Andrew J. McKelvey, shown with the Monster .com mascot in Manhattan in 2001, was at first skeptical about the future of job searches on the Web, but had a change of heart and pursued the Internet strategy with a vengeance.

NEW YORK — Andrew J. McKelvey, a serial entrepreneur who in his early 60s jumped into Internet commerce as the executive who built Monster.com into the leading job recruitment Web site, died Nov. 27 at his home in Manhattan. He was 74.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his daughter Christine Mc-Kelvey said.

Before his work with Monster .com, McKelvey created a company called Telephone Marketing Programs, which became the nation’s largest Yellow Pages advertising agency. Begun in 1967 in borrowed office space, TMP Worldwide grew to employ thousands of workers and handle nearly a third of the American Yellow Pages ad business.

‘He was relentless’

But it was McKelvey’s foray beyond Yellow Pages into help-wanted agencies in the 1990s that introduced him to Internet commerce. He wanted to buy Adion, a Boston-area recruitment ad agency run by Jeffrey Taylor. When they met, Taylor was most excited by a little sideline, a fledgling Web site, the Monster Board.

McKelvey was skeptical at first that the Web was going to be the future of job searches, said George Eisele, a former board member of Monster Worldwide, the parent company, and a longtime business associate of Mc- Kelvey. But he eventually became convinced, bought Adion in 1995 and pursued the Internet strategy with a vengeance. He quickly bought Online Career Center, Monster’s larger rival.

McKelvey invested heavily over the next few years, including buying Super Bowl ads that helped make Monster.com the popular first choice for online job searching.

“Once he perceived its importance, he was relentless,” Eisele recalled in an interview Nov. 28. “That’s why Andy McKelvey was so successful on the Internet, even though he wasn’t a technological visionary.”

Shadow of a scandal

In the past few years, Mc-Kelvey’s business reputation was tarnished by a stock-options investigation at Monster Worldwide. He left the company in 2006 amid questions about his role in backdating employee stock options.

In a settlement earlier this year, McKelvey agreed to pay the company $8 million and give up most of his voting shares. In a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he also paid about $276,000. Mc-Kelvey, the commission noted, did not receive any backdated options himself.