Blockchain, cash, and TV: news of the recruitment marketing world

It’s been a busy month in the recruitment marketing biz (when isn’t it, actually?). Acquisitions, investments, and launches as usual – plus Monster’s exit from APAC. Let’s take a look at what happened:

• iCIMS acquires TextRecruit:  iCIMS, one of the major ATSs, acquired TextRecruit Inc., the text-messaging candidate engagement platform. The purchase price wasn’t revealed, but industry analysts suspect it was in the range of $30M. TextRecruit will be operated as a wholly owned subsidiary. Congrats to all!
• StaffMe raises cash: StaffMe, a French startup that connects employers with temporary staff, has raised €3 million in a Series A round from Turenne Capital and M Capital Partners. Its algorithms connect workers with available temporary work posts in areas like sales, administrative tasks, events, and logistics. The Paris-based company plans to further develop StaffMe’s presence at home. Another in a steady stream of French recruiting news.
• Recruitology to power media sites: The Local Media Consortium (LMC), a partnership of over 75 media companies representing more than 1,700 digital properties, and Recruitology announced that they were partnering to give LMC’s members access to Recruitology’s technology. A large number of LMC members already rely on Recruitology to power their recruitment advertising business with private label job boards, programmatic job ads, and access to niche job sites. The past is the present.
• JobAdX launches: JobAdX launched their job advertising marketplace with Real Time Bidding. “Digital advertising is dynamic and real time. This is what online recruiting needs”, said Amit Chauhan the company‘s founder. Looks like Appcast, Joveo, and Recruitics have some new competition.
• Recruiter.com goes blockchain:  Recruiter.com has announced a partnership with HireMatch.io, a cryptocurrency for the worldwide job market. The relationship will allow job seekers, employers, and recruiters all over the world to leverage the HireMatch cryptocurrency token. The (HIRE) cryptocurrency would be propagated on the Recruiter.com marketplace platform to transact splits. Employers would also be able to use the (HIRE) currency to post jobs on the marketplace platform. Interesting.
• GrabJobs also raises cash: Singapore-based GrabJobs plans to raise S$5 million ($3.75 million) in a Series A round by mid-2018. This would double the team size of the job matching platform in existing markets and grow expansion to other Southeast Asian countries. GrabJobs was founded in 2015, and specializes in entry- to mid-level positions. More action in APAC!
• Rocket Internet launches Expertlead: Rocket Internet, the German company incubator that has launched sites like Delivery Hero, Everjobs and Helpling, recently rolled out ExpertLead, a recruiting platform that places digital freelancers with companies. The site builds a talent pool of programming, digital marketing and design experts, and matches them with companies on a project basis. Smart move, but crowded market.
• Monster sells APAC unit: A Toronto-based investment holding company is buying the Asia-Pacific businesses of Monster Worldwide through an India-based subsidiary, Monster recently announced. Monster agreed to sell its India, Southeast Asia and Middle East businesses to Quess Corp. Ltd. of Bengaluru. Terms weren’t disclosed. Monster said the deal “allows us to do more in our core markets … [and to] put a dedicated focus on growing our businesses in North America and Europe,” according to Monster Worldwide CFO Robert Gibney. Hmmm.
• Jobeum partners with ShoCard:  Jobeum, a blockchain recruitment platform has partnered with ShoCard, a blockchain mobile-identity platform with the goal to deliver a complete digital reputation solution for Jobeum’s users. Jobeum is a regionalized network for business professionals. The platform uses blockchain to keep documents on employment, education, completed projects, and more and the records within profiles are cross-validated by the community. I suspect we’ll see more of this.
• SEEK launches TV series: The Australian-based job site Seek is launching an eight-part ‘Dream Job’ content television series. ‘Dream Job’ will feature psychologist Sabina Read who will find volunteers to step away from their current career to find their dream jobs.  The promo for the series shows Australians pursuing their dream jobs in becoming a florist, real estate agent, race car driver, chef and personal trainer. Sadly, none are dreaming of becoming a job board doctor.
• GoJobs raises cash as well: The French AI-powered site with the model of digital agency for interim jobs GoJob has just raised €17 million ($21 million U.S.). Launched in April 2015, the platform has more than 2,500 temporary employees and 500 registered companies. GoJobs, GrabJobs…names are complicated, eh?

Well, that wraps up the news for this time around. More soon!

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