Hungry Like The TechWolf
Acquisitions are going bonkers featuring TechWolf, Juicebox and Humanly
On the latest Chad & Cheese Podcast, Joel Cheesman and Emi B dig into a busy week of talent-tech deals and LinkedIn news. Acquisitions, resignations and bad decisions are back, baby!
SAP has acquired skills-intelligence company TechWolf, which will integrate with SuccessFactors while remaining independent. Juicebox has picked up the intellectual property and assets of sourcing platform Fetcher. Humanly has acquired CareerArc to combine recruitment marketing with its AI hiring tools for high-volume employers.
They also cover LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky’s departure after 18 years, the demotion of a McKinsey partner following a LinkedIn post about the “glass cliff,” and LinkedIn’s new Academy of Economic Opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The episode wraps with a viral TikTok of a candidate speaking gibberish to an AI interviewer that ends the call. Joel and Emmy break down what the clip shows and what it means for AI in hiring.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheesman (00:34.819)
yeah. Business in front, Emmy in the back. What's up everybody? It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co host, Joel Pray for the Pope Cheeseman.
Emi B (00:46.016)
And this is Emmy, please stay away from the Tigers, Berodigo.
Joel Cheesman (00:50.039)
And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous podcast, hungry like the tech wolf, thirsty for some juice box, and make it as fast as humanly possible. Let's do this.
Joel Cheesman (01:07.651)
What's up, Emmy?
Emi B (01:08.79)
Hey, how are you doing? I feel like I haven't been on here for ages. At least a month now, I think. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (01:13.281)
Well y yeah, you're gonna have to carry the show today 'cause I I'm three three trips in four weeks, two of those being Vegas and Nashville and one to Europe. So I'm I'm licking my wounds and trying to recover. So I hope you're I hope you're you're spunky and ready for energy today from ya.
Emi B (01:19.182)
U
Emi B (01:25.61)
Mm.
Emi B (01:31.598)
I will try, but but let me just ask you, when you say you're trying to recover, is this from jet lag or a hangover? A big guess. Yeah?
Joel Cheesman (01:38.614)
Yes. I mean, less hang over the day after, but I mean it's a lot of things. I mean, the time zone change, jet lag, jet leg's not so bad in the US when I travel in the US. I mean, the time zone, three hours. So if you've been to Vegas from the East Coast, you know, you get up at five AM and you're like, shit. and then you try to go back to bed and then, you know, it's three o'clock in the morning and then you're just going. So yeah, I mean, it's just a whole thing, and I'm not
Emi B (01:49.696)
Yeah.
Emi B (01:57.44)
Ooh.
Joel Cheesman (02:07.051)
I'm not thirty anymore. so it's it's tough. Thirty two. Thirty-two actually. Yeah. Thirty two with the liver of a ninety four year old. But other than that, you look great. You look great. You got the the hair color, you look you're shining. Mm-hmm.
Emi B (02:09.61)
What are you 35? 36? 32? Of course. Sorry. Don't worry, Joel. I've got you. Yes, I've got my burgundy red for what do you say? We say autumn, but is it fall in the in the US? So it's my fall.
Joel Cheesman (02:28.931)
I think both work, but fall is probably more prominent than autumn. I think maybe where you are in the country. If you're in J T's neck of the woods, New England, it's probably more autumn. But here in the Midwest it's it's definitely fall, definitely fall.
Emi B (02:32.84)
Yeah. So yes. Yeah, we say all is it?
But why thank you. Yes, it's my new s money full look. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:45.985)
Yeah. So you mentioned the you mentioned the tiger thing. this happened in your neck of the woods. what what what kind of he was kind of mentally ill, right?
Emi B (02:55.038)
He was. And you know what? Have I read the whole story? Because you know when you just see a headline and read a few lines of a story, you just go, I well, I do this. I can't, I can't read this. This is too much. But somehow this poor guy went to a zoo, asked someone to kind of film him, and the person filming him had, you know, didn't know what she was filming. Next thing you know, is somehow managed to br climb over some kind of barrier to go to the tigers. And you know, instead of
Joel Cheesman (03:00.642)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (03:05.985)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (03:20.969)
Uh-huh. Yep.
Emi B (03:24.842)
And this is how you know that something's wrong because you're saying to Tiger's don't be naughty, stop being naughty. I'm like, How did you how did he get there? What kind of security do we have? So it's appalling and you know, unfortunately the poor guy died, but it's like, I don't know how this happened. So that is my you know, this is why I put in my middle name. If you got any kind of inclinations to kind of stroke big cats, don't. You know, please don't do that. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (03:33.025)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (03:44.397)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (03:48.674)
Yeah. Well it's probably if England's probably bu a zoo built in eighteen ninety four, the Victoria's zoo of whatever. And it's probably not the most locked down zoo in the world. yeah, but put some fiberglass up. Just put something that people can't and and why do they jump in with the tigers? Like jump in with the flamingos or like the penguins or something, like something less dangerous.
Emi B (03:52.994)
Yeah.
Emi B (04:00.532)
Wow.
Something, yeah.
Emi B (04:09.794)
You know? The pigeons. Do we have pigeons in zoos? Yeah, yeah. But just anything. I mean, my God. You know, you might have just thought, this is a nice cat. It's like, no, not this type of cat. This is what this is the type of cat you stay away from. You know? Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (04:19.085)
Yeah, this keeps happening. It can't
Yeah.
Yeah. So so t let's pivot off away from death and destruction. mutilation. You you got recognized recently. on my travels I didn't get the specifics, so give us give us what what what bestowed upon you.
Emi B (04:30.248)
Yeah. I did, yeah.
Emi B (04:40.122)
So I got recognized as because it's UK Black History Month and I got recognized as one of the top 30 black professionals to watch out for in the UK. So I was like, woo! I was like, yeah, exactly. Watch out. Here she comes. You know, and in fact, I think one of the messages, why thank you. Woo! It's very exciting. But you know, one of the comments on the post was, you hear her before you see her. And I was like, my God, you know, you know, thanks.
Joel Cheesman (04:51.459)
Watch out for
Emi B (05:09.558)
Very, very true. But, you know, it's very exciting to be recognized. You know, it's bit in a field that I, you know, I love, I enjoy, I've been doing for many years. So yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (05:13.536)
If
Yeah. You feel the aura. I think that it would it will be news to most Americans. A that there's a Black History Month in England and two that it's in October or was last month in September. Is there is there it's February. Yeah, it's it's ironically the shortest month of the year and shorter on most on some other months. Yeah, and Chris I think Chris Rock has a great bit on
Emi B (05:24.833)
Yes.
Is in October. Yeah, it's in October. So I think the US one is February, if I'm right. Yeah.
Yeah, you can have this one, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (05:43.723)
It's like the coldest month, it's the shortest month, like it's the worst month, arguably. so why did the black people get that month? Chris Rock has a good bet on that. Now, was there a cash prize or a plaque or trophy?
Emi B (05:45.205)
Yeah. Yeah. I need to kind of look at that. I wish. No, I got nothing. I got the recognition on LinkedIn and my mom, my mom recognized me. She was very happy. Yes, mom, mom was there. She goes, look up, I don't think one of the top like professionals in the UK. And it's like, for anyone who doesn't know, that's a Nigerian accent. and I was like, yay, exciting.
Joel Cheesman (06:02.412)
Mem mom, mem memom.
Emi B (06:14.752)
So no, it was good. Yeah, it was very good. Yeah. Thank you.
Joel Cheesman (06:14.881)
Yeah. Well congratulations. Congratulations. This is great. Like you're winning awards. Moe's getting LinkedIn voice. JT LinkedIn like Chad and I are getting second fiddle on this show pretty soon. We're just Yeah Yeah.
Emi B (06:23.231)
Yes,
Emi B (06:27.478)
I have seen your two names everywhere. So don't even try that. Don't even try that. There's always top podcasters, Joel and Chad. They'll be like, hey, we're here too. Hi. Hanging on the coattails. I'll be next Jen. No.
Joel Cheesman (06:36.857)
we're yeah, we're we're old news. You guys are carrying us. It's it's good stuff. Good stuff. Let's get to shout out, shall we?
All right, our shout outs are sponsored by Proven Base. I'm wearing the wearing the colors today. if you're watching on YouTube, everyone loves free bourbon. Proven base makes miracles happen. you get a bottle of chicken cock, one from Chad, one from me in your in your inbox. but you gotta play if you want to win. Head out to Chadcheese.com slash free to get some of that proven base sponsored bourbon, if you so choose. Emmy, you got a shout out.
Emi B (07:14.442)
I have a shout out and a kind of like a bitter shout out, you know. You know, following on from that kind of the traveling theme. Because I've run out of PTO and or people in the UK or Europe and you'll leave. I've I've run out of that. And I'm seeing you guys, obviously, Wreckfest US and then the house of HR. And I'm like, I also want to go on these trips. I want to go on these conferences. I have P FOMO. You know, I'm just sitting here going,
Joel Cheesman (07:31.936)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (07:40.768)
Uh-huh.
Emi B (07:42.399)
Okay, you lot are having fun. Great, thanks. Remember me? You know, so yeah. Get my violin out. So the shout out is for me. Remember me, please take me along to the next trip. Brazil. Yeah, somewhere exotic. Yes.
Joel Cheesman (07:56.174)
Just just remember that the next time you're on your trip to Dubai or Bangkok or yeah, Vietnam, whatever whatever luxurious location you wait a minute, there's actually a limit to PTO days in England? I thought Europeans just got as much time as they wanted.
Emi B (08:12.756)
I wish, like I I have twenty five days holiday and that is great. That is fantastic. But I kind of used it all up in Brazil earlier this year and I was like, ooh, where am I going now? Nowhere. Like just in the UK. It's like great. So I need to do better next year, basically.
Joel Cheesman (08:28.331)
Yeah, no one's no one's crying for you, I mean. Don't no one's crying for you.
Emi B (08:32.202)
I I feel hurt. I feel hurt. Yeah, I am triggered. Yes. Anyway.
Joel Cheesman (08:34.081)
I feel triggered. I feel triggered. I'm going on vacation. I'm going to the Poconos. Okay. Anyway. all right. My shout out. Well, I mean, you know, you know that teaching jobs are in in high demand now. there's a shortage everywhere. but I think we may have hit a limit on our ability to not turn away anyone for these teaching jobs. my shout out goes to goes to Amy Jones. Who the hell is Amy Jones? Well, Amy Jones went into, I guess, high school.
Emi B (08:46.678)
Yes.
Joel Cheesman (09:03.177)
and told them that she was a substitute teacher and she she went a bit unhinged. This is a local story out of Milwaukee that just made me laugh. So check out check out the deets on this shout out.
Emi B (09:53.708)
Considering
Joel Cheesman (09:54.932)
shut.
Emi B (10:32.607)
Who
Joel Cheesman (10:35.255)
Six felonies for that.
Emi B (10:38.198)
How how? How how did that happen? How can someone just stroll into a school and just start teaching kids?
Joel Cheesman (10:44.055)
mean I'll I have kids in school and they're it's lockdown. Like no school wants shootings or criminals coming in. So yeah, this school fell down and is not is not right. And the fact that she was a student there three years ago, did no one say like, Hey Hey Amy, what's up? Yeah No nobody nobody remembered her after three years. Okay. Well whatever. Whatever. All right.
Emi B (10:55.049)
Lax.
Emi B (11:00.392)
No one. I see your face before. Yeah. What are you doing here? Yeah. Lord, my god. Wow. Yeah, so
Joel Cheesman (11:12.449)
Yeah. You're yeah. Do you think do you think she's mentally ill? You think she's got some issues? Or does she just really hate kids and had Yeah.
Emi B (11:20.274)
She's bored, she hates kids, she's no, fuck this. What should I do today? Yeah, I'm just gonna see what happens. I'm gonna cause some chaos. Yeah, that chaos may get you 20 years in jail. my god. So is it's a shout out that we need more teach better teachers, yeah?
Joel Cheesman (11:26.018)
Yeah.
Yeah. All right. Let's talk about events, shall we?
Joel Cheesman (11:35.391)
we need teachers for sure. my oldest is studying education at Indiana, so he'll be he'll be in there. He appreciated that story. He liked that story. As you can imagine. You can imagine. Well, events for us are done. another shout out to Workday Paradox for having Chad and I come out and talk to some big companies about a really about really important issues to a lot of people that are making important decisions. I can't believe Chad and I got into a workday event. I never
Emi B (11:42.016)
Okay. Yeah. tell you.
Emi B (12:02.997)
I d I don't know how you got into it. I mean, have they never listened to you?
Joel Cheesman (12:05.132)
Like next well, it we w yeah, we don't get the time of day from the work days of the world and the fact that Paradox got us in. We didn't embarrass ourselves. We were fine, but like it's just we never get invited. Like LinkedIn, nope, never got an invite. Indeed, nope, they've never invited us to anything. SAP, Phenom, like we don't get invited anywhere that like is a big thing. We get to the the fun events, you know, Wreckfest and House of HR and those guys. But anyway, so thanks to thanks to work day.
Emi B (12:16.652)
Did you embarrass them?
Emi B (12:28.16)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (12:34.689)
I never thought I'd say that for letting us come and and hang out. Otherwise, our travel for the year is over. thanks to Shaker for making our travels all possible. We love you guys. Emmy, anything in your in your future? Any trips to exotic locations, any ski trips?
Emi B (12:50.494)
I'm I'm I do know what nothing, nothing in twenty twenty-six unless I do something around the UK and you know, I hate winter, so if it rains, snows, I'm not leaving my house. So no, it looks like it's gonna be I do you know what? I'm not I feel really bad saying this. I've been. I've been three times. Yeah. I'm not a massive fan of Amsterdam.
Joel Cheesman (12:59.394)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (13:03.831)
What's your take on Amsterdam?
Joel Cheesman (13:08.631)
Don't say you've never been. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (13:14.571)
Okay. Huh, why? Huh.
Emi B (13:16.256)
Yeah, I'm really I don't know. I think I think I find it too similar to London. I'm just like, if I'm going on holiday, like I don't hate it, but if I'm going on holiday, I want to go somewhere that's vastly different to the UK, you know? And I go there and I go, Yeah, it's cool, I could do this for two days. You know, I've had great work trips and most of the time it's work trips I've gone. but yeah, not
Joel Cheesman (13:28.888)
Got it.
Joel Cheesman (13:38.113)
It feels a little like a mini Nashville or Vegas. Like the red light district, this the s the the contact high. I mean, like it's a pretty loosey goosey place. But all of Europe's kind of loosey goosey, right?
Emi B (13:41.396)
Yeah, really? Yeah.
Emi B (13:49.406)
Yeah. I'd rather go yeah. Yeah, it is. You know, they're all that kind of free and ooh. But yeah, no. It's that it's too city based for me.
Joel Cheesman (13:58.692)
So it's not a r it's not a rite of passage for teenagers to like go to Amsterdam and smoke pot and Okay.
Emi B (14:03.077)
no, I I think it is. I mean, the first time I went, I was at uni and I managed to convince my dean of university that we were going on a cultural trip, you know. Unfortunately, I lost someone in Amsterdam and had to leave them there, you know. And so I got in trouble for that. But, you know, that that was that was my Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (14:10.819)
Got it. Got it.
Joel Cheesman (14:19.701)
I'm sorry, you I thought someone died. you left someone there.
Emi B (14:24.212)
Yeah, yeah, we left them there. Yeah. We couldn't find them. No. We had to we went in the UK. So no, we got a ferry. So we got a coach down for the north of England where I was studying. Down to the south. Got a ferry. Because you know, we're students, we got no money. And then the day that we're supposed to arrive, I'm doing that in the register and I'm like, where is this person? Well, this person no one's seen since the day before when we dropped him off at the red light district. And I was like, we gotta go. I've got a coach full of people.
Joel Cheesman (14:28.417)
Like on a plane? A bus? What?
Joel Cheesman (14:36.831)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (14:52.609)
my god. So you you Kevin McAllistered somebody. You someone got home alone, thanks to Emmy in Amsterdam.
Emi B (14:54.08)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Honestly, you need to see straight in front of the dean. Emmy, explain. Explain why you left someone in the country. I was like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (15:04.967)
my God. Another another piece of the puzzle put into place for Emmy Barrett to go. let's switch topics. Let's go to fantasy football, shall we? we missed we missed the leaderboard last week because we sh we did a show on Monday of all things. But week five is in the books. Thanks to our friends at Factory Fix for making fantasy possible. Here is your leaderboard from first to worst. Number one, we have Jarrett the Jet, Joel Dersma.
Emi B (15:18.252)
Meh.
Joel Cheesman (15:33.271)
Number two, we have Raging Dajan Amare, followed by a Scott Clark Griswold. Then Nick The Kick Livingston, Breaking Bad, Benjamin Kunz, McKenzie Mad Dog Maitland, Nicholas, Don't Call Me, Horseshack, Taishack, Joel, It's All Good Achievesman. The Chad Sowash, Bosco Booya, Vuyatovich, Molly Marauder Schly, and last, Desiree, the Destroyer, Goldie. That is your leaderboard.
Emi B (16:00.226)
Woo!
Joel Cheesman (16:02.584)
For fantasy football, sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix. Let's get to topic, shall we?
Emi B (16:09.942)
Yeah. What are we talking about?
Joel Cheesman (16:13.283)
What are what are we talking about?
Emi B (16:14.978)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (16:16.845)
Well, the most hottest recruitment news in the world, Emmy. Of course, that's all we talk about on this show. Yeah, unless Chad's on, then we throw in some AI, open AI, something into the world stuff. Anyway, all right, big news from last week that we missed talking about on Monday. SAP signed an agreement to buy Tech Wolf for an undisclosed amount of money. The platform will integrate into SAP success factors.
Emi B (16:20.178)
Ooh ooh ooh Of course of course
Joel Cheesman (16:43.223)
To power skills-based hiring, workforce planning, role redesign, and SAP's AI assistant, Joule. TechWolf will remain an independent entity headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. You don't hear a lot about companies out of Ghent, Belgium. they're led by co-founder and CEO Andreas Deneuve, and will continue serving both SAP and non-SAP customers. Emmy, a big European acquisition.
Emi B (16:58.261)
No.
Emi B (17:09.832)
It is, said
Joel Cheesman (17:09.943)
What are your thoughts on Tech Wolf getting married with SAP?
Emi B (17:14.294)
Well, to be honest, I had to actually I I've heard of SAP SAP obviously, and then I've actually used Sapsus S Factors and not a big fan. It was a long time ago that I used Sapsus S Factors, but I was like, mm, looks shiny, looks fantastic. In reality, very hard to kind of work with as a HR professional. But Tech Wolf is not an organization that actually I kind of actually knew about. So I had to do little bit of research on them. And I kind of like this acquisition.
Joel Cheesman (17:23.8)
Hm.
Joel Cheesman (17:38.584)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (17:42.581)
Okay, it's it's great for SAP and it's great for you know their product success factors because I like I said, I don't think it was a great product. But what I like about Tech Wolf is that what they're doing in their I suppose it's skills space, you know, and everybody's talking about still talking about skills based hiring, particularly because it's so hard to recruit, you know, especially you know, there's lots of like kind of niche, hard to feel roles still out there. And what
Tech Wolf does for anyone who doesn't know is that they actually they're an organization that's actually been around for a while, but they actually gather data on the skills of an organization. You know, so what skills do people have? What skills are what projects are they working on, and what skills actually require to be successful on that project. And then what that data is pulled together in a kind of dashboard or graph, and then
organizations or leaders within organizations can use it to predict, okay, where do I, what kind of skills do I need to hire for for any future? Where do I need to upskill my existing people? Where do I need to redeploy people, for example? And that's fantastic data. And especially if in your in the recruitment field, you're going to use that data to hire better people within your organization. So I think it's a fantastic product that they have.
Joining with a big player like SAP gives them the kind of suppose the the back end to kind of grow even more. They're gonna stay as an independent enter entity for the the you know the the short term, but at least they can grow their products with the back end of SAP. For SAP, hopefully it adds some, I suppose, that's some legitimacy to their portfolio because, like I said, as an ATS platform, as a HR platform, I don't think SAP CS Factors is that great. So yeah.
Joel Cheesman (19:06.317)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (19:29.515)
Yeah. Yeah. I think I think to your point there's a there's an ongoing need for companies to figure out the jobs of like pre AI aren't the same jobs, but we want to keep the people that we have and put them into new roles and new you know, new needs of the company. So I think I think these these products or these services are becoming really more and more important. And I think it's sort of it's a bit of an arms race. Obviously we talked about
Emi B (19:40.074)
And n yeah, and now. No.
Yeah.
Emi B (19:53.996)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (19:58.434)
Workday with Sana and Hired Solve Hired Score, sorry, Paradox, ServiceNow bought MoveWorks, Fuel Fifty just got acquired by Phoenix Education, which is a totally different industry, but Fuel Fifty is a is a competitor of of
Of tech wolf. So we're seeing a lot of things from a big picture perspective that says, okay, we're gonna have to get people in a new roles. We're creating new jobs. Now, how do we keep the people at the company but doing something new and having context around someone's career, someone's abilities and skills where they can fit into new ways is something that companies are begging for. Yeah, exactly. So I think some of the the the housekeeping on this deal is really interesting. I mentioned they were from Ghent. if you've never been to Ghent.
Emi B (20:19.499)
Yeah.
Emi B (20:36.48)
What makes them successful? Yeah.
Emi B (20:47.339)
Never.
Joel Cheesman (20:47.715)
It's a cool little town. It's a middle, it's a middle age old town. There's a castle, of course. There's some really good chip shops, like some frites, fruit shops, really cool church, et cetera. but it's a small place. And this is apparently the largest acquisition of a venture-backed software company in Belgian history, which is really cool. So they raised, they raised about fifty-five million dollars.
Emi B (21:10.623)
Joel Cheesman (21:15.063)
according to a Belgian media outlet, they were they got around five hundred and fifty million dollars for the acquisition. So they 10xed this bad boy, which is a really good exit for them. this is not a TJ Maxx clearance rack kind of situation. this was a company that grew organically, that grew sort of steadily over over the time that they've been around. Yeah, they have big clients. 2018 was when they were founded. So this is kind of
Emi B (21:27.691)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (21:37.152)
And they have big clients already. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (21:44.47)
It this is kind of time. They they grew to a point where we're gonna shitter get off the pot and they found a really good buyer, really good timing. And I think good for them that they've been able to to to to exit. They employ about hundred and fifty people, headcounts grown about forty percent over the last two years, according to to LinkedIn. So I think, you know, good for them. they were able to be a piece in the arms race of of
Emi B (21:53.963)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (22:10.755)
Of SaaS companies that support the employer industry. So I think good for them. And all good. I have I have really nothing bad to say. I mean, I think this is, you know, how that how does this integrate with smart recruiters, which I say P bought last year? do they add any more pieces to the puzzle? it'll be fun to watch. What is what is what does Oracle do? What does some of the other big ones do? Do they get in on this LinkedIn? I have to think at some point.
Emi B (22:16.098)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (22:39.991)
might need to make a move on the acquisition front. But all all in all, this is great and a big win for Belgium, which which is never a bad thing. Go Belgium. All right, man, let's take a quick break. I need a water refill, replenish my my fluids, and we'll be right back to talk about some more acquisitions. Guys, if you haven't, if you haven't subscribed to us, what the hell are you doing? give us a like and a follow. Check us out on YouTube while you're at
Emi B (22:46.186)
Yeah. Good Belgium.
Joel Cheesman (23:14.157)
You're frozen, Emmy. Can I hear you talk? Okay. As long as I can hear you, we'll get we'll get the video. All right. All right, Emmy, the deal machine is just getting started, apparently. Also in the news this week is Juice Box acquiring Fetcher's intellectual property and business assets as Fetcher winds down its existing product and operations. Terms were not disclosed.
Emi B (23:16.79)
You can hear me.
Joel Cheesman (23:40.03)
founded in 2016, Fetcher raised over $30 million in total funding and served more than 1,500 customers globally. But wait, there's more on the acquisition front. Humanly has acquired CareerArc, aiming to link recruitment marketing with its AI hiring platform, creating a continuous pipeline of qualified candidates for high volume employers from early outreach through screening and interviewing. Okay, Emmy, what do you make of all this matchmaking?
Emi B (24:09.344)
Matchmaking. Well, I'm I'm seeing that with all this acquisition that's actually happening at the moment, it's actually reducing the amount of well actually let me start again. It's actually echoing the fact that people don't want to work with multiple platforms. They want an all in one solution. So we I think we're gonna see a lot more acquisitions taking place.
For the next kind of year, two years or so. and you know, it like I said, like people don't want all these like kind of single point solutions. I definitely don't. I I we do we implement a lot of technology within our world, but it's it's annoying integrating different products. So I like this acquisition news. does it
reduce competition, I don't I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what happens. But if we're talking about the juice box acquiring fetcher, I think that's a good deal as well. I think it's a really good deal. I hear good things about ju juice box. I've seen some of their demos. I don't know, I've never used their product, but I always hear great feedback. So I think them adding juice box to their portfolio is a really good thing. You know, it makes them a stronger solution. It gives them a more wider solution that they can offer their clients. It's is actually showing that, you know,
Joel Cheesman (24:56.952)
Yeah.
Emi B (25:18.59)
again is building upon the AI technology that they use that they have to kind of source clients so source more candidates a fantastic acquisition I think there and then yeah and then if what was the other one we'll we're talking about humanly and career arc again a this is not two companies that I know too much about no I mean like I'm like who are they yeah exactly come look we'll tell you about them but
Joel Cheesman (25:28.279)
Okay.
Humanly and career arc.
Joel Cheesman (25:39.245)
Yep. And most don't. That's why they listen to us.
Not something on Finan Bloomberg that you're gonna see. So you gotta hear it. You gotta hear about it here.
Emi B (25:49.363)
No, and you know, and I and I tried, I tried, I looked and it's like, is there any published news stories? Is there press releases? No, not really, you know, but again so how did you get how did you get this news then?
Joel Cheesman (25:58.702)
Fairness, it dropped today as we're recording this show. So it is it is pretty fresh. it's yeah. It's we're we're it's 'cause who we are who we are. It's called an embargo. they give you the news ahead of time and and we can and we can we can check it out. Yeah.
Emi B (26:08.459)
I like it. But you know, from what I gather, if I look at humanly and what I know about humanly is that they what they're trying to do is eliminate candidate drop-off, you know, across the kind of hiring cycle. So anything from applicants, taking an applicant from an initial engagement through to screening and all the way through to scheduling and onboarding.
Joel Cheesman (26:33.175)
Yeah, I mean to put it in and s it to summarize it, CareerArc drives traffic and humanly manages that traffic. So they need more more data. Yeah, brings them together in that way. Yeah.
Emi B (26:38.068)
Yeah. So bringing them together. Yeah. Yeah. And Humili's done a bunch of kind of requisitions. So acqu requisitions. I'm thinking too much about hiring. They've done a bunch of acquisitions in the last couple of months. So it looks like this is another one. You know, they got qualified, sprockets, our work. You know, so they're you know, they're added to their portfolio, they're making their portfolio stronger. I'm interested to find out, you know, what's gonna happen.
Joel Cheesman (26:48.119)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (26:57.079)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (27:05.15)
in a over the last c next couple of months. Would I hear more about them?
Joel Cheesman (27:07.191)
Yep. Yep. Well, I'm gonna go to JuiceBox first. And unlike you, I'm not falling the banana and the tailpipe. look this the this was a TJ Maxx clearance rack acquisition. so Fetcher Fetcher was found around 2016. It's a sourcing tool, much like all the ones that you have come and gone over the years. Hiring solved, hire tool.
Emi B (27:14.57)
No?
Joel Cheesman (27:36.092)
which is now higher easy, seek out struggling. Like this this was this was found in a time where like sourcing was really cool. And now not so much. LinkedIn doesn't like it. These the like the data is so similar. The companies are getting commoditized. Like the profiles of each of these aren't much different than the others. And the people I talk to that use them aren't like, man
This one is way better. The data is so much different. Like that's just not happening. So these companies are in a position where like the value of what we provide is less and less. LinkedIn hates all of us. we can't, you know, rely on not getting sued. You see companies like Pin and Jim, which are now b apparently banned from LinkedIn. And so they're getting pinched from that. We've talked about high queue. Like Fetcher was like 2016, it's been 10 years.
there's nothing in their their data that says that they're growing and that they're that they're, you know, doing anything all that cr all that interesting. So I think they were like, the money's funny and the credit won't get it anymore. And we got to find a sugar daddy. And they called Juice Box and said, Hey guys, will you will you take the scraps of this company and save us as much as we can from our investors? They raised
thirty million dollars, which is a good amount of money. I they did not get 10X like Tech Wolf did, probably not even close to that. So this was a fire sale. They're just taking apparently the the IP. the brand fetcher shutting down. I didn't see any any hire or any any current employees that were gonna go over to Juice Box. Maybe they'll take some salespeople with them.
Emi B (29:00.873)
No.
Joel Cheesman (29:22.049)
But there was nothing in this that said this was a hell of a company that Juice Box just acquired. This was a scrap heap.
Emi B (29:27.894)
But what are you hearing about Juice Box as a brand? Because it's interesting because what I'm hearing is that, you know, people like them.
Joel Cheesman (29:34.435)
Well, I don't think it's necessarily a a ding on juice box. It's more of a ding on Fetcher. and I think Fetcher probably called everybody in town to say, hey, who's gonna buy our shit? And juice box had had some money in the couch cushions to say, Yeah, we'll we'll we'll take this thing up. And and again, it's like timing wise. I think a lot of these companies know that their their time is, you know, not long for this earth. LinkedIn is going after all of them. Sourcing is a commodity,
Emi B (29:37.482)
Mm.
Emi B (29:43.926)
Please.
Joel Cheesman (30:03.426)
the data that all these companies have as a commodity. So I think I think Juicebox just said, sure, we'll take your customers, we'll add a little bit to the bottom line. We'll maybe take some IP or if they have trademarks or anything that they've done from that perspective, great. But this was not a impressive acquisition at all. Juice box fine. I think juice box is juice box is just the next cool sourcing tool, right? It's gone from
Emi B (30:26.784)
Yeah, it is. It's what people like at the moment. Is what people get good results. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (30:29.179)
It's gone from hiring solve to hire tool to seek out to pin. And it's it's like the ATS game. There's a new cool ATS every year that we talk about. And this is just this is just the next line. So yay, yay for Fetcher could exit. Their their people can do something else. And I guess maybe JuiceBox got some stuff, but this is a total scrap heap. Now going back to to to the career arc thing, really interesting history.
Emi B (30:38.292)
Always a new ATS, yeah.
Emi B (30:50.434)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (30:58.744)
from this company.
Joel Cheesman (31:04.041)
So Care CareerArc made a big splash in 2011. Do you remember when Charlie Sheen was doing his crazy shit back then? He had like three girlfriends and he was like Tiger Blood and winning and all do you remember that period of Charlie Sheen? So CareerArk owned internships.com and one of they had a contest to be Charlie Sheen's intern on internships.com.
Emi B (31:20.35)
Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Emi B (31:32.662)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (31:33.153)
So they've always been kind of w a weird company. they they sold internships.com to Cheg, which is a college textbook company, which made sense. But there's also a company called Tweet My Jobs, which old timers will know. There was a period in our industry where like everyone was gonna search a job on Twitter. Everyone was just gonna go to Twitter and hashtag like sales jobs toledo find their next opportunity. So
Emi B (31:59.917)
Kinda like Facebook jobs, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (32:01.674)
Shockingly, Twitter said, Nope, we're not doing that and went out of business. But there was a company called Tweet My Jobs that CareerArc acquired, which I think became part of that. So the CareerArk company has always been sort of in the social thing. They've they're I think they're they're out of LA. So they've really been into the social thing. How do we get jobs? So then they founded a company called Job Maps and Hire Social.
Emi B (32:07.714)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (32:30.807)
Which, as you can imagine, is like, map out jobs and hiring social, like, how do we use social media for jobs? And I think part of that business is is really challenged because with automated apply and companies absolutely dying because of robotic applications, it's like we actually don't want our job everywhere. We actually are thinking twice about.
Emi B (32:36.417)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (32:58.893)
programmatically throwing our job all over the place because we are getting killed with automated responses. And I think more more and more companies are like pulling back where they're posting jobs. They're saying, hey, let's just keep to Indeed and LinkedIn and like maybe shrink those budgets a little bit. But the whole like programmatic game is ch is really getting hit hard because of the automated applicant thing. So I think
Emi B (33:16.994)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (33:22.783)
a little bit of timing wise with this one. humanly, as you mentioned, has made some applic or acquisitions over the years. Nothing gangbuster, sort of, I guess, probably businesses that are challenged. I mean, qualifying our work, we knew we knew here, at Chad and Cheese, we knew them pretty well. I know our work was struggling. qualify or qualify was probably less so, but I mean they're not exactly buying big companies. They're buying strategic things to get more traffic to then like s you know so support the
Emi B (33:46.879)
No, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (33:52.952)
the business. nine of CareerArk's employees will join Humanly, which employs about fifty people. So career or Humanly is not a huge company. they're doing pretty smart things with not lot of people and resources. So whereas I like this acquisition better, I'm not sure the future is all about we want more and more traffic. I think it's more about like strategically going after people. It's like how do we use our current, you know
Emi B (34:18.082)
Quality. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (34:22.147)
pool of folks and put them in different places. So for for CareerArc, again, which has been around I think since 2009, it was probably a good time to to get out because things weren't, you know, looking great for the future of like mass publication of jobs and let's use more social media to get employment opportunities. So timing wise great, I think humanly probably a good strategic buy for them. But the real, the real news here on the show is the Tech Wolf SAP
Emi B (34:25.036)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:51.497)
SAP by for sure.
Emi B (34:52.95)
Yeah, definitely.
Joel Cheesman (34:55.115)
All right, from from one to another news story, lots going on at LinkedIn these days, Emmy. Ryan Roslansk Roslanski is leaving the company after 18 years, six of which he was the CEO. And from one resignation to a firing, McKenzie removed Chris Bradley, a senior partner, from its leadership role at the McKenzie Global Institute after he questioned the existence of the glass cliff phenomenon on LinkedIn.
Want more LinkedIn? Well, it's your lucky day, Emmy, because LinkedIn has launched the Academy of Economic Opportunity, a 14-week training program to help workers become their own bosses. The program, which focuses on practical skills like handling PR crises and pitching investors, aims to provide economic independence in an uncertain job market. So, resignation.
A firing and launching entrepreneurs or us at LinkedIn this week. What's your take?
Emi B (35:57.811)
My take is there's a lot going on in the LinkedIn world. I mean, okay, so let let's go in order. So LinkedIn CEO leaving after 18 years. So this guy obviously is you know, he's a veteran. He started he was with Microsoft, he was with led LinkedIn, as you said, for six for 18 years. But what I f 18 years, yeah. And he was successful, you know, he he increased the numbers. He increased the number of people on the platform. What I found really interesting is the reason.
Joel Cheesman (36:03.096)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (36:15.509)
Eighteen years. Yep.
Joel Cheesman (36:22.114)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (36:27.436)
for him leaving. And the reason for him leaving is because Microsoft is actually insisting, mandating that people work in the office. And I was like, really? It's like we're in 2026 and you are insisting on that. We have now how many years past COVID? Six years past COVID. Are we still on the bandwagon that you must be present in person in order to succeed? You know? It's like, come on.
Joel Cheesman (36:42.157)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (36:52.245)
Uh-huh.
Emi B (36:56.872)
like I thought we would have moved past that, but no, we kinda they're not even doing hybrid working, you must be in person. And because of that, they've lost someone who's very successful, who a couple I think it's like a year ago, openly said that, you know, that like jobs need to be more hybrid. There's a lot of positivity. There's lots of positive benefits to having a hybrid or a remote organization. And now you've lost one of your the people the persons that turned around the organization.
Joel Cheesman (37:14.615)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (37:22.477)
Do you do you believe it though? Do you believe it though? So his thing is I don't want to move to Redmond. he lives he lives in San Francisco. I wouldn't want to leave San Francisco either. you know, my my wife is in charity stuff and my kids and do you do you believe that?
Emi B (37:32.065)
Yeah.
Emi B (37:41.236)
Skeptical like you. So why? It could be a legitimate reason.
Joel Cheesman (37:42.612)
I am skeptical. I think, yeah, you you don't you don't you don't spend eighteen years at Microsoft slash LinkedIn and leave because you're family. And you d you don't let someone like that go at Microsoft. I I just I think there's something there. I think I think if he announces if we hear in six months that he's now running a startup or he's
Emi B (37:55.724)
Why?
Emi B (38:06.923)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (38:09.897)
executive somewhere else. I think this was a nice way to tell the internal folks like, hey, you know what? It's just warm and fuzzy. He doesn't want to come here. So he wants to stay in San Francisco. Where it's all it's all good. It's all good. I I think All right.
Emi B (38:20.768)
Yeah, but that's not warm and fuzzy. I don't think that's a good internal PR to tell your organisation, he's leaving because he doesn't want to work in office and people go, Hold on, but you couldn't that's gonna cause disruption internally.
Joel Cheesman (38:31.915)
Well yeah, 'cause what if what if the reason is what if the reason is he thinks we suck and he's gonna leave us for another company? Like no one wants to say that. It's gotta be a fun, furry reason. I don't know. I don't know, me, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm I'm just I'm an old angry man and I'm I'm jaded, but I wouldn't be surprised if in six months to a year, sure, he can love his family in Seattle for, you know, twenty percent raise. I
Emi B (38:42.274)
Yeah.
You're just skeptical. I think this is someone who loves his family and then wants to like kind of keep his kids in high school. His kids in high school in in San Francisco. Doesn't want to disrupt everything. Yeah? You you're the one struggling with like flying recently. It's like Wow.
Joel Cheesman (39:02.339)
Yeah, travel. It's not that far. Day like you can commute. Like what I yeah, commute from Seattle to San Francisco.
Well, I'm not making the kind of money that he's probably making. I you know, you can buy a lot of a lot of time with a private jet getting you to, you know, to San San Francisco. I don't know. All right. So all so Kiba, we more LinkedIn stuff. Keep going, I'm sorry.
Emi B (39:17.058)
Very true. Very true. Yeah. Okay. So then we got what the guy Chris Bradley. Yeah. So Chris Bradley, he was fired. Not from LinkedIn, but it's to do with his LinkedIn post. So had to look up Chris Chris Bradley. He was a leader at McKinsey. McKinsey were doing research about had been doing research about female female leadership, females in the workplace. And this I've got to say,
Idiots, yeah. despite the fact this is an organization that has been publishing research about female leadership, the challenges of female leadership, why it's difficult for some females to progress past a certain level, openly said that this phenomena of a glass cliff. To be honest, no, I've heard of glass ceilings, so I had to go away. But when I did the research, I was like, okay, this is what it means. So essentially, it's people from
Joel Cheesman (40:05.708)
Have you heard that of that before? Yeah, I hadn't either. I hadn't either.
Emi B (40:15.55)
underrepresented backgrounds, females from underrepresented backgrounds, th when they get it's not that they're not necessarily getting to a position of leadership. They are at a lesser rate than males, but when they Yeah, go for it.
Joel Cheesman (40:28.131)
So I'll read you the full definition and we can go. So the term glass cliff was coined by academics to describe the phenomenon in which female leaders are more likely to be offered CEO jobs at shitty struggling companies. In other words, it becomes, okay, well, we failed because a woman's in charge, and that's why, not because we're a shitty business. So that is the glass cliff that that we're talking about.
Emi B (40:42.495)
Yes.
Emi B (40:47.03)
Yeah.
Yeah. Cliff. Yeah. And that's what this Chris Bradley is saying. It's like we're basically saying, you know, why do why are females being the victim? You know, they're just basically shit at their jobs and that is why they're not doing well. You know, and I was like, what the what the fuck is this? It's like hold on a second, you're going against the actual as an ethos and values of your organization and
Joel Cheesman (41:03.565)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (41:12.994)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (41:14.406)
they've there's research showing that this actually happens. So I I was trying to like kind of go away and think about why why are females is like is it people deliberately putting females in a shitty job? Why would that happen? And when I had a kind of think it's like I don't think anyone's necessarily doing it on purpose. But sometimes I think when you get an organization that's struggling, you know, not doing so well for whatever reason, maybe the organization wants to show that they're doing they're making a visible change.
Joel Cheesman (41:41.443)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (41:41.793)
Yeah. So a visible change would be to bring in someone that's different. So maybe it was a white man, middle aged man that was in that job before. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna bring in a black, brown, whatever woman to do that job. But the job's already hard. The job and if they're not given the time to turn things around because it's a very difficult situation, if they're not given the support, if they're already under huge amounts of pressure and expected to turn things around immediately, then they are more likely to fail.
You know?
Joel Cheesman (42:12.067)
You s are you surprised we're not seeing more of like this kind of social media posting? because I'll my my take is since sort of what since Trump has been back in office, I think I think there's a lot of old white guys that have some pent up opinions and that that somehow Trump has made it okay to drop these these bombs on people. I'm s I'm shocked this doesn't happen every month.
Emi B (42:24.565)
Yeah.
Emi B (42:29.728)
Yeah. Yeah. And they're allowed to say it now. Yeah. Yeah. And no one's gonna say anything apparently.
Joel Cheesman (42:40.821)
you would agree, I assume. And I I would be surprised if you're not in your a like typical interaction with people aren't like, I can't believe he said that. I can't believe Yeah. Yeah.
Emi B (42:42.176)
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.
Emi B (42:51.52)
Yeah. Because people think it's okay. And you just like kinda go, sorry, what did you just say? Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, and I you know, if I'm trying to look for a positive out of it, at least the the racist, the the the people who discriminate, at least you can see them. They're visible now. They're not hiding. They're not hiding behind like, you know, like you know, words or corporate yeah, exactly. No, now they're like, no, no, it's okay. We have someone like Trump.
Joel Cheesman (43:02.765)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (43:14.101)
And not hiding on LinkedIn apparently.
Emi B (43:20.022)
Who it makes it okay to say that, you know? We have an organization that's dismantling DEI. But the you know what actually pisses me off about this though? Because I think this is something, this is a fireable offense. Yeah? And I can see how other people may go, no, it's a free speech. I think it's a fireable offense because of what the organization actually stands for. He's going against his actual company ethos. But what do they do? They just demoted him, they took him off the leadership.
Joel Cheesman (43:28.311)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (43:42.693)
that's interesting.
Emi B (43:49.756)
got out of his leadership role, he's still got his partner title. So they're not really doing anything, you know, to kind of reprimand this person. They're not. Yeah. So yeah, I think they're kind of fucked up here.
Joel Cheesman (43:55.727)
Yeah. It might.
Yeah, it might be a facade. Do you do you think that there's a line between LinkedIn and all the other social media platforms because you are representing your company technically at more on LinkedIn? What are your thoughts on that? Like w if he had posted this on X, do you think the same thing happens?
Emi B (44:13.686)
Yeah.
Emi B (44:18.602)
I think that despite the platform, yes, okay, LinkedIn is a, you know, you are you are representing your organization. But whether it's Insta or Facebook or or Twitter or X rather, I think that you have a responsibility to think about how you're coming across, you know, at the end of the day, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (44:38.293)
I agree. I just don't know if societally, culturally, if he had posted it somewhere else, if we would have had the same response.
Emi B (44:44.446)
No, I don't think he I don't think he would have got the same response. I think he might have got away with it if it's on X, for example. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (44:49.601)
Yeah. And and my guess is this guy got away with a lot of stuff, which led to this. Like they always say w the the drunk driver, like he's been drunk driving he or she has been drunk driving for like seven you know, s a lot. He just got caught for it this time. My guess is this guy this guy's had a life of comments at lunch and meetings and and finally he just he crossed the line. So the the entrepreneur school at LinkedIn, any thoughts on that?
Emi B (44:54.602)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emi B (45:00.32)
It's been yeah.
Emi B (45:04.724)
Yeah. It just got caught this time. Yes. Yeah.
Emi B (45:15.114)
Yeah. Yeah, I kinda okay, what do I think about this? So LinkedIn is at launching their own school. They're saying, yeah, you know, basically we're gonna teach you the real world skills, the practical skills that you need to succeed in the modern world. and you don't need a degree, you know? And it reminded me of a conversation I had recently with somebody, and that's like, you know, I have a degree, I loved going to university. Do I use my degree? No.
Joel Cheesman (45:42.104)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (45:44.161)
When I graduated, I didn't do work experience, which I always like kind of, you know, I would always recommend that graduates do or rec soon to be graduates do. Because I just know when I when I graduated, I I was like, Yeah, great, I went to good university, I've got my got my certificate. I knew nothing about how to succeed in the workplace. You know, I had theory. And this is what I think is lacking, definitely in the UK education system. And when I speak to other people around the world, that is lacking.
Joel Cheesman (45:52.067)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (46:05.177)
Yeah.
Emi B (46:13.96)
I as an ex-recruiter, I would much rather hire someone who's got practical real life skills than someone who just has theoretical knowledge. So what LinkedIn do is doing by launching this school academy to teach people those real life skills that doesn't actually require a degree. That doesn't mean that people are going to put themselves into huge amounts of debt to learn those real life skills, I think is great. Is there an ulterior motive for LinkedIn doing that? I don't know. But as a
Joel Cheesman (46:28.995)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (46:44.02)
someone a young, you know, young person entering the workplace, cool. Go do it. Go learn those real life skills. That's what's gonna set you apart more so than your qualification. It's great. Is it is
Joel Cheesman (46:48.247)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (47:02.851)
So I think this is first I would say follow the money when you're asking for why is LinkedIn doing this. we're seeing a real spike in this country for sure, in regards to applications for new businesses. In fact, in July, business total business applications reached a record high of about seven five hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred in the US. And I think ever since COVID, people have started to learn.
Emi B (47:09.29)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (47:32.737)
Either I better find my own thing, I better get a side hustle, I better understand this whole business thing. Be and being at home enabled them to like, this Zoom thing's kinda cool. Like, how would I do like this so this this this marketplace is so I think people got interested in entrepreneurship and then you had AI taking everyone's job,
Emi B (47:35.83)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (47:54.872)
You had vibe coding, so it's easier to create websites. You had you saw layoffs happen. So all these people that got laid off are like, well, do I find a new job or do I just start my own company? Young people are buying franchises, interestingly, in this in this country, at a rate that they never have before. Yeah. I mean, a lot of young people are like, you know, I I don't want to start my own thing, but I don't want to work for somebody. So happy medium is like, I'll just open up a sub shop or I'll, you know, create a a
Emi B (48:09.908)
Are they?
Emi B (48:16.204)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (48:24.013)
clothing, whatever it is, right? Like dry cleaning s franchise or whatever. so so the trend, at least in this country, I think most most countries, is like we have like entrepreneurship is on the rise, mostly because out of just I have to, not just because they woke up and said everyone said let's now the the the pushback on that is like just like any other business, ninety plus percent of these are going to fail. And in two to three years we're probably going to talk about like, everyone's like coming back to work who had failed
Emi B (48:25.194)
Mm.
Emi B (48:38.644)
Necessity. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (48:53.591)
franchises and businesses and websites and apps that didn't quite take off. But I think for now, there's definitely a trend in in this country where people are trying to learn how to deal with being an entrepreneur. So I think from that perspective, LinkedIn is totally spot on with where the world is going. I think t yeah, like, yeah, look, I if I I'll pay LinkedIn a little money to learn how to deal with a PR crises or to deal with taxes or things that that I have to deal with. Yeah. So
Emi B (49:05.664)
Yeah.
Emi B (49:10.764)
Teach those practical skills so they're less likely to fail. Yeah.
Emi B (49:19.008)
Yeah. How to get an investor. Yeah. PR. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (49:23.159)
So I think it's a good move from LinkedIn's perspective. What what is interesting to me is that LinkedIn, you know, its core business is connecting employees with employers. So if you're saying you're your own boss, how many people are they now going to hire? So I guess you could look at like, hey, if we're just if we're empowering all these entrepreneurs, it's an easy bridge to say, Hey, we helped you build your business. Now let us help you fill it with employees. So so I think
Emi B (49:40.94)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (49:49.558)
That's higher for your business. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (49:52.558)
From that perspective, it's really smart from LinkedIn to to reiterate, I don't believe this guy just left because of his family. I there's some there's something there that Microsoft doesn't want out. And then and then yeah, and then I I made my opinions pretty clear about Mr. Glass glass cliff, which is an interesting new term that we all learned today.
Emi B (50:00.737)
Yeah.
Emi B (50:06.067)
Who do we know at LinkedIn? Who can tell us the real costs? Yeah.
Emi B (50:17.707)
Yes.
Joel Cheesman (50:17.901)
Let's take a quick break, Emmy, and we'll end up with AI interviewers gone wild.
Joel Cheesman (50:28.577)
All right, Emmy, we've all seen the AI interviewers, the videos, some some created man or manufactured on purpose. Well, this week a TikTok user intentionally spoke gibberish during a job interview with an AI avatar, causing it to become visibly frustrated and eventually end the interview. I'll just show a clip. It's like three minutes, I'll cut it short, but this will give you and the listeners, viewers an idea of what of what we're talking about.
Emi B (51:25.996)
You know what it's saying, right?
Emi B (51:32.394)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (52:17.747)
Okay. So that gives you an idea of what we're talking about. Come back. yeah, there we are. okay. I I I message people I know. I was like, who's this vendor? is this real or not? I and it's front it's I think it's on the futurist website, so
By all accounts, this is real. this isn't some faked Hollywood style, like tell the AI to talk mean to me. So I don't I don't know what to make of it, Emmy. What are your thoughts?
Emi B (52:52.81)
I can't tell if it's real either. I literally went everywhere. I went on every website. I went on YouTube. I was checking the comments. I don't know. All I do know is that this is actually quite scary because more and more organizations are bringing in these AI avatar interviewers, you know? And I remember a couple of months ago we talked about it when I was on the show. And you know, I was saying, I don't I don't want to do this. I like I don't I don't want a world where candidates are interviewing with
Joel Cheesman (53:11.469)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (53:22.962)
AI avatars and but I questioned myself at the time, you know, am I a dinosaur? Am I not keeping up with the world? Am I not understanding where the world is actually changing when it comes to AI in the hiring process? I thought I was. And to be honest, my mind has actually changed over the last couple of months because when I started to think about it in our day-to-day lives, we are actually speaking to AI, you know, and and that realization came when I was on my phone and I was like, hey Siri.
Joel Cheesman (53:24.631)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (53:36.931)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (53:52.545)
And I'm like, what am I doing? I'm talking to my phone and my you know, my phone's talking back to me. Actually, my god, my phone's next to so it looks like this is about to talk now. You know, so that it that is happening. So if that's happening in our personal lives, obviously it can happen in hiring, you know. However, when we do implement this kind of technology, we need to take into account the the candidate experience. We don't want to turn off candidates, we don't want people to go.
Joel Cheesman (53:52.739)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (54:01.741)
Yeah. Yep.
Emi B (54:20.064)
the the we have we're not given in the human experience. They and so having a an AI interviewer, this is funny, this is cool, this is making me laugh, you know, it's talking gibberish. But imagine if the AI interviewer started just going off on one, being rude, not representing the organization. That's not a good thing. That is not a good thing to your for for your employer brand. But organizations need to think about you're gonna implement it.
Joel Cheesman (54:22.947)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (54:38.968)
Yeah.
Emi B (54:45.504)
Have you tested these tools properly? Have you tried this just going blah blah blah blah blah and seeing what happens? Or are you trusting what Bender's saying?
Joel Cheesman (54:52.195)
So I have a couple just have a have a couple of thoughts on this.
Joel Cheesman (54:59.487)
Any new technology goes through a period of like, what the hell is this? and then you sort of get used to it, you get numb to it. perfect example, when I was in Vegas this week, there's a auto, you know, Waymo, we've talked about Waymo a lot on the show. And there's there's one now called Zooks, which is connected to Amazon or Bezos. so you're gonna see more of this. It's more of a traditional weird sci-fi car. There's no steering wheel, you just it's like there's four seats, it's
Emi B (55:13.196)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (55:28.471)
facing each other, two facing each other on each side, a big sliding door. Like, look on your face. that's weird. But I guarantee you, a few years from now in Vegas, like once these things become normalized, it'll just be another car. It'll be another a taxi service that you call. I think we're going through a little bit of that with the AI interviewers. the we're seeing a lot of fringe accounts of like
Emi B (55:30.487)
Ooh.
Emi B (55:35.24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emi B (55:43.562)
Yeah.
Emi B (55:49.003)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (55:53.046)
Young people hate it. they all, you know, half of them eject AI interview, which may be true. I don't know. and I don't know if that's I hate AI and I'm out of here, or I'm not right for this role. I know that I'm gonna get dings, so why stick around? Why waste my time? So I don't know exactly why they're leaving because the narratives that I hear at conferences, and although although they are u employer focused, is that people are applying at 10 p.m. at night.
Emi B (56:07.606)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (56:22.923)
Right. That's a convenient thing for people. I can I can wait till the kid's in bed and I can get a a coffee or whatever and then like do it on my time. I don't have to go to lunch and run and do an interview and hope that it gets over by the time I, you know, can come back to work. Like I think that if we I think AI interviewing is a net positive. And I think what isn't positive we'll eventually we'll get used to. And that people will
Emi B (56:23.008)
Yes. That's it exactly.
I don't have to take a day off work. Yeah.
Emi B (56:42.85)
Mm-hmm.
Emi B (56:46.988)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (56:47.937)
realize like, they're getting tons of applicants, they can't handle it. So this is sort of how they're how they're doing it. correct. I think I think we'll normalize this. I think it will just be something that we deal with. I don't think companies are going to abandon AI interviewing. It will get better. the the second part of this is AI's weird, man. the whole the whole like smiling face, happy face, whatever it was, that you know, AI jumped out of the sandbox. It kind of did its own thing.
Emi B (56:53.238)
This is how they're going to get feedback rather than being in a black hole. Yeah.
Emi B (57:01.162)
Mm.
Emi B (57:08.854)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (57:18.091)
It went rogue. Like this if that's what happened here where an AI just said, Screw this, you people suck and don't waste my t like, did it just do it on its own? Did the company program it to do this because they were s like that's what scares me because I can't think of any company that would be like, tell this person off if they're gonna talk gibberish to us. Did the AI just on its own decide this is bullshit and you're an asshole? because that's something to worry about.
Emi B (57:25.236)
Yeah.
Emi B (57:35.158)
Yeah.
Emi B (57:43.124)
Yeah, I just got yeah.
Joel Cheesman (57:48.431)
And I don't have it. Because I know I know because we're close with Paradox. They're s a great sponsor. And I like they've talked to us about the responses that Olivia has gotten. Like they t people talk dirty to Olivia. They talk crazy shit. But Olivia do never gets an attitude. It's always like, I don't know, you know, it's nice, right? It just just goes with the flow. So I is this AI go rogue and then we should all be concerned? like yeah.
Emi B (57:48.906)
And that could definitely happen.
Emi B (57:53.643)
Yeah.
Emi B (58:08.586)
Yeah. Collights.
Joel Cheesman (58:16.333)
There are a lot of questions here to be answered. I still think there's a really good chance that this is fake. That someone got really fancy with the with the AI video and just decided to get like a viral thing and go. But I'm gonna keep studying to see if this is fake and we'll report back on the show. But until then, Emmy, how about a dad joke?
Emi B (58:24.866)
With the AI, yeah.
Emi B (58:38.164)
come on. I knew you were gonna say that.
Joel Cheesman (58:45.183)
Why didn't Han Solo enjoy his steak? Why didn't Han Solo enjoy his steak?
Joel Cheesman (58:57.065)
It was chewy. It was chewy.
Emi B (58:57.292)
Somebody said no
It hasn't got any better, Joel. It's still shit. It is. okay. We'll give you a week off. It's okay. We out.
Joel Cheesman (59:08.267)
My I'm I'm low T right now, so you gotta you gotta bear with me. You gotta bear with me. So until then, we out.
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