The story began in 1995 when IrishJobs.ie was founded by John Feeley, an entrepreneur who recognised the value the internet could bring to the recruitment industry. In 1999, the company was purchased by Denis O'Brien and Leslie Buckley, who invested heavily in the company's Sales, Marketing and IT operations. As a result, the company became Number One in Ireland's online recruitment market in 2000 and has remained there ever since.
Our move into the Northern Irish Market was built on IrishJobs.ie's success. After firmly establishing IrishJobs.ie as Ireland's Number 1, there was huge potential within the Northern Irish Market. To cater for this, our sister company, NIjobs.com was established in May 2000. With two leading recruitment websites operating successfully in their respective markets, saongroup.com looked further afield. Today saongroup.com operates in 19 markets, employs over 830 people and records 12 million visits to our websites each month. We have over 350 websites in our portfolio advertising close to 200,000 vacancies.
View saongroup.com's progress and entry into each market year by year.
| 1995 |
| John Feeley launches IrishJobs.ie |
| 1999 |
| Denis O Brien and Leslie Buckley purchase IrishJobs.ie |
| 2000 |
| saongroup.com enters the Northern Irish market and launches NIjobs.com |
| 2004 |
| The group enters the UK market and acquires ScottishAppointments.com. Re-launched as scottishjobs.com. |
| 2005 |
| Jobs.ie, Ireland's No. 2 recruitment website is purchased |
| 2006 |
| The company expands to the Caribbean and launches CaribbeanJobs.com |
| Next market is China with the acquisition of Shjobs.com and MyJob.com.additional 4 websites |
| 2007 |
| To expand UK coverage saongroup.com purchases myjobgroup.co.uk |
| The launch of RecruitGulf.com services the market in the Middle East |
| The group launches Jumptojobs.co.uk a UK aggregator website |
| The group enters the South African market with the acquisition of Pnet.co.za |
| 2008 |
| Saongroup.com enters online dating with acquisition of Maybefriends.com & Singleinthecity.ie |
| Acquisition of localjobsgroup.co.uk completes UK coverage |
| Further expansion into South Africa with the acquisition of Mauritius-based recruitment website MyJob.mu |
| Acquisition of Tecoloco.com sees the group move into Central America |
| 2009 |
| Myhorizon.ie, a careers development website, launched in Ireland |
| Further expansion in India with the launch of 12 new online recruitment websites |
