In this lively episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Joel and Chad reflect on their holiday escapades and revisit their 2024 predictions, celebrating the wins and roasting their misses with comedic flair. They’re joined by a stellar lineup of guests, including industry leaders like Matt Lavery, Emi Beredugo, Lars Schmidt, and more, who share bold predictions for 2025.
The conversation dives into the future of recruitment, where automation and AI are reshaping the job hunt, and the possible demise of traditional resumes in favor of digital innovations. Predictions range from a wave of IPOs and European startups rising to prominence to shifting trends in programmatic ad spending.
Packed with laughs, insights, and tech talk, this episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the fast-changing world of work.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheeseman: We're back.
Podcast Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman 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 Cheeseman: Oh, yeah, it's dry January, which means we're drinking all our whiskey without the water. Hey, boys and girls, it's The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, 51st State Cheeseman.
Chad Sowash: And this is Chad. Get your hands off my tarot cards, Sowash.
Joel Cheeseman: And on this week's show, predictions with a little help from our friends. Let's do this. Oh, we're back, baby.
Chad Sowash: We are back. We're back.
Joel Cheeseman: You look much more tanned and rested than I do. That's all good.
Chad Sowash: So much more rested. Quick thanks to Sergei and Tricia. Real quick before we... Before we start blowing past this.
Joel Cheeseman: Who are they? Who are they?
Chad Sowash: Those guys? Those guys actually hooked you wonderful listeners and viewers up with our 2024 wrap up and our 2024 top ten topics. So we actually went back into the archives of 2024 got the best and brightest to be able to talk about the top ten insights and topics. So great, great stuff there. And then we took the top five. That's right. One, two, three, four, five. Top five episodes from Chad and Cheese. Got those sliced up and put together. And I mean, they did a great job. So thanks so much. Appreciate Sergei and the team. Tricia and the team. You guys do great audio, video all the way through. Thanks so much.
Joel Cheeseman: And my local liquor store appreciates it because I was able to drink way more eggnog than I normally would because of that. Yes, I know they're listening 'cause they have to edit this shit. So, yes, Tricia, Sergei, thank you so much for all you do and giving us a little bit of a break. So what'd you do on the holiday?
Chad Sowash: You first. You first. Tell me.
Joel Cheeseman: Okay, fine me first. Well...
Chad Sowash: You first.
Joel Cheeseman: I think I mentioned the wife and the little guy.
Chad Sowash: Yeah.
Joel Cheeseman: We took a little trip to New York, saw Elf on Broadway, did a lot of the other New York stuff that...
Chad Sowash: That's awesome.
Joel Cheeseman: Is certainly fun and then had some time off, did the holidays. My 85-year-old dad, wheeled him in, got him a new walker. He is very excited. It's funny to see a 7-year-old excited about toys and a 85-year-old as excited about toys. And then we took a little time, hooked up with the Canadian family in Orlando, did a little bit of NASA, did a little bit of R&R.
Chad Sowash: Oh that's cool. Yeah.
Joel Cheeseman: The Canadians are all fired up over Trump. It's very, it's very funny.
Chad Sowash: Imagine that.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, as if any of this 51st state shit is gonna happen. But yeah, it's... It makes for fun with the Canadians when America's pissed them off. Otherwise, yeah, just took some time to relax. I mean, we're in eight years of doing this and we've got some big changes coming for next year...
Chad Sowash: We do.
Joel Cheeseman: Which will unfold as appropriate, but excited for 2025 and good to be back. How about you?
Chad Sowash: Damn, damn, damn excited. So we had.
Joel Cheeseman: Oh, and Ohio State is ready to play for a championship.
Chad Sowash: Dude, knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood. They've been knocking it out of the park and hopefully they continue to do so. I tell you what, man, I had a blast. We had 10 in total people come to Portugal for Christmas. So.
Joel Cheeseman: That's a basketball team.
Chad Sowash: Family and friends. Few friends came over.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: We had a great Christmas here. And then we went to Marbella, southern Spain, for New Year's, which is bougie as fuck. It was funny 'cause Adam Gordon, as probably everybody knows, friend of the show, listens to just about every, if not all of our episodes. He responded back to me on WhatsApp. He was like Cadiz, where we went a couple of months ago and had a little Spanish flag and then had Marbella and had a little UK flag. And yeah, there are way too many fucking Brits in Marbella. That's for fucking sure. So anyway, it was great. Got to check it off the box. But other than that, had a great time. Drank way too fucking much.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: So I've scaled down a bit. I haven't gone dry, but I've scaled down a bit.
Joel Cheeseman: I'm trying some alternatives, just just testing.
Chad Sowash: What?
Joel Cheeseman: There's some CBD drinks. There's some mushroom drinks.
Chad Sowash: Oh dude.
Joel Cheeseman: I'll let you know after a month of how this stuff works. But yeah, I'm trying at 53. I mean, come on, like you got to balance it. You got to compromise. We're not 25 anymore. So, yeah, I appreciate that.
Chad Sowash: I like my two to one or one to one gummies. CBD...
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, you're a gummy guy. Yeah.
Chad Sowash: Yeah. The THC dude. It's just so mellowing and relaxing and just amazing. So, yeah, I think I'll just continue to stay on that trajectory.
Joel Cheeseman: And if you do two or three of really good stuff, it's a lot better than doing like six to eight of the shitty stuff.
Chad Sowash: Oh, God. Yeah.
Joel Cheeseman: So you kind of like, yeah, it's yeah, this will be interesting in 2025. Yeah. When... How can I sign up to be your kid? I get trips to Europe. I get trips to like sunny locations.
Chad Sowash: No toys however. No toys.
Joel Cheeseman: Do your kids thank you? Do they just bow down and kiss your feet that you're their dad?
Chad Sowash: I mean, they love it. Don't get me wrong. And one of the things that Julie and I really wanted to do was instill wanderlust into all of them.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: Because one of the things I mean, I would have never gotten out of the US if it weren't for the military. Right? I mean, especially when I was young, I was 18 years old. I was sent down to Central America and they started shooting at me. Other than that, though, it was great. That's the thing, though, is that I got to actually understand that, just because those people speak different languages than we do, just because they live differently, doesn't make them less human than we are. And it's really great to be able to get our kids over into Europe and really just understand that, hey, look, we're all just people and we should have more empathy. But also, it's really fucking cool when you can take them to Paris, you can take them to Madeira, you can take them to Marbella, and so on and so forth. So, yeah, no, it's good, but no toys.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: No toys.
Joel Cheeseman: Well, viewers on YouTube will notice my Depeche Mode album in the background here. And I quote, I quote Depeche Mode when I say people are people. Why should it be you and I should get along so awfully? Yes.
Chad Sowash: That's exactly right.
Joel Cheeseman: We're all one people in this all world. Goodbye '24, here's to '25. I'm optimistic as hell. I know you are, too. We're gonna skip shout out. We are definitely shining a light on the sponsors that generously support this show. Chad, who we got?
Chad Sowash: Well, I mean, free stuff. We were still giving away free stuff. And if you want a T-shirt, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this gorgeous Chad and Cheese T-shirt. This is the last year's edition. I love it. These are sponsored by Air Nap. You can have bourbon barrel aged syrup from our friends up north from Kiora. Who else does syrup better than the Canadians? I say nobody. I say nobody.
Chad Sowash: Beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs, craft beer from those kids at Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey, we've got a new whiskey sponsor kids. Van Hack. More Canadians.
Joel Cheeseman: More Canadians.
Chad Sowash: More Canadians. Oh, my God. And then if it's your birthday, you got to have some rum with plum, but you got to go to chadchease.com/free to register for all of the bounty of free stuff.
S?: I can feel it all the way down in my plum.
Chad Sowash: Yes. And plum is also, plum is also Canadian.
Joel Cheeseman: Half Canadian.
Chad Sowash: Okay. Sorry.
Joel Cheeseman: So, yes. So 2025 birthdays. We're starting the month off right. We got Muir Macdonald. I wonder if he's Scottish. Muir Macdonald. Okay. Zachary Larson, Steve Jule, Cheryl Ford, Rob Art, Mark Katz, Peter Brooks, Mark Becker, Mark Fogel, Keith Sedlick, William Nolan, Nicky Don't Call Me Nipsey Russell, Reggie Martin, Angie Brooks, your girl, Athena Karp, and Peter Zolman, all. Yes. Square up the birthdays from this week.
Chad Sowash: Well, and it's getting to the point where, guess what, kids, we're getting ready for events. Now, I've got a special little solo event that's happening in early February, since I'm already over here in Europe. I was asked by Smart Recruiters. They're like, hey, we've got an event. It's just, it's just a little ways to the east in Madrid. Would you like to come? I was like, well, yeah, I'd love to come. So I'm going to be early February at the Smart Recruiters All Hands event. We're also gonna do a simulcast. There's a gala, tons of stuff that that's actually going on. And whatever else they threw out me. So I can't wait to see Rebecca and the crew there.
Chad Sowash: Then the first big thing. Conference of the year is at Transform March 17th to the 19th at the Wynn in Las Vegas and I know you love you some Wynn don't you.
Joel Cheeseman: I love some Wynn, Steve Wynn my boy.
Chad Sowash: That's what we've got going on thus far we'll start solidifying much more of what's going on at those events and then obviously we've got more events throughout the year we'll probably won't do as much as we did last year knock on wood.
Joel Cheeseman: But rest assured you'll be sick of us by November of next year. One thing I won't get sick of though Chad... A little bit of a bittersweet moment for me. This is the final leaderboard from the fantasy football with Factory Fix. Big thanks to them. Great guys over there.
Chad Sowash: Love those guys.
Joel Cheeseman: I feel pretty confident saying that they'll be back next year to sponsor our unhealthy addiction. But this is your final leaderboard. I'm gonna go in reverse and save the champion for last.
Chad Sowash: Good call. Good call.
Joel Cheeseman: In the last spot, shocker.
S?: Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's not Scottish it's crop!
Joel Cheeseman: Finishing with an unimpressive four and eleven record.
Chad Sowash: Wow.
Joel Cheeseman: Well, all four, I think he got in the first four weeks, and then his team just went to shit.
Chad Sowash: The Jets have more wins.
Joel Cheeseman: Adam Gordon finishes in last place, followed by Jen Tharp. Sean Horton. Sean, if we had another 20, 30 weeks, you might have made it up there, buddy. Jackson Dahlquist, Dean Aparro, last year's winner, Christy Lisbon, Laura Martinelli, Keith the Commish Sonderling with a nice push at the end, Dean the Daddy Mac Macrole out of Australia, who was in the number one spot for most of the season.
Joel Cheeseman: You took him out. You took him out. You took him out. You took him out back.
Chad Sowash: Boom!
Joel Cheeseman: Stuck a Foster's in his face. Got him drunk. And he was no good on that last week. Which made you at third place. You get a medal. That's nice. I got second place. Which I'm not ashamed about. But our champion goes to Paradox employee David Stifle. Nice job, David. Homie got 200 plus points in the final week. Everyone he had, I think, had over 18 points, which is really unheard of. But, yeah, that is the final week and probably not the final sound bite of this.
Chad Sowash: No, no.
Joel Cheeseman: Thanks again to Factory Fix for helping us out. Well, with no further ado.
Chad Sowash: Predictions.
Joel Cheeseman: Predictions. So we got lots of news, which we'll get to next week. But this is the prediction show everybody. Everybody loves it. Chad, let's recap what we got right and mostly what we got wrong in 2024.
Chad Sowash: Well, I'm gonna go ahead and go through yours first. Okay. First and foremost, your first prediction of 2024 was that there would be no IPOs. And I think that was a win. There was no, there was no IPOs out there.
Joel Cheeseman: You made fun of me 'cause it was such a layup, but I'll take the win.
Chad Sowash: You got on base. You got on base.
Joel Cheeseman: Hey, my record hasn't been good. I had to get a W somewhere. Had to get a W somewhere.
Chad Sowash: Well, here's another W. No new unicorns. I mean, I actually dug in, didn't see any new unicorns. Obviously, there are plenty that are out there, but ones that did get funding didn't push them to unicorn status if they weren't already there.
Joel Cheeseman: Are you teasing me with two wins?
SFX: Naughty, naughty, you teasing me.
Joel Cheeseman: All right. I had to get one wrong, right?
Chad Sowash: There's a lot of bunting happening here. Death of a unicorn, which that was a big swing because most of these unicorns have so much fucking cash from funding. So that was a no. And last but not least, which deserves a big boo, is the Browns won a Super Bowl. So you just took a swing on that one.
Joel Cheeseman: There's always next season, Chad. There's always next season. All right, I'll take I'll take two and one or maybe two and two.
Chad Sowash: So my first one, my first prediction for 2024 was two acquisitions would happen from some early stage startups 'cause I thought some companies would really want to get in there and buy them before they became too expensive. Number one was CV Wallet and number two was Poetry and neither one of them were acquired.
Chad Sowash: Saw some great lift in 2024, but no acquisition there. Secondly, I said Twitter hiring dies, which I'm going to claim a win on because they acquired Lasky in May of 2023, right, Twitter/X. Chris Bake left in August of 2024. And it's basically on its own island of misfit toys at this point. I mean, there's nothing going on. So I'm going to claim a win because...
SFX: 60% of the time. It works every time.
Chad Sowash: And then last but not least, I predicted a dominant open AI-like player in the space where it was actually more of an open source AI scenario that was HR focused. And literally the closest that I think came to this was Poetry, being start up with Adam Gordon. Still, I don't think I knocked that one out of the park. So that's a no.
Joel Cheeseman: Okay, okay. Pretty good, pretty good.
Chad Sowash: Not bad, I think I got one, sort of. But you get an honorable mention. And let me tell you why, sir. Let me tell you why. Went back to 2023, and you predicted that Scott Gutz would be out at Monster. Now it took a little bit longer.
SFX: Hauck toah.
Chad Sowash: But it still happened, it still happened. Scott Gutz, out.
Joel Cheeseman: Well, like I say, Chad, there are no wrong predictions, just not enough time to see them happen. Don't fall.
SFX: They're not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe.
Joel Cheeseman: On that one. All right, that is our 2024 recap. Mostly right, but some misses in there as well. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll get to our guests, a very high profile, oh yes. Very qualified individuals giving us their predictions for 2025.
Chad Sowash: Now, let me go ahead and set this up for everybody. So Joel and I are definitely looking to do less work.
Joel Cheeseman: But seriously, seriously, it is great to hear all of these different voices that come onto the show. They give us videos, they do a lot of stuff. And I mean, there's just so much engagement with the Chad and Cheese audience. I thought, what the fuck, man, let's do more of this. So reached out to, literally reached out to about 15 different people. And I think we got like eight or nine back, videos.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, that 500. Right.
Chad Sowash: Yeah, and that was during like Christmas week, right? So it was a big ask for me and a lot of these guys came through. So thank you so much. Let's go ahead and start rolling some of that beautiful bean footage.
Joel Cheeseman: All right, let's first get to Matt Lavery. If you haven't heard our interview with Matt Lavery from I think.
Chad Sowash: It's amazing.
Joel Cheeseman: September, it's fantastic. Matt is the global director of sourcing, recruiting and onboarding at a little company called UPS.
Chad Sowash: Who?
Joel Cheeseman: Let's hear Matt's prediction real quick.
Matt Lavery: Chad and Joel asked me to make a prediction for 2025 and I'm gonna make it in the hourly entry-level space. I'm gonna quote my fellow Chicago South Sider, Clubber Lang, I predict pain. 'cause winter is coming. And it's coming 'cause we're gonna go mimic what we did during the early days of the pandemic. When you look at that workforce, entry-level hourly workers, three groups make up a large percentage of that workforce. New entries from US first, people who were born in the US 16, 18 years ago. Illegally legal immigration make up the vast majority of that workforce, a large percentage, I should say. Two of those three prongs during the early days of the pandemic were dramatically reduced. Legal immigration was down 400 grand a year.
Matt Lavery: Illegal immigration was way down during those two years 'cause of travel restrictions. And the majority of people that come over here, they don't cross the southern border illegally. They come over on planes and they extend their visas. They don't, they don't go back. So with the new administration and what they're planning to do, we can see a repeat of that pretty quickly. We do get a little bit of a reprieve 'cause when you go back in time, look at 2006 to 2008, we averaged about 4.3 million people versus 4.1 the previous five years. But that's gonna be a short-lived thing 'cause what happened in 2009, the Great Recession, it wasn't the kind of recession where you just couldn't buy your kid the GI Joe, the Kung Fu grip. You lost your house. It was bad.
Matt Lavery: US births plummeted below 4 million down to 3.6 in 2013, '14. So this could be a really difficult space for a long time. And we're gonna have to get our heads around it 'cause your recruiters, they're not gonna be able to find people. There's not gonna be a woman to blame. You're not gonna be able to find a Mexican cutie 'cause she got deported. Might find your lost shaker of salt. Better put booze in your blender and hope that frozen concoction helps you hang on 'cause I predict pain in the hourly entry-level workspace in 2025. Peace and love to all in 2025 and I'm out.
Chad Sowash: My man.
Joel Cheeseman: Telling you're Gen X without telling me you're Gen X.
Podcast Intro: Yes.
Joel Cheeseman: Jeez, Matt, awesome.
Chad Sowash: Big props though to Matt, big Notre Dame fan. He's, I believe right now, on his way to the Notre Dame-Penn State game as it is because obviously whoever wins that hopefully will be facing, knock on wood, Ohio State in the finals.
Joel Cheeseman: Huge fan. Have you seen his setup?
Chad Sowash: Yes.
Joel Cheeseman: Like inflatable couches. Yeah.
Chad Sowash: Tailgate oh yeah.
Joel Cheeseman: He's a major fan.
Chad Sowash: He is the fan.
Joel Cheeseman: I've never wanted an old style so badly. I don't know why that is. I'm a little disappointed there was no over-under on the Cubs wins this season. Maybe he doesn't wanna talk about that, but...
Chad Sowash: More than likely.
Joel Cheeseman: I think he's, I think he's spot on.
Chad Sowash: No question, no question. We talked about this in shows past and it's not just gonna be pain from the standpoint of not being able to find people, but also we talked about immigrants actually push in close to $100 billion in tax revenue into the United States. So this is gonna hit us in many different areas and we just have to realize, as he had said that building a wall's not gonna help. Most of these motherfuckers are coming over on planes and guess what? We need them. We need them. America's the melting pot. We always have been we shouldn't stop.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. The headline I read recently was a Republican civil war. You have Elon and Vivek wanting to up H-1B visas, which certainly makes sense to us, but you also have a Republican party or voter block that put Trump in to not do stuff like that. So it's gonna be tough. It will also, I think, expedite the acceptance of robotics automation because companies are gonna need a way, whether it's kiosk, ordering my Big Mac or something else.
Chad Sowash: Gonna have to get fast.
Joel Cheeseman: There's gonna be a lot of money pour in to the robotics and replacement...
Chad Sowash: It has to happen fast.
Joel Cheeseman: Of employees of AI. Well, thanks, Matt. We appreciate that. I mean, come on, you get Penn State. The Domer, if the Domers can't do that, we're in trouble, but there may be a house divided if it's an Ohio State, Notre Dame final. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. All right, let's get to our second guest prediction. This one's from Emi Beredugo If you listen to the show, you know Emi. She's gonna be on quite a bit more often. We're excited about that. She is a senior level recruiter and occasional co-host on this show. Let's see her prediction.
Emi Beredugo: Hey, everyone. So here is my crystal ball prediction for 2025. TikTok isn't getting banned in the US. Now, I hear what the Biden administration is saying. They think TikTok is a massive security risk. They think TikTok is going to take personal user information, pass it on to the Chinese government, who will then use it to influence US citizens. Now, is this scary? Yeah, 100% it is. But here comes a plot twist. Enter TikTok's former nemesis, aka Donald TikTok hater turned saviour Trump. Now, this is the same Trump who in 2020 wanted to ban TikTok because China is bad. Well, look at where we are now.
Emi Beredugo: His pivot is wild. Trump successfully used TikTok to get to a broader audience during his election campaign. I mean, the guy now has got 14 million TikTok followers and he's calling TikTok a platform for freedom of expression. And that's not it. Trump is convinced that a TikTok ban is going to benefit Meta, a company that he said was the enemy of the people. And look, he's probably right. I'm sure Meta is going to benefit from this. Ban TikTok and the US government is effectively handing a monopoly to Meta's short videos in Instagram and Facebook. But now he's saying delay the ban so he has time to negotiate a solution.
Emi Beredugo: Why? Because he's the art of the deal guy. And you know he's already on the case. I mean, just look at how cosy he is with Jeff Yass. Jeff Yass is one of TikTok's parent company investors and he's a Republican Party mega donor. So do I think this has something to do with Trump's U-turn? Yeah, of course I do. I'm obviously questioning Trump's motives, but here's the thing. There are positives to keeping TikTok around in the US. 7 million US businesses, 1 million influencers and billions of dollars depend on this app. Ban TikTok and the economic fallout in the US could be huge. Now, obviously, we all know that Trump's about the economy. Okay, so I'm going to say it again.
Emi Beredugo: TikTok is not getting banned in the US in 2025. So mark your calendars, America. In 2025, you're still going to be like me. You're still going to be scrolling at 2:00 AM in the morning, pretending that you're just going to stop after one more video. Now, Okay, I'm looking at the time. Excuse me, people. I've got a TikTok dance to learn. So happy 2025, people. Bye-bye.
Chad Sowash: Oh, Emi. Oh, Emi. I agree with her from the stand point...
Joel Cheeseman: This one's close to your heart, yeah.
Chad Sowash: Yeah, I agree it's not going to go away. There's too much money, but I don't think it has much to do with the economy. I think it has to do with, as she had said, Trump's political leanings because he got money from TikTok investors. So that's what it has to do with. I don't think it has anything to do with economy. He doesn't give two shits about content creators and influencers or anything like that. He just cares about the money.
Joel Cheeseman: This is fascinating to me. This was one of the few bipartisan bills that came through in Congress. There aren't many bipartisan bills. And what I've heard is people that are on the committee on this come out of meetings and research, saying that this is incredibly dangerous. But you have on the other side, Donald Trump, who is the self-proclaimed greatest social media character in history, who is part owner of a social media property. And you have Elon Musk, who has X, who would certainly benefit from TikTok being banned. Meta is getting in bed big time with the Trump administration. This is going to be one of the more interesting shows, side shows of the administration.
Chad Sowash: Oh God. So many.
Joel Cheeseman: I think ultimately it just gets put on the back burner. Court cases get pushed back or whatever.
Chad Sowash: Kicked down the road.
Joel Cheeseman: The only thing that changes it is if China gets frisky. If China goes into Taiwan, if China does something really militarily dangerous, we could pull the plug. Otherwise, I think it's just going to flounder around and be around and it'll be put on the back burner. So, yeah, I think 2025 TikTok will still be around. I think you should call your boy Jim Durbin, get another bet on the table, get another bottle of Eagle Rare in your cupboard and and roll with that. But yeah, it'll be one of the more interesting stories this year is the TikTok saga, the TikTok saga.
Chad Sowash: We're not going to be short of interesting stories, unfortunately.
Joel Cheeseman: Love that. Well, at this point, this show is the smartest Emi has ever sounded. But we're going to we're going to get smarter people.
Chad Sowash: It's the next let's go.
Joel Cheeseman: We are gonna go to Lars Schmidt. He's the founder and CEO of Amplify Talent, an icon in the industry. I think I can say that. And just an all around super nice guy. We'll miss his podcast in the future. But Lars, let's hear what he's got to say.
Lars Schmidt: All right. When Chad and cheese reach out for recruiting predictions for 2025, you've got to heed the call. And this is what I think. I think that 2025 will see a return to in-person interviewing. And there's a reason for that. I think most of these predictions are probably gonna be tied up in AI. This has connections to it as well. In this year already, we started to see more companies using AI avatars in recruiting. Companies like Chipotle worked with Paradigm to create a avatar called Avocado. Clever. Yes, I know. And it's used to help candidates prep for interviews. EY is doing the same.
Lars Schmidt: And you're going to start to see more companies actually bringing these into their recruiting process. And so as more companies are doing this, candidates are going to do that as well. We're gonna start to see more candidates using AI avatars to be able to interview at scale. And so that doesn't work for anyone. And I think more companies are going to be burned by this. And they're going to say, you know what, we just need to go back to basics, bring these interviews back in-house, human to human conversations and connections. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that in 2025. So hang on. It's going to be a wild year. And I think AI is going to be infusing almost every aspect of how we think about recruiting. This is just one of them.
Joel Cheeseman: Interesting. Power to the people. You said Paradigm. I think you meant Paradox.
Chad Sowash: Paradox.
Joel Cheeseman: Just for our listeners. Yeah. Thoughts on Lars' commentary.
Chad Sowash: Yeah, I love it. The thing I don't agree. We're not going back. It's just not going to happen. There's way too much success that's already happening. And we talked to many, many enterprise companies who are already starting to use better processes, automation and AI. So I don't think we're going to go back. Are there going to be some companies from an anecdotal standpoint that have great stories around their human to human interviews at some aspects of their company? I don't think it's going to happen from the top to the bottom. It's going to happen in swaths of jobs. So we're not going back, kids.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. I was talking to a former Indeed exec last year, late last year. And I was talking about just what's the biggest threat to Indeed? What do you see? Is it programmatic? I think we just talked to Apkast's foreman, Chris Foreman, and he said the greatest threat to Indeed is paradox. And I thought that was really, really interesting. And the more I thought about it, I thought he's kind of right. And it may be not paradox directly, but that movement, companies taking over the process.
Chad Sowash: We'll get into that with my prediction down the road.
Joel Cheeseman: All right. No spoilers, no spoilers. So I do think...
Chad Sowash: I agree, though.
Joel Cheeseman: Companies are going to go back. Where I do think there's risk is if we got to have a good capture system. We got to have a system where you can't just get blown up with AI job seekers and deal with that kind of flow. So as long as 'cause there's a job seeker side of this and if that gets crazy, we should bring, we'll have JT on many times this year to talk about some of the job seeker stuff. That needs a CAPTCHA system, that needs some sort of controls or else the rails could come off. But I agree.
SFX: Like that escalated quickly.
Chad Sowash: The money companies are saving, the man hours they're saving, like the efficiency, the black hole going. I mean, yeah, I love Lars and he's a people person to the bone.
Chad Sowash: Agreed.
Joel Cheeseman: But we are not going back, not going back. That was nice. He's got a better camera than we do too. I don't know. We need one of those big lights or.
Chad Sowash: I don't want high def. Are you kidding me? I don't need high def on this.
Joel Cheeseman: Hey, Lars, that looks like AI Lars. It's so nice.
Chad Sowash: It could have been.
Joel Cheeseman: All right, going from Lars, let's go to Rebecca Volpano.
Chad Sowash: Yes.
Joel Cheeseman: She's the VP of product marketing at Cielo. Speaking of robots, here's Rebecca.
Rebecca Volpano: Hey friends, Rebecca Volpano here with my 2025 prediction. And I think that 2025 is gonna be the year of the robot. And so what I mean by that is I think that we're gonna see an introduction of a robotic workforce, not dissimilar to when RPA was introduced, but much more fun. And I think that it's really gonna make all of our lives quite a bit easier. So I don't think that generative AI is gonna take all of the jobs in HR and recruiting this year. But I do think that we're gonna be introduced to some new robotic friends. And so things that are kinda pushing me in that direction, Salesforce, for example, has launched their agents. LinkedIn has announced that they will be introducing some agentic AI later this year. Olivia, so Paradox is Olivia, has a generative AI capability. And Cielo might be up to something too.
Rebecca Volpano: So more to come on that. But I'm definitely optimistic about the introduction of a robotic workforce, because I think who wouldn't want a robot sidekick? When I think about some of the most famous robots who are really kinda helping that main character or that hero, I can't imagine anyone really turning that down. So thinking about R2D2 would be awesome to work alongside. Or if you're familiar with or a fan of the Alien franchise, even some of the scarier Androids, I think I would trust with my inbox. Like Bishop absolutely answers the emails for me.
Joel Cheeseman: My mind went to make it Megan Fox. I don't about you not R2D2, that's just me.
Rebecca Volpano: And then when I think about some of the warm, fuzzy ones like Baymax in Big Hero 6, who wouldn't wanna be around that robot? So those are some of the examples that I'm looking to to kinda help us and guide us in the robots that we infuse into our HR and TA processes. And obviously, there are some that we'll watch out for as well. But would love to know who you'd love to have as a robot sidekick. And if you wanna chat about any of the other AI predictions or things revolving around HR and TA, please let me know. I'd be more than happy to have that convo. And I hope you all have a really great 2025. Thanks.
Joel Cheeseman: The Sydney Sweeney bot coming soon to a Walmart near you.
Chad Sowash: Well, you know what? You might as well go ahead and play Sean's because Sean's like butts up right against hers. And then we can just comment on those.
Joel Cheeseman: All right little combo action.
Chad Sowash: Let's do it. Let's do it.
Joel Cheeseman: Chad calls inaudible. Here we go.
Sean Behr: Chad and cheese. Great to be with you guys for your 2025 prediction show. I'm honored. And I promise you that we will have a beer sometime in our future and do another show together. But thanks for all the help. You guys have always educated the industry and keep us laughing and having fun even when things are stressful. As for 2025 predictions, I've got one or two here that I'd love to throw out for you. So the first is, I think 2025 is gonna be a year where the old rules finally die. I don't wanna say put the nail in the coffin. But I think we're gonna see some of that. So the first thing I'll say is I think you'll see about 20% of the Fortune 500 move to fully autonomous AI hiring, which sounds crazy. You know, a couple of years ago, we were super worried about AI and bias and all kinda things. I think you're gonna see 20% of companies in America start hiring frontline workers completely using AI. They're gonna use AI to source workers on different places. They're gonna match them, screen them, onboard them, get them started.
Sean Behr: There's gonna be a lot of worry about what does that do? How does it work? And I think we're gonna see tremendous results. We're gonna see higher satisfaction from workers as we're able to find the right opportunity for them. They're gonna show up happier. They're gonna work harder. They're gonna feel better. They're gonna stay longer. They're gonna be more productive and companies are gonna be more profitable. So I think you're gonna see 20% of companies embrace a fully autonomous AI hiring cycle, at least with the frontline worker. I don't know about for all workers everywhere, but, you know, at Fountain, we're obviously exclusively focused on these frontline workers.
Sean Behr: So AI hiring comes alive in a big way and you're gonna see the biggest companies in America start to do that, even though we are wondering, hey, how quickly are they gonna adjust to this? I think they're gonna move pretty fast. The second one I'll say is breaking the old rules is the old schedule, right? The other idea of like, hey, we're gonna come in, you're gonna be here from eight to four, eight to two, something like that. I think you're gonna see companies start to experiment with micro shifts. What do I mean? I mean, giving workers really, really bite sized opportunities to work. Maybe it's a two hour shift. Maybe it's a three hour shift. Maybe I can work from seven to nine because that's what works for my schedule.
Sean Behr: And so I think you're gonna see some of that as well. You're gonna see this breaking of the rule of moving from a place where I have to show up for four hours that whole time. You're gonna see people show up for two hours, three hours, again, using AI to schedule all of this, but really matching supply and demand in an incredible way for workers and for companies. So anyway, those are my 2025 productions. Let's see how I do.
Joel Cheeseman: That was Sean Behr, CEO and founder at Fountain. I'm sensing a theme here in our predictions, Chad. Take a side, the robots or the humans?
Chad Sowash: Well, in 20% fully autonomous hiring, I think.
Joel Cheeseman: That's bold.
Chad Sowash: But I think it can happen, especially if you take a look at Fountain, Paradox and Harry. Those are like new age, you know. Tech stack platforms, applicant tracking systems, chatbots, so on and so forth. So, I mean, I think 20%, to be quite frank, within the realm of companies that are actually using those three platforms, I think 20% is low when it comes to those three platforms, because I think most of those companies are really going to press what they can do because they're going to want to get people in faster, want to be more competitive, and want to save a hell of a lot of money. And they'll be able to do that through automation.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. And Sean's probably speaking his book a little bit. His product.
Chad Sowash: Of course. Of course.
Joel Cheeseman: But he also has the numbers. He also sees what's going on more so than we do. So I think what was interesting there is you had sort of two different layers of it. You had Rebecca talking about literal robots. Things that lift boxes and pick out products and put them on conveyor. Like that is one level of the automation. The automation Sean's talking about is the hiring and the scheduling and the flexibility there. So, you have automation on two sides of that, which kind of are coming together. But I think he's right on and we'll get to JT her prediction. I don't want to spoil that, but...
Chad Sowash: Let's do it.
Joel Cheeseman: A lot of those frontline workers, you know, they don't have resumes. They don't have a LinkedIn profile. They don't have like a tradition. They're not going to mail their resume into the company like we did way back in the day. So, like this way of hiring people works for this demographic. So, if the market is going to decide where this goes, the market is saying, we want to chat. We want to have something that is frictionless or as frictionless as possible. And that's where we're going. So, yeah, I love Sean and love that his transparency on coming on the show. And we will definitely take you up on those beers at a conference near you.
Joel Cheeseman: All right, let's get to Tim Meehan's prediction. Tim is the principal at Talent River Consulting and an old white guy like us. So, he's got to say something smart.
Chad Sowash: Been in the game for a minute.
Tim Meehan: All right, guys, I have two predictions for 2025 and perhaps in a change from the other themes here. Mine aren't these positive hoity-toity things. The first is that next year we'll continue to treat our candidates like shit. They'll continue to make hundreds of applications to companies and they won't hear back. They won't know why and they'll become incredibly depressed. The second prediction is that talent acquisition leaders will continue to be wholly unqualified, unable, and lacking the skills to make the business case for change to their CEO. Which is the only reason a company will continue to treat their consumers, their customers, their candidates like shit 'cause the CEO doesn't understand the math, but it is destroying their brand.
Chad Sowash: Boom.
Joel Cheeseman: Jeez, Tim.
Chad Sowash: Yeah. So, hey.
Joel Cheeseman: Cold war.
Chad Sowash: I love, I love, I love. So, first and foremost, Candidate Experience, again, I think Tim is right from the standpoint of the macro, but from the micro, again, I'm going to talk about, and I'm going to keep beating the drum on Fountain, Paradox, and Harry. Any companies that are using them right now, they're being incredibly innovative and aggressive. And they are, and that's around candidate experience 'cause they're looking for speed 'cause we all know speed kills, right? So they're looking for speed. And then they're also looking to, and we've talked to these people, Joel, and this is the fun part.
Chad Sowash: Don't worry, kids, it's going to be coming out. New AI sessions season. But we talk to companies that are enterprise companies who are saying, no, I don't just have a seat at the table. My seat is fucking warm because I am demonstrating business cases that nobody else in my organization can demonstrate. This is kicking ass and taking names. So these new technologies aren't just making it easier and better and more cost-effective, but they're creating business cases that are allowing our CHROs and our chief of talent or people to actually get at the table and own that fucking seat. And I love it.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. I think where he's right is there is still a situation of haves and have-nots. And the companies that we talk to are brand name companies. They're the companies that you shop for at Christmas and they're companies you see commercials for and have money and sort of the resources to do this. 80% of businesses are still small businesses.
Joel Cheeseman: And that's kind of a lot of the hiring and where that goes on. I don't know at what point the Harrys and the Paradoxes cross over into smaller businesses. I don't know if they ever will. Maybe there are other solutions that'll adhere to small business to give them these tools. But I'm telling you that the Subway franchisee down the street, who I know pretty intimately, does not have any concept of what's going on with this stuff. So, it'll take time. But for the first time in our careers, we're on the right track of job seekers, candidates getting treated like people, oddly through technology, and companies being able to handle the flood of candidates, oddly enough through technology. Technology is making us more human, which is the point we've been making for a long time. So, Tim, thanks for your honesty. Brutal honesty, if you will.
Chad Sowash: Love it.
Joel Cheeseman: All right. We're rolling through these. Let's go to JT O'Donnell, one of my favorite guests on the show. She keeps it real. She fights for the job seeker.
Chad Sowash: Yeah. I love it.
Joel Cheeseman: Let's hear her side of the predictions.
J.T. O'Donnel: My prediction for 2025 is the death of the resume and I am here for it. And before you come at me and say, Oh, people have said that before, I'm gonna tell you why it's really gonna happen in 2025. First of all, put your hand up if you're a recruiter in talent acquisition and you have seen a massive increase in these so-called perfect resumes. The ones that the job seekers are using AI to make them an exact match to your job description so they can try to get through your ATS system only for you to call them up and find out they're nothing what they said they are on paper. Yeah, those folks. Are you sick of them? Of course you are. Secondly, have you ever sat around and looked at 100 resumes in a row? You can't see straight when you're done and you can't make sense of them.
J.T. O'Donnel: The death of the resume is here. What's gonna replace it? Video. And before you come at me with that, hear me out again. See, video is a way for them to authenticate themselves for you. Ever heard the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words? It's true. When you look at a picture, you can interpret a lot more. Video is worth a million. And before you say to me, I'm not gonna sit and listen to 100 videos. You're wrong. You do it all the time. It's called social media. That is why we are able to watch and go through at a much faster rate. Now, there will be AI tools that will read and listen and comprehend those videos and match people based on the depth of information that they shared. Think about that. You put together a job description. You put together the info and the skills that you're looking for, and it goes out and listens to videos for you and brings back the people that are saying the things that you need to hear so that you can watch and validate it and authenticate it. And now what have you done? The first interview. This is gonna hyper speed the recruitment process.
J.T. O'Donnel: It is here. It is coming. So goodbye, resume. Hello, video. You'll thank me later.
Joel Cheeseman: She's doing a brewing company, sweat pair, sweatpants... She's gonna fit in great on the show. She's gonna fit in great. Some brewings, I don't even own a pair of beer brewing sweatpants. Nicely done. Nicely done.
Chad Sowash: It's 'cause they don't come in your size.
Joel Cheeseman: That's just mean. I thought this was a brand new Chad in 2025. Come on now. I have fat pants. They're just not brewing. All right, man, here we go. Death of the resume again.
Chad Sowash: Been talking about it.
Joel Cheeseman: Every year. What you got?
Chad Sowash: I think it's interesting that she goes to video and I think that there is a new opportunity with the video, especially being able to transcribe and then also start to get into contextualization context, clues, tone. They're gonna be different things. Video is not gonna be the only thing. There's gonna have to be a screening process up front with verification validation kind of pieces, which will take care of that. And then the next part of it, the video part, you won't have to worry too much about verification validation. That's already gonna be taken care of, but you'll be able to look at those other things, context, clues, tone, verification, context, clues that are for cultural fit. So anyway, I like it. We'll see if it happens.
Joel Cheeseman: So literally we've had this conversation for 25 years, death of the resume, and you and I are old enough to remember visual CV and social media tools and like the death of the resume, and it's still here. So I'm not exactly prepared to bury the resume. I think JT, is living in like 2052 or something where they have beer, sweatpants readily available for everybody. But I am willing to say that we are seeing a splintering of the resume. It used to be resume was the only way that you could get in the door job seeker.
Joel Cheeseman: That was the only way or fill out this application. And the pendulum is swinging to where companies have to go and communicate with the job seeker on their terms. So when you talk about factory workers, essential workers, frontline workers, they don't have a LinkedIn profile. The job case of like we're for LinkedIn for people who don't have LinkedIn, employers have to meet those folks where they live, how they communicate, how they use technology.
Joel Cheeseman: And because of that, we're seeing tools like Paradox, Harry and others that we've talked about. So I do think there's an element of companies evolving to appeal to candidates on their terms as opposed to the company saying, Hey, the only way that you can apply to this thing is fill out this application or give us this resume. I still think that people are gonna have profiles. I'm still telling my 18 year old, you're gonna have to have a LinkedIn profile. I don't think that's gonna go anywhere, but LinkedIn is now more than that. They have video, they have short video, which no JT, is also very bullish on.
Joel Cheeseman: So we're seeing a splintering of what it means to connect with candidates. I don't think it's the death of the resume, but I'm willing to say that it is a splintering of how things have been for a very, very long time.
Chad Sowash: A smothering...
Joel Cheeseman: A smothering and a splintering and a break in the action. When we come back, we'll get to our predictions for 2025. All right. All right. Real quickly here. We've got two predictions each. I'm gonna go first. My first prediction for 2025, Rippling goes IPO. So the battle between Rippling and Deel finally comes to a head in 2025 with Rippling jumping into the public market. First founded in 2016, they've raised $2 billion. So they're heading into year 10 of this journey investors, I think they're gonna start wanting some liquidity. So I think the IPO market also starts to loosen up. I think you're gonna see more companies come to the IPO markets on their last round. They had a valuation of $13 billion.
Joel Cheeseman: I gotta think it's up to like 15 billion this point, which is pretty digestible by the markets. In April of last year, tech crunch asked founder Parker Conrad, who's still a jackass, but anyway, they asked him about the IPO to which he replied, "I definitely think it's a bit in the distance." This was an April which means that's laden for 2025. We're going public. I think that distance is closing quickly. I think Deel has a little more, they have a little more runway to not go public. I think Rippling has less runway to do that. So prediction number one, Rippling goes IPO and I'm excited to see a company well-known in our space finally go public and see how that goes. We thought it would be an ATS. I think it's gonna be a platform to rule them all. And it will be fun to watch your thoughts.
Chad Sowash: Yeah. I think Parker Conrad's an asshole.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: Other than that, I don't know if it's gonna 2025, 2026, but they're definitely gonna have to, they've taken over a billion in funding. So I think they have the runway. Will Deel beat them there? I don't know. I think they're pretty much. They're in a great position right now with their... Like 500 million plus ARR or what have you. So yeah, that will be exciting to watch.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah. 2 billion. They're too big to acquire. They have to go.
Chad Sowash: You're right. I'm just not sure if it'll be this year.
Joel Cheeseman: Either way we can agree on Parker Conrad.
SFX: You dumbass.
[laughter]
Joel Cheeseman: By the way, he's still welcome on the show whenever he wants to come on.
Chad Sowash: Oh yeah. I'd love it. I'd love it.
Joel Cheeseman: All right, Chad, what you got?
Chad Sowash: So prediction number one, the Dam is gonna burst in 2025. That's right. Money will be flowing. Prediction number one, European startups will see funding that will increase 3x year over year in 2025, which gets us back to 2022 levels.
Joel Cheeseman: Yeah.
Chad Sowash: So this from eu-startup.com as part of the step up startup project, the European commission are working toward fixing regulatory inconsistencies funding gaps and limited cross border cooperation throughout the EU. They're also building an interconnected startup network leveraging strengths of local ecosystems. To shorten it up, they are working because they understand that the startups are what's going to fuel their future. So Europe, mainly in the EU in this case are focused on helping startups in countries throughout the EU, just to become more straightforward from a standard standpoint. So what's going to be the driving force to push funding dollars to Europe? You might ask well Matt answered half of it.
Chad Sowash: It's gonna be pain and chaos. Pain and chaos is coming to the United States. Immigration? That's our superpower. That might not be our superpower. Trying to bully sovereign countries like Canada, Greenland, Panama for the Panama Canal. That breeds chaos. That breeds pain for Americans. And the new freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater with the newest Facebook news amplify the chaos itself. And what do investors hate? They hate pain and they hate fucking chaos. So investors want a smooth ride as smooth as they can muster with a startup. So face it, there's already enough risk investing in a startup.
Chad Sowash: So why enhance that risk without actual reward? Nope. That's dumb. Which is why many investors will start to see what you and I have been experiencing for years now. European startups are pretty damn innovative. And as America turns into a broligarchy where billionaires and bigger companies are just gonna stamp out the little guy it's going to be... My prediction. We're gonna see funding in Europe for Europe startups, 3X year over year in 2025.
Joel Cheeseman: That's sexy.
SFX: Yi papi.
Joel Cheeseman: Broligarchy is a...
Chad Sowash: Broligarchy.
Joel Cheeseman: I like. I like that. Shocking you would have a European prediction now that you're full on native over in Europe.
Chad Sowash: Europe Chad...
Joel Cheeseman: I like that. And it'll be interesting to see, so much of the European money is from America. So we'll see how that flows. It used to be a time where Trump would say something about...
Chad Sowash: I see more.
Joel Cheeseman: A company and that stock would tank and people were freaked out. I don't know if they have a similar freak out. He seems to be going after countries now more than he does companies. But yeah...
Chad Sowash: It's chaos.
Joel Cheeseman: Buckle up, buckle up, kids.
Chad Sowash: Chaos 2020.
Joel Cheeseman: Trump is gonna be, jeez, interesting. All right, I like it, I like it. Let's go to mine. My next prediction is I'm gonna be at Chipotle a whole lot.
SFX: Oh my God, I love Chipotle.
Joel Cheeseman: Oh, sorry, that's from a different show. Let's go to my real prediction. ZipRecruiter goes private. ZipRecruiter goes private. We don't have the full numbers yet, but from 2022 to 2023, net income at Zip was down from 61 million to 49 million. And I'm guessing it's gonna be lower in '24 when they talk in February about their numbers from the last quarter this year. Total revenue in that time went from 904 million to 645 million. Free cash flow from '22 to '23 went from 21 million to 9 million. That's a lot lower than 21 million. The company went public in 2021, which was fun to watch. They closed on the first day at $26 a share. They're currently now trading under $7... So unless Recruit Holdings comes in and adds them as a third leg to the Indeed, Glassdoor triad.
Chad Sowash: Possibility.
Joel Cheeseman: I'm predicting they go public. I think there's a better chance that Apollo or someone like them comes in. Maybe it's CareerBuilder plus Monster plus Zip. In 2025, the new brand will be as creative as that and they'll create efficiencies. They'll fire Ian finally, which you'll enjoy. And they'll...
Chad Sowash: Be too late...
Joel Cheeseman: Go private. Look, Zip is a steaming pile of dog shit sprinkled with cat turds and something's got to save it. Either an acquisition or private, but they can't keep going on the road that they're going. And in 2025, they either get a sugar daddy or a life raft.
Chad Sowash: I agree. I still can't believe because at one time they were on the right track. And again, it just seems like IPO threw them just out of whack and they've literally, they've lost their way. And I have no clue why Ian's still there.
Joel Cheeseman: They lost the beef, man.
SFX: Ma! The meatloaf!
Chad Sowash: The meatloaf.
SFX: Fuck.
Chad Sowash: Good one. That was a very good one.
Joel Cheeseman: Thank you.
Chad Sowash: I'm gonna have to agree with that one too. Zip going private. My second prediction, this one kids, get ready to take notes. Performance driven, AKA, programmatic ad spending goes flat or drops in 2025. So I'm gonna use AppCast as a guide as they are definitely a market leader. I'm not picking on them, but they are a great example. Lemme line it out for you. So at one time AppCast ran nearly the entire programmatic job market for all of the recruitment ad agencies. Then we saw KRT was acquired by Recruitix. So KRT ejects from AppCast and so does their money.
Chad Sowash: Ratency acquires Peringo, Ratency's out. But that's okay because AppCast still had plenty of other recruitment ad agencies that they could partner with. And then out of nowhere, AppCast buys Bayard Advertising and becomes a direct competitor with all of those remaining agencies using the AppCast platform. And then this week we see more diversification as Shaker acquires JobAdX. I believe Shaker's move is the epitome of what the rest of the market will be doing in moving away from AppCast to gain better margins and prices for their customers and not feed the beast and or one of their competitors. So a much bigger problem that they have, and we just heard from Matt Lavery, as we talked about on many episodes this year, companies like UPS and General Motors are using more advanced systems like Fountain and Paradox. And those companies are depending less and less on candidates from external vendors like AppCast. Why? Because those companies are reconfiguring their tech stacks and processes to re-engage candidates that they have already bought and already reside in their applicant tracking system.
Chad Sowash: So here's an example. UPS hired over 125,000 people in just five weeks last year. Over 30,000 of those hires came directly out of their applicant tracking system, which means they didn't have to go external and spend additional cash. They already had talent in their database, so they used it. Furthermore, UPS had 35,000 additional hires who were former employees. That's over 65,000 of the 125 of those hires that happened without external help. And that is only the beginning, kids. Last year, we interviewed major enterprise hiring companies who are already flocking to this type of tech and process. And as Chris Foreman said in an interview we published earlier this week, AppCast's sweet spot is enterprise.
Chad Sowash: That's because performance-driven ad buying is mostly enterprise companies. So quick recap. Recruitment ad agencies will deliver lower costs and more competitive pricing solutions for their customers. That's what we're gonna see out of Shaker, obviously. But return on less budget. Great returns, less budget.
Chad Sowash: Number two, enterprise companies are starting to hire through their own databases, which means less dependency on external performance vendors. And last but not least, hadn't mentioned this yet, but neither TotalJobs or StepStone, both AppCast sibling companies, neither have fully embraced performance. And they're continuing to milk the duration-based market dry, which one of these days I think is gonna be a great case study along with Monster and CareerBuilder for innovators dilemma. But wrapping this up, I'm not picking on AppCast, but they are a market leader, and I believe that this is a microcosm of the performance-based job ad spending market. So in 2025, my prediction is, I believe we will see job openings continue to grow and programmatic revenues either flat or drop.
SFX: You're not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe.
Joel Cheeseman: And I would add, employers are wising up. The consumer is getting smarter.
Chad Sowash: Yes.
Joel Cheeseman: We've talked about job postings as commodities for a long time, and programmatic is the quintessential run to the bottom. It's more of a feature, I think, for most than not. The value was that there were so few of them, and I'm sad that Shaker bought them, 'cause that might have been a prediction that I would have had, is that somebody, an agency was gotten into the game. JobAdX is one of the few that are left. These are gonna be features. Look, I think a lot of companies have figured out if I'm on LinkedIn, and indeed, I'm covering 80% of the market, and this whole programmatic thing, I don't know.
Joel Cheeseman: It's kind of a black box. It's sort of mysterious. I don't know if I need it or not. The experience sucks. Go to CareerBuilder and search for a job. It's all AppCast stuff. It redirects you everywhere. You have to register for everything. Job seekers have wised up. They know I'm gonna go right to the company site. This is where job boards are sending me anyway. I'm gonna figure out where that is. I think Google for Jobs has helped get people directly to company websites or get them to Indeed or LinkedIn, where they already have an account and they already trust sort of the experience. So yeah, I think that programmatic probably peaked with AppCast's acquisition of StepStone. But yeah, I like it. I like it.
Chad Sowash: All right...
Joel Cheeseman: I normally end the show with a dad joke, Chad, but what could be better than a dad joke?
Chad Sowash: Stephen McGrath.
Joel Cheeseman: Obviously, hearing from our favorite Scott.
SFX: Welcome to All Things Scottish. Our slogan is, if it's not Scottish, it's crap.
Joel Cheeseman: That's right. Stephen McGrath, our favorite Scott. He's the product experience manager at Poetry. The dude spends way too much time in the shower. If you follow him on LinkedIn, you know this. But let's hear Stephen's prediction to end 2025.
[music]
Stephen McGrath: Hi, I'm Stephen McGrath, the Chad and Cheese podcast, favorite Scotsman for three years in a row. A relationship built on nothing creepy and a very mutual appreciation for each other.
Joel Cheeseman: Yes.
Stephen McGrath: So my prediction for 2025 is simple. '24 saw the rise and implosion of AI into businesses. We have tools that are promising to revolutionize the recruitment process through that. But where it becomes really interesting for me is the companies that are going to implement co-pilot like tools into every area of their business. What does that mean? And I think it probably means that your company is going to know more about you than it ever has done before. And that's gonna affect things potentially, like bonus potential. It's gonna affect things like promotions possibly. It might even go all the way up to affecting how you exit a business and maybe even the reasons why. Those things that you thought were maybe incompetence now, if the co-pilot is running through that organization, it might have access to things and pick up on things.
Stephen McGrath: And I think we might even start to see some lawsuits or things like that off the back of that as well which could be quite interesting. That might be a fairly doom and gloom one, but it's interesting to know that we might go back to the world where an employee is watched more than they ever have been and judged as a result of that as well.
Joel Cheeseman: And we now know way more about Steven than we ever wanted to know. He's apparently a possible loofah guy, a loofah user. Who knew? Who knew? Man, keep drinking that chicken cock, baby. I like what you're dropping.
Chad Sowash: I was wondering how his skin got so soft. And now we know, now we know.
Joel Cheeseman: This business is about the people, man. I say this at every conference, everywhere we go, it's all the tech comes and goes, the company's come and go, but the people stay. Chad, happy new year. Here's to a great 2025. Thanks to our guest predictors. We'll see how they did in 2026 when we get together. Until then, we out.
Chad Sowash: We out.
Podcast Outro: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? A podcast. The Chad. The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper Jack. Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out.
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