The Akron Beacon Journal plans to merge its online and offline recruitment services to employers and job seekers across northeast Ohio with Monster by mid-November. ?
The co-branded job search and recruitment website will combine the Monster brand with local market coverage from Akron’s sole daily newspaper and its website, Ohio.com.
“Online recruitment ads are a rapidly growing segment of our business and we believe that our alliance with Monster in northeast Ohio will facilitate significant growth in this category. Combining the strength of Monster, the leading online careers and recruitment resource, with the local strength of the Akron Beacon Journal and Ohio.com will provide advertisers with unparalleled reach and results that meet their employment needs,” publisher Ed Moss said in a news release.?
What About Careerbuilder? ?
This is the second time Monster has replaced CareerBuilder.com and follows the demise of the Akron Beacon Journal’s former parent, Knight Ridder (subsequently bought out by McClatchy).
“As far as Careerbuilder, it does not have to hurt their business. They put more feet on the ground and go after more recruiters. They are in more markets than they have newspapers. It would be premature to say it bodes badly for Careerbuilder, but it does point out how aggressive Monster intends to be,” explains Jim Townsend, principal and editorial director of Classified Intelligence.
Monster’s first initiative with Philadelphia Media Holdings (parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com) also raised the issue of whether newspapers are still the medium of choice for recruiters and job seekers.
An Opportunity to Partner
“This does not come as a big surprise. Monster made it clear they were going to go after unassociated newspapers. They have; they did what they said they were going to do,” says Townsend. ?
He says other areas that Monster intends to target would be those newspapers in non-Careerbuilder-affiliated markets.
“Whether newspapers want to play will depend on what Monster would bring to the party. I would imagine that the particulars of the deal would change market-to-market, not a cookie-cutter approach,” says Townsend.?
John Zappe, a consultant with Classified Intelligence, notes that this is a trend toward newspapers looking for other opportunities to strengthen their brand.
“Newspapers see more opportunities there and are looking for those kinds of situations where they can partner with a powerful brand,” he says. ?
Monster had previously held “extensive conversations with numerous newspapers,” but now the Philadelphia and Akron deals signal to U.S. publishers that Monster is interested in working more closely on future opportunities, according to Zappe.???
The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio’s only four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, serves readers in Summit, Medina, Portage, Stark, and Wayne counties in print and reaches Northeast Ohio online at Ohio.com.
The Akron Beacon Journal is read by more than 286,000 people during the week and 406,000 on Sunday; Ohio.com registered 334,000 unique visitors during the month of August 2006, according to recent audit figures.
Financial terms were not disclosed.