JG and I spoke today on his way to Toronto to play Poker with Jay-Dee of Recruiting.com and many other recruiting cronies. No, I wasn’t talking to my JG - Julian Gude, rather - Jason Goldberg, CEO of Jobster. I really wanted to go to play a few hands with those boys, but My JG basically said, “over my dead body.”
Regardless, during the conversation with Jason, I found out that during his talk at the Direct Employers meeting he made it clear that Monster.com provides its users with a poor user-experience. To be specific, he said that:
these guys are literally printing money with a crap product.”
and that Monster users are:
giving their personal info to some companies that Monster has basically pimped out their site to …”
What was he talking about? Interstitial ad pages. You know, those annoying pages that appear and force you to physically click the link to skip the page before you are allowed to see your content. These are now an integrated part of every Monster search. The defined Monster user path: Job Search > Special Offer > Search Results.
Jason is right about this one - bad job seeker experience - but I am curious about the kind of response rates those pages garner on Monster. Julian worked for a short period of time at a clearing house for this type of product that made huge amounts of money for online leads like these interstitials generate. He shared with me that these registration pages are tremendous direct response vehicles for advertisers and that they will bid anywhere from a few pennies all the way up to $100 or more for every one of these submitted leads. So clearly these are huge money-makers for Monster. What affect do ads like these have on brand? I know that my reaction to seeing an interstitial page is that is asking for my personal information is that the company is begging - not the best brand message.
Monster has taken quite a bit of flack in recent years, and while I agree with Jason’s sentiments completely - I DO give Monster credit for almost single handedly directing job seeker behavior away from newspaper classifieds to online classifieds in the Web 1.0 world. It is easy to dismiss them as the money printing dinosaur and as much as we hate it - today, if you ask any job seeker on the street, they will know what Monster.com is, but few will know a site like Indeed.com for example.
While improvements to online Job search are coming in leaps and bounds - the new job sites have a long road ahead of them evangelizing and getting current users to spread the word about their new solutions in order to change job seeker behavior again. It remains to be seen if the new job sites can attract gaggles of job seekers simply because they’ve produced a better solution or if they will need a blimp and a mascot. What is the key to changing the job seeking behavior of the masses? It can’t happen fast enough for me 
BTW: I updated my Jobster profile today just to see how the new Superstar tags work. Its cool. Go ahead, add your profile, add me to your faves :-). Now - if only they would allow me to display my RSS feed on my profile page….
Technorati Tags: monster, jobster, intersitials
EXCELER8ion is where Julian and Shannon Seery Gude write on Social Media, Interactive Marketing, Technology and Internet Business Topics. 
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[…] I read Shannon Seery Gude’s post in reply to Jason Goldberg’s comments as they relate to Monster.com being totally crap: Jobster’s Jason Goldberg and the Monster.com User-Experience. A very good post I thought, fair and balanced reporting, Shannon is so foxy. […]
Jobster’s Jason Goldberg and the Monster.com User-Experience. A very good post I thought, fair and balanced reporting, Shannon is so foxy. If nothing else, I learned what interstitial advertising is and already have a call in to my people to see how I can add this obtrusive – but clever – money-maker to my
[…] Jobster’s Jason Goldberg and the Monster.com User-Experience by Job seeker @ Thu, 26 Oct 2006 12:12:49 -0600 Jason is right about this one - bad job seeker experience - but I am curious about the kind of response rates those pages garner on Monster. Julian worked for a short period of time at a clearing house for this type of product that made … Real Estate Investing, New Home Original post: Jobster’s Jason Goldberg and the Monster.com User-Experience by at Google Blog Search: job seeker […]
? I mean, what if a lot of people started to post the video, or for neophytes like me, linked to it instead? This thing could get really big, you know, like really horrible. After all, we bloggers are very influential you know, we know crap when we see it. Some of us are well connected too. Now, many would argue that Monster.com is not a totally crap product at all. Further reading of the blogs will attest to that, as would millions of satisfied users
[…] I want to ask whether Monster.com has accounted for the possibility that if some people take to posting/linking to the video they may have inadvertently created the potential for an altogether different kind of monster to raise its ugly head among the recruiting bloggers, and who knows where? I mean, what if a lot of people started to post the video, or for neophytes like me, linked to it instead? This thing could get really big, you know, like really horrible. After all, we bloggers are very influential you know, we know crap when we see it. Some of us are well connected too. […]
[…] I want to ask whether Monster.com has accounted for the possibility that if some people take to posting/linking to the video they may have inadvertently created the potential for an altogether different kind of monster to raise its ugly head among the recruiting bloggers, and who knows where? I mean, what if a lot of people started to post the video, or for neophytes like me, linked to it instead? This thing could get really big, you know, like really horrible. After all, we bloggers are very influential you know, we know crap when we see it. Some of us are well connected too. […]
[…] 5) Community (see Craigslist, Jobster and theLadders) Electronic job search is lonely business – the best sites provide support, guidance and encouragement through an active community of users. 6) Flexibility (broad features and multiple access methods) Active jobseekers find benefit in real-time RSS feeds, resume tips, and search management tools along the lines of Jibber Jobber; whereas passive job seekers gain benefit from intelligent scouts that email them only when new jobs match or exceed their requirements. 7) Respect (confidentiality, no false promises, and treated like a customer – not eyeballs) If search is my passion, then respect is my pet peeve. Too many job boards treat jobseekers with disrespect. Interstitial ads on Monster, an exaggerated coverage claim on GetTheJobs, tag spam allowed on CareerBuilder, and an absence of organic search results above the fold on SimplyHired, are all examples of disrespect – to most job boards, jobseekers are merely ‘eyeballs’ to be sold. 8) Value (a fair return on my investment of time and money) There’s no free lunch … this is just as true for jobseekers as it is for diners. If we gain value from electronic job search, then we must pay. On most sites ‘payment’ takes the form of reduced jobseeker efficiency resulting from the placement of non-organic ads. But there are a few sites, like theLadders, that charge a monthly fee instead. Either way, the best sites provide a high return on our investment. Jeff: You say search is your passion … what are you doing to improve job search? Bob: Well, the Job Search Engine Guide is my most visible attempt to raise awareness about the limitations of today’s job search experience; and of course I use the blog to reinforce the gains being made by the best job boards. But where we’re really making progress, although quietly, is in on the technology side … we’ve developed a tool called AutoCoder that interprets job ads and categorizes these ads using standardized occupational tags and purity scores. The benefits are many, including dramatically increased search relevance, reduced errors of omission, elimination of spam ads, plus the ability to set custom relevance thresholds – some of the same things you’re seeing with Just-Posted. And I must say, it’s nice to find a kindred spirit! […]
[…] 7) Respect (confidentiality, no false promises, and treated like a customer – not eyeballs) If search is my passion, then respect is my pet peeve. Too many job boards treat jobseekers with disrespect. Interstitial ads on Monster, an exaggerated coverage claim on GetTheJobs, tag spam allowed on CareerBuilder, and an absence of organic search results above the fold on SimplyHired, are all examples of disrespect – to most job boards, jobseekers are merely ‘eyeballs’ to be sold. […]
[…] Third, interstitial ads still separate users from the content they seek … imagine if Google forced us to view full-page ads before returning search results? Would Google still be number one? I’d bet against it. […]
[…] WorkBloom « Daily itzBig Links 2007-02-02 | Main The Adventures of Job Boy (Part II: Birth of a Nemesis) ”Interstitial ad pages. You know, those annoying pages that appear and force you to physically click the link to skip the page before you are allowed to see your content. These are now an integrated part of every Monster search.” (From EXCELER8ion) […]
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