Reader's advisory: Wired News has been unable to confirm some sources for a number of stories written by this author. If you have any information about sources cited in this article, please send an e-mail to sourceinfo[AT]wired.com.
Look! Up in the sky –- it's a bird, it's a plane.... No, it's an advertising campaign from a dot-com, of all things.
Didn't that go out with all those dot-com millionaires, oh so long ago?
Yet there it was, the orange and white Monster.com blimp, floating serenely above San Francisco's PacBell Park on Sunday, overlooking 35,000 fans attending an XFL game between the San Francisco Demons and the New York/New Jersey Hitmen.
What's next, nickel ice cream cones?
For some of the dot-commers in the crowd, the blimp may have been a dark foreshadowing of what was waiting for them on Monday morning -– crashing tech stocks, the ever-looming threat of layoffs or the hassle of searching for a job in a depressed marketplace.
For Monster.com -- and other online job sites -- it was business as usual, if not better.
Monster.com reports that the doom-and-gloom situation is not so doomy or gloomy. Tech companies are firing people but they are also hiring people.
In March 2000, Monster.com had over 370,000 jobs available for its users to review and apply for. On Tuesday, Monster.com had more than 500,000 jobs posted on its website.
But that's not necessarily all good news. Some workers who had been in high demand -- such as content providers and e-commerce site developers -- are now having a hard time finding work. But employers are still snapping up technical workers such as network support and systems management people.
And footloose freelancers now have a bit of an edge over people who want to work for one company, since some businesses don't want to make a commitment to permanent hires.
In any case, there is definitely a lot of activity in the job-seeking segment and that's one of the reasons Monster.com can afford to hire a blimp to advertise its services.
Monster.com's PR director Kellie Buckley said the company's figures indicate that by the beginning of April the number of job seekers who have opened accounts with Monster.com will have doubled.
In April 2000, seven million people had opened "My Monster" accounts, which allow job seekers to post resumes and search for employment with automated agents. On Tuesday, there were 13.8 million "My Monster" accounts.
And Monster's number of monthly visitors has grown from 3.57 million in February 2000 to 5.66 million in February 2001, a 59 percent increase.
Other online job sites are reporting the same rise in visitors. Techies.com CEO Dan Frawley said that since December 2000 the company had about a 55 percent increase in pageviews and a 79 percent increase in the rate of user registrations on the site.
The Hired Guns, a freelance talent agency that specializes in short term consulting projects, has also seen a significant rise not only in site visits but also in people who register to become Hired Guns through the site, said "Head Gun" Allison Hemming.
"Since summer we have quadrupled the number of hired guns in our corral," Hemming said.
All agree that the employment marketplace has been hard to read for the last few months, but none feel that this is the end of the dot-com world.
"The dot-com layoffs have been big news, and when you hear about Cisco or Intel laying off thousands it sounds bad," Frawley said. "But its important to remember that the high-tech companies that lay off people in one area are still hiring -- sometimes aggressively -- in other areas."
Frawley said that wireless application development is particularly hot right now at techies.com.
At Monster, hardcore tech positions (IT) top the listings of jobs that employers are offering with 44,267 such help-wanted postings, followed by 40,315 openings for accountants, 33,792 for sales personnel, 32,259 for engineers and 30,677 computer and software related positions.
That's a switch from the same time last year, when computer and software development jobs held the No. 1 slot, followed by accounting, IT and sales.
In March 2000, Internet and e-commerce jobs were ranked seventh on Monster's charts. This year they have slipped to No. 9. Advertising and PR, manufacturing and production positions have now pulled ahead of e-commerce job offerings.
According to a techies.com survey, a laid-off tech worker needs an average of one month to find a new job.
But workers in more saturated fields, such as help-desk support, will take a bit longer to find work. People with high-demand skills, however, still get new jobs very quickly, sometimes in less than two weeks.
Hemming agreed that IT professionals are still in great demand among employers. At her "pink slip parties" -- monthly gatherings for the recently disengaged -- Hemming said she often sees IT people who have been out of work for less than a day being swarmed by recruiters.
IT people shouldn't gloat too much though.
"It's still an employee's market in IT," said techies.com's Frawley, "but employers are telling us that the overwhelming shortage of IT workers is easing somewhat, and high-demand positions that were impossible to fill six months ago are now being filled."
Frawley said independent contractors have also been reaping some of the benefits of the layoffs and are getting more work, since companies are plugging the gaps in their regular staffing with temporary hires.
Hemming agrees that it's a good time for freelancers.
"When times are bad, companies may want to test a project or a new position with a freelancer or two before they go full throttle and hire," Hemming said. "Right now, clients are cautious about making long-term commitments."
Representatives at online job sites insist they are not in the peculiar position of gaining business through the seeming collapse of a significant part of their own industry.
"We would never want to say that any layoffs are 'good' for Monster. Plus, we think the recent layoffs are not solely responsible for the increased site traffic," Buckley said.
Techie.com's Frawley feels that the current dot-com climate is neither good nor bad for the site –- it's "just different."
"It is simply a change in balance between techies.com's different lines of business: posting jobs for employers and helping tech consultants find projects. We're now signing up many more qualified applicants for the jobs our clients are posting," Frawley said.
Buckley believes that while the layoffs play a part of the increased site traffic, another big factor in the interest equation is Monster's all-out advertising effort.
"Our new ad campaign launched during Super Bowl XXXV, and the day after its launch a record 42,556 resumes were submitted, and 8.1 million job searches were conducted," Buckley said. "So, while the layoffs of Internet employees and those of other traditional industries have had an impact on Monster, the increased site traffic is also a testament to our brand."
Techies.com advertises its services as well, although on a smaller scale. And Frawley said that the company has recently cut down on advertising.
"The amount of advertising we need to do has sharply declined in the last 12 months," he said. "Demand is so high we're doing a lot more business on techies.com now, with less advertising, and when we do advertise we're finding our dollar goes a lot further."
Monster.com continues to promote the site's services. The company does print and TV advertising, but the most attention-getting promotional devices are those Monster blimps.
Monster.com leases two blimps from The Lightship Group. Monster has leased "Skeeter," the West Coast ship, since July 1999, and "Trump," the East Coast ship, since January 2000.
Last year, Monster.com spent over $5 million on its blimp ad campaign, a figure it expects to match this year. The cost of the lease covers everything from operating and maintaining the blimps themselves -- the fuel, parts and airport fees -- to crew salaries, travel and accommodation costs.
Buckley said that scheduling the blimps' appearances is a very complex process.
"There are many physical restrictions which predetermine which areas of the country we'll be in. The blimp cannot fly where there is risk of snow and has difficulty transiting over mountains. The blimps fly from city to city at about 35 mph, and they cannot transit when there is rain or high winds."
After considering all the weather-related factors, Skeeter and Trump's schedules are based upon Monster's agreements to provide aerial coverage for televised sporting events. The flight schedule is carefully planned around being in certain cities on those dates when Monster.com has agreements with a TV network.
"Then, if we have time in between commitments or get stuck in a city due to weather, we look for interesting places to fly over," Buckley said.
"This could be a sporting event we are not providing aerial coverage for, a local parade, a college campus or a busy beach. Basically, we go anywhere where there is a crowd of people."
Monster.com is an interesting example of how "new economy" business plans can thrive, said James Vertana, an advertising director with V&M Promotions.
Vertana said that an "old-school enterprise" would not be flying blimps during troubled times, "but it's obviously working for Monster."
Vertana also noted that a more traditional company would probably not have even approved of the name Monster.com, since Monster doesn't translate to "jobs service" in most people's minds.
But Vertana believes that Monster has made unconventionality work in its favor.
Buckley agrees. She thinks Monster's name is one of the primary reasons that the company has been so successful.
"There are numerous job boards on the Internet," said Buckley, "but there is only one Monster."
