New National Online Job Board To Launch With More Than 310,000 Listings

Indianapolis, IN, April 26, 2005 – JobCentral, the Internet’s first employer-owned job board and employment web site, was launched today by DirectEmployers Association with more than 310,000 job listings on the site. The listings reflect available job vacancies with nearly 25,000 employers nationwide — including more than seven hundred (700) corporations that have all of their job vacancies listed on the site. The launch was announced by William Warren, Executive Director of DirectEmployers Association. A highly respected industry veteran, Mr. Warren is widely recognized as the founder of online recruiting and is a former president of Monster.com

Uniquely offering employers and job seekers direct contact with each other, access to the JobCentral employment listings is provided free of charge to job seekers, while employers are charged only a nominal fee of $25 per job posting. JobCentral’s job posting fee is 90% lower than the average cost for posting on existing commercial job boards. The service utilizes DirectEmployers’ popular employment search engine to link employers with experienced personnel in more than 6,200 U.S. cities, including the top 200 major metropolitan areas. JobCentral provides job seekers in all industries and occupations, from non-skilled and entry-level to chief executive officer, up-to-date information about employment and career opportunities, and a direct link to employers’ web sites. Typically, the high costs associated with posting positions on commercial job boards have forced large employers to reduce the number of jobs they list online and greatly limited access to online recruiting by small and medium-size companies. As a result, job seekers suffer, since less than thirty percent 30% of employers’ available jobs are currently posted on commercial job boards. At the same time, more than 70% of the positions indexed through JobCentral cannot be found on traditional commercial job boards.

“DirectEmployers’ objective is to create a public site where no employer or individual is denied access to the job market due to financial or technological barriers,” said Warren. “The launch of JobCentral finally captures the potential of the internet for recruiting, creating a true employer-owned national employment network where job seekers and employers can connect with each other directly. Commercial job boards have been successful financial ventures on the internet, yet failures in meeting the needs of both job seekers and employers.”

JobCentral also utilizes the NACElink national college recruiting system, in partnership with The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), to connect colleges, students, alumni and employers. Employers are charged the same $25 fee for job postings to any of the colleges and universities on the fast-growing list of over 500 participating NACElink schools. A discount is offered on jobs posted to multiple schools.

“We have formed a partnership with DirectEmployers to provide NACElink and meet the needs of our college and employer constituents. Both NACE and DirectEmployers recognize the importance of offering employers cost-effective, efficient alternatives to options currently available on the internet,” said Marilyn Mackes, Executive Director of NACE. “We also recognize the critical role colleges play in meeting the demand for a range of staffing needs: internship, co-op, entry-level and experienced hires. With NACElink’s connection to JobCentral, we can leverage the relationships between colleges and employers, increasing the access to these candidates for employers. NACE is pleased to provide the college recruiting segment of the JobCentral network.”

In addition to job listing and resume services, JobCentral provides outplacement and career transition services for displaced workers and company-to-company networking capabilities between corporate human resource offices. JobCentral’s parent, DirectEmployers Association, was formed in 2001 by a group of leading U.S. companies wanting to use the internet as an employer-owned-and-managed service. Currently, 165 leading U.S. companies are DirectEmployers members, which requires only an annual fee of $12,500.

“The turbulent market, escalating costs and ever-changing face of electronic recruiting led a group of leading corporations to examine the potential for an employer-driven, public service-type employment site,” said David H. Williams, Manager, Professional Recruiting Services at Xerox Corporation. “JobCentral is great for job seekers and employers alike. It will be a necessary and valuable tool for all employers working through the predicted labor shortage.”

DirectEmployers Association is a nonprofit organization formed by human resource executives from leading U.S. corporations to meet the latest challenges in corporate recruiting. The Association created and maintains DirectEmployers.com, the Internet’s only cooperative, employer-owned search engine dedicated exclusively to employment.

DirectEmployers Association’s member companies include an impressive group of industry leaders such as Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Allegis Group, Analysts International (Nasdaq: ANLY), ALLTEL Corporation (NYSE: AT), Ashland (NYSE: ASH), Bausch & Lomb (NYSE: BOL), Capgemini, Cingular Wireless, GE (NYSE: GE), H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Kindred Healthcare (Nasdaq: KIND), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Mellon Financial Corporation (NYSE: MEL), Mutual of Omaha (NYSE: MUO), National City Corporation (NYSE: NCC), Progressive Insurance (NYSE: PGR) Raytheon Company (RTN), Southern Company (NYSE: SO), Sprint (NYSE: FON), Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS), Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP), Volt Information Sciences, Inc. (NYSE: VOL), and Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX).

Established in 1956, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) is a nonprofit association that links college career services professionals and employers of new college graduates. Its membership includes more than 1,800 colleges and universities and more than 1,500 employer organizations nationwide.

NACE is the leading source of information about the employment of college graduates.Throughout the year, the association surveys on data relevant to the employment of new college graduates and publishes related reports, including a quarterly report on starting salary offers and periodic forecasts for the college job market. In addition, NACE publishes a wide variety of professional resources to assist its members in their roles and is the publisher of the Job Choices magazine series, the premier recruitment publication for the college market. NACE maintains a virtual press room for the media at http://www.naceweb.org/press/.

Steven Style
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