The most important workplace benefit people are looking for is flexible hours

Modern and Traditional Methods Preferred by Jobseekers.

How we apply for jobs today can be a full-time job. It requires tailoring your career history to each job application and connecting with the many job boards, recruiters, HR managers, etc. to ensure of being ahead of the inevitable competition.

But what does the modern job application look like? Where do most people go to look for a job? Which benefits are most in demand? And are cover letters still used?

The Renaix Modern Job Application Survey questioned 5,000 people and finds that today, the internet dominates the job landscape, with over a quarter (27.81%) people starting their search on Google. A similar number (25.62%) regularly use online job boards, such as Monster or Reed, and 11.52% start their job hunting on social platforms with 11% on LinkedIn. Almost 1 in 5 of us (18.27%) still go straight to a recruitment agency or executive search professional. Jobseekers above 45 are 137% more likely to go to a recruitment agency or executive search company compared to younger generations, and 69% are more likely to get in touch with a company directly about potential vacancies. Younger generations instead prefer to utilise online platforms like Google, with 47% more using it as their first port of call compared to 45+-year-olds.  They also use the professional social platform, LinkedIn, by over 46% more.

The most important workplace benefit people are looking for is flexible hours (32.77%).

Paul Jarrett, Director, Renaix, said

“A lot of people we contact for new roles are not actively seeking a new job and therefore agency and in-house recruitment is larger if we factor in reach via direct contacts, LinkedIn, Google and other sources. Flexible working is a high figure across the board, and not just for those in their early to mid-career who are commonly tasked with caring responsibilities at this time.  Younger age groups appreciate the work-life balance flexibility brings.”

However, age is where the biggest differentiation can be found, with benefits such as a generous pension scheme becoming 277% more important to us as we move through our careers. Our valuing of performance-based bonuses also decreases, with it becoming -63% less important to us at the end of careers compared to the beginning.

To find out how frustrating it is when searching for a job, we asked respondents to let us know how often they expected to hear back out of 10. Overall, people only expect to hear back from a job application 43% of the time, with most job applications we do resulting in a blank response.  Older job applicants also lose faith in hearing back. Compared to 18 – 24 years olds, those approaching retirement expect to hear back -24.86% less often.

Undoubtedly one of the most time-consuming parts of a job application is the cover letter and deciding whether to include one in the first place. Overall, most job seekers still consider them to be useful including the 18-24 (59.9%) and 25-34 (56.6%) age groups. As we move through our careers, it appears we start to feel like a cover letter is more often needed. Over the age of 45, the number of jobseekers using cover letters increases by 23.5%.

More than 1 in 8 of us have lied on a job application. We’re also 89% more likely to lie on a job application in the early stages of our careers compared to the latter.

Renaix surveyed 5,000 people in March 2019.