2008 Source Of Hire From Career XRoads

This is a little late, but if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.  The 2008 Source of Hire Survey by Gerry and Mark is out, and it once again gives us insight into how corporate America hires, or at least how they measure hiring.  The download is free, and available at Gerry''s site.

I'll dig into it and show some interesting facts, but chief among them is the recognition that what you read in the press releases isn't always the truth.

The first thing that stands out? 

-Hires attributed to Job Boards (including the Company site as a job board) represent 25.7% of external hires.
-Unfortunately Hires attributed to the Company Website are half of the Job Board category and, in our opinion, suspect (we maintain that the company website is a destination not a source).

Remember that when you're listening to an exec tell you they don't need your services because they get most of their hires from people coming to the website.  There's clearly a huge disconnect between what we assume about corporate hiring, and the truth.

And these are the companies that are willing to be surveyed.

hattip:  BlueSkyResumes, who points out that 28.7% of hires can from referrals, which means you chances of getting hired by knowing someone at a company is between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4.  And yet so many people apply to careers site and wonder why they don't get callbacks.