CareerBuilder disintegrates and Kariera SA grows

Careerbuilder disintegratesIn an announce­ment that is both expect­ed and a sur­prise, Career­Builder dis­in­te­grates into many small­er pieces – and it’s still not the end yet!

So why was this announce­ment expect­ed? Three words: Apol­lo Glob­al Man­age­ment. The equi­ty firm con­trols Career­Builder, and its modus operan­di is chop­ping and slic­ing com­pa­nies into tiny bits, then sell­ing them. From the Apol­lo took con­trol of Career­Builder, every­one expect­ed this to hap­pen.

But why was this a sur­prise? Well, Lazarus, Career­Builder has returned from the dead many times. As a pio­neer in the job board world, it was first pur­chased as a ven­ture between news­pa­per firms Knight Rid­der and the Tri­bune Com­pa­ny. Anoth­er news­pa­per com­pa­ny, Gan­nett, joined in a few years lat­er. Then in 2008 Career­Builder laid off lots of staff – only to bounce back a few years lat­er by acquir­ing EMSI and Broad­bean, among oth­ers. In 2016, how­ev­er, anoth­er slump hit them when they lost from Tronc-con­trolled news­pa­pers. No wor­ries! Career­Builder decid­ed that was ok, as they were a ‘cra­dle to grave’ recruit­ing solu­tion! Their prof­its – and price – kept slump­ing, though, and that’s when Apol­lo swooped in. Many of us thought Apol­lo would put Career­Builder out of its mis­ery quick­ly – but we were wrong.

So is this tru­ly the end for Career­Builder? Well…not exact­ly. Much like its past rival, Mon­ster, Career­Builder con­tin­ues to live on. Its inter­na­tion­al divi­sion has been sold to Kari­era SA, which will be get­ting sites in the U.K., France, Ger­many, Swe­den, Viet­nam, and India. The new­ly cre­at­ed Kari­era Group will have more than 300 , offices in mul­ti­ple cities and a con­sol­i­dat­ed turnover approach­ing 30 mil­lion euros this year. In an inter­est­ing twist to the sto­ry, Career­Builder had bought Kariere.gr, Kari­er­a’s core site, back in 2007 – and then sold it back to the founders in 2020.

What about Career­Builder in North Amer­i­ca? Will it con­tin­ue lum­ber­ing along? Or can it be cut up into ever-small­er pieces? Well…on LinkedIn, Andrew Bolan­der report­ed that the job board had laid off 60% of its work­force. And it has a new CEO, too! It’s like a soap opera – except, of course, these events have real, not-pleas­ant effects on its employ­ees. Despite all this, the site still ranks in the top 5 U.S. sites for recruit­ment in terms of vis­its – and it’s gen­er­at­ing $275 mil­lion a year. That shows you the val­ue of a lega­cy , my friends!

My pre­dic­tion is that as Career­Builder dis­in­te­grates, its con­stituent parts will end up with inter­est­ing new own­ers – and Career­Builder will for­ev­er be known as the job board that could­n’t die.

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