“Remember when?”

“Remember when?” hunting for candidates meant logging onto Monster.com for hours, resumes and cover letters one at a time, and anxiously refreshing your inbox waiting for candidates to apply to your posting? Those pre‑LinkedIn days feel like a different era—but that’s exactly why today’s news hits a little harder.

A nostalgic yet sobering moment: CareerBuilder and Monster, two titans of the dot‑com boom, have filed for Chapter 11 less than a year after merging. Their iconic Super Bowl ads, mascots, and “post-and-pray” era are making way for a fragmented future: their job boards are being sold to JobGet, media properties like Fastweb.com and Military.com will go to Valnet, and government services to Valsoft. 

What a full-circle moment—these were once the digital front doors to every candidate placement. Now, their breakup underscores how rapidly the hiring landscape has evolved. The age of AI-powered matching, social verification, and gig-economy apps has moved on.

For those of us who cut our teeth reviewing resumes through Monster (MonsterBoard) in the late 1990s or clicking “find candidates” on CareerBuilder in the early 2000s, this isn’t just business news; it’s the end of an era.

I would love to hear about the first candidate you found and placed through Monster or CareerBuilder?

What do these chapters tell us about the longevity of current tools like LinkedIn and what is being innovated in HR tech?

They got us here, but the tools we use today will define where we go next.

In basketball terms “Who’s got next?”

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/careerbuilder-monster-which-once-dominated-online-job-boards-file-bankruptcy-2025-06-24/