Vault Acquires Firsthand, the Leading Mentoring and Engagement Platform for Students and Alumni

I'm thrilled to announce that Vault has joined forces with Firsthand, the premier career mentoring and engagement platform for students and alumni. By integrating Vault's unique content with Firsthand's engagement platform, we aim to take the mission of democratizing access to great careers to an entirely new level. Combined, the new entity will serve more than 500 higher education institutions and over 8 million users annually.

For the staff, students, and alumni who rely on Vault and Firsthand, it will be business as usual for now. You'll be able to interact with the products and our teams as you always have. I'll be heading the new Vault-Firsthand division, and the entire Firsthand team will be joining forces with the exceptionally capable team at Vault. As we begin merging Vault and Firsthand over the course of 2021, you can expect us to announce some improvements and a more streamlined experience between the two services. 

I've been a fan of Vault since college. For an international student and total career outsider like me, the Vault guides were my bibles. They offered what at the time were radically transparent views of life inside the companies everyone wanted to work for. In doing so, they turned vague but lofty career goals into something that was real and attainable for a generation of job seekers, including me. It's no wonder Howard Stern in 1999 called Vault.com "the greatest idea I've ever heard."

When I co-founded Evisors.com, the precursor to Firsthand, I was heavily inspired by Vault. The idea was to go beyond the insights a guide could give you, by making it personal and connecting you one-on-one with someone who worked where you wanted to work. Today, with Vault’s robust rankings and content combined with Firsthand's engagement platform, we can deliver personalized career guidance more contextually, on a grander scale, and to brand-new audiences.

For the hundreds of employers who work with Vault, we'll have an unmatched ability to surface, segment, and target potential job seekers. Overall, that means time and money saved. It means better informed job seekers and better informed employers. It means more meaningful connections and a more democratic path to putting the best candidates in the best jobs.

Our commitment to the mission of democratizing careers and to supporting the success of enrollment, career, and alumni offices remains rock solid. We're excited to get started on this new journey as we work hard to give our academic institutions, employers, students, and alumni a big upgrade.

Fredrik Marø
General Manager
Vault-Firsthand

Read the full press release here.