Regan Su, CEO of 1010job.com, Recruit's mainland online arm, said yesterday in Beijing that the goal of the gimmick is to power the firm's rapid customer base growth.

The lunches are part of a bevy of free services the company plans to offer in its drive for expansion across China.

"We hope we can become one of the top five online recruitment websites in the mainland in one year," said Su.

At present, NASDAQ-listed 51job, Chinahr.com, which is controlled by US giant Monster, and Zhaopin.com, from the biggest Australian online recruitment firm Seek, lead the recruitment market ahead of dozens of smaller competitors.

A key growth strategy for 1010job is to expand into the national market from Shanghai.

When Recruit launched 1010job in 2005, it chose Shanghai to trial the service and began to publish a job-hunting newspaper and operate a website in the city. Today its newspaper has a circulation of 120,000 copies a week.

The Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market-listed Recruit said in its mid-term report that its Shanghai operation began to contribute revenues in the first half since it started it in 2005, but it did not reveal the amount.

Su said that as the company has gained some experience in the city and is anxious for faster growth across the whole country, expanding business to other cities has become the natural choice.

The company formally kicked off its services in 11 cities on the mainland yesterday.

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