The Manhattan-based company filed its IPO plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

Dice makes its money by selling online advertising and charging fees to employers who post job openings on its sites. Nationwide, spending on employment advertising of all kinds, including on Web sites like those run by Dice, totaled $8.6 billion in 2006, according to research firm International Data Corp.

“Dice sees an opportunity to become a dominant player in niche recruiting,” says Colby Atwood, president of research and consulting firm Borrell Associates Inc. “It wants to expand and going public will enable it to do that quickly.”

Last year, the company generated $87.1 million in revenue, more than four times 2005 revenue of $17.8 million. It reported operating income of $15.1 million, compared with a loss of $885,000 in 2005.

“As more and more companies move to the Web, people look at job boards as an efficient place to spend recruiting money,” Atwood says.

U.S. government security clearances; and CybermediaDice.com for tech professionals in India. It competes against newspaper classified ads as well as popular job sites like Monster, CareerBuilder and Yahoo HotJobs and hundreds of niche job sites.

Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Bros. and Jefferies & Co. will underwrite the IPO, according to the filing. Dice did not specify number of shares or share price range.

The company, which was founded six years ago, has been privately owned by private equity firms General Atlantic and Quadrangle Group since 2005.

—Amanda Fung

This story originally appeared in Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.