Glassdoor vs Monster: They help us find the ideal job, but how do they recruit and retain talent?
Disclaimer: Osterus wrongfully included India/APAC data into the analysis. Please note that, these companies are retaining the Monster brand, are however a completely different company with no connections at all with Monster.com. Monster currently only operate in the USA and Europe with some smaller technology offices in Malaysia and Australia.
Once the disclaimer disappears, the data will have been updated.
Venturing into the recruitment industry can be daunting, much like switching a job in any other industry. Between negotiating pay and finding the right company that follows your moral compass, a new job is a big decision. Today, we are going to shed some light on two gatekeepers of the recruitment realm: Glassdoor and Monster. Do they hold up to the same standards they promote through their portals?
Both of these companies focus on job searching, career advice, and hiring resources, making them great candidates to analyze the employment specifics for. Monster was founded in 1994 and has gone through several mergers since, resulting in a market cap of $310 million. On the other hand, Glassdoor was founded in 2007 and was acquired in 2018 for $1.2 billion.
Despite having a higher asset management level, Glassdoor has less than half the employees of Monster. How do employees manage double the assets, having only half the staff? This is the question we will dive into today by analyzing various employment statistics designed to give us a glimpse into the work environment at each company.
First, let’s look at the average work experience by job title. Monster outranks Glassdoor in experience in every single category, except intern, highlighting a unique hiring strategy. Monster is looking to bring on experienced professionals, meaning they stay away from interns and fresh college graduates.
Monster’s C suite employees have over 8 years of experience while Glassdoor’s employees only have 4. Since Glassdoor was created in 2007, this tells us that there are few employees in upper management positions that have been with the company from inception. We can further support this theory once we analyze the retention distribution.
For both companies, employees with the least experience are found in the consulting sector with Monster reporting around 4 years average experience and Glassdoor detailing only 3 years. This is of course excluding the intern position. The next highest experience category is software development with an average of 6 and nearly 8 years of experience for Glassdoor and Monster, respectively.
Let’s look at the previous employment retention distribution to support that Monster has had trouble keeping executives. Looking at the data tells us that most employees stay at the company between 1–3 years with 57.2% reported by Glassdoor and 42.8% reported by Monster. From there, employment in the 3–5 and 5–10 categories decreased with the data showing 20.9% and 27.9% and 11.7% and 16.9% in Glassdoor and Monster, respectively.
The 10–15 and 15+ year categories are nonexistent with 1.4% and 3.9% in the 10–15 year category and 0.1% and 1.2% in the 15+ year category. This data tells us that both companies have a hard time keeping talent for more than 3 years, highlighting changes that might be needed in operations to promote employee growth and retention.
Studying the current employment distribution further supports employee retention issues. Most employees for Glassdoor are found in the 0–1 category while Monster has a majority in the 1–3 year category. Glassdoor reports 38.1% in the 0–1 category with Monster reporting only 10.6%. On the flip side, Monster shows 30.8% of employees in the 1–3 year category with Glassdoor showing only 23.3%.
Both of these companies retain a majority of their employees for less than 3 years. This can indicate a major hiring effort to grow each company or simply poor management that contributes to a high amount of employees leaving after the 3-year mark. Whatever the case, it’s important to keep these data points in mind when fully evaluating these companies.
The gender distribution also sheds light on the operational goals and work culture these companies are building. There is a heavy male dominance in Monster while Glassdoor reports slightly more equality in the job roles. The sales, software development, business development, and human resource categories in Monster are male dominant with software development showing 71.74% males compared to 23.91% females.
The same is true for the software development category in Glassdoor with 83.53% males and 16.47% females reported. What’s interesting is that in the software development categories, the females have nearly the same experience as the men.
However, the customer service and marketing departments at Glassdoor show a heavy female presence, outweighing the males. The marketing department shows 67.06% females compared to 30.59% males. Ideally, we would like to see an equal distribution in all categories, but a strong female presence in some categories is a great start.
An explanation for the lack of female representation in Monster is the primary work locations. The top city Monster operates in is Hyderabad, with Boston, Prague, and Glasgow trailing behind. On the contrary, Glassdoor is primarily U.S. based with the top cities being San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
Access to the education and experience Monster is looking for might be more difficult as a woman in certain areas; however, with Boston being the next top city, there should be more female representation. The hiring efforts of each company directly impact the gender distribution we see through this data by Osterus.
Finally, let’s take a look at the top job titles within each company. Glassdoor reports 12.67% of employees in corporate affairs while Monster has 24.52% of employees in sales. This shows a stark difference in the operating style of each company. Glassdoor places a greater emphasis on compliance with government agencies while Monster is focused on generating sales. Monster reports a mere 3.19% in corporate affairs while Glassdoor has 7.85% in sales.
