Are you talking about Monster.com or Monsters in general?

This will take courage as it will initially have a negative effect on their bottom line, and possibly long-term as well if they can’t differentiate from the myriad of other online job sites out there now. It will be interesting to see how far they go and what results.

This makes the “talent management” approach interesting. By allowing job seekers to measure themselves up against the competition and look at a gap analysis in their skill set could do two things – 1) prevent the job seeker from applying in the first place if they’re not qualified based on the analysis and 2) (i’m not sure if Monster is looking at it this way) provide some long awaited meaningful feedback from the employer (albeit automated) as to why they were not considered for the position – i.e. a “here is where your skills are lacking for the position” message.

But of course this doesn’t take into account the fact that if I’m not really looking in the first place I’m not on Monster. And even if this tool were to draw in “passives” curious as to how they stack up (one of their hopes I suspect), any process that takes longer than 2-3 minutes will fail to keep anyones attention (and they’re off to update their profile photo on LinkedIN).

Nice, but will employers bite?

Monster and their ilk should be thinking beyond resume database. The “buzz” does nothing to move the dial in that regard and why many employers will hold onto their dollars or try more innovative ideas.