Monstrous! – Can Monster pull it off?

Once, in a world far, far away (i.e., the 1990s), Monster beat its chest and claimed to be the biggest and best source for online jobs in the world, bar none. Then, last week, Monster – diminished, no longer for sale, and facing significant declines in revenue – once again beat its chest and said that it would be number one, again. Per Sal Iannuzzi, CEO President: “This is disruptive to every one of our competitors.”

So what does disruption look like? Well, kind of like what Monster’s competitors are already doing:

•  Increase the number of jobs on Monster by tenfold
• Aggregate content on candidates from everywhere on the web (no doubt through recent acquisition TalentBin) – and increase the number of candidates
• Move to cloud-based solutions for employers
• Add PPC

The result of this ‘disruptive’ behavior? More money. More stockholder value. And…Monster, once again king of the online recruiting world.

Wow.

So, back in the real world, what does this actually mean? If you’re an employer of any size, expect to see some serious sale efforts from the Monster staff. If you’re an investor, you’ll get to see the Monster ‘road show’. And if you’re a candidate – well, maybe you’ll see more advertising trying to lure you back.

If Monster had done this in, say, 2010, it might have had a disruptive effect. At that point, Indeed was still pivoting to become a full-fledged job board, people aggregation was in its infancy, and competition for employer-based PPC offering was nil. In 2014, things are different. Each ‘disruptive’ element of Monster’s plan is relatively mature, with significant competition for each. Will the market look kindly on Monster’s efforts? In the short term, yes. In the long term, it’s all about sales. If they go up, then Monster’s stock price should rise (maybe).

My take? Hmm. What’s proposed is not bad – in fact, a lot of it makes sense – but it’s pretty late in the game, and it’s a stretch to call the efforts ‘disruptive’. More like, ‘well, we’ve tried everything else, let’s give this a shot!’. All in all, it doesn’t seem like a sure-fire recipe for success. One other factor: you can have the best plans in the world, but success relies on execution. From what I’ve seen thus far, the current Monster management team seems a bit weak in this area.

But, as I’ve said many times before, this is just one Job Board Doctor’s opinion.

What’s yours?

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