Most English speakers won’t know much about France’s Apec, a non profit organization that offers job listings and job resources in France. But they’re big – they employ around 1,000 human resource specialists who work with companies and people. Job listings are free, and they are second only to Monster in France in total number of listings. The site, the company says, has about 1.2 million unique monthly visitors, 600,000 registered users and 35,000 registered companies.
Today Apec is announcing that they’re working with LinkedIn via their API. This is a big win for LinkedIn – they have 5 million registered users in Europe, but no real presence in France at all (French users must use LinkedIn.com, in English). They compete with both Viadeo and Xing in Europe. Apec users will have the opportunity to register for LinkedIn, and can then create a profile, add contacts and research positions (and companies can research candidates), all without leaving the Apec site. The integration will be released on March 11.
The integration goes well beyond what Business Week is doing with LinkedIn. It’s basically all of the functionality of the LinkedIn site pulled into Apec and integrated with their existing account features.
The terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but LinkedIn did say that they are paying Apec a fee for every new registration doing a revenue share for the new customers that Apec brings to LinkedIn. According to Reid Hoffman, “100% of this revenue share goes into a pool that APEC spends on helping their customers use LinkedIn more effectively.”