One of the fastest-growing audience sectors right now is the unemployed. So Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) has taken Workthing, the free-to-use recruitment site it bought in 2005, and launched Workthing+ on top – a premium service that asks for £19.99-a-month from those out of work.
The news publisher is tying the new service in with its regional newspaper portfolio, with the Huddersfield Examiner amongst the first to plug in.
Trinity regional papers lost 50.4 percent of their job ads income in the year to June 28, as vacant positions dried up. And digital wasn’t spared – income from online job ads fell 37.7 percent, too. So the publisher is offering extra services to users, but at a price…
Its FAQ asks “Why should I pay to advance my career?”, and answers: “More people are applying for the same job as you … Can you really afford not to invest in your future when Workthing+ can cost less than 50 pence a day?” The extra features include CV review, psychometric tests, salary comparison, webinars and CV view tracking. The site promises money-back if users can’t find a job after six months.
A Trinity spokesperson told us: “Workthing and Workthing+ are different, complementary services – Workthing is still a free-for-consumers job board and Workthing+ a subscription service.”
The addition has been made by Trinity Mirror Digital Recruitment, the unit in which the publisher has put all the online job sites it’s bought over the last few years like SecsintheCity, totallylegal, PlanetRecruit, The Career Engineer and GAAPweb.