America Online (AOL) and Careerbuilder.com, the jobs site owned by three of the nation’s largest newspaper chains, announced a four-year deal Monday for the career site to replace Monster.com as AOL’s principal provider of employment content. The deal, beginning in mid-December, involves a combination of performance-based elements and guaranteed payments and is valued at up to $115 million.
CareerBuilder.com will also receive promotion on several Time Inc. interactive properties as well as on CNN.com.
Under the agreement, AOL and CompuServe members and Netscape users will have access to all of CareerBuilder.com’s more than 400,000 updated job postings. AOL members will also have access to such Careerbuilder.com products as the confidential “Personal Search Agent” that hunts for job opportunities in expressed areas of interest and automatically emails them to job seekers.
CareerBuilder.com combines the distribution of online and print with more than 130 newspapers of its partners Gannett Co., Tribune Company and Knight Ridder. Leveraging its network of partners, CareerBuilder.com posted the most jobs for the top 90 U.S. markets, according to the most recent report from recruitment tracking firm Corzen.
“With an increasingly competitive job market, a search for employment has to include the online medium. We’re very pleased to bring CareerBuilder.com’s employment resources to the millions of users of America Online’s brands, because CareerBuilder.com is a leader in the recruitment arena, offering targeted job search products and a connection to 25,000 of the nation’s most sought after employers,” said Ted Leonsis, AOL vice chairman and president of AOL Core Service.
Users of the AOL brands will also be able to use CareerBuilder.com to target their job searches for salaried and hourly positions by indicating their work preferences, education and experience. The site gives job seekers the choice to search by industry location and job type, and provides online career assessments, coaching for interviews and tips for salary negotiations. Interested employers review profiles and contact qualified candidates.
“People are now going online to look for jobs more than ever — and this new agreement, which will bring CareerBuilder.com’s consumer-friendly tools and services to users of several key America Online brands, will make it even easier. Moving forward, we will continue to work with our partners to evolve and enhance the online advertising experience,” added Lisa Brown. President of AOL Interactive Marketing.
In another deal announced Monday, Electronic Arts (EA) will provide AOL members with free access to five games from EA’s Club Pogo, a new subscription service offering exclusive games and a variety of services that non-AOL members pay $4.99 a month ($29.99 annually) to access.
AOL members who want access to the community services available through Pogo will receive a special discounted rate of $2.99 a month ($19.99 annually). AOL members need to use AOL 9.0 Optimized, the latest version of the company’s broadband services, to take advantage of the EA offer.
The deal is the latest effort by AOL to move more dial-up members to its higher fee broadband service.
“Playing games online is one of our members favorite daily activities — in fact, it ranks most popular after email and instant messaging — and Club Pogo is a great addition to our selection of online games currently available through AOL,” said Matt Bromberg, VP and general manager of AOL Games. “We are excited to be able to exclusively offer members this unique value as part of their membership. In addition to access to these popular premium games for free, they’ll have the option to subscribe for more community benefits for about half the price.”
The Club Pogo site’s services include exclusive games with enhanced graphics, chat rooms, sound and player features and a variety of ways to win large prizes. Club Pogo also eliminates intermissions, pop-ups and advertising interruptions, and features a one-time download.
“AOL has always been a great partner with EA’s online publishing group, because both companies are dedicated to fostering strong online communities and providing them with the highest level of entertainment,” said Lesley Mansford, VP of EA Online Publishing. “AOL’s gaming community is among our most vibrant and active, and therefore we are pleased to reward them with this new enhanced and exclusive service at a discounted rate.”
