Jeff Taylor, the founder and chairman of Monster, the Internet- based recruitment company that has the largest job-posting traffic volume on the globe, is a big believer in the ability of technologyto reshape the world. The advertising agency veteran dreamed up Monster in 1994 and says he designed the interface at a coffee shop early one morning after being intrigued by the bulletin boardservices that were starting to proliferate on the World Wide Web. Initially, the company was known as “the Monster Board.”
Taylor sold the company to TMP Worldwide in 1995 but has remained chairman and guiding visionary. In fact, TMP recently changed its name to Monster Worldwide Inc., a reflection of the top-of-mind brand that the service has established around the world. Monster is now operating help-wanted services featuring local content and local languages in 22 countries and has an impressive array of statistics: More than 18 million visitors a month, more than 50 million unique visits and database or 27 million resumes, as well as a network of 200,000 employers that post openings.
Taylor gives as many as 60 talks a year, traveling recently to areas like India and Central America, talking to executives and business audiences about human capital management, trends in labor and recruitment and the promises of new technology. He will be a keynote speaker at FEI’s annual CFIT Conference, to be held Sept. 17- 19 in Las Vegas. Taylor spoke in June with Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Marshall; an edited transcript follows.
On human capital management: “We’re headed toward the worst labor shortage we’ve seen in our lifetimes, and it will begin to accelerate in 2008.
I talk about the job-seeker revolution. It’s hard to visualize when you have 6 percent unemployment and 9 million people out of work, but we’ve been going through a ‘virtuous cycle’ in business since 1960 in the U.S., where supply and demand are in direct proportion to our economy.
There’s a very systematic ebb and flow to the economy; when the economy is doing well, we have low unemployment and no supply [issues]. We experienced that [most strongly] in 1998 and 1999, and the beginning of 2000, when the employee took control in the buyer- seller relationship. We have 100 years of history saying that [things are] moving in this direction, but employers have very little skill in knowing what to do when their employees are in control.
There’s a combination of five factors that will make up this labor shortage:
1) Baby Boomer exit from the job force.
2) Job tenure shortening dramatically.
3) The knowledge worker impact is much more dramatic these days. We had broader skill shortages, and not as targeted, as in the 1980s, when there was a shortage of hardware engineers and nurses; in the 1990s, it was software engineers and nurses. Nursing shortages have continued, and are accelerating. There are a lot more decisionmakers within a company now, and they are harder to replace.
4) The e-commerce to e-business transition. The first wave of pioneers came up with relatively simple things to buy over the Internet – books, music, airline tickets, the ability to look for a job. For most corporations, business really hasn’t changed very much. I’m one of those disruptive companies, changing the way jobs are advertised.
Companies will have to retool their [information] systems, which will drive IT spending; they will have to retrain staff, which will drive training and education; and they will have to recruit new workers, because their structures will be different.
5) The confidence that employees have. That will drive the free- agent concept, and the notion of freelancers.”
On economic recovery: “With the dot-com demise, a lot of companies think the genie is back in the bottle. But you can’t confuse the dot-com demise with the growth of the Internet, which has continued. I’m suggesting that the next wave will be the true bubble, and we haven’t experienced it yet.
The most prevalent thing missing for a recovery is the ‘new-new thing.’ The pendulum has swung too far, and the correction has lagged; we need investment in new ideas, which means getting the venture capital community moving. Generally, the venture capital industry is flush with cash, but we need some sort of big idea.
I see SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] as a good example of what you’re going to have to see to make the recovery happen. The Internet took almost five years to go around the world. Look at the way the science community tackled the SARS virus – they expect to have a diagnostic kit within 90 days.
For a major corporation to work on its own to develop such a kit, the estimate was five years. But with the science community around the world communicating in real time on this, they’ve accelerated the situation. This spirit of sharing calls to mind Linux, Apache and Mosaix – I see a [change in] the way ideas get distributed, and I think the next big thing will be communicated that way.
The problem with the venture capital community is that they got big and fat during this last 15-year run. Also, they got beat on just like anyone else – the venture capital community had its worst performance ever in the last two years. That creates a level of conservatism across the board.”
On the growth of the Internet: “We’re going to put all our fiber to work. We’re a society that loves its devices, so the Internet might not look quite the way it looks today in a few years. The Internet is pretty good for a laptop or a home-based machine, but it’s not very good for a cell phone.
I’m a big Blackberry nut. I don’t access the Internet, but I’m reading email 100 times a day on it. You’re going to continue to see the march of technologies. I don’t think it will be limited to what the Internet is today, but it will build off that structure.”
On the future ol newspaper help-wanted ads: “For the knowledge worker, it’s done. For the blue-collar worker, I think it’s still a viable option. The help-wanted section will come back with the economy, but I don’t think it will go to the heights where it was. And that’s going to completely impact the newspaper industry, because help-wanted is their core franchise.”
On competition from executive recruiters: “We have 400,000 chief- type resumes on our site now. CEOs are finding their jobs [there]. It isn’t the most popular position, but you have executives across the country using Monster for all their other hires. You almost can’t help but go see if there isn’t something in your area.
So, it’s a matter of time. There’s a fair amount of confidentiality built into executive recruiting, and I ‘m not saying by any means that there will ever be a replacement for a good recruiter. And Monster is a friend to good recruiters, because they use it for sourcing.”
Does Monster cater to employers or job-seekers: “Personally, I spend my waking hours thinking about how to do the right things for the job-seekers. But I have 700 employees who focus completely on the employers. I would call it a chicken-or-egg situation – you need both to sustain life.”
Where he sees Monster in five years: “I think we’ll be more than a billion dollars in sales. We’ll continue to expand into Asia. We’re in 22 countries right now – we’re in 14 countries in Europe. You’ll see us develop additional products, both for the job-seekers and the employers. And one of my goals is to be a Fortune 500 company. We’re on the S&P 500 now.”
“YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE TO SEE THE MARCH OF TECHNOLOGIES. I DON’T THINK IT WILL BE LIMITED TO WHAT THE INTERNET IS TODAY, BUT IT WILL BUILD OFF THAT STRUCTURE.”
Copyright Financial Executives Institute Jul/Aug 2003
