Boom Time

Connecting baby boomers with companies that need seasoned workers sounded like a golden ticket to Timothy Hearon, a software entrepreneur in the employee recruiting industry.

Other companies have tried the niche with varied, but usually limited success in the traditional employee recruitment model, where clients are charged per job placement. It's a potential lucrative niche, given 10,000 boomers leave the workforce every day — many who want to keep doing something meaningful, according to Pew Research.

So Hearon comes to the field with a twist: Sarasota-based Boomerswork, which charges companies a $250 monthly fee for access to a list of software-produced, finely tuned candidates who have recently retired or semi-retired from other careers. In return for the monthly fee companies receive a confidential PDF dossier on each matching candidate. The packet includes a full profile, references, a five-minute video interview and the results of a psychological character test.

Hearon has also gone national with the model, what he calls the eHarmony of senior employee recruiting. He seeks to sign up licensees for other markets nationwide at $75,000 a territory. Hearon projects to have seven licensees by the end of the year, followed by 11 in 2015 and 15 in 2016, with locations from California to Kansas to Maryland. That would be a $2.5 million business within two years.
“The interest level is already high for partnerships outside of Florida,” Hearon says. “Everyone wins in this model.”

The original Boomerswork model dates back to 2011 in Halifax, Canada. That's where Hearon, who also runs Global Recruiters of Sarasota, another search firm, first discovered the company that created the Boomerswork software. That company, Boomerswork.com, is now the parent firm over subsidiaries boomerswork.ca in Canada and boomerswork.us in Sarasota. A 15-year executive in telecommunications sales and operations, Hearon has an ownership stake in the Sarasota unit and the parent company.

Sarasota is where Hearon and his team will oversee the licensing operation and test the model itself. It's an apropos spot, considering Sarasota is the oldest large county in the country, according to U.S. Census data. For the overall operation, Boomerswork, run out of an office across the street from art galleries on Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota, currently has seven employees. Hearon expects to add 10 more this summer, a mix of retirees and college students who will work with licensees on software, customer service and other issues.

Boomerswork has signed up around 15 clients for the monthly fee service under Hearon. The list includes Bradenton-based retailer Beall's; Sarasota-based Youthful Aging Home Health, a concierge-style home health care firm; and Dentsply, a dental products manufacturer with a facility in Sarasota. Users who seek work can register on Boomerswork's website for free. The video interviews and assessment tests are also free to boomers registered on the site.

One issue in Canada, says Hearon, was the Boomerswork business model was complicated. The company, he says, charged both businesses and employees for searches but got few of either. Hearon, through connections at Sarasota-based CAP Creative, which handles marketing and branding for Boomerswork, spoke with area technology executive Rob Campbell about how to improve the model. Campbell, who has worked with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, suggested the monthly fee model.

Hearon jumped on it, partially because the idea feels like disruptive innovation in the employment and executive recruitment sector, where companies normally pay high fees for matches. The Boomerswork way, says Hearon, comes with less risk for the client and offers more scientific matching. But he realizes shifting an industry isn't easy.

“We are educating a market,” says Hearon. “There are a lot of funny sayings about being the first one with an idea and the pain that comes with that.”

Going Back
Retired hospital chief executive Ted LaLiberty is the everyman of the Gulf Coast retiree: Not ready for pasture, but he no longer needs the go-go business rush.

That also makes LaLiberty a perfect example of how Sarasota-based Boomerswork works. LaLiberty left his health care administration career last year and the Siesta Key resident discovered Boomerswork, an employee search firm that specializes in baby boomers, soon after that. He registered with the company and it turns out his administrative experience was a match with Boomerswork itself, in need of a chief operating officer.

LaLiberty accepted the position, a part-time gig with an opportunity for more hours. Boomerswork gets his experience and expertise and he gets a reason to get up in the morning past golf. “I never dreamt I would retire from health care, only to jump back in the game a year later and align with an up-and-coming company,” he says. “It's not just about earning money. It's about giving back.”

Follow Mark Gordon on Twitter @markigordon