profile updated Mar 23, 2008, 9:54 AM
If you were the recruiting arm for a multinational media company with 100,000 employees what would you do to improve your position as a profit center? Offer your services and the technology your team created to the public.
That's exactly what Bertelsmann AG did with its HR prowess - it created Bertelsmann Recruiting Services, and the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and talent system it custom built is now marketed as BeRecuriter. The company also has a corporate careers portal product branded MyCareers.
How good is the product? It is a little hard to independently judge, since the client sampler it offers are all captive companies of Bertelsmann. The website is also a disappointment, providing few specifics on the features and technology. There's also not a lot of press about the product line.
But, considering that the parent company and all its subsidiaires are in constant hiring mode across the globe, the company's centralized recruiting system has to be able to handle tens of thousands of resumes and applications in multiple languages and deal with the rules of multiple jurisdictions, as well as meet the needs of hiring managers in New York, Hollywood, Germany, and elsewhere in the world. Any system that can do this must be worth a look.
Bertelsmann has a long history as a print house that was tarnished during the '30s and '40s by its close ties to the Nazis. The company has apologized for its past.
News & Updates 
Products & Services
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beRecruiter
An over-the-Web ATS for companies with multiple locations, departments, and users. The company says it takes about 3 months to launch, which is longer than most ASP products, though probably is more honest in its estimate than most. In addition to all the usual ATS features recruiters expect, beRecuriter can handle five languages and 5,000 to 10,000 resumes a month. You won't find much information about the product on the website, which is a big handicap in doing an initial assessment. -
myCareers
A public careers site product that is branded with the look and feel of the client company. Designed for the high-volume site, it can handle upwards of 50,000 unique visitors a month. Not just a job board, it includes a multitude of career-focused content. -
myOrientation
Apparently not quite an onboarding product, but more than just an intranet or extranet for new hires. The online description is sketchy, but it seems to suggest that this is a product for companies that do mass onboarding and also want to use it for communicating with other employees. We are confused. -
myJobs
This is the ATS beRecuriter product stripped down to be a job board. -
myIntranet
This vaguely-described product appears to be a means by which HR can communicate with employees. We can make neither heads nor tails out of the online description, but we think it must have content management capabilities. -
myEthicsnet
A content product that works with beRecruiter's intranet and other CMS. The company describes it as: "A comprehensive Ethics & Compliance training program designed with learning, retaining, and putting good values into practice!"