Congratulations to Monster.com — the site redesign launched a couple days ago is the first move in the right direction that I can remember in 10 years. I don’t typically write about the big three job boards, mostly because I’m not a basher and because I value the role they play in creating an industry and blazing the trail for the rest of us. But, here Monster.com is showing some real and noteworthy leadership.
What do I like about the Monster redesign?
- homepage customization – giving the job seeker the ability to customize the homepage using ‘widgets‘ is even better than giving job seekers ‘what they really want’. This feature surpassed my expectations- bravo!
- authenticity – having the lead designer present the changes in a video also surprised me! It’s quite authentic. What’s next? Will I be able to subscribe to Sal Iannuzzi’s blog RSS?
Will it work?
If monster can maintain it’s newfound focus on quality, I believe it can prevent an accelerating decline. But I don’t expect monster will ever be dominant in our industry in any meaningful way going forward.
During the years that the company had its back turned, I suspect it was a quite a cash machine which likely transformed the lives of many who extracted the wealth. Current management should not expect for history to repeat itself.
Sure, with changes like this, Monster.com can slow down that slide and probably produce modest returns for its stockholders and management. But, the tide of change in the job board industry is too deep and too rapid for a
redesign like this to have a material impact at an industry level.
This is a fascinating story for me because I wonder how long business and financial engineers can maintain industry dominance in a socially significant environment. I would like to think that we are moving into an era in which the longevity and dominance of a company will be directly related to the passion and love for the business of the people in charge!
Yes, I’m an idealist.
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Hey Eric. thanks for pointing this out on RecruitingBlogs.com It will be interesting to see how it all goes.
While I will certainly give Monster there props for the fresh look and feel of the site, I do not believe that the mechanics of the site have been the problem. The engine itself was fundamentally sound.
IMHO it’s their content i.e. jobs & adverts that have been the problem.
This dates back to some of the fundamental changes to their business model made over the course of 10+ years where their focus was simply to boost revenue (lately more of an effort to maintain or regain lost revenue) rather than increase or add value back to their basic services.
In 1998, they moved away from the direct employer only model and began allowing staffing companies and other 3rd parties to partake.
This may not seem like such a big deal now but I can assure you that at least within Monster it was a very controversial & much debated move at the time.
Then at some point ~2001?, the Online Universities and other non-related Adverts moved into the picture.
Once they saw the revenue coming from these areas and understood that they would sometimes get paid 3-4-5 times for reposting the same position & the monies received for the ads they ran wildly towards the flame without considering or at least without fully appreciating the effect on the seeker.
They were literally willing to sell anything to anyone.
Flash forward 7-10 years and you have to weed through get rich quick ads, online education degree offers along with other end user annoyances that detract from the overall experience. They had moved away from their core – a great place to find a job.
Now I know the value that staffing companies have for those in need of a job and I believe that some seekers may benefit from continuing education like those offered in some ads; but the lesson here is that once the end user stops being your primary focus, you have lost your way and eventually your market share.
After 5-7-10 years of this treatment a little AJAX & couple of widgets just won’t cut it, not for most anyway. This redesign may be a great effort to recapture that spirit and the market share, but the industry and the end users have grown.
They want more attention, better service & they don’t want to be in a Monster number of resumes submitted to a job.
They have begun looking for real value. Hence the current market segmentation and the rise of the niche boards.
This redesign will undoubtedly allay the loss of some job seekers who will be happier with their monster experience, but until they really move their service to another level and add more value, they will never be able to recapture the market they once had. There is too much out there and there are too many people working to do the same thing.
Markets expand and contract.
Successful companies expand and adapt. Expansion without adaption= extinction. Monster has learned this….sort of and I think they will sort of survive.
My 2009 prediction: look for Sal to get a parachute & for Monster to either acquire a non-search or job board related company amidst a massive stock buyback or they will be acquired sometime late Q3 or early Q4. Perhaps by LatPro!
Whatever the case by 2010 I think Monster will be significantly different than what you see today & it won’t be because of new AJAXey type interface.
**es** lol, thanks Jeff – I couldn’t agree with you more and you summarized a lot of history very nicely!!
Just not feeling it. Granted I’m not a job seeker, and if I was, I wouldn’t use a job board most likely. I realize there are those that would. Perhaps the redesign will bring back some people to Monster. However I think the tide has already turned too far for them. In my opinion, bringing the site up to where it should’ve been a couple years ago is not groundbreaking. Seems like they made the right changes; if it was 2005.
**es** well, that’s another way of saying it, lol. this has to be just the start of continuous improvement if monster wants to stay in the game.
Hello Eric,
I was interested in your comments from January in regards to the Monster redesign.
From a business/recruiting standpoint, the Monster redesign has been a disaster and one of the single worst upgrades in web history. period. The original OCC (Online Career Center) that was free, was a better application.
This is an email that was sent to Jeff Taylor. (six months later, none of the widely seen bugs have been fixed. None.):
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for taking the time to read my note. As a customer of monster.com, I am reaching out to you in regards the apparent issues with the monster application and user interface upgrades since January of ’09.
From a historical standpoint, I have been utilizing Monster as a professional since, well … before it was monster. My first experiences utilizing job boards were related to FTP sites, Cello, Mosaic, then the Online Career Center (the Free Monster), and then of course monster.com.
Over the years I have purchased the license for staffs as small as 5 and up to 100 staff people.
I am a power user and have utilized all of the predominant resume/job boards since their inception. They include: Monster, Dice, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs, Linkedin and others.
During my fifteen plus years of using a range of boards, monster was always the leaders in “getting the job done” and always surpassed the other boards in usability, customer friendliness and efficiency. Until now.
All of the boards have made positive modifications, enhancements and improvements to their sites over the years with mostly positive results. Monster had that success until its’ most recent modification, upgrades and enhancements in January of 2009.
Sal, frankly, the changes made to the employer site have been nothing short of disastrous.
I have personally worked with and spent time with your product development team by conference call to assist them and outline the performance issues, the bugs, and the inconsistencies of the application, but there have been truly no changes.
As a business owner and user of a product you founded, I’m very disappointed to see any leader in their field make significant changes in their product or service delivery, for no apparent reason, and bring their competitive level to that of or below their competitors.
**es** fascinating Tom, thank you for sharing that! I do suspect that Monster.com is in an irreversible decline…
The problem with Monster is that, as the market leader, authenticity is less important than usability. In niche areas, you can get around use flaws because you identify with the person running the board… you root for them to win with you. When you’re a big corporate power, you don’t get the same benefit. You have the resources to create something great, and you need to deliver.
**es** a very good point, thanks for sharing!!