It's a damned free-for-all! Matt Alder comes to a CENSORSHIP FREE environment in this crossover edition of Chad & Cheese and The Recruitment Future Podcast. If the language is too much for you just head your whimpy ass over to Matt's bleeped out version at RFpodcast.com.
Everyone else can enjoy the ADULT VERSION all due to our friends over at Uncommon.co.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level.
Chad: Dude, we're always talking about cool new tech, but it's hard for hiring companies to change. I mean adoption's a bitch. New Tech can get them to qualified candidates so much faster.
Joel: I don't know man. But recruiters already have their routine in place and nobody wants to jump into another platform, especially when it's expensive and also requires hours, maybe days of training.
Chad: Exactly, but that's where Uncommon's new service comes into play Uncommon pairs expert recruiters with in-house kick-ass technology.
Joel: All right, interesting. Interesting. It sounds like Uncommon understands the problem of change...
Chad: That's why they hand select veteran recruiters, train them on this kick-ass technology that has access to over 100 million active profiles.
Joel: Yeah, but I bet they're expensive and I bet it requires some kind of annual commitment or contract, right?
Chad: No Man, Uncommon is not an agency. They don't require a contract, any contingencies, all they do, they charge one flat fee per project, saving, I don't know, anywhere from 50 to 80% on each hire versus the average agency cut.
Joel: Oh, snap! Companies could save big stacks of paper, especially if they're rapidly scaling and need hires today.
Chad: Yep, and all you have to do is reach out to Tag and the Uncommon crew at uncommon.co, that's uncommon.co.
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: Well, we should record already. Jesus.
Matt: Yeah, let's just get started. Come on.
Joel: I'm so confused right now.
Matt: I'm sitting, who's show am I on? Who's show is this?
Chad: This is our collective show, so for everybody that's out there, so we finally got a chance to meet Matt in Portugal and I had this crazy idea of, hey, let's just sit down and do a crossover podcast where we're going to be on Matt's Pod. He's going to be on our pod and we're going to just have a fucking free for all. So how's that sound?
Joel: All your ideas are crazy by the way. You don't have to like put crazy idea. Just say idea and people know it's crazy.
Chad: That's right, redundant is what you're saying.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah. So nevermind the bullocks, we have Britain's, Edinburg's, Matt Alder on. I guess because he's pushing this it out as his show and we're pushing it out as our show. We should probably all do quick introductions because his audience doesn't know us possibly, and our audience doesn't know him possibly. So should we get that out of the way?
Chad: Yeah. Let's let Matt go first.
Matt: Yeah, let's do it. So I'm Matt Alder and I run the Recruiting Future Podcast, which some of you will be listening to you. Thank you.
Chad: You're welcome.
Matt: Which some of you will be listening to right now in this kind of weird crossover thing that we're doing. The show has been going for years and every week, well, most weeks I interview thought leaders and practitioners, about the changing nature of talent acquisition and the future of recruiting.
Joel: So you're primarily practitioners?
Matt: I'm primarily practitioners. Yeah, absolutely. So tell us about your show, for my audience.
Joel: We are, I guess a weekly roundup of news from the industry. Primarily what vendors are doing, who's buying whom and who's doing what and how shitty Monster commercials are and how Indeed's gone down the tubes. That's kind of the stuff that we talk about. We have a show called Firing Squad that is sort of like Shark Tank for startups. Usually at least two times a month we do a deep dive into something like automation, AI, chat bots, whatever sort of is interesting and in the now. And then we sorta do a bunch of side shit. I don't know. What else would you add, Chad?
Matt: Yeah, the Shred, I mean [crosstalk 00:04:24] Our focus is to be able to help all those individuals that are out there, whether they're talent acquisition or they're vendors, to better understand what the hell is going on in the landscape. There's so much noise out there right now. We'll do the research, we'll put it out, obviously with our fucked up opinion, but you get a lot of content about a lot of shit that's happening in our industry and people seem to dig it.
Feffer: Such an asshole.
Joel: Exactly.
Matt: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? I've just realized I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to bleep the swearing out.
Joel: Oh fuck that.
Matt: Do you know what? You know the ridiculous reason why? Apple. So, basically, there are a number of countries that if you have a podcast with swearing in, Apple will not distribute your Podcast to.
Chad: Even if you tag it as explicit?
Matt: Even if you mark it as explicit.
Chad: Oh well, fuck those countries.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. But I have an audience in those countries so I'm going to find some kind of bleeping device. So apologies to the listeners of my show...
Joel: What about albums that have explicit lyrics?
Matt: I don't know. I don't know. I just know the podcasting bit.
Joel: That's bullshit, Matt.
Matt: Oh, it's not me. It's not my fault. It's not me. Blame Apple.
Joel: That stifles your creativity.
Matt: Yeah, it does.
Joel: I mean you can't say shite or bullocks or...
Matt: Now he's just going to turn this into a swearing episode.
Chad: Once you get Joel going down one of these rabbit holes, it's fucking hard and get him out.
Chad: In talking with, obviously talent acquisition professionals, staffing professionals, what have you...What are you seeing, today, as one of their biggest issues that you're trying to help them through or they're listening to your podcast to be able to try to get some hints and/or shortcuts through?
Matt: Interesting question because I think the answer to it comes back to something that you guys just said. I think the biggest challenge I'm finding lots of talent acquisition professionals have, is the sheer amount of noise in the marketplace. So people are really struggling to get their head round the technology that's available and how it might actually help solve their problems and add some value to them. There's this great sense that people are missing out on some a silver bullet technology and just a lot of confusion about what's out there and how it could work and...
Joel: And how are they dealing with learning about the new stuff? Are they putting their head in the sand? Are they actively trying to figure it all out?
Matt: I think what I find is that a lot of the people who are really getting on top of this are talking to their peers about it. So going to events, finding out who's using what and how it's working for them. And really that's kind of one of the objectives of my podcast is to get people on to talk about how they are sort of facing their talent acquisition challenges, the methods they're using, the technology they're using. You know, what's working, what's not working and what's never gonna work.
Joel: I have this theory that like all the emails that go out, the content marketing, like the typical sort of interruption marketing is all wasted dollars in many aspects. Because a lot of this is just social media. "Hey, who do you guys use as an ATS?" Like, "Hey, who does everybody use for their Chatbot?" Are you saying that that's primarily how people make buying decisions today?
Matt: I think it's part of it. I do have sometimes a bit of an issue with those sort of social media requests. Because I think that if you're just asking randomly on Facebook, "Hey, what's a good ATS?" I think it's difficult to get a good answer because people will not appreciate your unique challenges or your objectives or the type of company you are. So I think that's kind of, that's what end of it. But I do think that the events, the peer to peer conversations, the networking that goes on, it's driving a lot of this stuff because I think that a lot of the marketing that comes out to this space, it's really about the vendor's own objectives. So it's like they've kind of got together and say, "Hey, what problems do we solve? These are great problems. We'll solve them." And a lot of the time, I don't think they actually talk to their potential customers or think about what issues they actually have. So I think sometimes technology will solve a problem very effectively, but that problem might be number 50 on the list of problems that someone working in talent acquisition actually has. So I think that's kind of my take on the market and that's what I'm trying to do with my Podcast.
Chad: Well, and don't you find that most of these companies really don't truly understand what their problems are? They're hearing so much noise out there and then Jenny from across the street said her ATS was the best...
Joel: Jenny form the block.
Chad: I feel like, the thing that companies need to really focus on today is their process. They have like a 1990s process methodology that they try to jam into their technology which just doesn't work. And then they try to layer more technology on it, before they really truly find out what their process should be and will that process actually alleviate some of those problems and then prioritization of those problems. And then at that point, after you've gone through all of that, then start talking about technology, but not until then.
Matt: Absolutely. I couldn't, I couldn't agree with that more. I think some of the best guests I've had on my show, the people who've gone all the way back to understanding what their objectives are and then building from there it's like, "Well, what actually are our problems? Do these problems actually properly aligned to where our business is going? Are they the right problems to be solving?" And then, "How do we do that? What's the best way to solve it?" And then technology is the kind of the final piece of that puzzle basically.
Joel: Do you find it's hard to get corporate folks to open up to you?
Matt: Ah, good question. I'm kind of working off a bit of a fake sample, I think, because I was going to say, "No, I have some great guests and they always sort of talk about what they're doing." But, I think my guests are a subset of the whole population, of that kind of corporate population, if you like. Because I think there are people who are open and really happy about talking about what they're doing, they've got a story to share, they've done something good. So, the guests that I have on are no problem at all. They're very open to share and share their learnings. Whether that's the same for everyone who kind of works in talent acquisition, probably not.
Joel: So we know you're British and you're polite, but what do you got for us? Any questions?
Matt: Yeah, so I've got a few questions. So you claim to be HR's most dangerous podcast...
Joel: Claim?
Matt: And I was talking to someone who isn't in HR or recruiting about your show actually the other day. And they asked me why was it so dangerous? So you know why are you so dangerous?
Joel: Well, I think that the fact that you're bleeping out the first 30 seconds of the show helps us establish that.
Matt: Yup, very true. I have something to add to that, if anyone listening to my show wants to hear what we were really saying, if I do managed to bleep it out then, they should listen to this show on your show.
Chad: Just go to chadcheese.com and then you'll get the straight shot on
that one.
Matt: Yeah and likewise, if anyone who listens to your show and doesn't like swearing, then come and listen to my show. Yeah, I never fucking swear on my show, so it's absolutely fine.
Joel: If you like your podcasts with some crumpets and tea, listen to Matt's show. No, I think, my answer is, Chad and I are at a point in our careers, we kind of work for ourselves, we don't have really any corporate interests, we can be blunt, both of our personalities are sort of no nonsense. I think a lot of the podcasts out there, someone's got an association, they've got to think about, someone's got an employer, they have to think about... There's always something that sort of gets in the way of honest, open, sort of brutal honesty and talk and I think we're able to cut through that just because of our situations.
Chad: And it's easy to be, HR's most dangerous podcast because nothing in HR is fucking dangerous in the first place. So just ratcheting it up, just a couple of levels and putting some snark in it, it makes us dangerous. So it's pretty simple to be dangerous in HR.
Matt: Well, that's a really good point. Absolutely. Do you get any complaints?
Joel: Millennials hate us, sometimes.
Chad: Millennials love us. Shut the fuck up. The advice to anybody who is complaining is: don't fucking listen. I mean, that's what it comes down to, it's your choice to either plug in and listen to us or not. This isn't Russia. We're not doing state sponsored fucking podcasts or anything like that. Just don't listen.
Joel: And we're okay with criticism, just bring facts, bring what you got. The social media grenades that, they don't want to come on the show or they don't want to back up, whatever it is. Like I'll give you an example. We had somebody make the claim that we only have advertisers because they feel threatened that we're gonna like F bomb them to hell if they don't give us money for the show. And that's just simply ridiculous. We don't threaten anybody to give us money for sponsoring the show. All of our sponsors love us. So to make a claim like that is either you better come on the show and defend your position or on social media, you better come with some facts that backs up that statement because that's a big claim to make if you don't have any facts to back it up.
Chad: And we're going to come straight at you on the podcast, to tell you how it is and ask for you to come on the show to voice your opinion so we can land baste your ass there.
Matt: And I think that's the great thing about podcasting is, there's no keyboard warriors here, everyone is having to back up their opinion and talk about it, justify it and not hide behind a keyboard.
Matt: Another question for you. So, my podcast is about the future of recruiting. What's the future of recruiting?
Chad: So, from our standpoint...
Joel: Unemployment lines... for recruiters...
Chad: From our standpoint, we talk a lot about technology and that's what we feel the future of recruiting is. It's not total robots, technology, so on and so forth. But, especially now as we talk about process and problems, there are many pieces of technology that could get rid of the mundane bullshit, problematic tasks that we face today. And I feel like the switch of just having people powered recruiting, will have more of a automatic, automated, enabled people recruiting, where candidates don't go into the black hole anymore. That's the problem when you have only people doing this shit, when you have automation support humans, then we can get into more of a humanistic type of recruiting culture. But we haven't been there for years. So I think from our standpoint, we talk about recruiting so much on the technology side because that's where we see the future of it going.
Chad: It's like Tengai, right? And Jacob, on Facebook, was giving us so much shit because this Tengai robot is an interviewing robot and it's not human and Blah Blah Blah, and it's like, "Dude, look, you've got to realize these guys are pushing the next frontier of what we're doing." Candidates are already having a shitty experience as it is right now. They're having biased experience right now. Whatever we can do to try to push that boundary, to see if we can do better. That's not the problem, that's the fucking answer. It might not work, but guess what? Unless we try, we'll never know. And those are the things that we like to push on our show.
Joel: I think that point of, everyone's sort of confused with the noise out there, really underscores what the future recruiter needs to look like. They have to have a really good, broad or basic understanding of the technology that's going on and being developed and what's coming down the pike because if they don't keep up, they're going to be eliminated. The old days of like, "Hey, I'm a tool in the tool chest and I can live like that." Are, I think, going away and you have to have a very broad toolkit to know everything that's going on and know what a Chatbot is, know what AI is, know what these vendors are, and know what messaging is and the different platforms for that and how to use it and what's advertising. And now there's podcasts, there's going to be video down the pike and how do we best use that stuff. And there's Snapchat and there's Instagram, and there's TickTok and you have to be really smart and keep up with this shit ,if you're going to be successful. The ones that don't are going to be left behind. I think that the line between what's marketing and recruiting is really blurring more and more each day. And for the recruiters that aren't marketers, or think of themselves in that way, are going to be left behind.
Chad: So back to your question, what do you feel the future of recruitment is? And I mean you being, more across the pond on the UK side of the house, it's much different than over here in the US, how do you feel that differs from our vantage point?
Matt: I would say it's very similar actually. I think that from a big picture perspective, we are pretty much aligned. There are lots of differences between recruiting in North America, recruiting in Europe or recruiting else around the world. But I think the overall direction is very much the same. I kind of already agree with what you just said and I think the key to this is actually critical thinking because I think, understanding what's going on, being able to spot what's a useful tool from what's just a load of hype. But at the same time I think it's having this real sense of being open minded.
Matt: And I think Tengai is a really interesting example of that, because, like you, I had Tengai on the podcast because we were all sort of in Portugal and recording. And I kind of got similar feedback and I think when you actually sort of sit down and analyze that, the robot is only a small part of that story. There's a whole sort of bigger story about trying to solve the problem of bias. Also, that is a very, very early stage product, there's no uses data. There's nothing but conjecture and I think until something gets out onto the field and people actually come back and say, "I hate this." I think it's just too early.
Joel: Were you surprised at the divisiveness of the opinion and to quote your great statesman William Shakespeare, "Doth thou protest too much?" I think it's very telling about a product when so many recruiters hate it.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, I don't even think I was surprised because I've seen that around, almost every time there's some kind of leap forward in recruiting, whether it was the internet to start with or with social media or than robots or whatever it is, there's always this kind of massive emotional reaction. I think where it just gets confusing, is that there also a number of products that have come out that have proved to be useless or before their time or not delivering the hype they promised and it just all gets kind of mixed up together.
Matt: But, I think that if you take a step back and look at this and say, you know what, as it stands at the moment, no one will argue with you, when you say, you know what? Talent acquisition is not as efficient as it could be, it has these elements of bias, the candidates are being given a really bad experience, and there seems to be no sort of quick fix or easy way of doing that, whatever people say. Then you'd know that the industry is going to change and things are going to come along and move that forward and I just think it's important to kind of have an open mind and look at things and say, "Well, this could be it or it might not be, but let's at least see what happens."
Matt: And on Chatbots, there was a huge kind of backlash, certainly in the UK, when Chatbots first appeared. You know, Candidates wouldn't like them and all this sort of stuff. And actually, a lot of the research that I've seen and a couple of the companies that I've spoken you are using them, have come back and said, "Oh actually, they've been successful and the candidates did like them." So, that's kind of wrong to a certain extent. But at the same time, and this is where I think is all about critical thinking, that doesn't mean every candidate is going to like every iteration of every Chatbot. There will be companies who use them appallingly and candidates will hate them. So it comes back to that, work out what your problems are and the way to solve them and use technology to help you, don't use technologies just for the sake of it or don't use it just so you can say, "Hey, that technology was rubbish and I was right all along."
Joel: Remember when QR codes we're going to rule the world?
Matt: Ah, yeah, absolutely. There was a brilliant advert. A recruitment company in London put a QR code on a poster on the London Underground. And the whole point was you scan this QR code to go onto a website and this is like years before there was any internet access or any kind of coverage on the London Underground. And it was just astonishing example of using technology because someone told us it was cool without actually thinking about any of the user experience or anything that could sort of happen around that.
Chad: We have to think very keenly about adoption and how these individuals are going to adopt. I mean scalability, all that other fun stuff. Just like podcasts. When Joel and I did our first podcast, like in 2008 or something like that, the only way you could listen is on your PC, on your desk. But anyway, the adoption rate was going to be very low and it was just, we were just having a fun time. It wasn't till like 10 years later, like in 2017, where yes, Smartphones changed at all and it was all about the ability to adopt. Those are the things that we need to look at from a technology standpoint. And that being said, looking at the future of recruiting, what is your favorite type of technology right now that you think will take us into that, that next segment of the future of recruiting?
Matt: Oh, I was going to ask you that question. Right, well it's a good question because I thought of the same question.
Matt: My favorite type of technology? I think I like technology that actually solves a problem. So I suppose there's two answers to this. I think some of the kind of new breed ATS solutions, that are coming onto the market that are actually built with talent acquisition in mind, not built to just kind of automate a recruitment process, but built with candidates and built with a recruiters in mind. I think there's some great stuff there. But sometimes I like the really sort of simple things that make a difference.
Matt: I've sort of said this a few times, but my favorite thing that I've actually seen this year is a piece of software called VideoMyJob. And obviously, to disclaimer to say that other providers of the same software are available. And what I like about it is, we all talk about video being so important when it comes to recruitment, marketing and content, and that's all that software does, is it just makes it really easy for you to film a video. It puts subtitles up, it tells you where to put your head in the frame and it does a few simple things to make what you're doing really good and really effective. So, it's not kind of a massive groundbreaking thing, it's just something that really helps people, to get good at doing video and to actually put content out there that looks as good as it can be. So I think it's simple technology like that, that's my sort of current favorite stuff in a world of complexity.
Joel: You know what I think, to piggyback on VideoMyJob, I think part of the reason, and this also goes back to the Podcasting, is that those things are effective partly because they leverage a platform of distribution that is now, I guess, evolved enough to where those things work. Like VideoMyJob would not have worked 10 years ago as well as it does today, because you didn't have YouTube, you didn't have social media, you didn't have the channels to sort of easily distribute it. Just like Podcasting [crosstalk 00:26:16] 10 years ago or yeah, mobile. So, a lot of those little technologies are great because they leveraged platforms that exist today, that didn't exist tomorrow. So what exactly is going to exist tomorrow platform wise, that will sort of give birth to these new companies? I don't know.
Joel: Now to your question of the future of recruiting, the automation piece seems really disparate right now. You have things living alone or in you know, silos. And I think the holy grail is to be able to pull all of these things together. Where you basically, you post a job and it, it programmatically distributes everywhere. Everyone comes in through a prescreening process with a Chatbot that's automated. The scheduling goes through an automation process that goes right into Google calendar or your Microsoft programs, or 365 and then the actual interviewing is when the actual process starts. So you actually, I think recruiting will be not talking to someone until they actually come through the door because they've been scheduled on your calendar automatically and they've been pre-screened and sourced and everything. And then that sort of a face to face relationship is where recruiting and people who are good at that in recruiting, that will really excel.
Joel: So I think right now all those systems are sort of separate. Someone will bring it together and Chad and I sort of disagree on this sort of one platform to rule them all. But it's pretty evident to me that people like Google or companies like Google, Linkedin, Slash Microsoft, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and others are trying to solve that sort of one process problem and we'll see if they can figure it out. Number two, if that really is the holy grail or not, but I do believe that's probably the future of where recruitment is going.
Chad: My favorite right now though are the companies, the startups who are focused on being able to help hiring companies, staffing companies, leverage that resume database that they've spent millions of dollars building, in their applicant tracking system or their system of record, that they're just not using. It's ridiculous that every single day companies, recruiters are posting jobs out and they're buying candidates that they already have in their database, so big shout out to a Candidate ID and Opening.io, they were on the death match stage in Portugal. They both do this in different ways. Candidate ID focuses on that nurturing piece and being able to nurture the individuals that you've already purchased, that are in your applicant tracking system. And then Opening.io's more on the matching scheme piece. So obviously you have a job, it's open, the recs open, it goes into your system and it pulls those candidates forward before you go to pay more money.
Chad: And that's the thing is that from a talent acquisition standpoint, we need to do a much better job on positively impacting business, and that means bottom line and using our dollars much better. This is more of a practical way to actually dive in and be more process-oriented and focused on what we've already bought. So those are my favorite right now. All the video stuff and that's all cool, but I think being able to really leverage your data that you've already bought is the key.
Matt: Absolutely.
Joel: That's challenging because you have, Chad mentioned two companies that are successfully doing that, but we also have companies that did somewhat of the same thing and have clearly failed or are failing. So you have like Restless Bandit that just basically sold for pennies on the dollar, allegedly, you have Crowded, which sort of imploded internally and didn't get it done. All those four companies are doing, trying to solve the same problem but half of them are succeeding and the other half are going by the wayside. Which brings you to that whole confusion thing of like, "I know we need to be doing this, but exactly who should be doing it?" And I think that's why you have a lot of people relying on friends and colleagues for word of mouth and recommendations on who they use.
Chad: So if companies have startups coming in, they should already know how they want to use that technology. They should know the process, they should know what their objectives are for using said technology. That's the biggest issue that we have right now. Companies are looking to startups. Many of these startups have never been in our fucking industry before and these individuals are not integrating, these startups are not integrating, they're not focused on the points of execution of how to make it work because they don't understand how it should work.
Joel: And don't forget about pivots, right? Like, "The product I bought last month is the same company but they've pivoted and now there are a different product. So like my head is totally spinning around that."
Chad: So are you seeing that in the UK as much with more focus into the objectives they've started out with? Or are they just pivot machines like we're seeing over here in the US?
Matt: It's very similar. It's kind of very similar across Europe. Lots of startups looking to solve, sometimes just one problem which could be a niche problem, they might pick up a few clients, they don't get the traction they need, they then start to solve another problem and things just get very confusing basically.
Matt: And I think one of the problems is that there's so much money coming into the sector, there are so many investors sort of looking at this and thinking well recruitment's broken and if we could back the people who are going to fix it, then we're gonna make a lot of money. So lots of money coming into the sector, lots of it is being spent on marketing and branding and advertising. Which kind of ups the amount of noise and kind of reduces the overall traction because there are lots of people competing to solve the same problem and it makes for quite confusing landscape.
Matt: Things are changing and it's really important that people go back to that same thing, just understand what are the problems they need to solve and how best to solve them.
Joel: For those listening on Matt's show. You can find out more about us at chadcheese.com and for anyone listening on our show, Matt, where can they find out more about you?
Matt: You can go to rfpodcast.com or just search for Recruiting Future in any Podcasting app or on Spotify or wherever you access your podcasts.
Chad: And you'll be able to see us both on stage at REC fast in London. Right? You're going to be on the R-100 stage in London. That's July 11th and we're going to be closing out the show.
Joel: Can we come crash your presentation?
Matt: Yeah, you can. I'm doing kind of a panel debate about automation and recruitment. And my session is before the bar's open. And your session is kind of right at the end of the day. So you know, the audience reaction might be slightly different. Well it should be an interesting event definitely.
Chad: What we should do is, we should do that panel before the bar's open and then do the exact same panel on the main stage after and everybody has to be drunk when we're doing that. So I think that's a balance between the two.
Matt: I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. And knowing most of people on my panel, I think they'd be well up for that.
Chad: Excellent.
Joel: Thanks Matt.
Announcer: This has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your Podcasts so you don't miss a single show. And be sure to check out our sponsors because they make it all possible. For more visit chadcheese.com, oh yeah, you're welcome.