Earlier this year we wrote about TechCrunch 50 company Localbacon’s relaunch as Jibe, a next-generation job board that leverages Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to help job seekers find the best positions in the job market. Today, Jibe, which has been in private beta since March, is launching to the public, with job listings from Conde Nast, MTV Networks, Amazon, Equinox, and Church & Dwight.
On Jibe, job seekers sign in with Facebook Connect. The platform will pull in their work and education history from their Facebook profile and from LinkedIn and Twitter to pre-populate their Jibe profile. Then for every job posting, they can see if they are connected to anyone at that company. Jibe allows members to message those people directly to ask for a recommendation or job advice.
Jibe uses a credit system that allows applicants to apply for jobs. Applicants can earn credits by linking their Jibe account to their various social networks, broadcasting their job search, sending private messages through the system, or updating their work history profile. They can also buy 500 credits for $5.
Each job listing is ranked based on how many times it’s been viewed, saved, or applied for. The jobs that rank higher turn up at the top of job searches. Employers can post jobs for free, but pay $15 to unlock an applicant’s profile. By unlocking the profile employers get to see the applicant’s name, who else they are connected to in the company, and they can send them a direct message. Candidates whose profile gets unlocked the most appear on a leaderboard.
Jibe, which is incubated in Dogpatch Labs in New York City, closed an $875,000 seed round led by Polaris Venture Partners (which runs Dogpatch Labs) with Lerer Media Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, Jason Calacanis, and Josh and Jared Kushner participating in the round.
With the seed funding, Jibe has expanded its team with some key hires from the online job board and technology industry. Jibe’s new Director of Enterprise Sales, Lisa Kloster came from The Ladders where she was their top outside salesperson in 2008 and 2009. JIBE’s Director of Engineering, Andrzej Lawn came from Gilt Groupe and was previously at the New York Times.
As current job boards falter with pure listings, it makes sense to allow users to tap into their social graph in the job search. And since the site is targeted at the under-25 crowd, many users have already built enough connections on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to make Jibe beneficial.
