It all started when Eva Zils, recruitment blogger and key account manager at Jobticket.de, noted that job portal Stepstone.de, one of Germany’s leading job portals, had tinkered with its General Conditions for Business (GCB) and interpreted the amendments as a ban on links in job ads to social media, such as Facebook. Read all about it here (in German).

When Stepstone responded to her blog with “amendments to amendments” (on two occasions), and no official explanation, the recruitment community went on full alert: was Stepstone really trying to defend its turf by banning links to corporate pages on eg. Facebook?

Since we described Stepstone as being “open to social media” in our special report Recruitment Advertising 2012: “Social 2.0″ (CIR 12.23, Dec. 15, 2011), we thought we had to check and asked Stepstone. The portal gave us a clear, “No, we don’t prohibit clients to link to Facebook”.

Here is Stepstone’s full response:

“Clients of Stepstone may link from their ads to their company websites, the start pages of the jobs sections on company websites and/or to their corporate pages on social media (eg. Facebook). Our GCB allows all these links, because it interprets the word “Unternehmenspräsenzen” in the widest sense of the word. In short: Stepstone has not banned its clients from linking to Facebook.

“But, as a rule, we recommend: the fewer links leading candidates away from a job ad, the higher the chances they will apply for the job. A job-seeker clicks on a job, because it fits to his occupational area, is in a particular city, or a company he wants to work for. At this point the chances he applies are the highest. Every link (in the ad) to the outside may be counterproductive and distract from the goal to generate applications.”

So, this was a storm in a teacup? Well, maybe. If only the wording of the amended GCB wasn’t so ambiguous (see blocked paragraph in German). 

It translates: Clients may not link to competitors of Stepstone, unless the client is himself a competitor of Stepstone, and he links to his corporate page.

That sounds like a Facebook ban to me. I’m afraid, the episode may drag on.

After our post below, we were contacted by a BranchOut spokesperson who offered some clarification:

Facebook recruitment networking app BranchOut now has 300 million users and, according to a Wall Street Journal conversation with BranchOut CEO Rick Marini, reaches twice the number of users as competitor LinkedIN. The way Marini explained it: BranchOut trails LinkedIN in number of registered users, but it’s on Facebook and connects users with their Facebook friends and friends of friends, and that number exceeds LinkedIN numbers.  Only 10 million people have actually placed their profiles on BranchOut, however, with only 4 million actively returning to the site each month. Recruitment giant CareerBuilder has additionally teamed up with BranchOut, to offer social connectivity to its users.

Combine these statistics with the stats for LinkedIN candidate search – 87 % of recruiters surveyed by Jobvite used LinkedIN to find candidates in 2011 – and it’s clear that social media has taken a front and center place in the world of online recruitment.  Publishers who fail to integrate social media tools and features may end up eating the dust of sites such as Indeed, SimplyHired, Monster’s BeKnown, CareerBuilder, JobFox, JobVite, TweetMyJobs, TwitJob Search and its The SocialCV, and others who connect candidates with their social friends at hiring firms, and recruiters with candidates, through social networking.  For more on this growing social recruitment phenomenon read AIM Group’s Recruitment Advertising 2012: “Social 2.0″ (CIR 12.23, Dec. 15, 2011)

WSJ’s Digits blog has the latest BranchOut story.

“I’m pleased to announce that the vision I’ve pursued at Amped Market Place Inc. to help digital media companies amplify their recruitment business is being “AMPed” through a partnership with RealMatch, Inc….The interests of AMP have merged with RealMatch and I have joined them as their Chief Revenue Officer.”

… whatever that means. Good grief. And we’ve tried calling him a couple of times without success.

Baker served as VP at Hire.com before he joined Adicio. He’s also worked with Madgex, a UK-based competitor to Adicio and RealMatch. He started Amped in August 2010; it’s not clear whether he’s shutting it down, incorporating it into his work with RealMatch, or planning to operate it as a separate company.

For more on what each firm offers for hiring managers, publishers and candidates, read the AIM Group’s Recruitment advertising 2012: “Social 2.0″ (CIR 12.23, Dec. 15, 2011) 

Here’s a PDF of the complete study,  Where The Jobs Are: The App Economy, researched and produced by South Mountain Economics, LLC.

Carl Freelove, marketing officer at Jobs.ac.uk, said “the improved design and navigation, resume search functionality and additional content about our services will help recruiters make more informed buying decisions, when it comes to recruiting the very best job seekers”.

Elsewhere in academia the news from Milkround suggests that graduates searching jobs are turning to the site in droves. More precisely, visitors jumped by some 20 percent from November 2010. An ABC audit shows visits up by 107,027 to 536,257.

Read this blog post by Carl Freelove for the full picture.

Wetzel explains that the new name minimizes confusion between the B2C job board offer and the group’s wider strategy. There is a hint here as to what that is since Wetzel notes that the new name “avoids being limited by geography, sector or topicality” suggesting that Evenbase’s sights are set on markets beyond the U.K.

The Evenbase stable includes Jobsite but also niche and vertical job boards such as Oilcareers, NHS Jobs and multi-posting software provider Broadbean all of which will be organized as four business units each with a Managing Director.  Those units are Job Boards (MD Mike Wall), Business Solutions (under Heather Wozniak), Software (based on Broadbean and run by Dan Martin and Kelly Robinson), and New Ventures (MD Ray Duggins).

All of these units will report to Keith Potts who moves from Group MD to CEO of Evenbase, a role change that will see his priorities shift from operations to strategy.

CV Online operates in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Alma Media said in a media statement. (Read complete statement in English.) In 2011 CV Online generated revenue of about €2 million (30 percent up on 2010), with an operating margin of about €600,000. From today, CV Online will fall under the segment Marketplaces at Alma Media.

Interesting point: the Hungarian version of CV Online belongs to Austrian media group Vorarlberger Medienhaus. Look at their huge portfolio of sites here.

“CV Online employs 34 people and no jobs will be lost. The company is market leader in Latvia and Lithuania, and shares market leadership in Estonia. A total of 430,000 registered job seekers have submitted their CVs in the CV Online databases,” Alma Media said.

“The acquisition of CV Online is part of Alma Media’s strategy to seek growth from digital services and internationalisation,” the company said.

As restructurings go, this one is also not bloodless (read here).

The company doesn’t report the financial results of regions (for instance Europe and Asia) separately. Inquiries at dr. Katrin Luzar, senior public relations manager of Monster in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, drew a flat “no comment”. And listed companies such as Axel Springer (with job portal Stepstone) do not (yet) report the performances of individual platforms separately.

So, it’s difficult to figure out just how healthy (or unhealthy) the finances of European job portals are, and what role Europe plays in Monster’s slowdown. Chances are, quite a big role.

That is, if one looks at Monster’s monthly statistics for ad listings on job portals in seven of Europe’s biggest labor markets, namely Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K.. The so-called Monster Index has been sending out warning signals for some time now – as we first reported in October last year (look here). In the October article we suggested job portals everywhere in Europe (except Germany) might be heading for stormy times.

The Monster Index is published monthly (look here). It tracks the number of jobs listed on a number of portals (they don’t divulge exactly which job portals) in the abovementioned countries. It is the most reliable early indicator we have of what is happening in job markets and – important for this story – what lies ahead financially for job portals.

The index shows that job portals have been suffering under declining job ad listings since April last year (in the case of Belgium), May last year (in the cases of The Netherlands and Sweden), June last year (in the case of France) and July (in the case of Italy).

For some countries last year ended in a real nightmare. In Spain, for instance, (not included in the Monster Index), the official unemployment rate was measured at 22 percent in December, with unemployment among young people said to be over 30 percent. Greece and Portugal (also not included in the Monster Index), faced similar rates.

The Monster Index includes Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands and there ad listings dropped by 7 percent, 8 percent and 7 percent respectively last year.

Only two countries in the EU did not suffer drops in their ad listings (as measured by Monster) throughout last year (they ended the year with more jobs listed than in January), namely Germany and the U.K.

In December 2011 Germany had 32 percent more jobs listed than in December 2010 – an amazing statistic, remembering that Germany didn’t lose jobs during the crisis of 2008 – 2010. The U.K. boasted 6 percent more jobs in December 2011 than the same month a year earlier.

In the circumstances, one doesn’t really need dr. Luzar – the message is clear: Europe’s job portals (excluding Germany) suffered last year and are facing a bumpy road in 2012. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland Monster might not be cutting jobs (she didn’t want to comment that one either), but chances are elsewhere in Europe.

          Monster Worldwide stock dropped more than 20 percent Thursday after the company issued guidance about projected Q1 revenue and earnings that were far below analyst estimates. The stock finished the day in NYSE consolidated trading at 7.15, down 1.83 or 20.83 percent. Trading volume was almost four times the average of 3.2 million shares.

          It was the lowest point for the stock since Nov. 29, when it hit 6.93. One year ago, on Jan. 26, 2011, the stock was trading at 21.33 — so it’s off by almost two-thirds in the last year.

          Current market capitalization for Monster Worldwide, parent of Monster.com and other recruitment sites globally, is $921 million.

          * * * *

Monster Worldwide stock dropped more than 13 percent this morning after the company announced an increase in earnings but a number of cost-cutting measures, including the layoff of 400 employees — or about 7 percent of its international workforce.

The company projected earnings for the first quarter of 2012 that were less than half of analysts’ estimates. It said revenue would fall 3 to 7 percent during Q1 this year, and bookings (longer-term placements for the future) would fall 6 to 10 percent.

“The progress we saw in the fourth quarter was much slower than what we saw earlier in the year,” Monster CEO Sal Iannuzzi told Reuters in an interview. He said the job market was not likely to change “for the time being,” Reuters reported.

“Our focus in 2012 will be to further leverage our product leadership and global platform, and increase customer adoption.”

Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) said its Q4 net income was $10.9 million, or 9 cents per share, up from just $500,000 or breakeven in during Q1 of 2011. Revenue in Q1 declined to $250 million from $255 million year-over-year. Analysts had projected revenue of $259 million.

“In 2011 our Global Careers bookings increased 18 percent year-over-year despite a more challenging economic environment in the latter half,” Iannuzzi said in the management statement. “We also significantly improved profitability, with an operating margin of 7% in 2011 compared to approximately break-even in 2010, and had $250 million in cash and cash equivalents at year-end.

In addition to the layoff of 400 people worldwide, the company said it would close some offices and carefully manage expenses. It projected annualized savings of $100 million from the layoffs and expense reductions.

The layoffs included “less than 100” people at the U.S. headquarters of Monster.com in Maynard, Mass. The company said it might hire some people back in sales and marketing roles.

The company statement about its layoffs:

           As we have indicated in previous public statements, we are taking some steps to rebalance our investments and reduce fixed operating costs. As such, we are eliminating roughly 400 positions globally, or 7 percent of the workforce. Since 2007, Monster has made tremendous progress in developing and launching new technologies. Moving forward, we will focus on rolling out these innovations globally and growing revenue through an increase in sales and marketing activity consistent with our historical norms. To that end, we plan to add revenue-generating positions opportunistically.”

Adzuna collates U.K. job ads in real time and a Connect feature links jobseekers with first-, or second-degree connections from business network LinkedIn and social network Facebook.

Now Index Ventures and The Accelerator Group followed up on last year’s seed funding, with a £500,000 ($780,000 U.S.) investment aimed at taking Adzuna to the next stage. Adzuna founders Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro originally met while working at Gumtree in 2005, where Hunter went on to become head of marketing and Monro moved off to become COO of Zoopla.

Monro said about the capital injection: “We’re really excited to have top-class investors like Index, The Accelerator Group and Passion. We are passionate about making the classifieds search experience fundamentally better for users in the UK and beyond. This will help us towards that vision.”

For the complete explanation of what the money will be used for, go to this Adzuna blog post.

Jobintree is the brainchild of Fabrice Robert and Carlos Goncalves, both ex of Keljob (Robert was the MD) and sprang from Robert’s conviction that traditional jobsites suffered from the fact that the structure of job offers incited too many candidates to apply for jobs they weren’t suited for.

“Ninety percent of CVs received by recruiters don’t correspond to the desired profile,” he commented at the time. Jobintree aimed to answer that with what was billed as a ‘funnel interface’ that guided candidates into a narrow but more relevant selection of jobs.

Jobintree now has 1,300 recruiters as clients on its platform and 50,000 unique visitors per month. There are no details as yet of the new project, but the company is hinting that it will see the light of day in Q1 of this year.

Axel Springer launched Stepstone.pl in 2009. Ringier Axel Springer Polska has been running it under license since 2010.

The official reason for the close-down?

“We are re-shaping our portfolio and will concentrate on content websites going forward. In other words, the sites of our established print titles. Secondly, the economic slowdown made the market for recruitment ads extremely difficult,” she said.

This was, however, not a vote by Ringier Axel Springer Polska against classifieds in general: it runs a classifieds section on its print-title-linked auto portal (Autoswiat.pl) and will continue to do so.

Stepstone.pl never really got going in Poland. In a competitive online recruitment market Stepstone.pl never made it into the Top 6 ranking, as measured by monthly visitors (not unique visitors) and page views.

Last year the Top 6 in Poland looked like this:

1. Pracuj.pl (1.9 million visitors; 56 million page views)
2. Praca.wp.pl (1.9 million visitors; 17 million page views)
3. GazetaPraca.pl (1.6 million visitors; 31 million page views)
4. Jobrapido.pl (1.2 million visitors)
5. InfoPraca.pl (1 million visitors; 22 million page views)
6. Gowork.pl (1 million visitors)

The decision to close Stepstone.pl down will affect a small number of employees and subcontractors, said Gancarz-Luboń. Some will be offered other positions in Ringier Axel Springer Polska and a few will be retrenched.

U.S. employers stepped up their hiring last month. Employers added 200,000 jobs in December – up from 100,000 jobs the previous month, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. The number was better than analysts had expected.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell from 8.7 percent in November to 8.5 percent in December.

The public sector, which bled jobs most of 2011, continued to lag. Overall, 12,000 government jobs were lost last month.

The highlights:

• LinkedIN will reach 300 million users by the end of 2012
• Facebook’s decline in usage will continue in 2012 as Facebook apathy takes a firm hold
• Video assessment will go mainstream for corporate recruiters
• Twitter will explode as a recruitment communication tool
• Social media litigation will become the single largest headache for HR departments
• Mobile will dominate the total spend in recruitment / HR portals

Alma Media joins a few big names already active in the region. For instance, Ringier Axel Springer, a joint venture of two Swiss and German media giants, which operates in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Serbia. (In Poland it operates the job portals Stepstone.pl and Praca.info.) Ringier Axel Springer will launch a new digital expansion strategy on Jan. 1, 2012 (here and here).

South African-based media group Naspers also has its eyes on Eastern Europe, where it operates successfully with the subsidiary Allegro.

The acquisition of LMC is in line with Alma Media´s strategy to seek growth from digital services and to internationalize its operations, the company said. Alma Media expects LMC’s 2011 revenue to grow by about 25 percent to €16.5 million, with an EBITDA of about €4.6 million. LMC will sort under Alma Media´s division Marketplaces.
LMC was established in 1996 by Libor Malý, who is now also the seller. Since 1996 the company has been a market leader in the Czech market. It has about 25,000 registered B-2-B customers and one million registered job seekers. It employs 200 people mainly in Prague. The acquisition will have no effect on LMC´s employees or the brand names, Alma Media said.
“With the transaction we take a major step in the direction of internationalizing our online recruitment segment. I am very glad that LMC´s talented team will join Alma Media. I firmly believe the know-how of LMC, combined with Alma Media´s strong experience in online services, also in the field of recruitment, will bring great opportunities to further develop our services,” said Raimo Mäkilä, Senior Vice President of Alma Media´s Marketplaces division.

Stafflink had been using Workopolis to post jobs, but last month began evaluating Monster (a freebie of 7 postings in a month at no cost helped grease the wheel) and has now switched over entirely. Cost seems to be the primary reason: Workopolis charges $750/job for a 30-day period, while Monster is $725/job for two months. For packages of 5-9 jobs, the gap is even larger: it’s $655 a job at Workoplis but only $550 at Monster.

Stafflink also liked Monster’s customer service better and said the quality of the applicants were better, although they were clear to say that this was based on only a small sample.

In terms of social media, both sites were highly active, with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare feeds. Stafflink praised Monster’s BeKnown Facebook app, but that wasn’t a reason in and of itself to switch.

Locanto is run by Yalwa, a German start-up, that operates 38 business directory sites around the world, including the U.S. The look and feel to Yalwa is nearly identical to Locanto.