CareerBuilder is a job site that was established in 1995 with a mission to empower employment across the globe. To do this, it connects job seekers and companies, thereby giving people a chance to find their calling and giving employers a chance to find the right hire that’ll grow their business.
The big question is whether CareerBuilder is actually effective in connecting job seekers and employers; another question is whether both parties (job seekers and employers) have had successes from those connections. In the first place, is Career Builder a legit job site?
Yes, CareerBuilder is legit because they will never take your money without rendering the services you paid for. And also, your resumes and information are safe with the job site.
This CareerBuilder review will examine CareerBuilder in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions and more.
CareerBuilder Background
CareerBuilder can be traced back to 1995. At the time, it was realized 16 million people in the US alone use the internet on a monthly basis, and one of such internet use was to search for jobs. Thus, Netstart was started as a software company that allowed companies to list job opening on the site. Three years later (1998), Netstart was officially renamed; and Career Builder was born.
CareerBuilder evolved over the years that followed to have the “leading job site” status that they now enjoy. In about 2000, it launched its partnership model (which has now grown to a network of 1,000 websites worldwide), and the Resume Database (which allows job seekers to post resumes to the site for easier connection between job seekers and employers).
Soon after, CareerBuilder started partnering with media giants and taking in other recruitment services (starting with the acquisition of HeadHunter.net) in order to create a more powerful career network; and by 2006, Career Builder started its global expansion with the launch of sites in the UK, Canada, and India.
CareerBuilder LLC is the company that operates the website (www.careerbuilder.com). In 2007, Apollo Global Management became the majority owner of Career Builder LLC. Apollo Global Management is a leading alternative investment manager and has a portfolio that includes some of the biggest B2B and B2C brands in the world.
Background – Overview
- Founded in 1995 (as Netstart; and reborn as Career Builder in 1998)
- Currently owned by Apollo Global Management
CareerBuilder – for Employers
When you have a job to fill and want to use a job site, some of the things you’ll want to consider are as follow:
The pool of job seekers
As an employer, one of the first things to consider when posting a job in a job site is the site’s reach. It’s a no-brainer that you’ll want the posted job to be visible to a lot of job seekers. In this regards, some of the best job site to consider will be those with a large pool of job seekers.
Thankfully, Career Builder ticks this box. The global expansion push that started in 2006 has turned out to be very successful, that Career Builder is now available in over 60 countries worldwide. The site can also boast of over 24 million unique users on a monthly basis. Posting a job is Career Builder will give it far-reaching visibility.
However, you’ll agree that simply having a large number of views for your job or even having a large number of applicants is not sufficient; also important is the quality of the applicants to your job. Career Builder does very well in this regards. This is because Career Builder is reputed for featuring more candidates that have a college degree than many of the other job sites in the business. Thus, if you’re hiring for a specialized skill especially for permanent-type positions, and you require seriously qualified applicants, you’re more likely to find Career Builder helpful in drawing the required pool of candidates.
The pool of job seekers – overview
- Reach – available in over 60 countries worldwide
- The pool of job seekers – over 24 million unique visitors a month
- Quality candidates – has more candidates with college degrees than most job sites
Posting a Job
When you want to post a job in Career Builder, it first takes you to the pricing page, where you are can view the applicable prices for posting a job. You’ll have to choose a plan to continue. You are moved to the checkout page to view the items in your shopping cart. Clicking “checkout” opens the form where you’ll have to provide your contact and company information. You’ll be required to fill information such as your name, your role in hiring, your company’s name and address, and a number of employees. Other optional info includes annual revenue and industry. You can then proceed to the payment information to complete payment.
Logging in, you can publish relevant details about your job – the job title, job type, description, as well as the requirements (education, experience, skills, etc). The whole process is relatively easy and fast; you’ll be done with the process in about 5 minutes.
Posting a job – overview
- You’re first taken to the pricing page to view applicable fees
- Relatively easy and fast to post a job
Pricing
One thing about Career Builder that has caused many employers to cringe is that it is pricey. The cost of posting a job in Career Builder is primarily decided by the number of positions that you want to fill. You can “Pay Per Job” or buy a value plan. Generally, buying a value plan allows you to save more. There are three plans – Lite, Standard, and Pro.
The “Pay Per Job” offer starts from $375 per month (that is, if you’re posting the job to hire one person). You can pay for the value plans in one annual subscription, or you may choose to pay monthly. The starting price of each plan is as follows: The Lite plan costs $219 when paid monthly and $197 per month when paid annually; the Standard plan cost $299 when paid monthly and $269 per month when paid annually; while the Pro plan costs $599 when paid monthly, and $539 when paid annually.
It should be noted that, as the number of the position you want to fill increases, the cost of posting a job increases as well. But at over 35 positions, special enterprise quotations are possible which you’ll have to contact Career Builder for.
There are many benefits to buying a value plan. With all plans, employers get application alerts. You (the employer) will also get an alert whenever an application is submitted, and you’ll also get 50 views per day of the resume database.
The main differences between the value plans are as follows:
- Job Listing – The Lite allows only one job listing per month, the Standard plan allows 3 job listings per month, while the Pro plan allows 5 job listings per month
- Job Boost Emails – Career Builder sends emails to candidates in its email list so that more persons (especially those who wouldn’t have checked) can see the posted jobs. With the Lite plan, no job boost email is sent; with the Standard plan, 100 job boost emails are sent; and with the Pro plan, 250 job boost emails are sent
To the big question of whether Career Builder is expensive or cheap; it easily comes out as the former – expensive. Using its “pay as you go service”, paying $375 per month to post a job for one hire easily comes out as expensive. If you’ll want a big chunk of that, you’ll have to commit for a year with the Lite plan, and since this does not have the boost email and does not allow more than one job listing, its best cost of$197 is still relatively on the high side. Thus, the short answer to whether Career Builder is relatively expensive is a definite yes.
In terms of payment method; Career Builder accepts payment made using the popular credit or debit cards – with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
Pricing – overview
- Have different pricing models – a pay per job plan and value plans
- Relatively expensive when compared to other job sites in the market
- Only the major credit/ debit cards supported for making payments
Special Features
Resume Database
Career Builder launched its Resume Database in about 2000. With its launch, job seekers were allowed to post resumes to the site. This improves the job seeker/ employers connection. On the part of the employers; they can visit the resume database and search through resumes to find someone that fits what they want in the right hire. This greatly improves the employer’s “time to hire”. On the part of the job seekers; they can get invited to apply to jobs that they might not have otherwise seen.
Career Builder has a ton of resumes in the database so it can be a gold mine for employers. For example, there are currently over 125 million resumes in the United State alone.
ATS Integration
Applicant tracking is very important to an employer, as it provides real-time statistics and reports crucial for a strategic decision about who to hire and when to make the hire. Career Builder offers free integration services so that you can get all of the intended applications via your ATS (Applicant Tracking System). Career Builder supports integration with a host of ATS, so you’ll probably find your ATS to integrate with the Career Builder Apply path. But even if you do not find your ATS on the list of supported ATS, Career Builder says you can contact its customer service and it’ll do something about it.
Candidate Management
Career Builder allows you to quickly know which applicant has the skills you want. It does this by providing a series of screening tools. Applicants can take the screener questions of Career Builder which will help you rank them. These screening tools of Career Builder can suffice as the first phase of your recruitment exercise, helping you make a more objective decision of the candidates to drop, and the candidate you should focus on.
Employment Screening Services
Career Builder is clearly the industry leader when it comes to employment screening. The job service screening includes:
- Background Checks/ verifications
If you’ll want peace of mind when hiring, especially in ensuring that the information supplied by the candidates are true, you can take up the background checks service of Career Builder. Some of the checks the job site can run include: Identity Checks (to verify the application personal information); Criminal and Civil Checks; Employment, Education and License Checks (to review the candidate’s employment, education, and license history), and Driving Checks (to check for violations, DUIs, suspensions, etc
- Drug Testing/ Health Services
Health checks are important if you really want the best hires. With this service, Career Builder can give you a consultation on drug testing best practices so that your organization can deploy a screening program that better serve your specific requirement while remaining compliant
Career Builder – for Job Seekers
When you are a job seeker and want to use a job site, some of the things you’ll want to consider are as follow:
Job listings
One of the most important considerations is the number of job listings available on the job site. Where a job site is able to pull a large amount of listing, you’ll be more likely to “find your calling”. Interestingly, Career Builder ticks this box.
Career Builder has always allowed companies to list job opening on the site, but it was the recruiter partnership program started in about 2000 that really has made Career Builder a good destination to find an astonishing number of the job listing. Currently, the network has grown to over 1,000 websites worldwide. Career Builder caters more to the qualified candidate, but you’ll find an enormous amount of job listing.
Mobile Compatibility
Since smartphones came onto the scene, netizens use phones for virtually everything online, including searching for jobs. So the ideal job site should be compatible with mobile devices, to allow applicants to search for jobs and apply to them on the go. Applying to jobs “on the go” is delivered in two ways – the first is accessing the job site via mobile browsers, and the second is using apps of job sites. Everyone will agree that mobile apps give a better experience, so while a good job site will give “on the go” via mobile browsers, a great job site will give “on the go” use via mobile apps.
Thankfully, Career Builder ticks every one of these boxes. The job site works well on every device, both desktop and mobile devices. Also, it has developed mobile apps for both Apples and iOS devices. You can get these apps in the respective app store.
Search Tool
A large job site like Career Builder is a necessity to have access to many job listing. But since job listing is very frequent, jobs can easily become buried with more recent posts. Also, posted jobs will be varied; but not all will be relevant based on one’s qualifications or experience. Thus, the ideal job site should have an advanced search tool with which applicants can filter out relevant job postings from the myriads of posts. Thankfully, Career Builder ticks this box.
With the search tool of Career Builder, you can search for jobs by time (that is, date of posting). You can also use the job title, or industry to filter out jobs. You can also use location to filter out jobs that are available in only a particular location.
If you do not know where or how to start your search, on the landing page of the Career Builder website, you’ll find a list of job titles/ types (e.g. sales, customer service, accounting, administrative assistant, etc), simply click on the relevant job title, and the available jobs that relate to that title will be displayed.
Alert Emails
Good job sites will have good job listings for you when you use their search tool, but a great job site will have good job openings for you even when you have not visited the site or made any searches. This happens via Job Alert Emails. When you sign up to receive such emails, you can keep track of positions that you are interested in, as relevant positions recently posted will be delivered straight to your inbox.
Is CareerBuilder legit?
CareerBuilder is a legitimate job site. Using a legit online platform is not negotiable if you do not want to be ripped off by one of the many fraudsters that parade the cyberspaces. Thus, before using a job site (especially when you’ll be required to make some payment), you should make sure that it is legit. Thankfully, Career Builder comes out as legit.
Our first check of a legit job site is legality. This is because, generally, 100% legal companies are less likely to operate scam sites. Career Builder ticks as it is operated by Career Builder LLC, which is a 100% legal company. The majority owner of the company is Apollo Global Management, which trades in the New York Stock Exchange, and is a leading alternative investment manager (having a portfolio that includes some of the biggest B2B and B2C brands in the world).
Another check of a legit job site is visibility and industry-wide recognition. This is because, generally, the scam sites operate in the shadows. Career Builder ticks this box for many reasons. First, it does not have only a virtual presence. Apart from its registered corporate office in Chicago, it has other physical hubs (Georgia, London and China). Secondly, Career Builder in its evolution has partnered with several media giants (such as Tribune, Knight Ridder, and more). Also, a lot of industry watchers have featured Career Builder positively. For example, Glassdoor had once named it as one of the best job sites to work, while Career Builder was recently recognized as a “Leader for Small and Midsize Business” in the 2009 IDC MarketScape on Modern Talent Acquisition. Suffice it to say that a scam site cannot have the physical presence that Career Builder has, neither will it forge a strategic alliance with reputable media institutions nor be recognized by leading industry watchers.
Another check of a legit website is the test of time. This is because the scam sites are generally short-lived; their scamming activity is discovered in just a matter of time, and with such discovery, they usually close shop and disappear. Career Builder passes the test of time. Established in 1995, it was one of the first job sites; and almost two and a half decade later, it still remains as one of the go-to job sites.
However, the ultimate check of a legit job site is fitness for purpose. That is, the job site must successfully help job seekers get jobs, and help employers fill jobs. Interestingly, Career Builder more than ticks this box. You’ll easily find success stories from employees and employers alike. Interestingly, these success stories are not limited to the self-published stories in the Career Builder website; you’ll also find a good number in independent sources.
Legitimacy – overview
- 100% legal – site is operated by a legal company (Career Builder LLC), whose majority owner by a 100% legal and publicly traded company (Apollo Global Management)
- Reputable – has registered physical hubs, has a partnership with different media giants, and is recognized by reputable industry watchers and followers
- Track Record – has been operating for 24 years
- Fit for purpose – there are lots of success stories of employers and employees that have satisfactorily used Career Builder to get jobs and to fill jobs as the case may be
Is Career Builder Safe?
CareerBuilder is also safe. Technically, a legit site is one that will not rip you off, and that will deliver the services it purports to deliver. But it doesn’t make sense that a site is legit in actually delivering services, but leaves you exposed to other fraudsters out there. Thus, the ideal online service need not only be legit; it also has to be safe.
There’s no doubt that Career Builder is safe. First, it uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology to ensure that every communication (data transmission) with your devices and its servers is private. SSL is the industry standard of creating a private channel between devices communicating over the internet. SSL also uses military-grade encryption, which ensures that even if the data is intercepted, it cannot be read by hackers. With this technical security measure, as well as a host of other administrative and physical measures, it’s safe to say that Career Builder is safe in ensuring your sensitive data will not leak out to unauthorized third parties.
However, where job sites are concerned, another aspect of safety has to do with the people that will have access to the personal information in your resume posted to the site. Career Builder also addresses this by putting the controls in the hands of the user. For example, when posting your resume to the site, you can choose to or not make your resume visible to employers. If you do not make it visible, employers searching the resume database cannot view your resume. The only time your resume will be viewed by any employer is if you directly apply to a job posted by the employer. However, if you make your resume visible, all employers searching the resume database will view your resume (but the personal contact information will be hidden). In this case, your personal contact information (such as email, phone number, and address) will only be visible when you are invited to apply and you do apply to the position. Thus, in all cases of your posting your resume to CareerBuilder, your personal contact information is safe.
Safety – overview
- Uses SSL encryption in ensuring that sensitive data does not leak out
- Users have control over whether the person (employers) see their personal contact information
Customer Support
You’ll want a service that’s always ready to come to your aid if you have issues or questions. Thankfully, CareerBuilder does relatively well in this regards.
The contact preference of the job site is email via a contact form that can be accessed from the “contact us” link in the website. You can also reach the Career Builder through telephone at 800.891.8880. There is also a live chat, which allows you to get instant feedback. The customer care team can be reached between the hours of 8 am – 6 pm (CST), Monday – Friday
However, we observe that Career Builder also decentralizes customer support service. That is, apart from the general provisions, in different web pages, you’ll find channels for contacting customer care team for tailored service. For example, in the pricing pages, we found that you can reach out to a care team via telephone (1.877.345.5256) and email (inbound.sales@careerbuilder.com).
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Summary
CareerBuilder is legitimate, and also one of the most popular job sites around. Starting in 1995, it’s actually one of the first job sites. Available in over 60 countries, it has a strong global presence. It also does well with its pool of job seekers, as it pulls about 24 million unique visitors per month. Therefore, its job site employers will want to consider if they need to fill a job because any posted job will reach a large pool of job seekers.
However, it is not only the pool of job seekers that Career Builder has that will excite an employer. Even, more important is the quality of the pool. This is because Career Builder leads the way when it comes to supply of high calibre candidates. Career Builder also ticks many right boxes such as ATS integration, prescreening of employees, and employment screening services (like identity checks).
The one serious bump on the road as an Employer is the pricing. Career Builder comes out rather steep if you’ll be posting jobs. Even when buying the discounted value plan, the total spend will still come out as relatively on the high side.
As a job seeker, you’ll also find joy in Career Builder because it has a large recruiter network, and is able to provide a large amount of job listing. It is mobile optimized and has mobile apps for good user experience when applying on the go. It also has a good search tool for filtering out job postings, and you can sign up to get job email alerts.
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So far, there's not much to recommend them. They seem legit, but here’s what I sent to them: I signed up on your site for real jobs, remote jobs, but you only send me junk that is not job(s) at all. They're all survey jobs. I need a real and steady paycheck, not take surveys for chump change. I have bills to pay. When you send me a remote job, I click on the apply on company and get directed to not what you claim the job is about, but to more junk survey stuff that none of which are real jobs.
I’m about to delete my account with them because of this foolishness. I am running out of money. I am paying my rent by credit card and paying only the minimum payments on those. I still have yet to find anything legitimate. I’ve had it.