Fiverr, Craigslist, and cannabis: news of the recruitment marketing industry

February 16, 2021
JobBoardDoctor
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The polar vortex has made an unwelcome reappearance in the Doctor’s location – brrr! I hope it’s avoiding you. On the other hand, activity in the job board and recruitment marketing industry continues at a pretty significant pace, with plenty of funding, mergers, and acquisitions – plus woes for Craigslist. Let’s see what’s happening:

Shamrock Capital buys Bayard: Shamrock Capital acquired Bayard Advertising, a century-old recruitment marketing firm, for an undisclosed price. Based in New York City, Bayard works with businesses in several industries, including healthcare, transportation, retail, real estate, food service and technology. Based in Los Angeles, Shamrock Capital specializes in investments between $10 million and 100 million in the entertainment, media and communications industries. Congrats!
Fiverr acquires Working Not Working: Online staffing platform Fiverr announced that it acquired Working Not Working, an online platform that provides creative talent. Working Not Working was founded by Justin Gignac and Adam Tompkins in 2011. The company will operate as a standalone operation after the deal, and Gignac and Tompkins will continue to lead it. Good luck!
Landed raises funds: Landed, a startup aiming to improve the hiring process for hourly employers and job applicants, has officially launched its mobile app, and has also raised $1.4 million in seed funding. Landed has been in beta testing since March of last year. Founder and CEO Vivian Wang said that the app works by asking applicants to fill out a profile with information like work experience and shift availability, as well as recording videos that answer basic common interview questions. Interesting.
Multiverse picks up funding: London-based education and career platform Multiverse, formerly known as WhiteHat, has announced a $44 million Series B funding round in addition to the rebranding. The company will expand across the UK, with plans to create two hundred jobs in 2021, and will launch in New York soon. The platform has a bespoke matching process, which measures talent and potential rather than simply academic achievements, connecting an applicant to a specific role and following up with training and one-on-one coaching. Interesting.
Monster’s revenue climbs slightly: After a rocky year, Monster saw a slight uptick in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020. That’s in line with a broader trend at Randstad, the recruitment giant that owns Monster. Randstad didn’t break down how much Monster made, though it did note that the recruitment site’s revenue was down 26% year-on-year. Ouch.
DHI revenue down: DHI Group reported fourth-quarter revenue fell 11.9% year over year but was flat on a sequential basis. The Colorado-based firm operates job boards including Dice, ClearanceJobs and eFinancial Careers. Revenue was up on a year-over-year basis at ClearanceJobs and the company reported its renewal rate for Dice rose. “While we do not provide specific financial guidance, we expect the strong bookings performance we had in the fourth quarter to manifest itself in increased revenue beginning in the second half of 2021,” CFO Kevin Bostick said. OK.
Cannabis job board launched: FlowerHire, a staffing and talent strategy firm serving the regulated cannabis industry, has launched CareersinCannabis.com. The AI-powered software behind CareersinCannabis.com is enginX – created by engin sciences, inc.. The platform blends psychographic data with FlowerHire’s cannabis and HR expertise to create quantified PowerProfiles™, a fusion of hard and soft skills overlayed with relevant personality traits. Weed and AI, eh?
Clora acquires Legit.ai: Clora Inc., a platform for recruiting consultants working in life sciences — such as clinical project managers and medical writers — announced that it acquired another recruiting platform operating in the life sciences space, Legit.ai. Legit.ai developed a natural language processing engine to identify the right life sciences expert for a task by mining 40 million scientific publications, patents and clinical trials as well as 2.1 million expert profiles. Intriguing.
Craigslist revenue falls: The AIM Group says that for the second year in a row, Craigslist, the perennial leader in general classifieds in the United States, has seen revenue drop by a fourth. The company generated $565 million in 2020, a 25% drop from 2019 and down from over $1 billion two years ago. Job ads, Craigslist’s main money maker, are down 32%. Ouch.
C-Sweet creates job board: C-Sweet, a women’s group focused on fostering and accelerating relationships for women in executive and leadership positions, announced a new job board to provide women professionals with a platform to search and apply for executive jobs at institutions that value their experience and credentials. C-Sweets Co-CEOs, Dianne Gubin and Beth Hilbing, are passionate about providing an environment and platform for women to support women in the corporate world. Good luck!
Recruiter.com has big plans: Recruiter.com released its January 2021 Shareholder Letter highlighting its 2020 accomplishments and outlining its plans to achieve $40M in run-rate revenue along with profitability. It announced three initiatives in Q4: a gig platform called Recruiter.com on Demand; a video hiring platform; and a video resume service. CEO Evan Sohn said, ” We set off in 2020 to build out our platform, have scalable revenue, and end the year with a $10M revenue run rate and a path for liquidity.” In other company news, the company announced that it acquired Scouted.io, a venture capital-backed tech startup. Hmm.
Job.com buys Talenting: Job.com, a blockchain powered employment site, has acquired the talent management technology startup Talenting. Talenting brings its proprietary full-scale, end-to-end blockchain-powered technology to the Job.com ecosystem. Talenting was founded in 2018 by Bill Inman, Dan Austin, Vinay Kumar, Sal Pazhoor, and Shankar Ramalingam with the goal of creating a platform that empowers workers to have more control over their employment data. Interesting.
Careerist lands funding: Careerist (ex JobEasy), a Sunnivale, Calif.-based career development platform which adapts US labor to the new economy for a share of the future salary, raised $1.25m in seed financing. Careerist gives anyone without a tech or coding background a chance to land a job in the U.S. tech industry. The platform trains and applies its students for jobs like software testing, while helping them grow into more advanced roles. Students pay an initial application fee and sign an Income Share Agreement to pay a full tuition fee only if they land a job. Careerist graduates have already secured jobs at Google, Apple, Amazon, Slack, Salesforce, Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, Snap, Facebook, and others. Interesting idea.
Workstep raises funds: WorkStep, a company that helps large supply chain employers, source, screen, engage, and retain their frontline workforce, announced $17 million in funding led by FirstMark Capital. Last Fall, WorkStep launched RETAIN to help supply chain employers increase frontline workforce retention by automating employee engagement, identifying top opportunities to reduce turnover and empowering leaders to drive and measure improvement. Hmm.