monster 10-18-05
Harvard Business School case (2005) describing Monster Worldwide’s launch and management of Monster Networking (launched Dec 2003). The case narrates Monster’s dominant online recruitment business (2004: 54M registered users, 800k job postings; $593M revenue; $112M operating income for the Monster division), the logic for building a professional social network to increase user engagement and consumer revenue, product features (free basic + $9.99/month VIP), and measured outcomes (high engagement but weak subscription conversion). It reviews strategic options as of March 2005: continue (organic growth), remove subscription fees, acquire a professional network (e.g., LinkedIn), or terminate the initiative. The case details operational constraints (privacy, salesforce resistance, difficulty mining 45M resumes—only ~800k opt-ins), the Tickle acquisition (May 2004, $94M), and traffic/conversion metrics (≈45,000 daily visitors; ~2,300 daily registrations; ~60 daily VIP signups).
Questions this document answers
December 2003.
54 million.
800,000.
Revenue $593.9 million; Operating income $111.7 million.
$9.99 per month after a 30-day free trial.