monster works for me
January 3rd, 2007
Reports of Monster’s new ad campaign are littering the Net. From the Boston Herald:
Monster Worldwide Inc., is set to announce a big advertising push tomorrow featuring television, print and online work as it tries to expand its reach among so-called casual job seekers.
The bulk of the campaign, created by Boston-based consultancy Brand Content, begins breaking today with the slogan “Monster Works for Me” and highlights different careers.
Three 30-second TV spots will start airing nationally today. One features a restaurant owner, another a nurse and another a jet-setting executive.
And to think, I wondered why a price increase was in the offing for Monster customers: To pay for their bloated ad campaign. The funniest part, however, is that Monster is touting this strategy targets passive job seekers.
The idea behind the campaign is to reach “passive job seekers” as opposed to just reaching “active job seekers,” said Victoria Godfrey, vice president of advertising for Monster.
“An active job seeker is someone who if you would ask ‘are you looking for another job right now?’ they would say ‘yes,’ ” Godfrey said. “Passive job seekers may not be looking today, but may be looking for one a year from now.”
A big money, mostly offline advertising campaign that attracts passive job seekers? Forgive my skepticism.
January 3rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Joel,
When I read the announcement and got to the line “Passive job seekers may not be looking today, but may be looking for one a year from now” it reminded me of those little editorial quips they used to publish in the New Yorker which you are probably too young to remember, but the little footnote to this line might have read something like “maybe they weren’t looking when they left for work this morning, but if the day was bad enough by the time they got home…..”
January 3rd, 2007 at 4:01 pm
So Monster went local, local, local until they found out that didn’t work for them so they abandoned that effort. Now they’re going passive, passive, passive. But is there really any difference between a passive and an active job seeker? Aren’t we all active to some degree?
It seems to me that all of the talk about passive candidates being higher quality than active candidates misses the point. The difference in quality isn’t with the candidates. It is with the opportunities being presented to them. Low quality opportunities will not be sufficient to attract happily employed a/k/a passive candidates. High quality opportunities will attract both groups. So if your opportunity is of a high quality, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If your opportunity is not of a high quality, then you should spend your time and energy making it a high quality opportunity rather than trying to find ways of connecting with candidates who are never going to be interested in what you have to offer to them.
Steven Rothberg
CollegeRecruiter.com career site
http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com
January 8th, 2007 at 11:18 am
How can you be passive and submit a resume to a job board?