Fresh off selling a business that helped connect employers with military veterans, a North Texas entrepreneur has launched a similar play aimed at older workers called Hire Maturity LLC. 

Hire Maturity makes money by selling sponsorships and tables at career fairs and by providing digital services such as job boards, database subscriptions, and emails, according to Peter Gudmundsson, who founded the business in December 2017. 

“Age is the category where people feel comfortable making discriminatory judgments about hiring,” said Gudmundsson, who also serves as chief executive of the seven-employee operation. The 54-year-old raised about $1 million to get it off the ground. 

People 55 and up are about the only age segment whose participation rates in the labor force will grow through 2024.
Bureau of Labor Statistics

He has no intention of changing minds of employers who don’t cotton to workers ages 45 and older, who make up roughly 44 percent of the U.S.’ 152 million-member labor force. 

People 55 and up are about the only age segment whose participation rates in the labor force will grow through 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

As with military veterans, older workers offer traits such as reliability, leadership, being drug free, and bringing less drama to the workplace, he said.

“We’re being relentlessly affirmative” about Hire Maturity’s target audience, he said. “That’s the key to making this thing work.” 

HIRE MATURITY EVENT PLANNED FOR MAY IN RICHARDSON

He used a similar approach while running Cincinnati, Ohio-based RecruitMilitary before selling that business to another veteran-talent shop, Bradley-Morris Inc., in October 2016. 

Gudmundsson took the helm of RecruitMilitary in 2013 after an investment group bought it for $8 million. He commuted from Dallas-Fort Worth to Cincinnati to run the firm.

“We’re being relentlessly affirmative.”
Peter Gudmundsson

Gudmundsson grew revenue to $12 million at the time of the sale, which achieved a 34 percent internal rate of return. 

As with RecruitMilitary, Gudmundsson will seek to distinguish Hire Maturity job fairs partly by holding them at high quality venues. A May 3 event will take place at the Richardson Civic Center, one of more than two dozen he plans to hold nationwide this year. 

“They attract television and attention, which is the key to driving traffic,” he said of venues like those. 

Gudmundsson, whose career as a serial entrepreneur includes a stint running the Dallas-based collectibles company Beckett, took time off for an unusual adventure after the RecruitMilitary sale. 

Together at times with his wife and another couple, Gudmundsson walked across Spain. The group averaged roughly 15 miles a day for the 500-mile trek. 

“We met people from all over the world,” he said.