Monster.com “Doubletake” Ad.

There’s never been a better time to go to Monster.com

Live Recruitment Rumble - May 7th, 11:00am

There’s nothing like a good stoush.

And frankly, while I like nothing better than a good old jab at industry players like job boards and recruiters, I reckon it’s about time I took on one of my own kind.

So, rally around the shelter shed, peoples, it’s gonna be a bewdy. (details here)

Join online recruitment industry leaders Geoff Jennings and Thomas Shaw for a LIVE “Recruitment Rumble” Thursday May 7th, 11:00am - 12:00pm. All gloves will be off as Geoff and Thomas go head to head in a discussion about key topics (Geoff may even wear his shiny purple boxing shorts).

Joining in the live discussion is Diane Lee, founder of Even It Up! providing a perspective from the job seeker point of view and “outsider” to the industry.

Topics for discussion include:

- Future of the traditional Job board?
- SEEK vs. CareerOne/Monster - who will win?
- Fake job adverts?
- RCSA: Soft as a marshmellow?
- Should I use a recruitment agency or go direct?
- Background searching candidates online?

Do you want to listen or join in the discussion? Register here.

Geoff Jennings is the controversial man at the helm of http://www.geoffjennings.com, a site dedicated to keeping the recruitment bastards honest. He has worked for online industry leaders and is currently Managing Director of www.onlinerecruitment.com.au

Thomas Shaw is the “pretty boy” of online recruitment, having established his stranglehold of the industry via his blog www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/blog By day he works in the recruitment industry, and at night a tweet from Thomas can make or break your organisation.

Diane Lee is the founder of Even It Up! which aims to provide information about recruitment practices for Australian jobseekers. Diane is leading the revolt from frustrated job seekers who want an even playing field www.evenitup.com.au

Michael Harvey Appointed CEO At CareerOne

Michael Harvey has been appointed new CEO of CareerOne. He succeeds Dr Stephen Hollings, who has been appointed director of sales strategy at News Ltd. Both appointments are effective as of May 1.

I had hoped there’d be no casualties. But I guess if you’re gonna fight a war, you want your best people up front, you know, leading the troups and all that.  I’m, not certain Harvey is C1’s MacArthur.  His background is in finance and he spent 11 years at Foxstudios.  A strategy man - no doubt.  But C1 needs more than strategy, it needs leaders who’ll fight on the frontlines.  Will Harvey be a leader with a viable weapon, or a spreadsheet?

Monster.com | “Battle”

Monster gathers its troops for the great battle down under.
(Didn’t realise Thomas Shaw could play the keyboards…)

Monster Vs. Seek - The Rumble Down Under

The much-anticipated heavyweight battle between the undefeated champion of the job board space, Seek, and the 400-kilo gorilla, Monster,(who will be powering the new CareerOne site) is just around the corner.

And the word on the street is that the contender is in the best shape it has ever been.

This scenario is not dissimilar to an event, thirty-five years ago, The Rumble In The Jungle, when Muhammad Ali entered the ring to challenge undisputed heavyweight champion George Foreman. The fight with Foreman represented more than just a chance for him to become the second former heavyweight champ to regain the title. A victory over Foreman meant validation and redemption for Ali.

For Monster, beating Seek would signify their redemption after having to leave the Australian market several years ago. Seek is still thought to be so invincible that Monster/CareerOne aren’t given much of a chance against them.

Fight Stats:

How many Unique browsers per month:

SEEK:           3,192,692
CareerOne:  1,620,077

How many job ads on site:

SEEK:           97,869
CareerOne:  31,874

Source: Nielsen NetRatings Australia, March ‘09

This sets up for one of the greatest heavyweight battles we have seen since Seek took on print - and won (and don’t start on me about how they haven’t really won, peoples.  You’ll start to sound like the fundey right-wing Christians still trying to suggest that evolution is nothing more than a ‘theory)’.

We Do Anything To Get You The Right Candidate

I am excited by what the Monster/CareerOne marketing machines will produce for the Australian market.

Dr Hollings On The Monster Mash

Recently I had an opportunity to chuck a few questions in the direction of Dr Stephen Hollings, Chief Executive Officer - CareerOne.

The overall tone of the responses reflect Dr Hollings’ confidence that the merger will have a good shot at competing with Seek.  Many have tried…is it a competition worth entering, though?  The way we recruit is going to change exponentially over the next five years.  Social media is gaining prominence as a means of communication and networking.  If you give individuals and companies a means of dialoguing with one another directly, the need for job boards will be redundant.  And this redundancy of the current way of doing things will alter the landscape of job searching - irrevocably.  I reckon any company trying to claim Seek’s turf is barking up the wrong tree and might end up heading down the same path as my old mate Jimmy.

Online Recruitment News (ORN) - How did the discussions of a deal arise?
Obviously we keep an eye on the industry both locally and internationally, and we have maintained a dialogue with a number of major players. We were aware that Monster’s new management were prioritising international expansion. We could see great synergies between the companies and so had some discussions to look at ways we could work together. The more we talked, the more avenues we explored and both of us realised that a full joint venture made a lot of sense.

What does each party contribute to the deal?
It’s a 50-50 deal, so each side will be contributing equally. In practical terms, as the global leader in online recruitment Monster brings unrivalled expertise and a world-leading technology platform. News has a strong, established brand in C1, expertise of the local market and marketing to it, and the support of News Limited’s print and online operations. Again, during our discussions these synergies became very obvious and CareerOne is looking forward to being able to take advantage of Monster’s strengths to propel our growth further in the Australian market.

In what way will this partnership change the online recruitment space in Australia?
Obviously we don’t want to broadcast the precise details to our competitors, but its safe to say that the combination of Monster and News Limited is going to create an extremely powerful and compelling product that, we believe, will be the only organisation with the power to catch Seek.

We believe – and every indication we have had from the market supports our belief – that the market welcomes more competition in this space. We’ve been delighted to receive messages of support from right across the industry which really wants to see some serious competition to Seek. When I came into this role many senior recruiters asked me whether News was really serious about the online employment marketplace. I think News has demonstrated that it is and this joint venture with Monster firmly reinforces that and takes it to the next level. . Therefore I think it has really reinforced our credentials as a committed competitor to Seek.

How will the News Ltd print folks be integrated into the new offering?
There won’t be a radical difference from what you see now – the offering will be fully integrated and supported  throughout News stable of publications – and that includes all the online properties as well as the newspapers and magazines. We certainly expect to be able to build upon Monster’s experiences with their newspaper alliances in the United States to further develop our integration points. As I stated in my previous answer, News Limited is very serious in its commitment to the market – you only have to see the resources they’ve thrown behind CareerOne over the past couple of years. This joint venture is the next part of News’ plan for growth in the online employment market and it is throwing its full weight behind the joint venture.

What is the exit strategy for both parties?
The terms of the relationship naturally have to remain confidential, but let me assure you that both parties are absolutely committed to this joint venture and to realising its enormous potential. This is a long-term play.

What will be the name of this new offering?
For the foreseeable future the company will retain the CareerOne name and branding. Clearly the Monster name has great worldwide recognition and respect, so we are currently assessing the best way to let people know the business is now a joint venture between the world’s biggest online employment company and Australia’s largest media company.

Anything else to add?
Just that I hope the market is as excited as we are by the possibilities of this joint venture. CareerOne has had a terrific couple of years – we’ve rebranded, launched mySpace jobs and eBay jobs – a world first, posted record numbers of visitors with a new record set in January 2009 and consistently overtaken myCareer.

News Limited has demonstrated their commitment to the careers market over the past few years and the result has been a huge leap in our growth and brand strength. To now add the weight and experience of Monster to the company is a real game changer… watch this space!

News Limited and Monster Worldwide Announce Joint Venture

“Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster.com, the premier global online employment brand, will own 50% of News Limited’s employment website CareerOne.com.au in the new joint venture.”

What does this mean for the Australian job board space? Probably not much. Here’s the reason why - Monster have previously folded in Australia, CareerOne has never been any threat to market leader Seek.  Two wrongs don’t make a right, two positives don’t make a negative.  there’s no reason to suggest that this partnership will achieve any more than either entity achieved separately.

What does this mean for the advertising market?  Big dollars. Monster’ll no doubt be putting truckloads into the promotional needs of this alliance…a bit of a boost in a low ebb.

It’s the job seeker who may receive a nominal benefit from the new lovers.  Monster has created some innovative career mapping tools targeted at the job seeker, probably similar to that of Mycareer’s Headhunter offering.  This might make the process of job seeking a little more efficient.

Schmooze Your Way Into Australia

Virginia based aggregator Smuz.com (powered by Indeed.com) is looking at integrating with a job search engine in the Australian market. Any takers?

A quick look at the site reveals an unimpressive design but an impressive amount of jobs available. Smuz is boasting about 500,000 uvs so far. The site only launched in March of this year and is FREE to post on.

A quick chat with founder Paul Pickthorne reveals his optimism for this type of service catching on here in the same way it has in the US.

Pickthorne reckons the move towards aggregators is inevitable and that the business of selling job ads (essentially a page of html) for hundreds of dollars will inevitably die. Bandwidth and storage cost pennies compared to a decade ago and the move online to free services is well established and irresistible to most users.

He hopes sites like Seek.com.au will realise that they are turning down free traffic. This is what’s happened with job boards in the US. Ultimately, the job ad copyright isn’t owned by the job board but by the employer who wrote it and they want as many eyeballs as possible. Seek.com.au runs the risk of becoming less valuable as a vendor to employers as more people move to the job search engines. Indeed now has more job seeker traffic than Monster in the US.

Smuz generates revenue from: the Adsense ads found all over the site; from payment from Indeed for traffic they send to their sponsored jobs and from the traffic with affiliate programs with other sites that have complementary services.

It will be interesting to watch how this plays out…

.asia Landrush Kicks Off Today

The Landrush phase for .Asia domain names started at about 10p.m. last night our time. It ends on the 12th March 2008. What this means is that any member of the general public can apply for webestate in Asia. If uncontested, the space is yours. If it is contested, you will be asked to enter a bidding process for ownership.

The timing of the Landrush didn’t aid my already well-documented insomnia as I spent the good part of last night buying up on Asian webestate. It was worth the dark patches under my eyes this morning. This is the kind of opportunity folks are witness to only every few generations. It represents the chance to be a pioneer on untouched land. It’s great to see that Seek, Career Builder and Montser have secured their slice of Asian cyberspace, but where were the other players? C’mon guys, surely you’re not that hung up on your need for beauty sleep?