How Jeff Taylor changed the way the labour market works

Monster.com, the world's biggest online job-search site, shows how electronic marketplaces reach more people and can offer more efficiency than physical markets. It also shows that money can be made in such markets: Monster has a long record of profitability.

Jeff Taylor, who launched the site in 1994, says that the Monster.com name is the firm's "single most important success factor". It introduces an image of youthful fun in what is basically a boring business. Supporting the brand is a big advertising budget which accounts for a quarter of the firm's costs. He runs expensive ads during key sporting events such as the Super Bowl.

Job-seekers supply resumes and employers pay to scan them or to post job ads. Most of the services that job-seekers get are free, but they have to pay for a service that allows them to contact each other for advice and career management. They can use this service to ask each other questions about, say, what it is like to work for a firm that they are thinking of joining.

The main contribution of Monster has been to speed up hiring and vastly increase the accuracy of the job-search process. "You can post a job at 2pm and get your first response at 2:01," Mr Taylor says proudly. And an employer who knows exactly what he wants can use Monster's filters to search vast numbers of resumes with precise accuracy. Monster is a serious threat to newspapers, which historically made 40% of their revenues from carrying ads, up to half of which were for staff. Headhunting firms have also lost business, because demand for their help in filling lower-level jobs has fallen.

The online job market works well for workers and employers who know what they want. It works badly for people who are unsure. Check that your resume says clearly what kind of job you want. The filters will then make sure that it reaches the right human resource departments.

· Look at the advertisement. It shows the services offered by a data protection consultancy. Decide which service (a-h) would be suitable for each customer (1-5). There are three services that are not used.

A stop an unwanted e-mails and advertisements (spam).

B identify your company’s data-protection requirements.

C check that your company know about the latest data-protection laws.

D design data-protection systems that are right for your company.

E arrange staff training about the importance of data control and protection.

F check that the computers in your company do not have viruses.

G input data safely and efficiently.

H protect confidential customer information.

1 Elizabeth Morris wants her employees to learn bout how to protect data

2 Karim Shah needs o stop emails that his company does not want to receive

3 Anna Olson wants to stop other companies getting private information about her customers.

4 Victor Orloff thinks that some of the computers in his company may have viruses

5 Arnold Hoffmann is not sure that his company understands the laws about data protection.

· Read the article and choose the sentence which best summarises the main idea: