The Stepstone Group

The Stepstone Group operates dual but connected business models. First, it runs a portfolio of national and vertical online job marketplaces where employers and recruitment agencies pay to post vacancies, promote listings, and access candidate CV databases. These marketplaces rely on traffic aggregation, search and matching technology, and local brand presence in each market to deliver candidates. Secondly, it operates a programmatic recruitment marketing platform that distributes job ads across multiple digital channels and optimises campaigns based on performance metrics, effectively acting as a media buying and optimisation layer for recruitment advertising. Additionally, through acquired salary portals and compensation benchmarking tools, it offers data products that support employers’ pay and hiring decisions. Value creation comes from concentrating jobseeker attention, improving match quality between roles and candidates, and improving recruitment advertising efficiency for paying customers.

The Stepstone Group GmbH is a Germany-based recruitment technology and job marketplace company owned by The Stepstone Group Holding GmbH and ultimately by Axel Springer SE. It operates generalist and specialist online job boards in multiple countries plus a programmatic recruitment advertising platform, and also controls salary data portals used for compensation benchmarking.

The company generates revenue primarily from employers, recruitment agencies and talent acquisition teams that pay to advertise vacancies, access CV databases, promote employer brands and run performance-based recruitment campaigns. It adds value by aggregating jobseekers, using matching technology to connect them with vacancies, and providing programmatic recruitment marketing and salary data services to corporate customers.