As summer drags on, the boys had to get out of the house for a change of scenery, deciding to head to Chicago to see how things at Shaker Recruitment Marketing were doing … as well as do a show in the process. (That means the usual dose of cameras, crowds and debauchery, of course, just in real life this time.) The boys discuss tons of AI topics, including The New York Times taking on OpenAI and the state of New York regulating employee monitoring. Plus, The America First Legal Foundation is crying reverse discrimination, while Kid Rock is still drinking Bud Lite and Grindr and X, the artist formerly known as Twitter, are looking to be the next LinkedIn (yeah, really). As an added bonus, Shaker president Joe Shaker, Jr. joins us for a fireside chat, focused on the state of programmatic job advertising, to close out an amazing 24 hours in the Windy City.
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Intro: 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 The Chad & Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Oh, yeah. Just a couple of wind bags in the Windy city. What's up kids? We are in front of a live studio audience in Chicago, hosted by our good friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. You are listening to the The Chad & Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host, Joel the fridge Cheeseman.
Chad: This is Chad Italian Beef Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's show, AI, DEI, LinkedIn better watch its back. And a fireside chat with Shaker President, Joe Shaker. Let's do this.
Chad: Chicago, Chad, my kind of town.
Joel: Love Chicago.
Chad: Once you get through all the traffic, it doesn't suck, right? It's awesome when you get through all the traffic [laughter]
Joel: Yeah. Somebody said, oh, that one freeway is awful. There's 10. Which one are you talking about? They all suck.
Chad: They do.
Joel: Yeah. Not built for the traffic here, but...
Chad: The trains.
Joel: Smaller more manageable than New York.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Bigger than Boston. Six pro sports teams...
Chad: And Shaker's here.
Joel: Lake, decent weather...
Chad: Skill scout's here on video.
Joel: Considering the news. Everywhere's on fire, everywhere is flooded. [laughter] Chicago is a broad shouldered, environmentally sound city that people can visit or live.
Chad: Another great place right now is Spain. I don't know if you saw the Women's Cup.
Joel: I did.
Chad: World Cup.
Joel: I did.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: I saw the highlights. I'm not gonna try to tell you, I woke up at 6:00 AM to watch it.
Chad: Second time in a row. You chose London.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: And you failed. So all of our listeners in the UK don't blame the lionesses that, their injuries, anything like that. Blame...
Joel: Blame me.
Chad: Joel Cheeseman, kids.
Joel: How much does it suck to be an English fan? They always get right there and then...
Chad: They've got...
Joel: And then fumble it.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: They're the Cleveland Browns of the soccer world, I think.
Chad: [laughter] Or it could be the Chicago Bears. Hopefully they play a hell of a lot better this year.
Joel: Yeah. So shout out to some friends here in Chicago.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: We had dinner, that goes to Matt Grover of Recruitics and Ben Russell at Sonic Jobs, took us out to a fine Italian restaurant. I had the chicken parm. I think you had some sort of fish thing.
Chad: Sea bass baby. Sea bass.
Joel: Sea bass. Yeah. Gotta keep that figure.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: In check, which then resulted into shocker, whiskey afterwards. [laughter], and then a slight hangover this morning for sure...
Chad: Oh yeah. I blame Ben on that one. I kept finding new topped off glasses of whiskey and... Yeah.
Joel: Yeah. Good selection.
Chad: Yeah. It was very soft.
Joel: The Widow Jane is a winner. If you haven't tried that. Have you haven't tried that case?
Chad: It is delicious. So...
Joel: Thank you to Chicago.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Great people. Great town.
Chad: Beautiful.
Joel: Let's get to some shout outs.
Chad: So I'm gonna use my shout out time to play a new game I like to call back to the future.
Joel: Back to the future.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: There's no DeLorean.
Chad: No.
Joel: For this one. Is there? Okay.
Chad: So what I'm gonna do, Joel, is I'm gonna read two press release bylines to you from our friends over at CareerBuilder.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: Okay? And you're going to tell me...
Joel: These are real headlines.
Chad: These are real headlines.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: One happened in 2018 and the other one happened in 2023.
Joel: Ooh.
Chad: Just this week, right?
Joel: Okay.
Chad: I want you to tell me which one happened this week.
Joel: Let's play.
Chad: Number one. CareerBuilder launches pay per resume. That's number one.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: Pay per resume.
Joel: Needed that about 10 years ago. So that's...
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: That's suspect. Right? It's suspect. The second one. CareerBuilder creates a major industry disruption with... Get ready. AI technology that delivers next generation job search and hiring.
Joel: Ooh.
Chad: Okay. So we've got a per resume. We've got patent pending, by the way, AI.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: From CareerBuilder.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: Which one of those press releases came out this week?
Joel: Can I call a friend or do I have... Okay.
Chad: No, there's no dialing, no calling a friend.
Joel: Well, again, the pay per resume, pretty old. That's 10 plus years. Indeed did that. 2018 CareerBuilder was dropping Pokemon Go for jobs.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They were kind of getting sort of innovative, I guess for them.
Chad: Getting jiggy with it.
Joel: But I can't. It's gotta be the pay per resume. There's no way that that is 2023.
[laughter]
Joel: It is.
Chad: So which one are you picking?
Joel: I'm going with the pay per resume. That can't be a current headline.
Chad: That is what dropped this week.
Joel: Oh, geez.
Chad: CareerBuilder dropped pay per resume as a new model. A new business model. Yes, that's right. Back to the Future, kids. We're talking about something that Indeed did what?
Joel: Well...
Chad: 10 years ago.
Joel: We've had a good joke with the new CEO. Oh, what's his name? Abe Froman. The Chicago, the sausage King of Chicago. Something like that.
Chad: Furman, I think it is. Yeah.
Joel: If this is his, like...
Chad: The real estate guy. The real estate guy.
Joel: His first big headline. He's in trouble.
Chad: He's.
Joel: And they're definitely in trouble.
Chad: He's literally in the office by himself. I... Oh my God. I'm sure of this.
Joel: Oh my God.
[laughter]
Joel: Oh my God. Well, my shout out goes to Kid Rock. Mr. Ball With the Bar. Chad. Well, you might remember Kid Rock.
Chad: Why?
Joel: When we last saw him.
Chad: Why?
Joel: Shooting, literally shooting cans of Bud Light, flipping off Budweiser.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And dropping F-bombs everywhere.
Chad: Yes, 'cause that was cool.
Joel: Well, Mr. Rock, which is what his accountants call him. Mr. Rock was seen drinking, you guessed it, a Bud Light this week reunited. And it feels so good, Chad. Thought leaders have two things going for them.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Not thought leaders, influencers.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Attention.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And trust. After he blew up cases of Bud Light and told to F off, does he have any trust with his users now that he's back to drinking Bud Light?
Chad: All I can say is in his defense, you can take the kid out of the trailer park. You can't take the trailer park out of the kid.
Joel: Yep. I ain't straight outta Compton. I'm straight out the trailer. [laughter]
Joel: Another shout out...
Chad: Yes.
Joel: You know I love the Canadians.
S?: Take off. We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show. You hoser.
Joel: We talked about LinkedIn partnering with CLEAR.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: To authenticate profiles.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Well, that was an American only solution. Now they've rolled it out to our friends up north. Now our Canadian friends can basically be real people with CLEAR and LinkedIn. So if you go to LinkedIn in Canada, you should start seeing, do you wanna authenticate your profile.
Chad: Yes. So, all the five LinkedIn users from Canada are gonna have access. That's awesome. I love it.
Joel: That's cold, man.
Chad: [laughter]
Joel: That's cold. They're at least up to six or seven at this point.
Chad: We've got free stuff. Let's talk about that.
Joel: It's hard to compete with linkedina.com, which is the competitor there in Canada.
Chad: That's bad.
Joel: Sorry.
Chad: So bad.
Joel: Bad jokes come to... Come with me to Chicago too. Chad, we got free stuff. We brought some t-shirts to this event. Some people are donning some fine t-shirts...
Chad: We might even get a Shaker T-shirt Cannon.
Joel: Yeah, we got Shaker swag to take home with us. But for people that didn't get a shirt here at Shaker HQ, you can go to chadcheese.com, click the free link, give us your contact information. We got free shirts from our friends at JobGet. We're giving away free beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs.
Chad: So good. Oh, craft beer.
Joel: And maybe most importantly, free whiskey from our friends in the Netherlands. Textkernel.
Chad: I still have a headache this morning thinking... Just thinking about free whiskey. Carry on.
Joel: I do remember our debate last night as to how early we were gonna get up.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: It went from 7:00 in breakfast.
[laughter]
Joel: To 9:00 and I'll just see at the... I'll see you there, kind of thing.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: That was good.
Chad: And ended up being 10 o'clock.
Joel: In addition to free stuff, Chad. We got some birthdays to celebrate as we normally do.
Chad: Birthdays.
Joel: Some big hitters, big hitter birthdays.
Chad: Who?
Joel: This week we got Tracy Cole.
Chad: Oh.
Joel: Bradley Clark. You might remember we celebrated his co-founder at Rectxt last week. So Bradley...
Chad: Fucking Canadians everywhere. Jesus.
Joel: Another trip around the sun. That's right.
Chad: That's crazy.
Joel: Andrea Wade.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: In Ireland.
Chad: Love her.
Joel: Beverly Collins.
Chad: Ooh.
Joel: I wonder if she got a new Maserati for her birthday. Who knows.
Chad: She might have.
Joel: Who knows? It could have happened.
Chad: I hope she did.
Joel: Nick Livingston.
Chad: Oh.
Joel: Our friend at Honeit. Aman Brar on the beaches...
Chad: Wow.
Joel: Of Fiji or Bora Bora at this moment, probably. Joey Stubblebine celebrates a birthday.
Chad: Nice.
Joel: Dina Funky cold Madeiros and my wife Dr. Christine Picard Cheeseman celebrates her birthday this week. So happy birthday to all our listeners that are celebrating another year.
Chad: The Bug lady, does she go by that?
Joel: You saw her license plate in...
Chad: Yeah. Insect. Right.
Joel: Insect. Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. That's fun.
Joel: That's fun. All right.
Chad: So we're gonna go ahead and roll into events Kids. We've got RecFest coming up, September 13th and 14th in Nashville. What's happening at RecFest? It's gonna be a party, it's gonna be fun, it's gonna be learning, bonding, drinking, all that stuff. It's kind of what we do. So it's perfect for us and our listeners. Not to mention, for TA Pros and their entire teams, they should be bringing their entire team to this thing.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Even if, let's say for instance, a TA leader wants to come to do a little recon.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Sounds great. But those who need that all-in-one kind of package for a team meeting. This is perfect. Go to RecFest, almost here about three weeks away.
Joel: And I'm pretty sure our Groupon still works, doesn't it?
Chad: It does.
Joel: Use Chad and Cheese as your coupon code and we're talking half off.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: It is legit Groupon status.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Discounts at Chad and Cheese everybody.
Chad: Then September 20th we have a Gem Virtual event. These are slowly going away. Remember we were doing virtual events every other day. Remember that.
Joel: Wasn't a fan in mass.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I can do it occasionally.
Chad: I like it occasionally. Well, we're gonna have a Mona Sloane, PhD from NYU and Keith Sonderling. You know him as Commissioner.
Joel: That's right.
Chad: From the EOC, where we're gonna be talking about AI's ability to unlock recruiting efficacy, the trials, tribulations and reasons why or why not the recruitment community should embrace AI. Then HR Tech's happening. This is gonna be ridiculous.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Fuel50. We're gonna be in the Fuel50 booth for two days straight. So find us, bring us beer please. Food, beer, all that other fun stuff. But come to the Fuel50 booth and then the very next week, this is ridiculous. We're gonna hop on a plane and go to one of our most favorite shows in Paris.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: UNLEASH World. So we're really excited about that in October. I can't wait.
Joel: Is there gonna be an AA booth at any of these shows?
[laughter]
Joel: 'Cause I'm a little scared about all this, but not nearly as scared, Chad, as fantasy football. That's right. People watching us on YouTube know that you were donning a Chicago Bears jersey, the Bears Justin Fields. If you love fantasy football, put in your name for our league, we'll be choosing players very soon.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: We'll be drafting very soon.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And it's our third, I think installment of fantasy football.
Chad: I think third or fourth.
Joel: Third or fourth.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So, it's becoming a tradition...
Chad: It is.
Joel: Here at Chad and Cheese and we're excited. So if you love fantasy football, hit us up and put your name in the hat to get into the league.
Chad: I'm getting texts every day from people who are trying to find their way into the Fantasy Football League.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It's really funny 'cause I feel like we had to pull teeth to get the first round of people.
Chad: Now everybody wants to do it.
Joel: And, now that they know that, the leaderboard every week, it's so much fun. People want to get on it. And, big shout out to FactoryFix.
Chad: For this jersey.
Joel: Another fine Chicago company.
Chad: Yes, yeah.
Joel: For sponsoring Fantasy Football. We'll see you in September.
Chad: And Mike and the kids over at FactoryFix for getting me this beautiful Justin Fields jersey.
Joel: It is nice. They spent some coin on that. That's not the cheap...
Chad: Not playing games.
Joel: Street jersey that you get on the way to the game.
Chad: No, it's not. Gotta watch it on YouTube though. Now we go to topics. Topics!
Joel: All right. AI, first time. All right.
Chad: Oh my God.
Joel: New York Times.
Chad: This is constant. Dude.
Joel: The New York Times and OpenAI could end up in court, Chad. The Times is considering suing OpenAI over intellectual property rights as negotiations for a licensing deal falter, concerns arise that AI like ChatGPT could replace original reporting, legal implications of AI's use without permission remain uncertain. Chad, How is this case going to shake out?
Chad: It's fairly, I mean, this is going to be commonplace and, I mean, OpenAI actually has, they put out a report, really instructions, on how to get your site ready to not be scraped, indexed or what have you. So I think, we've learned from the days of Google, robot TXT files, right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So what those robots can actually come after data wise and get, and what they can't. So this is, this isn't anything new. It's... You mentioned the banana in the tailpipe [laughter], which is brilliant. I'm not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe again, New York times, they're not falling for the banana in the tailpipe.
Joel: Yeah. So historically, Google took content from newspapers, created a advertising model.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: I.e. A money printing machine in the back of the office and the New York Times and other newspapers fell in revenue and eyeballs, et cetera. And more and more of that is happening as Google is just taking snippets of news, answering questions. Nobody even goes to news sites anymore in most cases.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: So the New York Times learned their lesson that, we let Google take all the money, Facebook take all the money, and we're not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe again, [laughter] and let openAI and Bard and everything else take money off our plate.
Joel: Because we own the content and we should be paid fairly for that. Now, historically, there's some interesting precedent cases. So number one, you have Google scanned books at one point, and you could get Moby Dick and other historical books and things off the internet. There was a case against that. The court said that that was okay, because it wasn't an original take on what was already done. These are books that are already in the public space. But then there was another case with artist Andy Warhol.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Where he would take historical pictures and he would do the Andy Warhol thing with those. Now he lost that case to be able to do that. So where in the justice system are they going to put what OpenAI is doing with content, are they going to win or lose. I think it's a very important case of how the future of AI is going to pan out.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And we will continue to watch it very closely.
Chad: Yes. It is... It's not just text and that's what we cared about mostly with Google. And I mean, they did also with images, but yeah, we're talking, this is multimodal. So it will be something that will continue to happen. But again, anybody who cares about guarding their contents there's way to... There are ways to do it.
Joel: Yeah. If the New York Times was smart, it would build an alliance with all the other major newspapers and do an auction between OpenAI and Microsoft and Google and Facebook about who's gonna to get our content to model their AI after, and make a ton of money from one of those companies. Well, New York Times, but also the New York State of...
Chad: Empire State of Mind, baby.
Joel: Is in the news. A new bill in the New York State Senate proposes regulations for AI tools and employee monitoring and decision making tools used must be deemed necessary requiring clear notice and must undergo a bias audit. Employers must notify employees about their use, violations may result in fines. Get this, Chad, hold onto your seats, of up to $1500 for subsequent offenses. Chad, what is your take on the New York state of mind?
Chad: Well, this is two aspects that they talk about, Monitoring tools and automated decision making tools. Right? So the bill prohibits these employers and employment agencies. I think this... The employment staffing agencies are really the ones that could take the big hits here. And I'll tell you why here in a second. On the, not just the monitoring, but the automated decision making. Because if you take a look at every instance, right? And they're talking about instances because the fines seem pretty pathetic, but when you scale and you're scaling decisions with AI and you make 30,000 decisions in a second, 30,000 times 1500, 30,000 times 500, right? Yep. So it does seem pretty pathetic. But if there are all these instances against who knows how many individuals in a specific timeframe, Yep. Then this could be a big fucking problem for companies. Now they talk about auditing, right?
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And that you must audit within a year's timeframe. I think any, this is great for consulting companies by the way, but I think any company who, especially major Fortune 500 company, who waits a year to do an audit, is actually, they're tripping themselves up. They should be auditing every quarter. Fortune 500 companies, staffing companies who have a multitude of clients and brands that they have to serve. They should actually have a whole unit of people who are doing this, at least on a monthly basis. Because again, if you're making that many decisions through automation, and they are for all those different brands. This could rack up a huge, huge bill. And what New York City did early on, their legislation, their regulations or proposed regulations had a lot of holes in it.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Right. And we talked on the show back then that this is just the first step. Don't get ready for, perfection right out of the gate. I mean, we're talking about the government. If you're looking for perfection on the first step, I mean, come on.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Really. This is tying up a bunch of loose ends, closing some gaps. It's not perfect, but it is definitely, a step in the right direction. And employers and staffing companies have a lot of work to do because they could be caught in a ringer pretty quick.
Joel: Yeah. I gotta laugh outta this. 'Cause it reminded me of the pay transparency laws, in New York, that happened and people were posting jobs of 0-2 million [laughter] in salary, which is, I guess that's pay transparency technically, but, those companies got pinched pretty hard.
Chad: Yes, and they should be.
Joel: For those job postings. I mean, look, you mentioned, businesses are going to be created for consulting. There's going to be audit companies that have official badges or official certification.
Chad: They're already out there, dude, that's a thing.
Joel: They're going to make a lot of money doing this, assuming it spreads in other states and cities. Lawyers are going to make a lot of money... Consulting with companies.
Chad: Yes. Welcome to America.
Joel: The lawyers are gonna make a lot of money. But ultimately what you said in terms of the winner here is the citizen, the worker. It's amazing to me how many people at work don't know that their company can read their email or that...
Chad: Yeah. Oh God.
Joel: Companies are looking at calls sheet. So the fact that that wasn't... Hey, we're gonna... You need to alert people that you're doing that. Yeah. Let's at least make this right. That if you're using highly scalable mass data points to figure out who's doing what, who's at risk of whatever, who's a threat to whatever, that people know about that. And that they can act hopefully better than they would if they thought they weren't being watched.
Chad: Well, on the monitoring side of the house, during remote work. I mean, we've stepped into an entirely different narrative around how people are working from home. That's their space. Right. There's no reason... I don't care if they're doing work and it's your work or not, that's still their space. It's their home. So there's gotta be some respect that happens there.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: No. We've talked about some companies using the cameras, automatically keeping the cameras on, so that they can monitor, visually monitor their employees while they are working or not working, keystroke programs that are actually installed. They're all irrelevant to be quite frank, because at the end of the day, if the job is getting done, if the KPIs are getting met, if the goals are getting hit, I don't care when you're in front of your computer. As long as you're not missing meetings, you're doing your job, you're meeting all those things. I don't care. This is a culture of control that we're seeing.
Joel: Unless you're rocking a Jeffrey Toobin, it shouldn't matter what you're doing at home.
Chad: Just another reason not to do it. [laughter]
Joel: And look, this is gonna make companies think twice about, should we do this? If we have to let our people know that we are tracking this, ultimately, a lot of companies aren't gonna buy these products and services.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: The companies that create them need to think about, okay, if the future of our product is transparency, what kind of future do we have? We're not hidden in the shadows. We're not this sort of checking your keystrokes and what's going on. So full transparency here, I think is good for everybody. To your point of the fines, hopefully those have teeth. Typically, unless someone is in an orange jumpsuit, nothing changes. But if there's some real penalties for some of these companies, then things hopefully, hopefully will change. Well, more AI, we're gonna get artsy-fartsy on everybody, Chad, which we normally don't do on the show, but...
Chad: Andy Warhol?
Joel: A US district court has ruled that AI generated art cannot be copyrighted. The judge stated that copyright requires human authorship, citing past cases like the monkey selfie. Remember the monkey selfie?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Google it if you don't know. While acknowledging AI's role in new artistic frontiers, the ruling raises questions about how much human input is needed for AI created art to be copyrighted. Any thoughts on this ruling, Chad?
Chad: It can't be enforced, period. I mean, it was funny, 'cause we've been talking for years about the whole whack-a-mole scenario on how there are gonna be programs that can identify these things. In this new world that we live in, that will not work and here's why. If you build a program for, let's just say, ChatGPT, OpenAI, right? That is one large language model. As we start to have these new islands of large language models that are built, they're gonna be millions easily. Right. And there are plenty that are out there already. It's just that OpenAI's new glory. Everybody now knows about them, but they're gonna be millions of these local LLMs that are out there. Yep. And they're all trained on entirely different data. If you're trying to tune one for a certain large language model, it's not tuned for all of them. So you're going to have to... It's gonna be impossible to keep up with the ones that are public, that you have access to. Let alone the ones that are private in their own private domains. It's gonna be impossible. So the whole whack-a-mole scenario is it's not gonna exist, 'cause you can't keep up with it. It's scaling too fast.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah. So I was trying to spin this as an employment take on this. And I think I got it. So we're in Chicago. We're in Chicago here. And who's arguably the greatest athlete in his sport that played in Chicago in the '80s and '90s.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Guy named Michael Jordan.
Chad: Jordan, MJ.
Joel: Well, there's a movie called Air, which I recommend. If you haven't seen it, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, imagine that, about the Nike Air story, how they landed Michael and there's a conversation in the movie where Ben Affleck, who's the founder of Nike says how they got the logo. They paid $35 to some local creative to make it.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And she got $35. But I'm thinking like, if that was today, they wouldn't need an artist to create a logo. They could AI make me a ton of different logo options.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: Pick from those...
Chad: Easily.
Joel: And we're done. So there's gonna be a lot of creative people that are either gonna have to harness AI in a new way to be more hireable or more valuable, because a lot of companies are going to bypass creatives, whether it be video, whether it be audio, whether it be design, and take creatives totally out of the picture. So to me, it's like, if I'm a creative person, I'm thinking really hard about how do I create original stuff with AI and how do I do stuff with AI that no other creative can do?
Chad: You should be using this to scale, no matter what job you have. Right. I mean, look for ways to actually scale this, whether you're in marketing, whether you're in sales, whether you're... I mean, it doesn't matter. You're looking for different ways to progress and scale what you can do and do more of.
Joel: Yeah. It's the adage that's becoming popular. If you won't lose your job to AI, you'll lose your job to someone that understands AI.
Chad: Exactly.
Joel: And with that, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about Grindr. I hardly even know her.
Chad: Excuse me?
Joel: All right, Chad, LinkedIn has had wannabe competitors over the years for sure. And we've talked about some of them, Polywork.
Joel: Jobcase.
[laughter]
Joel: LinkedIn for those who aren't on LinkedIn and many others. But let's talk about some new participants. First up is X, the artist formerly known as Twitter.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: We recently talked about job postings being available to verified corporate accounts, but new rumors include a job search function. And Laskie's former CEO, who was acquired by Twitter has hinted at a matchmaking feature on the social network. Then you have competition in the form of some unexpected places. But Chad, I wanna get your take on X's new rumors about enhancing their job search functionality.
Chad: So, I thought it was interesting because I had never heard of Laskie. I don't think you had either, had you?
Joel: No.
Chad: Yeah, they were...
Joel: That was a shocker.
Chad: They were acquired. They were acquired. I was like, who the hell is Laskie? Which was the job matching site that Twitter acquired in May. The CEO, Chris, I think Bakke or Bakke or.
Joel: Bakke, I think.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: He was also a founder of Interviewed, the interviewing company that Indeed bought, he was at Indeed for a couple of years, left and started Laskie. He did that with his co-founder who took the same trail, the CTO, his name is, what is it? What is it? What is it? Daniel O'Shea. So they've got some experience in this space and they have sold now two companies, to some pretty big brands. Right. Here's the big problem. We've talked about this before. LinkedIn has more data on me than any other platform out there. Intent, context, all of it. They suck at matching. Right. Indeed has a lot of information. Right. They suck at matching. Twitter doesn't have any information about me and what I do, so there's really no context to be able to help me find a job.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Other than jobs near me, which could be admin assistants and things that I really don't care about. So I think it's interesting. Can they get information on me? Can they scrape, do a high queue and try to scrape LinkedIn? [laughter] Or something like that. I don't know how they get the data because I'm not gonna give it to them. I don't trust them. I don't trust them with anything.
Joel: Yeah. So there are two sides to this, and one is our company is gonna sign up to post their jobs on Twitter. And I tend to think a lot of companies will spend the 12 grand, which is the current price tag, if they can get their jobs on Twitter, especially if there's a search box, there's functionality.
Chad: Isn't only five though. There's an XML feed and then you can like promote five.
Joel: It's a little unclear, Chad.
Chad: Yeah, it's weird.
Joel: Much like all the things that are going on at X, it's a little unclear, but if they do create a search box or their search box includes Hey, search for jobs, and there's like an all encompassing search, companies will jump on board to get their jobs on Twitter. They just will, that'll be something that's not a huge, huge expense.
Chad: They'll do it badly.
Joel: Huge expense.
Joel: Yeah. They'll, yeah. XML feed, upload, whatever, and, and will X be able to handle that correctly. So I do think there will be a good number of companies that say, oh, I can put my jobs on X. Like, yeah, it's how much. Okay, cool. And we're verified and we get all that other shit that a verified company gets. We get the gold check. So I do think that they'll find, they'll get some leverage with companies. The point that you bring up to is the job seeker and Twitter's brand right now is you post little snippets of your thoughts and links and you comment on them.
Chad: It used to be a little snippets.
Joel: Yes. So now every indication is that Elon wants to be the super app that is popularized in China...
Chad: The WeChat, yeah, the WeChat.
Joel: And places in Asia. And if he succeeds in that, then if you think of it as everything, then finding a job or networking becomes maybe part of that value add. So the real challenge to me is, can Elon pull off this everything app where you can get your car, you can pay for everything, and now you can like network and upload a profile that's professional. And I mean the matching, they do have the data. They do have people on the platform. So if they know by where you are locally, can they...
Chad: They don't have enough data though. Indeed has more data on me.
Joel: Oh, for sure.
Chad: Right. And they still do a shit job of matching.
Joel: They have a long way to go.
Chad: They're horrible.
Joel: To compete with LinkedIn.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: But can they get the young people to embrace X as opposed to LinkedIn is where my grandpa put his profile.
[laughter]
Joel: So I don't know. It's fun to watch Elon's always good TV, good podcasting, good everything. So we'll continue to cover this, but I...
Chad: He's a fucking train wreck. Yeah.
Joel: The good news is, I think he's serious. I think I mentioned he came up with PayPal with LinkedIn's founder Reid Hoffman. So he's seen this, it is low hanging fruit to get companies to post jobs and people to do that. So I think he is serious and I think it'll be fun to watch. He's got an uphill battle, especially with this everything app thing. But it will be fun to watch.
Chad: Remember when we thought Facebook was serious about this? I think the same thing's gonna happen.
Joel: And google was serious about it and they're a little more serious about job postings 'cause I think that's easier for them.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: But yes, we've seen companies come and go and get the hell out of it because it's a pain in the ass for the most part.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And Elon will probably lose interest. He'll get bored and shoot off some rockets or dig a hole in LA or something.
Chad: Yeah, that Squirrel moment. Yeah.
Joel: Yeah, a Squirrel moment for him. Well, from X to maybe XXX to some people, you may know Grindr as the go-to destination for LGBTQ+ people looking for a hookup, Chad. But apparently it's now being used as an alternative to the likes of LinkedIn users checking into the dating app to see how many feet they are from a potential love interest can now expect to be poached for work rather than asked out. That's because around 25% of its users are on the app to network according to the company. Chad, should LinkedIn be losing any sleep over Grindr?
Chad: No.
Chad: I I think it's incredibly creepy. I mean I am so uninformed about, I've never used Grindr and then when I started reading this that you could actually see the proximity of how close you are to, I mean, it is like the the perfect stalker app. I mean, it is creep as fuck dude. And then okay, think of it, just think of it from this standpoint. Oh my God, this brings an entirely different vantage point to company culture. Literally your company culture is a hookup culture, that to me does not go together at all. Right. [laughter] So if you're looking, I mean if you're looking to diversify. We've talked to Mitch Yuova at my myGwork that is a company that was focused on creating a LinkedIn property, for the LGBTQ+ community. Right. This is this is no this is trying way too hard. Don't mix my hookups with my hiring. That is a recipe for fucking disaster in the workplace.
Joel: Yeah. So there is some some historical precedence for this. Bumble is also a dating app from what I hear on the news, Chad, but they launched Bumble Bizz a few years ago to compete with LinkedIn. You don't hear a lot about Bumble Bizz. I think it's safe to say. You don't hear a lot of companies and employers using it. So to me Grindr, if they ever did get Grindr Bizz, I don't know what they would call it. I don't see that taking off. Just like I didn't see Bumble taking off. However recruiters are gonna recruit and they're gonna think outside the box. They're gonna try to get creative. And for them to sit outside the corporate headquarters of said company that they wanna poach from, look on Grindr of who is there.
Chad: Can you imagine asking your recruiters to go on Grindr to do that?
Joel: You won't ask recruiters. They'll just do... You know recruiters, man, they do whatever it takes to get in front of the companies.
Chad: I don't care...
Joel: Employees...
Chad: I don't wanna know whatever it takes. Okay.
Joel: This will continue to be a fringe resource for recruiters to poach from people at companies while they're at work. Hey, can we meet up for lunch? I'd like to talk to you about whatever, not a hookup or whatever. And then they pitch them on the job opportunity, that is going to happen. Just sit outside of Microsoft's headquarters, get on Grindr and see who's there and then connect with those people and hire them is gonna happen. And apparently obviously is.
Chad: I got nothing, man.
Joel: You got nothing.
Chad: I got, I literally got nothing. It twists my mind to think what type of company culture you're building in going after people that way. I mean, there are great professional networks that you can get into... For all these different communities. When the network starts with a a hookup it's an entirely different mindset. To be able to build your company on.
Joel: Do you remember when Twitter first came out and people started recruiting on Twitter?
Chad: That's entirely different though. I mean, we're talking about a micro blogging platform versus a hookup app? Yeah. This is totally different.
Joel: Even though the company says 25% of the users use it to network and make friends and contacts.
Chad: I call that bullshit.
Joel: You call it bullshit.
Chad: Their version of network is not the kind of professional networking that we're talking about.
Joel: Grindr may be a public company, I'm not, I'll have to check that but I know that they've talked about it. Going out as a SPAC, if they were going public this would be the perfect sort of narrative to say we're not just a hookup site, we're a LinkedIn competitor and that is gonna sell a lot of shares. I'm sure.
Chad: Like Handshake and all the other... We're the new LinkedIn. No, you're not.
Joel: All right. Well let's go from the new LinkedIn to the new EEOC, I guess, the America First Legal Foundation led by former Trump advisor, Steven Miller has requested that the EEOC investigate corporations including Activision, Blizzard and Kellogg claiming that their diversity equity and inclusion policies violate anti-discrimination law. The foundation alleges that these policies disadvantage white heterosexual men. The foundation's efforts are considered a move to discouraging employers from implementing DEI programs causing a potential conflict. Within the EEOC stance on diversity initiative. Chad, your thoughts and how much have you donated to the American First Legal Foundation?
[laughter]
Chad: So you had to see this coming. I mean affirmative action was struck down by the Supreme Court. That was the first domino. This is gonna be a wave. The actors here, the players, America First Legal Foundation, if you're listening to this podcast and you don't know the history of America First. Look it up back in the '40s. You've got to understand where this is actually coming from. And Steven Miller, I'm not even gonna talk about that guy. Here's a quote from Bloomberg Law. America First has accused Morgan Stanley, PWC, McDonald's and Starbucks and many more of having discriminatory DEI programs that aim to increase workplace representation of women and minorities. Wait for it, wait for it, at the expense of white heterosexual males, at the expense. End quote. Okay. So here's newest Pew Research when we're talking about expense. Okay.
Joel: Dude, you're dropping Bloomberg Law and Pew Research in the same thing. You're gonna blow my mind up.
Chad: White women are paid 83 cents on the dollar as men. Black women 70 cents on the dollar, Hispanic women 65 cents. And yet they feel like this is happening at the expense of the heterosexual white male. Another quote from Bloomberg Law, "It also targets the company's employee network groups for women racially and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ workers and others saying that they are also discriminatory because no such group exists for white heterosexual male." So I asked Julie because she is literally the expert in all things of this nature on the diversity side all that stuff. So I asked her I said have you ever heard of a white man ERG? And without missing a beat she said yeah I know they've been around forever. They call them the C-suite and the board of directors. Right. This is total bullshit. That was a touche moment for me.
Joel: Mic drop moment. Yeah.
Chad: To be able to say that they're disadvantaged is ridiculous. And the question is why is this happening and why are we seeing this happen so fast? And I have one clue. 2040. In 2040 or around 2045. The white demographic in the United States is going to become the minority. There are a lot of white men in power who are afraid. They're fearful for what that actually means. And that's why this shit's happening. The EEOC basically is ensuring companies and their separate locations look like the communities that they're in. That's all they're doing. Right. So to be able to attack these things, and we're gonna see it, you know, obviously go to the Supreme Court. This is gonna be an issue and it's gonna get worse as we get closer to 2040.
Joel: Yes. So you remember in the '80s the Sci-fi series, V?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: For those that don't, it's not worth your time to go check it out on YouTube or wherever it might be.
Chad: A trailer.
Joel: Basically, aliens come to earth, they look like humans. So we can't like place them as regular.
Chad: No clue where this is going.
Joel: And there's a big episode where a woman has a baby that's part alien and part human. That's Steven Miller. He's one of the lowest forms of people.
Chad: Ever, yeah.
Joel: So you mentioned the Supreme Court. We knew this was gonna happen.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: We knew what happened in schools. We knew what happened in corporate life. And this is a reaction to that, at its simplest form this is a grift by him and the organization. They're gonna raise so much money from donors, that wanna fight this fight.
Chad: The Kid Rocks of the world.
Joel: He's gonna make it. They're gonna make a ton of money. He's gonna get a ton of airtime on every television show, podcast.
Chad: It's fucking ridiculous.
Joel: In this episode, so he's on an ego trip. He's making tons of money from this. It's a grift. The sad part about this, and we discussed this in prior episodes, is that we have politicized diversity. We have politicized...
Chad: We have demonized diversity.
Joel: Sure, sure.
Chad: This organization has demonized diversity.
Joel: And the money raising happens on both sides.
Chad: Fucking horrible.
Joel: What's so sad is that companies that I think had every good intention of focusing on diversity, focusing on a more inclusive company and workforce have now said, we don't want any part of this conversation. We don't want to be the next Bud Light. We don't want to be the next Target.
Chad: So shortsighted.
Joel: We talk more and more and we're seeing more and more stories about companies dropping their diversity programs. And it's because of this bullshit. What could have been a perfectly fantastic period of inclusion has been politicized, demonized, and this is what we see as a part of it and it's a fucking shame.
Chad: Well, and this is a call out to all the DEI leaders that are out there. All the ones that I've talked to over the years that say, I will not talk politics. This is what happened. Politics knocked on your door. You didn't answer. Right. You didn't answer. Then they kicked your door down, went into your pantry, took your Cheetos, sat on your couch, and started watching Fox News. The question is, what are you going to do about it? You DEI leaders who weren't gonna talk politics, guess what? Too damn bad. You have no choice now. You gotta get out there and fight. And if you don't, more of this shit's gonna happen. And that's the hard part, especially in the employment side.
Joel: And those are flaming hot Cheetos, by the way, Chad [chuckle] So everyone should be doubly pissed off about that. Well, let's take a breath.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And we're gonna bring Joe Shaker, president of Shaker Recruitment Marketing for a little fireside chat Chicago style. And we're back.
Joe Shaker Jr: Hey guys, how are you? You know what? Actually, I should welcome you all. So welcome to Chicago. Welcome to Shaker Hub, as we like to call it.
Chad: Oh, the Hub.
Joel: Always a pleasure.
Joe Shaker Jr: And I gotta tell you, it's been fun...
Chad: It's gorgeous, dude.
Joe Shaker Jr: It's been fun sitting backstage watching the show, seeing what, how animated you all are. But I have to tell you, I'm so happy that I did not join you guys last night for dinner.
Joel: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: 'Cause I feel great today.
Joel: That was a good choice. And with the Cubs battling for the wild card spot, you have a little pep in your step. You're a little better mood than normal.
Joe Shaker Jr: I think you're five back, is that right, Joel? Five? I think you're five.
Joel: Yeah. I don't... I'm not looking. I'm not Browns. We'll talk Browns at the end of the interview. But the Cubs you gotta be excited about that.
Joe Shaker Jr: I am excited. But it's the Cubs, so let's see how they close out. [chuckle]
Joel: Yeah, I know how that goes. So some of our listeners don't know, you don't know Shaker. Give us a quick sort of Twitter bio on you and the company.
Joe Shaker Jr: Sure for those that don't, I'm Joe Shaker Jr. President of Shaker Recruitment Marketing. All I've ever done is recruitment and advertising. I took over the business from my father about eight or nine years ago, but I've been doing it since birth. My agency has been around for 74 years. It was started by my grandfather and we've been based in Oak Park, Illinois for about 30-40 years of the 70.
Chad: It's a great little neighborhood.
Joel: Great neighborhood.
Chad: And this is a great location. Every time we come, it's like we got the whole escalator set up here, which no, I don't know any other.
Joel: It's nice because there's parking.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Downtown. You know, like forget about it.
Chad: Yes. You're screwed.
Joel: Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. So Grindr for recruitment. Are you guys working on that now or?
[laughter]
Joe Shaker Jr: I always learn a thing or two on your shows and I learned something here today.
Joel: All right. There'll be a meeting later to discuss the opportunities.
Chad: There will be a Grindr meeting just so everybody knows the Shaker Grindr meeting's happening. Okay. Just so you're ready.
Joe Shaker Jr: I also since you guys...
Joel: Everybody download the app today.
Joe Shaker Jr: Since you guys also start with callouts and you mentioned birthdays and you mentioned your wife. My daughter turns seven on Friday.
Joel: Oh yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: And she actually is pretty, thinks I'm pretty cool today knowing that I'm gonna be on YouTube later this week.
Joel: Ooh.
Joe Shaker Jr: So happy seventh birthday to Marian.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Very nice.
Chad: Oh, we're gonna have to actually just go ahead and get a clip of that and send that to Marian so she can play it for the kids. I love that.
Joe Shaker Jr: I gotta get some brownie points for that, I think.
Joel: Joe knows some people that can edit some video, I think. Yeah.
Chad: So Joe, we're gonna go ahead and hit you with a fastball right out the gate. Big news happening in the industry. Appcast buys Bayard, one of your competitors, friends but competitors, right. You guys have known each other forever.
Joe Shaker Jr: Long time.
Chad: Those guys have been in business for around 100 years. You guys were on 75. I mean, you guys are the heavyweights in this space. How surprised were you? First off.
Joe Shaker Jr: That Bayard sold?
Chad: And to Appcast?
Joe Shaker Jr: So as soon as Shamrock bought Bayard the first time, right. PE comes in, they're not building another 100 year company. So are we surprised that Bayard sold? Of course not. Were we surprised that Appcast bought it? That was surprising. I didn't see that coming.
Chad: So knowing that it was PE, knowing it's been around for 100 years, how surprised are you that they are ditching the Bayard name?
Joe Shaker Jr: That did surprise me.
Chad: Yeah. I was pretty set on my ass when I heard that... [chuckle]
Joel: Were you more surprised that Twitter went away or Bayard went away?
Joe Shaker Jr: Twitter.
Joel: Okay.
Joe Shaker Jr: I mean, Chris knows what he's doing. He's building one company. He doesn't wanna have the two separate brands so.
Chad: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: We still lot of times talk about Indeed versus Glassdoor.
Chad: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: Should it be one name or two?
Chad: Right.
Joe Shaker Jr: So right outta the gates. I think Chris is being very clear on where he is going and what his direction is...
Joel: They should have called it Radiancy. Is that taken? Does anybody have that one?
Chad: So that being said, you guys are obviously closely working and partnered with Appcast.
Joe Shaker Jr: Correct.
Chad: This is a weird dynamic now. There was always kind of this coopetition that was happening in the first place. But this goes to another level. Where do you guys go from here? Is there an opportunity to use other platforms along with Clickcast? What's the thoughts for not just Shaker but other agencies like yours?
Joel: And feel free to... A lot of our listeners. Programmatic is new to them. Clickcast is Alien. A quick historical perspective on how we got here would help.
Joe Shaker Jr: Well, you make a very good clear point there too, Joel. So you have to separate the two for the conversation.
Joel: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: Clickcast and Appcast, you are correct. We use both. And we use, Shaker uses Clickcast as the technology to distribute our jobs. But I have a team of 20 plus really smart individuals that are then dictating where should we send those jobs based on data and Clickcast is that distribution arm. Chris and his team were at the forefront of that. Bringing that technology, that distribution tool to the table into recruiting and giving it to the groups like Shaker that can then dictate how we wanna send those jobs. But to be clear we control where those jobs go and use Clickcast as the distribution arm. Shortly thereafter, they came out with a product called Appcast, which drives applications to our clients. We judge Appcast no different than we would judge Indeed, Glassdoor, X, Facebook, Google, who's gonna drive the most applications based?
Joel: No bias.
Joe Shaker Jr: No bias.
Joel: Best results are the web.
Joe Shaker Jr: Where it's gonna go. And so Appcast is in those conversations and will continue to be in those conversations regardless of the fact that it's owned by Bayard. As long as the client is getting the results from those appropriate media sources, we will continue to use Appcast, Indeed, Google, X, and you name it, Clickcast is the technology. Until we see if there's better technology out there, we will continue to use Clickcast.
Chad: There's a challenge, kids, there's a challenge, vendors out there.
Joe Shaker Jr: We will continue to use it.
Chad: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: And have our team managing it effectively.
Joel: So we've seen instances where companies are acquired, they integrate the technology and the competition tends to kind of slowly exit stage left. ICIMS buying text recruits, canvas, Jobvite, these things happen. Have you been given an affirmation from Appcast that they're gonna stick around? They're not going to shut anybody off. You've been given... Are you under contract? That...
Joe Shaker Jr: Which you hear is true. And I will say Chris is a reputable guy. We've all known him for a long time.
Joel: Yep.
Joe Shaker Jr: He's a man of his word and if he's trying to keep both going as well, and so what he said to you all and what you guys have reported on is accurate. He is managing our partnership and relationship no different than he did before it was bought by Bayard and he respects our decision. As long as Clickcast continues to distribute, I think there can be a way for both of us to compete as well as cooperate.
Chad: He's one guy though, and he could be gone tomorrow.
Joe Shaker Jr: He's got a good team though.
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah.
Chad: Okay. So you trust the the the team in itself, not just Chris.
Joe Shaker Jr: I trust my team. At the end of the day you also realize it's we're using the tool, but it's what we're doing with the tool.
Chad: But they have access to your data though.
Joe Shaker Jr: Not technically, legally, no.
Chad: They're going through their system.
Joe Shaker Jr: I don't think they're gonna be combing through it.
Chad: Okay.
Joe Shaker Jr: That would cause some bigger issues.
Chad: I would think so.
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah.
Chad: But again, to be able to poach clients and to be able to know results and effectiveness and all those, always looking for a market differentiator or at least something to try after new clients.
Joe Shaker Jr: But as we even talked about, and you guys have talked about in this show today, we're mentioning Indeed, you're mentioning X, you're mentioning case in point, even Grindr. It's one piece to the total puzzle. So I mean, do companies... Yes. Do they pick you for just your programmatic technology? It's part of the equation. But it's not the only thing. So it's what else can we deliver on top of that? To your point. Yes. Could they see who my clients? You can walk down my walls and see who my clients are...
Chad: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: As long as I believe. And what I was trained is do what's right for the client. First and foremost. We're not gonna have an issue about client retention.
Joel: And that's 75 plus years of proof.
Joe Shaker Jr: 73, 73 but I appreciate the fast forward. [laughter]
Joel: I'm confident that she'll make it. So if we go upstream a little bit our listeners know that Stepstone acquired Appcast, Stepstone owned by Axel Springer, owns a lot of us... Are you putting any of those pieces together? Do you see a bigger strategy with the European arm and what Appcast is doing?
Joe Shaker Jr: It's a clear direction that Stepstone wants, they've always wanted to come into the US market. This is just their first entree. With Appcast.
Joel: Yeah.
Joe Shaker Jr: Was a clear inclination as you also all reported on, they obviously bought AI technology still to be determined what they're gonna do with that. And now obviously made a big purchase with Bayard. It's evident that they are key in coming into the US market.
Joel: And they'll be buying CareerBuilder Win.
Joe Shaker Jr: Well, that's your call.
Joel: Oh, that's my call.
[laughter]
Joe Shaker Jr: That's your call, not mine.
Joel: I'm here in Chicago. You might have some in insider baseball for us in there, but unfortunately no.
Chad: I just don't see that happening.
Joe Shaker Jr: You can never say never.
Chad: So what about for Shaker and take a look at again Europe as well, from a global standpoint, you guys work with huge brands.
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah.
Chad: That have a reach into Europe and beyond how much more traction or even more penetration are you trying to get into those different markets?
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah, we're very proud to be the US representative to a global network called One Agent. Actually just in three weeks timeframe, actually all of our One Agent partners will be coming in to Chicago, where we're gonna be hosting them for three, four days of meetings. It's a good network. It's a way for us to...
Joe Shaker Jr: Stay at the forefront, right? I mean, US is not always at the beginning of trends, right? We tend to think we are, but there's things that come out of those respective countries. So it's always a great time in those, during those sessions to meet with our partners to hear what's working, what's not in your markets, and then obviously vice versa. It also, yes, to your point, allows us to expand into those markets very quickly and have a full service agency that has branding capabilities, media buying capabilities, technology consult. They're built very similar to the way Shaker is to be able to address our client's needs and help them scale into those markets as well.
Chad: So I'm hearing a London Hub, kids, or maybe even Paris Hub?
Joe Shaker Jr: We got a great London partner. It's a hub wheel, it's a spoke in a wheel type of model.
Chad: Nice, very nice.
Joel: And we'll be recording live as soon as the office.
[laughter]
Joe Shaker Jr: You wanna go. They'll have beer. They got beer.
Joel: Wherever you are. We'll be, Joe. You have an interesting perspective on the ground of what employers are asking for, what they want, what works. Chad and I have our head in the clouds so much with AI and Grindr and whatever else, right? What are employees, employers.
Chad: Always with the Grindr.
Joel: What are employers asking for? What's working, give us a on the ground take of the state of employment right now.
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah, I would say, I mean, well two big components, right? That are of everyone's interest, right? Ours as well as, which is then obviously in turn becomes our employers, is around data, right? And having that data case in, first and foremost be transparent. I think a lot of times, unfortunately, sorry, some clients, the data is being held back. They're not getting a full accuracy, right? In terms of what's working and what is not and so where are they getting their results, whether it be X, whether it be Grindr, whether it be Indeed, whether it be Appcast, whether it be Google, whether it be Facebook, you know, they don't necessarily care as much, as long as we can have the supporting case to tell them, this is why we're here, this is what they're getting, here's the results and here's how we can even make it more effective.
Joe Shaker Jr: So I mean, data's always been talked about, right? It's always been an obstacle because ATSs.
Chad: Yes.
Joe Shaker Jr: Right? Always made that difficult. Those days are gone. Right? We can now get real access to it in real time and transparently then tell them this is what we're seeing and this is what we should do with it. That would be one of the, I mean, I would say one big trend. The second is around speed. And yes, you can call it automation over AI, but they don't... Employees don't have the time to sit and wait for a candidate three, four, five days to get an interview scheduled. Employee, candidates are not going to spend, we've been talking about candidate experience forever. They're not gonna spend an hour, right. Telling you this is what it's like to work here. So they, employers have to find ways in which to speed up the apply process and make sure that we get them through the bottleneck quickly and efficiently. Otherwise, spend all the money in branding, spend all the money in media. It's just gonna break.
Chad: Now how much time are you spending with them on process? Because we all know that the process when we first went to paper applications to online, literally they just mimicked the exact process, right? And it's like there are still those old 1990s processes that are out there. They're just in digital form. How much time are you guys spending in trying to help them reformat, re-framework their process? Because they ask so many things that are really not necessary in many cases, just to be able to speed all that up.
Joe Shaker Jr: Yeah. I mean, it's dependent on the client, right 'cause some clients control their HRS system others do not. Right? And so ultimately, right, you have to find out who's the right gatekeeper in controlling those decisions. But ideally we're gonna spend a third around the time around building that right message, a third around where we're gonna activate it and a third around what's that conversion gonna look like.
Chad: Gotcha.
Joe Shaker Jr: Because to the point earlier, like if you just focus on that one side, like even just the media side, it's not gonna be as effective, right? Having that authentic message is gonna give you that retention. The media's gonna drop their cost per click down and then the conversion is gonna convert more of them and bring that cost per hire down. I know it's a third, a third, a third but...
Joel: Bada bing, bada boom.
Joe Shaker Jr: It's simple as that. Probably you just call it a trifecta in horse racing.
Chad: The biggest key is that we've been focusing on brand and messaging and all those things and drawing candidates in, and then they go through a shitty process and so what you're saying, what you're seeing is, most companies are starting to recognize that they really need to retool if they're gonna be competitive.
Joe Shaker Jr: It's, and it's also a numbers game, right? Go back to data. If we know that it takes, let's just call it 20 applications to make a hire and we can drop that from 20 to 10, that's real money saved and so if you automate it, or we can work more efficiently and drive those numbers down, you can ultimately spend less money in those other buckets.
Joel: You mentioned horse racing. I'm gonna let you out on this. The over under in Vegas for the Bears this season is 7.5 wins.
Joe Shaker Jr: Over, over. So you over.
Joel: Over.
Joe Shaker Jr: Over, over.
Joel: Under is the correct answer. We out.
Chad: We out.
Joe Shaker Jr: See ya.
S?: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese 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 chuggle heads instead, now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.