News You Can Use: When searching for (most) workers, head online.

Online job boards are the most commonly used recruiting tool at small to medium sized organizations, suggests new research from the Inavero Institute’s report, “2008 study of recruiting practices – Insight from the Nation’s Hiring Managers.”

More than 50% of respondents used online job boards in the past year. But print has not gone by the wayside, particularly for blue collar jobs and lower income workers. While 47% of recruiters report using so-called “traditional mediums” like radio, tv, and newspaper for job ads in the past year, 75% admit to doing so when searching for hourly employees.

The report finds newspapers the most effective medium when searching for hourly workers at a range of $30,000 annually or less.

In contrast, 72% of salaried employee positions were placed online. However, in recruiting for certain blue collar positions, particularly general and skilled labor or manufacturing, online job boards were used in 40% of cases.

Cost per hire

On average, print media costs 500% more than online searching. The average cost of an online hire is $291, the report found.

Referrals

Almost half (46%) of all white collar jobs are filled through referrals.

Interviewing

The higher the salary, the longer the interview process, the survey found. At a salary higher than $60,000, it often takes eight weeks or longer to fill a position.

Online job boards are also found to generate more applicants per position, with an average of 19 per job. Referrals yielded only 3.3 applicants, but fill 22% of open positions.

CareerBuilder.com generates the highest number of applications, with 22 per open position.

Career fairs were rated significantly less effective, resulting in only 4% of hires, as 12% from online job boards.

The survey was conducted amongst 408 hiring managers in June 2008. Company size ranged between 20 and 5,000 employees.