Major Companies Ready New Online Job SiteMajor Companies Ready New Online Job Site

A new employer-backed online job board could be to Monster.com and HotJobs.com what airline-backed travel site Orbitz is to Travelocity and Expedia.

DirectEmployers.com, to be announced next Tuesday, is backed by more than 15 international companies, including IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Nestle, Raytheon, Sprint, and Unisys. Participants span industries from advertising to aerospace.

The site, run by E-Recruiting Association, a nonprofit established by senior human-resources executives from the participating organizations, will offer a gateway to corporations' own recruiting Web sites, cutting out the commercial online recruiting sites in the online job-seeker strategy.

Monster, Yahoo's HotJobs, and the thousands of other online recruiting sites receive the majority of their revenue from companies using their service to post job advertisements.

Monster.com won't lose its pre-eminent position just yet, International Data Corp. E-recruiting analyst Chris Boone says, thanks in part to massive brand strength.

"There would have to be a huge, critical mass of companies to make a dent in Monster.com's market share," he says, noting the job board's Super Bowl commercial as only one aspect of its million-dollar marketing campaign.

Boone recommends building up corporate recruiting sites instead of investing in another commercial site. "The corporate Web site will always be the cornerstone of corporate recruiting," Boone says.

Online recruiting is one of the most profitable ventures for the Internet. Earlier this week, Yahoo completed its acquisition of Monster.com competitor HotJobs.com. The Internet portal won HotJobs.com in a successful hostile bid against Monster.com to diversify its revenue channels.