MarketingMasters Luncheon Seminar
Why Human Capital Pays Dividends for CareerBuilder
Richard Castellini, chief marketing officer, CareerBuilder
If you were among the estimated record 106.5 million people who tuned in to watch Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, you probably saw CareerBuilder’s latest “Start Building” TV commercial make its debut. Why, you might ask, would a company whose bread and butter is putting together job seekers and employers shell out nearly $3 million to air a 30-second spot in a year when unemployment is above 10 percent?
Find out when CareerBuilder’s Richard Castellini keynotes BMA’s next MarketingMasters Luncheon Seminar on Thursday, March 11, at The Standard Club. Castellini, chief marketing officer of the online recruitment market leader, will explain that the Super Bowl commercials are just one element in an integrated business-to-consumer and business-to-business strategy that keeps CareerBuilder building in good times and bad.
And Castellini acknowledges that these are bad times for the online recruitment business. The industry’s overall revenue has dropped from a high of about $2.5 billion in 2007 to a little under $2 billion in 2009. But to understand how CareerBuilder is weathering the current economic storm is to understand where it has come from in the 15 years since its inception.
The company was founded as NetStart Inc. in 1995, but it did not become a significant industry player until after it changed its name and acquired HeadHunter.net in 2001. At that time CareerBuilder was about one-fifth the size of Monster.com, the market leader, but already it faced growing pains. There was a big wall between sales, which delivered the employment advertising, and marketing, which brought the job seekers to the site.
But over the next five years, that wall came down and the company devised an integrated sales and marketing strategy. One of the results was CareerBuilder’s sponsorship of the Super Bowl, which began in 2005 with its “Monkey” campaign and continues to this day. By 2006 CareerBuilder had become the online recruiting leader with more than 23 million unique visitors a month looking to find jobs and career advice.
Since then, CareerBuilder has been powering the career areas for more than 9,000 partner Web sites, including 140 newspapers and leading portals such as MSN and AOL. Owned jointly by Gannett Co., McClatchy Co., Microsoft Corp. and Tribune Co., CareerBuilder employs more than 2,000 people, and more than 300,000 employers have been posting more than a million jobs on its site.
But CareerBuilder’s advantage goes beyond that. It now considers itself the global leader in human capital solutions. By combining world-class technology and data analysis with its comprehensive partner network and superior customer service, CareerBuilder has created an integrated b-to-b and b-to-c strategy that is enabling it to survive, even thrive, in these challenging times.
“CareerBuilder is spending a lot of time and effort in developing business intelligence based upon the millions of resumes we get,” Castellini said. “Companies are asking us to give deeper, more meaningful understanding of this data.”
For example, in 2008, in response to increased demands from Fortune 1000 clients for integrated talent management solutions, CareerBuilder launched Personified, an independent consulting firm specializing in recruitment, talent optimization and retention strategies.
A year later CareerBuilder launched Applicant Explorer, a cutting-edge tool designed to help make the online background search for candidate information easier than ever. With the push of a button, users of CareerBuilder’s Resume Database can view public, yet hard-to-find, background information on a candidate in one simple online dashboard, saving valuable time in the recruitment process.
And CareerBuilder is also leveraging social media. CareerBuilder’s unique agreement with Facebook helps employers tap into a pool of more than 100 million potential candidates worldwide for recruitment and has helped more than 270 clients promote their job openings and employment brands on the site. Among the offerings, which include “featured employer” spots on CareerBuilder’s own Facebook page, CareerBuilder sells targeted media campaigns to clients who want to promote their job opportunities to specific audiences on Facebook. CareerBuilder also has developed a social media brand management service to help companies develop a relationship with target talent through social media.
In addition to its efforts in the United States, CareerBuilder continues to extend its international reach, launching sites in China, Denmark and Poland in 2009. CareerBuilder now operates in 18 countries. These sites, combined with partnerships and other acquisitions, give CareerBuilder a presence in 55 countries worldwide.
And CareerBuilder is also developing more specialized sites, including:
- BrightFuse.com: Geared to professionals of all ranks and industries, BrightFuse.com users highlight their talents through customizable profiles that help them promote themselves and recommend others. With more than 2 million users as of October 2009, BrightFuse.com’s ranks continue to grow.
- GoingGreenJobs.com: A site aimed at connecting employers with environmentally conscious job seekers.
- MissionGetHired.com: A site that helps military professionals coming off of active duty find jobs.
CareerBuilder also has a government solutions group to deliver specialized recruitment solutions to federal, state and local agencies and organizations.
“You can’t just envision your business as what it was yesterday or what it is today,” Castellini said. “You need to be progressive in using all the assets that you have in your business to help your customers and be willing to transform how you look at things, given your customers’ needs and obviously given the economy you’re facing.”
BMA’s March luncheon seminar is expected to reach capacity early, so please sign up soon. To register, go here, email Marla Schrager or call her at 312-943-8040.
ABOUT RICHARD CASTELLINI
As Chief Marketing Officer, Richard Castellini leads the organic growth strategies of CareerBuilder, the nation’s largest online job site with more than 23 million unique visitors and over 1.5 million jobs. Castellini is responsible for consumer marketing which focuses its efforts on job seekers through public relations, local and national advertising, consumer products and the continued expansion of CareerBuilder’s partnership network. In his role, he also oversees the company’s corporate marketing to the more than 300,000 employers that are currently using CareerBuilder services.
Prior to being named CMO, Castellini served as Vice President of Consumer Marketing where he was instrumental in growing the company’s brand and expanding the vast network of partners by successfully bringing CareerBuilder's recruitment resources to key national and vertical Web sites.
Pulling from his years of extensive research and experience, Castellini is an employment expert who regularly appears on national TV and radio, and addresses a variety of industry forums, to discuss topics such as the state of the job market, hiring practices, branding and a multitude of workplace issues.
Castellini came to CareerBuilder from DigitalWork.com, where he specialized in technology development. He also has experience in the field of human resources, having served as a lead project manager for Hewitt Associates, a global benefits consulting firm. He has a master’s in business administration from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
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