REDMOND, Wash., and MAYNARD, Mass., Sept. 23, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. and Monster, the leading global online careers property and flagship brand of Monster Worldwide Inc., today announced a technology alliance designed to help job seekers build professional resumes. Through the alliance, Monster’s downloadable Extensible Markup Language (XML)-enabled
“smart” document templates can be seamlessly installed in Microsoft®
Office Word 2003, enabling job seekers to upgrade the quality of their resume. The templates will be available via the Microsoft Office Online Web site, which is visited by nearly 25 million unique visitors per month.
The Microsoft-Monster alliance is designed to help job seekers create and submit professional-quality resumes easily using industry-standard XML. The resume templates, created in Word 2003, give job seekers the opportunity to build their resumes in a familiar format while incorporating expert resume advice from Monster, the leading provider of comprehensive career management products and services.
The advanced technology of Microsoft and Monster also allows job seekers to save their resume in Microsoft Word and promptly post it on the Monster Web site, making it readily viewable to thousands of leading employers nationwide. The use of XML enables the delivery of ready-to-use data to the Monster site, so that resumes can be instantly posted to an individual’s My Monster account. Any Microsoft Office Word 2003 customer with an Internet connection will have access to the Monster resume templates.
“The combination of Monster resume templates and XML-enabled Microsoft Word is a natural fit that will offer great benefits to people who want to create an effective, professional resume,”
said Brian Farrey, president of Monster Technologies.
“We are very excited about this relationship, which will provide quality Monster resume templates to the extensive Microsoft Office Online audience. The alliance is also further confirmation of Monster’s leadership position in providing job seekers the best technological tools and services by being the first career site to partner with Microsoft with this innovative integrated tool.”
The templates will be created using smart document technology. Smart documents, an XML-based feature in Microsoft Office Word 2003 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003, include an interactive task pane that provides context-sensitive information and a list of actions the user could choose from that are relevant to the user’s current location in a structured XML document. The content available via the task pane will provide job seekers with relevant advice and feedback from Monster as they create their resumes while using the resume templates. For example, job seekers creating a resume can type their
“Objective”
information into the document. As they do this, information from Monster resume experts will be available to provide detailed advice on how to create the most effective description of their objective for the type of position they seek.
“We are pleased to be working closely with an industry leader to bring the power of XML to the general population through these resume templates,”
said Joe Eschbach, corporate vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft.
“Together with Monster, we are achieving our goals for the Microsoft Office System of delivering new value to customers by helping them do more with their information.”
The resume templates will be available at http://www.office.microsoft.com/ early next year.
About Monster
Monster, headquartered in Maynard, Mass., is the leading global careers website, recording more than 49.1 million unique visits during the month of August 2003, according to independent research conducted by I/PRO. Monster connects the most progressive companies with the most qualified, career-minded individuals, offering innovative technology and superior services that give them more control over the recruiting process. The Monster global network consists of local content and language sites in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Scotland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, India, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Finland. Monster is the official online career management services sponsor of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and 2002 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Teams. More information about Monster is available at http://www.monster.com/ or by calling 1-800-MONSTER.
About Monster Worldwide
Founded in 1967, Monster Worldwide Inc. is the parent company of Monster®
, the leading global online careers property. The company also owns TMP Worldwide, the world’s largest Yellow Pages and Recruitment Advertising agency network and provider of direct marketing services. Headquartered in New York with approximately 4,500 employees in 19 countries, Monster Worldwide’s clients include more than 90 of the FORTUNE 100 and more than 490 of the FORTUNE 500 companies. Monster Worldwide (Nasdaq
“MNST – News”
) is a member of the S & P 500 Index. More information about Monster Worldwide is available at www.monsterworldwide.com.
About the Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office System is an easy way to help more people use information to positively impact their business. Through a system of familiar and easy-to-use programs, servers and services, users can connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other, helping ensure that they derive the most value out of information. The Microsoft Office System consists of the 2003 editions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint (TM) Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project and Project Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2003, Microsoft Office FrontPage® 2003, Microsoft Office InfoPath (TM) 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 and Microsoft Office Visio 2003. Enabling technologies, such as Microsoft Windows®
SharePoint Services and Microsoft Windows Server (TM) 2003, enhance the features and functionality of products in the Microsoft Office System.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Special Note: Safe Harbor Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Except for historical information contained herein, the statements made in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding Monster Worldwide’s strategic direction, prospects and future results. Certain factors, including factors outside of Monster Worldwide’s control, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including economic and other conditions in the markets in which Monster Worldwide operates, risks associated with acquisitions, competition, seasonality and the other risks discussed in Monster Form 10-K and other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which discussions are incorporated in this release by reference.
Microsoft, SharePoint, FrontPage, InfoPath, Windows and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.asp .
