StepStone Extends Reach with New Sites in Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Sweden

StepStone has continued its strategy of rolling out targeted job channels with the launch of new vertical career sites in Germany, Belgium and Denmark, as well as the move of JobbSverige.se to the StepStone platform.

StepStone Denmark has launched a new Life Sciences channel with a focus on jobs in healthcare, medicine and pharmaceuticals. StepStone already works closely with Brsen, Denmarkís leading business newspaper, to provide a co-branded site dedicated to management and specialist positions. According to Stefan Ulrich Nielsen, Director Human Resources, at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, ìThis new service is unique, and means that our recruitment will be faster and our engagement with potential job seekers more efficient.î

StepStone Belgium has launched its vertical channel strategy with its first 2 sites for jobs in Engineering and in IT & Telecoms. These already carry over 1400 and 2000 jobs respectively and are proving popular with recruiters and job seekers alike. A further channel focused on ëFirst Jobsí will be launched shortly.

In Sweden, StepStone has completed the migration of JobbSverige.se, acquired in December 2005, to the StepStone 4.1 platform, sharing a common database with the StepStone.se site. The new site brings all the features of StepStone to JobbSverige candidates and customers, including automatic Job Agents, CV Database, and a powerful recruiter back-office, whilst retaining the familiar JobbSverige branding. All jobs posted to JobbSverige.se and StepStone.se are now published to both sites, giving additional reach to all recruiters. Through the new site, JobbSverige also continues to power the online recruitment sites of Dagens Industri (www.di.se ), the leading Swedish business newspaper, and Shortcut (www.shortcut.nu ), Swedenís leading career network for young professionals.

In Germany, StepStone has launched its fourth vertical channel covering jobs in the financial sector. This joins StepStone Germanyís successful IT, Engineering and Graduate channels launched in 2005. The new Finance Channel carries over 2000 current jobs, as well as providing a wealth of valuable information and resources.

StepStoneís channels are designed not simply to provide access to attractive current jobs, but also to offer support to job seekers in the sector. This includes information on training courses, free salary checks, information on recruiting events and career advice.

For the recruiter, StepStoneís channels provide a highly targeted way of reaching hard-to-find candidates who are attracted by the specialized information and services on offer. According to Colin Tenwick, CEO of StepStone, ìEach year, we conduct surveys of companies across Europe - so we know exactly what challenges they face in each country. ëShortage of skilled staffí is top of the list for almost every company and our strategy is to address the most critical sectors in each of our markets with specialized channels.î

StepStoneís channels are proving to be a magnet for job seekers, with the first 3 channels already receiving over 330,000 visits a month. StepStone will continue to roll-out further channels and new markets over the coming months.