J Christopher Amato

Chris Amato, a sales-focused, repeat entrepreneur, is the Founder and CEO of OptiJob, a performance-based career site optimization and inbound candidate marketing platform. OptiJob works behind the scenes, optimizing employers' career sites and job postings to outrank job boards that dominate job search results. OptiJob clients capture and engage millions of new candidates by providing immediate access to their jobs and more desirable direct candidate experience. Chris began his entrepreneurial career in late 1998 when he founded Career Innovations, an employment event management, advertising, and recruitment technology company. In 2000 Career Innovations launched Hiretech and HireHealth, the first of its several job boards. HireTech catered to the technology industry and HireHealth focused on healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Additional sites followed, including HireSales, HireMed, HireFinance, etc., that lived within the GetTheJob umbrella of sites. Career Innovations grew by over 100%+ YoY from 1999-2003. This success enabled the company to acquire its two most significant competitors, BioSpace from Versant Ventures and Sequoia Capital, and BioView from TMP Worldwide. Chris lead the day-to-day operations, growth strategy, and M&A activity including the eventual sale of Career Innovations to Warburg Pincus, a highly respected international private equity firm in 2005. After selling his first recruitment business Chris launched GetTheJob.com. GetTheJob (GTJ) was the first performance-based job board and talent acquisition marketplace dedicated to employers. The initial Pay-Per-Click (PPC) revenue model was based on employer-set budgets that were deducted as jobseekers viewed employers' jobs. The site expanded monetization opportunities to include a Pay-Per-Application (PPA) revenue model based on employer-set budgets and competitive bids. In 2006, Chris led the acquisition and turnaround of Employon from Doll Capital. Utilizing the combined assets, talent, and resources of both companies, the team completed LaborInsight, a comprehensive labor market intelligence (LMI) research and analytics platform. LaborInsight provided a popular research tool that combined employment data and trends with job posting statistics and activity to corporations, colleges and universities, state and local municipalities, and federal agencies, including the USDOL. The business was sold to Kaplan, Inc. a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company, in 2009.