Yahoo Ditches HotJobs

The slashing continues at Internet giant Yahoo. The company announced today it’s selling online jobs site HotJobs to rival Monster for $225 million in cash, far less than the $436 million it paid for the company in 2001.

As part of the deal, Monster is slated to provide Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) with career and job content on its home page in the U.S. and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings, the companies said in a statement.

In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The content aspect won’t kick in until the deal officially closes.

Yahoo said the deal, which brings together two titans of the online careers market in the U.S., is expected to clear regulatory approval by the third quarter of this year. Two other major online recruitment players are CareerBuilder and Craigslist.

Yahoo and CEO Carol Bartz specifically have been on a tear to make the firm more efficient and focused. In December Yahoo shut down its offices over the Christmas week holiday in a move it said was aimed reducing costs during a traditionally slow time of year.

Last month, Yahoo sold off Web apps developer Zimbra to VMware (NYSE: VMW). Terms of that deal were not disclosed. Yahoo paid $350 million to acquire Zimbra back in 2007.

Back in October, Bartz told analysts Yahoo had to rediscover its identity as a premier destination site. “We’re not a search company. We’re not a display company. We are a broad-based Internet technology company that serves up the most interesting content on the Internet,” she said.

For its part, Monster was bullish on what the deal means for its business.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, CEO and president of Monster Worldwide, in a statement. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries – globally.”

The addition of the HotJobs network of more than 600 daily and weekly newspapers will bring Monster’s total alliances with local papers to a total of approximately 1,000 papers in all 50 states, the company said.

The additional newspaper alliances, through their online and print classified ads, will further Monster’s current strategy of connecting job seekers with smaller, local businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, and skilled and hourly job categories.

David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

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