A buoyant UK jobs market in which the jobseeker is in the driving seat has been the catalyst for recruitment technology provider Jobvite opening a London office, its first outside the US.

This morning, in a statement the US-headquartered firm revealed it opened an office at a facility known as Central Working in London’s Shoreditch, which will service clients both in the UK and across Western Europe.

It is not just seeking to grow its existing UK customer base, but its European one too.

Expanding on the reasons for choosing London, vice president, international David Lahey told Recruiter the economic recovery in the UK had mirrored that of the US with all of the jobs lost in the recession of 2008 and 2009 having now been replaced. This means companies are having to think of ways of recruiting smarter such as sharing job vacancies across their own employees’ social networks.

“Even if they [employers] have a great brand, they’re fighting a war for talent because all those jobs have been replaced; now the jobseeker is the one in the driver’s seat making employers wake up and pay attention to the employer brand and their candidate experience.” 

Lahey added, as London is the business capital of Europe and also where most of its customers outside the US are already based, it was a “natural” spot for the firm. He said despite not spending any money on marketing outside the US, Jobvite had managed to win 220 non-US customers because of word-of-mouth advertising. 

To help push its expansion of its UK client base, Jobvite has already hired two sales staff.

The company statement added Jobvite’s expansion follows a successful round of funding at the end of last year, led by growth equity firm Catalyst Investors, which saw the business raise $25m (£16m) for global investment.  

Jobvite launched in 2006 in the US and currently has 220 employees. Its system works by enabling employees to share their employer’s vacancies across various social networks, thereby ‘inviting’ them to apply. The system also allows employers to track every invitation to apply for a job or ‘jobvite’ through a unique trackable url.

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