iCIMS Shuffles, Phenom Splurges, & Greenhouse Gets Fashionable
- Chad Sowash
- 2 days ago
- 46 min read
iCIMS, Phenom, Greenhouse and the Return of "Who’d You Rather"
In this high-energy episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, hosts Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are joined by the legendary J.T. O'Donnell to celebrate her "29th" birthday and dive deep into the chaotic waters of talent acquisition tech. From the shifting tides at industry giants to the latest AI-driven acquisitions, the trio breaks down what’s real and what’s just a "banana in the tailpipe".
Inside This Episode:
iCIMS Game of Thrones: With another new CEO at the helm, the crew debates if iCIMS is innovating or just sharpening pencils for a final fire sale. Is the new brand identity a sign of life or just a "distraction" from a ticking PE time bomb?
Phenom’s Shopping Spree: Phenom continues its acquisition streak by picking up Plum. The crew questions if Phenom is over-engineering a middle-school problem.
Greenhouse Rolls the AI Dice: Greenhouse moves to reclaim its "fashionable" status by acquiring Ezra AI Labs, a voice AI interviewing startup. Will this "skunkworks" project actually move the needle against enterprise titans like Workday and SAP?.
LinkedIn’s $450 Million AI Bet: Is LinkedIn’s new agentic AI hiring product a revolution in search, or just Boolean strings dressed in fancy new clothes? J.T. shares exclusive insider results on how the algorithm is now tracking candidate activity over static profiles.
The Return of "Who’d You Rather": The fan-favorite segment is back!. The hosts go head-to-head on two seed-funded startups: Dex, the AI-driven tech talent agent, versus Blomma, the personalized AI career coach. Find out who goes home with a winner and who leaves solo.
"If you're currently at iCIMS, I’d be refreshing that resume... the clock is running out." — Joel Cheesman
Whether you're interested in the "World Cup headquarters" setup in Portugal, the secret to LinkedIn's 51-cent cost-per-click ads, or just a classic, cringeworthy dad joke, this episode delivers the unfiltered truth of the HR tech world.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheesman (00:28.177)
Oh yeah. I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch. What's up boys and girls. You were listening to the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel project freedom. Cheeseman.
Chad Sowash (00:40.676)
This is Chad, just pay a fucking living wage, SOWASH.
J.T. O'Donnell (00:44.886)
And I'm JT, Maple is the new pumpkin O'Donnell.
Joel Cheesman (00:48.719)
And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, iCIMS Shuffles, Phenom Splurges, and Who'd You Rather is back, baby. You're welcome, Adam. Let's do this.
Chad Sowash (00:58.777)
YES!
Chad Sowash (01:03.778)
I missed who'd you rather.
Joel Cheesman (01:06.065)
Happy birthday to you. The problem is there aren't as many startups like there used to. There used to be tons of startups we could do, who'd you rather? But yes, JT is re-recording, celebrating her 29th birthday. Happy birthday, JT.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:06.188)
Yeah! 100 %!
J.T. O'Donnell (01:21.474)
Yeah, for the 29th time. yeah. Yes. you guys are so sweet. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it feels good to be here, to be alive. It's all good.
Chad Sowash (01:21.655)
yeah. She's not that old. Stop it. You stop it. She's not that old.
Joel Cheesman (01:26.097)
It doesn't look a day over it, that's for sure.
Chad Sowash (01:28.034)
Nope, that's for nature.
Joel Cheesman (01:33.561)
And as, we found out in the green room, you're putting together furniture for your birthday. What a, what a party that's going to be. Amazon front, not even Wayfair. She's going Amazon furniture this, this year.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:37.634)
Yes I am.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:43.63)
Nope. Amazon is my friend. When you live in the middle of nowhere and they'll actually, you know, bring it to your door, then Amazon is your friend. So yes, I bought eight bar stools, outdoor bar stools for the deck to go with the bar. Eight. I will send you all picture. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Little wet one. Little wet one.
Chad Sowash (01:44.546)
Huh?
Chad Sowash (01:56.475)
huh. Very nice. Nice. That's it. That's a deck right there. I like that. yeah. Yeah. What? Why? Why?
Joel Cheesman (01:57.457)
Eight. That's a lot of drinking. Yeah. White wine. Can have a white wine.
Chad Sowash (02:11.812)
Not a white white guy, but yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:13.403)
So Chad is, Chad's in his new home back in Portugal recording from a bar, if you're not watching on YouTube, which you should be. the noises you hear will be the bar sounds of Portuguese Chad, Chad's drinking hole, I guess.
J.T. O'Donnell (02:13.484)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:17.218)
Yes. That's right.
J.T. O'Donnell (02:18.84)
from the bar.
Chad Sowash (02:28.388)
Yeah, there we go. I am hydrating. I am hydrating. I need to hydrate. Yeah, I think this is going to be my new setup to be quite frank. I mean, you just, you can't beat this. Alex and Stefan are over there and all I have to do is they hooked me up. Really good friends of mine play paddle with them. But this is a great little setup, man. I dig it. This is definitely World Cup.
J.T. O'Donnell (02:28.664)
Hydrating, he's hydrating with a Guinness. So that's always good. Yeah, good for you.
Joel Cheesman (02:30.874)
He's hydrating.
Joel Cheesman (02:42.447)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (02:50.255)
Is this going to be World Cup headquarters? Is this where you're going to set up shop? Okay.
J.T. O'Donnell (02:50.627)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (02:56.642)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (02:56.984)
headquarters, no question. And it's coming, but the question is in the US, are they gonna have any crowds? We saw, we said with only six weeks to go before the start of the World Cup, hotels at most of the cities hosting the tournament are facing a major problem. Bookings are running far below what they had expected. For some metro areas, such as, I don't know, sexy Kansas City,
Joel Cheesman (03:10.297)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (03:25.476)
bookings are running even below the typical June and July. Below. But how did you get fucking below? You've got one of the biggest events in the world and you're running below.
Joel Cheesman (03:29.893)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (03:33.72)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (03:39.759)
Well, Kansas City is quite the hotspot for summer travel, Chad. So it's a little surprising. I don't know. mean, part of it is like the world hates us. Ticket prices are $5,000 for like nosebleed seats. And I gotta go to Kansas City for this, really? Is that what it's come to? Unless it's like England or Italy or like some of the...
Chad Sowash (03:44.728)
But still!
Chad Sowash (03:52.452)
Ha
Chad Sowash (03:58.147)
which is ridiculous.
Yeah. yeah. But if your team's playing,
Joel Cheesman (04:09.401)
I don't know. I don't know the breakdown of all the cities. think England's in Dallas. I think is Argentina in Miami or some big, some, if you're a big team and a good city, like, I think you'll be fine. But Kansas. Yeah. LA should be fine.
Chad Sowash (04:18.454)
Yeah. I, yeah. big cities. Well, Atlanta's fine. Miami's fine. You know, I mean, but still, but still they're below the typical.
J.T. O'Donnell (04:28.814)
Yeah, I know. my issue right now is like the cost of experiences in general. We were talking about it on one of the last shows. Concerts, events, they're ridiculous. They're out of control and I'm just not going to pay it anymore. I will make my own fun. I'll put together furniture and make my own fun. A little white wine. But it's just crazy that they, you know, that kind of ticket for nosebleed, really? I don't need that experience that much.
Joel Cheesman (04:31.449)
again.
Chad Sowash (04:36.879)
yeah. Fuck yeah.
Joel Cheesman (04:37.521)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (04:41.988)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (04:46.233)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (04:50.552)
out.
Well, and if you're coming in, the tickets are crazy expensive. And you saw the outrage from Europeans who were like, what the fuck am I paying for a ticket? It's like, you know, 10 times that they might actually pay here in Europe. I'll just wait till the next World Cup, which is going to be happening in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. mean, that's what a lot of people are actually doing. So it's yeah, it's unfortunate, man. That sucks because this is a great opportunity for America to fucking shine. But guess what?
J.T. O'Donnell (05:13.678)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (05:17.627)
Well, that...
it is, it is. Wrong administration, wrong time. The good news is the Iran war's over for the third time, I think, so there'll be plenty of jet fuel to get everybody back and forth.
J.T. O'Donnell (05:22.06)
No doubt, no doubt.
Chad Sowash (05:22.968)
But guess what?
Way wrong,
J.T. O'Donnell (05:30.894)
you
Chad Sowash (05:31.748)
Dude, almost spit my fucking Guinness out on that one. Jesus Christ. jeez. God damn.
J.T. O'Donnell (05:34.624)
you
Joel Cheesman (05:39.397)
The Hormuz is open for business again. That's right, baby. That's right. Well, here in Indiana, speaking of, we got the Indy 500 coming before the, the, the, the footy. I'm going, we're taking, taking the whole family because the family that Indy 500 is together stays together and usually has a few fights in between that. But yeah, we are. I enjoy it. You've been on, I assume you've been.
Chad Sowash (05:47.236)
huh. Yeah. Yeah. What you're going to. You're going to. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (05:50.478)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (05:57.847)
Hahaha!
Chad Sowash (06:04.312)
Yeah, yep, yep, several times.
Joel Cheesman (06:05.331)
I think it's one of those bucket list. If you like sports, it's just one of those things, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500, Superbowl. Like if, if you can mark it off your list, you should do it. it's a good time. It's a good time.
Chad Sowash (06:10.638)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (06:11.598)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:16.324)
I agree hearing the engines just themselves. I mean, and there's a different, there's a different tone to like an F1 engine and like an Indy car engine. But it is so amazing to watch it. And I mean, I'm more of a road course guy because I grew up right next to mid Ohio, awesome road course. So I love road courses, but still just the speed of the Indy 500 is so awesome.
Joel Cheesman (06:26.032)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (06:35.921)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (06:43.109)
Yeah, yeah, it is. It's a slice of Americana that is unique, unique to us. And yeah, and speaking, speaking of uniqueness, let's get to some shout outs. How we JT, JT, it's your birthday. You start us off.
Chad Sowash (06:46.66)
Indiana is definitely a slice of Americana, like Kansas City.
Chad Sowash (06:56.248)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:00.096)
It's your birthday. It's your birthday.
J.T. O'Donnell (07:00.974)
So I know, I'm going to educate, it's a little education. I am giving a shout out to Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn. I am not sponsored in any way, but I got to tell you. So came across them. They are ads where you need to sponsor a Thought Leader video. So you go find a content creator on LinkedIn who's talking about what you care about and you can put money behind it on a cost per click basis, right? So they're clicking through and you can link to a link.
Joel Cheesman (07:02.683)
Go JT.
Chad Sowash (07:06.168)
Huh? What are these?
Joel Cheesman (07:16.4)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (07:18.852)
okay.
Chad Sowash (07:28.003)
Okay.
J.T. O'Donnell (07:29.998)
It's very similar to the advertising people are doing on TikTok and Instagram. And if you know how to budget and manage your CPC, it can be really effective. But for years, everybody laughed. You could only advertise on LinkedIn if you had big buckets of cash. It was big entrepreneurs. Game changer, folks. I ran a test over the last week. I'm happy to show my screen. $196, a 10 and a half percent click through rate. Average cost per click, 51 cents.
Joel Cheesman (07:43.537)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (07:44.292)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:56.633)
Wow, that's great cook through and also 51 cents. I mean, come the fuck on. Yeah, on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's good.
J.T. O'Donnell (07:59.01)
on LinkedIn. That changes the game for a lot of people in terms of getting new leads, getting engagement to your site. I think this is gonna be huge and nobody knows about it. Literally nobody knows about it. So I probably just F'd myself because I've got such great click through rates and everyone's gonna start doing it. But those are pretty impressive numbers. I've not seen numbers like that on Insta.
Joel Cheesman (08:18.193)
How many influence?
Chad Sowash (08:20.132)
Nice, bye.
Chad Sowash (08:25.87)
Are they in test? Is this in pilot phase or what?
Joel Cheesman (08:28.579)
How many influencers are there in the marketplace?
J.T. O'Donnell (08:28.83)
It's out of pilot. It's a full blown thing. Well, the way the influencer works is that you literally can just request somebody and say, I'd like to sponsor a video that you did. So you can find anybody request if they accept the request, then you negotiate with them what you want to charge for them to be able to put ad spend behind you. All right, so very, very interesting.
Joel Cheesman (08:42.373)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (08:51.65)
Interesting.
Joel Cheesman (08:52.529)
and what they say as well.
J.T. O'Donnell (08:55.626)
Yes. So you could say, hey, we want you to create a video and then we'll sponsor it. Or you can find a video somebody's already done and said, hey, I want to put money behind that. And then you would negotiate a deal with them and say, sure, pay me this. And then they can put whatever ad spend behind it. those are crazy click through rates and costs. That's unheard of. And so, yeah, it's great to see them doing it. And I'm happy that they finally caught up with the Times and they're doing what the other platforms do because there's a lot of us that want to advertise on LinkedIn.
Joel Cheesman (09:07.419)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (09:12.101)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (09:13.742)
pretty awesome. Good for you.
Chad Sowash (09:24.022)
All they needed was Dan Shapiro as the CEO. all they needed. It's all they needed.
J.T. O'Donnell (09:26.872)
There you go. There you go. Thank you, Dan.
Joel Cheesman (09:28.561)
Just remember the first banner ads had like 89 % click through rates. you know, it does fade. It does fade after over time. So call me negative.
Chad Sowash (09:33.444)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's good. I'll take this.
J.T. O'Donnell (09:33.506)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (09:41.401)
I'll take this next one. I'll take this next one. Shout out to paying Americans a living wage. Maybe if companies paid a living wage, Americans would actually buy tickets to the World Cup. But that money is not going into workers' pockets. Go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage, cheeseman.
Joel Cheesman (09:58.769)
There we go.
J.T. O'Donnell (10:34.542)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (10:34.692)
Dude, and then a new Oxfam report found CEO pay rose 20 times faster than worker pay in 2025. 20 times fucking faster. The study said worker income lost value due to inflation while billionaires and top executives saw record wealth gains. How about you just pay a living wage and settle for one super yacht, huh? I mean, is that too much to ask? So shout out to, you
paying a living wage. Let's try that.
Joel Cheesman (11:06.651)
How many yachts can you jet ski behind, right?
J.T. O'Donnell (11:06.68)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (11:08.708)
Fuck! Sang. That being said, can I get another Guinness?
Joel Cheesman (11:12.645)
Hahaha
J.T. O'Donnell (11:13.096)
Hehehehehe
Joel Cheesman (11:16.905)
you know, Chad, you're gonna, you're gonna get political on me and, and, and, and, and, and, and economical. yeah. The head of head of the union is not political. you know, the, the Trump administration has been tough for a lot of people, immigrants, immigrants, Minnesotans, Jimmy Kimmel, but perhaps no one, perhaps no one has suffered more than me. Okay. At least until
Chad Sowash (11:19.908)
That wasn't political. Okay, economical, economical.
Chad Sowash (11:31.084)
Yes!
Chad Sowash (11:34.852)
No.
J.T. O'Donnell (11:36.686)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (11:42.434)
okay. Do tell, do tell.
Joel Cheesman (11:45.263)
My man, King Charles showed up last week and buttered up our boy Donald Trump and made sure that Scotch.
Joel Cheesman (12:00.879)
The drink of the gods, the water of life is now tariff free, Chad. It's now much cheaper than it used to be, which means I can get that liver transplant that I've been needing for so long. So my shout out goes to King Charles. Thank you, Britain. Thank you, Britain. Now pass the art bag.
Chad Sowash (12:04.483)
Yes.
J.T. O'Donnell (12:13.879)
Ha
Chad Sowash (12:26.244)
Yeah, he was eloquent, eloquent, smart. I don't think Trump understood half of the shit that he was actually talking about, which is good. And I think it was also engineered. It was also engineered.
Joel Cheesman (12:38.969)
I did like his joke about like Americans will tell Brits, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German. And he turned it around like, dare I say, if not for us, you'd be speaking French. So that was kind of a cute little, little spin, very, very intellectual comedy for the, for the house, for the house.
Chad Sowash (12:54.916)
Well, I thought this was interesting. Julia actually said this this week is that if Portugal would have funded Christopher Columbus again, we'd be speaking Portuguese because they didn't go for the funding the next time because, know, Christopher Columbus took him for a ride a few times. Anyway, going for a ride, we're talking about travel. Our travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing.
Joel Cheesman (13:04.889)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (13:08.622)
Hmm.
Joel Cheesman (13:22.353)
Chad, you're not gonna let me talk about Scotch and not let me go to free stuff, are you? What better way to follow a Scotch shout out than our favorite Scot, Steven, Steven McGrath.
Chad Sowash (13:27.62)
you're right! Shit!
Wait a minute, thank Guinness. wait a minute. Thank you. Thank you. look at that.
J.T. O'Donnell (13:33.088)
reel it back.
Chad Sowash (13:51.607)
every week.
Chad Sowash (14:00.964)
That's sexy right there.
Chad Sowash (14:12.194)
I would.
Chad Sowash (14:50.724)
And this provided by Steven McGrath. That's right. Look at that.
Joel Cheesman (14:57.243)
or Scott's yes yes who who who'd you rather King Charles all kinds of British stuff going on by the way Chad I just text I messaged our boy Tyler at chicken cock yeah we'll have a new we'll have some new supply soon that's all I'm gonna say about about that gonna see where where I can get the best best stuff
Chad Sowash (15:03.95)
Fuck it all.
Chad Sowash (15:13.496)
Yes. Yes. Well, and since we're sending chicken talk and it travels, our travel is sponsored by.
Joel Cheesman (15:20.687)
Where are we sending you?
Chad Sowash (15:24.388)
Our travel sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. The question is, is all this AI stuff getting you frustrated? No worries, no worries. Just jump it over to shaker.com and allow their experts to help you identify what fits your hiring needs. That's shaker.com. Yeah, next week, Julie and I are actually going to London. On May 14th, we're gonna be at Job Board Connect, unplugged. Means I've gotta yell, I guess, I don't know.
Joel Cheesman (15:53.201)
Plugged. Bring your acoustic guitar.
Chad Sowash (15:53.541)
I'll be on stage with a friend of the show, Alexander Chakowsky. That's right. Yeah. We're to be talking about, I mean, go figure AI, product, market shift, revenue generation, all that fun stuff. Again, that's May 14th in London, up by Regent's Park, which is a really cool place to be. Go ahead and get your tickets at jobboardconnect.com. And then...
Joel Cheesman (16:00.227)
Nice. Nice.
huh.
Chad Sowash (16:20.756)
The week after that, I'm doing two online events. Apparently those are still a thing for Fusion HR on May 20th. It's a debate. Number one, AI interviewing with Barb Hyman. We know her, CEO of Sapia versus Mika Sheeper, founder of Lecture. And then on May 21st, it's debate number two.
Joel Cheesman (16:35.597)
Mm, yeah.
Chad Sowash (16:47.062)
as skills-based hiring with Maya Huber, the CEO and founder over at Tadio, know her too, versus Feng Vu, CEO of Telexa AI. So if you want to join the debates, discussions, just go to HRweek.global. And you can always find all this information at ChadCheese.com slash events. I mean, who am I kidding? You know where to go.
Joel Cheesman (16:53.414)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (17:10.917)
Mothership, chadcheese.com. By the way, shout out to the Shaker folks for hosting us while we were in Chicago with Italian beefs and Chicago dogs. What's better than that? Well, what's better than that?
Chad Sowash (17:12.45)
The mothership.
Chad Sowash (17:17.794)
that's a time.
Chad Sowash (17:21.617)
What did you get though? What did you get? Did you get a beef and dog?
Joel Cheesman (17:26.745)
Yeah, so I got a Chicago dog, skipped the fries, because you know, I care about my figure. So just got the dog and the beef dipped with hot peppers.
J.T. O'Donnell (17:37.239)
Ahem.
you
Chad Sowash (17:40.01)
I got a dog with Italian beef on top of it, wet. It was fucking amazing. And I got fries. So yeah, I had to do a little bit more running this week.
Joel Cheesman (17:53.059)
A dog with beef. It wasn't a Chicago dog. It was just a hot dog with the beef on it. Okay.
Chad Sowash (17:57.669)
It was like a brat with like beef on top of it. was amazing. And I took the first bite and I'm like, what the hell's going on here? You know what it was? It's called heaven. That's what you call it. Yeah. Thanks Joe.
Joel Cheesman (18:02.394)
Hmm.
Joel Cheesman (18:08.655)
Remember when you were a vegetarian? That seems so long ago. Vegan. Sorry, I get those two mixed up.
Chad Sowash (18:11.524)
I was vegan first off and secondarily that's a diet so I can go off my diet whenever I want to okay I can go back on I can go off just like just like my Guinness diet
Joel Cheesman (18:19.511)
okay.
Joel Cheesman (18:25.445)
Well, let's go off on some topics, shall we?
J.T. O'Donnell (18:30.434)
Ahem.
Chad Sowash (18:32.324)
That's so good.
Joel Cheesman (18:32.337)
Stop me if you've heard this one before. iCIMS has a new CEO.
J.T. O'Donnell (18:36.078)
you
Joel Cheesman (18:40.369)
You
J.T. O'Donnell (18:42.52)
Hehehehehe
Chad Sowash (18:44.708)
And a new logo in a new color scheme and my god
Joel Cheesman (18:46.385)
Yeah, yeah, too. Yeah, we'll get to that. Mark Mark, Mark Thompson, which sounds kind of made up. It has been named CEO of ISM succeeding Jason Edelbaum. Thompson previously served as the company's chief financial officer starting back in September of 24. Prior to ISM's he served as you guessed it, CFO at Ever Commerce. Chad Mark Thompson is in the house. Big deal, little deal or no deal.
J.T. O'Donnell (19:02.252)
Here we go again.
Chad Sowash (19:07.364)
Hmm.
Chad Sowash (19:15.588)
Yeah, no, this is a big deal. I'm going to get more emotional and technical on this one. Okay, I'm going to get I'm going to get a little technical on this one. So Colin Day, we both know Colin. He's the founder and CEO of Isoms for you know, like two decades. We knew the team there. They became partners. They became friends. We got deep into the organization. Yeah, and they I mean, who doesn't give us yetis? Come on, give me a break. Anyway, Colin, Colin left.
Joel Cheesman (19:18.449)
No, stop.
Joel Cheesman (19:25.489)
We do.
Joel Cheesman (19:35.025)
Take care of yourselves.
Joel Cheesman (19:39.717)
Yeah, but they were the first.
Chad Sowash (19:43.449)
Then Steve Lucas took over. was present. He was charismatic. He made some moves. And then, you know, about two and a half years he was gone. Brian Provost stepped into the role and shortly after pretty much threw his hands up and said, fuck this, I'm going home. Now the last guy, Jason Edelboim, and I'm not even sure that I'm saying that right because...
Joel Cheesman (20:08.761)
Edelbaum? I think Edelbaum.
J.T. O'Donnell (20:09.966)
It'll bomb.
Chad Sowash (20:10.69)
because I've never met the guy before. I've never talked to the guy. I don't know that I've even ever seen him speak. He felt like he felt like he was asleep at the wheel for God's sakes. And just this week, it was funny. I was I was talking to some people about this and I called him Josh because I he was never around. I didn't meet him. I didn't know him. And again, it's like he was asleep at the wheel. And now we have this CEO Mark
Joel Cheesman (20:16.645)
He did not accept my LinkedIn request, Chad. Just so you know, he did not.
Chad Sowash (20:40.292)
Thompson who was a bean counter and Here's the thing ICIMS is trying to get acquired. Okay, well companies like paradox hire industry veterans like Adam Godson and Paradox was acquired by who? Workday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah smart recruiters puts industry veteran Rebecca Carr in the CEO position and they were acquired by who? SAP. Yeah SAP
J.T. O'Donnell (20:43.576)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (20:56.443)
day.
J.T. O'Donnell (20:57.399)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (21:07.694)
SAP.
Chad Sowash (21:09.358)
Hell, even LinkedIn, who isn't trying to get fucking acquired for God's sakes, hired an industry veteran and Dan Shapiro as their CEO. Vista Equity Partners and TA Associates, they're not reading the fucking room or, or stick with me, they're going to play the Apollo career builder move and start selling off pieces, parts of, of ISEMs. If that's the case, then so be it.
But if they're still trying to sell Isoms off, this was not their move. I think this is plain stupid. And to be quite frank, I'm just gonna sit here and drink my beer because I'm gonna get all misty eyed.
Joel Cheesman (21:48.923)
JT's got something to say.
J.T. O'Donnell (21:50.72)
Yeah. I mean, the moment you said a CFO took over, you know, it's on the chopping block. It's all about the numbers at this point. It's all about getting something across the finish line deal wise. Right. And so it does. And, know, I've been listening to you for years and you have, you've talked about iCIMS, your relationship with them. I learned about what they were doing, how they were putting a tech stack together, the acquisitions they were doing. I learned so much from all of you through that journey. And you were always hopeful that they were really going to put something cool together.
Chad Sowash (21:59.651)
It hurts. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (22:19.486)
You do. You loved where the thinking was. And then to see a company like that end up to where it is now, it's disheartening. It's too bad. But it's reality, too. This is where we're at. At some point, we've said this multiple times this year alone, that at some point you have to recognize we can't keep putting money towards this anymore. Cut, fix, start over, become all birds, change to become an AI, something.
Chad Sowash (22:43.876)
Spin. Repaint. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (22:48.716)
I think something like that's coming down the pike for sure when you put the CFO in place.
Chad Sowash (22:51.768)
Are they going to become a shoe company? Are they going to, they got a new brand, they got new colors. Are they going to become a shoe company?
Joel Cheesman (22:56.079)
Hey man, i-i-i-sims could be anything. There's no- i-sim shoes? Sure, I- I don't know.
J.T. O'Donnell (22:57.032)
You know what I mean. Anything.
But know, there's assets.
Chad Sowash (23:02.468)
Who knows?
god.
Joel Cheesman (23:05.84)
I mean, this is the end historically speaking. What you, what has unfolded at this company is we're in the last inning of the business for CEOs to rebrands, a missed IPO opportunity, a failed attempt to merge, acquire smart recruiters. So in just the business alone,
Chad Sowash (23:26.979)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (23:30.788)
SmartFresh,
Joel Cheesman (23:34.893)
is in trouble. Internally it's a mess. Externally it's bad too. The ATS business
is it's, it's too crowded. It's, it's too disparate. Like they're gonna, we're gonna seek consolidation. Ultimately, ISEMs and employ and like, we're going to eventually have, I'm going to call five to 10 ATSs like enterprise somewhere in the middle. like, this is an attempt to say, okay, CFO sharpen your pencil, get us down to full as profitable, profitable as you can.
Chad Sowash (24:01.282)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (24:13.987)
And then sell it, sell it to whoever we don't even give a shit, but like make it as like affordable for somebody as possible and, sell this stuff. So if you're currently an employed ISMS, I'd be refreshing that resume. I would be updating that LinkedIn profile. I'd be, I'd be outreaching to people I know in the industry. Cause this, this is not, yeah, this is not bode well. Look, Mark Thompson, probably nice guy. He graduated from Dartmouth in the eighties.
Chad Sowash (24:34.873)
Cuts are coming.
Joel Cheesman (24:43.845)
with an economics degree. The CEOs at Ashby and team Taylor graduated in this century. So like there's just, this is not rake of innovation. This is not rake of like, we're going to like do the full court press. We're going to bring in people know what they're doing. And then we're going to like a make, make a big push to go, go all tech and everything AI. No, this is sharpen the pencils, get us down to as profitable as possible and turn off the lights. Unfortunately, Chad and I have a long relationship with iCIMS.
Chad Sowash (24:56.519)
no.
Joel Cheesman (25:13.765)
has nothing to with the people there, the clock is running out on iCIMS.
Chad Sowash (25:18.83)
Well, the new paint job just again, we talked about this before. It's like a distraction. It's like show something innovative. That's all we want to see. Right. And we keep hearing from people inside. we've got innovation. We will fucking show us. Right. I mean, if you have a narrative, if you have a CEO that can actually be articulate enough to talk about what tomorrow looks like for you guys. Okay, great. Put them out there. But you're to fucking hire a bean counter now. I mean,
Joel Cheesman (25:26.693)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (25:47.909)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (25:48.749)
Steve Lucas was the perfect guy for that kind of stuff, right? Marketing, understood it, Marketo, yes, storyteller. Now you got a bean counter from Dartmouth. Okay, yeah, sure, let's see how that goes.
Joel Cheesman (25:53.201)
storyteller.
J.T. O'Donnell (25:54.627)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (26:03.697)
Nothing gets Dartmouth or the 80s for that matter. But yeah, this is not good for iCIMS, everybody. And if you're a customer of my iCIMS, you might wanna go put out some RFPs, get some demos, get some demos. We'll be right back.
Chad Sowash (26:05.526)
No, Dartmouth's fucking great. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (26:08.622)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (26:26.417)
Chad, I've been waiting a long time to do this. Here we go.
Chad Sowash (26:36.768)
yeah, I do. I can, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (26:40.889)
Yes, Plum is back in the news everybody. They've been acquired by our friends at Phenom, provider of talent assessments. If you missed the memo, they help enterprise level firms scale behavioral assessments. This acquisition follows Phenom's previous acquisitions of included AI and be applied. Chad, your take on the purchase.
Chad Sowash (26:44.124)
Chad Sowash (26:50.784)
huh.
Chad Sowash (27:02.71)
Okay. So we saw Phenom's be applied acquisition a few weeks ago and now it's Plum. So great for Phenom, great for be applied and great for our friends over at Plum. it really feels like, it really feels like Phenom is trying their hardest to PhD the hell out of a problem when all the companies need is a middle school solution at this point. It feels over engineered.
J.T. O'Donnell (27:07.694)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (27:30.571)
and way too much for the actual needs of hiring companies out there. And I mean, over the last six months or so, we've personally attended seven practitioner led events where there were probably about 500 different TA product leaders, buyers that are out there. And they needed simple solutions, small solutions that made big impacts. For example,
Joel Cheesman (27:47.941)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (27:57.253)
Some of the hiring companies showing most of the successes is merely around the automation of interview scheduling. No rocket science there, just pure, simple, easy to understand. And most of all, everybody fucking hates interview scheduling. So these two acquisitions feel like Phenom isn't even in the same room with these TA leaders and understanding what their needs are. It's cool, they're acquiring companies. I love that. But the combination of these two and just weeks apart,
Joel Cheesman (28:04.177)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (28:11.426)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (28:26.968)
I don't know, man. It either feels like it just doesn't compute or their marketing and messaging are just shit. I don't know. I can't make, hide or fucking.
Joel Cheesman (28:42.513)
I have one plea to the marketing folks at Phenom. Assuming you're going to keep the Plum brand, please, please bring back Rum with Plum. Just to hear that sound bite every week made my entire week. So please, JD at marketing at Phenom, just please. That's all I ask. All right, let's go to the deal now.
Chad Sowash (28:54.5)
Ha
Chad Sowash (28:58.658)
We can play it whenever we want.
Chad Sowash (29:05.294)
Wrong one.
Joel Cheesman (29:09.137)
In 2004, I met a company called Cymax. Cymax was behavioral testing and culture fit and all these sort of like psychobabble nonsense that you felt kind of dumb. You felt like the emperor has no clothes. Like you didn't want to say anything because you sounded stupid because you didn't understand all the science speak about it. Uh, Cymax has gone, it's been gone for long time, but since then we've had other players come in and say like, Hey, Hey employer.
Chad Sowash (29:30.104)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (29:38.863)
We have a secret sauce. We'll give a little test, little behavioral stuff. Like we'll fit the perfect employees to your, to your company. Remember wonder lick when wonder lit got in it and wonder lick was a big thing with like quarterback testing. You don't hear about wonder look anymore because just cause a QB gets a shitty score, they're still a good QB. Like it didn't have a whole lot to do with, with who you are. Tradeify acquired by paradox. Why didn't, why didn't work day one tradeify as part of the deal? I don't know. It's kind of weird, but I just,
Chad Sowash (29:48.866)
Yes.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (30:08.079)
I'm kind of out on the whole behavioral wizard of Oz behind the curtain. We got a secret recipe that no one else has. Plum had great branding. They had a great team. I mean, they raised a pretty modest amount, I think around $15 million. Cute little Canadian company sponsored our show, sent Chad and I think eight gallons of maple syrup one time. mean, they...
Chad Sowash (30:15.492)
PhD.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (30:30.731)
it was delicious.
Joel Cheesman (30:32.259)
It was, it was a great little story and I just, it just never has taken off and the company never really grew a whole lot. This feels like the run, like the clock just ran out. And I think to your point and phenom, phenom is in that pre-chat GPT that didn't get acquired by workday, cat group. And I think their, their strategy now is like, let's go to TJ Maxx. Let's get as much like AI science.
PhDs, whatever, as we can into the portfolio and hope that we survive the future. They have a great portfolio of companies that use them, great event, great brand, like can they survive it and will this be the strategy that gets them there? I just don't really know. I'm kind of out on the whole behavioral tests, psychobabble, PhD bullshit that I've been fucking forced to consume for the last 25 years in this industry.
J.T. O'Donnell (31:26.382)
Yeah. can I jump in on that? Can I jump in that? Two things. First of all, any time we see an organization get acquired, I'm hoping everybody made some money. So congratulations to anybody over at Plum. I mean, that's a big deal, right? It's hard to get across the finish line. Yeah. Get it, get it. Piggybacking off what Joel said, I'm not a fan of the behavioral tests either. And I'll tell it true story was working for a well-known Fortune 500 company.
Chad Sowash (31:28.516)
Show us how you really feel. Please, please, please.
Chad Sowash (31:40.164)
Please. Yeah. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (31:54.766)
And they had me analyzing what was going on in their recruiting. And I came across these tests that they had signed a deal with one of these Psycho Babble places and they were making everyone do the test. I said, why are you making all your candidates go through this test? Well, that's who we picked to hire. I said, okay, really quick, pull out of your ATS system for me. What percentage of people that went through the test did you actually hire that got the passing grade? Do you know what I mean? And what percentage who failed the test got hired
Joel Cheesman (32:04.539)
You're welcome.
Chad Sowash (32:07.556)
Take them.
Joel Cheesman (32:20.368)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (32:23.982)
Anyways, right? 90 % of the time they were still picking the candidate that failed. Let me say that again. So they paid for a test, 90%. They paid for the test. The manager said, the guy or gal I liked didn't pass, but I liked them. So I'm hiring them anyways. That was a waste of a test. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year were being spent on these tests that the management wasn't even using.
Chad Sowash (32:34.596)
90.
J.T. O'Donnell (32:53.902)
If they didn't like the answer, they used anyways. So, you know, it's crazy, right? And then they said, well, maybe we should mandate that they just have to pick the person that passed. Well, you know how that went down, right? No, you can't do that to managers. So I'm on the Joel train. can't believe it, Joel. You and I are syncing up way too much. Something's happening. But yeah.
Chad Sowash (32:58.862)
It's crazy pills.
Joel Cheesman (33:01.189)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (33:05.312)
Ooh, yeah, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (33:06.318)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (33:11.441)
Choo-choo, it's choose me baby.
Chad Sowash (33:13.922)
Don't ever say the Joel train again, please. That's just the mental, no.
Joel Cheesman (33:19.313)
All aboard. Here we go. By the way, the whole FICRA issue, these guys are in the crosshairs or they should be too. I mean, if you're employing someone based on an assessment behavioral test, okay, well, what did you test for? What is this test that made me incompatible with this company?
J.T. O'Donnell (33:22.253)
Choo-choo.
Chad Sowash (33:26.232)
Yes. God.
Chad Sowash (33:32.276)
Uhhh, they should. no question, yes.
Chad Sowash (33:40.025)
Yeah.
I think, well, I think first and foremost, Plum, they give you their score, right? So it's all transparent, you get the score. The big difference is how does that actually match up between what you've scored and what the company wants? That's gonna be the big difference, right? But yeah, I agree, I agree. There's gonna be transparency pieces, especially for these really complex PhD, psychobabble kind of things that happen that are, they're gonna be hard to connect. They really are.
Joel Cheesman (33:45.649)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (33:56.922)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (33:56.93)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (34:09.646)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:10.875)
Sounds like we're all a sell on this acquisition.
J.T. O'Donnell (34:12.888)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:15.941)
Maybe the second acquisition will fare a little better guys. Greenhouse is acquiring Ezra AI Labs, a voice AI interviewing startup hoping to enhance its hiring platform with conversational AI capabilities. The combined offering will integrate Ezra's voice interviewing system with Greenhouse's broader hiring platform, which includes sourcing, applicant tracking, and AI powered talent matching. Chad, what's your take on this deal?
Chad Sowash (34:19.105)
let's see. Yes.
Chad Sowash (34:23.62)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (34:43.886)
good for Greenhouse who desperately needed something AI to make them look fashionable again. I mean, really. One thing I love in the high volume space is that you need an interview, but you can bypass scheduling altogether in the application process. If the candidate meets all the requirements that you provided, you have two options. Schedule an interview, one button maybe, and interview now, another button.
Joel Cheesman (35:11.323)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (35:14.084)
an immediate interview. So interview now. And when you, when speed is the factor that literally just sprays nitrous directly into the intake, intake manifold. Plus when you're interviewing with AI, you're gathering and contextualizing all that data, not just the notes, a recruiter or hiring manager can feverishly jot down. So those contextualized notes are attached to the candidate's profile and you have more data.
on all of your candidates. It just makes sense. It just makes sense. So I like what they're doing. Will this move the needle for Greenhouse against a work day or an SAP? No. Will this be nice for their current clients? Yeah, it will. It'll be good for their current clients.
J.T. O'Donnell (36:09.838)
I gotta say, I'm with you on the AI piece. Everybody needs to be looking at AI and ways to either create it themselves or purchase. So this clearly looked like, it's easier to buy than build ourselves. What's interesting to me though about all these acquisitions, I want to hear from now see if they really provided an ROI. And here's why. I know a recruiter right now, she came to me and said, I just built this thing all by myself with Cloud Cowork, where I just sit and give all my notes on every candidate that I've met with.
Chad Sowash (36:20.579)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (36:36.78)
And it's able to automatically match against the job I'm hiring for and then rank who should be presented to the hiring manager. She said, I built it all by myself. It's working like a charm. My clients are loving it. She's an independent recruiter, built it by herself in Claude. Is she the only one out there? Of course not. Everyone is getting so much more sophisticated with AI as they learn how to use it that I just feel like these companies, they're, they're overpaying. It's very likely they're overpaying and that we're going to hear a lot of these stories later on. you know, that
But the race to have it, like you said, to look updated, sexy, current, you know, tell our clients we're on top of it is a thing. The question is, are a lot of these companies overpaying for that? I'm gonna say that they probably are.
Joel Cheesman (37:16.433)
I'm going to applaud this acquisition.
Joel Cheesman (37:24.305)
Greenhouse is an ATS. We just got done talking about ICI. I said, I'm just like the clock running out on them. I Sims or greenhouses in that middle zone of we're not I Sims or job bite, but we're not quite Ashby or like the new. So we got to do some shit to like roll the dice, take some risks and see where this thing goes. And I think we talked to when you talk to a lot of people in this space where the puck is going, it's in this AI.
Chad Sowash (37:26.478)
Yes.
Joel Cheesman (37:52.973)
interview, chat sounds human, but it's all automated thing. and we saw some of those companies, this past week in Chicago, Ezra was founded in 2024.
Chad Sowash (38:09.348)
That's a turn, baby, that's a turn.
Joel Cheesman (38:11.793)
So, uh, by the way, better than Ezra banned from the nineties. keep thinking that when I say Ezra, um, he's a young guy, a PhD in applied math, Stanford, MBA, GM, had prior general or GM engineering roles. We don't know much about these guys. Like, so greenhouses either like get going to the tree and picking the apple before anyone kind of knows what the hell's going on. They have fewer than 10 employees. They raised a meager 3.2 million.
Chad Sowash (38:15.606)
I love that. Yeah, that's good shit.
J.T. O'Donnell (38:16.952)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (38:41.753)
or so. So they took a small bet financially for like a really big home run if this thing works out and these guys have, you know, product that can can really crush it. So I love this. This is a brand new company greenhouse just said, Fuck it. Let's roll the dice. I don't know what do they pay for like 20 million maybe 40 million. I mean, this could you think it's less than that?
Chad Sowash (39:05.546)
I doubt that. I doubt that, especially how long.
Joel Cheesman (39:09.529)
If that's the case, Ezra sold too soon, then shame on Ezra because they could have, I think, sold a lot for a lot more.
Chad Sowash (39:14.318)
Possibly, but I don't think so because of what JT said. Because what JT said, when you get a chance to actually get a bite at that apple, you might not get a second bite at that apple. So I think, again, they didn't have that many individuals on staff. Didn't take a lot of money. So, I mean, why not? Not to mention they more than likely are going to go work for Greenhouse to be able to like literally, it's kind of like a skunkworks inside of these organizations right now.
J.T. O'Donnell (39:18.04)
Yeah, I don't think so.
Chad Sowash (39:41.508)
Paradox is running a skunkworks to some extent inside a workday. Same thing is happening inside a SAP. It still can be exciting with a bunch of fucking cash. So yeah, I think it's a good idea.
Joel Cheesman (39:55.922)
Groupon could have sold to Google for $6 billion at its height. They should have taken that deal. However, however, Mark Zuckerberg was offered a billion dollars from Yahoo to buy Facebook. He declined and it worked out for him. So we never know how it's going to roll out Chad, but fortunately, fortunately, if you have a podcast, you can talk about this shit and be successful no matter what happens with what's going on. Guys, we'll be right back and talk about LinkedIn.
Chad Sowash (39:59.353)
See? See?
J.T. O'Donnell (40:07.992)
Yeah, yeah, you never know.
Chad Sowash (40:12.26)
Yeah, but that paranoid motherfucker has to actually build a bunker.
J.T. O'Donnell (40:20.515)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (40:25.083)
for God's sakes. Speaking of startups, all right, we'll wait for you to get back, Chad.
Chad Sowash (40:25.4)
And I'm gonna take a piss on the way, by the way. I'll be back.
Joel Cheesman (40:41.307)
Chad.
J.T. O'Donnell (40:43.416)
Can't hold his Guinness.
Joel Cheesman (40:44.969)
Always attention seeking. Look at my bar. Look at my Guinness. I gotta go pee. Wearing my sunglasses. I'm cool.
J.T. O'Donnell (40:50.7)
You
He
Joel Cheesman (40:58.107)
Taking my vitamin B, whatever that is, or my bees, whatever cocktail he's drinking, consuming.
Do do the Botox thing? you on the whole looking young trend or do you just let it go?
J.T. O'Donnell (41:13.086)
I mean, I do, yeah. No, no, I definitely get Botox from time to time. I don't think I'm crazy. Like, you know, when the 11s show up, when I look angry when I wake up in the morning, it's time to like, they're called the 11s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I start looking mad and I've, or, you you look angry and I just had 12 hours of sleep, you pretty much know that might be a moment. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (41:16.753)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (41:24.709)
The 11s, is that when you have two lines? Okay.
Chad Sowash (41:28.772)
It's like they're playing Yacht Rock.
Joel Cheesman (41:35.461)
You've seen the Seinfeld where they draw the eyebrows on Uncle Leo?
J.T. O'Donnell (41:40.597)
No!
Joel Cheesman (41:43.99)
Anyway, you like do you like Seinfeld? Oh, I'm surprised you don't know that that episode anyway. Yeah, they end up drawing eyebrows and he looks angry and he's like, I'm not angry and they're like, you need to calm down. He's like, I'm calm but he has these like anyway. All right, we're back. We'll just Sergey 4040 minutes of 42. Edit that out.
J.T. O'Donnell (41:46.518)
I love Seinfeld.
I know, that's surprising.
J.T. O'Donnell (41:57.11)
Yeah, yeah, seriously. Yeah, that's what I know.
Chad Sowash (41:57.989)
Hahaha
Chad Sowash (42:04.066)
better. I'm better.
They're pros.
J.T. O'Donnell (42:09.804)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (42:13.233)
All right, kids, LinkedIn's agentic, our AI hiring products, which streamline the recruitment process by automating tasks for recruiters are projected to generate $450 million in sales in the coming year. The offering includes one for large businesses and one for small businesses. Chad did LinkedIn finally get AI right on this one, or is it a banana in the tailpipe situation?
Chad Sowash (42:25.923)
Oof.
Chad Sowash (42:40.736)
Okay. I feel like it's a banana in a tailpipe. So these agentic AI tools are supposed to perform the heavy lifting so recruiters don't have to like scanning LinkedIn, massive global databases, matching recruiter prompts to profiles and shortlisting the right talent in seconds.
Wait a minute. Wasn't that the promise of LinkedIn's search and match algorithm in LinkedIn recruiter for the past? I don't know how many years. mean, LinkedIn is basically just replacing Boolean strings with prompts. Now we're supposed to believe that these agents and great recruiting recruiter prompting that LinkedIn can magically pull this off. Now,
Will they bring in tons of cash from gullible clients? You fucking bet they will. Will it change anything? I wouldn't bet on that. You're gonna get more out of your core talent acquisition and talent management systems and your own databases and pulling in these candidates than you're gonna get from LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a great tool and a great source, but when it comes to actually
using this type of heavy lift? I don't think LinkedIn's the answer.
Joel Cheesman (44:08.497)
Well, Chad doesn't like it.
How about you, JT?
J.T. O'Donnell (44:13.504)
Yeah, right. So full disclosure, I had early access to this tool last year and I was also hired by them to do some videos around it so that recruiters knew it existed. So I want to make sure that I'm not working for them now. No, no, but I want to be clear as I say this. Right? No, I should be honest. Here's where I think it's different, Chad. And I think 1.3 billion profiles and counting, that's a lot of profiles, many of which are bogus, outdated.
Joel Cheesman (44:22.971)
So much flexing, so much flexing on your birthday.
Chad Sowash (44:23.874)
Ha ha ha ha ha!
And I appreciate that. That is sweet.
Chad Sowash (44:39.916)
They had those before.
J.T. O'Donnell (44:42.038)
No, it's growing and growing and you've got a lot of fake, a lot of bots, you've got issues like any big company. So you need a more sophisticated tool to be able to sort that out. And one of the things that I like about the way this AI tool works is it's not just looking at whether or not somebody is a keyword match on their profile. It's looking at this person is active on the platform and it's doing that because a lot of recruiters complain that the search results they were getting the old way, they would contact these people and they'd never respond.
Chad Sowash (44:46.584)
Yeah, always.
J.T. O'Donnell (45:10.734)
All right, so LinkedIn said, wait a minute, if I can figure out a way to evaluate beyond the matching and see if somebody is actually active, I can statistically improve the chances that when that recruiter contacts that person, they might get a response back. I like that because what it's allowed us to do on the job seeker side is teach candidates how to signal to recruiters, how to not just optimize their profile, but how to start to actively comment and post so that
the algorithm is understanding their skill sets, the problems they solve, the pain they alleviate. And that's what this tool does. And I can tell you from the job side where I'm coaching, they are getting incredible results. I have candidates who aren't necessarily the best, but they are doing the right things in LinkedIn to be found with this tool. And so to me, I think it's very interesting. are, they're always a company that's very careful, very slow. They're not going to do anything crazy. And so
this will continue to improve and get better. I like that there's a lower price point for the SMBs. I hope that that continues to come down because for many, it's still probably too expensive, but I have seen real results with it make it easier. And I'll also tell you a funny story. I got trolled last week because a job seeker had, yeah, no, this one was pretty bad. Job seeker asked me a question and Mike about it. And I commented back to him.
Joel Cheesman (46:13.413)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (46:25.688)
get trolled every week, don't you? yeah?
J.T. O'Donnell (46:34.284)
Hey, LinkedIn has a very special AI tool that recruiters are using now, and this is how they surface and find you. It's just kind of a very easy comment. Some guy on LinkedIn found the comment, screenshotted it, didn't tag me, went out there and said, recruiters, is this a thing, a very special AI tool? Everyone started making fun of me until recruiters who use the AI tool came to the thing and said, she's right. Here's the info. It's a thing. And then the very next day,
Joel Cheesman (46:59.205)
Hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (47:00.866)
they announced this $450 million in potential revenue. So I think a lot of people don't realize it's out there. Clearly not a lot of people are using it yet, but when you use it and you start servicing people, it offers an opportunity for someone to position themselves for what they want, not what they were. And that I love because if you're only pulling off a profile, then you're only matching based on your past work history. What if you want to do something different? What if you can prove you want to do something different?
Chad Sowash (47:06.894)
cash.
Joel Cheesman (47:10.63)
Hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (47:29.122)
The algorithm is now recognizing that in the feed and will get better and better. And to me, that creates opportunity for people. And so I'm here for that.
Joel Cheesman (47:39.418)
I guess I've, I guess I've got to break the tie here. So just so I'm clear, because I go to you for all my job seeker information, JT. So whereas before it was just what's on my profile, now you're saying it's what's my activities? What am I sharing? What are maybe my comp? Like it's taking a holistic view of what I'm doing on LinkedIn to match me. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So I think that
J.T. O'Donnell (47:52.545)
activity.
J.T. O'Donnell (47:59.21)
It's making sure you're real. Yeah, it's making sure that you are real human being.
Joel Cheesman (48:06.607)
we're learning more and more that the skills to be a recruiter are evolving from Boolean searches and how to, you know, how to look at search engines and find needles in the haystack to more of, you be a human being and talk about an opportunity in the future and basically have these soft skills. So Chad is right when he says, look,
The, the bullion searches of yesterday are just the, I need a PHP developer, blah, blah, blah. And then having the machine do it. The difference is the skillset that used to be important was to have that bullion search to get the person in the first place. Now the skill is evolving to, okay, the tech will find me the person. It's up to me now to connect with that person and sell them on the opportunity at the company. So from that perspective.
I think what LinkedIn is doing is going where the puck is going and helping human beings connect to be more human and, and fill jobs that way. So I think that's a positive thing. I also think that, from the SMBs perspective, and we, we highlighted a recent advertisement at LinkedIn where they're really focusing on small business where it's small business. It's the owner. She's putting, you know, she's hiring people like, this is a really nice product for a founder of a startup.
or a small company that has no idea what a bullion search is or how to spell it can simply tell LinkedIn, you know, I need a developer to do this, that, and the other. And then the algorithm gives it to them and then they can have a conversation with them on a human human level. So I think of your small business, this is really magic for you to just go to LinkedIn and do this. So for those two reasons, I'm a fan of this. Um, right where I'm intrigued is how they have monetized it. Somehow they found the, the, the
whatever recipe to drive this thing to $450 million with little, with, well, I mean, so that, the old model of like, how many seats do you have is somehow evolving into time spent and, what's, what you're getting out of it. I also think it's a, it's a fun time to highlight like the moat that LinkedIn has been building this whole time and keeping out competitors and squashing all the other sourcing tools. This is kind of the payoff because unless you have this data.
Chad Sowash (49:59.429)
It's a great recipe, whatever it is. Jesus. Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (50:01.912)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (50:10.83)
consumption.
J.T. O'Donnell (50:16.878)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (50:25.315)
If you have the AI, it doesn't really matter. That's why when you look at some of these tools with ATS is ATS is going to be like, we need a tool like that because we're going to help you use your own data. But LinkedIn is sitting here saying we have our own data as well. I think you're going to have to use both. And one of those things you have to pay for as usual will be LinkedIn. And that's a victory for them as they evolve in this AI world. So
J.T. O'Donnell (50:45.251)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (50:47.758)
Yeah. think from a transactional standpoint, the SMB side of the house is tremendous and smart. And I mean, I think they have the opportunity literally to go deep into the SMB market because everybody knows who LinkedIn is, Sitting in rooms of TA, know, VPs of TA and whatnot, most of them feel like they're being held hostage by two companies. Indeed, in LinkedIn.
Joel Cheesman (50:54.481)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (51:17.916)
And the hardest part about that is a lot of those enterprise companies have bought a lot of the candidates that are already in the databases that are out there. And they're going to grind and they're going to do this themselves. So is this a short term fix for LinkedIn? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know there are a lot of major enterprise organizations that would love to say, fuck LinkedIn and fucked in indeed.
and literally just create their own ecosystems. And that's what they're trying to do. So we'll see how it actually shapes out. But I think LinkedIn is incredibly smart going after SMBs because SMBs from a transactional standpoint can really push a lot of cash to them.
J.T. O'Donnell (52:03.19)
Okay, but I got a hit on that because I get that they bought that and they have all these people in their databases, but that content has a shelf life and it's aging fast. And what LinkedIn has is they've now created a way that is getting candidates to constantly update who they are and what they're about. So I hear you, these companies would love to say, forget you to Indeed and LinkedIn, we got our own thing, but you now then have to make sure that talent is updating itself so you're getting the most current version of them. So
Chad Sowash (52:30.052)
That's what chat bots are for.
J.T. O'Donnell (52:30.146)
Community is getting huge, Community, chatbots, et cetera. But you're asking these candidates to recognize that's a company I want to work for and I'm going to go keep myself updated over there versus they can do it one time over at LinkedIn and be found. And in a time where job boards are quickly shifting, because the only reason you really need one anymore is if you need a lot of people for one type of job, I don't want to post a job where I only need one candidate if I'm going to get a thousand people, a half of which are a bot.
I'm not going to post a job on a job board anymore unless I'm legally required to, unless I'm taking money from the government like we've talked about. Instead, I'm going to get on LinkedIn and I'm going to quiet hire. I'm going to go find the people and reach out to them and say, I have an opportunity. And that is happening. I am seeing a massive uptick on that every single week. People are going, my gosh, I'm being found by these great companies. They're legit. They're real. Why?
Joel Cheesman (53:09.979)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (53:13.99)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (53:19.458)
We taught them how to post on LinkedIn. We taught them how to in a platform to get visible and signal, this is what I am. And that to me is huge. I don't think you can underestimate that.
Joel Cheesman (53:24.753)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (53:29.425)
If you're looking for a threat, to me it's Indeed. Because you look at the fresh component, no one's fresh on Indeed. They post a resume and they're done. So to me, LinkedIn will be this thing that, okay, I don't have to have as many seats. I'm still paying, maybe not as much, but I'm still paying them for that fresh data and those people that are always active. But instead of spending more on Indeed, I'm gonna figure out how to use my own database to...
J.T. O'Donnell (53:37.153)
at all.
Joel Cheesman (53:57.19)
re-rigorate them, to connect with them, to like take more advantage of that. So as I look at this, indeed I think is the odd man out of this equation. think LinkedIn's a winner. think the ATS, whatever that component is at a company is gonna be a winner.
J.T. O'Donnell (54:11.374)
And let me just throw another crazy idea at you, bringing it all the way back to thought leader ads, right? You could, let's say there's 20 companies I want to work for right now. I could set up a thought leader ad of myself to those 20 companies and job titles at those companies that I would want to be visible to. And I could push my videos out to them like, hey, this is how I would handle this problem. Like think of the top five questions that hiring manager would ask me. Start putting my videos in their feed. $5 a day spend.
Joel Cheesman (54:15.279)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (54:37.122)
I'm just pushing myself out. Think about the future of a candidate where maybe there's a service where you're able to choose who you want to get in front of for them to see you. I mean, a smart job seeker could do that now on Thought Leader ads at 50 cents a click, getting hyper specific. So there's so many ideas running through my head about where this could go in time.
Joel Cheesman (54:55.793)
Is the targeting that granular?
J.T. O'Donnell (54:58.35)
It's pretty granular location. You can go buy a job title again by budget. Is it as good as other places? But they could improve upon that. And if they did that gets super interesting. You know, I believe you're a business of one. You have to take full ownership of your career. If you're an executive, that's probably money pretty well spent a $20 a day spend as an executive to get my ideas out in front of somebody. And suddenly someone's calling me to be a C something.
Joel Cheesman (54:59.726)
Okay.
Joel Cheesman (55:15.482)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (55:20.433)
Employers are going to hate that. Employers are going to hate if all in their feed are job seekers like, hey, I'm perfect for your company because of A, B, C. They're going to not stand for that for very long, I don't think.
J.T. O'Donnell (55:24.536)
But sneakers?
Chad Sowash (55:26.841)
Yeah.
J.T. O'Donnell (55:29.944)
But we're not far off in this world before we see it. You're gonna see a story in the next, I predict, in the next three to six months where some executive got smart enough to do that and go, that's how I got my job on LinkedIn. Thanks.
Joel Cheesman (55:44.37)
It'll be fun to watch. LinkedIn obviously doing some good shit. It's nice to have JT, an insider at LinkedIn on the show. That's... All right, guys, let's end this with a little...
Chad Sowash (55:52.995)
I blame Dan. Get it, Dan. Come on, Dan.
J.T. O'Donnell (55:55.414)
I love Dan.
Joel Cheesman (56:03.195)
Who'd you rather? That's right, guys. If you haven't heard us play this game before, we talk about two companies that have recently gotten funding. We talk about both of them. And then each of us decides which one would we rather. Are you ready to play? I know I am. First up, we have Dex. Makes me think of Dexter and cutting people up. Anyway, Dex has raised $5.3 million in seed funding.
Chad Sowash (56:03.63)
Finally! Yes!
J.T. O'Donnell (56:20.952)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (56:22.04)
Bring it!
Joel Cheesman (56:30.481)
to connect companies with high-end tech talent through a specialized AI talent agent. Operating like a traditional search firm with a 20 to 30 % fee structure, the London-based company has reached a $1.8 million annual revenue run rate. That is DEX, everybody. I'm trying to find... I don't have the right. I don't have the right. I don't have the right.
Chad Sowash (56:53.412)
Bloma, blama, bloma, blama, blama, bloma.
Joel Cheesman (56:58.232)
Anyway, here we go.
Chad Sowash (57:01.764)
There it is.
Joel Cheesman (57:01.769)
All right now up that's Dex up next we have Blooma. It looks like it's Blama, but it's pronounced Blooma in their explainer videos. The San Francisco startup founded by former Pinterest and Canva executives has raised $5 million in seed funding. Its AI platform provides personalized career coaching using context from resumes and calendars to help users navigate leadership transitions, feedback and workplace communications. That is Dex versus
Chad Sowash (57:09.348)
Oh, is it? OK. OK.
Joel Cheesman (57:31.439)
Bluma Chad, who'd you rather?
Chad Sowash (57:35.237)
First off, Bluma has two O's. So I'm sorry. It's Blama, founder and CEO. It's a Blama. And that is a horrible fucking name. So once again, I'm to go with the easy win. It's 2 a.m. in the morning. I'm going to go with the redhead who is, you know, she's solving the right problems. Dex is solving the problem companies have right now.
A problem companies will deliver and they need is that matching scenario, right? And at the end of the day, they're going to have to turn this quick because there are going to be a ton of these companies out there. The actual matching side of the house. But I did jump into Dex and I did a little research, a little fun, and I had a conversation. I had a conversation with Dex and it was really cool. They are
Joel Cheesman (58:28.048)
chill.
Chad Sowash (58:34.744)
They really focused on the engineering side of the house, which is smart at first, and then you can go ahead and open that TAM. And the product was pretty seamless. So again, I was pretty much sold on it beforehand and jumped in and used it. And I'm gonna go home with Dex.
Joel Cheesman (58:57.169)
All right, JT, who'd you rather, Dex or Bluma?
J.T. O'Donnell (59:01.134)
This was tough, I'm not gonna lie. Looking at it, I almost thought I'm going home solo.
Joel Cheesman (59:07.269)
Not on your birthday. Not on your birthday.
J.T. O'Donnell (59:08.59)
Yeah, not on my birthday. the DEX thing, I was trying to understand from a financial standpoint, they're doing the traditional 20 to 30 % fixed fee model and they took home 1.8 million in annual revenue, not annual recurring revenue. So there is always going to be this process of trying to get more money. And so that's interesting. But again, the efficiency is there. So they're taking 20 to 30 % home on something that used to take a lot more human power and it's pretty heavily AI driven.
Chad Sowash (59:08.782)
Sometimes, yeah, sometimes you gotta do that though.
J.T. O'Donnell (59:38.752)
interesting operational model there. As a career coach myself and seeing what can be done with AI, I think it is very interesting that, bloom, obama, however we want to say it, is offering the coaching. Where I get concerned about that is who owns that data and who sees that data. Because if I have employees who are speaking to this career coach and they're being truthful, where's that going? So do you think those employers are going to be super truthful? No, they're going to go talk to their chat GPT instead. And so to me, gets
Chad Sowash (59:54.52)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (59:59.845)
Great point. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (01:00:05.486)
Mm-hmm.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:00:07.416)
concerning cool idea in theory, but we really have to think about whether or not they're going to trust that or not, you know, because if that's going to HR, that's not a good thing. if I have to pick a winner, I'm going with Deca.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:24.165)
Sorry, sounded like you said Deca. Is it Dex? Dex and Blooma. Like she was going with both. Sorry.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:00:26.542)
Is that what they were? Ducks? DECA? Sorry. It's 2 AM! It's 2 AM! I'm not getting their name right.
Chad Sowash (01:00:26.852)
Dex. think Guama.
And you're not really getting their face right either. That's with the low lighting.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:44.975)
All right, Dex, okay. Dex sounds like it's 10 years too late to me. It feels like when I read their, their site is pretty minimal. Like a lot of it's like sign up and so there's not a lot to find out about this company other than a few pages on the website. But it has the following quote, the best roles are rarely advertised. They move through networks, referrals and people who know people.
Decks, decks exists to fix that. I mean that that feels to me like a pitch from Intello or seek out 10 years ago or God help us when they say something like Rarely advertised jobs like it feels like six-figure jobs. Like there's this hidden market of jobs. It just sounds it sounds very antiquated to me So that was that was a turnoff Initially on decks on the bloom aside
I mean, who doesn't love a good Pinterest like, like your boy here. I'm pinning things all over the place. Who knew? so to have a, to have a Pinterest guy, behind this company was interesting, but I generally hate job seeker funded businesses. thought of a job seeker paying $25 a month for a career coach when yes, my own LLM of choice knows me better than any sort of $25 a month service would ever know me. And that will also privacy and
Chad Sowash (01:01:46.116)
Thanks.
Joel Cheesman (01:02:11.951)
doesn't share stuff with with other people. That was a turn off to me. The cell for me and this was close. This was almost going home solo as well. JT and I are leaving solo on this one almost but the fact the fat come on now. So the fact that they have an enterprise tool that says hey employer, put all your put all your employees, get them a career coach, make them feel special.
Chad Sowash (01:02:23.524)
Which Joel never does, by the way.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:02:23.907)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (01:02:37.711)
Make them feel unique, make them feel like that snowflake that all your employees think that they are. I think a lot of employers are gonna gravitate to that, they're gonna embrace that, they're gonna have this little perk to all their employees. Hey, when you come work here, you got your own little career coach, your own little bloomer, your own little bloomer buddy who's gonna be with you throughout your whole career. So for that, think that employers will eat that up. So for me, I'm gonna go, gonna go bloomer on this one, even though the spelling is a little bit off on that.
Chad Sowash (01:03:03.108)
you
Joel Cheesman (01:03:07.281)
Blammer bloomer.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:08.205)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (01:03:09.39)
llama
Joel Cheesman (01:03:10.681)
All right, guys, that is another episode. Of who'd you rather, which leads us to, yeah, you guessed it today's. Dad joke who's ready for a dad joke?
Chad Sowash (01:03:23.556)
Nobody.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:26.06)
Nobody.
Joel Cheesman (01:03:28.049)
All right, we're taking this back to my shout out to King Charles. Guys, did you hear about the King who was only 12 inches tall? Did you hear about the King that was only 12 inches tall?
Chad Sowash (01:03:40.098)
I did not know.
Joel Cheesman (01:03:41.581)
He was a horrible king, but one hell of a ruler.
J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:49.334)
I can't even, I can't.
Joel Cheesman (01:03:51.449)
Happy birthday, JT. We out!
Chad Sowash (01:03:54.085)
We're
J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:54.306)
Thank you. We out.
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