Taking the podium Wednesday afternoon at the Newspaper Association of America’s Mid-Year Review, Matt Ferguson, CareerBuilder’s CEO, didn’t have much to say about McClatchy’s earlier musings regarding the possible sale of the newspaper publisher’s 14.4 percent stake in the company. But he did hammer away at chief rival Monster.com and free classifieds site CraigsList.

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—Revenue And Traffic Comparisons: CareerBuilder’s posted $672 million in online recruitment revenue compared to Monster’s $658 million in 2006. For the first five months of 2007, CareerBuilder’s traffic has averaged 22 million unique visitors a month. By comparison, Monster’s average monthly uniques for that same period were 11 million. In Q107, CareerBuilder’s revenue was up 20 percent over the same period the year before, versus Monster’s 15 percent revenue gain. CareerBuilder also had the leading market share at 33 percent, followed by Monster at 30 percent and Yahoo HotJobs at 9 percent. As for its narrowing lead over Monster, Ferguson claimed that CareerBuilder’s main competitor was discounting its services more heavily, but such a situation couldn’t continue indefinitely.

—Microsoft Partnership: Ferguson sought to credit the existing partnership with Microsoft and MSN as providing significant benefits to the company. Secondly, Microsoft’s recently purchased 4 percent stake in the company - as well as the two 40.8 percent stakes from Gannett’s and Tribune Company, respectively -  was also duly noted. Furthermore, CareerBuilder’s exclusive distribution deal with MSN has been extended through 2013 and the company expects the Microsoft partnership to provide a foundation for extending its online recruitment services to several European countries over the next year.

—On McClatchy: While he declined to address the reasons behind McClatchy pondering whether to continue with CareerBuilder, Ferguson left the impression that if the two did part ways, the impact would be negligible. “We would like McClatchy to stay.  But there was $2.5 billion spent on recruitment in North America last year and another $2 billion spent elsewhere around the world. There are a lot of huge opportunities in this industry and that’s what we’re focused on. So whether McClatchy’s in or McClatchy’s out, we’ll be successful domestically and internationally no matter what. But we’ll just have to see how that goes.”

—On CraigsList And Free Online Classifieds: Without profits, there’s no investment, Ferguson said, saying he doesn’t consider CraigsList and others like it to be much of a competitive threat. “I don’t hear about free classifieds from our sales people. Part of what CareerBuilder and others will provide over time is consultation around the HR process, as opposed to just job listings. But the problem with free is that you don’t invest in the technology, you don’t invest in the customer service, you don’t invest in the sales people. You don’t invest in the things that are the differentiators in this business. I don’t think there’s a free model in the future… If CraigsList were trying to manage 2 million jobs and 22 million job seekers, it would be very difficult for them to match those two sides up. Quality is like beauty; it’s in the eye of the beholder. Almost anyone who comes to our site is a quality applicant. It takes 200 engineers who are focused 24/7 on matching those 22 million applicants with the right employer. You don’t get that in a free business. It doesn’t impact our business today.”