Mark Webster, general manager of classifieds with CareerOne's parent company News Corp, said the search was initially sparked by Yahoo's purchase of HotJobs in late December 2001.
-We were looking for more flexibility from a local software developer," explained Webster. -Adcorp was the first company to launch a public job board in Australia, and they have continued to be leaders in terms of technology. The key to the relationship is that we both have a lot of ideas when it comes to developing new technology to roll out recruitment services online."
According to Webster, the new relationship will allow the development of an ASP-based service to be rolled out by September this year. The new technology will be designed to offer both an interface with CareerOne's online recruitment service, as well as a recruitment management system capable of importing information from a variety of sources.
Adcorp managing director Ian Rodwell said the relationship would see the employment.com.au, recruitment.com.au and jobs.com.au sites redirected to CareerOne, as well as create greater visibility for the company's ASP-based Recruitmanager product.
-The spirit of the agreement is that we will be licensing the Recruitmanager product to CareerOne," Rodwell said. -The deal gives us recognition that we have a contribution to make in terms of technology, and allows us to focus on the technology behind the solution rather than the marketing of online recruitment services."
Rodwell confirmed that the deal would prevent Adcorp from licensing Recruitmanager to CareerOne competitiors. However, he said the product would continue to be rolled out in other sectors.
-This year we are expecting a turnover of AU$130 million, and the recruitment business only represents 7 or 8 percent of our overall operations," Rodwell said. -Adcorp still maintains its independence as an advertising agency, and expensive interests in areas such as real estate."
Rodwell said while the Recruitmanager product was proving quite successful there were no plans at this stage to develop similar ASP-style models for other markets.
-We have had projects under development both on our own and in conjuction with Adcorp for approximately 18 months," Webster said.
With just four major online recruitment services left in Australia, Webster said CareerOne intends to continue to leverage its relationship with publications within the News Corp stable.
The merged CareerOne and employment.com.au sites will still face competition from the remaining sites such as My Career, Seek and Monster, as well as a plethora of smaller niche HR and recruitment sites.
