Monster, a leading global e-recruitment service provider, took a 40-per-cent stake in Chinahr.com for US$50 million in April 2005. Its founder Jeff Taylor said the investment was not simply based on the pursuit of profit, but long-term industry growth  building China's leading online recruitment service provider.

Zhang's goal is to make Chinahr.com a leading international recruitment website, with the biggest hits, client resources and revenue. Chinahr.com currently receives an average of 15 million daily hits.

Zhang explained that, in the development of Chinahr.com, although much has been learnt from Monster's experiences, nothing has been copied.

The business model for online recruitment in developed countries is different from that in China, whose labour market is less mature.

Making Monster's model work well in China requires a great deal of localization, explained Zhang.

And hiring executives with a solid understanding of the local market helps a lot.

In only two years, Zhang's team at Chinahr.com quickly expanded from only 200 to more than 1,000, with turnover leaping more than eight times, from 30 million yuan (US$3.75 million) two years ago to an envisaged figure of 250 million yuan (US$31.25 million) in 2006.

"A promising business needs equally promising people to run it. We build the best career platform for our staff," explained Zhang, pointing to the great talents that many of his staff display in technology, sales, marketing and human resources.

In addition, many of Chinahr.com's executives are from famous Chinese firms such as Huawei, Lenovo and NetEase.

They all find that they are working much harder than in their old jobs, but their efforts are richly rewarded, said Zhang, noting that Chinahr.com's salaries are twice those offered by China's other recruitment websites.

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