In this episode, Chad and Lieven dive into the world of tech startups, recruitment platforms, and AI in the workplace, while Joel is busy perfecting his tan in Vietnam. Lieven plays tech guru as he explains the mind-numbingly simple three steps of Carve's AI platform and contemplates shoehorning it into their already cluttered software. Chad and Lieven then take a joyride through the chaos that is Indeed's expansion into the staffing industry, lamenting how it's going to screw over staffing companies. They toy with the naive idea of staffing companies uniting to create their own job platform, as if herding cats wasn't hard enough. The conversation wraps up with a desperate plea for the staffing industry to wake up and deal with the mess that Indeed is making.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Chad Sowash (00:29.905)
Yeah, welcome to the lactose free Chad and cheese. no, Chad and leaving does Europe. That's right kids. This week Joel is sunning himself on the beach in Vietnam. But on this week show, carve and artisan go head to head and who'd you rather and leaving helps everyone understand why you should never go full indeed. That's right kids. You should never go full indeed. Let's do this.
Lieven (00:36.846)
uh -huh.
Chad Sowash (01:01.585)
All right, leaving. So a couple of things. First and foremost, just you and me this week, Joel is on the beach in Vietnam, a beach in Vietnam, and actually just got some audio. We apparently have audio from Joel's first interaction with people from Vietnam. I haven't listened yet, so beware, kids. Here we go.
Lieven (01:43.214)
Joel.
Chad Sowash (01:43.665)
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So I didn't vet that. I should have vetted that better. That source sent us some wrong information. That was actually from a movie, Full Metal Jacket. But anyway, I can see you're missing Joel, Levin. So we had to do that. We had to do that to liven things up. How are you?
Lieven (02:06.702)
I'm fine, I'm fine. How are you?
Chad Sowash (02:08.401)
What you been up to? Yeah, it's been a while, man. What you been up to? I know you've been busy. You've been galavanting all over the world. You've got busy things. You've got work to do. What's going on?
Lieven (02:16.462)
Yeah, it's all about AI as we speak. So yeah, I'm teaching a lot now. We're training all our employees in the use of generative AI because according to McKinsey, every white -collar job will be done 40 % more productive by using AI. So we have to make sure that we stay ahead of the pack. It's pretty time -consuming, but it's also very fun to do each day.
Chad Sowash (02:20.497)
Really?
Chad Sowash (02:27.121)
Huh.
Chad Sowash (02:41.009)
So how do you do that? I mean, you've got 50 different companies. Do you work at corporate first and then just kind of like work down, you know, downstream? How does that actually work with a company as large and all the different brands that House of HR has?
Lieven (02:56.11)
It depends. We have a professional streaming broadcasting studio in our headquarters. So I can use YouTube live to stream to our, to our people, but also visit all the companies. And we train the people in small groups, 50 people, 20 people, 30 people, depending yesterday, for example, I did the whole day on what we call the fire starter. So which is like the high potentials of house of HR. It's a select group, 21 people who are getting prepared. They already have all management functions.
Chad Sowash (03:00.049)
huh. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:17.761)
Yeah.
Lieven (03:25.422)
but they're getting prepared for the C level functions. So very important people because they're the future of House of HR. And we are training them, and then they can train their own people. They are the trailblazers. They should be. So busy, but it's fun. It's fun. And each day I learn something new. And it's like a full -time job just to stay tuned.
Chad Sowash (03:47.793)
I would think so. I mean, things are just moving so fast. So trying to ensure that you're getting, you know, not just information disseminated down through the ranks fast, but also being able to train. I mean, because getting information down is one thing, but being able to train is something entirely different. So that's a big lift for you guys, I'm sure. Exactly. OK, well, I tell you what, let's go ahead and let's get into a little shout out action.
Lieven (04:09.326)
Hmm, it is.
Chad Sowash (04:17.841)
You got to give me a second kids. There we go. I knew Joel had a he had an effect for that he had an effect for that. First shout out I'm going to go ahead and shout out to zing for the possibility of being delisted. delisted. First they try to be the German LinkedIn. Then they jacked out of that model and they pick a smaller job board total addressable market.
and go after Indeed. We're going to talk about Indeed later this show kids. Are these guys nuts or is it just me? What the hell is going on over at Zing? It seems like they had a good model starting off, very big tam, and now they're literally just closing that tam down and going after Indeed.
Lieven (05:06.638)
Yeah, they tried LinkedIn and it didn't work out. So then they tried to become Indeed and that didn't work out either. And now they're just slowing down and closing down and that's it, I guess. Thank you, Xeng. See you next time.
Chad Sowash (05:11.217)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (05:21.713)
Yeah, or not for very long. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's very interesting. They got a new CEO and the guy automatically started closing the TAM.
Lieven (05:23.502)
are not, see you. Maybe we won't see you next time, could be.
Chad Sowash (05:35.857)
If you think about LinkedIn kids, it has a much larger team because you have recruiting, but then you also have advertising, broad based advertising. And they just closed all of that down. So they were having issues, obviously hitting the revenues that they were looking for in a much larger addressable market. And then what do they do? They shrink it. Now, I do believe that focus means a lot, although they're not a new company.
Right? So this isn't like a kind of like a quick pivot of a startup. They've been around for a very long time. So this is this is to me it's very odd. To me it's very odd. Do you have a shout out?
Lieven (06:14.67)
I do, I do. My shout out goes to Rafael Alstad, who is the CEO from TLDV. You might not know TLDV. It's a difficult name, TLDV, but it stands for Too Long, Didn't View. So Too Long, TL, semicolon, Didn't View. And then it makes sense. It's a transcription tool. In fact, it's a great transcription tool. So I'm.
Chad Sowash (06:15.857)
Excellent.
Chad Sowash (06:22.705)
Hmm. That's a bad, that's a bad, bad name.
Chad Sowash (06:31.057)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (06:38.065)
Okay.
Lieven (06:39.214)
We're in plenty of meetings, and we have interviews of candidates, so we need to use AI to transcribe all those meetings. And TLDV has a very special feature. You install it, and then it's connected to Zoom, to Google Hangouts, to Teams. And I don't even need, once a meeting is in my agenda, I don't need to be present. TLDV is going to log into the meeting on its own, and it's going to transcribe everything.
Chad Sowash (06:45.169)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (06:52.749)
yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (07:07.374)
And then it's going to, when the meeting ends, the moment it ends, it's going to mail me all the transcriptions. And people will actually see Lievens virtual assistant, TLDV, as a participant in the meeting, but without camera, of course, just the little bullet. And it's a great tool. It works. And I've been testing plenty of tools, but why does my shout out go to that one, to Raphael Alstad? Because I was interested in it, and I checked her website, and I went to the testimonials.
Chad Sowash (07:11.953)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:18.733)
yeah.
Lieven (07:36.622)
And then one of the testimonials said, I'm in love with this app. And I'm saying this because I need to hit my product activation targets, signed Rafael Alstad CEO. And it made me laugh. That CEO has a sense of humor. I liked it. So I got in touch with him on LinkedIn. 20 seconds later, he answered already. Very nice guy. He said, if you have any questions, I'm your personal contact. Let me know, whatever. Great guy. The software is great. I'm testing it right now. And I'll hope.
I hope I'll be helping him with getting their product activation targets on point.
Chad Sowash (08:12.177)
Well, if anybody could, it could be you because you have so many. And again, you were just talking about your entire staff and trying to help them better understand and become more efficient. This is right. Yesterday, I think I had three calls and there were note takers on those calls, AI note takers on those calls. And.
Lieven (08:28.622)
Yeah, it's a big thing, suddenly.
Chad Sowash (08:30.993)
Yeah, yeah, same, same thing. It was a different company, but same thing. And they do the transcript, obviously, and then they automatically summarize and give you an executive overview with that transcript, right? I mean, it's it is incredibly smart. It is. I mean, I was talking to somebody just yesterday on the amount of time that I'm saving using chat GPT.
and not just writing, but coming up with ideas and in different ways to actually, you know, go after certain content and shows and things like that. And it, to me, like you guys are doing it at house of HR, being able to get this type of tech.
instituted into the normal flow and routine is just amazing. So yes, big shout out to him for being funny and being truthful. But at the end of the day, to be able to get your attention, Lieven von Nievenhausen, and to be able to perspectively utilize that tech through, how many employees do you guys have?
Lieven (09:32.174)
6000s something like that.
Chad Sowash (09:33.937)
I mean, come on, man. That's a fucking windfall for a company like that, right? So yeah, that's a big shout out. That's a big shout out.
Lieven (09:40.59)
Yeah, my problem is always, is it safe? I mean, we are having some pretty confidential meetings. If my virtual assistant is entering the meeting and I'm not even there, it's going to make a transcription of something that could be really hush hush. And with a German company, I feel if they claim it's safe, I tend to believe them and I checked it and it seems okay. If it was a Chinese company, I would never be using them. Just you can't be sure.
Chad Sowash (09:46.193)
Yeah? Yeah.
Chad Sowash (10:06.641)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and there are just so many different aspects to that discussion from a trust standpoint, right? From an access standpoint, IP. I mean, just there's a lot of conversations to be had. But still, you're starting the conversation. Most companies are not. Follow, leave -ins, lead kids, get everybody to understand how tech can make them better. Not take their jobs, but make them better.
My next my next shout out is more news from Canoe New in a groundbreaking decision. The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg has ruled that Canoe New, a well -known employer rating portal. It's a it's the it's the glass door of Germany, pretty much. They must release names if ratings are questioned by the companies who are rated. So until now, Canoe New has only provided anonymized evidence from reviewers.
This approach is now changing fundamentally how these systems can do business. So as I've been telling Joel for forever, I think that, you know, first and foremost, Canunu hasn't been lighting the fire, the world on fire. They've actually they've contracted instead of expanding because they have not had a winning model.
But companies like them and Glassdoor, I pretty much, I believe this is the death of them. What do you think?
Lieven (11:33.71)
Strange thing is, I didn't even know Kanunu until yesterday. The fire started meeting with our colleagues. One of my German colleagues told me about Kanunu. And it's just your pity. I totally forgot what she said about him. But she was talking about Kanunu. And I said, Kanuna, Kanunu? Yeah, she said something like Glasdoor. And yes, yes, OK. And we were talking.
Chad Sowash (11:39.537)
Really? Okay.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (11:52.113)
Yeah.
Lieven (11:55.086)
But Kanunu, it didn't ring a bell to me. So if you say they're shrinking, they never got my attention apparently.
Chad Sowash (12:03.441)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they were expanded out into as far as Australia. They were trying to actually get a foothold in the US. And they have just been contracting their footprint dramatically, dramatically. So yeah, I personally, you know, as transparency becomes, you know, the cool fad of the day, anonymity is the uncool thing. Not only just for people who are using it,
you know, anti -TikTok or what have you, but also for those companies. And obviously this to me, companies being able to use the judicial systems to be able to go after companies like Canunu to be able to get the information from people like you and I who are giving them anonymous ratings. That to me is a, it's dead. It's dead.
Lieven (12:56.686)
I'm going to check them out so that I'll know what you're talking about. But my interest is growing because of the changes in Google's algorithm. Google is changing from a focus on content to a focus on trust and authority. And those reviews, like maybe Kununu can offer, actually, they will help you build your trust ranking. So if many people write a review,
Chad Sowash (12:56.753)
Yeah. I was gonna say there's no reason to. You know glass door, you know canoono, they're a dying breed. At least that's what Chad thinks. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (13:23.377)
possible.
Lieven (13:24.974)
All those individual reviews are traceable to existing persons. And if they all claim you are a good company, then your website might benefit from it in the ranking from Google. So for us, those ranking websites like TrustPilot are very important now. And Canunu might be an alternative. I'll check.
Chad Sowash (13:29.105)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (13:39.633)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think there if they can get out of this, this anonymous, you know, side of reviews. Yeah. Yeah, they and it's got to be verified because one of the things that we've seen, especially with Amazon reviews is their bot reviews, their fake reviews. I mean, it's just nothing to pump up.
Lieven (13:48.942)
Yeah, it has to be traceable to a person, not anonymous, indeed. Absolutely.
Chad Sowash (14:03.697)
a person's score, right? So there's got to be some type of verification process that actually happens. And I think most of these companies, the canoes and the glass doors, they're not great at verification.
Lieven (14:17.614)
No, Glossdoor is the same thing. I can write a review, a bad review about a company that never worked. And they tried to offer some barriers, but you can circumvent them.
Chad Sowash (14:22.481)
Yeah? Yeah.
huh. Well, I have something that I believe that you're going to give me a good review on. Okay, leaving after the success of KBOO this year at the E recruitment Congress, I think I found a the next musical group for next year's E recruitment Congress. Are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go.
Lieven (14:37.902)
Mm -hmm.
Lieven (14:43.502)
Alrighty.
Chad Sowash (14:49.777)
German techno.
Chad Sowash (14:55.185)
Yeah.
That's an alf horn. That, that low brr, that's an alf horn. yeah. That's it, man. That's it.
Lieven (15:02.67)
It sounds so noisy.
Lieven (15:08.494)
Thank you.
Okay, why not, why not, why not?
Chad Sowash (15:12.817)
All right, all right, stop it, stop it. They had multiple instruments, there were three dudes, multiple instruments, drums, cowbell, keyboard, synthesizer, you know, you love the synthesizer, and the alfhorn, that big ass horn that they use on the top of the mountains.
Lieven (15:25.742)
Yeah, I know them. I've seen a video about them. Right, right, right now I know who you're talking about. German Techno, right. But yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be, actually it could be. They will never replace cable, of course, never. Of course not. But no. But it could be an alternative. Yeah. It's actually a good idea. It could be fun on stage, yeah.
Chad Sowash (15:33.585)
Yes, German techno. This could be next year's e -recruitment Congress. Okay, okay. Of course, of course not. Of course not. That's not what we're trying to do here. That's not what we're trying to do. We're trying to expand and diversify. Yes. Hey, man.
I think so. I think so. That being said, not just the recruitment Congress, which we will be talking about once we get a date and once we get once we get a venue. Wreckfest is happening on Thursday, July 11th at Neboeuth Park. Joel and I are going to be on the disrupt stage. Unfortunately, you're gonna go on a beach somewhere. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for you. Yes.
Lieven (15:55.278)
huh.
Lieven (16:16.27)
I'll be sitting on a beach in La Gomera. Yeah. It's...
Chad Sowash (16:21.841)
It even sounds more sexy coming out of your mouth.
Lieven (16:24.462)
It's like the fancy version of Denarife.
Chad Sowash (16:28.497)
Hahaha
Chad Sowash (16:33.393)
matter. We're going to be Nebworth Park kids. If you have not been to a rec fest, this is a all hands kind of situation where you bring your staff, you know, 102030 doesn't matter, bring your staff have an all day learning session. This is a single day all day learning session, going to be there with talking about technology going to be talking about best practices going to have an opportunity to be able to have your peers interact with them each other.
Obviously all hands day, not to mention with with other companies who are in the space. So go to rec fast R E C F E S T dot com two events this year, one in the UK and one in Nashville. Check it out. and that being said, it's that time.
Chad Sowash (17:24.497)
Topic. Okay, so right out of the gate, we're going to get into the world of technology with a little game we call who'd you rather here's how the games played. I will give a quick overview of two startups who has recently received funding. Picture this. It's the end of the night. Lights are low in the bar. It's already well past last call. And these are the only two options you have to take home. So the question is, who would you?
Rather, okay, first contestant is carve this from tech .eu Amsterdam based carve has raised 10 million to offload admin from recruiters following the launch of its recruitment platform in March. With the seed funding 10 million to see that's not bad with the seed funding carve aims to accelerate its growth and expand the capabilities of its platform into different domains of the recruitment life cycle.
Industry data shows that anywhere between 20 to 40 % of recruiters day to day is spent on admin tasks, which we were talking about earlier. CARV hopes to automate these processes in order to free up recruiters to focus on the candidate they should be interacting with. Among the investors are Global Founders Capital, GFC, and several independent
angel investors, wow, who previously backed companies like Slack, Miro and Revolut, some pretty big names. The founding team previously built Harvard, a market leader in technology. Wow, that's that's, that's pretty big. Give me a second.
Chad Sowash (19:14.289)
where all my sound effects is.
Chad Sowash (19:20.849)
there it is.
Chad Sowash (19:24.849)
And in this corner, we have Artisan. UK founded Artisan AI. That's right, AI is in the name, so it's got to be good. A startup building AI employees and software for enterprise companies has raised $7 .3 million in funding. The Y Combinator -backed company is founded by 22 -year -old Jasper Carmichael Jack, who's the CEO.
Oxford PhD graduate Dr. Rupert Dodkins, who is the CTO and IBM product and engineering veteran Samantha Stallings, who is the CPO. The company is now based in San Francisco and is building artisans. What are artisans you might ask? Good question. Fully autonomous AI employees and a unified platform to replace the entire SaaS stack.
so that humans and AI can work together seamlessly and enterprise teams can stop context switching. Okay, leaving, carve or artisan, 2 a in the bar, who would you rather?
Lieven (20:37.742)
2 AM, Carve would remind me of Carve and it's Carve. When it's curvy, I'll take it home. So definitely Carve. But I checked them and I kind of like Carve. I was very skeptical in the beginning because looking at their press release, it said something about Carve hopes to eliminate admin from the hiring process, maximizing interaction between recruiters and candidates, blah, blah. And after reading the whole press release, I didn't know what they were actually doing.
It's just some explanation. But then I checked the website, and I slowly grew into it. So I checked it out, and there's a very convenient tab saying how it works, which sounds promising. So I clicked on the tab, and it says, step one, identify tasks. We start by identifying the tasks you want to delegate to Carve. And by determining the context, Carve needs to handle these tasks effectively. So I think, OK, in my case, what will I be doing?
Chad Sowash (21:27.025)
Makes sense.
Lieven (21:34.062)
I would tell Carve, I wanted to write vacancies, to transcribe interviews, to transcribe meetings, write personalized thank you mails when someone applies. I would like the information from an interview being parsed. I would then like it to add the structured information to my applicant tracking system. That's basically it. And then it says step two, customize AI. Next up, we customize Carve's AI to follow your style, output format, and overall tone of voice. So basically,
It's just going to predefine a prompt like make vacancies no longer than one page, use the following structure and don't use words that might be too difficult to read because our candidates aren't the brightest grains in the pack, something like that. And then you have step three, embed Carve. Finally, Carve becomes part of your workflow through a calendar connection and if preferred, an ATS integration. And now it's getting interesting because the first two steps are something we are already doing. We are using different tools to...
Chad Sowash (22:23.313)
Mm -hmm.
Lieven (22:30.062)
do all those tasks. But the third step, embedding it in existing software and existing flows is tricky. Here is where you'll be spending mental amounts of time and money if they screw up. But it's also where you can make the big difference. If they actually succeed in it, that's where the big money is. Suddenly, it's more than just a fancy layer on top of the tools we're already using, like Chetch .tpt, Copilot, Whisper. If they...
Chad Sowash (22:43.953)
Ha ha!
Lieven (22:58.926)
succeed in integrating this, the whole flow in our existing products, it's nice. And I checked it, I looked a bit deeper into it, and I got really interested. They offer automated calendar meeting transcriptions, like TLDV I was talking about, which is nice. They do a lot more. And they also have the plug and play integration with the major ATSs, like Bullhorn, Greenhouse, SAP, Recruity, et cetera. So I'm going to invite them to give them
Chad Sowash (23:12.497)
yeah.
Lieven (23:28.91)
a demo with the connection with Bullhorn. And if they can convince me, then maybe next time we can talk about how it actually works. But to make a very long story short, I'll take Curvy home with me.
Chad Sowash (23:41.649)
Chad Sowash (23:45.937)
All right. All right. All right. So Carve will be going home with leaving. So decision time for me. If you're looking for someone to help you get your life in order or make your day to day operations run well, like a well oiled machine, I believe Carve is definitely your pick. They're practical, efficient and ready to take care of the nitty gritty details around recruitment. And I do believe if they get it right, there's a huge payoff. No question. But.
If you're in the mood for adventure, someone who's pushing the envelope and thinking about how to transform the future, artisan, artisan is the one for you. They're bold, ambitious, and their eyes are set on a horizon filled with autonomous AI employees. And that could change the way we do work and live, kids. So it's 2 a and I'm in need of some adventure. So I am picking artisan.
Lieven (24:43.374)
But do I get it right? Artisan is actually going to create like virtual employees who are going to replace existing employees. Chat, that is very bad for my business. I won't take her home.
Chad Sowash (24:51.921)
Yes, I think. I think it could be good for your business, though, and at the end of the day, let give me a second. Give me a second. I think it could be good for your business from the standpoint of there are different sets of tasks that could perspective Lee be jobs, right? So what you could do is you could make your people more efficient by taking a lot of those things off their off their plate like scheduler.
Let's say just since, for instance, some companies have.
Lieven (25:23.078)
by offering each colleagues like a virtual employee, a virtual colleague, an assistant. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (25:26.833)
Exactly, exactly. Like a virtual assistant, right? So instead of having these schedulers, let's say, in, you know, in your different business units, you now have AI doing all your scheduling, right? And then you can really focus on the things that matter. And that's that's interaction. But at the end of the day, I think both of these organizations, especially carve, I really like what they're doing. And yes, I mean, if I was not making a 2am,
option and looking for adventure, I would definitely pick carve. Again, we're not we're not doing any investing here kids, but at the that's the one that's the one I would pick, but I'm looking for adventure this time. I'm looking for adventure.
Lieven (26:10.222)
What the?
Chad Sowash (26:13.777)
All right, kids, that is who'd you rather and we shall be right back.
Get the right transition.
Chad Sowash (26:28.657)
All right, Levin. So recently, Joel and I highlighted that Indeed announced during their investor update, they will be making big moves into the staffing industry, noting their current recruitment advertising total addressable market is $32 billion, which is only 10 % of the entire recruitment market spend. So Indeed will first be expanding into temp staffing, which adds, listen up.
$128 billion to their $32 billion total addressable market. The vehicle for making this move is indeed Flex, which was born out of the UK startup SIFT indeed acquired back in May of 2019, and which has been working as a temp and gig hiring skunkworks ever since. So during the investor update indeed explained their main goal.
will be to become the primary hiring partner for all employers. Are you surprised? What are your thoughts?
Lieven (27:38.35)
Am I really surprised? Maybe not. Is it a problem? Definitely yes. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (27:40.561)
Mm -hmm.
yeah.
Lieven (27:46.414)
They want a higher rate take out of every successful hire through their platform. That's fine, but the way they're going to approach it is basically they're going to use our candidates, they're going to steal our candidates and they're going to sell them to their own clients and maybe even to my clients. And I'm going to pay for it.
Chad Sowash (27:51.185)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (28:06.385)
Yeah, I mean you already have been. I mean you and staffing companies all over the world. So give us a rundown of just kind of like how you started interacting with Indeed and kind of give us a timeline if you would of House of HR, Leave -In and from where you started and where we are today.
Lieven (28:08.654)
Yeah.
Lieven (28:19.054)
Yeah, okay. Yeah.
OK, so for someone who doesn't really know where Indeed came from and how it works and what's the big thing about this, I'll start from the beginning. So I think 10, maybe 15 years ago, we started using Indeed without even knowing it because they grew by scraping job listings. And they came to our website. I was working for a competitor of House of HR back in the days. And they came to our site. They copied our jobs. And they
Chad Sowash (28:33.329)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (28:42.849)
yeah.
Lieven (28:53.294)
created the biggest possible job database in the world. And then they optimized each job, each single job for Google. And because of Google, they got lots of traffic and they became a huge traffic machine. And fair is fair, they gave the traffic for free to us. They took our jobs and people applied to the jobs, true indeed. And they sent the applicant to us. Very nice. Cool. We learned against it.
And then a bit later, they called us and they said, OK, listen, last year we gave you so much traffic and I could check it. Indeed, yeah. Indeed gave us so much traffic. Nice. OK, if you still want that, you'll have to pay at least for part of it. So we're going to do some organic listings. We are going to scrape all your jobs. But some of those jobs you'll have to promote. You have to sponsor. You can choose which ones. And then you'll get the traffic and we'll still continue working like that. OK.
Chad Sowash (29:30.673)
Yeah.
Lieven (29:49.806)
It was about 10 cents per click back in those days and no cure, no pay. So we used to work with StepStone and Monster where we had to pay much more. So we were still pretty happy and we slowly got hooked to the traffic, the inflow from Indeed. And times passed and years passed. And suddenly a few months ago, Indeed communicated to us that they would no longer offer organic traffic to the companies from the staffing industry. They will no longer scrape staffing companies. We now have to pay for all our jobs.
Chad Sowash (30:18.801)
Mm -hmm.
Lieven (30:19.246)
which is kind of annoying because for our average company, everything becomes three times as expensive. But we got a lot of inflow through Indeed and Fair is Fair, it's their job board. And why would they give us free traffic? Okay, it's a business model. If they want to make it three times as expensive, it's their choice. We might look for different solutions, but okay. But now suddenly everything is becoming clear. Why did they stop offering?
Chad Sowash (30:25.105)
Yes.
Lieven (30:49.294)
free traffic, why did they stop scraping us? Because they had the cunning plan to become a stuffing platform themselves. And if they would scrape our jobs and use our jobs without our knowledge and use it to attract candidates and then use those candidates from our jobs for their own clients, that would be totally illegal. In Europe, I'm not sure about the United States, but in Europe you have a legislation about scraping that says if you scrape a database with commercial value,
Chad Sowash (30:52.209)
Mm -hmm.
Lieven (31:18.19)
You can't use it to compete in the same commercial sphere. So that's what they're doing. If they would scrape our jobs, use our jobs, and they would use those jobs to attract candidates and then steal the candidates for their own gain, that would be illegal. So suddenly they said, we're going to stop scraping, but you can still pay for the jobs. And of course, if we pay for a job being put on Indeed, we can't claim we didn't know about the job being there.
we are giving consent by paying. It's the best consent you can give. So obviously now with the new way of working...
Chad Sowash (31:49.393)
Yeah.
Lieven (31:57.358)
Every company, every stuff in company will have to stop using Indeed because it's like paying your competitor for stealing your candidates and your clients, which will be beyond stupid. And the problem is, of course, Indeed represents up to 50 % of our inflow as we speak. And we are pretty good in e -recordings. And some of our companies only use 20 % from Indeed. But we have Decent SEO. We have intensive social channels. We have some other stuff.
Chad Sowash (32:04.837)
Yes. Yes.
Chad Sowash (32:16.785)
Mm -hmm.
Lieven (32:24.27)
But I can imagine other companies being even more dependent on Indeed. So this is a problem in Indeed. Indeed is a problem in Indeed. So I was thinking, in an ideal world, all major staffing companies would work together now to launch their own version of Indeed in some kind of cooperation. Why not Adekko and Randstad and House of HR and all the others work together? We launch a cooperation, our own Indeed.
Chad Sowash (32:43.569)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (32:48.977)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (32:49.71)
And immediately, we offer all our jobs, all our vacancies. So we offer, we have the volume, we promote it. So we have all the traction, we have all the candidates. It would work from the start. And then we could just share the cost, we could share the profits. And instead of calling it Indeed, I would call it Absolutely. So absolute jobs, it reminds me of the better kind of vodka. Absolute jobs. Absolutely. Maybe it's...
Chad Sowash (33:16.401)
And it would have to be a blue label. It'd have to be a blue label, too.
Lieven (33:18.478)
Yeah, of course, and a nice bottle in which we would sell our jobs, bottle the jobs. But you get the point. I mean, we have to do something. And I think it's maybe the right moment to set together with the whole industry and figure out how to cope with this.
Chad Sowash (33:33.585)
Yeah, I think it's been it's been interesting to watch like, let's say, for instance, Ron, Ron, Todd and Deco, they both tried to get into the tech space and they failed. Ron, Todd bought Monster. They didn't focus on it like a separate business unit like they should have and and hired who the hell knows what happened with veteran hired for God's sakes with a Deco. So, I mean, they've both failed dramatically.
Lieven (33:51.886)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (34:01.233)
I think a lot of that has to do with they're trying to run those tech companies like traditional staffing companies, right? And they have to break out of that. And again, big kudos to you guys at House of HR because you are constantly looking at trying to break your traditional models with tech and with anything that's out there. I don't see these guys doing that. I see that what they've tried to do is they've just tried to assimilate.
Lieven (34:09.87)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (34:30.001)
tech into their tradition, right? And that just breaks the whole fucking system. You can't do that. You have to evolve. So the big question is, do you think Adeco, Ronstadt, do you think they have the capacity, not just in their brain, but in their, in their, in with their investors and with, with their, with their leadership to even think about breaking their traditional model? Do you think they, they have the capacity to do that?
Lieven (34:36.846)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (34:59.313)
because I'm not sure they do.
Lieven (35:01.294)
I think it's even better they should do it because of their investors. If you look at the recruits and the holding above indeed, they have a market capital value of, I think it's last time I checked, I could be wrong, but I think it's four times the one from Rundstad. And Rundstad is so much bigger, the revenue is so much higher. So by being considered a digital platform instead of a traditional staffing company,
Chad Sowash (35:06.609)
They should. Yeah, I agree. huh.
Chad Sowash (35:20.624)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (35:29.358)
your market's capitalization goes up. So investors will love it. So I think if I was Otiko, if I was Rundstad, I would talk to my investor and say, we need to act right now and we're going to do it this way. And for them, it would be perfect solution. So I don't even think they just have the capacity they have. They should be doing it. It's...
Chad Sowash (35:39.793)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (35:47.345)
Yeah, but the biggest issue is the capacity of a leadership and how they lead. And we're seeing that with CEOs who can't get their head around trying to lead remote workers. Right. I see this almost as the same thing. You get used to a tradition, right. You get used to a routine, you get used to a way of making money. And then you're told you can't do that anymore. That CEO is almost worthless in some cases. Right.
Lieven (36:00.27)
Yeah.
Lieven (36:14.638)
Hmm.
Chad Sowash (36:15.409)
So I don't know. We'll see if they have the capacity. I'm not sure that they do. One thing I want to add in about your story with Indeed is Indeed started off as exactly as you had said, as a really Google for jobs. That's how they coined themselves. Google for jobs. There was no resume database, none. And then out of nowhere, after they started getting all of this traction, guess what they did? They added a resume database. That's where you guys started feeding the beast.
Lieven (36:32.75)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (36:42.929)
So you were feeding them with your candidates. Then, then, wait a minute, then they made registration what? Mandatory. Then they made it mandatory. So they were truly stealing your shit. They were, yes, yeah, yeah, but you're not only, they're not only stealing the candidates, right? They're stealing the leads because they can put two and two together and they know who these companies are so they can go directly after.
Lieven (36:43.054)
Yeah.
Lieven (36:53.837)
Indeed. We should have seen it coming, and we didn't. Of course.
Chad Sowash (37:09.937)
these companies. So I think in the progression, yes, if you didn't see a company owned by one of the biggest, you know, staffing companies in Asia pack recruit holdings, if you didn't, are they five of them? my God. So if they, they're that big, right. And you know, they have designs on where? the U S they have designs on the U S. So therefore how do you do that?
Lieven (37:21.55)
Even in the world, they're number five in the world now. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:37.425)
The infrastructure is already there with Indeed. So to me, it just makes sense. But staffing dollars, built. I remember when I was at Monster early on, 75%. That's right, kids, 75. 75 % of our revenue in the early Monster days came from staffing companies. Staffing companies built this technological industry, right? So now you have, guess what, Indeed.
Chad Sowash (38:09.489)
who is turning that on, the people who actually built them, right? So the thing that got me the most was, you know, Chris Himes in the investor update said, look, we're getting about 1 % of the take, where staffing companies are getting 20%, maybe even more in some cases.
What if we just go from 1 % to 10 %? We will undercut the staffing companies. And this is me all paraphrasing, right? We will undercut the staffing companies. We will do it with their candidates. We will do it with their money. And there's not a goddamn thing they can do about it. I mean, it was almost like he was staring in the camera just begging staffing companies to do something about it. I don't know, man. This to me,
was literally just, it was a duel at dawn. And the question is, will staff and companies show up for the duel?
Lieven (39:07.79)
And I've watched the whole episode. You sent me the video from their investor relation call where they actually explained what they were going to do and what their reasoning was. And I watched it. And I was looking, are they actually telling me they're going to use my clients to fill in? And it was that. I watched it three times to make sure. It's amazing. And to be honest, if I was indeed, I probably would be doing the same thing. It makes sense from their point of view. It's perfectly logical.
Chad Sowash (39:16.529)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (39:28.177)
Yeah.
Lieven (39:37.326)
They have everything, like you said, they have the resumes, they have the vacancies, our vacancies, and now they can capitalize on it. But it's a decent thing to do now because they're backstabbing their own clients. The ones who have built them, who have made them what they are, they're just putting them a knife in the back.
Chad Sowash (39:41.137)
Mm -hmm.
Chad Sowash (39:51.985)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I really believe this is a call to all staffing companies. I don't care if it's temp staffing. I don't care if it's executive. I don't care what it is. This is this is where you're going to have to evolve because indeed, first step is into temp staffing, which is one hundred and twenty eight billion dollar TAM. But but this is just because that's that that's the lower side and they already have technology sift now flex indeed flex.
to be able to really focus on that and how they've had a skunk works. They've had this in kind of almost stealth mode for years now, since 2019. So they've been trying to perfect this thing so that they could get to this point. So I think it's interesting, but will this force traditional staffing companies like Kelly to actually evolve or are they just going to literally be a lead machine for the...
Indeed, flex people.
Lieven (40:54.606)
I can't imagine many big stuff and companies working with Indeed, let's say within six months. Everyone is going to look for a way out now and we still need them until we found a different way or an alternative way to get the traffic, to get the candidates. But I can't imagine one of my companies, one of, sorry, one of my colleagues and our competitors not having the same stream of thoughts right now. We're all looking for something, I think.
Chad Sowash (41:18.961)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I tell you what, in closing, leaving, I'm going to ask you to do this. Make a plea to the staffing industry as a whole and what you would like to see the entire staffing community do as an ecosystem as opposed to separate pieces. What would you like to see them do to be able to respond to indeed?
Lieven (41:44.142)
As I said before, I would sit around the table with the biggest stuff in companies in the world and say, we do it. Indeed used to work. It gave us the traffic we needed. Why don't we launch around Indeed, a corporation? The five biggest ones take all 20%. And we share the profit, we share the cost. We all got better out of it. And we have it in our own hands. We are not depending on a company who might do what Indeed has done right now, because we couldn't let this.
We couldn't leave this to LinkedIn, for example. They would do just the same thing. LinkedIn is in perfect position to do just the same thing. So it's not like I'm trusting them either.
Chad Sowash (42:17.457)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (42:26.097)
I definitely wouldn't. And I think for any startup that's out there today who we've Joel and I have been talking about the staffing, the staffing industry needs to have an operating system, much like an Uber operating system, right? They need to have an operating system.
If you were that company, and there are many of them that are out there, by the way, if you were that company, this is your time in the sun. You better be calling Levin. You better be calling Ronside. You better be calling a Deco to have these discussions about how your technology can obviously help leapfrog that of what indeed is doing. But in this non -cheeseman world of the Chad and cheese.
podcast the chat and leaving does does Europe I want to leave you with with this leaving
Lieven (43:24.046)
Joel.
Chad Sowash (43:26.865)
you enjoy yourself, Joel. And all I gotta say, Levin, that's another one in the books. We out.
Lieven (43:35.214)
We out.
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