.Jobs Domain Nears August 15 Deadline for Start-Up Period. Trademark owners are advised to file at www.encirca.com before deadline to ensure service marks are protected before September land rush.

.Jobs, the new domain name extension designed for helping companies more efficiently recruit new employees, will conclude its start-up period on August 15. The .jobs start-up period is designed for trademark owners and businesses to reserve their company names in the new ICANN-approved domain name extension. Applications are accepted at ICANN-accredited registrar, EnCirca, Inc., (http://www.encirca.com).

“A business’ most valuable asset is their company name,” says Tom Barrett, President of EnCirca, Inc. “Even if a company is not ready to use .jobs for their online recruiting, they should still reserve their company name to prevent imposters and cyber-squatters from confusing their customers and diverting web traffic to competitors.”

.Jobs domains are available in the form of companyname.jobs. Companies may also register as many domain names as they wish as long as the company name in contained in the domain name. For example, “Brand Co” could register Brand.jobs, as well as us-brand.jobs and uk-brand.jobs based on hiring locations. They can also register brand-search.jobs, brand-support.jobs and brand-marketing.jobs for different types of positions that are available. Companies can also register common nicknames, abbreviations or acronyms for their companies, such as “AIG.jobs” and “Citi.jobs”.

The .jobs extension is sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest organization for human resource (HR) professionals and is designed for enhancing the online recruiting efforts for companies, non-profits and other hiring organizations.

“With the backing of the world’s largest human resources trade association, .jobs has the potential of disrupting the online recruiting industry.” continues Barrett. “Companies are discovering that advertising open positions in print classifieds and on internet job boards are becoming less effective. Forrester Research Inc estimates that businesses will spend $4.5 billion on job classified ads in 2005 with an efficiency of only 60%. This means that over $1.8 billion dollars a year go to waste. .Jobs promises to eliminate much of that waste by providing businesses with a direct internet connection to job seekers.”

During the .jobs Start-up Phase, companies should make sure to secure their legal company names, also known as Service Marks, before the August 15 deadline. If more than one company applies for the same .jobs domain during the start-up phase, then the domain will be awarded to the company that can demonstrate longer commercial use. Companies from anywhere in the world are eligible to apply at http://www.encirca.com. First-come, first-served operations begin September, 2005.

About EnCirca
EnCirca (www.encirca.com) is a full-service ICANN-accredited registrar founded in 2001 focusing on trademark protection and internet marketing for businesses worldwide. EnCirca is accepting .jobs applications from companies located anywhere in the world. For more information, please visit www.encirca.com. All company names, trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.