TheLadders.com – worth $30/month?
TheLadders.com is a nationwide job board specializing in a “community of senior–level professionals searching only $100K+ jobs.” This is an interesting concept if it applies to you, but does it work? More importantly, does it give you opportunities that you won’t find elsewhere?
In my experience, no. I started a search in April of 2008 with TheLadders, looking for a senior-level IT Project Management job. This position was in $115K-$140K range,well within the scope of their listings, and I was a well-qualified candidate with 15+ years experience and a highly-valued PMP certification.
By December of 2008, I had not had a single referral from TheLadders, at least not unless I had talked to someone without asking where they found me (which did happen occasionally). I pulled the plug on my membership and moved on…(as it turns out, to starting my own business, VideoProfile.tv).
One the of the explanations I would offer is that most “100K jobs” are rather like Canadian cities–they hug the southern border rather tightly. Those $110K project management job quickly became $90K jobs as soon as companies and recruiters saw how many project managers were on the bench and willing to accept less. My theory is that candidates on TheLadders may be seen as pretentious or demanding since the pay scales have been in constant flux.
But more to the point, there are a lot of free job boards out there with more activity. These days it is so simple for managers/HR/recruiters to use filtering tools to find executive-level staff that TheLadders doesn’t really offer anything unique.
What is great about TheLadders is CEO Marc Cenedella’s daily email. He is obviously a great person, very knowledgeable and supportive. He writes some of the best regular job seeker advice out there, and this is a personal touch that is totally missing from the big job boards. You may want to sign up on TheLadders for their free version, which won’t let you apply to job but will get you access to the email.
[See my comment below]
It’s a shame to have to un-recommend a job board, but for $30/month I personally wasn’t getting the value I needed to see. If you do decide to try it, make sure you track where your contacts are being made and pull the plug as you see fit.
Also, if there are any great success stories from TheLadders, let me know.
I originally wrote this post out of my experience, but in fact the story of TheLadders goes much deeper and beyond mere “is it worth it?” analysis. It is fairly well detailed that there are some major problems in the service and that Marc Cenedella’s copy makes a good read but is not substantiated even with ethics. One problem is a lack of successful placement; another is that their $700 resume critique/writing service is a scam. There’s a lot more here, if you are interested. Don’t get suckered.
http://corcodilos.com/blog/311/the-dope-on-theladders
Great post!