Glassdoor, a platform where current and former employees anonymously review companies, has recently acquired Fishbowl, which also offers the same feature, as well as options to join interest-based conversation groups to chat about work and search for jobs.

Fishbowl has seen massive growth in its user base, recording a threefold rise during the past year. This can be linked to remote working trends that have inevitably made people isolated and seek out ways to connect with colleagues. Glassdoor said that the recent acquisition was in part to meet this demand.

According to a poll commissioned by Glassdoor, 48% of employees felt isolated from coworkers during the pandemic; 42% felt their career came to standstill due to lack of in-person interaction, and 45% of employees expect to continue working hybrid or full-time remotely going forward. Glassdoor believes that it can address all these areas with better tools like Fishbowl to enable better communication between people.

Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong, on the acquisition, stated that he views Fishbowl as the next logical step of how Glassdoor is already being utilized.

Glassdoor, which has 55 million users, has already commenced the integration of Fishbowl content into its main platform. However, Fishbowl, with its 1 million users, will continue functioning as a standalone app for now.

It is to be noted that Microsoft’s LinkedIn, with over 774 million users, greatly surpasses Glassdoor in terms of size. It is by far the largest social media platform targeted towards professionals and their work-related content. But for many, the platform leaves something to be desired. It lacks normal people conversing about work honestly, and Glassdoor is eyeing to seize this opportunity with the latest acquisition.

The deal is being handled by Japanese employment listing and tech giant Recruit Holdings which acquired Glassdoor for USD 1.2 billion in 2018. The financial terms of the acquisition deal remain undisclosed.

Source Credits –

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/14/glassdoor-fishbowl-linkedin/