Monster Türkiye

What did it do?

Monster Türkiye was the local edition, published at monster.com.tr, of Monster, the global job listings site founded in the US in 1994. The site published employers' vacancies and connected job-seeking professionals with career opportunities. Its operations in Turkey were run through Monster Recruitment İnsan Kaynakları ve Danışmanlık Ltd. Şti.

Why did it shut down?

When Monster arrived in Turkey, the market was in the hands of local sites such as Kariyer.net, Yenibiris.com and SecretCV.com. The company gave no reason in its closure email. According to Digital Age, industry figures said Monster had struggled to compete with these local sites and had pulled out for that reason. Monster also exited other emerging markets such as Brazil and Mexico on the same day, which suggests that the decision was part of a narrowing of the company's global priorities (interpretation).

The story

Monster, founded in the US in 1994 by Jeff Taylor, was one of the few internet companies to survive the dotcom crash. Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, noticed that the Turkish version of the site had quietly gone live in January 2007, and greeted with curiosity the arrival of a global rival in a market dominated by local players such as Kariyer.net, Yenibiris.com and SecretCV.com. Later reports stated that Monster Türkiye began operating in 2008.

Under the slogan Kariyer Canavarı (“Career Monster”), monster.com.tr published job listings and connected employers with job-seeking professionals. In 2011 the site was nominated in the Best Job Search Site category at the Webrazzi Awards. Leadership of the local market, however, lay with the long-established local sites.

An email sent to users on 20 December 2012 announced that the Turkish website would close on 28 December 2012 and go completely out of service. In line with the privacy policy, all personal information and CVs would also be deleted from Monster's database. Webrazzi wrote that, after the closure news from e-commerce, a new one had now been added from the human resources field, and noted that there was no clear information about the company's performance.

Digital Age, citing Hürriyet, reported that Monster exited other emerging markets such as Brazil and Mexico on the same day as Turkey. According to the same report, industry figures said the company had struggled to compete with local careers sites such as Yenibiris.com, Kariyer.net and Secretcv.com and had decided to pull out for that reason. A note added to the page stated that the country page had been discontinued as of 28 December 2012.

Monster's Turkish adventure lasted around four years. When the company was bought by Randstad for $429 million in 2016, it operated in 40 countries, and Turkey was not among them. Monster Türkiye's story shows that, in job listings markets with strong network effects, a global brand name alone may not overcome the advantage of local leaders.

Lessons for founders

• In markets with strong network effects, such as job listings, you cannot overtake the local leader on the strength of a global brand name alone.
• When entering a new market, plan from the outset how you will win over the local employer and candidate base.
• The local arm of a global company can be one of the first items cut when headquarters downsizes.

Sources

1. Monster Türkiye is closing! (Webrazzi, 2012-12-20)
2. Monster.com.tr has closed (Digital Age, 2013-01-09)
3. Monster Türkiye is live (Webrazzi, 2007-01-20)
4. Monster.com, the veteran of the job listings vertical, sold for $429 million (Webrazzi, 2016-08-09)

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