France’s MyJobCompany Brings Its Social Headhunting Platform Across The Channel

MyJobCompany is another take on the social recruitment idea. Its platform, which expanded beyond France and Latin America to the UK last week, enables anybody to become what it calls a “social headhunter” by recommending friends and acquaintances for a job. Or, put another way, by sending their social and professional networks job adverts, which if lead to a qualified application or actual hire, earns them a commission for doing so.

The way MyJobCompany’s platform works is as follows: A company with a position to fill posts a job ad to the site along with detailed information on the type of candidate and skills they wish to target, and how wide a reach they want the campaign to have. This request is then algorithmically matched to MyJobCompany’s thousands of social headhunters, based on their own social and professional profiles, ensuring that the process remains highly targeted. They in turn pass the advert on to (hopefully) suitable candidates via their own networks. The incentive to do so is a small fee for a referral that leads to a quality application, and a much bigger and lengthier commission for a successful hire — not unlike the recruitment agency model.

It’s not an entirely new idea, of course. There are a ton of startups and more established companies in the recruitment space, many of which have a social component. Sweden’s Jobylon, with its jobs “bounty” feature, probably comes closest, while U.S.-based RolePoint also has a similar proposition.

The idea also appears to be resonating with users: Since launching in France in January 2012, MyJobCompany has recruited 20,000 social headhunters to its platform. Meanwhile, its more recent Chile launch has seen it garner another 5,000 headhunters. Recruiters, however, who spend from €380 to several thousand Euros depending on reach and seniority of the social headhunters being targeted, tally around a more modest 300 to date.

In addition to its broader social recruitment offering, MyJobCompany sells a version to enable companies to run their own internal social referral programs, pitting it against something like Zao (among others).

In January 2013, MyJobCompany raised a €650,000 seed round from ESSEC Business Angels and Paris Business Angels.