PowerOne Media Grows in Employment Space

By: Lucia Moses Online publishing company PowerOne Media Inc. announced Thursday it would merge with another online services company, Employment Specialists LLC, and buy the assets of a third, Center for American Jobs (CAJ).

Executives at Troy, N.Y.-based PowerOne said when the deals are completed, the company would provide online help-wanted services to papers representing about half of the nation's daily circulation and put it in fourth place behind Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, and HotJobs, in terms of unique visitors to the job sections of its customers' online sites.

"We think we've got significant room to grow there," said Brendan Burns, who shares the PowerOne CEO job with Mark J. Chudzicki.

The deals are expected to close by Sept. 30. Terms were not disclosed.

The moves come at a time when help is sorely wanted for newspapers' help-wanted ads. The Newspaper Association of America estimated that industry help-wanted revenue declined 13% to $1.9 billion in the first six months of the year.

In the next few months, the bigger PowerOne plans to start cross-selling its own suite of online classified vertical services with the job-matching tools of Employment Specialists' CareerSite, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and CAJ.

PowerOne liked CareerSite because of the presentation and branding flexibility it offers newspapers and "probably the best candidate-matching process in the business," Chudzicki said, while recognizing CAJ's expertise in matching hourly workers with employers.

PowerOne also plans to combine customer-service functions of all three companies, increase its direct-sales staff, and play up the regional and national reach of its newspaper network to employers.

"We're in a position now where we can play a strong role in helping customers get regional exposure for their jobs," Burns said.

Employment Specialists is majority-owned by Advance Publications and MediaNews Group Inc., which also are PowerOne backers. It powers more than 150 job sites of newspapers that have a combined Sunday print circulation topping 14 million, according to the company, and about 60% of which already are PowerOne customers.

Harper Woods, Mich.-based CAJ serves 42 newspaper clients, about half of which also are PowerOne customers.

CAJ licenses technology to newspapers that lets job seekers submit an employment profile by phone or online to a print help-wanted ad or to a database advertised in the newspaper. CAJ combs through the database to match job candidates to employers based on the employers' criteria.

CAJ President and CEO Jonathan D. Ahlbrand, who will remain with the company following the sale, said CAJ's technology will let PowerOne help newspapers take advantage of the faster-growing hourly job categories. Despite the Internet's popularity, he said, the phone still plays a big role in the job-search process.

Of job seekers who respond to his client newspapers' house ads inviting them to submit a profile via phone or Internet, Ahlbrand said, phone is the method of choice of 70% to 90% of hourly workers and 30% to 40% of salaried workers. "It doesn't change easily," he said. "If the newspaper says, 'Pick up the phone right now, or log on,' more likely than not they'll come in by phone."

Created in 2001 through the union of AdOne and PowerAdz, PowerOne is backed by 12 newspaper companies and two investment funds. It serves about 450 dailies with a combined circulation of about 20 million. The private company said it turned profitable this year but wouldn't disclose financial data.

The three companies have shared history. The former AdOne used to market CareerSite to its customers in exchange for a cut of the revenue. And CAJ and CareerSite last year integrated their services to make the job-hunting process seamless for job-seekers visiting sites served by both vendors.