StepStone announces strong Q1 performance

STEPSTONE ANNOUNCES STRONG Q1 PERFORMANCE ACROSS ALL PARTS OF THE BUSINESS Oslo/London – 12 April 2007

StepStone today announces that strong demand for its services has continued across all parts of the business during the first quarter of 2007.

StepStone’s Online business has seen a consistent stream of new customers, high renewal rates for existing customers and significant new partnerships, driving record traffic and increased listings across all markets. Germany, The Nordics and Belgium have seen particularly high growth in invoiced sales with no drop-off in demand throughout the quarter.

StepStone’s Solutions business has added over 75 customers to its portfolio during the quarter, with both the e-recruitment and the wider talent management solutions portfolios (drawn from ExecuTRACK Solutions, acquired in January) experiencing strong growth. StepStone has also successfully integrated ExecuTRACK’s existing partner network into its own partner programme, significantly extending its global reach.

Company highlights for the quarter

* Sustained customer momentum: New customers acquired worldwide include:
o Hugo Boss, SCA, IBM EMEA, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Toyota Europe (international)
o Anglo-American, Euronext Liffe, Carphone Warehouse, Selfridges and Linklaters (UK)
o Merck, EnBW (Germany)
o EADS, GEFCO (France)
o BT Global Services, Europol (The Netherlands)
o NMBS-SNCB, Axis (Belgium)
o AstraZeneca, Moment (Denmark)
o Vodafone (Italy)
o DnB Nor (Norway)
o Telekom Austria, Mobilcom Austria, Palfinger (Austria)
o Severstal (Russia)

* Major public sector organisations secured during the quarter include the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, HM Prison Service and the London Borough of Hackney, and Sweden’s Sundsvall Kommun
* Partner and business development:

o New reseller partners secured in Turkey and Poland
o Partnership agreement signed in Germany with IDG’s Computerwoche magazine
o StepStone Network extended to cover 54 countries
* Growing leadership team:
o Bucky Couch appointed to lead StepStone USA
o Felippo Lorentini, former Sales Director for Monster Italy, appointed as Managing Director, Italy
o Ann Stapinsky, former Regional VP at Vurv Technology, appointed as North American VP of Sales
* Industry recognition – StepStone’s EasyCruit wins HR Management category at the Initiative Mittelstand Innovation Awards, Germany’s most prestigious industry awards for small to medium enterprises (SMEs)

Colin Tenwick, CEO, StepStone, commented: “The sustained momentum we are seeing across both business units demonstrates the continued demand for our portfolio of products and services. Having completed the acquisition of ExecuTRACK in January, we are now in a strong position to execute our total talent strategy, and cement our leadership across Europe and worldwide. The outlook for the remainder of 2007 continues to be encouraging.�

StepStone will report full financial results for the first quarter of 2007 on Wednesday 25th April, 2007.

-ENDS-

About StepStone
StepStone was founded in Norway in 1996 and pioneered the development of online recruitment. Today, StepStone is a leading provider of total talent management services and technology solutions. StepStone's public career websites cover 13 European countries, providing high-quality candidates to recruiters quickly and effectively through individually focused campaigns. StepStone recently completed the acquisition of ExecuTRACK, a global leader in strategic Talent Management, which extends StepStone's product and service offerings to support total talent management - from recruitment to on-boarding, training, career and succession planning, performance management and more. Thousands of organisations including Aviva, BBC, Amey, Royal Bank of Scotland, AXA, British Airways, Xerox and Fiat use StepStone's products and services to help them recruit qualified staff globally. StepStone was the only European-headquartered vendor to be recognised as a ‘leader’ by Gartner, Inc’s recent "Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software, 2006� report. For more information see: www.stepstone.com

For further information, please contact:
Dave Mutton, StepStone
Tel: + 44 (0) 1483 739 450
Email: dave.mutton@stepstone.com

Robin Grainger / Tony Smith
Brands2Life
Tel: +44 (0) 207 592 1200
Email: stepstone@brands2life.com