• by July 16, 2004

Some good news for job seekers?

Nielsen//NetRatings today reports that the U.S. job recovery helped fuel 30 percent year-over-year growth for career sites with nearly 27.2 million surfers, or more than 18 percent of the total online population visiting job search sites in June. Naturally, the big guys, Monster.com, CareerBuilder and Yahoo! HotJobs, grabbed the top slots.

Monster.com topped the list of career sites, attracting nearly 9.6 million job seekers in June 2004 at home and work. Next, came CareerBuilder, which drew 9.3 million unique visitors. Internet users visiting Yahoo! HotJobs totaled more than 7.1 million surfers, while Brassring.com and USAJOBS rounded out the top five both with more than 1.4 million unique visitors.

"Positive labor market indicators have prompted job search sites to invest again in promoting their services through TV and online advertising, as well as striking special marketing partnerships with media companies," said Marc Ryan, senior director, analysis, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Nielsen finds that Monster continues to top a variety of loyalty metrics. A recent Nielsen MegaPanel survey of more than one thousand job seekers and recruiters, 89 percent of online job seekers registered on Monster.com. In comparison, registration rates for CareerBuilder and Yahoo! HotJobs posted a registration ratio of 47 and 43 percent, respectively.

Visitors to Monster.com spent an average of 18 and a half minutes on the site last month and viewed nearly 380 million pages. CareerBuilder and Yahoo! HotJobs visitors spent an average of 14 and six and a half minutes, respectively. CareerBuilder posted more than 207.4 million Web page views, while Yahoo! HotJobs visitors viewed 122.6 million pages.

On the political front, Nielsen says that the John Kerry for President Web site surged 226 percent at home during the week ending July 11, attracting 616,000 unique visitors. The site also captured the second fastest growing spot at work, drawing more than one million surfers, rising 93 percent over the previous week.

The Bush-Cheney Web site drew 391,000 unique visitors at home, spiking 40 percent week-over-week, while the Republican National Committee Website soared 152 percent to 413,000 unique visitors. The Democratic Party's official Website, Democrats.org posted 170,000 unique visitors for the week ending June 11, but did not make reporting cutoff for the previous week.