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Careers site Glassdoor raises $50M, plans to grow staff, expand abroad

Careers site Glassdoor raises $50M, plans to grow staff, expand abroad

The company has now raised more than $90 million since its founding in 2007

Glassdoor, a job search and recruitment site best known for its salary database, has raised US$50 million in funding, and plans to use the cash infusion to grow its staff and expand internationally.

This latest funding round, led by Tiger Global Management, brings the total raised by the 6-year-old company to more than $90 million, Glassdoor said Thursday. Other investors that participated include Benchmark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures and Battery Ventures.

Glassdoor started out as a site where employees could post anonymous reports about their salaries and reviews about their experience with their companies, providing an insider's perspective on employers.

However, in the past two years, it has built up its careers component, providing search tools both for workers and recruiters. The company believes the combination of job listings with the insider information on employers differentiate it from other similar sites.

"Our mission is to help people find a job they'll love, so the magic happened when we married the two types of information," said Robert Hohman, Glassdoor's CEO and co-founder.

With the additional money raised, the company, which has about 200 employees, plans to hire about 100 new staffers, and grow its business abroad, which already accounts for a considerable portion of the site's usage.

Glassdoor, which was founded in 2007 and launched its site in 2008, has about 22 million registered users and data on about 300,000 companies from 190 countries. About 25 percent of the site's traffic comes from outside of the U.S.

"The opportunity for us now is to accelerate our international expansion, fully develop those communities and provide services to employers in those countries," he said.

The company also plans to boost its mobile offerings. About 35 percent of Glassdoor's traffic comes via mobile devices. The company has a mobile site, as well as iOS and Android apps.

About 15,000 companies have created free accounts, and about 1,400 companies make use of paid services, including Facebook, Wal-Mart, PepsiCo and Nordstrom.

The free company account lets employers set up a basic corporate profile, as well as participate with an official voice on the site, which includes being able to respond to reviews. "It matters to job seekers to know that employers are listening and engaging on the site," Hohman said. Employers also get basic usage analytics.

The paid services include a full-blown corporate profile that is more sophisticated and extensive than the basic one, allowing employers to post more information about the company, feature videos, display social media streams and the like. The analytics are also much more granular.

Employers can also advertise on the site. Employers pay whenever candidates click on their ad, which in turn takes the candidates directly to their careers site or to their job application system.

Hohman claims that Glassdoor can deliver high-quality candidates to employers because its users usually have narrowed down the number of companies they want to apply to, based on the inside information the site provides.

Competitors include Indeed, SimplyHired, Monster, Dice and LinkedIn, although Hohman acknowledged there is "coopetition" in the space as well. For example, he said he views LinkedIn as more complementary to Glassdoor than adversarial, because, in his view, LinkedIn is focused on people, while Glassdoor focuses on jobs and company information.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

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Tags internetInternet-based applications and servicesGlassdoor

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