Monster.com is a fat target. It has a market cap of nearly $7 billion and generates over $1 billion per year in revenue. All that revenue is largely generated on paid job listings, starting off at $475 for a single listing. Hotjobs and a bunch of other services provide similar services, all for a fee. Even Craigslist charges for job listings in many markets.
Seattle-based Jobster, which has raised nearly $50 million in venture capital, previously had a similar model - charging employers a lot of money to help them find qualified candidates. But late last year they made a decision to try something different. They went through a round of layoffs earlier this year and are making a dramatic business model shift starting tonight, by making all job listings free (and much more).
Their goal is to do what PlentyOfFish is doing to Match.com. PlentyOfFish is a dating site very much like Match, but doesn’t charge its users to hook them up. The company is doing quite well based solely on advertising revenue, and has been a serious thorn in the side of the for-pay dating sites. By reducing the cost of a job listing to zero, Jobster hopes to make a large dent in Monster’s billion dollar a year revenue stream.
Jobster is also a social network, and is more like Facebook or LinkedIn than Monster.com or other job sites. Like LinkedIn, it’s a place people can keep their resume up to date at all times, even when they aren’t looking for a job. Users also tag themselves (your top five tags are called “supertags”), and Jobster will notify you of jobs that may fit your profile. See CEO Jason Goldberg’s profile page for an example. All of this tag-based matching comes from Jobby, a company Jobster acquired last year. Tags also help users match with other users, and additional information.
Employers can start listing jobs immediately and for free. The form (see image below) has just five fields (Company, Title, Location, Description, Tags). The employer will immediately be alerted to potential candidates based on the tags, and candidates will also see the opportunity appear within their profile. Jobster is also syndicating these listings out via RSS and other methods, so job search engines like Simply Hired and Indeed will be able to add these to other listings from around the web. Edgeio (a company I co-founded) will be one of the first partners to integrate Jobster data into their listings.
Given that Jobster already has a large footprint in the job listing space, this is more than an experiment. It’s a full frontal assault on Monster’s business model. This can also hit LinkedIn indirectly if people start focusing on Jobster as a more interesting place to keep their resumes and contacts. Monster will probably be keeping an alert eye on how Jobster is doing, and this may also force them to update their aging platform and pricing models to more modern standards. For employers and job seekers, this is nothing but good news.
In the same press release announcing the new product, Jobster also confirms the rumor that they have become Facebook’s exclusive partner for job listings (beating out Monster.com and others). The new functionality will be available this Spring.
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Jason- hope you are ready for spam. Your site is going to be the king of it. Monster & CB are rolling over laughing at you - all the way to the bank.
Jason, as to your principle #3- the match is an ongoing process- maybe months or years in the making. It seems the best way to enhance the value on both sides would be deep assessment technology- using third party sites or by building/buying the needed expertise with Jobster. Videos are nice (not without problems of course) and user-generated content sounds helpful, but the real guts of a match are job design and validated, measured capabilities of candidates. Make an ongoing, reliable, one-stop shop meeting the high standards of real I/O science, and you might have something unique. I might also add that the feedback system on ebay appears to be one of the world’s most effective credit reporting systems- BountyJobs.com is tickling around the idea in a limited area, but there has to be a way to bring that dynamic to large scale employment transactions.
I find it abit interesting that a CEO has the time to be replying to anonymous posters, when the company he is running is in desperate straits. You would think there were more pressing things you should be taking care of..
-Something to ponder…
It will be amazing to see how this all unfolds. I think the skeptics have it wrong.
From what I understand, Jobster has plenty of fuel in the tank to last many years and from what I understand has had numerous recent offers to inject even more cash from huge players who are want in on the employment space. Matt Marshall just wrote a piece on VentureBeat as to why there are so many upstarts in the employment space. Simple answer. You’ve got Montster and Careerbuilder out there making a ton of money with very simple products and business models. That is a recipe for upstarts to jump in.
Regarding Jobster. This thing isn’t going anywhere. The model they are building for what comes after free postings could have a big, big lasting impact on our industry for years to come. If you think they are just going to survive on advertising, stop kidding youself. They’ve got Phil Bogle and the GoJobby guys and a bunch of other geniuses over there innovating on business and tech.
Put this in perspective valley waggers. Monster and Careerbuilder spend more than $200M a year on advertising alone. $50M in VC is nothing to play to win in this industry. This one is going to play out for a long while. And even if it’s not Jobster who wins, they are going to shake it up pretty well for the next upstart.
One thing I haven’t heard addressed:
Don’t photos+videos raise EEOC problems?
Interesting, as a small biz owner, I have gotten better results with craigslist than Monster. Plus, craigslist is free can’t beat that price.
Monster will not be around in the same format as it is today in x years because it cost to much.
Why won’t Monster die? Because Monster services their clients - and their clients, by and large, are either large corporations, or professional recruitment firms - a very small number of their clients give them the vast majority of their business. I work for one of the latter, and just today Monster flew a rep in from a city on the other side of the country to spend an hour with us ensuring our new staff were up to snuff on the backend of the system. Monster supports recruiters, provides integration with software like HireDesk… I could go on.
As long as the big companies and big recruiters keep going to Monster to post jobs and view resumés, the job seekers will keep going to Monster as well - and the Monster won’t die. Jobster is assuming a better search model will help them, but it won’t - recruiters couldn’t care less how hard it is to use Monster.
I believe that it’s a good idea to make job posting free.
And I believe that “free job posting” model is a serious threat to Monster.com.
I also decided to build web site which would let recruiters to post jobs for free. These jobs would be also distributed to indeed.com and simplyhired.com.
I started http://www.postjobfree.com at the end of 2006, but it had nothing to do with Jobster
In fact it was inspired by indeed.com (very convenient job search site) and monster.com (I couldn’t believe that Monster is still using annoying ad techniques).
Hello all - just registered and figured I’d post and say hello.
Nice to meet all of you.
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Hello ,
This job market is horrible. I just read today that another law firm closed down. I was laid off two weeks ago and I am a first year. I am worried but not overly so. I know a really good way to find a job that I used in law school but I am confident a lot of others will NOT try because everything thinks that jobs should come to them! That is good for me.
A lot of people getting interviews are doing targeted mailing of their legal resume with cover letters to employers who might not necessarily be hiring. I did this when I was in law school a year ago and it worked.
When I was in law school, I did not get a single interview through on-campus–but that may have had something to do with my grades. I went to an Ivy League college but did not do well law school–at least not in the top 10%. I did fine in my job search, however: By this time last year (as a third year) I had at least four offers. I go to a second/third tier law school in Chicago and really did not think I would have that much luck. I used a service called that LegalAuthority to mail out over 500 letters.
The service cost me over $1,000 but I really think it was worth it. I was getting interviews within 3 days of sending out my letters. I think this is a great way to get a job–even if you decided to do the work you have to pay the LegalAuthority guys to do on your own. The service is expensive but it is really too much work to do on your own.
Be proactive in your job search!! I think the mass mailing idea is the smartest way to get a job by far. The reason is because most law firms when they have extra work do not go out and advertise for associates–they just do not do the extra work. This method of finding a job shows the firms they can get someone to help now without them having to advertise or lift a finger. Plus, most of the firms I approached thought that I was writing them because I knew about them from somewhere. They were impressed I wrote them!
I ordered the LegalAuthority service from the company about a week ago and should be mailing my letters any day. I am sure I am going to get calls pretty quickly (within 3-4 days) after sending my letters. Sure … I will not have heard of a lot of firms that are calling but I am going to have offers I am sure. This is how people are getting legal jobs right now.
Ну что, дамы, расскажите что вас больше всего заводит?…Парни, поделитесь мастерством? =) (а может, и девушки тоже поделятся )Свой первый кунилингус я сделал в 18.. еще задолго до первого сексу.. она очень стеснялась - ни я ни она тогда не знали о таком “развлечении” =) Инстинкт подсказал…С тех пор это доолго было моим любимым делом - обажаю смотреть, как она вытягивает ноги, чувствовать как напрягается ее попка перед оргазмом…
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Okay, this is a happy moment.
I fixed the washing machine. I tried this a few weeks back and nothing worked right then (got it working though), but today the thing just fell apart again. I popped open the front cover, the motor was (this time) easy to remove, I super-glued the bottom pulley back together, and it was running again in 30 minutes. The squeak and rattle are gone. And it looks like this time they’ll stay gone!
What’s your recent victory?
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I know that Hacking is possible by google to find everything but how?
I find that site here the site owner
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I allready tried some rookie google comments like inurl intitle index of/ and like that
but I am interesting in some more advance so I don’t know where to find that cause I am
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anybody give a try at least one advance google search technique ??
Regards
Johnyxx
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Не совсем с вами согласен(
A starting summary on N.Y.I.T., California College of Arts, and DSU
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a exclusive academicly centered university of higher learning. Founded in 1954, the college now holds 10,000 students at its two campus centers. The NYIT is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Specific program accreditations include: National Architectural Accrediting Board, National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Science, American Culinary Federation Educational Institute, and a number of others. NYIT offers applicant undergraduate and graduate career-oriented programs leading to A.A.S, B.A., and M.S. programs.
California Arts College
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Once again the famous socialite [b]Paris Hilton[/b] has shocked the media world by being caught on camera with Mick jagger, full story and pictures here
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