Why Monster Isn't The Monster It Once Was
from the long-tail-of-jobs dept
Microsoft's recently acquired stake in Careerbuilder has brought renewed interest to online job sites, like Monster.com, which some now see as a takeover candidate. But despite the initial promise that online job boards would make the process of hiring and finding a job much more efficient, many have felt that they've never really lived up to the hype. The flood of useless resumes that companies receive often means that posting a job to a major site is more trouble than it's worth. The industry is now starting to iron out its kinks, but in a way that's not to the benefit of the major sites, like Careerbuilder and Monster.com. While their traffic sags, business is booming at niche sites (via alarm:clock), like GovernmentJobs.com, which only lists public sector jobs. The benefits to to employee and employer are clear, as these sites allow for a more targeted search. So while companies like Microsoft (and maybe Google) look to get into this space, this trend emphasizes the fact that they should build platforms for third parties to do job search, rather than simply trying to buy the market leaders.
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Annoying ads
Also, they aren't doing anything to control spammers sending 419, work-at-home scams, or spam sites pretending to be other job search sites.
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Re: Annoying ads
I also (joy of joys) now get regular phone calls from people offering to professionally write my CV
Does anyone know how much use professionally written CVs actually are? When I last had to go through piles of CVs I used to look at them in a poor light - or am I completely in the minority here?
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Re: Re: Annoying ads
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Indeed
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Problem with Monster.com
This is where recruiters come in handy. It is just so hard to justify the price of recruiters.
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Re: Problem with Monster.com
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Re: Re: Problem with Monster.com
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Re: Problem with Monster.com
Might it be that recruiters read through the 1000 resumes???? MIght it also be that you aren't specific enough in your listings?
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Monster vs. Craigslist
I have used Monster in the past, but I found my last job listed on Craigslist. I spent several weeks searching through the hundreds of listings on Monster, and I found what I was looking for in a very short time on Craigslist. The local newspaper classifieds were completely useles (it now runs only "H1-b qualifiers", not real employment ads).
My wife owns a small business, and she has had pretty good luck finding employees through Craigslist. Craigslist has been lower-hassle from both ends, and it's free for employers (don't know how long THAT will last, though, now that eBay managed to buy into Craigslist).
I'm guessing that Craigslist will do for Monster and related commercial sites what it is doing for newspaper classifieds.
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Concealed Handgun License Course in Plano, TX
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Monster
What i would say though is that without the relevant training to do boolean logic search criteria it would not be half as good.
I would like to see Monsster offering training as a matter of course rather than "if you need it".
In terms of pricing i would much rather spend a few days getting organised as a senior HR Manager and pay monster £8k per annum for my annual HR spend than pay an agency £4k+ per head totalling between £40kand £80k per annum.
Any tool is only as good as the person using it.......
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Want to do a weekend as a roadie for a band? Work an adult film? that type of random stuff can actually be found on craigs. I am a guy who actually did an adult film that the gig was listed via craigs, a roadie thing, and working for a film director as a production assistant.
Sorry, but I don't think I'll be using monster ever really, I'm not pleased with them at all.
However, their actual temp-agency, Manpower, is very good.
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Monster/Careerbuilder vs. the fleas
Yes, Indeed and Simplyhired and the other aggregators pull stuff from the majors and many other sites but, ya know, they just don't get the eyeballs to get sufficient results.
So, until human behavior changes and until people stop being lazy and willing to take individualized tests for each job they apply for to actually qualify their credentials in advance of resume transmission (and firmsenforce the need to do so), all job boards are in the business of selling space and selling eyeballs and Monster, careerbuilder and a few others do thaht better than the fleas that claim thaht niche boards do better tthan they do.
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Re: Problem with Monster.com
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Re: Problem with Monster.com
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Craigslist aint that great either
Craigslist: 500 useless resumes for every good 3.
My odds are twice as good on Craigslist, but it is still frustrating. Also, with craigslist, you can set that you need someone to come in to the office, no telecommuting, yet you get about 200 applications from India saying that they can outsource the work for you.
It does not matter how specific you make the job details. You can say that as part of their IT jobs, they must drink from the toilets. You will still get a flood of resumes. NOBODY reads the job requirements.
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Teh suck.
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Cost Per Click
A solution would be a "pay per click" model, which might help get those annoying interstitial mortgage ads off the sites, too. Put in $10 credit, and pay 10 cents for each submission. A small cost would get people to think. Sure, Monster would make easy money (and that pisses some people off) but the value of the service would go up a great deal.
My beef is spam coming in the opposite direction. I hadn't updated my resume in 5 years, so I thought I'd give it a look. I made it public, even though I'm not looking for a job. Immediately, I'm getting people pitching me job openings that have nothing to do with my qualifications, and they're asking me to send them a resume! What was it about posting my resume that has people asking to see my resume??? Basically, it's the same problem in reverse, it's job offer spam, where instead of taking the time to actually read resumes, they do a search at Monster, and then just send a form letter to every search result. If they had to pay per message, they would be more careful.
Unfortunately, free is too cheap, and it's costing everybody a lot of time...
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craigslist
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ppc
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Jobboards are OK if used right
Just use the search capabilities on exisitng resumes. You're right in thinking that even exisiting resumes maybe faked toward some other jobs, that problem stays.
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