The executive chairman of the Reed group of companies said he wants fellow recruitment businesses to "do well" as a result of reed.co.uk's decision to sell access to its sizeable CV database.

In November, reed.co.uk launched a number of customer enhancements to its popular recruitment website, including access to the CV database, which holds the professional details of more than 1m candidates.

Other enhancements comprise a guaranteed response programme and the 'jobcast' offering, which allows recruiters to build their profile on the website with a short film.

"It's very important to us that the agencies prosper," said James Reed, speaking exclusively to Recruiter.

"Now that might differentiate us from others in this area. We're not a publishing company; our origins are recruitment, and we want recruitment agencies to do well out of this. And we want to do well out of this as well."

He added: "So there's a real community of interests in terms of making this site a successful one for everyone."

The response to the new products has been "overwhelmingly positive", a website spokesman said. "A significant number of key clients have upgraded their accounts." Take-up of the CV data base access service has been "particularly high", the spokesman said.

He added that jobs posted on the site under the guaranteed response offering were receiving six times as many applications as free listings.

Reed acknowledged that he was aware of concerns that costs related to online job services were rising.

He commented: "We'd like to make a commitment that we will never be knowingly undersold. So if someone's got a good deal somewhere else, tell us about it and we'll better it."

l For more on Reed and reed.co.uk, see p32.