Key Facts

• Leading the Online Employment Market
• Market Position
• Strengthening our Market Position
• SEEK’s Customer Relationships
• SEEK’s Services

Leading the Online Employment Market

SEEK Limited (ASX code: SEK) is the leader in the online employment and training market in Australia and New Zealand. SEEK is a media company that uses the internet as its distribution channel.

Both seek.com.au and seek.co.nz allow jobseekers to search for jobs that meet their specific criteria in a much more efficient way than that allowed by traditional means, such as newspapers. For employers and recruiters, SEEK provides access to the largest audience of job candidates at very significant cost savings relative to print media and with significant functionality benefits.

SEEK also operates an online training and development business in Australia, New Zealand and the UK (seeklearning.com.au and seeklearning.co.uk) and a niche employment website in the UK targeting Australian and New Zealand jobseekers (seek.co.uk).

In the year ending June 2008, the company generated revenues of $210.2m million and EBITDA of $109.8 million, an increase of 34% and 37% respectively compared to the previous year.

SEEK made its debut on the Australian Stock Exchange on 19 April 2005 (ASX code: SEK), and in September 2005, SEEK was included in the ASX/S&P 200 Index – an index of the leading 200 shares in Australia.

SEEK also takes its recruitment and employment practices seriously. For the past five years the company has consistently ranked highly in the Best Employers to Work for in Australia and New Zealand survey conducted by Hewitt Associates. In September 2008 SEEK was awarded runner up Best Employer in Australia and New Zealand with a staff engagement score of 85%; the highest ranking for SEEK to date. In July 2008 SEEK was also awarded one of the eight best companies to work for in Australia by the Great Place To Work Institute.

SEEK currently employs approximately 400 people.

Market Position

SEEK enjoys a formidable lead over its nearest competitor in terms of both job ad and jobseeker numbers. According to data from Nielsen//NetRatings, in September 2008 SEEK attracted over 2.79 million unique browsers to its site which is more than twice the number of individual visitors received by its nearest competitor. Of the total time spent by jobseekers on the 3 major Australian employment sites, 76% of that time is spent on SEEK. The total time spent on SEEK is 5x its nearest competitor.

SEEK currently hosts about two thirds of all online ads, and its site reach is 66% of the online jobseeker market in Australia. (Nielsen//NetRatings)
In any given month, approximately 200,000 job ads are posted on the SEEK Australian website, which is more than double the number of job opportunities listed by its nearest competitor.

SEEK's exclusive media partnerships mean that visitors are driven to seek.com.au from over 30 partner sites. On top of extensive search engine marketing on both Google and Yahoo, SEEK is currently the exclusive careers content provider on Australia's leading Internet portal, ninemsn and other sites such as Yahoo!7 and OptusZoo, ensuring that passive jobseekers are also exposed to SEEK.

Strengthening our Market Position

In 1999, SEEK expanded beyond Australia with the launch of seek.co.nz, which soon became the most popular internet employment site in New Zealand. It consolidated its position at the top of the New Zealand job market by acquiring nzjobs.com.nz in early 2004.

Also in 2004, SEEK moved into the complementary training and development industry, by acquiring online training company, SelfCert, which has since been branded SEEK Learning.

In August 2005, SEEK announced the acquisition of Dynamic Web Training (DWT) Pty Ltd as part of its expansion in vocational training and education. DWT provides short classroom based training courses for popular software applications.

One year later in August 2006, SEEK announced the acquisition of IDP Education, a provider of English language testing and enrolment services to international students. A commercial partnership was established with IDP, which is owned by 38 Australian universities.

In September 2006, SEEK acquired a 25% interest in Zhaopin, one of the three leading online employment sites in China. The Zhaopin investment represented SEEK’s first investment in an internet employment site outside Australia and New Zealand.

SEEK went on to acquire a 50% interest in Think: Education Group Pty Ltd, a private education organisation that owns several private tertiary colleges, in October 2007. SEEK now has a diverse presence in the training and education business through a strong collection of assets.

In July 2008, SEEK increased its investment in Zhaopin to 42.9% on a fully diluted basis. SEEK made further strategic international investments in September 2008 with a 10% interest in the leading South East Asian employment site provider, JobStreet and a 30% interest in the owner of the two leading employment sites in Brazil, Brasil Online Holdings. Each has large, addressable, early stage markets that stand to enjoy significant growth through economic development and the migration from print to online.

SEEK is pursuing growth opportunities in the following areas:

• growing advertising volumes - in industries where penetration is relatively low, such as healthcare and education, and geographically in capital cities and regional areas where it can replicate the market share of Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland
• growing advertising yield – by attracting more candidates for advertisers and by continuing to attract more customers from the large corporates and SMEs groups
• new and improved job-related products – which are attractive to both jobseekers and advertisers, such as improved searching and matching technologies and premium positioned job ads
• SEEK believes that the combination of organic growth through these channels and potential growth by acquisition provides an attractive long-term outlook for the company.

SEEK's Customer Relationships

• SEEK currently attracts approximately 15,000 customers per month who list over 200,000 job advertisements at any one time. These customers include recruitment agencies, large corporates, government departments and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
• SEEK works in partnership with recruitment companies, not in competition with them. The company is continually working with recruiters to develop new and improved online recruitment tools to shortlist, test and communicate with candidates.

SEEK's Services

SEEK has created several sub-sites to make job browsing and matching simpler. These are:

SEEK Executive

for more experienced job seekers who are looking for executive positions

SEEK IT

meeting the unique needs of the IT industry and offering over 15,000 jobs

SEEK NZ

Featuring jobs in New Zealand with all the features found on the Australian site

SEEK UK

Featuring jobs in England and Ireland with all the usual job search facilities plus direct links to UK recruitment consultants

SEEK Volunteer

Bringing volunteers and not-for profit organisations together free of charge

SEEK Learning

assisting job seekers with career development by providing distance-based education through partnerships with leading training providers, such as IT vendors and major universities.

SEEK Commercial

a market place for business seekers ('Biz seekers') to browse online for businesses and franchises for sale

The SEEK website also includes the ability to search for jobs in specific industries including healthcare, government & defence and education & training. They also have a dedicated page where graduate and entry level jobs are posted.