top of page
Indeed Wave.PNG
Parental Advisory.jpg
Color-YouTube-logo.jpg
Apple Podcast.png
Spotify.png

iCIMS Throat-Punches Indeed


Feel the love on this Valentine's Day episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Let the boys buy you a drink and weave tales of...

- iCIMS data showing Indeed getting throat-punched by Google for Jobs

- and how LinkedIn's hip-to-be-square strategy is failing with Millennials.

We love ya' long time, just like our sponsors, Sovren, Canvas and JobAdX.

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.

Joel: Happy Valentine’s day all you lovers out there. Get ready to get all warm and fuzzy. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most romantic and devilishly sexy if I do say so myself.

Chad: Oh, yeah.

Joel: I'm Joel Cupid Cheesman.

Chad: And I'm Chad Barry White Sowash.

Joel: Oh, Jesus. This week Chad gets to give George LaRocque a big FU. Jobvite backs up the Brink's truck and millennials are showing no love to LinkedIn.

Chad: Fuck.

Joel: Fucking millennials. Grab your overpriced roses, a bottle of Merlot, and get cozy lovebirds. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

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 spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow.

Canvas: Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off the Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiters' 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: Chad Barry White Sowash. Good Lord.

Chad: Oh yeah baby.

Joel: Yeah, dude. Happy Valentine's Day.

Chad: Oh, yeah.

Joel: Any big plans?

Chad: Oh, yeah. A little love with my wife. But yeah, I already have the roses, the chocolate dip, strawberries, all that stuff has been done this morning. I'll make sure to keep it real and keep it romantic the entire weekend because that's how we do things here in the Sowash residence.

Joel: That's very troubling, very troubling. I'm having my mom, all three kids and I think Tacos tonight is our Valentine's Day. Tomorrow is date night, however. We're getting the babysitter. We're going to do one of those rooms where you get locked in and you got to a ... What's it called?

Chad: Escape room or something.

Joel: Escape room, yeah. We're doing escape room some dinner and drinks. Yeah, just chilling out a little bit. When you have a two-year-old, those lovely moments are few and far between. So, we'll take advantage of it as best we can. But we're traveling next week, so there's nothing too crazy.

Chad: Traveling next week to Banff to go to The Gathering, bitches.

Joel: Most of our audience is saying, "What the hell is Banff and what the hell's The Gathering?"

Chad: Yeah, most people know what Banff is because it is this picturesque postcard. Wherever you turn, it looks like a postcard. It's just fucking gorgeous. It's in the Canadian Rockies. It's interesting that in talking to recruitment marketers and telling them about The Gathering, and then them checking out the website that none of them had heard of it, number one because it is about brand. We're talking about cult brands right, but none of these guys knew of it and they won't be there. I know you're jelly mother fuckers. That's right.

Joel: It's mostly a vacation, I think, at this point, although Indeed is going to be there. So Indeed Canada, maybe. Maybe some Workopolis folks. I don't know. We'll have to get all like Geraldo on them and try and get them in an interview while we're there.

Chad: It's interesting too because we're going to Banff this coming week and Indeed Canada I mean they pretty much love us. It's the people in Austin that I think don't like us as much. We're going to Austin the last week for a super-secret project that we can't tell anybody about.

Joel: Our rest of the month is an Indeed sandwich basically. We've got Canada up top and Austin at the bottom, which could be interesting.

Chad: Oh yeah.

Joel: Happy Valentine's Day to us.

Chad: No shit, man.

Joel: All right, dude. I got one main shout out I got to get it out there. Shout out to El Chapo baby.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: My man was found guilty on all 10 counts, drug trafficking, coercion, cocaine, everything. El Chapo, as many know who're integral to the show for one thing and really frankly I just wanted to play this soundbite from CareerBuilder as most people know. Please enjoy.

CB Dude: Lastly, trip. Yes, there will be a trip. I just don't know when and where yet. As soon as I will know, you will know, and know this, we're not sleeping on this. It's not like we're not focused.

Chad: We're not sleeping on this.

CB Dude: We actually had a trip done and sold out three weeks ago. We had a great hotel in Cabo. We had dates confirmed.

Chad: What happened?

CB Dude: The problem is Cabo has become completely destabilized.

Chad: Oh, shit.

CB Dude: Literally, this holiday season, they've had over 50,000 reservations canceled. Evidently, when El Chapo was incarcerated, the code of ethics that he instilled in Cabo, Mexico has gone away.

Chad: This code of ethic.

CB Dude: There's no code of ethics. There's no code of honor. All of a sudden, there's a war for power. You're seeing things happen that you haven't seen in the past where people, where gangs, drug dealers were actually going to restaurants and shoot up the place. That never happened before. Bottom line is this.

Chad: Oh, jet.

CB Dude: I wish I could sit here and tell you we have-

Joel: I'm out. Drop the mic.

Chad: Everybody just in case you forgot, that was actually ... What was his name? John Smith or Anderson or-

Joel: John Smith. Yeah.

Chad: Yeah. He was like VP of sales or some shit like that. He was talking to the sales people about why they're not going to Cabo. The reason was El Chapo is not in power anymore and now guess what, they're really fucked because El Chapo, 10 counts, his ass is going to be in a prison.

Joel: He has escaped twice from prison. However, those were Mexican prisons and I can't vouch for them. He is going to be in Colorado I think. So yeah. He should be locked up for life. We should have heard the last of El Chapo.

Chad: Nice.

Joel: But we have no heard the last of that soundbite.

Joel: It will come back. Yes. It will come back.

Chad: Thank you CareerBuilder. Thank you.

Joel: The gift that keeps on giving this Valentine's Day.

Chad: Let's keep this going. I don't know if it's Keca Ward or Kish. It's spelled K-E-C-A, but anyway she's a first-time listener. Thanks for listening. Keep listening and get your peers to listen and subscribe, your family, people in the supermarket. I mean, that's your mission. Go get more Chad and Cheese loving listeners people. That's what we need.

Joel: Spread the love I think is what you're saying on this Valentine's Day.

Chad: All right. Audra Knight, thanks for bringing ZipRecruiter's ugly Facebook ad to our attention. Then I went on to LinkedIn and there it fucking was on LinkedIn. It looks like this like-

Joel: It looks like a bad '70s album cover.

Chad: Well, it looks like a Christmas card that you would find in a clearance bin at-

Joel: I can see that.

Chad: ... a dollar store. So, it would be like a 25 cent card. It was ugly as shit. ZipRecruiter, I know you've got cash to do better. So my God, dude. Make that shit work.

Joel: Tidy it up, Zip. Go to 99designs where by the way, we will be announcing the new T-shirt winner-

Chad: Yes.

Joel: ... Monday. Yes, we're very excited.

Chad: I'm pretty excited about that shit. Also, Hireology tweeted a pic of their Chad and Cheese discussion group.

Joel: Loved it. Loved it.

Chad: I think we should actually take it further than that. I would like to do a special discussion group for these guys since they have one and maybe try to schedule that around that the TAtech our recruitment summit in Chicago. What do you think?

Joel: I love this listen party. My only problem is they said what's missing is the wine. If you're trying to enjoy our show with wine, I think you're doing it wrong.

Chad: Actually, Kyle brought beer to one of our shows before. So, I can guarantee you, especially if it's offsite, they will be bringing the beer. But that being said, if you're not yet going to the TAtech Recruitment Marketing summit, go to TAtech.org and get your fucking tickets for God sakes. We're going to be there. Obviously, it's going to be a hit. So, let's do this.

Joel: It's going to be epic as the kids say. What else? You got tons of shout outs, man. All I wanted was the El Chapo soundbite. So you go to town on these shout outs.

Chad: Okay. Jobpal.ai tweeted some love to us out there. They are in the UK and we don't have a chat bot yet in death match for Lisbon. So, I think we might try to get these guys on as the number four bot because right now right we've got Tin guy and TNG, the creepy interviewing robot. We've got Candidate.ID, The Scotsman, the Kilts and the Braveheart shit. We've got Opening.io who just signed on and we've got one more left. So, maybe it will be Jobpal. Maybe we'll get a chat bot in that bitch.

Joel: Well if it's any incentive, our very first death match winner just had a very profitable exit. I'm not saying they're connected, but I'm not saying they're not connected. So, it's not a bad thing to be on our death match apparently.

Chad: Well, the funny thing is though TNG started talking smack to Candidate.ID on Twitter this week. So, they're already getting into like death match kind of competition mode which I love.

Joel: We're like four months away and the trash talking has already started. I love it.

Chad: I love that shit. Last but not least, yeah, Ed from Philly, hey buddy. He's in for doing some soundbites for us, so I'll be reaching out.

Joel: I better get his deepest Philly accent possible. I want to feel like Ed is non on a cheesesteak when he's doing soundbites for us.

Chad: He's got his Eagles jersey on.

Joel: Yes.

Chad: He's watching Rocky and he's eating a cheesesteak yeah.

Joel: I want a Mike Schmidt jersey. I want him to grow out a Mike Schmidt mustache, eat a cheesesteak, and do soundbite thrusts. That's what I want. Maybe some youngling.

Chad: That would be sweet. That would be very sweet. Last but not least, events. Joe he said obviously, we're going to roll out the T-shirt. We're going to be at events throughout this year. We're going to add some more events here soon to be quite frank, but go to chadcheese.com checkouts. Just click on events and checkout where we're going to be. Buy your tickets, registers, get your asses there. Then also check out the new Chad and Cheese logo, sport and the shaker trucker hat. That's fucking classic. That's all I got.

Joel: Awesome dude. Let's get to the big FU to George LaRocque. I know you're excited to get to that.

Chad: What? Oh no. George is a sweetheart.

Joel: Data over people.

Chad: What did you get and where did you get it because this is all about the ice and just traffic data?

Joel: You know I'm plugged into the dark web of recruiting news, so I was on the receiving end of an iCIMS update. iCIMS is a friend of the show obviously. They're basically a bunch of news, what they're doing, stuff that's going on. The thing that obviously stuck out to me like a sore thumb was data that they've been able to garner from their 4,000 clients. Data showing that their clients are seeing a whopping 60, that's, 6-0% drop in referrals or traffic from Indeed, but also showing a 150% increase from Google traffic.

Joel: So, this is in stark contrast to our George LaRocque survey that we've discussed. I actually have a podcast out today, which will be yesterday for the people listening tomorrow. But anyway, George was very critical of Google. They're not all that. That's not raw job search for stats. iCIMS has real data 4000 companies. George had 500 SurveyMonkey out there telling him information for his survey. From my standpoint as much as it makes pain and hurt, Sowash wins with data on this topic.

Chad: How do you not win with data, I mean, seriously? That was my whole reason for the conversation. If you haven't listened to the podcast this week with George, guy's awesome. I mean, he's just looking for signals, but sometimes I believe in our industry, we look in the wrong places for signals in some cases. He did get some action and some love from Todd Maycunich at resident Tech Stud over at TMP.

Joel: Tech Stud.

Chad: I think that's on his card, but he did say worth mentioning we've seen the same gain, and that's TMP seeing the same gain in traction from Google for job across all clients. Mostly likely a byproduct of Google biasing jobs on integrated employer sites rather than jobs on integrated job boards, which I think is interesting because we've talked about this before, will Google bias that contents?

Chad: I guess the big question is how are they biasing it because generally, there's a job posting on Google that you go to. There are ways that you can actually go in apply for the job. They give you the career site. They give you all these different job board opportunities. So, how are they fucking biasing? I don't understand. That's number one.

Joel: This is you talking or TMP talking?

Chad: Me. I mean, Todd is saying you're biasing it. I understand how it's biased if the options are provided.

Joel: I can't speak for Google, but I think if they were here, they would save it algorithmically, they're learning that people are choosing to click on the direct link to an employer site as opposed to a job board site. So, we're going to continue to show that to the users because well they're showing us that that's what they want.

Chad: But if you use, if you actually use Google for jobs and you land on the job posting on Google, it gives you options on how to apply. So, therefore if the career site is like in the number one position, it still gives you those options, I guess is that with the bias is possibly that they are offering the career site like first? I'm going to have dig a little bit deeper with Todd, but I'm going to go to tweet number two because three-part tweet.

Joel: Jesus.

Chad: But the Indeed story is misleading, in January of 2018 they moved to a two pain experience, which included a hosted job description. Ultimately, employers are likely seeing significantly less traffic from Indeed, but not a negligible decrease in applicants. I still have a problem with this whole two pain bullshit that Indeed is doing because you have to pay on that first click, but you're not actually getting the job seeker to your site on that click. And in prospectively not just getting them to apply for that job because maybe they're not ready for that job, and that's great, but that is my candidate right now or my user right now.

Chad: If I can afford them an opportunity to look for another job on my site, that's what I'm fucking paying for, but guess what, Indeed is taking that away. To be able to say it misleading because of this new two pain, well that's fucking Indeed's fault. They're not actually delivering the eyeballs to the site and allowing the brand to do the work. They're saying, "No, we're going to the pay for that, but once they click again, then you'll get them."

Joel: In most cases that have seen, they make you register for Indeed before you go much further anywhere else.

Chad: Dude, I'll be going fucking ape shit. That's literally holding a candidate hostage that you fucking paid for.

Joel: Well, everybody does it.

Chad: It doesn't make it right. That's bullshit.

Joel: I know it doesn't make it right, but I'm saying maybe that's why they're saying screw going to a job site because they been fucking with me for so long. I'm just going to write to the company site.

Chad: Tweet three, our data suggests only a 2% decrease in conversions, but a 75%

decrease in conversion rate. My point I don't believe the extent to which Indeed's traffic is down is a consequence of Google for jobs, rather it's a result of a conscientious and value driven decision by Indeed. TMP's an agency and they want to pander a little bit.

Joel: Well, agencies aren't going to make a lot of money if any on Google stuff versus Indeed stuff. That's an easy sell to make, but yeah. Of course, we've seen this forever. Agencies came out in favor of Monster back in the day, CareerBuilder dies. They're going to defend where their bread is buttered, in this case Indeed. They make a lot of money on Indeed I bet.

Chad: So hopefully, we can get some love from Todd and maybe we can even get him on the show and talk through these points because he has a shit ton of data. Once again, this isn't survey data. These are analytics. That was the big, I mean really the big differentiation between George's survey and what I was looking for is actual hard data. That's it.

Joel: Also, announced from iCIMS. They're now developing or have launched Facebook Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp as solutions or platforms as well. We've seen this with Talkpush, and now we're going to start seeing it with the iCIMS platform.

Chad: Oh yeah.

Joel: And if I had to guess the Jobvite in the near future, which bring us maybe to our next story unless you have comments about that.

Chad: Yeah. No. This next segment is dedicated to Mason Wong who tweeted he is eagerly awaiting Chad and Cheese perspective on this next topic. Thanks Mason. This one is for you buddy.

Joel: You're bound to be disappointed, Mason, but we'll give our best shot. Do you want to go first, Chad?

Chad: K1 pushes money to Jobvite by 200 million.

Joel: A little bit of cash, a little bit of chatter.

Chad: Then they turn around, I'm sure this was obviously all dealt out and buy Canvas, RolePoint and Talemetry. Fuck.

Joel: That's a three player deal that would definitely make the headlines on sports center for sure. Canvas sponsor the show. I don't even know if they're two years old. I guess they're over two years old, but what a great story. We were one of the first ... We went to their offices and interviewed them early on. They've been a friend of the show. They've been on death match. They're sponsor. I know you and I can't be happier or couldn't be happier for Aman Brar and his team because they're just good people. They're here locally where we live. So great for them.

Joel: Talemetry and RolePoint, I don't know as much about or much about. I know there's an opponent of referrals particularly internally that's big there I think. My take on all this and the news is great, but I think the bigger question, I guess my opinion on this is Microsoft dropped a big asteroid on our whole industry two, three years ago when I when they pay $26 billion for LinkedIn. Then everyone knew that LinkedIn was going to be like the platform of choice for a lot of people or that's what they were aiming for.

Joel: Google came in the game and that was like a double asteroid that hit our industry. Facebook came in although they've they been a little bit less aggressive maybe recently because of the role privacy shit. So, Indeed panics, ZipRecruiter panics, every job board panics. We've the dysfunction flow down into the job board market at first, and then now I think we're seeing the reaction with the ATS market. Now, everyone is like, "We can just survive on being this ugly duct tape people management system."

Joel: I think inevitably, LinkedIn and Google are going to be our Coke and Pepsi. Now, it's like choosing to be Dr Pepper or who's going to be Sprite, who's going to be Red Bull? Those things are being decided right in front of our eyes and will probably be decided over the next two, three, five years.

Chad: I do feel a shade of iCIMS and then also trying to catch up and in trying to catch up to an iCIMS and get the fuck out of an SND market that Google is starting to gain ground in, we're going to talk about, invading different countries. I think iCIMS overall believes that's whether right or wrong and we saw this when we were in New Jersey and Colin was talking about it that Google from an ATS standpoint is really going to have their hands full in the SMB market, right.

Chad: Jobvite is in the SMB mid-market. So, it's almost like okay, what do we do? If we want to get away from Google or get away from this market to an extent and become an enterprise player, how do we do that? Well we sure the fuck can't go out and go out and develop all this stuff, so we're going to have to acquire and/or partner. In this case, obviously it was acquisition.

Chad: So Talemetry, a CRM, career site, source analytics, deeply integrated to other ATS platforms. RolePoint employee referral system, which you just don't see any of those works are good for them, RolePoint, because now they're rolled up into a much larger system and they don't have to be out there on their own, and then Canvas. I mean, that one I thought was just too damn dizzy especially after we saw the iCIMS acquisition of TextRecruit because the ability to get response out of text versus email, not to mention they've got cool Bitmojis and shit, it just made sense. You knew it was going to happen. You just didn't know how long it was going to take, so that was pretty quick.

Chad: My question will these companies be blended into one brand or will they continue to work as separate brands? You and I have had disagreements on TextRecruit and iCIMS and how I believe they're going to stay as separate brands just from a market standpoint. I think it's smarter. I mean, these are three additional platforms. What do you think about that? I mean, do you think some of them will roll up, they'll all keep their own, or they'll all roll up?

Joel: This would be a guess at this point, but I would have to believe that eventually it'll all be under the Jobvite brand. I think in the near future, they'll all remain separate. They'll all do business as usual. I'm sure there'll be cross-selling. There'll be maybe greater promotion on Jobvite to use those services or maybe discounts or incentives to use all of them.

Joel: But ultimately I think the technology, the folks working there will all become Jobvite employees. It will Jobvite messaging or Jobvite communications instead of Canvas. I think iCIMS will be the same as well. I think even we're seeing less and less TextRecruit branding. Then it's just iCIMS rolling out WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. I mean, ultimately TextRecruit is the brainpower behind that, but it's not coming out as a TextRecruit product.

Chad: I really believe that the way that iCIMS and TextRecruit have continued to move forward as separate brands, and not in all cases with this. I think RolePoint to an extent could prospectively roll up under Jobvite, but I think there is better revenue opportunities with that separate brand to be able to sell into other applicant tracking systems. So, you're not just focused on being able to provide a text and/or a messaging opportunity with in the Jobvite platform. Dude, you've got a much larger market, and you can pretty much sell to anybody.

Joel: Yeah. I mean, there's wrong answer between a branded house or a house of brands.

Chad: I just think they have a better opportunity going in under a separate name that's not a pure competitor.

Joel: We just need to get Aman and Finnigan on the show and ask them. I don't know what they're going to say, but we'll try to read between the lines and see what's really going on. Speaking of a product and brand that doesn't suck, let's get a quick word from JobAdX, and we'll talk about Indeed and LinkedIn.

Chad: Do it.

JobAdX: This is the sound of job search. This is the sound of job search defeat, "Ugh." 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." 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.

Chad: Together, we can save job search.

Joel: Not a bold promise at all. Good on you JobAdX. Let those balls hang low. I love it.

Chad: Make it happen.

Joel: Speaking of balls hanging low, Indeed.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: Two items in the news, they have a new CEO and they continue to crush it from a revenue perspective. I'm happy to talk about either one first. I'll leave it up to you lover boy.

Chad: Go ahead and hit the revenue piece.

Joel: Okay. Q3 revenue rise is 6% across the entire business of recruit. By the way, I had no idea how much money these fuckers make. It's ridiculous. It's billions. They make a ton of money. These job board things are just little side projects to their bigger revenue stuff, but anyway 6% growth over the quarter within HR technology, which is where we talk.

Joel: Revenue growth was mainly due to increased sponsored job advertising revenue from new and existing clients at Indeed, and the inclusion of Glassdoor, which was acquired last year in Q1. The group added that Glassdoor attracted approximately 64 million monthly unique visitors and traffic grew double digits year on year in Q3 of 18. As of the end of Q3 of last year, Glassdoor had approximately, and you had a jaw-dropping moment on this one, 800 employees.

Chad: What the fuck! 800. What are those people doing? 800 employees? Jesus. Can't they find some robots for some of that shit?

Joel: 800 dude. gotta sell shit, man. You got to call people and whatever. Yeah, but yeah.

Chad: You know where that revenue, that Indeed revenue is coming from, right?

Joel: Was it staffing? Is that where you're going with that?

Chad: Oh yeah. You kick staffing to the curb and say, "Fuck you. You're paying for it or you're not getting it at all because you're not getting it for free anymore." Then staffing comes in with their head hanging low like a whipped fucking puppy, and they pay a shit ton of cash. It's like okay, that's how Indeed starts to like bleed you dry. That's just slowly they're bleeding you dry, they're bleeding you dry, and then guess what, they cut it and then the blood just starts fucking flowing. That, I would say from my standpoint I could be wrong, is definitely one of reasons why they could have seen a bump is because staffing companies, all staffing companies said, "Fuck, now we have to open up the checkbook."

Joel: Yeah. Well, that's exactly right. I don't remember when Indeed cut off job boards, and it was like, "Holy shit, we got to pay money at least until we figure out where we

get the rest of our traffic."

Chad: Yes.

Joel: So I'm sure there was a huge spike in Indeed when they turned off ... reduced the spigot if you will on job boards. But dude, this is almost a $21 billion company. It's huge. I had no idea.

Chad: Yeah. It is fucking crazy. Staffing, there's some cash in staffing.

Joel: We're in the wrong business, man. We need to get out of this podcasting shit. They have a new CEO.

Chad: Yeah. I thought that was interesting. I mean, when you're seeing numbers like this from Indeed, and they're seeing the growth, and they're going through the plan, and they bled job boards dry, kicked them to the curb. Now, they're bleeding staffing companies dry. Who knows when they're going to them kick them to curb, right?

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: Why would you change CEO?

Joel: I have an answer.

Chad: Okay.

Joel: It's a guess more than answer, but here's my guess.

Chad: Okay. I like that.

Joel: So, the new CEO, Chris Hyams is an Indeed veteran, primarily on the tech side. Not primarily-

Chad: Product guy. He was product guy.

Joel: Pretty much product, hiring technology, he's got a tech background et cetera. He's replacing Deko as Hisayuki Idekoba. Yeah. So, Deko is his nickname.

Chad: He was a recruit guy. He's a recruit guy.

Joel: He was, yeah, total like management executive board of director guy, Wharton School of Business kind of guy. My guess is they said, "Look, we're not just posting jobs and using existing tech to grow. We need to grow products, services. We need to compete with the resources of the LinkedIn, Microsoft, Google et cetera. This is the new game."

Joel: So, to put a guy in charge that has a tech background and has, I'm assuming, very deep knowledge of Indeed's platform and what they do and what they can do. So, to me, it was a changing of the guard like, "Look, we need a tech specific CEO. Deko, nice guy. We've grown rapidly under his watch, but it's a new day where tech rules and we need a guy that can facilitate that." But I think it's sort of what we saw with Dice with bringing in a tech guy and getting rid of the financial sort of business guy.

Chad: So Chris was the president before, so they're moving him from president to CEO. I reached out to a pretty big brand to ask them this morning. I'm like, "Hey, what do you think of this change?" They said, even though it pains them to say, it was a smart move because he knows the market, he knows the product, and his mindset on those roles are really future forward. So, it's a good move. I hate to say that, but it was a good move for the evil empire.

Joel: You can give props if props are due.

Chad: Yeah. No. I think this is smart, dude. Did you put a product guy? I mean, to like at what Smashfly with Tom. He was the CTO, and they knew that they had to do things much differently. I think that was a good move for them to put Tom into that position.

Joel: This could be a new Indeed, man. They could be a more friendly, transparent, open.

Chad: Kinder, gentler.

Joel: Kinder, gentler, fuzzier and warmer. Indeed, I mean I put out a tweet about this new CEO and the official Indeed account on Twitter says, "Thanks, Joel" or whatever it was. I'm like either that's just some intern work in Hootsuite and doesn't know any better, or maybe they're actually like, "Let's talk. We'll talk to you and we'll open up the doors." We're going to be in Austin soon. Maybe we should walk in ask for Mr. Hyams and see if he can talk to us.

Chad: Yeah. I think we should probably prep the area before we go down there and say, "Yeah. If you guys are open, let's have a conversation." If they are, they are. If they're not, they'll play an Art Zeile from Dice and they'll get in the corner and start sucking their thumb.

Joel: Well, we know they listen to this show. So if you're out there Indeed, reach out to us and schedule a little time with your new CEO while we're at Austin.

Chad: Yeah, and Indeed Canada. We're going to be in Canada next week. Come see us.

Joel: There you go. I hope they have Indeed business cards by now and not Workopolis.

Chad: Next story.

Joel: Next story. This is all you. This is your lane, dude.

Chad: Yeah. I was producing the Crazy and The King Podcast. Dude, if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do so.

Joel: Plug.

Chad: Yeah, plug there. I heard Torin and Julie talking about this GM story that I hadn't even fucking heard about and it set me off, dude. So employees are suing GM for "underlying atmosphere of violent, racial hate, and bullying." In a GM plant in Toledo, two black supervisors stood up to racism. We're talking about nooses being displayed in several areas, whites only written on the bathroom wall, swastikas.

Chad: One of the supervisor subordinate said, "Back in the day, a person like you would already be in the ground buried with a shovel." Then the supervisor was told, when he took it to his supervisor said, "Hey, if you want to build relationships here, you got to let things go." So, just as we believe we are starting to evolve as a people and we can get past this whole color of the skin or religion, this shit happens. It just fucking set me off that I can't believe a major brand like GM is allowing and has allowed this shit to happen.

Joel: My two thoughts on this are one is, you and I know Ohio and we know Toledo. It's near Detroit. It's very diverse.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: So when this came out of Toledo, I was pretty surprised. The second thing led me to like we're just in a political environment now that our leader, like our head of state, doesn't necessarily champion this or condone it directly. But I feel like if you're racist, you feel empowered because of who is in the White House and what's been said.

Joel: It goes back to the Robert E. Lee statue in the south and getting rid of that and comments around that. I just think there's an empowerment where if you're racist, you feel like, "Oh shit, it's okay to be racist. I'm going to do this shit." It's very, very unfortunate that we're pushing the rewind on culture and society in our country at least when you see shit like that. It's disgusting and disgraceful and sad.

Chad: And it goes beyond that for the brand of GM. I mean, during a plant meeting ... This was a problem and obviously, it's a problem. We've got nooses showing up for God sakes. So, during a plant meeting, a white supervisor said, "Too big of a deal was being made of these nooses. After all, there was never a black person who was lynched who didn't deserve it." That motherfucker was never disciplined, yet GM says they are an inclusive culture. This has to happen. I get the whole from the top the bullshit that fucking Trump puts out there. To be quite frank, it is fairly blatant when he says Mexicans are rapists and they're criminals and shit like that. That's blatant racism.

Joel: Sure.

Chad: Number one. Number two, GM they're the ones in control of this and they need to fix this shit.

Joel: Totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, dude we have the governor of Virginia which is not a backward state by any means, I mean may be part of it, but like-

Chad: A Democrat.

Joel: ... a Democrat who in the '80s, not the 1880s, the 1980s was filmed far left and blackface and a Ku Klux Klan outfit. He won't say which one is him. Like there's a bad answer on both ways, but he's still in office. He still feels that that's okay or that ... His defense is like, "No, that maybe isn't me, but I went in blackface as Michael Jackson." So your defense is that it's still a blackface, but it was Michael Jackson and not like ... So the whole thing is bizarre. We live in bizarro times.

Joel: I hope to a higher power that in two years this whole thing goes away. I fear that it won't, but these are weird times we live in. It's sad that it's spilling into corporate America with reputable companies that are old and traditional in our society and just shit flows downhill, man. It's sad.

Chad: Yeah. From our standpoint, I think it's on us to be able to continue to shine light on this shit because that is the best disinfectant, right. I didn't even know about this. It's like fuck this. Our listeners are going to know about this. This is bullshit. This is a huge brand. From my standpoint, that definitely makes me not want to buy any type of a GM product.

Joel: And that's the best way to send them a message.

Chad: Along with our podcast.

Joel: You're really bringing down the Valentine's Day show. Come on, man.

Chad: Hey, I'm giving love to all those people out there that deserve equity, inclusion, and real diverse cultures. That's who I'm fucking bringing love to.

Joel: The only thing that can make this better is our favorite voiceover, Sovren.

Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank, and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why it produces them and offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you, so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com.

Chad: So are we meeting up with Sovren. What's going on? We're going to Austin in two weeks. We need to get this nail down. Come on, Sovren. If Joel hasn't reached out to you, just reach out to me. I'll get shit set up.

Joel: Dude, there's been too much news. I can't coordinate-

Chad: Whatever.

Joel: ... a social schedule in my spare time anymore.

Chad: What you're saying to Sovren is they're not important to you, but they are important to me.

Joel: They're important to us. Technically, they're our longest standing sponsor.

Chad: Yeah, they're pretty awesome. They're pretty fucking awesome.

Joel: All right, dude. Let's go little rapid fire. I guess we got Google Hire news, we got LinkedIn and we got TMP. Go.

Chad: Okay. Hire by Google they've been around since 2017, but guess what, they're spreading out. They're branching. They're invading Canada and the UK.

Joel: Meaning they're growing into those markets. They're not literally invading with weapons of mass destruction.

Chad: I'm telling you right now the AI is being weaponized and it all comes down to one thing. Their competitors are feeling like this is an invasion, I guaranfuckingtee you.

Joel: By the way this goes back to our Jobvite, iCIMS shit. All these companies are seeing or they better see that Google is progressively moving into your backyard. They're coming in Canada, UK. They'll be in Japan soon. They'll be in France, Germany, et cetera, Australia. I mean, they're coming for you and if you're not preparing for it, they're going to burn your house down so to speak.

Chad: Jobvite is obviously preparing for that shit.

Joel: Obviously, yeah. They needed 200 million to help do that and a lot companies can't do that. So, good on them for having the ability to raise the money, but yeah. Google is coming to town. Is your castle going to be strong enough to withstand it?

Chad: LinkedIn.

Joel: LinkedIn, dude. This isn't good I guess. So you came across a story that said only 13% of millennials-

Chad: Yeah. I think this is really interesting because you take a look at it from a demographic standpoint, as the boomers move out and you've got the millennials that are moving in to really just into that vacuum per se in the workforce, this is a big loss for LinkedIn if they can't get that new segment, that new demographic to start using their system.

Chad: I can only imagine after this research that they had a hard one and said fuck. Then saying okay, how do we go after these types of individuals to get them to start using the platform, to understand the professional network is where they need to be? Maybe the whole new video thing that they're doing is one of the reasons. I [crosstalk 00:41:48].

Joel: Yeah. I mean, partly it's shocking because these 15 to 34-year-olds. I believe 15-year-olds don't know should of about LinkedIn or care, but if you're over 21 and in college or educated, if you're not on LinkedIn, something is wrong. 13% is nothing. I can launch a site and get 13% of millennials to use it. It might not be a social network, but that's really bad. This is from their own demographics.

Joel: Granted from this report, this was a source kind of story. 39 million students and recent grads are on LinkedIn, which is not a ton. If that's globally, that's not a huge number. 44% make 75,000 a year or more. More than 70% are outside the U.S., which is interesting. Even if it's 25% of millennials using LinkedIn, that's not a good sign for LinkedIn.

Chad: No. There's a really good data in this survey that LinkedIn pulled together, but you're always looking for gaps. I mean, this is a huge weak spot, right?

Joel: Yeah. I think they realize that which maybe brings us to our next story from LinkedIn. They're launching a live video this week, which apparently is in beta. Not everyone has it, but they're slowly rolling it out. Our friend Audra who we mentioned earlier in the shout outs had a good comment that basically like 2013 call, they want their technology back.

Joel: I remember Facebook in particular pushed live video hard. They really wanted people to be a sporting event or concert or whatever, like live stream your participation in that. I mean, I tried it a little bit, but it was a pain in the ass because you got to be interesting on live video. It's not just that interesting to be at the mall and talking about going to Justice and buying a new unicorn leotard. So, LinkedIn's brand is like old people. I think they're going to continue to have a hard time appealing to younger people on any big way.

Chad: Yeah, I don't think this is the answer. That's for damn sure.

Joel: Yeah. Ultimately, LinkedIn is going to be an add-on to Microsoft's dynasty.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: LinkedIn will be utility to have your professional presence, to network with people and share stories, but it will cease being like a cool place to hang out. I think young people are already tell you like, "I'm going to hang out on LinkedIn."

Chad: Yeah. I think Microsoft and their suite of products if they can start to somehow spin that to be able to try to encompass and pull more people in. If you have Microsoft suite license or something of that nature, obviously you're going to have a profile or whatever it is. That automatically sucks you in the LinkedIn, who knows right, but there's got to be some ways to really pull in that humongous fucking audience that Microsoft already has using suite.

Joel: Just get Kylie Jenner or whatever her name is to be a spokesperson for LinkedIn and make it cool to millennials.

Chad: Or you can do something like a Fyre Festival.

Joel: Yes, I was going to say that or have a concern on a desert island and really be cool to the millennials. All right, dude. Last on the news briefs here in the end, TMP big ass recruitment ad agency acquires CKR Interactive this week. This is the consolidation of the agency industry. We saw this was Shaker buying the Arland Group. Give us your clients, give us your talent, your sales people who are good and the professionals thought leaders over there, but ultimately, it's very hard to survive as a niche or boutique agency in today's world.

Chad: Yeah. I think unless you have a KRT that they focus really heavily on

programmatic and companies don't even how to spell fucking programmatic at this point just, so they have to go to somebody. It's like, "That's where we specialize." So, I think in that vein, if you can ride that wave, fucking ride it. But yeah, I think you're right with regard too it's kind of acquihire, as also you're taking another player off the table. So if again you are showing up to these presentations, and you've got one less player in the room because they're now a part of your team, that doesn't hurt either.

Joel: The days of answering the phone and placing newspaper ads and display ads in the local newspaper and being able to go to your local recruiter and take them to lunch at Applebee's and be nice and keep their business are gone. That's where those little agencies thrive in sort of that human connection and people just don't care about people as much anymore. Happy Valentine's Day. People hate people.

Chad: Here come the robots.

Joel: We out.

Chad: We out.

Ema: Hi. I'm Ema. Thanks for listening to my dad, the Chad, and his buddy Cheese. This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single show. Be sure to check out our sponsors because their money goes to my college fund. For more, visit chadcheese.com.


bottom of page