ST. LOUIS CHINESE AMERICAN NEWS
TEAMS WITH JOBOPTIONS.COM
Partnership helps companies diversify their office

CLEVELAND - July 2, 2001 - St. Louis Chinese American News, a newspaper targeted towards Chinese and Asian Americans, has formed a partnership with JobOptions.com, an e-cruitment solutions provider, to develop an online career center at www.scanews.com.

As a Chinese-focused site, St. Louis Chinese American News joins JobOptions' Diversity Channel, a network of powerful sites that reaches predominantly minority audiences and boasts an unusually diverse population of registrants with 35.2% minorities - significantly greater than overall Internet demographics where minorities represent only 13% of the user base, according to Media Mark.

The partnership makes it possible for the newspaper's readers, which includes St. Louis and Kansas City, plus their sister newspapers in Dallas, Denver, Washington D.C., Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Detroit, Miami and Seattle, to post their resumes, research local and national companies and search thousands of employment opportunities in 56 professional fields.

"St. Louis is home to several large universities and major corporate headquarters," said May Wu, director for the paper. "There are many employment opportunities in this city, and the career center is a practical way for employers and employees to connect."

Readers will also have quick access to CareerZone, thousands of sophisticated career management tools such as features that assess professional strengths and weaknesses, identify career goals and prepare for performance evaluations. Users can also create a custom resume and calculate salary information.

The site, which is backed by professional career counselors, also includes an "Ask the Expert" section where people can email their career dilemmas and receive quick advice from an expert, interviewing advice, cover letter tips, career articles, etc.

"Recruiters will also benefit from this partnership," said Michael Forrest, president of JobOptions.com. "Companies looking to hire from this pool and diversify their office can save time and money by placing their employment opportunities on the site. As a bonus, their ads will also be seen on the 50 plus sites that make up the JobOptions network."

St. Louis Chinese American News, established in 1990, is the oldest Chinese American newspaper in the Midwest. The free weekly newspaper targets over 60,000 Chinese and Asian individuals throughout Missouri and Kansas. The newspaper also publishes the Chinese Yellow Pages, and has formed the Scanews Culture and Education Foundation to support many cultural events. For additional information, visit www.scanews.com.

Founded in 1991, JobOptions.com has been the fastest-growing recruitment network on the Web. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, JobOptions.com (www.joboptions.com) matches employers and job seekers by providing online job search and career management tools for job seekers and best-of-class Private Label recruitment solutions for employers. JobOptions, Inc. is a subsidiary of Spherion Corporation (NYSE: SFN), a human capital management company, founded in 1946. As workforce architects, Spherion helps companies efficiently deploy human capital to improve their bottom line. For additional information, visit the company's Web site at www.spherion.com.