DirectEmployers Association Reports Tremendous Growth In First Year of Operation

Indianapolis, IN, February 13, 2003 – DirectEmployers Association, a non-profit organization formed by executives to confront the latest challenges in corporate recruiting, today announced that in the course of the one short year since its launch, membership has increased nearly five fold. Approximately 45 percent of member corporations are Fortune 500 businesses.

Since its introduction, the Association has developed and managed the Internet’s first online employment search engine, DirectEmployers.com. In addition, the group finalized a monumental agreement with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) to develop and launch NACElink, a national, integrated, Web-based college recruiting system designed to better meet the placement and recruiting needs of colleges, students and employers.

Unlike Internet job boards that function primarily as online classified ads, DirectEmployers.com links job seekers directly to potential employers’ Web sites. Job seekers can search and view all jobs listed on company Web sites, not just jobs posted on job boards, and can apply directly to each employer’s site without posting their resume on a commercial site.

In addition to providing convenience, personal privacy and confidentiality, DirectEmployers.com allows employers and job seekers to exchange information and establish ongoing relationships. DirectEmployers.com also offers outplacement and career transition services, as well as company-to-company networking capabilities among corporate human resource offices.

Last year the Association released the results of its first member survey. Member companies reported as much as forty-seven percent (47%) higher traffic flow to their corporate career sites and fifty-two percent (52%) more resumes received.

According to Michael Roberts, First Vice President, Human Resources for Bank One, “We have been with the Association & DirectEmployers.com since the planning phase in Q3 2001. The search engine has added more than 500 candidates to the bankone.com page per day since it was launched (fewer on Saturdays and Sundays). For the first time, bankone.com has overtaken Monster.com in total hires – 53 percent to 27 percent for Q3 (against over 1,000 Q3 internet hires). In 2000 and 2001, it was over 50 percent for Monster.com and 25 percent for bankone.com — this is a very significant change. Directemployers.com is the only site besides bankone.com that a candidate can find ALL our positions. The fact that they are driven to our home page meets one of our key Internet objectives.”

Dan Guaglianone, Vice President of Global Recruiting for Unisys Corporation, added, “The initial results from using DirectEmployers.com have been phenomenal for us. We receive hundreds of new resumes to our Web site on a daily basis and the applicants are of a high quality and more focused than we have seen from some other sources.”

In June 2002, iLogos Research, the leading research and consulting firm covering online human capital management (HCM) trends and best practice methodologies, released its Annual Survey of Global 500 Companies. The survey found that “Fortune 500 companies publicize more open job positions on corporate Careers Web sites, by a factor of nearly three to one over the largest job board sites of Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs.” This adds credibility to the DirectEmployers.com model, which allows a job seeker to access all jobs available from a central site.

DirectEmployers Association’s member companies include an impressive group of industry leaders such as Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Allegis Group, Alltel Corporation (NYSE: AT), Analysts International (Nasdaq: ANLY), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), Bank One (NYSE: ONE), BAE Systems (BAESF.PK), Bausch & Lomb (NYSE: BOL), Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX), Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Cingular Wireless, Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK), GE (NYSE: GE), Getronics, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), Hall Kinion (Nasdaq: HAKI), H&R Block (NYSE: HRB), IBM (NYSE: IBM), John Deere (NYSE: DE), Kindred Healthcare (Nasdaq: KIND), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Merck (NYSE: MRK), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Mutual of Omaha (NYSE: MUO), Nestle USA, Inc. (OTC: NSRGY), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon (NYSE: RTN), SAP America, Inc. (NYSE: SAP), Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP), Somerset Medical Center, Southern Company (NYSE: SO), Sprint (NYSE: FON), Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW), Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS), Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Volt Information Sciences, Inc. (NYSE: VOL), and Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX).

In January 2003, DirectEmployers Association and the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) announced NACElink, the integrated, Web-based, national college recruiting system that links colleges, students and employers. The launch was met with great fanfare and accolades. NACElink, developed by leading college career center directors and corporate human resource professionals through an alliance between NACE and DirectEmployers Association, includes job postings, a resume database, and tools for career services administration and interview-scheduling.

According to Ted Glatt, Manager of University Relations and Talent Sourcing for Lockheed Martin, “NACElink is uniquely designed to complement our on-campus recruiting efforts. It has an easy-to-use and efficient job-posting feature to communicate all types of employment opportunities and an electronic rating system to evaluate candidates for initial interviews.”

Shirley Marciniak, Associate Director of Employer Relations for Purdue University added, “NACElink’s job-posting, resume data base, and interview-scheduling components are integrated in one data base; the system makes it easier for students and employers to interact. This means fewer missed opportunities for students and more exposure for employers.”

DirectEmployers Association, formerly E-Recruiting 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.

Steven Style
The Steven Style Group
237 West 37th Street, Suite 902
New York, New York 10018
(212) 465-1290
Stevens@stylegroup.com or stylegroup@aol.com