Job Search: Altogether Now! Say, "Bye-Bye, Ladders!"

As some smart people predicted, TheLadders are not for $100K+ job seekers anymore.  In his newsletter last Monday (presented in its entirety at the bottom), Marc Cenedella announced that now his job board "takes all salary levels" (for shame, Marc - subpar writing!)  Well, he definitely can say, "Bye-bye" to many premium members who are paying annual fees on the premise that they belong to an "exclusive club" of six-figure-salaried people (Dear reader, I agree, it's absolutely pathetic, but people are people). 

But I am more interested in the speculative assertions we can deduce from this:

1. Marc Cendella thought that some investor would come along and he would be bought out by now and retire in the..., where he wanted to retire.  I understand very well the whole thing with the book's publication, etc.  There is no fame or fortune in writing the books (trust me on this one, I should know), because nobody buys or reads them.  You invest your precious time into writing endeavor for other reasons.  In his case - self-marketing.
   
2. The job market is so bad that there are not enough 100K+ postings to cover their expenses.
3. He needs more revenue both to boost the dwindling cash flow, and attract investors.  For that he needs contracts with large employers and recruiting agencies, who don't have too many six-figure positions anymore either.  So, the only way they will deal with him is if he opens the doors to all salary levels.
4. Now, even the premium members will start receiving laundry lists with salaries all over the place - it's not like there are no $40K a year controller positions out there.  Who wants to pay for that kind of service?
   
5. I am not an oracle: it's possible that Cendella is a lucky person and it will all work out his way, but it's my opinion that the near-future probability of TheLadders saying bye-bye altogether is very high.

"Bye-bye!

September 19, 2011

From MARC CENEDELLA

We're expanding, and today we say "bye-bye" to helping only those over $100,000 and "hello" to helping all career-minded professionals. TheLadders now takes all salary levels and shows the right jobs to the right person. So while we're saying goodbye to our narrower segmentation, we are not saying "goodbye" to keeping your job search on TheLadders relevant, focused, and targeted.

So, for example, you won't see jobs that pay half (or double) what you're currently making. You won't see jobs outside of your field — we still won't show sales jobs to finance professionals, or marketing jobs to technologists. And we won't be letting in scammy jobs, work-from-home schemes, or commission-only opportunities — we'll still be vetting every job and every recruiter before we allow them into our community.

So what's the big change for you? Should be not too much… on the surface.

You'll still be seeing great $100K+ jobs, and the recruiters who post them.

Behind the scenes, though, by making it easier for companies and recruiters to fill all of their professional jobs at TheLadders, you'll find that we're getting more, and an even wider variety of, jobs at the right level for you.

We've been out talking to our friends in HR departments and recruiting shops across the country these past few months talking about our expansion and we've found widespread enthusiasm and support. The standard ways of doing things are too expensive, too time-consuming, and too frustrating for them, too.

This expansion has been a long time in the making. From the beginning in 2003, when we set out to become the "Society of the Nation's Top Talent" to our first appearance in the New York Times in 2007, we've talked about preparing for the day when we would expand to cover all professional jobs.

We've worked hard at becoming experts at modern recruiting. We've underwritten research at universities. We've spent over a million dollars re-writing the playbook for job search advice. We published our Amazon Top 100 best-seller: "You're Better Than Your Job Search". And we've studied the history of the job search through the past two centuries.

We also launched Signature, our historically unprecedented program that guarantees you a job offer — or your money back — when you follow our program of weekly or bi-weekly calls over six months.

And based on our expertise in understanding what employers want, we've built the largest resume writing service in the country.

It's that excellence in helping job-seekers like you that has propelled us to become leaders in the business, and it's one of the reasons why we've tripled the number of recruiters and HR professionals in our community this year alone.

And so now that we've grown to almost five million members in the United States and 43% of high-end professionals used TheLadders in their job search last year, we're expanding to serve all career-minded professionals and all professional jobs in the country.

I thank you for your support these last eight years and look forward to eight, or eighteen, or eighty more years helping you succeed in the job hunt!

I'll always be rooting for you,


Marc Cenedella, CEO & Founder"