CareerBuilder is a job marketplace and recruitment platform that lets you post jobs, view resumes, track and screen applicants, and manage candidates. Its platform, which has a monthly fee starting at $349, uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to help you post jobs and find qualified candidates faster. It’s optimal for businesses wanting intelligent job postings and applicant matching tools.
For this CareerBuilder review, we evaluated the software for its pricing, job posting features, ease of use, and popularity among users.
In the News: CareerBuilder has just announced a merger with Monster (sometime by the end of 2024). At this time, there is no news if the two job boards will merge into one, remain separate, or dissolve.
CareerBuilder Overview
Pros
- AI-powered job posting and candidate matching tools
- Wide range of recruiting tools with advanced search options
- Multiple plans, including a “Pay As You Go” pay-per-job tier
Cons
- Plans are pricey for businesses that require only one job posting
- Resume views are limited (500 views monthly with a daily limit of 50)
- Some features (like applicant tracking and career sites) cost extra
- Pricing:
- $425 pay-as-you-go; 1 job post
- $349 per month; 1 job post
- $449 per month; 3 job posts
- $749 per month; 5 job posts
- Ease of Use:
- Simple dashboard that is easy to use
- Mobile-friendly
- Efficient applicant tracking tools
- Standout Features:
- Talent network
- AI-powered job postings
- Resume database and search
- Targeted email campaigns
- OFCCP compliance
- 60+ third-party software integrations
- Customer Service:
- Live phone and chat
- Online help tools
CareerBuilder does more than just let you post jobs. It has a massive database of job seekers and smart tools to help you find qualified candidates faster. Given its mobile-optimized career sites, AI-powered candidate matching, and targeted recruiting emails, CareerBuilder even made our list of top job posting sites for employers.
Overall, CareerBuilder is best for:
- Scaling businesses that need help advertising their jobs: CareerBuilder has an AI job posting solution that helps you write job responsibilities, enabling you to quickly create and post listings. It also offers recommendations on how you can improve postings to increase their appeal. Meanwhile, its AI-powered candidate matching tool can deliver up to 40 profiles a day for each job listing.
- Recruiters and staffing agencies posting jobs for multiple clients: CareerBuilder’s Talent Network solution lets you build career sites for clients and personalize job postings based on your clients’ branding requirements through its “job skin” tool.
- Companies looking to hire qualified candidates for niche jobs: If you need to hire employees from specific industries (such as oil and gas, healthcare, and information technology), CareerBuilder lets you run candidate searches from its niche resume databases.
- Federal contractor and subcontractor employers who require Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) compliance when posting jobs: With CareerBuilder’s OFCCP Compliance — Mandatory Job Listings and Reporting tool, all of your job listings are automatically distributed to the appropriate state workforce agencies. It also comes with on-demand reports that you can easily run and export into Excel files.
- Employers looking for more flexible pricing plans: CareerBuilder’s Pay As You Go Plan lets you purchase as many jobs as you need and keeps your job posts for a month. However, some employers may be looking to fill jobs quickly. Unlike CareerBuilder, ZipRecruiter offers daily pricing, which can be beneficial for more popular jobs that can be filled in a few days.
- Small businesses with limited hiring budgets: CareerBuilder doesn’t offer a free plan, so if you want to post jobs for free, we recommend Indeed. Also, the lowest tier of CareerBuilder’s value plans costs $349 monthly—and this can be pricey, especially for small businesses. Even its pay-as-you-go option—which follows a pay-per-job post scheme—can be expensive, costing $425 for a single job listing. If you want budget-friendly options, check out our list of free job posting sites.
Looking for something different? Read our guide to the best recruitment software to find a service or software that’s right for your business.
How CareerBuilder Compares to Alternatives
For a more in-depth comparison, visit our Indeed vs CareerBuilder or ZipRecruiter vs Indeed guides.
CareerBuilder Pricing
CareerBuilder offers a pay-as-you-go option and three value plans—Lite, Standard, and Pro. The main differences between these, aside from price, include the number of jobs that you can post and access to targeted recruitment emails. We have compared the available plans below:
CareerBuilder also offers Mid-market and Enterprise plans for larger businesses with high job posting needs. However, you must contact sales for pricing and plan information.
Paid Add-ons
While many of its job posting and candidate search tools are included in its pay-as-you-go and value plans, you have to pay extra if you need applicant tracking, mobile-optimized career sites, and international job postings. CareerBuilder’s pricing for these products isn’t readily available on its website, requiring you to contact the provider to request pricing details.
CareerBuilder offers the following add-ons:
- Talent Network: Take snapshots of applicant resumes at recruiting events and the software converts the information into searchable keyword text.
- Data: Exclusive data and market insights are available through CareerBuilder’s customizable supply and demand reports.
- Sourcing Solutions: CareerBuilder recruiters can source and find candidates that match your job opening needs through hiring events, candidate sourcing, and candidate screening.
Flexible Options
CareerBuilder now offers two flexible options that require no long-term commitment, no recruitment fees, and no license fees. For pricing, however, you must contact a rep.
- Pay Per Resume: Pay only for the resumes that you view
- Pay For Performance: With the help of CareerBuilder, you pay only when candidates apply to your open positions.
CareerBuilder Features
CareerBuilder’s suite of talent acquisition solutions is designed to streamline and manage recruitment processes, enabling you to efficiently find and hire qualified candidates. Let’s look at some of CareerBuilder’s features to help you determine if it fits your requirements.
Posting jobs on CareerBuilder is a straightforward process. You can create a single job post from your CareerBuilder dashboard and even save templates of commonly used job listings.
This AI-powered tool can help you create job responsibilities for your postings, providing real-time recommendations on how to improve listings. This saves you time when writing job descriptions for your postings. It even shows the salaries your local competitors are offering for similar jobs in the same area. You can also opt to add auto-response letters that will be sent to applicants.
With CareerBuilder, you can easily add your job posts using their built-in template. (Source: CareerBuilder)
All job ads will be posted on CareerBuilder’s site and mobile apps (for iOS and Android devices) and will remain live for 30 days. It will also be sent via email to its candidate network and shared across partner job boards and sites (like Google and Facebook).
If you’re a recruiter handling the career sites of customers, CareerBuilder’s job skin helps you easily add branded job postings to each site. When creating job posts, you can select the job skin for a specific client and the branding elements associated with that customer will be automatically applied to the job listing.
CareerBuilder offers several question types that you can add to your job postings. These include free form text, free form numeric, multiple-choice, multiple-choice with scoring, and questions that require date format answers (i.e. entering a minimum and maximum year).
Fill out the questions required for job applicants. (Source: CareerBuilder)
CareerBuilder has a centralized database with over 140 million candidate resumes and social profiles. It also comes with more than 15 filter options (such as industry, years of experience, salary, education, location, and resume freshness) to help narrow search results down.
You can also search CareerBuilder’s niche resume databases to find qualified candidates for your open jobs. Setting up resume alerts will even automate candidate searches since its system will send you emails containing a list of candidates who meet your resume search requirements.
With CareerBuilder, you can search for candidate resumes from its partner niche job boards, such as Sologig and MiracleWorker. (Source: CareerBuilder)
With its automatic candidate matching, you can get up to 40 applicant profiles for each of your job posts per day, depending on your plan. Aside from that, you’ll receive email notifications that include a list of applicants.
You can view your candidate matches and applications through CareerBuilder’s My Jobs dashboard.
Designed to help you attract and engage active and passive candidates, this feature lets you advertise job postings via targeted recruitment emails. Aside from creating campaign templates and tracking the performance of each email campaign, you can message candidates (up to 10 at a time) directly from CareerBuilder.
CareerBuilder has a library of email templates available. (Source: CareerBuilder)
Aside from sorting and ranking candidates, you can add notes to capture comments about the applicants. You can also create custom lists of qualified candidates that you can share with the hiring team for their assessment or for pipelining purposes.
Create a to-do list right from your candidate dashboard. (Source: CareerBuilder)
With CareerBuilder’s Talent Network solution, you can create a mobile-optimized career site to improve employer branding and candidate engagement. Aside from promoting job posts, it can help you create an online community (with 75 million job applications passing through per year) of candidates who are interested in joining your company and applying for an open position that fits their qualifications. However, you have to pay extra (custom-priced) for this product.
CareerBuilder allows you to showcase your employer branding to job seekers on their platform. (Source: CareerBuilder)
For companies that employ federal contractors and subcontractors, CareerBuilder can help ensure that you meet all the job posting regulations in case there’s an OFCCP audit. Its services include automatic job post distribution to appropriate state workforce agencies, comprehensive record-keeping, compliance alerts, and on-demand reports.
Learn more with CareerBuilder’s OFCCP compliance FAQ guide.
CareerBuilder can integrate with over 60 applicant tracking systems (ATSes). According to their site, integrating results in 25 times more applications by enabling job seekers to apply directly to your jobs through CareerBuilder. Integration is free of charge and typically takes less than two weeks to set up.
Sample ATS integrations through CareerBuilder. (Source: CareerBuilder)
CareerBuilder Ease of Use
- Intuitive interface
- Online chatbot and live phone support
- FAQs, video tutorials, and help articles
- User groups connecting you with fellow users and CareerBuilder experts
With a user-friendly and intuitive interface, CareerBuilder makes posting jobs and searching candidate resumes easy for users. Its AI job posting tools are helpful—providing recommendations on how to improve job ads to make them more appealing to candidates and offering multiple templates.
In case you need assistance on how to use its features, you can either contact CareerBuilder’s live phone support, access its online chatbot, or click the submit a case link on its website. You can also post your questions on its User Groups, an online community of CareerBuilder users and experts who can provide answers to your queries.
In addition to FAQs and video tutorials, CareerBuilder has a knowledge base with extensive help articles. However, the knowledge base is reported to be glitchy, and searching for specific articles can be difficult.
What Users Think About CareerBuilder
There are very few CareerBuilder reviews online as of this writing. Those who left positive feedback like how easy it is to create post jobs. Some users appreciate its efficient applicant tracking and candidate management tools.
On the other hand, several reviewers said that while its resume search filter options are robust, its search results can show inaccurate data at times. For example, a resume search for IT candidates sometimes includes non-IT applicants. A few users also complained about having received resumes with incomplete details (such as missing contact information).
CareerBuilder earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
CareerBuilder Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
There is no contract period. You can cancel your monthly plan any time and your access will remain until the end of the subscription period.
For job seekers, CareerBuilder is completely free to search and apply for open positions. For employers, there are several plans to choose from, including pay-as-you-go for $425 per job post, and monthly plans starting at $349 per month.
No, products don’t roll over to the next month. To post more jobs you will need to either purchase another posting with the pay-as-you-go plan or renew your monthly subscription.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a recruiting solution that lets you post jobs, track applicants, and comply with OFCCP job listing regulations, then CareerBuilder is a great choice. It has a database of 140 million candidate resumes and comes with targeted email campaigns to help boost your job ads. Creating job posts and looking for candidates who match your hiring requirements are also made easy given its machine-learning platform and AI-powered tools.
Sign up for a CareerBuilder free demo today to learn more about its functionalities and how it can help streamline your recruitment processes.