Why Jobrapido? The big picture.

The Evenbase acquisition of Jobrapido means many things. Some of which may not be immediately apparent, nor possible for us to reveal right now. One thing the deal does mean however, is that our frequent visits to Milan need no longer be a secret so I’m now free to check in again on Foursquare and Path, share with you some incredible stories about British Airways, my very positive impression of Gatwick’s re-designed  South Terminal and some great Milanese restaurants.  But that’s all for another day.

In this post I want to give you an insight to the strategy behind yesterday’s news.

First, let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture as the pieces of the puzzle then tend to fall into place! Very simply put, everything the team behind Evenbase has been focused on in the past two years supports one of the below goals:

1)      To harness and focus the talent, technology and expertise of our multiple brands within one entity =  Evenbase

2)      To empower Evenbase with global scalability and reach =  Jobrapido

3)      To use this reach to enter local markets with relevant solutions = well, watch this space…

For a reminder on the thinking behind the Evenbase launch in January, see the post “Becoming Evenbase“.

Yesterday saw us realise our second goal, that of injecting Evenbase with a global reach. Incorporating Jobrapido within the Evenbase family projects us firmly into the Top 5 global digital recruitment brands, and distinct as the only one with a non-US heritage. In calculating the Top 5, I’ve included LinkedIn based on its total traffic. HRxAnalysts, however, estimates that only 5% of LinkedIn’s visits are done in a job seeking capacity. If we would apply this logic, than LinkedIn would fall out of this set and would even struggle to make the Top 10 (Which actually makes their revenue generation even more impressive!).

As a standalone business, Jobrapido is formidable. The metrics speak for themselves:

• Jobrapido is the second largest vertical job search business in the world, operating in more than 50 countries, and continually outperforms its competitors.
• Jobrapido revenues in 2011 were €24.4m.
• The acquisition of Jobrapido will enable engagement with job seeking candidates on a massive scale (current run rate 800m+ visits annually) across all of the major European markets, and the key developing markets such as India, Brazil and Russia.

It is this rich international candidate list – one of the world’s largest talent pools – that attracted us to Jobrapido from the get go, along with their growth potential. Jobrapido will continue to build their engagement with these candidates on a global scale with their inherent determination and creativity.

But we didn’t make this acquisition based on the metrics alone. Jobrapido is run by fantastic people who will remain with the business, and are relentlessly focused on becoming the leading vertical search engine in the world. The constant evolution and innovation of their website and product delivers staggering conversion rates.

Some benefits of the deal are pretty straight forward and deliver directly to goals 2 and 3 I mentioned earlier, such as allowing Evenbase to:

• access priority markets and gain local footholds more quickly and nimbly
• strengthen the position and vary the offer of existing assets and brands
• build up very interesting data sets that will let us understand demand and supply for talent on a global scale
• explore more fully a variety of different recruitment models and solutions for the global stage, based on recruitment and performance principles, with the candidate firmly at the heart of it all.

There are some incredibly interesting and cool developments on the horizon … and lots more to tell you very soon.

We have every confidence that the combination of Jobrapido and Evenbase’s existing brand assets will create an awesome force in the digital recruitment market.  And rightly so, because – and let’s be frank – if you’re not global at the moment, you may survive; but if you’re not global in the near future, you are irrelevant.

In an increasingly globalised world, with the changes that we can see happening in the world of work to date, projects and employment will not be dependent on location, but will flow as freely as money flows currently.

And that’s why Jobrapido is a very important piece in the Evenbase puzzle. It gives us the breadth, now we need to drill down for depth across our priority markets. After all, we don’t just want to be in the Top 5 by audience alone. But that is another story for another day…

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