Your reasonably comprehensive guide to publicly-traded job boards

Most job boards are privately held – that’s just a fact; a minority are publicly-traded job boards. It’s the same in most industries, actually. But when folks knock on my door asking about the size of the job board market, they are usually looking at the publicly-traded job board companies like Indeed (actually, they are part of Recruit) and ZipRecruiter. When I started in the industry, I remember only one publicly-held job board: Monster, which, as part of TMP, went public in 1996. My old employer Dice went public as part of Earthweb in 1998 (and then went private, and public again – but that’s another story). It of course makes complete sense that those outside of the industry look to the publicly-held companies – these are the only ones that must divulge their earnings and expenses. There are plenty of $10M, $30M, and $50M job boards out there – you just don’t know about them because they are private and (usually) niche.

But what about a (reasonably) comprehensive list of the publicly-traded job boards? Well, I decided to give it a shot. Take a look below – and then tell me which ones I missed! For each job board, if it has a parent company, I note this in parentheses after the job board name. For some companies with multiple job boards, such as Seek, I just list the parent company. I’ve also tried to include where they were originally listed, and when.

• 51Job: listed on Nasdaq in 2004; Chinese; job board (Note: is planning to go private)
• Adevinta: listed on the Oslo Bors in 2019 (formerly part of Schibsted); Norwegian; multiple job boards
• BizReach (Visional Inc.): listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2021; Japanese freelance marketplace
• Boss Zhipin (Kanzhun): listed on Nasdaq in 2021; Chinese; job board
• CareerBuilder (Apollo Global, etc.); listed on NYSE; U.S.; job board
• Careers24 (Naspers): listed on Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1994; South African; job board
• Dice (Dice Holdings): originally Earthweb (1998-2001); listed on NYSE; global job board
• Dip Corp.: listed on TSE Mothers in 2004; Japanese; multiple job boards
• Doximity: listed in 2021 on NYSE; U.S.; physician network
• En-Japan.com: listed on Nippon New Market in 2001; Japanese; multiple job boards
• Fiverr: listed on NYSE  in 2019; Israeli; freelance marketplace
• Freelancer.com: listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2013; Australian; freelance marketplace
• GetNinjas: listed on the São Paulo stock exchange B3 in 2021; Brazilian; freelance marketplace
• Headhunter.ru: listed on Nasdaq in 2019; Russian; job board
• Indeed & Glassdoor (Recruit Holdings); listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2014; Japanese; multiple global job boards
• Lancers Inc: listed on the Toyko Stock Exchange in 2019; Japanese; freelance marketplace
• LinkedIn: originally went public in 2011; purchased by Microsoft in 2016, now public as part of parent; professional network
• Monster (Randstad): originally went public in 1996; global job board
• Naukri (Info Edge): listed in 2006; Indian; job board
• Pracuj (Grupa Pracuj) (December 2021): listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange; Polish; multiple job boards
• Professional Diversity Networks: listed on Nasdaq in 2013; U.S.; multiple job boards
• Recruiter.com: listed on Nasdaq in 2021; U.S.; multiple job boards
• Saramin.co.kr: listed on the Korean Composite Index in 2012; Korean; job board, recruiting
• Seek: originally listed in 2005 on the Australian Securities Exchange; Australian; multiple job boards
• UpWork: listed on NYSE in 2018; U.S. freelance marketplace
• Xing (New Work SE): listed in 2006; German; professional network
• ZipRecruiter: listed on NYSE as direct listing in 2021; U.S.; job board, aggregator

In the process of becoming publicly-traded job boards:

• Stepstone: currently part of Axel-Springer and thus not public (AS went private in 2020 after 35 years of being publicly held); plans to IPO separately in 2022 on Frankfurt stock exchange
• JobAndTalent: heavily funded and rapidly expanding; the Spanish site is rumored to be planning an IPO in 2023
• Adzuna: the U.K.-based job aggregator is planning to list on the London Stock Exchange, possibly in 2022

So there you have it – your handy list of publicly-traded job boards. Tell me which companies I missed and what I got wrong (or right!). And expect an update of this in another year or so.

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