Since launching in 2003, TheLadders has been pretty clear what it’s all about. It’s the place for jobs who pay $100,000 and up, and for candidates in that range.

No more.

Beginning in September, says TheLadders, any salaried worker on their way up is welcome.

“It fulfills our mission and our vision,” Alex Douzet said last week announcing the change. Right from the beginning, explained Douzet, president and co-founder, he and CEO Marc Cenedella had their eye on the up-and-coming professionals.

They focused first on the $100,000 segment, seeing it as an underserved market. Now, he said, the time is right to broaden the scope.

For sure it’s a much bigger market, even with the new salary floor of $40,000. The U.S. Census Bureau says just 9.7 percent of the workforce makes more than $100,000. Even allowing for those a step down to the $75,000 floor, that’s still only 18.1 percent.

By resetting the floor, TheLadders broadens the potential market to something like half the workforce.

However, that resetting impacts the cachet TheLadders has cultivated as the source of “Hand-screened $100k+ jobs,” a point reinforced most recently in a series of provocative TV ads.

So the natural question for Douzet is: Doesn’t this make TheLadders just like any other job board?

“The $100,000 cachet is not something we are ever going to lose,” Douzet insists. “That won’t go away.”

Instead, he said, expanding TheLadders to all but entry-level professionals will be a benefit to both job seekers needing help with their next career move, and to recruiters who want to source candidates who have already been qualified.

Says Douzet, “We are a curated network” made up of “the right jobs, the right recruiters” and vetted candidates.

The screening TheLadders does for the $100,000 candidates in its fee and free network will be extended to the candidates in the lower salary ranges. So a job seeker now making $60,000 will get access only to matching jobs within an equivalent and next-step salary band.

That’s done to “avoid spamming” of recruiters and hiring managers by job seekers not qualified by experience or rank for a too-lofty position. Douzet said candidates and jobs would be grouped by experience and salary and each would be matched on that basis. Recruiters can search the entire database if they choose.

For job seekers who sign-up for TheLadders’ premium service (which is $15 for a month at the current promotional rate), they get access to a career counselor, a resume critique, and can search for specific recruiters. Free clients can see, but can’t apply, to jobs, though their resume is available to recruiters.

None of that will change, Douzet said, acknowledging that focusing on $100,000 jobs helped distinguish TheLadders from other job sites. But, he said, what really set TheLadders — and its eight verticals — apart was the services it provided its paying customers.

“Just showing me the job listing isn’t enough,” Douzet says. Job seekers want help with everything from their resume to elevator pitches, and that, he said, isn’t something just $100,000+ wage earners want.

Obfuscation is part of the business plan at RiteSite, which was founded by Manhattan executive recruiter John Lucht in 2001 — about the same time executive-recruiting websites were gaining momentum. Lucht fashioned the site to give C-level execs another option among the job-board scrimmage. Only execs looking for their next $100,000-plus gig need apply. They get membership to RiteSite.com for a yearly fee of $94 — the same amount Lucht used to pay his secretary years ago to put together recruiting lists. For that nominal sum, members get e-mail alerts, job-hunting advice and other free information every week.

It’s tough standing out from the crowd, especially if you’re a niche job site. But RiteSite.com does offer a number of twists. For one thing, membership is not required for an executive to post a resume. RiteSite.com may be the only site to date to separate jobs by both industry and function. Recruiters don’t have to pay to post jobs or review available candidates, and they can post as many jobs as they choose for free.

RiteSite.com actually consists of two databases of executive resumes, with preferential treatment shown to retained recruiters. They get to see an “identity-revealed” database that provides not only list of an executive’s credentials, but also direct contact info.

Contingency recruiters aren’t treated quite so generously. Although they are able to view jobs in RiteSite’s “identity-concealed” database, they are restricted from the more exclusive listings. Still, Lucht estimates half to three-quarters of jobs listed on RiteSite.com are posted by contingency recruiters. This sounds surprising until you consider that RiteSite.com does not charge other sites to republish its internal listings.

Thus, recruiters can toss a dragnet around larger pools of candidates. Lucht boasts: “Nobody has the sorting system that we have. It’s a great benefit to finding the jobs you want” if you’re an executive, while recruiters are able to target specific industries.

Recruiter Larry White of Staffpointe tells me he receives more “measurable candidates” from RiteSite.com than all other Internet recruiting sites combined. He sends these people out for job interviews and almost always gets great results. That’s quite an endorsement. This seems like a more-than-fair deal for recruiting professionals.

It’s too bad RiteSite.com isn’t a little more aesthetically pleasing. That probably would get people to linger longer. As it is now, the heavy black-and-red homepage is forbidding and a bit intimidating to first-time users. Some of the job descriptions also suffer from being a little too generic at times. Also, if you elect to use the site, be prepared for relentless self-promotion of Lucht’s recruiting book. But if you’re a recruiter, it’s at least worth taking a look.