A monster deal? The company behind Monster.com was to create a state-of-the-art online job search and recruitment system for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development but the contract was nixed.

• Author: McKimmie, Kathy
• Position: WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

ON FEBRUARY 1 THE Indiana Department of Workforce Development announced it "awarded a contract" worth $2.8 million to Monster Government Solutions, a subsidiary of Monster Worldwide, to provide Indiana with "a new, state-of-the-art, online job search and recruitment system." Five weeks later, commissioner Ron Stiver said the deal was "null and void" and a second RFP of broader scope would be issued to replace the state's decrepit and little-used job matching system.

So just when is a contract not a contract? When it's not yet signed.

A sentence in the original press release reveals one of the reasons the euphoria over bringing "cutting-edge technology" to the state turned into a return, at least temporarily, to the status quo. "Many employers prefer to post jobs on their own Web sites, in newspapers, or in trade journals," it says, rather than listing jobs with the state. A loss of advertising dollars, then, could result from an updated and free state-run system.

The Hoosier State Press Association immediately expressed the concerns of its newspaper members over the deal, calling it anti-competitive and a waste of taxpayer money. Internet resources already exist, it said, including Monster.com, to meet the needs of job seekers. In fact, CareerBuilder.com, one of the biggest online job boards, is owned by Gannett, Knight-Ridder (recently acquired by McClatchy Co.) and Tribune Co. In April 2004, CareerBuilder.com launched its own Government Solutions Group, designed to deliver specialized recruitment services to federal, state and local agencies and organizations.

Competition is hot in the online job search field with two of the newest entrants, Indeed.com (with The New York Times as an investor) and Simplyhired.com using spider technology to grab job listings from all over the Internet--including from CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com, and listing them neatly for the searcher. Employers that now pay for multiple commercial listings need do so no more.

"A deal with Monster is particularly troublesome," says HSPA's executive director David Stamps, "because Monster is in the business." If they're the vendor, he says hypothetically, they create the site and could then solicit employers for additional services for a fee. Access to the state's new database is a real sticking point. "We need some safeguards put into it. They can't have a competitive advantage."

Stamps and other representatives of HSPA met with Stiver in mid-February and again on...