TheLadders.com where not everyone can play, just the suckers.
While watching the Super Bowl (go Giants!), I noticed a somewhat humorous advertisement for TheLadders.com
The ad was set at a professional tennis match, but everyone in the stands pulled out a racket and ran onto the court to join the game. The voice-over sounded “When you let everyone play, nobody wins.” A graphic then showed the company logo and the slogan “The most 100K+ jobs.” I made a mental note and just over a week later, decided to visit the website.
What I found was a business that picked up the torch of failed Super Bowl advertiser Pets.com that deserves the same fate.
1) I performed a search having chosen a field of industry and a regional location. 2) I was presented with a screen that forced me to create an account in order to see the job results. 3) I created an account and was able to see the job results. 4) I clicked on a job result and was told that I needed to sign up for a premium membership to view the job details.
I’m very hesitant to throw around platitudes like bait-and-switch, but after doing some Googling, it would seem the bad taste in my mouth was not unique, and that this particular .com has been annoying people for far longer than I’ve heard of them.
The icing on the cake (or should I say “slime”?) is that should you actually fork over money for viewing the same job postings that show up for free on other popular job boards… you will continue paying until you explicitly cancel your “subscription.”
Yes sir, it’s the Columbia House music club of job boards. When TheLadders.com prompts you to pay, it doesn’t read… “Which subscription plan would you like? 1 month, 3 month, etc.” It reads something to the affect of “How long would you like to subscribe? 1 month, 3 months, etc.” with smaller, italic print indicating you have to manually cancel your service, even if you only payed for 1 month.
TheLadders.com may be a very good resource, but the fundamentals of “duck-typing” come to mind when I visit their website. If it looks like a rip-off, smells like a rip-off, talks like a rip-off… it’s probably a rip-off.
