Since launching in 2003, TheLadders has been pretty clear what it’s all about. It’s the place for jobs who pay $100,000 and up, and for candidates in that range.
No more.
Beginning in September, says TheLadders, any salaried worker on their way up is welcome.
“It fulfills our mission and our vision,” Alex Douzet said in announcing the change. Right from the beginning, explained Douzet, president and co-founder, he and CEO Marc Cenedella had their eye on the up-and-coming professionals.
They focused first on the $100,000 segment, seeing it as an underserved market. Now, he said, the time is right to broaden the scope.
For sure it’s a much bigger market, even with the new salary floor of $40,000. The U.S. Census Bureau says just 9.7 percent of the workforce makes more than $100,000. Even allowing for those a step down to the $75,000 floor, that’s still only 18.1 percent.
By resetting the floor, TheLadders broadens the potential market to something like half the workforce.
However, that resetting impacts the cachet TheLadders has cultivated as the source of “Hand-screened $100k+ jobs,” a point reinforced most recenlty in a series of provocative TV ads.
So the natural question for Douzet is: Doesn’t this make TheLadders just like any other job board?
“The $100,000 cachet is not something we are ever going to lose,” Douzet insists. “That won’t go away.”
Instead, he said, expanding TheLadders to all but entry-level professionals will be a benefit to both job seekers needing help with their next career move, and to recruiters who want to source candidates who have already been qualified.
Says Douzet, “We are a curated network” made up of “the right jobs, the right recruiters” and vetted candidates.
The screening TheLadders does for the $100,000 candidates in its fee and free network will be extended to the candidates in the lower salary ranges. So a job seeker now making $60,000 will get access only to matching jobs within an equivalent and next-step salary band.
That’s done to “avoid spamming” of recruiters and hiring managers by job seekers not qualified by experience or rank for a too-lofty position. Douzet said candidates and jobs would be grouped by experience and salary and each would be matched on that basis. Recruiters can search the entire database if they choose.
For job seekers who sign-up for TheLadders’ premium service (which is $15 for a month at the current promotional rate), they get access to a career counselor, a resume critique, and can search for specific recruiters. Free clients can see, but can’t apply, to jobs, though their resume is available to recruiters.
None of that will change, Douzet said, acknowledging that focusing on $100,000 jobs helped distinguish TheLadders from other job sites. But, he said, what really set TheLadders — and its eight verticals — apart was the services it provided its paying customers.
“Just showing me the job listing isn’t enough,” Douzet says. Job seekers want help with everything from their resume to elevator pitches, and that, he said, isn’t something just $100,000+ wage earners want.
