Virtual headhunting firm land £525k venture capital money

A Cheshire-based virtual headhunting firm has secured £525k investment from the North West Fund for Venture Capital to fuel R&D activities.

JobsTheWord, which is based at Daresbury Science Park, searches and analyses data from social media and other sites to help companies identify candidates.

The platform allows businesses to actively search for high quality candidates who might not be searching for a job.

Funding comes from the ERDF and European Investment Bank and was allocated via administrators, Enterprise Ventures.

JobsTheWord was founded in 2011 by IT specialistsWill Crandle and Lee Harding and Keith Jones, an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor. It has attracted clients including World Pay, Blackberry, Samsung, Hewlett Packard and Experian and already has millions of registered users.

It is one of a new wave of companies developing applications for ‘big data’ – the ability to process and make sense of the huge amount of information, which is available on the internet.

Keith Jones said: “The web is a treasure chest of information providing insights into all aspects of our working lives. Our system transforms it into a database packed full of talent, which not only helps employers save time and money, but also to reach out to those who are not actively searching for jobs and often the best candidates.

Will Clark, investment director with Enterprise Ventures, which manages the North West Fund for Venture Capital, said: “JobsTheWord is the first company in the UK to use big data in the recruitment sector, which could revolutionise the way employers search for staff. However recruitment is just one application for the technology. This investment will help the business to expand the current activities and develop big data products for other sectors too.”

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