Forget Washing Dishes Or Sweeping Up; Parents Handing Off Online Chores To Kids

Why Monster Isn't The Monster It Once Was

from the long-tail-of-jobs dept

Wed, May 16th 2007 9:08pm — Joseph Weisenthal

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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21 Comments

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dorpus, 16 May 2007 @ 9:36pm

Annoying ads
Monster/careerbuilder started going downhill when after every click, they try to trick you into signing up for loan consolidation services, etc.

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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Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 10:49pm

Indeed
indeed dot com is the market leader. They aggregate listings from many job boards.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2007 @ 11:17pm

My company never found a programmer anywhere but craigslist. Oh, we posted on monster, used recruiters, etc. We got flooded with useless bottomfeeders. Never even an interesting candidate from those places. YMMV
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James, 16 May 2007 @ 11:42pm

Problem with Monster.com
The problem is that the day you post a job listing, you get flooded with over 1000 useless resumes and 3 good ones. The only problem is, that you have to read through all the crap to find the 3 good ones. Then you bring those 3 into an interview and figure out that they are not right for the job.

This is where recruiters come in handy. It is just so hard to justify the price of recruiters.
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Anonymouse, 17 May 2007 @ 12:06am

Re: Problem with Monster.com
Didn't you just justify the price?
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Enrico Suarve, 17 May 2007 @ 2:23am

Re: Annoying ads
Fully agree with you - I signed up for a few the other month and my mailbox regularly gets bombarded with all of the above, even though I'm religious about ticking/unticking the "please dont't/do" include me on your mailing lists boxes

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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TX CHL Instructor (profile), 17 May 2007 @ 3:58am

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.
--
Concealed Handgun License Course in Plano, TX
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mkam, 17 May 2007 @ 5:07am

Re: Re: Problem with Monster.com
Have you seen the price? 1 years salary, 1/2 a years salary are not uncommon.
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Trumpmeister, 17 May 2007 @ 5:28am

Monster
My business has used Monster successfully for a number of years. I feel it by some margin the best UK general jobsite for our varied recruitment needs.

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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anonymous cowzard, 17 May 2007 @ 5:57am

I've found jobs and side-gigs of very interesting things on craigslist. Those are things you won't see in the paper or on monster, so that's great, as well as nothing automated in garbage ways like monster or asking people to "sign up" for garbage.

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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Jeff Altman, 17 May 2007 @ 6:03am

Monster/Careerbuilder vs. the fleas
I've been in the search business for more than 30 years. Monster and Careerbuilder are no worse than newspaper advertising was back in The Stone Ages except they run 24 x 7 and newspapers generally ran adds on Sunday. Both medium gave you garbage because they don't control the behavior of the people who flip resumes like burgers at a fast food restaurant. Monster and Careerbuilder provide penetration that only a brand name provides. Most niche sites are know by 6 relatives and the people they owe money to.

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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FH, 17 May 2007 @ 6:39am

Re: Problem with Monster.com
Gee

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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Davey, 17 May 2007 @ 8:25am

Re: Re: Annoying ads
Enrico, if the CVs were written by competent professionals you wouldn't have known they were pros. Applicants who paid for the "pros" you identified wasted their money.
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Michael Stevens, 17 May 2007 @ 8:35am

Re: Problem with Monster.com
It is hard to be on top. My experience searching for jobs wit h Monster has never been successful. Too much useless information to weed through. Two positive experiences I've had are first with craigslist, simple to the point and found my current job through them. Second Jobster who has connected me with many wonderful people.
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Michael Stevens, 17 May 2007 @ 8:40am

Re: Problem with Monster.com
It is hard to be on top. My experience searching for jobs wit h Monster has never been successful. Too much useless information to weed through. Two positive experiences I've had are first with craigslist, simple to the point and found my current job through them. Second Jobster who has connected me with many wonderful people.
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James, 17 May 2007 @ 8:53am

Craigslist aint that great either
Monster: 1000 useless resumes for every good 3.
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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Matt Bennett, 17 May 2007 @ 9:57am

Ok, my spam filter folder (gmail) used to hover around 2000-2500. After posting my resume on Monster, it shot up to around 12,000, more or less immediately.

Teh suck.
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Derek Kerton (profile), 17 May 2007 @ 12:58pm

Cost Per Click
The problem with these boards is they turn everybody into "micro-spammers". That is, they reduce the cost of sending out a piece of collateral to 0, thus people "click to submit" and don't bother to read the requirements.

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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marin, 21 Jan 2009 @ 9:38am

craigslist
i'm applying on craigslist for a job right now hahahahah. youclash.com
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SEO Packages, 23 Aug 2010 @ 7:29am

ppc
My company never found a programmer anywhere but craigslist. Oh, we posted on monster, used recruiters, etc. We got flooded with useless bottomfeeders. Never even an interesting candidate from those places.
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Rezat, 18 Nov 2012 @ 7:55am

Jobboards are OK if used right
I use job-boards with relative success. It never works because people reword their resume using job description.

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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