Ten Things I Hate About Monster.com’s Job Search |
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I decided to bite the bullet and begin the job search again. The first step in this process was to update my Monster.com resume. I had forgotten about all the negative things that come with that simple action. I know there are many job sites out there. It may be time for me to start exploring them in more detail. In all honesty, Monster.com can't be blamed for all of these - many of the difficulties below are from recruiters that are likely to be on every job site.
10. Getting 30 e-mails in a day - In 2001 when I was looking for any technology job, I didn't get any e-mails. This may appear to be a weird thing to complain about. However almost all the e-mails are...
9. Irrelevant jobs - If I don't have the skill listed on my resume, it may be safe to assume that I don't have "extensive experience" in that skill.
8. Recruiters - Almost every job is from a recruiter and not the company actually hiring. While recruiters can be helpful, they seem to have "so many jobs available" and rarely just give me the few that match my resume.
7. "Send me your resume" - Every e-mail I've gotten from a recruiter on Monster requests this. Aren't they looking at my resume before contacting me? One recruiter actually wrote me, "After looking your resume, we feel you'd be a fit for several jobs we have available. Can you please forward on your resume?"
6. "Excellent salary and benefits including generous stock options" - Every company is offering that. If everyone is offering excellent salary then aren't they offering average salary? I'll be sure to make note this if it comes down to salary negotiations. I'd love the opportunity to open up Salary.com, call up these e-mails and ask for the salary in the 80 percentile.
5. "Call me and we'll discuss opportunities" - Recruiters must love talking on the phone. Unfortunately, it's terribly inconvenient and inefficient to talk to 20 recruiters in a day. It's far easier for me to keep all job descriptions straight with e-mail. Yet no one seems to want that way. Let's just pretend we are dating or making friends online - start out with e-mails, see if we have common interests, and then proceed to phone and meeting in person.
4. Mystery Companies - The recruiters never tell you the company they have the job for. I don't know how I am supposed to give an opinion on a job without knowing the company. I understand why recruiters don't give the company name (for fear that you'll just apply directly to that company), but it's one of the most basic pieces of information.
3. Invites to LinkedIn - A couple of recruiters have asked to join my LinkedIn account. Why would I want to be connected to them? We don't have a relationship other than they saw my resume online, e-mailed me, and I responded. I get the feeling this serves them more than it serves me.
2. "We like what we saw on your resume, please apply for a job our website" - Wait a second, you already have my resume. The necessary information is all there. Why do I need to go through the effort of entering my name, address, e-mail, education, main phone, secondary phone, cell phone, cell phone provider (I'm not making this up), desired salary as one place asked. By the way, I desire at least 2 million dollar a year - actually let's better bump that up to 5 million.
1. Interstitial ads - Every time you log in, I see a paid advertisement for Monster.com. It has all my information pre-filled from my Monster.com resume with a big button to accept whatever the advertisement is offering. Unless you are very careful to select the "No Thanks" every time, be prepared for a world of spam. I fear one day I may accidentally move my sensitive mouse slightly as I click hitting the "I agree" button. Monster has no option to opt-out of these.
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I love this post. I would like to see more direct recruiting too. Online job search is turning into temp agency recruiting ground and that’s frustrating.
I hate Monster. When I was looking for a job a few years ago (I’m always looking, actually) I signed up. It was a HUGE waste of time. There were thousands of positions listed, and not a single one was appropriate. It seemed every position was geared toward high-end corporate executives or programmers with very specific high-end skills. For a regular joe like me, there was nothing. Worse, as mentioned above, most of the positions were announced through agencies not directly from companies (unless they were huge corporations). Further, I had the impression there was a large amount of position-mining from other job sites, so positions would be ‘live’ on Monster long after they had been closed by the original company. So there was a huge amount of garbage as well…
I had the feeling it was a giant marketing site, geared just toward collecting personal information from users, and offered tons and tons of fluff in turn.
You should check out Dice
Most recruiters are suckers.
Some even dare to get the main phone # of my company (so now my resume lists no current employer name) and call me when I’m at work. They first asked me if I was busy. I told them I was busy but they kept talking and asking questions, so I basically hung up on them.
#2 is my favorite. When directed to ‘apply’ on the CGI-AMS company web site, I had to fill in 18 pages of information, basically transfering my entire resume’ to their site.
At least I got that job.
I’ve never had the impression that there are real jobs on monster. There are certainly none in my work specialism.
Interesting thing about recruitment agencies, I’ve known quite a few people to get rejected when they applied directly to a company yet get the same or a better job when they applied through a recruiter. Weird.
I’ve found you can eliminate most recruitment agencies from your searches with the following: include (no quotes) “!(agency1|agency2|etc)” with your search terms.
The snippet below helps me filter out almost all the agencies in my area, leaving “real” postings for me to go through:
!(adecco|Angus|robert half|Recruiters|Recruiting|Hays|Osler|Ajilon|Maxim|Paquette|WPCG)
Cheers,
-j.
I would to agree with you on those ten things. I am not a big fan of Monster. To spammy for my tastes.
I didn’t have much luck with Monster. All I got were recruiters. Not that I mind placement agencies, but I want to approach them, not be approached.
I did get a job through Monster several years ago. There was a time when there were very few emails about becoming rich overnight with no work! In my field everyone offers “above average pay!” So if everyone pays above average, then that would make the pay average. What they really needed was something to fill up the space under benefits.
I hate Monster, it is entirely to big, you are a needle in a haystack. I never had luck with them
Dice.com is the way to go for technology. They have the best jobs. I love their site!! and I recommend it
Ugggghhh… I agree with your assessment. I used it about a year and a half ago to get my job (they found me on Monster and I later interviewed). But it was a pain.
I got about 50 offers to sell life insurance and other forms of insurance. “All you need is a bachelor’s degree. We’ll teach you the rest!”
What a waste of my time. But, I ended up with a job, so it worked out I guess.
I hope it works for you as well!
Monster is a pain. However, I got my last 2 jobs off monster – and off careerbuilder for the one before those 2. Luck is the big variable – I took a chance on a few recruiters and hey presto – some of them pan out. 99 out of 100 may be dopes, but there are some opportunities there for people with strong stomachs.
Best bet: find a few good recruiters, work with them, keep their numbers and stay in touch over the years. I have one recruiter that I talk to (like clockwork) once every 6 months for the last 11 years. He hasn’t landed me in a job yet but one day he may. I figure 20 minutes on the phone twice a year is a good investment of time for a potential future payoff…
Monster definitely has its plusses and minuses. I agree with most of what you wrote. In general, I have stopped working with recruiters. Maybe if they have something that really sounds interesting to me, but otherwise they are a waste of time.
I’ve been on the other side of it, as a hiring manager. Sometimes, they are OK to work with, other times not. Most of the time, for smaller type companies, they simply can’t afford the 30% markup that recruiters require and actually prefer not to talk to recruiters at all. It’s much easier to get your foot in the door, if you are qualified, by applying yourself.
I agree about the recruiters!
When I worked with recruiters, they always seemed to ask me to work with only them.
Whatever! I worked with a multitude of recruiters to find the job that fit.
Of course, that is when I had a J.O.B. and before I fired myself to go on this crusade to help others win with their money!
Are you really going to start a full time job? Have you thought about doing something part time so you can keep going with your blog and other interests? It just seems to me like you don’t really want to do this…
That being said, I HATE people who refuse to email when the type of information being exchanged between both parties is something that actually NEEDS to be in writing (like a resume). Who has time for 30 phone calls (more than half of which will devolve to a NEVER ENDING game of voice mail tag, costing even more time and effort) in one day? The same number of emails can be answered at both parties’ convenience, requiring about 1/4 of the time and aggravation. It is nonsensical, and the morons who perpetuate this don’t deserve to have you working for them anyway!
Wow. I get about a billion of these Monster emails a week that have nothing to do with my current job (which I am happy to say I am leaving due to an opportunity I found on Craigslist/LinkedIn).
I have to admit that sometimes I like their weekly bulletins – thought it was ironic that this week was “How to look for a job when you’re currently employed” :)
Agree on all points…just wait until you get a job and you’re trying to stop the emails and phone call. I got my job in February – and I’m still contacted almost daily by recruiters who found my resume on Monster. I made my resume inactive when I found my job, but they apparently downloaded my resume to their system, and continue to badger me even though I don’t have an active resume at any employment site.
I tried Monster several years ago and did not get much results out of it (besides the 30 emails a day you mentioned!).
In fact, all my jobs were the result of good networking… it is sad but it doesn’t matter who you are and how good competent you are, you need to know the right person….
I get so many emails from Monster, many from HR from confidential companies. I’m juggling school and work, so I can’t call them back to find some bogus job.
Ignore them and they WILL go away. Try using sites like Craigslist.org, Jobfox.com, Linkedin.com and Jobmatchbox.com instead.
I’ll pass this on to my girls. They may or may not want to use Monster when they start their job search.
This post and the comments make a great review.
Thanks
Monster is too big to be effective for a job search. The future is with niche boards for cities or industries.
What kind of experience were you expecting when you signed up for this service?
Interesting question, Mbhunter. I signed up for the service when it was called the Monster Board nearly 10 years ago. It was a different experience though. You would get more contacts directly from the HR department of the hiring companies. People would read a resume before contacting you, where recruiters now write a form letter to hundreds of people with a single keyword on their resume.
Those are a just a couple of ways that I thought things would be different.
I echo those who haven’t had any luck with Monster. I have never posted my resume there, but my SO has only to have the problems you numerated above.
My firm only accepts apps made on their propriatary website. Whenever I have done a job search in the past, I’ve just gone directly to the sites of companies I want to work for. This strategy has yielded great results for me and cuts out all of that recruiting b.s.
It’s been a while since I’ve used a site like Monster.com, but I don’t envy your experience with them. Sounds like a lot more hassle than it’s worth.
Hi,
BonfireJOBS is a new approach my friend and I created to recruiting that will hopefully solve some of these problems for you.
The site allows candidates to post an anonymous resume and specify a price for which they guarantee they will provide a 24-hour response rate to an employer.
Employers search the database and initiate a connection request to candidates – in doing so, they are agreeing to pay your price if you reply on time.
Read through the top ten above and let me know if they read differently knowing that you are getting paid for your time spent answering emails….
I don’t have answers to #8, #6, #4 — but I’ll work on it.
Best,
Michael
A recruiter that might actually read a resume? Unheard of! The call to come in and talk with us about what you are looking for and give us the opportunity to sell you something you don’t want, priceless.
#2 is sooooo true. When I was looking for a job, every time I submitted my resume, the company would then make me apply on their website with all the same information. Aargh! What a tedious, time-wasting process it was, that I had to do over and over again. No wonder it took me so long to find a job.
I hear that…I found Monster.com almost useless. Headhunters called me day and night, but that’s not what I want from that site…nor what they promise “Let the jobs find you!” is one line I remember from them…
And that “send me your resume” b.s. is even worse. That’s like requesting an e-mail contaning all the items from an online store: STUPID. I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t want to work for stupid people…been there, done that; it’s well…stupid.
I have some Monster.com banner ads on my web site. But they don’t clicked on that often.
It’s not the greatest source for job listings, but it’s easy to use. Most of the spammy emails have little or nothing to do with Monster.com. Lots of times they say they found your resume on “the internet” or “a job board” or even “the job board”… when actually they’re just on a fishing expedition. They merely Googled you and found your resume somewhere… and sometimes they didn’t even go to that much trouble first.
Also, there are some recruiters who are hired just to establish that no one is in fact qualified for the job (so they can bring in a H-1 visa holder, for example.) These folks are indeed paying Monster.com subscribers, but they are not using the service in the way it was intended.
Monster.com isn’t all that terrible. Even if the vast majority of the listings are duds, the site does give you some ideas about what jobs exist in your area. It’s pretty easy to use and once in a while an actual contact will result. (I even got a solid unsolicited contact from a regular hiring manager once: my monster.com posting said I used to work at “Toys R Us” and that I knew Spanish. Toys R Us needed someone with past Toys R Us experience who spoke Portugese, for complicated reasons I don’t need to go into… there was no way to filter for Portugese speakers, but they could do so for Spanish speakers.)
Ditto! I absolutely agree with you. You forgot to mention that sometimes, there are recruiters out there who post bogus positions that sound sooooo enticing. You send them your resume because it looked legit, to find out that, supposedly that your skills don’t match the job (hello, I wouldn’t have applied to it if it didn’t match my skills!). They then invite you to become a member of their website and pay a fee to look at job openings! Irritating!
You are so right. One thing that’s great is you can see the companies that are worst: they make you fill out info all over again on there own site.
I recently landed a job off a monster job posting. I never expected to actually have any luck with the website, but I figured that every avenue was worth pursuing. As far as the spam, there is definitely no shortage.
Be sure to set your resume to Private, so that the only people who see it are the people you sent it too. Also, create and use a dummy yahoo or gmail account that you can just delete or forget about once you have found a new job.
Well the first thing you should do with monster.com is that make sure you are not using your personal/old email address. Try to make a new one using the free email sites like hotmail, gmail etc. So this way, you’ll be safe with spam. Secondly, don’t keep you resume for public viewing.
I believe people download resumes off monster.com and use them to pitch for different jobs as in head hunters using resumes to try to find the right person. The idea is good specially for a person on job but the ones already on job can often do get really annoyed!
I never had the impression that jobs in the real monster. Moreover, there is no work in my specialty.
Thing interesting consultant on staff, I know some people get when they rejected a company or directly to the same or a better offer if they have a personal agent.
I’ve never been a big fan of Monster.com. You’re spot on about they’re being way too much advertisement and spam. All of the clutter on their site just makes it seem illegitimate anyway.
I’ve always had the best luck on Craigslist. There’s surprisingly not much spam and the recruiters that have contacted me through CL have actually been pretty helpful.
Hello Lazy Man,
I realize this post is very outdated but I came across your comments while conducting research for my new site http://www.hireflyer.com. I’ve been a recruiter for the past 15 years and have been on both sides of the job board fence as a job poster and job seeker. Trust me when I tell you this, it’s just as frustrating as a job poster to utilize a job boards posting application. We’ve known this for quite some time, yet it’s only been recently that companies have started to simplify the process for both users. I spent 6 months gathering data and collecting marketing surveys from recruiters and job seekers and the number one complaint from both sides is the fact that most job boards are too complicated and non-user friendly. So what did I do with this info? I spent months going through old notebooks, scrapes of paper and sketches on used napkins of my “ideal” job board; A job board developed by a recruiter with years of experience as a user on both sides. I wrote a business plan, found Private Equity Investors and am now launching HireFlyer.com in April ’09. HireFlyer is the simplest web-based job board – for passive and active job seekers and recruiters- on the internet. No pop-up ads, no resumes hosted, no nonsense. Just jobs! Please feel free to visit our pre-beta “coming soon” site at http://www.hireflyer.com. I hope you were successful in finding another position and are well and gainfully employed doing what you love.
Bob Davis
HireFlyer.com
Monster just updated their site and limited the functionality of being able to search by multiple states. I would also argue that you should be able to search for positions globally, without having to search by individual country. Don’t we live in a global economy and that this trend will only continue.
I ABSOLUTELY HATE MONSTER.COM. I called them a couple of months ago to tell them how excruciatingly painful it was to use their site due to all the “pop up marketing ads” when clicking to view a job. Also, after viewing jobs the site took you back to page one where you had to scroll through to get back to the page you were on.
When they announced they were upgrading their site I thought to myself “great”. Well, this new site SUCKS as well!! On the monster.com homepage there is a box to enter in the city that you are looking for – I can’t even type in the city. After typing one letter I have to click back into the box to type the second letter, then click back in to type the third letter, then the 4th…….I live in Indianapolis, so as you can imagine this takes for ever……DOES ANYONE EVER TEST THESE SITES BEFORE THEY GO LIVE??? This is absolutely ridiculous! FIX YOUR SITE MONSTER!!!!!!!
The trend is for companies to effectively outsource the first round screening of applicants to recruiters, who are presumed to be specialists in weeding out the worst matches. That’s why you often get better results through the recruiter as opposed to applying to the company directly, where your resume will likely be two-thirds down a stack of a few hundred pages, which guarantees it will be ignored.
BTW, the deal with asking for “desired salary” has nothing to do with one’s personal financial wish list. What they’re really asking for is your self-assessment of your career development level, based on your own experience, as well as salary level reference sites. The supposition is that the level you’ve been paid at recently is somewhat indicative of your overall career level. The prospective employer also uses that information to make sure the prospective employee fits into their current budget profile.
I’m an engineer headhunter. I don’t do it, but other recuiters ask you to send your resume for these reasons:
-to gauge your interest
-to get a most recent copy w/out having to ask for it/have it ready for screening
-so they don’t have to look it up and can call immediately when it hits their inbox
They don’t give out client names b/c a candidate can go around the recruiter and apply online after talking to the recruiter. Typically, recruiters screen candidates and get them to the hiring manager. Hiring managers just look at these resumes, then check to see if that person has been in contact with the company before. If they see that the candidate applied after the recruiter sent the resume, there is a conflict of interest. Sometimes they will not pursue a candidate b/c of a contract. I know personally of several lawsuits that have been won by agencies when a client hired someone on these terms.
Markups are typically 20% for direct hire, not 30%. Contract is more complicated as the contractor is on the employment agency’s insurance.
Companies ask you to apply on their website, because they have some software vendor that sold them some kind of staffing database program that is supposed to make their life easier. Instead of manually entering your information themselves, they would rather you do it.
We are just as lazy as you.
Hi Lazy Man,
Regards the Mystery Companies, I have some extra point for you here. Yes you are right one of the reasons is for fear that you’ll just apply directly to that company. Second reason is the recruiter did sign confidentially agreement with the client. The client requested the search to be kept confidential due to several reasons: 1. they are looking for some one to replace the existing staff. 2. They are doing search for the talent available in the market. 3. They are looking for key person in the company and this is highly confidentially. Third reason is the client would like the recruiter to manage the candidate and less hassle for them. What is your right then? If you are comfortable with the recruiter and you trust him / her. You may request your resume send to the “Mystery Companies” as blind resume. You may also tell recruiter directly that you are not keen to be approach for position based in company A, B, C and etc.
monster fucking blows
I hated Monster ever since they changed their site layout. Workopolis is the way to go, especially for Canadian residents!
Wow, I’ve actually had a GREAT experience with monster.com About a month ago I posted my resume and worked on my profile. I applied for a handfull of jobs that seemed appealing to me and waited…About 2 weeks later I received a phone call from the HR director for a coorperation that makes medical equipment. They brought me in for an interview. The job description looked amazing! I was worried about how much they would offer me. Well, I had the interview and they hired me on the spot. I was floored when they offered me a pay rate 4 times what I expected…I almost cried the whole drive home. I really really love monster :)
Mixed bag…Monster seems like a “have to do” kind of thing, just so you’re out there. I’ve always had really good luck with CareerBuilder. It seems that their search algo goes after recently-updated resumes. I got into the habit of “updating” my resume (changing one character then changing it back) every day and got several *qualified* emails and phone calls every day. I haven’t started my new job search yet, but you can be sure I”ll try that method again!
i actually did click on one of those interstitial ads – got calls for student loan refinancing for over a month!
You should try planetforhire.com Even though they are newer and may not have tons of members yet, they have a great search engine and they don’t allow duplicate postings. It’s also free. I’m sick and tired of getting spam and recruiter junk. I waste more time filtering through unwanted and dead end mail than I do sending out resumes to legit jobs.
Re #47
4X what you expected!!! Low expectations. Did you do any research on typical wages for the job.
I expected $22/hr for my job and only got offered $26.00. Imagine getting $88/hr instead of only $22 WOW is an understatement.