SimplyHired Layoffs – What does it mean to the job board industry?

This morning, March 23, I learned that SimplyHired went through a round of Lay-offs on February 2, 2012, as announced on Venture Beat.

When I first heard the news, I did a search on Google, Ere.net, and Jobboarders, and didn’t find any news of the SimplyHired Layoffs. That’s pretty strange to me, considering that SimplyHired is one of the most heavily Venture Capital funded job boards ($22 Million), is strategically partnered with LinkedIn, (a major shareholder from what I hear), and has become a major partner for many job board owners, who either purchase pay-per-click advertising, or partner with the them via their Jobamatic product.

The SimplyHired layoffs apparently included the President/COO Dion Lim, VP of Sales Brian Corey, and most of the sales team.

What does this mean to the job board industry and the future of SimplyHired?
SimplyHired CEO, Gautam Godhwani, emailed VentureBeat, stating “As part of its 2012 strategy, Simply Hired made some changes to its organization.”

As one of the first internet job board founders, www.gojobs.com, the owner of a SimplyHired partnered job board SpeechJobs.org, and a partner of SimplyHired’s two primary PPC competitors, Indeed.com and Topusajobs.com, I’m not surprised by the reorganization.

SimplyHired.com is a great service for both job seekers and employers.
The pay-per-click (ppc) employment advertising niche is a very cost effective, and, in my opinion, one of the most under-utilized advertising options for employers.

From my experience the reorganization was a necessary step.

SimplyHired is not going away anytime soon, I think they just needed to trim their overhead and refocus. Indeed, SimplyHired’s biggest competitor in the ppc employment advertising niche, has done a better job of executing in this small segment of employment advertising.

Unfortunately, with venture capital backing, there are really only two exit strategies for SimplyHired’s investors, go public, or sell. SimplyHired’s CEO, Gautam Godhwani, did what is probably required. With the possibility of going public not very realistic, the next best option is to raise the profitability in the hopes of increasing the multiple for a future acquisition.

Will that acquisition come from Monster or maybe even LinkedIn? With Monster up for sale, I don’t think they are in acquisition mode, so that leaves LinkedIn as one of the few natural alternatives. But, that being said, LinkedIn, is probably better off buying Monster than SimplyHired.

What are your thoughts?