IrishJobs.ie Steers East with Shanghai Acquisition

The Keyland Group (t.a. IrishJobs.ie) has expanded its international presence with the acquisition of Chinese online recruitment site SHjob.cn in Shanghai for an undisclosed sum. SHjob.cn focuses exclusively on Shanghai, a city of over 16 million people. China is a rapidly growing market with a strong mix of both local and international companies. Traditional recruitment methods are changing and the young, educated workforce has adopted the internet as the best medium to find a new career.

Commenting in Shanghai, Maria Mahon, CEO, IrishJobs.ie said: Shanghai is the industrial, trade and financial centre of China and generates one sixth of China’s total income. In acquiring SHjob.cn, we are gaining a foothold in a new and vibrant market which is experiencing phenomenal growth. This is an exciting and challenging move in our global expansion drive.

She added: With SHjob.cn on board we are increasing our workforce by over one third to 150 people.

SHjob.cn was established in 2003 by 28 year old Brian Jiang. SHjob.cn currently advertises over 12,000 jobs from 4,000 companies and employs over 50 staff. SHjob.cn has 240,000 registered users and receives 10,000 visitors per day. It also has 550,000 resumes on file. Brian Jiang will continue as Managing Director of SHjob.cn. Two Keyland Group staff have relocated from Ireland to Shanghai to join the senior management team of SHjob.cn - Simon Costello as Financial Controller and Huw Taylor as Sales Manager. In addition to training local sales staff, Huw Taylor will also service the growing number of international companies operating in Shanghai.

Mahon has also confirmed that Keyland is at an advanced stage in negotiations with a leading online recruitment site in Beijing as part of an overall strategy to develop a strong presence in the China market. Keyland plans to be active in the Beijing market within the next 8 weeks.

The acquisition of SHjob.cn comes only weeks after the Keyland Group launched a new UK regional site www.NorthEnglandjobs.com to service the growing market in the North of England. The Keyland job sites in the UK and Ireland (excluding Jobs.ie) attracted more than 1 million visitors (1.018 million) in January. These visitors accessed a massive 12.5 million pages of information. Traffic to all sites was at record levels which demonstrates the ongoing economic buoyancy in all markets and Keyland’s market leadership position within those markets. It also shows that, as has been the case for some time in Ireland, the internet is also fast becoming the mainstream for recruitment advertising in the UK.