Beamery, StepStone, and Xing: the latest job board industry news

A new year and some new job industry board news! (Let me see how many additional times I can put ‘news’ in this paragraph…). Even as we see signs that hiring is softening in some areas, there are continued demands for additional candidates in other areas – trends that have been around for a while. As discussed in my last post, tech in particular seems to be seeing increases in both layoffs and hiring. Some economists are calling this a ‘labor restructuring’ – I would call it ‘opportunistic hiring’ by smaller firms. At any rate, money continues to enter the job board and recruitment marketing vertical – which will make 2023 interesting. Let’s see what’s happening:

• Retrain.ai lands funding: Talent intelligence platform Retrain.ai has raised $14 million in a new funding round led by investment company Radical Ventures. The company platform analyses job market data against local company data to help employers acquire, develop and retain diverse talent throughout the employee lifecycle. This can help big employers and government departments to plan policies based on the data Retrain.ai’s platform generates. Intriguing.
• Beamery lays off staff: Beamery, which announced a $50 million fundraise at a $1 billion+ valuation just last month, has informed staff in an all-hands call and subsequent company-wide email that it will be laying off more than a tenth of its staff. The company referred to the inflation and energy crises, high interest rates and “sparser startup funding” as the main drivers behind its decision. According to LinkedIn, Beamery employs close to 450 people, primarily in the UK and US at present. Hmm.
• HireSalesTalent launches: Hire Sales Talent has launched, and describes itself as a job network that matches sales professionals with opportunities at top companies. The company also offers a Career Guide with daily, actionable career advice, resume tricks, interview tips, and more. The site includes a resume service where job seekers can get a free, expert review of their resume to see how it stacks up against today’s Applicant Tracking Systems. Congrats!
• Wave offers job ad assistant:  WaveTrackR is now offering a service that crafts job adverts. Using AI, WaveTrackR can write job adverts for recruiters with just a little information given to it. The AI Job Advert Assistant is not intended to replace humans. It merely provides a well-written template containing the key information for candidates. Interesting.
• Xing works on branding:  Xing is kicking off the year with a new multi-channel brand campaign, putting the focus on its career network and job search offering. The centerpiece of the campaign is a 20-second television spot. The purpose of the campaign is to reflect Xing’s strategic direction. The declared goal is to let users enjoy a satisfied and happy working life. Xing’s last major brand campaign, rolled out in fall 2021, saw it position itself as a companion and guide through the world of work and careers under the slogan, “Do your Xing.” Gotta do your branding!
• Lawyer Exchange is acquired: EsquireX, a legal talent platform based in Dover, Delaware, acquired Chicago-based Lawyer Exchange’s member base to combine the two companies. Lawyer Exchange, a legal talent platform founded in 2017, connects law firms with attorneys available for project work. EsquireX was founded in 2021. Congrats!
• Axel Springer plans StepStone IPO: Germany-based media group Axel Springer SE is considering an IPO for job portal StepStone in 2023. CEO Mathias Döpfner said  “It’s fair to say that Stepstone’s accelerated growth and good profitability has offset and compensated for other areas that have been less profitable due to advertising declines and the general economy.” Axel Springer SE is based in Berlin and has more than 16,200 employees. Interesting.
• Recruit announces big dividend: Recruit Holdings, which owns Indeed and Glassdoor, announced a $2.7 billion dividend. “This dividend will have no impact on the company’s consolidated financial results, as dividends from subsidiaries are eliminated as inter-company transactions,” Recruit Holdings said. Wow.
• Workathlon is acquired: Greece-based recruitment marketplace Kariera.gr has acquired Workathlon.com, a niche job site focused on the hospitality sector. Workathlon.com, founded in 2017, connects companies with hospitality professionals in Europe and the Middle East.Kariera.gr was taken over in 2020 by a Greece-based investor group, after being previously owned by CareerBuilder. Congrats!
• 104 Corp. revenue up: Revenue at Taiwan-based recruitment company 104 Corp. rose by 17.7% year-on-year (y-o-y), to NT$2.17 billion ($712 million U.S.) in 2022. However, growth was much slower in Q4 than earlier in the year. The annual rate of growth in revenue was 9.1% in October and 9.8% in November. In December, revenue fell slightly, by 1.5% y-o-y. Hmm.
• LinkedIn talks about product changes for 2023: LinkedIn is testing personalized career-change recommendations, based on a user’s job-search history. The change is specifically aimed at passive, rather than active, users who are not necessarily actively looking for new jobs. Users will also be able to schedule LI posts. Hmm.
• Crowdworks offers access to short-term rentals: CrowdWorks, a major freelancer marketplace in Japan, has unveiled a new service for its millions of users — a short-term rental site for freelancers and remote workers who want to temporarily live and work away from their permanent residence. The new service, called Circle, offers stays at guest houses and hotels, mostly with shared rooms. Across five locations, CrowdWorks is teaming up with private guest houses and co-living areas to offer the service. Something new!
• WorkIndia raises funding: WorkIndia, a Bengaluru-headquartered blue-collar job portal, has raised $12 million U.S. in a pre-Series B funding round. Last April, WorkIndia received an undisclosed sum from Persol Group for a deal that saw the former share its services and fraud-detection technology with the latter’s affiliates operating in 13 countries. Founded by Kunal Patil, Nilesh Dungarwal and Moiz Arsiwala in 2015, WorkIndia caters to 15 million job seekers. Congrats!

I am expecting more financials next month – and probably some more acquisitions. Will 2023 be known as the year of consolidation? Only time will tell….

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