Positive News | Jobs Blog

Monster is hiring, Monster is firing,.. Monster is WHAT?

Just read a press release on Monster web site. It starts extremely positive with Monster is hiring 80 new staff!. Later on it actually reads that that same monster is making 160 people redundant. Makes you wonder, if that is a positive news or …?

What is obvious is that Monster is realising that they are completely uncompetitive in the current market. So a shift in skills of their staff is essential to bring them to the stage when they will have something interesting to offer to Employers again.

Here is the Monster press release, with new jobs, job cuts,.. or however you want to take it:

Monster to Open New Technology Center of Excellence & Innovation in Cambridge; Makes Organizational Changes in Line with Innovation Strategy; Now Recruiting for 80 New Positions
MAYNARD, Mass., Jul 08, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE:MWW) today announced publicly plans for a new Technology Center of Excellence & Innovation to be located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with certain organizational changes designed to enable the company to shift or add talent and skills to support the company’s innovation strategy. The Cambridge center is the latest addition to Monster’s global innovation and development sites in Maynard, Massachusetts; Mountain View, California; Prague, Czech Republic; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and New Delhi, India. The company is now actively recruiting for approximately 80 new technical positions to be located in the Cambridge center, with potential capacity for adding a total of 170 new positions at this center.
The announced organizational changes include the elimination of approximately 160 positions within the product and technology group globally, with approximately 50 Maynard-based positions being affected. Monster also announced the creation of a new leadership position focused on long-term strategic planning and customer engagement, and the consolidation of the employer and seeker product development teams, plus several related promotions.

“Over the past two years we have successfully re-launched our employer and seeker sites on a global basis and we have made substantial progress on the consolidation of our various operating platforms which has resulted in a need for different skills and expertise as we pursue our next generation of product and search technologies,” said Sal Iannuzzi, Monster Worldwide CEO. “We believe that our new technology center will provide the physical and personnel resources to help us successfully execute on our strategic investments. We are making what we believe are the right moves to create the new products and services our customers need.”

“Cambridge is a logical location for us to grow, with its world class talent and leading edge research and development infrastructure,” said Darko Dejanovic, executive vice president, global CIO and head of product at Monster. “Our Cambridge center complements our existing innovation investments, and we expect additional game-changing product offerings to emerge from this group in collaboration with our global technology team.”

The Technology Center of Excellence & Innovation is located in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, with occupancy currently expected to begin as new hires join the company. For more information on job opportunities at Monster, visit http://www.monsterhires.com.

About Monster Worldwide

Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW), parent company of Monster, the premier global online employment solution for more than a decade, strives to inspire people to improve their lives. With a local presence in key markets in North America, Europe, and Asia, Monster works for everyone by connecting employers with quality job seekers at all levels and by providing personalized career advice to consumers globally. Through online media sites and services, Monster delivers vast, highly targeted audiences to advertisers. Monster Worldwide is a member of the S&P 500 index. To learn more about Monster’s industry-leading products and services, visit www.monster.com. More information about Monster Worldwide is available at http://about-monster.com.

SOURCE: Monster Worldwide, Inc.

Monster Worldwide, Inc.
Janet Swaysland, 978-429-5918
Janet.swaysland@monster.com
Twitter @jsways
or
Kathy O’Reilly, 978-823-2002
Kathy.oreilly@monster.com
Twitter @kathyoreilly

National Recruitment Federation 2009

The National Recruitment Federation Conference today was far better than I expected. To be honest I was a bit afraid to go there knowing what the Recruitment Industry is going through in the last months. There are a number of people I have heard assessments quoting more than 60% of the recruitment consultants been made redundant in the last 6 months. The figure of about 5000 to 6000 thousand recruiters being laid off was also mentioned today during the NRF 2009 conference.

The choice of the venue was excellent, the service was really good thanks to the number of sponsors of the event. There was even a draw for a big, big shredder!

The conference itself started with a bit of politics, changes in the legislations, status in Europe and similar topics relevant to the Directors and the Business Owners in the recruitment industry. After the (quite good) coffee, it was all concentrated about positive aspects and actually quite uplifting! One presenter after another, and I actually felt better and better. I am really glad I was a part of it, since I did hear interesting ideas and thoughts today.

Here is what I scribbled on my NRF Annual Conference 2009 Block (I am a freak for freebies!). It is just a random collection of quotes from various speakers:

Recession Trend: Get rid of the middle man! – Recruitment Agency is a middle man!?

National Recruitment Federation will:
Reduce cost
Publish a new web site
Do more PR and Marketing
NRF Certificate will be introduced for each recruitment consultant. Pilot will start in June, and the real recruitment certification program in September 2009.

Recruitment Agency Marketing consists of:
B to B – Pass the Gatekeeper
B to C – Brand yourself as a place for a job hunter to go when looking for a new job

Premier Group – Positive News Monitor (helps staff noticing and concentration on the positive news)

CPL – ‘…We will come out as a different industry…’ – A comment that really made me thinking, especially with the ‘Evolve’ message from The Chairperson: Rowan Manahan

There was also an interesting choice of presenters, since right in the middle of the conference we had a very good Stress Management presentation. I was wondering for some time – what is this doing in a National Recruitment Federation conference? Then again I felt it actually relaxed me, and felt it helped the people sitting around me as well. So good choice of the presentations – well done the organisers! Irish recruiters are stressed these days. Half of the people in the industry has been made redundant in the last half a year? Actually I cannot think of a better therapy than stress and anger management.

The LinkedIN was mentioned as well. There is still about 40ish jobs in Ireland on LinkedIN (only). 2 of those have been from the people in the NRF 2009 audience. I am guessing Prosperity?

There is no Irish Recruiter utilising YouTube.

The Targeted advertising that Facebook enables was mentioned. Want quality candidates? Well you can filter by sex, age (is that even legal?!), country and guess what? The Employer!

Recruitment is in a forced evolution and it ain’t pretty!

Recruiters should ask themselves and even more their clients: What other services could we do for you?

The last presentation culminated the uplifting session really. We even heard about the clear and undisputable signs of the start of the recovery of the recruitment industry. I do not know if it was a too much coffee but it really made me feel great!

On the way out I got a copy of the Irish Times papers, with the sad face of the Prime Minister. The rain was sipping outside. The water feature looked sad in the rain, and empty golf course looked like it is Autumn. Sky was so gray. Stepping out of the hotel from the National Recruitment Conference 2009 was actually a bit shocking. Kind of like falling back into the reality.

Anyway, I did bring my camera, and yes I made a few pictures. Thanks again to both the organisers and the sponsors!
(Vicky sais that I am like a stalker! :))

I hope to have a longer chat published here with Frank Collins, NRF President. We spoke today quickly about the changes the NRF is going through in the last five years, and about the plans for the future web site, the recruitment certification announced, and the role NRF is playing now and will be playing in the future.