Monster, the world's largest career network, has some 10m CVs on its database and 35,000 are added every day in the US alone. Six years ago, when Monster was launched, the people most likely to entrust their personal data to this public and hence non-secure medium were graduates embarking on careers. Today, however, around 10 per cent of the working population in the US makes use of Monster's services.

Labour-market observers believe this impressive development is due to increasing acceptance of the internet coupled with the current recession. Searching for and advertising jobs is much cheaper on the internet than through traditional media, to say nothing of the cost of headhunters.

Posting a CV online is only the first step, however; electronic job-brokering is, in fact, a pretty complex process.

According to a study by Forrester Research, just 4 per cent of those surveyed used the internet to look for a new job; 40 per cent found positions on the basis of recommendations and 23 per cent responded to advertisements.

A study by British market research institute BMRB, however, used a more narrowly defined target group consisting of internet users only. The survey showed that of those who participated, about 38 per cent sought employment via the internet between mid-2000 and January 2001 - and 400,000 of them found the job they were looking for.

Within the growing internet community, recruitment and employment agencies have thus become an extremely interesting line of business. It is not surprising that considerable investments have been made in this sector since the mid-1990s and web-based recruitment agencies have been looking to gain a foothold in the market.

Now that investors in internet shares are more wary and the call for profitability has become more strident, internet job sites must prove that they are able to run profitably. The agencies themselves appear confident. "We are looking to break even at the end of 2001," says Roland Metzger, president and CEO of Jobpilot, one of the largest job exchanges in Europe.

Mr Metzger is aware that an effective recruitment site must offer more than the classified ads section of a newspaper. Features such as tips for applicants in, for example, CV writing, assessment centres and company profiles are also required, as well as sophisticated and effective search mechanisms.

According to Charlene Li, research director at Forrester, the future of this sector belongs to communities - such as those found elsewhere on the internet, where specialists and others can exchange views and tips.

Job site ranking in Europe
January 2001
Domain	Visitors	Market Share (%)*
Arbeitsamt.de	861.920	6.5
Anpe.fr	526,490	6.9
StepStone.de	310,020	2.3
Monster.co.uk	288,790	2.6
Fish4job.co.uk	286,500	2.6
JobOnline.com	259,480	2.3
Monster.de	257,100	1.9
Monster.fr	249,820	3.3
Silicon.com	187,630	1.7
Jobpilot.de	176,330	1.3
Source: NetValue
* Percentage of internet users

Furthermore, competition is becoming tougher for start-ups and dotcoms in the sector: as in other industries, traditional recruitment companies are gradually making inroads on the internet. Manpower, for example, has secured an online presence through acquisitions and is adapting its existing business model for the web.

Likewise, many daily newspapers are supplementing their printed ads with direct links to job sites, which in turn offer assistance for applicants. In this way the newspapers can secure their own advertising market against online competition and also gain a foothold in an area in which established start-ups are already functioning.

Jobpilot, with its head office in Germany, and the Norwegian StepStone company are two of the most successful operations of this type in Europe. Jobpilot will very soon have registered its millionth user and has a database containing half a million CVs and 150,000 job offers. StepStone has almost as many job offers - 130,000 - with 400,000 CVs and 700,000 registered users. Other leading recruiters in Europe are Monster and JobLine (Monster recently launched a takeover of JobLine).

Analysts believe developments over the next couple of years will show whether the European job market is large enough for all four of these to co-exist. Scandinavia has an established market for online recruiting, but the largest growth rates are being registered in Germany, which gives Jobpilot something of an advantage.

According to Giles Clarke, CEO of StepStone, website advertising - one source of revenue in the fight for market leadership and, indeed, for survival in the case of smaller companies - could well dwindle in significance in the medium term. In other words, he warns, recruitment websites - like any other website - should not depend on advertising for revenue.

For his part, Mr Metzger of Jobpilot says he is looking to attract new customers and retain old ones by offering more features and more assistance for jobseekers.

Email Gisela Saloga at gsaloga@web.de