CareerJunction, a Johnnic Communications company, and a leading online placement solution in South Africa, has acquired a 60% share in WholeBangShoot, an online talent management and casting service that is already showcasing over 30,000 of South Africa’s talent for the entertainment industry.
“CareerJunction will be injecting the WholeBangShoot web service with world class technology and developments, business knowledge and marketing and advertising clout – that has made CareerJunction the leading career and recruitment website in South Africa,’ says CareerJunction CEO, Kris Jarzebowski.
As a complete casting solution, WholeBangShoot has been designed to allow casting directors, talent agencies, production companies and ad agencies to manage all their casting requirements easily and cost effectively from one central database.
WholeBangShoot is the brainchild of Kay Price and Ross Lindsay, the owners of Kayos Casting Directors. “The idea came out of our own experience of the casting process, which – prior to WholeBangShoot – was a disorganised, crazy process that relied on reams of paper and pictures in all different formats and resulted in mayhem and confusion,’ says Price.
Price and Lindsay saw a need for one complete solution that would assist Talent Agencies and Casting Directors in managing the entire process related to the casting, marketing and buying of talent. Price explains that putting this system online was the most sensible solution as Agencies could now access their database from anywhere they had internet connectivity. Casting companies also benefit from it being online because they can search talent 24/7.
WholeBangShoot allows Talent Agencies the opportunity to manage and showcase their talent on the website, while companies with casting requirements have the opportunity to search the Talent database and in addition to this, work directly and simultaneously with the agents on any casting projects. In this regard, WholeBangShoot is the only online service in the country (possibly even in the world) that covers the entire casting process – from loading briefs and searching for talent all the way through to options, callbacks and generating contracts.
“Both WholeBangShoot and CareerJunction are in the business of providing jobs for people. In CareerJunction’s case this is in the form of candidates applying for jobs on the website, while in the case of WholeBangShoot this is talent (be it actors, models or characters) being put forward for parts in TV commercials, film, theatre and TV shows,’ says Jarzebowski.
Jarzebowski explains that the business model is very similar and therefore the acquisition of WholeBangShoot is an extension of the CareerJunction business and signals the phenomenal growth of the company over the past few years.
The CareerJunction brand is doing exceptionally well, with over 30,000 jobs being loaded on the website every month and more than 760,000 registered CareerSeekers on the database – this makes it the biggest career website in South Africa with the largest choice of jobs.
“With CareerJunction growing from strength to strength, we are now in a position where we are able to apply our expertise and advanced technology to enhance the WholeBangShoot, at a time when South Africa is experiencing phenomenal growth in the Film, TV and Ad industry.’ says Jarzebowski.
