CareerBuilder.com founder hadn't stopped building

WASHINGTON — Rob McGovern is on a mission to top his own success. In 1995, he founded job-search site CareerBuilder.com, which grew into a $150 million company by the time he sold it seven years later for $680 million.

After two years off, in 2004, he launched Tysons Corner, Va.-based Jobfox.com, a site that matches suitable candidates with companies seeking to hire. McGovern, 49, is author of "Bring Your 'A' Game: The 10 Career Secrets of the High Achiever."

McGovern was born in Philadelphia and studied business at the University of Maryland.

"My first job out of college was working at Hewlett-Packard," he said. " ... I worked in Maryland and France. I was in both sales and marketing. ... I left France to take a job with a company based in Washington, D.C., called Legent that was eventually sold for several billion dollars. I was like the sixth most important person in the company, but the top five became phenomenally wealthy. ...

"When I was 11, I was a newspaper boy and I used to walk the streets at 6 a.m. imagining myself as a business owner. I think somewhere in my genetics ... building businesses is what I'm really designed to do."

More interview excerpts:

Why he's successful

"I think success comes from staying intensely focused on the problem the company is trying to solve in the market. ... I think companies get off track when they forget what problem they are trying to solve. I have been accused of being OCD (suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder), and I really think that means that I'm good at being obsessive about solving the problem."

Biggest obstacle

"Eighteen months ago, I was in a near-fatal car accident. I spent nine months in the hospital. ... I was on a business trip in Indianapolis and a 16-year-old kid passed someone illegally and I had a head-on with that kid. ... "

How it changed him

"This was not a simple recovery. It was the hardest thing I've done, more than a year of physical and brain therapy. The near-death experience re-centered me on what truly is important in my life. ... I really want my company to do well because I want it to contribute to society ... "

The start of CareerBuilder

"The Internet was just coming about in 1994 and my first reaction was, 'This is going to change everything.' ... People were looking for jobs, passing out résumés, and I thought it was a natural fit for the Internet. ... I started presenting to potential investors, and 40 venture capitalists rejected me. The 41st said yes."

By the time I sold [CareerBuilder], I had 425 employees and offices in 28 cities ... "

Why he sold his company

"I think that every entrepreneur has to always be mindful that there is a day when you should take your chips off the table."

Why he unretired

"I tried going to the golf course, but it was full of old guys who wanted to discuss whether they should have prostate surgery or not. ...

I learned to fly. I bought a plane. I wrote a book. And then I worked as a venture capitalist for two or three companies. ... "

He started Jobfox in 2004. "What was driving me was: Could I do it better the second time? ...

"There are more than 20,000 job-search places on the Web, five that matter ... and we're fortunate to be in that top five."

What inspires him

"I really like seeing my ideas change people's lives."