Following on from a recent blog on the Mylonglunch website regarding stats and over-reliance on e.g. search engines, here are a few thoughts on why these stats should not be used to paint the real picture of how successful a potential recruitment campaign could be:

It's all good and well being #1 on google for e.g. IT jobs, but that doesn't mean the site is right for a campaign - far from it! The focus needs to be much more specific to what you're looking to achieve. If e.g. a £50K Developer from Reading is looking for a new job, do you think he/she will google "IT jobs" to start their job search? Unlikely!

The skilled media planners of this world should already know the capabilities of the sites in question and should therefore use the information available to them from each site intelligently. Good job board sales people won't just spin the Google (or Hitwise) stats, they will look at the brief properly and (hopefully) come back with a solution that's not only believable, but is accurate to the brief in question.

Also, testimonials are not a good indicator either. All sites have shed-loads of testimonials they can throw at you and what's right for client X may not be right for client Y anyway.

Even then, if site X has more Developers in Reading than site Y, is still doesn't mean that site X is right for a campaign.

I could go on....