Indeed Buys MoBolt

Screen Shot 2014-06-23 at 11.46.44 AM The arms race among job boards and job aggregators continues today, as Indeed buys MoBolt to try and make it easier for employers to accept job applications from smart phones.

I said of MoBolt back in April of 2013 that I “had a feeling it’s going to land some big-fish clients.” MoBolt ended up doing work for EA and Nike, among others. Now, MoBolt technology will be available for Indeed users. MoBolt’s company name and its team of employees will likely remain intact.

What this means is for job seekers looking for a job on a smart phone:

For some jobs they can still use the “Indeed Apply” feature that already existed.
For some other jobs listed on Indeed — those that are from MoBolt clients — they’ll also have a feature like that. So they’ll see an apply-with-your-smart-phone marking, or if they are a job seeker with no resume yet uploaded, they’ll be prompted to sign up and then apply with their phone.
For non-MoBolt-client jobs listed on Indeed, it’ll work similarly to now.

About half of Indeed’s job searches (especially tonight!) come from mobile devices. Internally, the company has been trying to rethink the way it views itself, now as more of a mobile-centric company that also has a website, rather than the reverse. The MoBolt acquisition helps Indeed align with that goal, getting job applications to more easily and quickly work on phones, without Indeed having to wait on company IT and HRIT departments.

For those keeping score at home, all this comes on the heels of LinkedIn’s announcement it’ll aggregate job listings, as well as LinkedIn’s announcement of a job search app, launched first in the U.S.

The Indeed/MoBolt deal should close around July 3.