Jobcase and The Mom Project raise big bucks: news of the job board world

The good news is that, as far as the pandemic is concerned, being outside is better than being inside – especially if you’re socially distanced. So for those of us enjoying summer, we have another excuse to avoid work! Things continue to happen in the job board and recruitment marketing industry, including developments at CareerBuilder and Jobcase. So without further ado, let’s see what’s going on:

• CareerBuilder settles suit: A settlement has been reached in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Lori McInerney against CareerBuilder, according to a filing on June 30 with the federal court.  A court hearing to hear a report on settlement documentation has been scheduled for Aug. 4, but that may be canceled if the parties in the lawsuit file a stipulation of dismissal before that time. McInerney’s lawsuit claimed the company turned a blind eye toward sexual harassment and bullying of women. In other CareerBuilder news, the company updated its Talent Acquisition Suite by introducing a new self-service career site that enables clients to create and edit their career sites themselves in real-time. It also upgraded the Social Referral feature. Interesting.
• Humanly raises cash: Humanly has raised $800,000 from investors including TMD Ventures. The company’s AI technology helps companies screen job candidates, schedule interviews, run reference checks, and more. The idea is to reduce the time it takes to find talent and provide a better experience for potential new employees. Humanly uses progressive profiling, similar to a marketing tool, as a way to quickly understand a candidate’s intent and background. Sounds promising.
• Candidate Labs launches: Candidate Labs has launched as a modern talent agency, after operating in stealth for the past seven months. It connects a data platform with 100 million professionals to its database of 60,000 jobs. Then it creates short lists of talent recommendations that clients can then screen and interview. Candidate Labs uses “human in the loop” machine learning, similar to Stitch Fix, which combines data and human judgement to better recommend style guides. Sounds kind of familiar.
• The Mom Project raises $25M:  The Mom Project — a Chicago startup that focuses on connecting women, including parents, with jobs from organizations specifically open to employing people who meet that profile — has announced a $25 million round of funding to expand its business. Since December 2018 (when it had raised a round of $8 million led by Initialized Capital) it has grown to 275,000 users (up from 75,000), and doubled the number of organizations posting jobs on the platform to 2,000. Impressive.
• Jobs4All.US launches: ITJobCafe, a niche job board for IT professionals in the US, has launched a new general jobsite, Jobs4All.US, to help the 40 million unemployed in the US to get back to work. The new site allows industry-wide job searching for full-time, part-time and remote working jobs in all categories – not just IT. Intriguing.
• Candidly launches:  Toronto-based Candidly is launching its skills-based job-matching platform targeting the software development market. Developers using Candidly build an anonymous profile by adding their programming skills, and are encouraged to verify these skills by taking short, custom challenges at their own pace. Using a proprietary multi-source algorithm that analyses each challenge taken, Candidly provides employers with confidence in the developer’s skills that increases as more challenges are completed. Skill profiles are matched with employer’s needs, prioritized by those with the highest skills confidence. Hmm.
• Competitive Wedge raises money:  Competitive Wedge, the video interviewing solution that helps recruiters connect with candidates, has completed the final tranche of its seed funding, bringing its total funding to $1 million raised to date. Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Matt Baxter, Competitive Wedge’s primary solution is Wedge, a one-way recorded video assessment. A good product for pandemic times.
• JobIsJob is sold:  Adevinta Spain has acquired Barcelona-based aggregator and job board JobIsJob.com and its big data tool, Job Market Insights. Schibsted and Grupo Intercom were its two main shareholders, according to its website. The financial terms and number of shares purchased were not disclosed. Founded in 2007, JobIsJob operates in 29 countries. However, Job Market Insights may have been the main attraction. Congrats!
• Jobcase raises big bucks: Jobcase Inc., a career-focused social media platform that aims to be the LinkedIn for workers without college degrees, announced a new capital investment. Providence Strategic Growth acquired a majority stake in the company and Workday Ventures participated as a strategic investment partner.  The investment includes $30 million of primary capital, which will be used to accelerate Jobcase’s product development, member services and employer partnerships. The investment and partnerships will also support Jobcase’s recently released features including virtual hiring events and an onsite unemployment resource center. Also impressive.
• Teal lands funding: Teal, a platform that looks to help people land jobs that they love, has closed a $5 million seed round. The company launched in November of 2019 with a system that did all of the heavy lifting for people seeking jobs, including resume consultations, searching listings and sending application information to the right people. Essentially, Teal handled everything but the interview. Since launch, the company has made a slight pivot to a product that’s more scalable, called Career Assist. We love pivots!

Lots of funding going on, it seems – both big and small. As hiring starts up – however haltingly – I expect to see more in the coming months. Till next time…

[Want to get Job Board Doctor posts via email? Subscribe here.].