Monster India surging ahead even in hard times

HYDERABAD: MonsterIndia.com is one of those job portals, which has not shown

any signs of panic even in hard times. The site is doing pretty well, with more

than 500 resumes posted everyday. It is a part of the global online network for

careers, connecting companies with the qualified career-minded individuals.

Monster is committed to leading the market by offering technology and services

that give consumers and business more control over the recruiting process. In an

exclusive interview to CNS correspondent, Duncan Wakes Miller, marketing

director for Asia Pacific at Monster.com expressed his views about the company's

strategies for the near future for the APAC region.

What is the prime focus for Monster’s Asia Pacific operations as of now?

As of now, our prime focus is to strengthen our position in the Indian and

the Australian job market. Having started our Indian operations just about 8

months back, we have increased our client base to around 80 as far as the Indian

operations are concerned.

What is passive recruitment and how has the slowdown in the economy affected

the recruitment process?

There's a new trend that's known in industry circles as "passive

recruiting." This is a curious name for a method that aggressively seeks

out professionals in ways that some HR people have even characterized as

"shameful." But in a tight job market, companies are no longer content

to wait for workers to come knocking on their doors. And once professionals are

on board, the trick becomes to defend them against the onslaught of passive

recruiting by other firms. Even in times as this when the economy is at its low,

it's becoming a recruiting jungle out there, but the competitive environment has

given birth to some pretty creative ideas.

Competition for programmers is still fierce. As technical skills become

scarcer, companies are being more creative in their recruiting. Signing bonuses,

project completion bonuses, double digit pay increases, relaxed dress codes,

freebies and more ­ managers are pulling out all the stops to retain talented

people. Replacing people is still good business even in the days of downturn.

Within a period of six month we have seen between 30 per cent to 40 per cent

increase in the number of job postings at our site. No matter if the economy is

slowing down or going up, replacements at higher positions are still going on

and we are doing pretty well in that area.

When companies concentrate on retrenchment what is that Monster offers?

We have developed a private label solution for companies who are looking

towards a very niche segment of the employment market. This tool is good for

those companies as well as who are concentrating towards retrenchment. It helps

them in restructuring the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. At present,

we are in talks with more than a dozen Indian firms for providing this tool.

Monster is a lifelong career network job seekers can use to expand their

career, providing continuous access to the progressive companies, as well as

interactive, personalized tools to make the process effective and convenient.

Features of the site include: resume management, a personal job search agent, a

career network, message boards, expert advice on job-seeking and career

management, and free newsletters.

What is going to be your marketing strategy in this region?

In recent times, Monster has associated itself with sports in a very special

way and we would like to continue this relationship. Be it cricket or any other

sports event, if it is going to target the potential audience of Monster, we

would like to be there. Online alliance is also something which we are going to

concentrate on in the coming months. We have tie-ups with rediff.com, Zdnet and

Tata Nova in India; internationally we are having partnership with MSN and AOL.

In the coming months, we would like to have similar tie-ups with some niche

portals in the Indian sub-continent so that we have a proper impact on the

market.

What are the different revenue streams for Monster?

As far as the revenues are concerned we have different kinds of revenue

streams for our operations. We generate revenues from job ads, providing our

resume database search to companies, providing ASP software, providing private

label solutions and enterprise solutions. The company started its Indian

operation about 8 months back and it is doing pretty well when compared to the

downturn situation. We are hoping to make profits within a period of 18 months.