Liz Harvey, Senior Director of Online Products at CareerBuilder, kept us awake after lunch with a good briefing on strengthening brand and engagement with community. CareerBuilder launched their social community, Brightfuse, in 2008 to create a space for professionals to connect with others in similar industries and job functions.

Success stories:

- Product Managers creating groups: Most successful group on Brightfuse allowed members to ask for profile critiques. The group took off when the group moderator asked the group to chime in with their own critiques.

- Targeted select CareerBuilder users that were not already on Brightfuse. suggesting groups that they might be interested on Brightfuse, and certain people to connect with (36% increase in time on site, 9% decrease in bounce rate)

- Tests and more tests. During the registration phase, they added photos to user testimonials (decreased bounce rate and increased registration, did not do well with people coming in from Google)

Next steps for the future:

- Brightfuse is hoping to keep users engaged past the job hunting phase, so that when users need to look for a job in the future, they will still be a part of the CareerBuilder community.

Jen Girdish
Editor, PM Boulevard
@pmboulevard