We recently conducted milewalk’s Annual Employment Survey for 2014. The results showed interesting trends, some that held from 2013 and others that changed.

One of the major statistical categories we capture is how people found their most recent job. We think this information will be extremely helpful to not only job candidates that are seeking employment elsewhere, but also for companies so they can understand the effectiveness of different avenues to search for and lure top talent.

We evaluated 15 potential ways an employee can find a job and aggregated them into a manageable list (eight) to help when reviewing the probabilities of these mediums to secure your next position. Granted, these percentages change when factoring experience and compensation levels, but these numbers are a good guideline—and current!

The major leaders are your personal network (a combined 52% if you consider employee and non-employee referrals) and executive recruiters (16% which is more than twice as much as a corporate recruiter). Job boards picked up a bit from last year’s 5% up to 11%, and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter were so insignificant they didn’t even register (we tossed them into other). It is worth noting that the individuals likely to respond to our survey work for white-collar corporations, so the social sites might be more productive for other, non-corporate positions. Lastly, consider that 9% of the respondents are company owners and entrepreneurs including independent consultants.

Employee Referral – 19%

Personal Network (Non-Employee Referral) – 33%

Company Website – 5%

Job Board – 11%

Contacted by Company Recruiter – 7%

Contacted by Executive (3rd Party) Recruiter – 16%

Owner/Entrepreneur/Contractor – 2%

Other – 7%