Whither Ladders?   They're Now Charging Employers ... and You

• The Ladders changed their rules.  Recruiters and Employers now have to pay $4,500 to $10,000 a year to post jobs or view your resume on The Ladders. 

• Is it worth it to you, the job seeker, to pay a $30/month membership fee to be a member of a site that charges employers this much to use it?

The Ladders is a job site for $100K+ executives.  The Ladders charges executives for a membership, which costs $30/month or $180/year.  Members are allowed to view ads and have their resumes listed in their database.

This may sound a lot like paying a fee for the privilege of being listed on and visiting a job board like Monster, but up until now, it really wasn’t.  Not only was membership limited to people claiming to be $100,000 execs, but recruiters and employers were allowed to post $100K+ positions and view resumes for free.

All this has changed - they've started double dipping. As of November, 2007, The Ladders announced that recruiters and employers not already signed up would have to pay a fee of $6,000 to $10,000 a year to post positions and view resumes. Recruiters/Employers that had already been using Ladders were allowed to continue using Ladders for free until July 31, 2008, and then were offered a legacy rate of $4,500 per year to continue using it. Individual jobs can be posted for $500 each, and they do have some other packages that allow employers and recruiters to search resumes only or to post multiple ads at rates lower than $500 each. However, in every case, the employer now has to pay to use The Ladders, and you have to pay to be seen by these employers as well.

The Ladders isn't publicizing this, either.  Every time I tell an executive that Ladders now wants me to pay $5,000 or so a year to use it, they're surprised ... even stunned.

I can’t imagine that in this economy that many recruitment firms will pay $4,500 to $10,000 to use a service where the job-hunters are paying a fee to sign up (people who sign up for a service like this are far more likely to be desperate, and that’s not who recruiters and employers are most interested in). Usage will probably be limited to the large retained firms, a handful of corporate employers who employ large numbers of $100K+ execs, and to some of the larger contingency firms that are looking for resumes that they can broadcast (and as a general rule, 6-figure executives want to stay away from contingent firms). Right now, The Ladders has a large number of members in their pool, but I think this will diminish as the number of employers/recruiters stop using it, and the members get fewer and fewer results.

In the past, I heartily recommended joining The Ladders to most job-hunting executives.  It had become a pretty good resource, as job boards go. I really don’t know whether I would recommend buying a membership now.  I’m sure that the number of employers/recruiters using the site fell off significantly on August 1, 2008, and I would guess that there are far fewer jobs posted, and obviously far fewer people mining their resume database.

6FigureJobs.com charges employers to view resumes and to post jobs, but job-hunters are allowed to sign up for free, so they are essentially providing a similar service as does The Ladders, without charging the job hunter for a membership. Netshare charges employers to mine their resume database, but allows employers and recruiters to post positions for free. RiteSite allows employers and recruiters to post positions and peek at resumes for free, plus they provide members a free list of 600 top retained recruiter firms for free.  RiteSite hasn’t developed the high volume of the other sites, however, but perhaps with The Ladders going to this double-dipping strategy, it will open up the door for RiteSite to blossom.

The Ladders has been conducting a major TV advertising campaign of late that may add enough members to make it productive for enough recruitment firms and employers to pay an annual subscription fee and make your membership fee a worthwhile investment.  I’m skeptical.  By the same token, they have built a solid brand name, and perhaps they will be able to continue on.  Ladders does have a free membership which allows you to view a limited number of jobs on the site, but does not allow you to post your resume. Sign up for that, and perhaps try a one-month membership – it’s only $30. 

The same jobs on Ladders will be often be listed on RiteSite and Netshare, and you will now find even more jobs listed on these sites than on Ladders, because they can be listed there for free.

Anyone out there who has been a Ladders member for quite some time, and can tell me if you've noticed a difference in the number of jobs posted and your results, please email me.