The new Monster (profile; site) launches today.
Depending when you read this, the redesigned site that company officials promise puts the focus on the jobseeker may already be up and running. If not, give it time, a company spokesman said Friday afternoon. Launching a new site, especially one that is global, is not just a matter of flipping switches, he said.
Today’s launch has been in the works for much of 2008. The date was picked at least as far back as October when Monster gave sneak previews at ERE Expo in Ft. Lauderdale. The company’s presence at the show was unavoidable. Buttons touting 1.10.09 where everywhere. Showgoers lined up at the booth to see what was coming and, of course, to pick up one of the purple Monster beach towels or win a stuffed trumpasaurus.
What we saw of the new Monster showed a site that seemed as useful to passive jobseekers on their way up the career ladder as the current one is to active job-seekers. It has career planning tools that let a user compare their progress to others in their field, even in the same job at other companies. And like a good talent management system, the new Monster will show a user where the gaps are in their experience and background.
We certainly didn’t get to see everything Monster had in the bag, but our tour guide, Eric Winegardner, VP of Client Adoption, promised that something like 90 percent of the user experience — recruiter, as well as seeker — was reworked, redesigned, or improved.
After you’ve walked through the new site, tell us what you think.
10 comments
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Yasser Ismail Jan 11, 2009 at 9:02 pm
The home page kinda threw me off, way too cluttered, had a corporate feel to it. That’s my only complaint, rest of the site looks great. The Related Searches function was fantastic, truly loved it.
http://www.jobstaxi.com
Amy Chulik Jan 12, 2009 at 2:57 pm
CareerBuilder.com continues to be the thought leader for the recruitment industry through both successful and testing times in our economy. We continuously strive to create results for both our job seekers and employers, while providing a seamless customer experience.
While we have been in the market with our own revolutionary matching technology for 5 years, Monster is paying and playing to catch up by outsourcing their technology through acquisition.
Our focus is on our customers, and our goal remains the same: to simplify the job search and recruiting process while making it easy for candidates and employers to connect this – and every – season.
Michael H Jan 12, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Monster clearly has the best volume of candidates of all the major job boards, and has a significant advantage over Career Builder in this regard. However, the new user interface on the employer end of Monster.com is a nightmare to use – unintuitive, slow, and makes browser-based navigation very difficult. Basically, it seems that they have packaged less functionality into the new experience and simply dressed it up just to increase the volume of total clicks/resume views (and thus Monster.com profit). Frankly, I strongly dislike the new interface at Monster and would vastly prefer to use Career Builder due to the efficiency, ease of functionality, and the ease with which I can organize my searches. Unfortunately, since the majority of candidates are at Monster.com, I have little choice but to use Monster for my first-round internet searches. In the end though, I’ve grown to dislike Monster’s interface and feel that the new structure very much slows me down, especially when I need to act fast on an immediately available client requirement.
Michael Glenn Jan 13, 2009 at 11:20 am
To Michael H: I don’t think monster.com has made any changes to employer side. They only made changes to the job seekers side. Therefore your negative comments on monster.com is not true because there hasn’t been a change on the employer end of monster.com.
To Amy: Careerbuilder.com is not a leader in recruitment technology. You had layoffs in 2008. Your site concept is old and many people are just using other means to find jobs.
I still think the job boards are good, but they are not as strong as they used to be. Maybe that is why Monster wants to make changes to adapt how jobseekers look for work.
090114 Industry Links | johnsumser.com: Recruiting News and Views Jan 14, 2009 at 1:14 pm
[...] “New, User-Centric” Monster Launches TodayIt’s four days since the launch and there is limited commentary from users (our industry). Nice thorough reviews from Eric Shannon and Joel Cheezman. A particularly useful comment from Jeff Madison. The comments on the Cheezhead piece seem to mostly bash Joel for his historical bashing of Monster. The most interesting thing about the launch is the loud yawn heard around the web. Monster has some real work to do if it doesn’t want to be an anachronism. A redesign is a good start, kind of like a 5% down payment. The proof will be in the delivery of results to paying customers. [...]
Jay Smith Jan 15, 2009 at 11:11 am
This is from the perspective of a job seeker. Not impressed so far – here’s my glitches. Can’t find how to “renew” my resume so it stays on top of the employer searches. No “help” on an actual job application page. Clicking on “apply” just brings up a popup window to manage which resume/cover I am using, don’t see an “apply” button – maybe I’m missing something? That’s what I’ve found so far in 2 days.
Jill Steele Jan 16, 2009 at 10:04 am
Also a comment from a job seeker – I experienced similar issues to another poster here – the pop-up window that lets you select a resume and cover letter version is a nice feature and would be useful if you could then submit the application. It seems to me that while all the bells and whistles are nice and the redesign may indeed have been overdue – the core functionality of the site is to allow users to apply for jobs. It has been a week and I cannot believe that nothing has been done to fix such a critical issue. It is annoying as a job seeker – I would imagine employers might wonder where all their applicants went as well…
Very disappointing.
Despite Loss, Monster Beats Wall Street Predictions; Will Test Trovix Matching Integration In May : ERE.net May 1, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] pursuit of share Monster spent $27 million during the first quarter on marketing its redesigned site and its new features. After a five year absence Monster returned as a Super Bowl advertiser this year, and also partnered [...]
Monster, CareerBuilder Losing Traffic Race To HotJobs : ERE.net Jul 29, 2009 at 7:34 pm
[...] traffic growth is particularly troubling for the company, which relaunched the site in January with a big marketing push, including, in February, its first Super Bowl commercials since 2004. [...]
Vincent Amela Oct 28, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I don’t know about you folks but the employer side of Monster is incredibly slow. You might think it’s just me but the rest of my office is experiencing the same thing and our internet speeds are consistently optimal.