EMPLOYMENT WIZARD, CAREERSITE MERGE

By: Staff Reports MediaNews Group, Advance Support New Venture


Two e-recruitment companies that serve the newspaper industry
merged this week. CareerSite Corp. was merged with Employment
Specialists LLC, which will also be the name of the new company,
to be based in San Ramon, Calif.

Backed by MediaNews Group Inc. of Denver, Employment Specialists
was the provider of the Employment Wizard product, currently used
by about 80 newspapers. The privately held CareerSite powered
about 80 employment sites, but only a few of those belonged to
newspapers.

Once the technologies are combined, the new product will use the
CareerSite name, said Peter Bernhard, president and CEO of the
new company. Bernhard was the former president of MediaNews
Technologies and a former MediaNews publisher.

He will be joined by Don Dornbush, co-founder of CareerSite, who
will serve as executive vice president of the new company.
Employment Specialists continues to be backed by MediaNews Group,
and now also has backing from Advance Internet Inc., a division
of Advance Publications, Staten Island, N.Y. Advance Internet was
a majority shareholder in CareerSite, which was facing some
financial struggles, according to Bernhard.

CareerSite's technology team will remain in Ann Arbor, Mich.,
where the company was founded. Bernhard said there would be no
layoffs at either company.

He pointed out that the combined company has partnerships with
AdOne and PowerAdz, two large networks of newspaper classified
sites. "We're in a good position, and now it's up to us to
execute," Bernhard said.

Both Employment Wizard and CareerSite offered technology that
matches job seekers with job listings. CareerSite also offered a
desktop solution that helps recruiters organize potential
matches, spidering technology, and cross-posting capabilities
that allow employers to post jobs on multiple sites at once.
These functions will be options in the merged product, Bernhard
said.



Copyright 2001, Editor & Publisher.