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When finding work's
like finding love


At Climber, the aim is building lasting relationships

Jul 31, 2007

At first glance, work and romance would seem to be at the opposite ends of life. But they're not really all that far apart.

We look for certain things in a mate and we also look for certain things in a job, and often they're the same things: a sense of being wanted and appreciated, a potential for personal growth, the sharing of experience.

Which brings us to Climber.com, a recruitment web site that treats the job hunting experience as, in a sense, a search for love. Its motto: Dating for jobs.

Climber.com seems to have come upon something. Founded only in April, the site reached 1.13 million unique visitors by June, and it now ranks at No. 10 on the Nielsen//Net Ratings list of the top 10 career development sites.

In the exploding area of online classifieds, recruitment is among the fastest-growing, and as that growth mushrooms, there are the huge general sites, such as Monster.com, but also an increasing number of job sites that either serve very specific fields or offer a unique, almost boutique, approach to finding a job.

Job matching is a hot growth area these days.

Climber.com is one of a dozen career development web sites offering recruitment matching, including TheJobNetwork.com, founded in 2000. Even industry leader CareerBuilder.com, Nielsen’s No. 1 career site in June with 16.1 million unique visitors, has added a candidate matching and screening site called RightFish.com.

For Climber.com's founder and CEO, Mike O’Brien, the model was the dating site eHarmony, because of its very personal approach to bringing love interests together.

His aim is to do the same with worker and employer. It's about building long-term relationships. Says O'Brien: “People visit when they want to find a life partner."

The result, argues O'Brien, is more productive employees and happier employers.

That comes about by pairing job seekers with employers based on shared values.

In the interview process, one similar to that of eHarmony's compatibility test, job seekers are asked to rank the importance of such things as pay raises and stock options as compared with social responsibility and career/life balance. The quiz is actually a computer algorithm that creates what Climber calls a career fingerprint. Companies are quizzed on their company DNA.

Matching sites also offer an additional value: anonymity. That comes in handy for people who are not actively looking but are open to hearing about new work opportunities. An interested employer can send a query to that person, and if there's any interest, the person can respond. Only then is the prospective employee's identity revealed.

"Unless you’re doing matching, you’re not really in web 2.0. Otherwise you’re just doing a text search," says Job Network CEO Marc Wilson. Wilson compares recruitment sites that don't offer matching to blind dates, and he says, “Blind dates are a waste of time.”

More sites like Climber.com and Job Network can be expected to emerge with the ongoing shift of employment ads from newspapers to the internet. Last month the number of help-wanted ads in U.S. newspapers fell to their lowest level since 1958, according to the Conference Board. Morgan Stanley Research estimates the internet recruiting industry will generate more than $2.4 billion in 2007.

Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended July 22, the top five parent companies were Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online for the 25th straight week. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft for the 14th straight week.

Low Rate Source was the top advertiser with 5.88 million impressions, followed by No. 2 NexTag at 5.38 million. With 30.57 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 5.49 million.

Sessions per person per week were even to last week at 16, with domains visited per person also up one to 40. Average PC time per person per week was down 1.45 percent to 16 hours and 58 minutes.

 

Top 25 parent companies
Through July 22

#

Parent

Unique Audience (000)

 Reach %

Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)

1

Microsoft

83,216

61.2

0:43:01

2

Google

79,808

58.7

0:32:16

3

Yahoo!

73,833

54.3

1:03:10

4

Time Warner

68,371

50.3

1:28:11

5

News Corp. Online

42,612

31.3

1:03:52

6

eBay

35,210

25.9

0:45:44

7

InterActiveCorp

28,298

20.8

0:11:58

8

Amazon

21,687

15.9

0:15:48

9

Landmark Communications

20,929

15.4

0:24:00

10

Apple Computer

20,685

15.2

0:32:21

11

RealNetworks, Inc.

18,805

13.8

0:18:58

12

New York Times Company

18,703

13.8

0:09:20

13

Wikimedia Foundation

18,674

13.7

0:09:51

14

Walt Disney Internet Group

18,127

13.3

0:16:54

15

AT&T Inc.

17,000

12.5

0:22:09

16

Bank of America

13,490

9.9

0:19:24

17

United Online

13,040

9.6

0:24:07

18

Viacom Digital

11,668

8.6

0:26:57

19

Comcast Corp.

11,157

8.2

0:28:31

20

CNET Networks

11,125

8.2

0:06:32

21

E.W. Scripps Company

10,883

8.0

0:06:03

22

Verizon Communications

10,595

7.8

0:16:50

23

CBS Corporation

10,359

7.6

0:12:26

24

Facebook

9,976

7.3

0:34:53

25

Gannett

9,885

7.3

0:10:02

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

 

Top 25 brands
Through July 22

 

Parent

Unique Audience (000)

Reach %

Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)

1

Google

74,699

54.9

0:23:33

2

Yahoo!

73,055

53.7

1:03:31

3

MSN/Windows Live

65,569

48.2

0:42:10

4

AOL Media Network

56,459

41.5

1:38:10

5

Microsoft

52,055

38.3

0:15:34

6

Fox Interactive Media

36,826

27.1

1:10:00

7

eBay

30,671

22.6

0:46:43

8

YouTube

22,071

16.2

0:29:32

9

Apple

20,685

15.2

0:32:21

10

Real Network

18,805

13.8

0:18:58

11

Wikipedia

18,630

13.7

0:09:50

12

Weather Channel

18,567

13.7

0:25:59

13

Amazon

17,132

12.6

0:16:02

14

Ask Search Network

15,632

11.5

0:14:34

15

CNN Digital Network

14,102

10.4

0:15:30

16

Bank of America

12,879

9.5

0:19:24

17

Blogger

12,862

9.5

0:09:14

18

About.com

12,573

9.2

0:04:01

19

AT&T

10,233

7.5

0:13:05

20

Facebook

9,976

7.3

0:34:53

21

Comcast

9,474

7.0

0:32:16

22

Gorilla Nation Media

8,772

6.5

0:06:26

23

IMDb - Internet Movie Database

8,703

6.4

0:07:40

24

Chase

8,652

6.4

0:16:28

25

Craigslist

8,291

6.1

0:37:23

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

 

Top 25 advertisers 
(excludes house ads)
Through July 22

#

Company

Impressions (000)

1

Low Rate Source

5,883,646

2

NexTag, Inc.

5,383,529

3

Countrywide Financial Corporation

4,630,900

4

Experian Group Limited

4,515,349

5

Reunion.com L.L.C.

1,915,569

6

InterActiveCorp

1,847,627

7

Netflix, Inc.

1,648,704

8

Low.com

1,144,739

9

Privacy Matters

1,127,702

10

AT&T Corp.

979,054

11

HSBC Holdings plc

943,488

12

Verizon Communications, Inc.

700,796

13

Monster Worldwide, Inc.

616,467

14

Ford Motor Company

578,435

15

Bank of America Corporation

550,305

16

Wachovia Corporation

522,074

17

Echostar Communications Corporation

503,679

18

Deutsche Telekom AG

480,941

19

United Online, Inc.

463,188

20

Vonage Holdings Corp

429,815

21

E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.

423,080

22

Microsoft Corporation

410,392

23

Capital One Financial Corporation

404,367

24

Expertcity, Inc.

400,400

25

Creditcards.com, LLC

374,729

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance

Note: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

 

Top 25 advertising sites
(excludes house ads)
Through July 22

 

Company

Impressions (000)

1

Yahoo!

30,565,248

2

MySpace

5,494,161

3

MSN

4,071,356

4

eBay

883,013

5

AOL.com

862,895

6

FOXNEWS.COM

678,119

7

Comcast.net

642,876

8

The Weather Channel

501,357

9

NetZero

482,288

10

Classmates

395,640

11

Juno

392,893

12

Photobucket

383,953

13

New York Times

362,068

14

IMDb

311,252

15

The Weather Underground

292,104

16

ESPN.com

279,062

17

Realtor.com

248,594

18

iWon

228,970

19

YouTube

227,466

20

Excite

203,253

21

EarthLink

195,875

22

CNN Money

162,907

23

WhitePages.com

155,057

24

FOX Sports on MSN

154,698

25

MyPoints

146,699

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance

Note: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.

 

Average use
Through July 22

 

Current Week

Last Week

% Change

Sessions/Visits per Person

16

16

0

Domains Visited per Person

40

39

2.56

PC Time per Person

16:58:28

17:13:27

-1.45

Active Digital Media Universe

136,033,158

136,249,435

-0.16

Current Digital Media Universe Estimate

214,595,440

214,587,741

0

Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings AdRelevance

 

 



Katy Nelson is a Chicago writer.




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