Monster Opens Moscow Office

Monster Worldwide will open an office in Moscow in the next two or three months, according to company vice president John Highland. After that, it will spread to the regions. The company launched a Russian-language website last autumn.

The company expects to take over 20 percent of the countryís online recruitment in its first year. That will make it the second largest such site in the country, following headhunter.ru, which had a 35-percent share of the market. Local companies say it will never get more than half the market.

Monster operates in 38 countries, including Russia. Experts say the Internet recruiting market in Russia is worth about $20 million per year. Industry insiders say that it will be difficult for Monster to realize its plans. Sergey Shevchenko, head of the employment department at Pronto-Moscow (job.ru) commented that ìFive percent of the market in one year is the ceiling for Monster. The market has been divided up and the leaders have strong positions. It will be hard for a newcomer to find the necessary number of employment seekers and employers.î

Olga Brukovskaya of headhunter.ru noted that Monsterís presence will have a salutary on the Russian Internet in any case, as it will help reorient the web toward a service-driven model instead of an advertising-driven model. That is, the site earns money from employers, who pay for its services, not from advertising.

Other Russian recruiting sites include e-xecutive.ru (Prof Media) and rabota.ru (RDV Media).

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