Glassdoor to be acquired in $1.2B deal

Dive Brief:

Glassdoor, the website known for hosting employer reviews and job postings, has agreed to be acquired by Recruit Holdings Co. for $1.2 billion, according to a press release.
Recruit Holdings, based in Japan, will add Glassdoor to a portfolio that includes job sites Indeed and Simply Hired. Glassdoor said it would operate "as a distinct and separate part of [Recruit's] growing HR technology segment."
Glassdoor also will continue to operate under its own brand, CEO Robert Hohman said in a company blog post announcing the deal, which is expected to close this summer.

Dive Insight:

The announcement is yet another development in an online recruiting firm arms race, a series of high-value acquisitions dating back to LinkedIn's purchase of Lynda.com for $1.5 billion in 2015. The trend signals one of the most active areas of consolidation in the HR industry. Recruit previously acquired Indeed in 2012, and followed up in purchasing Simply Hired in June 2016.

The cause for the spree of acquisitions may be two-fold: 1) A thin talent market in which candidate experience on mobile and web platforms holds increasingly more weight in the choice between job offers; and 2) the competitive threat posed by tech giants in online recruiting — from Microsoft-owned LinkedIn to relative newcomers like Google and Facebook. Each has announced intentions to solve problems that affect how job seekers search, apply and interview for new opportunities, launching apps, video-conferencing solutions and other projects. Google is even optimizing its vast search capabilities for recruiting as Google for Jobs.

But Glassdoor's particular place in the industry should prove a weighty addition for Recruit, especially given the firm's reputation as a go-to place for honest reviews of company culture, job satisfaction and candidate experience. And statistically, those reviews matter: 76% of job seekers research employers before applying for an opening, and 84% of passive job seekers would think about leaving their current employer if another with an outstanding rating made a job offer, according to a 2017 study.

The next frontier for these services may be to solve for even more complex problems, including pay transparency via salary listings and the elimination of bias in recruiting.