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2022 Best Podcast Award
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'Job Board Summer Camp' Sucks


It's been a week since tearin' shit up in London, and the boys are psyched to get back to the weekly round-up show. And the hits just keep on rollin'.

-- Appcast, ClickIQ, Perengo and GermanPersonnel!?! WTF?

-- Microsoft's LinkedIn bet is paying off

-- Chatbots MUST disclose in CA

-- Amazon is on strike or wait... no strike?

and summer camps in London and Barcelona have taken a turn for the worst.

Without Sovren, Canvas and JobAdx this jawn wouldn't be happenin' so give them your undivided attention.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by

Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities.

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, rash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.

Joel: It's so hot. Damn it's hot in the Mid-West right now.

Chad: It's so hot.

Joel: It's about to get hotter when we burn up these microphones with podcasting brilliance. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast everyone, I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman.

Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash.

Joel: On this week's episode, there's some serious Pac Man fever in the programmatic advertising space, kids in Europe can now go to the worst summer camp in human history, and we debate who's nuttier, the Swedes or Elon Musk.

Chad: Turn your fan to high and grab a cold one, the show starts right after this word from our sponsor, Canvas.

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Chad: So Amber from Canvas, was supposed to come get a T-shirt. She's been giving me hell on Twitter about getting a T-shirt, we had a box full of them, and she never came and got one.

Joel: She had to be called away, I believe. I don't know if it was her fault, but yeah.

Chad: It was totally her fault.

Joel: For as long as it took me to get a Goddamn cuzi, yeah. She can lose out on the shirt. Dude, I've never been so excited to get to the end of the show, as I have at the beginning of this show. Our wrap up of just ridiculous stories is unprecedented, I think, in the history of our show.

Chad: It is pretty fucking funny. Let's go ahead and hit shout outs then.

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: Let's do this. All right so first shout out to Tom, who's the head of product over at Appcast, he loved that we would take Appcast over Glassdoor all fucking day. Easy decision Tom. And then Matt Lozar said that, he liked the Appcast all fucking day comment, and we should put that on a T-shirt. So I'm thinking we might be able to kind of have this Appcast logo on the back, Chad Cheese on the front, and then it just says Appcast all fucking day. I love it.

Chad: Yo, that' John is so lame.

Joel: I love it too. Can we still give shout outs to RecFest, I know that it's been a week or so, but I think we're still partying on the inside from our time in London. Jamie and company did-

Chad: Yes.

Joel: ... a great job, we loved our time there in London, and look forward to future RecFests as well as a potential global domination plan.

Chad: You never know, right? You never know.

Chad: I came home to some SmashFly goodies. Had some caramel corn, had some... this crazy tea device, I don't drink tea, but Julie loves it. And then go figure, Jay Z sends us chocolate balls, chocolate salty balls. Chocolate covered Bourbon balls, so good stuff. And a bunch of other stuff, but I just had to call this out.

Joel: So the best of both worlds.

Chad: Yeah, why not.

Joel: Bourbon balls, that's nice. That's nice Jay Z. The good news is, we both received our box of goodies at the same time. Usually, one of us gets screwed over, or one of us has to wait. So they were good with the timing on this one, that was nice of them.

Joel: A shout out to the boys at Talent Nexus.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: Man we've talked a lot about the cameras following us around, but hype videos, a little documentary. Can't wait for that stuff to come out. If you want to sign up for the download of the, I don't know, Chad and Cheese movie,-

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: ... or whatever we're calling it, head on over to chadcheese.com, click the link and put in your name, and you'll get the copy.

Chad: Yeah. Or, go to talentnexus.com/chadcheese. Too damn easy, right?

Joel: Yeah, yeah.

Chad: Also-

Joel: Run with Talent Nexus anyway, they're good folks.

Chad: Really awesome that Gem had us over, and Rob Prince showed us around for two solid days. From pub to pub in most cases, but thanks guys, really appreciate the hospitality. That was amazing.

Joel: And Rob is what, 27? I'm sure the last thing he wanted to do was escort around two old white dudes in London. Yeah, that's nice.

Chad: Dude, we were going from pub to pub. I don't think he had an issue.

Joel: Yeah, yeah. It was a pretty good time.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: It's hard not to have a good time there in jolly old London.

Chad: Yeah. And that being said, Lisa Scales wins the free beer for a year from Talent Nexus.

Joel: Did she pick beer? Did she officially pick beer?

Chad: I think she's officially picked beer, but-

Joel: Good for you, Lisa.

Chad: Yeah. So looked at Twitter, and it was funny because she didn't even take a picture of herself in the Chad Cheese mask. She actually took a picture of three other people who were posing, and that was incredibly smart for her, because it was more a group participation. And guess who, the group overall doesn't get the beer, Lisa gets the beer.

Joel: Hopefully she'll share a few bottles with those guys who are in the picture.

Chad: Don't do it.

Joel: Speaking of also staying in London, shout out to Kylie Roco, I believe I'm saying that last name correctly.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: So this was great. You and I go on stage, and she Tweets out, "It's time for..." What was your nickname?

Chad: Stone Cold Steve Austin and Jonah Hill giving out-

Joel: And Jonah Hill.

Chad: ... giving out shots in the main... It was like she was telling everybody. She took a picture and then she said, "Stone Cold Steve Austen and Jonah Hill giving out shots in the main tank." Kind of letting everybody know, hey there's hard liquor coming, come get it.

Joel: I'm sorry, I don't... Jonah Hill just doesn't do it for me. So anyway, I Tweeted back to her and I said, "Jonah Hill, come on. Seth Rogen, I've heard that one before, and I can sort of deal with Seth Rogen. At least he gets the cute girls in the movies." And she replied back, "Oh yes, I met Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill was just the first name that came to mind." I don't know if she was just trying to make me feel better,-

Chad: Yes.

Joel: ... or if that was the truth, but either way, she gets a shout out.

Chad: Oh, yeah. She was just being nice. So more shout outs for goodies. AIA Worldwide, which is TMP's European branch, I guess you could say.

Joel: No doubt.

Chad: They took us to dinner, gave us beer, coffee, chocolates. And here's the biggest thing, I said in the last podcast, I had a great conversation with Richard Collins at ClickIQ about how they should be gobbled up, and then the next day they were and he's like... So he didn't spill the beans, but the night before we were having dinner with pretty much TMP and they didn't spill the beans on the acquisition of Perengo. So I have to say the discipline I respect, but have you... can you not say, "Hey, this is off the record?" I mean, come on people.

Joel: It clearly means we need to get drunker with people then we already are, so the truth serum starts flowing.

Joel: Shout out to Doug Monroe,-

Chad: Oh yeah.

Joel: ... Indeed user who shared on LinkedIn this week. This guy's the co-founder of Adzuna, by the way.

Chad: Okay.

Joel: So not some scrub at some company. So he shared, "Tried to unsubscribe from an Indeed e-mail, spoiled for the choice." The choices he got to opt out of an e-mail from Indeed are number one, only send me e-mails that I've asked for, or number two, send me marketing communications and e-mails that I've asked for.

Chad: It's the non-

Joel: So either way-

Chad: ... opt out.

Joel: ... it sounds like you're still getting e-mails from Indeed.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: You just get to kind to pick your poison of how.

Chad: That's not an opt-out. Yeah, that's not an opt-out, that's not what that is called, because there is no opting out. You're just choosing what you're opting for.

Joel: Opt out, no opt out. Opt in, opt out.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: That's a fucked up opt out.

Chad: Yeah, so are you ready to go to events?

Joel: Yeah, let's do events.

Chad: Okay. So events, September 24, 25th TA Tech North America in Austin.

Joel: It'll be hot.

Chad: We're going to be doing a death match. Everybody loves a death match man. We just finished one in Portugal, going to do one in September in Austen, and fucking awesome dude.

Joel: So everyone might be the charm. I mean, one and two were pretty epic, but three might be the... I'm trying to... What movies was the third installment the best? Toy Story?

Chad: Rocky.

Joel: Ivan Drago, or was that Mr. T?

Chad: That was Mr. T as Clever Lang.

Joel: What's your prediction for the fight?

Chad: Pain.

Joel: Great movie. All right, Rocky Three you're going to pick.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: I'm going to go with Toy Story Three as my favorite. I've not seen the fourth one though.

Chad: Yeah, you can tell you have a tear.

Joel: I kind of teared up when I watched Toy Story Three.

Chad: You always tear up. So October 1st through the 4th, Jobcase is actually sending us to HR Tech in Vegas.

Joel: Who you will remember by the way, pretty much banned us from the show last year. This year they were open arms, come do some shit, do the show, it's going to be awesome.

Chad: Two days. Dude, we're doing two separate days in the expo hall-

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: ... doing or spiel. So they also have a discount code, CHADCHEESE, one word. It's like 300 bucks off, go check it out, and you're welcome.

Joel: $300, damn. Go ahead. You could lose that real fast in Vegas.

Chad: Yeah, yeah. So October 22nd and 23rd, SmashFly, our friends over there who give us goodies, are sending us to unleash Paris. Again, we're going to be on the expo hall doing our thing there, which I like. Being among the people, people are there, at Chad Cheese, it's epic.

Joel: Love Paris, especially I've never been in October. It's going to be lovely.

Chad: Oh yeah.

Joel: It's going to be beautiful.

Chad: It's going to be great. So at that point you would think that rounds up pretty much our world tour, but we actually have four new editions. So if you haven't checked out the Chad Cheese world tour list, go to chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right corner, we're adding Sweden. We're going to TNG, Tengai live, so we're going to do a live pod from there.

Tengai: Hi, this is Tengai, the unbiased interview robot.

Chad: And Tengai actually spun off into its own company. So that's also big news.

Joel: Remember the old James Brown shows where he'd act like he was too tired to go on,-

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: ... and he would start exiting the stage, and then he'd throw off the cape and do more shows? That's what we are.

Chad: Yeah, exactly.

Joel: We're the James Brown of the podcast tour business, which I think is just us doing it. So there's not a lot of competition, but we are the James Brown of our industry. Thank you very much.

Chad: And in September, Recruit a nation live in San Francisco at the JobVite's show. Then we're going to iCIMS's Influence in November in Scottsdale, Talent Net in December in Dallas. I mean, when you looked at our original lineup, it was like, "Fuck man, that is pretty aggressive," and then add four more shows onto that.

Joel: That's what my wife said, not you. By the way guys, Chad's trying to get me to do Yoga at the ISAM show in Scottsdale. I'm not real sure about that.

Chad: I think that is... We're going to have a camera crew there while we do it.

Joel: Yeah. #noyogayoga #chadcheese, if you think I should do yoga.

Chad: Let's do the show.

Joel: Let us do it. Dude, I need to start a fucking programmatic advertising solution, because they're getting bought up like hot cakes right now.

Chad: Too late. The arms race goes on, and we didn't know, but a little company called Compana was actually bought up by the Riverside company who owns German Personnel, which is a programmatic company, and they've-

Joel: Compana.

Chad: ... combined... Yeah, so-

Joel: Bless you.

Chad: Yeah. So it seems like there's some acquisitions happening across the pond. Those are German companies I believe, overall. Before we get to the main course, which are ones that we all know, Step Stone obviously bought Appcast.

Joel: Yeah, it's a blitzkrieg.

Chad: It's freaking... I mean, it's crazy.

Joel: The Germans.

Chad: Then after smacking Indeed square in the face, Indeed comes back and says, "Aha, we're going to buy ClickIQ," Richard Collins and the group, and then we land in the US and the very next fucking day, TMP buys Perengo.

Joel: Four deals in 45 days I think, if our math is correct-

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: ... and it's still heating up. So whose next, whose going to be bought up next? And we commented recently that Joveo has been really quiet lately.

Chad: They have been quiet. It's either bad that they've been quiet, because nobody's over there, or somebody should check for a pulse, or maybe somethings happening. Who knows? I know that obviously the Recruitics team, it's interesting, did they go the wrong direction in becoming an agency instead of focusing on analytics and programmatic?

Joel: That is a question for another show maybe.

Chad: Yeah, we might have to have that as a segment all to itself.

Joel: Maybe-

Chad: I think-

Joel: Maybe they're just on the phone all day fielding offers, eBay style, and just waiting for the clock to run out.

Chad: We'll figure it out. I think the biggest question right now for these three, TMP, Step Stone / Appcast and Indeed with ClickIQ is, do they play together nicely, or do the walled gardens start to appear?

Joel: The walled gardens have to start to appear?

Chad: Where first?

Joel: The algo's favoring their properties, as it's going to happen. You won't be able to prove it, there won't be any transparency, but it's going to happen. When staffing companies buy job boards, and job boards... All these companies are going to favor their own properties, that's just the way it works.

Chad: That's smoke and mirrors, right?

Joel: I give a good amount of credit to Appcast that they'll probably hold out the algorithm the longest, but ultimately... You don't think TMP's going to act in TMP's best interest?

Chad: Well, I personally believe that TMP, I don't know this for sure, but I believe TMP is going to swat everybody else away, and Perengo is their product, right?

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: So they're going to integrate that with Talent Brew, and off you go. So if a client comes to them and they're using Appcast, which to be quite frank, most of these direct employer types of companies, are coming to agencies so that the agencies can do their shit, not so that they can take over their vendor relationship, right?

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: So from that standpoint, it's like, "Oh, you don't have to worry about it, we have all of your different job site destinations taken care of with our programmatic offering through Talent Brew, right?

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: So, I think that's an easy one to understand from my standpoint. The big question for me is, does Indeed pull their content out of all the other programmatic platforms, just to have it in ClickIQ?

Joel: That would depend on how much revenue I guess they'd have to lose over it in the short term. In the long term, if ClickIQ becomes the number one programmatic solution because they're the only one with Indeed, well, that becomes kind of good for Indeed and ClickIQ.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: And kind of fucks everybody else.

Chad: Well, and what is Indeed good at doing?

Joel: Fucking everybody else?

Chad: Exactly right. I mean, right now ClickIQ-

Joel: Boom chicka bow wow.

Chad: ... Appcast is really the infrastructure for the agency game here in the US, and abroad for many cases, so they are really the lion's share of how that works from an infrastructure standpoint. So let's say tomorrow through Appcast, you can no longer get any type of traffic or clicks from Indeed, because Indeed just threw up that walled garden?

Joel: Oh.

Chad: Yeah. So I mean that's the... We've seen them do this shit with... obviously with job boards, with staffing companies, sometimes with big fortune brands. So they're saying, "I'm sorry, you're not meeting the quality that we're looking for." Which means you're not getting any free traffic, you're going to just have to pay for your traffic. So this is... It seems like it's the Indeed playbook, but it's going to go in more of a programmatic scale.

Joel: Yeah, and they better do it soon while they're still relevant.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: Because 10 years from now, no-one will care.

Chad: Five.

Joel: Oh, okay, go five. I was being generous.

Chad: That was nice of you.

Joel: The heat, the heat man. The heat. All right, programmatic stays hot, and I'm sure we'll have more stories in the weeks to come.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: Another company that's still on fire is LinkedIn.

Chad: Yeah.

Joel: Seeking Alpha is one of my go-to's for anything like public company and business story related, and they have a story out this week. Microsoft, LinkedIn bet is paying off better than expected. So a guy wrote an article... LinkedIn is just killing, and you give me shit about drinking the cool aid, but the numbers don't lie, and where LinkedIn is going, is pretty impressive. So the article somehow is from LinkedIn standalone revenue within Microsoft, is close to being $10 billion by 2022, which makes that investment pay off pretty quickly at that rate. You just look at the numbers going down. 630 million members, they're one of the few social networks that's actually worldwide. They're still in China. 70% of LinkedIn users are from outside the US, so you look at global growth, it's impressive. Over 30 million companies using it to post 20 million job openings.