Monster.com is the undisputed 800 lb. gorilla in the online recruitment world, boasting nearly 25 million unique visitors in September 2001. It claims over 800,000 individual job listings in the U.S., not counting "Monster Network" partner listings.
No question Monster is successful, but there's a quirky paradox in the job hunter's universe: Bigger sites mean more job listings, but smaller, more targeted sites tend to deliver more focused results. Job hunters know that size isn't everything.
Branding isn't everything either, although it's certainly boosted Monster along. More on that below.
Brand, brand and more brand.
Building an online recruitment brand around more-cute-than-scary, rotund monsters was a smart start for Monster.com. It gave the mainstream and trade press clever opportunities for wordplay in describing the site and its mission, and photo opportunities galore. So many job site articles open with a shot of CEO Jeff Taylor and the oversized monster mascot in the company's lobby that it's become a cliché.
More press means more awareness and more traffic, which means more jobs listed and more jobs perused. There's a lot more to recruitment success than that, of course, but it's a healthy start. Score one for Monster.
Child's play
Monster's interface has elements that I call "Fisher-Price." That sounds like some kind of geeky Web insult but it's actually a compliment. It means that in the user's mind when they think of Monster.com, the edges of the site are soft and round and pliable: It's a safe place to navigate. The site both looks and "feels" comfortable and approachable.
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"Fisher-Price" user interface
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Rigid résumé interface
Monster.com makes a major misstep when it comes to résumé posting. The agent that allows job hunters to build and post a résumé is intended to keep things clean and orderly, and while that's probably a help to employers and agencies seeking candidates, it makes the process tedious and restrictive for job seekers.
For example, it's increasingly popular with job hunters to list a "summary" or set of "accomplishments" at the top of a résumé. Monster's "candidate info" screen forces the use of the old "objective" standby instead. At the very least, it requires artful wording on the part of the job seeker to turn it into a summary.
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Objective option, but no summary
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Another trouble spot in the résumé posting process is the "target company" screen. It's optional, but if a job hunter wants to make use of it, he's forced to select a single job category. If he has a strong interest in financial services OR consulting, he can't use this screen, and for job hunters in fields that span categories (like Webmastering), the screen is useless.
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Users can select only one job category
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Continue ...
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