Ageism, Algo-Bias, and Corp Naughtiness w/ Cassell Kaye

Ageism, Algo-Bias, and Corporate Naughtiness

HR’s most dangerous duo Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash are back to stir the corporate pot. Joining the fray is 20-year corporate veteran turned social media truth-teller Cassell Kaye, fresh out of the trenches of Amazon, Disney, and Yahoo. Between Joel’s Indiana burger diet and Cassell’s newly minted Boulder-yogi-grandma vibes, the gang takes a scorched-earth tour through the darkest, ugliest corners of modern hiring.  

If you’ve applied for a job lately and felt like you were screaming into a black hole powered by an algorithm, this episode is your therapy session.  

What We’re Ranting About This Week:

• "Calcified in Thought" (A.K.A. The Old-Person Dog Whistle)

• AI as the Ultimate Corporate Cover-Up

• The ATS Trap & Algorithmic Bias

• The 2-Million-Job Ghost Town

• Can the Government Save Us? 

  
  

Tuned in for the hard workplace truths, stayed for Chad roasting Indiana, Joel dressing like Yogi Bear, and Cassell entirely forgetting her own social media handles mid-interview.  

Hit play before your ATS filters this episode out of your feed.  

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:24.43)

yeah, it's the podcast your divorce attorney warns you about. This is the Chad and Cheese podcast, everybody. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Chad Sowash, as always, is riding Shotgun as we welcome Casselle Kaye to the show. She's a 20-year veteran of large corporations, including Amazon. She ran ran DEI, workforce data, and talent strategy. She now covers ageism, workforce issues, and general corporate naughtiness.

Chad Sowash (00:37.156)

Hello.

Joel Cheesman (00:53.582)

She's also killing it on the socials. Cassell, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast.

Cassell (00:59.778)

Thank you. Good to be here.

Joel Cheesman (01:02.488)

Glad to have you. Glad to have you. So yeah, what's the Twitter bio on Cassell?

Chad Sowash (01:02.53)

Excellent. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Cassell (01:09.366)

Yeah, I spent twenty years in human people systems, HR and people data at Disney, Yahoo, Amazon, and a few others. Mm-hmm. And realized pretty quickly that my time was running short, so started planning and preparing about a year and a half ago.

Chad Sowash (01:19.856)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (01:24.014)

I know those companies. I know these companies.

Joel Cheesman (01:24.992)

Look at these flexes. Flexin', flexin' early.

Cassell (01:37.752)

For what would be my Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:38.392)

Cause so we'll get to that. Give us some personal stuff. What walks on the beach, poetry readings, like we want to know about a little bit about you.

Chad Sowash (01:43.693)

yeah, yoga and who knows.

Cassell (01:43.89)

gosh. Well, I yes, I am a yogi. I just moved to Boulder, Colorado with my partner. my daughter just had my first grandbaby, so I'm a grandma this year. yeah, all exciting stuff.

Chad Sowash (01:56.761)

very nice. Yes.

Chad Sowash (02:04.271)

Yeah, well.

Joel Cheesman (02:04.504)

Boulder Yogi. Geez, I'm getting

Cassell (02:06.845)

I know. Get ready. We're going to Red Rocks next.

Chad Sowash (02:07.824)

She's been.

Joel Cheesman (02:09.386)

I need some avoc I need some avocado toast t for this interview.

Chad Sowash (02:12.602)

Cheeseman is in Indiana where he's ate more pizza, burgers, and beer. No yogis or anything.

Cassell (02:12.789)

Hmm.

Cassell (02:16.283)

God.

Joel Cheesman (02:20.086)

Yeah, I I look a little bit like Yogi Bear as three gen Xers on the show. I look more like Yogi than being a Yogi, but that's yeah. And boo boo.

Cassell (02:20.459)

I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (02:23.327)

You

Cassell (02:27.177)

And a lot of true crime. I feel like I feel like Indiana's a a stopping grounds for true crime. I hear a lot of

Chad Sowash (02:27.271)

boo boo. I am not boo boo.

Chad Sowash (02:36.046)

Yeah, there's nothing to do there other than eat corn and drink beer and kill people, I guess. Gary. Yeah. Well, they got the Jackson five there.

Cassell (02:38.185)

Yeah, Gary

Yeah. It comes up all the time.

Joel Cheesman (02:42.91)

that's nice Chad. Leave leave the state leave the state and take a dump all over it. Real nice. Real nice manners. Hey, it's it's a wonderful place to raise a family.

Chad Sowash (02:48.816)

I took a dump while I was there. So it is, no, totally is, except for the serial killers. So I was scrolling through, scrolling through my socials as listeners know, I love me some TikTok. And I run into this next video. We're gonna play a little teaser of this. Go ahead and play that. that. Yeah, little castle.

Cassell (02:48.821)

Yeah.

Cassell (02:52.183)

I'm sure it is.

Joel Cheesman (03:06.39)

Surprised you're on TikTok.

Joel Cheesman (03:14.488)

Little cast on the socials, everybody. Here we go.

Chad Sowash (03:28.526)

No, okay, stop it. Stop. That's the tease, the cover up. That's the tease. That's cover up. You gotta get X out of that. Yeah, I know.

Joel Cheesman (03:31.352)

That's the tease? Okay. All right. Don't wanna Jeeze. Jeez. You are God, there you go teasing us again, Chad. You are such a tease.

Chad Sowash (03:39.569)

So Cass, I want to be able to throw this out to you because, and again, this is something that literally the CEO of Lattice just said, Sarah Franklin, if you don't know her, and we're talking about literally different cohorts, different types of individuals in the workforce and how they've been impacted. So Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice said, you need entry-level workforce.

Cassell (03:42.945)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (04:08.324)

because of innovation, not employees who are calcified in thought, hence older people. Plus they're more affordable. So Cass, yeah, calcified in thought, innovation isn't there. you've, again, you've been in big organizations, you've had exposed to data, hiring data, talent data from those organizations too.

Joel Cheesman (04:21.996)

The old person dog whistle. Calcifi calcification. That's always a fun one.

Chad Sowash (04:38.328)

Is it just us looking from the outside in or does it feel like there are programs that literally just push people out the door? Not to mention Sarah Franklin, she's a female. I would assume that one of the most impacted groups are females in the workforce. So your thoughts on that.

Cassell (05:01.845)

Well, I can confirm and so can the LinkedIn lean in Women in the Workday study. they all will my experience in corporate, as well as that that study, put women in the most impacted demographic. I'm shocked that they continue to be so verbose about like it they're they're emboldened.

Chad Sowash (05:10.405)

Mm.

Cassell (05:27.327)

with these opinions and it's bias, it's implicit bias, right? She may not even know she has it, but it's definitely coming through. And that's the message that you're sending to your hiring managers, to your leaders. it's disgusting. But you know, IBM was sued for this years ago, calling their calling their older workers dino babies that must become extinct.

And I I think as long as companies can afford to pay the price in whatever risk this looks like for them, they're gonna they're gonna continue to send this message. And the truth is, like older people are more expensive to insure. Older people you know are more expensive because we have more experience. We're bringing more. I don't know.

Chad Sowash (06:10.8)

Salaries, wages, mean, you know, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (06:20.376)

So Rook so there's there's the bias argument that like, hey, we're just this is human beings and younger people are faster, quicker, stronger, et cetera. But but you said something that was interesting to me. You said like companies are willing to pay the price. Like in other words, the the the calculus is let's push the old people out and say we want younger people. And yes, we'll have to pay some court fees, maybe pay some people as they walk out the door. But you so your your thesis is this is happening because companies

Chad Sowash (06:37.412)

The fine.

Chad Sowash (06:45.648)

Seventh.

Joel Cheesman (06:50.09)

are are doing the math and it's cheaper to go to court and push these people out than it is just like regular human bias.

Chad Sowash (06:56.654)

if you get a court.

Cassell (06:57.054)

Exactly. Yeah. And it's the same it's the same, you know model that they use for the Warn Act. You know, that Warn Act is like it they they they don't enforce it at all. It's basically a you know it it's up to the companies to behave and if they don't it's up to the employee to enforce it with a lawsuit or you know, however they choose to to enforce that.

Joel Cheesman (06:58.647)

Wow.

Cassell (07:26.7)

But but these the these companies just sort of factor in what that legal cost is going to look like and and they they decide if it's worth it or not. and usually it is.

Chad Sowash (07:26.883)

in a case.

Joel Cheesman (07:37.345)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (07:43.131)

So with AI coming into the mix now and everybody's talking about these AI layoffs, right? It feels like a couple of different things. First and foremost, if we're going to have less employees or who's going to pay the taxes, number one, number two, if that's impacting these perspective of war and acts or layoffs or what have you, it seems like the fines need to be.

Joel Cheesman (07:46.348)

The algos.

Cassell (07:49.816)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (08:10.052)

getting much, much larger. to be able to, again, de-incentivize both of those, the bots have to be paying taxes and there have to be bigger fines. Are there some other areas that you think there should be impact to be able to help companies steer away from doing what they've been doing for decades now?

Cassell (08:34.418)

I think we're gonna end up in a find out era very soon. You know, 50 well you know we're fucking around. You know we're fucking around. But you know, 52% of GDP in the US comes from people over 50. We pay taxes, we buy a lot of goods and

Joel Cheesman (08:39.704)

She didn't put fuck around before that, Chad, but I I I could read her mind. That's that's what she was that's what she was

Chad Sowash (08:42.062)

Yeah, that's for you. That's for you.

Chad Sowash (08:53.743)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (09:01.904)

Stuff. Yeah.

Cassell (09:04.568)

That is about to be no longer. and I I think that these companies have floors of economists who understand this very well. and and I do believe too that this accounted for a lot of the layoffs, at least when I was at Amazon, those economists could see very clearly the picture of what was coming in this, you know, administration's economy.

Chad Sowash (09:32.368)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (09:33.432)

in twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, like they they they had a really good awareness and and I think that they started making those shifts and planning for those shifts long before.

Joel Cheesman (09:46.21)

And what is the shift? Is the shift get rid of our expensive older people? AI is going to make our younger folks augmented with experience and data and inform and knowledge that that we don't have to pay as much for. That's the future. And the people that are forty, let's call it forty to sixty, are just SOL. Shit out of luck.

Cassell (10:06.988)

Yeah, I think it's a couple of things. I I I do believe that AI was a narrative for the most part. I don't I I don't believe that a company like Amazon, for instance, and this is purely opinion by the way, but I don't believe that these companies are truly buying into AI being the solution. I think a lot of them depend on government contracts, which means that

Chad Sowash (10:20.122)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (10:36.258)

they better be behave them themselves, right, if they are going to be

Joel Cheesman (10:39.278)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (10:43.358)

in with the government and and continue to earn their contracts. Yeah, millions of dollars. There's a lot at stake. So to come out and just say like, hey, you know, we're fucked. yeah. Yeah. w we our we know that our our our gross margins are gonna shrink by, you know, a lot over the next four years. So we just we gotta make some cuts and we gotta, you know, do it while we can. that would be

Chad Sowash (10:44.752)

continue to get those hundreds of millions of dollars, Hundreds, yes.

Joel Cheesman (10:54.254)

We're getting rid of the the fat. Cutting some fat. Yeah. Getting rid of the

Chad Sowash (11:05.605)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (11:13.292)

To me, the the honest fair move to s to to tell you that's that AI could replace anyone at these companies, it's that's ridiculous. I think that there there is a lot of good in some of the usage of AI to, you know, take out redundancies, make things more efficient. Like there is some AI should 10x you as a worker.

if you do it right. And and sure, but you still

Joel Cheesman (11:45.359)

Coding coding's a great example. You know, I don't need the 10X 10X coder. I can have someone much junior, but have the ability with AI to code like I am a really experienced recruiter. So so you a lot of people watching, listening, watching, are in that age range where maybe the writing's on the wall, maybe they've already been laid off. What

Cassell (11:51.511)

Yeah.

Go.

Yeah, and you still need the

Cassell (12:08.098)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (12:10.444)

What advice would you give them? How did you prepare yourself as you're sort of an insider with these organizations? What tips would you give people that are struggling with this right now?

Cassell (12:19.198)

I wanna say first that ageism is not new. Ageism has has always been what it what we're seeing today. But when old when older workers were pushed out, they were pushed out into their pensions, they were pushed out into affordable health care. And right now, we have none of this, right? And so they're being pushed out into this brand new, very expensive world.

Chad Sowash (12:39.322)

Yes.

Joel Cheesman (12:39.747)

Death.

Cassell (12:48.232)

and it's you know, more than half of workers over fifty have lost a long held job involuntarily, whether it's a layoff or being pushed out. That was a Urban Institute Pro Publica stat that came out earlier this year. But it's I mean, more than half of workers over fifty. That's a lot of us.

I think it might be a little bit more, but that's just me.

Chad Sowash (13:22.745)

we're saying. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (13:22.764)

And what are they gonna do? What do they do?

Cassell (13:25.354)

Yeah. And you know, then we we have AI to your point, that's screening out resumes and pre-programmed to scale bias. iTutor Group paid $365,000 to settle a case where AI was programmed into their a their ATS to auto-reject women 55 and older. Like they just built it in that way and didn't even deny it.

and h how many more of these? I know that's the crazy part.

Chad Sowash (13:57.913)

Only $360,000. I don't know how big iTutor group is, but I mean, you know, that's nothing compared to, you know, a real fine, something that's going to change behavior. I mean, we're seeing obviously Mobile versus Workday, which is a class action suit now. I personally don't think that that has anything to do with AI. I think that just had specific triggers set up.

Cassell (14:07.099)

Mm. No.

Cassell (14:13.494)

Yeah.

Cassell (14:17.559)

Yep.

Chad Sowash (14:26.384)

In tech is tech. Let's just stop saying AI, RPA, whatever it was. The system was set up to exclude. That's what it was, right? It was set up to bias. Yeah. In this case, and in many cases, so we also have the eightfold FICRA cases that are coming up. Do you think that, again, these...

Cassell (14:38.52)

Filter out.

Chad Sowash (14:54.458)

cases and the fines don't seem to be enough to make these companies stop in the first place. Now that they're actually going after the vendors as well, do you think that might actually have some impact moving forward?

Cassell (15:08.404)

Yeah, I I don't think that it's necessarily the right thing because a well workday didn't build a a matching system. They built a filtering system. They work for the company, right? They they they their their cell is that they build efficiency. They don't make a match, they don't help candidates. That's the cell. It is designed to eliminate candidates efficiently and and according to Workday's own court filings, it rejected over a billion

Chad Sowash (15:18.244)

Yeah.

Cassell (15:37.525)

applications using AI scoring. And so and when you apply through a company's website, you don't even know on the surface whether workday is at play. You have to go to the URL and read that. You have to, you know, really have a keen eye for like what's going on. and so yeah, I don't think that I I I do think vendors should be held accountable, but I also think like those vendors are only

Chad Sowash (15:42.064)

Thanks

Cassell (16:06.072)

scaling bias that already existed. Like that the that machine is learning from patterns. Yes, that machine is learning from patterns that you yourself as a company built in over the the last 10, 20 years. that's what it's learning from. And that's no fault necessarily of workday, but

Chad Sowash (16:11.468)

existed in your company? Yes, yes.

Joel Cheesman (16:12.707)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (16:24.74)

But there are some, so eightfold in the Fair Credit Report Act, right? Yeah, so they're having problems because what they were doing is they were going out and scraping data and they were actually putting that data into candidate profiles, not validated, not verified, anything like that, right? And the Fair Credit Report Act focuses on transparency.

Cassell (16:34.68)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (16:54.606)

Right. If we get a credit report, we know what our credit report is. Right. That information is stuffed into your portfolio. You can see it. You can act on it. You can change it. In this case, can't happen because it's not transparent. They are enriching, quote unquote, enriching profiles, which sounds sweet. It sounds like, isn't that nice? They're doing something for the job seeker. Well, it's not validated. It's not verified. It might not be the same John Smith.

Cassell (16:55.096)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (17:12.76)

Sounds cute.

Chad Sowash (17:21.968)

right? Or Jane Doe, whatever it might. So so I do agree with you to some extent that some of these companies literally are just creating tools like, hey, I'm going to give you a screwdriver, you know, if you put it in, you know, somebody's forehead, that's not what it was used for. Right? That's not what it was supposed to be used for. But you have these companies, you have these companies like eightfold, who literally the transparency is not there. And even if the company wanted transparency, the system's not set up that

So I think this is a very case by case basis scenario, but we have a much smaller government now and we can't follow any of this shit to be quite frank. What are we going to do Cass?

Cassell (18:01.762)

Well, and they the government signed put put an executive order in place to and a task force, so they put an ex executive order in place to stop states from putting their own AI protections in for employees and candidates, and then they put a task force in place to sue any state.

Chad Sowash (18:09.264)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (18:30.668)

That tried to fight it or enforce their own AI protections. And so you look at like even Colorado, where I'm at, Elon Musk sued the state of Colorado when they tried to build in some transparency, put some things in place. And what did Colorado do? They backed right down and they were like, Okay, well, we'll just we'll just g you know, give a little bit and try not to hurt Elon. that's

Joel Cheesman (18:44.888)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (18:55.192)

Yeah. So do you think the the FICRA eightfold case is just dead on arrival? You think that the the federal oversight is gonna kill that? In the in the in the crib, if you will? Yeah.

Chad Sowash (18:57.232)

Yeah, good to see you.

Cassell (19:05.92)

I I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised, but I will say Eightfold AI is probably willing to pay the price because th they will end up incrementally, you know, better off than monetarily, financially, whatever. you know, everybody's selling data right now and it's they're gonna be just fine. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (19:32.27)

I hear it's the new oil. I hear it's the new oil, Cass.

Chad Sowash (19:34.705)

Here's the new oil. So, I mean, any protections, I definitely see this administration's ripping, like even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I mean, just like anything that is going to protect the citizens, get that shit out of here. But there's going to be a new sheriff in town sometime. It might not be soon enough, but there's going to be a new sheriff in town.

Cassell (19:35.02)

They're gonna be just fine. I know.

Cassell (19:47.435)

yeah.

Cassell (19:57.954)

God we hope.

Chad Sowash (19:59.537)

And so I think it's really important like for any companies who are listening to this podcast now to say look Yes, the current sheriff is like they're not paying attention It's the wild wild west, but you had better get your shit in order You'd better understand that these you know the fair credit report It might not have anything to do right now But they're going to use those those different tools to be able to come after that

Whether it's Mobley, whether it's even we were talking about Maki people and not understanding the basics of consideration for a candidate, especially when you're a federal government contractor and how you could fuck over one of your clients who's getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. So I mean, this is a very complex system and it's just been thrown into chaos.

Joel Cheesman (20:53.75)

And speaking of speaking of crap government policies, et cetera, you you talk a lot about gaps in the jobs number, the jolts number. I wanna I wanna talk about that. Let's yeah, let's let's get the let's let's get the rest of that video. Here we go.

Cassell (20:53.888)

And they don't care.

Chad Sowash (20:55.472)

And they don't care.

Cassell (21:05.378)

Hmm. Yep.

Chad Sowash (21:06.292)

play the thing. We did the tease.

Cassell (21:09.61)

Let's talk about it.

Chad Sowash (21:11.184)

All right, then. Let's play, let's play, let's play.

Chad Sowash (22:07.792)

Okay. Now, as we dig into this, because this is a cover up, that's a big piece of it. This is a lagging indicator, because obviously job openings open now, but they don't get filled for 30 to 60 to 90 days, right? So there's that lag that happens there. This seems to be a huge lag.

Can you talk about this data and your thoughts around that because we're used we're used to the lagging indicators, but this seems to be a huge ass gap to bridge

Joel Cheesman (22:43.318)

Feel free to name names, by the way.

Cassell (22:43.424)

And in this market, yeah. And in this market, no, absolutely not. We're we should not be taking ninety days to fill any job. I mean, that's a whole other discussion about the process and these take home projects and the unpaid labor that that these companies require of people just to get a job. but there's a two million job gap in this country right now between what companies say they're hiring for and what they're actually hiring. And

Chad Sowash (23:02.288)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (23:09.04)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (23:12.414)

It's not that we as a unemployed candidate market are not trying. It's a lot of what we're applying to isn't real. And so thinking about like the Indeed Hiring Lab, the May 2026 job report said that both hires and layoff rates remain depressed with

Chad Sowash (23:21.668)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (23:38.509)

The share of unemployed workers jobless for 27 weeks or more, actually that rose up to 27.5, up from 20% a year ago, just a year ago. And so, like when we think about the US hiring rate dropping to 3.3% in early 2026, matching the levels.

Chad Sowash (24:04.196)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (24:06.104)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (24:08.098)

That were last seen in the twenty twenty crisis. marking one of the lowest readings in like thirteen years. We're going back to yeah, two thousand ten, eight.

Chad Sowash (24:25.776)

2010, 2012.

Joel Cheesman (24:26.988)

What's what's going on with the gap? Is this ghost jobs? Is this can we really believe the data coming out of the government now? Is like what is what's going on? Is this sk skills gap? All of the above? Help me understand what's going on.

Cassell (24:40.074)

Yeah. So th there is this really great study out proving that twenty-seven to thirty-three percent of these jobs are fake, right? But we also have low hire, low fire happening. So companies are not laying off workers in large waves the way that they were a year or two or three ago, but they're not bringing in anyone new. So for active job seekers, that distinction

Chad Sowash (24:55.418)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (25:09.324)

does matter enormously because while even you know six-figure job openings still exist, companies for for those roles are are not necessarily hiring them. And I will tell you, I keep getting a lot of commentary around like, the government, you know, pays these companies to list these jobs. And I can't find anything that substantiates it.

Chad Sowash (25:38.833)

Say for what? mean, other than government contracts, that would actually be associated to the actual contract and getting work done. The government doesn't care about how many people you hire. To some extent, they're just looking to be able to get those outcomes and that more than likely you're going to have to hire people to get that done. But that's another change. Yeah, no, but that's another change in the way the old system worked because if you

Cassell (25:42.1)

I think it's the contracts, yeah, yeah.

Cassell (25:50.882)

No.

Cassell (25:59.127)

Well, and they want to signal growth. Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (26:06.704)

pushed a bunch of money into an industry, there would have to be people to come in to be able to design, deliver, sell, service, those types of things, right? As things are changing dramatically from the standpoint of whether it's automations, robots, whatever it might be, that's changing. So there might be some pieces in those contracts where they say that they actually have to hire people where they didn't, I don't believe had to before.

Cassell (26:36.15)

Yeah. I think the majority of it is growth signaling. companies want to make sure that investors are seeing open headcount. I also think that there was a survey that went out where HR professionals admitted that and hiring managers that having open jobs posted for people who are already in the role and like not leaving or not aware that they're leaving.

Chad Sowash (26:44.005)

Hmm.

Chad Sowash (27:03.173)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (27:04.376)

Mm-hmm.

Cassell (27:05.848)

increases productivity, increases company morale, and also you know, it tells people that they are replaceable. And so yeah, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (27:09.696)

Interesting.

Chad Sowash (27:13.584)

pressure.

Joel Cheesman (27:13.664)

Interesting. And if if if more and more things are automated, there's no repercussions, right? It used to be like, my God, I can't handle these resumes. We don't we're not even hiring for this job. Well, if robots are taking all the applications, then there's no punishment for keeping these jobs up. No one's suffering from this. It's just more content for the robots and the filters to deal with, right?

Cassell (27:31.084)

Yeah.

Cassell (27:37.367)

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And my friends in the in in these companies are telling me that now, you know, these these companies are making moves to get ahead of the l perceived laws that could be coming and saying, Hey candidate, now you have the option to opt out. Well, those opt outs go into a completely different pile. And because these companies have just gutted their recruiting workforce, there's no one to review the opt outs.

Joel Cheesman (28:03.99)

Opt out some of our listeners may not know when you say opt out it means I'm opting out of the algos or the the agents. Yeah. Yeah. Which is basically killing yourself. Yeah.

Cassell (28:08.726)

that you're opting out of the yeah, the the AI review and you're essentially saying, I I would prefer a human yes, it is. I would prefer a human evaluate my my skills. They will never be don't do that. They'll never be heard from again.

Chad Sowash (28:16.154)

the

Joel Cheesman (28:20.396)

Yeah, don't do that job seekers. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (28:24.112)

which is very large population individuals with disabilities do that because they need accommodation or what have you. I want to take it back to the 60 to 90 day hiring. As we'd said, again, that's old world, but it's still happening, which is one of the reasons why, not the big reason, I think, but one of the reasons why we still have this lag in these numbers. Why is it that talent acquisition, they haven't figured out

Cassell (28:29.943)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (28:33.645)

Great point.

Chad Sowash (28:51.536)

automation yet. I mean, we've had automation in this space and technology for well over a decade. Many companies are now starting to catch on and they're I mean, they're using it and they're using it incredibly well. But that's that's I'm going to say maybe on the high side, 10 percent of companies. Why are the other ones not catching on and they still have the 60 to 90 day bullshit hiring process?

Cassell (29:18.604)

I'll never know the answer to this. I mean Yeah, I think there are companies who just don't buy into the technology piece. There are very few of them. I mean, it it's like 10% of the of companies that are hiring are not using some form of AI in their process. And it's not I'm not saying every, you know, that ninety percent of companies are using AI to drive every hiring decision, but I'm just saying that

Chad Sowash (29:21.508)

I just, don't get it. I don't get it.

Chad Sowash (29:46.746)

could be

Cassell (29:47.313)

Somewhere in the process, yeah, there is an AI piece of it happening. And I listen, I worked for Cap Group for a year. They're an investment company in LA. And one of their largest leaders refused to use email. Like he was adamantly opposed to email. He had a Rolodex on his desk. And this wasn't that long ago. This is like 10 years ago to

Chad Sowash (30:16.611)

my god. huh.

Cassell (30:16.696)

12 years ago. Yeah. And he just refused to use email or, you know, do any of that. That that company also had no women anywhere in their leadership. And all of the women that they did have worked in HR. so that was really fun.

Joel Cheesman (30:33.038)

Mm-hmm. Ironically, it's come full circle because my teenagers never use email. Like email is so old and antiquated, so we've come full circle. Maybe they'll have Rolodexes. So so Cass, we know, we know that there's a case in Texas now. They're going after LinkedIn for these ghost jobs. What's your take on that? Can the government solve this ghost job crisis? Is this just politicizing the issue? Your take.

Cassell (30:38.764)

Yeah. Okay, okay.

Chad Sowash (30:41.498)

text, messenger, WhatsApp.

Chad Sowash (30:47.493)

Yes.

Cassell (30:50.231)

Yeah.

Cassell (30:59.274)

I think they there is some form of politicizing it for sure, but I also think that Texas is a very poor state. you know, in in general. They're under resourced, they're you know, they they have a very large population of people on government assistance. I think that th there's this piece of like

irritation for what's happening with these ghost jobs. Like they they probably want to have some fight. Yeah. so that I don't know, Ken Paxton, like I never trusted him less. But but I think and it's interesting, like I went back and looked at like the the LinkedIn party donations. Like who who are they supporting? What are they doing? And I just I can't figure it out.

Chad Sowash (31:29.456)

Yeah, great word.

Chad Sowash (31:39.984)

What a douchebag. Yeah.

Cassell (31:55.577)

cannot figure it out. So we'll find out. Yeah, I mean, no, I don't the government is absolutely not solving this. And there there will be no policing. And and what's gonna come back is LinkedIn's gonna come back and say, well, we just we were you know we don't we don't in we don't enforce whether these jobs are real. That's on the company. Like I can see this sort of being the agent bought like same system as workday and and what it's doing.

Chad Sowash (31:55.748)

Yeah. Yeah. What I

Joel Cheesman (31:57.263)

So little hope that government can solve it. You you you're not okay. I I just don't know how you police it.

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (32:22.062)

Pass the buck. It's it's the Spider Man gift where there are three three Spidermen pointing at each other. Yeah.

Cassell (32:23.456)

Yeah, they're gonna kick it down the line. It's gonna take four or five years for any court. Yeah, it's gonna take four or five years for any court to get their head around any of it. And then they'll, you know, come back in five or six years and be like, Yeah, we never really figured that out, but there's less g job ghost job postings now. So

Chad Sowash (32:28.73)

Yeah

Chad Sowash (32:43.088)

It'll get there. It'll get there. The dog knows his time Castle Castle. Thanks for showing up in my in my tick tock feed. We really appreciate you coming on the show. Now, not a problem if people want to follow they want to connect. Where do you usually send them?

Joel Cheesman (32:46.914)

The

Cassell (32:47.124)

Yeah.

Cassell (32:53.236)

Appreciate the follow.

Cassell (33:02.424)

Instagram? TikTok? Yeah, I don't know. we go to refra so re okay. On Instagram, I am Jesus, you guys. I don't even know what I am. This is crazy. So I'm I know that on TikTok I'm I'm the dot reframed dot collective. yeah.

Chad Sowash (33:05.872)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (33:07.874)

Give give the handle. Give the handle.

Chad Sowash (33:20.189)

So many human handles. Yes.

Joel Cheesman (33:23.349)

huh.

Chad Sowash (33:28.112)

the reframed collective. That's not.

Cassell (33:31.917)

On the on the insta, I am just the reframed collective. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (33:40.654)

And there you have it.

Joel Cheesman (33:41.784)

Chad, we're just gonna put some links in the description. Guys, you just just go to the go to the description, guys, if you need something. That is another one in the can, everybody. We out.

Chad Sowash (33:44.24)

Love it.

Chad Sowash (33:51.077)

We out.

Cassell (33:53.689)

Thanks, guys.