Monster Pounces on Cincinnati

As expected, TMP Worldwide’s online recruiting site Monster has unveiled the first step in its JobMatch initiative, opening a regional job site in Cincinnati.

Located at JobMatch.com and TriState.JobMatch.com, the site aims to woo listings fees from employers in the Greater Cincinnati tri-state area, covering portions of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Employers can browse through posted jobseeker profiles, which are sorted and pre-screened by Monster employees.

The site also provides search tools for full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary hourly-rate positions in the region, and allows applicants to respond to listings, register for availability, or receive job opening notices via toll-free telephone, mail, and fax.

In addition to regional classified ads, JobMatch also features online ads for employers, including Riverbend Music Center, Montgomery Inn and Great American Insurance Group.

The launch is an effort to better capture the hourly/non-exempt labor market — which makes up close to 70 percent of the national labor market, and advertising for which is dominated by local newspapers. Maynard, Mass.-based Monster, like many online job sites, skews toward white collar positions; hourly-paying jobs — especially seasonal jobs — are typically listed in regional papers.

As a result, TriState JobMatch goes up against CincinnatiJobsOnline, which is operated by Gannett Co. , parent of The Cincinnati Enquirer, and which launched only earlier this month to stave off the threat from Monster, sources said.

Gannett’s site, which features employment advertisers like Citigroup and Adecco, also runs a “JobMatch” section of its own — at CincinnatiJobMatch.com — that offers similar online and phone access to applications.

While the publisher beat Monster to the punch by registering the CincinnatiJobMatch domain name, it’s still working hard to fend off Monster and other potential rivals, having begun promoting the Enquirer’s jobs classifieds on both the paper’s Web site and in ads earlier this year.

Nevertheless, despite the fierce competition and minor setbacks (an indecisive TMP registered CincyJobMatch.com after losing the CincinnatiJobMatch domain name, sources said) Monster reiterated plans to roll out other regional sites in coming months.

“With Monster’s proven expertise and experience in the Internet recruiting space, it made absolute sense to create an offering that addresses the unique needs of the non-exempt labor market,” said Andy McKelvey, chairman and chief executive at New York-based TMP. “We expect our launch of TriState JobMatch to be the first step in a series of successful roll-outs. Once we’ve established a presence in Cincinnati, our lead market, we can easily apply the model to markets nationwide.”

In addition to TriStateJobMatch and CincyJobMatch (which currently redirects to a generic Monster page), TMP has registered sites across all 50 states, ranging from Akron, Ohio’s AkronJobMatch to ZanesvilleJobMatch, for Zanesville, Ohio.