China’s job hunting websites reached almost 450 million monthly internet users and the number of monthly visits totaled 3 billion in Q3 2015 according to iResearch.

51job.com (hereinafter called 51job) and Zhaopin.com (hereinafter called Zhaopin) were major job hunting companies in China. Total revenues of 51job was 520 million yuan (US$80.27 million) and total revenues of Zhaopin were 350 million yuan (US$54.02 million) in Q3 2015. Influenced by the autumn busy season of job hunting, operating revenues of both companies increased slightly.

Online job hunting revenues made up about 60% of 51job revenues in Q3 2015. HR and related revenues made up about 35%. Compared with Zhaopin, 51job was relatively concentrated in revenue pattern while also more reasonable given that non-online job hunting revenues.

Revenues except online websites of Zhaopin only accounted for about 10% in Q3 2015 including campus recruitment, career assessment and HR related revenues. The ratio was much lower compared with 34.9% of 51job.

The size of China’s online employment market was stable in the past 12 months. The number of monthly coverage users reached nearly 450 million from July to September this year with a slight down in QoQ rate and YoY rate. The downturn mainly resulted from rising mobile app users.

Monthly visits of China’s employment websites remained steady across the year and the peak appeared in March 2015. Post-Chinese New Year is often a period when many employees looked for new opportunities in China. A report from 58.com said as high as 65% staff in China would change job after the Chinese New Year because of no year-end bonus.

Zhaopin has surpassed 51job in online monthly reached users since May 2015. Monthly reached users of online websites of Zhaopin were 520,000 more than 51job. The soaring number of app users was mainly driven from superior user experience on Zhaopin’s mobile app.

Major employment websites maintained stable in terms of monthly reached users on mobile apps in Q3 2015. 51job maintained a total number of monthly coverage users about 2.6 million since May 2015. Zhaopin has been steadily growing in monthly users this year.

The gap in daily reached users had gradually widened between 51job and Zhaopin mobile apps in Q3 2015. Daily reached users of 51job declined slightly in September while the total increased in Q3 2015. Daily coverage users of Zhaopin declined in Q3 while still maintained a slight growth compared with Q2 2015.

51job spent 79.9% advertising spends of nearly 700,000 yuan on Weibo and other portal websites in Q3 2015. The ratio was 2.4 percentage points higher compared with the previous quarter.

Zhaopin invested far more spends in advertising than 51job in Q3 2015. 65.9% advertising spends were made available for real estate websites with 38.6 percentage points high compared to Q2 in Q3 2015. 28.6% advertising spends were in portal websites while might be supposed that Zhaopin wouldn’t want to have direct conflicts on portal websites. Advertising channels of Zhaopin were more diverse compared with 51job.

Looking for jobs through job hunting websites has become an avoidable trend. Compared to traditional job fairs, online employment websites are more efficient and less costly. Especially for university graduates, blindly sending resumes always had no effect.

Also read: China’s Talents in Internet Industry 2015

The growing usage of social networks is generating business opportunities across many industries. As the country’s labor market is experiencing a fierce war on talent, we as an advertising agency specialized in employer branding and recruitment marketing, wonder how social media is playing a role in the industry.

To gain understanding on social recruitment in China, MXMM has conducted a first-ever study on the use and perception of social media among the country’s HR professionals. The results derived from this study show that 51% of the respondents already use social media for employer branding and recruitment purposes.

The most used channels in 2011 were Renren and Sina Weibo mainly because of their user demographics. The infographic below shows our key findings of ‘The 2011 China Social Network Employer Branding and Recruitment Survey’.

As with online recruitment in Western countries, there is a similar trend occurring in China with social media ranking fifth as the most used channel for employer branding and recruitment. The time of print media as newspapers and magazines seems to have passed, as the majority of our respondents perceive these channels as the least important ones for near future investment. However, some HR professionals still remain cautious as they indicate the main reason not to use social recruitment is due to their lack of knowledge within the organization and proven best practice cases on social recruitment in China.

As the penetration rate of internet usage continues to grow, we see many opportunities for this industry to further develop social strategies for recruitment and employer branding. To keep updated on the latest status on social recruitment, MXMM is conducting an on-going research study that looks into the broad (social) media landscape in China. Every year, MXMM will be publishing a report on the use and perception on (social) media according to HR-professionals in China. Keep an eye on http://socialrecruitmentchina.com and follow us on Weibo (SocialRecruitmentChina) or Twitter (SRChina) for more information on upcoming studies.

About the author

Jidi Guo started her career at employer branding and recruitment advertising agency MXMM in Shanghai after graduating with a Master’s in New Media at the University of Amsterdam. “The China Social Network Employer Branding and Recruitment Survey” is one of her current ongoing projects. Email jidi.guo at mxmm.cn