I’m having fun on the internet.

I’m currently happily employed as a Senior Product Manager at SimplyHired.com, the largest job search engine.  At Simply Hired, I’m responsible for all of our business development deals and our partner network of 5,000+ hosted job boards.  Wearing my product hat, I’m also responsible for driving our job seeker experience, publisher products and our SEO traffic. 

Before joining Simply Hired, I worked at Overstock.com, where I oversaw our Visual Sciences implementation (hardcore web analytics) and ran our A/B and multivariate website testing program. 

School and a taste of the working world.

In college, I was a serial intern, working at a video startup in Boston as a Kauffman Entrepreneurial Fellow and two summers in GE leadership programs (GE Healthcare Technologies in Milwaukee and GE Corporate EMEA in Brussels, Belgium.)

I graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a major in Marketing, and I kept myself busy by leading the Entrepreneurship Club and running Adworks, the campus advertising agency.  During college, I was fortunate to have opportunities to study in Perth, Australia and in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Corn and startups?

I grew up in Granger, Indiana, miles from the I-80 (a reoccurring highway in my life).  My childhood is full of hilarious tales of entrepreneurship...ask me about my snow cone wagon, my newt-for-rent, or my domain name arbitrage businesses sometime!  To this day, I’m still fascinated with the ability that entrepreneurs have to create value and make the world a better place. 

As interested as I am in starting my own business someday, I realize that I have a lot to learn before I'd like to make a run for it myself.  Living in Silicon Valley, the center of it all, I’m trying to take in all that I can, meet great people and enjoy the ride.

A tiny horn toot...

1. •  Notre Dame McCloskey Business Plan Competition, "1st Place Undergraduate Team" (2002) and "Best Written Plan" (2003).
   

2. •  American Marketing Association, 1st place in national case study competition. Honorary board member of local chapter (2005).
   

3. •  Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, named "Student Leader of the Year" (2003).
   

4. •  ND Club Coordination Council, named "Notre Dame Student Leader of the Year" (2003).
   

5. •  Marketplace Business Simulations – 2nd place in the 2005 global business simulation competition.
   

6. •  Boy Scouts of America, Eagle Scout.  Led development of a local park.
   

7. •  Perfect attendance throughout high school (immune system of steel)
   

I love skiing, scrabble and waffles.

...and unusual fruit, green tea, Belgian beer, ND football, modern art, SEO, viral marketing, and start-ups!

Contact me.

I love to hear from old friends and people with similar interests.  Drop me a note.

© 2009 Francis Larkin