Female Founding, Google Accelerating, and Whiskey!

The boys recently held a private event at HR Tech for around 40 people with ThisWay founder and CEO Angela Hood. Luckily for you, the mics were on, so we caught the whole conversation, just for you. We discuss what happens when you become a Google accelerated startup, what unbiased recruiting really looks like, the dos and don'ts of crowdfunding and much more. It's like you're a fly on thet wall. Enjoy.

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Joel (0s):

You guys act like you're in church

Angela (2s):

With whiskey? What kind of church has whiskey? That's a good one.

Joel (7s):

That's a church I wanna join. So should we talk about the format? Like can they heckle? Can they clap?

Chad (14s):

Why not? This is live. This is a live show. Just do. EXcept for you. Ethan. Shut the fuck up. Ethan.

Joel (22s):

This is a train wreck you guys get to watch.

INTRO (42s):

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 (46s):

Oh yeah. What's up everybody? It's your favorite guilty pleasure. Your favorite knuckleheads AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always the "Pen to my Teller" Chad Sowash. Let's hear it everybody. And today we're recording live from the HR Tech conference in beautiful Las Vegas with Angela "boys in the" Hood, founder and CEO at ThisWay Global. Angela.

Angela (1m 16s):

Howdy guys.

Joel (1m 17s):

You hardly started to drink.

Angela (1m 18s):

I I know

Joel (1m 19s):

Show's only gonna get better.

Angela (1m 20s):

I should have taken a few shots before this thing. I want

Chad (1m 22s):

I want everybody to look at Angela's face. Once she starts drinking whiskey. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna just wait. You'll you'll you'll get the joke.

Joel (1m 29s):

Did something we called brew review. Yes. Which we've only done once for whatever reason.

Angela (1m 35s):

It was just minde. Was that it?

Joel (1m 36s):

So this is what we did was we had a flight of beers we had to drink. And then we talked business.

Chad (1m 43s):

And Austin Craft, Austin, beer Craft.

Joel (1m 46s):

Austin, beer and barbecue was involved, which was great. So we're going to pour a little bit of whiskey for each of us. We're gonna have some and we're gonna talk shop. So Angela, for those that don't know, or know very little about ThisWay Global, do you prefer ThisWay or ThisWay Global.

Angela (2m 6s):

So ThisWay Global's the company name.

Joel (2m 8s):

Yeah. So ThisWay is sort of what you want to be

Angela (2m 10s):

Known as. Yeah, no one ever says ThisWay Global.

Joel (2m 13s):

Okay.

Angela (2m 13s):

Unless it's a contract.

Joel (2m 14s):

All right. So, so for those that don't know or know little about ThisWay, give them the elevator pitch.

Angela (2m 20s):

Short story is I'm an engineer that got fed up was being overlooked as a woman. And I said, I'm just gonna fix the problem for just other people like me. And I thought it was a small group. And then I found out it was the majority of people were being overlooked that were fully qualified and I was completely fed up with it. So I started a company that sources and matches talent and it's unbiased and bring it on all your questions about AI and bias. I got your answers.

Chad (2m 49s):

Everybody says I'm biased though today. I mean, everybody is slapping DEI, like a sticker on every platform go downstairs. There's gonna be DEI like on everything. So for the most part, it's bullshit. What makes yours not bullshit?

Angela (3m 4s):

Yeah. Okay. Well, not bullshit because I actually care, that it works. That's number one. That's a good start. Yeah. That's a, yeah. I care. If you also know our company, I really suck at marketing. So there's no way I could actually do a marketing pivot on that.

Chad (3m 19s):

So you started out this way.

Angela (3m 21s):

Yep. I did. Okay. Okay. So I started out 2012. I was at Cambridge University in England and I took me about a year to identify bias was the problem. And I started getting booed about the topic in 2013.

Chad (3m 35s):

Booed? Where were you getting booed?

Angela (3m 37s):

People do not like it.

Joel (3m 38s):

This British boo like, booooooo.

Angela (3m 41s):

No, no. It is a British boo in like parliament. It is that kind of move. Okay. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, watch parliament five minutes. You'll get that's what happened? Or the

Joel (3m 50s):

Princess Brian, you can watch that, that too.

Angela (3m 51s):

There you go. Perfect. So yeah, that's what I got booed and I said, right, and now I'm onto something because people that have a lot of money you're booing me, which means they don't like what I'm about to do, which bring it on. I'll challenge it. If I had had any idea how long it would take me to get traction, I probably would have said, what are you thinking? But ignorance is bliss. And so here I am.

Chad (4m 15s):

Talk about traction real quick. Why do you think it took so long? Was it the industry? Was it the tech? Was it just because it was burgeoning and new? I mean, why? Why did it take so long?

Angela (4m 25s):

Honestly, I think it was finally, the public told companies you don't have a choice.

Chad (4m 30s):

The public or the federal government?

Angela (4m 32s):

Both. Okay it started with the public. It did. It really did. It started with the public. It started with talent. That was diverse. Instead I've had enough, I'll go to work for all the cool companies that hire diverse talent. And all the big companies were like, wait a second. Why can't we hire these really great people? And so then 2020 hit, a lot of people think there was a social justice thing that caused all of this. It it's part of the accelerator. But the real fact is our population is more diverse and people like to work, like people who are like them. Yeah. And so if I'm more diverse, I wanna work with people that are more diverse, therefore, guess what is required? You better be.

Joel (5m 11s):

And by the way, more buyers are diverse.

Angela (5m 13s):

So that's right.

Joel (5m 14s):

So the money.

Angela (5m 14s):

There you go.

Joel (5m 15s):

You might wanna have people look like your customers. You started in '15, right? 2015? '16?

Angela (5m 21s):

' 16. We founded the company. Yeah. Talk

Joel (5m 23s):

Talk about the landscape of sourcing tools at the time. Like yeah. What did that look like when you started the company?

Angela (5m 30s):

A lot of people were talking about giving a lot of assessments to really dig in and identify if someone was talented or not. And there was so much pushback by the talent that everyone was like, well, maybe we shouldn't be doing that. By 2018 people were catching on that. Okay. There might be something to this, but we're not gonna invest any money in it. We're just gonna say we're doing something 2020. You get people saying I'm going to, I think somewhere around 50 billion with a B. $50 billion is pledged to solve diversity problems, but only half of 1% actually gets deployed as of today.

Angela (6m 11s):

So a lot of talk, no action.

Joel (6m 13s):

But when you started the company, it wasn't about finding diversity or diverse candidates. It was just finding people.

Angela (6m 20s):

It was finding people without bias.

Joel (6m 23s):

In 2016. So the company was founded on that premise. So that was groundbreaking at the time because.

Chad (6m 29s):

She got booed.

Joel (6m 30s):

She got booed and you stuck to that core promise. Has it been hard to see other companies come along and say, they're unbiased?

Chad (6m 42s):

You mean all of them?

Joel (6m 42s):

And a lot of it in light of 2020 and the things that happened, societally, talk us through your, your thought processes. These companies started coming out is we're unbiased recruiting. We're the diversity platform. How did you react to that?

Angela (6m 55s):

So I would look and see what they were doing. And I'm like, no, you're not. And then I would think, right. So the customers are gonna buy, they're gonna do a two year contract. So I've gotta get them on our platform as soon as they find out that that doesn't work. And that's the strategy we took. And that's why we have so many customers.

Chad (7m 11s):

You've gotta be the contingency plan.

Angela (7m 12s):

That's right.

Chad (7m 13s):

Pretty much. Okay.

Angela (7m 14s):

Yeah.

Chad (7m 14s):

Okay. You can start with what doesn't work and then you can come ThisWay. You can come ThisWay. So talk about, talk about the actual, the go-to-market strategy with partnerships, because you have done an amazing job with companies like Salesforce. There's a little company probably nobody's heard of called IBM. So, I mean

Joel (7m 31s):

I think they have bottles on the table. Cause nothing's cooler than an IBM water bottle. That's right. Nothing says I'm cool at the gym, like an IBM water bottle. Like I go to the gym. Anyway.

Chad (7m 46s):

That's what you've heard.

Joel (7m 48s):

She was thinking it. I said it.

Chad (7m 50s):

Oh yeah.

Angela (7m 50s):

I can't believe I have to drink this whole thing of whiskey. Oh my God.

Chad (7m 53s):

That's just the first one.

Angela (7m 55s):

I know The one someone's gonna have to carry me out of this suite. Except for it's my suite. So no.

Joel (7m 60s):

There's comfy chairs. You might just stay here all night. Integrations. Yes. Start with Salesforce. That was the first big one. I think we talked.

Chad (8m 7s):

She's gotta take a drink first. Yeah. Oh shooter.

Joel (8m 10s):

Yeah. Oh she nailed it. That's how they roll baby.

Chad (8m 14s):

Big applause everybody. Big applause. Chad. I, that is good.

Joel (8m 21s):

Angela time.

Chad (8m 21s):

That is very good.

Joel (8m 23s):

That is, that is.

Angela (8m 25s):

It was this one.

Chad (8m 28s):

Yeah. Yeah. But now we're God

Joel (8m 30s):

Salesforce go because a little, a little context. When companies integrate, it's usually Greenhouse, iCIMS. It's the ATSs that we all that we all know and love. You guys took a little bit of a different track. You do integrate with those, but Salesforce was a bit unique. Talk about why and the results that you've gotten.

Angela (8m 48s):

So we honed in on Salesforce because they have 150,000 customers.

Chad (8m 53s):

Say what?

Angela (8m 54s):

A lot of people don't know this. And, they're companies that do what? They adopt technology. That's awesome. And they adopt technology all in the exact same way, not, you know, 150 different methods for trying to get in integration. So for us as a small company, we have to be agile and we also have to be very focused. So that was the way we could hit 150,000 company TAN.

Joel (9m 21s):

And how has the relationship integration worked for you guys? So have it been a home run or yeah, a little bit of an air ball.

Angela (9m 27s):

So this is the really fun part about being a founder is you plan all of these go-to markets and then you have a thing like a pandemic. So I'm not kidding. When I say the launch for Salesforce was the day after we announced that we had a pandemic, the world health organization said, oh yeah, it's official and so I sat on sofa and like gave myself 20 minutes to panic. And then I called Salesforce and we said, let's not do this launch cuz no one cares. They didn't care about anything other than what's going on with the pandemic. So it stalled completely. And then we started getting traction with staffing and there's a big, very big announcement coming out next month.

Angela (10m 13s):

Can't share right now. But

Chad (10m 15s):

Teaser.

Angela (10m 15s):

I know

Joel (10m 16s):

Just between us?

Angela (10m 17s):

I know.

Chad (10m 18s):

Between the kids in the room? Yeah.

Angela (10m 22s):

No, but it does have very real legs and it's been a long time to wait, but it will be global.

Joel (10m 28s):

I'm not sure you answered my question. Yeah. In regards. Okay. I'm

Angela (10m 31s):

Okay. I'm gonna run for office then.

Joel (10m 33s):

Should we roll into IBM and that integration and what that is?

Angela (10m 39s):

I will answer those questions maybe.

Joel (10m 42s):

Okay. All right.

Angela (10m 44s):

So IBM, I identified them again, huge footprint, very technically smart company has all the customers that we really wanted to work with. And there was this little hurdle called Kenexa/ Brassring and we couldn't really get past it. And then one day I hear that Kenexa/ Brassring has been sold off and I thought, okay, maybe just maybe we set our OKR for our company that quarter for us to be the HR function for IBM and within so who's counting? 52 days we had the deal and we launched tomorrow at two o'clock is kind of like the big coming out party for Watson Orchestrate powered by ThisWay Global.

Chad (11m 35s):

Good for you guys. So love so, so, okay. Talk about IBM Orchestrate is really a business process enhancer, right?

Angela (11m 46s):

No.

Chad (11m 46s):

No. What are you guys doing? That's what the guy told me on the couch yesterday.

Angela (11m 50s):

He doesn't know what he is talking about.

Chad (11m 53s):

All right The IBM guy. Didn't okay. That's right. Okay.

Angela (11m 57s):

No, what it is. So I think everyone knows who Ironman is and Ironman has Jarvis and Jarvis does things for Ironman, right? So he can go off and do cool things like fly. Jarvis is back there doing the data on the background. That's essentially what automation is when IBM talks about Watson Orchestrate, is let the user do the strategic work, the work that they love doing and let Watson take off that load and do all the monotonous and the biggest part about it is you can integrate between different tools. So I'm gonna give you an example. You have a job description inbox.

Angela (12m 39s):

If you need to get candidates from ThisWay, and you're using Gmail for your email, all of that can happen in matter of a second. And you can reach out to candidates and start introducing your company in the position to them. And you can be at your kid's soccer game and have work life balance again.

Chad (12m 59s):

So, and you could do this externally and also internally.

Angela (13m 1s):

That's right.

Chad (13m 1s):

So you can, you can use this with some of the partners that you have externally that actually outreach. So, but let's talk about the internal piece real quick, because most companies don't focus on the millions of dollars that they spend every single year because they're building this candidate database and nobody is using it. And so it's just staying there. It's atrophying. So how are you guys actually focused on being able to help them dive back into those candidates and spend less money and then stop trying to pull the same people in through recruitment marketing.

Angela (13m 39s):

So if we had more customer demand, we would be doing that for every customer that we have.

Chad (13m 44s):

So why do you think there's not customer demand though?

Angela (13m 49s):

Because procurement sits on the throne of lies and says that it smells like

Chad (13m 56s):

Meat and cheese.

Angela (13m 56s):

This sounds like smells exactly like that. And they sit up there and they say, oh, they're gonna grab our data. They're gonna do this. What I'm like really? Do you not think we have anything better to do with our time than try to grab your data? That is unstructured, messy and outdated. Yeah. It's so valuable. So we just don't get that much customer demand for it. And so

Chad (14m 18s):

Do they think they're they own the launch codes or something?

Angela (14m 21s):

Absolutely. Yes they do. Yeah. And so we said, you know, why keep hitting your head against the door. We still have the technology to do that. But only about 20% of our customers use it. Every single one of our customers uses our product called Discover, which is what we launched with Watson Orchestrate first.

Chad (14m 41s):

Okay.

Angela (14m 42s):

This is the passive database of candidates, 169 million profiles all structured exactly the same way. You cannot see any of the biasing data, age, pictures, gender, ethnicity, all that kind of stuff. And then you get to a certain point where you're committed to recruiting or actually engaging with these people. Then you can see information. And we hope by that point, you have learned enough by seeing the quality candidates that are also diverse, that now the bias is kind of washing out of your system. That's what we see at least from our current customers.

Joel (15m 15s):

What are you guys doing with Google?

Angela (15m 17s):

We were a Google accelerated company at the end of '21 and I, okay. I was so suspicious. I'll just be honest about this. I thought they're probably just trying to sell us Google Cloud or something. That's what all this is about.

Joel (15m 37s):

Then Larry Paige called?

Chad (15m 38s):

Sergey?

Angela (15m 38s):

And then we got vetted over and over and over by their engineers and by the AI department and by security and data protection and all this stuff. And at the end of it, they're like, you know, you're doing an amazing job and we want to continue to help you. So for the duration of the company, for the life of the company, Google continues to accelerate us. And it's one of the coolest incubation kind of platform arrangements we've ever had. And my entire team has everyone in Google they have their contact details. They can go on to a portal that we have access to and request help on anything. And we do it on a regular basis.

Chad (16m 19s):

So they have some pretty awesome support behind this?

Joel (16m 23s):

ThisWay Global accelerates.

Angela (16m 24s):

So they, how

Joel (16m 25s):

Money? Talent? What?

Angela (16m 26s):

Basically it's us doing the work, but it's them telling us this is what you're doing wrong. So I'll give everyone a tip. So GA four, which is Google analytics, but GA four is a total different platform than Google analytics. And if you are not on it, you're missing out. And there are so many people that don't know this and thanks. That is the same thing. It's just a different version. It is not. And the other really good piece of data that I will share is that when you are using Google AdWords, absolutely keep your ad live for exactly eight days on the eighth day. Learn from that, then make changes, never stop before eight days.

Angela (17m 6s):

Otherwise you've lost all of the benefits of Google AdWords.

Joel (17m 8s):

I want the record to show that she said, here's a tip. And I said nothing.

Angela (17m 15s):

I thank you Joel.

Chad (17m 16s):

Just wipe that clean by saying that.

Angela (17m 18s):

That means he's saving a doozy for later.

Joel (17m 21s):

That's right. One of the things you've done that I think is really intriguing is the way that you've raised money. Okay. And you've raised a, just shy of $4 million.

Angela (17m 30s):

Nope. More.

Joel (17m 31s):

What is it?

Angela (17m 34s):

Eight and a half.

Joel (17m 37s):

Is that news?

Angela (17m 38s):

I don't know. Maybe to you.

Joel (17m 41s):

This is my show.

Angela (17m 42s):

I've known it for a while.

Joel (17m 44s):

Apparently. It's how much is crowdfunded? How much isn't talk? I think a lot of companies, startups listen to our show or companies are like, gee, crowdfunding looks cool, but do we do it or not? Like, would you steer people that way? Tips, tips to do it. Sorry. I said tips again, but you said anything that you would do? Would you still do it again? Are you gonna raise another round of crowdfunding?

Angela (18m 7s):

So the truth is it wasn't planned. We had an investor that was, again, this is a pandemic story. March was not a good month for me in 2020. I'll just tell you, I don't think any of us had a great month that month. We had a round that was closing. It was supposed to fund on the 18th. And on the 14th, I got an email, super warm and fuzzy, got an email and said, Hey, we're not gonna send that check after all. And I was like, what? And we just, you know, like if you've ever led a company, you know what this means anyway. So again, another 20 minutes panic, and then maybe another 20 minutes in panic?

Joel (18m 47s):

It could be at your door in about 24 hours.

Angela (18m 51s):

A whole bunch of them. Yeah. But what, so I have an advisor that always says there's always another gear. And sometimes I just have to be reminded of that. And so I said, okay, I am not going to allow this company and my staff as we're going into a pandemic, not have a job. Like that was like, it was not okay with me. And so I said, I will go down with a fight and it might be really ugly, but I'll figure it out. So by two weeks later, I had identified, there was two companies that do crowdfunding. One's called Republic. One's called Wefunder. And I liked both of them.

Angela (19m 31s):

But the reason why I picked Wefunder is very, very specific. We have VCs and we have angels in our rounds and I needed to simplify my cap table if I was ever going to raise money in the future. And so Wefunder has a policy or a process where you can have a lead investor and every investor underneath them is all one line item on your cap table. This is incredibly important. If you plan on having any VC money, private equity, money acquisition, and we plan for all of the above. So then I was like, wait, we don't have a big social media presence. So this is gonna be really tough. I found this great guy , who's a, a good friend of mine now, his name is Chris Gravy.

Angela (20m 16s):

And I said, I need for you to help me market in the crowd marketing fund or in the crowd marketing way. We ultimately raised just under three and a half million. Is that right? We raised three and a half million dollars. And I have now a couple of thousand people that absolutely love my company. Love my team. Oh yeah. And they show it every day. And it's awesome.

Joel (20m 42s):

Yeah. So that sounds like a recommendation. So it goes a crowd funding route.

Angela (20m 46s):

So there's downsides to it. It's hard from an accounting perspective. My CFO maybe cusses me out on a daily basis for this or whatever, but our company is still here and we're better for it. So I, you know, sometimes you do things you don't necessarily wanna do to keep your company alive and your people employed

Joel (21m 2s):

Is the crowdfunding closed currently, or can people still?

Angela (21m 6s):

It is closed also because my CFO, I didn't want to be killed by them. And so maybe one day we'll do that again. I don't know. I think probably our next round is much bigger round and you know, we've had lots of interest, especially after the IBM announcement. It was interesting how all of a sudden I was super interesting and I wasn't in 2020, but I dunno I will make a call in the next couple weeks. But I think that we will probably raise a Series A we've raised eight and a half give or take and three and a half of that is crowdfunding. And I would say this, if you want to know, if people care about what you do as a company, do a crowdfunding campaign, you will find out you will find out immediately.

Chad (21m 54s):

Yeah. So talk about, talk about again, female funders or female founders.

Angela (21m 58s):

Or both.

Chad (21m 59s):

Yeah. Well, I mean, we're not seeing a lot of female founders getting funded very well.

Joel (22m 2s):

We're a glass ahead of you, Angela, by the way.

Chad (22m 4s):

No. She's oh, is she caught up? She's on. Yeah.

Angela (22m 8s):

I'm about to do a shooter. You're not gonna able to keep up with me.

Joel (22m 11s):

We're midway there.

Angela (22m 12s):

Sorry. While I can still cheers. Is that what you're saying?

Joel (22m 17s):

Yes. Keep going.

Chad (22m 19s):

Imagine the old white guy to, you know, interrupting during the female founder conversation.

Angela (22m 23s):

I'm used to it. Okay.

Chad (22m 24s):

So talk about that though, because coming out, it's not easy being a female founder, what did you run into? But now you find yourself you're getting ready to go to London on Bloomberg. I mean, you, you it's like, oh, now she's, she's risen up. Now we should actually pay attention to her. How did that happen? First and foremost, just take us through kind of like how it felt to be that female founder at first and then where you are today.

Angela (22m 50s):

It was bullshit. Yeah. But I'm used to it because I came up through the engineering and construction ranks. I don't know. It's like, whatever, like if you have some attitude about me because I'm a woman, then I don't really need you in my space. So it is a great eliminator of crappy people. So I can just look like, how do you treat me? Yes. You're you just talk to me normal. Cool. If you're gonna be an as then out. And so I think sometimes it's an advantage, but now it's kind of funny because people will call me and they're like, Hey, we want you to give a talk. You know, you're a female founder. I'm like, am I, oh my God, I didn't know this. It's amazing. And that's annoying when you like, get asked to do things because you're a female.

Angela (23m 32s):

I'll take it though, because I'll take any stage where I get to talk about what we're doing and the problem we're solving. I think I will have to say this. And this is absolutely legitimate. IBM is probably the most diverse company I've ever been around, like shockingly. So I've never seen a company that's diverse. Yeah. And they don't seem to honestly care men, women, you know, you could be a blues Smurf, as long as you can do the job. So I, I don't know. I like that part. The talk that I'm giving is in it's November the 17th, it's at London on Bloomberg and it's the second time I've been on Bloomberg.

Angela (24m 17s):

And it is largely because of the work that we're doing as a company. And the fact that we've now partnered with IBM, because it makes it really easy for companies to access the tech.

Chad (24m 27s):

Was, was that the tipping point? You think though? The, the, the name IBM or what do you feel like the tipping point was where people actually started paying attention and giving a shit

Angela (24m 39s):

Google accelerator. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We got highlighted. We got some really good press from Google and people started paying attention and like what, maybe they're actually a real deal. And then at the end of the accelerator, we had a lot of offers of acquisition and we listened to all of them. And we said, Nope, because everything that they wanted to do was basically rip out the actual part of the solution that companies really cared about. Okay. And they just wanted our database of people. And I was like, that's not why people are in our system is to have you scavenge it. So

Chad (25m 15s):

Beside crowdfunding, obviously the other funders that are out there, do you find out that they really don't know what the hell is going on in this industry in the first

Angela (25m 24s):

Place? No, they have no clue. They assume this is so funny. Everyone in this room is gonna laugh. They assume that because it's HR and because it's people and people run companies that obviously there's a lot of investment in the HR tech space. And everyone's like, what? They just can't believe that people are not investing in this because they've invested in technology in every other aspect of the business. But not that I, I don't know. I find it a joke. So,

Chad (25m 56s):

So in not understanding that, why do you, why do you think it's taking them so long to actually see any attention for HR TA that type of tech? Because they're over in FinTech and there's more money over there. I mean, is that they're just going where the money is?

Angela (26m 16s):

No, they don't.

5 (26m 17s):

That would be the four roses. That was four roses. Single barrel. Yes. That

Chad (26m 22s):

And anybody who's listening, that was an Angela choke by the way.

Angela (26m 25s):

Can't see the expression. Thank God.

5 (26m 28s):

This

Angela (26m 28s):

Is not video. Wait until we

5 (26m 31s):

Get the

Chad (26m 32s):

Scotch next. Don't

Angela (26m 33s):

Worry. Oh my God. Okay. So I think that, so the, the deal with foreign investment, I will say the UK has cared about being more neutral on gender. Okay. Well, before the us was, Europe was required to be more neutral and we are really late to the party, you know? And so we get a lot of money that gets invested in systems like ours, overseas, and then they come into the us market. And I will say that a lot of them have a lot of trouble because they don't understand how you, us companies buy.

Joel (27m 9s):

So you touched on Europe, Americans have pretty short memories and they're onto the next thing pretty quickly. And I think we talked about on our show of, of the whole diversity play and the George Floyd and everything that was happening, that eventually we would move beyond that, that we would sort of be on to whatever was next. Right. And you saw companies dedicate budget and you saw, you know, verbiage and companies coming out. I'm guessing that you still feel like there's a lot of energy around diversity in America or, or not like where what's the state of, of that mentality in our country. Have we, are we moving on or are we still focused on diversity?

Angela (27m 47s):

The companies or the people?

Joel (27m 50s):

The companies.

Angela (27m 50s):

So the companies, I think my view is most of them are faking it. So they are not investing. Go

Joel (27m 58s):

On. Okay. Say more.

Angela (27m 59s):

Okay. They are saying all kinds of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, diversity, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You know, whatever. They don't actually mean it. You can see it. And the reason why people do not apply for their jobs is because they look fake and no one wants to work for a fake company. I mean, they just don't

Joel (28m 17s):

Explain that a fake job posting. So a legitimate company with what makes it fake or look fake.

Angela (28m 24s):

So the, the comp the, no, it's not the job posting as much as it is the, the careers page. Oh, look, we did an stock photo. Did that. Right. Top stock. Yeah. Well, you see how big we paid extra for the big format, stock photo. Yeah. Don't you see, we care with

Joel (28m 41s):

Every representation of

Angela (28m 41s):

Everyone in it. Like, and people look at that and they're like, seriously, there's nothing on there. Oh, there's a person. This is the other part. Here's a person of a, a beautiful black person. And here's two Latinas. They are talking and here's oh, absolutely. Oh no veteran. Oh. And he's wearing his cammies at work because normally that's happened. And yeah.

Chad (29m 3s):

And he's got his and is, got his hat on inside or something.

Angela (29m 9s):

Of course he does. Oh. And his insignias completely wrong. It's army with Marine insignia on it, you know, whatever. But it's that kinda stuff where if you're thinking, you're trying to attract a person and the person is actually a veteran and they look at that and they, their brain just blows up. It's like watching top gun and you see all the wrong, you know, I'm a married to a pilot. So here's the thing, like when we go see Tom top gun, I have to listen to all the things that are wrong about the movie. So it's the same thing with their careers page for a veteran. Yeah.

Joel (29m 41s):

So talk about that. So you have a service, that's an unbiased recruiting tool. Yeah. Are people buying your product just to say, Hey, checklist for everybody we're buy we're unbiased or do people really care in organizations to use your product? Cause what, what I hear is that no one cares. They're paying lip service and they're just paying you to check the box to say, Hey, we're unbiased.

Chad (30m 4s):

Drink your drink, Joel. I guess what you're behind

Angela (30m 7s):

30% of our customers, I think are wishy-washy about whether they care or not honestly, the, the rest of them. I know they care because they're on the phone with our team going, okay, we got this. Oh my God. We were so happy. We found this person, you know, they were like ecstatic that they found some person that they didn't know it existed. So we hear that kind of stuff. Or when they're having trouble finding someone, we hear that too. Yeah. So that part, but it's more of when we're talking to customer prospects, that's when we find the person we're talking to legitimately cares. Usually that person is like, I have to have this. They go to the boss, the boss goes here is $5,000.

Angela (30m 50s):

Please make sure that all 2,500 of our hires that we have out right now are all diverse. And the person is like, what are you talking about? But they don't get budget. And so like, what is that about? I, I mean, it's the most disconnected. Yes. And it's embarrassing. Sometimes when I listen to companies that are really big brands and they're just Jack wagons,

Chad (31m 16s):

Jack

Angela (31m 17s):

Wagons, wagons. I know

Chad (31m 19s):

I

Angela (31m 19s):

It's real everyone from Texas knows what a Jack wagon is. Okay. Okay. So move to Texas and then you'll know. Okay.

Chad (31m 24s):

Jack wagon, not okay. Is

Joel (31m 26s):

This an American thing or are you seeing the same mentality in

Chad (31m 30s):

The Jack wagon?

Joel (31m 32s):

Not Jack wagon. I'm no, I can't Jack

Chad (31m 33s):

Wagon. Can't get off the Jack wagon.

Joel (31m 38s):

Chucklehead Jack wagon. Yeah. So you talked about your, is it, is it similar, different globally?

Angela (31m 44s):

So it's interesting. There are tax incentives and all kinds of other things in other countries that I think cause companies to behave a certain way. Yep. Yeah. So how much of that is authentic and how much of it's because of tax benefits? I don't know, but they do spend more money and they, they're more proactive and they seem to understand which should be obvious that a careers page stock photo will not cut it.

Chad (32m 12s):

Yeah. But transparency is key though. Right? I mean, we we've started to see transparency slowly here in the us. I think start to move things forward just on the pay equity side. Now, if we could actually be more transparent around workforce composition because you guys would help with that dramatically. I mean, if we, if, and again, it's, it's shaming, but who, who gives us shit let's, let's get to where we need to be. Right. So what do you, what do you think about that? About utilizing your tech or any tech to be able to provide something where it's more transparent and it gives that organization really more of an edge to be able to demonstrate that, Hey, we are diverse.

Chad (32m 52s):

This is not a stock photo. This

Angela (32m 58s):

Is who we are. Right. So the thing I worry about transparency done incorrectly

Chad (33m 1s):

Lies.

Angela (33m 2s):

Yeah. Lies. Hey, I was trying to be nice. Okay.

Chad (33m 4s):

After the Jack wagon came, yeah.

Joel (33m 7s):

We're four drinks into it. We'll be on being nice at this point.

Angela (33m 12s):

All right. So if you, if you're going to lie, people will figure that out. And so, alright. Let's talk about some demographics for a second. Right now the majority of the workforce that employers care about, which is an important part are millennials.

Chad (33m 29s):

Because, because they're a huge segment into the population.

Angela (33m 32s):

That's right. Millennials do not give one shit about your lives. Like they are like, you know what? You are a loser. I won't even buy any shoes from you now because you lied to me during the career process. Right. I mean, you're over, you're done. And they'll, and they'll tell all their friends and they'll get on social media and they'll tell every single person, they might even do a TikTok dance about it. You know, like they might, and then you're ruined with an entire category of people. But I think that's the part that companies have not figured out is that if you're gonna lie about how you feel about your people and you're not gonna pay them, equity pay and pay parity and all of this.

Angela (34m 13s):

Right, right. If you are not gonna get into that zone and be legitimate about it, you will be punished and you'll be punished. You may not even know that you're getting punished. Right. You may just go, why, why have our revenues fallen off? We haven't changed anything else, right? Yeah. But you're shitty.

Joel (34m 35s):

And that's a hidden camera from Victoria's secret strategy meeting. And speaking of Victoria's secret,

Angela (34m 40s):

Wow. That's quite the transition.

Joel (34m 42s):

This is what I do for a living Angela. So segue. So there's a, there's a case study of, of first love on your site, which I believe is a Bre. It is company. So talk about that case study, how they were able to cut time, hiring time significantly. And, and Chad's touching Angela, which is a little bit does,

Chad (35m 4s):

Does anybody Sayir anymore? Okay. I just, I had to get that out there. I know everybody was thinking it. I'm thinking, did my mom just step in the room? No, it was Joel, go ahead. It was on a

Joel (35m 13s):

Feld fan. What are you doing? I'm trying to keep it classy.

Angela (35m 17s):

When he said Brazil. I had to think for a moment. I was like, what? What's a Brazil Brock. Okay. Got it.

Joel (35m 28s):

First love. I thought it was

Angela (35m 29s):

SCO. Okay. All right. So first of all, this is an interesting y'all okay. Everyone should go look at the website after I say this. Okay.

Chad (35m 40s):

The first love website or yours? Yes. Okay. First

Angela (35m 43s):

Love website because they refer to themself as intimates technology, I believe. Okay. Now,

Joel (35m 49s):

Do you prefer intimates over Brazil?

Angela (35m 50s):

It's their branding. Not mine.

Chad (35m 50s):

It's gonna stick with him forever and

Joel (35m 52s):

Says yes. So we'll go with, we

Angela (35m 54s):

Go with that one. I, I would not be surprised if the founder does not send you a bra now let's just be clear. Right. And she will ask you what size you are. Yeah. Which I can't wait in your

6 (36m 13s):

Day.

Joel (36m 13s):

It's the one without the metal under

Angela (36m 15s):

You don't want under wire?

Joel (36m 16s):

No, the under wire.

Chad (36m 20s):

Here's at least a sea cup. Let's go ahead.

Joel (36m 23s):

I want, I want comfort.

Angela (36m 26s):

Comfort. Okay. So they reach out to us because they said we're having a really hard time finding people to work in our warehouse. And we're like, okay. Why? And they're like, well, we don't know why. And so then it comes out that everyone that has worked in, they want someone that's worked in an intimate warehouse. So here's the thing. When you put an ad out for intimate warehouse worker, just the people that fly it's magical. And I had my entire engineering team just on the floor laughing because they would just see these little, those

Joel (37m 5s):

Job titles are important.

Angela (37m 7s):

Yeah. They they're really important. Right. So we said like, okay, here's the deal? Let's let's restructure some of this. So we run it through our AI. AI says, call it this job description looks like that people come in, they apply. They're like, oh my God, these are great people. Awesome. They're old. They were like, what? And they're like, they're old. I'm like, how old are like, this is mean. And someone, the person who we're talking to, which was, I'm not joking was about 20 said, well, this person was over 30. I was like shock. You know? So, and also a man.

Angela (37m 46s):

And so then there was a problem. We didn't realize that they didn't want men touching the underwear and the braziers. They did not. Okay.

Chad (37m 54s):

Because they would call them braziers yes,

Angela (37m 59s):

That's right. Did not want them touching that. And we said, why? And the person explained, and then fortunately their company and our company share an investor. So I went to our investor and I said, can you please call the founder? The, so there's, co-founders their husband and wife. I said, can I have a conversation? So have a conversation with the founder. And she had no idea that this was going on. Like someone had made this executive decision as an entry level job. Who'd been there for six months that the person was too old and they were male and they were 30. So I, I was like, we need to like shake things up a bit and let this person who had worked for Victoria's secret.

Angela (38m 40s):

Ironically, as you brought

Chad (38m 41s):

Them up, I'm gonna that's.

Joel (38m 43s):

We did that. Is anyone else thrown off that? 30 is someone old in this scenario? Right. Okay. Hey, all right. Keep going.

Angela (38m 48s):

If you're 20, 30 is old as hell, I guess so. Okay. So we break down what the problem was. The problem was someone had not received adequate training or other issues. And then we fixed that problem. And then magically all of this talent showed up because the job description actually didn't sound like something that was completely inappropriate. And 30 year old men were allowed to work in the warehouse. And so, I mean, that, that kind of stuff is

Joel (39m 17s):

Just, I had no idea when I asked that question, but that was where that was gonna go. Thank you for

Chad (39m 24s):

That. So that, that's

Angela (39m 25s):

The reality though.

Joel (39m 27s):

Let Jeff

Angela (39m 27s):

Fun. No.

Joel (39m 29s):

With the interview. Not, not, not. She's gonna have

Angela (39m 33s):

Not talking about Bres.

Chad (39m 34s):

No. And that's your fault. All

Joel (39m 36s):

Comfort. Which one was our favorite? First we got for the listeners. We got this sent to, we got the angels envy, the four roses and the Glen Livi.

Chad (39m 45s):

Yeah. The four roses is always a staple too easy, but I've never had the Japanese said sent Tori. Okay. That was delicious. That it tasted very Irish.

Joel (39m 56s):

Yes.

Chad (39m 56s):

Right? Yes.

Joel (39m 57s):

Are you

Angela (39m 57s):

Talking about, why are you talking about

Joel (39m 59s):

It's light? Like an Irish.

Angela (39m 60s):

I think your lack of hair has gone to your head.

Chad (40m 3s):

You didn't think so. You didn't think that tasted like, I like

Angela (40m 6s):

That. What, what hell I know. Did you see my face?

Joel (40m 10s):

All right, Angela, we picked,

Angela (40m 11s):

Aren't listening to me about, okay. I gotta go single mom. Oh,

Chad (40m 15s):

Okay. The scotch. Okay. She already nailed it.

Joel (40m 17s):

Okay. I think the Angel's envy was pretty solid. I gotta say, I gotta say

Chad (40m 21s):

It's always

Angela (40m 21s):

Solid, but no, for roses. I actually did not. Okay. So here's the thing. I thought all of them would be horrible because I don't like whiskey, but I was surprised by that one. Was it for roses? Yeah. Yeah.

Chad (40m 32s):

Very calmly. You liked

Joel (40m 33s):

That? I was surprised. Cause that's the one that choked you up a little bit. No's one that

Angela (40m 39s):

I didn't say. I liked it. I said I was surprised

Joel (40m 49s):

By. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Angela (40m 50s):

It's like, I'm surprised by you, Joel.

Chad (40m 52s):

Oh,

Joel (40m 52s):

Angela Hood. Everybody give it all. What's here. Angela, for everyone listening out there, where can they find out more about ThisWay?

Angela (41m 0s):

So right now my marketing guy is just dreamy because you said that ThisWay Global.com. But if you go to contacted ThisWay, global.com, it goes to the magic person in our company, Michael Coates, who will definitely get the message to me. It's not like some email that goes on to the outer webs. And I mean like the

Chad (41m 19s):

Black hole of applying for a job, that's

Angela (41m 21s):

It does not do that. Yeah. So it'll actually find it your way to us. And we would actually love to hear from you. Like, you know, you, you're welcome to send me some nasty Graham. I do get those on occasion. I won't respond to it, but you're welcome to send

Joel (41m 35s):

It. Just don't send her a first love Brazil. Chad, I have, I know you did too. Everybody. Thank you. And we out

4 (41m 54s):

Now, everybody out. No, I'm kidding.

8 (41m 57s):

Thank you for listening to what's it called podcast with Chad, the cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one chatter, blue, macho pepper, Jack Swiss, the so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who we should subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen, the podcasts.

8 (42m 40s):

That way you won't mess an episode. And while you're added visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese is so weird. We out.