Jobillico, the online recruitment site, announced on February 1 that it has raised $8 million in financing. The majority of these funds are from its new partner, Capital régional et coopératif Desjardins (CRCD), with the rest from private investors.
This investment will give the Quebec-based company the boost it needs to expand into the rest of Canada. Founded in 2010 in Quebec City, Jobillico set up an office in Toronto last year. For the past two years, it has doubled its staff: it now has around 60 employees in Quebec’s capital and around 15 in Toronto.
Its growing user base proves its success: 6,000 companies and over 650,000 job seekers have used Jobillico’s services to recruit candidates or find employment. The site gets over 16 million hits per year.
In the short term, Jobillico hopes to strengthen its job market presence in Quebec and expand into Ontario, according to a spokesperson for the company.
As for CRCD, it is thrilled to contribute to the recruitment company’s development. “Our investment will help Jobillico grow, bolstering our goal to create a Quebec-based technology sector with a national presence,” stated Luc Ménard, managing vice-president, Investments, Desjardins Business Capital régional et coopératif.
LinkedIn’s stock takes a nosedive
Ironically, things are not going nearly as well for LinkedIn, the site mainly known for connecting job seekers with recruiters. On February 5, there was a 44% plunge in the company’s shares, equal to the total market capitalization of another popular social media site, Twitter.
Yet, last December, the California-based professional networking site had 414 million users, with 18 million new users in three months and 67 million in one year.
Its 2016 forecast concluded that it would be impossible to do better this year. Deemed deceptive by certain rating agencies like Barclays and JPMorgan, who downgraded LinkedIn’s rating, this pessimistic forecast could also be behind the stock’s plunge.
Does this mean that the social media job market has peaked? Due to the global economic slowdown, LinkedIn has seen better days in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, the company admits.