Recruiting and job seeking are networking processes based on shared databases of candidates and opportunities. This makes reliable, high-performance and affordable connectivity across all of CareerBuilder’s international locations a strategic advantage. In essence, data sharing and telephone relationships are the recruiting firm’s stock in trade.

Going into 2006, CareerBuilder’s network and telecommunications infrastructure was decentralized, a result of the firm’s acquisition of other companies in recent years, as well as what had been a conventional approach to telecommunications service during the company’s infant stages. Each location was on a discrete contract, some with providers that served only that one location, and there was no unified convention for connecting colleagues between locations. Every inter-location call required dialing out of the local system, incurring significant costs in long distance fees, but also compounding the inconvenience of the system. Beyond such operating issues, the billing for each location was separate, providing no centralized operating statistics or cost analysis other than what CareerBuilder could produce with a significant investment of internal staff time.

The company at this state had grown to a total of 33 sites, including three data centers and five regional offices, with IT staff in four locations. The company’s growth plans demanded scalability of the new system.

Ron Hayman’s challenge was finding the time to invest in developing the right voice and data strategy, especially while supporting ongoing IT operations for a rapidly growing company. There were also imposing technical and logistical challenges to designing, installing, cutting over and turning up the new system across all of CareerBuilder’s 33 locations.

Hayman turned to CDW Corporation and one of its vendor partners, Global Crossing, for a voice and data plan that would match the company’s growth strategy and meet their demand for a centralized telecommunications network. “We needed a vendor who could not only get the details 100 percent right, but who could also move fast enough to meet CareerBuilder’s execution deadline,” said Hayman.

“The voice and data plan that CDW’s technology specialists helped us prepare was very compelling, between the economies and service improvements it offered, and its elimination of what had become serious annoyances with the former network,” added Hayman. “Our management team was fully supportive of the project because it was so well aligned with the company’s strategic plan.”

Hayman and his extended team invested six months assessing their existing facilities, needs and capabilities. After thoroughly reviewing all of the options – pros and cons alike – with CDW’s technology team, they came up with a strategy that included:

• A highly scalable MPLS network. This technology was critical to their strategy because it provided a vehicle for the huge streams of voice and data transmission. Its scalability was especially important, given the company’s rapid rate of growth and plans to expand internationally.
• A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) through an SIP solution. This was important to the effectiveness of the agency’s day-to-day operations, which require as much personal contact as their employees can make with maximum efficiency but also maximum quality of calls. This was critical because a scratchy or dropped call may cost a sale or a placement. This technology also gave them the ability to appear local, another positive factor in their sales team’s effectiveness.

These individual technologies were not new, but combining them on this scale with this geographic reach was nothing CareerBuilder had ever seen before. CDW’s analysis of all vendor options found that the Global Crossing network already served every one of CareerBuilder’s sites and locations, and that the VoIP over SIP solution proved hard to find – but Global Crossing offered it.

“The MPLS cloud with VoIP over SIP is one of the first full-scale implementations we know of this technology in the U.S. Certainly, within our industry, this is the only such network,” said CareerBuilder’s Hayman.

This unique deployment makes CareerBuilder one of only a handful of organizations that can make every customer call appear as a local call regardless of where the call originates, facilitating sales and client relations.

“We needed a vendor who could not only get the details 100 percent right, but who could also move fast enough to meet CareerBuilder’s execution deadline.”

- Ron Hayman, CareerBuilder IT Manager

“Beyond voice operations, this technology is critical to our business continuity strategy because we have two U.S. data centers with redundancy and fail-over capabilities,” said Hayman.

The new network was successfully completed in August and now provides universal one-to-one connections between every phone in the company, with centralized voice mail, transferring and billing – including operating statistics. All voice and data service is at one rate from Global Crossing, with a dramatic reduction in CareerBuilder’s support response time when there is a service issue. “Our internal customers are immensely pleased with the quality of calls – which have improved significantly – and with the other capabilities the new network affords them,” said Hayman.

Because Global Crossing is an international IP provider, the network also allows the staffing agency to expand their overseas communications seamlessly as they move into new geographies.

The CareerBuilder sales team fully embraced the IT strategy. With the quality of the calls and the easy internal connections, the network was able to increase the collaboration and teamwork between CareerBuilder’s teams across all locations. The technology also gave them the boost of a reliable telecommunications service to optimize their client outreach. “The MPLS network provides them with the support our team needs to deliver a great experience to our prospects and clients,” said Dan Cosey, CareerBuilder’s director of operations.

“From delivery and installation to maintenance and component replacement, this technology approach simplifies life for our sales team and has contributed not only to the company’s growth in locations, but also to CareerBuilder’s revenue and earnings growth,” added Cosey.

Financially, the new network is already delivering more than $500,000 of savings annually compared to the legacy patchwork of systems. Their initial projection had been a savings of $200,000 per year in addition to $200,000 savings in fixed costs of network operations. “We estimate that, even at our current rapid rate of growth, this system will scale to accommodate our growth for at least two more years,” said Hayman. “Rather than costing us money, this network has already demonstrated that it is contributing to total revenue and earnings.”

“The combined support we receive ongoing from CDW and Global Crossing has been remarkable – our support response time has dropped significantly, and they are especially proactive about detecting and resolving issues before those issues even come to our attention,” added Hayman. “Whether our client is a company with a staffing need or an individual seeking a job, our success means happier, more prosperous lives for our clients. The MPLS and VoIP/SIP innovations within this network could benefit any organization that depends for its livelihood on collaboration of geographically dispersed teams and players. In fact, as CareerBuilder is planning to launch internationally, we believe this technology could help bridge national and cultural boundaries and bring new prosperity to new nations that are seeking some way to invigorate their economies.”