AllyO Mercy Killing
While cooling fall temperatures are sneaking up on us, the world remains a hot mess - Trump gets 'The Rona,' R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen and flies love V.P. Mike Pence - and the podcast keeps it spicy.
This week,
AllyO and HireVue aka "Dead and Bloated"
Indeed isn't acting like Indeed - who is behind the wheel?
and strippers are taking matters into their owns hands (and laptops).
Who needs a champagne room anyway? Hey, no touching!
As always, The Chad & Cheese Podcast is powered by Sovren, JobAdx and Jobvite.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
SFX (0s):
Great. Now I get to be a stripper.
INTRO (18s):
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 (37s):
Oh yeah. Dude, hours after our last podcast, and Trump gets the COVID. God! What happens this week? Well, let's find out. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Everybody. I'm your cohost Joel hot for teacher Cheesman.
Chad (39s):
And I'm Chad "Jamie's crying" Sowash.
Joel (49s):
On this week's show, AllyO comes into view, Glassdoor puts a number on workplace DNI, and strippers are taking back the power!
Chad (-):
What?
Joel (52s):
Quit running with the devil and dancing the night away. Go ahead and jump. We'll be right back.
SOVREN (1m 1s):
Sovren Parser is the most accurate resume and job order intake technology in the industry. The more accurate your data, the better decisions you can make. Find out more about our suite of products today by visiting sovren.com, that's S O V R E N.com. We provide technology that thinks, communicates and collaborates like a human. Sovren - software so human you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad (1m 27s):
Curses 2020.
Joel (-):
Panama!
Chad (1m 31s):
So Eddie Van Halen, 65 years old, dies of cancer. Go figure in 2020. 2020, the Grim Reaper fucking buffet special.
Joel (1m 42s):
Yeah, I won't even say what I said off, off camera or offline about who would be next because I'll jinx, the world, but dude Van Halen, I remember so, quick memories of Van Halen, 1984 comes out.
Chad (-):
Yes.
Joel (1m 59s):
You and I are conveniently 13 when this album comes out. We're prepubescent teenagers.
Chad (-):
Full of hormones, dude.
Joel (2m 3s):
This album for me, was really revolutionary. It was, it was dangerous, but your parents accepted it because, oh, is that cute song Jump that was on the radio? You know, they didn't know that the baby on the cover was smoking a pack of Marlboros. They didn't hear the rest of the album. It just, it was just a really cool record. MTV was coming into view. The video jump was great, Hot for Teacher, Panama. Like they mixed rock and, and accessibility with like humor and, and just a lot of class and, and pomp and circumstance.
Joel (2m 41s):
I honestly haven't followed them for 30 years, 25 years. But for that brief moment in time, they were the best band in the world in my eyes. And I will still hold to this day outside of maybe the baseline to Billy Jean, the guitar riff on Beat It, is the best thing on Thriller. Prove me wrong.
Chad (3m 0s):
Oh, Yeah, you can't. It's Eddie Van Halen. I mean, who's going to out guitar, who's going to out riff Eddie Van Halen? I mean, obviously there are plenty - Stevie Ray Vaughan and there's some amazing guitars out there, but Eddie Van Halen, no question, going down in history easily as one of the best guitarists ever and this week, I've done nothing, but sit in, listen to live van Halen.
Chad (3m 31s):
And I, and I remember when David Lee Roth left after 1984, I was like, these guys are done. I mean, who are they going to get to actually feel his, his shoes had amazing voice. Sammy Hagar comes in and I'm like, dude, he can't keep up with what David Lee. Oh no!
Joel (3m 43s):
He can't do the splits. What?
Chad (3m 45s):
Oh, he did. Oh yeah. He didn't need the splits. He didn't need that shit. He had tequila, and that motherfucker could just go. So yeah, Van Halen after David Lee Roth, the Van Halen brothers and, and, and Anthony, those guys just, they kept rolling.
Joel (4m 2s):
Yeah. Eddie was the motor behind all that. And what, what a great musician, showman. I mean, from the guitar designs to the clothing, to the, I mean, he played synthesizer on Jump and I mean just a really brilliant guy and really sad that he, he left us at such an early age. So rest in peace, Eddie. I'm sure you're up somewhere jamming with Jimmy and the rest of the guys and having a good time.
Chad (-):
Alright. Shout Outs!
Joel (-):
Shout outs. Let's do that!
Bell (4m 32s):
ding, ding, ding
Chad (4m 37s):
Eddie O'Neal over at Symphony Talent in Jacksonville, Florida, and Neill, with two L's Dunwoody from Titan Talent Services in Monahan, Ireland. Thanks for listening and connecting gents. Now make sure that everyone, you know, subscribes to the Chad and Cheese, wherever they listen to podcasts, or we're just going to chadcheese.com. You can listen there too.
Joel (5m 1s):
Nice, nice. Shout Out to Shannon Pritchard, Shannon, who used to be at well source con and ERE has been at Career Crossroads for a year and she celebrated her first anniversary with them. They're a great organization, great people. So Shout Out to her. And by the way, a little known fact about me, Barbara Reese, who works for a Career Crossroads hired me in this industry back in '97. So a little bit of a little bit of trivia about me and Barbara Reese and my connection to Career Crossroads.
Chad (5m 32s):
And I can guarantee you, Barb is saying, don't tell anyone that shit.
Joel (5m 38s):
They're saying, well, why Barb? Why?
Chad (5m 56s):
Why? Hey, big Shout Out again. To Madison Butler, this lady draws a crowd. I posted the stop hiring a racist podcast on LinkedIn. And who knew that a young black woman speaking her mind would bring so much love and hate?
Joel (6m 1s):
Now, what what's that? What's that thing up to now, 20 some thousand?
Chad (6m 3s):
27,000. Yeah, but I mean, the thing that kills me is that we saw fake accounts on Twitter and you see that. I mean, that happens and it's easy to see, but that kind of shit's happening on LinkedIn, where these fake accounts are being created. They're networking to each other. They're getting people like us that connect with just about anybody, because they want to be hyper connectors, which I don't think you or I really give two shits about. But anyway, they build up their following to an extent to seem like they're real people and they're not.
Chad (6m 37s):
It's nothing but trolling. And there's a network literally that find people like Madison and do everything they possibly can to keep her down and keep her voice out, attacking us, attacking her. And it's just like, yeah, I'm just, it's easy. Just block these fuckers.
Joel (6m 57s):
Yeah. Do you have any like deep seated conspiracy theories around this? Do you think like organizations are creating bots to frustrate and disheartened champions of diversity and inclusion?
Chad (7m 24s):
Well they did it during the 2016 election. That was fairly simple. I mean, they were trying to suppress black voters in this case, just taking it, you know, maybe a step or half a step and starting to try to suppress black voices.
Joel (7m 25s):
Who do you think they is?
Chad (-):
They're a bunch of Nazi fucking assholes. How's that?
Joel (7m 33s):
Dark. A Shout Out to Mike Cohen, we know him as Batman, but he was, he was really a generous this week. I got this little app startup thing. He called poach.ai. I don't talk about it much on the show, but Batman tweeted out that he liked the service so far and it was doing really well and people should definitely check it out. So that was big in my book. He doesn't just do that with anybody. So Mike, we appreciate you, man. Keep batting on.
Joel (8m 2s):
And October 31 coming, that's probably Batman's prime time, man.
Chad (8m 6s):
And this is all post COVID for him. I mean, remember he had it, so he's, he's coming out. He's swinging
Joel (8m 12s):
Good Point.
Chad (8m 13s):
It's good that he's, he's at least feeling healthy.
Joel (8m 16s):
Love the Batman, love the Batman
Chad (8m 18s):
On, on a sour note. I'm sorry, kids, but Gordon Collier posted on Twitter last night that he said I'm salty tonight. Officially I'm shutting down my career fit. #COVID19sucks. And if you remember the Alexa firing squad with Gordon Collier, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about My Career Fit, which is an Alexa mainly based, also worked with, with the Google assistant.
Chad (8m 49s):
But it's a, it helped companies get their voices out there to candidates wanted to use more voice. And unfortunately it looks like it's gone.
Joel (8m 59s):
The site is still up by checked it. Maybe had a moment of bitterness. Maybe he'll come back, come back to the living. I don't know. But yeah, Gordon's a huge fan of the show. He's obviously listening. So Gordon, yeah. Send us an update and we'll, we'll let the people know what's going on. We know that startups are hard and you and I have for, since we started the show, tried to been a champion of startups and give these folks a voice, you know, where they can't get one on the, the mainstream, you know, HR press. And we try to shine a light on these guys and it's sad to see them to see them go.
Joel (9m 32s):
So Gordon, we know you're out there, send us an update, get us, give us more color around what's going on? Is it just COVID and businesses is dead or is there something deeper than that? I'd certainly like to know. And I'm sure some listeners would also. Speaking of startups, I'll go ahead and Shout Out a company called rec text full disclosure. I'm an advisor for these guys, but they're a text messaging company, similarly, similar to a sponsor Emissary of the show.
Joel (10m 4s):
But these guys, I won't just, you know, give away too much, but they have the typical rollercoaster ride of a startup. And they recently had some big wins and they are encouraged by that and empowered to keep going. So startups out there, obviously with Gordon are having issues and challenges, but they're also success stories. And I just wanted to share that a little tidbit of success out there for those startups that are maybe needing some, some encouragement to keep going. Yep.
Chad (10m 31s):
Well, Adam Conrad, who is, is heading out the Great Recruiters. We just dropped a firing squad podcast this week. Adam warned people on his LinkedIn page to prepare for some not, safe for work podcasting and David Searns CEO over at Haley Marketing replied back. Yeah, I don't mind at all. I'm a big I'm a big fan of Chad and Cheese. One of the few podcasts I listen to regularly.
Chad (11m 2s):
Boom. Glad to hear it, David. I hope it's mandatory listening for all of Haley Marketing.
Joel (11m 7s):
All right. Well from cussing and bad language, let's jump to Beer Drop Beer Drop, your new promotion. It has its own website. It's so huge. Head out to beerdrop.net, not.com. We couldn't get that beerdrop.net. Sign up. Give us your address for a chance to win. Yeah, you guessed it. Free beer. Everybody. Beer dropnet. Go there. Now.
Chad (11m 32s):
Beerdrop is is something that John Thurman likes. He actually tweeted out. Hey Chad and Ceez, why didn't I think of offering free beer before is beyond me? Well-played gents. Well-played hashtag #bigOktoberfestfan and #signmeup. Well, John, sign yourself up, man. It's not just about beer. It's also tee shirts. You can opt into mobile news in your pocket, Chadcheese.com/free sign up for everything.
Chad (12m 6s):
That's what you want. You want everything!
Joel (12m 8s):
Trying to convince Chad to do a Chad and Cheese Speedo, but he has yet to, to agree to that. So I'm working on it, folks, working on it, hopefully by summer next year, Chad & Cheese Speedos.
Chad (12m 21s):
Events. We can go through Events real quick. So the going back to your RecTechs conversation, this is pretty cool, because the HR Tech investor panel, we did earlier this week. Any company or any one who actually cares about what investors think, what they're looking for, what they're not looking for, how to be a great founder and CEO, check out that reporting on my socials. We talked to investors in companies like ISIMS, who's very closely tied to Vista.
Chad (12m 54s):
Mike Willcheck the Chief Strategy Officer over there, an angel investor, from Hungary, Peter Balog, a managing partner over at Unifier Ventures in Germany, Manwell Encarnacion and David Geren from Bright Eye VC in France. So we had France, Germany, Hungary in the U S having conversations around not just about getting money, but if you're located in one of those areas, like most of our listeners are, what do you do?
Chad (13m 27s):
You know, everybody looks at the US as this big pile of money, but do you go after it right out of the gate? So we had some really good conversations around that. Wow. That's a lot of countries did a fight breakout. No you weren't on the call.
Joel (13m 43s):
Did you watch the debate last night? By the way?
Chad (13m 45s):
Oh my God. Yeah.
Joel (13m 48s):
Any, any tweets in, in verbal format you want to share?
Chad (13m 52s):
It was easy. I mean, as soon as the fly got stuck in Pence's fucking wig. I had to go up and take a picture of it. And then I started sharing it. I mean, Michael Mike Pence guys, just so that, you know, he's a fucking zombie. He is a corpse. He has no heart. He's a lying piece of shit. And you can tell because the flies just gather around corpse and pieces of shit. Yeah.
Joel (14m 23s):
Lying piece of shit. People don't know this. He's a son of Columbus, Indiana.
Chad (-):
Yeah. Don't remind anyone.
Joel (14m 29s):
Sorry about that. So my takeaway from the, the debate is that before Trump, every four years, this shit would happen. There'd be a little, you know, kerfuffle on TV and it'd be fun to watch. Now. It feels like every day is a shit show. And these debates just mean nothing. They're just reminders of how tired everyone is, man. This thing it's like the Apprentice, right? Like the Apprentice was fun for a couple seasons. It was entertaining by season four, they had to get Gary Bucy on the show, to get you to watch it, right?
Joel (14m 60s):
Like this is just it's lost its entertainment value. And it just pisses me off. Thank God for that fly. I died laughing if for two minutes, that fucking thing was on his head. Come on man! Fuckin' robot, you can't feel a fly on your head? anyway,
Chad (15m 17s):
In fisticuffs, I take Kamala any day. She would a bitch slapped that fucker so quick.
Joel (15m 21s):
And what was up with his red eye man? He had like some pinkeye shit and some, any let's just get to the News.
Chad (15m 27s):
COVID. Topics!
Joel (15m 31s):
AllyO
Chad (15m 32s):
Ally-E-O.
Joel (15m 33s):
Sure. I did the shred on it. I mean, pretty basic stuff. HireVue, we know is a pretty popular, very popular and successful video interviewing company. Obviously everyone's trying to get on the automation train AllyO, which I've been hearing for a long time, trying to sell the company, like shopping the shit out of what they're doing. Apparently all their competitors took a, took a hard pass. HireVue. Finally took the call and listened and acquired the company.
Joel (16m 4s):
So they'll integrate the AI chat bot, conversational stuff, scheduling all the things that we talk about AllyO tries to do. It's questionable. How good they, how well they do it, Allyo raised 64 million, I think.
Chad (-):
Yep.
Joel (16m 21s):
Most of that was last year, had a, B, they did not disclose they did not disclose the price tag, which tells me it was less than 64, probably quite a bit less than that. Someone I talked to in the chat bot convo, AI space said this was not a win either for AllyO or for the chat bot conversational AI industry. So take that for what it's worth AllyO as a brand will be gone probably by the time this podcast airs.
Joel (16m 51s):
And it looks like some of the employees will come. But if you look at LinkedIn on, in terms of the number of employees that AllyO has, it kind of looks like they've been calling the herd so to speak. So I'm not sure how many people are going to move over to HireVue. But yeah, it looks like a, a fire sale a little bit and good luck to HireVue integrating this stuff and being a platform of automation through the, from high to hired AllyO.
Chad (17m 17s):
Yeah. So from an anonymous industry source, I have a few points to share with you. AllyO was burning cash, like crazy, had to drastically reduce head count, let go of the lease of the office and pulled back on the product roadmap dramatically. Sales in the last six months were not great at all to be nice. They had to let go of their head of sales. He went packing the last day of Q2. Pretty much get your box and get the fuck out.
Joel (17m 49s):
Nice.
Chad (17m 50s):
Rumor was at the end VCs were all calling the shots. So it was like leadership step aside, VCs are coming in and this was a distressed sale and that's putting it nicely. There's no way they covered the 64, by rumors. In, in, in my opinion, there's no way they covered the 64. PE hub said it was a range between 50 and a hundred and I think the range means it was 50. And the big question is what was AllyO's problem.
Chad (18m 22s):
They had the money had smart people. What was their downfall?
Joel (18m 25s):
Ooo, it's all speculation. From my point of view, I know that the there's been a high level of abrasiveness from the at least one of the founders. And we've talked to Anket lovingly called spank it for our podcast so you can go back and listen to the archives. But yeah, I don't know if there's a disconnect between the technology and actually building a company and building a service for our industry and sort of getting it. Obviously it was a very competitive space so that, and they were competing with people that knew the business and knew the industry and had contacts.
Joel (18m 58s):
So that's a question I could only speculate on. I will say that I think that the tech was a little bit suspect. I went out just at curiosity sake. I want to, I went to Staples, which is one of their flag, you know, flagship brands on the site and decided to, to check out the, the, the bot. And so I went in and said, basically, you know, the basic, like, hello, I'm AllyO Staples, virtual recruiting assistant, blah, blah, blah. And then the question had asked me, was, would you like to find a job?
Joel (19m 30s):
Reply Y or N, hopefully I knew, yes and N was No. Why was he asking then, they didn't sort of speculate or signify that, so anyway, I replied N for no. And the reply I got was "Got it. Thanks for your interest. Goodbye!" With an exclamation point. So there wasn't even like, okay, well, would you like to know more about Staples or at least like, okay, well here's a link to join Staples, whatever program, or like, it was just "Got it. Thanks. Bye bye."
Joel (19m 60s):
Right. So they certainly did not seem to get the connection between branding user experience and the technology. And I'm assuming that may be carried over to a lot more of the product than just the yes or no are you looking for a job.
Chad (20m 14s):
During the investor panel that I talked about earlier, Peter, the angel investor from Hungary said that he looks for, the number one thing he looks for is not the tech, it's the founder. Leadership wins the day. And I had another source say, when I asked about leadership AllyO they said a quote, first time CEO, no industry experience, full of hubris, unable and unwilling to see his blind spots and led by the whip.
Chad (20m 46s):
So again, from an investor who mentors, founders, and these guys had a shit ton of cash people. The thing that I was able to just myself, kind of pull together and talking to a bunch of people is leadership, is everything. Focus is everything not trying to be all things to everyone, even though you have a shit ton of cash, it doesn't matter. We've seen startups burn out $18 million in 18 months. Now we've got, now we've got a 64 million who more than likely is not going to be able to cover.
Chad (21m 20s):
So that, from my standpoint, I hope that leadership takes a step back and they reassess and they learn from this because they're going to go out and they're going to do this again. Right. And I hope they do, and I hope they become successful, but they've got to get better at leading.
Joel (21m 40s):
Yeah, stop me if you've heard this before. Right? Like people, startups that come in that have no core competency around employment, have a really tough time being successful. So aside from everything you said, which is true, not understanding our buyer is a real hurdle for these companies and startups.
Chad (21m 56s):
Well, and the HireVue outlook, I see the problem with this play is that HireVue has been in the market for many years and they haven't been acquired. They have nearly a hundred million dollars in funding. They aren't turning into an ATS anytime soon, they have become a bloated point solution. And now they're bloated point solutions. So where does HireVue go? Nobody's going to buy them unless there's a huge HCM player who wants to try to get into the space.
Chad (22m 28s):
But there are so many players in the interview space who can partner with conversational AI to be able to try to do some of the things that HireVue is doing at a much, much, much lower price point.
Joel (22m 48s):
Yep. Yep. The moat around that business has, has dwindled and dried up. Oh, damn.
Chad (-):
There's no moat.
Joel (22m 51s):
Yeah. I was being nice. There's a little bit of a moat. There might be an alligator somewhere on the loose in that moat that might, that might get you. But yeah, the protection that business has had has gone away over the years and it's sort of coming to fruition. This sort of feels a little bit like a hail Mary to try to save things and become more of an automation platform, but it's
Chad (23m 16s):
Feels like Intello right when Intello also did the bundle buy of
Joel (-):
Convey IQ.
Chad (23m 22s):
Yes Convey IQ. They did the bundle and it was like, Oh, we're going to stay alive. Yes, for how long?
Joel (23m 26s):
Yeah. As, as close as the dinosaur snuggle, that meteor writes still still gets a man. It never, never fails. Never fails.
Chad (23m 34s):
But you know who's not a dinosaur. And they love to snuggle that's little rock. He's a snuggler man. Yeah.
Joel (23m 43s):
Snuggle man. He's not quite the hugger, but he's the snuggler.
Chad (23m 47s):
HR wins acquired by Unleash and Unleash is going to go into a new market. Dorsal rock, HR wins, acquired by Unleash. And George is now the SVP of insights moving on up. My man. Awesome. To hear and congrats to Mark Coleman and the rest of the Unleashed team as well for this smart pickup. I didn't think this was big at first. Then I sat back and, and I read more on the Unleashed site and I went, wait a minute, there's something here.
Joel (24m 20s):
Yeah. I mean, I think time will tell exactly what this means, but I mean, we know, we know George has sort of the, the eye in the sky on investment money and where capital's flowing. He was in charge of, or at least partly in charge of the U S operation for unleash. So there's, there's obviously some relationship there. There's some synergies there Unleash obviously wants to get into the U S and have someone with a core competency around our market to do that. But I think what I'm surprised about, and I think what you're going to elaborate on is, is sort of Unleash has taken this, this, you know, this virus, this pandemic, this, this horrible situation and said, we're going to grab the bull by the horns.
Joel (25m 2s):
And we're going to try to grow and gobble up market share and try to find opportunities where other people are, are, you know, fearful and, and under the table. And I think this is symbolic of unleash saying, you know what, there's an opportunity here, we're going to take it and George is a great piece to put into that. And to that business of the US obviously the, the data play with what George does with his surveys, with his, his money, you know, he has a team now he's got a fucking chart for everything.
Joel (25m 33s):
The guy takes dumps every week and he's got a chart for it. So I think putting that data into the conference side and to, I think probably the archive presentations that are there, I think all of it, it creates a really interesting, almost educational foundation that the company can really grow outside of events and be an intelligence tool, be an education tool, a subscription based business, maybe where, you know, you pay X per, per month. And if you're a premier, if you're an Unleashed plus member, you get to come to all the events for half off or free.
Joel (26m 10s):
I think it's a pretty genius move, but until this thing starts to unfold and they start announcing more of what it looks like, it's just promise at this point. But I think both of us are pretty excited about what it's going to be or what it could be.
Chad (26m 22s):
An opportunity to become a Rundle, reoccurring revenue bundling. I can see that all day. So here's, here's what I'm saying. It's a tale of two companies, E R E who we know as an, as an event company that does a lot of content. They tried to in events early, COVID about $1,500 per ticket. And from my understanding, it didn't go well, they had to cut head counts and they went into hibernation, right? So, so ERE made a decision. They said, look, what we're going to do is we're going to squirrel up our nuts and we're going to go into hibernation.
Chad (26m 56s):