Amazon's Twitter Trolls Strike Again
Authenticity is a tough thing to come by these days, but Amazon takes things to a whole other level, and the boys hash out what's wrong with the employers branding strategies. Oy! Plus, Stepstone wants to have its cake and eat it too, college degrees ain't all that, Indeed goes offline with its latest product and much, much more. Enjoy and give sponsors Sovren, JobAdx and Canvas lots o' love.
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Announcer: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HRs 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 & Cheese Podcast.
Joel: I think I realized why we should not do live shows, face-to-face, on a regular basis.
Chad: Why?
Joel: Because my liver would quit. It would just say, "Fuck you, I'm out."
Chad: "I can't do this anymore. Oh my God. Oh my God."
Chad: (singing)
Joel: So welcome to this weeks show, live from beautiful Fishers, Indiana.
Chad: Woo-hoo.
Joel: At Ale Emporium, off of Olio Road.
Chad: Olio.
Joel: Come out and say hi, because we'll probably be here.
Chad: We might still be here, in the fetal position. [crosstalk 00:01:04] In the
corner.
Joel: I'm Joel Cheesman, your co-host.
Chad: And I am Chad Sowash.
Joel: On this weeks show, we're talking about Indeed going off-line.
Chad: Uh.
Joel: IAC, that big internet company, making a big acquisition.
Chad: Can I get another beer?
Server: Sure thing...
Chad: Yeah. Same thing, the Weizengoot.
Joel: The StepStone's double-standard.
Chad: Ooh.
Joel: We'll be right back, after this word from a sponsor.
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you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad: And we're back.
Joel: We never left.
Chad: WE never left, we were always here.
Joel: Isn't editing great?
Chad: It was amazing, I love this shit. So, yeah man. I love coming up and coming to the Ale, having a few beers.
Joel: Yup.
Chad: Having some pizza.
Joel: What are we drinking today? Let's do a quick beer review.
Chad: The Weizengoot.
Joel: The Weizengoot, [foreign language 00:02:33]
Chad: It is a Hefeweizen.
Joel: A Hefeweizen, yes.
Chad: Made here locally, so it's not a... You have the [crosstalk 00:02:41]
Joel: I have the list here.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It's pretty lengthy. I had the Dare Devil Liftoff before that, which I find very tasty.
Chad: Now, it is beautiful. But the Weizengoot is a German-style Hefeweizen. Bananas and clove aroma, medium-light-
Joel: Thank you, bartender.
Chad: Oh, thank you. I just got my next Weizengoot. So, yeah. Good beer, good pizza.
Joel: Let's do a cheers and some shout-outs.
Chad: Cheers.
Joel: I think that's appropriate.
Chad: Gerry Crispin.
Joel: (singing)
Chad: 72.
Joel: That's my best Marilyn Monroe imitation.
Chad: 72. And, guess what? SO, I messages him this morning-
Joel: Did he really reveal his age, or was that just off-
Chad: NO, I saw it on Facebook.
Joel: Oh, Facebook. Okay.
Chad: So, I messaged him this morning and said, "Dude, happy birthday. We put up a page to be able to, pretty much, memorialize all the Gerry tales." He's like, "Oh, thanks so much man. On my way to Burning Man." He's on his way to Burning Man, right now.
Joel: That's awesome. SO, to blow your mind a little bit.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: When you and I, probably, met Gerry, he was about our age.
Chad: Oh, shit. No way. Yeah, probably. Fuck. Fuck. Not that Gerry's old.
Joel: SO, Burning Man and tattoos in Bangkok are in our future. Thanks Gerry, for the inspiration.
Chad: Yes. Thanks for that, Gerry. Bucket list. We were received a message from Richard Essex. Tell us about this one.
Joel: Richard may need some counseling. Richard is a former [crosstalk 00:04:14] CareerBuilder employee and heard one of our podcast, You Will Know Us By the Trail of CareerBuilder Dead, or something.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: And said it brought tears to his eyes, listening to the number, I guess, of people that he knew, that were no longer around. Just, the devastation that CareerBuilder has taken on.
Chad: He was gone, so I don't know if that means he was laughing so hard he was crying or he was crying because he was so sad. So, either way, Richard-
Joel: You could also take his name and some iteration of it, and create Dick Sex. So, that could be why he's a little tearful.
Chad: Moving on.
Joel: Richard man, we're praying for you.
Chad: Praying for you, man. You're not there anymore, so don't worry about it. We can only hope Dom buys that thing. Tim Proctor-
Joel: Timmy.
Chad: ... the Walking outro is awesome. So, Joel said, "Hey look, should we get new outros?" I said, "Why the fuck the not? What do you want to do?" So, he comes back with this Christopher Walken outro. If you haven't listened to the end of the podcast, definitely listen today. We'll be playing it. It is funny as fuck.
Joel: It's pretty good. It has inspired more celebrity outros, if you will.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I'm kind of torn between who's next. We've got the Deadpool, we've got Jack Nicholson, we have Leonardo DiCaprio.
Chad: So listeners, if you have an idea of your favorite outro, at least a celebrity outro, let us know.
Joel: Shawshank... Who's...
Chad: Anthony Dufrene.
Joel: No, no. The other one.
Chad: Oh, Morgan Freeman?
Joel: Morgan Freeman, yeah. [crosstalk 00:06:04] He's an option. Yeah, there are many celebrity impersonations out there. Which one should do the next Chad & Cheese outro? Hashtag us at ChadCheese.
Chad: Big shout-out to our friends over at Bayard advertising. Mainly, Daniel O'Neill. So Daniel, I want to let you know that-
Joel: Daniel stepped up.
Chad: ... right now, we are having our corporate outing, the Chad & Cheese corporate outing. We have the Colonel Taylor's Small Batched Bourbon and also...
Joel: And the Redbreast 12 Year cask-strength Irish Whiskey. Daniel has got to be on some AA watch list, somewhere.
Chad: Yes. I love it.
Joel: Somebody is watching his buying activities and saying, "We have a drunkard on our hands." So Daniel, watch out for the AA police out there.
Chad: So, what I love right now is the Agency's swag game is escalating.
Joel: Alcoholism is no laughing matter, Chad, by the way.
Chad: It's escalating, okay? So, we get amazing swag from our travel sponsor, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Then we just get new Yetis from them. Ext thing you know, we get a new Bayard Koozie, or whatever. What was it, tumbler?
Joel: Stop with the tumblers.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: If it's not Yeti or...
Chad: Keep on sending, send those tumblers. Top-shelf alcohol-
Joel: ... Frisbee. And Frisbees.
Chad: Oh yeah, yeah. So, that was a swag-bomb, by the way. So, don't do that, that's all I have to say.
Joel: Somewhere there's a closet at Bayard with mad swag from the 2000's.
Chad: Whoever thought it was funny to send me an Indeed Frisbee, yeah. It went straight to the trash. Just so you know.
Joel: Yeah, I don't need the Glassdoor hacky sack, thank you very much.
Chad: I actually kept my Glassdoor hacky sack. Shout-out to the JobBoard doctor who was back in the Tweet storm.
Joel: The doctor.
Chad: Be there, doctor. Hung Lee and Adam Gordon for having us up, a really bat clean-up, last week in the Recruiting Brainfood show. That was interesting.
Joel: They said, "Okay, we'll put these guys at the end of the show because most people will have left by then." But the audience stayed pretty loyal, I was pretty impressed.
Chad: I was impressed.
Joel: Solid line-up, Hung, you got to upgrade the equipment. But other than that, it was a solid experience. A good time. I just said, "Hung, you need to upgrade your equipment."
Chad: That was another porn reference, by the way.
Joel: No wonder he's single. Jesus.
Chad: Shout-out to... are you good?
Joel: Yeah, I'm done with shout-outs. Let's go to the travel schedule.
Chad: Events. Okay, so, first and foremost, T-shirts. We haven't talked about these in awhile. Chad & Cheese limited-edition Cheese shirts, we're running low. But thanks to Emissary.AI, we still have some left over. So, any of the events that we're going to be at, look for Chad & Cheese. Ask for T-shirts, we probably have them. They're soft,
they're warm, they're wonderful.
Joel: They'll keep you warm in the fall season-
Chad: Yes. That's exactly right.
Joel: ... as we go into conference season. We're going to Sweden.
Chad: We are going to Sweden.
Joel: I want to hash out this food challenge that you've thrown down to me.
Chad: You are the food guy, I'm the beer guy. You're the food guy. What?
Joel: This is the nastiest food challenge-
Chad: I don't even know how to say it.
Joel: Yeah. We don't know how to say it. It basically looks like a can of fish, left over from Word War I-
Chad: Stringy, canned fish.
Joel: ... that's been fermenting for 50 years.
Chad: Yeah, I think there's something nuclear about it, as well.
Joel: That has just enough salt that it doesn't go bad, but it's just on the cusp of being rotten fish.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That they want me to eat. And I'm not sure why I got picked for this challenge. As far as I'm concerned, there's not enough vodka in Scandinavia, for me to even think about doing this. So, yeah. We're going to Sweden, but don't expect me to eat rotten fish, thank you very much.
Chad: I believe it will happen, just so you know. Yeah, we're going to be kicking out the Sweden-
Joel: #ChadCheese if I should eat the rotten fish.
Chad: Really excited that we're going to see, obviously, the robot. How can you not be excited to see the fucking robot, for God sakes? But we're going to see TNG Staffing, AIDA Digital. I'm watching these-
Joel: I'm bring a wig for the robot. I'm thinking a different look is needed for the robot.
Chad: No. First and foremost, you're already creepy enough around the robot, as it is. Saying you're bringing a wig for the robot-
Joel: I'm thinking like a Jackie-Brown-inspired wig, for Tengai, would be good.
Chad: Oh, so creepy. So creepy. Moving on...
Joel: How do you say creepy, in Swedish? I'm going to learn.
Chad: ... Recruiter Nation Live.
Joel: RNL.
Chad: San Francisco-
Joel: The Bay.
Chad: ... September 9th through the 11th. If you are in the San Francisco, or around the San Francisco area, you need to be there. Here's the reason why, we have a $200 discount. Go to Recruiter Nation Live, sign up-
Joel: Which I think is only good through the end of August, so get on that people.
Chad: Yeah. So, you better get on it now. ChadCheese@RNL-
Joel: That's the at sign.
Chad: ... That's the at sign, yes.
Joel: Not the A and T word.
Chad: ChadCheese@RNL. SO, that's the Recruiter Nation Live, we will be there. Who knows what we'll be doing, nobody knows.
Joel: We're going to interview Aman, the newly-minted CEO of Jobvite, for sure.
Chad: I think Aman will probably have as many interviews with us as Tim Sackett has.
Joel: Let's bring some rotten fish from Sweden, see if Aman will eat that.
Chad: Oh, he'll eat that shit.
Joel: He will?
Chad: He'll eat that. He will show you.
Joel: Hoosiers eat anything.
Chad: Aman will not step back from a challenge, that's what I know. Last but not least, TAtech North America in Austin, Texas. September 24th through the 26th.
Joel: Oh, yeah.
Chad: Death Match, kids.
Joel: Death Match time.
Chad: Death Match. Sponsored by our friends-
Joel: Four companies enter, one company leaves.
Chad: ... at Alexander Mann Solutions with contestants... Can you name them off?
Joel: Pez.ai, not the candy.
Chad: Pez.ai, yeah, Pez. Yeah.
Joel: Asses first...
Chad: Assess First, yes.
Joel: ... SeekOut-
Chad: SeekOut.
Joel: ... and Job.com.
Chad: Whoo man.
Joel: Yeah, you like that?
Chad: You're a block-chain master, that's awesome.
Joel: Yeah. I need more beer, apparently.
Chad: Yeah, apparently. We need to give you some beer.
Joel: Another drink.
Chad: So, that's it, Those are the next three events we're going to be at. If you want to see what other events, because I think we have seven or so, go to ChadCheese.com, upper right-hand corner, Events, click it. Find us, come get your T-shirt, buy us a beer. That's what we want. Thanks.
Joel: Kiss Chad's forehead, he loves it. Let's get to the news.
Chad: News. StepStone.
Joel: Double-standard at StepStone. So, you have an inside informant or two, over there, telling you about the double-standard at StepStone. What's going on?
Chad: We certainly do, we certainly do. So, it's interesting because last week, we actually talked about how StepStone and 23 other job sites that are not under the StepStone umbrella-
Joel: 23, yeah.
Chad: Yeah. So, StepStone has like 30 job sites under their umbrella. There're another 23 that were, pretty much, throwing the anti-trust word at Google in the EU, which is always a bad thing. Google got nailed for anti-trust with shopping.
Joel: Yup.
Chad: But they fixed their shit. Unfortunately, here's the thing. StepStone, even though they're throwing this anti-trust bullshit lawsuit out, one of our listeners
actually sent this message.
Joel: Smart listeners, we have.
Chad: "Hey Chad..." Well, we asked. We said, "Hey, we can't see the German or the EU Google for Jobs. Send us screenshots."
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: We got a deluge of screenshots.
Joel: [foreign language 00:13:42]
Chad: Here's one of them. "Hey Chad, just listened to your most-recent podcast episode. I know people who work for StepStone and they have an entire team focused on indexing all their jobs on Google for Jobs." So, what they're trying to do is they're trying to propagate StepStone.
Joel: Yup.
Chad: Trying to propagate all of their jobs throughout their 30 different-
Joel: Job sites.
Chad: ... job sites. All their real estate, right? To be able to leverage Google for Jobs, in the same-
Joel: While suing them.
Chad: Yes. While suing them, that's the key.
Joel: I believe that's called "talking out of both sides of your mouth", in America.
Chad: I believe that's called "talking out of your ass".
Joel: Yeah, that could be it, actually.
Chad: I think that's what it is, yes. Talking out of your ass.
Joel: Well, at least they're covering their bets.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: You know? They're betting on red, that Google will win and then, whatever.
Chad: Uh-huh (affirmative), yup.
Joel: But they're also betting on black that, "Hey, we'll get some dollars out of Big G."
Chad: From another listener, we received an email. "So, here's StepStone's UK brand, at Totaljobs.com. Not only-
Joel: A large site.
Chad: Yes. "... not only sponsoring search terms on the search-engine results, mind you, but also marketing their jobs, or marking their jobs up for index into Google for Jobs." Then, again, sent a screenshot. So, StepStone, I know you're listening, quit talking out of your ass.
Joel: Are we requesting StepStone, step up, if you will, and pull their jobs like Indeed has done?
Chad: Yeah. If you're going to be a bitch, and whine about this stuff, you're going to bitch and you're going to whine, then yeah.
Joel: Take a stand.
Chad: You're doing the exact, right thing. You're whining, and then you're talking out of your ass. But, if you're going to puff up your chest and you're going to take Google to fucking court on anti-trust, then why don't you go ahead and do the right thing? Pull your shit off of Google for Jobs.
Joel: Yeah. We give Indeed a lot of shit, but at least they have the cojones to say, "We're pulling it."
Chad: Yeah. Yeah, they-
Joel: At least in America.
Chad: ... they think a lot of themselves. SO, they do that kind of stuff.
Joel: All right, so StepStone, what are you going to do? Nothing. They'll probably keep doing the same thing, lose in court. But they'll still get traffic from Google. In the meantime, Indeed is getting into the career fair business.
Chad: Ooh. Why?
Joel: Speaking of the Big I, out of Austin, Texas.
Chad: Why?
Joel: Well, I would clearly say-
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They would probably tell you that, "Well, it's an opportunity we can't pass up." I would say, "Hey, it's another chip to this whole Google for Jobs thing is kicking our butt. We might want to place our bets in other areas." One of those being career fairs, knowing that there's no way in Hell that Google's ever going to put on career fairs.
Joel: So, essentially, Indeed has launched this product targeted toward high-frequency hiring. We're talking truck drivers, we're talking servers, and hourly workers, et cetera. The idea is that, when you post these jobs online, everybody applies, there's no pre-screening or no friction between applying and actually talking to the company.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So, the idea is like, "Hey, if you had an actual event that someone has to get in their car, or get in an Uber, or get on their Bird Scooter to have to come down and interview, you're going to automatically pre-screen people who aren't really serious about the job." Then you can have the event. Indeed handles the advertising of it, the management of it, the candidate flow, et cetera. So, yeah. I guess it's a nice, potentially revenue-flow. I thought job... I mean, I thought job fairs had kind of died out in the '90s.
Chad: So, is this a real, physical job fair? Or is it an online job fair?
Joel: No, it's a real, brick-and-mortar job fair.
Chad: It's a real-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: They're setting up... Okay, so here's the thing. It's really hard to scale a lot of that shit. I mean, especially in this kind of economy, when we do have a low employment-rate. I now people are still looking for jobs, but from my standpoint, this is not the time to start up one of these job fair endeavors. This doesn't make any sense.
Joel: Well look, if you're Indeed's leadership, you're saying, "Okay, this whole pay-per-click for job postings thing might not last forever. It probably won't. So, where are we going to place bets, or where are we going to diversify our income?"
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: We've already seen them with staffing, right? That's an obviously, something that Google's not going to get into. They're not going to get into job fairs.
Chad: No.
Joel: They're not going do this-
Chad: It's too hard, there's too much to it.
Joel: ... job tracker, whatever it is, where you go take pictures for help-wanted signs around the world. So, they're doing things that, I think, they know Google isn't going to touch and seeing if they can make a dent into it. They've tried other businesses that have failed and they've closed them, to their credit. This job fair thing, to me, is sort of the next idea. I'm sure they've had clients says, "Hey, you guys should do job fairs." And they said, "Yeah, let's try job fairs. We already have 10 clients that'll do it
tomorrow."
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So, it seems a little haphazard, but-
Chad: 10 clients won't pay for a job fair, just so we're clear, first and foremost.
Joel: I tried really hard, to think about job fairs and the last job fair I actually remember.
Chad: Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative).
Joel: Whether it just be in regular advertising around my local market or online, or on Facebook, or anywhere. They seem to be extinct.
Chad: When I was the Chief Experience Officer over RecruitMilitary, one of the things that they did, that I didn't totally agree with, but they did, good for them, is they scaled up their job fair. They have a very niche market that they're going after, right? Now, that was very hard for them. They did a very good job, they really did. But, at the end of the day, Indeed's not going to build a business off of that.
Joel: No, no. It's a way to get money out of clients that are already paying them for clicks and job postings and whatever else.
Chad: It reminds me of Monster Blue Collar, remember Monster Blue Collar?
Joel: Yeah, yeah totally.
Chad: Then they had a whole segment. It was like, "Oh, you guys are the blue collar sales people." That shit died. And it's not only going to die, but in a market like this, right now, it's going to be flushed down the toilet, quick. So, I think Indeed buying SIFT, I'm going to say that there're probably many different teams that they have working on these things.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: But I think the market place piece is where they win, in the skilled market, in skilled-trades market.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: It's not the job fairs. So, go after it, Indeed. We're going to make fun of you, go after it. But I really think SIFT if your answer.
Joel: Yeah. This also is another reason for Indeed to have face-to-face relationships with clients. I mean, since their inception, they've been a very hands-off, face-to-face organization, right? Everything has been over the phone or online, post jobs, put in your credit card.
Chad: Well, scalable.
Joel: Totally scalable.
Chad: It's scalable. Yes.
Joel: It totally makes sense, but now-
Chad: That's how you make money.
Joel: But now they're getting into more like, the staffing business, and this business, and face-to-face stuff, and let's build relationships.
Chad: Why do you think Google doesn't do it?
Joel: Again, that's a thing that Google probably isn't getting into.
Chad: No.
Joel: They're not going to get into the consulting-
Chad: Why won't they?
Joel: Because it's bad business and it's not their core competency.
Chad: Ta-da.
Joel: Ding, ding, ding, ding. Hey man, when the asteroid hits, you got to survive any way you can.
Chad: Yeah. Well, the way that Indeed survived when the last asteroid hit was, they focused on their core. They knew what they were good at and they knew what they were bad at. They weren't fucking with anything they were bad at. Right now, the only thing I'm seeing with Indeed is that-
Joel: Panic?
Chad: ... they do something very well, but they're trying everything. Good for them, but a lot of that, there're going to be a lot of heads that roll, in these different areas. That's all there is to it.
Joel: Sure, sure. I mean, we talked about the staffing business, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They had to roll those people into other jobs.
Chad: That's hard. Hard.
Joel: Or, the agency business, sorry.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Yeah, you know, it was easy to be Google for Jobs in 2008. When Google is Google for Jobs now, it's a little bit harder to be Google for Jobs.
Chad: It is. Well, and that's one of those things, much like Monster and CareerBuilder should have seen it coming with Indeed. And I think Indeed sees this coming, they just don't know what the fuck to do. Because they're trying everything.
Joel: I don't blame them.
Chad: Dude.
Joel: This is a hard nut to crack.
Chad: They should own the Market Place.
Joel: I'm not sure job fairs is the answer, but-
Chad: No.
Joel: Staffing, I like a lot better.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Indeed, we talked about Google, we want to talk about Apple and IBM, and some major organizations that are doing things different, after the break.
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Chad: Wow, that was a great break.
Joel: That's an awesome ad. I love that ad.
Chad: We found, now this article is from 2018, one of the reasons why I shared it was we see more and more companies starting to ditch college degrees. Now, in this article, and I think it's incredibly important, because when we take a look at skills gaps and we start taking a look at "hard to fill jobs", we're putting way too many obstacles in our own way. This article pretty much says Google, Apple, and IBM are taking some of those big obstacles out of their way.
Joel: This is an article by CNBC. They focus on 14 companies that have historically required a college degree, to get in. When I entered the work force, 800 years ago, if you didn't have a college degree, don't even bother sending the letter [crosstalk 00:24:34] and the cover letter... Yeah, there were certain positions where you could get away with it. But for the most part, that was the first pre-screening tool that companies had, was, "No degree, [foreign language 00:24:44]. Take your business elsewhere."
Joel: But I think, supply and demand, I think online learning, I think the gig economy, people are learning these skills without actually getting a degree in college. I think companies who need this talent, they need people that can be engineers and managers and whatnot, without the benefit of a college degree. The fact that Google is number one on this list, and you can work at Google without a degree, is pretty impactful, in my opinion. Apple is on this list, IBM is on this list. Some weird companies on the list, like Costco and Hilton. I'm assuming those are the management-level headquarter-type stuff.
Chad: Well, if they're getting rid of them altogether.
Joel: Starbucks, for sure, should be on the list.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But if you're working in Seattle, I guess maybe it should be. But yeah, Bank of America on the list. So, the world is coming to a point where college educations are way expensive. Experience counts for more than a piece of paper, in many case. If you can do the job, you should get the job.
Chad: There was one thing that, you were just talking about all these different terms that people should, obviously, think about. One thing that we don't think about is Moore's law. Technology's moving way faster than our education system. So, whether you have a degree or not, in most cases, you come out of the other side with that degree, you're still not going to be prepared for what the company needs. Right?
Joel: Yup. Yeah.
Chad: Everything's moving so fast, not to mention, you're coming out with $100,000 in debt, or whatever it might be. I think Lazlo Bach wrote a book where they were actually talking about, at Google, being able to move away and move in this direction, years ago. They were on their way to doing it, because they actually saw that graduates from Harvard were actually doing worse that graduates from some community colleges, that they were pulling in. So, it didn't matter, these big, Ivy League schools, it didn't fucking matter to them. Google was like, "Guess what? They're not weighted higher now. Were now going to start looking at people on even keel." Then, in some cases, start to lose those degrees because it wasn't necessary, because how fast our business moves.
Joel: Yeah. I'm many ways, I think universities have to look at this stuff and think, "What are we doing wrong, that these big companies feel like they can hire people that don't have a college degree?" I think your point of that, they're not moving at a pace fast enough to deliver candidates and talent that can keep up with the current technologies and development, and whatever else.
Joel: So colleges, I think, have to take a look at this phenomenon and say, "How do we do better, to make sure that our people graduate and are prepared for the real world?" If you will.
Chad: Oh, yeah. Well so, back to Harvard. [crosstalk 00:27:35] Harvard, there's no reason why Harvard or Stamford or any of the big schools, the big-name schools, shouldn't. Because, I think Harvard has over 30 billion, B- B- billion in endowments, right? They should be moving as fast, if not faster than Corporate America. They should be partnering with Corporate America. So this, for us to be falling back and for Google to be pointing out big names like this and saying, "They're actually at, probably, the same level as some of the community colleges," that's on the administration of Harvard. That's fucking bullshit. They have more money in their endowment than most third world fucking countries, dude. We should have this fixed. The problem is, we have rich dudes sitting around, counting their fucking money.
Joel: And dudettes.
Chad: Eh, in most cases, it's dudes. But, yeah. I mean, that's the problem. We really need to focus on where the problem is.
Joel: Well look, colleges are fat and happy.
Chad: They are, that's what I'm saying.
Joel: College has never been more expensive.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They're fat and happy.
Chad: Most of them, yeah. Most of them.
Joel: There's no incentive. As long as students pay money the go to college, to get degrees, and colleges get fatter and fatter, there's no incentive for them to churn out people that can do jobs that require different skills. Until people stop... Well, yeah. We'll see what happens, we'll see about that.
Chad: Then they go to the technologies or they go to the certifications, or what have you. But when I saw most of them, most of the big colleges , with the big names, they should be the answer, they shouldn't be the problem. That's what we're seeing. Obviously, that's what we're seeing because Google, Apple, and IBM are saying, "Yeah, we don't need college degrees."
Joel: Yeah, I'm mean, look. A Harvard degree, a Stanford degree, a Northwestern degree-
Chad: Dude.
Joel: ... that used to be a free ticket into-
Chad: Anywhere.
Joel: ... boats and hoes.
Chad: Anywhere.
Joel: Now, for many it still is, but now it's more of an economy of meritocracy, and can you do the job or not? I think a lot of companies, through just necessity, are hiring people with good attitudes, the ability to learn, and they're teaching them on the job. That had greater benefit now than it ever has before. I think the gig economy and sites like Upwork and Fiverr also make it tougher, because you can pick people from around the globe, that can do these job. You don't have to go to Ivy League environments or Chicago Rice University, wherever it is. You can go the internet and find these people, and that has sort of leveled a lot of the playing field.
Chad: We have an interview with the CEO of HackerRank, that's going to be coming out, I promise.
Joel: Funny guy.
Chad: He actually said that he doesn't believe that we have a talent shortage, and that's the reason. Is because we are a global economy and we can do those types of things. With companies like HackerRank being able to leverage all those individuals, throughout the world.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Doing projects, instead of actually doing full-time jobs.
Joel: Yeah. If you're a company, would you rather hire someone with a degree from, say, Purdue, which is historically, a sure bet, or would you rather hire someone in HackerRank that scores a perfect score on the technologies for what you need at your company?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That's a tougher question for companies to answer.
Chad: 50 reviews that say this dude is kick-ass and whatnot, or what have you.
Joel: Yeah. Great reviews, they pass the test, all the pre-screening stuff.
Chad: Yup.
Joel: They can do the job.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It used to be, "Oh, you've a Purdue degree? You can probably do the job." Now you know, they can do the job because of these tools of sites like HackerRank.
Chad: Right, right. One of the reasons why I believe market places is where we're moving. So, job sites, the Indeed's of the world. If they don't move toward a market place, I think they're totally wrong. I think the Monster's of the world... I think the only saving grace they have is to move to a market place.
Joel: Yeah, look. Three doors down from where we are right now, there's a company called Code Ninjas. They take kids from ages eight or seven, to fourteen and teach them to code. So, are you telling me I can take a nine-year-old kid, put him in there, learn how to code, start building apps as a teen, start doing technologies as a teen, start doing work on Upwork as a teenage, and learn more than what, probably, a college-degreed student knows by the time they graduate after four years of college? That's the world we're living in.
Joel: It's not, "Hey they do to public school till they're 12th grade, they don't do any coding but maybe some basic stuff. Then they finally learn coding or engineering or whatever, when they go to college." They can start learning that stuff at seven years old, and that's the world that we live in. Companies are finally taking notice, like, "Hell, I'm going to hire the kid that's bee coding since they were seven, as opposed to the one that's been 19."
Chad: Companies are. Now we just need universities to get off their fat and happy asses, and start doing things right. That's the biggest issue, that we don't have companies forging partnerships with universities, or universities with companies, to be able to pipeline candidates directly to on contract. Directly into their organization, where it's like, "Hey look, you come in and you develop or you become on sales," or whatever it is. "Stay with us for three years and we will pay off your college debt." That's the shit that needs to happen.
Joel: Sure. Companies want results and having a degree doesn't equal results.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Let's talk about IAC, one of the huge-
Chad: You know me.
Joel: A huge internet company. You'll know many of their companies in the
portfolio.
Chad: Tinder.
Joel: Vimeo. Yeah, they're definitely dating.
Chad: Match.com.
Joel: So Tinder, Match, Plenty of Fish. Yeah, I'm looking at the list now.
Chad: Do they really have Plenty of Fish?
Joel: It's, pretty much, every... Angie's List, Ask for those old-timers who remember Ask.
Chad: Oh, Ask. Yeah.
Joel: Ask.com, Home Advisor.
Chad: Jeeves, Ask Jeeves.
Joel: Ask Jeeves, yeah. Our Time, for the older dating set.
Chad: Jesus Christ.
Joel: Daily Beasts Publishing. There aren't very many, if at all, employment sites that these guys have targeted. Announced this week, they bought NurseFly-
Chad: Yes.
Joel: ... for a whisper number of $15 million. NurseFly...
Chad: They've been around since 2017, dude. They're a-
Joel: Yeah, not very long. This is on the heels of, what was the healthcare platform that we talked about last week? I'm scrolling through the news here.
Chad: Nomad.
Joel: Yeah, Health Nomad, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So, I don't know. What do you make of IAC historically internet company, staying away from job sites, now actually buying NurseFly as part of their repertoire?
Chad: Yeah, I seem to remember they might have had some workings with some job sites, back in the day. Like in the early 2000's.
Joel: Yeah, if there's an internet site, they may have bought it or acquired it at some point.
Chad: But overall, I think this makes a hell of a lot of sense. IAC owns a shit-ton of companies and they want to be able to move in this direction. Now, Match.com and Tinder, dating apps, matching apps. Nursing, or NurseFly, now is focused on matching travel nurses and the market's about a $17 billion market. It's a big market. So, nursing is obviously... It's hard right now, to be able to fill, especially travel nursing jobs. If they can get ahold of this and not sit on it too long, they might be able to build a market place for traveling nurses. Maybe even blow it up into something bigger.
Joel: If you were a big investor, we know you've got the big bank account.
Chad: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Joel: Would you rather invest in a site for engineers and technology, or healthcare? And why?
Chad: I'd say healthcare. A couple of reasons. First and foremost, the Boomers, right? Not to mention, there's so many that are actually going into the healthcare system right now, and that is the reason why we need so many nurses, right? We need so many healthcare professionals. So, if you take a look at the actual trends, it just makes sense. Healthcare is big and it's going to grow and it's really bloated. But, we need people to be able to fill those gaps. So, I think it makes sense. I don't know if a two-year-old company makes sense, but I would look at more of a practice link, with something like this, to try to blow it up into a much larger market place.
Joel: So, co-founder and CEO of NurseFly, Parth Bhakta, hopefully I'm saying that correctly, said, "We built NurseFly to transform and modernize how travel healthcare professionals connect with work. In doing so, hope to alleviate a nation-wide labor shortage in the Healthcare Industry. Our vision is to bring transparency to the travel nursing markets, so we can connect more qualified professionals, to more work opportunities." Blah, blah, blah. "We are thrilled to join AIC," blah, blah, blah. Technology, demand, those are all things he touched on and he understands that, as well.
Chad: Yup, yup. Well, what I think needs to happen here is, this is different than the Google, the Apple, and the IBM jobs where you can just, pretty much, find somebody anywhere in the world to work a project, if they're qualified. This is entirely different. You need somebody that is actually there, on premises, to be able to do the work. The big key here isn't really, I don't think, technology. It's back to what we talked about with universities and schools, who certify nurses, to be able to pipeline them into these types of jobs.
Joel: Do you remember the Jetsons?
Chad: Yeah. (singing)
Joel: Do you remember the maid from the Jetsons?
Chad: Oh, yeah yeah.
Joel: Did she have a name? The robot?
Chad: She did. I can't remember it though. I can see her.
Joel: I don't remember it. They need nurses like that. They need nurse robots with aprons, that go in and take your blood and temperature, and everything else.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That's what healthcare needs, in my opinion. So, go build that and you've got a multi-billion dollar business.
Chad: Ell, you get a tin guy first. You start with the tin guy.
Joel: Put some wheels and an apron on tin guy, and give him a stethoscope and a needle, and you got something.
Chad: So...
Joel: Whoo. We went off on a tangent on that one.
Chad: We did. I think I'm going to get another beer here.
Joel: All right. Yeah, let's get another beer and let's hear another word from a sponsor. When we come back, we'll talk about programmatic advertising.
Chad: And bots.
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Joel: This beer's tasting too good, by the way. This is bad.
Chad: Weizengoot. I love a good Hefeweizen. This next one-
Joel: Say Recruitology really fast, eight times, From the beer that we've had.
Chad: Yeah. I can't.
Joel: Recruitology, Recruitology, Recruitology.
Chad: This one just seems, almost, like it's reaching, to me. I could be wrong.
Joel: Who's reaching? We, as a show or...
Chad: Recruitology is reaching.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: There's like, "Oh, we partnered with this media company," and it's like, "Well all these other programmatic companies are getting acquired. What do we do to get our name our there, so hopefully somebody recognizes us and they buy us?" It
seems kind of weak, to me.
Joel: Programmatic is a race to the...
Chad: It is.
Joel: It's like, "How can we arm up, as quickly as possible." We saw four companies sell within a 45-day period, I think.
Chad: Yeah, close.
Joel: You can listen to past shows, if you want to get the news on all that stuff. But to me, you've got Recruitology, Pando, JobAdX, you've got a few players left [crosstalk 00:40:50] to sort of build that network. The they know they're going to sell at some point. I think it's a matter of how much they can go for, because AppCast has set the market, relatively low, by the opinion of many people that we know. But, Foreman's in Fiji right now, probably enjoying his riches.
Joel: So, you have Recruitology, from the people that brought up After College. Apparently, that business is a little bit challenged. SO now, they're building up programmatic ad solution and they're building up as many news paper, media sites as possible. Yeah, they've partnered with Berkshire Hathaway, a well-known name if you're buying real estate or investing in stocks. They're, basically, a group of Mid West-ish news papers and TV stations, et cetera. So, the markets they serve, we're looking at Alabama, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. So, you've got some solid spots there, amongst the Alabama's and the Nebraska's. But yeah, it's a race.
Joel: All these companies, these news paper companies are figuring out, just putting jobs on our site and having people self-serve. Isn't necessarily answering or partnering with these guys. It's more profitable and easier and we don't need sales people. We don't need that infrastructure to handle that, this is a better deal. So, I'm sure they're all talking to Pando and Recruitology, and whoever else. Whoever gives them the best deal is who they're going with. So, Recruitology is partnering with these companies, they must have a decent story to tell. I think Pando does, also.
Chad: All of the programmatic CEOs I've talked to, after all these sell-offs, have said, "We're solid, we're not selling. Yet."
Joel: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Yeah. They're all kind of mad at the price tag that AppCast put on their product.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: They're going to wait it out. From what we've heard, they're going to wait it out until the price gets back up, demand goes higher.
Chad: Right.
Joel: Look, there're more buyers in the programmatic space than there are sellers.
Chad: Oh, shit yeah. Yeah.
Joel: So, they can afford to wait a little bit, let the price go up, hope the economy and the Trump White House doesn't screw things up. It's be crazy if one of these guys cashed out at a higher price tag than AppCast, two, three, four, five years from now. But it could happen.
Chad: It could happen.
Joel: I'll go on record and say, it will happen. Pando and/or Recruitology will sell for more than AppCast.
Chad: Or Jovio.
Joel: Or Jovio.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Or JobAdX...
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: ... will sell for more than AppCast, at some point. There you go. That's a precursor to my 2020 predictions, for our show in January.
Chad: Well, I'm going to go ahead and put a prediction out there and say that Amazon will use bots-
Joel: Is going to buy Slacks.
Chad: ... will use bots.
Joel: Damn it. You're such a tease.
Chad: Will use bots...
Joel: Oh my God.
Chad: ... in the Twitter-verse and in social.
Joel: Amazon, why?
Chad: So, this is interesting.
Joel: It's stupid.
Chad: There's a new rabbit hole on Twitter, that many people have fallen down because of all of these Amazon Ambassadors that are out there. They have these pictures-
Joel: Ambassadors.
Chad: ... that looks like real people, but it says their name and then "Amazon Ambassador." It just seems like total-
Joel: This story won't go away. We covered this six months ago.
Chad: ... total bullshit. I know. But Amazon, they won't quit. Here's a great example. There was one dude that says, on Twitter, "What are your prime directives?" Which is Star Trek subject matter, right?
Joel: Yup.
Chad: An Amazon bot, which looks like Jordan, actually says, "Amazon Prime is all about quick and reliable shipping." It's like, dude, they're keying off of words and then, they're trying to get into the conversation.
Joel: It reads like a late-night comedy. The best comic writers in the world couldn't come up with some of this ridiculousness. Like all the user names have Amazon in them.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: They all say Amazon Ambassador, they all read like a robot wrote this stuff. Like, "As a worker in US, I do not want a union. Why should I pay dues to a union, to get exactly what I'm already getting? My working conditions are good and I receive great benefits. Would I like more money? Absolutely. I don't think anyone would say 'no more money'." I can keep going of you like. "Everything is fine. I don't think there is anything wrong with the money I make or the way I am treated at work." Real people don't talk like that.
Chad: "I suffer from depression too. At one point, I wanted to quit Amazon. But I realized, it was my fault for the problems I was dealing with, and not Amazon's."
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: People don't fucking do... "I'm allowed to talk to people, but sometimes, I don't want to." I mean, it's...
Joel: The one that's like, "I just took a picture of the leadership board," or something, "it's so inspirational." So it's an actually picture of a keyword cloud of, yeah, leadership tips at Walmart, or at Amazon, sorry.
Chad: Oh, yeah. It was like, "When I walk in every day, I see this."
Joel: Yes. "I'm so inspired to stock boxes."
Chad: Yeah. You know how you can go to Google and do an image search?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So, it's really simple. You can go to Google, you can do an image search with some of the headshots that are used on Twitter, and see if anybody else is using them. There are like 55,000 of this. It's like a stock photo from Getty Images, or-
Joel: Oh, no.
Chad: Yeah. Dude, it's fucking ridiculous.
Joel: Some bot in Thailand is churning out these Twitter accounts. Maybe this is a good time to say good-bye for the week and sample some of this whiskey that we got from Bayard Advertising.
Chad: Agreed. Thanks, Bayard. Thanks, Daniel O'Neill.
Joel: We out.
Chad: We out.
Walken: Thank you for listening to... what's it called? A podcast. The 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. Yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And, not one word about cheese, not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any-hoo, 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.
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