Working in the Recruitment Realm Means Strong Employment Statistics, Right?

When looking to switch jobs, most of us do extensive research on the average pay, top competitors, and work environment of prospective companies through popular employment platforms, like StepStone and Indeed.

What’s it really like to work at those companies? We would assume that because of their ties to employment standards, employees are requesting that their key statistics would support inclusivity, high retention, and experienced professionals; however, this isn’t always the case.

This blog will dive into the specifics of two recruitment platforms, Stepstone and Indeed, to uncover similarities and irregularities by using innovative statistics provided by Osterus. We will look at various different employment metrics, including work experience, gender distribution, prior employers, and retention rates.

Let’s first look at the size of each company. Stepstone is a smaller company compared to Indeed with about 10x fewer employees. Stepstone began in 1996 and has accumulated a market cap of $2.73 billion as of 2022. Indeed was formed in 2004 and merged with Recruit Co in 2012. Recruit Co has a market cap of 7.95 trillion, far exceeding that of Stepstone. Keep this in mind while we go through the employment data.

Starting with the work experience distribution, both Indeed and Stepstone retain experienced professionals with a majority of the distribution above 5 years. In the 5–10 year category, Stepstone retains 25.2% of their employees while Indeed reports 33.8% of their employees. In the 10–15 year category, Stepstone retains 22% while Indeed reports 29.8%. The 15+ category yields similar results with Stepstone showing 30.3% and Indeed reporting 24.9%.

The 0–1, 1–3, and 3–5 categories show very minimal employees. This tells us that both Indeed and Stepstone are looking to bring on experienced professionals and not individuals who just graduated college. This makes it increasingly difficult to find a job at one of these companies if you don’t have at least 5 years of experience.

Now, let’s analyze the current employment duration distribution. A majority of the employees at both companies have been there less than 10 years. The 0–1 year category boasts 19.4% and 29.1% for Stepstone and Indeed, respectively, while the 1–3 year shows statistics of 36.3% and 21.4%. The 3–5 year and 5–10 year categories show 17.1% and 29.7% and 17.4% and 18.7% for Stepstone and Indeed, respectively.

What does this tell us? Well, we can see that both companies went through extensive hiring processes, which is why there is a large distribution under 10 years. By having minimal employees with over 10 years with the company, we can infer that there may be barriers preventing growth after the 10-year mark. Employees look for other opportunities once they become stagnant in their position with minimal room left to grow or reach top executive positions.

The previous employment retention distribution supports this inference as both companies are seen retaining employees for only 1–3 years with 42.6% and 53.6% reported for Stepstone and Indeed, respectively. There are only 0.9% and 0.4% of employees in the 15+ year category for Stepstone and Indeed, respectively.

Most employees don’t make the company any money in their first year between training and learning the company processes, meaning the high turnover is not cost-effective for either company. Both companies should re-evaluate their current structure to uncover areas of improvement to keep employees past the 3-year mark.

The breakdown of employees with each job title is also very telling. The top 2 job titles for each company are the same with sales and software development ranking at the top. Stepstone retains 13.85% of employees in sales while Indeed reports 18.5% in that category. Similarly, Stepstone shows 13.28% of employees in software development while Indeed has 12.93%.

Stepstone then chooses to focus on product development while Indeed places emphasis on customer service. This difference isn’t necessarily bad; it just highlights different operational focuses. It’s interesting that management positions don’t rank at the top of the job title breakdown. We would assume that because of the high level of experience most employees retain, there would be a significant management category; however, this is not the case.

Considering the previous companies that employees worked at can also derive insight into the employment specifics of each company. Looking at the sales category, 13.01% of employees from Stepstone worked at Totaljobs while 2.14% of employees at Indeed worked at Yelp. Totaljobs retains similarities compared to Stepstone while Yelp is not in the recruitment industry.

In addition, 6.37% of employees in the software development category had previous employment at Totaljobs while 3.35% of employees in Indeed worked at Amazon. Clearly, Indeed does not place great emphasis on the industry employees previously worked in, but rather on the job duties they completed.

Finally, let’s consider the gender distribution within the job titles. Yet again, most positions in these two companies seem to be male dominant. The sales category shows that there are 69.94% males compared to 30.06% females in Stepstone and 63.78% males compared to 33.37% females in Indeed.

The software development category shows even more male dominance with 80.36% males compared to 16.07% females in Stepstone. Indeed shows similar results with 77.8% males compared to 20.04% females. Both companies have room for improvement when it comes to the gender distribution.

Improving female recruitment, offering competitive maternity leave policies, and providing an inclusive environment are all steps in the right direction. These companies should understand the recent strides towards equality and female representation in the workforce, especially as a recruitment agency, meaning they may fall short in comparison to your standards.

These statistics provided by Osterus uncovered stark similarities in the gender distribution, experience of employees, and retention. If we were to take these two recruitment companies as a representation of the entire industry, there are definitely areas of improvement needed.

This employment data only scratches the surface of the possibilities key insight provides us. From learning about the quality of life and work-life balance to choosing between employers in the same industry, the possibilities big data gives us are endless.

To learn more, reach out to contact us directly, on LinkedIn, or schedule a demo for more insight.