Craigslist's Billions, Monster's Layoffs
- Chad and Cheese
- Feb 8, 2019
- 30 min read
Updated: Jun 5, 2020
Damn my head still hurts... It was Super Bowl hangover week, so the boys discuss takeaways from advertising's biggest day, including winners and losers, but not the game because it totally sucked.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad: Give it to me.
Joel: Hidey-ho, boys and girls. Welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm Joel Cheeseman.
Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: On this week's show, layoffs. Layoffs. Layoffs. Layoffs at Monster. Craig and that list of his, well, he's one rich son of a gun. And we review shit from the Super Bowl. The podcast, by the way, is guaranteed to be more entertaining than the Super Bowl, by the way.
Chad: Easily.
Joel: Stay tuned, we'll be right back after a word from JobAdX
JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat.
JobAdX: Ah.
JobAdX: Job search can be frustrating. Job seekers run into the same irrelevant ads. Page after page, before they find a match. When job seekers aren't engaged, conversions are low. Budgets are wasted, jobs go unfilled. No one wins. But job search doesn't have to be defeating. JobAdX's smart search exchange references 400 data points to select the most targeted jobs, and delivers what job seekers really want to premium ad units across our network.
JobAdX: Score.
JobAdX: That's the sound of JobAdX's relevant results, attracting a qualified candidate and filling your job faster. Find out how to improve your job advertising campaigns, and increase candidate attraction and engagement by emailing us at, joinus@jobadx.com. JobAdX. Together, we can save job search.
Joel: Score.
Chad: I really think that when they talk about job search defeat, they have to remember they're on the Chad and Cheese podcast. The dude should go, "Fuck."
Joel: Oh man. It's a rainy, crappy day in Indiana.
Chad: It is. Yeah, you're gonna have to get your frickin' boat out, dude.
Joel: What's your favorite rain inspired song?
Chad: Rain inspired? I have-
Joel: Song about rain.
Chad: Song about rainy days and Mondays always get me down?
Joel: The Carpenters.
Chad: The Carpenters.
Joel: Wow.
Chad: There you go, baby.
Joel: I'm gonna go Purple Rain, little purple madness for Thursday morning. Anyway, the level might be low on energy, with all this rain and nastiness. But let's get to shout outs.
Chad: Do it. Roy Mauer over at SHRM, hey buddy. Thanks for suggesting the topic of recruiter ethics. That actually gave Joel and me an opportunity to reach out to Jim Stroud, bring him on, and if you haven't listened to the podcast, we talk about recruiter ethics.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Automation, and Jim's paranoia. I think he says "Duck, duck, go" about 37 fucking times.
Joel: Yeah, and aluminum headgear. Four or five references to that. You know, Roy is jockeying for the position of number one fanboy. And speaking of number
one, we're looking for new t-shirts.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Sponsored by Emissary.ai. We've got four pretty good designs that users, viewers, listeners can vote for.
Chad: Go to chadcheese.com, click on our logo, and it takes you right to the voting area.
Joel: I guess we're gonna run that voting for about another half week or week.
Chad: Yeah, as long as we feel good about it.
Joel: Yeah. If there's clear winner, we'll close it down and get those shirts made.
Chad: Yeah. And if it's not the one I like, we're gonna keep it open for fucking ever.
Joel: Exactly.
Chad: Shout out to Tris Revill, who said he was dead impressed after getting finally getting around to listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Thanks, Tris.
Joel: And you might need some therapy, but that's a different discussion. I'm gonna go rapid fire here, George Laroque, Jim Stroud, and Thom-
Chad: Kenney.
Joel: Spacing on his name, yeah Tom Kenny, who we interviewed, and also Josh Wright from [Cims, their head economist. We've just been cranking out quality podcasts, and this week was really great, so be on the lookout for those coming up soon, but some great topics and some really smart people come on our show for some reason.
Chad: Yeah. Well, it's nice because we're knuckleheads. Shout outs, and this will probably, probably be the only one ever, so ... get ready. To the recruiting animal. He actually dug up, like in the web archives, our first podcasting gold moment, back in 2008, when we did our very first podcast. When you had to listen to it on your PC, because you didn't have podcasts on your phone back then.
Joel: Did it actually have the old embed code, on that site?
Chad: It didn't. The hipster, the hipster [crosstalk 00:05:16] like dumped all that shit, yeah.
Joel: So you couldn't listen to it, it was just there?
Chad: He was just proving that ... that we had actually, I think at one time, compared our show, our first shows, to recruiting animal, and saying that it was less WWE style.
Joel: I'd agree with that.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So was he, was he dissing us, or like, giving us props?
Chad: No, I think he's giving us props. I mean, it doesn't matter, I'm gonna say he was giving us props anyway, so.
Joel: I mean, he's very angry, so I never expect to hear anything complimentary from him, so.
Chad: And he's Canadian, right? I mean, how the fuck is he, I mean, he's like the only angry Canadian.
Joel: They can get angry, trust me. I won't go any further than that. But they, some of them do have tempers.
Chad: Noted. Noted.
Joel: Some of them hold grudges, too. But that's a different story.
Chad: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So thanks also to Josh Vesley, for letting us know that Indeed does, in fact, have pot jobs. Or pot job listings, rather.
Joel: Yes. As does Monster, as does Zip Recruiter, as does most of them. So, so this is strange. So I did a little bit of investigation, because it's still illegal, right. It's still a federal law that pot is not legal, right? So I went to Zip Recruiter, I went to Indeed, although they didn't reply. Shocker. And then Monster. And yes, they all post pot jobs, and they don't have a policy against it, but then I asked, okay well, if I'm in Nevada, and want to advertise, you know, my brothel for like escort positions ... no, I'm being serious, right? Like it's legal in Nevada-
Chad: Yeah, it is.
Joel: But it's federally illegal. So technically I should be able to post my prostitution job wherever it's legal, based on what their reply was. But they do not, they do not advertise prostitution jobs on these job sites. So it's a little bit of a double standard, where, you know, they're having their cake on the weed side, but then protecting their ass, pun intended, on the prostitution side. So I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna, I'm interested in this. I'm gonna try to call the feds or somebody, and say like, why is it legal for them to post pot jobs on their websites? And see if I can get an answer. But they all do it.
Chad: Dude.
Joel: And they all have legal teams that say it's okay, so something in the law makes it okay, although I think it's a little bit of a double standard. Things that make you go, hmm.
Chad: Yeah, you're digging deep there, man. So did you see this Fortnite like concert that happened, like last week or what have you? There like, over a million people showed up for a concert at Fortnite. Did you see this?
Joel: I saw the story. I'm not on Fortnite. My son is addicted, so I see him today, I'm gonna ask him, like did he go or did he hear about it. Fortnite is genius.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: My son's spending his allowance on stupid shit, virtual stuff, but this concert was genius, right? Like so, you're selling, I guess they sold sponsorships to the concert, people attended.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And then they fought each other after the concert was over or something, but like this whole virtual second life, version 2.0 or whatever, is pretty cool. So I don't, I saw the story, I think it's cool, but I don't know a ton about it.
Chad: It's very Ready Player One-ish, right. Which is really cool, but so I threw out there, was like, cool, we should do something on Fortnite with Chad and Cheese, and Birch, over at TextRecruit, he said he wants us to have a Fortnite battle royale. Which would be really cool, because we could have startups literally fight each other, in Fortnite.
Joel: Considering our audience, the number of people who would actually understand that, and get it, would be pretty low.
Chad: We are branching out, my friend.
Joel: However, virtual battles against startups in our industry is a pretty cool idea.
Chad: I do like it.
Joel: Yeah. And by the way, Ready Player One was virtual reality, which you hate on, so the fact that you said that means you secretly love virtual reality.
Chad: I secretly love virtual reality. I just don't love the thought of putting on goggles and looking like an idiot while doing it.
Joel: Hey, we're all gonna look like idiots. It's all good.
Chad: It's okay. Are you done with shout outs?
Joel: I'm done with shout outs, and it was nice [segue 00:09:42] actually, to talk about video games, because we're gonna go into the Super Bowl and talk about some of the ads that we liked, around employment, kinda sorta.
Chad: Kinda sorta.
Joel: So, so I give you props, your prediction on the score was closer than mine. But yeah, congratulations, I think your prediction of 14 to 28 was closer than my 31 to 35 prediction.
Chad: Yeah, I thought 14 to 28 was just, I was trying to go lower than yours.
Joel: Yeah, you were playing the Price Is Right game.
Chad: Yeah. And that was just, it was fucking horrible. And the ads, for the most part, were horrible as well. We do have a couple that we wanted to talk about that, you know, that are from companies that are now in our industry. But yeah, the ads, that was horrible. That was literally horrible. It made me not want to watch football for a while.
Joel: I don't believe that. But yes, I would agree that the ads were pretty forgettable. I did like the Tom Brady handing Baker Mayfield his rings, and saying, "Hold these for me", was pretty good. But there were a few ads that were on the line of sort of employment related-ish, and some that were definitely directly employment related-ish.
Joel: Let's start with Microsoft. You have some strong feelings about that
one.
Chad: Well, I mean, we're seeing more of these pull at your heartstrings commercials lately, and Microsoft, in this commercial, grabs those strings, yanks them out of your, your heart out of your chest with the we all win commercial, which stars kids with disabilities. Really cool. One of the dads, right out of the gate, says, you know, playing video games is his son's way of interacting with his friends, because he can't physically interact. Go out and play Frisbee, or football, or what have you. But playing video games with their friends makes kids happy. I mean, I remember when I had my, the Atari, or hell, back in Pong days. Dude, friends would come over, we would fucking love it, dude.
Chad: But these kids, the regular controllers just didn't work for them. So one of the kids actually said, you know, I never thought it was unfair that these controllers really didn't work for us, I just thought that it's the way that it was, and that it would never change. Then, here comes the heartstrings moment. Then, they start unboxing the Microsoft adaptive controllers, and all the kids are like, wait. You mean, you actually thought of us? Like they're not outsiders anymore.
Chad: And from that standpoint, you know, as we take a look at this as human beings, and as we take a look at this as human resources, you know, this is a strong message that accommodations should be universal for everybody. And to make it easier for individuals with disabilities to actually get jobs, to be able to do whatever we do, just makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. And they did this with kids, which obviously just pulls at you pretty hard.
Joel: Yeah, of course, my snarky ass thought, you know, every level of ability should be able to sit on the couch and get fat. But.
Chad: We already have enough of that.
Joel: Because my kid plays nonstop. And it destroys me. Anyway, I love these commercials, although they weren't employment related specifically. I think that obviously people like working for companies that do good.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And we'll talk a little bit about that in another segment on the show, but you talk about millennials, and we do a lot on the show, and how much they want to make a difference, they want to work for something that means something bigger than themselves. And these ads aren't directly recruiting related, but people want to work for companies that are doing good things. And indirectly-
Chad: You can get behind that.
Joel: It's gonna be a great recruiting video, for sure.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah. You can get behind that brand. I mean, who's looking at it and saying, oh they're doing stuff for individuals with disabilities, I mean nobody's doing that. They're like, oh, that's cool as shit.
Joel: Yeah, like I want to be a part of that.
Chad: Yeah, exactly. So that, I agree. And that, from my standpoint, your brand is your employment brand. I don't believe that there is an quote unquote employment brand, per se. Your brand, this, that what you saw in that video, that was your fucking employment brand.
Joel: Yeah. A little bit like, it reminded me of the Audi commercial a couple years ago where the guy's-
Chad: Oh, dude.
Joel: Daughter is doing the soap box race.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Like, what am I supposed to tell my daughter, you know. And you and I both have daughters, I'm choking up here as I'm thinking about it, but like, yeah. I want to do some good for the world, and my employer should be a vessel to do that.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: The other ad that we wanted to talk about was, it was great because my neighbor across the street was in the navy, and he came over for some beers and food, and to watch the game. And this is the Google vet jobs ad that came on. They start showing these numbers, these sequences of numbers, and I, as a not military guy, have no idea what these numbers mean.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: And my neighbor's like, oh yeah, that's navy. Like, oh yeah, that's such and such. And he gets it. So anyone, I assume anyone that's in the military automatically saw that, and said military. And they connected with it. So as he's saying that, I'm thinking, oh shit, I bet this is the Google vet job search ad. So sure enough, it is. And I thought it was brilliant, in that it connected with military people, and not like the outsider, so it was sort of that, you know, we speak that secret language that only military people speak.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: And then obviously, most people have a military person in their life, so it connected on that level. Again, Google's doing good, they're helping vets get jobs, so you have that sort of emotional good theme as well. And by the way, they also advertised in that segment, like, you can search for jobs on Google.
Chad: Yes. Yes. Two points carried very far on that. Number one, this is great fucking PR. Who doesn't love freedom, and our veterans, right? Hell yeah, Google. Hell yeah. Right. Fuck yeah. And then number two, they're slow rolling promotion that Google now does job search, right? So they're not just getting into it and saying find a job on Google. They're like, they're doing it behind a brand that everybody's like, oh yeah, that's kick ass. That is frickin' awesome. Oh wait a minute, you can look for jobs on
Google?
Chad: So they're starting, it looks like they're starting to kinda slow roll this thing, which is really cool. We could have a whole segment on, you know, the military occupation code crossover and how that actually works, and if it's worth a shit, whatnot. But we're not gonna get into that.
Joel: Yeah. And I also think anyone who is suspicious that Google isn't serious about this whole jobs thing, you know, dropping two and a half [mill 00:16:33] or whatever it is for a 30 second spot in the Super Bowl should convince you otherwise. And by the way, Google doesn't advertise, historically, that much, unless it's Android or some big sort of projects. Or, so the fact that they did it for jobs, part of their search functionality, is pretty special for people that are watching Google.
Chad: Amazing PR, and amazing way to start to slow roll a promotion of, hey guess what mother fuckers? Yeah, we're doing job search.
Joel: So another ad that was very subtly employment related, you might not have even remembered seeing it, was for Bumble, the dating app, staring Serena Williams.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It was a pretty good ad, and then at the end, it showed all the different Bumble ... I don't know, services? So Bumble, the dating app, is obviously the most well known. But they have Bumble BFF, where you can just make friends with people, and not have sex with them, I guess, or try to have sex with them. And then they have Bumble Bizz, which has been promoted as a LinkedIn competitor, although it hasn't gotten a lot of ... it hasn't gotten a lot of buzz, see what I did there. It was advertised. So very, very quickly and subtly, Bumble Bizz, a LinkedIn competitor, was advertised on the Super Bowl.
Chad: Yeah. So, I mean, Bumble trying to push all these different, kind of like, systems of women's networking, and kind of controlling who they actually connect with, which I think is pretty cool. But yeah, we'll see what happens on the actual job side of the house. I'm not very bullish on that.
Joel: Well, the problem with Bumble Bizz is, like, the number of married, or men in a relationship, who will join this site is, there's a ceiling. Because I'm not gonna get caught, with my wife, with Bumble on my phone, even if it is Bizz, I'm gonna be in deep trouble. And I'm sure I'm not alone on that.
Chad: Yeah, no. I never even thought of that, because I never thought of even joining it.
Joel: However, something I won't get in trouble being on is Sovren.com. Let's hear a quick word from them, and we'll talk about layoffs. Layoffs.
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Chad: Although I think your wife, at this point, would probably be pretty suspicious, because you keep listening to this ... commercial over and over.
Joel: Oh, Sovren? Yeah, yeah. The sexy voice at Sovren. We're gonna be in Austin soon, are we gonna try to meet the mysterious voice behind the Sovren ads?
Chad: That's not, that's not the whole intent. I'd love to be able to get with, obviously, the entire, the Sovren crew-
Joel: Oh, the whole team, for sure.
Chad: And have some bourbon. God, you gotta get better at this.
Joel: I am awesome at this. I'm really awesome at reporting layoffs in our industry, so yesterday word started to sprinkle in the morning that Monster was laying off some folks. We here in Indianapolis have a Monster office, so it hit ears pretty quickly and word spread from there. I reached out to the company, to our friend Kate Rambo, over at PR there. So she was really accommodating with information, basically on a global level, Monster is laying off approximately 5% of their workforce. It's pretty typical that, you know, new CEO, new executives come in, you know, they sort of get a lay of the land. And then they figure out who can we fire, who do we need to fire, you know, how do we cut some fat, how do we refocus.
Joel: So I think on one end, you could say that's what Monster's doing, I mean, 5% isn't a draconian cut in the company. But some people are pointing to a lack of innovation, a lack of moving fast enough, or having maybe mismanaged expectations from the executive side, versus the employee side. In other words, the executives are talking about redefining resumes and videos, you know, Instagram for jobs. And the people in the trenches, it's like sell, sell, sell.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Sell the job postings, sell the products, and there's sort of a disconnect. So this may be more epidemic to a bigger problem, I guess we'll wait and see.
Chad: Monster was acquired by Randstad in August of 2016, then executive heads rolled. They have new fresh faces in, including a new CEO, and you know, the cool thing for them is they have inherited a major recruitment industry brand, right?
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Not to mention there's a ton of technology that's in the closet from positions over the years, like Trovix, Jobr, Goziak, Talentbin, and there's even more. And that sounds like a perfect opportunity, on its face, right? But a good amount of that, I would assume, actually comes with a shit ton of technical debt. And actually trying to get products rolled out. And from my standpoint, you know, from the outside looking in, all we've seen is we've seen kind of like a refresh of the search, and a de-NASCARizing of the platform.
Chad: That's one thing, right? Oh yeah, we kicked our ads out, which means revenue, number one, let's put that out there. That means revenue. But it's a better UI, better UX, but still they're kicking revenue out. Then, really the only big thing that we've heard is this, the video partnership with VideoMyJobs, which I think is cool, but this is an added value. So they are sinking time and money into something that's going to be an added value. Once again, that's revenue that they have to get back on retention, creating a stickier product, and hoping, I mean, this is ... what I see here is a gamble. Hoping that people use this, because adoption is a bitch.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: They're getting their jobs fed into the system via XML feed, in most cases. Now somebody's gonna have to go in, create a video, and plunk it into the job that's already into the system. Right? So there's an extra step that has to happen in a system outside of what they're already touching anyway. That's hard, man. So will video kill the job boards star?
Joel: Boo.
Chad: That's a good Buggles.
Joel: I've thought for a long time that Monster has a knife in a gun fight. And that they're trying to, you know, leverage the brand that they still kind of enjoy, the traffic, and I'm sure the resumes and email blasts that they still send out on a regular basis.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But from an innovation standpoint, to compete against Google, LinkedIn, Indeed, et cetera, I just think it's a losing battle, and I think, you know, partnering with folks to provide technology is probably just, again it's just not enough. Too little, too late, if you will. You know, we talked to them at HR Tech, and they talked about having an app store similar to the iPhone, or the iTunes store, where people can make apps on top of Monster. And that's all very cool stuff, and I think that would be very good for their brand, and very good for their, you know, engagement and traffic, and all kinds of stuff. But we haven't seen it. Granted, HR Tech was in October.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So less than six months ago, so you gotta give them some time. But yeah, I would certainly like to see more innovation rolled out more quickly. The studios product was beta since October, I guess-
Chad: No, this week. This week. It just rolled out-
Joel: But it started in beta, right? So it's been in beta for a while.
Chad: No, it hasn't. It just launched, they made the announcement in October. It went beta this week with 120 companies.
Joel: Because when we interviewed them, didn't they say they had 100 companies using it?
Chad: It went beta this week with the [crosstalk 00:24:50]. The very first video going into a job, on the Monster platform, this week. And it was for a Monster compliance job. So, I mean, that's the thing, is that, you know, that's a pretty long window.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And from an anticipation standpoint, a market anticipation standpoint, it's like, okay, great. What's it gonna cost, how can I buy it? And it's like, well it's free, it's gonna be added value. Okay, how do I use it? Well, guess what. It's months later.
Chad: But back to layoffs piece, I mean, if you think of it, just from a timing standpoint, budgeting happens latter part of the year, everything's kind of shored up the first part of the year, and last year, I have to check my numbers, but I don't think Monster hit their 2018 numbers. I think this is, these hundred plus individuals are affording Monster a little more runway, but the problem is, the problem is for me, the only product that I see that they have out there is this new Monster studios product. And ... that's for 2019. What else are they gonna launch in 2019?
Joel: Well, we'll have to see.
Chad: Product wise? Dude, I don't think they have anything.
Joel: I think your skepticism is certainly well warranted. If it took them that long to launch a video product that they've actually partnered with someone that's actually already done it-
Chad: Yeah, they didn't even have to build it.
Joel: It's more or less an integration play than an actual building play. You know, to roll out an app store seems really, really aggressive.
Chad: You've got tech like Trovix that's matching, right? Either that is like old, semantic search that's shit, and they just scrapped it, or what have you, but they have all these different things, and if they can't use what's in the closet, they still have to partner to be able to innovate. Because it has to happen, and they don't have the cash that they used to. And Randstad, very focused on the ebida, right?
Joel: Yeah, as you know.
Chad: They're looking at frickin' margins, dude, so right now, here's my only thing. They've gotta generate revenue. The only way they can generate revenue is to be able to put products out there that will excite the market, right? And this added value, to a product that they already have, I don't know if that's it. But to be quite frank, I think that's the only horse they have in the race right now.
Joel: Yeah, I mean, you know Randstad better than I do, because you work there, but I'm guessing that, you know, like big, bold acquisitions aren't ... aren't on the playbook at this time.
Chad: Not for Monster.
Joel: Yeah. So it's not like they can go innovate by buying innovation.
Chad: Exactly. I mean, it would have to be a pretty big play. And a side note, I mean, Linda Galipeau, who's the CEO of Randstad North America, she is a power player. And she just left a few months ago. So, I mean, I don't know if that has anything to do with it, it's more coincidence, but it's really ... it's an interesting story that's starting to be pieced together from that side.
Joel: And we'll be here to continue reporting on it.
Chad: Amen, brother.
Joel: Well, someone not hurting for money ...
Chad: Craig.
Joel: Yeah, Craig. So this story just ... it impresses me as much as it baffles me. So Craigslist, everyone knows, listening to this. Started in the mid-90s, I think they're 28 years old or some shit like that now. Started as an email list for Craig Newmark, a nerdy kind of dude from San Francisco, or in San Francisco, and it grew into this just crazy successful classified site. They charge between like $5 and $75 for job postings, and listing your rental, or asking for services at home. Anyway, [AIM Group 00:28:40], who has been reporting on Craigslist forever, talks about the revenue that they make, and AIM Group basically goes in and looks at how many listings, and they probably conservatively get to a number for annual revenue that Craigslist comes to, and-
Chad: Right.
Joel: This is the first year that Craigslist surpassed the one billion dollar mark in their history. So you know, that's a ton of money for a 50 person company. They're not a non-profit, even though they have a .org at the end of their name. They've taken no venture capital. I mean, like I don't know what they're doing with all this money, but it's a ton of money that they're just stashing away between Craig and their, I think Buckmaster is the COO. Basically Craig got sick of managing it, so he gave a big chunk of the company to this guy.
Joel: So between those two, like you think of the money that they're making, it's just ridiculous. If they spend a hundred million dollars a year in servers and legal shit, employees, I mean, they're still banking 900 million dollars a year, it's crazy.
Chad: I tell you what's crazy, go to Craigslist, it hasn't changed.
Joel: Not much.
Chad: It hasn't changed, dude. It is, it looks like a site, literally, from the late 90s. It hasn't changed. And it's just simple.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: And just really easy to use, you put your stuff out there, people use it. I mean, it baffles me that Facebook hasn't engulfed all this revenue.
Joel: Well they're going to try, and they will get a piece of it. You know, I talked to Peter Zollman over at AIM, and you know, the report that they did, it's really good. Really well done. But Craigslist traffic continues to go down. Like year over year, the traffic gets lower, but the revenues get higher, because they can charge for stuff that they didn't before. Or the traffic is more quality than it was before, the listings are more real because you're charging more money. Like people won't spam as much if it's paid, or if you pay to put listings on, so the traffic continues to go down, but the money continues to go up. So it's a very, it's just an interesting story, because it's literally just, it's like 50 people in a, you know, a low rent San Francisco place.
Joel: I think Craig, what Peter told me is, he has a home in New York and a home in San Francisco. So it's not like he's living, you know, the thug life with yachts in Fiji or anything. So, man.
Chad: I would attribute a lot of their traffic fall from them actually wiping out the personal ads on the site.
Joel: That's very true.
Chad: I mean, those are gone. Those are gone, right?
Joel: In 2010, like every escort, prostitution, whatever ad was gone. And I think part of back to why weed is okay but prostitution isn't, is there was a law passed that you couldn't advertise online for services like escorts.
Chad: It's not just that they're not allowed to advertise in the personals, the whole personals is gone.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: I mean they just wiped it out. They said, well fuck this, we're not messing with it. And some of it actually had to do with human trafficking and things that were happening on Craigslist, so.
Joel: Yeah, and I'm sure that's a ton of traffic as well as money, but if you get rid of that, you know, that aspect of your site, people feel more comfortable going to it, they feel more comfortable spending money on it.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: So they're a huge winner. I mean, when we talk about Dice, and CareerBuilder, and Monster, and these guys, like Craigslist has just chugged along, grown organically, done it right. And by the way, the site being almost all text, aside from photos selling stuff, like it's super fast, search engines love it. Like going mobile was a big innovation at Craigslist.
Chad: It's interesting because going from Craigslist to something entirely different, and ... we don't think is being incredibly innovative, but it seems to be because it's drawn a lot of users-
Joel: Yeah. And money.
Chad: Slack. And now they have, yeah, and money. And they have a new competitor, which is called Mattermost. Now you posted about this, tell us about, who is Mattermost?
Joel: Yep. So you and I have always, I think, talked about how ridiculous Slack is, because it's messaging. I mean, it's fancy messaging, you have groups, and teams, and however they want to play it, but it's essentially just text going back and forth between people. I've been doing that on chats, and texting, and stuff for a long time, so I look at this industry a little bit like blogging 15, 20 years ago. So if you wanted to blog or publish stuff online back in the early 2000s, you had to use a service like Typepad, Blogger, et cetera, and you usually paid, you know, 10, 20 bucks a month to put your stuff out there and publish it. And then WordPress came along and said, we're open source, we're free, just download us and you're good to go.
Joel: So then it was like, okay, so what is Typepad's real differentiator, there
really wasn't one. So people migrated to WordPress because it was free.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: And you had, like, apps, and plugins, and people were developing stuff for it for free. So it was only a matter of time before Slack, we're gonna start seeing free options, Mattermost, who got 20 million dollars this month, it's a free open source messaging app. Just like Slack. And companies like Uber are using it, they mention a few other big names, but ultimately I think this is bad for Slack, because it becomes a commodity. And what really separates you from anything else, maybe they're banking on it being, you know, their app store and developing on Slack. Maybe they're gonna be more and more competitive with Microsoft, and have, you know, office products or maybe they'll have job postings, or a way to hire through Slack, or do HR benefits and stuff like that.
Joel: But yeah, it's gonna be a tough market for Slack. They need to innovate, they're gonna go public, so they'll have money. But we're gonna see a lot more free options to plug in a messaging app for your workforce. Smaller companies will adopt this stuff. And it'll be interesting to see how it plays out for Slack, but I tend to think it won't be a good thing.
Chad: Yeah. So Teams, obviously, is kicking ass and taking names, because it's a part of Microsoft Suite.
Joel: And Facebook, too.
Chad: Yeah. So it, just waiting for somebody to gobble these fuckers up.
Joel: We've been waiting for two years, and it hasn't happened. Unless, unless-
Chad: Nope.
Joel: The eleventh hour somebody's gonna back up the Brinks truck, these guys are gonna go public, and we'll see how it shakes out.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: And speaking of messaging, let's hear a quick word from Canvas, and we'll talk about ... jeez, all kinds of good stuff about employee retention and recruiting.
Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent, text based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen, and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center, while Canvas Bot is at your side, adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day.
Canvas: Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video, or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy, and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at gocanvas.io, and in 20 minutes, we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent.
Joel: Dude, you need to chill on the Bitmojis in business type emails. It's cute when you send it to me one to one, but man, when you ... have just a big list of professional people, and you throw off Bitmojis, it's really embarrassing. I ... it's hard for me to associate with someone like that.
Chad: They love it. They love every, dude, our logo is like a couple of Charlie Brown figures, for God's sakes. Jesus. I mean, come on.
Joel: Dude, you remember when Walmart was like the Death Star, destroying Middle America and destroying the mom and pop businesses? Thankfully Amazon came along to take that mantra from them, I guess, and Walmart is like ... saving Middle America. With our first story today, we talked about them recently with truckers and paying them more, and giving them all love. So now Walmart is loving on their current employees with paid time off, paid sick days. Walmart just may save Middle America.
Chad: Yeah. So 48 hours of paid time. I mean, we're talking about, you know, obviously, a lot of part timers. 25% on quarterly bonuses for spotless attendance, I mean, so what they're saying is, hey look, if you don't have to take the time, then obviously that goes toward bonuses and those types of things. So they have incentives that are on there. But yeah, take a look at the job market. Yes, is Walmart doing this out of the goodness of their heart? Probably not, I mean, they're paying truckers more because they want to ... they want to suck all the oxygen out of the actual market. They want all the truckers, you know, fuck you Amazon. Get your drones ready, right?
Joel: Yeah. That's exactly what it is.
Chad: And what they're doing here is they know that they have to do more to be able to retain in a very, very, very tight labor market. So yes, is this smart for them? I agree 100%. I don't know if they're doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
Joel: Well, goodness is good recruiting. 20 minutes from here is a town called Greenwood, Indiana. Greenwood, Indiana is a building a ... literally almost a Death Star looking warehouse for Amazon. Where do you think they're gonna try to get employees? Walmart, right.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: Like Amazon is gonna hire a bunch of people and Walmart needs to fight that by keeping these folks at Walmart.
Chad: Competition's good, man. There's no question. And I've said on several podcasts that we shop at Walmart for groceries, because they have that whole pickup thing. You do your shopping online, you roll up, they put the food in, and you don't have to actually go shopping. Right? I mean, and that's amazing. And that was, obviously, a direct response to Amazon, being able to deliver food to your front door.
Chad: So yeah, no, I see that happening. The thing that gets me, though, is the whole economics of the wage thing. You know, it's almost like companies like Walmart are starting to understand to, just starting, that more money in the economy gives the US more spending power. Which means we can buy more shit. And in this case, if you buy more shit at Walmart, right? So I mean, it just, from my standpoint, I have never understood we don't need to raise wages, because those raising of the wages actually does great for the economy overall. It bolsters the economy.
Joel: And this is, this is not government forced, right. This is a company saying we're gonna pay more to keep our best talent in the door-
Chad: And we'll see how they act when the economy and the actual job market starts to loosen up. That is when you will see the real character of these organizations.
Joel: You'll see the yellow smiley face turn [frowny 00:40:06] all of a sudden. With a shank in its hands. Well, speaking of bad PR, Facebook has had its bout with government and privacy, and all kinds of good stuff. So they're trying to, they're taking a little different tact with their employees, in that it was announced, or reported, this week that they're giving bonuses based on doing social good.
Chad: There are employees who have left, and I'm sure right now actually contemplating leaving, because of the stupid shit that Facebook has done. They've covered up, they've deflected, and they don't want to be a part of a brand like that, right? We're talking about Microsoft earlier, we're talking about Google earlier, actually trying to get that brand moving forward. I think this is an attempt to be able to do that. Hey, go out, do your thing, you know, social good, we're all about it. You know? I think, again, this is just a PR play, but if it helps them, then good for them.
Joel: Previous bonuses and whatnot were tied to, you know, performance. Like it usually is.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Such as user growth, right? Are we adding users, et cetera. I'm not sure how they're gonna measure how many Facebook employees and Facebook t-shirts were out building Habitat for Humanity houses. Hopefully for Facebook, this whole like do good and make commissions and bonuses will work out, but I don't know. It sounds kinda like black magic to me.
Chad: We take a look at their actions moving forward, especially in things that matter. Some of these governmental processes and being able to kick quote unquote fake news, or disinformation campaigns to the curb ... that's one piece. Not to mention also kick out all these fake accounts, you know. If they were getting bonuses on all these fucking fake accounts that were being created, then that means no wonder they stopped that shit.
Joel: Yeah, like make some new filters for fake news. Or make, like, yeah, do some good tech around that stuff, and we'd be a lot happier than social good. Whatever that means.
Chad: That's a good point. Social good.
Joel: Social good. So our third story of employee retention and recruitment goes to UNUM.
Chad: UNUM.
Joel: They're betting that their workforce will pass on time off, or vacation days, for payment towards student loans.
Chad: They afford 28 days a year, which is ... is more-
Joel: Very generous.
Chad: Yeah, which is more than the usual, right? So it's up to five days that they'll allow cash in. And yeah, I mean, if, if you really don't need those days, and you're the type of person who has days left over, then yeah. And as a matter of fact, if you do, and you don't have college debt, or you don't have a kid who has college debt, then shit, they should allow you to actually push that to somebody else, you know?
Joel: So apparently the average debt, student debt right now is around 32 thousand dollars.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: The max that you can get from this UNUM benefit is 1200 dollars per year, so if my math is right, you just have to work at UNUM for about 33 years to pay off that student debt, so get tucked in, boys and girls, because you're gonna be in for the long haul.
Chad: Yeah. I think companies ... the ones that are actually looking at paying off debt, or actually paying for school, to be able to help their employees really close that skills gap, that's going to be incredibly important. This is kinda like nickel and diming, but shit, I mean it's better than nothing. But, but corporate America, I mean, we really need to focus on these skills gaps issues that we've had for over a decade. Whether it's in the blue collar side, whether it's on the white collar development, or whatever it might be, we can't wait for government to actually come up with programs to do this shit. We, and not to mention, these employees are the ones that are making profit for you. So why the fuck is the government doing this in the first place, right?
Chad: You should be focused on that. And that should be job one, because if you don't have the right talent, you're not gonna be able to get the product out the door, or the code launched, or what have you. That should be the focus.
Joel: We agree. I will add that UNUM should increase the number, the longer time you're at the company.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I think that's all we got, man. We out.
Chad: We out.
Cole: I'm Cole Cheeseman, and rhymes with Joel, so my dad can easily remember who I am. Thank you for listening to my dad and his follically challenged friend Chad. Make sure you subscribe to this show on iTunes, Google, eight track cassette tapes, or wherever you enjoy podcasts. And be sure to support our sponsors, because if you don't, I'll get angry, and you don't like when I'm angry.
Feffer: Such an asshole.
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