The end of June 2011 brought a lot of hype in the blogging world about TheLadders’ new “Signature” Program. Have you heard of it? Signature promises that “selected participants who actively engage in all components of the Signature program are guaranteed a job offer or their money back.” The price tag? $2,495. The claim of success? 90%.
[I’m taking the existence of this program, and the price tag, on faith since TheLadders’ website is seemingly impenetrable without a username and password – see www.theladders.com]
Criticism of the Signature program abounds. Forbes’ Susan Adams points out what might be the obvious in her article, The Ladders Guarantees a Job Offer or Your Money Back: TheLadders self-selects the people who may enroll in the program. They don’t guarantee a job to just anyone! And, as it turns out, 75% of the people accepted into the program are already employed and looking to move up the ladder or make a lateral move into a larger company. These folks are much better positioned to succeed in their job search than the unemployed. The 90% success rate doesn’t sound quite so impressive anymore, does it?
Furthermore, explains Ms. Adams, if you read the fine print you find out that participants are required to “apply to 6 well-fitted positions per month.” Hmmm… who determines what constitutes a “well-fitted” position? What if there are not 6 positions the candidate wants to apply to? It seems the $2,495 fee will then be forfeited. For additional criticism of this aspect of the program, see A Six Figure Job Guaranteed or your Money Back in the bnet.com blog (authored by Kimberly Weisul).
And what if a participant applies to 6 jobs in order to comply with the program, even though they are not jobs she wants to accept because of location, company culture or some other factor? What if she gets an offer from one of them? She has then paid $2,495 to get a worthless job offer.
The Signature program reminds me of a “deal” offered by Match.com in my internet dating days. Match, as I remember, offered 6 additional free months if I did not meet someone I liked within 6 months. The catch? I had to contact 6 people each month for 6 months to remain eligible for the offer. Eek. There just weren’t that many guys who appealed to me enough to make the effort. I contacted an average of 2 guys a month for 6 months, didn’t make a love connection, and cancelled my service.
And cancelling services is what a lot of people might start doing around The Ladders. Snarky career blogger Nick Corcodilos refers to The Ladders as a “beleaguered organization” in his article, TheLadders: A lipstick pig’s death rattle? He suggests that if TheLadders CEO’s Marc Cenedella’s claims are correct, and he has 4.5 million subscribers at $35/month, then those 4.5 million are not getting the results promised by their subscription. Why else would TheLadders need to dangle a pricey “guaranteed” job offer carrot in front of these subscribers?
Another suspicious promise of Signature is their claim that the program will reduce the amount of time necessary to spend on a job search from 30 to 4 hours per week. Silly me! Here I was thinking that job searching was a full-time job. It takes time to make connections and work networks, and a Manpower study recently found that 41% of successful jobhunters got their jobs through networking. Does TheLadders claim that significant networking is now unnecessary in the job search process?! I am wary of any program that encourages job searchers to stop engaging in this essential and necessarily time-consuming aspect of their search.
What do you think of this grand offer by TheLadders? Would you front the dough if you were chosen as a qualified candidate? Or would you prefer to get a great resume and cover letters and find your job the old fashioned way?
