A loyal reader and not-so-loyal Monster (wiki - search) client sent us the following promo e-mail that went out last week:
The recipient followed-up the forwarded message by saying, “Now Monster is offering me cell phones, DVDs, and beauty products. Is this supposed to be a way to make my life as an employer better?
“If this was a B-school case, they’d get a F for not understanding basic marketing tenets, like segmentation, targeting and positioning … Oh, and I don’t know, maybe understanding your unique value proposition to your customers.”
Ouch! Well, at least they’re not pushing beer.
June 30th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Yikes, that’s actually sad. Monster Junk
June 30th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
When is a job board not a job board? When they do crap like this…
June 30th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I knew you couldn’t abstain from bashing Monster for too long, though I would have lost the over/under bet on 30 days - I would have predicted you’d be able to refrain for at least 6 weeks. It’s much like my inability to stop criticizing the daily newspapers - even though the targets are becoming easier and easier every day to shoot at and the critiques are becoming less and less sporting, their actions are just too dumbfounding to go without comment. Your post is clearly another sign that Monster is becoming increasingly desperate to find alternative revenue streams to prop up a failing business and a withering value proposition.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I don’t buy that this email was sent to an “employer” customer at the Monster. That would be a B-School targeting F, but if this is a consumer, job seeker customer of Monster, it is not really that bad a test to see if the monster brand strength applies to other areas - think Amazon perhaps?
June 30th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
that is an award winner. I was surprised to find out recently that careerbuilder seems to be following in monster’s path. one of our managers is leaving the company after five years and she activated her resume on both of these boards. she blogged about what happened here http://www.hispanicjobs.info/i-am-leaving-the-company-but-i-love-our-product-more-than-ever/
recruiter spam can be almost as disrespectful
July 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am
It has officially come full circle. Classified ads in print newspapers have more value to job posters and job seekers than Monster does.
There are many great job boards out there. Monster is not one of them. I am surprised they are not sinking even faster than they already are, to be honest.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Why so much bitterness towards Monster Jerry and others? Hard to understand that kind of angst - it’s like the old Howard Stern message - if you don’t like it turn off the radio - if you get no value from Monster, don’t use them - and allow the rest of the millions that do get value there continue on their merry way - job boards are a valuable job seeker tool - no getting around that!
July 7th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I think job sites are great, particularly those that have real jobs listed on them!
I do however agree that sometimes these companies actually forget what business they are in. In Australia for instance the largest job sites are owned by the largest media companies. As a result they are in the listings business, and work on getting the largest volume of listings they can; as we have seen they don’t have to have a job focus to be a jobs site. When you visit these job sites the same deal as with Monster; they are trying to sell you a business, a house, a car and who knows what else, when all you actually want to do is look for a job.
Knowing what business you are in and what your audience want are rather important.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
The constant berating of monster is getting a little old. So you don’t like them, big deal. They’re not exactly the Titanic..tens of millions of candidates and thousands of employers find a hell of a lot of value in them. So they’re partnering, looking for revenue streams…what exactly is wrong with that? Stop looking for reasons to hate them and realize that all being said, they do still have a lot of value.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
This was a fake phishing e-mail. But thanks for bashing Monster without knowing what you are talkiong about.
July 30th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Actually Monster has sold Beer. The architect of all of these kinds of intrusions into the purity of the career site is Mark Stoever. Some how this empty suit has managed to hold his ground at Monster. He is a born liar and fits in well with the Sal Ianuzzi culture. This is a “yes man” who will do whatever is necessary to survive.