E-cruiter GoJobsite has been censured by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), following a complaint from rival online staffer Totaljobs.

The dispute centred around GoJobsite’s advertising campaign in Spring this year, which featured the slogan ‘Whatever your profession. We give you the widest choice of jobs… 50,000 jobs per week. In all industries. Across all levels of experience.’

Challenged by the ASA to defend this claim, GoJobsite argued that the adverts were not trying to imply that the site had more jobs than its competitors in any given profession. It said such sectors were difficult to define, that it had a different job-posting period to its competitors and was not therefore directly comparable, and that the term ‘whatever’ was common advertising jargon which was not meant to be taken literally.

It also provided the ASA with figures to show that it had advertised more jobs than 10 of its competitors over the eight weeks prior to the campaign.

The ASA accepted this last point, but said that GoJobsite ‘had not substantiated their claim that they offered “the widest choice of jobs”’, and that the advertisements ‘implied that [GoJobsite] offered more jobs, in more professions, than their competitors’.

Upholding Totaljobs’ complaint, the ASA asked GoJobsite to withdraw this claim ‘until they could substantiate it in full’.