The boys are live from TA Week in the Qualifi booth dropping more commentary from the world of work. First up, the boys cover recent updates on Google for Jobs killing off their pay-per-click (PPC) pilot with employers and agencies. Then, HireVue has a new CEO - Jeremy Friedman, bringing his tech growth expertise to the company. HireVue specializes in candidate evaluation through video interviews, boasting over 1,000 customers.
In CEO updates, rumors suggest Arno Schafer is out at Vonq, the job advertising platform. Now, let's dive into tech news - ADP has launched ADP Assist, a cross-platform solution powered by generative AI, revolutionizing HR productivity.
Moving on, Twitter Jobs introduces featured job ads, giving verified organizations benefits like priority posts and premium support. Now, from Japan, Indeed Plus is automating job matching by distributing postings on various job boards within Recruit Holdings.
Lastly, UPS is cutting 12,000 jobs, saving approximately $1 billion after a 31.8% drop in quarterly profit. UPS CEO Carol Tomé announces the end of the hybrid work schedule, requiring employees to return to the office five days a week. Plus, over 10,000 autoworkers from non-union companies have signed union cards with the UAW.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
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.
Joel: Oh yeah. Two guys who don't mind a little flying Dutchman on their plates and in their bellies. What's up kids?
Chad: Amen.
Joel: You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Animal-Style" Cheeseman.
Chad: And I'm Chad "Now I know what a flying Dutchman actually is" Sowash.
Joel: And on this episode, Google doesn't want your budget. Twitter needs your budget and Indeed is apparently losing your budget. Let's do this.
SFX: Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got out of hand fast.
Joel: Just one of the hiccups...
Chad: Things happen.
Joel: That you get on a live show. It's all good. It's all good. It's all good. We restarted because we forgot to push to record.
Chad: Yeah. We being me.
Joel: Yeah, I was being nice. I was...
Chad: I haven't had enough beer apparently.
Joel: I got your back.
Chad: Fuck.
Joel: I got your back on that one.
Chad: Thank you. Thank you.
Joel: All right. All right, kids. Well, we are here live at TA week, and we are just having a great time here in the Qualified booth. The Qualified team based in Indie, like us, great startup story. Went to the zoo on Monday, saw koala bears, saw giraffes, saw elephants, all the things that you see at a zoo.
Chad: But what you want to see at the zoo is you want to see your friends and you want to create content because it's all fun. It's all rich.
Joel: Lots of content.
Chad: And you want to be close to a bar.
Joel: Yes.
Chad: We had all this. We had all this.
Joel: Mitch a lotta miracles were flowing.
Chad: Mitch a lotta miracles.
Joel: The zoo this week. Also, Chad, you see the magic of procreation at the zoo sometimes. [laughter] And we were lucky enough to see what we dubbed the banging wallabies, making more wallabies apparently. And we figured out that in our next life we're going to start a band called The Banging Wallabies, and we're going to hope to open up for the NXS reunion tour at sometime in the future. So that was great fun. What else have we done here in sunny San Diego?
Chad: Well, once again with the Qualifi crew, and if you are watching on YouTube, you can see, not to mention all the alcohol that we have available, which is why we're doing this for a second time.
Joel: We are lubricated. Yes, we are...
Chad: Jesus Christ. Yes. No, we had a great, the first night zoo, went out to eat, had some gummies.
Joel: Tio Leo's, if you're in San Diego, hit up Tio Leo's.
Chad: Oh yes. If you like lounge singers. Oh, we're talking about top shelf lounge singers. Great food. Have a gummy while you're at it because it's good.
Joel: And everyone gets their own little thing of salsa, which I appreciate.
Chad: I do. Yes.
Joel: I think I got yours at some point and maybe someone else's.
Chad: I had no clue what was going on.
Joel: [laughter] Yeah. You were in a state that would make Euro Chad look like a depressed patient in a mental institution. Man, you were...
Chad: I was very Happy.
Joel: You were walking on sunshine, my friend.
Chad: I was, I was.
Joel: Walking on sunshine.
Chad: Then, then we were here. We did some interviews yesterday. Had a great day at TA week, I got to say.
And you mentioned earlier, the food here is amazing. Okay. For conference food.
Joel: The conference food, yeah.
Chad: For conference food, this was above par, way above par. It wasn't a boxed lunch, it was nothing... It was really, it was good stuff. And the experience has been great too. It's not incredibly big.
Joel: It's intimate.
Chad: It's the right size. It's the right size.
Joel: It's the right size, just like we like it. Yeah. Yeah. The lunches are a big thing for me. I say no to the croissant which if I can, it's never something on my list. I try to make it up for it with a bag of chips that usually come with it, but typically, typically, no.
Chad: But you know what else is good? A good VIP sit down dinner where you sit down, you've got the Bourguignon.
Joel: Steak, potatoes were brought in.
Chad: [chuckle] And you've got the Merlot. You know what we did? We didn't do that.
Joel: No.
Chad: We did the In-N-Out Burger. Nice. Which is so on fucking brand, and I can't believe we hadn't thought about it earlier, but our friend Evan White and CollabWORK...
Joel: CollabWORK Summer.
Chad: They put it together and they're like, what would Chad and Cheese do? That we're going to get wristbands. What would Chad and Cheese do? Yes.
Joel: That's a real homage to the show. What would Chad and Cheese do?
Chad: So this is where we found out what the Flying Dutchman is. Now, the In-N-Out Burger has a secret menu. Your favorite secret menu is?
Joel: My Off the menu would be the Double Double Chopped Peppers, protein style fries well done, Animal Style you can take it or to leave it.
Chad: Okay. Okay.
Joel: And that's my go-to.
Chad: Okay. That sounds like a lot.
Joel: I didn't know the Flying Dutchman existed.
Chad: I didn't either until Omar, our buddy from Jar Pixel actually messaged me. He sent me a TikTok and showed me how they actually cook the burger in mustard, wrap it in cheese, and then put it around what goes around it. Not a bread bun. No. An onion. A cooked onion, caramelized goodness was delicious. I loved it. A little oniony for you.
Joel: A little too much onion for me. My palate's are a little sensitive for that. Too much whiskey, I guess. But yeah. That was...
Chad: That was great.
Joel: A great time. Big thanks to CollabWORK. I did mention that if there is a hell for me, there was a Chipotle on the opposite corner of In-N-Out, and I said, "If there's a hell, I'm stuck in the center and I can't move. I just have to look at In-N-Out and Chipotle."
Chad: There was a Del Taco next door.
Joel: Del Taco and a Jersey Mike's at some point. So either my heaven or my hell, depending on how mobile I am. But yeah, that was some San Diego goodness in the QSR category, I love it.
Chad: Day 2 we're back doing interviews, having a good time. Tonight we'll go do dinner. I mean, it's been...
Joel: Yeah, bonfire last night.
Chad: Oh yeah, bonfire.
Joel: What's more California than a beach bonfire?
Chad: On the beach with beers and weed? I mean, it's just like you just can't get away from the weed.
Joel: Yeah. The kids on bikes and skateboards is very California. It's sun setting in the background. Very, very, very nice.
Chad: Amazing. Amazing.
Joel: Well, almost as good as a bonfire on the beach in San Diego is free stuff from Chad and Cheese. Kids, if you haven't gone out to chadcheese.com, click the free link. We're talking shirts from our friends at JobGet, soon to be a new sponsor, by the way, Chad.
Chad: What?
Joel: We'll announce that soon, I think.
Chad: Oh, damn.
Joel: Aspen Tech Labs is giving away free beer if it's your birthday month. Rum from our friends at Plum could be in your hands. And of course, a bourbon selection from both you and me sponsored by TextKernel. That to me is just manna from heaven. If you can get a Blockbuster style Chad selection and a Cheese selection in your...
[laughter]
Joel: In your bar, you are a happy happy, person.
Chad: It's like The manager selection at the Blockbuster.
Joel: Totally.
Chad: Yeah. No, totally is. So I've got some breaking news real quick for events.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: Are you ready?
Joel: Hit it.
Chad: So Jamie Leonard reached out. Thanks, Jamie. Appreciate it my man.
Joel: Can you say Jamie Leonard in a British accent?
Chad: No.
Joel: No. Okay.
Chad: I can't say anything in a British accent. So September 12th and 13th. That's right. Two days kids, confirmed for Bicentennial Park in Nashville. Yes. We're going back to Nashville.
Joel: NashVegas baby.
Chad: Fucking Nashville. Anywhere from 2000 to 2,500 TA pros. And you gotta remember, this is an entirely different animal from all the other events.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: Good, bad, or indifferent. Doesn't matter. This one is really attuned to have teams have your all-day event there, right?
Joel: Yep.
Chad: You have your bonding, your team building event. You need an easy button for that? It's called RecFest.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Not to mention Nashville. I mean, come on.
Joel: And there's Nashville after the show.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And you and I, I don't know. We tied one on last year. We had a party. We had a bookend of parties before and after.
Chad: Yes, yes.
Joel: We'll try to replicate that. I think that you and I should both be considering our karaoke song of choice.
Chad: Oh, Jesus.
Joel: For those that know or don't know, your choice this past conference was...
Chad: Michelle from Palm and I we're gonna have to retool. Yeah. We did B-52s. We did Love, Shaq. We're gonna have to see what the next is in line.
Joel: You're gonna do another duo? Another duet.
Chad: I think we have to. I think we have to. I think we owe the people. [laughter]
Joel: You owe the people. You owe the people. Well, I went with the Vanilla Ice.
Chad: Yes. Ice Ice Baby, yeah.
Joel: Ice Ice Baby. So, that's gonna be hard to top. I kind of brought the house down with that one 'cause no one, no one Running Man's like a...
Chad: Say you do Informer.
Joel: Oh, snow.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: 12 inches of cheese. That'll be the extras. Oh, boy. Yeah. So that's exciting. September. We have a full packed tour this year. And it's just getting fatter and fatter.
Chad: Good times.
Joel: As we go through the show. So we're gonna skip birthdays.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: We'll make up for that. We're gonna skip future travel, I think February we're off so we get some time to kind of catch our breath.
Chad: Yeah, I believe so.
Joel: And then March is full on, skip some of our extra shows. Do make sure to go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/@ChadCheese for all of our video goodness. Some shows exclusively on YouTube. But let's get to topic.
SFX: Topics
Joel: Google for Jobs news.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Now, you and I have been predicting for a while that Google was going to offer a pay-per-click solution, which makes perfect sense. They've got the engine built, they've got the market understanding what all that is.
Chad: It's what they do.
Joel: It's a switch to say, hey, we got these job postings. Hey, you want better exposure? You wanna be on the top of the list? Pay us per-per-click. And it's, it's magic happens.
Chad: Seems like easy money.
Joel: Well, timeout.
Chad: What?
Joel: You have multiple sources now telling you that the pay-per-click pilot program that was launched last year, has alerted people that the pay-per-click solution is now dead and buried. What do you have to add on that news item?
Chad: This just makes so much sense. It's what Google does. Everything else that they were doing in the jobs space and ATS I mean, different types of APIs and whatnot, none of that shit made sense but this just made fucking sense. And then guess what? It doesn't matter if it made sense or not. They've been having issues with regard to being able, obviously reporting back to the market. They've seen some drops, I think 6% drop. All I can say is more than likely they said, okay, enough of that playing around shit over there on the job side. Leave the job thing rolling. But we need those engineers. We need those project people over on areas and projects we know are currently making money and can make more money.
Joel: Yep. Little surprise from market perspective. Google, obviously, clicks are down. This to me was an easy sort of billion dollar ad.
Chad: I thought so. Yeah.
Joel: To the bottom line.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That they could easily do.
Chad: Totally wrong.
Joel: However, similar to Facebook a couple years ago saying, Hey, we're gonna commit everything to the metaverse. Of course they pivot off of that, but at the time they closed down their jobs offering to send all hands on deck to build a Metaverse platform. To me this is very similar in that, look. OpenAI is a threat, AI is a threat. It's everywhere. We need all hands on deck to focus on that. They've had multiple rounds of layoffs.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: Which means they're a little shorthanded. So from that perspective, it makes sense that they would focus more on the future than classified ads and making those monetizable.
Chad: And shoutout to Job Board Doctor who actually said, "I don't see this happening." I mean, and again, that was a smart call. I have no fucking clue how he called it. But at the end of the day, this is what Google does. They do clicks. They do pay-per-click. They do. I mean, this is just what they do.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: And they're not going to do what they do.
Joel: Yeah. So there you go. There you go. Yeah.
Chad: Interesting, interesting.
Joel: But man, that is a happy dance moment for Indeed, ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn and many others who I'm sure have been fearing the inevitable pay-per-click solution from Google. So, yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Shoutout to them for a little bit of relief on that front. Well, who won't be getting any relief are a couple companies that are inviting new CEOs and also saying goodbye to a CEO. HireVue has appointed Jeremy Friedman as their new CEO. He'll succeed Anthony Reynolds. Friedman, former CEO of Schoology brings expertise in tech growth. That's...
Chad: Schoology. Schoology.
Joel: Per the company. Schoology is how I read that. Schoology.
Chad: It's okay. Yeah. We're gonna need...
Joel: Okay. It case you missed it, HireVue specializes in evaluating candidates and matching skills to jobs through video interviews. They tout a thousand plus customers. And in other CEO news, we're saying goodbye to one. Rumor has it that Arno Schaefer is out at VONQ. He didn't get the shot apparently after serving in that role since 2021. If you don't know, VONQ is a job advertising and distribution platform as well as a recruitment marketing service. Chad, your thoughts on all things CEO this week?
Chad: Yeah, Let's go ahead and hit Jeremy up real quick. I mean, this is a guy who has no experience in this space. If you know Schoology or Schoology or whatever.
Joel: Schoology.
Chad: Whatever the hell they call it. They're a part of the PowerSchool platform, actually. And PowerSchool always felt like, to me, because I used it with my kids to be able to talk back and forth, communicate with teachers and look at grades and all that stuff. It always felt like an early 2000s platform that was built just for the basics.
Joel: Oh, it's built for Windows 95. It still is.
Chad: Yes, just for the basics. And in one of the quotes that Jeremy actually said in the article, it might have been TechCrunch, I think, he thinks that there are easy parallels between education and HR.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: And just, that is the most naive bullshit I think I've ever... And I hope Jeremy does well. I really do. But here's the thing, kids. When we see these CEOs come into our industry who have no fucking clue what we actually do, it's really disturbing, right? And then you've got to ask yourself where they were in the draft. Right?
Joel: Yeah. How many stars did they get in their ESPN analysis? Yeah, to me, this says, this is a crappy industry to be a CEO. These are not the A-teamers that are ready to go public, that are ready to be acquired. These are like the bottom of the barrel CEOs. And we looked at iSIMS. Okay, it may be a little mean, but my point is that these are not blue chip CEOs that are taking these jobs, which at a different time, there were more sort of top notch.
Chad: Steve Lucas at iSIMS. I mean, that was fucking, that was...
Joel: Yeah, they have track records of taking companies public or cashing out sort of big deals. The new iSIMS CEO, the new HireVue CEO, these are companies that should be prime for IPOs. These are companies that should be big acquisitions for really big fish. And these CEOs just do not instill a lot of confidence in me that that is their future. It feels more like, let's try to get to a point where we can get a top notch CEO. So I think it's just I hope that he's successful and we never, I don't think we ever, maybe some companies we hope they fail, but most of the time we want everyone to be successful. So, but this does not instill confidence in me as someone who's been around the block a few times. The more interesting story to me is the VONQ, the VONQ news.
Chad: And we got a shot for that. So we're good.
Joel: We did get a shot for that twice my sophomore year. And we talk a lot, particularly on the European show of how difficult it is to go from Europe, have a successful business in Germany, Denmark, wherever, and then say, we're just going to replicate that in America. And when VONQ came to our shores, they put together an incredibly solid team of veterans, guys that we've known for a long time. It was a very impressive start. I know that they had nailed down a few really solid partners and it collapsed very quickly. People left and we don't know all the intricacies of that, but it clearly underscores how tough it is to have something successful in Europe and then just stamp it in America. Even if you pay for the talent to make it work here.
Chad: I think unfortunately the Dutch just weren't patient enough. So you get a Star-Spangled banner fucking crew over here in the US and they start kicking ass, building infrastructure, taking names. Then they start falling off the face of the earth and leaving because overall, they weren't patient enough to understand that trying to penetrate the United States is not going to happen over fucking night. Now, some of the partnerships that they had, to me, happened overnight. Were they generating revenue? Probably not where they needed to, but guess what? That shit takes fucking time. Education, especially market education, so much. They also dropped the ball with Indeed at one time where they stopped the distribution to Indeed because Indeed cut them off.
Joel: Yeah. Probably too many eggs in that basket as well.
Chad: Unfortunately, again, Arno not from this industry, right? He was a PE guy, so pretty much put in there to just man the ship and unfortunately, didn't have the patience to allow the professionals to do their fucking job. So right now I think what they should do is do one of two things. They either allocate the resources to do what they were originally going to do in the US and have patience or get the fuck out. You can only do one. You can't half ass this and they've been half assing it for at least a year now.
Joel: Yeah, I think it's an interesting textbook case of do you bring Europeans over to America to manage things or do you hire Americans to coordinate with the Europeans? And there's obviously some loss in translation. There's challenges there on both sides, but it's not just putting the product in America and it works. There's the culture, there's the team, there's so many things that go into it.
Chad: It's the same thing going to Europe. You can't have Americans going into Europe and thinking that that shit's going to work either. You've got to go native, okay? It's all there is to it. If you're going into Germany, you better have a German team. If you're going into the US, you better have a US team. And unfortunately, again, I think a lot of it has to do with patience and they just didn't have it. Either that or their burn rate was way too fucking high. They couldn't have the patience.
Joel: Well, from my understanding, the European business is still pretty healthy. Do we know anything about a new CEO or an interim CEO at this point?
Chad: So from my understanding and from messaging back and forth with the VONQ team, again, guys, I hope you get healthy and I hope you get your shit together man, 'cause I wanna see more competition in this market. But Bill Fischer, who literally, he's been working more like a CMO, 'cause he's been putting a lot of good shit out and he's incredibly smart.
Joel: Yeah, he's been around.
Chad: He's the CTO, okay. So a CTO to be good at marketing, that shit never happens. So they've got a fucking unicorn there. He's gonna head the ship until they actually put a person in place. What I would say is put Bill in fucking place, okay. The dude is a fucking veteran. Put him in place. Put Bill in place and give him some fucking rope.
Joel: And hopefully he doesn't hang himself.
Chad: Hang himself.
Joel: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about Twitter and Indeed. Imagine that.
Chad: And we're on.
Joel: And in case you missed it, we are back live at TA Week in beautiful San Diego recording from the Qualifi booth. Alright Chad, we've got some news from big industry players to all kind of rapid fire and sound off on. So ADP has launched ADP Assist, that's creative. A cross-platform solution powered by, you guessed it, generative AI. Enhancing HR productivity and decision-making. It uses ADP's extensive data set to provide actionable insights in various HR aspects and is currently in early release with a planned rollout for all clients this year. ADP Assist validates payroll, simplifies smart analytics, and offers human insights with an AI-based conversational interface. That's all per ADP. Chad, your thoughts on ADP Assist?
Chad: Big shoutout to Jason in PR over at ADP. I appreciate you pushing this to me early, my friend. So we've talked about ADP in, with respect to generative AI, but it wasn't about having generative AI. Everybody's gonna fucking have it.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: ADP probably, let me think, no, more than likely has the biggest fucking data lake, data ocean that any of the systems that we know of that are out there.
Joel: Outside the government.
Chad: Yes. If they wanted to use, and they've got more up-to-date data than the government, it's very fast. If they wanted to utilize generative AI to help solve pay inequality, that would be the system to do it. That would be the system. If you were SENDIA right now, you would be working with them to be able to actually tap into that, right? What about learning and development? You know skills in the market, you know what's rising, you know what's falling, you know what kind of learning development kind of content to be able to serve up. ADP is doing that to, I mean, millions, millions of people, right? This to me is probably, and again, this press release was very fluffy and kind of like it wasn't... Didn't really have any...
Joel: Sure. Very biased.
Chad: But at the end of the day, as they dig into this, 'cause they had to put out a press release, I guarantee you, just 'cause everybody else is, but we've talked about this before. The secret sauce to all of this LLM is data. Nobody has more. Nobody has more.
Joel: Yeah, I don't have much more to add to that. Everyone's going to do this. It depends on what you feed the beast that makes it powerful or not, and ADP for sure has a formidable set of data. My question would be, is this a potential new revenue stream for them to have an API where they can feed an ecosystem of this data and what they're finding out to then feed startups or feed solutions that we talk about regularly on the show? I think this could be a whole new business opportunity for them to unleash AI and their data. Did I say unleash? Sorry.
Chad: Unleash. I love it. That's good. That was good. That's good.
Joel: Don't be too hyperbolic there, but yeah, I think this is an incredible opportunity. We typically do not see this kind of innovation from a company like ADP. It's a huge Titanic and turning that and doing things. It took them forever to have a marketplace. It's taken them forever to do so much. So I think this is really inspiring and the leadership team should be applauded by having this. My question will be, do they take it to another step and help power all the startups and companies that could utilize their data in a unique way with generative AI?
Chad: Yeah. So from my insights and what I know, they're going to go big on this, right? This is literally just the surface. They're scratching the surface and because they realize much like our dumbasses realize that the secret sauce is data and nobody has more data than they do. So whether they have a marketplace with APIs or what have you, I think at the end of the day, if they just solely focus on the fragments of data that they can crunch with generative AI, they're gonna be able to come up with product after product after a data point for the government.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: They're gonna be able to do things that nobody else can.
Joel: Yeah. Very impressive. Very impressive. All right. From ADP to your favorite company, let's talk about X.
Chad: X. That's Twitter. That's twitter.
Joel: Well, yeah. Twitter, X, whatever. I don't know. Friend of the podcast, Alex Joukowsky has an update on X-
jobs. They apparently introduced featured job ads. This feature launched on January 26th. Display sponsored jobs at the top of the search results with a blue featured icon. Verified organizations get benefits like a verified badge, priority posts, premium support and monitoring per impersonation. Very innovative, right, Chad? What are your thoughts?
Chad: As stupid as shit. We've talked about this and they were talking about rolling this out months ago. This is fucking stupid. Nobody, nobody. Listen, listen, nobody is going to manage their fucking jobs on Twitter. They're not. You know why, 'cause they don't have time. As we talk about talent acquisition, we talk about recruiters, we talk about all the way down. Nobody has enough time. They've got enough administrative bullshit they have to deal with and yet you want them to go into their list of thousands of fucking jobs and say, this is featured and that, fuck off. This is the stupidest shit. It's stupid, man. And again, this demonstrates that a dude that obviously who can sell companies, Lasky, the CEO of Lasky, is throwing out shit to hit 1990s version job board shit. It's horrible.
Joel: While I agree with you, we're also here at a conference that sessions are being highlighted that are still talking about pay-per-click advertising on Google.
Chad: No, you're right. I agree.
Joel: Something that I remember doing 20 years ago. So if you're categorizing this buying audience as it's got to be innovative or else I'm not buying it, it may be smart to go back to 1999 with your strategy. It may be smart...
Chad: But they can't manage it. But they can't manage it.
Joel: To keep it simple for the people. The challenge is this is never gonna go enterprise. This is never gonna go big scale.
Chad: It can't. It can't.
Joel: This is your Y Combinator companies. This is the startup that's gonna be like, oh, we can be on X. That's who this appeals to. There's no way at its current iteration that's gonna be big enterprise companies, marketing departments won't touch X, their job departments aren't going to touch it either. I say they, it's fine. It's low-hanging fruit. They'll get some money from it. Nowhere near the 44 billion that they need. I think in our time here at the conference, their time is much better utilized by going against LinkedIn. There's a lot of animus against LinkedIn at this conference.
Chad: There is. There is.
Joel: A lot of people want choices, want something else. And if nothing else, at least maybe they'll push in LinkedIn to be more innovative by creating products that might threaten them because LinkedIn is fat, happy and just printing money based on its current iteration. But no, in the same podcast we have Google for Jobs is not doing pay-per-click. But X is giving you sponsored jobs. I think it's a lose-lose for the industry.
Chad: Oh, God.
Joel: And for most employers out there.
Chad: It's horrible. It's horrible.
Joel: Well, from X, let's go to Indeed. So sign of things to come possibly.
Chad: I know that dude.
Joel: Indeed Japan has introduced Indeed Plus, an AI powered tool to expedite job matching by automatically distributing job postings on various job boards within its parent company Recruit Holdings, also known as programmatic advertising. I believe employers can connect with recruit's AirWORK Applicant Tracking System or Indeed for automatic postings and charges are based on a pay-per-click model. Yes. You guessed it. Indeed Plus aims to diversify collaborations with job boards outside of recruit group in the future, hoping to enhance job seeking and recruiting efficiency in Japan, possibly elsewhere in the near future. Chad, what are your thoughts on Indeed Plus?
Chad: Back to the future, kids. It's funny because back in my direct employer days, we actually had like over 3000 different distribution points, meaning job sites. And we would get jobs directly from corporate career sites and we would own net, code them, classify them, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Because what we did was we did dynamic distribution of jobs that were just relevant to those sites. These guys, what, three sites that they're doing this with?
Joel: Well, it's a small, it's a rollout that will take some time, Chad.
Chad: It's a rollout. It's a rollout. But I mean, this is 2008 shit, Twitter, this, it's all 2008 shit.
Joel: Sure. We talked about this with their tech group.
Chad: We just talked ADP with generative AI and we're talking about this.
Joel: Imagine that. Yeah. The Titanic and the...
Chad: Fuck.
Joel: Aircraft carrier is doing innovation that the smaller guys aren't. So we talked about Indeed launching their tech network.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I've already heard rumblings about healthcare being piloted or starting. Their salespeople are starting to talk about. The whole network are jobs on other platforms and sites, destination sites, et cetera. It is a very old strategy. To me it's an indication of what Google and the four apocalypse, the four horsemen, the apocalypse as you know.
Chad: Horsemen, the horsemen.
Joel: Are stressing the business that is Indeed. And this is another way I think, is the traffic really gonna matter? I doubt it. Can they sell something new? Yes. So if I'm a salesperson, I'm on the horn with technical companies talking about our tech network. If I'm selling healthcare, I'm saying, "Hey, we're launching a health network." And these companies will pay money, they'll pay, the check will get bigger. It's like a price increase at Netflix, people are just gonna pay it. [laughter] And this thing that launched in Japan is gonna launch in America at some point. They'll just have these sites and people will, they'll bump up their spend and Indeed will make more money at the easiest way possible. No innovation. Let's just have like this smokescreen of innovation and new networks and new exposure for your jobs. And it's all a bunch of bullshit, but it has been very effective in the past and it will probably be very effective to Indeed's bottom line going into the future, in no small part to Indeed saying no to pay-per-click advertising. Maybe there was a secret deal by Indeed that said, look, we'll spend so much money on Google ads if you just not launch a pay-per-click solution. That's a conspiracy theory. I have no information on that. I need a refill. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about some union news.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: Alright, gang, we are back. We are here live from the TA week conference in sunny San Diego, California, podcasting from the Qualifi booth right here in the expo hall. We've got beers, we've got whiskey, and we're coming to the end of our show. Hopefully we can still make it.
Chad: Woo. God. I hope so.
Joel: Got to.
Chad: It's about time for a gummy.
Joel: I need something. I need a Flying Dutchman or something to get me through. Alright. Some union news to talk about, United Parcel Service, popularly known as UPS, Chad, is set to cut 12,000 jobs affecting 14% of its 85,000 full and part-time managers. The move comes after a 31.8% drop in quarterly profit and rising costs from the company's contract with the Teamsters Union, which we talked about at length last year. The layoffs are expected to save UPS approximately $1 billion. Additionally, UPS CEO, Carol Tome, I don't know if she's related to Marissa Tomei or not, different spelling, so probably not announced the end of the hybrid work schedule. That's right. She's requiring employees to return to the office, not four, not three, but five days a week starting in March. This is a double, double trouble news item for a lot of workers at UPS. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news?
Chad: Marissa's older sister, she makes about $19 million in total of compensation a year. And this is happening, number one. Number two, we saw Shawn Fain not just get behind Biden last week, but also sign 10,000 new members into the UAW. This, to me, this is easy. If I'm Shawn Fain, UAW expands.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And goes right into UPS. I mean, this is finally a time where the narrative of the working class is starting to rise and it's not being beat down. If you talk about Tome's $19 million a year and all these guys who are now out of work, you're gonna receive amazing favor and the next thing you know, you have a UAW or whatever version shop that happens in UPS. There are expansion opportunities with UAW. Shawn Fain is the man to do it. I'm a lover. I love that dude.
Joel: Somewhere Jimmy Hoffa is smiling in his grave over the Shawn Fain.
Chad: Anyway, it's, to me, it just makes sense. The stars are starting to align and Tome doing these things and other CEOs doing these things, they're not paying attention to the market and what the fuck's going on.
Joel: So, some context around Chad's news on the autoworkers. So, over 10,000 autoworkers from 13 non-union companies have signed union cards with the UAW, signaling a growing movement for improved wages, benefits and workplace rights in the auto industry. Following the UAW's success, stand up striked at Ford, GM and Stellantis. Non-union autoworkers are organizing unions across the industry with workers at Volkswagen and Mercedes, to name a few, leading the campaigns. The UPS news is really unfortunate because last year we talked about their union having a victory, in terms of wages, benefits, and things going on. We recently talked to Kevin Wheeler, obviously, an old timer in this industry that's seen a few things. His comment has really resonated with me that unions that are winning these cases are on a five-year parole, I think was his comment.
Chad: Short term. Short term. Yeah.
Joel: So, companies are buying time. Enjoy the money while you can until we automate you and get to cut you. And we're starting to see some of that potentially with UPS making the deal and then taking a counter punch and saying, we're going to lay off 14%.
Chad: We're in January. They made that deal last year when they needed those motherfuckers in the seats. It's gonna come back around full circle. They're going to need people back in the seats again.
Joel: Yeah. I mean, there's nothing that says self-driving cars and trucks are coming. There's nothing saying... Now, maybe the packages and managing those can be more automated, but drones aren't gonna fly and give you packages anytime soon.
Chad: No.
Joel: So, this is a really interesting new story. I don't know if it's... I mean, to save a billion dollars on this is pretty significant. I believe the stock benefited from the news, which makes Marissa Tomei's sister very happy. Shawn Fain again, just amazing what he's doing.
Chad: Even if he goes arm-in-arm with Teamsters.
Joel: Yeah. To get UPS into the battle with the car companies and who else can join this fight is significant. And we talked, we interviewed recently where having a union was like the only sort of strength that the workforce had to make changes. So, you and I continue to root for the unions. The UPS news is definitely depressing on that front, but the UAW news is definitely inspiring. This is a push and pull between capital and labor, and we'll see who wins at the end of the day.
Chad: Without labor, you don't have capital.
Joel: We don't know who's gonna win, but we do know, Chad, that you and I continue to win because we've got a cooler full of beer and a bottle full of bourbon, my friends. Live from TA week, the Qualifi booth, Chad. We out.
Chad: We out.
Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful trainwreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.