Switch hunt

Job sites are job sites, except when they start baying for attention big time.

Recruitment advertising. Just a few years ago that would be the cue for you to fall deep into slumber. Then the Internet rocked us all awake, and now job site advertising is here to make your hair stand on end. And maybe even get you that bigger-better-deal at the company across the street, or wherever.

The stakes have never been higher, and the searing force of competition is doing strange things to the TV screen.

The current job-switching season was kicked off by naukri.com's rip-roaring "boss" commercial that had everyone named Hari (and perhaps a boss or two) turning a deep shade of pink; someone even threatened to sue the company for his kid's getting teased in school. Needless to say, the website is almost snarling up with extra traffic.

While naukri.com remains the pioneer of the online job services market, the big scary foreign player is not hiding in some cyberspatial cranny.

Monster.com, with an equally outsized appetite for attention, has stormed TV screens with a commercial designed to get a chuckle, and some soul-searching about one's real field of passion.

It all spells a new high for job site advertising. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, founder and CEO, naukri.com, feels that advertising in this market has become brand oriented. Naukri talks about the boss-subordinate relationship ("Eighty per cent of the people change jobs because of their bosses"), while Monster talks about escaping the clutches of the wrong job.

"We always tell people how important it is to get a right job to avoid any regrets," affirms Dhruv Shenoy, managing director, monster.com.

The rivalry between the two is pushing up ad budgets. Naukri.com spent close to Rs 20 crore last fiscal year, and expects to spend at least 50 per cent more this year.

According to independent market estimates, monster.com's budget is quite similar. They may be working on differing aspects of job dissatisfaction to spur switches. But together, they're probably giving HR chiefs the biggest creeps.