Zip and Dice are happy: news of the recruitment marketing industry

As we move closer to the traditional holiday season, you might expect to see some slowdown in industry activity – after all, some folks actually take a few days off here and there! Well, if there is a slowdown, I’m not seeing it. Instead, we have a new round of quarterly financials (including Dice!) plus more funding and a few acquisitions. Let’s see what’s happened this time around:

• ZipRecruiter hits revenue high: ZipRecruiter posted another quarter of 2x year-on-year revenue growth while also investing in product and marketing and pocketing a tidy profit. The company posted record revenue of $212.7 million in Q3, up 107%  year-on-year and 15% above the midpoint of its forecasted range. It reported net income of $22.1 million, and boosted its revenue forecast for the year. Zip is the no. 2 U.S. recruitment site in the U.S. behind Recruit Holdings’ Indeed and Glassdoor, and has grown revenue each successive quarter since Q3 of last year. Impressive.
• DHI revenue up: DHI Group reported third-quarter revenue rose 13.3% year over year. Growth occurred in both its ClearanceJobs division, which focuses on jobs that require federal security clearances, and its Dice segment, which returned to growth for the first time in several years. “Dice bookings grew 46% year over year,” DHI President and CEO Art Zeile said. “Our revenue renewal rate for Dice continued to strengthen in the third quarter and came in at 92%, up from 89% in the prior quarter and up from 68% in the year ago quarter.” That’s a definite improvement.
• Catho quits charging job seekers:  Catho, a Seek-owned jobs vertical in Brazil, has killed its candidate-pays business model after years of declining revenues and EBITDA, a top executive said on a LinkedIn post. Catho, one of the few job verticals charging candidates, has seen both revenues and EBITDA decline since 2015. Catho used to charge job-seekers a monthly subscription, which would also include services to help them get a job. Candidates would get a 30-day trial and then get charged. Now, candidates have the option to use the service for free, but they can still pay for premium features. The writing on the wall…
• BetterPlace acquires Waah Jobs and OLX People: BetterPlace has announced the strategic acquisition of OLX People and Waah Jobs to strengthen its portfolio of workforce management solutions. Post acquisition, the new joint entity will use proprietary technology that will empower organizations to manage the complete lifecycle of their blue-collar workforce from a single platform. This is the second acquisition announcement from BetterPlace this month after they acquired Oust Labs, a mobile-first micro learning platform tailor-made for upskilling and training distributed workforces. Intriguing.
• 104 Corp. revenue up slightly: Taiwan-based job site operator 104 Corporation continues to grow steadily, with operating revenue for the third quarter increasing 5.9% year-on-year to NT$459 million ($16.5 million U.S.) during the third quarter of 2021. In Q3, operating income rose 6.7% to NT$103 million ($3.7 million U.S.). 104 Corp. has operated in Taiwan since 1996 and runs a host of job sites, including 104.com.tw and Hunter.104.com.tw, a job search engine for executives. The company expanded into China in 2007 with 104China.com. Congrats!
• LinkedIn rolls out freelance marketplace: LinkedIn is taking the wraps off its Service Marketplace, a new feature that will let people advertise themselves for short-term engagements to those looking to hire people for such roles, competing against the likes of Fiverr and Upwork for sourcing skilled knowledge workers. Service Marketplace was first leaked out as a small test in February this year. Since then, LinkedIn has been running a quiet beta of the service in the U.S., which has already picked up 2 million users. Hmm. In other LinkedIn news, the company posted revenue of $3.1 billion during the last quarter, a year-on-year jump of 42%. The company stated that its marketing products led the growth, with a 62% year-on-year improvement. Other revenue came from hiring products, paid accounts, sales products and online education. That’s a lot of revenue.
• Ladder gets funding: Ladder (and no, not that Ladders) announced the launch of its new mobile app and raise of $3.7 million in funding. The platform aims to become the go-to professional social network for Gen Z. Ladder was founded in 2020, during the height of COVID-19, when millions of college students across the country were sent home with no job lined up, no idea what remote work meant, and no sense of community. Interesting.
• Stepstone IPO is planned: Berlin-based media giant Axel Springer is preparing to list its e-recruiting brand StepStone Group on the Frankfurt stock exchange, with a valuation of around €7 billion euros ($8.1 billion), according to an undisclosed source. Axel Springer is active in more than 40 markets with media brands alongside its classifieds. It dominates several European markets including Germany and the U.K. through StepStone Group. Intriguing.
• Seasoned raises cash: Seasoned announced that it received $18.7 million in a Series A round of funding to continue developing its mobile app employee networking and recruitment tools that are being used by more than 250,000 restaurant workers. There are two sides to the Seasoned app: a free community for industry employees to review openings, schedule interviews and connect with peers, while a subscription-based hiring tool for restaurant managers works to lower onboarding costs and accelerate the timing between application and hire to within three hours. The company intends to deploy the new capital into expanding into new markets. Good luck!
• Fountain raises $85M: U.S.-based rectech firm Fountain pulled in $85 million in Series C capital, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, to innovate hiring products, grow workforce and expand presence in EMEA and APAC regions. Fountain automates hiring tasks from recruiting to onboarding. Its sourcing tool enables job postings simultaneously on 80 various job boards. Candidates are automatically screened and interviewed. Much like its competitor SnagAJob, Fountain facilitates high volume hiring. Interesting.
• Upwork revenue is up: Upwork reported third-quarter revenue rose 32.4% year over year. In addition, gross services volume — which includes both client spend and additional fees charged for other services — rose 38% to reach $904.0 million. Upwork is forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of between $130 million and $132 million, an increase of 23% year over year at the midpoint. It also raised its forecast for full-year revenue to between $496 million and $498 million. All I can say is, wow.
• Freelance.com revenue up a lot: Freelance.com has reported revenue growth of 60% in the first half of the financial year, bringing the France-based gig site’s total revenue to €212 million ($246 million) for the period. The group is also  present in the UK, Germany, Morocco, Singapore and Switzerland. International activity recovered, increasing by 25% in the second quarter.  That’s impressive!
• Fiverr acquires Stoke Talent:  Fiverr is acquiring Stoke Talent, which lets companies manage their freelance teams, for $95 million. Stoke’s toolset includes features to onboard new freelancers; employers can also pay them through the platform and accordingly track their overall freelance budgets. Fiverr also saw revenue growth: It has posted a 42% year-on-year hike in revenue in the third quarter to reach $74.3 million. EBITDA improved to $7.3 million in Q3 2021, versus $4.2 million in the same period of 2020, while the adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 9.8% from 8.0% during the period. Someone is keeping an eye on LinkedIn!

Well! I guess a few things happened, eh? Interesting that acquisitions keep chugging along, and who knows what impact the Stepstone IPO will have? We’ll find out…soon.

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