Monster Baits Job Seekers With Food

Monster, Inc., an online career and recruitment resource, is rewarding those hungry for a job in three key cities with discounts on meals and chances to win free dinners for opening a My Monster account.

Consumers in Atlanta, Cincinnati and Dallas/Fort Worth have until April 30 to sign up for the My Monster Meals incentive at MyMonsterMeals.com.

Anyone who opens an account at the Web site receives a discount for up to 50% off at various restaurants. Each entrant is entered for a chance to be an instant winner with one grand-prize winner in each market to be selected on May 15 to receive a free dinner for two at 10 restaurants in town.

“The process of going after a new job and getting it is one that requires a lot of thought and can be painstakingly slow,” said Neil Perry, Monster’s VP-field marketing. “When you put in an incentive then it helps to jumpstart people to apply to jobs or post resumes online.”

The promotion spawned from a simple fact, Perry said. The more job seekers in Monster’s database the better chance the company has of matching employers who use its services with candidates, he added.

With the help of Dallas-based Morach, which handles the promotion, the company selected the three markets based on their ratio of matching employers with candidates.

Consumers who sign up with Monster can opt in to receive other promotions from the company or newsletters that cover career-related topics.

The incentive “gets interaction with the consumer going,” said Tad Perryman, account director at Morach. “Then…Monster has the opportunity to continue the relationship with that consumer.”

To promote the program in the targeted cities, ads were placed on the back of valet tickets at restaurants. Some ads read: “Climbing the corporate ladder makes me hungry” and “I came to a fork in my career path. So I used it.”

Posters, TV, radio and online banners also support.

The localization of the program is a first for New York City-based Monster.

“What we’re doing is taking the success of our national TV and radio promotions and bringing them down to local level to augment our activities,” Perry said.

The company plans to roll out other incentives using the local tactic and could possibly extend the program to include other markets later this year, Perry said.

“It’s just a recognition that on a local market basis there’s a huge amount of opportunity to grow our business since newspapers get a large share of classified business,” Perry said. “Monster is perfectly poised to grow our business and get better jobs for job seekers.”