iCIMS Awakes, Amazon Axes, and Monster Shambles On

On this Halloween edition of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Chad, Joel, and Emi crank up the chaos:

🎃 Layoff-a-Palooza: Amazon, UPS, Target, and GM swing the axe while automation sharpens the blade.

🎃 AI Gets Audited: Mercor’s billion-dollar pivot from recruiting to training AIs—and why FairNow might just be smoke, mirrors, and VC fumes.

🎃 Chicken Cock & Career Corpses: iCIMS finally wakes up, and Bold’s “Monster resurrection” video gives major 2007 cringe vibes.

🎃 North of the Border: As Trump wrecks H-1Bs, Canada raids America for nurses and sanity.

Expect sarcasm, bourbon, and British banter as the gang dissects layoffs, living wages, and LinkedIn’s new agents—with plenty of “boo bees,” goblins, and bad dad jokes to go around.

Trick or treat, HR nerds. ENJOY!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:31.624)

Aaaaaaaah yeeeeaaaaaaah!

Joel Cheesman (00:37.262)

always feel like somebody's watching me. It's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Shrekin since 1997.

Chad Sowash (00:47.394)

This is Chad "Michael Myers LIVES" Sowash.

Emi B (00:51.744)

And this is Emmy. Get it?

Chad Sowash (00:56.91)

So bad.

Joel Cheesman (00:57.608)

Man on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, iCims awakens Canada poaches and layoff of Palooza rages on. Let's do this.

Chad Sowash (01:14.414)

Hello, hello.

Joel Cheesman (01:14.48)

All right. We're looking different today. If you're not on the YouTube channel, you're missing out.

Emi B (01:16.226)

I'm sorry.

Chad Sowash (01:20.142)

What you talking about? I look like this every, what are you talking about?

Emi B (01:21.442)

This is standard uniform, isn't it?

Joel Cheesman (01:23.364)

Yeah, Chad is some nightmarish, I don't know, New Orleans, Bourbon streets,

Chad Sowash (01:29.294)

It's either a Bono or Elton John meets Charlie Chaplin in a skeleton. Yes. Very original. Very original. Yes. Necktie. yeah. Good call. Yeah, good call.

Emi B (01:30.306)

you

Emi B (01:36.162)

It looks good.

Joel Cheesman (01:37.588)

Okay, little random and with the Dr. Seuss cat in the hat bow tie, which is nice. Nice as well. And me pretty standard. You got the devil's devil's horns. The devil horns are pretty standard.

Emi B (01:46.818)

No, it's not standard. No, no, no, no. It's the t-shirt. Are you ready? What does that say? Bees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (01:48.814)

What's not standard, what? Huh? Yeah.

It says boo and it has two two bees on it. So boo bees. Yes, very nice. And we've talked and on the show we've said on several occasions everybody loves boo bees. That's right.

Joel Cheesman (01:54.312)

You

Joel Cheesman (01:59.216)

Okay.

Emi B (02:04.514)

Absolutely.

Joel Cheesman (02:06.374)

Yes. Yes. No doubt. No doubt. Everyone loves boobies. I'm wearing a chicken head. I'm wearing a chicken hat. I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm auditioning for the new chicken cock mascot. Maybe if our friend Tyler's watching, maybe that's, that's it. Maybe, maybe I am, I'm deals. I'm deal CEO. Who's two chicken to come on the show. I don't know. Use, use your imagination. Use your imagination.

Chad Sowash (02:10.318)

Again?

He's, he's a chicken cock. that's good call. It's a burger. Yeah.

Emi B (02:17.954)

you

I think it works.

Chad Sowash (02:29.582)

or your favorite food, taco, which means Trump always chickens out. Although, I don't know. I don't know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:35.08)

hadn't thought about the, the Trump, the Trump angle on that one. the hot chicken Nashville. I'm kind of a hot chicken. If you, if you know, definitely hot chicken, definitely hot chicken. How you doing, Emmy? It's been a minute. It's been a second.

Emi B (02:38.423)

you

Chad Sowash (02:42.626)

There it is, just came back, yeah.

Emi B (02:50.604)

I know, have you missed me? I think it's been about six weeks. Yeah, it's like.

Chad Sowash (02:53.646)

Of course. Wow.

Joel Cheesman (02:55.512)

the because the IQ level IQ number on the show goes way down if you're not on just the British accent alone. Bob bumps us up quite a bit.

Emi B (03:00.41)

absolutely. You definitely...

Chad Sowash (03:02.35)

British accent does it. Every time.

Emi B (03:04.519)

See, love, you two are like my hype men because any other Londoner will go, no, no, her accent is not that posh at all. Come on this show. it's like, all of a sudden, I'm very intelligent. like, I love it. I love it. Yeah. So thank you.

Chad Sowash (03:15.256)

Yes, exactly.

Joel Cheesman (03:17.896)

I had a brief conversation in Nashville with Steven McGrath, had a conversation and he was talking about how Americans love his accent. And I said, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I was English, you're basically from Mississippi. Like you are redneck, hillbilly, but you come over here and you're super educated. So it's really just a matter of nuance and where you are.

Emi B (03:21.218)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (03:21.378)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (03:26.677)

yeah.

Emi B (03:32.066)

Yeah.

Emi B (03:41.012)

No, it is. mean, last year, last month, I was over in Virginia and DC and there's the same kind of thing. People thought I was really posh. I was like, love this. You know, this does not happen to me very often. So, know, keep, keep hyping me up. Keep hyping me up.

Chad Sowash (03:47.192)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (03:56.194)

The funny part though is that anybody coming from the South who or Redneck or Hickville go over to Europe, they're still Rednecks and Hicks. So I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't translate going the other way. It's weird. It's really weird.

Joel Cheesman (03:56.466)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (04:03.445)

huh.

Emi B (04:05.829)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. no, absolutely.

Joel Cheesman (04:10.714)

Is there any country where Americans are looked at as intellectual and sophisticated? Probably not.

Chad Sowash (04:15.456)

Not anymore. Not anymore.

Emi B (04:15.553)

Ahhhh... Yeah... Yeah... Sorry about that.

Joel Cheesman (04:24.76)

All right, we got a lot of meat for this show, so let's get to shout outs.

Chad Sowash (04:27.668)

It is kids. So what's more scary than Halloween? Well, my shout out is to paying a living wage because SNAP benefits won't be funded for over 40 million Americans on November 1st. Scary shit kids. What is SNAP? If you don't know what SNAP it is, it is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Our funds, they're federal funds given to low income households to help them purchase food. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (04:42.992)

Yikes. Totally scary.

Chad Sowash (04:57.006)

food. Over 40 million Americans are receiving SNAP benefits. 70%, about 70 % of recipients work full time. According to 2020 US GAO report, about 1.2 million military veterans are enrolled in SNAP, more than 20,000 active duty. Yes, people currently actively serving in our military, 20,000 families.

And over 200,000 National Guard and Reserve members also rely on SNAP, according to Veteran.com. And I get it. I get it. The government, they don't want to pay handouts, right? Well, if that's the case, then government needs to install a living wage and enforce it. We're giving companies huge tax breaks and yet they're not paying a living wage.

Joel Cheesman (05:43.759)

huh.

Chad Sowash (05:46.316)

The problem goes deeper than the US military with employers like Walmart and McDonald's being among the top organizations with workers. You heard me. said workers receiving snap benefits along with others like you might've heard of them before. Amazon, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Kroger and Target. The people are working so fucking pay them. Shout out to paying a living wage.

Joel Cheesman (05:55.57)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (06:14.438)

That's a lot of families, man. That's a lot of families. Get the government back open for God's sakes. You got one job. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard? All right, Emmy, what you got?

Chad Sowash (06:14.99)

Just a little, I know. A lot of working families.

Emi B (06:22.023)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (06:22.03)

It's a start. It's a good start. Good start. Hey, Denemy.

Emi B (06:29.299)

shout out, but you know what, something actually just popped in my mind. yeah, absolutely. So shout out is actually to the company I work for elastic. So we are a tech company, but we have just been nominated or recently nominated for two awards. What our recruiting team has. So we've been. It for best medium sized recruitment team. So we're going to find out really soon at award ceremony. And the other one is for best recruiter.

Joel Cheesman (06:32.709)

Here, let's go.

Chad Sowash (06:36.172)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (06:47.965)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (06:57.685)

So this is for someone called Harry. I'm just going to do my shout out to those two because unfortunately.

Chad Sowash (07:06.51)

There you go.

Emi B (07:07.051)

Yeah, yeah. I wish I was going to be there to hopefully watch us pick up those awards, but I'm going to be on holiday at the time. But I'm sending my good luck wishes to them. Yeah, absolutely.

Chad Sowash (07:15.752)

On holiday. On holiday. You need one.

Joel Cheesman (07:18.546)

You know, not to get too personal, but I've received a few medium sized awards in the past. We don't have to talk about any of that, but just throw that out there.

Emi B (07:24.117)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (07:29.3)

I'd rather not talk about that, please.

Joel Cheesman (07:34.01)

All right. My, my, my shout out goes out to a tick tock influencer, named Maya. she was recently, got crushed by an employer who rescinded a job offer. check, check this one out.

Chad Sowash (08:12.718)

Woo.

Chad Sowash (08:33.612)

Is there anything I can do?

Chad Sowash (08:56.546)

looking out for you.

Emi B (09:04.161)

Chad Sowash (09:13.934)

Okay, that was an app thing. That was an app thing, yes, yes.

Joel Cheesman (09:15.624)

All right, now hold on. Yes, yes. So, this is marketing in 2025. If you go to her profile, she's a Sprout influencer. All the videos are like, she's getting fired, laid off, whatever. And then they slip in there, keep using that Sprout app or whatever it was. so like, just, this, and so my kids,

Emi B (09:18.965)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (09:24.398)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (09:29.582)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (09:39.0)

huh.

Joel Cheesman (09:43.282)

There's this, there's another, Tik TOK where it's like AI generated professors and they're yelling at the students about using chat GPT and stop using chat GPT. And at the end of it, they sneak in, you should be using this app instead of chat GPT. So it's like this subliminal marketing. And I'm just saying, don't fall for the banana in the tailpipe people.

Chad Sowash (10:00.216)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (10:04.558)

Yep.

Joel Cheesman (10:05.796)

It's trick or treat time. There are a lot of tricks going on out there. So I wanted to slip that shout out in there letting you know, Chad, good for you for catching it. But, we're going to see a lot more of these going forward. And, I want our listeners to know, what's up. No, what's up. No, it's up. Yeah. I mean, it gets you. It gets your attention. Then you watch and it's like, wait a minute, but we got bullshit meters on this show. so I know it. And in addition to bullshit meters, we got free stuff.

Emi B (10:11.39)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (10:18.862)

The script was horrible.

Emi B (10:21.184)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (10:24.263)

It does at first, I'm like, come on. Yeah. Nah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (10:36.462)

Who doesn't like free stuff?

Emi B (10:38.453)

I love free stuff. Give me more free stuff. Always, always. So I think it's me, isn't it? I'm talking about free stuff this week, aren't I? Yeah, yeah. Fabulous, okay. So what free stuff have we got? the one I love is the free t-shirts. So you know those t-shirts, you you must have known about it by now. We've been talking about it for ages. They're soft, they're supple, they're strokeable. So definitely we're getting...

Chad Sowash (10:45.25)

Yeah? Yeah, Why not? Sure.

Joel Cheesman (11:00.904)

Ooh, ooh. Hello, Strokable.

Chad Sowash (11:03.822)

Cheeseman's gonna have to take a break after that one. Cheeseman's gonna have to take a break after that one, Jesus. Thanks, Aaron App. Yeah, thanks for the Strokeable. Yeah, that's great.

Emi B (11:06.453)

yeah. was like, yourself down. So if you want those, yeah. Absolutely. That's coming from Erin App. And then if you want, if t-shirts aren't your thing, if you want a little bit of a sophistication in the form of alcohol, you can have some free whiskey in the form of chicken cock. And I think, am I reading here? It's not even just one bottle, it's two bottles. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (11:12.264)

Cheers!

Chad Sowash (11:31.214)

Two.

Emi B (11:32.714)

two bottles of chicken cock whiskey and that's from the tech experts over at Van Hack and you know what if beer is if whiskey is not your thing have some beer instead have some craft beer you know and that craft beer is coming from Aspen Tech Labs and am i missing anything else i think that's all the free stuff isn't it and if you yeah absolutely and if you want it yeah where are going to get it from Chadcheese.com forward slash free

Joel Cheesman (11:42.919)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (11:49.048)

Yeah, that's...

Joel Cheesman (11:50.376)

Where we going is what's next. Where are we going?

Chad Sowash (11:55.886)

Oh, that's right. Well, I gotta get ready for events. Give me a second. Doing a change here. Oh, got the, that's right because, you know, travel's sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right, wherever we go, Shaker comes with us. That sounds a little creepy, but it's Halloween, so it's okay.

Emi B (12:03.585)

Are you stripping off? that what's happening? what is that?

Joel Cheesman (12:04.808)

look at this! It's multi-layered costume. What is going on?

Emi B (12:12.874)

you

Joel Cheesman (12:20.136)

Strokeable and Shakeable.

Chad Sowash (12:21.746)

That's exactly right. So first and foremost, you're going to ERE. I've already had my time with Jeff on stage. Now it's your time with Jeff on stage. Talk a little bit about that. When is it? Where are going?

Joel Cheesman (12:31.132)

Yep. Headed to beautiful San Diego. can't wait. If you're in the Midwest, like we are Chad, it's gloomy, cold, rainy, just nasty. I'm ready for some beach, little mountains, little California, loving a little, the whiskey whiskey house in downtown, the gaslight district. So, so totally, totally down with that, but I'm going to be on, I'm going to be on stage with, Jeff Taylor, founder of monster and new founder of boom band. and there's a lot of stuff in between.

Chad Sowash (12:34.137)

yeah.

Yes.

Emi B (12:47.667)

exactly what came in my head.

Chad Sowash (12:49.454)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (12:59.644)

he and I are just going to like have a little chat, little 40, 45 minute chat. last time I was on, on a similar stage at ERE, I was with Jason Goldberg, which, which a few fireworks went off. So I'm expecting a few fireworks, maybe a few, what the hell was that? I don't know. Anything could happen. It's San Diego. It's November, November 4th and 5th is the conference. I'll be on stage on the fifth or the fourth. Sorry. think I'm the last, last.

person on stage or close to the last. if you're going, make sure you come and check that out. If you still haven't signed up, I think there's still time head out to e re.net and, come say hi. If you, if you are in attendance.

Chad Sowash (13:27.488)

Anchor. Turn on anchor.

Chad Sowash (13:37.568)

in beautiful San Diego. Then the Chad and Cheese have a road show. That's right. We're road chippin' it. The RL100 events. Yeah, we're taking it to the streets with the kids for single day events in San Francisco, San Diego, and Dallas. If you don't know RL100, they're shows that are beautifully curated. Beautifully, you can tell by Joel and I actually emceeing the shows, of course, for small group.

Joel Cheesman (13:59.848)

beautifully curated.

Chad Sowash (14:04.92)

high level practitioners who are looking for answers and sharing best practices. So if you're a director, VP of town acquisition or chief people officer, you gotta be in the room where it happens. Those rooms are in San Francisco on November 13th, San Diego on November 18th and Dallas on November 20th. Go to ChadCheese.com, click register. It's right there in the hero image. Check out the topic speakers and we will see you there. ChadCheese.com.

Joel Cheesman (14:37.544)

All right, let's talk a little fantasy football sponsored by our friends at factory fix. Here's your first to worst list heading into week nine. I think of the, uh, the season number one at the top of the list. We've got Courtney Nappo. She's basically owned that top spot. Uh, so as McKenzie Maitland, they're right up there. Number three, your boy in the bronze, the bronze medal category. Um, still in, I'm still in the playoffs. That's what's important. Oh, I, well, yeah, I did take a little bit of a whippin, but when you

Chad Sowash (15:01.518)

You took a whip in last week.

Joel Cheesman (15:07.196)

When the Tampa Bay defense scores 26 points, it's kind of hard, kind of hard to come back, come back from that one. so yeah. and, holy shit.

Chad Sowash (15:12.952)

Yes. No, yeah, get it. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (15:20.526)

kicking ass taking names. That's right, haggis.

Joel Cheesman (15:22.61)

Steven McGrath, just the barrel chested boy is, is just rolling through fantasy football. is still a long season though. Followed by Jada Weiler, David Stiefel, Megan Ratigan, William Carrington, Chad, you're in the nine spot. Not yet double digits at the 10th spot, but keep, keep trying kid. number 10 ginger Dodds who with my ass this week, Jason Putnam and Jeremy Roberts with let me see.

Let me see how many wins. zero. Get it. Just get a win. Just get a win. How do you live in Texas with no fantasy football chops? I just don't know. I don't know how you live with yourself, how you can show your face in a state like Texas. Let's talk about layoffs. Shall we?

Emi B (15:53.355)

Chad Sowash (15:53.56)

That hurts. That hurts, Jay.

Chad Sowash (16:09.846)

god.

Joel Cheesman (16:12.392)

Off with their heads, everybody. This week, Amazon cut 14,000 corporate jobs with an eye toward automation. Target axed 1800 amid a sales slump. GM is cutting over 3000 workers. Rivian 600 and UPS is saying goodbye to a whopping 48,000 workers. But wait, there's more. The military news website, military.com is quote, effectively dead due to sweeping layoffs forced by parent company Valnet.

Chad, a lot of heads are rolling on Halloween. Your take.

Chad Sowash (16:48.158)

Okay, here's some rapid fire. So on the UPS side of the house, there are three big reasons I see this happening with UPS. Number one, automation. We've seen that happening and I've had some really deep talks with friends over there about it. Number two, less volume after not moving forward with low paying Amazon contracts. So they have less packages that actually need to be delivered.

And then number three, less buying power for the American people means less packages as well. So all those things are literally coming together in a confluence of we don't need as many people. Amazon on the other side with UPS shredding Amazon's low margin business. Amazon will have to move quickly toward automation in every single aspect of the business, not just picking and packing in the warehouses. They've got great robots already doing a lot of that as it is.

Joel Cheesman (17:31.816)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (17:44.282)

Target, Americans buying power, as I said earlier, is much lower and Target is not a cheap choice when you're shopping. So they're going to be headed to even more issues, I think. Military.com, I think VowNet just bought them for the domain. I mean, they are a publication organization and I don't think military.com really fits into that portfolio well, if you look at their portfolio. And then last but not least,

Joel Cheesman (18:04.071)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (18:13.046)

GM, so another Trump economy killer happens. Allowing the tax credit to expire, the EV tax credit, gives less incentive to buy EVs. Less buying of EVs means less product needed. Less product means less jobs. So we saw a spike in EV sales right before the tax credit expires, which means there's appetite. But unfortunately, American car companies have not figured out just yet.

Joel Cheesman (18:28.296)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (18:39.778)

how to make affordable EVs like BYD and other Chinese companies. So cross your fingers, hopefully they can pull that shit together. But until then, we're gonna see a lot more of this.

Joel Cheesman (18:49.446)

Yeah, for sure. so liberation day, funny name for that day. we'll, look back on, we'll look back in anger on that one. look, companies hate chaos. everyone hates it, but companies in particular hate it. And there was, there was a while there when the no fire, no hire mantra was really popular. And I think, I think companies by and large were like, let's just wait a little bit. We got some money. Let's just see how this whole thing shakes out. Well, it turns out Trump was serious about being psychotic, and,

Chad Sowash (18:54.584)

Yeah.

Emi B (18:55.263)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (18:58.04)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (19:05.422)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (19:15.393)

you

Chad Sowash (19:15.886)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (19:19.386)

screw sticking it to our allies and, and particularly Canada. the Reagan ad is interesting. We don't have to talk about that, but, but look, companies are kind of holding off. Let's see what happens. Well, that shit's over. So companies and what we've seen from the data is like about a third of tariffs were paid by the importer. About a third was paid by the company, about a third by the consumer. Well, that's going to slowly start changing. think customer companies are like slow drip in this to consumers. We're seeing inflation.

tick up every month. It's slow. Maybe there's some, some, I don't know, some agreement. Like we're not going to unload all this on the customer overnight, but we're going to slow roll it. so less, less consumption things cost more money. People aren't sure about their job. Companies are unsure about the future. Countries are freaking out about everything. So shocker, people are getting laid off. The Amazon story is very automation heavy. I mean,

Chad Sowash (19:57.999)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (20:16.976)

Jassy said the quiet part out loud not that long ago that we don't need that many developers. We don't need that many sort of middle managers. And now we're seeing it in the numbers. we're seeing it with, what's the new robot blue J is that their new, new robot system. like go, go on YouTube and search blue J Amazon and see the future of like boxing and inventory and warehousing. Like those jobs are going to be going away. I, I, I assume very, very quickly the auto thing, Chad, you're right.

Chad Sowash (20:20.632)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (20:29.375)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (20:29.644)

Yeah, Blue Jay.

Joel Cheesman (20:45.128)

The incentive is gone. there's very little, like the U S just hasn't embraced. Evie's like Europe has and our energy is cheaper. We have highways. They have a rail system. Like, don't, I don't know if Evie's are going to happen in America. Like maybe, but it's, it's on life support right now without, without incentives, they're gone. So most of these layoffs Rivian is in the toilet. Uh, I mentioned 600 layoffs there as well. Um, how do they survive as a company? I don't know.

Chad Sowash (21:07.406)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (21:15.324)

so EVs are going to be a huge hit. it's interesting. You mentioned the, the, the military.com thing. Look, if it's sort of like when job boards realize we can just put an indeed backfill and get money on clicks, we don't need salespeople. We don't need customer service. Let's just get traffic and like flow it in and get clicks. Same thing with media. If this is not the New York times, right? They had, they had journalists that were writing hard hitting stories. I don't know. Those all could be freelanced out.

probably automated to a big degree, just like take the stop stories, rewrite it, and then like put a little spin on it. So that doesn't surprise me. my question would that be, it just going to continue to be that? Cause it is a great domain. but yeah, I think that's directionless, a monster owned it before, right? they clearly wanted, to dump it. I mean, curious about your thoughts being over in Europe. Are you paying much attention to the U S layoffs and maybe there's something going on in, in Europe.

Chad Sowash (21:58.03)

No clue.

Emi B (22:12.097)

Yeah, we definitely are. And I'll you the reason why. I mean, obviously, a lot of companies we have here also operate in the US market as well. But what's happening in the US is pretty much what we're seeing across many different geographies around the world. So a lot of companies are laying off people in the numbers that we're seeing in the US. And why?

is for the reasons that you said. It's because there is chaos in the world. There is instability. So even if you're not based in the US and not operates, like, you your head office, not in the US, you still might be doing operations with the US. So you still might be hit by the tariffs. That's causing, like you said, the chaos, the instability. What's going to happen long term? We're still at the beginning of the Trump administration. What's going to happen later on down the line? So companies need to find some way of

Joel Cheesman (22:49.65)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (22:57.902)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (23:00.671)

controlling the chaos and instability. One way of doing that is to reduce the costs. We know that if you bring in automation, that's going to help to reduce the cost. And that is the reality that's happening now that's going to continue happening 26 and 27 as well. Now, the only, I suppose, a glimmer of hope that I might see with some of these industries is if you're at a target, for example, a retail organization.

Joel Cheesman (23:11.304)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (23:28.08)

Hmm.

Emi B (23:28.449)

They need seasonal workers. We're coming up to the holiday period. So for that time, are they probably going to bring in humans? Yes. But so for the short-term work, can see, yes, they might bring in humans. But long-term, a lot of these jobs are going to go.

Chad Sowash (23:33.454)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (23:40.518)

Yeah. Target was a lot of headquarters positions. I think it was less about the stores. So clearly the main headquarters has figured out automation and we don't need so many layers of middle folks. By the way, kids, we're less than a year into the Trump presidency. So just three more plus years of all this fun. Let's get to topic, shall we?

Emi B (23:46.055)

Yeah.

Emi B (24:00.234)

Yay!

Chad Sowash (24:00.28)

Gah!

Joel Cheesman (24:08.712)

All right. Mercor, Mercor, hardly even know, or a human in the loop AI company raised $350 million in series C funding this week, valuing the company at $10 billion. The company which pivoted from recruitment technology to AI model evaluation coordinates a global pool of over 30,000 experts who evaluate AI models for clients like open AI, but wait, there's more industry news. Audit board has acquired fair now.

an AI governance platform to enhance its capabilities and help customers maintain compliance and manage AI related risks. Chad, what's your take on the Mercure FairNow news?

Chad Sowash (24:47.982)

So MeriCorps, I mean, we talked about these guys buy and sell way back when they got their first funding. And their earlier rounds of funding, they were talking about better matching, taking out bias of the process. And I think we both gave them a thumbs down. So again, smart, smart founders, young, young founders. And yeah, they're very, very, very young. Jesus.

Joel Cheesman (25:10.834)

They're zygotes. That's how young they are. They're still in the womb for...

Emi B (25:14.305)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (25:16.43)

now they've pivoted to finding industry experts to train AI. And I, I don't know who the advisor was who pointed them in this direction, but that deserves a big applause. The first iteration of training for AI generally was based basically just was the answer right or wrong? Was it bad content or good content? Now it seems like MeriCorps can not only tell you if it's right or wrong, bad or good.

Joel Cheesman (25:45.17)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (25:45.218)

but also provide an expert to explain why. So actually to be able to provide more deep knowledge through actual expertise in the industry instead of trying to go out there and trying to make, you know, heads or tails of it. You can try that, pull the information back and then actually have an expert saying good, bad, right, wrong. On the Fair Now side of the house, never heard of audit board before, which is really interesting.

Joel Cheesman (26:05.64)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (26:12.764)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (26:13.07)

Um, in May of last year, they were actually acquired by private equity firm HG. Uh, HG is a European private equity firm specializing in software and services businesses. of mid 2025, HG's portfolio included more than 55 companies with an aggregate enterprise value of 180 billion. So not small, not small at all. Um, what I see happening here,

This feels like more of an aqua hire than anything else. Take the tech, blend it into audit board, and away we go. We see this with PE all over the place. They're trying to build something that they can spin off and sell.

Joel Cheesman (27:04.06)

Kind of funny. Kind of funny. grow man in a chicken hat, talking about zygotes and people being too young. but, nonetheless, look, this is the mother of all pivots, in our space. and, and shout out to the, to the, to the gang at Mercor, who, whatever investor told them to, pivot to this is, is, is pretty smart. This, this to me in your right chat in 2024, their, their, their website said join the thousands of candidates around the world using Mercor to land their remote dream job.

Chad Sowash (27:09.422)

the

Chad Sowash (27:16.984)

Smart.

Chad Sowash (27:23.779)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (27:34.044)

with just a single application. So that clearly was a dead end. And I think you and I both saw it when we first talked about them. Now they've, they've stumbled upon this sort of, picks and, and, and shovels model. So they've found a way to provide talent to all these AI companies that are trying to train their models on everything from healthcare to education to IT and development and everything in between.

Chad Sowash (27:38.946)

Yes. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (27:55.726)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (27:58.422)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (28:00.89)

So companies are going to pay big dollars for humans to sort of evaluate their large language models and Merkor, as far as I can tell, is the only company that's about, that's going to like really cash in on this phenomenon. So, would they have gotten a $10 billion evaluation at their, at their original model? Hell no. Can they get a $10 billion valuation? with what they have? yeah, they got, they got the meats baby on that one. fair now.

Chad Sowash (28:24.696)

Yeah, that's smart.

Joel Cheesman (28:31.194)

So I ran it. So at, at, at rec fest, I ran into my first, person who said the whole, AI audit thing is a scam. It's all, it's, it's all smoke and mirrors. They don't know anything else or more than anybody, in the business. I don't know if that's true. because there's a lot of like under the, under the curtain or under the curtain or the reg.

Chad Sowash (28:50.638)

Okay. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (28:59.272)

about this, but it does. As soon as I heard this Fair Now sold, we don't know the terms of the deal. They've been pretty flat head count wise since 2023 when they launched. You and I, when we did a firing squad with them was like, you guys are going to be printing money. Companies are going to be stumbling over themselves to sign up to make sure they don't get pinched by the feds or the state government or whatever.

to like fall under and everyone's using AI, but they're not. So the fact that fair now, I didn't see a ton of growth in terms of the insights on LinkedIn. There's no terms, no terms like that were disclosed. I think this may be a little chink in the arm or maybe a little bit of like this whole AI audit business is some smoke and mirrors. I think the jury's still out, but to me, this is like a big sign that if you're warden,

or fair now, like, are you really selling something that, that customers are interested in or are you selling vaporware?

Chad Sowash (30:04.686)

Yeah, for me, in audits and audits and audit, right? The big difference is there's scale to an audit, right? And then being able to identify where the problems are. So I don't think this is smoke and mirrors. I don't know who told you that, but that to me is weird. I think the biggest issue that any of these organizations are seeing right now is the US government. US government says, we don't need to audit shit. We don't need to regulate AI. We don't need to do any of that. As a matter of fact, all of you European countries,

Joel Cheesman (30:33.448)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (30:33.932)

need to stop it too, right? So I think when we first talked to Fair Now, was like, yes, I mean, we have to find guardrails. Now we have a government, we have an administration that says no guardrails, and they're putting pressure on other countries to remove their guardrails. So I think that's the biggest issues.

Joel Cheesman (30:51.046)

You still have state and local governments that are still potential risks to employers. mean, the Fed is a big deal and they kind of, know, the fish rots from the head down. But I just, I have a skepticism now about these businesses that I didn't have before. We'll see. Because we both agree, just like with diversity, diversityjobs.com survived because companies could say, hey, EOC,

Chad Sowash (30:57.294)

Possibly.

Chad Sowash (31:03.79)

It's rotten.

Joel Cheesman (31:19.048)

I'm on diversity jobs.com and we all knew it was bullshit. Like it's just a website with job postings. Like what are you doing? That's making you a diverse, uh, job board. Um, I, I just, yeah, I have a skepticism. We'll see. We'll see. We I've, I've had two colonoscopies. Uh, I'm guessing that they're, they're similar. They're similar. I mean, can you, can you break the, can you break the tie here? I mean, can you break the tie? Can you break the tie on here?

Emi B (31:21.311)

Hmm.

Chad Sowash (31:29.399)

Auditing is different though.

Yeah. Have you ever been through an audit? That's the question.

Emi B (31:41.94)

Are they?

Chad Sowash (31:42.375)

Yeah, just with data, just with data, just with data.

Emi B (31:47.957)

I mean, I mean, well, if I go to like Mercer, first of all, I actually like what they're doing. To be honest, I didn't know much about them before until recently. I like the pivot. I agree with both of you. I think it's the right thing to do. And, you know, I was just kind of doing a little bit of research on them and they're saying that they're on track to hit 500 million ARR. You know, that's huge. That's a high velocity revenue model right there. Yeah, so I think that's brilliant. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (32:13.454)

growth is crazy.

Joel Cheesman (32:14.767)

A lot of chicken cock.

Emi B (32:16.831)

And even when you break it down, I think they've got about 30,000 experts on their roster charging an average of $85 an hour. This is good. So I think, whatever they, like you said, whoever told them to pivot, great move, great move on their part. You know, it's obviously working. regarding the Fener, I'm listening to both of you. I'm confused now. I kind of came in thinking, yeah, you know, this is important. And then I'm thinking, okay, but do people care about it? I don't know. I'm going to reserve judgment for now on that particular one.

Yeah

Joel Cheesman (32:47.112)

All right, all right. You sleep on that and think about it, you little devil, you little devil, you. All right, guys, we're gonna take little break. If you like what you've heard so far, if you're on YouTube, if you've liked what you've seen so far, please give us a follow. We'll be right back.

Emi B (32:50.495)

Yeah, I'll come back to you.

Joel Cheesman (33:07.074)

iCIMS released its AI sourcing agent and a turnkey integration tool this week while adding LinkedIn apply connect and Veritone higher to the iCIMS apply network. The ATS now includes updated interview scheduling, feedback and analytics features after acquiring Appli. I think that's how you say it right, Chad. You corrected me on the first show. Appli or Appli. iCIMS intends to introduce additional turnkey integrations for background checks. Hello i9.

Chad Sowash (33:26.644)

no clue. No fucking clue. Aptly, think.

Joel Cheesman (33:34.606)

And Ice and Assessments, Chad, someone woke up iCIMS. What's your take on all this activity?

Chad Sowash (33:42.872)

So I love that in the AIM article how Mark Pfeffer spells out what ICEMS actually means, Internet Collaborative Information Management System. Probably the worst name ever, which is why you want to create a fucking acronym around it. A little around the, you know, the apply network, the ICEMS apply network, quote,

Joel Cheesman (33:50.472)

You

Joel Cheesman (33:55.932)

Yeah,

Emi B (34:01.346)

you

Chad Sowash (34:09.43)

Launched in 2024, the ICIMS Apply Network is an integrated ecosystem of third party sites and other connected vendors that create, manage, and distribute job applications to multiple employment marketplaces. And here's the part that matters, sync candidate information with ICIMS, end quote. So the question is, are they syncing candidate disposition data? If so, it's just another reason not to use ICIMS.

That's the thing. So I've got questions out on that. We'll see what, what, it comes back with our friends at ICIMS to see if that is, is the case. on the agent front, this, God, this drives me crazy. There's one specific thing I'd like to point out about this in the article. So it says ICIMS advances AI innovation with new sourcing agent to discover, match and engage talent faster. ICIMS acquired

opening.io five fucking years ago and candidate ID three years ago to specifically to specifically discover, match and engage. So it took them five years. mean, don't get me wrong. I love that they're trying to catch up by rebranding tech that they've had for three to five years as an agent now. But five years ago, that tech and we actually talked about it on the show. That tech was a major market differentiator.

Joel Cheesman (35:32.68)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (35:36.834)

Today, it's a Me Too campaign that falls mostly on deaf ears.

Joel Cheesman (35:41.276)

Yeah, yeah, drives you crazy, huh, Chad?

Chad Sowash (35:46.254)

Come on, guys.

Joel Cheesman (35:46.97)

I totally forgot about opening, opening until you mentioned that. That's great. this is the new arms race for the ATS. If you know, ATS is his for 20 years have been put your jobs up. We'll have, you know, we'll manage your applicants. You deal with the whole marketing thing and getting it and getting all that. And, and this is the new normal for the, for the ATS, smart recruiters. We've talked about them ad nauseum. Like that's the role. That's, that's the blueprint.

Emi B (35:47.659)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (36:00.59)

Blah, blah, blah.

Joel Cheesman (36:17.33)

gets good people in there, go tech, and then hope that SAP UKG or work day or somebody, comes and buys you. don't see IPO. IPO is, going to be really tough for any of these entities in these companies. So between Colin and Jason Edelbaum, the new guy, they had two marketing experts, who didn't apparently didn't know what the hell they were doing. and finally, at least the new guy said, Hey, what

Chad Sowash (36:24.918)

One of the acronyms, yes.

Joel Cheesman (36:45.414)

What's in our portfolio. And then they, there's this candidate ID thing and this other thing. And like, how do we bring all this together? so they're on the right track. I just, I just don't know if it's too little too late has the have the horses left the barn kind of thing. we're going to see. Employed do the same thing with job bite and lever. Like this is the new game. I, I, love the, the take on the, the ICIMS thing because ATSs are going to be under fire.

Chad Sowash (37:08.706)

Hope so.

Joel Cheesman (37:15.73)

to let, I let indeed in or not. And if they're providing what indeed does, then is that like, well, you don't need indeed stuff because we'll do that for you and we'll source your current database for you and we'll make sure your shit on Google for jobs is, is optimized and you're getting, you're getting your talent from there. I think this is a real threat to, indeed. Because if, if, if ATS is do this and companies embrace it,

And everyone says we don't need Indeed for that. We have our own. Like that's a pretty bad place for Indeed to be in. So I'm going to watch this carefully and this, this agent disposition data and what happens. But yeah, I think it's good for iSim. We like those guys. Uh, we, there's still people there that we have friendships with and relationships with. So I'm rooting for them. Um, this is a step in the right direction. I'm just, I'm just worried. Is it, is it too little, uh, too late? I guess, I guess we'll see.

Chad Sowash (38:10.19)

I now know what my costume is. I'm now masquerading as an agent. That's what I'm doing now.

Emi B (38:17.299)

Is that what you're doing? Okay.

Joel Cheesman (38:18.706)

Do you have a name? Do you have a name agent? Do you have a name? Agent, agent Chad.

Chad Sowash (38:22.254)

Whatever name you want me to be. I've got to go back to marketing.

Emi B (38:25.086)

Yeah

AI agent Chad. Okay.

Joel Cheesman (38:30.086)

Hey, I, I Sims marketing. If you need a, if, if you're tired of, tired of Ike, the bird, there's Joel the chicken now, but also a Chad Chad's in the market for an agent mascot job. He's, he's in the market. He's in the market. Your thoughts, Sammy.

Chad Sowash (38:37.998)

There it is.

Joel the chicken. I do like Joel the chicken.

Emi B (38:45.771)

dear. Well, I'm just listening to both of you. You don't like, I know you said you still got friends there, but you don't seem very, I suppose, optimistic about their changes and where they're going and yeah.

Chad Sowash (39:00.014)

It seems very me too. It seems very me too. mean, again, they've had the tech to do these things for years. And whether it is a new product person, new marketing person, whatever it is, I do, as Joel said, I do like that they're starting to brush some of this stuff off. But back when they could have really made a difference in the market, and they didn't have the competition that they have now, they could have really made hay.

Joel Cheesman (39:05.992)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (39:06.973)

Yeah

Emi B (39:29.451)

But they're rectifying, true, but they're rectifying it now. know, obviously they're brought in a whole host of people. heard like people, obviously you said a product people, marketing people. And I read recently, maybe the right, maybe the right person wasn't there. I mean, I saw they brought in a new chief technology officer earlier this year. I think it's DPAT, DPAT Pandya.

Chad Sowash (39:29.602)

That didn't happen.

Chad Sowash (39:37.774)

spent a lot of money on that tech three to five years ago. So I don't know if they're rectifying anything.

Emi B (39:50.88)

You know, he seems to have a great background and his whole remit is to lead the tech strategy to drive innovation. So maybe that's what that is what it's doing. Yeah. So yes, they're slow. You know, yes, they haven't taken advantage of it, of opportunities when they could have, but maybe now with the right group of people in place, we're going to see the changes. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them because I haven't. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (39:58.54)

as the CTO, I hope so.

Joel Cheesman (40:14.472)

mean, another focus of this is like, don't lose who we have. Like the people who are paying us money, they're looking at them going, hey, why don't you guys have A, B, and C? Why don't you have agents and whatever like smart recruiters? And they're like, oh shit. at least they can say, we have it too. It may not be as good or it might be a little bit late, but yes, we have it too. Don't cancel your contract with us because we need that kids.

Emi B (40:32.886)

Yeah.

Emi B (40:37.099)

Please stay.

Chad Sowash (40:38.328)

Well, I think it's the difference between having it and literally packaging it up as an agent. They've had that tech three to five years. This is not new guys. This is not new. The whole Appley thing, they didn't fucking need that for this. They had the two major components, OpenAI and Canon ID to pull this off three to five years ago, right? So yes, it is great that they're moving forward, but this is all packaging. This is, as Joel had said, this is marketing.

Joel Cheesman (40:46.663)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:08.154)

something they need help on, which is why they should hire Chad as the new agent mascot at iCims. All right, guys. This week in H-1B visa developments, the White House faced lawsuits from groups like the chamber, US Chamber of Commerce, arguing the program is rife with fraud and harms American workers through wage suppression. On October 29th, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis directed state universities to ban H-1B usage for faculty and staff roles.

Emi B (41:09.727)

Yeah?

Chad Sowash (41:10.25)

Hahaha

Joel Cheesman (41:37.712)

Citing audits, revealing abuses like hiring Chinese nationals, affecting roughly 13.6 of business faculty positions. And in other news, Canada is recruiting American nurses, tired of Trump denying immigrants and losing healthcare workers. Team America. Fuck yeah. Chad, your take.

Chad Sowash (41:59.65)

So this goes back further on the, chamber of commerce side of the house. This goes back further to the first Trump administration where the U S chamber of commerce, the national association of manufacturers and the national retail federation and several others sued the Trump administration in July of 2020 seeking an injunction to block Trump's suspension of non-immigrant visas.

The chamber had an issue then and they have an issue now. And it's, it's really simple. Immigrants make the economy work, not just driving trucks, working the docks, slaughterhouses, the H1B genius kind as well. We need immigrants in all aspects of business or innovation and in the supply chain, or it's going to fall apart. And the chamber of commerce.

they're usually really good in representing wall street, not as much as, as main street. In this case, this is impacting both. wall street still looks good, but enterprise understands that if they don't get their H one B visas, they're going to have innovation problems. So this is, mean, when you see the chamber of commerce turn on a Republican administration that hardly ever happens, that hardly ever happens. Guess what? It's happening.

Emi B (43:02.497)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (43:18.376)

Mm-hmm. No.

Yep. shout out to Canada, by the way, Canada, Canada's having a moment hockey's back. the Toronto blue Jays are one went away from a world series, title. and, and now they're recruit. And by the way, the Reagan ad, I thought it was great. I saw it in real time during the game. And I was like, wow, wow, they're going to pay shit for that. But that's, that's awesome. if you don't know about Google Reagan ad, Canada,

Chad Sowash (43:26.126)

Gotta love that. Smart. Smart.

Chad Sowash (43:40.834)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (43:52.336)

So about a decade ago, I was doing some consulting with a job board in Vegas and they had a really smart campaign where they would direct mail nurses in let's say Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and they would say, come to Vegas. The weather's warm. The cost of living is cheap. got the best entertainment around. Right. And, hospitals would pay big money to target those people, those nurses in shitty environments to like come to Vegas and relocate.

Chad Sowash (44:06.389)

huh.

Joel Cheesman (44:21.286)

So it's a strategy that works. It's just kind of funny that we've gone from come south where the weather's nice to come north where it's not so crazy. guess it's similar in that. look, Canada looks really nice right now to a lot of people. A lot of regulations that are passing in healthcare, lot of just a lot of stress in the healthcare industry. More and more people are going to be driven to Canada. Canada needs to do a good job of like saying, hey, we're going to fast track.

your citizenship, if you have, let's say a master's degree or doctor degree or any kind of degree whatsoever. So I kind of, fully expect that to be more of a thing. It seems a little bit localized to British Columbia right now in terms of the nursing stuff, but I fully suspect it'll go elsewhere on the H1B stuff, Chad. I always, I mentally personally, I would say like Trump has a year of like unbridled

Chad Sowash (44:53.4)

yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (45:18.03)

insanity to do whatever the hell he wants. And the Republican house is going to let him do it. The Senate's going to let him do it. And then when we get to a year out from the midterms, things are going to either like keep going the way it is, or they're going to slow down. we're starting to see little actions by Senate of saying like, tariffs on Brazil or like, coffee doesn't need to be 40%. Like they're starting to push back a little bit. And to your point of the commerce department,

pushing back on a Republican president 20 years ago, that never would have happened. like that's a big deal. and I, chamber of commerce, sorry, sorry, my bad. And so, as, as long as Trump's favor abilities, I think he's in the thirties now, if he's in the thirties, he's going to be toxic waste to a lot of Republicans that are up for reelection. And you're going to see more and more kind of pushback like this.

Chad Sowash (45:53.89)

Chamber, the Chamber of Commerce, not Commerce Department. Yes. Yeah, All good, all good.

Emi B (45:55.84)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (46:11.715)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (46:15.48)

On the administration and we'll see what happens, but we basically have a year. if you don't like what's going on in, politics in America, you have about a year. And don't, don't waste time putting up tech talks and complaining at, at, Facebook, like donate money to candidates. They're in swing States and swing districts go spend time, campaigning for, for candidates that have a chance to win. You have a year to do it. if you like what's going on, then.

do the opposite, keep supporting what's going on. But I think we're going to see a lot more pushback over the next 12 months over Trump's policies. He's going to keep doing what he can do, which is go to other countries and boss them around, but he's going to be able to do, think, less and less in the US.

Chad Sowash (47:04.981)

Any thoughts?

Emi B (47:08.041)

My thoughts are this is another chaotic rollout upon Trump. OK, what do I think? I agree. know, this whole idea of slapping on this fee and it's going to help, you know, hire American workers.

I get why Trump administration would think, you know, it's going to, like, it's appealing to the America first crowd. Yeah. You know, hire more Americans into jobs. But the reality, it doesn't work. Like, you know, we said that it doesn't work. If you were able to hire more Americans into jobs, like the nursing industry, like healthcare industry, like the education industry, they would have done that already. Nobody wants to pay a fee for a visa. And they definitely don't want to pay this increased visa fee now.

It's chaotic. It's not going to work. And I'm glad that, you know, that, you know, people are starting to now push back. They are starting to rebel because it's actually impacting the business community. And like you said, it's not just, you know, people aren't just sitting back now that you've got the chamber. What did you say? It was a chamber of commerce pushing back. Yeah, that doesn't happen. I didn't know that doesn't happen before, but good. Now, now's the time again. Enough is enough. Enough is enough.

Joel Cheesman (48:05.682)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (48:14.894)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (48:22.386)

How many people you know in Britain, Emmy, want to send their kids to America for college and school? Not many, not many.

Emi B (48:27.681)

To be honest, not many. I mean, I met someone at the airport in Washington, whose kid is out here, out in the US, but it's not like how it was before. I have friends in the US and a lot of them want to come over here, you know? But here's not great either. It's not as if there's loads of jobs to come to, but it's a...

Joel Cheesman (48:34.076)

Yep.

Joel Cheesman (48:44.068)

And the Florida thing, as people know that, listen, I'm married to a professor who's from Canada. She works with a woman from India. She works from a woman from Ireland. The educational infrastructure is full of people that aren't from America. They got educated here, they got PhDs here, and they stayed here. And colleges generally love having a diverse group of professors from other parts of the world, right?

Chad Sowash (48:56.781)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (49:12.398)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (49:13.537)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (49:13.628)

People want their kids educated by people that weren't, you know, born down the street, right? They want, want a broader vision. And I can tell you like Florida has a horrible reputation right now for educators. Like no one wants to go there. they're like killing tenure, like H1B stuff. Like. Florida is going to be a, a wasteland, for education. If, this continues, it's really, really unfortunate, that this is happening in universities.

Chad Sowash (49:29.528)

burning books.

Emi B (49:40.489)

Hmm hospitals, yeah

Chad Sowash (49:40.686)

Well, it's universities, it's visitation. had how many Canadians used to go to Florida. Instead, now they're going to Mexico. mean, the ramifications are literally just all over the place and it's chaos, which nobody wants.

Emi B (49:58.678)

Well, Trump wants the chaos. He's the only one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Let's just do smoke and mirrors and distraction techniques. Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (50:01.356)

Okay, one person wants.

Joel Cheesman (50:01.416)

Trump wants nobody looking at the Epstein files. That's what Trump wants. That's true, yeah. Somebody needs to leak that to Canada so Canada can leak it. All right guys, one more creepy break here and when we come back we'll talk about Bold. If you don't remember them, they're the ones that bought Career Builder and Monster. We'll be right

Chad Sowash (50:07.14)

Hahaha

Chad Sowash (50:11.904)

Joel Cheesman (50:31.024)

All right guys, after acquiring industry icons, monster and career builder, bold is ready to party. They're ready to partay. Check out their latest hype video. If I can call it a hype video from their, from their CEO.

Joel Cheesman (50:54.588)

You

Joel Cheesman (52:00.69)

I think we've seen enough, haven't we? Yeah, okay.

Chad Sowash (52:02.146)

Yes, that's plenty. That's plenty.

Joel Cheesman (52:07.086)

All right, Chad, what you got? What you got?

Chad Sowash (52:07.425)

Oof.

So the start of the LinkedIn post reads, quote, change in motion, end quote. The change feels like a 2010 strategy in 2025 filled with resume database subscriptions and a side of creepy predatory feeling job seeker paid services. Oh, and hey, companies, let us use your jobs as bait to build a bigger job seeker database and sell all of those out of work job seeker services.

beyond all the ick factor of that stuff. The one thing that really stuck in my crawl was the comment by Monster Board founder, Jeff Taylor. Jeff said, quote, congrats. Love seeing the Monster brand continue. Really? I mean, do you want to see it continue this way? I mean, having it out there is one thing. Having the little Trumpasaurus out there.

That's one thing. that's wonderful. You can go to your bathroom and see that, Jeff. Watching Monster go down in job seeker, predatory paid services kind of flames to me, I would not be proud of. You can. That's good for you. Joey Spray, ask him about this on stage.

Joel Cheesman (53:07.858)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (53:29.096)

This video looks like if I wrote up a prompt on chat GPT to create a video that looks like it was made in 2007, featuring a slightly disheveled CEO and 1999 monster imagery, it would kind of look like this. Yeah, the bring it back Trumpasaurus, which I know is a whole thing with legal because

Chad Sowash (53:58.542)

Well, they'll have to rename it. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (53:58.62)

President Trump, but okay, it needs to be renamed.

And I know embracing the past and bringing it back is, is popular and novel now, but this is not the way. Like if you're to do this, it's like, like reimagine the brand and you know, agents. think that's still a real opportunity to like create a new way of searching for work. But these guys make money on like an old model that, employees or candidates, employees pay or employers pay money. it's too totally lame.

Chad Sowash (54:17.891)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (54:31.58)

this guy couldn't find an iron for some reason, before they pushed record. Definitely not very CEO like, yeah, I was not inspired by, by this video. How about you, Emmy?

Emi B (54:44.577)

No, I definitely won.

Chad Sowash (54:46.85)

Hahaha!

Emi B (54:49.907)

I want to be nice, but no, I wasn't inspired by them at all, by him at all, sorry. And I'm still confused because obviously we've been talking about this, you know, these brand names for quite a while and I don't get it. I don't know why they keep trying to flog a dead horse, you know, career builder, monster, big names back in the day, but they're not relevant. They haven't been relevant for a very long time. So even, you know, you bring all these brand names together, I think...

The trust is already gone in the brand. There's not much they can do to try and new, or bring new customers, bring customers back or win new customers. And this old fashioned advert, that's not going to do it either. I, they, you know, they, they really, do confuse me, but I just think just stop, you know, just put yourself out in the misery. It's okay. There are better, there are better people out there now, better competitors out there.

Joel Cheesman (55:28.008)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (55:45.83)

Yep. What are you guys doing for Halloween? just, I just gotta, gotta ask you trick or treating chat. Are going to be the creepy old guy passing out candy at the front door? doing it?

Chad Sowash (55:53.71)

No, we're going to an adult Halloween party. So won't be any kids there. Just adults drinking in bad costumes, I'm sure.

Joel Cheesman (55:57.639)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (56:04.166)

All right, Amy, how about you?

Emi B (56:06.561)

thought anything so I just got distracted when you said adult party and I was like hold on a second what am I thinking of okay you know that is where my mind goes no sorry keep it clean keep it clean this is a HR podcast okay what am I doing I don't know it's tomorrow isn't it Halloween I haven't actually thought about it we might go for drinks tomorrow that might be it maybe I'll put on this t-shirt again

Chad Sowash (56:11.086)

It's not that kind of party, Emmy. It's not that kind of party.

Joel Cheesman (56:13.34)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (56:24.166)

It is.

Chad Sowash (56:28.27)

Yeah? Wear your t-shirt and your horns.

Joel Cheesman (56:29.434)

Is it a big deal in London? Is Halloween a deal in London or not so much for the kids?

Emi B (56:32.331)

For the kids, for the little kids, yeah. And they go trick or treating and knock on the door, but no one's knocked on my door today. Maybe they will tomorrow. I'm in a new area, so I'm waiting to see.

Joel Cheesman (56:42.704)

Yeah, I'm doing the whole suburban family kids run around thing, wife getting drunk and me making sure the kid doesn't get abducted by some some creep. So when you guys when you guys are at your parties are out out drinking, here's here's a dad joke that you can drop on people.

Emi B (56:46.73)

Yeah. What? Okay.

Joel Cheesman (57:03.366)

What does a turkey dress up as on Halloween? What does a turkey dress up as on Halloween?

Chad Sowash (57:10.798)

interesting.

Emi B (57:13.46)

Now I did.

Joel Cheesman (57:13.848)

A goblin. Gobble, gobble, goblin.

Emi B (57:17.153)

Oh no, that is bad. Look at his expression. No. Is it funny? No.

Chad Sowash (57:17.902)

That one was bad. That one was bad. Yeah. Huh?

Chad Sowash (57:26.19)

On my table, it's dressing. That's what they show up as.

Joel Cheesman (57:29.148)

There's no funny on Halloween. That's scary, baby. All right, gang. It's another one in the can. Happy Halloween, everybody. And with that, we out!

Emi B (57:36.545)

Woo!

Chad Sowash (57:40.226)

We out!

Emi B (57:40.245)

We out.