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Glassdoor, the Iconic Job-Hunting and Reviews Website, Has Been Bought For $1.2 billion (recode.net)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the done-deal dept.

Glassdoor, the popular job-hunting platform that gives people a window into conditions at hundreds of thousands of companies, has agreed to be acquired by Japan's Recruit Holdings for $1.2 billion cash. From a report: Recruit Holdings, a large Japanese human resources company that owns other job sites like Indeed, spent eight figures in cash to acquire the decade-old company. Glassdoor hadn't raised new money in about two years, when it was valued by investors at around $860 million, so it likely needed to decide whether to raise more money, sell or try to go public. The company reportedly was at least considering an IPO in the second half of 2018 and was interviewing banks that could take them there.

4 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Slightly better than a screen-scrape by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I found before that glassdoor was occasionally a good source for jobs that were open, and often a good source for jobs that were no longer open. The problem that it won't solve - that no other website I'm aware of is doing anything to solve - is that of getting applications read by actual human beings. Employers more often than not have a blind loyalty to using algorithms (that more often than not are employed by HR people who don't understand them) to quickly filter out applications. The result of this is that many qualified job seekers never get a chance to talk to anyone.

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    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Slightly better than a screen-scrape by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      A person's time is more valuable than a computer algorithm's and if you have hundreds of applications, there's no way any one person could hope to evaluate them all. There's also no guarantee that the HR person is any better than an algorithm either, or at least not so much so to be worth the extra cost. It's even more expensive if you want applicants to talk to your developers, engineers, etc. that are actually capable of assessing an applicant so you need some way of getting a shortlist of candidates.

      I've heard one manager jocularly state that he just takes half of the applications and throws them away without even reading them because he didn't want anyone who was unlucky working at the company. He may have been joking, but he probably wasn't lying. Sometimes there's just too many applications to reasonably go through and be able to talk to everyone.

  2. Isn't Recruit the 80s/90s corruption company? by mccalli · · Score: 5, Informative

    Looked it up - yes, it is.. I don't know the state of things now - is anyone in Japan able to comment on Recruit's current reputation?

  3. Corporate Shills for their Golfing Buddies by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 2

    The minimize negative feedback and give all the corporate sponsors a chance to maximize their positive image. The point was supposed to be finding out that your new potential employer is actually a hellhole with a crazy boss, insane hours, and populated by your wonderful new no-deodorant H1B co-workers. The only reason that's helpful to Glassdoor is that they can then blackmail the company in to paying to improve their image on Glassdoor.