SAN FRANCISCO, California — January 18, 2012 – SmartRecruiters, the free social recruiting platform, announced $5 million in Series A financing led by Silicon Valley’s Mayfield Fund.

SmartRecruiters cloud-based platform takes the complexity out of the recruiting process from sourcing to hiring. Since its founding in September 2010, over 10,000 businesses have signed up to use SmartRecruiters. The company plans to use the funding to make its product even more awesome.

Next-Gen SaaS: “Free” as a Model

SmartRecruiters platform sits in the cloud and is entirely free to use. The company generates revenue exclusively from selling third-party recruiting services. This disruptive free SaaS model is the logical next step in the recent consumerization of cloud software for the social enterprise.

“SaaS 2.0 has given rise to innovative companies like Marketo, and now SmartRecruiters is pushing the envelope further with a free and frictionless business model for hiring,” said Rajeev Batra, Partner, Mayfield Fund.  “When you combine a serial entrepreneur with deep industry expertise like SmartRecruiters founder/CEO Jerome Ternynck, with a disruptive model, you can transform a market and build an impactful company.”

Disrupting the $400B Recruiting Industry

SmartRecruiters all-in-one easy to use platform combines free social software and best in class third-party services, such as: free job sites, job boards, social networks, assessment services, background check services and recruiting process outsourcing. It also aggregates data across all users to help individual businesses make smarter decisions in sourcing and selecting the best candidates for any given job in any given location.

This innovative model leverages the social web to provide much needed transparency to the traditional $400B recruiting industry.

“By bringing advanced recruitment technology to small businesses at no cost, SmartRecruiters can help companies find great talent, leverage social networks, and improve their quality of hire in a highly affordable way,” said Josh Bersin, President and CEO, Bersin & Associates, a leading research and advisory firm in corporate talent acquisition.

Hiring Made Easy

A recent study from Bersin & Associates found that small firms pay a median figure of $3,665 in recruiting costs per hire, compared with $1,949 per hire at companies employing 10,000 employees or more. By offering a free social recruiting platform, SmartRecruiters aims to empower small and medium-sized businesses – the largest hiring segment – and in effect, democratize access to talent.

“When hiring, we know what we want but have struggled with where to look, and carving out time to manage the process,” explained Vigdis Eriksen, founder and CEO of Eriksen Translations. “SmartRecruiters delivers our job ads to the right audiences, and continually reduces our time to hire.”

As the ultimate platform for candidate sourcing and management, SmartRecruiters lets businesses:

• easily create branded online job ads
• create professional looking career pages on corporate websites
• distribute jobs in one click to free, niche, and commercial job sites
• add a careers tab to a Facebook corporate page
• leverage social networks for internal and external referrals
• engage candidates through a mobile career site
• consolidate all applicants in one place for easy tracking
• share and engage candidates with Facebook style commenting structure for collaborative hiring
• assure compliance with EEO and OFFCP regulations

SmartRecruiters free social recruiting platform is available for any organization looking to hire one employee or 1,000. To signup for the free application visit: www.smartrecruiters.com/SignUp

Millions of Jobs at Stake

“There are currently 3 million jobs open in the US and 80% of small businesses report a difficulty to hire – in this economy, that is unacceptable,” said SmartRecruiters founder and CEO Jerome Ternynck.  “I think we can do a much better job giving businesses easy access to the talent they need.”

Search friction in the labor market accounts for much of the unfortunate fact that 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed. Yet, we live in a connected world in which hiring should be easy.

“It’s time to leverage technology to bring recruiting back to its roots as a social activity and get people back to work,” stated Ternynck.

By giving small businesses a free social recruiting platform, SmartRecruiters plans to do exactly that, making hiring easy for millions of businesses.

About SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters is the free social recruiting platform that makes hiring easy for thousands of businesses around the world. Leveraging the power of an open Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and pervasive social networks, SmartRecruiters is democratizing access to top talent for the largest hiring segment — small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). SmartRecruiters is based in San Francisco CA, and was founded in September 2010.

About Mayfield Fund

Mayfield Fund invests in relationships with entrepreneurs, institutions, and the community to transform bold ideas into industry-leading companies. With $2.7 billion under management, Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage companies in the Enterprise, Consumer, Energytech, and Mobile/Telecom sectors. The firm fosters global entrepreneurship by investing in India-based companies through its Mayfield India fund and in China-based companies directly and with its partner GSR Ventures. Over its 42-year history, the firm has invested in more than 500 companies, resulting in over 100 IPOs and more than 100 mergers or acquisitions. For more information, visit www.mayfield.com.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Recruitment technology leaders Work4 Labs, Inc. and SmartRecruiters jointly announced today integration between Work4 Labs’ Facebook recruiting application ‘Work for Us’ and SmartRecruiters’ free social recruiting platform. With the partnership, SmartRecruiters clients can now distribute their jobs directly from SmartRecruiters to ‘Work for Us’, Facebook’s #1 recruiting application. Work4 Labs clients can easily manage all of their candidates directly through SmartRecruiters powerful applicant tracking system.

“Work4 Labs and SmartRecruiters individually are great products,” said Bill Boorman, social recruiting consultant and top influencer in online recruiting. “Combined, they form a powerful solution for Facebook recruiting and talent management.”

SmartRecruiters is the free social recruiting platform that makes hiring easy. Leveraging the power of an open Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and pervasive social networks, SmartRecruiters is democratizing access to top talent for the largest hiring segment — small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Over 10,000 businesses have signed up to SmartRecruiters free recruiting software platform since its launch in September 2010.

“SmartRecruiters is thrilled to further tap into Facebook’s rapidly growing recruiting platform,” said Jerome Ternynck, SmartRecruiters Founder and CEO.

Work4 Labs helps companies leverage Facebook’s network of real-world identities and social distribution infrastructure. Work4 Labs products reduce hiring costs, improve recruiter/candidate communication, and save time by generating pre-qualified applicants. The result is a greatly improved hiring experience, brand value, and a pool for future recruiting.

“Work4 Labs is thrilled to extend free quality recruiting software to their SMB clients,” said Stephane Le Viet, Work4 Labs Founder and CEO.

ABOUT

SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters is the free social recruiting platform that makes hiring easy for thousands of businesses around the world. Leveraging the power of an open Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and pervasive social networks, SmartRecruiters is democratizing access to top talent for the largest hiring segment — small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). SmartRecruiters is based in San Francisco CA, and was founded in September 2010.

To learn more about SmartRecruiters, sign up and post a job.

Work4 Labs

Work4 Labs develops ‘Work for Us‘, the #1 Facebook Recruiting Solution. The app allows recruiters to post jobs directly on the company’s Facebook Page, distribute jobs through social broadcasting, and create targeted Facebook job ads. Work4 Labs also develops Jobs for Me, the largest network of university career centers on Facebook.

Thousands of companies and universities around the world use Work4 Labs products, including Accenture, Intel, UPS, Citibank, L’Oreal, and Gap.

You can install the app here or attend one of our upcoming webinars.

SAN FRANCISCO, California – November 22, 2011 — Free recruiting software vendor SmartRecruiters has created a mobile career website for each of its 10,000-plus small business customers.  In keeping with its mission, the sites were developed free of charge by SmartRecruiters, and are accessible via any web-enabled smartphone or tablet.  SmartRecruiters will build a free mobile career website for every company that uses its software.  The service is intended to make hiring easier by capitalizing on widespread use of mobile devices by consumers and job seekers.

Nearly half of all Internet use is mobile, yet most companies haven’t optimized their websites to make finding jobs easy — which means it’s harder than it should be to find quality candidates.  SmartRecruiters addressed this by developing a proprietary style sheet that makes viewing and navigating job data on a mobile device as natural as it is on a desktop computer.  SmartRecruiters Mobile Career Sites are clean, customizable and touch-friendly.  Candidates can search for openings the same way they check their Facebook news feed, by tapping their screens, and apply for a job with a single click using their Facebook and/or LinkedIn profiles.

Mobile Career Sites is the latest sans cost recruiting tool from SmartRecruiters.

●      Earlier this year the company created a free Facebook application that allows small businesses to quickly and easily display jobs on corporate Facebook pages.

●      SmartRecruiters also launched Job Manager, a free tool that allows users to publish jobs within any WordPress environment, such as a company blog.

●      Small businesses using SmartRecruiters have hired over 17,000 workers since the free recruiting software platform launched in September 2010.

“We’re determined to make hiring easier and more cost-effective for small businesses,” said Jerome Ternynck, CEO of SmartRecruiters.  “Smartphones are everywhere so it makes sense that companies should target these devices like they do the desktop.  By optimizing career sites to improve the mobile experience, candidates are more likely to search from their smartphones and companies will find it easier to locate good candidates.”

“For employers, mobile is the new paradigm shift,” stated Michael Marlatt, a mobile recruiting expert and founder of mRecruitingcamp. “SmartRecruiters Mobile Career Sites are a great way for candidates and employers to connect on mobile devices.”

The pledge campaign from SmartRecruiters asks businesses to commit to interview at least one unemployed candidate for every job opening by pledging on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) through the “Unemployed, Please Apply” page.

Unfortunately, discrimination against the unemployed is a harsh reality for millions of Americans. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission calls the prescreening of unemployed candidates an “emerging practice.” In a recent survey, SmartRecruiters found that 82% of recruiters, hiring managers, and human resources professionals, report the existence of discrimination against the unemployment.

“The tolerance for discrimination against the unemployed deeply upsets me,” said SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck. “There is an unwritten rule that unemployed candidates just aren’t qualified. Our survey revealed that 55% of recruiters and HR managers have ‘personally experienced resistance when presenting qualified yet unemployed candidates to clients/colleagues.’ Not only is this bad business, it’s also unfair and needs stop right now!”

“Because a person isn’t working, it doesn’t mean they don’t have skills,” said Bonnie Elsey, president of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, at Facebook’s announcement for their Social Jobs Partnership with the US Department of Labor, NACE, State Work Force, and Direct Employers.

Isabelle Englund-Geiger interviews unemployed candidates for every open position at her company, Benz Communications. She said, “Discarding currently-unemployed candidates is very short-sighted. If we didn’t equally evaluate unemployed candidates, we would have missed out on many of our most successful hires, including our office manager, a senior-level bi-lingual writer and some of our top consultants.”

The SmartRecruiters survey also shows that many hiring managers are under misconception that 30% of unemployed job seekers are “unemployed for a reason” and 23% of unemployed job seekers are “probably not qualified.”

“I am very disturbed when I hear that employers don’t want to even look at resumes of people that have been out of work for 6 months or just (are) unemployed,” said the Depart of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis at Facebook’s Social Jobs Announcement Oct. 20. “It’s as though people have created this problem themselves, and that’s just not true.”

To help end discrimination against the unemployed, visit and pledge  “Unemployed, Please Apply.”

SAN FRANCISCO – SmartRecruiters, the free open SaaS recruiting software, announces the launch of Job Manager, a WordPress plugin that enables companies to easily build careers sites, post jobs and manage applicants.

Every company website has a careers page, yet the functionality of posting jobs on those pages, and collecting online applicants, is often done manually. This drawn out process leaves web developers and members of the hiring team unhappy. SmartRecruiters Job Manager plugin solves that problem.

“Job Manager makes building great professional career sites easy, ” states Jerome Ternynck, CEO of SmartRecruiters. “It also taps into the full SmartRecruiters functionality in order to manage the entire recruiting process.”

Any WordPress user can easily download the plugin, sign up for a free SmartRecruiters account, and quickly add a careers section to any WordPress page.  The key features of SmartRecruiters Job Manager are:

• Create a great careers page
• Post jobs automatically
• Manage online applications

The candidates received from Job Manager – as well as from any other sources – can be managed in the SmartRecruiters Software. SmartRecruiters is the entirely free web based platform that streamlines the hiring process and its associated recruiting services. The key features of SmartRecruiters are:

• Mass job posting to free sites and job boards
• A Careers Tab on your Facebook corporate page
• Sharing of jobs on social networks
• Full applicant tracking capabilities

Anyone can download the SmartRecruiters Job Manager and sign up for a free SmartRecruiters account to add a careers section to their WordPress website or blog.

Makes Connecting Employers and Candidates Easier

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif, September 13, 2011.    – SmartRecruiters today debuted its new Facebook application, giving companies a simple way to add a Careers section to their company Facebook page.  With the SmartRecruiters Careers app, hiring organizations can now automatically keep their job openings and postings updated on Facebook, so that fans, can share, refer, apply and comment on job opportunities.  The Facebook app includes SmartRecruiters’ free recruiting software, with each interested Facebook candidate instantly entered into the software platform for easy applicant tracking throughout the entire qualification and hiring process.

“Recruiting has always been a social activity,” said Jerome Ternynck, SmartRecruiters’ CEO and founder.  “With this new Facebook app, as well as our seamless integration with LinkedIn and Twitter, we are bringing recruiting back to its roots.  Within seconds and a few simple clicks, you can post jobs to your network, keep track of candidates and get applicants who are a strong cultural and attitude fit – because they are coming from your own network of networks.”

“Facebook is an ideal recruiting platform,” said Bill Boorman (@BillBoorman), a recruiting and training expert.  “Social media offers targeted reach, engagement opportunity, and easy identification of targets to companies seeking to fill positions. SmartRecruiters combines their Facebook app with a free state-of-art applicant tracking system, offering an great solution that leverages the best of social networks.”

The Facebook application is already getting impressive results for GoodData.  According to Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, “The best companies are built with the best talent. Thanks to SmartRecruiters we are able to turn raving fans into top quality hires.”   Other companies across the United States who have successfully posted jobs to their networks via the Facebook app include a food company, a real estate management firm and a non-profit.

The new Facebook app is integrated with the company’s flagship offering – its free software recruiting platform where companies can post jobs to leading paid, free and niche job boards with one click. SmartRecruiters’ recommendation engine provides analytics that help hiring managers decide which sites are likely to provide the best results.  Staff can promote jobs on social media sites and tap into the power of their networks on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  Managers easily review applicants, take action using robust applicant tracking features and generating detailed reporting to measure sourcing effectiveness and cost per hire.   The hiring team can share, rate and review candidates throughout the process, enabling cross-departmental input and decision-making.  Feedback is collected and consolidated in real time.

To sign up for the SmartRecruiters Facebook application, companies simply click here to post a job to their network.

SmartRecruiters today announced the company”s official launch and debuted its flagship offering, free online recruiting software that meets the needs of small to medium businesses (SMBs). The job posting and applicant tracking Software as a Service (SaaS) comes out of its public “beta” phase with 10,000 companies, 200,000 job seekers and 25,000 job openings already processed, proving that its new approach to recruiting gets results.

“We”re committed to changing recruiting through innovation and access,” said Jerome Ternynck, CEO and founder. “For most businesses, recruiting today is lengthy, painful and expensive. Why are more than 4 million jobs left vacant, while 10% of the workforce is unemployed? That needs to change. Recruiting needs to change. We live in a connected world in which hiring should be easy – especially for small to medium businesses who are the backbone of our economy.”

“More than 80% of the small businesses we survey (those with fewer than 2,500 employees) tell us they are struggling to find great talent,” said Josh Bersin, President and CEO of Bersin & Associates, a leading research and advisory firm in corporate talent acquisition. “In fact the slowing economy has actually made this problem more difficult as small companies are flooded with resumes and often understaffed to deal with the deluge of applicants. By bringing advanced recruitment technology to small businesses at a no cost, SmartRecruiters can dramatically help companies better find great talent, leverage social networks, and improve their quality of hire in a highly affordable way.”

Small businesses agree. “SmartRecruiters” recruiting software has really helped organize, streamline, and effectively manage our busy Internet recruiting process,” said Fred Holt, VP Human Resources at Photobucket. The company, which hosts uploaded images and videos, also leverages SmartRecruiters site architecture to create its own branded Careers page.

Key Software Benefits

Post Jobs. Companies can post jobs to leading paid, free and niche job boards with one click. SmartRecruiters” recommendation engine provides analytics that help hiring managers decide which sites are likely to provide the best results. This allows hiring organizations to substantially improve both the speed and quality of its job posting process

Leverage Social Networks. Managers and HR staff can promote jobs on social media sites and tap into the power of their networks on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Track Applicants. Managers can review applicants, take action using robust applicant tracking features. Managers can generate detailed reporting to measure sourcing effectiveness and cost per hire. Managing the applicant tracking process in one place makes hiring more efficient.

Collaborate. The hiring team can share, rate and review candidates throughout the process, enabling cross-departmental input and decision-making. Feedback is collected and consolidated in real time. SmartRecruiters” unique social collaboration tools promote team-based decision-making.

Career Site. The company can also use SmartRecruiters to easily display jobs and collect applicants from their own corporate website and Facebook page. Hiring organizations get a professional, branded career site that consolidates its applicants in one place.

To sign up for SmartRecruiters, companies simply go to www.smartrecruiters.com to create their free account.

The company launch is timed in advance of this September 5 Labor Day and in conjunction with Zero Unemployment Movement”s #GiveLabor campaign, which encourages everyone to give 15 minutes on Labor Day to help a friend find a job and get America back to work. Participating individuals and businesses will be posting their activities and sharing their accomplishments at http://www.ZeroUE.org, on Twitter at #GiveLabor or on Facebook.

About SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters provides free recruiting software that makes hiring easy for thousands of businesses around the world. Leveraging the power of a free open Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and pervasive social networks, SmartRecruiters is democratizing access to top talent for the largest hiring segment – the over 99% of businesses that employ less than 2,500 people. In April 2011, SmartRecruiters launched the Zero Unemployment Movement to support the company’s purpose of eradicating unemployment globally. SmartRecruiters, based in San Francisco CA, was founded in 2010 by Jerome Ternynck, a recognized recruiting thought leader and pioneer of the recruiting software industry.

Before enjoying a well-earned day off on September 5, Ternynck proposes we all take fifteen minutes of our time to help a friend get a job.

Labor Day has always been a time to remember and celebrate achievement. The United States Department of Labor describes Labor Day’s founding as “a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” However for millions of us, there isn’t labor to celebrate. The Zero Unemployment Movement’s “Give Labor Day” Initiative urges everyone to take tangible, specific actions to help the unemployed.

Organizers plan to continue the Initiative each year and hope that fifteen minutes of job assistance becomes a regular component of Labor Day in the future in much the same way that Martin Luther King Day has become a focus for community service.

Six recommended activities for the September 5 Give Labor Day are:

1. Make a referral or introduction
2. Critique a resume
3. Rehearse a mock interview
4. Share relevant job openings
5. Leverage Facebook or LinkedIn connections
6. Help a friend write a cover letter

Participating individuals and businesses will be posting their activities and sharing their accomplishments at ZeroUE.org, on Twitter at #GiveLabor or on Facebook. Any participant can show their support by posting a “Give Labor Day” Badge [link TBD] on their own website or blog leading up to Labor Day. The Zero Unemployment Movement also encourages businesses to innovate and implement their own ideas on how to put “Give” in Labor Day.

The Zero Unemployment Movement (#zeroUE) was founded in April 2011 with the objective to eradicate unemployment globally by promoting the creation of a more efficient labor market. A labor market where people that want to work, can work; a labor market where businesses that need talent, get talent. Imagine a world where hiring is easy.

The ‘recession’ may be ‘over’ but unemployment remains at an unsustainably high level. The national unemployment rate rose to 9.2% in June 2011.  According to Ternynck , “there are more than 4 million jobs open right now while 14 million people are unemployed in the country. Why can’t we fill every one of those positions right now? Giving fifteen minutes of your time before you enjoy a drink by the pool is something simple that will have great impact.”

So what are YOU going to do on Give Labor Day?

About Zero Unemployment Movement

The objective of the Zero Unemployment Movement is to eradicate unemployment globally by promoting the creation of a more efficient labor market. A labor market where people that want to work, can work; a labor market where businesses that need talent, get talent. Imagine a world where hiring is easy. The Zero Unemployment Movement was founded by free recruiting software provider, SmartRecruiters. More information can be found at ZeroUE.org.

About SmartRecruiters

SmartRecruiters provides free recruiting software that makes hiring easy for thousands of businesses around the world.  Leveraging the power of a free open Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and pervasive social networks, SmartRecruiters is democratizing access to top talent for the largest hiring segment – the over 99% of businesses that employ less than 2,500 people. In April 2011, SmartRecruiters launched the Zero Unemployment Movement to support the company’s purpose of eradicating unemployment globally.  SmartRecruiters, based in San Francisco CA, was founded in 2010 by Jerome Ternynck, a recognized recruiting thought leader and pioneer of the recruiting software industry.

“We’re excited. The opening of this new office provides us with both the space and access to the considerable technology talent of Krakow,” said Jerome Ternynck, Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters.

The new office is located along the Wisla River at ul. Celna 13/15, 30-507 Krakow.

The Krakow office is headed by Rafal Szczepanski, SmartRecruiters’ Software Development Team Leader. Rafal has worked on the cutting edge of recruiting software for many years, most recently at MrTed.

About SmartRecruiters:
The SmartRecruiters mission is to provide every business with easy access to talent, and help eradicate unemployment. It’s free, cloud-based software enables companies of all sizes to source candidate from numerous channels with one click – from leading boards to social media. SmartRecruiters applicant tracking and social collaboration features are changing the way companies manage their hiring process.

LAS VEGAS ‑ We are pleased to announce that SmartRecruiters, the free recruiting software, won HR Tech SF’s iTalent Competition at the Venetian Hotel Las Vegas, hosted by “HR Demo Show” and “HRO Forum Today” on Wednesday May 25.

“SmartRecruiters’ platform puts the entire recruiting process in one browser,” said judge Geoff Webb, the Owner of Radical Events and RMS.

The iTalent 2 Competition was judged on how startups used new technology, processes and business models to rethink and reinvent the means of talent acquisition. HR Tech SF hosts events that bring together startups, employers, recruiters and HR managers to stimulate the exchange at the intersection of HR ad Technology.

Seven startups, SmartRecruiters, Wednesdays, Branchout, Work4Labs, InternMatch, Vivecoach, and Jobscore, gave brief presentations followed by a question and answer section with the judges and audience members.

Eight HR industry leaders and experts judged the event. The judges Kevin W. Grossman, VP & Research Director of Human Capital Management Ventana Research, Mark McMillan, of the Talent Function Group, Elliot Clark, CEO of SharedXpertise and creator of the HR Today Forum, Craig Fisher, VP of Ajax Social Media, Geoff Web, Owner at Radical Events and RMS, Maren Hogan, Head of Marketing at BraveNewTalent, Jessica Miller-Merrell, an SPHR and Founder of Blogging4Jobs, and Meghan Biro, the Founder of TalentCulture.

SmartRecruiters> tallied three perfect tens, an average score of 8.8, and was the only presenter to max out HR Tech SF’s applause measure.

“It’s a thrill to present with a group of such innovative companies,” said Jerome Ternynck, Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters. “We are honored to have won iTalent, and look forward to making recruiting faster, easier and more social through the use of technology.”

SmartRecruiters is the free recruiting software that makes hiring easy. Our goal is to give every business in the world an easy access to talent, bring the economy to its full potential and eradicate unemployment. SmartRecruiters was founded in San Francisco in September 2010 by Jerome Ternynck, a recognized recruiting expert and pioneer of the recruiting software industry. We raised $1m in October 2010 and are now busy making hiring easy for thousands of businesses around the world.