Meet job board king Don Firth

To my knowledge Don Firth runs the largest family of profitable independently owned and self-financed job boards. His boards have a utilitarian look and are designed with the single purpose of helping candidates find jobs in a specific industry. But considering their performance, I wonder if my own company hasn't paid too much attention to polish and content. JobsInLogistics.com, AllRetailJobs.com, JobsInTrucks.com, JobsInManufacturing.com, and TopUSAJobs.com have a combined monthly traffic of almost 3 million visitors.

Eric: For my money Don, you’re the most successful job board entrepreneur I know of. I should say the most successful job board family because it is a family business. What accounts for your success? Do you have a formula? How do you choose new categories?

Don: Thaks Eric. After 30 years in the logistics and retail industries, we target professions in which we all have tremendous knowledge and expertise. We offer top level customer service to both job seekers and employers/recruiters. A lot of our success has come from hiring great sales and customer service staff.

Eric: Do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs who decide to involve family in the business?

Don: It will depend on the relationship between the family members. Many families need to separate their home life from their business life. To be a successful family oriented company, each member should bring complimentary skills and experience to the table and be willing to listen to each others' points of view.

Eric: With so many successful boards, has anything you’ve tried failed?

Don: Not yet. But we do have concerns over a future venture - WarmBodyJobs.com, a site designed for the underachievers, with the slogans - "Where Second Best is just too Good." and "Gotta Pulse? We gotta a Job for You."

Eric: What first attracted you to this industry?

Don: A friend of ours was seeking a VP position in logistics, back in 1999. We offered to help him. We scoured the Internet for jobs. No site had even a logistics category. So we created one over the next 6 months, which became the first mover for the logistics and transportation industries.

Eric: What changes do you see coming?

Don: We see greater emphasis on niche boards to target candidates with specialized experience and skills. We are exploring the use of videos to offer companies an opportunity to showcase their companies.

Eric: If a recession is really here or deepening, how should job board owners react?

Don: Although certain industries and professions are suffering, there is always a need for companies to hire new candidates. Today, many companies have reduced their budgets for hiring. This offers the niche boards an opportunity to replace some of the more expensive generalist boards. It may not be necessary for a company to have contracts with two or more generalist boards. They can put away their shotguns and use rifles to target the best candidates. In a study to compare candidates from JobsInLogistics.com and AllRetailJobs.com with the generalist boards, almost 90% of the skilled candidates on our boards were unique and did not appear on the generalist boards.

Eric: What do you enjoy most about your business?

Don: The job board industry is always evolving. It keeps life exciting. We make the rules up as we go along. It's rewarding to build a company up from 3 people to a team of almost 40 people and to help each of our staff grow in their responsibilities and success.

Eric: Who really invented the CPC job board model?

Don: Jake Firth, my partner, first came up with the idea. We developed TopUSAJobs.com back in early 2003. Indeed and SimplyHired followed 2 years later. We list more than 1.5 million jobs from more than 100 job boards and companies.

Eric: What do you think of CPA? Will it take hold?

Don: - I think it's hard to verify results, especially as most ATS systems are highly inaccurate.

Eric: What websites do you visit everyday besides your own?

Don: Google and retail and logistics news sites

Eric: Do you follow the progress of all the ‘better mousetrap’ job boards funded by VCs or just stick to your knitting? If you watch them, do any have promise?

Don: We have seen many 'great ideas' come and go.

Eric: Have you ever been tempted to bolt on any of their clever features like tagging, referral systems, social networking, audio, video etc?

Don: No. However, we are currently promoting videos in job postings.

Eric: Is it getting harder to launch a job board?

Don: My best advice is to launch your job board in the late 90s or early 2000s. Today, it's very difficult for any new job board to compete against the established boards. They need to list enough jobs to attract the seekers and enough seekers to fill the jobs. And it's not that easy.

Eric: How long do you expect to have to nurse a job board before it breaks even?

Don: With our experience, we would expect to make money in the first year. For anyone else, all bets are off.

Eric: What advice would you give an entrepreneur about to launch a job board?

Don: Know the industry. Create a user-friendly board with a great back-end system. Be prepared to spend a fortune on marketing. Know the key places to advertise to reach the players in the industry. Hire great staff. Cross post your jobs to TopUSAJobs.com.

Eric: Thanks for your time Don!