Pilot, Mechanic Job Growth Driving New Business for JSFirm

Online aviation job board JSfirm (Booth 5718) has enjoyed a 13-percent annual growth rate on average over the last decade and a half. But as it marks its 15th anniversary, the Roanoke, Texas-based firm is seeing a slight shift in client base. The company is starting to see an increase in postings for pilot positions from the major airlines, said managing partner Sam Scanlon. This increase, coupled with general improvement in business overall, has resulted in JSfirm’s business in the past couple of years surpassing its growth goals by120 percent. As a result, Scanlon said, JSfirm has doubled its employment base in recent months, hiring additional customer support professionals to work with new customers.

Scanlon founded the company with partner Joel Meanor in 2000. Both were pilots and airframe and powerplant mechanics with backgrounds in the Part 145 segment. At the time, Scanlon noted, the Internet was still a relatively new place for hiring. “We knew it was a good place to be,” he said. Hiring was “very traditional,” with Monster.com the primary means to attract talent. In aviation, though, it could be difficult to find the proper skills for various positions. “We understood the pains it could take in hiring,” he added.

Their first client was Helicopter Aviation Services (HAS), a helicopter maintenance firm where they had both worked in the 1990s. Now JSfirm has 4,000 clients that range from large companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin to small mom-and-pop shops. And more than 400,000 resumes have been added to the JSfirm database.

The number of resumes surged during the economic downturn, Scanlon said. While the company has averaged strong growth, it did hit a slow year from the job postings side in 2008 when the market plummeted. “2008 was the only year where we had a decrease [in job postings],” he said. Since its revenue is derived from the job postings rather than the resumes, JSfirm also felt the effects of the downturn. “It was a struggle, but we managed,” Scanlon said.

Now the tide has turned, with employers having a hard time filling positions. “We’ve heard all this talk about shortages of pilots and mechanics. The shortage is real. We are seeing it now,” he said.

At JSfirm, airlines are starting to pay for advertising, he said. Pilot postings are the largest growth area for the company. But JSfirm also has picked up a number of new clients that were struggling to find qualified mechanics, and mechanic postings remain among the largest hiring areas. As JSfirm has picked up new airline clients, the corporate business has remained steady. So too have postings for operations that operate utility fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

Every March, JSFirm releases an annual forecast, and Scanlon said this year’s forecast has remained on track so far. It found that 92 percent of companies surveyed had plans to hire, and 78 percent project growth for this year. The survey revealed that job cuts were slowing: 72 percent did not cut jobs in 2014 up from 68 percent in 2013. Also the attrition rate slowed, with 48 percent reporting a rate of less than 5 percent attrition in 2013 and 55 percent reporting the same low rate in 2014.

Corporate operators represented the largest category of survey respondents at 24.23 percent, with light general aviation and helicopter operators following at 23.89 percent and 23.38 percent, respectively.

While JSfirm is enjoying growth alongside the industry upturn, Scanlon also attributed its success to customer service. While an online product, he stressed that customer service is what keeps the clients and expands the base.

As far as what’s ahead for JSfirm, Scanlon advises to look for a new “face” next year. The company is undertaking a website redesign and adding technology to enhance how people connect.