03
Aug

Monster Inc., reinvent or die?

In the late nineties the recruiting industry had been turned upside down by the start of many online job-posting websites, including the launch of Monster.com. Over a decade later the online recruiting industry seems to reach a dead end. The former giant and market leader Monster Inc. is tumbling and the CEO Sal Iannuzzi does not give confidence to have a turnaround strategy in place. He even declared publicly to sell the whole or parts of the company in March this year (Source: Reuters).
In yesterdays investor call the company announced that the 2nd-Quarter profits have decreased 56%. The market cap has dropped below $800 million, I can still remember when Monster’s market cap was over $3 billion last year.

Such a change is always an opportunity, too. While the quarterly revenues of Monster Worldwide fell to $237 million, LinkedIn’s revenues are steadily growing and have reached $230 million at the same quarter.

From an outside perspective it looks sad to see that Monster Inc. is not able to reinvent itself and look forward rather than trying to protect old-thinking. It’s a bit like the music industry when peer2peer sharing, napster and later iTunes came along. They have time, money and smart people to change and lead into a successful future. But my feeling is that Sal Iannuzzi is lacking of a powerful vision and dynamic leadership. Two things which is needed to turn such a big “ship” around.

I don’t know who will be the future leader of online recruiting, but LinkedIn seems to be running the right path, as they are heavily investing in its product and technology. Furthermore LinkedIn has acquired Connected, Rapportive and Slideshare – all relevant building blocks to build a future proof company.

Although I have left RECOMY, I will keep watching the innovators in this market. As an entrepreneur I am especially looking at startUps like Identified, Jibe, Jobvite, BranchOut, BraveNewTalent or Talent.me.

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