Jason Goldberg, the kinetic CEO of Jobster, will be leaving the company he co-founded probably by the end of the year. Goldberg himself is heading the search for his replacement and reportedly is eyeing candidates with a products background and strong management skills, whether or not they have a recruitment or HR background.
A source close to Goldberg said it was his decision to step down now, following two successive quarters of growth after a turbulent first quarter when the company restructured and laid off 60 of its almost 150 employees.
Jobster says its third quarter sales show a 100 percent increase over the previous quarter and that it is profitable in its core business, the digital candidate referral program branded Jobster Sourcing Tools, and is on the road to overall profitability. An exit by Goldberg at this time will allow him to correctly claim he founded a company and successfully navigated it into the mainstream. This could be useful to the 35-year-old former aide to President Bill Clinton should he decide to run for political office. In fact one report has it that Goldberg is discussing the possibility of joining the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
Officially, the company has no comment on the report, which has been circulating among recruitment bloggers since Joel Cheesman first cited it on his Cheezhead blog a few weeks ago. Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip blog, subsequently reported that Goldberg’s life partner Thomas had quit his job with an ad agency in Seattle, Jobster’s home town, and was telling friends the two men would be moving to the east coast where he expected to be attending grad school.
Jason Goldberg confirmed his partner had quit his job and was applying to schools, including some on the east coast, but, in a comment to Valleywag, denied he and Thomas had any plans to move.
Goldberg had been so intimately tied to Jobster that it is hard to imagine the company without him. His infectious omnipresence at recruitment and HR conferences, his blog and it’s sometimes indelicately worded discussions of corporate issues, and his periodic episodes of public pronouncements on matters as far ranging as Prada shoes and Monster’s quality have cemented him and Jobster in the HR consciousness.
But it’s the product that caught the attention of venture capitalists Ignition Partners, Mayfield, Trinity Ventures and others who have poured $48 million into the company. Jobster launched as a digital referral program. Companies would e-mail enticing job descriptions to their current employees and others via the Jobster interface. These first line recipients were encouraged to forward the jobs to others they thought suitable for the position. This viral passage was designed to replicate the time-tested employee referral programs many companies have in place.
While it had some successes it wasn’t long before Jobster began adding more traditional recruitment products, eventually allowing the posting of free job ads and creating a sort of business networking site. Users post profiles, which resemble entries on LinkedIn.