# Story 2: Monster Jobs goes bust: what killed the job board?

- **Episode:** [210](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/210.md) (2025-07-01)
- **Type:** news-roundup
- **Tags:** job-boards, monster-jobs, recruitment-industry
- **Time:** 10:40–15:41 (start 640s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/210?t=640](https://truthliesandwork.com/210?t=640)

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[10:40] Al Elliott: Fabulous. Well, talking of tough times then, um, one of the giants from like 2005, 2010 has just Declared what I think is called Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which what I understand that to be is they've not gone bankrupt, but they're looking for protection from going bankrupt from their creditors. That's what I believe that means in America. Slightly different in the UK. We don't have that over here. No, as someone who's been bankrupt. So Monster.com. Monster.com was the big job search site back in about 2005, 2006, all the way through to about 2015 or '16. And they are now seeking protection from bankruptcy. What went wrong? Well, there's a few things. It sounds like a few things went wrong with the organisation and a few things went wrong just with the world, the world of work. I believe they changed hands several times, now part of a private equity group. Also, I think there's a— they've got a— do you know Randstad? The people, the Dutch Randstad?
[11:36] Leanne Elliott: Of course
[11:37] Al Elliott: Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think they have a minority shareholding in it. So yeah, but I think there was a little bit of mismanagement there, but also just fundamentally Lee, the way that people apply for jobs has completely changed since 2005. Back in 2005, Lee, now when, when did you graduate? Was that '07?
[11:53] Leanne Elliott: 2006
[11:54] Al Elliott: '06. So how did you get your first job? Um, was it nepotism?
[11:59] Leanne Elliott: No, my first— I took a year out before I went back to do my master's. My first job was for— was selling newspaper advertising space back in the time when that was even a thing. And I got it because there was like an open day recruitment interview thing at the Palace Hotel in Manchester
[12:16] Al Elliott: Oh, nice
[12:16] Leanne Elliott: And I was walking past and there's a billboard outside, so I went in, had an interview, and started on Monday
[12:21] Al Elliott: Brilliant. You were like, I'm unemployed, I might as well go in there, see what's going on, come out with a job. Fabulous. Well, this is gonna show you how old— talking newspapers to show you how old, um, I am, because I might— the last job I had, I literally applied from an ad in the newspaper. That was Literally took the newspaper, cut it out, and they went through. But then when I was applying back in, like, this would be '01 or something, 2001, 2000, 2001. When I was applying, then what you used to do is go down all the ads in the newspaper and then you'd like sort of send off your email. What would it be, an email back then? Yeah, probably it would have been an email
[12:53] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[12:53] Al Elliott: But also then sometimes you had to go and take your CV somewhere, and that was such a pain in the backside to go and do that. So when Monster Jobs came out and Indeed and, and all these, they were like the Google of job searches. They just meant that you could just go in there and tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Right? I could apply for 100 jobs. Bosh. Done. And that's the way it used to work. But of course, since the pandemic, and also with the younger generations, they've got a different approach to the way they look for jobs, like spray and pray, and much more like, I, that—
[13:23] Leanne Elliott: I don't, I don't care for that phrase
[13:25] Al Elliott: You don't enjoy it?
[13:27] Leanne Elliott: Don't enjoy what came outta your mouth just now
[13:30] Al Elliott: Little throwback to last Tuesday's, uh, One of my favourite bits of last Tuesday, I started talking about vibe coding and Leanne went, I don't enjoy what came outta your mouth. And what she meant was, I don't understand, I think, but it was a bit of a Freudian thing. I'll tell you who Freud was in a, in a second, Leanne. Don't worry
[13:43] Leanne Elliott: Thank you
[13:43] Al Elliott: Thank you. I'll catch you up
[13:44] Leanne Elliott: Thank you
[13:44] Al Elliott: Just to put this in context for someone who's like maybe going, so what? It's like Google declaring bankruptcy because Monster sort of declared, sort of made this entire industry of online jobs. They were the ones who, who, who defined this industry, created this industry, just like Google created the search industry. I know that Yahoo's gonna— I look forward to your letters from Yahoo. But that's their creators
[14:08] Leanne Elliott: Yahoo
[14:09] Al Elliott: Yahoo. Why? What am I saying?
[14:10] Leanne Elliott: Yahoo
[14:11] Al Elliott: Oh, well done. Well done
[14:13] Leanne Elliott: It's not that good. I had to do it twice. Bing
[14:17] Al Elliott: That's Microsoft Bing
[14:19] Leanne Elliott: Oh, wow. Is that still a thing?
[14:23] Al Elliott: Apparently. Apparently they've got like 2.3% of the search, of the global search, but that's only because Apple defaults to Bing, I think, on their Safari, and, uh, and all the old people don't know how to change it. Um, so it's just, it is a relatively big thing, probably something which isn't going to be a massive surprise to anyone who does recruitment these days, because if you are applying for jobs, you probably don't use, um, monster.com. Uh, if you are recruiting, you're probably likely to, uh, use much more sort of specialized job boards, perhaps. Um, I know that a lot of people— you do a lot of work with people building their recruitment processes. Job boards aren't necessarily a thing these days, or is it more remote work or what?
[15:01] Leanne Elliott: Niche boards, yeah, yeah
[15:03] Al Elliott: It's the end of an era
[15:05] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, another thought actually just on that. I was reading something just last week that something like the number of applications for jobs going through LinkedIn has increased by something like 22% since the beginning of the year, and it's something insane like 11,000 applications made per day through LinkedIn. Um, so yeah, I think LinkedIn's a big competitor now as well because it's easy then to, to use the— stay on the platform to look at what's going on in the organisation, what they're saying about values and culture, see who's working there, maybe get in touch with them. It's all just kind of the one place to do it, isn't it? So yeah, everything combined, it's no real surprise really, is it?