Niches Get Stitches
Think Google's going to have an easy time taking over the world of employment? "Well, think again," says Europe, as 23 job sites file a lawsuit against the search engine giant. What else, LinkedIn is in the news, and niche job boards may be making a comeback, assuming they can turn back the marketplace assault on all-things-employment ... even healthcare.
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Tim Sackett: Hi, I'm Tim Sackett, and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you.
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 opinions, and loads of snark, buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: We're back, bitches. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous, never mind the fact that the bar for danger is pretty low in HR. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman.
Chad: And I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: On this week's show, Europe takes on Google for Jobs, good luck with that. The case for itty bitty niche job boards and why not LinkedIn, why not? Grab a cold sarsaparilla and some ding dongs, we'll be right back after this word from Canvas.
Chad: He said ding dongs.
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Joel: What's up, Chad? I missed you last week, kind of sort of.
Chad: Lies.
Joel: Some of our listeners missed us too, I think.
Chad: Yeah, yeah, they did. There's a time to step back from the mic and that was it, no question.
Joel: I agree, I agree. But the feedback was positive, so we appreciate all the listeners for the good feedback that we got.
Chad: Shout out.
Joel: Shout outs, Collin at ICIMS, I want to say back to back years being a top 50 softwares and service CEO, well done, Collin. That's great, dude.
Chad: Yeah, he's killing it. iCIMS like 13 years in a row, like Inc. Magazine or something like that, fastest growing companies. That's obviously a company to continue to watch.
Joel: Really excited about their analysts meeting this year in Scottsdale.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That should be interesting.
Chad: Should be a blast. Stan and team over at Recruited, big shout out for you guys, sharing a hilarious video of us at RecFest. We were all amped up after being onstage, and drinking half a bottle of Jameson, and I love how the Brits highlight what idiots we are. That to me really shows here's your Chad and Cheese.
Joel: Yeah, not hard to do. Not hard to do. By the way, dude, I'm disappointed I gave you a big opening for yoga in Scottsdale and you totally missed it. I thought you were totally going to grab onto that yoga, #yoga, if you want Chad and Cheese to do a yoga session in Scottsdale.
Chad: So are you going to do it?
Joel: Well, if the people want it, I've got some legwarmers and some leotards that I could potentially wear, definitely a nice sweat band for the head, maybe some wrist weights. I could get a good look going for sure.
Chad: Now see, you always tease people but then you don't do it. There was no speedo in London, okay? So don't tease people about yoga and legwarmers if you're not going to do it.
Joel: I am a big tease, aren't I?
Chad: You are a tease.
Joel: That's bad.
Chad: And that being said, in London, another shout out to our friends at Talent Nexus. We never really did a movie review, but it's funny because the movie that they did, kind of like the short documentary, it shows that we're serious, we're passionate about what we do-
Joel: So serious.
Chad: We don't take ourselves so fucking serious. But thanks to the guys at Talent Nexus for showing us, a couple of regular guys, and that we just speak our mind, like it or not.
Joel: I didn't expect the handholding at the end to be so controversial, but there you go.
Chad: It was a Gladiator-like scene, and again, I think it's funny because all of that kind of wrapped up with passion and there's kind of tongue in cheek shit that's happening throughout the entire video, and then at the end, just kind of wraps it up like, oh, these guys aren't really that serious. Okay.
Joel: Shout out to a couple of dapper dons supporting the T-shirts on social media, Mark Feffer and Dennis Tupper.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: I'm not sure how your wives let you out of the house like that, but they did, and we appreciate the love on social media.
Chad: Shout out to Kelly and Allister over at ContentApp.ai, dude, I love it. They hooked us up with the Content app platform and what it does is it sends me articles via text, and I can share them throughout all my socials through one quick response via text message. So I don't have to go into a different platform, I don't have to do all this shit. I just set it up in Content app, and then it just automatically happens. So love it.
Joel: Chad is a sharing machine thanks to Content app.
Chad: Goddamn straight.
Joel: Whether that's a good thing or not, I'm not sure, but you are allowed to do it and that's a very cool technology.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Shout out to Katrina Collier.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: She wrote a book that you're pretty high on, you're actually making animated gifs of you reading this book, which I can't imagine a more boring animated gif, but hey, you do you, Chad.
Chad: Yes. The Robot-Proof Recruiter deserved more than just a picture. It deserved a series of pictures being animated, which is what we call a gif or what the kids call a "jiff," which I don't understand-
Ed: Yo, that jawn is so lame.
Chad: That's not how it works. Jiff is a peanut butter. Gif is a moving picture. A big shout out to Kelly Services for their You Need a New Job ad, or ads, which are all over YouTube, dude. And they're like Stupid Human Tricks meets old CareerBuilder ads, right?
Joel: Yeah, so the theme is videos on social media that are totally ridiculous and saying you should be looking for a job instead of watching this stupid video. My personal favorite is the monkey massage, which is a little bit of a play on the CareerBuilder monkey ads, kind of sort of, loosely based on that, I guess. So I'm hoping that they don't get a letter from PETA, because they are using a chimp in a commercial, which is usually anti-PETA, but they're massaging the monkey, which I'm assuming is pro-PETA. So I'm not sure where they're going to land on the PETA mark on that one. But we'll see.
Chad: You just said massaging the monkey.
Joel: I did.
Chad: Okay, so last shout out-
Joel: They're not spanking the monkey, which would definitely be anti-PETA.
Chad: Like there's anything different from ... Okay, so going onto my last shout out is to Hung Lee at Recruiting Brainfood and their podcast/Facebook Live event. We're going to be on it this week, so if you're listening now and you missed it, no worries. Just subscribe to the Recruiting Brainfood podcast, because Hung Lee. That's enough, right?
Joel: Hung is totally bottom feeding with having us on the show. I love it. I love it. Way to go, Hung.
SFX: That is one big pile of shit.
Joel: Let's get to our travel schedule.
Chad: Woo, travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Advertising, no, no shit, guys.
Joel: Allegedly he's talking about teasing, they're allegedly getting us Shaker suits.
Chad: Yes. We just received Shaker yetis in the mail.
Joel: I'm drinking out of mine right now.
Chad: The Shaker yeti, we've got the roll-ons, we've got the backpacks, the trucker hats, the ...
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Yeah, the only thing we need, you're right, we need Shaker Recruitment Marketing suits.
Joel: I hate suits. I don't want a suit. Give me like the tuxedo T-
shirt that's Shaker tuxedo T-shirt.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: But I don't want to wear a suit. That's your game.
Chad: Okay, you do that and then I'll do me and I'll do the actual suit. I'm all for that. But we are going to Sweden, people. Going to see our friends at TNG, Ada Digital and-
Joel: Friends both human and not so human.
Chad: And Tengai, that's exactly right, the robots. So we're really excited to be able to jump on a plane, get out there to Sweden, have some fun with the gang, do some live podcasts.
Joel: Nice. Are we doing the podcast in Swedish for our Swedish listeners? No, probably not.
Chad: I'm going to have to get my Google Translate, have to download Swedish so I can just sit there and listen to it.
Joel: I did see in Ikea this week that "adjo" is goodbye in Swedish. So we can at least say goodbye to everyone.
Chad: If we're actually saying it right.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: We did get a Tweet from Henrik Christensen, who's the CEO of Jobbsafari and Jobindex in Denmark and Sweden. Here's his Tweet, he said, "Chad and Joel, when you visit Tengai in Malmo, why not cross the bridge to Copenhagen? Besides running a job board, I run as a travel guide in sneakers. I think this run is made for you." And then he sent us a link to the Copenhagen beer running tour, and just so that you know, I'm totally doing it. I've already coordinated with Henrik, and it's on my schedule. We're in.
Joel: All right, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
Chad: I love when our listeners reach out and say, "Hey, you're coming to my town, I'm going to treat you to some good shit." And that is ... I like to run and I like beer, so doing them together is pretty fucking awesome.
Joel: No doubt. And if people wonder whether we're global or not, there you go. We're getting Swedish Copenhagen Denmark races, what is it, a 5K?
Chad: Yeah, that's a 5K, yeah. I don't know if we'll make it that far, we'll see.
Joel: No, you can do that in your sleep.
Chad: Oh yeah, I can do 5K pretty easy. But spending some time in Copenhagen and crossing the bridge, going over to Malmo, going up and spending some time in Sweden, thanks to our friends at TNG, [Ada 00:10:42], Digital, and obviously the robot, Tengai.
Joel: No doubt. And if you have any other tourist traps that you want us to investigate, hashtag us at Chad Cheese, and we'll look into it.
Chad: Next, we have Recruiter Nation Live.
Joel: Nation Live, powered by Jobvite, yes, newly minted CEO Aman Brar.
Chad: Amazing.
Joel: Get ready, baby.
Chad: That's right.
Joel: And they gave us a discount code for listeners.
Chad: What is it?
Joel: Chad Cheese, all right, listen carefully, Chad Cheese at sign, not A and T, at sign, RNL. For $200 off admission to the show, we'll be there, a lot of thought leaders, industry experts, companies that you know and love, will be there, Recruiter Nation Live, can't wait.
Chad: Yeah, and if you're in the San Francisco area already, why the hell aren't you going? It's September 9th through the 11th, get a couple hundred dollars off, come say hi, buy us a beer, we'll be there.
Joel: I love it. Anchor steam.
Chad: Anchor steam.
Joel: Got to love that, when you go to San Francisco. A little Anchor Steam.
Chad: Little anchor steam, bitch. Last but not least, we're going to talk about our events for at least September, we have Death Match in Austin during TAtech.
Joel: Yes.
SFX: That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over.
Joel: Death Match. Our final contestants seek out .IO signed up this week, so we're super excited for the lineup that also includes Job.com, Assess First, not Asses First, Chad.
Chad: Oh, okay.
Joel: And I'm blanking on the last one.
Chad: Pez.ai, right?
Joel: Pez, yes.
Chad: And the big key here is this is all brought to you by the big name Alexander Mann Solutions. So we're actually going to have the queen of chat bots is going to be on the judging panel from, Quincy Valencia from Alexander Mann Solutions, and then we're also going to have Cindy Songne from Talroo join us on the judging panel as well, to make sure that we have enough smart people on the judging panel to balance out our stupidity.
Joel: This is a banging judge panel, by the way.
Chad: But that's September 24th through the 26th. It's in Austin, if you're in and around Austin or who doesn't want to go to Austin? Austin is a fun place to go, especially in September, late September, check it out. Just go to Chadcheese.com or go to TAtech.org, either way, find our way there and we'll see you there. And again, we don't have a problem with you buying us a beer.
Joel: Yeah, who knows, we all might just crash Indeed's headquarters, they're in Austin, have a party. Who knows?
Chad: I'm in.
Joel: Just saying.
Chad: All right, let's lock some news.
Joel: Let's get to the news, baby. All right. Google for Jobs against Europe, didn't see this coming, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Trust issues, monopoly issues, a group of 23 job sites, I believe, for anti-trust issues of taking away their pie of job board postings and recruiting dollars.
Chad: See, I think the EU saw that Google got slapped on the anti-trust for shopping, and they thought that Google wouldn't make adjustments. Well, guess what, guys? They fucking made adjustments. And as we told you when we were in Ireland last year, Google is coming to the EU, get ready.
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: So the EU needs to understand how to leverage lifestyle platforms instead of fighting them. Google, obviously they've made adjustments and U.S. sites saw a bump in traffic from Google for Google for Jobs when they launched.
Joel: To me, when you file lawsuits, and I'm not an expert on EU and all the laws and anti-trust stuff. It's a lot more serious there than it is here. But when you start suing companies for anti-competitive activities, you usually don't have a whole lot of leg to stand on. And you're scared, you don't have a lot of other options, things look dire, so let's sue everybody. And this is going to play out like every other lawsuit that Google has had, it'll be in court for two, three years, they'll continue to gain market share. The companies that are suing Google, like let's see if they take their jobs off of Google for Jobs, if their jobs are already on there.
Chad: That's the question.
Joel: To me, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't benefit from the traffic and then sue Google for anti-competitive activity. So to me, this is a lot of smoke and not a lot of fire. I think it may get settled for a billion dollars, and these sites will get paid and then they can fade off into the sunset, which they'll probably have to do anyway. So I think it's going to end up a whole lot of nothing, but it is expected that this happened, but to me this is just like hanging on, trying to get every dollar you can and doing that through lawsuits.
Chad: From the EU side of the house, if you are looking on Google for Jobs today, and you can actually see if StepStone, if they're pushing their jobs out to Google for Jobs, if they're marking their jobs up, if they're there, let us know, because StepStone I believe is going to be one of the bigger organizations, Axel Springer, to be able to press this forward. They have from some of the articles a formal complaint up to the EU already. The big question though, if they're not marking their jobs up to be able to be in Google for Jobs, do they really have a case? I mean, they're not using everything that Google's providing to be able to do what Google wants to do, which is provide them with more traffic. So do they really have a case at this point?
Joel: I think if you look into the story and some of the particulars, they're concerned that Google's not just hey indexing jobs and sending traffic. They're talking about Google has salespeople contacting recruiters to post jobs and use their ... Because they also have more than just job postings, right? They have an ATS, they have job search functionality, so I think the company ... And the lawsuit it's talking about, this isn't just links to our site, this is actually Google coming after our competitors, or our customers. And I think that's where maybe the crux of some of that is. To me it's like, settle in, this is the world we live in and lawsuits may temper the time that your demise occurs, but your demise is coming regardless unless you do what you just said was evolve, pivot, figure it out, do some other things aside from just put help wanted signs on the internet.
Chad: Yeah. And I think the best experience wins here, so when we talk about hey, we really believe Google is going to go straight to the applicant tracking systems, and I know iCIMS is working with them and some of the other applicant tracking systems are working with Google, but still, if that user experience is not amazing, and they're having a better user experience with job boards because job boards are focusing on that area and they're making it easier for candidates to apply, then the job boards are going to win. Because Google can see how much time is being spent, so if there's quick ejection out of that, it doesn't matter if an applicant tracking system has their jobs in the system or not. It doesn't. It's all about experience.
Joel: Yeah. You could sue them or try to make Google your bitch, right? Try to make it work for you. Or the real power of what these 23 sites could do is shut Google off, right? Like take a cue from Indeed and say, "Okay, we're going to try to strangle you off at the source and not let you succeed" and try to get as many job boards in Europe to join your cause to keep Google for Jobs out. That would be a much better strategy.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But it's easier to file lawsuits, fuck it.
Chad: There was another article that we saw about niche job board domination.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And I think this lends itself to this discussion of let's take a look at how job sites can actually flourish, you know? Not just looking at the basics. So this was from Imrinder from Rchilli and he was talking about the power of niche being super targeted, quality over quantity, and then he named some names on job boards. And one of those job boards was college recruiter, who we know-
Joel: Our friends, yeah.
Chad: Yeah, have actually evolved quickly away from this duration-based job board kind of scenario, and they're embracing the Google job search API. It's actually helping them, job seekers are staying longer on the site, they're doing more searches because it's more relevant, and they're moving toward performance-driven ads over duration. This is the key to what we're seeing from job sites who don't want to build this moat-
Joel: Yep.
Chad: ... and not innovate.
Joel: Yeah, and I think a big part of what niche sites are allowed to do or able to do that the big sites have a much harder time doing is just really good content and community. You know, providing stuff that's relevant to your audience is hard to do, but it's going to be something that brings people back, keeps them engaged, building community where people can engage with each other, interact with each other. Those tend to be where niche job boards have an advantage. You know, and I know you're a fan of Sun Tzu as I am, but right, so when you're fighting a bigger enemy, zig when they're zagging. And you're not going to beat Google, LinkedIn, Indeed in terms of job postings and quantity, but you can sure win the battle of quality, it just takes a little different mindset and strategy around that.
Joel: But niche job boards are successful when they do that. I know, we haven't talked about Dice in quite a while, but DHI had their Q3 results call recently, and they suck much less than they do a year ago. And part of that is they're cutting costs and they're sort of revamping things. There's a niche site with clearance jobs in particular, right, that's a niche that is in high demand and they're profiting pretty well from that. The E-financial stuff is fairly solid on that end, and even Dice, which we give a hard time for, is I think they were down I think 10% last year, this year down 1% in terms of revenue. So they suck much less, they're getting better. I think if they can figure out the feature set better, the engagement better, the content better, we may continue to be talking about Dice as a turnaround story in the next 12 months.
Chad: Art should definitely come on the show now and say, "Hey, we're sucking much less than we did. We're on a trajectory." Let's have that discussion, Art.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Here's my thing, I really believe that these niche job sites need to be focusing on becoming marketplaces. This is where I think consolidation could definitely happen. Indeed bought Sift, so the job board bought the actual marketplace tech itself, or vice versa, right?
Joel: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: So that to me makes it much easier for a company to engage when you become a marketplace for them as opposed to a place just to be able to throw your ads. Whether it's performance, it's programmatic, or it's duration, you're still throwing your ads out there. They might be more pinpointed, but when you talk about a marketplace, that's an entirely different conversation.
Joel: You could actually argue that marketplaces are a bigger threat to job boards than-
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: ... the big guys like Google and Facebook and LinkedIn.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: We've seen sort of the general stuff, we've seen services, hourly jobs, which to me is pretty low-hanging fruit for this marketplace environment, but in the news this week, a site called Nomad Health, which is only a couple years old I think, raised $34 million basically Uber for healthcare opportunists, right? So we talk about service stuff with chefs and service, waitresses and wait staff, this is a healthcare platform to bring on nurses and radiologists and whatever in a Uber-type platform contract way. To me, that signals everything's going to go marketplace at some point, right?
Chad: There's no reason that it shouldn't. I mean, seriously, we're talking about connectivity here, and right now we have very loose connectivity when we're just pushing our jobs out there or we're diving into, a recruiter's diving in a resume database. That's really loose connectivity when you have individuals who are in a marketplace, that is so much of a tighter network. Right? If you can see availabilities and you can see openings, and the system can start to make those recommendations, right? That just makes a hell of a lot more sense as opposed to having to do all that fucking work yourself.
Chad: The automation piece, this is where AI and machine learning really comes in, and it's loose AI, let's say, to be able to start making those recommendations that make sense to fill positions that much faster.
Joel: Yeah. And I think very cool, I think one of the stats I've seen at one point is only one in four nursing degrees actually practice nursing. So you have a lot of people that are getting degrees but are either no longer practicing or just got a degree and didn't want to do it. Imagine how many of those might come back into the workforce if they realize, "Hey, I can flip the switch and go be a nurse when I want to at whatever hospital I want to or healthcare facility. And then when I don't want to work, I turn it off." This could be a big boon for the nursing shortage and solving that problem.
Chad: It could be big for just across the board, just from a side hustle standpoint.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: If I have time and I like to do those things, then yeah, let's go ahead and turn on my side hustle and let's get it on.
Joel: Yeah, and talking about older nurses that leave the workforce permanently, this could be a part time gig for them when they go nurse when they want to, and these are 20, 30, 40 year experienced nurses. That platform's going to be a great thing for service industry like that.
Chad: Yes. So big shot over the job board's bow, you're thinking too much about Google and you're not thinking enough about marketplaces. You're afraid, we totally get that, but focus on where the point of evolution is for this industry. It's not fighting the organizations like Google, it's working with them and creating marketplaces that you can leverage the shit out of their technology.
Joel: Well, you know who's not scared, Chad?
Chad: JobAdX.
Joel: JobAdX. Let's hear from them and we'll talk about LinkedIn when we get back.
Chad: Boom.
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JobAdX: You're spending thousands of dollars on beautiful, informative employment branding videos that just sit on a YouTube channel, begging to be discovered. Why not feature them across our network of over 150 job sites to proactively compel top talent to join your team? Help candidates see themselves in your role by emailing "join us" at Jobadx.com. That's join us at J-O-B-A-D-X.com. Attract, engage, employ with JobAdX.
Chad: A quick shout out to Isabelle over at JobAdX because she is totally hooking us up-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: ... with different places to go in Copenhagen and Sweden as well. Love those people. Wherever we're going, we get all these people saying, "Oh, I've been there, you have to go to these places."
Joel: Yeah, I want to be Isabelle when I grow up. She just travels the world and eats at really nice restaurants and drinks really good liquor. Chad, why not LinkedIn?
Chad: Well-
Joel: Why not?
Chad: See, it's interesting. Why aren't we talking about LinkedIn? So this is an article that actually popped out that talks about Twitter helps the powerful discover their worst selves, and leaves everyone else vulnerable. Facebook brings people together only to subject them to marketing and manipulation. Our social feeds aren't ready for 2020 and the election, right? Except for one. Is there anything the rest of us can do like LinkedIn?
Joel: LinkedIn has been surprisingly immune to all the negativity that social media garners.
Chad: Why is that though?
Joel: I think Microsoft probably is doing a good job of keeping things on lock down, which is a big reason why they haven't ... And I think just their brand of we're a professional network, we're a place for jobs and for business and people that are professionals, sort of keeps them clean. We've uncovered many sort of catfishing/dating/escort services, all kinds of stuff is going on on LinkedIn, but for some reason, they've been immune to the scrutiny that others have suffered.
Chad: So I think mainly the actual community itself has policed itself to an extent, because they're afraid to share shit on LinkedIn that they would share on Twitter an Facebook, right? They're not sharing these conspiracy theories or what have you that they share everywhere else.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Because it is a professional network and they're kind of afraid more there for their job than anything else. So I think there's that. Not to mention you do have the LinkedIn police that are out there that we've talked about before where people will reach out and say, "Hey, I don't think this is appropriate for LinkedIn," and it won't be people from LinkedIn, it'll be people from your network. So I think that in itself is different, but the big thing for me though is that that was a big piece of how all of this fake shit was propagated in the last election, in 2016, is that we as individuals shared that shit, because obviously the Cambridge analytics of the world could go and target better, right?
Chad: So if I could target better and I knew the different buttons to push with you, then I think I had a better likelihood to actually get you to share some shit that normally you probably wouldn't share.
Joel: LinkedIn for a long time was really doing their hardest to be like Facebook. We'll add pictures, we'll add live video, we'll ... And they've done that to their benefit, the people who are posting pictures and videos aren't posting like family pictures and videos of me in the car going to work out, right? It's like videos of me at work or here's my company or hey, check out my blog post. So the content is better even though they are doing some of the functionality as Facebook as long as they don't cross that line to family photos, crazy videos, TMZ shit, and stuff, then I think they'll probably be safe from a lot of the things that plague other social networks.
Chad: So here's where I think the change might start to happen,
because LinkedIn just launched audience segments.
Joel: Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.
Chad: So before, and this is where we really got into Facebook's ass around jobs, not the other areas, because this is probably where they should have changed it, is that we are easily targeted on Facebook because of all the different info that we have and really all the different audience segments per se, right? So LinkedIn really didn't have that, but guess what's coming, kids?
Joel: What's coming?
Chad: Audience segments, and they're creating a partner program which aims to help marketers identify the best target groups for their site's 645 million members.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: They have companies like Amobee, Analect, Hootsuite, Ogilvy, and Sprinkler, who signed partnerships but once again, what made LinkedIn ... I believe what made them kind of more like this bubble where the asshole fake stuff couldn't get in, that's starting to deteriorate a little bit because of this. Now, I don't think that it's wrong. I just think that they're going to have to have safeguards in place to ensure they don't turn into a Facebook.
Joel: Yeah, LinkedIn has this challenge where they want to make money from advertising, but they aren't making that much, and as an advertiser, they're super expensive versus the competition, targeting, it's complicated. They need to be more efficient, they need to be more cost effective in their advertising and a way to do that is to build this sort of marketplace where you're tracking people and things are more efficient in terms of the data that they have.
Chad: Right.
Joel: But they're also in effect while doing that risking crossing the line of privacy and all that other good stuff that have plagued other social networks.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: In the past years.
Chad: Yeah, it's smart and I feel it's dangerous as well.
Joel: Dangerous, yes, yes.
Chad: Danger, Will Robinson.
Joel: They have smart people over there, you know? I'm sure nothing can go wrong.
SFX: That is one big pile of shit.
Joel: Sorry, that was a little tongue in cheek there, but ...
Chad: That was nice. Yeah.
Joel: Well, some other smart people over at our friends at ZapInfo, our buddy Doug Berg, shout out to him. They continue to roll out the hits there with features of the ZapInfo product, and we have talked to him at length I think off air about the whole JDPR stuff, the privacy, and how the business of sourcing people, getting content off the web, putting it in a database, marketing to it, it's going to be changing. So neither one of us was surprised last week when they introduced SMS/text messaging and Google Talk integration into their product. So now, when you search a company's about us page and use your ZapInfo extension or service instead of grabbing the content and throwing it into a database, which I believe you can still do, you can automatically text people on this page, you could call them directly through their
Google Voice integration.
Joel: And I think we both agree this is sort of an evolution or pivot that a lot of these sourcing tools will have to make in deciding what are we going to do after we can't grab data from the internet haphazardly?
Chad: One of the things that Doug is amazing at, you don't bet against Doug Berg. You don't. First off, he was at Techies.com way back in the day before that was sold off. He's with Jobs2Web before they pivoted and added features and they were bought by SuccessFactors.
Joel: 125 million, I think? (Actually 110 million - close)
Chad: Yeah, it wasn't low-balled, that's for damn sure. But the thing is, don't bet against Doug Berg. Doug understands that pivots are a part of the game. I don't feel like this is a total pivot, but I do believe this is filling out the portfolio of that, of ZapInfo, and adding some connectivity that is totally necessary for recruiters.
Joel: Yeah. There's a reason that when you see Doug on social media, he's always smiling, not only because of his past success but I think he's able to see around corners that a lot of us aren't able to see around, and I think that he probably sees a lot of the challenges that the people sourcing and people search business is going to have, and he's simply creating services that can survive outside of those regulations. And based on their history, there'll be more features to come and more evolution and not necessarily pivots, but he'll grow the business and if pieces of it die, he'll have other pieces to cling onto and grow.
Chad: Yeah. Look for an acquisition.
Joel: Look for an acquisition. Well, let's look for an add from Sovren and we'll talk about virtual restaurants and, good god, the Ladders? Shit.
Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates, and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad: And that dinner might actually just be coming to you instead.
Joel: Wow, that's a good segue. Very nice. I find this stuff fascinating.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Story out of New York Times, I believe, talks about virtual restaurants. So the basic idea is beyond an actual brick and mortar restaurant, beyond an actual food truck that goes to a downtown location or wherever, we're now having these virtual restaurants, which I assume is, I don't know, at home kitchens or you reserve kitchens, like big areas to cook food? And then DoorDash and Uber Eats basically deliver the food that you're ordering online. I think it's genius, I think that it's going to expand the food offerings and how good the food offerings are around certainly urban areas.
Chad: Right.
Joel: And it has employment implications as well, right?
Chad: Yes, yes. You definitely have to see employees in a different light. One of the individuals who's actually, he has a restaurant but he runs other menus out of that same restaurant. He said that delivery used to be maybe a quarter of his business, now it's about 75% of the business.
Joel: Wow.
Chad: Food delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub are starting to reshape the $863 billion American restaurant industry as more people order food to eat at home and as deliveries become faster, more convenient, the apps are changing the very essence of how these individuals operate a restaurant and one, I'd like to point out, which is here in Indianapolis, it's also in Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, and Denver, is a company called ClusterTruck.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: What these guys do, it's amazing, because let's say you're down in Indianapolis or you're in Columbus, Ohio or what have you, and you go to one of these bars that really they don't serve food, they might like, chips or something like that, well, you can get onto your ClusterTruck app and they have this awesome menu to go by with like, five different varieties, whether it's Asian or pizza or burgers or something like that, and you can pick what you want and they deliver it to you.
Chad: Now ClusterTruck does not have a storefront, at all.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: And it's genius. Now this is a little bit different because ClusterTruck has their own employees who they do the running, but this is just really a different way of what we're talking about with Grubhub and DoorDash and Uber Eats and those others. This is fucking awesome.
Joel: It's a marketplace for food, right? We talk about marketplaces for people, this is the same idea, and they'll have four star ratings and they'll have reviews and you'll choose based on the market as opposed to oh yeah, I know Chili's or I know Applebee's or I know who these guys are. They'll be much more competition and that menu will be that much more expanded. I think that what's fascinating in terms of employment is you don't need service staff, you don't need a person at the front, you don't need a bartender, you don't need all the legalese, you don't need to pay the real estate taxes, you don't have to pay the leases, all these things that are holding a lot of people back from even starting a restaurant go away, and imagine what that's going to do for employment as well as just better food.
Joel: I guess a lot of these waiters will just drive trucks for DoorDash and ClusterTruck and whatever else as opposed to serving people at a table, they'll serve people at their home or at the bar that they're at.
Chad: Take it one step further. Was it Pizza Hut or Domino's who was going to have an automated truck who actually made the pizza on its way to deliver to you?
Joel: Yeah, so I think there's a startup that makes the pizza in the truck, I don't know the name of it offhand, Domino's was testing a car that was self-driving with an oven, or like a heater, and then you had a code or your phone or whatever unlocked it, and then you took our pizza. Pizza Hut was in the news recently, they're closing a bunch of stores because no one really ... You and I remember the days of oh, Friday night, let's go get a pizza.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Like let's go to Pizza Hut and they have a salad bar. I don't think anybody does that anymore, so they're closing down a bunch of stores because that market is changing rapidly as well.
Chad: Times, they are a-changing.
Joel: But one thing that isn't changing is the stupidity of the Ladders.
SFX: That is one big pile of shit.
Joel: So you came across a great food article and were surprised at the source of the article.
Chad: Yeah, I was reading through just an article, it was talking about I think like the best burgers or something like that, and I was wondering if it had Beyond Meat or the Impossible Burger, and I clicked through and then I look at the domain, and it's the Ladders. I'm like what the fuck am I doing here?
Joel: Yeah, the story was you'll never guess which restaurant has America's best burger. And when you think about job opportunities, you're thinking about burgers in America.
Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Joel: Now I can't get on them too much because I am a fan of content marketing.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And everyone's sort of a job seeker and someone looking for an article on a burger or Impossible meat might also look for a job. But for me, it's like what's next? Articles about Cardi B and Justin Bieber's dating life? I don't know where you draw the line and become TMZ as opposed to a reputable job search site.
Chad: Aren't they supposed to be like a six figure executive high ranking site? Why wouldn't they have what's the best Merlot or the best place to get a steak or one of those? I don't know, that just didn't make sense to me at all. It didn't seem like it was on target.
Joel: Dude, they're so far from six figure jobs at this point. Their business is get as many people in here, get their data as quickly as possible, and spam the shit out of them. Who was it, Jason that talked about opting out of the Ladders emails?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Remember that? It's like the Walking Dead, no matter how you try to kill them, they always come back, like that's the Ladders' business model. And if that's your business model, then yeah, get as much traffic with crappy articles as possible and make sure that those people join your database so you can spam the shit out of them.
Chad: Yeah, but that's not sustainable. Let's just put that out there.
SFX: That is one big pile of shit.
Joel: And with that ...
Chad: We out.
Walken: Thank you for listening to ... What's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese, brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing, just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one, cheddar, bleu, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss, so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com, just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out.
Tim Sackett: Hi, I'm Tim Sackett and you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm not sure why you are, but hey, you do you.
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