Job search portals: CareerBuilder + Monster files for insolvency

The US company behind the well-known online job portals Monster and CareerBuilder has filed for insolvency. Various parts of the company are to be sold to different competitors. This is according to a statement from the company called CareerBuilder + Monster, which is being handled by a bankruptcy court in the US state of Delaware. Monster and CareerBuilder were both founded in the 1990s and were early pioneers in online job placement. The joint company was only formed last year. According to Reuters, they have suffered from strong competition from platforms such as LinkedIn.

Debts too high

For a long time, Monster was best known in Germany. The internet portal caused a stir in 1999 with an advertisement that was shown on television during the US football final Super Bowl XXXIII. In 2016, the Dutch recruitment company Randstad acquired Monster for around 429 million US dollars, but the portal remained online under the well-known brand. Eight years later, the merger with CareerBuilder followed. Randstad only retained a minority stake in the resulting company. According to Bloomberg, CareerBuilder had previously struggled with a decline in sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the financial news agency, the joint venture has accumulated liabilities of 100 to 500 million US dollars, but its goodwill only amounts to 50 to 100 million US dollars. According to the announcement, the business areas related to job placement are now to be sold to JobGet. The US company operates an app for job placement in the gig economy. Monster's websites Military.com – for news about the US military – and Fastweb.com – for scholarships – will be sold to the Canadian media company Valnet, which has just acquired the gaming site Polygon. Other parts of the company go to Valsoft.

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