Do you like magic? Then you'll love this week's episode, featuring another good ol' fashioned Indeed.com switcharoo! Want more? The boys talk about how LinkedIn made their CEO disappear and CareerBuilder did the same with one of their most profitable businesses. Oh, and we've also got a recruiting robot under our sleeve. Hocus pocus, suckers!
TOPICS!
- Indeed got tricks - Is CareerBuilder bleeding the business dry? - Linkedin lost it's Weiner, but not revenues. - Women on top! - Tengai has an evil twin robot Sigmund
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Jim Stroud:
Hey. Jim Stroud here, and you are listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous podcast. It's awesome. It's colossal. I listen to it every day. You should to.
Jim Stroud:
All right. That's it. What? Wait, you said $20.
Announcer:
Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel:
Yo. What's up you smelly pirate hookers? Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's most dangerous. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman.
Chad:
And I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel:
On this week's show, Indeed pulls the old switcheroo, LinkedIn loses its Wiener, and Tengai, the Swedish recruiting robot, gets an evil twin. Be afraid. Be very afraid. We'll be right back after we pay a few bills.
Sovren:
Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren, software so human you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad:
Well, obviously, Sovren was not used in Iowa because Iowa had some shitty fucking technology. I mean, how do you fuck that up?
Joel:
You had one job, Iowa. But your boy Buttigieg had a good day.
Chad:
Yeah, he did. I mean, so if you're in Iowa, you have to feel like fucking idiots right now. The Iowa Democratic Party Caucuses, from your standpoint. I think caucuses, they're really cool from the standpoint of you get a chance to actually talk to your neighbors. The social interaction is really cool. I think from a voting standpoint, it is the dumbest fucking thing ever.
Joel:
So it's fun in a way that it's sort of a trip back into time like when it was 1814. That's sort of cool. But for a democratic process, stupid. It's horrible. For the mere fact that people with young children are basically, can't just go out for four hours and do this.
Chad:
Elderly-
Joel:
If they go out for four hours... Yeah, elderly people, disabilities. I mean, the weather is always an issue it seems like in Iowa. So basically you get college kids and 50-60s, empty nesters or older kids that can go do this, and it's just not the best thumbprint on what's going on in America, beside the fact that Iowa's like 99.9% white also kind of throws a monkey wrench in the whole legitimacy thing as well.
Chad:
Yes. We've made voting way too complex, and I understand that's exactly what some politicians want. But man, we have to focus on making this a more vetted process that's easier to participate in. And this whole electoral college bullshit, all of it just drives me crazy. It's like a vote equals a vote. Oh, wait a minute, not in the United States it doesn't. At least the general election. In this case, it's the same kind of thing because Bernie had more votes than Pete did. It's really weird. It's really fucked up. Iowa, do a fucking vote next time, not with your caucus bullshit. Do your vote. And don't do it with an app. How about we don't do that.
Joel:
The fact that we don't know who the winner was... I don't know how much money Buttigieg will probably lose because he couldn't go fundraise that night. He probably could've raised millions just on that night alone because he had won the Iowa caucuses.
Chad:
You're right. To be able to pay that much money, which I think we should get money out of politics all together. But to be able to pay that much money to have a clusterfuck this this is ridiculous.
Joel:
Did you see the Superbowl though?
Chad:
Dude, the Superbowl was, it was a great game. I don't know that Patrick Mahomes knows how to lead, especially those big games, and maybe he just doesn't feel motivated unless he's in a hole. But either way, man, the last three fucking games comes out from behind, wins the game, amazing.
Joel:
Yeah, he has quite the penchant for the comeback for sure. If you've seen any of the parade of the Chiefs winning, what a bunch of meat heads. Holy shit. Beer drinking, wrestling watching knuckleheads.
Chad:
And that might have something to do with them being in Kansas City, and just for all of our listeners, just so you know, Kansas City, Missouri.
Chad:
What about the ads though? What were your favorite ads?
Joel:
We talked briefly about this, and we both love the Tide ad with the stain. It was Tide, right? Tell me it was Tide.
Chad:
Yeah.
Joel:
So the Tide stain and then how they interject multiple brands into their ads, that shit's genius. I'm a sucker for old school rap, so to seem Hammer make an appearance in the Cheetos ad was certainly great. Although I'm not sure Cheetos popcorn is going to take off, but at least Hammer's still paying the rent, which is nice. I still think it's interesting that I think I counted three electric vehicle ads. One for the Hummer, which I think is really ironic, and yeah, probably awesome. But it's great that the leader in electric vehicles, Tesla, has never done an ad ever but still is on top of that world just because of the market share that they've grabbed and the brand that they have. So yeah, EV Hummer, electric great. Cybertruck is cool. We're going to see a lot of that shit driving around, which is fun. But yeah, that was my thought. And of course you can go through your favorites, but we got to talk about the Jeep ad featuring a groundhog, which from my standpoint effectively lays off the Indeed groundhog because the fact that Bill Murray is in it and the fact that it's a legitimate movie that people recognize. So what are your thoughts on the Superbowl ads?
Chad:
I think the groundhog moved on is what happened. The groundhog saw a better opportunity and said, "Fuck Indeed," and went back to his old pal Bill Murray. Groundhog Day is a staple. I mean, we've seen it many times. Having Gary the Groundhog around, it was on Groundhog's Day, by the way. He with Bill Murray in a Jeep ad was amazing.
Joel:
Whoever came up with the Indeed ad had to just be kicking themselves thinking about how they fucked up and didn't tie a groundhog in some way, shape, or form to Bill Murray and pop culture because effectively I don't think Indeed can use the groundhog anymore because people are going to think about Bill Murray, Groundhog Day, and Jeep and not Indeed in finding jobs.
Chad:
Yeah. So we've actually reached out to the groundhog's agent, and I think we might actually have something going on with the groundhog hopefully sometime soon.
Joel:
We've got something cooking with the groundhog. So listeners, stay tuned. We'll have some fun stuff coming down the pike. If you remember the Chad and Cheese run for Monster President, you'll enjoy this one.
Chad:
Definitely. Shout out.
Joel:
Shout outs. I'm going to shout out to two folks in pop culture that had big days or big weeks. Axl Rose celebrated his birthday, born in '62, which would make him, what? 58.
Chad:
Yup.
Joel:
And Kirk Douglas unfortunately passed away. Similarly to you, when I heard the news, I thought it was Michael Douglas who is still alive. No, his dad who was 103 and actually looked better than Axl Rose does now passed away unfortunately. So if you haven't seen Spartacus or another Kirk Douglas classic, do yourself a favor and tune in on Netflix or wherever you stream your movies.
Chad:
Wherever you stream your movies. Yeah, that was an oh, shit moment for me. I was like, "Michael Douglas? Oh no, shit. His dad is still alive." Yeah, Kirk fucking Douglas, dude. He was a machine.
Chad:
Some rapid fire. So Jaqueline Martinez aka Jay-Quellen, long time listener. She actually started her own podcast called Coffee to Wine. We were obviously an inspiration there. Maybe not on the wine side, but it was more of just the alcohol. But congrats to Jay-Quellen.
Chad:
We saw another news outlet announcement this week, which I thought was very interesting. I don't know if you saw this or not. Was it Martin Burns started the Recruitment News Network, and this seems like just another form of Brainfood, the Recruiting Brainfood, our Hung Lee buddy. Doesn't it?
Joel:
Yeah, we need another news blog in the space for sure. Gee, thanks. Thanks for that. It looks like he did incorporate George Larocque and some other personalities to contribute to it. But yeah, we have enough of those things as far as I'm concerned.
Chad:
Pete Suchy. I'm going to say Suchy, I don't know.
Joel:
Sushi.
Chad:
Suchy.
Joel:
Suchy.
Chad:
Suchy. Recruitment ad advisor at CVS and I quote, he says, "It's refreshing to get brand insights from people who don't drink the Kool Aid." We try not to.
Joel:
Yeah, Pete, we may not drink the Kool Aid, but god damn it, we're drinking cough syrup from CVS right now.
Chad:
Right now.
Joel:
Pretty fucked up on that shit. Shout out to James Mailley of Monster, big fan out there in Ireland. He gave me a "slainte "through LinkedIn. So James, welcome to the show, and Saint Patrick's Day is right around the corner, my friend.
Chad:
Very nice. Tony Serna.
Joel:
Tony.
Chad:
From SmartRecruiter sent over a little love letter. He loves the podcast, and all I got to say is binge, baby, binge. Steven Rothberg loved your Captain Stubing hat on the podcast teaser trailer. He's a big fan.
Joel:
That was mine. Thanks.
Chad:
A ton of employees over at Alexander Mann Solutions are giving our interview with the SVP Mark Jones a ton of love on Twitter.
Joel:
Mr. Jones and me.
Chad:
Den, Kerry, Erica. I mean, just a ton. Now this, kids, is how you push a message. I got to probably thank Adam Giffey for that over there, but when somebody in leadership or anybody from your organization is on a podcast or quoted in an article or something like that, share the shit out of that. I mean, that's again you want to be able to lift them up. And again you get an opportunity, reciprocity, baby.
Joel:
For reals. For reals. Will Inus of TK Solutions is a big fan of the show. He reached out to us. So Will, welcome aboard to the insane train, and thanks for listening.
Chad:
Insane train. Adam Gordon over at Canada ID. He really enjoyed Sam Davies on the Firing Squad, the pitch for the startup Real Links. Pretty cool and very usable tech. Go figure, Joel gave him the golf clap.
Joel:
And I love the fact that Adam Gordon is still pissed off about his golf clap when he was on Firing Squad.
Chad:
It drives him, man. It drives him.
Joel:
Like a little story. It was parish, right? We met them out for dinner, he was one of them. So I walk into the restaurant. And he's there like... While we're in the restaurant giving me a golf clap. So Adam, we love you, man.
Chad:
I think the funny part was is like I don't get it. I'm like that's because you gave him a golf clap, Cheesman. Jesus.
Joel:
I think I got it actually.
Chad:
Yeah, I don't think you did.
Joel:
Pretty much French-
Chad:
Last on the shout outs, don't miss our new voices series where we have very frank discussions with industry leaders. The latest series is with Robert Ruff, President of Sovren Technology. We just released the second episode of our conversation with Robert. And this one is entitled Does HR Care About Candidate Experience? So check it out. We're going to be pushing a lot of these voices series out there, and they're just, again, frank conversations about things that you guys give a shit about.
Joel:
Yes, and if you haven't heard the new celebrity intro to voices, that alone is worth tuning in.
Chad:
No shit.
Joel:
Voices. Voices.
Chad:
Got events real quick.
Joel:
Oh shit.
Chad:
The Gathering February 19-20 in a Castle at the base of the Canadian Rockies in beautiful Banff. We're going to be on stage. We're going to be interviewing brand leaders. I don't know if I told you this or not, Joel, but we actually have the director of brand marketing for the Harlem Globetrotters.
Joel:
What?
Chad:
Yup. He listened to the pod, and he's like, "I want to do some of that." But if you're not listening to the Cult Brand Series, go to chadcheese.com, click on the logo, it's right in the middle of the page. Cult Brand. And if you're not going to Banff and you're in employee branding, recruitment marketing, CultGathering.com, be there.
Joel:
Yup. And I hear a rumor that cannabis is legal in Canada. I'm not sure if that should be an inspiration to go, but if it is, hey, what do you know.
Chad:
And then in March, we have Unleash and TA Tech. They're having a, what they're calling a Mega Conference. Two shows together in London in March. We will be doing Death Match at TA Tech. For information, go to TATech.org and also UnleashGroup.io. Check them out.
Joel:
Really good.
Chad:
Topics!
Joel:
Indeed switcheroo.
Chad:
Dude, this is like Lucy in Charlie Brown where Indeed is like Lucy, and she has the football. And she keeps ripping it away from Charlie Brown, and Charlie Brown always, always falls on his ass. That's talent acquisition or staffing or anybody who has actually paid or partnered with Indeed because it seems like they're always trying to fuck you. But in this new move, which seems like it's been happening much like Indeed does. They don't roll something out all at once. They slowly start to roll their partners or clients into it. But what they've done is the rewards program Indeed has now will sunset March 31st. So if you have been in their rewards program and you're still in it, you won't be March 31st. Clients will have until then to make purchases with their rewards. They're switching to more of a seats based scenario, and I've talked to several TA leaders about this and it goes from kind of like this is something that you should be used to with Indeed. They're always moving the ball, and then some of the other ones saying, "Yeah, it's not that big of a change." It's $960 a year per seat to get 30 contacts a month, that's about ***$32 per contact. *** Cost is $960/yr w/ 30 contacts/mo. = ~$2.70/contact
Chad:
Remember, this is about sending a message. So you're paying ***$32 to send a message to a candidate. Now if you get the credit back for a positive acceptance of the message or response of the message. But can you imagine sending an email out through any type of marketing mechanism and saying, "That's going to cost you ***$32 every time you hit send." *** Cost is $960/yr w/ 30 contacts/mo. = ~$2.70/contact
Joel:
Sounds a little bit like LinkedIn's playbook.
Chad:
That's exactly right. Yes. Yes.
Joel:
You think anyone misses the old days of like $1 per resume on Indeed? I think that's what it originally was. Like, "Access the contact information for $1." Those days are long gone.
Chad:
Well, yeah.
Joel:
To me this is like another instance of pushing the Google for jobs panic button and sucking as much profit out of this melon as they possibly can. So it'll probably work for them for a while. But yeah, another ball moving so to speak by our favorite Lucy to Charley Brown.
Chad:
So a couple of quick quotes from a couple of different TA leaders who had different viewpoints. The first one, I don't think this is going to be a big change because of obviously again LinkedIn rewards. So it's almost like mimicking and competing with LinkedIn. Indeed protects their data from spam more than most whether that's the one click at a time to mass sending or tossing the analytics and response rates in your face. So Indeed's going to say, "Look, your shit sucks. Tighten up your game." And this TA leader thinks it's just making them do their job better.
Chad:
Another TA leader said, and I quote, "You still get additional contacts per every positive response with reaching out to people. That's the last thing they will probably take away next year or two to fall in line with their business practices." Then the follow-up response was, "Indeed is always looking for another way to fuck us."
Joel:
They could end up shooting themselves in the foot if they raise the price too much to the point that people just figure out how to source the web and cross section it with the data and the resume somehow. That seems like an opportunity that someone could capitalize on. But at some point, ***$32 per contact, that adds up after a while. *** Cost is $960/yr w/ 30 contacts/mo. = ~$2.70/contact
Chad:
Not cheap.
Joel:
Yeah, not cheap. So at what point does it drive people to other competitors or other sources? I think they should be really careful about that. I mean, their benefit is that Google doesn't have a database. LinkedIn does. As long as they keep comparable to LinkedIn-
Chad:
But still, again, I don't think from a talent acquisition standpoint they should see this as sustainable because they're buying the same contacts over and over and over. They're pulling the same fucking people into their applicant tracking system they have for the last 20 fucking years. If they actually put that money into a pipe lining, a nurturing type of technology, a CRM, that would actually go in and continue to nurture the candidates that they have already paid for, then they would really not need or need a lot less these types of platforms.
Joel:
Yeah. The market will eventually figure out a way to do it better and cheaper.
Chad:
We haven't yet.
Joel:
Well, keep raising the prices, and we'll get there. Give us a nice recession, and we'll get there. Trust me.
Chad:
Talking about ways to do things better, CareerBuilder found a better way to do background checks.
Joel:
Sell, sell, sell.
Chad:
Sell that shit.
Joel:
So we did a shred on this yesterday. So they have been acquired. So CareerBuilder bought a company called Aurico in 2016. Aurico was a background check company. They got rid of the Aurico brand and called them CareerBuilder Employee Screening or employee screening. CBES. So this company comes along, Accurate Background, well known company. They're not one of the big companies like a Sterling or Hire Right. But they come along and basically acquire the assets of this screening product at CareerBuilder. The press release made it sound a little bit like they might still partner CareerBuilder. So they'll still have background checks sort of run by Accurate. It wasn't real specific. Of course the terms were not disclosed. But one of the comments I got from a former CareerBuilder guy was that, "Look, the background check was like printing money." The fact that they've gotten rid of that really shows that Apollo is playing with house money at this point and just the fire sell continues, continues to squeeze money out of this pig until he can't anymore. And the screening product was obviously a major part of that.
Joel:
I suspect, as you probably do, this fire sell will continue at CareerBuilder, and that this is just the first of 2020.
Chad:
So there was this very long email from Arena out to all the customers. I mean, it was one of those too long, didn't read bullshit emails. But in the last paragraph, they talk about new talent acquisition social referral product along with our next generation career sites and expanded CRM capabilities. Do we believe, does the industry actually believe that CareerBuilder is spending money on anything to develop anything? I mean, to me, it's very much like a shell game, and you're trying to sell off your assets. I had two individuals reach out to me, just quick texts, and I asked them, "Okay, so what do you thinks going to happen from here?" One said, "I think it's going to unravel very quickly from here." The second one said, "Nah. They'll hang on and slowly bleed this bitch dry. And everyone with equity gets shit."
Joel:
Yeah, look, the press release that went out basically reading the same thing. We're selling this to focus on our core competencies of talent attraction, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which is a nice way of saying, "Continue to give us money because the crappy product is going to get better at some point."
Chad:
Please.
Joel:
But the height of innovation that we've seen out of CareerBuilder was Pokemon Go for jobs two years ago. From all accounts, they've laid off most of their tech team. So I'm not really sure who's going to make all this innovative stuff. They've shown no signs since Arena's taken over that they're an innovative company. I kind of agree with the slow drip commentary. It's going to be status quo. They're going to keep selling pieces, and before you know it, somebody's going to come in and buy the brand CareerBuilder and its remaining assets for pennies on the dollar. And Apollo will wash its hands free with a lot of money in its pocket.
Chad:
Do you think Textkernel or Broadbean goes next?
Joel:
I think they'll both be gone by 2021, which should've been in our prediction show, by the way. Let's here from Canvas, and we'll talk about LinkedIn's new Wiener.
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Joel:
I'm sure they love being the lead in to the LinkedIn gets a new Wiener story.
Chad:
Who wouldn't? I mean-
Joel:
Sorry, Aman. Had to do it.
Chad:
Who wouldn't want to listen through an ad to be able to hear about LinkedIn's Wiener/ I mean, that's a perfect intro. That's good.
Joel:
It's a great teaser. Great teaser. So after 11 years, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Wiener will be stepping down from the company. He's not leaving the organization. As all of our listeners know is owned by Microsoft. He will be the executive chairman effective in June. Current SVP of product, Ryan Roslansky, hopefully we get him on the show. Probably not. Will step into the CEO role and VP of product, Tomer Cohen will take on Roslanksy's responsibilities. In a statement to Wired, Wiener said, "It just felt like the right time. I had always thought of myself that I'd be in the role for as long as I was happy, and then I realized I loved this place so much and our sense of purpose, our vision has become so extricably linked with my own sense of purpose." Aw, isn't that sweet? So did you read anything to this or it's just life moved on?
Chad:
Yeah, get the fuck out while you're on top, man. I mean, LinkedIn's dollars up 24%. Their revenue up last quarter, 24%. Now on the other side, Dynamics is up 12%. And we just heard that Dynamics is shutting down talents, and they're going to pull The Hub in. My question is what's the future for LinkedIn, and does LinkedIn stay out of Dynamics? I know they're making money, but is there a great transition there to be able to do something more?
Joel:
That's interesting. Do you think throwaway LinkedIn is a brand and just move it all over into Microsoft?
Chad:
I think a transition only makes sense if you do it that way. You can't just throw it away. But if you think of it from this standpoint, LinkedIn, there's so much ridiculous opportunity when it comes to sales industry. The sales industry itself. And sales has or marketing, sales and marketing have a shit ton more money than HR does. Not to mention I saw avocados advertised on LinkedIn. Avocados, dude. I mean, I don't know if that was pointed to me because I probably eat like two a day. But to me, the opportunity is so large and it goes way beyond, easily well beyond anything that we can think of here in HR talent acquisition, employer brand, anything like that.
Joel:
Did you know avocados are responsible for more accidental knife cuts than any other activity? Which makes sense, I guess.
Chad:
Amateurs.
Joel:
But anyway, I heard that on a podcast the other day. So I thought I'd share that. I think LinkedIn is weird. They're hitting on all cylinders. They're doing very well. They're making tons of money. But I have to wonder if they're looking at the privacy issues that are coming down the pike, if they're worried about that. I mean, they're in China. Is their fear that they'll get kicked out of China? I'm really curious to see where the hiQ case goes from here. I wonder if they see a decrease in value in the future of profiles and accessibility to those. I really wonder what corner Jeff is looking around to know why he would make this move.
Chad:
Robert Ruff said on our last show with him, we actually just dropped earlier this week, that he thinks this is a very big play short term for LinkedIn and Microsoft but bad from a long term play.
Joel:
In terms of the hiQ case?
Chad:
Yeah, the hiQ case and just data overall. This is working now, make your money on it because it's not going to be there long term.
Joel:
The guy taking his place has been at LinkedIn for a really long time. I mean, it feels like this isn't turning over the table and starting new. This is just like, "Hey, here's the baton. Keep running." So I don't see any immediate change in LinkedIn. But yeah, I am curious as to what Wiener saw, what kind of hurdles they're going to have and challenges because they will.
Chad:
Yeah. Again, I think it's interesting to watch what happens between the relationship technically between LinkedIn and Dynamics because now they're sucking in Hub as their ATS. But will that grow further? They've already done some things on the sale side. I could see it in the marketing side. It could be a great opportunity to have kind of like a front facing store possibly of LinkedIn, and then everything integrated on the backend with Dynamics.
Joel:
Sure. I also think with younger folks, they're having a hard time... If you look at this generationally with Xers coming in and younger as they come in, I mean, LinkedIn seems like much less of a necessity to be on when you have other social networks, other platforms. You have the gig economy, which for most part LinkedIn has no dog in that fight whatsoever. So yeah, long term play is probably pretty challenging for LinkedIn, and maybe that's why the Wiener moved on.
Chad:
"Wiener is gone," said Lorena Bobbitt.
Joel:
He did a Jersey curve out of there.
Chad:
We're talking about women taking something.
Joel:
Oh my god. Did we just transition from LinkedIn's new Wiener to women on top.
Chad:
Women are on top. Women are a majority of the workforce. Take your power any way that you need to. The big question is so women are the majority of the workforce now, finally. Is this time to celebrate? And I quote, this comes from AEI.org, "As of December 2019, women held 76.2 million jobs, constituting over 50% of the total non-farm payrolls. This is the first time in the decade we have seen more women than men on the payrolls." And this parody is indeed a noteworthy labor force gain. Are we going to perspectively see parody in pay equity? Are we going to see pay equity come to place because of this trend?
Joel:
I think we have to ultimately. I also think that more females are graduating from colleges now than men, and I actually think that's been going on for a while. And I think through a combination of either the political leanings in this country, the pendulum's going to go the other way at some point. It might happen this year. It might happen four years from this year. I don't know. But ultimately there's probably going to be a combination of either legal smack down or a governmental smack down coordinated with I think market forces are going to be such that some of this stuff is going to be equaled out because more and more sites from Glassdoor to Indeed to whatever, salary information easily accessible. There's more transparency than there ever has been before. I think that that's going to empower whether your male, female, Indian, African American, whoever you are, that data's going to be powerful. And ultimately companies unless they adhere to either a combination of governmental regulations and marketing forces are going to lose some of the best people, which more and more and more is on the female side of the equation. So I think those two things are going to create a parody in equality of salaries because that's just how sort of business and commerce and life works.
Chad:
Yeah. Don't you think we have to get to pay transparency pretty fucking quick for that to happen though? Because you go into an interview, you don't know what the position pays. You have some maybe round about hope. But you don't know what it pays. But yet they ask you what you made in your last three positions or what have you. And they're looking to negotiate. At that point, we know different people negotiate differently. Some better, some worse. But overall, that doesn't tend to be very equal. And that's where if a female takes $2000 a year less, that first year, eh, doesn't seem like that much. It's still not equitable, but still... In five years, with the same pay raise, it's entirely different. In 10 years, it's much... So that's where the wage gap actually grows because we don't have transparency.
Joel:
The simple fact that jobs on Google for jobs are somewhat indexed and ranked partly according to is their pay information on this job, that's a little thing that going to help drive employers to say, "Here's how much this job is worth and what you're going to paid," as opposed to the blindness and the black box that salaries have been up until now.
Chad:
Yes, which rolls into minimum wage to increase in 26 states this year. This is from WTHR here in Indianapolis. This was interesting because we're talking about not the minimum wage but being able to actually create wage that people can live on and being able to live off of like some of the lowest minimum wages in Georgia and Wyoming, $5.15 an hour, probably isn't realistic in 2020.
Joel:
I think this sort of goes back to my comment on sort of combination of government intervention and the market working as it should. Cities more and more are competing with each other for labor, brain power, resources, et cetera. So I think it's interesting that you see cities being the ones that are driving so much of this initiative. So you have Seattle, you have New York, you have these big cities that need more and more people, particularly service oriented, the jobs that are minimum wage to get people there, to move there, to increase their tax base, to increase... So basically all the votes rise when you do this. So you have New York competing with Chicago competing with Seattle. So you have this sort of market, the hand in the market driving up minimum wage as opposed to the federal government saying, "Hey, it's no $10," or whatever it is. But I do think there's probably got to be a floor. I mean, the minimum wage hasn't raised... This is your lane-
Chad:
10 years.
Joel:
Correct me if I'm wrong, 10 years, right?
Chad:
Yeah.
Joel:
So corporate profits have gone through the roof the last 10 years. I mean, the unemployment is as low as its ever been. But minimum wage has stayed pat. So at some point, we as a country have to make a decision. Where's the money going to be in the hands the most, right? And at some point, we have to raise the minimum wage. We have to raise the floor to bring everybody up. Now I'm not saying it has to be $16 like Seattle because Seymour, Indiana can't sustain $16 an hour. It's not Seattle. But the floor has to be more than it was. Was it $7.25 now?
Chad:
Yes. Yeah, $7.25. I think, I listen to a podcast called Pitchfork Economics. The guy who runs it is a billionaire in Seattle, and he talks about this in Seattle a lot. And what they're actually saying, the first impact of it versus what long term impact is actually happened. And the people that worked in some of these restaurants couldn't afford to actually go and eat in these restaurants. So therefore this new economy and this new money actually put more money in bank accounts and they were able to actually go out and spend more and enjoy themselves and heighten their level of living.
Joel:
Sure, and it's not just cities that are competing, it's restaurants. I mean, we had a story couple weeks ago about Taco Bell paying $100,000 a year more for executives or managers at the restaurant. So restaurants are competing, cities are competing and all that competition is obviously good. But I do think that the government needs to sort of wake up and raise the floor at least for inflation purposes. It hasn't changed in 10 years. I mean, when I started, you and I started about the same time in the workforce I assume. I think it was $3.35 an hour when I started working in the mid-80s. I mean it's only doubled, and that was 30 years ago. So yeah, shit's got to... The floor's got to come up quicker, at least in pace with inflation so that people have a floor that raises every year in terms of their working opportunities or just become a manager at Taco Bell and eat all the chalupas like my life goal is.
Chad:
Yeah. I think we should take a break and talk about Tengai's evil twin.
Joel:
Yeah, let's hear from JobAdX. Nah.
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Joel:
It gets more crazy than just a robot doing interviewing.
Chad:
And we didn't even mention robots with minimum wage. That's a whole other variable. But yes, our Swedish friends are back in the news. What's up this week?
Joel:
Yeah. Actually it's not them, it's another company with a I would say evil twin version of Tengai named Sigmund. He's being developed by an assessment provider LTP Business Psychologists, and so far it is still a research project. "The robot combines the applicants statements with the way he or she says it including facial expression." So I want to make a quick differentiation here. So first off, we've been talking about Tengai . I mean, we went to Sweden. We know a lot about Tengai and obviously what they're trying to do there. Tengai is not doing facial recognition assessment rather it uses the actual robot to follow your face while you're speaking just so you have a better candidate experience. I think we have to be smart about drawing a line in the sand when it comes to robots. Should they ask questions? Record and transcribe an answer to the questions? Yes. Can they answer questions like FAQ kind of stuff back? Yeah. I mean, that's chatbots do that shit. But should they assess a candidate through facial recognition and/or voice? I say that's out of bounds, and that's exactly what Sigmund's doing.
Joel:
So Tengai just really being able to ask the questions, take your answers, transcribe and answer basic questions. Sigmund is going the evil route of maybe the HireVue route of facial recognition and really assessing people.
Chad:
Yeah, so I have two points on this. One is Facebook recently settled a case with Illinois who had some law about facial recognition and getting sort of a sign off or approval opting into that sort of technology. Now with Facebook's money, it was like, "Okay. Let's look under the couch cushions to pay this fine." And I think that to a large degree, large companies like Facebook will probably just do the math and say it's easier, it's cheaper to pay the fine than it is not advance this technology and make more money or be more intrusive than we already are in people's lives. But I think if you're a HireVue... So I think people draw the line somewhere with facial recognition and trying to read my mind based on how I look. We seem to be okay with all kinds of other privacy sort of breaking, but for some reason facial stuff people have a problem with. So Facebook settles HireVue will probably have to stop doing what they're doing or pay some money. I don't know how that's going to work. Illinois has pretty strict laws around this. So I do think from that standpoint recruiting and interviewing with facial recognition and are they lying, are they telling... What exactly is going on there? I think that's going to be a major hurdle for a recruiting companies.
Chad:
I think on the second point that I want to make is Tengai built basically a software to fit into a robot created by a company called Furhat, as I understand it. So think of Furhat as sort of the iPhone, and Tengai is an app built on that phone. So now you have another technology that's basically building a different software on essentially the same robot. Looks the same just about. I as a consumer don't know the difference because there's no brand. There's nothing I have to say this is the Tengai robot. And that's a whole other level of problems because you have to educate people on what Tengai is.
Joel:
It's market confusion. You don't know what this product is doing versus that product. And I agree. I mean, it's going to be harder for companies like a Tengai who's out of Sweden or a Sigmund who's out of the Netherlands to come into the US, especially with this market confusion. That's the hard part. I mean, you take a look at Illinois, I think again that state is sending a signal to any company that that's not going to happen here in the US. And I would expect other states to follow, if not federal legislation.
Chad:
Yeah, when I go to the bank and get money out of an ATM, I think it's Chase Banks ATM or its Wells Fargo's ATM when it's actually I assume a third party ATM that's running the whole thing. But you associate that technology with that company. So if you're going to use a robot to recruit, well guess what, now you have some issues with brand awareness and education and all that good stuff. Have fun with that, folks.
Joel:
Okay. I need a beer.
Chad:
We out.
Joel:
We out.
Walken:
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast with Chad and Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about Cheese. Not one. Cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. So weird. We out.