PICK YOUR POISON

Can AI make hiring more human? In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman sit down with Sonja Breuer (SVP of HR at Hamra Enterprises). Sonja reveals how conversational AI cut their hiring time from 13 days to 4 across 200+ Wendy’s, Panera, and Noodles & Company locations, slashed job ad spending, reduced ghosting, and freed up managers.

HR’s most dangerous duo, Joel and Chad, welcome 20-year corporate vet Cassell K (Amazon, Disney) to expose workplace ugly truths. They tackle the 2-million "ghost job" gap, systemic ageism pushing 50+ workers out, and why clicking "opt out" on AI hiring algorithms is resume suicide. Tune in before an ATS filters this episode out!

HR Director Jolene Hostal joins Chad & Cheese to reveal how Stanley Steemer recruits 2,500+ workers yearly. Using Paradox’s chatbot "Maria," applicants apply in under 90 seconds. With Dayforce integration and in-van tablets for field tech support, she highlights the 90-day retention milestone and why 73% of managers started on the trucks. Plus, a surprise delivery of custom swag!

HR tech meets corporate thriller on The Chad & Cheese Podcast! Joel & Chad sit down with Kristy McCann, former CEO of Skill Cycle, who got ambushed by her VC, forced to eat airport Burger King after an 8-hour interrogation, and had her $30M startup smashed to $8M. Her response? A 50-page RICO lawsuit. Don't mess with HR!

The Chad & Cheese Podcast hits the hot seat with Adam Godson, Workday’s TA General Manager. They strip down the Paradox acquisition, the impending "SAS Apocalypse," and how autonomous AI agents are turning clunky ATS platforms into basic digital filing cabinets. The takeaway? Legacy tech is dying, recruitment pricing is shifting to results, and real human connection is king.

Abercrombie meets Big Macs as Chad & Cheese roast Paradox’s Josh Secrest over frontline hiring. Speed Wins: Average hiring takes 16 days; tech does it in 3.5. Candidates apply to 25 jobs at once fastest text back wins. Stop Burning Money: If a hire quits before the 31-day break-even point, you paid for them to leave. Free the Managers: Stop wasting 12 hours a week on interview trivia.

How do you hire 3,000 seasonal coaches in just 6 weeks? Kristen Reilly, SVP of Talent at Elevo Learning, joins Chad & Cheese to share her team's incredible tech turnaround. By replacing manual grunt work with conversational AI, Elevo flipped their Day 1 staffing from 34% to 96% and sent recruiter happiness from a 16 to a 68 EMPS. Stream "Hiring Became Our Edge" now!

Chad and Joel sit down with Gustavo Serbia, CHRO at Hair Cuttery Family of Brands. Managing 6,000 stylists is a high-drama, hyper-competitive game. Discover how they used Paradox to smash hiring times from 17 days down to 3 , gamified commissions with a custom app , and harnessed AI to build instant funnel analyses. Tune in to the AI series now! We out!

Resumes are dead, and AI makes it too easy to fake skills on paper. In this episode, Chad Sowash hosts a debate on the future of hiring: Phuong Vu (Telexa) argues for "skills-first" models focused on human adaptability and real evidence. Dr. Maya Huber (TaTiO) says ditch applications entirely have candidates try out the job via live simulations first. Listen now.

High-stakes HR meets the DEA! 32-year veteran Jack McFarland talks about recruiting "Muppets" and mercenary informants, surviving 30-page typed applications, and his wild audition for The Traitors. Plus, a look at mandatory retirement at 57 and corporate ageism. It’s HR sprinkled with coke, crack, and grass. Listen now!

Chad & Joel grill Marriott’s Meghan Rhatigan on hiring 200k global workers. Trapped with a "fat funnel" and hiring managers taking 2 weeks to schedule interviews, Meghan snuck Paradox past legal by calling it "automation" instead of AI. Process dropped to 3 days! Plus, she’s weaponized a 5M candidate CRM and shaded peers stuck crying, "But we have Workday..." We out.

Patti Tabris of ResultsCX joins Chad and Cheese to reveal how AI transformed their global hiring. By deploying "Olivia," an AI assistant that answered 1.8M questions, she boosted assessment completion from 30% to 90%. Learn how she cut application times to under 6 minutes and automated 100,000 interviews to let recruiters focus on the human side of the job.

Ace Hardware’s Stef Nikitas and Kaleigh Burns join Chad & Cheese to reveal "Project Hurricane," the overhaul that scaled their TA budget from $500k to $4M. Learn how "Grace," their AI bot, automates scheduling so recruiters can focus on being human. From 2-minute apps to surviving a 10-day tech blackout , see how a 100-year-old brand wins the talent war.

How do you hire for Applebee’s, Taco Bell, and Planet Fitness with only six recruiters? Mark Gibson from Flynn Group joins Chad & Cheese to reveal "Frankie"—the AI assistant doing the heavy lifting for 2,400+ locations. From waking up to a million applicants to turning recruiters into media buyers and using TikTok for Gen Z talent, it’s a masterclass in scaling without the soul-crushing admin.

Founder Jeff Taylor joins The Chad to discuss returning to the "shit show" of recruitment with Boomband. He reveals why Monster passed on buying LinkedIn for $304M in 2003 and how his iconic Super Bowl ad drove 700% more traffic. Taylor compares today’s AI wave to the 1997 dot-com bubble and plans to disrupt the industry again by mapping 175M workers.

Jim Lawler joins Chad and Cheese to explain how the CIA recruits. Forget LinkedIn; Jim uses MICE: Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego. He targets the miserable because "happy people" don't commit treason. From stopping nuclear networks to sitting on $1B in gold, Jim proves HR is easy compared to convincing a diplomat to kick his boss in the face.

In this episode of Mallorca Talks, Chad Sowash and SmartRecruiters CEO Rebecca Carr discuss AI's future. Carr argues that corporate ego, not tech, hinders innovation by creating "walled gardens". With 120 SAP engineers, they are building an ecosystem where Slack, WhatsApp, and AI agents collaborate to free humans from admin bloat and unlock creativity.

Stop pretending your 2012-era ATS works. Recruiting is being rewritten, and the "Candidate Black Hole" is finally closing. Allyn Bailey and Chad Sowash break down why static resumes are dead and why radical transparency—from salary to real-time scoring—is the new reality. AI isn't just a tool; it’s redistributing power. If you’re still hoarding data instead of connecting it, you’ve already lost.

Join the Chad & Cheese podcast as Josh Block, author of People Matter at Work, shares how he grew a family business from $30M to $215M. Dive into the "trenches" of healthcare, the impact of AI on radiology, and why rigid HR policies fail. Discover how to build a culture where performance matters because people do. Real talk for the modern workforce.

Can AI finally kill HR friction? Chad Sowash talks with Shiran Yaroslavsky on the shift from complex dashboards to agentic workflows. Shiran breaks down "agent orchestration," waking up idle talent databases, and why AI auditing is non-negotiable for trust. From TikTok outreach to slashing ATS migration from months to weeks, learn how Shiran is architecting the future of hiring.

Mallorca, sun’s out and Rebecca Carr is burning down recruiting as we know it. ATS? Dead. AI agents? Running the show. SmartRecruiters goes from commodity to SAP power play while most companies cling to broken tech stacks. If your hiring strategy still looks like 2015… yeah, you’re already toast.

The job market is a mess. Jillian O’Malior joins Chad, Cheese, and JT to break down 600 job applications, endless interviews, ghosting recruiters, and roles that disappear after months of hiring theater. We dig into AI resume spam, shrinking salaries, ATS black holes, and why today’s hiring process makes candidates feel less human and more like data points.

Economists, Swifties, and HR chaos collide. Misty Heggeness joins the boys to talk Taylor’s economic empire, women building their own power systems, AI bias, and why trickle-down is on life support. Census Bureau nerds, pandemic wine writing, and peak Chad & Cheese snark included.

Employer branding is broken and James Ellis is here to fix it. In this episode, we torch “spray & pray” applications, call out ATS robots, and explain why pretty career sites don’t make you choosable. If you think talent is interchangeable, you’re already losing. Snark included. Egos? Not safe.