CareerBuilder
Encyclopedia
CareerBuilder.com is the largest online employment website
Employment website
An employment website is a web site dealing specifically with employment or careers. Many employment websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are commonly known as job boards. Other employment sites offer employer reviews, career and...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, with more than 23 million unique visitors each month and a 34% market share of help-wanted web sites in the United States. CareerBuilder.com provides online career search services for more than 1,900 partners as of March 2008, including 140 newspapers and portals such as AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 and MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...

. It was founded in 1994.

Careerbuilder.com is jointly owned by the Gannett Company
Gannett Company
Gannett Company, Inc. is a publicly-traded media holding company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States, near McLean. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. Its assets include the national newspaper USA Today and the weekly USA Weekend...

, The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...

 and the Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...

. A 2007 deal was completed, in which Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 will acquire a minority stake in the firm and continue its relationship through 2013 with CareerBuilder as the exclusive content provider for the MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...

 Careers channel.

On September 3, 2008, Gannett acquired an additional 10% stake in CareerBuilder from Tribune for $135 million. Ownership stakes as of that date are as follows: Gannett (50.8%), Tribune (30.8%), McClatchy (14.4%), and Microsoft (4%).

Company Information

CareerBuilder.com is headquartered in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, has more than 2,500 employees, and is under the leadership of CEO Matt Ferguson. It was founded in 1994 by Rob McGovern, who is now the CEO/founder of Jobfox.

After several years of profit, CareerBuilder.com suffered challenges related to the economic downturn in 2008. The company announced layoffs in December 2008, affecting approximately 300 employees. http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/dec/10/business/chi-biz-career-builder-layoffs-dec10

History

CareerBuilder began in 1994 as NetStart Inc. selling software to companies for listing job openings on their Web sites and the ability to manage the incoming e-mails those listings created. After an influx of two million dollars in investment capital the company transported this software, named CareerBuilder to its own web address, at first listing the job openings from the companies who utilized the software. NetStart Inc. changed its name in 1998 to operate under the name of their software, CareerBuilder. The newly christened company received a further influx of seven million dollars from investment firms such as New Enterprise Associates to expand their operations.

The company announced their decision to go public in April 1999. The company's IPO on May 12, 1999 raised $8 million more than initially forecast, but was less successful than other Net offerings of the time. In its first day of trading, the stock
Stock
The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...

 opened at $17.50 and rose as high as $20 before closing at $16. Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 moved quickly to acquire a minority stake in the company in exchange for using the company's database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 on their own web portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

.

After being purchased in a joint venture by Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...

 and Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...

 in July 2000 for $8 a share CareerBuilder absorbed competitor boards CareerPath.com and then Headhunter.net which had already acquired CareerMosaic. Even with these aggressive mergers CareerBuilder still trailed behind the number one employment site Jobsonline.com, number two Monster.com
Monster.com
Monster.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc. Monster is one of the 20 most visited websites out of 100 million worldwide, according to comScore Media Metrics...

 and number three Hotjobs.com.

In 2001, major newspapers owned by Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...

 and the Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...

 merged their help wanted sections with the online component. Rob McGovern was replaced as CEO in March 2002 by Robert Montgomery. Gannett purchased a one-third interest in the company for $98.3 million in 2002, adding the CareerBuilder brand to its 90 newspapers nationwide.

The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...

 purchased Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...

 $4.5 billion in stock and cash in March 2006.

Awards

In April 2006 CareerBuilder.com's site was nominated for a Webby Award in the employment category.

In December 2007, CareerBuilder.com won the Stevie Award for excellence in Customer Service.

In June 2008 CareerBuilder.com won the International Customer Management Institute's Global Call Center of the Year Award.

Consumer complaints

According to two consumer complaints received by the office of Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, and reports from other states, scam artists have been contacting job hunters through CareerBuilder.com regarding a "Donations Handler" position with an international charity. The agreement is a classic pigeon drop
Pigeon drop
Pigeon drop is a confidence trick in which a mark or "pigeon" is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object...

. The "handler" accepts checks sent in the mail from Atlanta, Georgia and is required to wire transfer the amount to an international account within 24 hours. The checks are later discovered to be fraudulent. Victims reported losing between $500 and $2,000 in this scheme.

See also

  • CareerBuilder.ca
    CareerBuilder.ca
    CareerBuilder.ca CareerBuilder.ca is an online employment website in Canada, with more than 4 million unique visitors each year. It is a child company of CareerBuilder.com, the largest online employment website in the United States...

  • Monster.com
  • Hotjobs
  • Fins.com
    FINS.com
    FINS.com is a standalone resource for financial professionals with information about finance careers and the finance industry, launched in July 2009 by Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal...

  • Internships.com
    Internships.com
    Internships.com is a Burbank, California-based web venture of the ARC International Group focused on providing internship resources and services for students, employers and educators. The site offers free internship searching, posting and a library of resources from career experts including "Intern...

  • JobServe
    JobServe
    JobServe Ltd is a privately held company headquartered in Tiptree, Essex, UK. The company was originally incorporated as Fax-Me-Limited in 1993 and later changed its name to JobServe Ltd. in 1995...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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