Follow the bouncing ball. In 2005, Monster agrees to be a reseller for an ATS called HRsmart. Over time, as the market shifts and other tools (Indeed, LinkedIn) outmaneuver Monster, it decides to roll itself out as a product company that also happened to have a deep candidate database, and a job board. They bought several companies, and began offering career site hosting, nominal job distribution, etc. They kept HRsmart at part of that offering, but did not acquire the technology

*(As an aside, the ATS is a super important tool to not control it as part of your tech-offering stack, if you’re offering a full stack solution for sale…)

Monster sells its solution to a number of companies.

In 2015, HRsmart is acquired by Deltek, a poor-man’s, wanna be Oracle.

You remember them, from the movies, right..?

They decide that since Oracle has an ATS, they need one too. Support and development at HRsmart stops almost immediately. ATS begins to go down for clients, sometimes for days on end.

In 2016, Monster is acquired by Randstad, which has its own set of tools, as well as investments in numerous recruiting tech start-ups. Including some which could compete with Monster’s tech stack – so, is the tech at Monster being sunsetted, merged, or what..?

This week, HRsmart drops the ball with at least a dozen clients. Jobs do not post, and applying is turned off, as they announce that Deltek is being acquired by Roper Technologies. And if you use HRsmart, and think things were bad under Deltek? Just you wait. This ride’s gonna get all sorts of bumpy for you.

Here’s the thing – this is where it helps to be able to “dial a friend”. If any company that bought HRsmart over the past few years had asked for our advisement, they would not be in the boat they’re in now.

It’s that simple. HireClix Consulting Services (we’re calling it “Sherpa”) is designed to help avoid just these types of problems. We have spent years getting to know the technology in our space – who’s doing what, where, what’s the innovation, what’s breaking, who integrates with who & how, who simply cannot be implemented, and on and on. Our depths and breadth of knowledge in talent acquisition technology comes from years of working within the space. We install, rip out, reinstall, fine tune, etc, ATSs, live within their CRM, marketing platforms, sourcing tools. Manage our clients’ tool selection processes.  Partner with the investment space, providing guidance to HC tech investors. Test products and help with design for vendors.

And, because of all of that – we don’t build products. Not ever. Any consulting firm that tries to offer advice on what tool to buy, when they build a tool like that… is pretty suspect. Our guidance is agnostic – client driven, and knowledge informed. We can get you to the top of your next mountain.

Meantime, if you’re reading this, and you’re using Monster’s technology, call us. Asap. It’s free – we’d like to help, since the site dropping, and acquisition, cannot be fun to be dealing with. Just email martin.burns@hireclix.com, or call: 617-851-7277.