Update from “the List”: Interest indicator for vacancies beta test

One of the most frequent questions I receive from job hunters is about the competitiveness of different vacancies. Applying to a job is very time consuming if done properly and of course we all want to know what we are up against when applying to a job.

Since I have no insight into the data of the actual agencies I obviously can’t answer the question on how many people applied. Also, if we assume that most people apply shortly before the deadline, the number of applications as information would be too late to be of any real value. However, what I can do to gauge interest is to measure the number of click-throughs to the actual vacancy. What I mean by that is the number of times people decide to leave the UN Job List and view the vacancy on the organization’s homepage.

I have now implemented this view counter and shown the data for this counter on the UN Job List’s vacancy detail page. You will see two graphs on any vacancy detail page: One listing the views per day over the past 5 days:

Views per dayPlease note: The graph is capped at 20 views per day.

And another graph that shows how this vacancy relates to other vacancies on the UN Job List:

Interest in the vacancy

The graph displays the overall average views per day in relation to the average views of all UN Job List listed jobs. This graph is also updated daily and since there is always a higher initial interest in any new job especially after the job has been twittered, this graph is biased towards the “high interest” spectrum right after it has been discovered by the UN Job List.

Please let me know what you think of these statistics and graphs in the comments below – thank you!

Mine Action Day

Today on April 4th is International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action 2011. On the picture you can see the Little Peacekeeper working with his tool in this very dangerous job. He salutes the UN colleagues who help clear mines all over the world and reminds us to not leave the victims of mines behind. To learn more about this important work, visit http://mineaction.org

Santa Tereza

This picture of the Little Peacekeeper is taken in Santa Tereza with a favela in the background. The Little Peacekeeper is curious to learn all about the UPP (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora, Pacifying Police Units) an innovative policing approach which is applied in this area and which is aiming address the numerous security challenges for favela community and improve the local conditions. If you would like to know some more about the UPP have a look here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=events.event_summary&event_id=655855