monster prices rising … again
August 28th, 2007
A reader directs us to a recent Monster e-mail touting all their “new tools, technology upgrades and people to provide you with the level of service you expect from the market leader.”
Then they hit you with the news of a future price increase:
Comparative to these investments, we are marginally increasing our rates for job postings. We will honor quotes before August 9, 2007 up until September 20, 2007. Consult your Monster Representative for more details. Monster is still less expensive and far more effective than traditional recruitment methods. As we continually invest in our innovative matching tools, the value you gain will be to locate candidates faster.
OMG! Where to begin?
New tools? Must of missed the buzz on those. Technology upgrades? Ya’ mean like your database of job seekers getting hacked? The people? Not the ones you just canned, I assume.
And how ’bout this edit: “Monster is still less expensive and far more effective than traditional recruiting methods - which happen to be dying at a far quicker rate than us - but still way more expensive than [just about any other online option here].” Oh, and how do you raise prices on customers for “matching tools” that don’t even exist yet?
No worries. They’ll probably just reduce prices after raising them - again. They’re cool like that.
Click here for the full e-mail. You’ll love reading about how they’re wasting, er going to spend $80 million on legal fees, er, I mean marketing.
You da Monster!
August 29th, 2007 at 10:41 am
you can only raise prices to exorbitant levels if you offer a premium service and product…not after catastrophe upon catastrophe occurs…mnst has been giving customers nothing but headaches lateley and this is the cherry on top…it’s amazing how this went from a killer brand in the 90s to a brand that is associated with such low quality now… sad really
August 29th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
This email was not sent by Monster - they are not raising prices. It doesn’t even look like a Monster email! Try some truth in your journalism.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Actually, they did raise their prices slightly up in Canada the beginning of the month. Their site in Canada was due for upgrading of process I understand. I just got off the phone with my sister who works for a major Canadian company that uses Monster and she/they couldn’t be happier with them. they deal with another board up there also and she says Monster is still way cheaper and easier to use and gets them better results.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
monster did NOTsend that email out. amazing reporting cheezhead!!! i guess you just assume that any email that is sent to you from a reader is fact?
August 29th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I’ve been promoted from blogger to journalist? Awesome! Now maybe Monster PR will return my emails and I can confirm items like this in the future.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Maybe if you said “sorry for my ineptitude” you might get a response.
Still you must have deep pockets if you can continue to publish this kind of rubbish and risk a law suit
August 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am
THey weren’t hacked..they somone downloaded malicous software and it used a valid accoutn..this is what us at the banks are fighting ALL the time.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:42 am
Hello. I am not a ‘blogger’ but I felt obliged to speak to the issues concerning Monster and the purported hacking incidence and recent price increase comments. I am the sister of the gentleman who posted the August 29th comment and he forwarded this somewhat Cheesy site to my attention.
We hired Monster over 3 years ago to help us with a very difficult retail recruitment environment and from the very first touch by them they have been extremely professional, strategic and most importantly, results driven. There closest competition in Canada purported to be the biggest and the best but their ’sales staff’ were inexperienced in the ways of on-line recruitment and wanted to offer my organization a very basic yet extremely expensive job posting process, with no significant metrics offerings or results-based reporting. Monster was consultative, patient with our own internal process and supremely expert in their analysis and recommendations. Their recent handling of this hacker issue was quick, informative, and very professional. In fact my boss received a phone call from the Canadian VP at Monster. We were impressed. They have very slightly increased their prices here but are still very much lower than Workopolis. We have no issue with this as they offer a superior product and experience and at the end of the day…Results! Ultimately, I need to hire and they seem to be the only on-line offering that is providing this to me.
September 4th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I stand by this post. The only variable in question is that it may be Canada-only, as it was sent by Monster.ca (learned after this post was published). However, if that’s the case, it brings up a new list of issues, like touting an $80 million marketing spend. There’s no way that’s all going to the Great White North.
Per my informant, who is also a VP at a well-respected company and a Monster client:
“The e-mail is definitely real and not some sort of phishing hoax. It may be just for Monster.ca although we have accounts for both Canada and US. The e-mail refers to investments being made in the US (like $80 million in advertising even though Canadian revenues are south of $40 million) and the pricing in Canada did go up in January quite steeply so it doesn’t make sense they would raise pricing again 2 quarters later. They did not retract their pricing increase like they did in US and frankly I struggle to see how they can take another increase in Canada especially with all of their traffic and technology issues… as we can post on monster.com for our US divisions I could not take this to mean Canada only but perhaps it is possible (awful e-mail in any case with rate increase slipped in…).”