Google for Jobs isn't the only new big brand face in town. The boys continue their interview with Venkat Janapareddy, CEO of Jobiak, and talk:
- Google for jobs Global adoption
- Does video content even matter
- Facebook is outspending Google on the jobs product
- Indeed is in a real pickle
- It's all about the real-time data
Brought to you by Chad and Cheese - HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Subscribe at chadcheese.com.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Morgan: Voices, we hear them every day. Some voices like mine are smooth and comforting. While on the other hand, The Chad and Cheese Podcast is like listening to a Nickelback album. You rather stab yourself in the ears with an ice pick. Anyway, you’re now listening to Voices, a podcast series from Chad and Cheese, that features the most important and influential voices within the recruitment industry. Try not to fuck it up boys.
Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for The Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Chad: Welcome back. We're picking the conversation up with entrepreneur and CEO of Jobiak, Venkat Janapareddy. How are you guys focusing? Is it domestic or are you really trying to figure out Europe and et cetera?
Venkat: Yeah, so we get a lot of inbound calls from, especially UK and Spain, we do have some customers. Interestingly, most of Europe went live with Google for Jobs last year. We are getting a lot of inbound traffic. We are not particularly going there and selling at this point. Our focus is still US, our focus is still get this all jobs product. But we are working with some customers and surprisingly the adoption rate for Google for Jobs in UK is much higher than US.
Chad: Awesome.
Venkat: First of all, it's in English, but they are looking for ways to ... there are a lot more consulting companies that are helping companies get their postings on Google. But from a go to market strategy point right now, it's US, we take the inbound and we onboard them.
Chad: That totally blows my mind to think that Europe is starting to gain traction faster, and I think that's awesome. Just shows how slow and I think lazy we're getting here in the US. We're seeing more start-ups with some really awesome ideas execute, but also companies are looking to gain traction as well. What about some of the other technologies that are out there today? How do you think those maybe, I don't know, chatbots, voice, what have you, I mean, Google has a ton going on with voice. How do you think that all can be adapted to what you are doing? Or do you think right now it's too early to even think about that?
Venkat: Yeah, it's too early to even think about it. We keep getting calls, especially to license our technology for matchmaking. We are not really doing matchmaking at this point. Google does that for us. The good thing about Google is the quality because they're looking at the job. The quality of traffic is pretty good. We have got a lot of calls from small players to big players to use our technology to do the matching. But I like this whole, the chatbots and video interviewing that I find them passionating because in my ex company, Deloitte, they do almost 5,000 interviews using this bot videos. I think the whole video interviewing and chatbots and screening resumes, I like that space. It's still early but I really think that space is going to do very well. But so right now we are not looking to license or partner any of our technology at this point. Our goal is to get some of these big players partner with us, go crazy with Google for Jobs and help, especially partners RMPs and ATSs use our technology and get higher rankings on Google for Jobs.
Chad: What do you think is interesting though? What's your favorite tech outside of all this cool shit you're doing with Google for Jobs?
Venkat: The video interviewing. That's the bot kind of figuring out whether you're answering the questions correct, the behavioral, the whole psychological analysis they did. I think there's a huge scope that technology is deep learning. That's an area, it's the whole AI, and machine learning is good, but deep learning is all about analyzing media frames and images. I think that's going to have all significantly. And I think more and more companies will adopt this. I think that's ... I'm a tech guy, so I keep reading a lot of stuff of that.
Joel: You mentioned video. It seems interesting to me that Google owning YouTube, as far as I know, part of the schema isn't plug in a YouTube video, is that correct? I can't do that through the job schema, right?
Venkat: Not right now, but I heard rumors that that's coming. Again, it's a rumor, it's not from Google. But one of the schema elements it's going to be video, where the video will automatically show up on Google for Jobs. But it's a good idea, I like it. Video is always helpful, but it's not there yet. Hopefully they will, I think if they do, it's going to be good for us.
Joel: Yeah. And I assume that you recommend having video on your landing page is probably a good thing because it engages the job seekers.
Venkat: Yeah. That's pretty much what RMPs do. If you look at any of the RMPs landing pages, they have video, that plays a huge role, job seekers, especially millennials, they like medias, the landing page, anything else you can provide other than just a job is helpful. Monster is starting to do some of that. I know they are not doing well, but of lately they are publishing a lot of this video content. I think having Google do it would be a good extension for that.
Joel: One of the advantages I see with Indeed and particularly their recent parent company buying Glassdoor is owning the review content and how valuable that is in driving traffic and having that is nice. Do you see Google getting in or Google for Jobs getting into the review game as well?
Venkat: If you notice now, for lots of companies, they do show these reviews and salary estimates from this big players, bottom of the job. I'm not sure, it'll take a while for them to get these reviews. But right now, for most jobs, they do show the reviews and the salary estimates, especially from Glassdoor. But at least for the next
Joel: Right. But it's not owned, the content isn't owned by Google is what I'm saying.
Venkat: Yeah. Joel, I don't know whether they'll get into this. I think it'll take a while for them to do these reviews. But if they do what you said, the apply button, then it makes sense to get some of this own reviews owned by Google. But not in the near term, I don't see that happening in the near term.
Joel: Maybe Facebook is an easier shorter bridge to that. Do you see Facebook doing that?
Venkat: Yeah. Facebook, they're starting to invest a lot of money based on our discussions. They started with local jobs, blue collar local jobs, but now they're starting to integrate with ATSs. They want to go after every single job. And they're also, as I said, they're looking for ways. I know they're starting to do some random test on company websites, where they'll get the jobs automatically on their platform. But they are serious, they're actually ... If you ask me between Google and Facebook, they're putting a lot more money, Facebook for Jobs than Google. And I think once they figure out on how to get these jobs on their platform, they can do wonderful, they're very good at targeting candidates and getting resumes. They are investing a lot of money. They are going after every single job. The first two years, they focused on blue collar, that's going to change. I really expect them to do very well in near future.
Chad: It's interesting because getting the jobs on their site, I'm not going to say it's easy because none of that shit's easy, but it could be much easier through partnerships with organizations like yours, applicant tracking systems, RMPs. If they had quote unquote the source of truth for these jobs and having them flow into their system, that's an entirely different discussion. My question is, why haven't we seen an organization do that? Generally, and Indeed, will just brute force the shit out of somebody. Hey, we're just going to send our spiders and they're coming at you, right? They will set up partnerships and those types of things, but they don't care any other way. They're going to get the data. Why do you think that Facebook, and they're a big name. I mean, everybody you would think would want to be able to be set up with a market differentiating company like Facebook and getting your jobs into Facebook and on your Facebook page. Why do you think it's so hard and why hasn't it happened already?
Venkat: It's going to, trust me, both Facebook and Google, it's been only two years and they're working on it and like Jobiak there's going to be more and more companies will come up in the next 12 months and they're going to find more and more companies to get this jobs data very easily. Right now, as you said, Indeed is killing it. But once we launch this in May, I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of copycats, but there's going to be lot of value. You can sell this data to even job ads or LinkedIn or Bing, even Microsoft Bing is pushing jobs from LinkedIn.
Chad: US government.
Venkat: US government. It is coming. The reason no one did it because these guys weren't there, Google and Facebook and Microsoft, a couple of years back. But now that they're in the space, there will be a lot of companies doing what we are going to do. It's going to be interesting to see all jobs on these platforms.
Joel: Last one for me, we have a lot of job sites who enjoy the show and subscribe. And initially Google for Jobs was really great for them. Most of them talked about a 15% to 30% increase in traffic. I'd say, if you ask them now, they'd say traffic has sort of leveled off. It's not a huge differentiator in their business anymore. But I'm curious, if you were a head of a traditional job board today and you're listening to this show and you're hearing about Google for Jobs having all the jobs, you're talking about Facebook getting into the game big time, and not to mention Indeed I'm sure is not going to go down without a fight. What kind of strategy do you start to formulate as you look at the future that you're describing if you're a CEO of a job board?
Venkat: Yeah. So if I'm a job board first, working with this multiple job distribution networks is a bad idea. I'm pretty sure Google is going to shut that down. So have customers, if you have customers, direct customers, posting jobs on your platform, invest in SEO, invest in landing page. Google for Jobs is free. Get a lot of traffic, be the differentiator, get in the top 10 and get a lot of traffic. But if you are between, if you're getting jobs from another job board and another job board, lots of job boards are starting to do that. And those guys are going to take a heavy beating. You own the customers, you'll be the king. As long as you own the customers. If you only let Monster for example, they hardly have 10% of the jobs, invest in SEO, invest in landing page, do what RMPs are doing. And then be niche, don't be everything, just focus on a particular vertical especially nursing and tech is crazy right now. If you are able to provide candidates for these markets, you're going to do well. Invest in technology and go straight with customers, don't work ... Again, I'm not against this job distribution network job ads, but I think that's going to be a problem, especially if you're looking to work with Facebook and Google.
Joel: Venkat, this has been awesome.
Chad: Thank you man.
Joel: For our listeners who want to learn more about Jobiak, where should they go?
Venkat: Yeah. Please visit us Jobiak.ai, the amount of information, the ability to enterprise ATS, RMP. We have solutions for you, we generate significant traffic from Google for Job. It does work. Don't spend too much money, we're 50X less expensive than job ads. Please visit us and try us out.
Chad: Very nice. Hey man, thanks so much. And we out.
Joel: We out.
Venkat: Bye, thank you guys.
Chad: Look for more episodes of Voices, this Chad and Cheese Podcast series devoted to stories and opinions of industry leaders. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. For more, visit chadcheese.com.