Stop the presses!!: the job board news roundup

No one can say that our industry is boring! Sure, the recent SH sale is a bit of inside baseball, but hey – this entire blog is pretty ‘inside baseball!’. So I say, let’s get job-board-geeky and see what’s been happening:

• Microsoft buying LinkedIn: I can’t believe I’m actually writing that blurb title. But yes, tis true, Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26B (that’s billion with a big B). I am surprised. Amazed. And wondering what it means. Hopefully I won’t be seeing Clippy hopping around my LI profile. Perhaps Microsoft can teach LI how to prevent password breaches. (I will write more about this deal, but excuse me, right now my head is spinning). And no, the driver of the car that ran into LI headquarters was not another frustrated suitor.
• Crowdflower’s crowdsourced labor: Speaking of Microsoft, they just led a $10M funding round (with participation from Canvas Ventures and Trinity Ventures) in Crowdflower, which bills itself as a “labor as a service” tool using platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to help businesses tap a remote, crowdsourced workforce for mundane tasks like photo moderation. Using an approach described as “human in the loop,” CrowdFlower AI allows businesses to perform tasks with algorithms and machine learning, but bring in human judgment when they’re not quite as confident in their technology — and then the human work makes the algorithms smarter.
• Jobindex revenue up: Danish job board Jobindex reported revenue for the first quarter ending 31 March 2016 of DKK 67.3 million (€9.0 million), an increase of 6% compared with DKK 63.2 million (€8.5 million) during the same period last year. Jobindex maintains its forecast for the whole year 2016 of revenue of DKK 275 million (€37 million), but downgraded its outlook for operating profit before interest and tax of DKK 60 million (€8.0 million) against the previously expected DKK 70 million (9.4 million).
• Monster’s numbers…are down: At Monster Worldwide Inc., revenue fell 8.7% in the first quarter to $157.8 million; however, the decline was 7% when measured in constant currency. That didn’t keep the venerable job board from snatching up Jobr, a Tindr-like job search app. At the time of the deal, Jobr claimed it had “millions” of job seekers and thousands of recruiters on its platform.
• Switch gets money: Speaking of job-swipe-apps (say that 5 times fast), Switch just landed $4 million in Series A funding. I’ll be curious to see who acquires them (because it’s inevitable).
• Glassdoor gets (another) competitor: Comparably, the site that originally launched as a compensation data and culture platform, is officially getting into Glassdoor’s territory with the launch of a company employee reviews feature. Ultimately, Comparably’s goal is to provide more transparency around what it’s actually like to work at certain companies. What makes Comparably’s platform for employee reviews unique is the ability to sort reviews by things like race, gender and years worked at the company.
• Glassdoor raises MORE money: Speaking of Glassdoor, they just raised another $40M. I mean, come on, guys – just go ahead and do the IPO! In the meantime, they’re planning on hiring another 400 folks in Chicago.
• Independent consultants have a new home: COMATCH, a marketplace for independent management consultants and industry experts, successfully completed its second round of financing. Acton Capital Partners led a € 4 million investment with existing investors Atlantic Labs, lead seed investor Christophe Maire and b-to-v joining in as well. Consultants that want to join the platform have to pass a two-step selection process to guarantee high quality of consulting. Approximately 40% of applications are declined. No word on if they would accept a JobBoardDoctor.
• Indeed is making more money: Recruit, the parent company of Indeed, just released its fiscal year results (ending March 31), and they show that the aggregator generated $696 million. That’s a jump of 60% over the previous year. In case you’re wondering, yes, that is a healthy growth rate.
• Entelo gets some funding:  Entelo announced that it closed a $12 million Series B financing round led by venture capital firm Shasta Ventures. Existing investor Battery Ventures also participated in the round. Entelo plans to use the funding to further accelerate growth, particularly in the enterprise and mid-market segments.
• Fairygodboss starts to monetize: Fairygodboss launched last March and recently added a job board to their site, which is a free, anonymous community of women who share information about company culture, benefits, salary, and advice with each other about their companies. The business model is similar to Glassdoor’s, and the site generates a ton of proprietary information about not just what women think of their employers, but also what they say would help retain them, and what they are looking for in a job. Interesting.

Well, I think that’s about as much excitement as I can take. Who knows what the next few weeks will bring? In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the summer!