Job site for high earners

We’ve always said everything can be upgraded (or premiumized, in our sister site trendwatching.com’s current lingo) and the recruiting industry is no exception. To wit: TheLadders, a job site created exclusively for high earners looking for jobs paying USD 100,000 or more. TheLadders lists more than 35,000 new jobs each month—all of them with annual salaries of USD 100K or higher—including many C-level, vice president, director and manager positions. Seven functional areas are served by specialized search engines, creating “ladder” listings specific to sales, marketing, finance, human resources, law, technology and operations; an eighth list, meanwhile, captures all other fields. But just as the site focuses on high-end jobs, so, too, does it cater to high-end earners. Reasoning that free access makes it too easy for less-qualified candidates to flood recruiters with a deluge of poor-quality applications, TheLadders grants full access to its listings only to premium members, who must pay USD 30 a month for the privilege. Such members can access the full set of listed jobs as well as connect with corporate and executive recruiters. A one-on-one resume service, advice from career experts, customized online profiles and e-mail alerts are available, as are a host of services for recruiters. Since TheLadders was founded in 2003 by ex-HotJobs.com executive Marc Cenedella, the New York-based site has grown into the largest specialty employment website in the world, it says, with more than 1,600,000 members and over 35,000 recruiters using its .com and .co.uk websites. Last fall it was named a Momentum 2007 Company at the Momentum Growth Conference in recognition of its revenue growth over a short period of time, proven and scalable business model, user-base size, customers and partnerships. A good one to emulate, either in other regions or targeting niches with similarly simple boundaries.