CareerBuilder, Facebook in job ads venture
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet jobs site CareerBuilder.com is teaming up with Facebook to help clients run job recruiting campaigns within the online social network, the two companies said on Monday.
Specialized recruiting ads will promote CareerBuilder and employers' sections within Facebook, with the aim of attracting potential hires who may be hard to reach via traditional methods like newspaper help-wanted ads.
Silicon Valley-based Facebook was founded in 2004 as a social site for students at Harvard University and spread quickly to other colleges and eventually into work places. Its popularity stems from how the site conveniently allows users to share details of their lives with selected friends online.
Targeted ads will appear on the side of the Facebook site, or within a user's daily summary of activity among their network of friends. Clicking on an ad will take users to a CareerBuilder Web page.
Building on CareerBuilder's existing ad sales relationship with Facebook, the job recruiter also plans to act as a conduit for corporate clients to reach potential recruits.
"CareerBuilder is spending a considerable amount of money to promote on the Facebook site and the Facebook network, and then we'll have the ability to resell certain units to continue that promotion for our clients," said Richard Castellini, vice president of consumer marketing for CareerBuilder.
Facebook and CareerBuilder declined to specify the value of the non-exclusive advertising deal, which initially focuses on the U.S. market. CareerBuilder is owned by newspaper publishers McClatchy Co, Gannett Co Inc and Tribune Co.
Using the site (www.facebook.com/careerbuilder), help-wanted advertisers will be better able to target their search for job candidates, Castellini said.
For example, an engineering firm may be able to target college seniors who are about to earn degrees in engineering or a hospital recruiter might find Facebook users who are nurses.
Facebook declined to comment on whether it was considering a similar ad deal with Monster Worldwide Inc, which runs rival jobs Web site Monster.com. "The only relationship we have in place is with CareerBuilder," said Mike Murphy, Facebook's vice president of media sales.
Murphy said users' privacy would be protected.
"We're not inserting anything into anybody's profile," he said. "We're just having them run advertising using Facebook Ads to prospective employees, and have them choose whether to participate or not."
Facebook is the Web's fifth-most-trafficked site, with 67 million active users worldwide. The site has signed up more than 85 percent of U.S. college students attending four-year colleges, according to company statistics.
Microsoft Corp, an investor in Facebook, supplies the advertising network for Facebook.
(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard; Editing by Braden Reddall)
