Question

Are there any statistics about the success rates of the major job boards? Thanks much.

Nick’s Reply

I’ve written about the success rates of job boards many times over the years, but it’s a question that very few people ever ask. And I’ll tell you why people don’t ask. It’s because job boards including LinkedIn actually suck so badly at filling jobs that they don’t want to talk about it. All their marketing avoids it and misdirects you with platitudes.

job boardsThe job boards design their marketing carefully to imply a high-powered machine driven by AI. What they’re delivering is a ride to nowhere. The rusty euphemisms for “success rates” must have cost these firms some huge marketing salaries!

  • “The most used job board!”
  • “Highest user engagement!”
  • “AI-driven job matching technology!”
  • “Used by 83% of job seekers!”
  • “We connect over 2.8 million businesses with job seekers!”

Any business that can’t proudly show you it can actually accomplish what you’re paying it to do — at least most of the time — is hiding a big problem.

Here’s what a recent an AI chatbot (CoPilot) reported in response to my query (I added the underlines, italics indicate the chatbox is talking.):

“Are there any statistics about the success rates of the major job boards?”

Yes, there are some interesting statistics about the success rates of major job boards. Here are a few key points:

  • LinkedIn is the most used job search engine, with 40% of job seekers saying it’s their primary tool.
  • Indeed and Glassdoor are also popular, with 83% of job seekers using online job boards in general.

It’s “their primary tool” and 83% of job seekers use job boards. But how many get jobs that way? (I don’t think the boards work any better today than they did 15 years ago, when employers cited leading job board CareerBuilder as their source of hires 5.3% of the time.)

I followed up with this gripe to the chatbot (I’ve underlined the deepest B.S.):

“But those are not success rates.”

You’re right, I apologize for the confusion. Success rates for job boards can be a bit harder to pin down, but here are some insights:

  • LinkedIn: Known for its high success rate, LinkedIn reports that 80% of employers find their hires through the platform.
  • Indeed: While specific success rates aren’t always published, Indeed is widely used and trusted by both job seekers and employers.
  • Glassdoor: Similar to Indeed, Glassdoor is a popular choice, and its success rate is often tied to the quality of company reviews and salary transparency.
  • ZipRecruiter: Uses Al technology to match job seekers with employers, which can improve the success rate of finding the right candidate.

Let’s review the marketing drek the chatbot turned up.

“…Known for its high success rate”? This sounds like Donald Trump citing “everyone knows” to substantiate a patently ridiculous claim. And 80% of employers find hires via LinkedIn? That could mean 800 of 1,000 employers each find one hire per year. Is that success or doubletalk?

“…widely used and trusted…” Evidence? Well, blame the chatbot, which might not distinguish marketing-ese from facts.

“…a popular choice…success rate is often tied to the quality of company reviews…” Really?

“…AI technology… can improve the success rate of finding the right candidate.” Just quote us the success rate if it’s true. But it’s not, is it?

I tried asking another way, in an effort to be fair to any job board that might actually be playing the game transparently:

“Does any job board report how many jobs it fills?”

Some job boards and recruitment platforms do report metrics related to job fill rates, but it’s not very common. For example, platforms like LinkedIn and Oracle’s recruitment tools provide various recruiting metrics, including vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts.

However, not all job boards publicly share this information, as it can vary based on their business model and the services they offer.

Lots of marketing blabber — but nothing about hiring success rates. So I decided to give the big boys a chance. My next four queries asked the same question about each of four major job boards:

“How many jobs does [Indeed, LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor] fill?”

The responses:

  • Indeed doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts on the platform.
  • LinkedIn doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. LinkedIn’s Hiring Insights reports offer valuable data and trends to help optimize job postings and recruitment efforts.
  • ZipRecruiter doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide some impressive statistics about its effectiveness. For example, 80% of employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Additionally, ZipRecruiter’s Al-driven matching technology helps connect over 2.8 million businesses with job seekers.
  • Glassdoor doesn’t publicly disclose the exact number of jobs it fills annually. However, it does provide various recruiting metrics and insights for employers, such as vacancy fill rates and time to fill analysis. These metrics help organizations measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts on the platform.

My favorite bullshit line is ZipRecruiter’s claim that 80% of employers get a quality candidate within the first day of posting a job. Do you think any HR executive that dumped millions of dollars into ZipRecruiter asked about how often it actually fills jobs? But 80% sure sounds good, doesn’t it?

We’re not saying

The highlight, of course, is that these companies have one thing in common: They don’t publicly disclose the number of jobs they fill annually.

They’re part of a highly competitive $11.5 billion online recruiting technology market. Do you have to hire a genius to help you surmise that the boards suck at filling jobs — and that’s why they don’t disclose the most critical number a customer needs to know?

It seems they devote their marketing budgets to making sure you don’t think to ask whether their products actually deliver hires! Your question is so unusual because people don’t dare ask it anymore.

Seeking further illumination (maybe I’m just blind to the wonders of job boards), I looked for other statistics about job boards. You’ve got to read Martin Lunendonk’s 65 Job Search Statistics for 2025. Useful information. Not one word about how well the boards actually work! My favorite items? “80% of jobs are filled through networking.” And “75% of resumes are rejected by applicant tracking systems (ATS).”

My standing challenge to the job boards

Here’s something I’ve never understood. All the boards started out with venture funding. Did any of those venture folks ever ask for audited outcomes analyses of a board’s performance in delivering jobs? We know VC’s want profits — but come on, folks! Don’t you look like horse’s asses when the truth drops like dung on the customers?

Over the past 20 years I’ve given the job boards — individually and collectively — a standing challenge: Disclose your audited success rates. How many jobs do you fill? How many people do you put into jobs?

Nothing doing — no answers. (For an article I was producing for PBS NewsHour, CareerBuilder once told me it fills 57% of all jobs — but declined to show me any data.) Some wags have tried to convince me “it’s not possible to track that information.“ Web analytics software can tell which side of my nose I’m scratching while I’m on my favorite websites. It knows where I am on the web, where I was 10 minutes ago and how much I spend on socks. “HR Technology” can conduct interviews over video and judge your personality by tracking your “micro expressions” and your eye movements.

Gimme a break!

The reason we know job boards suck

The reason we know job boards suck is that none of them will produce their audited success rates in filling jobs. They won’t disclose the metrics because, well, they suck.

Let’s add a challenge to HR executives — maybe one that ought to come from their board of directors: Prove to us this stuff works!  Where are the hiring metrics you use to assess the job boards and ATSes you use?

Don’t agree with me? If you run a job board, skip the euphemisms and distractions and show us your audited success rate metrics and data.

Or go kiss an AI chatbot.

How do you know job boards suck? What do you want to say to the folks who run the major job boards? What could they do to make you believe they’re worth using? What’s your success rate been when using job boards to hire or to get hired?

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25 Comments
  1. What I’d like to tell the job boards is stop wasting our time and money. Stop misleading employers and jobseekers. People seriously need jobs to support themselves and their families. We don’t want to line your pockets at our expense. We really can’t afford to. We don’t like to be strung along and face rejection after rejection if we don’t have to. It is damaging our self identities. The job boards are seriously messing up our lives. I’ve had no success finding a job using the job boards. This is in part due to my lack of a vehicle. I’ve had to retire early with no savings because of the ineptness of the job search these days.

    • @Debra: Who needs to hear all this are the thousands of Human Resources departments that prop up the “HR Technology” industry by buying that technology and forcing job seekers to play “lottery.” Follow the money. If the HRT industry’s success hinged on actually filling jobs, they’d be out of business. But their success stems from an HR profession that’s eager to buy technology that (1) massively increases the number of applicants for each job by (2) making it easy apply for any job that comes up thereby (3) requiring HR to buy even MORE technology to sort out the millions MORE applicants who applied blindly hoping to get lucky.

      Then HR cries there’s a talent shortage because the AI and algorithms don’t work.

      HR is the real problem, and any board of directors worth its salt needs to start asking tough questions. I’m reminded of 2 stories told by Wharton’s Peter Cappelli. He got an email from a CEO puzzled at why his HR dept couldn’t fill jobs. So he changed the name on his own resume and submitted it to HR. When he was rejected he found that no human in HR had even read it, or they’d have realized it was him. He ripped out the ATS and forced HR to actually go out and recruit.

      Another exec wrote to Cappelli that her company advertised 2 very basic engineering jobs – nothing exotic. They received 14,000 applications. The ATS rejected every single one. She also ripped out the ATS.

      The problem is HR, which erroneously relies on HR Technology to do its job of recruiting and hiring. Sitting at a pc in front of ZipRecruiter is not recruiting. Please read the article I cited above by Martin Lunendock. Some of his statistics: 80% of jobs are filled via personal contacts. Referred candidates are 4X more likely to get hired. ATSes reject 75% of resumes due to formatting issues and lack of keywords.

      It’s really bad. It’s time to start paying HR — and the job boards — only when they make hires that perform well on the job.

  2. Here’s a parallel for you
    Apartment hunting via Facebook marketplace and Craigslist is like searching for a job via these online job boards..
    They are both a crock of unregulated baloney and the developers have conned corporate America and faux leasing agents that they are extremely valuable.
    They are con jobs and thousands of folks fall for the pseudo professionalism they project.
    In the case of apartment rentals, if research was Don most leasing agents are AI chatbots and their creators are getting richer by each applicant willing to spend for a questionable credit score website and application fee costing near $100.00 to hopefully see the physical space.
    Pretty much like the jobs boards and Applicant Tracking Systems.

    We live in a pretty sad world of greed

    • @Christine: BINGO. Leasing “agents” and ATSes and job boards are UNREGULATED and running amok, and laughing all the way to the bank. What other product can you think of that DOESN’T WORK AS PROMISED but whose sales and stock price keep soaring? What service other than leasing agent gets paid big bucks for doing nothing but getting name as agent on a deal? We live in a world of unfettered scam artists, some operating out of their bedrooms, some earning $millions and operating out of fancy corporate offices.

  3. I did a quick internal survey. Since I started working.

    Personal Contact 3
    College Recruiter 1
    Job Board 2
    Company Website 1

    So 2 out of 7 were job boards. I think this would be the
    most unbiased way to find actual high level success rates, perform a survey of those seeking and finding. I would guess it is about 20%.

    • @Chris: They’re not around anymore, but a company in NJ used to survey lots of companies each year, asking what their source of hires was. Every year the results were the same once you analyzed the numbers: In aggregate all the big job boards were the source of hires about 10% of the time. So you’re close. In fact, when you look at the article by Martin Lunendock I referenced, it suggests 80% of jobs are filled via personal contacts — which leaves 20% to other sources including job boards. So there’s the reality check.

  4. My survey:
    Personal contact 5
    College recruiter 1
    Corporate recruiter 1
    Headhunter 2
    Job board 0

    That is not to say job boards are worthless, but sometimes looking up an old friend for a contact. However they are feckless for finding a job.

  5. As far as I’m concerned, job boards are no better than the newspaper classified ads of the past. I stopped playing that silly game a long time ago.

    • @ Beatrice: Back when anyone was monitoring this, newspapers were responsible for about 15% of jobs filled and job boards for about 10%. Headhunters like me about 3%. (That’s why I tell people, don’t rely on headhunters!)

      • I worked for a job recruiting company, a head hunter, once, and we would not accept resumes at all.

  6. What has worked for me is to use LinkedIn to research companies and people and then use human beings to build references and collect the kind of information I need to be able to decide if I want to work for that company and with those people.

  7. The most important thing I have learned in the 14+ years I have been following and _applying_ Nick’s advice is that companies who do not interact with prospects as human beings are really not worth working for.
    In the age of the internet, you can learn lots of ways to make money without being an employee. So, if you are going to work for others, you owe it to yourself to make sure that it is a relationship as beneficial to you as it is to the employer.
    Accountants tell their companies that they should make at least 5x the total cost of the employee to justify hiring someone. Nick teaches us how to show the companies that we will make them lots of money when we work for them.
    Why should we waste time with employers who don’t want listen?

  8. ‘Seems’ there is a pattern of groups “helping their own”, on job boards, and once on the job. So the group who controls the job board controls a good percentage of the jobs / industry. Smart employers need to determine a way to hire the best available for the job, which requires working smart. Which is not by hiring friends ‘only’ or from the ‘same’ sources. How about managers screen applicants, and upper management ensure managers are hiring the best for the job. And manager who do a good job of hiring are rewarded, not necessarily promoted.

  9. If you’re bold enough to ask the right questions up front you will knowthe answers. “TRUST BUT VERIFY” REAGAN

  10. Whenever I’ve used job boards or the like, my resume/application has been sucked straight into a black hole.

    Personally, I’ve had most success getting FT/permanent employment by signing up with temp agencies. They’ve done a much better job of presenting me to potential employers than I could have ever done…employers that wouldn’t have even given me the time of day if I had approached them on my own.

  11. Thanks, Nick, for another smart, actionable post.

    Here’s how we shall pull the floor out from under LinkedIn.

    1. Put an email address in your contact info so anyone who wants to reach you can reach you directly. It needn’t be your primary or secondary address, but it should be one that you actually check. If enough of us did this, then this alone would up-end their business model, which is apparently based on blocking you from messaging other users.

    2. Save for those of you who claim to use it to land new jobs, which I’m not buying, strip out all your information, leaving what amounts to a landing page with an email address and a telephone number. If anyone wants your resume, then they can—easily!—reach out to you and ask.

    • @Lawrence: Interesting ideas, both of them. While I think LinkedIn is a waste of time with regard to posting and applying for jobs, I agree it can be a useful source of information — if you keep your wits about you and use it for your ends, not LinkedIn’s.

      Putting an email address in your profile is a great idea. I always look for that and use the email — I never initiate contact via LI msging. I check LinkedIn maybe once a week. I always have a few messages. I respond that I don’t use LI’s msging system, I provide my email address, and suggest they email me. What’s interesting is how many never bother!

  12. I worked for a job recruiting company, a head hunter, once, and we would not accept resumes at all.

  13. Not that I’m a gambler by trade.

    But I bet that if you held the CEO of any job board in the basement of a deserted warehouse they would be unable to provide a single successful job candidate if asked.

    Because, based on many years of substantive and anecdotal experience, there are none.

    • Probably just as bad, maybe even worse might be job fairs. They usually just say ‘apply online’.

  14. Think of it this way:

    When it comes to consumers, American businesses will invest in tech that tracks how they spend their money, find where they live and target them with ads and services UNSOLICITED. But do the same when it comes to workers and jobs? That’s completely unheard of, even though the tech is equally applicable here and argually SUPERIOR to having everyone walk into a staffing agency or to “apply online”.

    Ergo, the reason why job boards don’t work is because that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do: keep you and I from finding work so that we can continue using them. And the reason why employers constantly tell you to use them (especially in my area, where everyone seems to depend on Indeed to find workers) is because workers who use them are more likely to accept lower wages than those who don’t for the reasons laid above.

    There is no other economic explanation as far as I’m aware.

    And FYI, at least staffing agencies have real bodies behind them with an incentive to fill jobs as quickly as possible.

    Now we have bots that will delay our job search as long as possible INDEFINITELY. Especially with the help of employers posting ghost jobs directly to fuel the bureaucratic fire.

    That is, unless this fraud is called out in the courts.

  15. I have been at my current company for 13 years and found this position through LinkedIn, Having said that, however, I must disclose that the hiring manager was someone I had worked with at another company. Lucky for me and proves the adage “It’s not what you know but who you know.” I used to be bothered by this, but when you’re looking for a job, you must use every advantage you can find.

    • @Donna: People hear someone got hired via a personal contact and they assume it was nepotism. Only a hack manager would hire anyone that way and the department would ultimately fail. I’ve seen that only rarely. The contact might get you in the door, but then it’s up to you to show you can do the job. Nice work!

  16. I have seen many nepotism referred by a employee. Perit was years ago, but one new employee referred by and an older employee told me that he knew Lotus one and was working on Lotus2 and 3. For those who were not old enough, that was an Excel type product called Lotus 123 period the name was Lotus123 period they were not 1 and 2, and 3 different programs period that told me what he knew about Lotus.123 . Not a thing!

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