The typical online jobseeker looks for a job at 8.21am on their mobile device while commuting and is far more likely to make an application on a Tuesday than at the weekend.

This is according to statistics pooled by Guru Careers, the fixed-fee recruiter for the digital, design and marketing sectors, which makes use of more than 400 online job boards, social networks, searchable database and community sites in its work. It also found that when it comes to relevancy, 83% of applicants are not suitable for the position they apply for, which clearly reflects the candidate-rich market conditions that still exist.

The ’Behavioural trends of the online jobseeker’ infographic (right) is sourced from a number of job boards, as well as Guru Careers’ own advertising campaigns and careers site, and from conversations with candidates and hiring managers. Richard Hamilton, marketing director of Guru Careers, told Recruiter that among the most surprising results are that only 3.3% of online jobseekers make their application from a mobile phone, despite the growing momentum around mobile recruitment.

“In many cases, candidates had to bypass the mobile site and go to the main one to apply,” he said. “It seems that even some of the big job boards haven’t got their mobile apps sorted but I definitely see this changing and also a lot of smaller job boards moving into mobile as well.”

Hamilton added that while he was expecting a smaller volume of job applications at the weekend, he wasn’t expecting it to be as big a drop. “During weekend mornings between 9 and 12, only 1% of all applications for the week come in,” he said, with 64% of applications made during the weekday working hours of 9am and 6pm. Tuesday and Wednesday are the most popular days for applying.

“When we gathered this data, it was winter and early springtime when the weather wasn’t that good but it still showed that people want to keep weekends for themselves and look for a job during the week,” said Hamilton.

The increase in the affordability of smartphones and tablets, and the phasing out of old generation mobile devices over the next couple of years, is likely to have an impact on this trend. “You won’t be able to go into a phone shop and get anything that isn’t a smartphone and we’ll see more people apply across the board at evenings and weekends when they get a spare minute,” he said. Of today’s mobile jobseekers, 46% are using an iPhone, 17% Android and 12% Blackberry.

Guru Careers has turned the information into an infographic that can be downloaded from its website.

www.gurucareersnetwork.com