Is Monster.com of any value to someone seeking employment?

Approximately 99% of the Monster's "Recommended Jobs" are "a dynamic position in sales that's perfect for an eager self-starter."

Additionally, a great deal more than half of the jobs that the site recommends are literally 200 or more miles away, despite indicating a search radius of 25 miles.


If you have a favorite job-search site, please recommend it here!

I don't know what happened to Monster. It used to be great, but now, like you said, it's pretty awful. About all I get in my custom search e-mails are "opportunities" to join the insurance sales business.

Monster is definitely second rate. There are local engines that are far superior to Monster.

now they just suck.

I've worked in H.R., and I've worked directly with hiring managers, and the short version is this:

Even in the best of times, when companies are hiring and candidates are plentiful, hiring managers are one lazy, unmotivated lot.

Companies attend "job fairs" and come back with a stack of resumes.

H.R. divides up the stack among hiring managers with open positions.

H.R. puts the stack on the hiring managers' desks, where they sit. And sit. And sit.

Meanwhile, the hiring managers complain that H.R. hasn't "found them any qualified candidates."

Demand has far exceeded supply...if companies deal with resumes submitted by online job sites at all, they give the responsibility to some minimum wage department drone. Many companies have "Resumix" software or something similar, which allows them to scan resumes and seek a pre-specified percentage of keywords. If the resume has the right percentage, it MAY get passed on to the hiring manager (see above). If it doesn't, it's automatically discarded.

With LinkedIn, you can ask questions about companies that interest you, and find people who know people who know people in those companies ("Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon").

If you call a hiring manager and say "Hi, Mr. Smith, my name is Orrex, and a mutual friend suggested I give you a call"...and they recognize that name...your "cold call" is now a "warm call." At minimum, you will have their attention long enough to give them your "30 second elevator commercial." If you've created one of those, and practiced it until it sounds natural coming out of you, and the company actually has a hiring need, the chances are excellent that...once again, at minimum...you will get an appointment to speak with "Mr. Smith."

Sounds like a lot of extra work, but compared to spending the same time on online job sites that probably won;t yield a result, it's not. And you can still use those sites to find open positions. I'd just APPLY for the ones you want in a more direct, referral-based manner as described above.

Good luck.

:toast:

So it worked then. These days, if I had to look again I'd probably go through linkedin.com

It's a meta search engine. Although I think online job searching is a waste of time. I've been doing it for five years and it's yielded 3 interviews at most.

It is good to have your resumes up at CB, Monster, etc... but Indeed searches all job boards based on your keywords and gives you instant and daily email results and LinkedIn helps push your networking ability to find people you may know who may have a need for you in their workplace.

I don't know how effective that is though. I've just used it to locate rare cars which it does by sending email alerts when it gets a hit.

This thread gives me a few new routes to check. We'll see!

You know, someone of Olympian stature and good looks who can sway armies with the mere pitch of his voice?