A Whole Lot of History

Last month MrWeb published its 100,000th market research job – that’s a lot of words and a lot of history. The Associates at Hasson Associates have made a healthy contribution to that 100,000 both here and in our previous roles in the industry.
Within those 100,000 jobs will have been vacancies from companies that have come and gone. Leaders will have been created. Companies will have developed and expanded beyond recognition. It is these companies which have supported the continued evolution and growth of the market research (MR)/ insight industry. It’s an amazing achievement and thanks to MrWeb’s careful editing I would say there has been minimal duplication!

In a previous company we were very happy to be the first paying customer of this job board at a time when no one really knew what impact it was going to have on the recruitment market – clearly we knew a good thing when we saw it! From MrWeb’s first job ad, some 15 years ago, to its 100,000th, today, the MR market and recruitment industry has evolved dramatically. Back then, CV’s were sent by fax and post and candidates had to wait on tenterhooks for their CV to be received, read and an offer of an interview to be communicated. Nowadays you can send a CV and arrange an interview almost instantly.

Is this pace right?

It certainly responds to a need in the market. At a time when our clients are facing increased demands on them it makes sense that this demand is passed on to us – their recruitment partners. The brightest talent, the best communication skills, the most advanced technical understanding, the right culture fit – all of these attributes need to be found with the greatest efficiency to ensure companies remain strong against their competitors. The job board certainly helps this process by instantly telling you when the job you wanted has been posted, but as more and more of us are bombarded with emails, tweets, SMS’s and LinkedIn updates, are we becoming immune to all these messages and will the job board eventually become lost in all this clutter?

So I wonder what the state of the market will be when MrWeb publishes its 200,000th job? Will job ads become reduced to a 140 character tweet? Will CV’s be video casts? Will we all be working from home or will home working be abolished? Will the MR industry be the same? Will the recruitment industry be the same?

That’s a lot of questions and we are looking forward to discovering the answers and contributing to MrWeb’s job board on a daily basis long into the future.

Congratulations to Nick Thomas, founder and Editor of MRWeb and his team for keeping everyone up to date and for triple checking 100,000 job ads!