Upwork up, Seek and Indeed down: news of the job board industry

It’s been an interesting 4 weeks for the Doctor here in the Midwest – a derecho, power outages, searching for internet, and much much more! But at least Hurricane Laura missed me. The job board industry has been busy, too – lots of acquisitions, Upwork, funding, and changes. Let’s see what’s happened:

• Indeed acquires ZapInfo:  Indeed has signed an agreement to acquire the assets of ZapInfo. While in the past ZapInfo was primarily a paid subscription service that enabled Zapping contacts and candidates from several online sources, after the acquisition the Zapinfo technology is intended to be a free resource that can be used by nearly all top ATS/CRM users to automate the recruiting process between their ATS/CRM and Indeed’s product suite. Interesting!
• Job.com acquires staffing provider: Job.com announced the acquisition of a 100% stake in HireVergence, an IT staffing firm focused in cybersecurity. Job.com started as a job board. Now, the Austin, Texas-based company says it’s using artificial intelligence and blockchain to create an automated recruitment platform enables employers to post jobs, shortlist applicants, communicate with candidates, schedule interviews and extend job offers. Interesting move.
• Upwork’s revenue is up: In its earnings announcement, Upwork reported gross services volume rose 12% year over year to $582.0 million in the second quarter — the fifth consecutive quarter of deceleration in gross services and a drop from 14.9% growth in gross services volume in Q1. Gross margin was roughly flat. Upwork also announced that it hired Jeff McCombs as CFO. Not surprising.
• Google launches a job app in India: Google  said it has expanded its jobs app, called Kormo Jobs, to India as the search giant looks to offer a helping hand to millions looking for entry-level roles and further displace Microsoft’s LinkedIn relevance in the world’s second largest internet market. The company first launched Kormo Jobs in Bangladesh in 2018 and expanded it to Indonesia last year. Google said it is rebranding the Jobs Spot on Google Pay as Kormo Jobs in India and also making its standalone Android app available in one of its key overseas markets. Hmmm.
• Incluzion launches new platforms: Incluzion, an online platform connecting companies to Black and Latinx talent for freelance work, is launching Incluzion Learning, and the Incluzion Remote Jobs. Incluzion Learning, a crowdsourced course platform, was developed as a method for strengthening the soft-skills of diverse professionals in the wake of COVID-19. The Incluzion Remote Jobs Board gives Black and Latinx professionals additional access to telework opportunities. Interesting.
• News from Seek:  Brasil Online, the Seek-owned company that owns jobs vertical Catho in Brazil, saw revenues in the financial year of 2020 (FY2020) decline once again. Seek said revenues for Catho fell 13% in FY2020, year-on-year, to BRL 154 million (AUD 38 million). According to data from Seek, this is the sixth consecutive full-year revenue decline. On the other hand, Seek-operated Zhaopin shined in the company’s full year results, with revenue and earnings growth despite the pandemic. The $111.7 million loss for 2020 for Seek overall included asset impairments totalling $198 million on its South American business and minority investments. Reported revenue was up slightly to $1.58 billion with Zhaopin reporting a 12 per cent increase in revenue on a constant currency basis despite the impact of COVID.
• CakeResume raises funds: CakeResume is a startup creating an alternative for the tech industry to job search platforms like LinkedIn. The Taipei-based company, founded in 2016, announced that it has raised $900,000 in seed funding from Mynavi, one of the largest staffing and public relations companies in Japan. The round will be used to expand CakeResume’s operations in other countries, including Japan and India. The platform currently has about 500,000 resumes in its database, 75% of which were created by job seekers in Taiwan. A good start.
• DHI revenue down for Q2: DHI Group Inc. reported that revenue fell 9.6% in the second quarter. However, the Centennial, Colorado-based firm reported growth in its ClearanceJobs operations, which focuses on professionals with government security clearances, and said demand for technologists was improving. “We continued to strengthen our product offering with dozens of new releases introduced during the second quarter,” DHI President and CEO Art Zeile said, “and while the overall job market was impacted by Covid-19, job postings for technologists have steadily been improving from their low point during the quarter as employers, including ourselves, have started to hire again.” Hmm.
• Recruit Holdings revenue falls: Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd. reported revenue fell by 20.0% in its fiscal first quarter ended June 30 amid Covid-19. The Tokyo-based global staffing firm reported revenue fell across all business lines — including Indeed and Glassdoor, staffing and nonstaffing-related publishing businesses — due to the impact of the pandemic. Recruit’s “HR Technology” segment, which includes Indeed and Glassdoor, saw first-quarter revenue fall by 27.5% year over year amid a decrease in sponsored job advertising and lower demand for recruiting solutions. The company noted the decline was 25.8% when measured in US dollars instead of Japanese yen. Double hmm.
• Legal freelancer platform launches: Freelance For Law has launched its new platform dedicated to helping Attorneys and law firms decrease cost and increase revenue. The site provides law firms, solo practitioners, in-house counsel, and individuals a platform where they can hire on-demand support from a wide range of qualified legal professionals. Interesting.
• eDiscovery platform launches: Match Discovery, a niche job board platform designed for employers to directly hire candidates in the eDiscovery industry, announced that it is allowing employers to post jobs for free through 2020. “With the recent surge in remote work, the landscape for finding and hiring eDiscovery talent has shifted. Traditionally, job seekers have utilized external recruiters to find jobs, but in doing so, they are limiting their search to the companies affiliated with these recruiters. Likewise, employers relying solely on external recruiters for finding candidates are limited to the candidates working with these recruiters,” says Heather Townsend, founder of Match Discovery. Good luck!
• PitchMe raises funds: London-based PitchMe, which offers a skills-based talent marketplace that matches candidates’ soft and professional skills with the right job opportunities, has secured $1.2 million in a seed funding round. The platform aims to replace the traditional CV with a system that presents candidates’ soft skills and hard skills to employers, using a methodology designed by behavioural scientists. It boils down to big data algorithms which extract information on job candidates from more than 60 online sources, and then vetting them and presenting the info anonymously to potential employers. Intriguing.

That’s about it for now! As you can tell, the pandemic has affected our industry in many ways – but things continue to move forward.  Let’s hope you do as well!

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