Interviews at The Entrepreneur Center @NVTC

Rob McGovern’s Market10 is often referred to as the eHarmony for job hunters. The company matches job seekers with companies trying to fill jobs, typically middle management positions in high-tech but also finance, accounting and marketing. Companies pay $2,000 every time a job seeker is hired. The Market10 service has been tested in two markets - Washington and Atlanta - with more than 100,000 job seekers in Washington alone. About 500 companies use the service, advertising several thousand jobs. Market10, based in McLean, was launched by McGovern in July 2005, three years after he sold CareerBuilder, a company that today is valued at $1.5 billion. McGovern, 45, has raised more than $20 million in venture capital from superstars like New Enterprise Associates and Menlo Ventures. The Holland, Penn.-native admits he’s never answered a job ad, but he expects Market10 to be bigger than CareerBuilder was when he sold it ($140 million revenue and 400 employees). So far he has 39 employees and undisclosed revenue. McGovern began his career at Hewlett-Packard in sales, and then joined Legent software, where he was VP and GM of a $200 million division. He landed in the Washington area in 1979 to attend the University of Maryland. The father of two recently spoke with Bisnow on Business about the online job-hunting market, the power of his management team, and the sin he commits as he bikes 4,000 miles a year.

Tania Anderson for Bisnow on Business: You sold CareerBuilder in 2002. Why launch Market10 instead of just retiring?
When I sold CareerBuilder, I really expected the industry to continue its rate of innovation. I was surprised a couple years later to see the products and the companies were still where we left them. I think there’s a tremendous amount of room for innovation in this market, and I decided to come back and take it to the next generation.

How do you match up against your competitors?
We’re the only job-matching service on the Internet. 27 of my 39 employees are from CareerBuilder. We’ve made it really hard for competitors to get funded. The rational venture capitalist says, "Am I really going to fund something to compete with this team?"

Are there as many people looking for jobs these days as a few years ago?
While the unemployment rate might be low, there’s still churn out there in the marketplace for people moving from company A to company B. We found that 82 percent of our candidates are employed compared to 20 percent on existing online job boards.

You were a finalist in the NVTC Hot Ticket competition as the Hottest Management Team. What makes your management team so great?
Number one is, we really know this marketplace. There aren’t many startup companies that are composed of a management team that built a $150 million company that was profitable. Second, we realize we need the right mix of marketplace experience and new ideas. We’ve brought some key people to the team that weren’t part of CareerBuilder because we wanted to get some fresh ideas. As an example, Rich Ellinger, who is our CTO, was the CTO at Saba, which was a Silicon Valley-based HR training company that had an incredibly successful IPO.

Who are some other stars on your management team?
We just hired Todd Forest who was the VP of AOL Media Networks. His background was also at Nike. We’re a consumer-focused company so we need a consumer marketing background. Michelle Slagle was CareerBuilder’s CFO, and she’s our CFO here. Peggy Padalino was the head of sales, running a 250-person sales force at CareerBuilder. She’s doing that again for us. This is not the amateur hour for this team.

How have you been able to recruit these stars?
The number one way is through our venture capital connection. We’re backed by NEA which is the gold standard in the venture capital world. When Rich Ellinger heard about the NEA investment, he contacted me. Menlo Ventures recently invested as well and I suspect that will help us make some Silicon Valley contacts.

How did you get interested in helping people find jobs?
It always seemed like I was the person people sought out for career advice. I spent 10 years at Hewlett-Packard and went up the ladder very quickly. And people always asked me, ‘What’s the secret?’ and ‘How can you help me?’ After I left H-P, I decided to turn that into a business. I was at the beach and thought of the idea for CareerBuilder, wrote the business plan, got it funded and built the company. Then I wrote a book focused on people in their 20s and 30s about how to get their careers together. I like going to bed at night knowing that the things that I do help people in their careers.

What is the best piece of advice for someone in the midst of their career or someone looking for a new job?
The main thing you can do is be coachable. I think we should go home everyday feeling like we learned from someone. In the job search, know what your priorities are. I think there’s a time to go for the money and prestige, and a time to go for the learning experience.

What do you hope is the future of the company?
I’ll be disappointed if this company doesn’t end up being bigger than CareerBuilder was. I remember when this thing called Google popped up, there were all these search engines and I just said, ‘Yeah, like the world needs another search engine.’ They really proved that if you come with a second generation product instead of a first generation product, people will flock to it.

Who has been your biggest inspiration?
My mother was a single mother with me and my two sisters. In her lifetime she had a Dairy Queen, a Century 21 real estate office, and a motel. From the time I was a small child, she used to tell me: You’re going to be successful and you can do anything you want to do. My whole life I’ve felt that nudge from her and I really feel fortunate that I had a mother with that positive outlook.

What’s a typical day like for you?
It starts at 5:30 on my bike. I ride my bike 4,000 miles a year. There’s not enough weekend time to do that. I read a couple of newspapers and try to get to the office before everyone else.

Anything your employees don’t know about you?
I ride my bike with my iPod on, which is probably not good from a shareholder standpoint, but music is my weakness. :)