BuyWithMe wasn’t the only local company hemorrhaging jobs this week. Betabeat has learned that TheLadders laid off about 30 employees this week, across all departments.
“It was like Black Wednesday,” said the source of the overlapping job losses. However, where BuyWithMe let go of 55 percent of its staff, TheLadders downsizing was less severe, with seven percent of its 420 employees, according to our source who was familiar with the situation.
Until a month ago, TheLadders focused exclusively on the $100,000+ jobs market–its key differentiator in the market. The source said the layoffs were related to flat revenue growth at about $80 million, adding that the company’s two biggest expenses were people and marketing costs. “They already cut marketing significantly,” said the source, who called the job losses “cost cutting to reforecast budget due to lower than expected revenue growth.”
TheLadders would not comment on the number of employees that were let go, total number of employees, or revenue, but CEO and founder Marc Cenedella offered the following statement by email, “TheLadders made some departmental changes to better align our company focus and investment on areas driving growth, enabling us to continue our industry-leading innovation. We remain singularly focused on providing the best service offering to all career minded professionals and recruiters.”
According to Crunchbase, the last time TheLadders raised funding was a $7.25 million series A round in 2004 from Matrix Partners, the same VC firm that backed BuyWithMe. Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of Gilt Groupe, who worked with Mr. Cenedella at Hot Jobs also invested in that round. Matrix Partners has also backed Gilt Groupe. Matrix Partner’s Nick Beim sits on the board of directors at TheLadders, BuyWithMe, and Gilt Groupe. We hear it’s not uncommon for staffers from TheLadders to move over to Gilt Groupe.
At the start of the year, TheLadders launched a TV campaign that some called overly provocative, but Betabeat found rather amusing and in line with the new absurdist Old Spice mode of advertising. Nonetheless, that campaign focused on $100k job market, something TheLadders pivoted away from this September with Mr. Cenedella’s announcement that, “We’re expanding, and today we say ‘bye bye’ to helping only those over $100,000 and ‘hello’ to helping all career-minded professionals.” In the comments, some job-seeking members balked at continuing to pay monthly fees that start at $15 for the site.
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