After a 2-week hiatus, the boys are back from Recfest and some R &R in Europe and ready to rip shit up. In their crosshairs? CareerBuilder, Remote.com, SHRM, SmartRecruiters, and even Burger King all feel the burn. Plus, a conspiracy theory from Chad, a 20-year Army veteran, on the state of military recruitment you don't want to miss. It'll be like they never left.
You're welcome!
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INTRO (1s):
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 (22s):
Oh yeah. Just two guys. Still figuring out which Spice Girls they want to impregnate. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "Posh" Cheeseman.
Chad (36s):
This is Chad "back in the New York groove" Sowash.
Joel (40s):
And on this week show TMP or, I mean, Radancy has a new roommate CareerBuilder gets caught stripping and layoffs?
Chad (52s):
Lay offs.
Joel (52s):
Let's do this.
Chad (57s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (58s):
Aw. Did you miss us everybody?
Chad (1m 0s):
Two weeks away, baby. Two weeks away,
Joel (1m 3s):
Three weeks away in beautiful Europe man. Are you still there? Are you back? I'm so confused.
Chad (1m 9s):
Oh no. I'm back. It took us forever to get back because of this bag, fucking baggage luggage situation in Heathrow, we actually were stalled on the tarmac for like two hours while they were loading.
Joel (1m 23s):
Was it melting? Was the tarmac melting?
Chad (1m 25s):
It was Luton. That was Luton. But we got, we got to JFK. We could make our connection. So sunny side of this bad boy, we actually got New York style pizza, which is my favorite pizza in the world. Had to stay the night, but got back yesterday
Joel (1m 41s):
And you slept for what? 20 hours? And you're ready to podcast apparently.
Chad (1m 46s):
I am ready. I hope I remember how to do this shit. Yeah.
Joel (1m 49s):
Yeah. So I, I took a different route from you after RecFest. I went to Liverpool for a day and a half or so and saw Beatle shit. It's a very, it's a very underrated, hidden gem of the UK, Liverpool. I highly recommend it.
Chad (2m 4s):
Never heard that.
Joel (2m 5s):
And then, yeah, I'd never heard that. And then flew off to a beautiful Scandinavia ~ Helsinki to meet up with my wife who's doing a conference she's actually still there some days in Helsinki, which there's no other whiter place that I've been. I mean, it is a white, rice skin, not light skin, rice skin country. We went up to
Chad (2m 28s):
Translucent.
Joel (2m 29s):
Yeah. They're almost invisible. No one lives there. It's so it's so white. We went up to Ulu about two hour train ride north.
Chad (2m 36s):
Excuse you?
Joel (2m 37s):
And then this is all my wife. She wanted to go to the north like Arctic Circle. So we literally drove, rented a car, went up to the Arctic Circle where it, the line crosses. And there's literally a line there that says, Hey, you are now entering the Arctic Circle and no surprise to anyone. There's a Santa's village on the Arctic Circle where even in July, Santa is there with kids on his lap, getting wishes and you can buy really cheap gifts and ornaments and have really bad food. If you want. It's sort of a Disney on crack with Santa Claus at the Arctic Circle.
Joel (3m 17s):
It's a different world. And then we came back to Helsinki and actually enjoyed some civilization and the Scandinavian hospitality. And I've been back for about a week, but I enjoyed our trip. And I know you did too, just from the pictures and I know who you hung out with and it's good to get away from the mic for awhile. But I think we're both ready to do some show
Chad (3m 41s):
That's right. Yeah. You go to the north pole and I go to the Southern coast of Portugal. I mean, go fucking figure.
Joel (3m 48s):
Yeah. You married who you did. And I am married who I did and that's just the way it goes sometimes kids.
Chad (3m 54s):
It is what it is. So, but yeah, before we jump into too much, from a Recfest standpoint, I've got to do pre Recfest stuff. First and foremost, Gem and Rob from Talent Nexus. They treated to Julie and I to a night on the town. Oh my God. So many different drinks. It was ridiculous. Then we hit the Pandologic shindig. And when I say we, it was Julia and I, because you had a total rookie move, you missed it entirely.
Joel (4m 28s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you, so yeah, my rookie move, you sort of bounced out of RecFest early. Yes. Because, because you party too hard cowboy, that's the rookie move. So I got to party with the EDM crowd at the end of the show and got to hang out with CandidateID Stephen until the wee hours of the night, if you will.
Chad (4m 51s):
Love it.
Joel (4m 52s):
In a Scottish accent. But yeah, granted, you got some benefits of coming early and doing that thing, but I got a little bit of advantage with enjoying more of the show, but yeah, I appreciate the rookie comment.
Chad (5m 3s):
We'll talk about my move here in a minute, but yeah, let's talk about RecFest. I mean, bigger, better, amazing Ferris wheel. I was incredibly surprised cause 2019 was our first time. Did it not seem bigger?
Joel (5m 16s):
There was a Ferris wheel for God's sakes. Yes. It felt bigger as the Brits say it was legend, man. It was "legend," legend.
Chad (5m 25s):
And you were shattered after it was over.
Joel (5m 28s):
Keep in mind, dude, we were not insulated, but we were there early. We were sort of in our realm of conference where we introduced an emceed. So we got to hear second hand the lines, you know, the traffic, the masses of people that came. We only got to see them once we, sorta got relieved of our duty, but I don't think you and I have as much appreciation for how big this thing was because we were emceeing and sort of glued to the stage with our presentation.
Chad (6m 3s):
Everybody wanted to get to RecFest. It's funny Shelley, from Recruitment Flex, she hired a fucking photographer. That was next level shit. I got it. That's a big applause for Shelley. I got to see the pictures.
Joel (6m 14s):
Yeah. And by the way, I was seeing like drone photos. There was some pictures of overhead shot of all the cars. So Jamie spared, no expense with a, with the media at this content. It was great. The videos from it are just now starting to pop, so good stuff.
Chad (6m 30s):
Yeah. The Australians brought us whiskey. So Craig and Lauren from TApod brought us whiskey. It was, it wasn't amazing because it was Australian, but it was whiskey and it was good enough that it didn't even last an hour. So thanks guys. Appreciate the whiskey.
Joel (6m 45s):
And those are apparently aged with a kangaroo and scorpion venom or something. So it had a unique taste that Australian whiskey did.
Chad (6m 57s):
Yes. Yes. They were treating their fellow podcasters like royalty, I guess the Australian way. But Lois, her green room was money. I'm just mad I didn't get a chance to get a massage. That's that was one of the things I've got to do next year.
Joel (7m 15s):
Massage?
Chad (7m 16s):
Massage. No, they had massages there. I just didn't make time. I was doing other shit I should have next year I'm making time.
Joel (7m 24s):
Were you a little jealous that the Australians had hats for their podcast? Just a little bit?
Chad (7m 32s):
No, not at all. I was not.
Joel (7m 33s):
I'm not lugging those things around the country.
Chad (7m 37s):
Nothing beats our t-shirts baby, nothing beats our t-shirts.
Joel (7m 39s):
Although nice trucker hat with Chad and Cheese might not be the worst thing in the world. You know, Chad, the thing with me about going to events again is just how much it's about the people. And we're going to mention a bunch of people and we already have very few of the engagement or conversations with these folks had anything to do with recruiting. And, I find that that is really sort of the secret sauce of what we do is that we're people that care about people. And as cliche as that is, that's how it should be. If I'm talking to Matt Alder, it's not about even the podcast or the industry, it's about like what scotch we're going to drink next.
Joel (8m 20s):
Or if it's Steven McGrath, it's, you know, the fact that the dude has a metal plate in his face and he takes punches from Adam Gordon's kid at the conference, or my favorite moment was with Matt Charney. Those who know both Matt and I know that we are really big Oasis fans.
Chad (8m 40s):
Weird.
Joel (8m 41s):
While Oasis broke up about 13 years ago. So the chance to see them together is almost none, however, a cover band called Noasis, which you'll only see in the UK played cover songs from roughly the first two albums of the band. Charney and I were in absolute mosh pit heaven. And he even tweeted about, I've never been so happy in a long time as I am with Joel Cheeseman, watching no Oasis cover bands. So although RecFest is about the industry and getting together, it's really about the people and the fact that we can go, you know, across the Atlantic and make connections on a global scale. It's just really, really humbling and really, really cool and a great benefit of having this dumb podcast that we do.
Chad (9m 24s):
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. We got a chance to meet Stubbs, which was awesome.
Joel (9m 28s):
On stage.
Chad (9m 29s):
He got a chance to come on stage with us. We did, as you mentioned, got a chance to meet Rudy, which is Adam Gordon's little man who actually did some sound work for us back in the day.
Joel (9m 43s):
If we had a poster. He might put our poster on his wall. That's how much this kid loves the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad (9m 49s):
We might need a poster. We might need a poster.
Joel (9m 54s):
I like the stepbrothers thing poster. And he loves to say "we out"
Chad (9m 59s):
Yeah. Oh God. So got a chance to meet Louise. I can't believe we've actually been working with her for this long and haven't met her face to face? Met her, but it was just amazing, man. There were so many people, Jamie, Lois, Charlotte, the rest of the staff, they treated us like royalty. It was amazing. One thing that I was surprised about, and I'm going to throw this out there for our friends from iCIMS. I can't believe that iCIMS was there and they were out done by Smart Recruiters? Smart Recruiters had their own stage. Smart Recruiters, I mean, they'd like literally really killed the marketing where iCIMS literally didn't. And I thought, and I had no clue on how this is going to get set up, but I thought that iCIMS would come and they would come to RecFest hard.
Chad (10m 49s):
Yes. I said it come hard to RecFest, but they didn't. So I here's the challenge to Susan and the marketing team don't allow that shit to happen again. Don't be fucking trumped by another organization who is less than half your size. That just blew my fucking mind. I couldn't believe that.
sfx (11m 12s):
Maw the meatloaf! FUCK!
Chad (11m 13s):
And a teaser though, a teaser, you saw the mullet RecFest. You saw that, right?
Joel (11m 17s):
Yeah, I did. I did.
Chad (11m 19s):
Somebody said that the RecFest is like light, like a mullets, you know, a business in the front party in the back. So Jamie actually had that created in a cartoon, but it was in like stars and stripes, all that other fun stuff. And this is the tease kid! RecFest is coming to the US. I can see it. It's happening 2023. Get ready for it.
Joel (11m 42s):
This is just you pontificating. This is not like announced news.
Chad (11m 46s):
This is not announced, but I'm teasing this. I know it's going to happen.
Joel (11m 49s):
He's got to come.
Chad (11m 50s):
It's going to come to the US in 2023.
Joel (11m 53s):
And the US needs a recruiting circus to come to town from Britain.
Chad (11m 57s):
It's a carnival. It's fucking awesome!
Joel (11m 59s):
Yes. Now the question is, what city would you have it in?
Chad (12m 3s):
That's a good question, because there are plenty of opportunities, right? Where could we hold a carnival? A recruiting festival/carnival? That's a good question. You know, there, I think it depends on the time of year. If it's this time of year. Holy fuck. I mean, there were going to be a handful of places that aren't going to melt.
Joel (12m 22s):
Yeah. Maine.
Chad (12m 22s):
People that are coming right. Yeah. Time of the year is, I think, a big factor.
Joel (12m 27s):
Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
Chad (12m 29s):
All I can say is I have no fucking clue, but I know that shit's happening. Yeah.
Joel (12m 33s):
Yeah. There's gotta be room like outside Atlanta or something. That's a big enough airport.
Chad (12m 37s):
And what I love about it is and the European shows are really kicking ass. We were at Unleash, you know, that was, that was in Vegas and that in itself is 180 degrees, different than RecFest. They are entirely different with regard to the types of audiences that they're trying to pull in. Attendees that they're trying to pull in. They're two entirely different animals. It feels like Europe has this shit figured out and the US is still stuck in the 1950s with conferences.
Joel (13m 7s):
It's crazy, right? Yeah. It's nuts. It's nuts. Come on America. Come on America. You're embarrassing us. You're embarrassing us. By the way, Chad, I got to say the side note when we were in Oulu, which is not a mainstream city in Finland, I'm sitting on like one of the strips of where people walk, you know, Europe, right? People are walking around, they're doing the scooter thing. America still has a presence. Chad, I go look on this street. There's a Burger King. There's a McDonald's.
Chad (13m 39s):
Yeah.
Joel (13m 39s):
There's a Subway.
Chad (13m 40s):
Sad.
Joel (13m 40s):
And there's a Taco Bell, baby.
Chad (13m 43s):
There's sad.
Joel (13m 44s):
Oulu, Finland
Chad (13m 44s):
Fucking sad.
Joel (13m 45s):
Speaking of Burger King, I have a non RecFest inspired shout out.
Chad (13m 48s):
Okay. Let's hear it.
Joel (13m 49s):
All right. So in Europe, so this shout out is to Kevin Ford. Burger King employee, Kevin Ford never missed a day's work in the 27 years he spent as a cook at the Las Vegas location.
Chad (14m 2s):
Wow.
Joel (14m 2s):
How do you think burger King thanked Mr. Ford for his 27 years of service? Gold watch maybe?
Chad (14m 11s):
Huge Shindig. No big shindig! Especially in Vegas. You're talking Vegas, baby. You take over, you know, like a conference or some shit like, yes!
Joel (14m 17s):
This is Burger King we're talking about. So slow your roll a little bit.
Chad (14m 20s):
All right. You mean the second largest, fast food chain in the world? Is that where you're talking?
Joel (14m 24s):
That's what I'm talking about. Maybe if you worked it in and out. All right. Burger King gave him a backpack, a movie ticket, a Starbucks cup.
Chad (14m 36s):
Oh my God.
Joel (14m 37s):
Here's the kicker Chad. Candy.
sfx (14m 40s):
What did you say?
Chad (14m 42s):
What the fuck??
Joel (14m 42s):
A way to thank a 27 year old vet at your company. Great resignation. Be damned. We're not going to celebrate our old timers. Now this does have a happy ending, Chad.
Chad (14m 52s):
Okay. Thank God.
Joel (14m 53s):
After a clip of this, Mr. Ford accepting his gifts went viral. His daughter set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for travel, to see his grandkids. Apparently the comments on the video, weren't real nice to Burger King and Mr. Ford getting screwed over.
Chad (15m 15s):
Imagine that?
Joel (15m 15s):
To their surprise, they've received over $350,000 in donations, including a $5,000 donation from actor David Spade. Yeah. A lot of people are in college for seven years. They're called doctors. Ford still has no plans to retire or take a day off for a vacation. No word on a rapper Rob Bass changing his mind on the Whopper, but BK, Burger King, not so good, man. Not so good. Not a shout out for you. Not a shout out for you. Shout out for Kevin Ford for 27 years of cooking burgers at the home of the Whopper.
Chad (15m 46s):
Damn birthdays
Joel (15m 47s):
Birthdays also free shit. Everybody. I know we're, we're deep into shout outs, but go to go to chadcheese.com, click free whiskey by by Textkernel, shirts and beer. We have new sponsors. I think we talk about beer, right? Aspen Technology is our new beer sponsor and our new shirt sponsor. Can we talk about that yet? Let's do it. JobGet new sponsors, new merch, head out to Chadcheese.com and yes, let's go to birthdays, everybody. Okay. We got a few because we miss some weeks celebrating another year around the sun. Jason Morris, my former boss and my first SEO customer back in 2005 and big happy birthday to Jason Morris.
Joel (16m 33s):
Jeff Hunter. You remember Jeff Hunter Chad? From EA.
Chad (16m 36s):
Oh
Joel (16m 37s):
Yeah. He had the UnConference back in '07. '08. Yeah. What happened? What happened at conferences?
Chad (16m 43s):
Blast from the past.
Joel (16m 47s):
Oh, another blast from the past. Do you remember Christian Anderson? Chad he's the former Jobster PR guy. So he got And now back to some more familiar folks, George LaRocque. He's going to LaRocque out with his cock out on his birthday. Roy Mauer, Brian Chaney, Trent Cotton, Christina White, Lily Siegel Gardner. Justin Spencer, David "Steven Seagal" Bernstein, Eddie O'Neill, Ellen Spiegel, Lee Quavis, Rob Bursey <inaudible> check that, he or she is in the middle east, which is cool.
Joel (17m 28s):
Matt, that British guy, Alder, Ben Saggers, which sounds like a nickname for a certain part of my body and Claire Hovland and a fan favorite, Sir Richard Collins. Happy Birthday everybody! Happy birthday!
Chad (17m 47s):
Yeah. Also a little love to Richard and Beverley Collins, they've got a well deserved victory lap at RecFest. If you remember in RecFest 2019, I actually asked Richard, when are they going to get acquired? The very next day they got acquired by Indeed. Right? So we haven't really had like a full RecFest until this year. And they got to take a victory lap, man just treated like royalty. That was awesome. Now my rookie move, just so that you know, was not so rookie because Julie and I actually had a chance to spend a couple of nights at Richard and Bee's place. So we had a great time. Wonderful hospitality got to love the Brits.
Chad (18m 28s):
Big shout out to Richard and Bee.
Joel (18m 30s):
Yes, sir. Did you get to drive the Maserati? That's the question? That's the real question we want to know. Chad, did you drive at least ride in the Maserati?
Chad (18m 43s):
Well, first off, no, it was the Porsche.
Joel (18m 45s):
My bad, my bad, my bad. Did you get to pick the car that you drove the luxury European car drove?
Chad (18m 53s):
Why would I do that? They were all pretty awesome. I just got in.
Joel (18m 58s):
Geez. Does he have like a country house with hunting dogs, a horse stable and shit? Jesus is just getting out of hand.
Chad (19m 3s):
It's pretty. It's pretty awesome. I'll give you that.
Joel (19m 6s):
All right, man. Where are we? Where are we traveling next? And by the way, our travel is sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Ooh, we loved them. We loved them long time, but where are we headed for the rest of the summer and into fall Chad?
Chad (19m 20s):
We're taking August off kids. We're going to just going to chill. Okay. Because you know, we need a little time to take a breath. September 13th through the 16th at Mandalay Bay, HR Tech, baby. That's where we're going to be. And this is the shout out. As we had said, we need to see you scale it up. Big boy, up some HR Tech. Can't wait to be there.
Joel (19m 41s):
For sure. They need to scale that shit up. Just cause you have it in Vegas. Doesn't mean it's off the chain doesn't mean it's off the chain.
Chad (19m 58s):
TOPICS!
Joel (19m 59s):
All right, man. All right. Let's talk about the artist formerly known as TMP now known as Radancy sending the private equity. Chad, New York city-based Radancy, obviously a TMP for us old folks has "partnered" and I put "partnered" in quotes with New York City-based new Mountain Capital terms of the deal were not disclosed. BU the partnership will enable Radancy to accelerate its software, product roadmap and expand its suite of services. Focusing on helping enterprises, optimally identify, engage and hire talent. Founded in 1999 New Mountain Capital manages $37 billion in assets. Chad, this feels like a big deal that isn't getting a ton of publicity.
Joel (20m 40s):
Just do a search on Google news. What's your take on what just happened?
Chad (20m 45s):
You got to ask yourself, why would they be taking money in the first place? Right? I mean, they, they have a PE daddy already and they should be, I mean, they've got a hell of a portfolio. So why the fuck are taking capital anyway? For all the kids in the audience who really don't know that much about Radancy, right? And see just a quick basic history. TMP Worldwide was founded in 1967. Kids been around for a while, acquired by Gemspring Capital back in April of 2018. Since the acquisition in 2018, 5 acquisitions, CKR interactive, Perengo, Maxim, Carve, and First Bird.
Chad (21m 26s):
So about a decade ago, I believed every recruitment marketing agency needed to buy or build their own tech. It was totally in fashion back then to become a tech provider. But today recruitment marketing agencies cannot keep pace with innovation after being saddled with tons of technical debt, integrations from acquisitions and the basic day to day wondering if you're a creative agency or a tech house, it's weird because Michelle Abby's still there. And I would have thought that, you know, she would have taken the win after the acquisition and just kinda like, you know, went off into the sunset, enjoyed some vacation, maybe came back and created something new and fresh, but she stayed.
Chad (22m 12s):
And the big win now is, it's looking more like the prospect of a big loss. I don't understand what Radancy wants to be when they grow up?
Joel (22m 21s):
I guess, rich. So companies are almost never better when private equity moves in. CareerBuilder's, maybe the most obvious example. And we'll get to them later in the show. And they're also almost never better when they change their name. So going from TMP to Radancy, I mean, yeah. Okay. I get it. But you mentioned it a 50 year old brand, sixty year old, right? So it's, it almost never works out. So you mentioned Gemspring Capital that came in in 2018, Gemspring, a relatively small player in the private equity business. They're worth about one to $2 billion under management. So to me, it's like, this was entirely Gemspring getting their paper. This was Gemspring cashing out on that initial investment.
Joel (23m 5s):
So they come in at 18, cut fat, do whatever they do, rebrand the company, make a little more sexier for, you know, 2020s and beyond they call up New Mountain, have them a nice, shiny, efficient profit spewing business that they say, Hey, it's worth this and here's our valuation. How about a little piece of this big boy and New Mountain with 37 billion under management said, Hmm, this whole employment thing has taken off. There's a lot of money going into this space looks like a good investment. We're going to come in there maybe clean up some more stuff. Maybe put some money into some R and D and marketing, et cetera. So to me, when you say, why take money? I think it was Gemspring getting their money.
Joel (23m 49s):
I think that was what primarily motivated this, this move. But again, TMP continues to look like a cold corporate, efficient, fat cutting, you know, machine. And you know, if that's what you want in your agency then have at it. But I think one of the big winners are the more personable agencies out there. I'll mention Shaker, who is a sponsor. So take that for what it's worth. But the agencies and organizations like Shaker, which family business for 70 some years, you know, who do you want to do business with? The machine or the people? And I think that Shaker's in a better position today than they were yesterday because of this deal. But yeah, I think the money is all about cashing out for Gemspring.
Chad (24m 32s):
I agree, but I also think there's another out for perspective, bigger acquisition, because if you take a look at what Radancy is pitching and they're way over their skis on this one, they're pitching more than, than just programmatic, where if they focus there, it would make sense, right? If you focused on being amazing in one area, it would make more sense. But no they're talking about AI based technologies that identify, engage and hire talent, advanced career site platforms that offer a personalized and seamless job search experience, programmatic advertising tech, candidate relationship management, CRM solutions, and automated employee referral software.
Chad (25m 13s):
I mean, pick one and do it right. Instead of trying to do everything and providing a half-ass solution, why did they need the money? I think they're going to be pushing a lot of this cash into making these products and these services just more sexy, just more cosmetic. And then they're going to be plunking money into marketing because they want to see a big payout. If you take a look at those five areas that I just pointed out, the total addressable market for something like that is fucking huge! The thing is I feel like it's smoke and mirrors. I'm a huge fan of Radancy, TMP they've been around forever. We both have friends that work there and yet I just can't give them a big applause because this seems like a fireworks show trying to get everybody's attention to get a sale.
Joel (26m 5s):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised IP and O didn't come out of your mouth in that commentary because why, why be everything to everybody? Well, it works out for Workday on the public markets. So I couldn't work out for an agency like Radancy? Yeah, I think ultimately there's an IPO in the future, at least that's what they want to have happen. The one thing to me that was really odd in this is that it got so little publicity. Like if you do a Google search on Radancy and New Mountain, there's not a lot out there. It's like couple of press releases. No one's commenting. No one's like whether good or bad saying anything about it, which to me is really odd. Something like this should be getting a lot more commentary, not just from a couple of podcasters like us, but yeah, this is one to watch.
Joel (26m 50s):
And I would not be surprised if when the market comes back and iCIMS goes public and there's a cavalcade of employment IPO's that Radancy isn't one of them.
Chad (27m 2s):
We shall see.
sfx (27m 2s):
Layoffs?
Joel (27m 3s):
Layoffs.
Chad (27m 4s):
Layoffs?
Joel (27m 4s):
Holy shit, Chad, no unicorns in this show. We're talking about layoffs! Is at the beginning of the end? I guess we shall see, but we have one confirmed and one sort of rumored unconfirmed, but a pretty good source from what I saw. But it's undoubtedly a trend that I think we'll be seeing for the rest of the year and into 2023. Reported by Business Insider, Remote, a unicorn that provides a global hiring platform is laying off a hundred people or about 10% of its workforce. On the other side, then the rumor mill popular ATS, Smart Recruiters have laid off about 70 people, which is also about 10% of it's head count.
Joel (27m 47s):
Chad, is this an anomaly or a trend in the making?
Chad (27m 50s):
I think it's a part of the maturation process from internal voices, as you'd said, I mean, not just one. We have several sources saying that this has definitely happened. This is a rebalancing of the workforce. We've seen tech companies grow wildly out of control to be quite Frank. Now, many of them are taking a step back they're reassessing where they need to grow, and then they're applying a more controlled strategy. So to me, this is all about the maturation process of a tech company. It's hard to get out of startup mode and yet try to keep into the startup mode mindset. So is this bad? If you take a look at the website, they still have, SmartRecruiters still has 70 positions open.
Chad (28m 32s):
It's all about rebalancing and it's a shift. I think the mindset is the key. How do you shift the mindset to be more controlled and yet try to stay in that startup mindset from just a morale standpoint?
Joel (28m 46s):
Yeah. I think for two years, everyone was like, hire everyone that we can we'll figure out the future later.
Chad (28m 52s):
Sort it out.
Joel (28m 52s):
Or in the case of a Remote it's like, Hey, we have how much money? We need to hire some people. So that the industry ran hot, not just for us, but everybody, right, everyone in tech. And we're seeing a recalculation of valuations and we're seeing headlines about Tesla and big companies that we don't necessarily think of is having layoffs, laying off, you know, 10, 15% of the workforce. So I do believe there's definitely some rebalancing there. Although we're looking at inflation and recession fears, everything on the labor market is still really strong. So you know, knock on wood. Our industry may come out of this perfectly fine, whether industries do not.
Joel (29m 33s):
So, yeah, I think, you know, look Smart Recruiters hire a lot of people because everyone needed their services. Companies are putting, you know, hiring freezes and they're being more conservative. So it's a good time to say, Hey, let's cut some fat, let's get some underpaid underachievers out of the company and bring some new, new blood into the company. I think with Remote, it was partially that, but also, you know, the board and the investors saying, okay, you know, the world's cooling down. We need to like recalculate what we're doing and let's lay off 10% of our workforce. I do not think this is going to be an isolated incident. I think we're going to see more and more companies lay off, you know, 10, 15% of the workforce. The question will be, is this round one of the layoffs, or is this the end of the layoffs?
Joel (30m 18s):
And that is yet to be determined. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about something near and dear to your heart the military. Chad I know this may surprise some people, but convincing an 18 year old to volunteer for a job where guns and bombs might get thrown at them is challenging. And military recruitment is currently being challenged on a whole other level. Why you ask? Well, reports say the pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink because of obesity, drug use and/or criminal records. And apparently parents are becoming a growing issue. They don't want their kids going to the military when they could go to college, which is why you're seeing so many ads about getting parental approval for joining the military.
Joel (31m 3s):
Chad, I was getting drunk in Muncie, Indiana, while you were shooting guns in South America for the government. So I'm guessing you might have an opinion or two on recruiting for the military.
Chad (31m 14s):
Yeah, it was Central America, but that was close. Obesity and parents have always been an issue. I mean, I've knocked 40 pounds off of some of these kids in 12 weeks, pretty easily. So these are all to me, they're all bullshit answers and not so much. Remember when you used to see military ads on TV and also banner ads littered the web, the US military is the best recruitment machine in the world, bar none hands down. Period. Mainly because of the budget they have to throw at recruiting at anything. They're not afraid to try new things. As a matter of fact, they have no problem failing because they just need to innovate.
Chad (31m 54s):
They need to get to those, those kids before anybody else does. But again, they've been eerily silent. And why do you think that is? Well I have a conspiracy theory?
Joel (32m 5s):
Ooooo
Chad (32m 6s):
Are you ready?
Joel (32m 6s):
Yeah, I'm ready.
Chad (32m 7s):
Robots, baby. So listen for a minute because we will see this strategy play out in many different sectors. In the past, when the U S military had issues, meeting recruiting goals, you see them amp up everything, and they are everywhere. That just doesn't seem to be the case. Plus when the military misses goals, you usually only see that reports and military pubs like Stars and Stripes, the Army Times, et cetera, but they are making national news now. Why? It's somewhat propaganda they're building up, because the U S military wants to move swiftly toward robots. Air Force, and Navy drones, Army, Marine robotic ground troops.
Chad (32m 50s):
There are two levers in this new narrative. Number one, we can't supply enough human resources to provide for the nation's defense. That's scary. That's fear, right? Number two. Less American fighting men and women dying on the battlefield. That's also something that's scary to think that your kid goes into the military and they could be on the battlefield.
Joel (33m 8s):
Sure.
Chad (33m 9s):
So overall, I believe you'll see this, not just from the military, but you'll see this from many other industries saying, Hey, look, we don't have the resources. They could manufacture that talent. They could. We'll talk about that later, but it's cheaper, Jeff Bezos to actually go ahead and roboticize your entire fucking warehouse or your military.
Joel (33m 33s):
You just blew my mind. Okay. So someone who spent 20 some years in the military, 20 years?
Chad (33m 42s):
Yep! 20 years!
Joel (33m 43s):
Anyway, so your conspiracy theory, or maybe it's just a theory is that the military is busily producing Terminator like robots.
Chad (33m 51s):
Oh dude, they're out there. You can see them as Lockheed Martin. You can see all of the defense suppliers it's happening all over the place. And they're going to have a windfall in fucking profits.
Joel (34m 3s):
And you think it's right around the corner. This isn't 25 years from now. This is?
Chad (34m 8s):
We're already seeing drones in the sky. Now we're talking about actually providing Ukraine with drones today, right? We're not just talking about the drones that are surveillance drones. We're talking about anti-personnel anti-tank drones.
Joel (34m 22s):
Okay. So in your world, no one has to pull the trigger, at least on the ground?
Chad (34m 28s):
Right.
Joel (34m 29s):
The devices set off whatever automatically or someone, some kid on an Xbox is playing war games and shooting off missiles.
Chad (34m 35s):
It's already happening. It's already happening. Now we put these drones and we've been playing with this technology for a very long time. So to be able to actually put it even more upscale into the battlefield? There you have a kids.
Joel (34m 52s):
Well, your commentary is way better than mine. I was going to mention like OnlyFans accounts for military, military vets, or like having the Instagram account for the Army feature singing soldiers and shit like that. But I like robots a lot better. So we're going to go with your conspiracy theory as opposed to like an Army OnlyFans account for veterans. Hooo, that was good. All right. Let's set up a Slack. Good God. When was the last time we talked about Slack?
Chad (35m 19s):
It's been a while.
Joel (35m 21s):
It's got bought by Salesforce.
Chad (35m 25s):
Exactly.
Joel (35m 25s):
Well, here's your fix. If you've missed us talking about Slack, we got two news stories. So first reports say networking forums on Slack have become fertile ground for finding new jobs fast, just don't expect inclusivity Chad. Getting into the right professional group and navigating its dynamics can take some effort and knowing the right people, says a Slack group, admin for content marketers. Quote, "It does seem to be kind of an insider's club. People let you in on the secret as they discover it" end quote. Chad, I doubt LinkedIn is losing any sleep over Slack groups or forums, but what's your take on this?
Chad (36m 4s):
Everything old becomes new. Again, remember job board forums back in the day?
Joel (36m 9s):
Yahoo
Chad (36m 9s):
Job seekers, even job boards had forums back in the day. So job seekers would join forums, have conversations, just like these. Seriously nothing's different people are looking for answers in places they trust because they know they cannot trust companies to be transparent and give them the truth. I mean, that's just what it is. I do agree though, these are going to be not very inclusive types of forums because the same people are going to find the forums because they have the same connections in the same networks. But yeah, at the end of the day, this is nothing new. We've been doing these things for years. This is back in the nineties.
Joel (36m 43s):
Yeah. Yeah. That's you stole my thunder. That was pretty much my commentary as well. I think, I think I will add that LinkedIn groups has really fucked up. It went from like a really cool sort of admin, you could message people and people were actually active, to sort of being, if you, if you run a group, there's not a whole lot, you can do to market it. Most of the shit that gets on the feed sucks and it's self promotional. So LinkedIn is really fucked up the groups, groups should be really awesome. But as a side note, people would probably love that on Slack, these forums, that more or less recruiters can't invade these things, there's some sort of gatekeeping that keeps recruiters out.
Joel (37m 25s):
So my guess is a lot of people enjoy that they're not getting bombarded with recruiters with shitty jobs or opportunities. They're glad that they're not getting marketed to by Casper Mattresses and other things. So at least for now, until marketers find out a way to fuck up Slack forums, they seem to be a pretty fun way to get a job and try to get to know the right people. You know, we'll see until the next group forum solution comes along, I guess Slack will be sexy. Next up was Slack well Chad with 70 Million Jobs gone, formerly incarcerated people could use some good news and Slack just might have it. From a story in Fast Company, Slack is expanding its training and hiring initiatives for people who were once in prison.
Joel (38m 11s):
An organization called Next Chapter, a nonprofit incubated at Slack four years ago is training formerly incarcerated people to land tech jobs. The program has trained 30 apprentices after their apprenticeship all have been offered full-time jobs at tech companies, not just Slack, but also Dropbox, Square and Zoom. Chad, good news, a knife and a gunfight. What are we making of Slack's initiative to train and hire formerly incarcerated people?
Chad (38m 41s):
Yeah, so unfortunately the US has the largest population of incarcerated individuals in the world. That sucks. These individuals usually do not have an opportunity to return to the workforce, which means they are literally forced to return to a life of crime to pay the bills, roof over the head, food, you know, that kind of stuff that we need. Companies On the other hand, they claim they cannot find the right candidates as they expect the perfect candidate to fall out of the fucking sky or something. And when those candidates aren't readily available, companies cry about the skills gap, instead of creating training programs and manufacturing their own talent like this. Now Slack has only hired 30 incarcerated individuals, but that's better than zero.
Chad (39m 24s):
And what I see this is, is a ramping up of an opportunity, kind of like a vocational type of opportunity. And they've also started to spread this out to 14 other companies like themselves. So really the big story to me is that they have a proven model, but now they're sharing it with other companies. Most companies would just keep this to themselves.
Joel (39m 46s):
Yeah.
Chad (39m 46s):
Slack is going out there and they're actually trying to reproduce this type of success so that 30 could turn into 300 could turn into a thousand, et cetera, et cetera. We currently have right now, 2 million individuals incarcerated, just incarcerated right now. What about those individuals that are out there, who are formerly incarcerated, who can't find a job? This is, this is big. It's something that we need. And I love to see a company, not the government funding, something like this. A company who actually needs the talent, trying to find solutions and actually manufacturing talent for themselves.
Joel (40m 20s):
Yeah. You know, the demise of 70 Million Jobs, they blamed it on the pandemic. But I mean, let's be honest. A lot of companies were probably gun shy of using the service or a lot of companies are still hesitant to employ formerly incarcerated people. This is a really, really big problem. And it's very complex and multilayered. The story of the Slack guys that were looking at educational systems in prison, notice that they were learning to code without even having internet access. So like, this is an issue with like governments and private institutions that are, let's be honest, serving most of the prisons are private organizations.
Joel (41m 1s):
They don't give a shit about internet access, right? They just want to like make as much money as possible. So there's no incentive to like have internet and have the support system within prison. And then when they get out, if they've been in that system, keep in mind, a lot of these people have been in prison for 15, 20 plus years. They've never seen an iPhone in person. They've never liked signed up for Hulu. They've never like so many things that we take for granted. Like they've never done. And, and now they have to be trained to code and know technology to get these jobs when they haven't even, you know, experienced technology like we have.
Joel (41m 44s):
So to me, it's like a problem of government commercial, entities, associations need to be a part of this in some form or fashion, but it's a very complex problem. I give Slack a lot of credit for, for tackling the issue, but they're going to need a bigger boat if they're going to conquer this problem, otherwise they're going to make a small dent. Which I agree, 30 is better than zero in 30. Hopefully it will be 300 in a year and maybe 2000 and 30,000 at some point, which is still unfortunately a drop in the bucket with the number of people that are in prisons in America. So applause to them, but they're going to need some help. They got a knife and a gun fight, and they're gonna need some help.
Joel (42m 26s):
Let's take a quick break, pay some bills. And we'll talk about SHERM and one of our favorites, Chad, CareerBuilder.
Chad (42m 34s):
All right, let me preface this next story with this is the do, as I say, not as I do portion of the podcast.
Joel (42m 47s):
Oh that's great yeah.
Chad (42m 48s):
In an article on HR Dive entitled SHERM will pay $221,000 to improve program accessibility to settle an ADA suit. The organization named the society for human resource management, AKA SHERM got smacked for not complying with the Americans with disabilities act or ADA. That's right kids. That's right kids, your leadership organization that certifies HR professionals and has training and certifications on ADA apparently needs to be trained in themselves, or they just don't give a shit about individuals with disabilities accessing their content. Just simply perform a Google search on SHERM ADA certification.
Chad (43m 29s):
And you will be buried in SHERM content on how to do this and do that around ADA. SHERM literally was not doing the basics like providing transcripts for podcast content, captions for video content and sign language interpreters at its events just to name a few things. All very basic shit that the world's largest HR leadership organization could obviously not be bothered with. So again, this is the do, as I say, not as I do, portion of the podcast, how do all of our HR listeners feel about their crazy little SHRM certification now?
Chad (44m 11s):
Now that's the question.
sfx (44m 13s):
Maw the meatloaf! FUCK!
Joel (44m 13s):
There are certain businesses where you can't do certain things.
Chad (44m 17s):
Yeah!
Joel (44m 18s):
And I'll simplify it in saying, if you're in and out burger, you can't fry up a frozen paddy. Like they're just certain tackling and fundamentals that you can't fuck up on. And SHERM just fucked up on one of those things they served, they cooked up a frozen paddy, Chad. And they fucked up and it's not going to be the last or the first fuck up by SHERM. But this is one that looks really bad. The fine is not earth shattering, $221,000. But the optics of this for an organization who's dedicated to solving what they fucked up on, is really bad. This is really bad
Chad (44m 54s):
Optics on this and it always seems like SHERM doesn't give a fuck about the optics. Ever since Johnny Taylor took over, it's like, whatever, he's going to brush whatever bullshit off. Cause he just doesn't fucking care. That's what the optics are for the rest of the industry. They just don't think that leadership at SHERM gives a shit. And in this case, they don't give a shit about individuals with disabilities accessing their content.
Joel (45m 21s):
It's all about the subscriptions Chad. It's all about the membership, baby. It's all about the membership. Well, speaking of companies and organizations fucking up, let's talk about CareerBuilder. Oh, someone call Dewey Cheatem and Howe. See what I did their Job search advertising company, CareerBuilder, and Chad and Cheese favorite will pay about $3.8 million to settle a class action lawsuit, accusing it of shorting pay to its sales representatives. Naughty, naughty. They allegedly stripped these workers of commissions that they had earned. Under the terms of the deal sales representatives who worked for CareerBuilder from 2018 to 2019, could receive payments ranging from a minimum of $625, that will still buy some beer Chad, to thousands of dollars.
Joel (46m 13s):
Eligible CareerBuilder sales reps have until October 5th to submit claims for a share of the settlement funds. Chad, what do you make of this fuck up by one of our favorite fuck-ups CareerBuilder?
Chad (46m 27s):
Okay. At one time CareerBuilder sales staff was one of the best in the industry period. This is not in the building sales teams playbook, by the way, yet CareerBuilder has figured out a way to fuck up even the very basics since they've been acquired by Apollo. This is just part and parcel of what we've seen since Apollo took over there. They really don't give two shits about people whatsoever. They're just looking to carve off pieces of their organization, sell it and get more gravy. And in this case, they got slapped for keeping some of the gravy away from their salespeople and one of their salespeople, I believe it was actually in the article.
Chad (47m 11s):
Could prospectively get $1.25 million out of the settlement.
sfx (47m 14s):
What did you say?
Joel (47m 14s):
So under the previous compensation plan, Chad reps allegedly were paid monthly commissions of 4% per month net revenue from the sale of quote, "most CareerBuilder products and services" end quote. Under the 2019 plan CareerBuilder adjusted the commission down to, you're ready for this, point 25% of net revenue.
Chad (47m 40s):
No gravy for you.
Joel (47m 42s):
And then remove commissions entirely. Okay, dude. Yeah, fuck Apollo. Okay. Some pencil pusher did a risk assessment and decided screwing over the sales team was going to be less costly than actually paying out commissions. Dude, if you're listening to this and you were selling for CareerBuilder in 2018 and '19, do us all a favor and go get yours. Okay. Because that's some bullshit. I just hope you're not working for Burger King now because those assholes are even worse than Apollo and CareerBuilder. And maybe even worse than SHERM.
Chad and Cheese (48m 20s):
We out.
OUTRO (48m 32s):
I'm Rory from Scotland, the country, which brought you electricity! Thank you for listening to podcasts with Chad and Cheese. Brilliant! They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Nada Niente. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We out.