Even though unemployment is at the highest levels in a decade, companies are still finding it difficult to find the best qualified candidates to fill the positions that are available. The reason for that is because more often than not, the best qualified candidates are already employed and not necessarily looking for new jobs. Certainly not on job boards like Monster.com or HotJobs. So if the best candidates won’t seek out job openings on employment sites, the jobs need to seek them out.

That is the idea behind TalentSeekr, which is essentially an ad network for jobs. Companies fill out what jobs they are trying to fill in what locations, then TalentSeekr creates and tests multiple ads across the Web—social networks, blogs, forums, search engines, you name it. Based on the response rate and quality of the applicants that come through the ads, TalentSeekr optimizes the mix of ad types (banner, text, video, creative elements) and placement. (Watch the video below to see how it works). If more qualified applicants are coming in through LinkedIn than Facebook, it readjusts the mix. (In fact, LinkedIn makes a lot of money through recruitment ads on its own site in much the same manner. TalentSeeker is attempting to apply the same principles in a more distributed manner across the Web).

“What we are doing is what job boards did to newspapers. Everybody knows the space is about to shift big,” says Ryan Caldwell, the CEO of EnticeLabs, the company behind TalentSeekr. EnticeLabs was founded in August 2007, and funded with $1.3 million in angel money so far.  It’s been operating in a private beta until recently, and already counts among its customers Dell, GE, IBM, Adidas, Rebock, Google, and Microsoft. In addition to TalentSeekr, which is aimed at companies looking to recruit, EnticeLabs’ other product is CareerAds, which is aimed at blogs and Websites looking to display job-focused ads.

TalentSeekr’s approach takes longer than filling a job on Monster, but if you are looking for 3,000 SAP consultants, it could be a better approach.  If you are looking to just fill a single position quickly, you are probably still better off with Monster or some other job board.  Hiring managers get a dashboard (see screenshot below) which shows the number of ad impressions, clicks, and ultimate applications resulting from the ads, as well as the geographic distribution. The average clickthrough rates for TalentSeekre ads can range from 0.15 percent to 0.37 percent (see table below).  Then among those who click, the application rate can be anywhere from 0.22 percent for medical jobs to 2.68 percent for tech jobs.  But with an average cost-per-click of around $1, and an average cost per qualified applicant of anywhere from $200 to $2,600, it still beats hiring a headhunter.

Job ad networks have been tried before by both large companies (Monster has its Career Ad Network) and small. A Y Combinator company called SnapTalent tried this before shifting over to career fairs, and ultimately deadpooling (their site is no longer online). Caldwell isn’t worried about the same fate happening to EnticeLabs because he’s gone after big enterprise with thousands of employees first, rather than the other way around. “This is not something where you can do a cute little startup,” he says, “you need scale.”

The other thing that gives him confidence is that big employers like IBM and GE are talking about shifting large online recruiting budgets away from poorly-performing job boards. Since TalentSeekr already tracks the performance of its ads, it can also plug into applicant tracking systems used by HR departments to get feedback into how the people hired end up doing in terms of job evaluations, longevity and other factors.

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We’ve received word that Monster has decided to lay off the 30-35 employees that work for subsidiary Tickle, a company that it acquired for about $94M in May 2004.

Tickle includes not only a tests and quizzes site that shares the same name but also Ringo, a photo and video-sharing site, and LoveHappens, an online dating site.

As part of the decision, Ringo and LoveHappens will be completely shut down while Tickle will be absorbed into Affinity Labs, a content verticals company recently acquired by Monster.

The Tickle site will change focus once absorbed by Affinity Labs, although just how is yet to be seen. All layoffs will be complete by the end of June; employees were told of the decision at an internal meeting yesterday.

Ringo and LoveHappens are now in the DeadPool.

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Job listings site Monster announced today that it has paid $61M for a young startup called Affinity Labs, which runs a set of websites for niche audiences such as police officers and nurses.

These sites, while only a few months old and attracting a total of only 800,000 unique visitors per month, are attractive to Monster because it can use them to target professionals who are in high demand by employers. The sites are essentially cookie-cutter information portals with social networking features that seek to attract members of particular demographics. Monster has already established a presence on each of the sites by deploying career search badges, like the one below, on their homepages.

A couple things are peculiar about this deal. First, Monster has paid a handsome sum of money for a company that offers neither a large user base nor coveted technological capabilities (as far as I can tell, these are simple CRUD websites built on Ruby on Rails). Second, Monster is retreading very familiar ground by purchasing several informational portals from the same guy, Christopher Michel, who sold them Military.com, an information portal for servicemen, in 2004 for $40M.

In fact, we’ve heard that this was not a coincidence but rather a repeat performance of sorts that has been planned all along. Affinity Labs was reportedly started in 2006 as a way for Michel to replicate and enhance his success with Military.com by selling a handful of similar sites to Monster within a relatively short period of time (an exit of one to two years). Monster even planned to invest in Affinity Labs before CEO Andrew J. McKelvey stepped down from his post during the company’s options backdating scandal in late 2006. Once McKelvey was gone, Monster shied away from investing and Affinity Labs raised its Series A with Mayfield instead. However, Affinity Labs continued to collaborate with the Military.com team within Monster to develop its handful of portals.

With today’s announcement, Michel’s plan of building a company with a specific Monster exit in mind has come to fruition. Whether Michel stays with the company will probably determine whether or not Monster has paid too much for the sprouting company, as he will be instrumental to their blossoming into established sites that can drive quality traffic to Monster.

The announcement highlights the fact you don’t need to build a revolutionary product if you have a well-defined buyer in mind from the start (and it doesn’t hurt have a little bit of history with that buyer as well). Affinity Labs didn’t build anything worth mention in the tech press, but it quickly executed on a project that it knew would be attractive for Monster given that company’s need for reaching professionals in demand. The deal also highlights the weaknesses and needs of a company like Monster, which has a harder time developing internally and will therefore gladly pay for several small startups rather than trying to deploy online destinations itself.

Update: This piece was not intended to suggest that there was any improper relationship between Michel and Monster that would lead to an inappropriately high purchase price. Michel’s previous sale to Monster, Military.com, is currently valued at hundreds of millions of dollars; therefore, it’s conceivable that one or more of Affinity Lab’s information portals could become just as successful and justify the $61M sales tag. This deal was also vetted by Goldman Sachs, which should allay concerns of impropriety due to Monster’s previous relationship with Michel. My skepticism over whether Monster paid too much stems from my cursory assessment of Affinity Lab’s properties, not a detailed look at the company’s revenues or even Michel’s standing relationship with Monster. I’ve been told that the architecture behind Affinity Labs’ sites is actually quite sophisticated, as it allows for the quick deployment of new properties.

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