Recruit Holdings

About

Our Business Model

The business model of Recruit Group

Ever since our foundation, Recruit Group has sought to act as a meeting place that brings together individual users and business clients, with a focus on services in the field of life-events and lifestyle, such as housing & real estate, beauty, dining and others. By providing a common platform through which users can find the service that best meets their needs, and business owners can connect with their ideal customers, we can facilitate the best possible matches for the mutual benefit of both parties. We also strive to support the operations of businesses in Japan to help improve their productivity and profitability by offering cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions.

Faster, Simpler and Closer: Matching through Technology

Thanks to the Internet and the mass adoption of smartphones, we now have a wealth of information at our fingertips. This also brings with it the need for increasingly sophisticated solutions to facilitate the best matches. At Recruit Group, we are actively integrating new technologies to ensure that our business model continues to meet the needs of a rapidly changing society through the creation of opportunities that enable every individual to shine.

Our Group Structure

Recruit Group consists of three autonomous Strategic Business Units (SBUs) and Recruit Holdings. This structure allows Recruit Holdings to focus on the operation of a holding company, and also enhances the corporate value of each SBU by enabling faster execution of business strategies.

HR Technology SBU

Through companies including Indeed and Glassdoor, HR Technology SBU operates a global two-sided marketplace where job seekers find jobs and employers find great talent in more than 60 countries and regions.

Learn more about the business model of HR Technology SBU

Staffing SBU

Staffing SBU operates a comprehensive temporary staffing service in Europe, the US and the Asia Pacific region, including Japan and Australia. The division promotes flexible and varied working styles to meet the needs of job seekers and companies in the ever-changing global labor market.

Learn more about the business model of Staffing SBU

Marketing Matching Technologies SBU*1

Marketing Matching Technologies SBU offers matching platforms, which connect individual users with business clients across various industries, including housing & real estate, beauty, travel, dining, and cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, which are business and management support tools.

Learn more about the business model of Marketing Matching Technologies SBU
  • *1Matching & Solutions SBU was renamed Marketing Matching Technologies SBU in FY2025.

Overview of Our Business

HR Technology SBU’s Business Model

HR Technology SBU Business Model

Within HR Technology SBU, the Indeed and Glassdoor platforms have partnered to offer a suite of products and services for job seekers that make getting a job simpler, faster, and more human. These products and services include job search, resume posting, company information, community features, and scheduling and conducting video and phone interviews. Each platform brings unique services to the partnership, creating a global talent marketplace.

For employers, both Indeed and Glassdoor offer solutions to recruit and hire qualified talent in an easier and more efficient way. Employers can post and advertise jobs and build their company's employment brand across both platforms, reaching a broad and varied job seeker audience. Together, they provide an efficient source of candidates through a pay-for-performance pricing model and provide a range of products for employers to source, screen, interact with, and interview candidates. In addition, offering real-time conversations and communities enables employers to make more informed decisions.

The scale of the two-sided marketplace created by the Indeed and Glassdoor partnership is evidenced by the 3.3 million employers*1 that use Indeed each year to hire and the 610 million Job Seeker Profiles*2 on Indeed and Glassdoor. Job seekers search for jobs, create and update profiles, and research and engage in real-time conversations about companies and jobs.

In Japan, Recruit Group has expanded the job seeker audience further through Indeed PLUS, a job distribution platform which connects a network of Applicant Tracking Systems and job boards, including Recruit’s Rikunabi NEXT and TOWNWORK as well as other Recruit and third party websites.

Additionally, RECRUIT AGENT and RECRUIT DIRECT SCOUT, the placement services, which were transferred to HR Technology SBU from Marketing Matching Technologies SBU as of April 1, 2025, utilize Recruit Group’s matching engine to streamline processes like screening resumes, a previously manual process. By combining Indeed’s technology, data and scale with more than 60 years of HR matching expertise in the Japanese market, the Group aims to accelerate its Simplify Hiring strategy in Japan.

  • *1Internal data, based on the last 12 months of activity as of March 2025, worldwide
  • *2Internal data, cumulative number of verified job seeker accounts on Indeed through March 31, 2025, worldwide. Job seeker accounts that have a unique, verified email address

Delivering more value to job seekers and employers

Delivering more value to job seekers and employers

In HR Technology SBU, we are automating many of the steps in the hiring process to make it faster, easier, and more cost efficient for job seekers and employers to connect in our talent marketplace.

More engagement on our platforms will allow us to improve the quality and speed of matching.

Main Products

  • Indeed Ads Capture

    Sponsored Jobs

    Promote your job post
    to reach the right
    candidates faster

  • Indeed Resume Capture

    Indeed Smart Sourcing

    Instantly match and connect with quality talent from Indeed’s pool of millions of job seekers

  • Indeed Hiring Platform Capture

    Indeed Hiring Events

    Hire faster
    with built-in
    talent attraction

  • Glassdoor Branding Capture

    Employer Branding with Indeed and Glassdoor

    Reach new candidates
    by promoting
    your brand

Sponsored Jobs

Indeed Ads

While employers can post their job for free, if they need to hire someone quickly, they can sponsor their job to get greater visibility in relevant search results, and get immediate access to quality candidates they can invite to apply.

Employers only pay when a candidate clicks on or applies to their Sponsored Job. Indeed works with them to set their expected budget based on job title and location. We do not have long-term contracts, and they can start, stop, or pause their job at any time.

Pricing Model of Sponsored Jobs

Pay Per Click

Pricing Model of Indeed Ads - Pay per Click

Pay Per Started Application

Pricing Model of Indeed Ads - Pay Per Started Application

With Pay Per Started Application (PPSA) pricing model, employers do not pay for clicks on a job post, but are only charged when a candidate undertakes an activity to start the application process by clicking the call-to-action button to apply. This button may appear as Apply, Apply now, or Apply on the company site.

PPSA pricing is determined by a live auction model, meaning actual costs are driven by the talent marketplace. The budget will be spent dynamically, to match candidate demand.

Please visit hereTo an external site to learn more about PPSA pricing model.

Staffing SBU’s Business Model

Staffing SBU Business Model

Staffing SBU offers comprehensive temporary staffing services tailored to the needs of job seekers and business clients through two major operations in Japan and Europe, US, and Australia. The SBU implements the Unit Management System, which divides an organization into smaller units based on differences in the markets they serve. Each unit is regarded as a distinct company, and the Unit Manager is given authority to make decisions to maximize each unit's profitability.

For Staffing SBU, revenue includes the personnel cost for temporary staff, which is also accounted for as cost of goods sold (“CoGS”), and consequently CoGS as a percentage of revenue is higher compared to other SBUs.

As a result, adjusted EBITDA margin, calculated by dividing adjusted EBITDA by revenue, is lower compared to other SBUs. However, the ratio of adjusted EBITDA to total gross profit, calculated by subtracting CoGS from revenue, is similar to the adjusted EBITDA margin of the other two SBUs, underlining the Staffing SBU's high productivity and profit generating capability.

Management System

Staffing SBU Management System

Marketing Matching Technologies SBU's Business Model

Simplify Business Processes Through Platform Solutions

Marketing Matching Technologies SBU's Business Model

In Japan, Marketing Matching Technologies SBU offers one of the largest online matching platforms, as well as Software as a Service ("SaaS") solutions for business clients.

Marketing Matching Technologies SBU provides solutions which support business clients' operations such as customer acquisition, customer relationship management, and payments in a variety of industries, such as beauty, travel, dining, housing & real estate, and others. The pricing models for the marketing matching platforms are primarily advertising models while the pricing models for travel and other services are pay for performance models.

In addition, it offers cloud-based SaaS solutions that utilize technology and data to improve the efficiency of the day-to-day management and operations of clients' businesses. The pricing models for SaaS solutions are primarily subscription models and transaction-based models, while some services are provided for free.