Does That Really Work?

From MARC CENEDELLA

Hi Readers -- I've gotten the feedback from you, our 1.2 million subscribers that this weekly newsletter, while it can be inspiring, encouraging, and supportive, is sometimes lacking in getting "just the facts" across about TheLadders.com system. I come from a sales and marketing background myself, and particularly for our subscribers in technology, law, and finance, it seems as if sometimes my enthusiasm for what we're doing gets in the way of a clear understanding of "will TheLadders.com really work for me?"

So this week, I'm taking off my booster hat and I'm going to give you facts and figures as best I can for you to understand what TheLadders.com is and how it might be able to help in your job hunt. The $100k+ job hunt is a very serious matter for you, and I want to inform you about the way we've designed our system, and how it is intended to make the $100k+ job hunt better for you.

How it works...

• Recruiters and HR departments can hire their $100k+ candidates for free at TheLadders.com.
• We charge a cover charge of $30/month or $180/year for job seekers. Like cover charges or club dues anywhere, this ensures that the people that join TheLadders.com are serious about their $100k+ career.
• Because it's a database of serious high-end job seekers, recruiters and HR departments have discovered that they get better value for the time they spend searching TheLadders.com than they get on the big mass-market job sites.

How we work...

• We love technology, but technology alone isn't good enough to make sure you have a great experience when it comes to the high-end job hunt. So we do extensive hand-screening of jobs, recruiters, and job seeker bios to make sure they are appropriate to the $100k+ market.
• Each and every job gets reviewed by two people here at TheLadders.com before it is allowed to go on the site. We reject jobs that don't meet our minimum $100,000 per year criteria.
• Each recruiter is hand-approved by our recruiter relations team before they are granted the privilege of database access. Additionally, any recruiter that abuses the system is removed.
• Each job seeker's bio is hand-screened by our team here to ensure the job seeker is at the $100k+ level.

Why it works...

• The top 10% of jobs -- those jobs that pay $100,000 per year or more -- are jobs that everybody wants. But not everybody is qualified for them. So it has historically been a big hassle for high-end recruiters when they are searching on Monster for their next VP: totally inappropriate people would apply because it is free and easy to do. If you've ever posted a good job on one of the big job boards, perhaps you've had a similar experience.
• So by making TheLadders.com an exclusive club -- charging job seekers a subscription fee to make sure that only appropriate candidates are applying -- we've made the candidate pool much higher quality.
• In addition, because it is a smaller, high-quality pool, the typical job posting at TheLadders.com only gets 15 applications, versus hundreds, or even thousands, on the big job boards.
• As a result, because you're in with this special set of people, recruiters pay more attention to applicants from TheLadders.com.

But does it really work?

• I mentioned a few weeks ago how much recruiters prefer our service. We learned this back in September, when we asked Harris Interactive® to do a third-party study of high-end recruiters who actively use TheLadders.com to find candidates*.
• 78% of our recruiters consider TheLadders.com one of their top resources or first choice for senior talent.
• 70% of recruiters who use TheLadders.com and Monster, CareerBuilder or HotJobs say that the candidates they find here at TheLadders.com are better than candidates from those other boards.
• But you know what? Don't believe me just because I say so. Please do your own market research. The next time you talk to a recruiter or HR person, ask them if they're using TheLadders.com. And then ask them: are the candidates really better? Is it easier for you to hire high-end people from TheLadders.com than from Monster or the others? Where would you post your job first for a director, VP, or C-level candidate -- TheLadders.com or one of the other job boards?

So there's my best attempt to give you just the facts. Our subscription-fee business model means that we have only high-end candidates at TheLadders.com who are serious about their $100k+ careers. Because the database is higher quality, recruiters prefer to use our system for their high-end searches. And, finally, we use extensive hand-screening by our team here to try and make sure the experience is as good as it can possibly be for both job seekers and recruiters.

I hope this helps explain TheLadders.com and I hope you'll consider using us each and every time you're looking for your next $100k+ job.

Happy hunting, Readers!

* TheLadders.com survey conducted by Harris Interactive, September '06, among active TheLadders.com recruiters.