This past July was full of beach vacations … and acquisitions in the recruiting industry. All in one month, just days apart, five programmatic job advertising platforms were each acquired by five different major players in the recruiting industry—it happened in rapid-fire succession, and underscores the inevitable shift towards automated job ad platforms within the recruitment industry.

During the PandoLogic programmatic webinar, Chad Sowash, co-host of the Chad and Cheese podcast, says of the significance of these acquisitions, “Recruiting ad vendors see the market moving quickly toward programmatic. That’s the reason for the ‘Summer of Acquisitions.’ This is the market’s response and validation of programmatic recruitment.”

Let’s take a closer look at how these acquisitions show businesses investing worldwide in the popular AI-powered job ad recruiting technology and mark an important milestone in the industry for 2019.

Appcast

The market value of these platforms? The domino of historic acquisitions all began with the acquisition of Appcast by Stepstone for around 70 million Euros. Programmatic job ad platforms like Appcast promise to save organizations big money through improved targeting, greater effectiveness, and increased efficiency of job advertising, primarily by using algorithm-assisted technology and Big Data to automate the decision-making processes of bidding, posting, sourcing, and budgeting multiple job ad campaigns at once. As a leading programmatic job ad platform based in the U.S., Appcast offers StepStone (an online career site operating primarily in Europe), the chance to expand their reach to a wider, international stage. The history of StepStone is one of acquisitions, so it’s no surprise that this company made the bold move that started the “Summer of Acquisitions.”

Compana

Next in the chain of acquisitions was The Riverside Co.’s acquisition of the Germany-based recruiting software provider Compana to pair with their e-recruiting platform GermanPersonnel. While the acquisition involves two German-based providers, the parent company, Riverside, is headquartered in the U.S. and hopes to expand in Australia and New Zealand. In the company’s news release from July 9, 2019, Riverside Partner Michael Weber said, “The combination of these two businesses will create the leading player in the e-recruitment sector in Germany.” Both companies see the partnership as a drive towards innovation and the future of e-recruiting.

ClickIQ (& Syft)

Indeed, one of the leading employment search engines in the U.S. made the bold move to acquire not one programmatic recruiting platform, but two! Syft, acquired at the end of May of this year, specializes in finding “flexible work” common to the gig economy, primarily targeted towards the events and hospitality industry in the UK. Then, in July of this year, Indeed announced the acquisition of ClickIQ, one of the leading programmatic job ad platforms in Europe, also based in the UK. The owner of Indeed, the staffing powerhouse Recruit, completed three other major acquisitions in the past year including Workopolis, Glassdoor, and Resume.com. A growing company, indeed.

Perengo

Just after mid-July, TMPWorldwide, headquartered in New York, acquired the programmatic job ad platform Perengo. CEO and President of TMPWorldwide Michelle Abbey described the move in their July 16, 2019 press release: “The acquisition of Perengo further advances our commitment to provide our clients with the most robust and efficient recruitment technology in the industry.” TPM Worldwide’s TalentBrew platform technology specializes in candidate engagement and tracking, and their acquisition of Perengo will broaden their offerings of strategic candidate targeting and candidate experience.

KRT Marketing

The U.S.-based Recruitrics rounded out the “Summer of Acquisitions” with their announcement at the end of July of their acquisition of KRT Marketing. On their July 31 press release, CEO of Reruitics Josh Gampel stated: “KRT has an unparalleled reputation for their industry expertise, quality of service, and dedication to their customers. This alliance creates an amazing team of recruitment marketing professionals, backed by best-in-class technology, to service the enterprise market.” The combination of these fast-growing companies and their technological offerings show yet another example of the value programmatic job advertising platforms have quickly acquired in the recruiting industry.

What does it all mean? The tech that has proven useful for optimizing recruitment ad processes is global and currently marketed to Fortune 500 companies and high-growth businesses. Programmatic has taken a giant leap in the marketplace and can only grow bigger from here.