Barron’s paints a bleak picture of the current state at Monster (MNST):
U.S. job postings are down 18% on a year-over-year basis for the quarter to date, with a 21% drop in May. That’s worse than the 8% slide in April. [Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel] says the shrinking number of listings could pressure revenue and profits in the June quarter. He says revenue from the North American careers segment could be down 10% year-over-year in the quarter, well below the 4% decline he had been projecting.
Maybe they’ve just taken down all the work at home spam. Mmm, nope.
Popularity: 14% [?]
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I want to be a mystery shopper. I hope those job postings don’t decrease!
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Joel~
Did you notice the work-at-home jobs were legitimate postings? Not some get rich quick schemes?
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Nope. I would have clicked on all 5,000 or so work-at-home jobs, but the pop-under banner ad I got from my first view really ticked me off.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
They really should take a page out of Google’s book and weed out the junk. It will help their business in the long run.
At first I thought this data was representative of the economy, but when I saw it was based on Monster’s job postings, I realized that maybe there are other forces at work.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
21% is a depression type figure, to go along with all the other portents of the big one in the air….lets hope its monster specific……
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
I couldn’t find an evidence of the new branding campaign success in the answer below:
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http://www.123jump.com/earnings-calls/Monster-Worldwide-First-Quarter-Earnings-Call/27894/21
Q: What is the evidence to date that the branding campaign has been successful?
A: If you back out the incremental level of marketing, we would be flat to the operating expense excluding that level of incremental marketing, so that would imply an increase in operating margin.
Our operating margin in Europe is somewhere around 8%, roughly 8%. The rebranding cost us approximately $31 million. That is not a cost we intend to continue to have. What will be seen going forward,I is a more normalized marketing spend.
Rebranding has clarified for the first time on a global basis one real brand and it sent a global message that we are not just a job board but looking to work with seekers and employers to find the best candidates possible by going after the best candidates the market has to offer.
We do business with less than 25% of companies over 500 people. That means there is an awful lot of big companies out there that we have not tapped in the past 12-plus months. There are millions literally of companies that are in the small business area that we just have done very little with, with less than 1% of that market.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Dennis that is because the branding campaign was a major disaster that is only known internally.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Scary numbers. But jobs posted in a single month is not evidence of anything on its own. Because their deferred revenue stream is fairly robust and stretched over 12 months, even if this was a major decline, the revenue impact would not be felt for a while.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:13 am
This is a Monster specific issue. We track company job postings from thousands of companies directly from their corporate websites and although job posting activity seems to be flattening, 21% decline is far deeper than we see across the board. Housing, yes down dramatically as you would think, but overall 21% decline indicates deeper issues at Monster. Looks like a little eye off the ball, build it and brand it and they will come isn’t enough anymore with the changing online recruitment landscape. Decreases in online job posting activity (amount of job postings and frequency of posting) are customary and expected in a down eceonomy, but me thinks Monster needs to pay attention to alternatives out there (vertical boards, SEO). I’m not a Monster basher, we still use their services at times, but they need a makeover, bleaching, collagen some botox maybe?
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Perhaps the reposting of jobs has been discontinued and now only the actual jobs are available. Many of my high level customers report that the same jobs are periodically posted on many of the job boards and when my customers check back with the employer they had interviews with previously, they found that the company commented that they had not reposted the job.
Marketing is one thing, disorganization is another and purposely misleading people that wrap their hopes up in a job prospect, even fleetingly, is bad for our industry.
Anyone who predicts economic related information based on any or all job boards is foolish and those who operate off of those stats don’t stay in business very long.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Chris thanks for the good info — the best makeovers begin in the mind….
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
The Tempe location for Monster just announced that they will be leaving the Rio Salado location.
They are seeking one or more companies to take over their lease. Subletting at it’s finest. Maybe with the money that is saved; Monster can bring in Team Leaders that are a little more Call Center savvy. There are 15-20 excellent salespeople that were spared the ax of psuedo leadership decisions that may be looking for employment themselves. Send the Bostonians home and the Scottsdale 50k millionaires.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The alternative, according to some responses at the Barron’s site, are the “free” job posting sites (see below) out there. When did job postings on either Jobfox or Realmatch.com become FREE?
From Barron’s comments:
Employers are posting for free on sites like http://www.realmatch.com and http://www.thejobnetwork.com
Its tough to compete with free.
Comment by James Kennedy – June 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Sites like http://www.jobfox.com too
Comment by Richard – June 2, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Sites like http://www.promotemyjobboardinarticlecomments.com too
Comment by Fool – June 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
We track the UK instance of Monster on the born index* and Monster’s UK job advert count does not look to be so badly impacted as for the US variant. Our data indicates that Monster UK is at least fairing as well as the other leading generalists. Generally speaking the UK market has flattened in recent months and Monster’s job advertising levels seem to be consistent with this.
We’ll obviously know more when Monster UK release their own index figures later this month, but for now at least Monster’s US problems don’t seem to be replicated in the UK.
*the born index is currently in beta and is subject to an estimated accuracy of 2%
June 4th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Posting on jobfox and realmatch are free, we have done it 1000 times. There’s lots of sites that are free, some much better then others.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Monster Telesales will all be millionaires…We are winning…Sal was recently heard telling Darko and the boys that Monster has yet to peak…Sky’s the limits…Anyone seen or heard from Yates in a while…Word on the street is he’s had enough of Sally’s BS