World Cup exit spurs IT job searches

Since England’s exit from the World Cup, there has been a 23 percent increase in employment searches online, according to Experian Hitwise , the leading global online competitive intelligence service.

And, it seems the IT community has played its part in this trend. Reinforcing the Hitwise statistic, we carried out our own research – analysing the two weeks pre- and post-England’s knockout against Germany .

Comparing the week before and after the match, the .co.uk site saw an 18 percent increase in natural search traffic, and a 10 percent rise in total site visits. Did the World Cup distract IT pros from their job searches? Or did they choose to just put their hunting on hold?

When it came to the all important CVs, there was a 20 percent increase in new CVs being uploaded to the site, and 25 percent of existing CVs were updated.

Therefore the stats suggest that the World Cup acted as a real distraction from UK job searching; with the IT sector proving to be no exception.

However, our recent World Cup survey highlighted tournament fever was failing to distract UK IT departments, with the majority stating that they would not call in sick for any of the games. But this doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to IT pros’ job searches.

Since the Germany Vs England match, The IT Job Board.co.uk has seen a real increase in site visits, and in the number of CVs being uploaded and updated online. Perhaps an early bath for the team has stimulated movement in a traditionally sluggish summer period.

Maybe if we’d stayed in a bit longer, we could have procrastinated a bit more. Now, don’t even get me started on goal line technology…