Christmas is over, and business is business!
The boys cover items this week from Indeed-owned ClickIQ and Monster's BetterThing. Better who? Exacty. And, as it that wasn't enough, Chad & Cheese discuss their Top Tens from the decade. Balls will drop on this first show of 2020. Enjoy, and make Sovren, JobAdx, and Canvas your New Year's resolution.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Joel: Oh, yeah. 2020 Happy New Year. Christmas is over and business is business. Welcome to 2020 I'm Barbara Walters. I mean I'm Joel Cheesman. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm here with Chad, the man, Sowash.
Chad: Hello.
Joel: Merry New Year everybody. On this week show Monster gets out of a better thing. ClickIQ shows us up and we both go through the decade's top 10. Get ready for balls to drop. We'll be right back after we pay a few bills.
Chad: Finally.
Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent text-based interviewing platform, empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you at the center while Canvas Bot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day.
Canvas: Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a Bitmoji. We make compliance easy and are laser focused on recruiter success. Request a demo gocanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's gocanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent.
Joel: So I feel after reading the intro, I'm either really out of practice or I'm still drunk from the holidays. I can't figure out which one.
Chad: Probably a little bit of both.
Joel: We'll go with that. So apparently [crosstalk 00:01:46] come next, if I remember correctly.
Chad: That would be correct.
Joel: SHOUT OUTS!
Chad: The holiday card idea that we had actually went off pretty well. I mean, I have received, not going to go through all of them for God's sakes, but emails, messages, Facebook messages, just a ton of people laughing and sending pictures of them holding the card, it up on their door or something like that. But they enjoyed the Chad and Cheesmas card.
Joel: It was a lot of fun. We had a good time with it. And I will have a mini rant here for a second. If two meat heads with no budget can come up with something fairly creative, then shame on the companies that actually have marketing departments and simply sent out a basically a template email with a shining star or a dancing reindeer or whatever saying happy holidays, blah blah blah. Because that's just straight up lazy people.
Chad: Yes. That is totally lazy and not to mention as we talk about engagement, I wish we had all of the addresses for all of our listeners. That would be a shit ton of cards. We probably couldn't afford it, but still we could get some out to touch all of those people, but we only got the bad touch on about a hundred of them.
Joel: There was a lot of bad touching going on this year. Yeah. Maybe next year we'll set up a landing page, say, give us your mailing address and you'll be sure to get a Christmas card from us.
Chad: Oh, yeah, man. That was always fun.
Joel: Holiday card. I don't want to offend anybody.
Chad: Call it what you want.
Joel: We're all ho ho hos as far as I'm concerned.
Chad: That's right. And that leads me to my first shout out again to Kelly Robinson because he gave us the gift that keeps on giving. And I'm not saying the clock people, I'm saying he gave us the 12 days of Christmas Whiskeys of The World, which is an interactive calendar and how do you interact with this calendar, Joel?
Joel: You drink, I think.
Chad: Yes, you drink the calendar. There's a box it has 12 different whiskeys and bourbons and scotches, all that stuff to have different whiskeys and every day you pop out a new one. There's this really cool card that tells you what the whiskey is and it has this really awesome tasting glass and you enjoy that whiskey of the day. And that my friend was, again, we talk about-
Joel: Going above and beyond.
Chad: ... marketing. Right?
Joel: Cutting through the clutter.
Chad: Yeah. I feel like an idiot. We did a stupid fucking card. People loved it, but still this, this is the shit. Good job Kelly.
Joel: We don't have the budget for alcohol for everybody as much as we would love to do that. Yeah. Kelly. That shit is dope. Everyone else take note. We love liquor.
Chad: Sounds good stuff.
Joel: We also love hot cocoa because Mya, my first shoutout, sent me a mug of hot chocolate with a mug and some chocolates I think, which was nice. You got the same thing I assume.
Chad: Yeah, I've got the same thing. I thought it was possibly, I might not have gotten the bourbon that was supposed to be with it. I mean because that that is totally on brand for Mya, but you have to know who you're trying to engage people. So yeah, it was definitely, I love Lacy, Vinita and AL, sent us a card, it was handwritten. That is special. It's even more special when you have some bourbon in it.
Joel: Flavor profile was what I was thinking of in my last little shout out. Yes. If it was on brand, it would have had coffee and a little bitty Jameson for some Irish coffee to go with the holidays. Nevertheless, I did milk my new year's hangover with a nice cup of Joe in my Mya coffee cup. So, muchos gracias, Mya.
Chad: Just finished my first pot of coffee in that Mya cup. It's a pretty big fucking cup.
Joel: Speaking of Irishman, a shout out to Adam Chambers, our favorite, I don't know globetrotting Irishman who's currently in Mexico. Firing squad alumni. He was very nice. Sent me a nice note for the holidays and much for the love we gave him on the show. So Adam, wherever you are man, shout out to you buddy.
Chad: That's right. Appley chat all over the place. Big thanks to Roy and Jenae from Smart Recruiters for the cards. Again, handwritten picture, chocolate bars. I didn't see any bourbon in this one either. Again, I appreciate all of the time you guys are taking, but just take a little bit more time in a little bit more money and send bourbon with that and it'll be perfect.
Joel: Yeah, and thanks for getting me Smart Recruiters. I appreciate that. Shout out to a company called Divvy. I got hit up in LinkedIn, Divvy is offering $100 if you'll just demo their products, which I did not do, but if you're going to get your product in front of people, offering them $100 is a decent way to do that. Divvy this shout out's for you.
Chad: They pay you to go through their demo.
Joel: Correct. So instead of paying for leads, they just say, "Screw it. We'll give you a hundred bucks if you do a demo with us."
Chad: Yeah. I don't even want to get into that. A big shout out to our peeps over at Evergreen Podcast. They got us into the insideradio.com bulletin or whatever it was. It was Chad and Cheese along with Jim Stroud and the talent cast. Yeah, we're doing some big things in the podcast world and 2020 is when it's going to get better. I think we said it once before, but we'll say it again. Look for the Recruiting Future podcast. That's right. Matt Alder and all the steeliness of his interviews coming to Evergreen and the podcast network.
Joel: That man is so sexy.
Chad: Sexy.
Joel: If you're in Cleveland, Chad and I will be making a John up your way early next week for who knows what the hell. We're going to meet up with evergreen and talk strategery and other stuff, but I'm assuming little Johns around town will be had and we will probably be breaking some laws in the process.
Chad: It's a standard. I think so, yes. Shout out to go figure, Steven Rothberg, he shared the story with us. The story was a US government study confirms most face recognition systems are racist and asks, "How does this affect 10 Guy?" And overall I can't tell you 100% I have the answer to this other than 10 Guy in its current form doesn't record video or analyze the actual voice itself. It just wants to be able to recognize a face so that it can zone in on you and have a conversation, eye to eye contact like you normally would.
Chad: But that being said, I think we should actually get Ellen and Charlotte on a pod to talk about this subject specifically. Not as much as we're on 10 Guy but around this subject. And do they see this actually happening possibly for 10 Guy in the future, facial recognition?
Joel: And it should be done in downtown Stockholm if we're going to do it. Also to Rothberg, congratulations. His Minnesota Gophers, a defeated the Auburn Tigers for the first 10 plus months season since 1905 or some shit. And Rothberg is getting pretty big for his britches. He's talking trash about Wisconsin and Ohio State. It's the gophers dude, relax, relax. It's not going to be a trend.
Chad: You take it when you can get it, my friend. Take it when you can get it and just think if you would have won against the Badgers, then you would have been able to play Ohio state, watch them get their ass beat. So just be happy that you didn't have to go through that.
Joel: Good point.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Shout out to Alex Murphy and Jason Roberts, Alex Murphy for Firing Squad, Jason Roberts, those were published sometime during Christmas break. If you haven't listened to those, I encourage you to do so. They were great interviews.
Chad: Good stuff. Not to mention we did our naughty and nice onstage with Bill Boorman and that was a fun time as well.
Joel: Doesn't get naughtier than Bill Boorman.
Chad: It does not.
Joel: Don't forget James Butcher, am I pronouncing that right?
Chad: Boettcher.
Joel: I never get that right.
Chad: Boettcher.
Joel: It's Canadian, so I can be excused for that. So my last shout out goes to Drones. I don't know if you caught this or not, but Times Square, New Year's Eve was partly patrolled by a bunch of drones. So we talk a lot about drones and automation robots on the show. God help us. Drones are policing Times Square on new year's Eve.
Chad: They're not actually policing Times Square, it's not like-
Joel: I just meant patrolling. Is there a difference?
Chad: It's just like having cameras, like CCTV. It's just that they're all over the place. It's just providing additional data points for the actual human beings that are actually policing the streets.
Joel: Yeah. I didn't mean to suggest that it was Robocop style. Drones were arresting people, but they are helping police. Police folks that are acting like idiots on New Year's Eve.
Chad: Just want to make sure we made that clear to the listeners.
Joel: Ready for the news?
Chad: Let's do it.
Joel: So ClickIQ has a few items that we need to cover. What would you like to talk about first?
Chad: Well the cool thing about this is that we give plenty of companies a hard time. We could even say we fuck with companies a lot.
Joel: It's done out of love.
Chad: And we do provide the love where we see that necessary as well. And many of those companies try to ignore because they think that what we're saying is just going to go away. And it just continues to come back. ClickIQ and Richard over there, Richard Collins said you know what?
Joel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Chad: His parent company now is indeed who they always try to ignore. They don't. And we know and we know they don't ignore because we hear shit that they actually say, which is awesome. But anyway, when it comes to Richard, Richard is like, "No, fuck this dude. I'm going to call those guys. And we're going to talk all their points through and from my standpoint I have to give Richard big fucking applause, and any company that if they want to provide opposing viewpoints to some of the things that we're saying about maybe some of their strategies or their tactics or what have you, have the actual chutzpah to say something to actually come back and have a discussion and a conversation. Because when you are not a part of the conversation, guess what? We dictate what the fucking conversation is.
Joel: Yeah. And and not only just their point of view but also corrections as was the case with these guys.
Chad: So let's talk about some of the points that Richard actually he hit us up with. And then we have some other data after that too. Number one, ClickIQ is not hiding data from users. One of the things that we actually were provided with were screenshots from actual talent acquisition professionals that were using the platform. And what we were told was that was probably an earlier beta model. The dashboard before only showed, and this is why we thought it was an issue, it only showed or the screenshot that we saw only showed Glassdoor and Indeed and it forced you to go to another tab to actually see more data.
Chad: So that's where Joel had actually said, "Okay, so this is almost like a Google trick where Google was hiding data in Google analytics at one time. It looks like they're hiding data." In this case, Richard showed us that they're not hiding data. They do have kind of like a do it yourself dashboard where you can create your own dashboards and reports, which was pretty cool.
Joel: And wasn't the list algorithmic based on like the amount of traffic that each one delivered?
Chad: It was your highest, so if indeed was your highest, it was definitely going to be on there. But it didn't necessarily have us. So he was showing us some different reports where it wasn't.
Joel: We talked to them after our Chad and Cheese holiday party. Some of the events are a little blurry for me. But yeah, I remember it being much fare than a than we had discussed initially.
Chad: Yeah. And the number two item was that ClickIQ is not an indeed buying house because it just doesn't make strategic sense. If you think of it from more of a strategic standpoint as opposed to the tactical for Indeed. Yes, Indeed would love to have somebody else out there Programmatically selling their wares and boosting their specific revenue goals. Although if you think of it from a strategic standpoint with ClickIQ, they're making money off their competitors. So that makes no sense whatsoever. Why piss off their competitors because they're fucking making money off their backs right now. Makes no sense, right?
Joel: Yeah. Competitor money is fun money for sure.
Chad: And those aren't Richard's words. That was me just going ahead and and translating what we heard. Last but not least, number three Neuvoo, pretty soon to become talent.com and ZipRecruiter are still engaged. What engaged means, I'm not 100% sure yet, although at least the feeling that we got out of it was that the money is too good to pass up. So the reason why companies like the ZipRecruiters or the Neuvoo's or anybody are a part of these platforms is because it's another way for them, like an agency, to get out, get penetration and make more money. So overall the money is too good and there's no way in hell they're going to turn down that check. That was kind of like the feeling that I got. What about you?
Joel: Money talks and bullshit walks for sure. Although we are seeing or hearing about cracks in the pavement if you will, at least regarding ZipRecruiter. I've actually reached out to ZipRecruiter for some clarification on this. Their PR guy's on vacation. So as soon as we hear we'll let you know. But at least this source tells us that ZipRecruiter may not be playing in ClickIQ sandbox for much longer.
Chad: Yes. And I've also reached out to several and I've gotten the thanks but no thanks kind of response back. Kind of like, "Yeah, we're just not going to talk about that." Companies like ZipRecruiter and Neuvoo, all those other companies, they're going to have problems with integrating with ClickIQ knowing that Indeed will have access to their client data.
Chad: I mean, imagine Indeed reps rolling into a presentation with competitor data, right? I mean specific competitor data. Now I know that as Richard said, this does not make sense with their longterm strategy because in this model, competitors doing well actually make money for ClickIQ and overall, Indeed. Although we all know how that works in real life.
Chad: The optics versus what is reality and what's actually really happening. So I think what we're feeling is most of these competitors saying, "No, fuck that man. I am not giving my client data to ClickIQ/Indeed." Right. That's how they see it. "I'm not giving it to Indeed." So I think there's going to be a lot of work for Richard and team over at ClickIQ to be able to separate themselves from Indeed.
Joel: Word to the wise, when you acquire these companies and they rely on competitors to fund them and make them successful, like you're going to hit some speed bumps. The company you bought might not be as valuable if big competitors jump ship because they don't want to share data or they feel threatened or don't want to share money with the acquirer. It's also word to the wise to employers to know that when big companies or competitors start buying these services that it's not necessarily going to be the same service a year from now that you had today and be a smart consumer and make sure that you're aware of who's buying who and what's going on. And hopefully those listeners out there who tune into us don't have that issue, but a certain ones do. And it's a definite word to the wise that things change in this industry when things get acquired.
Chad: Yeah. And this is a, a quote from somebody in talent acquisition. So this isn't a vendor, is "They're pitching, that's ClickIQ is pitching as completely unbiased, which we all know is bullshit." Now again, we're not just talking about the Neuvoos or the ZipRecruiters or what have you, who actually feed in and help ClickIQ and Indeed make money. But we're talking about the people at the end of this pot of fucking gold who supply the money.
Chad: So overall this is a huge optics problem. And the biggest question is how do you separate yourself? Because they have been this industry's biggest and best Trojan horse. How the fuck do you get away from perspectively being the new 'Indeed Trojan horse?' That's the hard part.
Joel: Just don't be acquired.
Chad: I'm talking about ClickIQ now.
Joel: Yeah. I don't think you can. And even if you can, I don't know if anyone would believe it.
Chad: Luckily Richard's new car probably has him sleeping better at night.
Joel: Yeah. He mentioned his Aston Martin a few times, so yeah. That will cushion any blow for sure.
Chad: Again, we really appreciate the transparency that Richard provided having this discussion and going back and forth. I truly believe that they're trying to do everything they possibly can to be 'unbiased.' The hardest part is the optics piece and being attached to somebody who was known as the industry's biggest Trojan horse. Everything that he showed us was spot on. It looked pretty fucking magical to be quite Frank. So yeah, big props to him and thanks for adding clarity around those different areas.
Joel: Thanks Richard. We appreciate it. Monster in the news. It's been a while since we've talked about them.
Chad: There's a reason for that.
Joel: They're shutting down BetterThing.com or something.
Chad: So this one really blows my mind because this type of app looks like the exact avenue Monster and all the rest of the industry should be heading down. There's no uploading of resumes. This is for trucker. So you scan your CDL, you actually scan your CDL, the barcode for your CDL. Jobs are delivered via the mobile app. You click and schedule an interview straight from the app. The messaging allows the drivers to get questions, answers. There's no applications, no service, no searching. So what the fuck happened here? This seems like what Monster needed to be able to really, not just in trucking, but to be able to start to use this for trucking and then bridge it into something bigger. And the different industries like nursing or what have you.
Joel: And by the way, I hear trucking's huge and really profitable. So yeah.
Chad: I don't understand.
Joel: Getting out of that was a mystery. But I think it goes back to all of the the reorg up top, the layoffs that happened. I mean, they're just cutting what they believe is fat. That's the only reason I can find. But for this start shutting things down.
Chad: Yeah. But to this sounds like an actual product that they created, right?
Joel: It's own URL, right? BetterThing.com.
Chad: Yeah. It's their product. It's an app that was created and it's not somebody else's tech, I don't believe it's somebody else's tech. Much like the video, the Monster Studios platform, which they were trying to push heavily. Again, I think from a strategic standpoint, from a vision standpoint, I think Scott Guts is an incredibly nice guy. The guy also has done amazing things in the travel industry. I'm just not sure, I think it's kind of like he was airlifted into the Titanic after it hit the fucking iceberg.
Joel: Yeah. Our source said this was shutting down on December 31st I think?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Yeah, the site's still up.
Chad: Yeah. I think it was paused on December 31st. Definitely reach out to Scott and team. I mean there are actually a handful of my contacts that were on the product side that aren't there anymore, product and sales side that aren't there anymore. So yeah, they've been scaling down. The big question is, what's Randstad going to do with this smelly fucking egg?
Joel: Well, that sounds like something for our prediction show that's coming up soon. Let's get a quick word from JobAdX and we'll go through our top 10s for the decade. That sounds exciting.
Chad: Not a bad egg, that JobAdX.
JobAdX: So how's the hiring going? Find those purple squirrels? With applicant after applicant it feels like I'm just getting further from hiring the right candidate. I've got tons of applications, but none of these candidates are even close to being the right fit. Volume is great and all, but my small team doesn't have the time to sift through hundreds of mismatched applications. I want more relevant candidates, not just more candidates.
JobAdX: Well get this, JobAdX has been helping small to medium businesses get their job ads in front of targeted active job seekers by matching your jobs to a candidate based on their search behavior across a vast network of niche job sites and talent networks. And the best part, it's self-serve. No sales reps, no chat bots, no spend minimums. Just fill a form with your name, number of jobs, and a budget you're working with. And voila. Your ads are now shown over a growing network of 150 job sites.
JobAdX: Better yet, those company videos that showcase the value of being part of a small team can have a new home now within your ads, helping you stand out and share your vision proactively. Wait, what was that? Oh, I just signed up for self-serve with JobAdX. What were you talking about? That fast, huh? Jumpstart your targeted recruitment with JobAdX today. Visit jobadx.com and click that get started, risk-free button. It's jobadx.com. JobAdX, engage, attract, employ.
Joel: Yes. For falling into that top 10 list. An epidemic that happens every time this year.
Chad: It's so much fun.
Joel: Yes, it is a lot of fun.
Chad: But this one isn't about 2019 though. We're starting an entirely new decade, so we actually spent a little time to be able to break down. We want to break down, at least from our stupid male brains, the decade.
Joel: Yeah. I came to you and said, let's do like nine for 2019 and nine things that made the year and you said, "Fuck that dude. 10 the whole decade. Let's do it all." And I said, "Ah, shit. I actually have to think about this."
Chad: 10 for 10.
Joel: We just went in our corner and figured out 10 things that sort of defined the decade. We're both coming at it from a little bit different angles, but hopefully both will serve as entertaining to our listeners. So as the oldest should go first, I'll let you start things off.
Chad: That's nice. Yeah. Joel's going to be more focused on the industry specifically. Mine's going to be more broad based. Number one job growth. In 2010 we started to finally feel positive job growth. After 2008 and the immense hit on our economy, we started to see the actual job growth we're still experiencing today. One of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this is because economies don't turn on a dime.
Chad: Yes, Trump can tweet and it can affect a stock in the short term, but the decisions made 10 years ago is what drives our economy. So the decisions we're making today, that's what's so important because that will impact our economy, not just not in the next five minutes, but in the next 10 years. So going back all the way to 2010 that's when we started to experience coming out of that hell of a hole that we were in and started to actually see job growth.
Joel: Isn't it amazing too that there are generations of workers now who don't even know a time of like job growth?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: All right, my first thing, and then we'll go to 2010 Monster buys HotJobs. Speaking of generations, there's a whole generation that doesn't even know what HotJobs is. If you took a transport back to 2010 HotJobs was pretty well known as the number three player in the industry. They were one of the first Superbowl ads, they were a big brand, they were acquired by Yahoo. And in 2010 Monster coming in and buying a HotJobs for I think around $225 million, which is really peanuts when we think about what Indeed went for a few a years later, which I'll also get to in my list, they also got as part of the deal, Monster, they were the exclusive jobs provider I think for three years after the acquisition deal.
Joel: But to me this sort of set the table for what would become the awareness that jobs were a commodity, the value of them was sort of limited. Obviously Yahoo was kind of fire selling some stuff at the time. Carol Bartz was in charge and she was selling off a lot of assets. But this sort of started the ball rolling to me and was worth noting that this started the decline of job boards, the value of job boards and what would become valuable as we sort of journeyed through the 10 years from 2010 to 2019
Chad: Yeah. Really hated to see a brand like HotJobs go the way that it did because it was there. It was the chief competitor of Monster when we launched on January of '99 when OCC and the Monster board came together. HotJobs was really our prime competitor. So to be able to see them go down. That's again, it's one of those things that happens. CareerBuilder took their place. There's always somebody to take their place. But yeah, it's not something I really wanted to see happen.
Joel: Yeah. And most people thought HotJobs would really almost leap frog Monster and CareerBuilder once the Yahoo deal happen. That did not unfold as people thought at the time.
Chad: Number two, a more broad based.
Joel: Number two.
Chad: Number two, is streaming services exploding. As we see technology get faster and obviously video is huge on the web, we start to get these devices that allow us to stream. So I remember then you probably did too back when we were a kid and Home Box Office was announced. That was a huge revolutionary step at the time. Right?
Joel: We're talking about HBO, correct for those.....
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Just to make sure the kids keep up with what we're talking about.
Chad: Yeah. So HBO showed what kind of high quality programming could be developed and then Netflix just blew it out of the water with shows like House of Cards. Now and moving and what we saw launch in 2019 but I believe is going to be the new big level changer is Disney+. I think they're going to take content to an entirely different level and changing the program dollar, the programming dollar aspect into a much larger merchandising and traditional box office sales play. But we saw that start to happen in the last decade. So us being able to transition and transform an entire industry happened and I think, at least in my eyes in the last 10 years.
Joel: Do you remember the Quickster debacle?
Chad: No.
Joel: So Netflix initially started a site called Quickster that was going to be its streaming service. So they were going to have the mail in CDs as Netflix and then they were launching Quickster as their streaming service. Wall Street hated it, customers hated it. The world hated it. And they actually didn't even own the Twitter handle Quickster. So the idiot who owned that thought he was going to get rich. But they ended up going back to just Netflix and killing the Quickster brand, which was not very old.
Joel: And Netflix just evolved into a streaming service. Although I do think you can still get CDs by the mail through Netflix. I haven't done that in like a decade. But the Quickster debacle was kind of a fun side note there to the Netflix story that I thought I'd bring out for everybody.
Chad: That's awesome.
Joel: So my number two on the heels of Monster buying HotJobs in 2012 Recruit Holdings, a little known Japanese company to most Americans acquired indeed.com. The amount was never disclosed, although the rumor, the whisper number was around $1.5 billion. Which makes a lot of sense. Allegedly they were also looking at Monster at the time but really liked Indeed's business a whole lot better. I think Recruit had some great foresight and coming out of the recession and saying, "Hey, what is going to be the future? What's what should we buy now to get a leap on where the world is going?"
Joel: And Indeed's sort of nicely scaled model plug it in any country pretty much in the world played a lot to their strengths. So to me like that was a changing of the guard, moving away from traditional job boards to more sort of search engine based scraping technology for postings and jobs. Obviously Indeed had a huge leg up on SEO at the time. It was getting a lot of their traffic for free. So recruit holdings, making that move in 2012 definitely makes one of my top 10
stories or things that happened in the last decade for sure.
Chad: Yeah. Too easy. My number three in June of 2015 the Supreme court of the United States makes same sex marriage legal. This, from our standpoint in the actual office in the workplace as employees, we start to see equity. That's a big key actually allowing people to come to work as themselves. And from my standpoint to be able to understand as all of these technologies that we talk about all the time, none of that matters if we're not treating the people the way they should be able to be treated. Being able to allow them to come to work as them their whole selves. And this in June of 2015 was a big decision, which again was only by one vote.
Joel: We're at an age where we've sort of come full circle with sort of this issue. And I think if you had asked both of us at 15 years old and let's say the mid 80s, would we be at a place today when we looked forward back then? And I don't think I could have imagined the world progressing at such a pace as it has. I'm sure for those that that live with this reality, it hasn't happened soon enough.
Joel: I can remember the AIDS epidemic and I'm sure you, you do as well. Reagan wouldn't even say the word AIDS or HIV on television. So I think this is noteworthy for the simple fact that good God as human beings we're not so awful all the time. We can evolve, we can be understanding, we can be transparent, we can talk to one another, we can cross borders. So, yeah, I applaud you for bringing this one up because it is super important.
Joel: And at our age we've seen such a progression and evolution of this issue that it's really heartwarming and the fact that we even have an openly homosexual candidate for president who's doing very well, just shows like, jeez, maybe we're not so bad as humans.
Chad: Yeah. And a quick connection. It was interesting because Joe Biden on meet the press in 2012 I think it was, he actually said, "You should be able to love who you love." And that's really what kicked this all off because the next step was, okay, now we have to go to the administration, we have to go to the president of the United States, press him on this. And that's when, I mean there, there were things that were happening before that, but that's when the dominoes really started to fall. And that's interesting because yes, we do have Pete Buttigieg on the stage along with Joe Biden who was the VP at the time.
Joel: So number three for me, I have written down here social media meltdown. So I'm going to go back in time a little bit. Facebook comes out is huge. Twitter comes out, LinkedIn and they all open their platforms, right? They all have APIs and at the time I don't think anyone who built these platforms thought, "Oh it could go away." So we had a tremendous advent of companies. I wrote some down Branch Out who I'm sure you remember. But many of our listeners won't raised a ton of money, was built on the back of Facebook. Everyone who was around at the time remembers spam galore with job postings and it just got really crazy.
Joel: Monster jumped into it with BeKnown. They had a Branch Out competitor. I remember so many Twitter applications and companies TweetMyJob, TweetAJob, JobsOnTwitter. I mean it was like just craziness. And even LinkedIn was a very open platform for awhile. I remember sites like Cube Duel where people could pull employer data, pull your coworkers data. So all these companies were built on social media platforms and at a flip of a switch, a lot of these companies just went out of business.
Joel: And that was a real eyeopener from a development standpoint but also business standpoint in terms of how should we build things going forward. And fortunately things like the mobile infrastructure with app stores haven't been the same kind of API surprise or platform surprise that some of these companies have. But a lot of companies came out in the mid-decade if you will talking about leveraging social media and a lot of those companies went down in flames because they were beholden to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And we haven't seen such innovation since because of that.
Chad: I remember having a conversation with Gary Zukowsky who was really the one man band at TweetMyJobs to an extent. CEO, founder, chief bottle washer. And I was a VP who handled our partnerships and really the tech side of the partnerships for direct employers. And my question to him was, "Your entire business is predicated on Twitter. What happens if they shut you down?" He said, "I'm screwed."
Chad: I mean, seriously understanding that and understanding that your horizon is probably shorter than what you really think it is. So get a great product out there and then sell that fucking thing. And that's what he ended up doing to Career Arc. So yeah, I mean that's the thing for any of those startups out there. If you're building off of somebody else, you have to understand that there's a lot of risk.
Joel: Number four.
Chad: Number four, marijuana legalization. Marijuana is legal in 11 States for adults over the age of 21 and legal in medical use in 33 States.
Joel: Don't forget, our friends in Canada.
Chad: Legal marijuana sales began in Illinois just yesterday. So the 1st of January. And from our standpoint as we start to better understand the effects first and foremost, which I think that's one of the reasons why we are legalizing from medical and also from recreational use, we're starting to loosen those regulations, not to mention the tax base off. That's going to be pretty high. And the amount of jobs that can be created out of this. I mean this is a boon for jobs for tax base and overall for countries who do embrace something like this.
Joel: Sure. And don't forget the opportunity for a whole new batch of job boards to come out. And as we look at job sites and platforms that we've talked about on the show I think we both agree that starting a job board in Toledo today is a bad idea. Starting a job board for pot jobs as well as I guess we agree healthcare and sales might be a good idea.
Chad: Not so bad.
Joel: This is going to be a whole Wild West shit in the next 10 years. It'll be really fun to talk about and report on. And if a Democrat gets in the White House, it could happen really fast.
Chad: Yes, it could.
Joel: My number four, Monster and CareerBuilder selling this past decade. I think that if you had asked us in the first decade of the 2000s what kind of valuation, what kind of price tag? I'll say pre 2008 how about that? The price tag that these sites would have gotten 10 years hence would be North of the billion dollar mark, if not the four to $5 billion Mark. And they both sold for pennies on the dollar at around five to 600 million from reports that came out.
Joel: This was sort of the death knell of these sites. And although CareerBuilder seems to be playing with house money at this point, they've sold some assets, Monster they gave it a go for a year or two and have really since cut back. You ask almost weekly what is Randstad going to do with these guys? And I'm not sure they know. But the acquisition of these companies was definitely newsworthy in the last 10 years that I should bring it up in this top 10 list.
Chad: Yeah. I think both of these organizations are a tale of what happens when you're Blockbuster. Right? And you don't understand that you can become a Netflix, right? You feel like what you're doing is always going to be a part of the human routine.
Joel: It's also really interesting to think about companies that have sort of trended upward over the last 10 years. The LinkedIns, the Indeeds and not help but think either CareerBuilder or Monster could have been either one of those businesses, right? Number five.
Chad: My number five is that in the last decade, at least from my standpoint, there's been a bright light shown on pay inequity. So as workers we feel like we're getting a shaft on many occasions, but we don't have any recourse. We in many cases, don't even know if we are because there's no transparency in organizations.
Chad: But we were having a recourse. I mean with with the death of unions, who's going to fight for the actual worker to actually attain pay equity? In the last decade, I believe we've heard a message of pay inequity louder than ever before. At least it's one of the things that being a dumb white guy, right? Maybe now I'm just starting to listen. Maybe just in the last 10 years, I just started to hear this. But nonetheless, we know pay inequity is real with white women making 79 cents on the dollar. Black women making 67 cents on the dollar, Hispanic women making 58 cents on the dollar compared to white men.
Chad: The gender gap also exists where black men are making more than obviously black women and Hispanic men are making more than a Hispanic women. But from our standpoint, just last month in December, we reported on Starbucks eradicating pay inequity altogether with nearly 300,000 employees. They are almost like the shining star on the Hill with a cup of coffee. So it's my hope and I know there's still has to be a lot of noise.
Chad: A ton of ally ship that needs to go behind this and and I know that this year, next year, this decade we will continue to push this hard because I know for a fact my wife works harder than I do, if we were doing the same job in the same position, there's no way in hell she shouldn't be paid the same amount that I am.
Joel: Your wife quite possibly works harder than the both of us but that's neither here nor there. I think on this issue with the rise of the gig economy and we both agree that that's going to continue to trend upward. All of the studies out there point to that, how does the gig economy support or pushback gender equality and pay equality issues? And I think that's something to watch in the next decade. How that all unfolds. We're seeing California with legislation will undoubtedly see other States with legislation around the gig economy and how that impacts all colors and sexes of people.
Chad: And as talent acquisition leaders who are out there, it is your job to press for this. Period. There's no other way or any other person or any excuse to hide you from the fact that this needs to happen. It happens in steps, it can't all happen at like Starbucks, obviously that didn't happen overnight. But this is something that that needs to happen and it will take your leadership, not just leadership from the standpoint of pay equity, but I don't think that we will see companies making these types of moves without more women in leadership positions.
Joel: No pressure. My number five is mobile, mobile, mobile. There's no doubt that the growth of mobile devices, particularly smart phones, has had a tremendous impact on employment and searching for jobs and messaging and communication, et cetera, et cetera. If you look back at 2010 when we were talking about mobile traffic, when we were talking about mobile applies for most job sites and ATSs, we were in single digits, maybe within 15% or so with high active professions like healthcare or trucking where people are on the road.
Joel: Fast forward to today and mobile has the lion's share of both traffic and applications. We're seeing businesses pop up and technologies to help support mobile applications. We just talked to at Firing Squad, Alex Murphy and his company trying to solve a little bit of the mobile apply problem. But there's no doubt with everyone pretty much having a smart phone, particularly in North America, Europe and developed countries that mobile has been a huge impact on job seeking.
Joel: And I think it goes back to its roots of people don't want to search at work because they'll get caught. They want to do something that they think is private from their boss. They want to do it on their time, they want to do it while they're watching TV or at lunch. And the mobile devices have supported that desire and will continue to do so. Whether in the future it's watches or glasses or VR or whatever, mobile will continue to be a big part of employment. in 2010 to 2019 we really saw that come to fruition.
Chad: More of that to come.
Joel: I think so. And speaking of badass technologies for the future, let's hear a word from Sovren and we'll both get to our last five.
Sovren: Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com that's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human, you'll want to take it to dinner.
Joel: Number six.
Chad: Number six. Okay, so my last five because my first five are really pretty heavy. My last five are going to be fairly light and they're all going to be movie oriented and a little quicker. So my number six was Ford versus Ferrari. It's one of those tales from a historical standpoint, you just don't get the insights into. And to be able to see something like that on the big screen, Matt Damon, Christian Bale, it was an amazing movie that I will probably see a dozen times.
Joel: And I have yet to see it. But you have inspired me to do so many times by asking me, "Dude, have you seen Ford versus Ferrari yet? Dude, have you seen Ford versus Ferrari yet? Dude, have you seen Ford verses Ferrari yet?" So I will definitely see it even if it's by the time it comes out for rent on TV. Keep in mind I have a two year old, so going to movies is usually a challenge.
Joel: My number six I'm going to keep with industry shit and bore people to death while you do fun movies, is chat bots. Kind of going back to the mobile growth of how to apply via mobile. Chat bots sort of succeeded in the cross between mobile and apply. Because the growth of mobile and the growth of chat and messaging was irrefutable. However, how do you apply via mobile became something that companies tried to fix and particularly talk to the guys at paradox, chatting on a phone is akin to basically applying online. But instead of uploading your resume, it's more in the form of a conversation.
Joel: Job-seekers like them because they actually get to interact, they don't feel like they're being dumped into a black companies. Employers enjoy them because it saves time and energy and money, not answering the same questions over and over and obviously vendors are profiting from this trend. I don't see chat bots going anywhere in our industry. In fact, I think that they will probably be more and more omnipresent and more and more vendors will come out. I think ultimately in the near future, the first one will be acquired. I kind of laughed at the 100 million plus number, but I'm sort of coming around.
Chad: Yes. And from an acquisition standpoint with like the Myas and the Alios of the world getting anywhere from 30 to 60 million, it's definitely going to have to be North of 100 million.
Joel: Yeah. Or they're going out of business and I don't see that happening.
Chad: Yeah. That's where you'll see the companies like the talk push of the world or even some of the little smaller like guys who knows? I think there'll be much faster movers.
Joel: Yeah. Some are very well positioned.
Chad: So number seven going to go, this isn't too much of a lamb. This is pretty easy. Back in 2012 the Avengers came out. And they wouldn't have been something that I actually thought about if this year End Game didn't come out. To be able to go all the way through that whole saga, it just made it that much of a foundational movie because of everything that it produced moving forward.
Joel: And by the way, no one likes a good superhero movie like Chad Sowash.
Chad: That's right.
Joel: And any of those that make your top five list has got to be pretty good because you've seen all of them multiple times.
Chad: And Julie's a new fan too.
Joel: Oh well that's good. That's good. So my number seven sort of piggybacking on chat bots, Programmatic advertising. We remember the days of like, okay what job boards are we going to use, what budget for each? Negotiating contracts for every job board, who's better for what yada yada yada? It was a really archaic process back in the day to post jobs. And marketing definitely set the tone in terms of how they programmatically put ads online and what sites and the budgets and a cost per click and cost per acquisition. And that business model was destined to make its way into the job posting business.
Joel: And we've seen it happen. Obviously we've talked on the show extensively around the Programmatic fire sale that's been going on. AppCast started the party 75, 100 million depending on who you listen to in terms of acquisition. We've seen five or six in addition to them in the last year or so also being acquired. We're destined to see Joveo, PandoLogic, JobAdX, all these others get acquired. We're destined to see more drama around what data is being used, who's seeing what, who's buying whom, et cetera. So Programmatic for sure was, was going to make my top 10 list for the year. And there you have it, Programmatic.
Chad: There will be a big wave wants an applicant tracking system, buys a programmatic company.
Joel: But there aren't many to buy.
Chad: That's true.
Joel: So for you kids out there wanting to start a company, start a Programmatic advertising solution.
Chad: Number eight, Blackfish. So this was a documentary that again, it was one of the many that made us think deeper and harder about the shit that we found fun and cool. Shamu, right? [crosstalk 00:52:45] When we grew up, we want the SeaWorld. Hell, we both grew up in Ohio, how we want the SeaWorld and Aurora. I don't know how many times I went to see Shamu, but to be able to really see the dark kind of like underbelly of what's going on, not just with this flick but also with documentaries or series like Dirty Money, The Explained series on Netflix, the the new if you're into that, the health segment. There are so many of these rotten, The Game Changers, those types. Content is everywhere and this type of documentary/series content is pretty amazing.
Joel: Blackfish was fantastic and for stockholders of SeaWorld, it was a huge wake up call to get the hell out of the stock because I think it just totally tanked in the years following that movie. And the business was transformed forever because of it.
Chad: Yeah, no more Shamu.
Joel: All right. Number eight, I've got Indeed. Okay. Indeed didn't buy glass door. I mean semantics. Okay. Recruit Holdings, Indeed's parent company bought Glassdoor, but let's be honest, it was to combine the two to create essentially a moat or hopefully create a moat for the onslaught of Google for Job. Price tag, which they actually did talk about was I think 1.5 or $1.6 billion. It was a huge acquisition for a site that's basically user generated reviews on companies.
Joel: But it's been, you talk about transparency, Glassdoor and Indeed in terms of their reviews have been huge on employer branding, companies being conscientious about how they treat workers. Yeah, Indeed, Glassdoor partnering up through Recruit Holdings to me was one of the most newsworthy things that happened in the last 10 years from a lot of different perspectives.
Chad: Nice. So on to number nine.
Joel: Number nine.
Chad: The Social Network dropped in 2010. Dude, I thought it was fascinating to see pretty much how a company like Facebook, at least in a storied way, was built. And it was, from my standpoint, it wouldn't have probably been in my top 10 if I'm not anticipating volume two. With Cambridge Analytica and those types of things. Right? So I think there's something more to be said. This story is definitely not over.
Joel: I live one of those quote from that movie every day. And it was, "Dating you is like dating a StairMaster." And that's sort of like doing a podcast with Chad Sowash. It's sort of like being on a StairMaster all the time. All right, number nine for me, these last two are easy. Google gets in a head first dives into our industry and arguably that was the tsunami that nobody wanted, that was making money off of job postings and everything else.
Joel: Google launched a job board or job site, essentially an Indeed for Google, if you will. Job aggregation called Google for Jobs. They launched a job search API that counts over 4,000 companies and job boards using their technology to search for postings on their site. They launch an ATS, which they have since sunset to the happiness and gladness of a lot of ATSs out there.
Joel: But there's no doubt that when Google got into this game, it was big, it continues to be big. Talking to Collin Day at iCIMSs Google just marches on as a source for traffic. I believe you said a year or so ago, it would have been at number six or seven for most companies. Today it's a solid third place in terms of driving traffic to iCIMSs clients. Google for sure made the top 10 list in terms of the decades most intriguing news.
Chad: Yeah. And I think what will fuel some of a Google's popularity is the hatred for Indeed. Number 10, I have a Jordan Peele duo. Because the dude is genius and both the movies that he's put out Get Out in 2017 and US in 2019, I thought were spectacular. They really looked at horror movies in an entirely different way. I thought they were both amazing.
Joel: So my wife went to the, she didn't go to the movies, but she was near a movie and there was a line out the door, which you don't see a lot anymore. Growing up the Star Wars and there are certain movies where people waited out. But there was a line and she was just really curious like, "Why in the world is their line?" There's no Disney movie out this week. There's no, or whatever it was. And it was Get Out.
Joel: And she had never really even heard of it and I had never heard of it. There was no big marketing blitz for this movie. It was a great movie. It organically took over. It was sort of like a Blair Witch sort of thing where the folklore around it and the buzz was just so much that the thing grew out of control. The second movie I liked a little less, but I could see where you would pair the two and make that a combo deal because they were both exceptional.
Chad: And I will see them again.
Joel: So number one for me, it's obvious. You could probably tell me what it is. It's Microsoft buying LinkedIn.
Chad: Ding, ding, ding.
Joel: For $26 billion. Totally, crashed the whole system. Cats and dogs living together. This thing set off huge amounts of money to come into our industry and startups. It got Google's attention to get in. It got Facebook's attention to get in. Valuations of companies in our space went through the roof. George LaRocque has a job because of it, tracking all the money that's going into this thing. LinkedIn was already a juggernaut in terms of recruiter resource, budget.
Joel: Now it's teamed up with Microsoft. We're just starting to see the power of those two and what it can mean in terms of the office suite, sourcing job posting more and more finding candidates. I mean, to me this is the 800 pound gorilla and I drank the Koolaid like nobody's business and I will probably continue to drink the Koolaid through 2020 to 2029 and they'll probably make my top 10 list when we're talking about this in 10 years. Assuming you and I can get along for that long and still have a podcast.
Chad: And off of that, we are interested to see whether SCOTUS will accept LinkedIn's HighQ case, right? Taking it from [crosstalk 00:59:32] the ninth circuit. So that that is also something that's interesting from a data perspective. Which again, probably it might be on the prediction show. Who knows?
Joel: Who knows? We'll try to do it. It's been a fun year. It's been a fun decade only as only the podcast has been around for two plus years of that. I'm excited for 2020 and beyond and we out.
Chad: Let's do this. We out.