Indeed's Stranglehold Gets Tighter
- Chad Sowash
- 10 hours ago
- 35 min read
Strap in, kids—because Indeed just tightened the screws, slapped on the velvet handcuffs, and called it “innovation.” In this episode, Chad and Cheese break down how Indeed’s Connect program is less “next-gen hiring” and more “1997 job board with a cover band and a shakedown fee.”
We get into:
Why Connect is looking more like a jail cell than a product suite
How Indeed is setting you up with the carrot… then hitting you with the stick
The desperate new metric they’ve cooked up to spin their model into relevance
Why disposition-data grabs are a nonstarter for anyone with a brain and legal counsel
It’s snarky. It’s spicy. It’s brutally honest. And it’s exactly what HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast was built for.
Indeed wants control. Chad & Cheese want answers. And this episode brings the heat.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheesman (00:33.838)
We ain't no Senator, son. It's the Chat and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, 50-year mortgage Cheesman.
Chad Sowash (00:41.417)
This is Chad, Velvet Handcuff Sowash.
Joel Cheesman (00:45.006)
And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, Personio packs it in, indeed hopes to cash in, and everyone is apparently dining in, as in dining at home, not at Chipotle.
Joel Cheesman (01:04.309)
Let's do this!
Chad Sowash (01:09.247)
It's fucking cold outside, dude. This is ridiculous.
Joel Cheesman (01:11.694)
It's called out. It's called out. we're recording this on veterans day. Um, and I know you, you, you're kind of, you're kind of, you don't love it. Like you don't love the happy veterans day. You'd rather have someone buy you a beer. We've had that conversation. Maybe you, maybe you forgot, but at Jeremy's school today, they had a big veterans day presentation. And, uh, this morning I said, you gotta go wear something red, white, and blue. It's veterans day. And Jeremy's.
Chad Sowash (01:29.225)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (01:37.124)
cool.
Joel Cheesman (01:39.82)
Jeremy's idea of red, white and blue is a man's city Jersey that just happens to be red, white and blue, moderately red and white, but a lot of blue in it. and then, and then he asked me, if we had any veterans in our family. And I mentioned the ones that I knew of. And I mentioned you because your uncle Chad told my kids and he said, tell Chad happy veterans day. So hopefully an eight year old can wish you happy veterans day. If not, you know, grown adults.
Chad Sowash (01:47.807)
There you go. Kill it. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (01:58.897)
mm-hmm, yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:06.398)
Of
Well, well, well, well thought out little guy. Well thought out. Happy Veterans Day. Yeah. I mean, Veterans Day, we've talked about this before. I hate where, you know, we get celebrated on one day and it's not we, I mean, I don't generally wear it on my sleeve too much. I do have flags and stuff in the background, but I, when I'm out of the house, I mean, it's most people don't even know that I've ever even served unless, unless I bring it up.
Joel Cheesman (02:14.51)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (02:29.974)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:37.871)
which is, which is cool. Some people wear it on their sleeve, which I totally appreciate. And it's part of their identity. whether they were in two, four, 20 years, doesn't matter. And some just kind of reservedly. So, you know, they talk about it. They don't talk about it. It's all good. Yes. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:43.885)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:54.478)
and families too. mean, that's kind of been broken, but when we grew up, was like, know, grandpappy served in World War I, pappy in like Vietnam, and it sort of went on. feel like that's Desert Storm a little bit, but I feel like the generational thing isn't what it used to be back in the day. But in the presentation, they had everyone stand up and they were like, all the Marines stand up, all the Coast Guard, which I don't think it was anybody, but in the got to the army,
Chad Sowash (03:04.211)
Yes.
Joel Cheesman (03:23.714)
And there was an old like, would love this old, like the guy looked like he had eight packs of cigarettes before he came to the presentation, grizzled old guy, Vietnam vet and had what I thought looked like to be like an old Rangers army Rangers, fatigue on, and he was one of those in it. You know, that dude wears that thing probably every day, and shows off his veteran pride with bells with bells on. So you missed me last week. I was out.
Chad Sowash (03:39.188)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (03:47.145)
Love it.
freaking freaking love it. Yeah, no, we missed you. Had a good time. Don't get me wrong. Had a really good time. Talked a little bit about the Amazonification of the hiring process, the possibility of that. Got into a couple of discussions on LinkedIn around that. I mean, it was really a big topic and it's something that we're going to talk about in the coming weeks as we get into our road show, our road trip too.
Joel Cheesman (03:54.892)
Yeah, I know.
Joel Cheesman (04:05.474)
Yep.
Joel Cheesman (04:09.816)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (04:19.406)
Yeah, our roadshow, which we'll get into, think, in a shout out. But anything else? mean, lots going on. don't know if you covered, mean, tariffs, 50 year mortgages, new STEMI checks, gay marriage.
Chad Sowash (04:28.667)
Yeah, mean, 50-year mortgages, yeah, 50-year mortgages just came out, the whole gay marriage thing. I'm so glad that the Supreme Court just cut that off. Decision's been made. I mean, let that shit go. But 50-year mortgages, mean, Jesus Christ. mean, people aren't buying homes until they're 40 now. Now, they're...
argument's going to be, well, that can push it down. Well, I mean, you push it down to 35, right? 50, 85 before you, I mean, or 80, let's say, before you pay it off. And then you take a look at the interest in the actual interest payment and how much you will be paying over 50 years is going to be four times that. I mean, it's just, is, this is nothing but good for banks. This is great for banks. This is not good for people. This is not good for citizens.
Joel Cheesman (04:53.526)
huh.
Joel Cheesman (05:06.141)
huh.
Joel Cheesman (05:10.285)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (05:16.344)
no, banks would take a dollar a month for the rest of your life and your children's lives if they, if they could. But yeah, it's, I think it's like 10 years. It's like $2,000 equity in your house because you've been paying interest on it for so long. And did you see, did you see Trump's truth post? had FDR 30 year mortgage. Then he had Trump 50 year mortgage as if to somehow, you know, connect him to FDR in some form or fashion.
Chad Sowash (05:20.003)
yeah, easily.
Chad Sowash (05:29.439)
Yeah, ridiculous.
Chad Sowash (05:44.223)
Well, and it's interesting too, because FDR, one of the biggest socialists of our time. mean, yeah, I mean, so to be able, and this this literally just demonstrates how much Trump doesn't know and or understand history is one aspect, 30 year mortgage versus 50 versus, I mean, the actual comparison between an FDR and a Trump. Now he would love,
Joel Cheesman (05:50.36)
huge. I mean, the Great Depression led to FDR.
Joel Cheesman (06:03.918)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:14.185)
to get that 12 years, mean, 12 years elected into office, FDR didn't get all 12 years, but he would love that. That's another comparison that he would love too, I'm sure.
Joel Cheesman (06:14.286)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (06:21.059)
Yep.
Yeah. Any, any, what do think about the tariffs? You talked about the Supreme Court and gay marriage. What do think Supreme Court's going to land on tariffs?
Chad Sowash (06:33.183)
I think that the opening arguments are kind of like a way to get us all excited about the process of them going away and then they don't. It is way too much power for one branch, the executive branch to have, something that they definitely brought up. The thing is, SCOTUS.
Joel Cheesman (06:44.064)
A premonition.
Chad Sowash (07:02.001)
in this case, could literally save the economy by killing those tariffs. SCOTUS would save the economy. Not Trump with these stupid fucking tariffs, which are killing us right now, and they're going to kill us for years. So SCOTUS could actually save us. Will they? No fucking clue. And good God, man, that's... My brain's going to hurt thinking about if a very heavily Republican conservative
Joel Cheesman (07:12.899)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (07:31.746)
Yeah, conservative.
Chad Sowash (07:31.775)
court actually does that or not. We'll see.
Joel Cheesman (07:35.278)
Yeah, I don't, think they're toast. to the open remarks, like the first argument by the Trump team was sort of squashed by the Supreme court and they had to shift to like a different argument. so like, I don't see how you get out of this. This is a tax that constitutionally is a Congress thing. Um, I mean, the president should not be allowed to say, Canada, nice commercial. I'm going to add 10 % to your tariff. Like that's not how this works.
Chad Sowash (07:52.583)
yeah.
Joel Cheesman (08:05.066)
And I, I have this discussion with my wife all the time who's like super liberal Canadian and, and America's like, it's dead, it's crumbling. And I keep saying like, the institutions are going to hold, trust me, like they're going to hold. And in my defense, the Supreme court kind of holding, holding firm on some of this stuff. And I do think that, Trump's hold on Congress as we go into an election cycle is going to like start weakening and he's going to.
Chad Sowash (08:06.783)
It's a crime family. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (08:34.638)
He's going to be lame duck before you know it. He's not going to run for a third term. I don't see that happening. So I, I'm kind of optimistic on a veteran's day that the third branch of the government is kind of holding, holding firm on some of these issues.
Chad Sowash (08:42.495)
I hope so. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (08:48.849)
I hope so. They've blown through so many of the backstops already. We need to have one of them catch. I mean, that's, we have to have one of them catch. So let's, let's hope it's this one. Let's hope it's this one. Ooh. Yeah. They, who are turning in their graves right now saying, what are these fuckers doing?
Joel Cheesman (08:59.128)
Yay. Yay founding fathers. Yay. Dead, dead white people. Yay. Dead white people.
Joel Cheesman (09:08.684)
Yeah.
Yay, dead presidents. Yay, dead presidents.
Chad Sowash (09:14.303)
okay, shout out.
Joel Cheesman (09:20.43)
All right, Chad, I got one for O'Dally's Lounge and Restaurant. What the hell is O'Dally's Lounge and Restaurant? Well, you saw the UPS plane go down last week. I don't know if you guys talked about it on the show or not. So anyway, this plane crash, although being a disaster and sad moment for a lot of families and people, the crash happened very close to a restaurant called Stooge's Bar and Grill in Louisville.
Well, as can imagine, no one's working at Stooges Bar and Grill anymore, at least for the time being. So, O'Dally's Lounge, which is nearby and still open, is now offering the workers from Stooges Bar and Grill to come work for them as a backstop for their revenue and their, salaries that they're, missing out on. The owner of Stooges, or O'Dally, sorry, Debbie Self.
started to go fund me. If you guys are interested in supporting that cause, you can go to go fund me, search a Stooges Bar and Grill, and you can find out more about that. Some of these families, according to the owner, have been there for 20 years. It's a family institution. Now I went and looked up dollies and Stooges. Stooges is a little bit like Hooters, a little bit twin peaksy. So, you know, a feel good story. Sure. And if you go to
Chad Sowash (10:37.599)
Okay. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (10:44.686)
If you go to Odali's, this is like South side Louisville. Uh, if you don't know Louisville very well, the East side is nice downtown's okay, but like South is, you know, redneck and it's of course light and PBRs. And so if you go to Odali's, uh, there's a, the menu, there's a, there's a item called the spicy double D's. I'll leave, I'll leave it up to you to decide what that is, or you can just go Google it. But yeah, between spicy double D's and some Hooters workers, like people are joining forces.
to help this cause. shout out to Odali's lounge and restaurant to be the support for the, for the ladies and other workers from Stooges bar and grill. We love you down there.
Chad Sowash (11:22.985)
Double D's the support. That's a lot of support for Double D's.
Joel Cheesman (11:26.626)
I want to know if our man, Matt Lavery ever ventured into a Stooges Bar and Grill or O'Dollie's and his time at UPS. Unfortunately, we can't, you know, we can't ask him, but I, yeah, I kind of, I kind of had this vision of, of Mr. Lavery enjoying some double D's down at a Stooges and some.
Chad Sowash (11:37.042)
I'd have to imagine, I would have to imagine that he did.
Yes. yeah.
Chad Sowash (11:46.655)
I mean, it's on the menu, why not? I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna pull two together. We've got a shout out and we're gonna talk about travel. That's right. Travel, of course, sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Whenever we travel, we take a little Shaker with us. And you can too, just check them out at shaker.com. So my shout out this week is to this week's road trip. Dude, I'm pretty damn excited.
Joel Cheesman (11:48.11)
We're in the Jersey, baby. We're in the Jersey.
Joel Cheesman (11:55.31)
Speaking of double D's.
Chad Sowash (12:15.305)
for the next two RL 100 events in San Diego and Dallas. If you're an HR practitioner in or around San Diego or Dallas, you might be able to, there might be some seats left. I'm not 100 % sure, might have to ask Jamie, but you can go to ChadCheese.com and register, actually have a register link on the header. I'm a big fan of closed door sessions with directors, VPs and heads of talent where we can have no bullshit discussions about.
Joel Cheesman (12:18.339)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (12:36.611)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (12:44.191)
As I had said earlier, the Amazonification of hiring, browser wars, the economy, and how all those things might and are already impacting the world of work. So really excited about that. Can't wait for a little cheese time, a little time with cheese.
Joel Cheesman (12:59.606)
Love events.
Joel Cheesman (13:03.886)
Love, love events. Almost as much as free stuff, Chad. Almost as much as free stuff. Let's hear about free stuff from our, from our kilted wearing barrel chested friend, Stephen McGrath.
Chad Sowash (13:07.039)
I love some free stuff.
Chad Sowash (13:24.479)
Is he wearing a kilt?
Chad Sowash (14:37.951)
He always comes through, always comes through.
Joel Cheesman (14:41.09)
Yeah, yeah, if you need a reason to watch the show, might be it. That might be the reason.
Chad Sowash (14:50.025)
Possibly, possibly.
Joel Cheesman (14:52.951)
thank you, Steven, for that. was, that made my day. I hadn't seen that. That was, that was a surprise for me. So that was, that was nice. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Chad Sowash (14:58.879)
That's new. You're welcome.
Joel Cheesman (15:05.244)
that sound must mean it's time for our fantasy football update sponsored by our friends at factory fix Chad. And speaking of Steven, he's, he's moving up the ranks and he's now he's now lobbying the lower level teams to trade him their best players so that he can be a winner in the game. But here's our leaderboard from first to worst. got Courtney Nappo, Mackenzie, mad dog, Maitland and Jada Weiler in the top three. The women are crushing it.
Chad Sowash (15:24.575)
That's wrong.
Chad Sowash (15:31.615)
Killing it. Killing it. Love it. Love it.
Joel Cheesman (15:32.845)
This season, women are crushing it. I'm at, I'm at number four, hanging onto that, that last, playoff spot. Steven McGrath coming up strong, coming up strong, followed by David Stiefel, Megan Radigan, William Carrington. You're at the number nine spot. Ginger Dodds, Jason Putnam. And what a surprise. Jeremy Roberts, not so proud Texan, coming up.
Chad Sowash (15:55.103)
Kill me, Jeremy.
Joel Cheesman (15:58.515)
at the 12th spot. is winless by the way, winless. I'm gonna start lobbying for somebody to just phone it in for Jeremy so he can have at least one, at least one win this year.
Chad Sowash (16:12.287)
We could do LinkedIn polls. Who should Jeremy start this week? Anyway.
Joel Cheesman (16:16.79)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we could speak. Speaking of losing, let's talk. God. Layoffs. Okay. All right. First off, Munich based personio has announced another major round of layoffs and the closure of its us operations, marking its third significant work workforce reduction in less than two years. The company confirmed that 165 employees or about 10 % of its global workforce were laid off as part of its effort to reach profitability.
By next year, not to be outdone indeed has quote made the difficult decision to eliminate a very small number of roles in quote, but an exact number has not been disclosed per an it business insider story, but wait, Chad, there's more you drop Steven on me. I'm going to drop this one on you. A handful of disgruntled Conde Nast employees, confronted HR chiefs, Stan Duncan about the company's recent decision to shutter teen Vogue. One of your favorite publications, Chad teen Vogue.
Chad Sowash (17:02.876)
no.
Chad Sowash (17:10.921)
Mm-hmm.
yeah.
Joel Cheesman (17:14.798)
Check out the video from this altercation.
Joel Cheesman (18:03.512)
Dan is hating life right about now.
Chad Sowash (18:06.269)
What a ball this fuck.
Chad Sowash (18:21.147)
I've directed.
Joel Cheesman (18:40.654)
What are you going to do to stand up to the Trump administration at the end? So, so these teen Vogue workers, it could be called, I don't know, sandbagged, Stan just wanted to show up, talk about the, the closing down where their jobs, and that was his sort of caught off guard reaction, but this is what HR corporate America is dealing with.
Chad Sowash (18:48.511)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (18:59.359)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (19:05.858)
these sort of video social media shares, episodes anyway, layoffs, teen Vogue, any thoughts on, on the news of, of some layoffs in our industry and abroad.
Chad Sowash (19:20.285)
Yeah, Personia is interesting because obviously, you know, they've been trying to, you know, come to America, trying to be able to penetrate this market. And it's odd that they would go ahead and retract. I know that, you know, it's not a great market right now, but to be able to really, I mean, they're signaling defeat in the U.S. and it's going to be interesting to see how they try to come back because they're going to have to. I mean, they're too big.
not to be able to try to come to a market this size. On the content asset of the house, if you're CEO and you can't talk to your people, then you're worthless. well, then the worse, then worse, then worse. you were head of HR and you can't talk to your people, human resources,
Joel Cheesman (19:59.683)
No, he's H he's head of HR. He's not CEO, but still. Yeah. Yeah. That's even worse. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (20:11.64)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (20:13.363)
I fire yourself. I mean, there's no reason for that piece of shit to be around. I'm directing you back to where you work. Fuck you, Stan. Go ahead and fire me and tell me what my severance is, asshole. It's weird.
Joel Cheesman (20:18.798)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (20:27.192)
Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird. It's a tough to be in the media business. by the way, this, this time, time of year, person personio is huge. Like this, to me, this is really like, this is a big story. We're talking about a company that's raised just short of a billion dollars of $8.5 billion valuation. made, made big waves not that long ago about we're coming to America. This is a thing. You this is a, I think, you know, German company, which, know, should have their shit together and know what.
Chad Sowash (20:34.055)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (20:57.048)
know what they're doing, not to be, not to be nationalistic, but, for that, to me, it's like deal and rippling have own it. Like everyone that has sort of come in as as a wannabe deal, rippling, solution and, Personia was one of them. think them leaving the U S is a big vote of confidence for deal and rippling. all the others that have come along, same thing.
Chad Sowash (21:00.093)
and it's kind of hard.
Joel Cheesman (21:26.39)
So to me that's really big news because if you depart the biggest economy on the planet after having the kind of money that they've had invested, that's like a big, big thing. Indeed, I think it's fewer developers. know the job board doctor close to your heart talked about the mentorship programs and that sort of falling through, which says they need fewer.
Chad Sowash (21:51.059)
Yeah, with Indeed.
Joel Cheesman (21:53.657)
people to do the development stuff that's going on there. know that they've launched or that they've really gone in on Salesforce agent agents at the company. that's that's that. Kanye Nash. thought I I think it's, it's, it's a symbol of the times. if you, if you employ young younger people, like they expect this expect to be on camera, expect to be sort of.
Chad Sowash (22:03.807)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (22:18.606)
Where's the transparency? Where's the truth? Like just tell. And I love the comment about like, you know, you told us to come in four days a week. We were working from home, probably whatever. And then now it's like, and now we're done. you, you brought us in, we made, you know, we made life changes probably, and now this has happened. So, um, yeah, not a good look for, Conde Nast or Teen Vogue. One of my favorite publications as well. Chat has you, as you know.
Chad Sowash (22:27.081)
Yeah, this is where we work.
Joel Cheesman (22:52.226)
Alright, if you wanted, okay.
Chad Sowash (22:52.445)
Pause for a second. Pause for a second.
Chad Sowash (23:14.685)
and hit it.
Joel Cheesman (23:16.182)
All right, kids, you want indeed. We got the mates today, baby. Let's start with some indeed connect conversation. we got our, we got our grubby little hands on a presentation Chad being shown to indeed customers and prospects touting all the shit. They're hoping to ram down your throats in 2026, also known as indeed connect deck was received, that we received was entitled innovating for the future. That's an original title. It outlines indeed strategic pivot.
Chad Sowash (23:20.946)
Yes.
Okay?
Joel Cheesman (23:45.27)
a new set of solutions for 2026 and how they plan to optimize their customer relations in the coming year. Chad, what were some of your takeaways from the presentation?
Chad Sowash (23:56.841)
So it's interesting just to be clear, I received five different decks from a bunch of different sources. Because, and they were all different. Which is one of the reasons why we're not showing this, because we don't want to actually, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they were different and they were put together specifically for the individual who was receiving said,
Joel Cheesman (24:08.739)
Mm-hmm.
drastically different or vaguely different.
Chad Sowash (24:25.427)
presentation and it's interesting on what was not there versus what was there, right? Versus, you know, some others. So anyway, so indeed is talking about this new product called connect, right? And it's something that's really supposed to be focused on innovation and unlocking innovation.
Joel Cheesman (24:29.518)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (24:51.579)
And all these wonderful things that Indeed's been talking about for years, but Indeed Connect isn't innovation. It's more like velvet handcuffs for an Indeed Connect jail cell. Indeed will try and sell it as the next generation of hiring AI powered insights, smarter matching, seamless ATS integrations, but beneath the gloss.
It's nothing more than a clunky 1997 job board experience with a new name and a new paint job all polished up for the investor deck. And here's where they're tightening the cuffs kids. AI exclusivity. You don't get innovation. You buy it. Exclusive access to basic tools like candidate summary and knockout questions are available in a, and only in a pay to play kind of scenario. And
Get the history lesson ready, kids. Yep. Because there's a history lesson here, and I want to set it up.
Joel Cheesman (25:47.835)
okay.
Chad Sowash (26:00.361)
So Monster.com rolled out its patented Sixth Sense Search technology, which was developed through its acquisition of Trovix Inc. on February 1st, 2010. It was semantic search, really the first of its kind in the job board space, and a huge upgrade from their normal search experience that everyone else had already caught up to. But instead of making this new tech a default part of the experience,
and really upping monsters game. Guess what they did? They charged for it instead. So you couldn't actually gain that premium experience. That's big differentiator, market differentiator, unless you paid for it. Nobody used it and it died. Indeed is trying to do the same thing, taking basic upgrades and charging as a premium. So let's move on to the marketplace side of the house. There are benefits, which is more of like a glass door move.
Joel Cheesman (26:49.806)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (26:56.999)
You can brand your jobs right before your competitors start running ads on your company page hosted on indeed. So indeed go figure they've got these, these company pages, which everybody has had for decades, right? Now you can pay. Yes, you have to pay to ensure that your competitors jobs are not listed on your page. It's not innovation. It's a fucking shakedown, right? and then there's a data grab.
Joel Cheesman (27:03.362)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (27:14.958)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (27:21.718)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (27:27.259)
Indeed wants your hiring signals, your disposition code, your private performance data, all defined to their algorithms and their revenue metrics, not your success. Then there's the average revenue per job post posting smoke show that we'll talk about in the next segment. But all the preferred terms, exclusive tools and smart matching are nothing but a Farrah Fawcett poster for your Indeed Connect jail cell.
Joel Cheesman (27:45.646)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (27:55.537)
a glossy illustration why they tighten control over their very ecosystem. They fucking broke indeed connect as a pair of velvet handcuffs, locked jail cell. And the only thing that is free is your data in their system. It's a fucking mess.
Joel Cheesman (27:55.671)
Hello.
Joel Cheesman (28:19.8)
So as you were saying, this is sort of a sideshow. I thought of jazz hands, as you were saying it. didn't, I didn't interrupt you cause you're on a, you're on a roll there. I'll, I'll, I'll preface my comments with a recent interview that Deco did with Fortune. Deco won't come on our show, but he'll go to Fortune. hat, hat tip to the, to the reporter at Fortune.
Chad Sowash (28:24.479)
Ha!
Chad Sowash (28:45.023)
Mmm.
Joel Cheesman (28:46.786)
who asked him if he sees a world in which agents operating on behalf of both employers and job seekers will eventually be able to negotiate salaries and job titles without human interaction, which is what I had basically my comment on, their, their work, whatever annual event, Deco laughed according to the report and said, quote, that would be fantastic.
Chad Sowash (28:59.113)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (29:12.92)
There's more, there's nuance, but the reality is I really believe there are things human can do way better. Now.
We love it when the CEOs say the quiet part out loud. Deco could have said, that's ridiculous. No way are we ever going to replace human beings recruiters. And like he could have, he could have spun it as we're not even thinking about agents talking to agents, but he said that would be fantastic, which means he's at least thinking about it. And he's publicly willing to say that he's thinking about it. So, so to me, this whole connect talent, scowl, whatever.
Chad Sowash (29:24.915)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (29:42.911)
He wishes. Yes, yes.
Joel Cheesman (29:51.095)
scout thing that they have. This is all laying the groundwork for an eventual future that they see of job seeker agents and employment agents doing the whole heavy lifting of the interviewing and all that process until they can hand you off on a silver platter staffing agency style to the company and then get the disposition data from the ATS to then charge you for a higher a la staffing firm. So this was
Like part carrot, part stick. The carrot part was the integrate with us, join us, right? It was the Yoda, Darth Vader. this is like, get the platinum AMEX card. This is what this is. You're going to get shit that nobody else gets if you do this stuff. And here's your benefits. Here's yeah, like, but, but you pay for the platinum, right? But, but it's worth it. Cause you're getting all this shit. So.
Chad Sowash (30:42.939)
if you pay for it.
Joel Cheesman (30:50.904)
Part of it was like, we're going to make, you're going to be special. Right. And then, and then they threw in the stick and the stick was you mentioned, you know, pay for this market shit or your competition's jobs are going to show up when people search for jobs at your company. That will make them disappear if you pay the money. But if not, you're going to have to compete with all the other people that are trying to get those jobs when they search for shit at your, your company.
the advanced sourcing stuff felt like it should be ran rebranded, like pink slip screening, because all the recruiters, that's what you're going to get when you use this product is your pink slip, because they won't need you anymore. When this shit gets automated and they can source all the candidates from your ATS and from indeed. so to me, that was maybe even a little bit of Trojan horse with the carrots and the sticks. the other thing I've heard about, vaguely is that the contract thing.
is relatively new at Indeed, if not totally new. Like people aren't used to signing contracts from what I understand in this fashion with Indeed. So they're throwing in the whole like LinkedIn now contract 12 month commitment thing, which I've heard a few people say that that's not generally their style. So they're kind of slipping that in under with all the jazz hands and what they're doing. So make no mistake. This is part of a worldview by Indeed and recruit holdings.
that eventually the people part is going to be, is going to be gone. my opinion, I don't have proof of that, but that's just my take after 25 years of being in this business. They want to replace everybody.
Chad Sowash (32:32.371)
Yeah. So to your carrot and the stick, what they're doing is they're showing you a carrot and then they're hitting you with the stick. You're not getting the carrot. You're getting hit with the stick. That's, that's all there is to it. Now, last week we actually talked about, Scott Galloway says it all the time that, know, your job's not going to be taken from, you know, by a person or by AI, it's going to be taken by a person who knows how do you use AI? And my response was bullshit. That's step number one. Step number one.
Joel Cheesman (32:56.173)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (33:02.451)
Step number one is that your job could be taken by someone who knows how to use AI. Step number two, that person using the AI is training their replacement. That's step number two. It's very simple. So all of these rich guys who are saying that AI is not going to take, no, they're trying to stay away from the pitchforks. That's what they're doing. It's all bullshit. They want you to train the AI. Everybody's saying the AI, AI is not ready for this shit.
Joel Cheesman (33:08.067)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (33:15.384)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (33:31.559)
No, it's not ready for this yet. You're right. Have we seen how fast this, how fast this shit has gotten good? It's gotten great, it's gotten better. It's just, it's just gonna happen that way, right? So yeah, I think from the carrot stick standpoint, they're showing you the carrot, they're hitting you with the stick, they're not gonna get the carrot motherfuckers. You're not. Whether you're an agency, whether you're a direct employer in agencies, come on guys. You know what they're doing. They're cutting your commissions. They're putting new...
Joel Cheesman (33:38.554)
huh.
Chad Sowash (34:00.475)
new sales plans in front of you to hit certain goals. And then if you do that, then you can keep your commissions. If you don't, then you lose commissions and is different from agency to agency. And that's how instead of trying to standardize this, they're doing this different from agency to agency, because first and foremost, they don't want to piss the big ones off. The little ones they don't give two fucks about secondarily. Yeah, Secondarily, they don't want guys like us to know that there's a standard, because if there's a standard, then wow.
Joel Cheesman (34:03.95)
Hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:21.878)
Yeah, big sticks, big sticks for those guys. They're getting big sticks. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (34:30.387)
That's going to be something entirely different too, right? So that, and then they're already going directly after your clients. You think that's going to stop? No. So yes, all of this is happening and companies left and right. And we're talking to big enterprise companies who literally are saying, Hey, you know, we're trying to cut indeed spend. And one of the things that Matt and I talked about
behind closed doors, was his ability to cut indeed spend last year and how he was going to continue to do that this year and the year after, unfortunately, he left this, this, this earth, not because of that, but just because he left, we miss a friend, but there are many companies that are doing that right now. And the disposition data piece is going to be a nonstarter for many companies.
Joel Cheesman (35:16.748)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (35:25.006)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (35:27.645)
Especially that have to go to attorneys and ask their legal internal legal if it's okay. Yeah. Good luck with that shit
Joel Cheesman (35:34.06)
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a race between how fast can I get off the indeed teat and how fast can indeed, boil the frog. If you will, if you will, I quote Deco, it would be a fantastic if we own the whole thing, but, it's, it's not going to happen. Guys, if you like what you've listened to, please give us a follow or view, like whatever. we'll come back with some more indeed goodness.
Chad Sowash (35:43.529)
Yeah. Fucking ridiculous.
Chad Sowash (35:49.629)
Hahaha!
They do in Japan.
Chad Sowash (36:02.789)
I if indeed and goodness go together.
Joel Cheesman (36:08.526)
depends on who's watching. guess who's got a new KPI, Chad? That's right. Indeed. Indeed introduced ARPJ, a new KPI tracking revenue per job posting revenue per job posting. I'll say it again, up 15 % in Q2 and 13 % in the first half of the year. It signals aggressive pricing ahead as paid ads remain under 25 % of us postings. Chad.
Chad Sowash (36:11.946)
If you're a deck or not. Oh, who tell me?
Joel Cheesman (36:38.412)
We know you're down with OPP and we know we're both old enough for AARP, but what are your thoughts about Indeed's new AARPJ?
Chad Sowash (36:48.639)
Stop saying that. Okay, so I think it's amazing out of nowhere indeed suddenly wants to talk about their new magic metric ARPJ. I mean, the average revenue per job posting thing. It's not a metric. It's a fucking magic trick. They get on these investor calls in brag, even with fewer job postings, our revenue per posting is going up.
And Wall Street applauds while Indeed pulls a rabbit out of their fucking ass. But here's the number of jobs they're dividing by. The denominator. Indeed controls all of that.
If you want the average revenue to go up, they just stop the free flow of jobs, the free jobs that are actually coming into the system. Smaller denominator, boom, ARPJ looks great. It's soaring. Now, if they want to cool it off a little bit so they don't look like they're, you know, price gouging, well, then you just allow a few more jobs into the feed, right? It's not a signal of value. It's a lever they can pull to raise rates.
and drive quarterly earnings. That's why Wall Street loves it, right? Employers won't see this metric on their invoice. They won't see it at all. But what they will see is higher costs, less organic reach and more pay to play pressure, which we just talked about. They're making people pay for everything and it's basic shit. we, I mean, again, we just talked about on the Indeed Connect segment. So this is what I would like to call thermostat monetization.
They just set the temperature, they control the flow and you're sweating, looking at that monthly invoice on the other end of it. So, it's a wall street metric that will hammer main streets. So yeah, when you hear ARPJ is up double digits, what you should really hear is worth, we've throttled the free stuff again, get ready for higher prices. This is.
Joel Cheesman (38:40.334)
Yeah, no shit.
Chad Sowash (38:59.823)
market manipulation at its indeedest.
Joel Cheesman (39:09.932)
Whenever you hear a company, so there are two things either they stop reporting on things that like maybe iPhone sales or whatever. And then they sort of, they spin it as something else. If after they stop reporting on it, that's when some red flags should be lifted. And to me, this is like a big flag in an Indeed's model, not necessarily their profitability.
But in their model and what it says is the model of job postings is breaking down. I think you and I have talked about the commoditization of job postings for a very long time. and these guys are going to be the last ones to kind of enjoy, any kind of premium that was ever on job postings. You know, I was on stage with Jeff Taylor.
Uh, at ERE this week and we went down a little, memory lane shit and, talking about how much that they thought they would be getting per job posting, you know, back in the nineties and early two thousands when they thought they were going to own the whole, whole industry, you know, $5,000 a job like those days never came to fruition and they never will. So indeed, and really, I don't know, everyone in this space is, is trying to figure out we're going away from a.
Chad Sowash (40:04.223)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (40:09.577)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (40:27.598)
like a volume dependency to a quality focus. So the spin is, you know, no one's posting jobs like they used to, and they're not paying for the jobs if they are posting them like they used to. people like, so we can't, we're not making the money that we used to on job postings and the volume and getting tons of people there to apply. Cause now there are bots applying and everyone's like, Holy shit, all these applications. can't, that model doesn't work anymore.
So now it's a, like a quality value focus. So let's change the narrative instead of applies or clicks or views. It becomes this shit. becomes average revenue per posted job. The fuck does that mean? it means a lot of gray area where I can spin shit and like give you some, give you some mumbo jumbo voodoo economics. And you're going to go, okay, because you think we're smarter than you.
Chad Sowash (41:19.519)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (41:26.958)
because we're indeed and, and, and you're going to go like, go along with it. And unfortunately, 80 % of probably everyone who buys this shit is going to go along with it and feel comfortable with it. But make no mistake. The traditional model of job postings is breaking down and they're spinning a new model, a value model in this case, the connect stuff, the scout stuff. and we've talked in the past about per.
Was it cost per interested job seeker or act active job application interested? Yeah. Start apply. Like they've thrown these kinds of weird, uh, metrics and titles and definitions around forever. This is just the latest one. Um, you know, whatever it'll be something else next year and we'll make fun of it then. Um, but look, this is, this is a little bit of desperation. I'd love to be in the strategy meeting. Like what the fuck do we call the thing now? Uh, to get people confused and, and, uh,
Chad Sowash (41:57.631)
started apply.
Chad Sowash (42:03.039)
bullshit. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (42:22.818)
you know, office gate and, you know, whatever. So this is what they've come up with. this is either going to be a huge hit for indeed. They're going to like get into X amount of ATSs and, disposition data is going to take off or their, business is going to be really, really challenged in the years to come.
Chad Sowash (42:37.449)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (42:43.219)
Yeah, I think obviously I've said before, I think any company gives them disposition data, they're idiots. I mean, there's no reason to have that down funnel, those signals down funnel when what they're talking about is matching at the top of the funnel. All you need is requirements for that. That's what you need. So you need to be better at matching. And they're talking about how their matching is going to be so much better. That's total bullshit. Not to mention if you think about it.
Applicant tracking systems. Let's just take a look at one applicant tracking system by itself isims for instance, right? So isims has thousands of customers. They have to do this Integration with every single one of these customers and they think that one API is going to be the answer to that which is total bullshit We all know API's break. We all know that applicant tracking systems break shit when they when they do maintenance We also know that every single one of those those isims
Joel Cheesman (43:15.822)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (43:39.311)
customers or that applicant tracking system customers, they have different apply paths a lot of times. I mean, so it's just it's entirely different. Not to mention how many fucking recruiters actually hit the disposition code or put in the information to be able to provide the signals in the first place. So this just demonstrates to me these motherfuckers don't even know the problems that happen down funnel, right? This is fucking stupid.
Joel Cheesman (43:40.376)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (44:04.098)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (44:07.345)
Now, back to the average job posting, Andy McKelvey and Jeff, I think back then, they actually had a number for this. But the thing is, this was a real view, right? Because every job that was on Monster was paid for. So therefore, you could actually see through the big contracts and what they were paying versus the small guy and what they were paying per posting, that kind of thing. You could get a really good idea on an average, like a mean, right? That was true. That was real. That was something that
Joel Cheesman (44:22.35)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (44:36.679)
You can literally give the Wall Street and it's not bullshit. This is total complete utter bullshit because there's so many free jobs that are in the system. That's a manipulation. You can go ahead and say, damn, a few thousand companies didn't get their stream in today. Or let's say, for instance, some of the bigger companies, 10,000 jobs didn't make it today. How does that actually manipulate the actual average? It does, right? So if we want to talk about
Joel Cheesman (44:46.616)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (45:01.218)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (45:04.828)
This is again, just Wall Street bullshit. This is magic. This is pulling a rabbit out of their ass. This is not real. Andy McKelvey wanted to get to $1,000 a job. He always talked about that in meetings. I remember that. I remember that so vividly, right? But they had a true and real metric. This is not a true and real metric. This is total bullshit. And this is a great way to be able to manipulate driving prices up whenever the fuck you want to.
Joel Cheesman (45:18.028)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (45:34.499)
Yeah. And if, if Google had never become Google, monster may have been a thousand plus per posting, at some point, because they were hoping to be a monolithic brand. wanted to be Coke for all jobs. And, you know, it didn't work out that way, but, that was, that was at least the idea. And it made sense. We're having a hard time making sense of this shit. I really wonder if I think, I think wall street has bought into this because they do think that companies are going to get away from.
recruiters and like this whole process. And they believe that this agent to agent thing is going to be huge. They also think AI is going to be huge. that thing that could, that could turn out to be false, but I think they're betting on, and people are to use indeed to like, whoop without people bring people into the company.
Chad Sowash (46:25.299)
Yeah, but this this whole metric doesn't fucking matter at that point. I mean if it's all agent focused, it's not Yeah, what?
Joel Cheesman (46:29.258)
It's all bullshit right now. It's all bullshit until the worldview of DECO comes to play when it's all bots interviewing bots, robots interviewing...
Chad Sowash (46:39.101)
Yeah, but if it is bots interviewing bots, job postings don't fucking matter because what you do is you hit, you hit literally, you don't hit a job posting, you hit a goddamn agent and the agent goes out. Well, yeah, it's just, it will, I mean, it's recruitment. It's just a process, right? And the process changes, which means what they're actually doing in this entire segment of the connect piece and this new metric is literally, it's old and it's not even built for today.
Joel Cheesman (46:46.09)
Recruitment doesn't matter. Recruitment doesn't matter. Not necessarily people. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (47:08.317)
It's not even built for today. They want to build for tomorrow and innovate. That doesn't even work for today. This is dumb.
Joel Cheesman (47:15.734)
It's jazz hands. It's Trump. It's like, what's the fire to put out today? What's the new product today? What's the thing today? And it's just like, just keep people's attention somewhere else and what's new and what's going on. And I don't have time to keep up with this stuff. And I got 80 vendors I got to deal with. And I got a hundred calls, a hundred calls from new vendors. I got to talk to like, fine. Indeed. We'll call it whatever you want. What's what do you, what do I owe? What am I like?
Chad Sowash (47:17.853)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (47:33.223)
Why why you need a good agency? Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (47:39.331)
They rely on people being too busy to deal with this shit. And as companies get leaner, like fewer people can focus on this stuff and they can be more manila manipulative and, and I'm skeefed anyway. guys, if you're not watching us on YouTube, what the hell? don't get it. We're so good looking. check us out on youtube at youtube.com slash at Chad cheese. And we'll be right back with more sun filled, silver lining news.
Chad Sowash (47:42.571)
yeah, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (48:09.464)
but on your rose colored glasses.
Joel Cheesman (48:16.142)
Well, Chad, in case you missed it, times are tough out there for a pimp. some recent headlines include quote, it's Trump's economy now and Americans don't seem to love it. Nearly all us workers say their wages haven't kept up with the cost of living. And one of my favorites job cuts in October hit highest level for the month in 22 years. But things may have finally gone too far Chad as restaurants are feeling the effects of a challenged economy. Check out this recent story.
by ABC News on all the badness.
Chad Sowash (49:27.409)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (49:54.179)
Chad, I've been driving by Sweet Green two times a week at least, and I don't know why I'm not drawing more attention and profits for them. What are your thoughts on restaurants going to hell?
Chad Sowash (49:54.291)
Duh.
Chad Sowash (50:01.447)
surprise.
Chad Sowash (50:06.639)
I mean, look at it. First and foremost, inflation's up, tariffs are shit, health insurance is getting ready to either triple or quadruple. People who have assistance because they don't have jobs through SNAP, they're having problems getting that as well. Talking about 50-year mortgages, which means we're just going to be paying money on fucking interest. We can't afford food. I mean, it...
Joel Cheesman (50:31.491)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (50:32.583)
It's the very basic and simple understanding that you have to pay your people enough where they can pay for their shit and they can go buy stuff. That's how an economy works. They don't work when they're in the fucking dirt. They're homeless and they don't have any money to spend. mean, that's the biggest issue that we have right now. The disparity in the top versus the bottom and where the money's actually going. The entire economy is being held up.
I buy about, I don't know what fucking, at least the market is being held up by 10 companies. And then the actual economy is being quote unquote held up by just rich people who are buying shit. That is not sustainable, right? That's not sustainable.
Joel Cheesman (51:14.584)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (51:20.13)
percent of the population is doing 50 % of the consuming. That's a bad recipe. Like I've said before, once the stock market cracks, if this AI story falls apart and rich people feel less rich than they did before and stop spending, shit's really going to hit the fan. I know you guys talked a little bit about the election in New York.
and some of the other elections around Virginia and whatnot. Like that was an affordability election. That was a young people pissed off that I can't afford shit anymore, whether it's fuel, healthcare, housing, food, like all of it. And it's real and it's in the numbers. Like these restaurants aren't getting the traction that they used to. Wendy's was not mentioned and
Chad Sowash (51:46.887)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (51:57.951)
Yeah, and they should be.
Joel Cheesman (52:13.966)
They're closing 300 stores nationally, which breaks my heart in a few areas. no, little story about me, Chad. Little, not necessarily history lesson, but we'll call it a history lesson.
Chad Sowash (52:24.287)
Okay. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (52:30.094)
So my father, who's going to be 86 next month and totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. but that's a different podcast. He used to take me, he used to take me to play basketball and we'd play one-on-one and he would never block my shot because he knew like, he didn't want to take away my spirit or like, screw this. He could have like rejected everything that I threw up there, but he didn't. And then we'd play basketball. And then after we were done, he would take me to Wendy's and get me a frosty.
Chad Sowash (52:59.145)
Frosty, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (52:59.214)
So like I have, I have really warm, uh, feelings about fra or about, uh, Wendy's. Um, and maybe my weight problems go back to back then, uh, with my dad. The other story is my grandmother who passed a few years ago, loved Wendy's and her, her, her go-to was, I don't know you remember this, they used to have the 99 cent value, uh, menu. And on this menu, they, what they had a Caesar salad, like a side Caesar.
Chad Sowash (53:23.007)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (53:27.81)
They had a baked potato and they had the chili and my grandma would always order those three things and a iced tea and her meal was $4 or maybe less than that. Cause I doubt the tea was a dollar. anyway, so I've, I've, I have fond memories of Wendy's. So it's always sad to see them decline because they are nowhere near what they used to be. think five guys and Shake Shack have just totally destroyed what Wendy's used to be. But, but did you hear Trump talk about the Walmart?
Uh, that a Thanksgiving dinner now costs 25 % less than it did last year or the year before. And they did a report on that saying, yeah, it's like, it's like less items, no brand names. Um, and, and, and a reporter, a reporter pressed him on, he's like, I didn't, that's fake news. Who are you with NBC? Like that's, that's fake news. So like Trump is trying to grasp, embrace this, uh, this affordability message, but it's like, people are hurting man.
Chad Sowash (54:02.035)
and it has like five less items.
Chad Sowash (54:08.723)
Yeah, all generic.
Chad Sowash (54:22.729)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (54:25.134)
And, uh, the, we've talked about used cars. We've talked about like building new home builds. We've, and now we're talking about fast food. If this bleeds up into the higher echelon, that 10 % that's holding together 50 % of the consumption. Shit's going to get bad. Shit's going to get bad.
Chad Sowash (54:40.657)
It's not sustainable. That's the thing is that you can have that kind of arc in spend for 10 % of the population. But you think about it, one billionaire, how many pairs of jeans is he gonna buy? He's not gonna buy enough pairs of jeans to be able to subsidize the entire fucking blue gene industry, right? That's again, you've got to be able to scale it with an economy of all of your citizens, not 10 % of your fucking citizens.
Joel Cheesman (54:53.037)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (54:59.693)
No.
Joel Cheesman (55:06.99)
Mm-hmm.
By the way, I I talked about farmers in a recent episode in 60 minutes did a special on sort of the farmers, the family farm and what and how they're hurting. incredibly sad. we do not want a world. We do not want a world, with factory farms and a few companies owning all the land, in the country, but we do want more dad jokes.
Chad Sowash (55:17.097)
Yeah. Fucking sad.
Chad Sowash (55:22.441)
Give me a joke. Jesus Christ.
Chad Sowash (55:32.445)
Yes, we need it. Need it!
Joel Cheesman (55:34.958)
And I'm here to give you a restaurant themed dad joke this week. Did you hear about the new restaurant on the moon Chad?
Great food, but no atmosphere.
Chad Sowash (55:44.135)
I have not.
Joel Cheesman (55:52.674)
See you in California. We out.
Chad Sowash (55:55.583)
Way out.