The Labor Day edition of this week's Chad & Cheese Podcast is full of goodness: Hire by Google shuts it down, Entelo and ConveyIQ get cozy, AllyO may be melting down and much, much more.
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Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most
dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Oh, tight turn.
Chad: Round about.
Joel: All right, welcome to the hungover Sweden road trip edition of the Chad and Cheese podcast, HR's most dangerous.
Chad: Thanks to my wife Julie for chaffering us. Joel and I are in the backseat of a VW Polo.
Joel: I really wish Julie would've worn the black top hat that I got her for the chauffer gig. She did wear the black gloves, though, so I'm okay with that.
Chad: Okay, we should stop calling her Jeeves, that's really creepy. That's really fucking ...
Joel: If somebody farts in this car, we're stopping the podcast.
Chad: We're stopping the podcast.
Joel: That's all I'm saying. Yeah, so in this week's show, we're going to be talking about Hire by Google going limp, Entelo and Convey IQ getting married.
Chad: Getting jiggy.
Joel: And signs of meltdown at Ally O. Stick around, we'll be right back after this word from our sponsor.
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Chad: And we're back.
Joel: And we're back. We're on the road in Sweden, north of Torekov or Gurkenschkerken, Vertiferken.
Chad: Last night, that was hilarious. We had dinner with a bunch of Swedes, go figure. We are in Sweden and they, again, very mad that thinking the Swedish chef
is Swedish, because the Swedish chef is apparently Danish.
Joel: Danish.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Which makes no sense and their argument is weak.
Chad: Very weak.
Joel: So, I'm not buying it.
Chad: I'm not buying it either. They should like the Swedish chef.
Joel: They do, they do, they do. Yeah, Swedes are a fun group. The robot does not eat in case anyone was interested. It does not eat food, it just exists to destroy us one day.
Chad: But I think they've given it some new looks, because I think it was giving you the side eye yesterday.
Joel: Yeah, so we had meetings all day and they had the robot at the front of the table and it just stares at ... I think it looks directly at everyone no matter what angle you look at it.
Chad: I don't think so, I think it was giving you the side eye.
Joel: It was looking at me, yeah. It haunts my dreams every night. Let's get to some shout outs.
Chad: Shout outs.
Joel: Obviously Tin Guy in the group, Jalen CEO Charlotte marketing exec. We're making friends and building bridges from America to Sweden if you will.
Chad: As a matter of fact, we've also heard that the South of Sweden is for sale, so if we can just tell Trump to get off of Greenland possibly, we can have a piece of Sweden.
Joel: Yeah, much better real estate here in Sweden than Greenland, maybe less natural resources, but who knows? Who knows?
Chad: Shoutout to my boy, Roy Etnyer from Monster. He's originally from Columbus, Indiana, came home to see moms, said hey would you like to play a round of golf? Went and played a round of golf and he unloaded a bunch of Monster golf swag, which was fucking awesome. Great job, Roy.
Joel: Yeah, this is where I note the vice president Mike Pence also a brother, a son of Columbus.
Chad: Just go ahead and let's smother that one as Julie flips you off.
Joel: I'm going to give a shout out to Holland Dombeck, our buddy at Delta.
Chad: Yeah, Holland.
Joel: She heard our story about Google Events, Hire Events, Indeed Hire Events.
Chad: Yeah, Indeed.
Joel: Sorry, it's a little hot in here. Can you turn the air on a little bit, Julie? Thanks. Anyway, she had some numbers for us. I don't know if you have those handy or not, but it looks like about $2,000 for these hire events, so in case you didn't know, there are no billboards in Sweden. All the billboards are trucks that farmers have rolled in to make a little extra money, but I did hear that they have to have wheels. They can't be stationary.
Chad: Oh, really?
Joel: Yes. And all the cows here look really happy.
Chad: Anyway, shoutout to Holland for giving us some insights on that. She said they were working well for her.
Joel: Yeah, she spoke positively about them. I think we both agree that price will go up on those as they continue to roll them out. It's still in beta.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: I had the opinion that Indeed ... everybody wants to be a platform and Indeed is no different, so if Indeed is also your event, job fair whatever you want to call it provider, that's just another reason to stick around with Indeed, similar to Apple launching music or other services that just add features to make sure you stay on the platform.
Chad: I like doubling the price with this whole pain view thing, so yeah, if you start the fricking heroine drip guys, just know you're not getting off of it for awhile. The Indeed heroine drip.
Joel: And Indeed's okay with that, I think.
Chad: Oh, they're fine with it, yeah.
Joel: I think that's their preference.
Chad: Yeah, I think they're incredibly smart for doing that and if you're out there using them and just lapping it up, you're probably the dumb one.
Joel: Of course, in this case, the first hit is not free, it's about $2,000.
Chad: It's not free, yeah. Shout out to Henrik Christiansen, so this dude sees on Twitter that we're coming to Sweden, said hey, come on over to Copenhagen. He didn't know we were already going to be there, so he takes us to dinner at this place called War Pigs, which is amazing. The thing he didn't know ...
Joel: Now, when you say "us" it's you and your wife.
Chad: Julie, my other half, right yeah.
Joel: [crosstalk 00:07:38] ... in this whatsoever.
Chad: It's because you didn't show up.
Joel: Yeah, I know.
Chad: That's what happens when you don't come. So Julie and I go and here's this collaboration with Three Floyd's Brewery that is an Indiana company. I come all the way to fucking ...
Joel: Yeah, Munster, Indiana.
Chad: Yeah, Munster.
Joel: If I'm not mistaken.
Chad: I fly all the way to fucking Copenhagen and they're like this is the best beer, you can't imagine how great ... yeah, no it is the best beer. You know why? It's fucking Indiana beer.
Joel: That is a bizarre discovery.
Chad: It is awesome, though. It was awesome.
Joel: The beers we've had you can't get in the U.S. outside of Carlberg, which is not Swedish.
Chad: Right.
Joel: So, if you follow me on Instagram, I'll be posting my beer tour from Sweden here.
Chad: Beer tour, but Henrik also the next morning got up and took me on that 5K run around Christiana, which is that free town that we talked about.
Joel: Did you say torture or tour? Because 5K sounds a little torturous to me.
Chad: He slowed it down for me, that was nice. But yeah, we went through around Christiana, which is the free town where you pretty much can go get high and do all your stuff.
Joel: The Thunderdome of Copenhagen, apparently.
Chad: Yes exactly, exactly.
Joel: Minus the death.
Chad: Thanks a lot, Henrik. Appreciate it. Love that you took me to a place that had amazing beer and a run the next morning. He planned that shit.
Joel: Did you mention his company?
Chad: Yeah, he's the CEO of Job Safari.
Joel: All right, give him a little shoutout, a little love.
Chad: Also the COO of Job Index, still affiliated with ...
Joel: Where are we going soon?
Chad: Where are we going? We're going to Recruiter Nation Live in San Francisco.
Joel: And if you look at the lineup, it's a home run.
Chad: In the Bay Area, I mean you've got to do it.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And we've got TA Tech and you know what that means.
Joel: Death match, baby.
Chad: Death match.
Joel: Full roster.
Chad: In Austin.
Joel: Who's joining us this year?
Chad: Who is joining us this year? We have Job.com ...
Joel: Asses First.
Chad: Asses First, my favorite company.
Joel: SeekOut.
Chad: SeekOut.
Joel: And Pez Candy.
Chad: Pez.ai
Joel: What is your favorite Pez head?
Chad: I don't know, I had so many of them when I was little.
Joel: That's a tough one.
Chad: Yeah, I loved the new ...
Joel: I'm going to go with the Flintstones.
Chad: The Flintstones, Barney or ... ?
Joel: Barney, Fred.
Chad: Oh.
Joel: I guess Fred would be my favorite.
Chad: Like the family? Okay, okay.
Joel: Yeah, so I'm going to go with the Flintstones. It's kind of an old school.
Chad: Mine was always a Marvel kind of like the Hulk.
Joel: Thor, Hulk, yeah.
Chad: Yeah, the Hulk, Spider-Man, that kind of stuff.
Joel: It's endless, the magic never stops with Pez.
Chad: Dude, it's amazing. So smart. Smart marketing. I just don't know why they don't do them as much anymore.
Joel: HR Tech, we're getting into November. I guess we could get it October 1. We got Unleash in Paris.
Chad: We do, I think yeah HR Tech's first.
Joel: Is that in October or November?
Chad: HR Tech is in ...
Joel: It is October.
Chad: October, early October.
Joel: You're right, okay.
Chad: Or mid-October.
Joel: My bad.
Chad: HR Tech going to Vegas, they're letting us in.
Joel: Viva Las Vegas.
Chad: As a matter of fact, not just letting us in, we're going to be on stage
twice.
Joel: Viva Las Vegas. Twice?
Chad: Twice.
Joel: They went from banning us to giving us two show spots, I love it.
Chad: Yeah no, I love that stuff.
Joel: Spreading the love.
Chad: We'll be clad in Shaker Recruitment Marketing gear, I'm sure. Still waiting on the sizing for my Shaker Recruitment Marketing suit.
Joel: Three-piece suits.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: With the Chicago Cubs lining. I think that's going to be in there.
Chad: And your tuxedo t-shirt. So yeah, that and then, we go to Unleash, which is in Paris.
Joel: The trip is sponsored by SmashFly?
Chad: Smash Fly.
Joel: Yeah. Trip powered by SmashFly.
Chad: Trip's powered by SmashFly. HRTech powered by JobCase.
Joel: Love it.
Chad: Don't forget about JobCase. Fred Goff and the kids over there.
Joel: LinkedIn for those who aren't on LinkedIn.
Chad: Yes, for the 70 percent of people who are not on LinkedIn, JobCase. That's your play. That's their new slogan.
Joel: Did we just come up with their marketing campaign? They get $100 million in funding and we just came up with their marketing.
Chad: We've already ...
Joel: Say it ain't so. Let's get to the news, because ...
Chad: Topics.
Joel: ... news is hot this week.
Chad: Hot.
Joel: We leave the country and things fall apart.
Chad: So hot.
Joel: Google ...
Chad: What is up with this?
Joel: ... Hire ...
Chad: This is crazy.
Joel: ... letter goes out to users this week that they are sun setting the product.
Chad: In a year.
Joel: The Internet's go wild with conspiracy theories, opinion. What are your takeaways on this move? Because shock is the first thing that came to my mind.
Chad: I think the Google Hire team was shocked and here's why I think the Google Hire team was shocked ...
Joel: It's Hire by Google, we should get it right.
Chad: Okay, yeah, they should just first and foremost stop changing the name, but ...
Joel: I think they are. I think they're done changing the name.
Chad: Now, they're going to stop changing the name, yeah. That's why. They finally found the name, they're like okay, we're done.
Joel: Maybe that's the hidden reason.
Chad: It could've been.
Joel: What do we call ourselves this month? Damn it, we can't come up with anything, so let's just shut it down.
Chad: We're done. So, last week, they were doing webinars about sampling HR integrations, partnerships, those types of things. Earlier this month, they released a customer-success video from Four Points Brewing, I believe it is, so all of this was happening and they're driving this amazing content and they're doing all the right things.
Joel: There was no writing on the wall ...
Chad: None.
Joel: ... that things were falling apart.
Chad: None. Dude, I'm telling you right now, this came from the top. They pointed and said sorry, you've got to go and I personally believe that this has to do with this antitrust case that you had a decision between becoming an entire system for recruiting or just doing search and if you become the entire system, then there's antitrust possibilities that could be thrown around in there, but if you just do search and you're focused on search and you've made some of the changes and customizations that they've made inside Google for Jobs, then you're okay.
Joel: It was definitely a Pompeii type of situation, right?
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: Like the volcano erupted unexpectedly, everyone's left in the rubble. So, this was not a slow death. It looks like something happened quickly to kill this thing off. We will never know probably why.
Chad: We hear some people saying that it just was going to be too hard ...
Joel: Yep.
Chad: ... and they weren't going to make the money and yada, yada, yada and I don't believe ... they would've rolled this down slowly. You wouldn't have seen the chop that you saw. No way.
Joel: Yeah, I agree that when they have free services, the chop makes sense, because no one's paying for it, but they had paying clients, people that loved it. We have an interview if you look through our archives, someone in England that was one of their first enterprise ...
Chad: FrameStore.
Joel: ... yeah, they had just launched enterprise, right?
Chad: FrameStore, yeah.
Joel: They've been launching features consistently.
Chad: They just launched enterprise.
Joel: Yeah and she was incredibly happy. I mean, stopped short of saying she loved her ATS ...
Chad: Yeah, she didn't want to go that far, but she was close.
Joel: But she really liked it a lot and so, yeah we may never know. It can't be a coincidence that they just had a lawsuit filed against them.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And this happens. Now whether or not the lawyers got the attention of the c suite and they said okay, let's look at this thing and they said the numbers really aren't there to justify going to court for the next five years, because my personal opinion is if the product was rocking it, making tons of money, they would've been fine fighting it in court, but maybe it was like we've got to fight this thing. We're making little money, your attitude of does it affect the search business? We really don't want to be in any trouble with the EU anymore than we are.
Joel: This whole GDPR thing, we're collecting data for candidates. Maybe it's just like fuck it, it's just not worth it with all that hassle, we're going to pull the plug. But who are some of the winners and losers in Google getting the hell out of the game?
Chad: Well, first off Google is the big loser, because now they're not getting back into this space when it comes to this kind of product number one. Number two, if you were a company who is now basing your business off of Google, even some of these API's right?
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
Chad: You've got to question whether one day this shit's just going to be sunset ted. Oh, guess what, in a year it's going to be sunsetted. Just from my standpoint, I think anybody using Google and I mean, I was big when definitely the college recruiters ... there are 4,000+ companies that are using these Google API's.
Joel: Well that's a good question. There's still the search API and there's still Google for Jobs. Do you believe that either of those could be gone soon or if so, which one?
Chad: I would say no, I would say no, but don't know after seeing something like this happen. It's almost like they're running scared. This is like Facebook's knee jerk reaction to taking all of their targeting away, their audience targeting away. It was a knee jerk reaction and it happened boom, just really quick. This is the same kind of thing.
Joel: Yeah, I agree that ... I don't see the search API scaring anyone, pissing anyone off.
Chad: I hope not.
Joel: They're making revenue from that. It's a pretty easy business for them. They already get search better than anyone else and I think that's an easy product for them to have. The Google for Jobs job search, I think they're probably looking at that. Now, they haven't turned on the paper click machine yet and I'm sure they're doing the numbers saying hey, if x percent do paper click, what could we make? And the numbers on that are probably pretty good. I think they could make a lot of money on their Google for Jobs products.
Chad: Yeah, I agree. I do agree. I would hate to see that go away, that's for sure. But again, I think Hire by Google was the sacrifice, so that they could focus on Google for Jobs and actually making money the way they know how to make money.
Joel: Maybe the gods said you must sacrifice one of your children.
Chad: Yeah, Larry and Sergei came out.
Joel: And they picked Hire. And you know, some of the feedback as well was look, our business is hard, our audience is hard, our customers are hard to sell to. Part of it might've been Google ...
Chad: I don't believe that.
Joel: ... got into that and said screw that. So, you're not buying that excuse?
Chad: No. They have a 3 million company base and suite that they can sell to, so I don't buy that.
Joel: It was a perfect fit for the G-Suite, for companies to plug in a nice little ATS, job posting.
Chad: Calendar, yeah, everything.
Joel: Scheduling all that.
Chad: So easy.
Joel: That made really good sense for the product.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: And not having this ... to me, the biggest winner is Microsoft/LinkedIn, because now they have the lane pretty much all to themselves to enterprise software and hiring.
Chad: And what will LinkedIn do to double down on something like this, because when Facebook killed their targeting, LinkedIn started to ramp up their targeting, right? So it's like now LinkedIn is going to be doing more Facebook-like targeting better possibly than Facebook will be doing on ads. What will they do to double down on something like this?
Joel: Yeah, I mean LinkedIn is growing at such a rate that they're going to have some of these Facebook issues soon if they're not already.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: And the targeting of advertising, which they are growing, they're growing their network to target ad segments, so yeah I expect that to be something. I think LinkedIn would just rather put their head down and hope nobody notices for the next 12 months and then just gain market share and then deal with it if something comes up, but it's inevitably going to happen to every social network and job ads. I think Twitter you won't be able to target similarly there or Snapchat or anyone else. It's going to hit everyone. It just hit Facebook first.
Joel: But yeah, I think LinkedIn's a big winner, I think Indeed's probably celebrating the hit that Google took.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: They're probably praying Google for Jobs goes next. Any of the other big job boards are happy, every ATS on the planet is pretty happy that Google's out of the game.
Chad: Oh yeah, the Jazz HR's of the world ...
Joel: Yeah, the little guys, the S&B players.
Chad: ... are like fuck yeah, get the fuck out, Google.
Joel: Yep, yep, those cheers of the world were ATS owners celebrating, especially the little guys that service S&B's, most of the I-Sims of the world, the Jobvite’s et cetera, Smart Recruiters. I think they felt okay about a world ... or at least it wasn't going to impact them soon, but the little guys were pretty concerned and they're celebrating the demise of Hire by Google. And I do agree that we will not see Google do anything again in our lifetimes.
Joel: Like they tried Google Base 10-15 years ago, they've done this, shut it down after two years. I do not see them doing anything like this again any time soon.
Chad: Can't fucking believe it.
Joel: When we come back, we'll talk about the Entelo Convey IQ acquisition.
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Chad: And we're back.
Joel: I had no idea there was so much countryside in Sweden. It's like Indiana in Europe.
Chad: Yeah, that kind of Ohio ish around here where it's more hills.
Joel: Yeah, a little more.
Chad: Yeah, more hills.
Joel: Topography.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: That's your word for the day.
Chad: Yes, topography. Terrain.
Joel: Terrain.
Chad: Terrain features, yes.
Joel: So big acquisition, which we thought would be the big news of the week until Hire by Google did their thing, but Entelo, the rumors are true. You heard it here first has acquired Convey IQ. Discuss.
Chad: Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds as if, because we've been hearing for many months that Entelo was on pretty much life support, so I don't know so much about Convey IQ, how much money, how much runway they had, but it sounds ...
Joel: And Convey IQ was Take the Interview previously.
Chad: Yes, Take the Interview.
Joel: Made a major pivot, created sort of a hub spot for recruiting, marketing platform.
Chad: Right.
Joel: Got some money, I think, additional money when they did that and yeah, my comment that got picked up was this feels a little bit like two dinosaurs snuggling together to try to stave off the extinction that was coming after the asteroid hit, so I think the money they got for the acquisition, it feels a little bit like a Hail Mary. It feels a little bit like hey, you've given us a lot of money, just give us a little bit more, back to that drug addict analogy. Just give us a little bit more and we'll make it work.
Chad: Keep me on drip.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah, keep me on the drip.
Joel: So, they made the acquisition. As far as I can tell, the Convey IQ team out in New York is going to moving to San Francisco. Danielle Weinblatt, their CEO or founder's going to be head of product, I believe. A couple other people are going to be going over. I assume probably some of the sales folks if there are any will join Entelo. So yeah, we'll see. I think it's another take on the whole platform thing, try to be all things to all people and this is sort of their attempt to be that platform.
Chad: I think if you're a CEO of a startup that is kind of fish out of water and taking its last breath, you're going to say hey look, throw me a little bit more water, because you're going to lose all your money or we can make this great marriage, because I do believe the marriage of Entelo and Convey IQ makes a hell of a lot of sense, because Entelo in itself is really a matching algorithm, so you have your data from your job, goes in, it matches.
Chad: That's all well and good, what do you do next? Well, then the RMP takes over Convey IQ and it starts the messaging, the drip campaign, the nurturing campaigns and that kind of stuff, right? So, they fit together very, very nicely. The big question is will they still be able to sell it?
Joel: Yeah and the customers they've had, will they come back? The customers they do have, will they stick around with the new services? Initially with Entelo, we've heard a lot about the exodus of their leadership.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So, if you're going to fill those gaps buying another company is a nice way to fill those leadership gaps that you have so yeah, we'll see. I think it's a long shot. What I've heard from people that it is a good marriage. Time will tell, time will tell.
Chad: Yeah, there's a very long list of execs/leadership that have left Entelo within the last year ...
Joel: Pretty much everyone.
Chad: So, good and bad, good and bad. First and foremost, the bad it's hard to lose great, experienced people. The good, that's all money from an overhead standpoint and they can try again to build from the ground up with Danielle and her team. The move from New York to California, I think is ... that's going to be kind of shaky.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: I don't think that's an easy move for somebody who has a life.
Joel: So, Entelo people search sourcing looking for it's last breath, our next story takes us to another sort of people search aggregation data scraping, monitoring whatever. Zap Info, formerly Read, Write, Web, Drop, Clip, Snap, Snip. Bergdeferken.
Chad: Web Clip Drop I think it was, Web Clip Drop.
Joel: They've been Zap Info now for quite awhile and Doug Berg of Techies and Job to Web sold to SAP for $110 million.
Chad: Fucking genius.
Joel: Started this thing up a couple years ago. We talked about I think recently, they've added messaging, text messaging to their platform.
Chad: Google Voice.
Joel: They've added Google Voice to be able to call candidates. If anyone understands evolving, having to zag when the government is zigging, GDPR issues et cetera and Doug understands those things and I think that he's transforming the company into something much more than just grabbing profiles from the web. And I think that the people that have invested in his company this week announced C-2 round to the tune of $1.75 million understand Doug's vision and are pretty optimistic about where he's going. We'll see.
Chad: Yeah, yeah. So overall, $3 million. Doug very smart, not taking a ton of money, because he knows he's building something up, I would assume, to get acquired by somebody big much like he did with ...
Joel: That's his jam.
Chad: Oh yeah, that's his jam. He does a very good job of that, so you don't take a shit ton of money, right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So you make sure that obviously your take is much larger than your investors, but the dude has always been very good at what you like to say see around corners.
Joel: See around corners, yep.
Chad: And they do that so well and adding features and then really doing some slight pivots, but they don't look like pivots. They just look like that's the natural evolution of the actual product itself.
Joel: Yeah, they don't make hamburgers and then all of a sudden they're doing waffles or something. There is a natural progression to what they do and I think it is a word of ... it is a lesson for startups out there and people that want to start up a company, the blueprint for success in our industry tends to be industry knowledge, you know who you're selling to, you know the audience, and you don't get too big too fast. We've seen Indeed grow very organically slowly, only take roughly $10 million.
Joel: Jobs to Web, Doug's former company similar thing. I think Techies might've taken a lot of money, maybe he learned a lesson from that 90s go-go period, but yeah, it's be lean, take little money, know that it's going to take time. Our audience is tough to sell to and your chances of success are much better than doing the opposite of that.
Chad: And partnerships. The partnerships that he's pulling together and some of this money's actually coming from the Randstad Innovation Fund. They're one of the new funders and Randstad obviously full of recruiters. If they can get this product embedded in Randstad, Jesus man, I mean that's fucking huge. They're like the number two staffing organization in the world, add the RPO on top of that, so Doug is not a dumb man.
Chad: Being able to not just get money from Randstad, but also I would believe they're working with them on the tech side to be able to be a part of really the recruiter's normal routine.
Joel: Yeah, there's a pretty good chance we'll see Doug at a conference near us soon. We'll have to get him on the mic and see what the future holds for them. He's always a good interview.
Chad: Nothing but smiles and hugs.
Joel: He's always a good interview and yeah, him and Tim Sackett could hug it out for hours, those two guys. Well let's move to some insider info I guess. We got a tip
that things at AllyO ...
Chad: Just the tip.
Joel: ... may not be going very well. So, we got a tip that basically said hey, if you got a moment, go check out Glassdoor and the reviews for Ally O, so I went out there and looked at what was going on at AllyO ...
Chad: You got a hot tip.
Joel: ... hot tip, yes. I love those hot tips. Anyway, I won't make a joke, because your wife's in the car.
Chad: She's already shaking her head.
Joel: She's already ... she knows me too well.
Chad: She's like these guys are so fucking dumb.
Joel: So anyway, as I'm looking at some of the reviews, basically most of the tech team, things are just fairly negative over at Glassdoor right now, so we've got one "I've worked here for close to six months. First off, let me point out that half the reviews here are fake." Well that's an interesting take on this. Why would there be fake reviews for AllyO? Who's trying to tank AllyO if that's the case? So anyway, this same review says in all caps "PLEASE TRUST ME AND STAY CLEAR OF ALLYO." As she bumps, "All the AI they claim to have is fake, ever wonder why they don't use their own products to run their TA? If it was so great, you'd think you'd use your own product, hahaha."
Chad: And that was a tech person?
Joel: That was just a current employee. They didn't actually specify. I'll just read some of the titles here. Consider yourself warned, 0 stars if I could, the exodus has begun, startup a lot of security gaps, and it goes on and on, so we reached out to Bennett Sung, their head of marketing.
Chad: Good man, yes.
Joel: And admitted that there are some issues and they're a growing company. They've grown from a small amount of people to over 100-150, so it was kind of a growing pains thing, we'll get through it, be patient. So whether or not ... take whatever side you want, maybe there's a little bit of truth in both of those, but at least from Glassdoor's point of view, things are fairly bad at AllyO at the moment.
Chad: Well, if you are working at AllyO or you were, feel free to drop us a line, go to chadcheese.com, go down to the bottom, drop us a line, let us know, give us your information anonymously, but we'd like to get some insights ...
Joel: The tech's insights are a little bit alarming, I guess. If the AI is fake and they're not eating their own dog food, that's a little bit alarming.
Chad: Well that is ... I mean, we've called companies out on that in the past on the show and actually doing research and saying, well if your tech's so good, why the fuck aren't you using it?
Joel: Yeah, do you think that there's a little bit of AI fallout happening? Like we've talked about AI's being replaced by diversity and inclusion. The hot terminology is moving away from AI?
Chad: Yeah ...
Joel: Or do you think it's still ... ?
Chad: I think first and foremost, people are getting sick and tired of hearing AI when they don't know what the fuck it actually means.
Joel: Yeah, I agree with that.
Chad: I think we're really focusing way too much on these fucking terms and not the end result.
Joel: Yeah, the results.
Chad: You know, what's the problem that you're trying to solve, maybe AI's going to help, maybe RPA, it doesn't matter, just focus on the fucking solution.
Joel: Yeah, for so long we've heard hey, I need a chat bot, but I'm not sure why I need a chat bot. Just because everyone's talking about it and everyone's doing it, so maybe people are realizing I don't necessarily need AI, because I'm not even sure what that is, but what results, what problems are you solving, what pain points are you curing? Like I think people are hopefully getting to that point as opposed to just I need to check off AI in my annual budget expenses.
Chad: Yeah and that RFP, they were asking if we have AI. If you're a company out there and you have an RFP and it actually asks about AI, then you're a fucking idiot. Quit asking dumb fucking questions on your RFP's.
Joel: Focus on plugging your bias hole, I think, is what you're saying.
Chad: Yes. Always, always. And also, vendors, I know it is so attractive to be able to see something like that on an RFP and then say look, look, look, we need to put this all over our marketing material. Don't fucking do it. Focus on what matters.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: That's the solution, the outcome.
Joel: Well, we're going to end the show on a little bit of a somber note. The industry lost I guess a giant and a forefather of the industry. You were obviously very close to him. I felt close, but not as close as you, so I'll just hand the mic to you and let you talk about Bill Warren, a father of online recruiting passed away this week.
Chad: Yeah, so many of you might not know Bill Warren, because he was a very silent kind of guy, kind of in the shadows in most cases. He started Online Career Center, OCC.com which actually was morphed with the Monster board into Monster.com, so he was actually the very first president of Monster.com, he left there, started one of the very first ASP-driven applicant tracking systems. That morphed over into the Direct Employers Association, there were a handful of us that started that thing up.
Chad: And I have to say one of my best and worst memories in spending probably about 12 years with Bill was the very first days when we were starting up direct employers, because I would spend probably three hours with him every single day talking through why we shouldn't shut this fucking thing down.
Joel: Why we should not.
Chad: Why we should not shut this down ...
Joel: So, he wanted to go home?
Chad: He needed reassurance that we were on the right track and that one day came when America's Job Bank actually shut down and we had about at that time at Direct Employers, we had about 140 members. I led that project and we created the National Labor Exchange, which was to fill that gap. And we went from 140 members to over 400 in 18 months. It took us five years to get to 140, in 18 months went to 400, so I mean that was the kind of patience he had.
Chad: He did have obviously some pretty damn good resolve, but generally he wasn't the guy who was on stage like the Jeff Taylor's of the world who was incredibly boisterous and out there.
Joel: Very Midwestern in his demeanor.
Chad: Yes. Yeah.
Joel: Yeah, so my memory of Bill, probably two things. One was he wasn't a techy.
Chad: No.
Joel: He wasn't a carnival barker, he wasn't a technology guy, he was really about people and I thin the allegiance and loyalty that people had to him is a testament to that and my greatest appreciation of Bill is what he did for me when I was doing Cheesehead back in the mid-2000's. He believed in it, he thought it was interesting, he believed in me, liked me.
Joel: And frankly, bankrolled much of Cheesehead and if you read Cheesehead back then and enjoyed it, you really have Bill to thank and the organization, because they were so supportive of me and that was something that I will never be able to pay back and I will miss Bill and just remember him as a tremendous supporter, someone who believed in me when he really had no reason to and someone who made a real impact on people more so than maybe the business side of it to me.
Chad: And that's where this friendship started.
Joel: Yeah, we have Bill to thank for this podcast, I guess. So Bill, what better way to say thank you than on the podcast, which exists because of you.
Chad: Not much to say other than we out.
Joel: 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. And 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. Anyhow, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Walken: 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.