Online recruitment is finally coming of age, growing from a cottage industry 10 years ago to being the favoured medium of 11.8m jobseekers in the UK alone.

That’s the conclusion of new research compiled by the Cranfield School of Management and The Daily Telegraph.

The Recruitment Confidence Index revealed the number of organisations using the internet to fill vacancies has increased by almost a third.

Most organisations said their use of corporate and commercial recruitment sites had increased or stayed the same over the last year.

Smaller organisations were more likely to use commercial websites while medium-sized companies preferred using a corporate site.