TMP Worldwide Broadens Recruitment Expertise With Acquisition Of Johnson, Smith & Knisely

Company Plans to Develop Internet Applications for Executives

New York, April 16, 1998 -- TMP Worldwide (NASDAQ: TMPW - news), one of the largest recruitment advertising agencies in the world, today announced it has agreed to acquire, in a stock for stock transaction, Johnson Smith & Knisely, Inc., the 12th largest executive search firm in the United States according to Kennedy Publications, which publishes Executive Recruiter News and is the official ranking service for the search industry. The intended acquisition represents TMP's entry into the $6.5 billion worldwide executive search marketplace. Johnson Smith & Knisely is a founding partner and the largest partner firm of Accord Group, the 19th largest affiliated executive search group in the world with 31 offices in 24 countries.

Johnson Smith & Knisely reported revenues of $20 million last year, a 67% increase from 1996. The company's clients include many Fortune 100 corporations. In addition to its New York headquarters, Johnson Smith & Knisely has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Fremont, California.

Gary Knisely, currently CEO of Johnson Smith & Knisely, will be responsible for development of worldwide search and selection for TMP reporting to TMP's chairman and CEO Andrew J. McKelvey.

"More and more clients have approached us about providing a wider range of staffing services including executive search and we felt it is critical that we develop an in-house capability to meet their demand," said McKelvey. "Clients are TMP's top priority, and our goal is to deliver the highest quality solutions for all of their staffing needs. This pending acquisition, combined with last Monday's acquisition of The Corporate Group, moves us even closer to this goal.

"I'm excited that Gary will be guiding the team and I'm confident he'll make an immediate impact as he builds our search and selection capabilities around the world," McKelvey added.

Executive search serves the high end of the staffing business in which corporations retain an outside consulting firm to fill critical positions in the $150,000 and up salary range. Selection is an important recruiting tool outside of the United States, which combines elements of executive search and advertising to solve recruitment problems in the $50,000 to $150,000 compensation range, an area underserved by the major executive search firms.

Internet Application for Executive Search and Selection

McKelvey and Knisely believe that the power and reach of TMP's leading online career site, The Monster Board (www.monster.com), with more than 2.2 million visits each month, make it possible to increase the effectiveness of selection and to bring it to their U.S. clients for the first time. According to Knisely, the Internet will similarly transform executive search and do so quicker than most people expect.

"We intend to be at the forefront of the Internet's introduction to the search industry worldwide," Knisely said. "The success of many organizations today will be constrained by their inability to recruit sufficient intellectual capital at the senior and middle management levels. We want to provide our clients with the capability to solve this critical problem through the resources of one company worldwide."

According to Jeff Taylor, executive vice president to TMP's Interactive Division and founder of The Monster Board, TMP has been exploring ways to move executive search and selection online and is already working on Internet applications for both these industries. TMP has successfully expanded its recruitment advertising business to the Internet by leveraging its industry leading online recruitment Web sites, The Monster Board and Online Career Center (OCC) (www.occ.com).

"The Internet is going to change how the executive search business operates and TMP's expertise in this arena, as demonstrated by the success of The Monster Board, will help us take a leadership role in this transformation," said Knisely. "TMP's Internet capabilities combined with its worldwide infrastructure provide the springboard we need to make an immediate impact in the search and selection marketplaces as we assist clients competing in today's global marketplace through classic executive search."

Founded in 1967, TMP Worldwide is the world's largest yellow page and one of the world's largest recruitment advertising agencies with more than 3,200 employees in 11 countries. TMP's clients include more than 70 of the Fortune 100 and more than 285 of the Fortune 500 companies. The company's Internet offerings include The Monster Board, the largest and most successful career center on the World Wide Web; Online Career Center, the Internet's earliest career site; MedSearch, (www.medsearch.com), the primary online "help wanted'' service for the health care industry; and Be the Boss (www.betheboss.com), a leading provider of information on franchise opportunities.

The Monster Board is a registered trademark of TMP Worldwide. Online Career Center, Be The Boss and MedSearch are service marks of TMP Worldwide.