Both companies reported their first-quarter financial performance today.

Reporting before the market opened, Monster said it earned 8 cents a share on revenue of $212 million. It was the first time in seven quarters the company beat Wall Street’s revenue expectation, which was $210.5 million. That surprise, and the company’s announcement it may buy back up to $200 million of its stock, drove the price up almost 9 percent.

LinkedIn reported earning 45 cents per share on revenue of $325 million. That was 15 cents higher than Wall Street’s estimates average of 31 cents per share earnings and well above its $317.1 million revenue estimate. What hurt the company was its Q2 forecast of revenue of $342 million to $347 million. Analyst estimates averaged out to $359.2 million. The stock lost 10 percent of its value in after hours trading. (more…)

The company earned 35 cents per share on revenue of $303.6 million. That was $24 million more than the average of analysts’ estimates and more than $11 million above the most optimistic projection. The average of their earnings estimates was 19 cents a share.

The numbers released this afternoon show LinkedIn brought in more total revenue for the year than did Monster and its fourth-quarter recruitment revenue alone was 90% above the same quarter in 2011. (more…)

It’s fourth-quarter revenues, also reported this morning, of $211.2 was nearly on target with analysts’ average estimate of $212 million, while earnings per share, after adjusting for expenses associated with the company’s restructuring and sales, were 8 cents, in line with estimates.

For the year, Monster earned .38 cents a share, after adjustments. Without the adjustments, Monster lost 66 cents for the quarter, and $2.27 for the year.

By comparison, Dice Holdings Inc., owner of several niche job boards and technology networking sites, reported last week it earned 15 cents a share, a penny better than analysts expected. But profit was down 14% over the fourth quarter in 2011. Revenue, however, grew 11% to $52.7 million on the strength of acquisitions the company has been making. (more…)

One report put the number at 800, while a Twitter post simply described it as “massive.” (more…)

Company officials discussed the restructuring this morning in a conference call with investment analysts after releasing Monster’s 3rd quarter financials showing revenue down in every category, but still managing to earn 9 cents a share exclusive of one-time expenses.

The bad news in the financial report is that revenue was down almost 11 percent overall, with the biggest hit coming from operations outside North America. Revenue there was down 15.3 percent. But even in North America revenue declined, down 6.3 percent. In contrast, CareerBuilder reported it grew its North American revenue by 5 percent to $169 million. (more…)

The remarkable revenue growth swung the company from a third-quarter loss last year to earnings of 2 cents a share. After adjustments for certain non-operating expenses, LinkedIn earned 22 cents a share., which is almost four times similarly adjusted per share earnings last year.

The results, released after the stock market closed, sent LinkedIn’s shares up more than $8 a share, in after-hours trading. It closed in New York down slightly on the day to $106.85.

Revenue from recruitment alone nearly doubled, growing 95 percent from last year to $138.4 million. It’s the largest share of LinkedIn’s revenue, accounting for 55 percent. (more…)

The company, the first of the publicly traded career sites to report, said it earned 17 cents per diluted share. That beat Wall Street’s average estimate of 12 cents. Dice also reported revenue of $48 million, an increase of 2.6 percent over the same quarter last year and a million more than analysts were expecting.

CareerBuilder, which is privately held, voluntarily reported revenue of $169 million from its operations in North America. That’s a 5 percent increase over the third quarter of 2011. The company doesn’t release other revenue numbers or earnings. LinkedIn will report on Nov. 1.

Monster, curiously, has yet to set a date for release of its numbers. Typically, the company would have done that by now. It also would typically report its numbers this week. There were rumors of a possible sale to (among others) the German media company Axel Springer. The company denied the reports this week.

Dice Holdings, meanwhile, is looking ahead to a strong finish to the year, and product improvements and growth next year. (more…)

The announcement of the new funding says it “will be focused on strategic investments in research and development, sales and marketing, client services, and global expansion.”

The $22 million, plus $6 million HireVue raised in two previous rounds, gives the 60-person company a big chunk of change. Exactly what it will be used for wasn’t explained in the announcement, and when I asked, here’s what I was sent:

HireVue also plans to increase headcount in solution development, sales and marketing and customer success to maintain its position as the leader in the digital interviewing category.

Kevin Marasco, HireVue’s CMO, offered more detail in a conversation today. HireVue already has such global, blue-chip companies as Walmart, Starbucks, Conoco/Phillips, and Rio Tinto, so a logical step is to move into Europe and Asia/Pacific, he said, mentioning Australia, India, and China.

HireVue, though, is quickly becoming more than a provider of virtual recruiting services. Its digital platform can be used — and is by some of its clients — to deliver company and branding videos to candidates. Some are already using the digital video capabilities for internal conferencing, and candidate onboarding. Marasco explained that other “extensions of the application” for training and leadership are likely.

Video recruiting is a crowded space, with at least a couple dozen companies offering video interviewing services, which tells you that online video interviewing is growing, and not a tough field to enter. In fact, anyone with a webcam (and that’s almost everyone these days) can load Skype and conduct a live interview for free. (more…)

Net profit was lower than last year’s second quarter, because the company is spending at a faster pace as it aggressively grows domestically and especially abroad. Sales and marketing was the fastest growing expense category, more than doubling in cost.

But that spending, company officials say, is powering the expansion of the client base, which increased by some 1,600 customers during the second quarter, and prompted them to raise both their revenue and earnings expectations for the current quarter and the full year. (more…)

There’s some improvement in bookings in North America; Power Resume Search, with its premium pricing is beginning to gain some traction in Europe; and the big Kforce deal is the first of several in the admittedly slow process of being forged with staffing companies.

Potential, however, doesn’t trump results, and the numbers for Monster’s last quarter were not entirely what Wall Street was expecting. The company reported earning 6 cents a share after adjustments, in line with predictions. But revenue was $237 million, some $6 million below the average of analysts’ estimates of $243.3 million. (more…)

The two couldn’t be more of a contrast. Wall Street expects Monster to have earned six cents a share for the quarter, a drop of a third from last year’s nine cents a share in earnings. LinkedIn is expected to report earning 16 cents a share, a 60 percent increase over last year.

The headline on a Motley Fool post says it all: “Why LinkedIn Might Kill It Tomorrow.”  Why? It’s because “LinkedIn’s Hiring Solutions business is on fire.” Continues writer John Reeves: “In the first quarter of 2012, Hiring Solutions grew 121% to $103 million. This accounted for 54% of LinkedIn’s revenue, and that percentage has been steadily climbing over the past few quarters.” (more…)

Despite beating analyst expectations on earnings, and missing on revenue by less than 1 percent, Wall Street responded to the lowered expectation by selling down the stock. Dice saw its stock price slip by just over $1 a share. In late trading today Dice was selling at $7.20 a share, a 12.5 percent drop.

While reporting earnings of 14 cents a share versus the 13 cents Wall Street expected, Dice officials declared themselves “disappointed” with the company’s performance. In April, Dice predicted Q2 revenue of $49 million, versus the $48.46 million it reported.

The company also lowered full-year revenue by $10 million to $189 million, and said the current third quarter revenue would be $47 million.

“Q2 is not the quarter we expected,” Chairman and CEO Scot Melland told analysts on a conference call this morning. “We were surprised by the quick change in the environment in Q2.”

Tech hiring, still strong in tech centers such as Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston, has fallen off elsewhere, especially among smaller companies.

“Tech is still tight,” Melland explained in response to an analyst’s question. “But it tends to be tight in the tech centers. When you get outside of the tech industry and the tech centers, it’s a different story.” (more…)

Minutes after the markets closed in New York, LinkedIn made the two announcements, sending its already pricey shares up almost 10 percent in after-hours trading. The stock, which closed the day at $109.41, hit $119.80 after the reports were out.

LinkedIn said the SlideShare purchase is worth about $118.75 million, to be paid in a combination of stock and cash. Like LinkedIn, SlideShare is widely used by businesses and professionals, who use it to host their PowerPoint, documents, and other presentations. Users upload their materials, which can then be shared, and viewed in much the same way videos are on YouTube. (more…)

It closed at $8.93; up 9.44 percent.

In the first quarter, the company saved its way to a 4 cent per share profit, not including one-time expenses or income. Though less than last year’s 5 cents, the earnings reflected the commitment Chairman and CEO Sal Iannuzzi made in previous financial reports to strengthen the company and keep a lid on expenses. (more…)

Dice Holdings, Inc., owner of several niche job boards, reported earning $8.6 million on revenues of $46.1 million, or 13 cents a share. Wall Street investors liked what they heard, bidding up Dice shares by 7.18 percent. The stock closed at $10.30 and was headed somewhat higher in after-hours trading.

While the company’s flagship Dice.com accounted for the bulk of the revenue at $31.1 million, the energy industry sector saw the fastest growth, increasing to $4 million versus last year’s $3.1 million. Only its eFinancial boards saw a decline, reflecting the general softness of the financial industry worldwide. (more…)

However, not just any deal will be accepted, he said in interviews conducted at the company’s Innovation Day demonstrations in New York City. “It would have to be compelling and it would have to make sense to Monster as a whole. This is not just about raising money.”

The buyer is less important, Iannuzzi implied, telling Bloomberg, “We’re agnostic as to what type of acquirer it is.

“The real issue is we know we have value, and we know we can go around and look for opportunities to get that.” (more…)

That’s the kind of question that’s really meant to be a statement. No matter how you answer it, the predicate already tells us it’s going to be bad for the subject. No surprise, then, that Jason Buss posed it last week in the midst of offering “7 Warning Signs For Monster.com.”

It’s a sad litany of the ills that have befallen the once-mighty job board. The company that is synonymous with digital recruiting, is up for sale, or in the Wall Street speak used by CEO Sal Iannuzzi, it’s exploring “strategic alternatives.”

The company has retained financial advisers to help it with that exploring. The outcome could be almost anything from nothing to a partial divestiture to the outright sale that many think is the likely path. The only mystery there is who would buy. (more…)

Payroll processor ADP said 216,000 private sector jobs were created in February. The company’s closely watched National Employment Report offers clues to what the official jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor will show when it is released Friday. (ADP counts only private-sector jobs, while the Labor Department report includes all levels of government workers, a sector that has seen deep cuts in its workforce.) (more…)

Speaking at a business conference in Boston today, Monster Chairman and CEO Sal Iannuzzi said the company is weighing “strategic alternatives to increasing shareholder value.” Although Iannuzzi did not specifically say a sale is being considered, he strongly hinted at it when he added that company leaders will “ensure that we extract the maximum amount of shareholder value in any way we can.”

Investors took the hint, bidding up the stock from this morning’s opening price of $6.89 a share to $8.01.

Reuters reported that a Monster spokeswoman declined to expand on Iannuzzi’s comments. Investors evidently anticipate that whatever alternative the board and management eventually come up with, it will be good for the stock price. Options volume on Monster’s stock increased 32 times over an average day. (more…)

LinkedIn closed Thursday at $76.39, down 15 cents. But after investors got a look at the report, the stock climbed up, and within two hours was trading at $83.25, up 9 percent.

The company reported fourth quarter revenue of $167.7 million, more than double its fourth quarter last year. Analysts, who had been expecting the company to finish strong, predicted revenues of $159.7 million. They also expected a 7 cent per share profit. LinkedIn reported earning an adjusted 12 cents per share.

Calling 2011 “A landmark year for LinkedIn,” CEO Jeff Weiner said the company would continue to grow this year, putting an emphasis on expanded mobile capabilities, the international market, and plans to “refresh a number of our pillar products.” Many of those are recruiting related.

Before today’s financial report and an after-market conference call, analysts projected LinkedIn would earn 57 cents a share on revenue of $828.2 million. Now, the company says it expects revenue in a range of $840-$860 million. For 2011, LinkedIn’s revenue totaled $522.1 million. (more…)