In August, I began gathering data from job seekers, HR professionals, recruiters, and job board employees and operators on the future of job boards and the methods for finding jobs and candidates. Now, 275 responses later, we have some results.

Each survey respondent identified him or herself as a job seeker, a HR or recruiting professional, or a job board employee or operator. Based on their response to that question, they then answered a series of questions specific to their background.

Here are some of the key findings:

• LinkedIn and Twitter are the primary social media channels for recruiting
• Most job seekers use 3 or more job boards in their search
• Planning recruitment spending is static for job boards and going up for social media and referral programs
• Job boards continue to see the recession as problem #1 for their business
• Job seekers are most influenced when choosing a job board by ease of use and profession or industry focus
• Most job boards are planning to add new social media features in the coming year
• Less than 7% of HR or recruiting professionals have purchased .jobs domains for their organization
• Most job seekers are using job boards to locate jobs, then apply for them (either on the company site or job board)
• The biggest challenge for HR and recruiting professionals in meeting hiring goals is a lack of qualified applicants

There are some warning signs for job boards in the results. For instance, less than 20% of job seekers have found a job via a niche job site. Also, usage of general and niche job boards by HR and recruiting professionals falls behind social media, company career site, and referrals with regard to frequency of use.

If you’d like a copy of the complete results, fill out my contact form with your request – I’ll be happy to send it to you. I welcome your comments and suggestions for future surveys.