How can you imagine the job market? As a strongly changing system of dependencies and a treasure trove of information on the topics of employers and employees. In-depth market research is a multi-step, lengthy process and requires observation of many independent variables. However, the benefits obtained from it may exceed all expectations.

Market research – benefits and data sources

First of all, it can be a source of competitive advantage. Thanks to the collected data we know what requirements other companies have towards candidates, how large their recruitment needs are, what locations they focus on, and what salaries or benefits they offer. On this basis, we can prepare an offer that surpasses the competition, or on the contrary – focus on markets where other companies are less active. We can also observe early-stage trends and anticipate coming changes, rather than missing chances for business development or losing valuable employees.

Let’s think about how to make a market research in HR area; as usual, everything starts with data – first you need to acquire it. Of course, you can rely on reports released by other institutions, but this does not give you a strategic advantage and does not allow you to delve into each sector to the same extent. So the best way is to collect data yourself. 

But let’s face it – none of us has the time to collect enough data on our own that will allow us to compare our offer with the competitors or to evaluate the expectations of individual candidates regarding all positions for which we recruit. And to update that data on an ongoing basis as the labor market changes (monthly or quarterly).

Here tools for collecting and processing large data sets come in handy...

Where do these tools get their data from? They can do it from various sources, but the most popular are job advertisements published in mass numbers on the Internet. They are sufficient because they shape the labor market to such an extent that there is no problem with inferring information about available candidates and their requirements – as long as we collect data regularly and reliably. 

The construction of most job advertisements is more or less standard, as an HR professional, you can easily guess what data we can infer from them:

• changes in payouts for given positions and, more importantly, how our offerings stack up against the competition;
• how long the posting has been active and whether it is reactivated – this can show us a lot about the employer and employee market. If an offer has been active for a long time, we can assume that it is below the market standard for the position. If we notice that many postings for particular positions are reactivated and the standards, at least financial ones, are market standard we can guess that there is some shortage on the market from the employee’s side;
• information about locations can tell us in which regions there are industry basins or where they are beginning to form. It can also show us how much emerging competition there is in a particular area;
• information about the levels of demand for a given position gives us a lot of information about where the industry is and what demand is currently being met. If a lot of juniors are being sought, we can easily deduce that employers have noticed some shortage of specialized workers and are trying to fill it by educating the workforce themselves;
• required skills – a good source of candidate profiles. In many industries, you can deduct from it the technological trend, what is starting to be used, and what has been established for years in a given industry or position.

Where to get such a tool?

Our system will come to your aid. We collect hundreds of thousands of job postings monthly, to provide you with current information on the labor market research and landscape. With HelloAstra you will build a benefit cafeteria, check if your salary scales meet market standards, and make key business decisions.

All you need to do is enter information such as industry, position, role, level, location, type of contract, or remuneration you offer, and in a few seconds, we will present a comparison of the entered data to your competitors.

You will learn, i.e. what is the market share of the positions you are recruiting for, whether your salary scales are comparable to the competitors, how the salaries are distributed on the market and how many companies in the selected period have recruited for similar positions.