Indeed's AI Bias Machine
- Chad Sowash
- 3 minutes ago
- 32 min read
Algorithmic Blacklists, $2 Robot Trainers, and Meta’s Pizza Party Fix
Grab your popcorn and buckle up, because Chad, JT, and Lieven are holding nothing back this week. From the links to the paddle courts, the crew is cutting their leisure time short to bring you the raw, unfiltered truth about the absolute train wrecks happening in HR tech and AI.
In This Week’s Episode:
Nuggets:
"Generating assumptive qualifications or requirements is a hiring decision... If AI's doing that for you... it's the most stupid fucking non-scalable thing." — Chad Sowash
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That should be the new trend with AI right now." — JT O'Donnell
Whether we are heading toward an automated, work-free utopia or building a future where your only job is training the AI that's about to fire you, you won't want to miss a single second of this episode!
Subscribe, listen, and let's face the algorithmic monoculture together.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Chad Sowash (00:33.343)
Welcome to the Chad and Cheese HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "cursing like a sailor" Sowash.
JT ODonnell (00:40.446)
I'm J T. "I'm no longer allowed to wear white" O'Donnell.
Chad Sowash (00:45.367)
Whoa.
Lieven (00:47.436)
And I'm Lieven "say soccer one more time" Van Nieuwenhuyze.
Chad Sowash (00:50.518)
Yeah.
And on this week's show, indeed, they are revving up their AI engines. Wait a minute. Is that a sputter I heard? Stanford researchers smack PyMetrics and Meta says they're sorry. Kinda. Let's do this.
JT ODonnell (00:53.33)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (01:14.135)
Whoo, yeah, it's been a day, kids. I've already played three hours of paddle. And if you don't know what that is, American listeners, it's just think tennis and racquetball had a baby, and that's pretty much paddle. Three hours of that today. And JT, I understand that you y you you love this show so much.
JT ODonnell (01:31.024)
Yeah. I I do. Yeah, yeah. So you're cutting into my golfing time. Just want y'all to know. I'm on a streak. I took up golf end of last year. I've had four whole lessons and didn't play all winter. Just started a month ago, joined a club, playing daily, but I'm only gonna get to go to the driving range today because of you all. Because I love y'all so much. So it's okay.
Chad Sowash (01:42.615)
That's amazing.
Chad Sowash (01:52.587)
You do need to take some time though. You gotta you gotta give yourself a little time. Step back. Driving range is great. Driving range is great. But you Levin, are are you are have you been skiing lately?
JT ODonnell (01:59.633)
Yeah. It'll be good.
Lieven (02:03.82)
It's been a while, it's been too long, but I'm looking forward. I think it's two hundred sixty four days before I can go skiing again, something like that, which is a lot. But two hundred sixty four to but no, it's not true because I'm going in January as well. Two hundred sixty four days is until the Eastern holidays, but I'm going in January as well. No no no, it's a bit less, but still too much. No.
Chad Sowash (02:10.135)
how many days?
Wow.
Chad Sowash (02:21.975)
Don't you lie to us. Don't you lie to us. Okay, okay. shit. Well, I I don't know if you guys have been watching World Cup, but I do want to say something about Boston. And and my love, my personally my love for the Scots. This I the Scottish, I love the Irish. I love, I love all my European brethren, sister and sisters. but the Scottish, they are.
JT ODonnell (02:37.521)
Woo woo woop.
Chad Sowash (02:50.079)
just the most fun people in the fucking world. And all of them went to Boston because their team, Scotland, is actually playing they're in Boston. And apparently the Bostonians, the people that live there, they don't want the Scots to leave. That will you know you you're you're right there. Talk about it.
JT ODonnell (03:08.165)
No. I'm in New England. Yeah, I do know. So I I live in a suburb of Boston, right? 45 minute suburb of Boston. Boston is a predominantly Irish town. You know that. Like that like it's got an Irish vibe. The Scots are shaming the Irish. They are so much fun. People are having a blast. And the overarching feedback is the town's just lightening up a little bit. It was getting a little too uptight. New England dirt. And they're just having fun, reminding but like they don't want them to leave.
Lieven (03:08.226)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (03:14.384)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:20.495)
yeah, yeah.
JT ODonnell (03:37.393)
The the vibe is amazing. It's much needed. And I think a super big surprise given the fact that we've seen lackluster turnout for FIFA and and you know, the stuff that's going on in the US. Like not in Boston. Boston is crushing it and I'm so here for it. And Scots, don't leave. We want you to stay.
Chad Sowash (03:40.481)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (03:54.315)
Yeah, yeah. So Levin, what what what do you what's your interaction with the Scots being Belgian over the years?
Lieven (03:54.903)
No.
Lieven (04:02.998)
Hmm.
Chad Sowash (04:03.201)
Do do you love the Scots? Do you hate the Scots? Are they
JT ODonnell (04:05.573)
Yeah.
Lieven (04:05.794)
I love the Scots of course. I met what's his name, Steven? Steve McGrath. So since I'm totally in love with the Scots and he loves chicken cock but no, I like him. But but I don't know, it's it's a different world I guess. I don't meet him all that often.
Chad Sowash (04:09.089)
Steve, McGrath, yeah.
Chad Sowash (04:21.655)
Ha ha.
Chad Sowash (04:27.623)
It it is definitely it's definitely a different world. They they actually drank a bar. I was I was listening to new the news and they drank a bar out of all of their beer. They were like two days from actually getting, you know, replacement kegs. They had to call in emergency kegs. I mean it's just it it they are yeah, and and a couple of ladies came into the bar to buy a couple of bottles of water, and then everybody in the bar, the Scots booed them.
Lieven (04:46.434)
Huh.
Lieven (04:57.774)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (04:58.167)
and y you could just you could I know you can just it's so fun and they're not being mean, they're just having a blast. So yeah, I mean we're we're not at shout-outs yet, but shout out to Scots. the Portuguese team, national team is playing tonight, which I'm excited to watch. they're gonna play Congo. We won't go under your Belgian lean, so we leave and we won't talk about Congo. and then England plays Croatia. So we've got a couple of big, big
JT ODonnell (04:58.278)
Love it.
Lieven (05:03.672)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (05:08.024)
Yeah.
Lieven (05:18.996)
Nope, nope, we won't, we won't, no.
JT ODonnell (05:25.946)
Mm, good one.
Chad Sowash (05:27.519)
matches tonight. I any are you guys are you are have you been watching J J T are you rooting for the US team?
JT ODonnell (05:35.167)
So yeah, I mean, obviously I'm rooting for USA, but the thing that's most exciting to me here in the US, what I've observed, is the way everyone's just embracing all countries. Great example. Last week on the golf course, turns out Old Navy has got $30 jerseys for all the teams, and this whole crew came in golfing and everyone had a different shirt on. Everyone had a different team shirt. And it's like it's just fun to see people embracing that. It's on everywhere you go, which I think is super cool.
Chad Sowash (05:39.162)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (05:48.631)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (05:57.247)
That's awesome. Yeah.
JT ODonnell (06:04.492)
and it's wonderful 'cause we don't really think of US as a as a soccer country. So it's exciting when something like this comes here and you get a taste of what the world really, you know, gloms onto for their favorite thing instead of football, you know?
Chad Sowash (06:17.013)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it is football. but yet, but yet, but yet, again, as Levin had said, call it soccer one more time. but but you've got to give it to like the the ladies' team, the the the the women's team, they have been dominant for years. It's just so weird how the men have not been able to to to catch up. Have not been able to catch up. So I tell you what, let's go ahead and let's
JT ODonnell (06:19.567)
Right. I knew what were gonna say it.
Lieven (06:25.614)
Awesome.
JT ODonnell (06:32.741)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:44.747)
JT, hit it up.
JT ODonnell (06:45.842)
Yeah. So I'm actually gonna give a shout out to a person, Mike Padetto. Last year at Talent Connect is the first time I'd ever met him. And he came up to me and said, Hey, you know, I'm HR, you know, and recruiting fractional consultants, my own business, building my social following, and wanted to meet. And I tell you all, I do this job for a living, but I am an introvert. I don't like going to events alone. I was sitting by myself eating, and it meant the world to me. I've since watched him on social and this week he's just been dropping
most brilliant nuggets of social media, the honesty around, hey, not everybody is telling you the truth. Let me tell you about my failures this week. and he just he mentioned this stuff. And I it's so relatable to me. And I I love seeing people in our space right now who are making a go for it. Like, let me build up my business of one model. You know that's what I'm about, the pro voice. And so shout out to him. Give him some love. Go find and follow him, folks. You're gonna love what he's talking about. You're gonna all agree because he's in the recruiting space with you. But
Chad Sowash (07:18.325)
Nice.
Chad Sowash (07:36.577)
Yeah, yeah.
JT ODonnell (07:44.53)
Let's let's give Mike some follows.
Chad Sowash (07:46.817)
So I've seen a couple of Mike in it's funny because you see some of the influencers who always use their car, right? They're in their car and they're doing, and I know from a sound standpoint, you know, you've got good insulation to some extent. but I always found that funny. dude sitting in a car, it's almost kind of like, I just pulled up to Starbucks. You know what? I got something to say. I'm gonna pull my phone out. I just it's it's it's funny, but everybody does it.
JT ODonnell (07:55.773)
Mm-hmm.
JT ODonnell (08:16.326)
They do. It's a psychological hack though. I don't know if you're aware of this. Same with if you've noticed people do it in their bathrooms. So there's a psychological belief that when I film in a a confined space, a personal space, it's more truthful. So there is a psychological reason why people actually film in these places. You think it's funny or weird, but it creates a well this must be authentic because they're in their car or on their toilet. I'm kidding. But
Chad Sowash (08:37.847)
So was it authentic when the guy from C and C Music Factory was actually dropping a deuce in his back in in his bathroom and he did that video?
JT ODonnell (08:43.614)
A little too much, a little too much, but hey
Chad Sowash (08:51.315)
Is what it is. Leaving. Get us out of this. Get us out of this. What's your what's your shout out?
JT ODonnell (08:54.67)
Mm.
Lieven (08:55.532)
Hey, my very serious shout out this time goes out to all those HR tech startups and scale-ups who are desperately trying to become rich and famous in Europe. And we have a solution for them. So you know we have the e-recruitment congress, the sixth of October in Amsterdam. We're going to host an HR Tech stage, and in Europe we call it the Lions Den. It's kind of a competition where you can pitch your IDs and then you get a professional jury which is going to give you some feedback. What's it called in the US?
JT ODonnell (09:08.68)
Nice.
Chad Sowash (09:21.853)
Mm. Investors, yeah. it's Shark Tank in the US. It's Dragon's Lair in the UK.
Lieven (09:25.836)
Yeah, but
Lieven (09:30.24)
Okay, yeah. So that's exactly the whole idea. And we have very professional jury. So one of the if in fact the founding mother of House of HR, my comp of the company where I work I work for, is Connie van Andriese. She is still the biggest private shareholder of House of HR and we're pretty big now. We have a revenue of about three point eight billion, so it's not a small company. She founded it twenty five years ago, starting from scratch. So she knows how to do it and she's be
Chad Sowash (09:32.663)
Uh-huh.
Chad Sowash (09:39.859)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (09:57.506)
She'll be one of the jury members. We have one CIO, CEO of the one of the biggest private equity players in in the Netherlands. And two more people who are all top in their range, someone from a a marketing agency, someone who is a a coach to train people how to present. So these four people are going to tell you why you weren't able to sell your solution in the first place to those 600 people, HR people who are present.
If you go home without a contract, at least you know why you went home without a contract, something like that. So if you wanna be there, if you wanna present your company at the HR Tech stage, just get in touch with me. You'll find my name on LinkedIn and you'll figure out how to get in touch. I'm sure it's the first step, you'll figure it out.
Chad Sowash (10:29.388)
Mm.
JT ODonnell (10:30.514)
I get.
Chad Sowash (10:45.143)
Perfect opportunity to just get on stage and to get, I mean, in front of people who are already investors in organizations and you get to find out what they're looking for. I any any founder that I advise, I tell them to get on every stage they can. Every stage they can. In this case, it's even more so. Yeah.
Lieven (11:02.967)
Yeah.
Lieven (11:06.71)
And Chad, I was going to ask you. Chad, do you wanna be in the jury? yeah. Sorry, sorry, I've interrupted you. JT go ahead, sorry.
JT ODonnell (11:07.228)
The timing's really awesome too. I the timing is awesome for this. I feel
Chad Sowash (11:12.471)
What's that?
JT ODonnell (11:15.676)
No, no. I was just saying the timing's really great for this, Levin. I feel like I'm seeing a big surge of people as who we're kind of over the fear factor and now everyone's like, you know, eff it, let's go, let's build something. I want to start something new. I'm seeing a surge of startups and that, you know, this is exactly what they need, right? That that voice. So cool timing.
Lieven (11:33.954)
Definitely. And Chad, would you like to be an part of a jury? It's like a buy or sell, but in real life. Okay, perfect. Okay, so
Chad Sowash (11:39.649)
Course, of course I would. Yes. I I I love doing that. I love doing that. okay, we're good. We're gonna we're gonna move along. Everybody, musique gebau in August. In August, that's the recruitment congress. my shout out is to Dr. Robin Hanley Defoe, which validates why this is such a fucking awesome show. Here we go.
Lieven (12:19.487)
Yay.
Chad Sowash (12:22.651)
yeah, now the likelihood that our listeners swear, like we do, obviously, means we all live longer. Plus, listening to us probably compounds your longevity. So if you haven't subscribed to the Chad and Cheese podcast, damn it, go ahead and fucking do that right now. and not to mention, there's another great reason to listen and subscribe to Chad and Cheese.
Lieven (12:49.088)
I think the moment
Chad Sowash (12:49.313)
Come on, there he is.
Chad Sowash (13:00.299)
You're always topless.
Chad Sowash (13:36.491)
Huh?
Chad Sowash (14:00.353)
That's right. Go get that free stuff. Go well, not to mention we're also going to be giving t-shirts out at events. Yep. Travel always sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Wreckfest, July 2nd, where we're going to be in England now at Nebworth Park all damn day. Joel and I will be in seeing the disrupt stage. Emmy's going to be on the innovate stage. And again, this is a this is an all-hands meeting kind of scenario. So if you're a TA leader, bring your entire gang.
JT ODonnell (14:07.96)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (14:28.127)
learn some stuff, have some drinks together. And yeah, should be a great time. After that, I'm headed over to Mallorca with my buddy Chris Long, who's getting married. We're doing a stag do prior, go figure. And so I am by my my liver's going to need a a break. It's definitely gonna need a break. You guys are you guys going anywhere? What's going on?
JT ODonnell (14:49.464)
No summer travel for me, but the fall's huge, right? We'll have Wreckfest in September in Nashville, Talent Connect in New York City for the first time in a while. it's gonna be big, yeah. So I'm excited about the fall circuit season.
Chad Sowash (14:52.833)
Yes. Mm.
Chad Sowash (15:02.911)
And Levin's not gonna go skiing anytime soon. So does that mean you're going to conferences? Are you on stages? What what's happening?
Lieven (15:08.882)
No, no, no. I actually was going to travel through the United States, through the Southwest, but given the whole Trump situation, we cancelled it and we're going to Thailand now. So,
Chad Sowash (15:15.977)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (15:20.617)
I that that's a b that's a big difference. US versus Thailand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JT ODonnell (15:23.58)
Big switch.
Lieven (15:24.332)
Well, instead of just it's almost as far but just the other direction. I know. Yeah. I've been there fifteen years ago or something, I love that.
Chad Sowash (15:30.197)
Yeah, I just mean culture wise. I mean it's it's that's awesome though. That's awesome. That's awesome.
JT ODonnell (15:33.714)
Yeah, beautiful.
Chad Sowash (15:38.229)
Nice. Taking the kids? Excellent.
Lieven (15:39.894)
Yeah. So it will be different than when I was there fifteen years ago. Yeah. Interesting.
Chad Sowash (15:43.24)
JT ODonnell (15:43.644)
Ha ha ha
Chad Sowash (15:45.771)
We'll go we'll go ahead and move on to. try to save Levin from that one. Okay, this is dir this is direct from an article in HR Brew on Monday. Indeed, the launched Sourcing Assistant. It's new AI-powered assistant designed to help recruiters at the top of the funnel. Sourcing Assistant aims to evolve sourcing beyond the keyword query by identifying
Lieven (15:55.95)
Thank you, Chats.
Chad Sowash (16:14.967)
potential candidates with related skill sets and recent candidate activity across Indeed's pool of hundreds of millions of profiles. my God, have they finally gotten something right, JT? Have they? Have they?
JT ODonnell (16:32.83)
Okay, I just at this point, if you're not using AI on a daily basis, right, you're in trouble. So let's just call that, right? I mean, there are just enough AI tools that we integr integrate in our life. Enough so that you know that what they just announced, I'm pretty sure I could have built for them with cloud coding. Do you know what I mean? and you know, the thing that throws me here is it says after training the assistant on the search.
Chad Sowash (16:38.807)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (16:50.839)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
JT ODonnell (17:01.244)
Recruiters can set limits, adjust caps on candidate outreach, who to exclude, and when to stop. The tool prompts recruiters to set daily outreach limits, but prioritizes quality over hitting the daily limit. Recruiters can track and watch the tool's progress and begin outreach to the best, most interested candidates. You know, I I lately have been writing a lot and will continue to write about the fact that I I want AI in the recruiting world. It can do a lot of good, but it cannot take away the judgment.
I'm going to die on that hill. Please don't make away the judgment. And I read that. And again, I could have coded it myself. And I agree there are lots of parts AI can take over in the top of the funnel of sourcing. I just read that whole thing and say, just further confirms why candidates are not going to want to apply online anymore and are going to start looking for different ways to do this because they're they're going to get screened out. They are going to get screened out based on what I read there.
Chad Sowash (17:32.631)
Mm-hmm.
JT ODonnell (18:00.489)
They've got no shot. So I just I don't know, you know, late to the party. Doesn't sound too complex, not loving what it was said in the press release. Maybe I read it wrong.
Chad Sowash (18:02.251)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (18:09.751)
Ла гатасей, миллис, Дін, уйдет.
Chad Sowash (18:17.311)
Okay, you're not surprised. You're not surprised.
Lieven (18:19.288)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (18:21.889)
So no, no, fuck no. i this is this is too much, okay?
Chad Sowash (18:35.427)
I'm gonna breathe. I'm gonna breathe. From the HR from the HR Brew article, quote, the assistant, e indeed AI assistant, ingests job descriptions and generates qualif qualifications for the role. Let me read that again. Ingests job descriptions and generates qualifications for the role.
Lieven (19:00.086)
Ooh.
Chad Sowash (19:01.621)
Generating assumptive qualifications or requirements is a hiring decision. If you're creating requirements, that's a hiring decision. You it and if AI's doing that for you, okay, so at the very least, it's shaping the higher hiring decision and saying, which they did, recruiters can manually change hundreds of your AI created requirements. That's just the most stupid fucking non scalable thing.
JT ODonnell (19:12.478)
Judgment.
Chad Sowash (19:31.201)
Think about recruiters who have hundreds of different positions that are open or thousands that are actually flooding in that now have to deal with this AI. Next quote from HR Brew, quote, the tool services up matches to evaluate and further train the AI on the candidate pool, end quote. Okay, so listen to me, kids. So indeed is making up your requirements, then evaluating candidates on the AI requirements they made up.
And then further training the AI on the chain of AI hiring decisions that they made up. This is the biggest AI cluster fuck of an LLM train wreck I've seen in this space. I know that Indeed has some very smart individuals that are over there, but I'm not sure what they're doing because this again, this is a clusterfuck. If you wanted to inject bias and hiring decisions into your AI.
JT ODonnell (20:12.478)
JT ODonnell (20:18.366)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (20:29.909)
This is it. But from a compliance standpoint, yeah, cluster fuck. your thoughts leave in.
Lieven (20:37.592)
Well I totally follow. And I wonder are they going to launch this in Europe? Because in the United States you can claim this this sources faster, but in Europe you'll have to prove that it sources fairly because of the European AI Act. As an employer using indeed, you'll have to make sure you are responsible, so you have to make sure you know about transparency, human oversight, bias controls, about GDPR obligation obligations. So
It's the employer who is going to be sued if there's a problem, even though it wasn't each it wasn't its problem from the start. So I'm not sure if they're going to launch it in Europe, and if they will, they'll have to provide a very nice manual on how they work. And I'm very interested in it. How I find I want to see how the black box works. Not sure, but I think they're coming for for LinkedIn. They're just trying to
JT ODonnell (21:23.334)
It's scary.
Chad Sowash (21:24.971)
Yeah, I
JT ODonnell (21:28.638)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (21:29.865)
Yeah, I well, I mean and here's the thing that drives me crazy. It's like they pitch this stuff as if that this is the newest, biggest, best thing. And as as as JT had said, first and foremost, I mean, you got kids in fucking high school that are developing this stuff with the new tech that's actually out there today. But at the end of the day, it's all about that string that I talked about.
You have the AI actually making hiring decisions. Then you have this long chain of hiring decisions. And we talk about what's the worst thing that could happen to biased with AI? It's called scaling the bias. This is exactly what that whole chain would do. It would scale that bias. So it's like, why would anybody announce and or use this shit?
JT ODonnell (22:20.798)
Two comments. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That should be the new trend with AI right now. And secondly, you know, and I work with the job seeker. I'm the advocate for the job seeker. When you do stuff like this, you teach them to want to game the system. You're making it worse for yourself. You're forcing candidates to make stuff up, do different things. Like I just I wish people who are building tech, please out there in the recruiting world, when you're building tech, think about the job seeker. Think about their knowledge level.
Chad Sowash (22:24.203)
Yes. Very yeah.
JT ODonnell (22:50.706)
Their expectations, I get that you the people that pay you are the businesses, I get it. But you build stuff that doesn't help the overall architecture. You don't think about the grander scheme of it. And you know, stuff like this just yes, it's bad. I'm spitting here.
Chad Sowash (23:00.981)
They're screwing the businesses too.
Yeah. All right. we're gonna we're gonna take a breath. We're gonna take a breath. we'll be right back. All right, we've got there's another topic. This is this is a juicy one, kids. Get ready because Stanford is in the house. That's that's right, kids. Grab your popcorn because if you've been wondering why your job applications are vanishing into a corporate abyss, a massive new Stanford study just proved.
You're not crazy. You're just being gatekeeped by a bunch of algorithms. So last March, the World, the World Economic Forum, this is, I'm sorry, March of 2025, the World Economic Forum stated that over 90%, 90% of HR departments have officially outsourced hiring decisions through to a handful of AI assessment and hiring vendors, creating a massive algorithmic monoculture where hundreds of competing
Companies all use the exact same broken software. So the Stanford team managed to sneak under the hood of Pymetrics, a major screening platform to track four million real applications. And surprise, surprise, the machine is broken. The bias is real, and the results are an absolute dumpster fire. here is I actually found this this video from
Lie Brown, who is commenting on personality test in twenty twenty-one during the HBO documentary. And if you haven't seen this, you've got to go watch it. It's called Persona, The Dark Truth Behind Personality Test. Here's here's Lee.
JT ODonnell (24:38.75)
it didn't.
Chad Sowash (25:22.807)
JT, what say you to personality test or not to personality test? Why is this even a question? I guess is my question.
JT ODonnell (25:23.23)
Yeah.
JT ODonnell (25:30.352)
Yeah, so so this went viral last week on social. And you know, when you wake up in my world and people are pinging you, hey, have you seen the Stanford study? And then you start to see how people took the study out of context. So what happened last week and is growing is that people who are uneducated in our space were saying it was ATS systems that were doing this.
Chad Sowash (25:34.571)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (25:43.954)
yeah, there's that.
JT ODonnell (26:03.849)
But unfortunately, it went viral. Job seekers were furious. You know, what does this mean? And what it was saying was, hey, this company holds onto your data for 330 days. So if you got rejected, you took an assessment, it held it. If you got rejected from that company, it showed that data. And every other company that is one of their customers has access to you. So if you sat and applied to 20, 30 jobs and they all use it and you couldn't understand why you got rejected, it's because of the one dang assessment test you took.
Chad Sowash (26:16.119)
Mm-hmm.
JT ODonnell (26:31.687)
That's sitting in a database for 330 days. That's what really got studied. But that's not how it got explained. It's gone viral. And every job seeker is like, why would I ever apply on an ATS again? Why would I do it? Like, I don't trust ATS. So you now have recruiters out there trying to educate people on this. You've got all this confirmation bias going on. It is a mess. I think it's gonna get a lot worse.
Chad Sowash (26:34.055)
Mm-hmm.
JT ODonnell (26:55.601)
But what I want to unpack with people, especially job seekers, already wrote about it last week, gonna write it about it again this week, is it's not ATSs, it's assessment tools. Yes, you should be concerned. I can't stand these assessment tools. I can't stand them because of all the things they talked about. And if you have not seen that documentary, you absolutely have to watch it. Because no job seeker should be required to give their data, not know where it's going, and not know how it's being used. And this is what got exposed. And I'm
Chad Sowash (27:09.719)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (27:21.462)
Yeah.
JT ODonnell (27:23.239)
Thrilled that that got exposed. I just hate that all this misinformation is now spreading like wildfire about.
Chad Sowash (27:30.847)
Yeah, I I mean, so from my standpoint, if a company chooses to use an assessment platform, ATS, I mean, it's all a stack, right? I don't that's semantics to me. What what it all comes down to is first and foremost, let's give credit where credit's due. Pymetrics was acquired by Harvard back in 2022. So the problem here is Harv, and that's H A R V E R. Okay, that's the parent company they own Pymetrics. So
Have you ever done these game based assessments before? They are ridiculous. Balloon popping. I mean, I I was like, what the actual fuck? I mean, w unless you want me to blow up balloons for a living, why I how is pressing a button to blow up a balloon or pop a balloon? I d none of it made sense, right? and back in the day, if a recruiter at Google thought you sucked, you still had an opportunity yet at Apple.
JT ODonnell (28:04.679)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (28:29.291)
not anymore because the study showed that PyMetrics is running the velvet rope across competing firms. Yep. That's an audible gasp heard around HR departments everywhere. Apparently the data wasn't siloed, which means if the machine hates your vibe at Company A, you were already pre-blacklisted at companies B, C, and D. The study found four percent of the candidates applying to 10 different firms.
were rejected by every single one, blacklisted. That kind of uniform shutdown is statistically impossible with humans. It apparently takes real AI to be that consistently closed-minded, right? So for years, these AI vendors have been flashing shiny compliance certificates. Look at our data, it's totally fair and average. Yeah, okay, right. The researchers actually broke that data down job by job instead of
Pooling it into one giant bucket and the mask came off completely. A staggering 25% of black applicants and 14% of Asian applicants were funneled into hiring tracks that straight up violated federal civil rights standards. Turns out hiding the bias in a giant math blender doesn't make it legal. But here's the punchline that should make every VP of town acquisition choke on their morning latte.
If the AI had simply treated minority candidates the same as the most favorite demographic white guys, then 40,000 more human beings would have been advanced to the actual interview. The bottom line is that when you chase the shiny object of automation and efficiency, you want to believe the sales pitch and you don't perform deep due diligence like you should.
And you're probably not solving for bias bias. You were just scaling bias. Levin, you guys work with a ton of companies and you do a lot of interviewing. I do you have background with like these assessments and things like that? What are what are your thoughts?
Lieven (30:34.892)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (30:43.286)
Do I have what? I didn't get lost.
Chad Sowash (30:44.815)
do you have experience with like different types of assessments? Do you guys use them?
Lieven (30:50.52)
Yeah. We have tons of tools we use. we used to use and we changed and we never found the perfect one. There the perfect one doesn't exist. But assessments are definitely necessary and we will always be using them. But the way we use them is changing. It's changing totally. And I think AI is a good thing there. But I was listening to what JT was telling and about people
trying to avoid applicant tracking systems. And this is something which has been going on for forever, I think. I mean, even 20 years ago, people try to avoid the intermediaires, the people in between, the companies like ours. They thought if I could go to the hiring manager directly, that's one step less I have to take. But
Chad Sowash (31:36.428)
yeah. Yep.
Lieven (31:38.946)
We try to convince them now because if you go through us, you'll probably earn more because we make more if you earn more. We take us we get a small percentage on the the more you make, the more we make, something like that. So it's it's always been a discussion. But now something very interesting was shown to me this week. a company which is called the side door. So they say they claim on their homepage the apply button is a trapdoor, we build a side door.
Chad Sowash (31:50.487)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (32:04.723)
wow.
Lieven (32:04.844)
So if you click on apply, you enter in the ATS and you get stuck. But they developed a system, the side door, which just tracks down the hiring managers and you can contact them directly through their system. So those people get their normal email and just people start entering their mailbox with their applications. They will hate it, I'm sure, but it shows it's a sign of the time. It shows people are desperately trying to avoid these ATS systems. It's okay, it's interesting.
Chad Sowash (32:22.391)
Man.
JT ODonnell (32:33.169)
Leaving's proving my point. I'm so riled right now. Again, can today's theme be just because you can doesn't mean you should build it, right? And what I said earlier about every time you create something like this, you are forcing the job seeker to find another avenue. So now there's an entire business that's gonna shove hundreds of thousands of people in a hiring manager's inbox. The whole reason a hiring manager has a recruiter is for that not to happen. And now that's going to happen because of what they built. I'm so
Chad Sowash (32:41.611)
Yes, yes.
Lieven (32:41.73)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (32:58.38)
Yeah. Yeah.
JT ODonnell (33:02.417)
Wild about this right now. I can't even tell you because people like me and recruiters and everyone else have to go out there and inform job seekers like, no, don't do this, right? It's it's going to get worse. You're gonna make sure that hiring manager puts you on a do-not hire list because you stuff their inbox. Like it's mind-blowing to me that nobody is thinking about this. You know, sorry, I'm so angry about this thing.
Chad Sowash (33:04.321)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (33:23.563)
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I think
Lieven (33:26.304)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (33:31.221)
We and I've talked to many companies, Joel Joel Joel and I have during the AI sessions and even beyond that and some of these RLX shows and whatnot, where companies are really trying their damnedest to make the experience so much better. But yet they still have some of these platforms that they bought years ago, like Pymetrics, that are still dragging them down. And again, you know, if you believe in personality test, okay, great.
But to be quite frank, to me, it just seems like a high risk layer of bias. And I mean, it is what it is, right? I think if we focus on performance over what they there we go. if we for focus on performance over, you know, just what we like and if they like lattes and I like lattes kind of thing.
Lieven (34:08.76)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (34:29.973)
or popping balloons or what have you. I mean, we really need to shift to what matters and meeting the requirements and actually performing well is what matters. All right, let's go ahead and let's hit the hit the next one up. This one you think you think the last one got you, JT. This one's really gonna get you. 'cause this is next level wild. Picture this. pi picture this. Picture this. You got thousands of workers across India.
JT ODonnell (34:50.238)
I'm gonna need my blood pressure checked after this.
Chad Sowash (34:58.007)
We're all talking homemakers doing the dishes, dusting, folding laundry, cleaning the house, and engineering grads sitting in studios, strapping cameras to their faces. Why? To record every single boring repetitive thing and movement they do all day long. And and this is the kicker right here, kids. They're getting paid two dollars an hour. JT, is this a great?
Opportunity for people in countries with little money making options, or is this a great way to train your replacement?
JT ODonnell (35:34.013)
Everyone should watch the video because I I wasn't kidding. When it opens up and this woman is sitting there with this this strapped to her head and she explains that in her ear it's yelling every time it can't see her hands because it's training the tasks. She's like, it's pretty annoying when it's yelling, but where else can I just do the normal work I have to do all day, but also get paid two bucks just for doing it? So she's genuinely excited, you know? But then when they lead into the amount of people that are training this.
Chad Sowash (35:44.939)
Yeah. Yeah.
JT ODonnell (36:02.001)
And how you know how robotics is just such a passion. you you just you fast forward to what is everyone gonna do? Like I just immediately think to like, what is everyone going to do when all the robots do all the work? Because that's the vibe that this this gave to me. And your brain either goes really negative, or you can kind of go utopia. You know, I chose to go utopia. I chose to think about a world where it just freed everybody up and
Chad Sowash (36:23.391)
Yeah.
JT ODonnell (36:30.746)
And everybody got to do whatever they want and everybody had enough money to do whatever they want. Because if I think about the other side, I get scared.
Chad Sowash (36:33.215)
Mm.
Lieven (36:38.114)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (36:38.993)
And you can understand that because
Chad Sowash (36:44.927)
Okay, so the tech overlords call this quote unquote egocentric data. I personally call it training the bots. They they are literally teaching AI-powered humanoid robots how to move, grab things, and do chores like like humans. The money guys are projecting over a billion robots walking around by 2050. A billion. Really? A billion? It's a massive, booming global market, and we're seeing it.
on the white collar side as well, with Handshake, MariCorps, and even LinkedIn, who are paying more than $2 an hour. But let's cut through the corporate BS for a second and look at the absolute irony here. These folks are getting paid peanuts today to train the the very machines that are going to delete their jobs tomorrow. Not just their job, that one person's job, but people like them.
In the hundreds and thousands. And I know, I know, I know AI will create so many jobs. But Jensen Huang is saying it. Sam Altman is saying it. They're all fucking saying it, but okay, where? All the tech bros and billionaires who are heavily invested in AI are saying we're going to create more jobs, but none of them, none of them have any ideas where these jobs are going to come from, especially broad-based, right? You might have.
Lieven (38:09.922)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (38:10.707)
an example here and there, but from a broad base standpoint, they don't have it. So now we have AI researchers, companies paying people bottom of the barrel wages to harness their physical data and others, their expertise and scale it to those billions of algorithms and physical robots that apparently will be roaming by twenty fifty. Levin, have have you built a bunker yet? That's the question.
Lieven (38:40.086)
You know, I've seen the movie JT was referring to. And if you look at from a micro point of view, this one single lady who's attaching the an iPhone or a smartphone to her head and who's doing her dishes and and cleaning the table and and sweeping the floor, from her point of view, this is a good thing because she wasn't getting paid to clean the dishes and and sweeping the floor, and now she gets two dollars an hour, which to her standards is quite a lot of money. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (38:51.979)
Yep. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (39:03.638)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (39:07.265)
Probably a lot, yeah.
Lieven (39:08.674)
From a micro point of view, she's getting better. The problem is, like you said, Chet, this is going to be used to replace hundreds of thousands of professional housekeepers in their job. And that's from a micro po micro point of view, it's a totally different story. So people are becoming, once again, data sets, and the only reason you're not fired yet is because you still need to train the system, something like that. And that's a dystopian view. And I totally agree with JT. We have to keep positive and we have to look at the utopian view. But
I'm also a bit scared about those jobs, which jobs are being created, like Chad said. Those people are heavily heavily invested, heavily invested. So they they have to keep up the show and and the show must go on. But I haven't seen many new jobs yet. They are they are coming, I'm sure, but I don't know which ones. And definitely not for the people who are sweeping the floors right now. Those people have a problem. We'll see.
Chad Sowash (39:56.695)
Uh-huh.
Chad Sowash (40:02.305)
Yeah, it's it's gonna be, I mean, it's it's a short term win. So she's gonna get that money, that two dollars an hour, for a very short amount of time. And then what happens after that? Especially if she was a maid or she helped people clean, lawn do laundry and those types of things. I mean that that is that's that's going to be long-term ramifications for, you know, short term two dollars an hour.
Lieven (40:06.189)
Yeah.
Lieven (40:12.15)
Mm.
Lieven (40:30.786)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (40:32.481)
Guess what, kids? We have Facebook next. we'll be right back.
JT ODonnell (40:41.267)
here we go.
Chad Sowash (40:45.107)
All right, Mark Zuckerberg has told employees that Meta has made mistakes in its AI transformation and its workforce, according to an internal memo seen by he didn't say anything about the metaverse. He's just talking about the transformation to AI. Anyway, anyway, Zuck is pumping hundreds of billions. Yes, that's but but but with a B billions of dollars into AI as he seeks to reshape his company's inner workings around the technology.
Reflecting a broader pattern among many major US companies this year, particularly in the tech sector. In the memo, Zuck describes the rapid advances in AI and the challenges brought on the by the boom in technology. Quote, given the complexity of these changes, we've made mistakes. Yeah, a little Mia Culpa there, right? And we'll almost certainly make more, Zuck said.
Adding that he is also quote focused on providing as much stability as possible in terms of organizational changes moving forward. He also said, I don't want to overpromise. Imagine that. Imagine that. I don't want to overpromise because the world is changing in the ways that are many ways that are out of our control. He said, reiterating that Meta does not expect many company-wide layoffs this year. And I'm saying.
Expect in air quotes, kids, because you know it's gonna happen. JT, is this a kinder, gentler Mayakopa Zuck?
JT ODonnell (42:20.166)
No, I this is this is so fascinating to me. Like in my world, again, always bring it back to the job seeker, my friends. Praise for it. the moment they were the first to say, well, we're gonna cut thousands of jobs because of AI, when the tech world says that, they're always first. Tech is always first. So tech comes out, big company, and says, we're just gonna make major cuts because of AI, you just greenlit every company, not just tech companies, but every company to say, Hey, look.
Chad Sowash (42:21.575)
Ha.
Chad Sowash (42:34.967)
Mm.
JT ODonnell (42:49.746)
The big company that everybody looks to says it's we can say it too. So what has happened over the last six months? AI is the reason for our layoffs. AI is the reason for our layoffs. AI, AI, AI, AI, right? Now what did he just do? Mistakes were made. There's probably gonna be more mistakes. We're going to correct them, but this is a relic. So guess what the narrative's gonna be for every other company? He just greenlit the next narrative. It's a narrative. And it's so frustrating to me.
Chad Sowash (42:59.287)
Mm-hmm.
JT ODonnell (43:19.164)
Because all of these people that are getting shockingly laid off, dumped into the market, there are no white collar jobs for them to have while it sorts itself out. When they get asked back, we all know they're going to get asked back at lower salary bans. So this is also a rejust, they're not going to be making the money they made before, right? This is all a big or orchestrated, you know, reset. And it gets done by these narratives. So this, if if Mark can say it.
Chad Sowash (43:27.799)
They
Chad Sowash (43:33.312)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Right.
JT ODonnell (43:47.698)
I can say it too, right? Like, hey, Mikey likes it if you remember the life serial commercial. This is what's gonna happen next. This is gonna be the next narrative and it just mark my words and it is so frustrating to hear.
Chad Sowash (43:58.847)
Yeah. I I I would agree. just like when, you know, Elon cut what was it like 75% of freaking Twitter, then everybody started going into cut mode. you know, where where did Twitter where where's Twitter today? this around this this article, this is from the edge. the company plans, the company being meta plans to increase investment in team building initiatives. Zuckerberg, including higher budgets for off sites and corporate events.
And is organizing a large-scale hackathon in July to foster cross-team collaboration and development on its latest models. The only thing they're missing there, guys, is what? Pizza. They gotta have pizza parties, right? This is a big fucking pizza party. They this is ridiculous. I I got what do you what do you got? Save us, Levin. This is this is too much.
Lieven (44:53.656)
Totally agree. They just realized they kind of broke the organization by firing seven thousand people, and now their employees are a bit s anxious, so they'll going to try to fix it with team building, pizzas, et cetera. But I was just thinking, I found the first new job. We were talking about new jobs. AI is going to create new jobs. The new job is junior human AI data trainer that didn't exist a year ago. So now you become the new AI data trainer. Sounds good. And I think
Chad Sowash (45:21.515)
That's gonna be around for five minutes.
JT ODonnell (45:22.054)
Mm.
Lieven (45:23.712)
Yeah, I know, I know, and then then we'll be without a job again, but they'll find something new. But I think the future of work apparently is going to be or being laid off immediately or being reassigned to train the AI that's going to get you laid off anyway. So you might also apply at Meta for the team buildings. We'll see.
JT ODonnell (45:25.342)
That's the temp job.
Chad Sowash (45:43.953)
I I I got nothing. This is this is there there's gonna be no change. You've seen the the different versions of Zuckerberg, you know, windsurfing, Brazilian jujitsu. I mean, he's still the same fucking dude. I mean, he he really is. They there's no change that's happening here. Unless unless he's part of the Utopia, JT. No? Yes.
Lieven (45:59.938)
Like.
JT ODonnell (46:08.818)
I mean, at this point, you gotta hope they're all gonna take their billions and throw it into some sort of universal basic income, right? At some point we're just gonna have to pay people to sit around because there are going to be no jobs. So is it a renaissance, Era? Do you let everybody go pursue their passions and fill their days? I'm that is my utopian point of view. Let us let me golf more. Hey, let me golf more. I wanna spend my day getting a 15 handicap. Let's go with that.
Chad Sowash (46:27.691)
Yeah. If if you haven't read the book Utopia by Thomas Moore, go ahead and read that now. hold that close to you and hope, hope, hope versus all the other dystopian jokes or dystopian books. yeah, I I I I don't see that coming unless it's forced by government. And the US is gonna be the last government to do that. and and I know
Lieven (46:29.43)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (46:55.275)
that you guys are are are hoping that I bring us out of this hole with the dad joke, but I'm sorry. I'm getting ready for the Porchko match. So there's no there's no there's no dad joke today. I appreciate it. This is another great show, chock full of goodies in the meats. And easily said, we out.
JT ODonnell (47:13.842)
We out.
Lieven (47:15.075)
We out!