BountyJobs, a communication platform which claims to streamline a company’s recruiting process, announced today that it received $12 million in financing from venture capital firm Greylock Partners.
The company said they will use the funding to fuel its growth as a destination where employers can work with headhunters to find top talent.
The funding is in addition to the $3.5 million that BountyJobs initially raised from RPM Ventures, Tiger Global, and John Osher, entrepreneur.
“At BountyJobs, we are focused on enhancing communication between employers and headhunters and breaking down all the frictions that once made transacting business between the two parties difficult.” said Jeremy Lappin, CEO of BountyJobs “As a result, employers get access to talent faster than any other means available.”
BountyJobs provides employers with access to professional headhunters. Since its launch in November of 2006, it has doubled revenue for six consecutive quarters. It counts more than 100 of the Fortune 500 as clientele.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:44 am
BountyJobs is cool, I’ve met the people and had a discussion with them (at Kennedy in Vegas, 2007). But I’m amazed that they have received this much funding. Not that they don’t deserve it, or the idea isn’t that good, just because you don’t hear about much funding in this space.
I remember reading about StandoutJobs.com funding (not sure how that ended up… 1.5M?), and VisualCV, who Joel has on his front page (5.5M?)… who else in this space is getting funding, and how much?
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
July 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am
that’s a lot of money but then it’s a large marketplace and the fees collected by bounty jobs.com are substantial, 25% of each placement fee according to their about page.
I think there was another contender that I remember from around 2001… does anyone know who the competitors are if any?
Jason, I keep a list of VC investments here: http://internetinc.com/Job-boards-with-vc-funding
July 8th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Awesome list Eric… thanks! Are you referring to H3 (on your list)?
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
July 8th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I like seeing NYC start-ups getting support…and press. Vanessa, it looks like you beat Crains to the punch on this news.
http://tinyurl.com/6nr226
July 9th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Eric,
Two primary competitors, or at least similiar concepts, to BountyJobs that I know of: Dayak and TALENThire.
I remember speaking over the phone to the team a BountyJobs nearly a year ago. Cow bells rang out in the background as they we’re bringing in new clients. Sounded like a fun place to be!
July 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Lol, cowbells? Reminds me of that SNL skit with Will Ferrell for some reason…
I was going to mention Dayak and Talenthire; there are a few other companies that are starting to move into this space as well but these are the main ones. The former site won an internet award at SV Launch which also surprised me, since you don’t often see recruiting websites getting their due. Then again, considering that funding list, maybe I’m just not looking in the right places!
July 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am
From the employers POV, there is no difference between this and hiring a recruiter yourself. If an employer uses this service they still have to pay thousands of dollars (percent of salary) to place one employee. The difference here is that the employer will have to look at the profile and approve dozens of recruiters they have never spoken with to participate in the search. They may now receive hundreds of resumes from dozens of recruiters they must look-over. It’s like paying 15K to use Monster but with even more work. If I have to do all the work, I’ll just find the guy myself. Corporate HR people and recruiters won’t use this service because that’s why they have a job. The fundamentals of recruiting say you need to make a lot of calls to find a company that has trouble finding an XYZ. Employers very seldom pick up the phone and call a recruiter. If they do place an order with a recruiter they do so to make the process simple with little work from them. They also do so because they have built a trusting relationship with the recruiter. So my point is, I think these guys will do amazing at the supply side but they wont have any demand.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Rafael, I placed two people at a fortune company I would never have had access to. I cannot send dozens of resumes since my stats are affected by sending bad resumes.
BountyJobs has created a great tool that is helping my grow my business by making placements instead of wasting time looking for jobs.
Go BountyJobs Go!
July 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Daniel you are on the supply side, like I said…they will do great getting recruiters to participate. What I said was, they will have a tough time on the demand side. If I was a recruiter I would love to just worry about getting suppy and not having to find a willing payor. But someone has to pay.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Left a comment earlier, hope this doesn’t show up twice.. apologies if it does.
This is a reply to Cosentino…Your points are spot-on, and it’s time someone said them. I suspect supply and demand will be very challenging for BJ and its smattering of competitors. It remains the case that the best ROI comes from hiring a good recruiter who knows your industry that you can put on salary as an in-house employee, even for mid-size companies. The last few mid-to-large companies I have assisted in my freelance consulting have done this to excellent result. But, I will say that this might change. Why? The competition between recruiting agencies and websites has forced the entire industry to start looking at its inefficiencies, as competition always does. There are a few sites, such as Dayak which was mentioned a few times above, who are no longer charging the standard rates that agencies and even Bounty Jobs do. This is a smart move. It may take a little while, but as these companies perfect their “supply” and begin to meet hiring managers halfway on costs, I would not be surprised to see the “demand” rise. Give it time.
C/ Tornallyay
July 13th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Are you guys using Rockstar Recruiting? I personally think its easier to use. Bounty is OK, but my big beef with them is that I had to wait 2 weeks for somone to call me before I could start using it.
July 14th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The concept is good, however most decent recruiters and big billers, will never touch job orders based on the referral bounty concept. Furthermore the recruiters that do choose to work them most likely will be sourcing candidates from the major job boards which most employers will have already seen. If a recruiter works a job orders with an A player candidate that has been cold recruited, that candidate traditionally only is sent out to employers that have a real sense of urgency and have not shot gunned their job orders out to the entire world. However being an Internet man I’d love to see this concept fly.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Bountyjobs.com seems to solve a specific set of HR problems–widening the apperture of possible contingent search firms to help source talent and improving the due diligence and sign up processes–while simltaneously breaking the back of the fixed price monopoly on fees. Since so much money is spent on contingent search, this would seem like a good thing.
Some of these posts have asked if other sites are available which are similar. At Yellojobs.com, we allow employers to post jobs for free, provided they put a referral reward on each job. That reward is paid to the person who refers the candidate they hire and is only paid if a successful hire results. Most contingent search firms live and die through referrals of qualified candidates from people they talk with(ie troll for).
Yellojobs.com is an open community (anyone may join), while H3, Bountyjobs, dayak and others are closed (must meet specific criteria/pay to join). We help employers tap directly into people’s social networks. We are operating in India, with $15 million in rewards available and have just started a soft launch in the US. To learn more, check out the interview Joel did with our team last week. http://www.cheezhead.com/2008/07/01/meet-yellojobs/
July 17th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
This response is for Jim Newfrock: My apologies if these questions seem elementary but I am not familiar with yellojobs and confused by your last comment. I was under the impression these were all open communities, what criteria needs to be met by the other sites. And aren’t they all free to join?
Thanks for the education!
C/
July 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
not to beat a dead horse — but I want to answer the question from C above. Right, not just anyone can join, I know Dayak qualifies all the recruiters and they’re expected to screen candidates. And Yes - Yellojobs open marketplace means anyone can join so I don’t believe there is a screening process in place. Since you pay for referrals, its assumed people will screen themselves to get the money. Make Sense? The disadvantage I see is once again you are back performing the task of the screening process.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I’m a non HR guy, so I have a different point of view than most posting on this board.
Many of the comments are right-on-point for well managed HR departments of big companies or companies in a constant recruiting and hiring mode, e.g. Microsoft, Google, late stage growth companies, who have invested heavily in a professional in-house HR recruiting staff. However, I see two areas where the demand side will be hugh, and find the services of a BountyJobs valuable.
1. Low turnover, stable headcount entities. Most companies aren’t big, nor are they in a constant hiring mode. At many of these companies, the HR professionals come from a benefits or process background, and when it comes to recruiting, they are as lost as the functional managers needing to hire or replace someone. As such, the HR professionals at the vast majority of companies don’t possess the expertise necessary to adequately do recruiting in-house. This is not a slam at these HR professionals, its just not their area of expertise. HR professionals who have a good background in recruiting and hiring, will not be happy at one of these companies, since there are very few people to recruit. Also, I learned long ago that to be successful in hiring, a company needs to be constantly interviewing and filling its pipeline of candidates. With little turnover and/or headcount growth, having recruiting a 100% varible cost is more the norm. When you are only hiring four to eight people per year, accross all departments, the services of a BountyJobs makes sense. These companies will find services such as BountyJobs of value. Most of these HR professionals will feel more comfortable screening recruiters, than they will screening candidates. Everybody wins.
2. Small start-up companies will drive demand. Start-ups aren’t going to hire one, two or three fulltime recruiters, and someone to manage them, when what they really need is five engineers, three software coders, four sales folks, two marketing people, etc., etc. I can hear the argument now with the line managers: “What? We’re going to hire two or three Recruiters first? Before we hire the folks needed to design the product, find the customers, build a brand….” It is the chicken and egg deal. No real right answer, but in the end, when its VC money, the headcount goes to engineering, sales and marketing first, then to staff functions like finance and HR.
I know the argument is search fees versus salaries of in-house recruiters, with the latter being substantially less and a much better ROI. But the time it takes to recruit and onboard an in-house recruiter will be spend on hiring engineers, sales people and marketing folks. Not saying its right, but it is how the real world works.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
An addendum to the question posed about competitors to BountyJobs. I noted TALENThire and Dayak. I just came across another start-up just today: TalentMaze (Talent Maze LLC): http://www.talentmaze.com/
July 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I have been one of your recruiters on Bounty. What an incredible experience. I have had the opportunity of working companies I would normally not be able to work with.
After this experience, I am convinced now more than every before the importance or recruiters in assisting companies to hired talent.
There is no way a company any company can fill all critical jobs on its own without the assistance of a recruiter. The problem is that Most HR departments are very shortstaffed and are now forcing hiring managers do their own recruiter. It this fair….? No ….Is this the best use of employees’ time? No……Are fees are not high? when you consider that some jobs are vacant 6 months to year and yes so same overworked hiring managers quit their jobs…….
My only negative about Bounty jobs is their inability to attract more and more high level jobs from various companies. Who wants to work on a job that only pays commissions of $5000 dollars….forget it…..
August 14th, 2008 at 9:49 am
One point of note, beyond a surprising amount that is likely foolishly wasted ($12M) in funding this space, is that this is simply a knock-off of Talenthire which has been around since 2004. I suppose that there’s nothing wrong with copying another’s idea, but curious if there is an existing patent on this idea that Talenthire or anyone else has put into play…just curious. Anyone know how well Talenthire is doing or RecruitAlliance?