Ground-Breaking Research Partnership Formed

Indianapolis, IN – January 29, 2008 – DirectEmployers Association, a nonprofit consortium of leading U.S. companies which owns and operates the JobCentral National Labor Exchange, and WEDDLE’s LLC, a leading publisher and research firm specializing in employment, have established a ground-breaking research partnership. The goal of the partnership is to identify and investigate the critical recruitment issues and challenges as well as the potential opportunities and advantages facing employers in the 21st Century. It will draw on the recruiting experiences of the Association’s members and empirical research conducted by WEDDLE’s to develop innovative strategies and practices for successful talent acquisition and management.

Each year, members of the DirectEmployers Association will designate employment-related topics on which they would like to see research conducted. The membership will then vote to select two topics for in-depth investigation by the WEDDLE’s research team. At that point, members will be able to choose whether or not they will participate in the research program, which is fee-based. WEDDLE’s will conduct the research, develop a report detailing its findings and their implications for effective talent acquisition, and then present the report to the participating members in a briefing with the lead researcher. In addition, the partnership will develop and publish periodic reports for the media and public which will draw on member surveys and the annual research to provide working men and women with insights on the skills and other qualifications that leading employers are looking for in the workforce.

““We believe this unique collaboration between our members, which are some of the largest and best known employers in the U.S., and the highly regarded research team at WEDDLE’s will produce unique insights into how best to source, recruit, evaluate, select and onboard top performers in the workforce,” said Bill Warren, Executive Director of the DirectEmployers Association. “Our member companies are thought leaders in the field of recruitment, and this partnership will ensure that they have the empirical data and supporting analysis necessary to stay ahead of the competition.”

“WEDDLE’s has been conducting research into the best practices for sourcing, recruiting and retaining talent since the mid-1990s. We’re pleased to be bringing that track record and capability to the service of DirectEmployers member companies,” said Peter Weddle, CEO of WEDDLE’s. “Our team of academic researchers and seasoned practitioners will probe the hard-to-find data sources and tap the best thinking in the field to deliver results that are both sound and actionable.”

DirectEmployers Association’s purpose is to share best practices, create new industry standards, provide research, and develop and manage systems and software for employers to increase labor market efficiency and reduce recruiting costs. JobCentral National Labor Exchange, an Alliance with The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA), is the Association’s flagship service. Its member companies include an impressive group of industry leaders such as Abbott Laboratories, Analysts International, Allstate, ALLTEL Corporation, Anheuser-Busch, Ashland, Avaya, Bausch & Lomb, Baxter, Bell South, Cargill, Cisco, Coca-Cola, General Electric, General Dynamics, H&R Block, IBM, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Mellon Financial Corporation, Merck, Harris Corporation, Home Depot, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Mayo Clinic, Northrop Grumman, Procter & Gamble, Raytheon, Southern Company, Sprint, Textron, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Union Pacific, Volt Information Sciences, and Xerox Corporation.

Since 1996, WEDDLE’s has conducted ground-breaking research among both recruiters and job seekers on the Web. Its findings are widely regarded for their analytical rigor and often cited when identifying the Best Practices in online recruitment and job search. WEDDLE’s research has often been reported in the media, both in the United States and around the world. In addition, WEDDLE’s is the largest print publisher in the U.S. of guides to the 40,000+ employment-related sites currently operating on the Internet. The American Staffing Association has called WEDDLE’s Publisher Peter Weddle, the “Zagat of the online employment industry.”

DirectEmployers Association
Steven Style
The Steven Style Group
237 West 37th Street, Suite 902
New York, New York 10001
(212) 465-1290
Stevens@stylegroup.com or stylegroup@aol.com

WEDDLE’s LLC
Peter Weddle
WEDDLE’s
2052 Shippan Avenue
Stamford, CT 06902
(203) 964-1888
peter@weddles.com