,000 records in under a second
• All columns are resizable (by the user)
• All columns can be turned off / on by the user
• A”view” button is to come which will display the complete vacancy and allow the user to use our one-click application feature to apply for the vacancy “within the widget”
• A “featured jobs” slot is to be added for vacancies that need to be filled quickly
• Searching can be limited to a specific recruiter. So recruiters can embed the widget on their own websites!

Hopefully we’ll have a working demo embedded on this site within a week or so .. watch this space!

Listed below are the last six months worth of stats for the RecruitmentCareers website, what’s wrong with this picture?!  We have 7100 people registered with the site, hundreds are visiting the site daily, hundreds are logging in monthly, reasonable numbers of new candidates each month, and people applying for jobs – even tho’ next to no new jobs are going up?!

Basically there are people screaming to apply for jobs, and no jobs!

Anyone out there with some jobs to post, at the moment any new jobs posted are going to fill all the hotspots and recent jobs spots .. Help!

+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
| ## | Logins | Vacancies | Apps | Actioned | Deact | New Reg |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+
|  0 |     88 |         2 |   48 |        2 |     0 |      30 |
|  1 |    149 |         4 |  119 |        4 |     2 |      40 |
|  2 |    296 |        50 |  154 |        6 |     9 |      61 |
|  3 |    322 |        55 |  141 |       16 |     7 |      65 |
|  4 |    296 |        48 |  148 |       15 |     9 |      53 |
|  5 |    126 |         0 |   65 |        1 |    11 |      37 |
+----+--------+-----------+------+----------+-------+---------+

When you look at a website, typically it’s impossible to tell how heavily it’s used and ultimately how useful it’s going to prove as a business tool. Although Google gives a reasonable indication of how useful the site content is, based on the site’s position in it’s search results, the only real way to tell is to look at the hosting company’s raw stats. Often these are not published as they reveal potential deficiencies in the site’s performance .. on the other hand, here are the current stats for PharmaCareers.co.uk .

Last Three Months

+--------+-----------+--------------+--------------------+
| Logins | Vacancies | Applications | New Registrations  |
+--------+-----------+--------------+--------------------+
|    892 |       301 |          392 |                71  |

|    888 |       299 |          382 |                70  |

|   1015 |       292 |          414 |                78  |
+--------+-----------+--------------+--------------------+