Indeed Throttling and Glassdoor Shakedowns?
Recorded LIVE from UNLEASH World in Paris' showfloor.
Brought to you by our friends at Sovren, Canvas, and JobAdX.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
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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, rash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It is time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Oh yeah.
Chad: I just love that.
Joel: Bonjour Monsieur, Chad.
Chad: Bonjour, Mr- Fromage
Joel: Bienvenu...to the Chad and Fromage podcast from Paris France.
Chad: France.
Joel: What's up listeners? We're here at the unleash conference in Paris. We've invaded the Meyer booth. We've taken their WiFi. We've taken their tables. We've stalled the sales process.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: We've probably put them out of business because of our weekly show. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast HR's Most Dangerous.
Chad: Live.
Joel: This week we're going to be talking the UNLEASH show. We're going to be talking Indeed shake downs and we're going to be talking Glassdoor mobsters. Stay tuned.
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Chad: And we're back.
Joel: And we're back dude. If you hate shout outs, you're going to hate this part of the show [crosstalk 00:02:01], there's so many people to thank from our week in Paris. I'm going to start with UNLEASH in general.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: They gave us a Mic, they gave us a stage, they gave us a voice and we appreciate that because it's not the safest choice.
Chad: No and they gave us some really good panelists. It's one of the things that I love when we work with shows and they want to be able to get their people up on stage.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: We had Chris Wray from Sainsbury's. We had Adam Yearsley from Red Bull. Had Brandy Ellis from the SmashFly. So yeah, I mean we had... They even extended our period. We were supposed to have 30 minutes. We went to 45. We're talking about brand, experience and just really cool shit. So we will be dropping that Podcast.
Joel: They even gave us Lars, as our master of ceremonies.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: He's like he doesn't just do anybody.
Chad: Yeah. You get it. Get a little Lars actions.
Joel: That's good. You got through a lot of shout outs there with our guests.
Chad: Oh good.
Joel: So that's good. Shout out to Paris.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: It has been very good to us. The food's great. The wine is amazing. The city's beautiful if you haven't been to Paris, could not recommend it more. We're very lucky. Indianapolis does not have a lot of international direct flights and amazingly they have a direct flight-
Chad: It does.
Joel: ... to Paris.
Chad: I love it.
Joel: So we're really enjoying the town and the quick flight over to Europe. Quick shout out to Neely Verlinden.
Chad: Ver what?
Joel: Yeah, she's with AIHR, which is not-
Chad: Say that again.
Joel: ... Artificial intelligence-
Chad: No.
Joel: ... Yeah.
Chad: A-I-H-R.
Joel: Neely Verlinden, AIHR. We did an interview with her yesterday. Talk shop, podcasting industry stuff. Be on the lookout for that. We'll link to it from chadcheese.com we'll share it on socials. It was a good time.
Chad: Big shout out to all of our friends and I'll try to hit as many as I possibly can.
Joel: Our dinner friends is that who you’re going after?
Chad: Well, we had the dinner friends. We had the Adam Gordon's of the world. You know, Andreea Wade-
Joel: Yup. Elin, from Tengai.
Chad: Elin, from Tengai. Max Armbruster.
Joel: Max twice.
Chad: See Max is French.
Joel: Yes.
Chad: He leaves in Hong Kong now.
Joel: He is Parisian-
Chad: ...but he hooked us up two nights in a row. Amazing restaurants so big shout out to Max and the Talkpush peeps so... Also we just saw Matt Alder. He looked like he needed some sleep.
Joel: Not as much as you look like you need sleep.
Chad: Well, that's because I was up till two.
Joel: Hung Lee. We saw Hung-
Chad: Yeah. Got to love some Hung Lee. Just plenty of guys. The guys over at social talent, Dave, Johnny, the crew.
Joel: Yeah. We had a good time with the social talent guys. They had a giveaway idea for condoms. Apparently-
Chad: The Johnny.
Joel: ... the condoms in Ireland are called Johnny's.
Chad: Johnny's, yes.
Joel: So Johnny Campbell and the Johnny giveaway. I thought it was funny and frankly I think there is no better [crosstalk 00:04:57], than Johnny's face on a condom.
Chad: Yeah because you're going to stay hard putting that thing on.
Joel: Yeah and we're going to continue to hound them to one day have fresh Guinness from Ireland actually in the booth.
Chad: How are we in Europe and we don't have fresh Guinness from the booth. I mean, come on guys.
Joel: When we saw Shane Clinch for a very short period.
Chad: Oh yeah. He was in and out.
Joel: So you know, he's usually the one that brings us our supply. He's our Mr. Dr feelgood.
Chad: Yeah. And he didn't-
Joel: And he failed us this time but he's... No hate on Shane. He's always good for it.
Chad: Shane's brought us so much beer.
Joel: If there's an Irish in the house and there's no whiskey or Guinness I'm pretty upset.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Shout out to Laura Drori from Saba software in the UK. She's a big fan. She was at the show-
Chad: Saba.
Joel: ... yesterday and wanted to send me a message saying, great show guys. Thanks a lot. I'm a big fan. Keep doing what you guys do. Andy Whitehead, another big fan that hit me up on LinkedIn. He's with a LiveHire out of Melbourne, whatever. Andy, we love the Aussies. Keep listening and keep spreading the joy.
Chad: I have to say Muir McDonald and that's how you have to say it. It's like you have to say it... You have to say with some confidence.
Joel: With some Cheesertude-
Chad: Yes, some confidence. So Muir McDonald. Yes. So we appreciate again, all the shout outs and also helping us to understand how to exactly pronounce your name my friend. Good job.
Joel: I'm going to go Richie Bodo from Neuvoo out of Missouri, another big fan of ours.
Chad: Missouri.
Joel: Mizzou, the show me state and we show them the knowledge by... Anyway. Wow. We went through shoutouts pretty quickly actually. I'm really impressed.
Chad: Yes. I'm sure everybody's happy about that.
Joel: Why did we not go that quickly on the regular show? I don't know. Our travel schedule is dwindling as the year comes to a close.
Chad: Yup.
Joel: But we still have iCIMS-
Chad: Yeah, iCIMS.
Joel: ... coming up November. I'm going to be doing a session at recruit con in Nashville in November. If you're interested in-
Chad: Julie will be there.
Joel: ... optimizing your shit for Google for jobs, come out and say hi. I'll be there.
Chad: Julie will be there.
Joel: Julie Sowash will be there. So she's doing DNI stuff I guess.
Chad: Yeah. She just talk about how you actually get outcomes and hire people and shit. Yeah. That's-
Joel: She better not be on a bigger stage than me. That's all I'm saying.
Chad: She should be. Yeah. And then we have TalentNet in Dallas.
Joel: TalentNet, yep. Closing the year out in Dallas. We're still waiting on Carrie Corbin to say yay or nay coming on stage. You looking like that that's not going to happen.
Chad: She gave me the cold shoulder.
Joel: Cold shoulder. All right.
Chad: Come on-
Joel: Carrie you can talk the talk. Walk the walk.
Chad: Come on girl you walk the walk.
Joel: Come up on stage along. Otherwise we'll be doing our world famous naughty or nice list from the year from Dallas live. So if you're there, come out and say hi. All the usual Dallas, Texas suspects should be there. Charney, obviously Fisher and others.
Chad: Got a big group there in Dallas in Texas.
Joel: And by the way we're formulating next year's schedule.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: If you thought you had too much of us this year, well damn it, you're out of luck because you might get more of us next year based on what the calendar starting to look like.
Chad: Not enough of Chad and Cheese in anybody's diet. Let's just make-
Joel: Especially if you're French.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Cheese is everywhere.
Chad: Chad and Fromage
Joel: Delicious. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk the UNLEASH show in more detail.
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Chad: And we're back.
Joel: And we're back.
Chad: And we're back.
Joel: All right UNLEASH one of the, I'd say top five at least HR conferences in the world.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That's probably non debatable.
Chad: No, I don't think that's debatable at all.
Joel: And it's our first time. What are some of your first takeaways and things that caught your attention here?
Chad: Again, this is one of the most interesting because everything is in one place. You're not walking from one part of a conference center to the next part of the conference center. They're all together. The stages are integrated with the expo hall. I mean... So I mean you-
Joel: It's not a go for coffee and maybe talk to a vendor. It's like the sessions are in the expo hall. Like you can't escape.
Chad: I mean, I would say if you are a vendor you would fucking love this show because you are always amongst the people.
Joel: Yeah. If you're a vendor, you're probably loving the show because there's no like waiting around.
Chad: No.
Joel: Till the expo moment when they come in for drinks or coffee. Like the entire show you're talking to people who are here at the conference.
Chad: And drinks and coffee are always out and they're always around. So it's like, again, you go to a stage, which again, some of these stages are out in the middle of the expo hall, which we were on one of them but you can go from stage to stage. Go to the main stage, which is within the actual confines of this-
Joel: you can bounce around and not feel-
Chad: Easy.
Joel: ... like, Oh, I've got to get up and open the door and be really quiet. Like you just get up and walk away and no one notices.
Chad: Yeah, there's so much going on. It's really cool. I do like... It's kind of like a start up area but it's not because SurveyMonkey is there for God's sake.
Joel: Well, it is very much like the kiosk HR Tech type pavilion where you have a little kiosk.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But yeah, SurveyMonkey, a large public company in America is in the startup pavilion.
Chad: Interesting.
Joel: E quest, who's been around for 20 some years in the startup pavilion. So they might want to tighten up the regulations on who can get there. Otherwise, we'll start seeing Microsoft in the startup-
Chad: Is it the startup area though, is that what it's called?
Joel: Pretty much. I mean the-
Chad: Is it?
Joel: ... startup stage is right there.
Chad: Yeah, that's a good point.
Joel: Those are pretty much all startups.
Chad: Pretty much all startups.
Joel: Now there is a bronze area, which I'm not exactly sure. So SurveyMonkey is a bronze but it's still a kiosk. They can obviously afford a 10 by 10 or something bigger here. So I'm a little confused why they're there but I don't know? Good on them. They budgeted wisely and got a cheap booth technically.
Chad: I'm going to say there is no there there.
Joel: There is no there there. Yeah. I wonder how many people are going up and saying who are you guys? SurveyMonkey, never [crosstalk 00:12:31], of course primarily American company. Maybe here in the European market they're more new.
Chad: So what do you think?
Joel: So obviously, I think I agree with all your sentiment on the conferences as it is. It's a big open space. It's vendors and attendees living together. [crosstalk 00:12:49], even the food is given out in sort of small portions on multiple parts of the area. So it's not like you go to one big buffet-
Chad: At the back of the hall.
Joel: ... at the back of the hall, then you sit away from the vendors. So they've really done a good job of making the people who pay the bills happy I think and that's been the feedback that I've gotten. You mentioned the startup area. Talk to quite a few of those. I think we sat through one of those startup sessions, our buddy George Laroque is a judge there. You know, my takeaway is there are too many startups that are just making stuff that they think is cool and they don't think about what pain am I like solve... What problem am I solving? What pain am I healing?
Joel: In fact in many cases, too many companies are creating actually more work for companies. So like you see survey companies where okay, sign up for our shit and then you email all of our people and then your workers have to do more work and then you have to do more work to maybe get something out of that. So I think that's been kind of a bad idea and shit storm for a lot of... Sorry, we are having a lot of activity here outside with a lot of middle fingers.
Chad: You pull out the Mics-
Joel: A lot of middle fingers and-
Chad: You pull out the Mic's and shit happens.
Joel: ... bite me kind of a hand gestures, which is nice. So a couple of-
Chad: Say hi Aaron.
Aaron Matos: Hi.
Joel: So yeah, not enough startups solving problems. They're kind of just cool and giving you more time and things to do on your to do list. A couple that stood out to me were Real Links, which I think we both actually stopped by and talked to, which was a referral system.
Chad: That was really interesting.
Joel: And what I liked about it was it was a pretty automated system. It synced up with your employees LinkedIn, Facebook, et cetera friends and then based on job postings, tried to match them with people in your network and then said, hey, so and so, we think might be a good opportunity for our marketing position. Here's link to send them if you think you agree with that and that was-
Chad: I can see that integrating with Slack, who also is here.
Joel: But not in the startup. Not in the startup.
Chad: Yeah, not in the startup.
Joel: So kudos to them for that. Yeah, we'll get to Slack in a second. My other highlight from the startup was Peachy Mondays. [crosstalk 00:15:11]. Yeah. We have way too many animals in the startup area and the vendor areas as a whole but now we're getting into fruits. So we should start saying-
Chad: Fruity Mondays.
Joel: ... Strawberry jobs forever and maybe-
Chad: Oh I like that. That's good.
Joel: So they're basically an internal glass door.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: So you leave anonymous feedback that's internal, which for companies is nice because it's not public and maybe for employees it's nice because they feel like they're being heard and they're not being just voicing out in the world. I do think however, a lot of people would prefer to be heard by the most people possible even though it's anonymous. Whereas a platform like Indeed or Glassdoor is going to give them more of a voice than an internal system but those are two startups that sort of stood out to me as at least interesting.
Chad: Yeah. Well, we did see our friends from VideoMyJob here in that area, Candidate.ID, Job Pals. So seeing some of those organizations here are really cool.
Joel: Yeah, that we've talked about before. Been on firing squad.
Chad: Yeah. One organization that it was easy and I honed in on it quickly. It was called Juno.
Joel: Just the logo.
Chad: If you have a logo that is your name. It can't be so complex that-
Joel: If it looks like Morse code.
Chad: Yeah. I can't actually... If it takes me more than three seconds to actually figure out your fucking logo then the logo sucks.
Joel: Try to explain their logo for listeners. If you... Like not being able to show it.
Chad: Yeah. You know, like that the Etch A Sketch, when you're like you can do things on the Etch A Sketch and it's just like you're doing like little circles and stuff.
Joel: Blind Etch A Sketch.
Chad: Yeah. It's horrible. You look at it and you're like, what the... Does that... Is that actually what I... No, I think it's Juno and then I look underneath and it's like, yeah it's Juno that is horrible.
Joel: It is horrible. Yeah. And whatever marketing firm person, company, (five 00:17:06) or contractor came up with that. Like not good.
Chad: It's a five year old with an Etch A Sketch.
Joel: Agreed on that. Okay. A couple main segments we wanted to touch on was messaging. So you mentioned Slack. Go ahead and then what's your take on them?
Chad: It was interesting that Slack would spend time at a show like this.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: Because we don't generally see them at shows like at the state. I didn't see Slack at HR Tech.
Joel: Nope. This is the first show that I've seen them exhibit on. I think maybe the second time Facebook At Work-
Chad: They've been here.
Joel: ... has been here. Yeah.
Chad: So it was interesting because we went to Slack and said, why are you here? Right? And I think it was interesting because they're doing the integrations with applicant tracking systems with surveys that kind of thing. So they're trying to get into the basic flow of work. So instead of going to your applicant tracking system and using your applicant tracking system or going to your applicant tracking system for updates or going to email for updates. If you're in Slack all day and these channels pop up and you see that there notifications then it's just automatically integrated. I thought that was really cool because it's all about process efficiencies.
Joel: Yeah and those integrations I think are powerful because it's not just a, hey, you got a new applicant from whatever, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It was like very detailed information that you get from your Slack dashboard.
Chad: I could see background check companies and I mean just all of the data that's coming through you can see it and then you know, when you have to go back to the applicant tracking system to get work done in there.
Joel: And looking at Slack, there's actually an HR and culture category within their app store. A lot of it is very heavy with surveys, polling, engagement. You know, send little smileys to your coworkers kind of thing but we mentioned Greenhouse, Lever was there. I don't remember any others that were there but if you're an ATS and you're not integrated with Slack, we both think that was a pretty cool integration.
Chad: We have to talk to iCIMS about that when we're out there in a couple of weeks.
Joel: Sure. iCIMS, Jobvite. We need to tell Amen to get on that as well.
Chad: I think Aman's all over that. I could be wrong. I think he is all over that.
Joel: I'd be surprised if he wasn't at least aware of it and had it on their roadmap. So I would... We mentioned Facebook At Work, which is their messenger at work product. What was your takeaway on their stuff versus Slack?
Chad: I would say that we knew their product better than they did or at least how to articulate it better than they did. It was weird because you just kind of stepped up and said, okay, tell me about your product and really all they had to say was first, do you use Facebook? Yes. Do you have groups in Facebook? Yes. Okay. That's pretty much it. It's just you have a business side. It's not your personal profile, you have a business profile. So it separates business from personal and what are your questions? That's the pitch. Right?
Joel: Yeah and it was pretty clear that... Well, the app store is as an obvious example. Slack has, I'm assuming thousands if not tens of thousands of apps. We asked Facebook how many apps-
Chad: They are like 60.
Joel: ... were made? Is 60. Now a lot of those are big. Right?
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: Like G Suite, Microsoft, which are pretty easy wins for Facebook. They can make one call and get that probably built pretty easily but if you're not connecting with the app makers of the world to create really cool applications to your product. You're probably going to lose to the solution that is doing cool things and creating great integrations. So if I'm a Greenhouse user and it's between Slack and Facebook, I'm obviously going to go to Slack because I can integrate my ATS experience within my messaging system.
Chad: Yeah. iPhone had like this huge app store and droid didn't then droid did. Right? I mean, it's just one of those things. So Facebook is such a big brand. All of these organizations are going to want to have and need to have an app there. So I don't think that's going to be that big of an issue. I think they're just going to have this flood but I think they're prioritizing well. They're not just waiting for the little app guys to come in and start creating the... They're doing the big integrations first.
Chad: So yeah, I'm not too worried about that. I'm just not sure about them in this space. Facebook in this space. They don't understand this space. I mean with their ads, their job ads and being able to boost those and that kind of shit. I mean they just don't get what we need so why would they get from a business standpoint what we need from a communications or what have you? So I don't know. I don't buy Facebook in this space.
Joel: Yeah. We did ask them, hey, you guys have job postings on your marketplace. You have this corporate sort of a solution. When can we start seeing integration between posting jobs and you're at work messaging platform? And they seem to think, yeah, that could happen. Again, you said we knew more about their product than they did in some cases. So I wouldn't expect that to happen anytime soon but it is something that they would have over Slack, which does not have 3 billion consumers use it on the planet.
Chad: See that and that's exactly right. So if you do have that Greenhouse integration and you're automatically pushing a feed of jobs into the Facebook marketplace, right? So I mean, that could all go along and then again, you could get messages on that on workplace.
Joel: Totally true.
Chad: So yeah. So I mean, they have a huge leg up from a market standpoint and their marketplace on Facebook. So I mean... So they know how to do that. Again, I'm just not satisfied with what they've done thus far in the business space.
Joel: Yeah and there's really nothing stopping Facebook from building integrations into ATS already to automatically post jobs, which we know that they're doing anyway. So that's obviously on the table. Let's talk about bots. Particularly chat bots I guess, because they are [crosstalk 00:23:04], right after this we're going to be going to the battle of the bots-
Chad: The battle of the bots.
Joel: ... session, which is going to not only feature Meyer but-
Chad: We've got like half an hour till that starts.
Joel: ... Paradox. Our friends at the robot, Tengai will be, Max at Talkpush. Pretty much it's going to be a who is who of this sector. The only ones here are Meyer and Paradox. The others are sort of hanging around and doing sessions and whatnot but what's... I don't know what your, I guess highlight from that or takeaway. I mean, it certainly seems like the time for the bots is here if it's not coming in a big way soon.
Chad: I am so big on bots overall. Not just chat bots but bots from a process efficiency standpoint because there are so much that can be done from automation. So yeah, I think there's just still blue sky out there for chat bots and bots overall and being able to do this chat bot thing is awesome but what about the actual process bots that you don't need human interaction. You know what the process is supposed to be and you just engage in signal. It's big and these guys are obviously getting a shit ton of cash already, right? So it's going to be interesting to see if they can. Because you received all this money, can you actually sell with a valuation that large or do you turn into your own platform? I mean seriously.
Joel: And look, I think without naming names. People I've talked to, I think there are offers out there. I think there's [crosstalk 00:24:47], conversations about how much do you want and the question of do you make a lot of money now or do you roll the dice and take a lot of money potentially later and I think a lot of these chatbots are struggling with that question and we'll see. One of my predictions for 2020 maybe yours as well could be, we'll start to see the first chat bot go for allegedly $100 million is sort of the price that we're hearing but yeah, it's a hot space.
Joel: I expect it to get hotter. I'm kind of surprised we're not seeing more competitors. Yeah, clearly a big trend here is automation and chat bots are kind of driving that. I also think it's worth noting that the conversations that vendors are having with folks is not so much what is a chat bot but it's how are you guys different from Paradox and ALIO and all the others out there. So there's an education in the market that's happening that I think is really healthy and really underscores how healthy and trending this industry is.
Chad: Yeah and I think also as a company it's great to try to understand the differences between them but the biggest key is what is your fucking problem and take that to those vendors and say, this is my problem. How are you going to solve this problem? So having these kind of like high level, how are you different conversations. Okay, yeah, they might be good but they're nothing compared to taking an actual problem to them. Problems. A fucking portfolio of problems and saying, okay, problem, A, here you go and then take them through that. I mean this is the thing that we have to do better Intel acquisition. We can't just have all these box checking, oh will it do this? Will it do that? Will it... You know, will it make me copy? Will... You know, bullshit. Will it
solve my fucking pro... What's your problem? That's the key.
Joel: Yeah. We need to move away from the days of like, I have a checklist and chat bot is on it and I'll buy any chat bot as long as I can check it off my list.
Chad: Challenge your thinking.
Joel: What problem do you need solved?
Chad: Exactly.
Joel: Very important. Because they all are very different in certain ways.
Chad: Yeah. And how are they going to solve it? That's the question. How are they going to solve... How's one chatbot going to solve it versus another. Right. And I can guarantee you like Talkpush, which is an entirely different platform, right? Then like maybe Meyer or something like that. They're going to have different ways to actually solve.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: And from your standpoint, that's the biggest key.
Joel: Yup. An actual robot may not be for you.
Chad: Yeah. That could be it. Right?
Joel: It could be it.
Chad: That could be it.
Joel: That could be it. I will say another trend that is either troubling or just worth noting is like engagement is getting a little ridiculous. Everyone wants to engage candidates.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And I just don't know if we need that many companies trying to solve that problem.
Chad: The engagement and then you're engaging but you want something back from them. There's a lot of... They call it engagement but what they're looking to do is get info from the candidate whether it's surveys or whether it's this or that. It's like how much can you inundate an actual human being with? I don't care if it's a question or five questions or whatever it is weekly or biweekly or it's just like, what's that actual person's flow look like in their job? And then how much other shit can they take on?
Joel: Do I actually benefit from this and how much of my time is required to give my feedback to you?
Chad: Right.
Joel: These are all questions that are troubling and also what's the actual benefit aside from data? Are you retaining people more because of what you're getting back? Is there a recruitment element that's in there? I think those are questions that aren't really answered and if it's not making you money or saving you money, what is it doing for you?
Chad: Yeah. It costs a hell of a lot less to retain an employee than it is to go find a new one.
Joel: And is the engagement tool you're using actually doing that?
Chad: …the fuck away.
Joel: Or is it pissing them off and getting in their shit?
Chad: It could be.
Joel: I'll also note from the show, my takeaway was big tech is still big tech. The biggest booths here are still Oracle, Workday. The usual suspects. So in some ways -
Chad: The cash cows.
Joel: ... things are changing significantly in other ways-
Chad: They're not so much.
Joel: The shit is still the same as it always has been. One take away from you. I know we've given TMP shit about all the acquisitions they've been doing. What brand are they? What should we call them? They have an interesting presence here at the show.
Chad: Yeah. They have a talent brew booth. Right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Which is an awesome booth.
Joel: It is nice.
Chad: But once again, what we've talked about before-
Joel: There is no beer in the talent brew.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But anyway.
Chad: Yeah. We should probably have that discussion but if you think about it, once again, we talked about this last week. You have TMP, AIA, CKR, Maximum I mean and the list just keeps going on and then what happens? Well, and then they just, right? And then they show up here as none of those. As none of those. They show up here as their product Talent brew. I mean, again, I love that they're trying to get the Talent brew name out there but I really think that they had this simple situation going on.
Joel: By the way that's a great analogy.
Chad: It just so many different names and so many different likenesses-
Joel: So just go on by symbol dot AI and be done with it.
Chad: And be done with. Put them all up underneath that umbrella and you're done.
Joel: And to add to the confusion. You saw a booth that was like TMR or something.
Chad: TMF.
Joel: TMF. Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. Because the F was almost a P.
Joel: Almost the exact same font as well. So I would be very confused if I didn't know one thing or the other as to whether that was TMP or what exactly that was, so.
Chad: Love those guys. Again, we love the acquisitions that are happening. It's just again, the confusion and all of these multiple personalities are just confusing the fuck... I mean, I can't imagine how it doesn't confuse the market.
Joel: All right, well let's take a break and get unconfused.
Chad: I like that.
Joel: We'll come back and talk about Indeed shaking people down and the mobsters at Glassdoor.
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Chad: And we're back.
Joel: And We're back. All right dude. The Indeed hate is... It went from a trickle to sort of a nice flow every day we seem to get new intel about what Indeed is doing.
Chad: Well in... and companies aren't sure what's happening. That's the problem, right? So again, we were talking about like TMP and there's confusion there, at least from my standpoint there could be. There's confusion on the Indeed side because we've heard... We reported on a company that really had their traffic almost turned off. Right? Their organic traffic and we felt like that, Oh, here we go. They're going to start the smack down and then guess what? Once we put that out there more companies started getting to us and saying, hey look, that's happening to us too. We just saw our organic go flat. What the fuck is going on?
Joel: Now word that we heard this week which is new is throttling.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: A company that we had come to us say that they were getting, was it $5 per apply or the cost that they're paying for an application went from $5 to 15 and they believe that Indeed is sort of moving the knobs on how effective your postings are based on are you going to play or not.
Chad: Yeah. I mean there's always been rumors of... and these are... I mean okay so we've had inside information from actual sales people at Indeed when this was happening that there would be money to be spent and it wasn't spent until that last week and then they just jammed it all through. Right?
Joel: Right.
Chad: Because it was like, do we have budget shit? We've got to do this and now we're talking about more of like a throttling type of an issue where it's like, look, if you're going to get people, you're going to have to pay for them. Right? So the organic and start the payment and then what you're talking about the actual payment is like, well that price that we were looking at is actually going to be going up. So it's interesting.
Joel: Ultimately allegedly Indeed is sort of playing with the algorithm to say, look, if you're not paying more, there's a good chance that you're going to start at certain times of the day or month being on page 29-
Chad: It's like Uber.
Joel: ... and then when the budget... Yeah.
Chad: In surge.
Joel: Yes.
Chad: Surge rate.
Joel: Yes, so when the budget needs to be spent, you're going to start showing up on page one and things like that. So it's not about-
Chad: It could be their new model who knows? We don't know, but Uber does it. It's called surge and Indeed could just surge the fuck out of-
Joel: [crosstalk 00:34:27]. Let's be honest, most people are just going to say, oh shit, I need to spend more money with Indeed. They're not going to ask hard questions or go to an alternative, which I know we talk about quite a bit. That was the advice you gave the Informant that we had this week. Like go check out Neuvoo. Go check out the programmatic solution providers. There are options out there.
Chad: If you don't start looking out and diversify your traffic and all your traffic eggs are in one basket, that's on you. I mean, you're fucking yourself.
Joel: No doubt then again, if you have information, juicy gossip for us on Indeed and anyone else, hit us up at chadcheese.com either on the record or off the record. We will honor either.
Chad: It'll work.
Joel: All right. Let's talk about our session. The panel's great. We've already mentioned who was on it. The companies represented Red Bull, Sainsburys, a very popular retailer, SmashFly.
Chad: Were all decked out in the SmashFly gear by the way.
Joel: And the title I believe was your brand sucks or something along those lines.
Chad: Brand matters, experience matters and then in the synopsis, pretty much your experience sucks so therefore your brand sucks and I think that's one of the things that companies are really focused heavily on their brand. They don't get where this whole brand thing comes from. It's the experience. How are you treating actual human beings? Whether they're customers, whether they're candidates, whether they're candidates and customers, whether they're employees, how are you treating them? Right?
Joel: Yup.
Chad: And if you don't focus on experience then it doesn't matter. Your brand is going to suck.
Joel: Yup. And one of the things that was really well said by both of the companies on the stage was how they are engaging with marketing and we preach this all the time. If you're not having sit downs with your marketing department coming with data, which was obviously a huge-
Chad: Very much.
Joel: ... point taken in the conference, like don't just go to market... Don't go to marketing with your hat in your hand and like help us. Come at them with actual numbers in terms of traffic profiles that are in your system or resumes, applications per day. How many people come to the site? Like these are numbers that will get marketing's attention because in Red Bull's case they get 3 million applications per year. A few tens of thousands actually get hired. Those are all people that could buy Red Bull.
Chad: Easily.
Joel: And marketing should be aware of that and provide deals, information, whatever the brand should carry over into the application and the job seeker component to hiring people but that was a big takeaway for me. We did talk a little bit about external anonymous reviews. How those play into your brand. I was really surprised to hear, Red Bulls, Adam say that they ignore reviews. Me personally, if you're just putting your head in the sand-
Chad: I know it was an arrow to your heart.
Joel: It was a point of some controversy.
Chad: You should have seen Joel's face when he said that.
Joel: Yeah, I took it at Red Bull with wings on that one that how can you ignore 20 some review sites that are out there but his answer was very revealing to me in that he feels like to be on Glassdoor, to use Glassdoor, to engage with Glassdoor. There's sort of a payola situation. I have to pay them to delete bad reviews. I have to pay them to move certain reviews up and certain reviews down, which obviously if you talk to Glassdoor does not happen. No matter how much you pay them. You can't delete stuff. Now you probably have a better voice at Glassdoor if you're paying and you call them and say, hey, this review is a plague... or whatever, a slanderous. They'll probably listened to you much more readily.
Chad: You are higher in the queue. I'm sure.
Joel: They won't admit that.
Chad: I'm very sure.
Joel: Paying does probably get you a little bit of preferential treatment but Glassdoor to me has a real brand problem. If companies like Red Bull think that it's a payola situation and they have to pay to play and if they don't, they're going to get screwed over because that ultimately is going to be really bad for Glassdoor and by the way Glassdoor is sister companies with Indeed. If Indeed starts getting the similar reputation, which they already have on job postings. Now if the review section becomes a payola situation that's really bad for both those companies.
Chad: Yeah. So there are two things here for me. First off, if that is what companies think and I guarantee you many companies think that. They feel like they have to pay to play and I think to an extent, there is a pay to play. There's no question you get more if you pay so that-
Joel: You can get someone on the phone if you're writing cheque.
Chad: So here's the thing, if that's the whole thought of some of these companies, right? And that's what they're getting. Then Glassdoor needs to articulate their deliverable much better than what they are today.
Joel: Yes.
Chad: Number one and number two, what I heard from him was there is so much noise out there as Red Bull. Glassdoor really doesn't mean that much to us because there are all these other segments that we're hitting that actually have better return. So they're big enough I think and they have a brand where they can kind of feel like that's noise whether it's wrong or right. That's how they feel. It's noise and sometimes portions of it we just have to ignore and that's what they choose to ignore.
Joel: Yeah. My guess is all a lot more companies than we think take the head in the sand, ignore it strategy than we probably believe. I disagree with the strategy but it is a very real thing I'm sure. But yeah, it's similar to... You know, I've talked to many restaurants who think Yelp is the same situation. If I don't pay Yelp. I'm not on Yelp. My reviews are shit that I never come to the top. Glassdoor to me has a similar situation and they need to fix that if they're going to survive and thrive in the future.
Chad: They've got to look at different ways to monetize because they have to make money. I mean, that's the reason why they're there. I mean, Job postings obviously, I mean, there are different things that they... I think they can do to be able to monetize, which they don't feel like the mafia. Right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: You know, you're going to break your window and then I'm going to send some guy over to fix it and then they're going to charge you for fixing your window.
Joel: Yeah, we don't need any broken kneecaps in our industry. There's enough of that going on around the world. Well dude, we have a lot more show left. I think battle of the bots is coming up.
Chad: I can't wait.
Joel: We're going to try to get some content from that, hopefully. Otherwise I'm headed home in a couple of days. You're headed home a couple of days after that. We're going to spend some time here in Paris, so don't expect much from us in the next couple of days. It's been fun and we out.
Chad: We out.
Walken: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast the Chad, the Cheese. BRILLIANT! They 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 but one Cheddar. Blue, Nacho, Pepper Jack, Swiss. There's so many cheeses and not one word, so weird anyhoo 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 grub cheese. It's so weird. We out.
#TMP #AIA #CKR #TalentBrew #UNLEASH #Smashfly #Indeed #Glassdoor #LIVE