Indeed Cautionary Tales

Unintended Consequences

After a two-month hiatus from recording together, Chad and Joel reunite to dissect the latest chaotic shifts in HR and recruitment technology. From the pitfalls of relying on flawed employer metrics to algorithmic transparency issues and major vendor partnerships, the duo delivers an unfiltered look at the industry's push toward automation.  

Key Discussion Topics

• The Flaws of Disposition Data

• Indeed's Algorithmic Disappearing Act

• Pre-Apply AI Screening Risk

• Fighting the Giants

• The Return of Career Sites

Industry Takeaway: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We've turned into 'move fast, break shit' before somebody else gets there... but usually the first ones that arrive are the ones with arrows in their face." — Chad Sowash  

Enjoy!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:29.568)

yeah, you wanted the best. You got the best. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co host, Joel. Is this it? Cheese man.

Chad Sowash (00:40.752)

And this is Chad, Unintended Consequences. So wash.

Joel Cheesman (00:45.546)

And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, disposition data, disappearing ads, and slotbusters, let's do this.

Chad Sowash (00:58.842)

Slop it up, big boy. Man, it's been forever since we've been on a show together.

Joel Cheesman (01:00.608)

What's up, Chad?

Joel Cheesman (01:04.488)

It it has. Eight weeks, two months? I don't know. That's why our our listenership is increasing. We're not on we're not on the show together anymore. Everyone loves it. Everyone loves it. How you been? Saw you in England, obviously, but you've you took a little break last week. You you had a little stag party. Like give us give us the chat update.

Chad Sowash (01:06.948)

I think it's been a

Chad Sowash (01:20.624)

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I mean, Wreckfest as always was amazing. Thanks to Jamie and crew. And if you're not already registered to go to the US and Nashville wreck, well, get your ass going over to Wreckfest.com. Graham Harper, I know if you remember this or not, because you were a little drunk at Wreckfest. He hooked us up. He hooked us up with some agnificent rum, Welsh rum, which it was funny.

Joel Cheesman (01:41.044)

What?

I don't remember being

Joel Cheesman (01:50.73)

Welsh Rom, just like the pirates used to drink back in the day. The Welsh Rum.

Chad Sowash (01:51.024)

because I know just like the pirate jet. It's called Bart Barty B a R T I anyway, Graham is amazing. He hooked us up. It was delicious. But yeah, I going to the after leaving you

Joel Cheesman (01:57.951)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (02:04.5)

Which worked great, Chad, by the way. Where where we were, we we get the little speakers lounge. we get the hidden the the VIP place. So we actually had to pay for beer, but the sodas were free. So we we'd get the Pepsi, the Pepsi Max, and then we'd we'd we'd spike it with the rum. So we we were we were cost conscious this year with drinking free. Thanks to Graham. Thanks for Graham on that.

Chad Sowash (02:09.486)

yeah.

Chad Sowash (02:16.419)

Boom. Cheat code.

Tico, Tico.

Chad Sowash (02:26.191)

I, and we started, the America's 250th celebration on a boat in Mallorca. And we did it with Lee Greenwood singing. Tim Sackett was there with his, his, stars and stripes, you know, speedo. I mean, it was, it was all good. It was a good time. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:33.148)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (02:38.953)

Ha ha ha ha.

Joel Cheesman (02:45.694)

Yeah.

So my God, no. Set so set this up for us. You leave Wreckfest, our friend Chris Long getting married, stag party. So s so you go to Majorca. Everyone's feeling very sorry for you at this point. So you you meet up with a a who's who of recruiting folks and have a good time. I I don't I don't even know you you're on a boat with thongs. I it's it's okay.

Chad Sowash (02:56.015)

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.

Chad Sowash (03:05.709)

Yeah. Yeah.

I did not have a thong. the thing is, mean, Jamie Leonard was there. Dude just threw a huge ass wreck fast slash party. And next thing you know, he's he's in my orca with us. Mark Chaffee, Sam from from Hackaday. mean, obviously, Chris Long, I mean, we had a who's who, right? It was a blast. And it was in the beautiful thing is that we're not 20 years old doing a stag do, which means we can

Joel Cheesman (03:16.595)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (03:21.053)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (03:40.385)

eat better, can drink better, can charter boats and do really good shit. So we had a blast, man. We had a blast.

Joel Cheesman (03:49.492)

Yes. You you sacrifice what your liver can do for for expensive shit. I get it. I get it. That's great. So so the the Odyssey, before we get to the World Cup, the Odyssey movie is coming out by the time this this move this podcast drops. Is it a big deal in Europe? You guys like it's it's very huge here. The reviews I guess opening night was we're recording on a Wednesday, but the opening night was last night.

Chad Sowash (03:53.059)

Yes. Exactly.

Chad Sowash (04:07.108)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (04:16.849)

Huge reviews. You're gonna go see it. I know you're a movie guy. You excited. You love the Chris Nolan stuff. What's going on?

Chad Sowash (04:24.473)

I do, I do love it. There's a lot of buzz that's happening on the boob tube. But to be quite frank, mean, ever since COVID, I have just not been excited about going to the movies. So in its more chill life here, so it's like, when I see it, I'll see it. It doesn't have to be this weekend. It doesn't have to be long lines or any of that shit. I might just wait till it's on Dodgy Box. don't

Joel Cheesman (04:32.329)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (04:39.294)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (04:49.865)

Mm-hmm.

I'm guessing there's no IMAX in the Algarve that you can go and really experience the movie like it's supposed to be supposed to be enjoyed. All right.

Chad Sowash (04:57.199)

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I know we've got great theaters, but I don't know if they're high

Joel Cheesman (05:05.469)

Well well, I got a new term for you and you might you might get to experience it before the actual real movie. so it's the a new term now is Slotbuster. So we know Blockbuster, the big movie, the the the so slot buster now is something that's being bantered about. There's a movie called Odysseus, which is basically a wannabe Odyssey movie, and it was totally made with AI.

Chad Sowash (05:09.615)

Okay, yeah.

Chad Sowash (05:15.087)

Okay. Yes. Blockbuster movie. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (05:32.915)

Guy was on C N B C last yesterday. It cost what he said was in the mid five figures to produce this movie. So I gotta know, like AI slop, or is it are we ready for the movie theaters to be filled with slop?

Chad Sowash (05:40.782)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (05:46.544)

I don't think we're ready for it, but it's coming. And from what I understand with this movie, it was total slop. So, yeah, I think, you know, a lot of what we're seeing with AI right now is literally we're still in the R &D phase of how we use AI and so on and so forth. Can it be good for like short term like CGI stuff? Yeah, I think it's going to be good for that. But to actually do a full movie.

Joel Cheesman (05:49.705)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (05:54.62)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (06:15.999)

I don't think so. I don't think we're there yet.

Joel Cheesman (06:17.243)

It it is the cover band of media. Yes, the slop buster. I I I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. But slop sloppy stuff AI wise is coming to to social media as well. Chad, I don't know if you saw this fast company talked about which social media platform has the most AI slop. And surprise, surprise, LinkedIn, LinkedIn holds the crown as having the most AI generated content. I'm not surprised, are you?

Chad Sowash (06:20.505)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (06:45.113)

weird.

Well, no, yes and no. I mean, it's just, weird. It's weird because it's the professional network, number one. And I see so much AI slop like on Instagram and on TikTok already. But I do have to say this whole, and I know I wish JT was here because she loves her some LinkedIn, but I am seeing so much irrelevant shit just popping up in my feed.

Joel Cheesman (06:51.679)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:13.022)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (07:14.767)

Constantly and there's some AI slop that's in there. There's no question, but it's just like LinkedIn used to be relevant used to be content from my from my community from my network and now it just seems to be It's slop whether it's AI slop or not. It's just slop entirely. It's it's it's too much. It's weird I hope they tweak the algorithm to make it more relevant

Joel Cheesman (07:24.681)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:31.219)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (07:35.358)

Yeah, I think I think most platforms will will degrade AI generated stuff. the the fast company story talked about that more than forty percent of LinkedIn posts longer than two hundred and fifty words were flagged as being fully written by AI. So these are probably long articles, longer thought I mean, these are people like p throwing in an article and saying, like, hey, create a summary for this, make it sound like I'm doing it, and then posting stuff easily. A lot of corporations

If it's my job to post stuff on LinkedIn, I'm like, yeah, okay, like take an article, write write a summary of it, and I'm gonna post it on LinkedIn. Whereas TikTok is much more hey guy, you know, it's more much more personal than LinkedIn is too much, too much corporate shit.

Chad Sowash (08:16.589)

And it's video versus text version, right? it's, you get a little ways through like an article and you're like, this is AI wrote this shit. When you're watching a video, it's almost instantaneous. You can tell that it's AI slop. So it's a little bit different.

Joel Cheesman (08:31.421)

Yeah. And a lot of pictures now. Obviously, I mean, we we're guilty of this. Like it's a lot easier just to create an image of something than it is to actually hire someone to design an image. So yeah, and it's a little bit fun too. So obviously, World Cup, we're in the final throes of it. it'll be over the next time that we record. We're in my England t-shirt here. I know your your team Portugal was bumped by Spain a couple of weeks ago, but as we record this

Chad Sowash (08:35.085)

Yeah. yeah.

Chad Sowash (08:40.683)

That's fun. Yeah, it's Yes.

Chad Sowash (08:49.199)

You're wearing your England.

Joel Cheesman (09:01.851)

Spain has just defeated France. England, Argentina are still ready to play. I was curious as an American, Portugal, Spain, I know they don't like each other. Give me a sense as an American. Is this like Red Sox Yankees? Is it Michigan, Ohio State? Like how deep does this does this rivalry go?

Chad Sowash (09:03.919)

Tonight. Tonight.

Chad Sowash (09:19.309)

Yeah, it's it's it's a big rivalry. It is Michigan, Ohio State. No, no, no doubt. They they do not do not like each other. So last night it was funny in the bar. All the Portuguese were rooting against Spain and all the the English were rooting for Spain because they wanted to play Spain. They didn't want to play. They didn't want to play France. So it was was was a tale of tale of two teams last.

Joel Cheesman (09:23.739)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (09:33.918)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (09:40.767)

Yeah.

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (09:47.891)

All right. Well, since they haven't played yet, give me a prediction. Argentina, England. And of course by the time this drops, you'll either be right or wrong.

Chad Sowash (09:56.132)

Yeah, I mean, it's that's hard, especially watching France last night thinking that they would they would give Spain a hell of a fight and they didn't. So it's like which team actually shows up. Yeah, I I hate to say this, but I really think England is is they just have either Harry Kane or I mean, fucking you know, Bellingham shows up. I mean, it's just like the

Joel Cheesman (10:04.617)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (10:20.35)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (10:25.141)

somebody's gonna show up, right? And they haven't had, I think, bad match yet. I think their early match was bad with Congo. But other than that, other than that, think everything is good. And I think Messi, he used a lot of his magic to come back from a two-score differential to score, you know, for those guys to score three goals.

Joel Cheesman (10:33.587)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:37.535)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:44.093)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (10:50.825)

Yeah, you you t when when the goats are in these kind of games, whether it's the Super Bowl, you know, game seven of whatever, like the goats tend to escalate their game. and messy is that goat. So, you know, the Bellingham Kane two headed monster versus the goat, I think it's gonna be a a hell of a game.

Chad Sowash (11:03.599)

We'll see, man.

Chad Sowash (11:09.323)

And take a look at Argentina though, too. Their draw has been so much easier at this point. So this is really, mean, I think they're their biggest test. The biggest question is, do they have more fuel in the tank because they haven't had such, I mean, their last match, obviously, but they haven't had such huge tests. I think it's going to be a big test. I think it's going to be a big test.

Joel Cheesman (11:13.598)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (11:30.087)

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a great game. obviously I'm going with England for the win. if nothing else, because I want to hear Wonderwall at the end of and end of another victory for that. But enough of this. Enough of this. It's been fun though. World Cup has been great, been awesome event as always. and then it's time for football, baby. But now it's time for shout outs.

Chad Sowash (11:42.031)

that just makes me not.

Yes. A blast. Amen. All right.

Joel Cheesman (11:59.71)

All right, Chad, this this shout outs is powered by our friends at Aspentech Labs. If you love free beer, and who doesn't, well get ready to turn into a sloppy summertime life of the party. But you can't win if you don't play, Chad. That's right. Aspentec is only giving beers to people who actually go to Chadcheese.com/slash free to get a chance to replace that shit beer that's in your mom's fridge in the basement with some actual

Chad Sowash (11:59.758)

Yes.

Mm.

Chad Sowash (12:08.321)

huh. I do.

Joel Cheesman (12:27.251)

Good stuff, everybody. That's right. get the good beer. Get the good beer. All right, Chad. Shout outs, what you got?

Chad Sowash (12:34.391)

So I'm going to start out with the shout out. I'm going to go back to World Cup really quick to make my segue. It seems like politics is fucking everything up. The World Cup was going so smoothly. Everything was great. Hello. Everything was great. And then Donald Trump has to come in and, you know, pull the red card. And it really just kind of like screwed all of like the mojo and momentum of the World Cup. think it's coming back. But in a day where politics are corrupt,

Joel Cheesman (12:39.167)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (12:53.791)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (13:03.703)

and you can't trust anyone on the ballot, my shout out goes to Count Binface, who is running for member of parliament. We call them MPs. In the upcoming Clacton by the sea election, which is scheduled for August 13th, 2026. I'm sure you don't know who this Count Binface is. So go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage.

Joel Cheesman (13:05.545)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (13:28.04)

my god.

Joel Cheesman (14:20.947)

He's a talking trash can for those that are listening.

Chad Sowash (14:22.627)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (14:27.919)

You

Joel Cheesman (14:34.12)

At least one of them.

Chad Sowash (14:41.711)

So, I mean, so yes, if you're listening, that was a man in a costume, dropped up dressed up as a garbage can. We has a garbage can as a head. That's count bin face and count bid faces running against Nigel Farage and his his ultimate selling point count count bin faces vote for me. I am not Nigel Farage. And for anybody who doesn't know who Raj is, he was one of the main proponents of Brexit. Count bin faces.

Joel Cheesman (14:42.111)

the Brits.

Joel Cheesman (14:55.891)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (15:06.985)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (15:09.903)

campaign promises is he will cap croissants at a pound. He just heard that he was going to cap a Wigan kebabs at two pounds. He's going to abolish VAR in football and he's going to nationalize Adele. I don't know what that means, but he's going to nationalize Adele. And last but not least, yes, he's going to, yes, he's going to nationalize Adele.

Joel Cheesman (15:21.011)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (15:30.399)

Is that the singer? The singer Adele? Okay. All right.

Chad Sowash (15:34.529)

And he's going to rename London Bridge to Phoebe Waller Bridge, you know, the lead actor from from from Fleabag. Anyway, in a time where politics sucks, shout out to a fresh new face. He's a comedian, go figure. For me, shout out to Count Benface.

Joel Cheesman (15:51.379)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (16:01.231)

amazing.

Joel Cheesman (16:01.376)

All right, Chad, I I I'm gonna try to one up trash face, been face for those Americans that are listening. So my shout out goes to this poor son of a bitch. let's call him Vladimir Bobbit. this is this is gonna escalate quickly. so remember John and Lorraine Bobbit in the 90s, Chad? Unfortunately, yeah. So for those that don't remember, made famous by cutting off John's.

Chad Sowash (16:15.663)

Oof.

Chad Sowash (16:22.753)

Unfortunately, yes, painful.

Joel Cheesman (16:30.367)

penis after a fight. If you remember the 90s, you remember John Bob. Well, I think, I think a couple Muscovites might be trying to top it. A jealous wife in Moscow bit off, that's right, bit off her husband's penis after finding a text message from another woman. Not catching him in the act with another woman, a text message. To make it worse, she sharpened her teeth

Chad Sowash (16:43.343)

Chad Sowash (16:54.403)

Oof.

Joel Cheesman (16:58.505)

With a file to make her attack more effective. Gee, this this chick's quite a peach. The husband, now unable to achieve an erection, shocker, is now raising their seven-year-old child alone while she is in prison. Her sentence, Chad, for biting off a man's penis is a whopping five years. Now, for context, Chad, you remember when WNBA star Brittany Greiner was arrested in Russia for weed?

Chad Sowash (17:04.386)

WAH!

Yeah

Chad Sowash (17:25.934)

Yes.

Joel Cheesman (17:26.739)

That sentence jail time was nine years. So binding off a penis, five years. Weed, nine years. talk about a messed up penal system. You know what I'm saying? You talking about a messed up penal system. So shout out for, I guess, our comrade John Bobbit two point That's what I'm calling him. That poor, poor bastard. Good luck to you, my friend.

Chad Sowash (17:30.756)

Jesus.

Chad Sowash (17:38.415)

Uhhhh

Chad Sowash (17:52.409)

That's horrible. That's horrible.

Joel Cheesman (17:53.728)

All right. we are we're not we're not traveling, Chad, but I know that we do always want to talk about where we're going eventually.

Chad Sowash (18:00.303)

Huh.

Chad Sowash (18:08.685)

How do I get rid of this picture on my screen? Jesus.

Joel Cheesman (18:11.529)

Let's see. Well that didn't

Chad Sowash (18:14.531)

I don't want to look at John Wayne Bobbitt II the entire time.

Joel Cheesman (18:16.519)

Yeah, I know. hold on. Okay, stop there we go. Riverside has updated their media file. We can do pictures now, which is great, but yes, you have to click the picture again to get it off. So we love us some Shaker recruitment marketing. I don't know if I'm spoiling it, but they're gonna be in Nashville. may or may not be on stage with Shaker, I guess. We'll see.

Chad Sowash (18:22.492)

There we go.

Chad Sowash (18:34.724)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (18:42.745)

Possibly. We'll see. Uh-huh. On the disrupt stage? I don't know. Might happen.

Joel Cheesman (18:44.319)

We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

All right, let's get to topics. yeah, hold on. Okay. Let's get to topics, Chad.

Chad Sowash (18:54.082)

Is, they working?

Joel Cheesman (19:05.823)

All right, well Chad, I'm still recovering from my June vacation, basking in Italy, Paris, Belgium. So why don't you you got some inside info on Indeed. They've been they've been behaving badly recently. What you got?

Chad Sowash (19:09.657)

Yeah, poor kid, poor kid.

Chad Sowash (19:19.147)

So, and while you're at it, minding the media there, get the drum roll sound effect ready. Okay, so we've talked about how Indeed is trying their damnedest to force leverage, coerce, whatever you want to call it, companies to provide Indeed with their disposition data. Well, Lou Goodman wrote a great article called 106 Things Disposition Data Can't Tell You.

Joel Cheesman (19:34.558)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (19:45.491)

Wow.

Chad Sowash (19:45.839)

I reached out to Lou and said, hey, can you do that in a top three? So here's Lou Goodman's top three reasons why user using disposition data is stupid.

Number one, job descriptions suck. Everything starts with the quality of the input. And again, we're talking about signals here. If the job advert didn't accurately reflect the employer, what the employer actually wanted, whether because requirements change or key criteria aren't included, or the role was defined poorly, and that happens all the time, then you're measuring candidates against a flawed benchmark.

Joel Cheesman (20:08.777)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (20:27.221)

even excellent candidates can appear to be poor matches if the job data itself is flawed. There you go. So job descriptions suck and that's, and we all know that. Number two, capacity.

Joel Cheesman (20:34.399)

I like that.

Chad Sowash (20:43.139)

Capacity sucks. There seems to be an assumption that a negative disposition outcome equals poor quality application, but a candidate may have been rejected because the recruiter only had the capacity to interview five people. Stopped reviewing after finding good enough or never even reached their application. So not selected often tells you more about employer capacity than candidate quality.

Joel Cheesman (20:58.751)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (21:13.431)

And last but not least.

Chad Sowash (21:18.903)

Number three is disposition codes themselves just suck. Even if the hiring decision was perfectly valid, you still have to trust the data. Rejection reasons are often self-defined and consistently applied or selected as default admin codes simply to close a requisition. I don't know how many systems I know that literally you could bulk disposition code candidates, bulk code, okay?

This makes the data set far less reliable than it needs to be to drive key decisions about optimization. So that's the three. Thanks, Lou. And if you want to read 106 things disposition data can't tell you, just go over to jobboarddoctor.com. Thanks, Lou. We appreciate it.

Joel Cheesman (22:08.063)

Sounds like Lou's not falling for the banana in the tailpipe.

Chad Sowash (22:11.289)

She's not, she's not. I mean, and if you've ever worked in these systems before, you know how messy and crappy the data is. So to think that you're gonna get great data is just fucking ridiculous.

Joel Cheesman (22:19.815)

Yeah. I I think disposition data and Indeed's real like focus on that. I think it was one of my predictions for the years that that Indeed would buy an ATS to get to the disposition data. I think that's been a huge airball for them. I think it wasn't what as easy as they expected it to be to get people to do that. I think agencies push back, I think comp like employers push back. Nobody wanted to do it. And so in addition to the reasons that you've stated, it's it's a

Chad Sowash (22:31.919)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (22:44.004)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (22:48.999)

It's a tough system anyway, but I think the consumer and the agencies around that have totally pushed back on disposition data and indeed has been forced to pivot, which it which will kind of lead me to some of your other points here that are that are coming up. So I agree, like 106, though, Lou. Lou, take a get a life, man. Come on, 106.

Chad Sowash (23:05.295)

She needs to take a breath. You need to take a breath. It's okay, Lou. It's okay. She's just that wonky and that's why we love her. So we receive email strings and we have great discussions with companies all the time, right? All the time.

Joel Cheesman (23:09.575)

Yeah. I can't come up with a hundred and six of anything, let alone some goofy disposition data. She yeah, yeah, God love her. What else she got?

Joel Cheesman (23:29.714)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (23:33.081)

but a lot of the times it's on the down low. It's just to be able to say, hey, I can't believe we're getting fucked like this. And it's from vendor to vendor to vendor to vendor. So they do, they do, but they don't want to come out in the open with it for any reason. So I received an email string from Hamra Enterprises Senior VP of HR, Sonia Brewer. And she said, hey, share it. I okay, great. I love it. She sent this to me because she knows many companies are having problems with

Joel Cheesman (23:36.71)

yeah.

Joel Cheesman (23:40.211)

Yeah. People trust us. Yep.

Chad Sowash (24:03.28)

Indeed, that transparency in the market would help. It wouldn't hurt. So being able to put this story out there would actually help because other companies would say, shit, we're having the same problem. first and foremost, who is Hamra Enterprises? Well, they are a prominent family-owned hospitality and multi-brand franchise owner headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, founded in 1975. Wow. The company has grown from a single

Joel Cheesman (24:04.299)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (24:33.103)

fast food location into a major industry player with roughly 200 locations and 7,400 employees and an annual revenue reaching over $450 million. So that's, that's the entity at play here who was having the discussion with Indeed just to be able to set the table for the players, right? So phase one, we're going to break this down chronologically. Phase one,

Joel Cheesman (24:41.012)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (24:46.474)

There you go.

Chad Sowash (25:00.557)

was the problem. So Hamra Enterprises noticed that if they manually type in Wendy's or Panera, those are the two major major franchises that they own. If they if they type those keywords into Indeed for towns where they have active high budget premium sponsored ads, their job listings do not appear at all. Well,

Joel Cheesman (25:08.275)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (25:22.817)

Indeed's representative explained that the platform had moved away from basic keyword searches, those those Pidley key, you know, to an AI driven matching platform. They told Sonia that her manual spot check searches are misleading. They're old school and misleading because she is not logged in as a candidate. They showed her reports that her ad was generating plenty of low cost. And it's kind of like one of those go away kids.

Joel Cheesman (25:29.309)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (25:47.36)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (25:52.634)

things, right? So Sonia came back and said, hey, look, typical 16 year olds looking for a fast food job will literally just type in Wendy's into a search bar, right? So yeah, exactly. She then leveraged her position as a senior member of the Wendy's franchise association and threatened to pull ad spend.

Joel Cheesman (26:00.586)

Mm-hmm.

When he's near me. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (26:16.559)

and push it to companies like ZipRecruiter while also rallying other national franchise owners to do the same. So it's, mean, it's one thing to piss off Hammer with 200 locations and 7,400, you know, employees, but wait until you start pissing off the other Wendy's peeps who have 6,000 locations, about 6,000 locations, right? So.

So that was phase one. It was kind of like, we have a problem. Houston, we have a problem. And Houston was like, no, the rocket's fine. No, it's okay, right? Phase two, Indeed's technical team admits there is an actual backend issue because Hammer's jobs.

Joel Cheesman (26:47.743)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (26:59.678)

I'm shocked at that, by the way. They admitted

Chad Sowash (27:00.779)

Yeah, well, mean, yeah, but Hammer's jobs are mapped to Hammer Enterprises and that and that parent page and indeed algorithm is quote unquote, accidentally suppressing those jobs from appearing when users search for brands like Wendy's and Panera Bread. So what they told her at first was total bullshit. Now they're coming back and say, yes, there's an issue.

Joel Cheesman (27:09.972)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Joel Cheesman (27:17.29)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (27:29.571)

we're suppressing because you your, your page is Hamra. It's not Wendy's is not Panera, whatever. Right. So indeed proposes a band-aid fix of un-linking Hammer's jobs from the corporate umbrella page. Now, Sonya doesn't like this because you know, it's, it's a band-aid. Well, yeah. And, and, and it's a band-aid, right? But it's peak hiring season.

Joel Cheesman (27:48.672)

She's proud of her company. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (27:57.216)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (27:57.424)

and she needs to this shit done. So she agrees to do that. She agrees to do that. Then, and just so we all get the chronological, this starts in April. We're now in late June, early July. Hamra is hiring 50 associates for a brand new grand opening in Texas. Once again, their Panera Bread job ads are completely invisible in manual searches. Compounding their frustrations, Sonya.

Joel Cheesman (28:09.568)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (28:19.264)

Yep. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (28:26.617)

clearly sees competitor job postings when she's searching. She's searching and she's seeing McDonald's and she's seeing other local restaurants, but she's not seeing their Panera in the same search. escalates, brings in the director of sales to provide a deep structural explanation of Indeed's algorithmic behavior. Exactly what a VP of HR wants, Indeed's planning, right? That's exactly. Anyway, completely

Joel Cheesman (28:34.962)

great.

Joel Cheesman (28:53.012)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (28:56.181)

out of patience at this point, rejecting the algorithmic bullshit explanation that they tried to do before and then they said it was a problem. Sonja cuts the conversation completely with the final two sentences in the email. No, I am not interested. I just want the search tool to work as it's supposed to. Not as you designed it. I'm done. So as we all know, and again, we're bashing indeed right now, okay?

Joel Cheesman (29:14.388)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (29:24.995)

happens in many companies. I remember why I said Monster. Remember I was, I mean, there many companies, right? It's all about how you take care of the situation. You treat your customers with kid gloves. You give them customer service. You don't just bat them away with bullshit excuses. And that's exactly what happened here.

Joel Cheesman (29:30.816)

Sure.

Joel Cheesman (29:44.96)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (29:55.008)

To me so

Indeed knows that twenty percent of their customers are in a position where they're gonna say, like, they understand what's going on. They actually do searches like this. They actually get I mean, shout out that she got the V VP or director of sales on the phone. Like, you know, she's she's spending enough money to get a director on the phone. because before that it was Joey Bag of Donuts, you know, first job out of college trying to deal with to deal with this. like I

Chad Sowash (30:13.689)

Yeah, direct yourselves, yeah.

That's what it is, yes.

Chad Sowash (30:24.089)

Yes. Yes.

Joel Cheesman (30:27.314)

I'm pretty convinced that indeed believes the future of hiring is agents. All I hear from them is talent scout, career scout. Whether they're right or wrong, I think they believe the future of job search is job seekers using agents and ultimately employers using agents. And this whole thing about like where my job is, why am I showing up? Why am I paying more?

That to to me, that to them is a is a temporary issue that they'll deal with. And I think they're comfortable with the fact that, you know what, we're gonna lose 20% of our users, the people who are actually like looking at what we're doing. But you know what? 80% of the people, they're just gonna keep paying the bill that we send them. They're just gonna keep paying the invoice. They're not gonna pay a pit pay attention, right? and and they're probably right, unfortunately, right? They're probably right. 80% of the people

Chad Sowash (31:11.149)

They're not going to pay attention. Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (31:22.376)

And if they can raise the prices on eighty percent, then they can lose the twenty percent because they're making more on the eighty percent that just don't pay attention. And and what if are they right or not, I don't know. But what I hear out of what I hear out of Indeed is a lot of talent scout. People like it, that it works, like that's the future. And the job seeker side I don't hear as much, but I'm assuming that a lot of job seekers are using that as well. Ultimately, I think indeed believes that these

Chad Sowash (31:37.7)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (31:46.605)

The Career Scout,

Joel Cheesman (31:50.005)

The middle l the recruiters will be are just a a mosquito that they they'll get rid of at some point. And that they'll deal directly with heads of heads of companies, CEOs, smaller companies, et cetera. Remember when the iPhone came out and there weren't buttons? They didn't have the Blackberry buttons and everybody was mad about like, where's my fucking buttons? I'm never gonna use an iPhone because it doesn't have the buttons. Well, twenty years later, there's no buttons, it's all a screen. And I think whether

We'll see if they're right or wrong, but I think Indeed believes these pesky recruiters that are asking questions about why isn't my job showing up won't matter because they'll all be replaced by agents. And that's I think Indeed just doesn't give a shit. God bless her that she's spending enough that she got a director on the phone, but I really don't I like and I don't know if Indeed is telling their people this. I think they're telling them, like, okay, let's study the ship. You're gonna have a job, you're not gonna re be replaced. We'll need just as many salespeople.

Chad Sowash (32:36.941)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (32:46.733)

Yeah, I don't think they need to.

Joel Cheesman (32:48.36)

I but I think they're sl they're slow rolling this whole thing about agents are gonna interview agents and all these people in the middle are just a nuisance that we have to deal with for the next few years.

Chad Sowash (32:58.799)

The biggest issue, especially just talking about what you're talking about with agents right now, is it all has to do with data, right? And we're seeing, I mean, even crazy Palantir CEO, I can't remember his name right now, Alex, what's this fuck? Yeah, Carp, Carp, Carp. He's talking about how all of the data is actually just creating, it's creating shit, right? Because we're not getting clean data. So we just talked about disposition codes, right?

Joel Cheesman (33:03.593)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (33:14.57)

Carp. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (33:28.559)

We're talking about a lot of these signals that the indeed's of the world want to use. Well, then you talk about Career Scout, which we talked about a few weeks ago with the job seekers. Well, Career Scout is going to be able to take your resume and AI fluff it. It's literally just an AI fluffer for God's sakes. It's going to fluff your resume to match the job description, right? That's garbage. And we just heard from Lou, the job description for the most part.

Joel Cheesman (33:34.112)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (33:52.384)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (33:57.602)

is garbage. So we're matching garbage and we're trying to fluff garbage. It's fucking ridiculous. So personally, I hope they waste hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make this work and it falls flat as fuck. But to be quite frank, still, if I am a company, I'm a hiring company, I'm an enterprise, there's no way in hell I'm giving a vendor my fucking data, especially, and again, back to Alex Karp talking about

Joel Cheesman (33:59.84)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (34:11.816)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (34:25.728)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (34:27.695)

Why are you paying for a service when they're getting your data? They should be paying you for the data. If it's so good for Signal and their long-term infrastructure in building their large language model, why aren't they paying you? That's the question. They're trying to sneak one by you.

Joel Cheesman (34:34.026)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (34:52.638)

You you you bring up a really great point. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. Our our our industry used to be about people connecting with people. And the technology was just a means by which you could get together. And now now the business is like tech talking to tech with a tech in the middle. And to your point, jobs suck. you know, Mercor had an acquisition this week.

Chad Sowash (34:52.653)

Yeah

Joel Cheesman (35:20.82)

Where basically they they want agents to train the data because they're running out of humans and human knowledge is only only so so big. LinkedIn is now getting sued, I think in Texas, for ghost jobs. Not that it's their fault, but like people are just posting jobs to get like the funnel filled. I don't know, but we're losing the human aspect of this whole industry and it's it's not gonna end in a good place. It's just not gonna end in a good place. it'll be fun to watch, but it's

Chad Sowash (35:31.555)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (35:51.081)

It's funny how our job has gone from like, hey, how can people connect with people and diversity and occlusion and more people and people and like, let's fuck the people. Let's just have shit out there that interview shit and hope that stuff works out. But I'm hearing from job seekers like, I'm applying to tons of jobs. I'm getting, I assume, just caught up in the tsunami of shit and I'm getting ignored. So no one's happy, in this in this scenario. we'll see, we'll see how it ends. But

It's not unfolding to go into a good place. Unlike this show, which is unfolding to be an epic episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Guys, if you're not connected to us, if you're not subscribed, please give us a like, give us a follow, give us a comment. We will be right back.

Chad Sowash (36:26.925)

back.

Do it.

Joel Cheesman (36:40.894)

All right, Chad, it's back to news. But before we get to that, Chad, this next segment is sponsored by our friends at Proven Base. You love free bourbon? Well, you know, who doesn't love some free bourbon, Chad? Am I right?

Chad Sowash (36:43.876)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (36:47.375)

Ooh. yes, yes, yes.

Joel Cheesman (36:56.618)

That's right. Well, well, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen, but you can't win if you don't play Chad. Go visit Chadcheese.com/slash free today for your chance to finally let your liver know who's boss. And now to the news. Recruitix has announced a partnership with Mackey people to integrate AI-powered interviewing into the pre-apply experience. This integration allows employers to conduct initial screenings through AI voice interviews.

Chad Sowash (37:17.583)

lucky.

Joel Cheesman (37:26.196)

Within the application flow, providing deeper candidate insights and reducing application friction. That's per the company. The partnership aims to improve candidate quality and hiring outcomes by shifting candidate assessment to an earlier stage of the hiring journey. Chad, give us a hot take on this move by Recruitics.

Chad Sowash (37:33.423)

Ha ha ha!

Chad Sowash (37:46.574)

Yeah, hot takes are short. You're to have to give me some runway on this one because I I love me some startups, some companies like Recruitix and Maki people that are trying to to move fast and innovate. I just love that. Unfortunately, sometimes when you're moving fast, there are unexpected and unintended consequences. But get ready, kids, because I'm going to get a little wonky on you.

Joel Cheesman (37:49.843)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (38:12.683)

And let me give listeners a little background about me. I was the lead in building the National Labor Exchange where I worked arm and arm with Fortune 500 companies, National Association of State Workforce Agencies, federal and local governments, OFCCP, vets, you name it. Yes, I spent way too much fucking time in Washington, D.C., okay? That being said, yes, I'm not happy. It's even worse now. Anyway, so this type of tech could negatively impact

Joel Cheesman (38:32.52)

And you're still angry about it.

Chad Sowash (38:41.039)

750,000 companies who take US taxpayers money in the form of federal contracts. So no surprise, those companies want to keep receiving that fact taxpayer cash, right? With those contracts. And they also want to lower their risk profiles. Why? Because if you're a federal contractor of the US government and you are receiving tax dollars from the American people and your burden

Joel Cheesman (38:47.776)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (39:10.287)

of fair and equitable treatment of those citizens, it's actually higher because you're taking millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of taxpayer monies, right? That makes sense. You owe the American people a little higher standard. That's what we're saying here, right? So when it comes down to it, you have to treat the customer, U.S. better, candidates better. So over the years, the federal contractors

Joel Cheesman (39:13.928)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (39:22.782)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (39:28.042)

Sure.

Chad Sowash (39:40.42)

have actually worked with the government and they have devised different methods to manage applicant pools and the risk associated. One of those methods is employing data management techniques which allows a company to consider, which is the defined term in legislation. They consider a predetermined set of candidates that meet basic qualifications.

So what does consider mean? It really just means that you've reviewed the resume or application. You've looked at their stuff, right? So instead of reviewing or considering in this case, a huge pile of resumes, it's just much easier to manage only a subset. And that's what this data management techniques is saying. Look, here's a standard operating procedure instead of a thousand resumes, which we just can't go through in enough time. We're going to select in a certain manner.

Joel Cheesman (40:21.802)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (40:32.961)

anywhere from let's say 1030 or whatever it might be. That will actually drop your risk profile. Now with this Mocky People and Recruitix partnership, it changes the game completely. First, the huge pile of applicants, which is growing and growing and growing, becomes more manageable because the tech actually manages the sheer numbers and I love that, right? But here are the unintended consequences. Now you're, you're

Joel Cheesman (40:35.359)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (41:01.923)

You're not just considering a subset, which would make your risk profile low with recruiters and mock you people. are considering all who meet the basic qualifications. You're considering the huge pile. So statistically your risk explodes. Now I hear you. Why isn't consideration good? Of course it is. But from a defensibility standpoint, think of a class action suit. Let's say for instance, like a Mowgli versus Workday.

Joel Cheesman (41:19.872)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (41:31.663)

Okay. That cohort of impacted individuals is already large. Well, imagine this. Imagine it was 10 to a hundred times larger because Mocky people performed pre apply interviews beforehand, right? Exploding that number of considered candidates. Now, at the end of the day, I appreciate Mocky people and recruiters are trying to make the job more manageable and fair, but in the process, they've created literally

Joel Cheesman (41:44.768)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (42:01.666)

more consideration risk for companies. They effectively eliminated a defensible position, which was data management techniques that companies and US government created because they're doing things before the process, right? To address that, it's too much and it's too fast. And it's the unintended consequences. And I'm gonna go back to JT.

Joel Cheesman (42:04.043)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (42:30.147)

What she always says on the show, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And more importantly, with the current administration, it might feel like you're gonna get away with anything, but you gotta remember the adults are gonna show back up someday.

Joel Cheesman (42:33.941)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (42:46.08)

That's why you listen to the show, Chad, because you go deep on these issues. You go deep, and you and you bring a perspective that I, for one, never would have sort of thought about going back to your history with the DC. Yeah. I you know, to me, I find this my I'm gonna have a totally different take on this, because I don't have that experience. But to me, this is this is Chatbot 2.0. everyone, a lot of people believe that the future of

Chad Sowash (42:49.103)

Whew, that was a lot. I need another beer.

Chad Sowash (42:56.227)

They didn't, obviously.

Chad Sowash (43:03.747)

Yeah. Sure.

Joel Cheesman (43:14.93)

Interviewing, hiring, the whole process is going to be this sort of voice, voice generated automation solution. And we have greenhouse acquiring Ezra recently. We have Ashby and Llama. Now we have this partnership with Recruitics and Maki people. it just gives me chatbot vibes. It it might remind me of when Maya was getting acquired when Wade and Wendy.

Chad Sowash (43:26.703)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (43:41.985)

who else we got Alio XOA or whatever they were and and they all got acquired really pretty early. And I don't know if that was a profit no profitability or just everyone wanted to get on it. To me, this feels very much like that. Like we believe this is the future. We're gonna make an acquisition. We're gonna do a deal. and this to me is to me is what we're seeing. Now interestingly out of the out of the chatbot sort of revolution you had one

Chad Sowash (43:46.573)

Maya, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (44:08.604)

Apex Predator kind of come out of that, and it was Paradox, who didn't do a deal until I guess the timing was right. and also a lot of this new tech was coming on. So I think you know, I'm you know, I think timing was perfect for the Paradox acquisition. So I guess it's less about is this the right thing to do? It's this is a race. This is like we'll we'll we'll shoot first, ask questions later. This should have worked out. you know, you have

Chad Sowash (44:21.636)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (44:35.174)

Alex.com, which I'm an investor. You have Tenzo, you have Jack and Jill, which is both job seeker, but this whole voice thing where it sounds like a person, it feels like a person, it and it's sort of it's a it's a gatekeeper to is this really human being? They're all trying to provide tools to do that. I I ultimately think this is a good move by recruits to put a chip on the table to say, look, we're gonna take a bet on this without actually buying the company. Maybe it's a good

They'll be in a good position to buy them in the future if it does work out. But a lot of companies are made are putting down bets that this is the future, similar to how they thought chatbots were the future. And we'll see who comes out of this who if there is an Apex Predator. But yeah, good move by them. I think it's a good move by Greenhouse. It was a good move by Ashby. And it's no surprise that both of those ATSs are sort of the ones we talk about doing cool things, doing progressive things and doing things, putting bets on the future. So that's that's sort of my take.

Chad Sowash (45:14.383)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (45:32.81)

Totally different from yours. I just look at it as as a tech perspective. It's like, look, if we don't buy, if we don't get on board with this technology, we're gonna be left behind and we'd rather take a bet on it, a flyer on it. and if it doesn't work out, that's okay. We at least made a bet on the future. maybe we'll be hu maybe it'll be huge and we'll we'll s we'll hit a home run with it.

Chad Sowash (45:52.944)

I agree and I just think that things need to be thought out. And again, it's move fast, break shit. And that's kind of like the thing that to be quite frank, social media kind of unbroke society to some extent. So we have to be more measured. We have to be smarter about how we do these things. And to be quite frank, mean, actually reached out to CEO of Mocky People, reached out to Adam over at Recruitix and starting to have good conversations with them to help them understand where the problems are.

Joel Cheesman (46:00.882)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (46:22.591)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (46:22.799)

because they don't they don't understand they might have I think like Josh Berson or some shit like that is like what the fuck is this dude doing exactly it's like what the what you know it's just it's weird because it's like we have turned into we've turned into move fast break shit before somebody else gets there and it's like well I don't know if you remember or not but usually the first ones that get there

Joel Cheesman (46:34.41)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (46:41.748)

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Chad Sowash (46:48.547)

are the ones with the arrows in their face, right? Go be smart. I like these moves. I like what they're trying to do. The thing is they really have to do enough due diligence upfront. They got to bring the right experts in to be able to get to this. So I hope they actually land in the right place because right now if I'm a federal contractor and which are pretty much just about every Fortune 500 company that's out there right now.

Joel Cheesman (46:51.764)

Yep. Yep.

Joel Cheesman (47:06.016)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (47:16.185)

There's no way in hell I'm touching this with a 10-foot pole.

Joel Cheesman (47:23.134)

And we didn't even touch on FICRA issues. I mentioned the LinkedIn ghost jobs, which the state of Texas, like there, yeah, there's gonna move fast and break shit while the government eventually catches on and this stuff does come to light and lawsuits are filed. So we'll see. We'll see how this this ends. Moving to our next story, Chad. The three amigos, if you will, HireEasy has partnered with Next.

Chad Sowash (47:28.949)

Mmm. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (47:39.524)

Huh.

Chad Sowash (47:45.487)

You

Joel Cheesman (47:48.725)

That's next with two X's and Talroo to integrate their talent marketplaces and job advertising platform into HireEasy's AI-powered recruitment platform. This consolidation aims to automate candidate sourcing and engagement, reducing manual tasks for recruiters. The next integration is immediately available while Talroo is expected to enter early customer deployments during 2026 before a broader availability. The three amigos, Chad, what you got?

Chad Sowash (48:18.535)

This feels like TauRu next and hire easier trying to build a natural competitor to indeed unlike the paper tiger Zipper cutter has been for years. And all I can say is it's about fucking time. I mean, how many times have we said on the show we're stronger together? Well, it looks like, you know, these three companies are trying to make that happen. So instead of trying to duplicate what your competitor has built and invite some friends over.

Joel Cheesman (48:43.69)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (48:46.441)

and build something together. You've got more resources, you've got more staff, and obviously you're all smaller than what Indeed is or some of the big guys that are out there. So get together, be stronger. I sent a message over to Stephen, the co-founder and CEO of HireEZ, and I asked if one of the sources of candidates are from the ATS and CRM. And he said, yes. He said, yes.

HireEasy rediscovers and re-engages ATS candidates to invite them to apply for the current openings. Basically, our EZ agent, get what they did there, is an orchestration layer on top of the funnel to unify pools from the open web, job board Tauru, vetted community Next, and ATS previous applicants in programmatic ads to be announced with a big player. Ooh, who might that be?

We call it the agentic top of the funnel. That's funny. Now ask yourself is indeed doing that, helping you rediscover candidates within your own system, which you've already paid for. No, they're not doing that. know, big applause to these guys for at least saying, look, we can't take the mammoth down by ourselves. Let's get three Neanderthals together and knock this motherfucker out.

Joel Cheesman (49:51.668)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (50:11.134)

Yeah, the the it's fascinating because all three of these companies have had, I guess you call them major pivots, at least from their world point from their point of view. Hire easy was hire tool. They were sourcing and now they're sort of an all encompassing marketing platform. Taoroo, of course, was jobs to careers, I think. now they're talk and next, of course, was beyond dot com.

Chad Sowash (50:37.635)

Yeah, beyond.com. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:39.114)

By the I don't think Bed Bath and Beyond has done anything with that URL, which is kind of stupid. But that's a different show in a different industry. So all of these companies have a history of pivoting, seeing that something doesn't work, how do we figure it out? and then trying something new. Now now I think they have they have a real mountain to climb. Indeed, has brand, they have resources, they've been around for a long time. I know that people are upset, but yes, I do believe 80% of their customers will stick with them.

20%, however, will look for alternatives, whether it's ZipRecruiter and our example with Hamra or other options, programmatic, et cetera. Ultimately, this conglomerate, I guess, this solution combination will be looked at by a lot of companies. Whether it becomes big or not, you're talking about mammoths and the an like, I don't know. This may this may be more of a a minnow that they catch. History, history.

Chad Sowash (51:33.453)

I'm talking about the Neanderthals taking down the mammoth, taking down the mammoth.

Joel Cheesman (51:36.629)

Hit Neanderthals, but unfortunately, we know what happened to the Neanderthals. They were superseded by the Homo sapiens who now have podcasts talking about the Neanderthals. So, so they evolve. I wish them luck. I I love that they all adapt, they've all changed throughout their history. There may be another change if this one doesn't work. I know partnerships are very challenging. You have different cultures, you have different, you know, there are too many chefs in the kitchen.

Chad Sowash (51:45.731)

They evolved. They evolved, yes.

Joel Cheesman (52:03.317)

Like are all these are all of these complementary? Do they compete? Will they create stuff that competes with each other? Like it's very hard to make these things work. They're hard to work when they're consolidations with acquisitions. It's really hard in terms of partnerships. And we know that all of the leaders of these companies have their own personalities. They're all kind of very different, but also similar. So it'll be fun to watch. I I think it's a it's a puncher's chance maybe that that they make this thing work.

but otherwise it it's tough. I will say that I did some some research on terms of in terms of headcount. So all of them, their two year graph is a decrease in headcount. However, in the last year, they've all added headcount, which tells me that they've they've all realized they have to make just tough decisions, lay people off, reevaluate what they're doing, but they've all come out of that two year degree.

Chad Sowash (52:34.671)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (52:50.573)

Yeah, a bit it.

Joel Cheesman (52:54.868)

decrease into an escalation of what they're doing. So they all t seem to believe what they're doing. If they can all get together and achieve something that that is great, like we'll continue to talk about it and and cheer it on. But history is not necessarily on their side, but we'll be watching and and rooting reading for the Chad's a fan, everybody. Chad's a fan. Yay, ne yay, Neanderthals. all right, we're gonna take a

Chad Sowash (53:15.449)

Go get them guys. Go get them.

Joel Cheesman (53:21.184)

We're gonna take a quick break. Of course, Chad mentions eating eating mammoth right before lunch. I always appreciate that. But guys, if you haven't left us a review online, please do so. It helps us with the the the algorithms. there's more algos than indeeds, and we need to climb to the top. So please leave a leave a review, give us a star, give us a follow. We appreciate it, and we'll be right back.

Joel Cheesman (53:46.549)

Guys, before we get into our final segment, it is sponsored by free t-shirts. Who doesn't love the free t shirts from Chad and Cheese? It's like a it's like a hug, hug from Chad and me on your on your body. But and we have Aaron to thank for all that. Aaron App, you know, the company behind those crazy red shoes all over social media, all over LinkedIn. But you can't get the t shirt unless you go to Chadcheese.com slash free. So go there today to get your t-shirt for that warm hug from Chad.

Chad Sowash (53:51.279)

What?

Joel Cheesman (54:15.388)

And cheese. All right, Chad. Appcast has launched AppCast Career Sites. Wait a minute. I gotta check, I gotta check my notes. Is is this is this a story from from 2010? 2000 what? Okay. no, it's now. Okay, here we go. It's a new product that combines career site design, employer branding, SEO, and recruitment marketing analytics.

Chad Sowash (54:17.699)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (54:21.283)

There we go.

Chad Sowash (54:30.477)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (54:38.698)

The AI Ready Career Site technology aims to improve candidate conversion and support both traditional and AI-powered job discovery. This launch expands AppCast's offerings beyond programmatic recruitment advertising, providing a connected recruitment marketing solution. Career sites, Chad, cutting edge innovation from AppCast. What you got?

Chad Sowash (55:00.877)

We take AI out of the release. It literally is a throwback to 2008.

Joel Cheesman (55:05.214)

And they stuck in they stuck AI in there just to like look innovative. Yeah, this is yeah.

Chad Sowash (55:09.397)

it really just, it just went and got the they went and got the other one. But I mean, we we we make fun, we laugh. But this I mean, again, it all started back in 2008 or so. But going down funnel for these guys just makes sense. It expands the TAM. There's definitely a need as we talked in an earlier, you know, podcast. mean, jobs to web was bought how many fucking years ago? I think it's like

Joel Cheesman (55:14.762)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (55:18.442)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (55:38.64)

2012 or something like that. mean, yeah. So I mean, sold to success factors and I mean, so you've got all these players who were bought, were eaten up by these core systems, these applicant tracking systems, and then they just atrophied and they became shit. So now we have a need once again for career sites, ta-da. And we have an opportunity for companies like AppCast to get into that, right? So, but here's the cautionary.

Joel Cheesman (55:41.0)

I think before that, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (55:52.339)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (56:06.238)

Uh-huh.

Chad Sowash (56:08.697)

part, a cautionary tale for, for, for hiring companies. No, no, Just, just no, especially if you're app cast clients, it is to ensure that the connection to the ATS is not providing disposition data because remember as Lou Goodman said, job descriptions suck, capacity sucks.

Joel Cheesman (56:08.948)

Yeah. Cautionary tale. Is is this is this a history lesson? Is this a history lesson? I think it is. I think it is. It feels like a history lesson. All right, go on.

Joel Cheesman (56:23.988)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (56:37.453)

Disposition codes suck. That's three out of 106 reasons why disposition codes are not the answer, because if you start giving that garbage signal to your vendors, you're just going to get garbage results. So I hope this is more cosmetic. It's more procedural, more focused, more more TAM opening than it is disposition data grab. I hope that's not what it is.

Joel Cheesman (56:56.896)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (57:04.739)

Matt, hopefully you're doing this for the good reasons, man. Hopefully it's for the good reasons.

Joel Cheesman (57:14.826)

So to your point on one hand, our industry is not the most forward thinking industry in the world. And yes, jobs to web, people are still building these things. Shaker's still building career sites, Happy Dance, Happy Dance, like that's a s that's a startup. Happy Dance hasn't been around for 20. Like companies are being started for career sites, for God's sakes. So why in the world would Appcast

Chad Sowash (57:23.631)

Yeah. Yeah. Happy dance, baby. Happy dance. Happy sock. I love those guys. Yeah.

Now.

Joel Cheesman (57:41.673)

I get why an agency would do it. Agencies love it. They get to be all artsy fartsy and brandy and and they love that. But why is AppCast, who's a tech company, who's a programmatic job advertising solution, why in the world would they want to get into career sites? Who bought AppCast a few years ago, Chad? Stepstone. Okay. Who did Appcast acquire a few years ago? Baird.

What does Baird do? They're an agency. What do agencies do? They love artsy fartsy shit that they can do branding, et cetera. So to me, this is Stepstone saying, Hey, you know what? We need more business for Baird. How do we make AppCast a little generator for leads into the Baird business? Well, hey, career sites. And by the way, career sites now with AI, they can be built pretty easily. you can build sites pretty interestingly, quickly with AI. So on one hand, I think

Chad Sowash (58:30.339)

Quickly,

Joel Cheesman (58:37.694)

The whole programmatic business is challenged. We talk a lot, or I do anyway, about how 80% of a company's budget is typically some mix of LinkedIn and Indeed. And then the 20% is zip recruiter, programmatic, dice, and whatever else you can throw into the mix. So it's a it's a fist fight between these companies. And like programmatic from a job seekers perspective is awful. I gotta jump through hoops, I gotta go through many links. Like it's just a it's not a great system. So

Chad Sowash (58:52.227)

Yeah. It's an alley fight. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (59:07.634)

I think if we had the internal numbers for these companies, we would find that they're stagnant, if not decreasing, in terms of revenue. So how do we kill two birds with one stone? We bring more money into Appcast with a new product. We bring more business to Baird because we have sort of a a way like, here's a simple career site. If you want the the the premium model, like we're gonna pass you over to Baird. So now we get Baird more more business. We lock people in more to the Appcast ecosystem.

Everybody makes more money. I I don't think this is a a decision by Appcast. I don't think they would have made this. like let's do career sites. I think it was from up top that said, you know what, we need to like filter more money and opportunity throughout all of our businesses. And we think career sites is a way to do that. And here we go, AppCast career sites.

Chad Sowash (59:56.208)

I disagree to some extent because if you think about it from let's just say from Google for jobs right and trying to get Google juice out of this if you have the company's URL and you're funneling all the data through your platforms What can you do with that right and and how can you also press indeed out of some of those right? So mean, I think there's

Joel Cheesman (01:00:03.625)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:10.474)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:19.636)

No, good point.

Chad Sowash (01:00:20.655)

There's some good strategic reasons for that. And you're also talking about data collection. How much data are they collecting within those websites? It used to be. I mean, with jobs to web, they would create an SEO website and it was all literally cosmetic, but it was also functional from an SEO standpoint. This will happen there too, but there's also going to be data collection. can almost guarantee data collection that happens there. So I think from an AppCast standpoint, that does mean something, which is again, back to my caution.

They look, they're gonna be collecting some data to be able to push back to you. Don't allow disposition data and some of that other data to come flow back through the tube the other way.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:59.742)

Yeah. Since the dawning of this industry, if you control the ATS, you control everything. And if you're a job posting, you're always susceptible to the ATS squeezing you out or make so so I do agree. Like if if this is a a move by Appcast to say, look, the job programmatic thing is challenged, disposition data, aid whatever is that's where the key is. And how do we get Appcast and Bear together where Bear does the the artsy stuff?

We do the back end tech stuff, then we can control the job distribution, what comes in, what comes out. And that does make total sense to me. Almost as much sense, Chad, as the dad jokes that drop at the end of every episode. I know, I know you wanna no well, yeah, I did. Well, I we haven't been on in a while. I wanted to give you a little extra extra special taste of of the dad joke. before you get before you get back to your your World Cup and and so do I, Emmy

Chad Sowash (01:01:39.951)

you did a dad joke earlier. You did a penis joke.

Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you. that's that's bad extra taste.

Joel Cheesman (01:01:58.162)

Emmy's not a fan of the clean jokes, so I'm this is for Emmy. I'm gonna bring bring the dirty back. Bring the naughty back. Chad, Chad, what she's she's naughty herself. Chad, what does what does a lesbian with two peg legs say to her girlfriend? What does a lesbian with two peg legs say to her girlfriend?

Chad Sowash (01:02:01.007)

she is so bad.

Chad Sowash (01:02:17.184)

I refuse to answer the sight that it might incriminate me.

Joel Cheesman (01:02:22.878)

All right, what does a lesbian with two peg legs say to a girlfriend, Chad? Scissor me timbers.

Chad Sowash (01:02:31.107)

Thanks, Emmy. Thanks, Emmy. We out!

Joel Cheesman (01:02:31.25)

We out.