Indeed Strips Agency Cash

Agencies, grab your helmets — Indeed just sharpened the knives. Mid-tier commissions slashed, “incentives” dangled like candy, and a slow, painful castration strategy in full swing. Uncle Chad calls it death by 10,000 paper cuts. Will agencies band together and fight back?

Meanwhile, Randstad’s out here winning awards, Trump’s trying to slap a $100K entry fee on H-1Bs, IBM is firing and rehiring, and job scams are draining wallets faster than your fantasy football picks.

All that plus whiskey, rum, and the usual Chad & Cheese chaos.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:36.035)

Yeah, we got two turntables and a microphone. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Tylenol Cheeseman.

Chad (00:44.979)

And this is Chad, it's pronounced Acetaminophen. So wash.

JT ODonnell (00:49.23)

And I'm JT, there is no September surge, O'Donnell.

Emi B (00:54.351)

And I am Emmy. I am finally, finally going on holiday. Bear with you guys.

Chad (00:59.57)

Yes!

Joel Cheesman (01:00.515)

And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, Indeed squeezes, Trump denies, and IBM boomerangs. Let's do this!

Chad (01:09.082)

ooh.

Chad (01:13.745)

Okay, okay, help me out here. The UN escalator, teleprompter, UN speech or stand up comedy or whatever you wanna call it, Tylenol creates autism, Jimmy Kimmel is back. What the actual fuck is happening over there, guys? I mean, seriously, I'm coming back in less than a week and I'm not, I'm not.

Joel Cheesman (01:15.565)

Then there were four.

Joel Cheesman (01:26.201)

huh.

JT ODonnell (01:29.422)

Just another week. Just another week, brother.

Joel Cheesman (01:31.107)

you're still in Europe. forgot. Yeah. Well, the, yeah. I want to know how the Europeans feel about the trash talk that Trump did on Europe. The UK is dead. The UK is dead. Apparently.

Chad (01:38.943)

What the fuck?

Emi B (01:39.163)

Ha!

Chad (01:45.629)

You mean that your countries are being ruined. You need to stop the failed experiment of open borders and your countries are all going to hell. You mean that leadership and inspirational speech?

Emi B (01:51.001)

mean, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:54.881)

That's a pretty good summary, Chad. don't need chat GPT. I got Chad GPT to summarize all my European news.

Emi B (01:59.833)

Ha ha ha!

Chad (02:00.423)

Hahaha

JT ODonnell (02:02.366)

You

Emi B (02:04.719)

I tell you what we're doing, we're just listening and laughing over here and going, thank God he's not here. Actually, he was here, wasn't he? He was, and we rolled out a carpet for him for some reason. But thank God he's not here permanently. Take him back. We don't need him here.

JT ODonnell (02:07.266)

Hmm. Hmm.

Chad (02:11.027)

jeez.

Joel Cheesman (02:14.198)

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad it's sunny because we, the pressure we get over here, think is, we got, we got marches in Britain. have, meltdowns in France, what drones are in Spain now. Russia's everywhere. Like, yeah, we're, getting a different view of, of Europe. I'm glad to hear it's going, it's going all right. It's going all right.

Emi B (02:33.483)

Yeah, we're coping, just.

Chad (02:36.639)

Yes, just coping. Yes. George Washington's coming home. All for Hamilton. Hamilton watch. Yeah, coming back and we got a ton of, we got a ton, we'll talk more about it. We got a ton of stuff going on. Excited to see friends and family. I'm gonna miss obviously, you know, gonna miss Portugal, gonna miss Europe. I've grown to love this place.

Joel Cheesman (02:37.175)

So Chad, you're coming back, you're coming home. Chad's coming home everybody. What's the schedule?

JT ODonnell (02:46.414)

You

Joel Cheesman (02:46.785)

Yankee Doodle went to

Joel Cheesman (03:03.713)

Yeah, we have some hidden footage of Chad when he realized he had to leave Portugal. Yeah, that pretty much sums up what Chad was talking about. Well, jeez, with four of us here, shall we get to some shout-outs?

Chad (03:11.932)

You

Chad (03:19.359)

Let's do it.

It is Stephen.

Joel Cheesman (03:24.309)

All right, guys, this will probably be only time I ever do this, but my shout out goes out to Tom Brady. Okay, so quick old man story for everybody, because I know that everybody loves him.

Chad (03:30.793)

No.

JT ODonnell (03:32.12)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (03:42.295)

So I took my daughter, my teenage daughter to a concert last night, a band called inhaler, a young band, young people were there. lot of Gen Xers with their kids were there, but, but my daughter looks at me, it's we're it's all general mission. So there's no seating anywhere. And she looks at me and says, my knees hurt. And I said, your knees hurt. My whole body hurts. Like I'm 54 years old. So

Chad (03:54.068)

Mm.

Emi B (04:02.318)

you

JT ODonnell (04:03.968)

You

Joel Cheesman (04:05.867)

So I was inspired to give Tom Brady a shout out. Why exactly? Well, because he has partnered with a company called ASCAPE, a massage robotics company with already a hundred locations in the, in the U S or North America, mostly at the, high end hotels that the sew washes usually stay at. so for starting at 30 bucks, this robot will miss was massage. You will heal you and get you back up to speed.

Chad (04:15.647)

partnered.

Joel Cheesman (04:33.741)

The one caveat I have is they need to come out with the Gizelle robot masseuse. And when that happens, I'm on the year end unlimited plan no matter what, but at least at this point, shout out. say more.

JT ODonnell (04:38.19)

Okay.

Emi B (04:45.178)

Is that the one with the soft, tender hands that slowly massages you? Is that what you're going for? Oh, oh, okay.

Chad (04:49.447)

Now it's the one with the happy ending is the one. Yes.

JT ODonnell (04:51.514)

Ha ha!

Joel Cheesman (04:56.141)

So shout out to Tommy Brady, everybody. Shout out to Tommy.

JT ODonnell (04:58.542)

Yeah

JT ODonnell (05:04.238)

Okay, well, I can't beat that. But my shout out is going to her. Her username on social is Tampa Bree. Her name is Brianna Vanasiske. 14 months ago, she got a real estate license in Florida. 14 months ago. And she is now doing stand up comedy kind of videos while she tours her home. So she shames, she makes fun of the home. She makes fun of the people that would buy the homes. These are million dollar homes. She's blown up. She was

headline on the New York Times this week about how she's doing this. And I love it because it reinforces that $480 billion knowledge creator economy I keep talking about, right? The second digital Renaissance era is coming. This girl's killing it. You got to go watch her. She's hilarious. You'll love every video and she's selling homes, baby. She's selling homes. 100 % videos, brand deals and selling the homes and she's getting listings because why everybody wants their home in there.

Joel Cheesman (05:48.547)

So she's making more doing this than she is selling homes, right? Yeah.

Chad (05:51.817)

Wha-

Joel Cheesman (05:57.399)

Yeah. JTS, I thought of you. There's, there's a young married couple that does content and the husband went online recently and gave revealed how much they're making doing videos. they're making $50,000 a month doing these silly videos. Yeah. A month. So like half a million dollars a year just to make content, on all the platforms. So I'm shocked. It can be done.

Emi B (05:57.751)

Love it.

Emi B (06:15.055)

month.

JT ODonnell (06:22.616)

People do not understand. You can do faceless content. People do not understand. They're saying, it's crazy. 100%. You got a future. You're gonna teach underwater basket weaving, Joel. I can see it. You got a future, buddy.

Joel Cheesman (06:28.537)

the sausage.

The digital sausage we talked about,

Chad (06:36.487)

Yeah, well, our video team actually did one. We asked them to do one Chad and Cheese baby short video. That was hilarious. But yeah, we'll see. There might be more of those kids. Who knows? Who knows? It might be Chad and Cheese baby podcast.

Joel Cheesman (06:44.589)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (06:55.619)

Chad and Joel could be like an old grumpy couple, the odd couple. could do videos and make more than a stupid podcast. Yeah, could be. Oscar and Felix, here we go.

Emi B (06:55.968)

love it

Chad (07:01.257)

Could change every week. Yeah, could change every week. Very great. Emmy.

JT ODonnell (07:03.576)

I like it.

Emi B (07:07.55)

Well, I've got two shout outs. I'm being greedy this week because I haven't been here for a little while. I know, I'm teasing, I am teasing. Right, so for anyone who doesn't know, I have just landed back from Amsterdam. And so I went to, actually I attended and spoke at a conference called the Talent Intelligence Global Talent Strategy and Intelligence Conference. So great, great two days there, learned a lot.

Chad (07:10.739)

Okay.

You

Emi B (07:33.947)

met a lot of really interesting, intelligent people. But the highlight for me was someone called Dieter Bilsmann. Now I'm going to say that name again, Dieter Bilsmann. Hopefully I've said it correctly. Check him out on LinkedIn. He was inspirational. I mean, I was like kind of starstruck. I'm like, oh my God, I want to be like you. You are amazing. I was like, had to go over to him like, can you my autograph? No, not really, sign my autograph. I had to tell him how good he was.

Chad (07:37.876)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:46.412)

Rockets.

Chad (07:47.291)

Yes.

Emi B (08:03.502)

His topic was about the major forces shaping talent management in the future. So definitely, definitely, definitely check this guy out. I'm going to check out his back catalog. So he is shout out number one. And Dieter, if you're listening, I told you I was going to shout you out. So once again, amazing, amazing job.

Chad (08:07.839)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (08:20.777)

We definitely need the Touch My Monkey sprockets with deter.

Joel Cheesman (08:26.743)

Yeah. Does anyone else think talent intelligence is an oxymoron?

Emi B (08:27.534)

Yeah

JT ODonnell (08:33.742)

Chad (08:33.759)

You

Emi B (08:34.06)

no, no. I am not even gonna respond to that one. I am, I am way above that.

Chad (08:37.247)

Thank you, thank you, I mean, thank you. You're above that. When Joel goes low, you go high. What's your next one?

Joel Cheesman (08:42.979)

British reason.

Emi B (08:48.602)

Exactly, exactly. And shout out number two is actually weirdly, I'm mentioning LinkedIn. I know on the show we don't always praise LinkedIn, but I'm actually shouting out my LinkedIn community for their support. So I'll tell you the reason why. For anyone who hasn't seen my post from last week on LinkedIn, I told a story about, I suppose the aftermath of what I experienced from the United Kingdom March.

So if anyone doesn't know, this is a protest in London. Talk about protesting about the number of immigrants coming to the UK. So I think Joel and Chad, you both said like UK is like a little America. I 100 % agree. We are following America's suit. We are being less tolerant as a society. I unfortunately... yeah, not even a wee problem, a fucking big problem over here. But...

JT ODonnell (09:41.378)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (09:46.267)

I unfortunately was caught out because I was in a London underground in the middle of a march with all these protesters around me who were talking about immigration and getting the immigrants out. And I was the only person of colour on that tube. And I was so fearful that I had to actually get off the tube. Yeah, very, very scary environment. And I'm not someone who gets scared easily. So got off the tube, went to my venue.

Joel Cheesman (10:01.122)

Yikes.

Emi B (10:10.01)

Monday morning, I was still thinking about it, wrote the post on LinkedIn and said, hey, know, what's happening to the UK? This is my experience. For the first time ever in my whole time of being on LinkedIn, I got trolled. Loads of people saying I was a racist, that I didn't actually like white people myself. Little did they know the background of my boyfriend. You know, telling me to go back to Nigeria. And I was like, wow, this is a problem. But you know what, what was great? Yeah. I mean, people reached out.

Chad (10:16.541)

Mm.

JT ODonnell (10:34.702)

.

Chad (10:35.369)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:36.481)

Really?

Emi B (10:39.374)

people I hadn't spoken to in years, colleagues, friends, people who didn't even know me, reached out either commented on my LinkedIn post or actually sent me a direct message. had people text me directly to see if I was OK. So I just want to say thank you to LinkedIn community. Thank you very much for your support.

Joel Cheesman (10:59.213)

Were there, were there direct threats on the train or just dirty looks, or you just felt like an ominous sort of presence?

Emi B (11:01.87)

Yeah.

Well, initially, because I was listening to a podcast, unfortunately not the Chet and Cheese podcast this time, but I was listening to a podcast and I looked up and I was like, what is going on? What is this chanting? Took out my headphones. And then that's when I started to hear the chants about get immigrants out of the country. And I looked around and I'm like, okay, I'm the only person of color on this tube. And I'm in the center of the tube. like, how the hell do I get out of this situation? So yeah, I wanted to.

You know, in the ideal world, I wanted to stand up for myself and go, hey, what are you talking about? But I was by myself. I was fearful. So I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could.

Chad (11:43.933)

You're not changing any minds on that too. Yeah, and for all the kids out there, for 20 years of military training, situational awareness, everybody is wearing these things all the time. They're looking down on their phones. have nothing.

Joel Cheesman (11:43.971)

It's a shame.

Emi B (11:45.867)

no.

JT ODonnell (11:46.382)

Yeah.

Chad (11:59.263)

because we zone out, right? Take one out, do something, but be aware. Please, please be aware. No, no, no, So my shout out, I'm glad to hear that you're safe, Emmy. My shout out is for standing for something or falling for anything. So yesterday I received a DM pointing me to a LinkedIn post from the National Online Recruitment Awards, AKA the NORAs. It read, quote,

Emi B (12:04.73)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (12:05.301)

Don't fall for the banana in the tailpipe, everybody.

Joel Cheesman (12:14.391)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (12:14.49)

Thank you.

Chad (12:29.307)

Huge congratulations to our finalists for the best national recruitment agency award. And who was on the list? Ronstadt. Yes, Ronstadt, the same company who dumped dumped hundreds of Monster employees without pay severance or benefits. When I reached out to Matteo Nicolo, who's actually on the show, director of international sales at Monster, he said, I truly think that Ronstadt does not deserve any award with what they did with the Monster employees.

exclamation point, their social butchery, that's interesting, social butchery, is against any ethical principle and in stark contrast with the cherished values of the Ronstadt founder, end quote. Now, I respect Stephen O'Donnell, I think we probably all know him, who runs the Norahs. He's a solid dude, really like him, but when I pushed him on why Ronstadt is being celebrated and why the Norahs in their 25th year would,

Joel Cheesman (13:03.875)

But surey.

Chad (13:28.895)

even associate with Ronstadt. He said, quote, thanks for your perspective and you're not wrong. And Norah's is judging the UK website of Ronstadt in this instance and recognizing the people who work hard to make it effective for job seekers. Here's the problem. When good people, people you believe would stand up, choose to look the other way.

companies like Ronsod get a free fucking pass. And in our industry, the human industry, we're in a human industry, right? That's unacceptable. So I don't care if the award was about Ronsod's fucking website. You strip it down and it's still about people. It's always about people. And Ronsod has already shown exactly how much people matter and or do not matter for them. So just a subtle reminder for all the kids out there, if you stand for nothing,

you will fall for anything. That's some free advice from Uncle Chad. And now for some free stuff. That's right.

Joel Cheesman (14:31.939)

No free shit for Ronstadt. No free shit for them. Jeez.

Emi B (14:32.76)

Yay! No, they are getting buckled.

JT ODonnell (14:34.924)

Hahaha!

Emi B (14:44.405)

Yes, yes, yes, we do love free stuff here. So as usual, we got loads of free stuff to give away. So we've got whiskey. actually, do you know what? Whiskey is actually my new favorite drink after being introduced to it. You know, I know, tequila. Yeah, I'm a tequila girl. I am. This is, this is 2025, Emmy. So 2025, Emmy is a grown up.

Joel Cheesman (14:56.045)

What was it before whiskey?

Chad (14:59.045)

OK. OK. You're maturing. This is a maturing process. It really is. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (14:59.597)

Alright.

JT ODonnell (15:00.29)

Good choice. Not yet.

Joel Cheesman (15:03.661)

growth.

Chad (15:06.921)

Hahaha

Joel Cheesman (15:07.587)

Can Chad and Cheese take credit for this personal growth in your...

Emi B (15:11.674)

Okay, yeah, we could go down that route. So like I said, it's my new favorite drink. So anyone who's into whiskey wants the good stuff, you can get that from Van Hack. And if whiskey is not your thing, if craft beer is your thing, then absolutely we can give that away as courtesy of Aspen Tech Labs. If you want a t-shirt, like, hold on a second, can you see my t-shirt? I'm not sure if I'm showing my boobs instead of my t-shirt.

Chad (15:12.319)

partially? Okay.

Joel Cheesman (15:16.044)

Okay.

Chad (15:37.663)

That is awesome. Oh yeah.

JT ODonnell (15:39.414)

It's a good looking shirt.

Emi B (15:42.118)

Yeah, this nice soft fluffy t-shirt. If you want one of these, well Erin Appa giving those away. And finally, if it's your birthday, just forget the cake. You can get free rum with plum. Woop woop woop woop.

Chad (15:54.655)

That's right. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free.

Emi B (15:59.739)

That's it, Lilly.

Chad (16:01.599)

Ha

Joel Cheesman (16:02.467)

That's right guys. celebrating another trip around the sun for Betsy Norris, Robert St Jacques, send Lucien's Valerie Doyle, Caitlin Grady, Ryan McGrath, Leah Griffin, Kelly Robinson, Katrina, Kevin, George Dobbin.

Chad (16:20.884)

There he is.

Joel Cheesman (16:23.799)

That's right. John Sump, Sir Allison Holbrook and Casey Dockendorf all celebrate a birthday this week.

JT ODonnell (16:28.908)

Happy birthday.

Chad (16:31.005)

That's Sean Luchance, but yes, we love

Emi B (16:32.655)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (16:32.924)

I know, I know, spell check, god damn it.

Emi B (16:35.687)

HA!

Chad (16:37.279)

All right, real quick, we gotta do some events.

Joel Cheesman (16:38.081)

I did say I went to a concert last night and then tried to put all these notes together. So I may have had a few PBRs at the show.

Emi B (16:38.586)

You

Chad (16:42.089)

We are.

Kids, don't forget we're going to Louisville with Havas people. So if you are in Louisville and you are in HR and or TA, register to meet up with us at Chicken Cock's new Speakeasy, brand fucking spanking new, brand new. This is a Chad and Cheese gig here. For a few hours, we're gonna be talking shop and drinking some Chicken Cock whiskey. That's on October 3rd, just DM Cheeseman. He'll hook you up, so DM Cheeseman.

Then we roll down to Nashville for RecFest where our favorite Scotsman, Steven McGrath, will be joining us as we emcee the Disrupt stage on October 15th. Tons of great content on that stage will be showcasing practitioners, which we always want to see, like Derek Gelidon, Laura Stapleton, and Jay Patel's discussion on preventing AI fraud.

Shay Johnson's talk on breaking the job board cycle. Hopefully that means killing indeed. And David Weinstock's talk about the five must have agents for talent acquisition with sponsors, Jovio, Dalia, and Covey. So for great topics and practitioner discussions, come to the disrupt stage pitch a tent and bring your notebooks.

JT ODonnell (18:03.724)

Ha ha ha.

Chad (18:06.207)

Real quick sneak peek in November, we're headed to San Francisco, San Diego and Dallas for RL100, which means if you're in TA, you're a TA leader, head over to resourceleaders.co to check out and register to be in the room where the big discussions happen. RL100 is a small group, closed door event, no recordings, just frank leadership, frank talk, technical discussions, that kind of stuff.

This November again, San Francisco, San Diego, and Dallas, resourceleaders.co.

Joel Cheesman (18:43.853)

Did you, did you mention, my gig in San Diego with Jeff Taylor, founder of monster.com? Yeah. The Jeff Taylor sandwich. Yeah. I'm to have to go see your, your, your deal chat. So I don't ask him the same questions and I'm probably gonna have to be a little nicer to him after you get done with them. But yeah, I'll be at ERE, eerie.net for more information, but I'll be in San Diego, November 4th, 5th or 6th around there. please sign up. I'm going to be on stage with the Jeff Taylor.

Chad (18:48.084)

I did not. I did not read the Jeff Taylor sandwich. That's going to be happening.

Chad (18:58.589)

you

Joel Cheesman (19:13.431)

founder of Monster, current new founder of Boom Band, which we're gonna try to get down to the bottom of, but geez, just so much sex is going on with Chad and Cheese. I'm gonna throw some more in.

Because week three of fantasy football is in the books sponsored by our friends at factory fix. Here's your power rankings after week three and fantasy football. Number one, have Courtney niche key nap go followed by McKinsey, Montana, Maitland, David Stalback, Stiefel, Megan Ray Lewis, Radigan. I'm at, I'm at number five. No nickname required. followed by.

Chad (19:29.567)

shit.

Chad (19:33.533)

bad week.

Chad (19:49.907)

Wow, that was a huge drop.

Joel Cheesman (19:52.811)

It was, I got my ass kicked this week. But it turns out if you have Jamar Chase and Joe Burr goes out for the season, Jamar Chase struggles. So I'm kind of going to get her adjacent to that. followed by Jason Payton Putnam, William the Fridge Carrington, Stephen the Scottish Hammer.

JT ODonnell (20:03.47)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (20:16.631)

McGrath he wants to get to that bottom spot but he can't quite do it yet followed by Jada Rocky Blyard Weiler ginger Deacon Dodds Chad OJ so wash and following at the bottom you like the OJ how that was a nice touch followed by the end the bottom Jeremy shocky Roberts and that is week three your roundup of fantasy football sponsored by our friends at factory

Emi B (20:19.428)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (20:40.814)

Thank

Joel Cheesman (20:44.547)

fix and with that shall we get to some topics everybody you want to talk about some stuff that went on this week

Chad (20:49.033)

Sure.

Emi B (20:49.113)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (20:49.55)

Yeah.

Chad (20:53.959)

One question, were we gonna talk about the whole Muse thing that's happening? We're gonna talk about that at all.

Emi B (21:01.316)

What's happening in these?

Joel Cheesman (21:01.579)

I didn't look, you threw it out. haven't looked at it.

Chad (21:03.079)

Okay. Let's let me just hit it real quick so that so the listeners can hear what the hell is happening.

Joel Cheesman (21:07.043)

Do want to do like just off, just hot off the presses?

Chad (21:09.915)

Hot off the presses man. So Richard Dillman, yeah that's his name, Richard Dillman, senior director of engineering over at the Muse posted on LinkedIn starting with, this is just a LinkedIn post, quote, our company, the Muse, has been acquired and as part of the transition the engineering team has been let go, end quote.

And Richard goes on to pretty much talk about how he and his team have performed, what they've done, et cetera, et cetera. It's kind of like a living, almost resume to try to get his people a job, right? What I thought was weird is that there was no mention of acquisition via press release, no mention on the website. Richard was still listed as a leader on the website. I even posted on LinkedIn asking if anyone knew anything and literally got nothing.

I guess the question is, is the Muse really just winding down operations and Richard felt like it might be better for Optics to say that they got acquired? I mean, if not, if this is an acquisition, who the fuck would buy the Muse?

Joel Cheesman (22:20.259)

I think there's your answer with the feedback from us, Chad. Didn't the Muse, did Raidency buy the Mute? they bought Fairy God Boss.

Emi B (22:21.626)

Tumbleweed.

Chad (22:22.14)

I don't get it.

They bought Fairy God Boss.

Yeah, which again, another dying company and it's just kind of like, and I think this was your two dinosaurs kind of like holding each other during the meteor storm.

Joel Cheesman (22:38.114)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (22:43.031)

I mean, look, we should, the economy is not good for the second tier third tier players. I mean, the moot, the muse was built on events and culture and a lot of like fuzzy warm and fuzzy stuff. Yeah. Which, which has really been, surpassed. think also they were focused on the college market and JT's talked and nauseam about how tough it is to get an entry level job and be, you know, college graduate. So I think a lot of probably perfect storm came together. And I mean,

Chad (22:48.028)

God.

Chad (22:55.113)

video production and yeah.

Chad (23:04.799)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (23:12.577)

You know, when, how did you go, how did you go broke? you know, a little bit at a time and then all of a sudden, this sounds like the all of a sudden from Muse.

Chad (23:21.631)

Again, I don't want to take too much time on the Muse because it is, go figure, the Muse, but had to throw it out there because we've talked about them over the years and I thought it was interesting that they said that they were acquired. There's no proof that there was an acquisition at all. Sounds more like a wind up.

Joel Cheesman (23:35.052)

Yeah.

Emi B (23:37.242)

You

Joel Cheesman (23:38.103)

Yeah. I mean, you know, we talked about, you know, zip recruiter losing, I don't know, maybe the, the single form of intelligent life at, at Zip Recruiter. And that's a very telling sign for their business. And you know, the, rats leaving the sinking ship, you're probably going to work. We're probably going to talk about more stories like this as, as the, as the year, the year goes on. That's just my initial thoughts.

Chad (23:45.055)

plumber? Yeah. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (23:58.029)

Hmm.

Chad (24:00.937)

Yeah, Matt Plummer leaving Zipper Critters big.

JT ODonnell (24:01.986)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (24:04.503)

That's huge. Yeah. He had been there for a long, long time and he was kind of the face really, of the, of the organization. Well, speaking of faces of organizations, let's talk about president Trump and his recent decision to enter, to introduce a $100,000 fee for new H1B visa applications, for the 2026 lottery, well as a gold card visa starting at $1

Emi B (24:19.034)

Ha!

Chad (24:20.979)

No.

Joel Cheesman (24:31.651)

The policy sparing current holders has raised concerns from tech firms like Amazon and critics who say it will hurt US competitiveness and push companies overseas. Supporters, however, like Netflix CEO argue it prioritizes American jobs. 100K for an H1B visa. Chad, your thoughts.

Chad (24:53.929)

So first off, Microsoft CEO Sacha Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk all came into America's workforce on H1B visas, all of them. But let's be clear. This initiative won't hurt Google, Microsoft, Amazon, or Reed Hastings and Netflix or any other company that's willing to pay absorbent salaries. See Meta's

Emi B (25:07.866)

You

Chad (25:21.535)

$100 million poaching spree, right? So it's one of the reasons why Reed Hastings said this was a good idea. Reed knows this will cut down competition dramatically for top H1B level talent and smarter startups won't have a fucking chance. it's good for big companies, but small companies can't afford an extra $100,000 on top of the median salary for H1B visa holders.

which is around the mid-90,000 range, right? So you're looking at at least $200,000 just to get one of these individuals in, salary plus the fee, right? And that's six years down the road as well. So startups won't be able to compete. Now let's talk about brain gain. That's what the H-1B visa program promoted. It was brain gain where America is consistently and constantly receiving and keeping

Genius Level Talent. And if this program is carved into stone like it sounds like it's gonna be, the Brain Gain Initiative at Genius Level is now pretty much gone. Academia revenues take even a bigger hit. I believe last week we talked about how many universities are already seeing dramatically lower enrollment. And this is from foreign students. And why is that important? Well, foreign-born students pay full freight.

to attend American University. So that revenue loss will end up in job loss. Plus, the likelihood of getting an H-1B visa is higher if you completed a degree in an American University. So less revenue and even less genius level talent in America. So what should companies do? Companies obviously need to start spending money in their communities, training and educating the people in the communities.

That creates the next genius level candidates in America and, and this is in a, but this is an and or an or it's an and they need to continue to try to bring in diverse talent through the H1 visa programs. Don't drop it. Right. What most companies will do though, they will open locations across the pond, get the same talent for less. And instead of those salaries being spent in American communities, it's going to be spent in other countries.

Chad (27:42.781)

Right? So does the H-1B visa program need fine-tuned? Yes, of course it does. Unfortunately, this will gut the program. It will gut GDP and negatively impact communities all over the United States. Gonna take a breath now.

JT ODonnell (27:58.863)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (28:03.51)

Yeah. So on the job seekers side, look, this has already been happening, right? I was talking to a CHRO who said, JT, can hire three PhDs in your app for the price of one in the US. So this kind of movement's been going on for a while. I just think it's going to speed it up. You're going to see a lot of startups who just offshore everything. We are all friends with companies here now that are building businesses, people we know that are building businesses in our space, and the way they do it is offshore. So this is just speeding that process up, which doesn't surprise me.

I'm not going to challenge you on Joel, I, or Chad, but I take a different take. I think that we've got to get everyone thinking as a business of one, stop calling yourself an employee. There's no job security. And if anything, I want to see all this pain that's happening right now in the job market, open people's eyes up to you are responsible for your skills, your visibility, your brands. And the sooner you figure that out and start trading your knowledge for money, instead of your time for money and putting all your eggs in one basket with one company and a set of golden handcuffs, the more power you're going to have, but that's not going to happen until we stop.

you know, scaring everybody and convincing everybody that the Holy Grail is a full-time job with benefits with one of these companies. And I just think this is going to force the issue. No one's ever gonna wanna feel this way again with what they're going through. know, 25 % of our unemployed workforce has been out work over seven months and are white collar workers. And that's just what we have tracked. So until we, you know, recognize we've got to help people empower themselves, yes, companies can do some of it, but they also can't guarantee long-term employment anymore. So they have to start looking differently

Emi B (29:18.606)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (29:32.63)

at these people that they're recruiting and talent needs to look at it a little bit differently too. But this to me is just something that speeds that whole process up. So there's a silver lining.

Emi B (29:46.299)

So JT, question, how, I mean, obviously you said that, you know, people need to start changing their mindset, but I think I'm just trying to like imagine an average job seeker, you know, who's been told that, you know, stay in the company, that security progress up the ladder. How are we going to change people's opinions? How are we going to, how are we going to get them to change their mindset and go, Hey, you know, there isn't actually job security anymore. And what Trump is doing is actually proving it.

JT ODonnell (30:04.387)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (30:11.426)

Yeah. Social media, right? Everyone's scrolling. Everyone has a social media of choice. This is where people are discovering and learning and growing. We need to get out there and force and start educating them. Every single person that's listening to this podcast needs to get on LinkedIn with a camera and start telling people stuff because they don't know until enough of us talk about it. Right. Which, you know, it was part of what you were saying earlier today, Chad, like people have to get more informed and the only way they're to get more informed is when more of us start talking about the truth. You know, the numbers have been wrong for two years here. Unemployment numbers.

I've been screening it, but I'm one person on LinkedIn. When everyone else starts talking about it, people start to pay attention. Great example, companies would love to hire fractional workers, but there's, you don't put that on a job board. So what do they do? They go looking for fractional workers. The simple thing of everyone listening to you today, if they all put fractional in their headline on LinkedIn, you're going to start up in more searches now because fractional kind of work is going to blow up because full-time work is going away. And so all of this, we could be coaching people on it scale.

And I'm grateful for platforms like this where our team gets educated, but we've got to get out there and help the job seekers in mass. That's my pray to all of you. Anybody listening, if you want to help, DM me, because we've got to get out there and educate people more on this.

Joel Cheesman (31:22.091)

I say, Canada, not only will Europe benefit, but Canada should as well. just like when you go to Dublin, see Google and all the tech brands. assume at some point you're going to see on the border, tons of tech businesses setting up shop over over in Canada. Chad, yeah, I think can't can't can't should go full court press on like we want all the people.

Emi B (31:41.076)

100%, UK is going to pick him up as well. There's no, I don't see this actually working. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (31:51.233)

that you want to hire or bring over. We'll, take them in Canada. and companies like Van hack podcast sponsor are in a really good position right now to benefit from, this legislation, Chad, to piggyback on your, your recruiting aspect for big companies. It's also a fantastic retention tool. Cause if someone comes over and you pay a hundred grand, they're less likely to leave because you've wrote and written a pretty big check to get them to come over to America. So not only is it.

Chad (31:58.696)

Hello.

Chad (32:12.947)

Yes.

Joel Cheesman (32:19.137)

the rich get richer for the fact that they can actually do it, but they can hold onto these people because of the investment and sort of the, you know, the receipt over everyone's head on how much they spent on this, on this, on this investment.

There, by my count, there are like four, four ways you can get into America. illegally, we've pretty much shut that down, legally going through all the hoops and hurdles, in ladders. And we've pretty much either scared the shit out of our body from doing that or, plug that up to where that is non-existent. H1B visa. just kind of like neutered that, with the exception of the biggest companies on the planet. And number four is, you just are really rich and can pay for it now.

Chad (32:52.621)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (33:00.628)

Right.

Joel Cheesman (33:05.216)

When the gold, when the gold visa, the gold card with Trump's picture, which I think it's just such a, it's just so bad. at my age, I could never imagine like, you know, the Jimmy Carter gold card back in the seventies just wasn't a thing. this thing was, think 5 million when they first introduced it and like no takers, apparently no one was willing to pay $5 million to just come to America. So they've reduced it.

Chad (33:16.319)

you

Joel Cheesman (33:30.445)

to one million to see if, so apparently rich people don't even want to like come here in the, in the width. So we have, we have no immigration more or less in this country. We have 7,000 baby boomers dying every day. have fewer workers. We have interest rates that are rising. So the old people that were getting 4 % interest and just like spending money at high end restaurants and everything, like they're getting less money. I mean, this, this says

Oppressive recession written all over it. Like I, in a bigger picture thing, we are like cutting off our nose to spot our face. And I think it's a, it's a total shame. I thought about why, why does, why does Trump do this? And I typically say, well, Trump is either, it makes him and his family richer or it makes him look good. So I was really curious about what, why, what about this makes him look good. And I have a friend who's a GOP pollster and he sends out a newsletter and he covered this, this, this, this, news story.

JT ODonnell (34:06.926)

you

Chad (34:07.23)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (34:30.723)

Trump's sentiment favorability numbers among MAGA faithful increased after this news alert. Why? Because MAGA believes this fee protects US workers. They believe it will drive more investment into US talent pipelines. They believe that the US will be more selective with top talent and it will also strengthen, this maybe is the key point, it will strengthen Trump's negotiation stance with India, which is where a lot of these workers come from.

Emi B (34:41.465)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (34:57.555)

tariffs.

Joel Cheesman (34:59.285)

As well as throughout Asia. So we can sit here and tear this down and justifiably. So, but in Trump land and Maga world, they love this shit. so just wanted to throw that out there because I was really curious about why Trump would do this. Why was the thing because he's got buddies in Silicon Valley that love it, but now he's, getting his cake and eating it too, because Google and med is happy because they're squashing the small company and

Trump's happy because Magu World still loves him. So that's my two cents on this issue.

Emi B (35:29.668)

Those big giants, they're going to carry on paying because it doesn't actually affect the people, the Googles, the Metas, the Amazon. They've got the money. They've got the deep pockets to still pay for them. So from Trump's point of view, if his messaging is, we are investing in American people, we are going to train up American people, those jobs are going to stay for Americans and not overseas, you know, the soundbite sounds great. But that is to someone who doesn't understand the realities of recruiting.

Chad (35:29.791)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (35:34.958)

Yep.

JT ODonnell (35:46.734)

you

Emi B (35:57.147)

because I'm not being funny, everyone always had to pay, employees always had to pay for the visas, not 100,000, but they always had to pay. An organization doesn't want to pay for a visa, they're paying for someone on a visa because they can't get the talent. So if they, you know, and that's what he needs to think about, you know, they're not just throwing away the money, like, oh, hey, let's get someone from India, let's get someone from China, no, they're doing that because the talent is not there in certain areas, in healthcare, where people are not,

Chad (36:12.838)

Exactly.

JT ODonnell (36:13.784)

That's it.

Emi B (36:26.114)

It's hard to find people to do the jobs at the salaries that they're willing to pay. So they're having to get people from overseas. And that's what Trump is not thinking about. He's not being smart and going, okay, why hasn't this happened already? And just, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (36:39.437)

I think there's, there's also an element of Trump really like scaring the shit out of everybody, right? Like I'm sure why, why would Netflix come out and say, awesome, awesome deal. Well, Netflix gets, Netflix gets to look at Disney getting raked over the coals over Jimmy Kimmel. And they're like, we don't want any of that smoke. So if I, if I need to say something nice about this to get Trump off our ass, I'm going to do it. And I think that's a real shame in America that, that corporatism is so fearful of.

Chad (36:50.653)

It's good for Netflix.

Emi B (36:51.961)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (37:08.969)

of Trump and a quick, quick side note. wife is most listeners know as a, as a, as a professor and she's part of a group of women, researchers and, and, scientists and this whole issue with Tylenol, causing, so, so one of the, one of the women in this group is an expert on that whole issue and what acetaminophen and everything does. And she wanted to come out against and show the science of how this is wrong.

Chad (37:24.326)

Jesus.

Emi B (37:24.762)

JT ODonnell (37:36.142)

you

Joel Cheesman (37:39.085)

Her university said no, because her university is looking at Columbia and looking at Harvard and what's going on everywhere else. like, we don't want any of this Trump smoke. So the fear that's filtering down to universities, corporations is real and it's a real shame.

JT ODonnell (37:47.532)

Thank

Chad (37:57.821)

Yes, agreed. And just for your small companies, also look at these EOR companies that are out there because if you can't afford the actual individuals to do some of the software programming or what have you, go to the EOR companies and set them up in a different country. That's what's going to happen. But again, the money is going to be spent somewhere else. And I'm hearing a lot of background noise from some

Joel Cheesman (38:00.311)

Agreed.

JT ODonnell (38:16.322)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (38:22.467)

Yeah. Somebody's got a lot of background noise. Probably. Okay. It's like traffic. All right guys. Uh, let's take a quick break. Uh, if you haven't, if you haven't subscribed to the show, what's wrong with you? Uh, go to your favorite podcast platform of choice. Subscribe to the show, leave us a review. We love all that good stuff. Uh, quick break and we'll talk about indeed.

Chad (38:28.191)

Okay, all good. Trisha, you can take that out.

Emi B (38:28.665)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (38:49.347)

All right guys, our friends at AIM Group reports indeed is turning up the heat to move agency clients toward its direct apply feature and disposition sync API by slashing commission for mid tier agencies from 15 % to 10%, but offering a path back to 15 % plus a 17 % incentive for new client signups. If clients implement both of the tools to anonymous agency sources, confirm the pressure tactics.

Indeed as strong-arming the little guy in its quest for world domination. Chad, your thoughts.

Chad (39:25.033)

So let me get this straight. Indeed, we'll graciously allow companies to keep their 5 % of new business and potentially existing business. Wait a minute, motherfucker. You mean the business, the agency actually brought to your fucking doorstep. You're gonna allow me after bringing all of this business to you to actually keep some of that commission. This method.

Instituted by Indeed feels like the slowest method of agency castration. It's painful, but maybe, just maybe, they won't cut off everything. Here's the simple truth. Whether it's slow or fast, Indeed will go direct to the brands, they're gonna go direct to the companies, bypassing the agency of record entirely, eventually, to try to take all the money.

It's death by 10,000 paper cuts and it's slow and they're hitting small market already mid tier. They're starting to siphon some of those revenues and then they're going to go after the bigger agencies. If you think you're safe, you're a fool. Positive outlook, Monster and Career Builder tried the same strategy over a decade ago against recruitment ad agencies. It didn't work. Hiring companies giving disposition data is really a privacy concern.

Emi B (40:46.618)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (40:46.909)

I don't see a lot of them doing it. Indeed, in some narratives are actually pitching that this is a way to help hiring companies stay compliant, which is complete and utter bullshit. Advice for Uncle Chad here, agencies need to band together all agencies, not just the big brands, educate your clients, use the internal candidate database hiring.

companies, right, that have already bought and spent millions of dollars on, use the candidates in those damn databases, and then start to use the niche sites that are out there. talking to, I've talked to a ton of niche sites that are actually kicking ass right now, which is amazing. So what the actual fuck are you guys out there in recruitment agency land going to do about this? That's the big question. And that

is indeed doesn't think you're going to do anything.

Joel Cheesman (41:47.477)

And will they listen to Uncle Chad?

Chad (41:52.639)

Doubtful.

Emi B (41:56.187)

I reckon they'll listen to you, Chad. Everybody listens to this show, so they'll hear about it.

Chad (42:00.167)

My listen, but they won't do a goddamn thing. That's the problem.

Emi B (42:07.689)

Well, if they're not scared, because I get how they could be scared and think, ah, shit, OK, I'm going to have to do this. But like you said, if they band together and push back as a collective, then eventually, think, indeed, we'll have to listen. They're banking on the fact that the individual agencies aren't going to do anything. So they do think they're going to get away with it. And I do believe you.

Also, what I would say, if the agencies went back and do what you said and think about the privacy issue, they will realize that they can't say yes to this. That's a huge, huge problem. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Joel Cheesman (42:50.765)

Thank

JT ODonnell (42:51.048)

So here's my thing, agencies are running scared as they should be, Revenue sources are drying up left and right. And now Indeed just says something they probably budgeted to rely upon is now half, one third of what it was before. So banning together, I just think they're so worried about CYA and staying alive and getting thrown some kind of life wrap for themselves that...

They probably don't even have the mindset or bandwidth to band together with others. I like the idea a lot. I'm with you. I just don't think it's going to happen. Unfortunately, I think the bigger concern is agencies need to pivot. Like if you aren't spending some significant time right now thinking about how you're going to pivot your entire model with everything in this changing, that's to me the bigger concern because just trying to hold onto money that's going to continue to dry up. Next thing's going to be layoffs. Then you're going to close down your agency. I think we're going to start to see it, right? Some of these smaller agencies just aren't going to make it.

with everything that's going on. it's unfortunate. think indeed with this move is speeding up the death of some agencies for sure.

Chad (43:53.865)

So that there.

Chad (43:59.337)

There is an agency group coalition per se where they do get together and talk about these things. And I know for a fact they've talked about this. And I also know for a fact they've chosen to do fucking nothing.

Emi B (44:12.76)

And why's that?

Joel Cheesman (44:13.111)

Yeah, yeah. When they get together, it probably looks like the scene in Alien when the guy who gets the parasite in his belly, like the thing comes out and what he's taken in is killing him because that's what Indeed is doing. They're planting this parasite into agencies and eventually the alien is going to come out and like kill them all and they don't realize it. If Indeed is going to make their grand plan work,

They have to get people to let them in to their ecosystem. They have to let them into the ATS. I'll give them this. It's pretty smart to go to the agencies because most employers go to their agency and they say, tell me what we should do. And if their agency says you need this new indeed thing, they'll be like, okay, I pay you to make those decisions. I'm going to go with it. They might not even know that the agency is getting strong armed by indeed with.

Chad (45:03.583)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (45:08.539)

incentives financially or who knows what else is going on behind the scenes. But they're starting with, let's be honest, the weakest, the weakest, you know, the, the wounded llama in the, in the jungle is what they're going after first that tier two lake, you know, agency they're fighting for their lives. Their, their head is on a swivel, fearful that any day their client's going to go to shaker or some other competitor.

Chad (45:22.45)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (45:32.905)

And they'll do anything to keep them. So they don't want to piss off indeed, which let's also be honest is a cash cow for them because they're feeding money and getting money back in fees. So indeed is the, is definitely the, the evil genius, on this one, going after the lowest hanging fruit, the weakest, the weakest link. When they start going to the radencies and the shakers, like that's going to be really interesting because those guys handle big clients, big, you know, big accounts.

But for Indeed's grand plan to work, they have to get at least like 50 % like acceptance of this stuff into the system. Otherwise it doesn't work. So they're going to keep twisting arms. They're going to keep doing whatever they have to do to get this thing going. Otherwise they're in real trouble. Real trouble, think, as a business because their grand plan doesn't work unless everybody plays.

Chad (46:26.525)

Remember back in the newspaper days when newspapers died and all of the agencies made so much money off of that newspaper revenue, much to back to kind of what JT had said, those agencies, the ones who lived evolved, right? And we're going to have to see agencies evolve out of the huge dependence on Indeed.

Joel Cheesman (46:37.132)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (46:55.025)

Right. And we know and talking to many big talent acquisition professionals who work on the technology side that they want the brands, the companies, the hiring companies, they want to get away from Indeed. And I remember that's exactly how they felt about Monster and Career Builder when Monster and Career Builder got to this spot. So hopefully we're starting to see a cycle. Indeed's going to get kicked in the nuts. not going to die anytime soon, kids. But we'll start to see other players come up.

Joel Cheesman (47:25.079)

Yeah, it's, moving from, from hubris just sort of a, we're the best in town. You're going to use this no matter what to being become like a bully situation where we're the biggest swing and Dick, you're going to do what we say or else. And historically that doesn't usually work out very well for the bully.

Joel Cheesman (47:45.699)

Emmy, did you have a thought?

Emi B (47:47.437)

Yeah, I'm just I'm quite interested because Chad, you said this is coalition of agencies that are already talking about this, but they seem to be burying their head in the sand. They seem to be just giving up and saying, hey, from the sounds of it, I'm going to have to I'm just going to have to roll over and do what indeed is saying. Are they are they being are they trying to find a solution that they're trying to like find a way to kind of get one over? Indeed, like I don't understand why they're giving up. This is what I don't get.

Chad (48:16.671)

Well, I think that some of the bigger agencies, first and foremost, they, with their portfolio, they have time and they can kind of stave off what's happening to some effect. And they haven't been hit yet with this whole 10%, 15 % bullshit, right? So they don't have to do anything and they have the power. And if these small agencies die, so what? I mean, it's just competitors that are gone, right? And they get to...

Emi B (48:24.003)

Yeah.

Emi B (48:35.576)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (48:37.027)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (48:43.383)

Yeah, consolidation.

Chad (48:44.881)

Yeah, and or they get to acquire those, right? So I think there is a strategy for the larger agencies to do nothing right now. But the problem is, the problem is there's a lot of siphoning that's going to be happening. And if Indeed does start going direct to companies and they have and they will continue and they start getting some some pretty big portfolios, what's going to happen then? that just just from watching what happened during the newspaper days.

Emi B (48:44.889)

Yeah.

Emi B (48:52.942)

and then just watch them die, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (48:53.101)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (49:12.974)

Yeah.

Chad (49:13.289)

To now, it feels very reminiscent.

Joel Cheesman (49:15.363)

Yeah. If you're a tier two agency, again, you're month to month, like your survival, this 5%, this 5 % reduction, that's literally like life or death for a lot of these agencies. And at a minimum it's how many people do we have to lay off because we're not willing to like, yeah. So, so it's very uncomfortable to like uncomfortable, which one are they going to choose? There's really no win situation.

Chad (49:21.375)

especially now.

Emi B (49:31.022)

just to stay afloat. Yeah.

Emi B (49:40.699)

But surely they should realize that as an individual agency, yeah, there's not much they can do, but they should recognize the power in their collective. And that's why I'm quite surprised that they're going, okay, I'm gonna roll over. I'm gonna do what Indeed said. Oh, I know. But they're there. Yeah. See, I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic. I'm thinking, come on, fight the good fight. Don't let the Indeed monster like kind of

Joel Cheesman (49:56.055)

I mean, it's not a union. They all have their separate, you know, income statements. Like, they don't pull the money.

Chad (49:59.07)

Yeah.

Chad (50:08.521)

Fight the fight.

Emi B (50:10.446)

Roll over them. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:12.291)

I love the British optimism that Emmy always brings to the show. Let's see where you are on this story, Emmy. So in 2023, IBM laid off over 8,000 employees, a lot of them in HR actually replacing them with an AI chat bot. This one was called Ask HR to handle tasks like payroll and benefits queries. This led to a 3.5 billion productivity gain with the AI managing 11.5 million queries just in 2024. However,

Emi B (50:18.596)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:41.923)

6 % of tasks still needed human intervention due to complexity or emotional nuance. by 2024 and 25, IBM rehired a similar number of workers for roles in software engineering, sales, and marketing where human creativity and judgment were essential and not AI-able. you will score one for the humans at IBM, JT, what's your take?

JT ODonnell (51:07.758)

Yeah, so I couldn't find any data to support that, you know, 8,000 people have been hired back after 8,000 people left off. feel, yeah, I looked for it. I couldn't find it. I think that, I think there was a bit of a spin on that article, which I understand. I think IBM did exactly what it set out to do. So you lay off 8,000 people that they feel are expensive. And let's face it, humans are unreliable. You bring in.

Joel Cheesman (51:15.051)

I probably hallucinated it. AI probably hallucinated it.

Emi B (51:16.602)

You

Chad (51:19.987)

Joel took a gummy.

JT ODonnell (51:32.897)

AI that can work 24 hours a day is a flat fee, doesn't talk back, doesn't ask for raises. You figure out what it can and can't do. And now you come back in and you go hire the best and the brightest thinkers, right? I keep talking about the second Renaissance who want to come in and, you know, really build things with it, but at a cheaper rate, because there's so many people in the marketplace, right? Not only you bring back far fewer people, but these great minds are coming in at a lower rate. And so I think we're just going to see many, many, many companies do this exact same thing.

Joel Cheesman (51:43.853)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (52:02.414)

And, you know, that just proves it works. I saw 70 roles open. think Chad, you mentioned, but maybe they're hiring 10 people per role, you know, or maybe more. That's maybe 700, 2000 jobs that they're going to hire, but that's not 8,000. And so to me, it just reinforces what we've seen all along. Where do I think these other workers are going to go? I do believe that AI in the next 24 months, we're going to see so many new agile companies start that are going to need these brains and minds. Again, I think we're going to wake society up.

and stop getting off the hamster wheel of the full-time job with benefits and I'll do whatever my employer tells me and start to think for myself and how can I monetize my mind and who can I hook up with and what can we create? And I think some really cool stuff's gonna come out of this where people's brains are gonna turn back on and they're gonna move forward and enjoy the stuff that they do. It's just not happening right now. We're gonna have a painful 12 to 24 months while that transition happens. Just my take.

Joel Cheesman (52:32.493)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (52:51.597)

So do you think this was a concerted effort by IBM to have a layoff under the cloud cover of AI and then hire back people that were more, I guess, a better fit for the new world of AI and the human skills, the soft skills? Is that what I heard that you're saying? That this was an evil plan by IBM to lay off people? Okay.

JT ODonnell (53:11.438)

I liken it. No, I liken it to this, right? Like, no, like have you ever gotten, you know, you're sitting there and you've got a bill, a monthly bill at your house and it's expensive and you hate paying it. And of a somebody comes along one day and says, I can do that and more for one, one hundredth of the price. We're all going to do it. We have budgets. We want to save money. The businesses are no different. They're in business to make money. They look at it. There's no, you know, thinking about the human. It's just, this is how the business is run. I'm going to free that money up and I'm going to figure out later what I need to hire back.

It's business, you know, that's not personal, it's business. And we hear that all the time. I just think that was the plan. You know, we could call it layoffs because they're just thinking, I can't, what am I going to do with these 8,000 people? I don't see my business going in that direction. So let's cut it and then we'll figure it out later. It's just how I see it. And certainly with the companies that I've spoken to who don't want to go on the record about this, that's just how it's looked at it, you know, up in the boardroom.

Joel Cheesman (53:53.891)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (54:02.147)

course.

Joel Cheesman (54:05.955)

What do think, Emmy?

Emi B (54:08.895)

I get his approach, you know, because like JT said, they're a business. They're trying to increase revenue. They're trying to cut costs. AI will help you to do that. AI will automate tasks. What AI can't do yet, maybe it can do in the future, but right now it can't automate an entire job. And when I talk about an entire job, I'm talking about, like we said, the human side.

the strategy skills, the strategic skills, the empathetic skills, the ability to develop client relationships, the ability to understand a product. That is not what AI can do at the moment. So using AI to get rid of tasks and cut a whole bunch of jobs and rehiring people, a smaller number of people who can focus on those particular areas, I think that makes good.

Joel Cheesman (54:51.031)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (55:04.954)

business sense, that's the way that I think the world is actually going. It does mean that organizations are going to have to focus on role redesign because roles will change. I think lots of people have said it, AI doesn't necessarily take away jobs, but it does change jobs. So IBM is probably thinking about, okay, I got rid of these bunch of people, but I still need people who can handle these complex human skills that AI cannot do.

Joel Cheesman (55:14.712)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (55:31.171)

Yeah. And there's also, there's also probably some tech that sort of the traditional coder, you know, they, the quantum stuff and the AI stuff. Like there's probably a level of, need really high end, high paid people as well as the nuanced human people. And it's these middle folks that are, that are suffering. There might be some stuff at the top end as well. Chad, what are your thoughts?

Emi B (55:33.216)

Maybe he didn't think about that in advance.

Emi B (55:49.507)

Yeah.

Chad (55:55.643)

First off, can we give a big applause to IBM's Ask HR platform who boosted their internal net promoter score from negative 35 to plus 74? I mean, that's a holy shit moment, right? I mean, this isn't just about job seekers going into a black hole. mean, job seekers go into a black hole. What about employees who need answers about shit, right? Well, they're now the net promoter score because of this Ask HR.

Joel Cheesman (56:10.947)

I didn't even know it could go negative. Negative score? Jeez. 220, 221, whatever it takes.

Chad (56:25.023)

is actually working. I IBM CEO said the cost savings from the automation will be reinvested into higher value roles. Our total employment has actually gone up. You take a look at their website, they've got over 4,000 jobs that are open. I don't know how many they've actually hired back since, but they have over 4,000 jobs open. So now IBM is seeing increases in hiring for software engineers, sales, and marketing areas, what the article is also calling

creativity in complex decision-making roles. It doesn't say anything about empathy, but there's also the empathy that's in there, right? And we've been asking ourselves, where are all these new jobs that AI is going to be creating? What are they going to look like? And it feels like this could prospectively be, unless it's a clarin-a-moment, this could be a view into at least the first step of what...

we could be seeing. Again, there are much higher value roles and that's what I feel that I'm hearing right now. But this again, back to JT's trust but verify. I don't trust any of these motherfuckers. Every time I hear a company talk about we're using it, do this, we're using it. We find out like six months later, that was all bullshit, right? So I am very hopeful. I'm gonna be on Emmy side for a minute, very hopeful.

Joel Cheesman (57:23.554)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (57:23.842)

Definitely.

Chad (57:49.151)

But yeah, I need some trust but verif.

Joel Cheesman (57:53.313)

Yeah. And back to JT's numbers and I get looking at the data, but there are other companies. mentioned Klarna Chad. Klarna made a lot of, made a lot of noise about everyone's gone. We're going to have an AI CEO at some point and, they are hiring back people. talked about Duolingo recently, similar thing. We can lay off all these people and they're hiring back folks. So a recent, a recent survey by org view, found that 55 % of corporate leaders who conducted AI driven layoffs.

Chad (58:14.121)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (58:22.837)

ended up regretting it often due to underestimating the human needs and also the human sort of what humans were giving to the equation. I do think regardless of numbers, there's a good number of companies that have made the decision to go all in on AI and are having a little bit of a hangover on that decision and are going back. Yeah.

Chad (58:38.975)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (58:45.779)

they're trying to Twitter this shit. Just like you were talking about, months and months and months ago, everybody's gonna try to Twitter this shit. They're gonna try to go 75 % down. As soon as AI came in, they're like, look, we can Twitter this shit, and now they're getting smacked in the fucking face.

JT ODonnell (59:02.338)

you

Chad (59:03.977)

BRUH.

JT ODonnell (59:07.224)

would just say though that nobody ever criticizes a decision to save money temporarily and then have to go back and yeah, you might have a hangover, but you can at least afford the Asprendor, say, for that hangover and be able to get better. Whereas trying to hang on to everybody, burning cash and trying to invest in AI, they don't see that as good business sense. So yeah, trust but verify I'm with you on that chat. I think we're going to see a lot more orgs end up this way. And that means a lot of cool positions.

thoughtful, cool, interesting positions are going to be coming for people, just not for everybody. I that's what people have to recognize.

Emi B (59:38.671)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (59:43.683)

Guys, take a quick break, listen to the ads because there's no show without the ads.

Chad (59:47.071)

then subscribe, come on.

Joel Cheesman (59:52.483)

All right, kids business insider dropped a story this week on the rising number of job scams. Job seekers are getting ripped off to the tune of thousands with rip offs originating on LinkedIn, primarily. Scammers exploit AI and desperation in a tight job market with job scam losses rising from 90 million to 501 million from 2020 to 2024. JT, you talked to a lot of job seekers who are hurting right now.

JT ODonnell (01:00:19.041)

I do.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:20.779)

LinkedIn job scams aren't helping your thoughts.

JT ODonnell (01:00:24.718)

They aren't. Yeah. Raise your hand. If you've gotten a text, I usually get them on Sundays every week from a recruiter at Indeed, from a recruiter at LinkedIn, right? Who has an amazing job. I can WhatsApp them. It's $300 a day. Yeah. I mean, I have people every day in our platform saying, do you think this is legit? And then, you know, the story that came out this week, the level at which these scammers are going to get into people's bank accounts and to drain them is horrifying.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:31.651)

You

Emi B (01:00:32.666)

I'm

Chad (01:00:35.251)

Mm-hmm.

Emi B (01:00:42.936)

No.

JT ODonnell (01:00:53.71)

and horrifyingly effective. And so these are already people that have been out work a long time, counting on every penny, draining 401ks, and then this happens. so psychologically, how do they even come back from it? Because now it's just humiliating on top of that. I've been hopeful I'm being burned. So, buyer beware out there. Again, I would ask everyone that listens to this podcast, you can help people by spreading the word about scams, how to look for scams, how to be careful, how to check.

We just have to be telling people because they, know, when you want something to be true, you're going to look the other way. You're to put those rose colored glasses on and go, it's okay that I never saw that hiring manager on camera. it's okay that I've never really talked to somebody live. You know, it's probably okay that I give them my bank account. You know, we got to educate people on this. And you might be thinking, well, gosh, these job seekers are so stupid. They're not. They're not. These scams are sophisticated. And again, like I said, they're in a very vulnerable place to want to look over the finer things.

Joel Cheesman (01:01:34.861)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:01:52.387)

You know, to your point, traditionally these scams were for the less educated or at least that was the perception. look, 60 % of Americans can't read beyond a sixth grade level. So there was this sort of comfort level that educated people had that this can't happen to me. You know, I can see the misspellings. I can see the bad grammar. And if you, if you got stuff 10 years ago, it was obvious, like the Nigerian Prince, you know, is a scam, right?

Emi B (01:02:22.106)

It's not just the Nigerians by the way. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:02:22.915)

Although people, Oh, I just triggered Emmy. All right. Sorry. The, the Brazilian, the Brazilian, I don't know. I'm not picking on picking on Nigeria. Uh, but so the two people in the story, one was college educated and the other had an MBA and AI is taking this up a notch because all the grammar's correct. All the company stuff, the logos, everything looks so legit that people are getting into a false sense of security.

Chad (01:02:25.151)

The Hoosier Princes. The Hoosier Prince.

Emi B (01:02:30.606)

Yeah, yeah

Joel Cheesman (01:02:52.749)

that it's all real. So buyer beware to JT's point. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And certain things to me are easy red flags. Like if someone is sending you a check to buy something and they tell you buy it from here, that could be a red flag. If something is crypto, it could be a red flag. If something is connect with us on WhatsApp, it could be a red flag. So there are still a few obvious ones that you should be looking at.

JT ODonnell (01:03:09.262)

Right.

Joel Cheesman (01:03:20.151)

But yeah, this is no longer for the uneducated, the old or whatever, the people that don't know any better. This is kind of hitting and going after everybody. And also they're going after identity theft because not only scamming you from, your money, but then they want you to, as a job seeker, give you date or give them data, which then they can, they can steal your stuff. One of the, woman in the story had the IRS, you know, knocking on her door because they had filed a tax form in her name. So.

Emi B (01:03:39.172)

that we use themselves.

Joel Cheesman (01:03:48.321)

Be careful out there, everybody, for sure.

Emi B (01:03:50.747)

100%. And just to like to follow on on both your points, JT and Joel, you were saying that people need to be educated. People need to know the red flags to look out for. And I definitely do think that employers should take a bit of responsibility in terms of letting candidates know what to look out for. They understand that is a crappy market. They understand that people are anxious. They understand that candidates are desperate for jobs. And we're now in that situation.

they're more likely to overlook the red flags and just go, OK, this is slightly dodgy, but surely it's OK. So companies need to, on the career side, clearly say these are the things to look out for when they're talking to candidates in the interview process, talking to them about what they're doing as an organization to prove that they are actually a genuine organization. Platforms like LinkedIn, obviously, they're already doing things like verifying that this is a real job.

It doesn't work in all cases, but it goes some way to helping candidates. I just think there needs to be, I agree there needs to be that bigger push and not put the owners all on their anxious, already anxious candidates to know what to look out for because they're more likely to miss it in that heightened state.

Chad (01:05:04.851)

So real quick, Facebook, had Cambridge Analytica and that impacted elections, not just in the US, right? Instagram has been noted to push teen suicide. Axe had mega Hitler. LinkedIn job scams. I mean, we can't even get governments in many cases to take the steps to protect their citizens that we need to do. This can't just be.

Emi B (01:05:12.154)

Hmm.

Chad (01:05:34.905)

a job seeker doing more research, it's gotta be employers doing their job, and it's gotta be the government because the government is there to protect their citizens. The problem is we're falling down on all fucking fronts. The job seekers are not doing their research because they're really excited because they've been out of a job for six months, right? And it's really hard for them to actually put food on the table. They're incredibly anxious. They're not doing the research. The employers don't give a fuck. And the government...

Emi B (01:05:43.095)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (01:06:04.211)

depending on what government you're talking about, they're doing nothing, right? So until we get those, that three-legged stool pulled together, we're gonna continue to fall down and this shit's gonna continue to happen. And that's the sad part.

Emi B (01:06:17.56)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:06:17.795)

And everybody don't fall for the scam that I did believing that nachos were a diet.

Chad (01:06:25.407)

Ha

Joel Cheesman (01:06:26.273)

Who's ready for a dad joke?

Chad (01:06:28.723)

All right.

Joel Cheesman (01:06:30.817)

What did the fish say when it hit the cement wall?

JT ODonnell (01:06:31.278)

Bring it.

Emi B (01:06:35.876)

Slap? No.

Joel Cheesman (01:06:36.663)

Damn.

Chad (01:06:38.387)

Hahaha!

JT ODonnell (01:06:38.455)

No!

Emi B (01:06:39.443)

God, Lord.

Joel Cheesman (01:06:41.878)

You

You're welcome. We out!

Chad (01:06:46.953)

We out!

JT ODonnell (01:06:47.192)

We out!

Emi B (01:06:47.482)

We are