Key takeaway
Labor market data can prove to be a valuable forward-looking external source, offering organizations key insights into the state of recruitment or talent availability in new or existing markets, the major players hiring new talent and where particular companies are investing in human resources.
Innovantage is a platform that provides labour market analytics data and real-time lead generation for various job boards and recruiters in the UK. They utilise data from millions of jobs listings posted online, and generate insights such as average salary over a certain period for a specific job title, how many adverts for a specific role a set of competitors has posted, etc.
In a competitive market, having access to insights on hiring trends and the movement of talent is extremely valuable for any organisation looking to recruit staff or enter a new market, and for recruitment firms competing for work.
Innovantage allows users to search all job ads in the UK on one platform. Data from over 290 job boards and over 200,000 corporate websites are evaluated. These insights are valuable for recruitment consultants—both to drive sales opportunities and empower organisations to make intelligent global recruiting decisions with help of the software.
Furthermore, this data can also be useful for businesses entering new markets looking to identify labor potential, relevant salaries, market trends such as: ancillary pay, and merit and pay practices, as well as hiring strategies of competitors in the region, what roles competitors are hiring for and the salaries paid.
Here is some of the data that Innovantage published in 2018, with respect to industry specific labour market trends:
| Industry | Labour Market Trends (Oct 2018) |
| Education | Whilst the number of official vacancies in the education sector fell by just 2%, YoY, the number of original job ads posted on-line in September was 34% lower than a year earlier. This included 41% fewer ads for lecturers and 48% fewer original posts seeking to attract supply teachers. |
| Finance & Insurance | An 8% fall, YoY, in the number of official finance & insurance vacancies posted (n July-September) translated into a 35% fall in original ads in the last month of the quarter (September). This included a 48% fall in the number of ads for financial advisors and a 43% fall in the posts for mortgage advisors. |
| Information & communications | Despite a 10% annual increase in the number of official vacancies in the three months to September, the number of original job ads in the final month of the period was 40% lower than the number posted a year earlier. As with the previous category, however, at 3.5 original ads to 1 official vacancy, the ratio was notably higher than the 2.4 all-occupation average. Also of note, there was also an upward shift, YoY, in the proportion of ads advertised on a contingent rather than permanent basis. |
| Professional, scientific & technical | Whilst there was a 7% year-on-year (YoY) increase in official vacancies within the Professional, Scientific & Technical industries, between July-Sept 2018, there were 28% fewer original job ads were posted in September. That said, employers and their intermediaries in these industries still placed 4.7 original ads per vacancy in an attempt to fill the posts – significantly higher than the 2.4 to 1 all-occupation average. The noteworthy exception to this month’s significant downward trend in ad numbers was the legal profession, where just 7% fewer ads were posted than in September 2017. There was also a 4-percentage point increase, YoY, in the proportion of ads offering permanent over contingent opportunities. |
Using Innovantage for a competitive advantage:
Job boards such as Total Jobs, Monster, Reed and Indeed.com, as well as recruitment consultants such as Experis and Hudson, find Innovantage helpful.
For a recruitment consultant firm whose primary focus is to match open jobs with relevant job seekers and help companies find the best talent, a big part of the job is to know the market inside and out.
Innovantage effectively provides competitive information for a company’s sales team in terms of the types of job roles and types of companies posting them with respect to seniority, industry, and salary, number of jobs posted (also allowing one to understand company size). It also provides valuable insights on the type of job boards that are being used by different companies, further enabling recruitment consultants to better understand competitors’ recruitment strategies.
Looking ahead, having access to market intelligence for both the demand and supply of resources/talent within the market, and understanding the dynamics of the employment market and the impact that Gen Z will have, coupled with Brexit, are going to be key factors of talent attraction over the next 5 years.
