Google In Talks To Acquire SimplyHired

Rumors surfaced today that Google is in discussions to acquire job search engine Simply Hired. Trip Chowdry, a research analyst at Global Equity Research first spoke about it, and the story was then picked up by Alarm:Clock.

I spoke with Simply Hired president Dion Lim, who confirmed that there is “lots of interest in us” from a number of parties but would not comment directly on the rumored deal.

Simply Hired recently raised $13.5 million from NewsCorp on a rumored sub-$40 million post money valuation. The company has raised a total of $17.7 million. Lim says that NewsCorp cannot block a third party acquisition.

Simply Hired competes directly with Indeed, another job search engine funded partially by the New York Times.

Comscore suggests that Indeed is much larger than Simply Hired, with 2.3 million monthly uniques v. Simply Hired’s 500,000. However, traffic from Simply Hired’s two main distribution deals, with MySpace and LinkedIn, are not reflected in Comscore traffic numbers. Chart is below.