December 8, 2008

In case anyone who happens across this blog is un-aware of who Monster are, they’re one of (actually – almost certainly ‘the’) biggest global brand in online recruitment / job boards. Anyway, today I attended the launch breakfast of the new look (and functioning) site they’re launching in Jan ‘09 (if you followed my Twitter stream this morning that’s what that was about).

Anyway – this represents a massive investment for Monster as they look to differentiate themselves in a slowing market, both in terms of design (interface) and technology (what powers the site). I’ll put a full blog post up later in the week with my thoughts, but as a top line summary my thought were -

For me the focus on the user experience (both candidate & client) is clear to see in the new interface and will be the key differentiator in the short term. Then if the technology does what it’s supposed to, with opportunities better matched to the visitors profile, Monster may indeed see a return on their significant investment – this could indeed be game changing. I look forward to watching it roll out, I just hope that the Sales force aren’t put under too much pressure going into 2009 and feel the need/ fall into mis-selling what this is actually about.