Acquisitions, TheMuse, and CareerBeacon: news of the job board industry

Amid reports of market softening but also lots of acquisitions, I have also seen what I would call ’employer swapping’ – workers who are laid off by one company being immediately recruited to work at another company. Why? Well, folks, it’s still the case that there are more jobs open than people available to fill them. That’s why some of us have trouble calling this a recession despite other economic news to the contrary. What’s a Doctor to do? I guess it’s time to get to the news:

• B2B talent platforms reach new heights: Globally, B2B talent platforms in 2021 reached $13.8 billion in gross spend volume (fees paid to workers plus fees for facilitating transactions), according to Staffing Industry Analysts’ recent report, “The Talent Platform Landscape.” Gross spend volume in the US alone totaled $6.2 billion last year. Platform-related work is part of the gig economy as defined by SIA. This definition of gig economy also includes temporary agency work, other temporary work, independent contracting and statement-of-work consulting. Wow!
• TheMuse acquires Fairygodboss: TheMuse announced that it acquired Fairygodboss, a recruitment platform aimed at women and working mothers. The purchase price was undisclosed, and parties declined to comment on it, but a source familiar with the transactions said it was a mix of cash and stock. Fairygodboss is producing about $10 million in yearly revenue, which infers the purchase price was presumably favorable. CEO Kathryn Minshew said this will likely be the first transaction of many because the recruitment tech space is in dire need of consolidation. Very interesting.
• Findem finds some funding: Recruitment intelligence company Findem has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round .  It now has investment of $37.3 million and claims its services are benefitting its customers by helping them to overcome talent shortages by finding high quality candidates and reducing their time to hire by 80%. Its platform indexes and analyses data on candidates from around 100,000 sources and transforms it into searchable candidate attributes. Interesting.
• MyStartUpGig launches in Australia: The chief operating officer of Sydney-based startup CancerAid has launched what he says the Australia’s biggest startup job board, My Startup Gig. Creator Tim Atkins said “We had 550 startups on launch, which makes it already the largest source of Australian startup jobs. Soon we should have every single startup job.” Good luck.
• CareerBeacon acquires Ruutly: Canadian job board CareerBeacon announced its acquisition of Ruutly, the employer branding platform.  Ruutly automatically transforms static text job postings into interactive candidate experiences whenever a new job is added to a company’s ATS. “Ruutly was built to give employers a scalable way to visually tell their employer brand story in their job postings,” said Ryan Porter, CEO and Founder of Ruutly. Interesting.
• JobTeaser acquires Graduateland: JobTeaser, a recruitment platform for students and young graduates, has acquired its Scandinavian competitor Graduateland. JobTeaser paid between 10 and 25 million Euros for the Danish site. In this new configuration, the Scandinavian zone becomes one of JobTeaser’s main markets along with Germany and Benelux. 60% of JobTeaser’s income comes from France as it stands. Congrats!
• CV-Library acquires Brilliant Jobs: CV-Library has acquired Brilliant Jobs, a platform that uses the latest AI and programmatic technology to efficiently connect candidates with employers. The move is part of the CV-Library Group’s wider plans to deliver a global programmatic job advertising solution across its existing and new territories. CV-Library have earmarked over $9m for acquisitions and platform transformations over the next 2 years and the first stage, integrating Brilliant Jobs, is due to be complete and available to the market in late October 2022. Smart move.
• XpressJobs acquires MyJobs.lk: Sri Lanka-based recruitment marketplace XpressJobs has acquired rival MyJobs.lk from Emerging Media. Founded in 2014, MyJobs.lk specializes in retail and industrial vacancies. XpressJobs is a full-stack recruitment marketplace that focuses on the white-collar segment. Congrats!
• SIA estimates gig economy at $5.4 trillion: Staffing Industry Analysts released a new estimate of the value of the global gig economy in the wake of last month’s Collaboration in the Gig Economy conference: an estimated $5.4 trillion in revenue in US dollars during 2021.  Yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T’! The lion’s share of revenue was generated by independent contractors, who earned an estimated $3.0 trillion in 2021. It represented 56% of the total amount. Impressive.
• BrickMate acquires Freemoa: IT outsourcing company BrickMate has acquired a 70% stake in freelance marketplace Freemoa for an undisclosed sum. Both companies are based in South Korea. Offering project and schedule management, payment facilitation and real-time chat, Freemoa is a full-stack freelance marketplace with at least 20,000 registered freelancers. BrickMate is a subsidiary of an energy company Kumho Electric Inc. Intriguing.
• Paycor acquires Talenya: Paycor, a provider of HR software, has acquired Talenya, a recruiting platform that uses AI to speed up and economize talent sourcing. Readers may remember Talenya’s founder, Gal Amog, who also founded what is now known as PandoLogic. Israel-based Talenya offers technology that will help Paycor customers fill openings more quickly by sourcing both active job seekers and passive candidates. Congrats!

Did you happen to notice a bunch of acquisitions? Yeah, so did I. Remember – acquisition is just another word for expansion. With that, enough news for now!

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

[Check out the JobBoardGeek podcast archive!]