ERE caught up with Joel Cheesman at the ERE Expo Tuesday, a day before what Cheesman calls “The Main Event.”

ERE: “Would you say there are job boards here at the Expo that might not be around in a few years?”

JC: “Yes, I think a lot are going to have problems. Globally, the economy is strong. So, the same economic tragedy of 9/11 isn’t going to happen, but everything I hear is a lot of the verticals are having trouble making money.”

ERE: “If one vertical job board is going to survive, which is it?”

JC: “Of the three that came out in 2005, Jobster, SimplyHired, and Indeed, from an outsider’s perspective, it’s Indeed. They are true to their core, run by guys who know the industry, and they stayed small. They are also doing the best job driving search traffic. Jobster has done a good job with profiles. So it’s driving some traffic. But I would venture to say times are tough for all three. Indeed has $20 million. But Paul Forrester told me they had 200 clients. So let’s say, on average, they’re making $1,000 per client, per month. That’s a $2.4 million business. A lot of local job sites are pulling that in. So, to me, that tells me Indeed is not taking off.”

ERE: “And this is the strongest?”

JC: “I said survive, not that it’s the strongest of the three. I like to think they all have exit strategies. Whether that is to sell to someone or exist under different management, time will tell.”

ERE: “What are the companies you are referring to, that need exit strategies? Any certain genre, such as job boards or social networking?”

JC: “I would say Jobster is probably hurting. Common sense tells you that when you give stuff away for free, you’re not evolving into a profitable company.

ERE: “What is Jobster — a referral company, a networking site for candidates, or something else?”

JC: “That’s one of the questions I might ask Jason Goldberg tomorrow. If you polled everyone here and asked them about Jobster’s position, you would get a different answer from everyone.”

ERE: “And SimplyHired?”

JC: “With SimplyHired, a lot of things they have done are out of reaction to things not being great, like throwing up banner ads that are not targeted. Selling jobs is hard. It’s convincing an HR person why they should use your site. SimplyHired’s relationship with MySpace is interesting, but it needs to make money. In the grand scheme of News Corp., it’s not that big. I think MySpace is going into classified space.”

ERE: “Is Jobster getting together with Facebook or MySpace?”

JC: “I don’t see why. Jobster is a great board, with great financial backing. For example, they have some Microsoft connections. Microsoft is in a buying frenzy. The time might be right to go to Microsoft and say, ‘Take your live expo and add in social networking.’ They’re still ticked about Murdoch getting MySpace.”