Months after TheLadders.com first announced that it was moving away from a free system for recruiters, the $100K jobs website has officially made the transition to an exclusively fee-based suite of online recruiting solutions.
Effective November 1, the company says all new recruiters will choose from two service options: RecruitLadder Premium and RecruitLadder Enterprise, both of which offer unlimited job posting and candidate database searching.
The company says charter members of the RecruitLadder community will be offered varying levels of complimentary access to RecruitLadder Premium.
RecruitLadder Enterprise will offer one-click OFCCP compliance, along with multi-user account management and employer branding options.
In July, the company disclosed that after an automatic two-week free trial to RecruitLadder Premium for all new and existing members, the company was implementing a new fee, charging $6,000 per named user per year, which breaks down to $500 per month. This was announced at the same time as other changes, such as enhanced searching options for multiple keyword searches and radius searches.
The company now says RecruitLadder Premium will remain at $6,000, while the fee for RecruitLadder Enterprise is $10,000 per seat.
At the time, Maria Schiller, director of corporate marketing at TheLadders.com, said free searching would become more limited and eventually would migrate away.
“Right now, you can do limited searching for free and single posts for free. Searching the entire database will be going away within the next quarter and become a more limited type of searching. Free single job posting won’t go away,” Schiller said in July.
However, those plans have now changed, according to the company.
“Free single posting will officially be gone for new members as of November 1, 2007. All existing members will be upgraded to RecruitLadder Premium and be transferred to Charter Member status which gives them varying amounts of complimentary access to RecruitLadder Premium,” says Schiller.
“The movement to a premium service model reflects the increasing value that recruiters and human resources professionals place on a superior recruiting platform that can manage multiple searches and be integrated into existing talent management infrastructures,” she says.
“With job seeker membership at TheLadders.com topping 1.6 million, the new model gives recruiters access to the world’s largest pool of $100K+ talent, a highly desirable and valuable demographic,” she says.
For recruiters wondering whether any type of limited searching is still free, Schiller says “not for new customers, only Charter Members who have been granted complimentary access.”
Job seekers will continue to pay a $30-a-month fee.
Last month the company made two additions to its board of directors to help lead its global expansion. It added Alexandre Douzet, executive vice president of TheLadders.com Europe, and Robert Chefitz, an investor in TheLadders.com and founding partner of Egis Capital Partners.