LinkedIn Goes Full TikTok
Job Seeker Confidence Collapse : LinkedIn Goes Full TikTok
Joel and Maureen are back, slightly singed from RecFest, to argue about whether the industry is a warm community or a room full of under-resourced people begging an AI agent to reinvent the email alert.
Also on the menu: LinkedIn cosplaying as TikTok, Meta finally peeling the cameras off the glasses Maureen still will not buy.
The job market gets the usual treatment — sturdy headlines, miserable humans, bots applying as nurses for $150 a pop. Then Madonna shows up at 68 in fishnets, and the episode somehow gets weirder.
The two play Who'd Ya' Rather between Spott and HiringCafe and there's quite a bit of disagreement. Imagine that?
Startups, ghost jobs, ageism, and a bad dad joke. The usual dangerous hour.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:05.514)
Hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:20.691)
Ha ha ha.
Joel Cheesman (00:29.691)
yeah. yeah. Nashville hot going in. Toxic waste on the way out. Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Village Idiot Cheeseman.
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:30.494)
Ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:42.022)
And I'm your co-host Maureen, aka Mo. These are definitely not meta glasses, Wiley Clough. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (00:48.276)
Yeah, we'll get to that on this week's episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, a tale of two economies, job seeker malaise, and Madonna stirs up controversy like it's nineteen ninety-two all over again. Let's do this.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:01.994)
Still got it.
Just us, huh? Just the two of us. Big change from last week. I just wanted to match your energy, Joel. I just, and you know, we were talking about glasses. I thought I'd bring it. It's it's tight. It's tight.
Joel Cheesman (01:06.976)
Just the two of us we can make it if we So you recovered from Nashville? You've got you've got like the morning after glasses on that you're not gonna s
Yeah. The Iwear the Iwear game is is tight on this sh this week's show. Sorry. If you're listening, I don't know, how would you describe your glasses? Kinda like Golden Girls meets
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:28.978)
yeah. Golden Girls, but like the twenty twenty six version. Yeah. I l Yes, yes, yes. I I agree. Yes. I think that's that's fair. I more on the Lisa Loeb side, I would say. But yeah. She was awesome. That song, my gosh. Stay, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. Wow, lots of singing today already. I know it's like damn, I I'm not bold enough, but I appreciate it.
Joel Cheesman (01:35.24)
It's kind of a Lisa Loeb meets Betty White thing you got going there. Okay. You like that?
She was she was so hot back. I had such a crush on her back in the day. Yeah. Cause I missed you. Yeah, this is this musical episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast brought to you. So yeah, the glass game is the glass game is tight. Recfest, you recovered. any final takeaways that we missed on the show?
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:58.602)
State. I mean, man, just what a cool community. That's what I have to say. I mean, like, I've been a part of other tech sort of adjacent communities in the past, and let me tell you, you guys are a lot cooler than like the the accounting community of which I was unfortunately a part for quite some time. but yeah, no, the SAS community, right? But it was just
Joel Cheesman (02:16.233)
Cooler.
Cheers.
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:25.819)
an incredible time. Like I I had so much fun. I met so many wonderful people, people that I think like I will continue to know in the future, which is great. And, you know, it's just I loved what Jamie and his team were able to bring together. It just like it feels so different than any other conference. Like it truly does.
Joel Cheesman (02:30.025)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (02:38.612)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:42.281)
Well so you you ran was it innovation stage? Okay. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:45.275)
Innovate, yeah. I so JT and I were hosts of the innovate stage, which was awesome. We had some really, really great presentations up there. And yeah, I mean, I just couldn't get over how great everybody was. Like I I don't always say that about conferences or people that I meet at these, but I just was like continually bowled over by how awesome these people were.
Joel Cheesman (02:57.951)
Do you do
Joel Cheesman (03:06.025)
Well, cool is not a a adverb that you don't that you hear very often, adjective for this industry. were there were there like any takeaways? What was the vibe of the the employers slash the p like were you impressed with the innov the innovation that you Yeah?
Maureen Wiley Clough (03:10.089)
No, no, you don't. But they were. They were.
Maureen Wiley Clough (03:22.757)
I was. I was. I felt like it was very candid. I really appreciated how like real talk everybody was. And, you know, I just thought that it was more interesting than a lot of the other presentations I've seen at other places along the course of my career. And people were just kind of like more open to to saying what's really going on. And there were a lot of audience questions. The people seemed pretty engaged, which was
Joel Cheesman (03:26.749)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (03:37.225)
Yeah. Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (03:47.668)
Which is great. I mean, we've all been at conferences where people like sit there and their eyes glaze over the entire time and it really didn't feel that way. It felt like and nobody was kinda untouchable. Like folks seemed like they were really down to just go and mingle with everybody else. There were no no people who had like airs that they were putting on. I just it was good vibes. What did you think?
Joel Cheesman (03:47.818)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (04:00.326)
Uh-huh.
That's interesting. You you say open and engaged, I say confused and desperate. I felt I felt a lot of overwhelmed, under resourced people throughout the conference. Yeah. Help me help give help somebody give me a goddamn easy button so I can just figure all this stuff out. Cause I I'm I'm confused and I live this stuff every day. Look the whole
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:11.209)
ha ha what?
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:17.41)
really? fascinating. I did not feel that.
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:24.329)
really?
Joel Cheesman (04:31.711)
The whole what's old is new again bl blows blows me away. there was someone on stage that talked how cool it was that they had an AI agent go out, scour the web for jobs and bring them in to their email or whatever. I'm like, that's a that's an email alert. That's like since the dawning of job boards, they've had that. And somehow because it's an AI agent, it's now cool. And now, yeah, like AEO is the new SEO and
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:50.202)
Ha ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:56.014)
you just s slap that name AI on it and there you go. Yeah. Maybe that's why they weren't at the innovate stage, 'cause that's you know, hey.
Joel Cheesman (05:03.669)
Yeah, it's just well, there was we're gonna talk about it in Hood you rather, but like every like there's new ATSs, there's new job boards, like what is going on? We're going back. It's just yeah, it's kind of a time warp for me. But to your point, it's always about the people for me. you see old friends again, you make some new ones. Like people don't leave this industry. to your point, it's cool. So people people stick around. And and speaking of cool, speaking of cool mo,
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:14.705)
Interesting.
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:22.727)
Yeah. It's very cool.
Joel Cheesman (05:32.393)
Bet is listening to our show, apparently, because they launched a bunch of stuff, but most notably for you, you hate you hate the meta glasses and the cameras and all that. So so they're they're launching a bunch of stuff. But what I wanted to get to was your your take on no more like c cameras. We're gonna have the audio, which in all in all in all honesty, because I wear these things and I have for a while, the audio is
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:34.467)
sick. I love that.
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:43.379)
Beyond Beyond So
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:54.449)
I mean hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Joel Cheesman (06:01.814)
Probably 80% of the usage. It's probably 80% of I want to listen to podcasts, I want to listen to music, I want to like watch TikTok in private. That's the thing. I won't tell you why I want to watch in private, but and then I'd say probably 15% is the AI at this point. The AI is great. I have conversations with the with the AI. Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (06:04.616)
Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (06:11.977)
Ha ha ha.
Yeah, I was gonna say, hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (06:21.499)
Okay. I'm gonna need you to Okay. With your glasses. So you talk to yourself. Okay. Yeah. Can you select a different voice? Would you rather? Okay.
Joel Cheesman (06:28.979)
Well, it's it's not my voice that comes back to me. It's a very pleasant female that talks to me. But it's it's really good. It sounds like a person. It's not more it's not like well shall you shall we play a game? It's not even sort of a cheesy telemarketer. It's really good and it's it's it's great. So I would say maybe five to ten percent is actually me taking a picture of my kid playing soccer or
Maureen Wiley Clough (06:43.791)
Okay Hal
Joel Cheesman (06:55.753)
Like I've done videos with us riding a bike and it's cool to like be on a bike, videotaping him on a bike. Yeah. So I get I get the whole like sports thing and the GoPro angle of it. But I I don't think the cameras are are a huge part of my activity, although people other people it is. So I'm sure I'm sure you're happy about it. And will you and more importantly, will you be buying a pair of metas without the cameras?
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:00.241)
The first person. Without a GoPro, yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:14.013)
They're huge part of people's disdain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And w we don't like those other people. Yeah.
Abs absolutely not. No, absolutely not. I I still don't even completely understand the function of them. Like I'm I'm fascinated to hear like why you would purchase them, what you would do. Like, can't you just bring your phone out if you want to record? Can't you just talk to your phone? Can you talk to Alexa? Like they're there are all these other options. And I just d and sure, like listening to music.
Joel Cheesman (07:26.185)
Ha ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:43.632)
on your eyeglasses. L let me tell you, my husband had a pair long before Meta even entered the scene. He had a pair of sunglasses or or eyeglasses, I forget what they were, and they had some sort of like speaker in them. And he would just like be listening to music while going about his day around me. And I'd be like, hey babe, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like wouldn't respond. And it'd be like, hey babe. And he'd be like, yeah, yeah. And then he'd be like, no, I can totally hear you. And I'm like, my God, this is going to make you me murder you. Like he just, you know, he's like, no, I I can absolutely participate. I'm like,
Joel Cheesman (07:54.803)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (08:09.695)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:13.864)
No, you are you were off in La La Land if you're listening to that shit. But yeah, I just don't I don't completely get it, but I'm utterly thrilled to have the removal of the cameras. I think they are beyond creepy and they go in the wrong hands very easily. I don't love the idea of being able to record anyone without their knowledge either, but that's you know another thing we have to deal with since we're always being surveilled. So whatever. Everything's listening at all times. Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (08:26.101)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (08:38.907)
That's that's a great point. how many f how many flock cameras are in your local community? I can tell you, if you're in public, you're being watched totally. I funny funny s funny side story for you. my wife got her her car was broken into a couple of years ago and it was in a parking lot and she knew it coming out and they they had a camera in the parking lot.
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:42.42)
Like you're not o obvious if you're recording. I know. Mm, exactly. And increasingly in private too. That's the part that freaks me out. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (09:08.265)
So they knew basically the car that pulled up. They like pulled up and then got out, took her purse and shit, and then like drove up. So the cops got called. So the cops did a like a reverse engineering of what time did they leave? Like what is the radius of escape? And they had they had they have cameras everywhere. So they were like, based on the time here in the car and the description, like they were able to basically trace, I think, the criminal.
And I wouldn't even I would have not have known that was going on in my community. But well they they didn't 'cause there's like it was like fifty bucks that they stole and they were like, We got better things to do. But if but if they had kidnapped a kid or done something really serious, I think that they could have totally caught these people.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:37.086)
And they actually but they actually did because like where I live they can't
Okay, okay, okay. Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:54.49)
Or if you're looking for a lost dog, as they told us in the ring commercial on the Super Bowl, I was like, my god, come on, people. That's not what they're doing here. Not what they're doing here. But yeah. You do you, Ben. You do you. absolutely it's a f it's a free country for now. I don't like it. I don't like it. Mm-mm.
Joel Cheesman (10:05.044)
Well, I will continue to lobby for these things. And the good news is I I can wear them and you don't have to. And it's yeah. Until the government says you're all wearing headgear that we can track everything that you do. it's it's all good. It's all good. So the the little what the the stuff also from Meta, the little was it Yamaguchi, Tamaguchi, I'm too old.
Maureen Wiley Clough (10:27.73)
Mm dude, like the what are they like a surveillance laboooboo? Like the no thank you. Like that's the little muse guy. He does look like a laboooboo. It's wild. But yeah, he looks so friendly. Give me all your data. Tell me your bank account information. All good. No problem. Nothing to see here. I mean Mark Zuckerberg himself is the one who made fun of people for being so trusting of him taking everybody's data. I don't want to give you shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't I don't think he's grown up much. I don't think he's grown much.
Joel Cheesman (10:35.199)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (10:42.333)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (10:50.588)
he was like nineteen at the time. Come on. He was a young he was a young kid at the time.
Maureen Wiley Clough (10:56.11)
if anything, I think he's doubled down on that. But yeah, I'm like, that is you know, I've heard that it can be good, you know. I've heard some people say that it it's it's great, whatever. I just I don't know, I have another friend in AI specifically and he's just like, do not fucking put your shit in muse. Do not do it. He's like, it is the worst idea. And because I don't have the level of acumen as to like how
Joel Cheesman (11:15.53)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (11:22.3)
AI works as this guy does, and he says that, I'm like, okay, duly noted. I I mean I wasn't going to anyway, but I'm doubly not going to now that I know that that's his perception. but you know, like I see why people are drawn to it. You know, the the utility and the and the ease of having one place to go. But I also gotta tell ya, i i if muse is anyhow related in any way to what they put on meta for their AI, I have a problem with that because it is hallucinating the shit out of stuff. Like I
Joel Cheesman (11:23.998)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (11:30.549)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (11:46.761)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (11:50.472)
I was just searching, I was on Instagram the other day, and I I think I pulled, I tried to pull up Mike Pedito. Shout out, Mike, we love you. but I tried to find Mike Pedito's profile to just go look at his profile, and it for some reason returned like, you know, Mike Pedito was just at wreckfest, like this whole AI thing about Mike Pedito. And I was like, damn, that's actually like really specific and actually good. And like he was at Wreckfest. That's so weird that it's picking up all this stuff. And then I was like, I'm gonna search myself and see what it says. What it returned me was.
Joel Cheesman (12:07.273)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (12:19.516)
was something that told me that I was the CEO of Work It Daily and that I had a daughter named Skylar who lost her Instagram access and all the stuff and I was like, my God, it thinks I'm JT. It's like Maureen W. Cl. I'm like, what? Like how did it hallucinate this? Like it didn't even that had to have been pulled from a different place altogether. Like maybe a transcript from one of our episodes or something. But I was like, where the hell do they get this info? So do not trust AI, you guys. Like double check shit. It was so off.
Joel Cheesman (12:28.095)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (12:40.756)
Maybe.
Joel Cheesman (12:49.685)
Can you really ignore it though? I I don't
Maureen Wiley Clough (12:52.082)
Ignore I? I'm I'm not saying to do that. Everybody's doing it.
Joel Cheesman (12:53.791)
Can' you just if everyone's doing it, Mo, can you s can you be the outlier that that can you can you be the the Luddite who doesn't get on board with this stuff? I mean I guess so.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:04.106)
I mean, I don't think what I'm saying is suggesting that I'm not on board with it. I think everybody has to be to some degree, but I think just go in with like some judgment. Like like like use your use your noggin and don't just blindly accept stuff. I mean, I think I told you guys that Grok made like a obituary for me, like put my face in an obituary, like insane. Like I'm alive. Hi. it's just it's weird. It's weird.
Joel Cheesman (13:12.457)
Yeah. You got a line. You got a l you got lines you won't cross. Got it.
Joel Cheesman (13:25.214)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (13:29.107)
Yeah.
It it it's amusing as someone who still is old enough to remember the smoking thing and Joe Camel and trying to get kids on board with the cool cartoons that that if we just put social media and AI into like a fun, chubby what'd you call it?
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:42.021)
my gosh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:48.978)
I know that's so well put. A surveillance labu-boo, and I can't remember where I heard that, but I was like, that is brilliant.
Joel Cheesman (13:52.382)
La boo boo, yeah, that was it. That's that's out of my that's out of my age range. But yeah, it's like it's Joe Camel for a new generation. Gotta love it. It's a new addiction. It's a new addiction for a new generation. But not nearly as cool as smoking. Not nearly as cool as lighting up. yeah, not not even not even close. Not even close.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:59.726)
Mm-hmm. Totally. It's so cute and innocuous. You just want to cuddle it. I mean I see why. No, no. tops, tops.
my gosh. But they know what they're doing. Like that's the insidious part. Like the company that just had a what seventeen billion dollar settlement for harming kids is now like, ooh, here's our new AI little like toy. Come on, like, come on. It's crazy. don't get me started on how they responded to that. I saw some of their executives just having the most smug, obnoxious response and it god, just it's horrific.
Joel Cheesman (14:15.871)
Course.
Joel Cheesman (14:24.309)
Sure, they just need better PR.
Joel Cheesman (14:35.409)
Mm-hmm. And and now they have VR that looks like sunglasses, kind of nerdy sunglasses. I assume you don't think those are going to take off.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:41.986)
gosh. I mean the metaverse certainly didn't, so I don't know.
Joel Cheesman (14:47.999)
They changed their name for that. And it's it's it's it's not happening, people. That's not happening. All right, let's get the shout out, shall we?
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:53.812)
Crazy.
Joel Cheesman (14:56.777)
Well, you know shout outs are sponsored by Proven Base. Everyone loves free bourbon. they love they love the cock, obviously.
Maureen Wiley Clough (15:01.935)
God.
Joel Cheesman (15:08.319)
But you can't get it unless you play, unless you sign up, Mo. So you gotta go to Chadcheese dot com slash free. Sign up. You get two bottles, one for me, one from Chad. But it's all made possible by our friends at Proven Base. Give us a shout out, Mo.
Maureen Wiley Clough (15:22.762)
All right, my shout-out goes to the Broligarchy who was out in full force yesterday after having a meeting with Trump and talking about how they basically were going to self-regulate AI. So that is the the answer that they came up with. I'd like to remind everybody that, you know, Facebook liked to self-police, right? And let's see, Bowen had a little problem with that as well. It was like,
Joel Cheesman (15:44.213)
It's like asking McDonalds to to monitor the slaughterhouses. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (15:48.574)
Precisely, it's like the you know the fox guarding the hen house kind of thing. And it's just like watching the footage of these guys walk out and all dudes, like almost every single person, like the the the pictures were staggering. It's like, man, man, it's wild. but watching them walk out afterwards and having reporters come out and say, like, do you think this is safe? Do you think this is your self-regulation is the way to go? Do you think blah blah blah? Almost none of them had anything to say. But you know who had a little too much to say? Alex Carp from Palantir. Man, that guy needs I'll have what he's had.
Joel Cheesman (15:51.497)
Yep. Even better.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:18.3)
Okay, like that guy is so off his rocker. He's so heavily medicated. It's insane. And like that he should be institutional. How are we like I I just I can't believe that this is this is how this is gonna go. but yeah, he he literally was like, I'm I'm trying to celebrate right. He's on some, he's on some he's on something. But it was just like, ooh man, but the the level of disdain for the reporter asking a very simple question was I mean not at all surprising for that particular character.
Joel Cheesman (16:31.035)
He he's either not on the meds or he's on some meds that yeah, it's that I sh that we should be taking.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:47.966)
But still stunning, right? Stunning.
Joel Cheesman (16:50.261)
pr the the problem is the broligarchy is becoming an extension of Trump, which is the media sucks and they lie and it's fake. So it shouldn't be any surprise that all these guys get on board with like the media's a hoax and everything is bullshit. but it he he
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:55.423)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:01.898)
That they treat that way.
Joel Cheesman (17:11.007)
You know, I was gonna say like you expect more from a CEO, but I expect more from a president and it's all out the window. So so who cares? Yeah. We we we were yeah, we were able to track down Zuckerberg for a quote. here's
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:16.746)
Basically anything goes is what I'm learning from this. And you can be anyone or do anything.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:27.812)
There you go.
Joel Cheesman (17:28.405)
Yeah, that's that's Zuckerberg and and his comment. so my shout out goes to LinkedIn going full TikTok. If you follow LinkedIn, I know everyone in the show listens, does. So LinkedIn has done its best Facebook impression for about 20 years. They kind of dipped into Snapchat world for a while when they had stories, and then they got rid of the stories.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:37.116)
Woohoo.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:49.502)
Did they? They had stories. I didn't even know that. I don't remember stories. Hmm.
Joel Cheesman (17:53.044)
You know, yeah, they had like the little stories that you see on face, like the little circles with the person. You could you go now it's just video and you like scroll through the video. But here's here's here's what they're doing now. So TikTok made the for you air section popular, right? Which which was great because it meant you don't have to have followers, you just have to have good content and we'll serve your shit up to people on the platform. So the one the one holdout for LinkedIn was you gotta have a network.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:58.388)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:07.54)
Hmm. Yep.
Joel Cheesman (18:23.231)
You got to have the thousands of people that are following you to get any kind of traction. Well, to hell with that, they're testing apparently in the wild. Some what some people saw, a reporter saw that they're having the for you page default to with another tab of your network, which you can then tap into. So personally for me, 20 years of building a network, thousands and thousands of people, like I this sucks. I'm not happy about it. But I guess is if the for the young well, yeah, because I built this.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:34.867)
I have it.
That's exactly what I have. Yep.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:48.979)
Really?
Joel Cheesman (18:52.138)
A a really nice network. A really nice network and it means nothing now.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:52.564)
Brick by brick, brick by brick.
I don't think that's true at all. I think your network means the world. I think there's a very huge difference between people who follow you. Not flew your feet. Well don't you just you can just go from for you to network. Just toggle. really?
Joel Cheesman (19:01.267)
Not for my feed. Not for my funny shit. Not for the
No one does that. No one's gonna do that. How many times how o how often on TikTok do you leave for you and go to the people I follow?
Maureen Wiley Clough (19:15.91)
I actually do not use TikTok other than to post on TikTok. No, I'm just saying I don't. It's it's Instagram, yeah, reels. But I I also try not to consume too much there because I'm trying to like put stuff out, you know? So, but I get it, like I'm not I'm not holier than thouing. I'm just like I have limited time at this point. Like if I'm gonna put something out of the world, I can't be sitting there scrolling, you know?
Joel Cheesman (19:19.465)
All right, all right, higher than now. What is your social media of choice? Is it reels? Okay.
Joel Cheesman (19:37.993)
W without numbers in front of me or any day, I feel very confident that very few people go to like who I'm following. I bet it's all like just just feed me the content, TikTok or Reels. And now it's gonna be just feed me the content, LinkedIn, and
Maureen Wiley Clough (19:45.31)
Hit hit network.
Just give me what I want. I mean it.
You know, I I I am of two minds about this because on one hand I'm like, hey, they probably know me better than I know myself, and they're gonna serve me up stuff that I really want. But that's the same slippery slope that gets us into data issues and surveillance, mass surveillance. So but I I personally, as someone who creates content, am kind of happy that there's more distribution based on like interests, right? Because there's a possibility that someone will discover me who otherwise might not have. So I like that part.
Joel Cheesman (19:58.313)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (20:17.022)
Uh-huh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (20:23.678)
But I will say that the network aspect for me and where LinkedIn will always have utility and function and be super valuable is the fact that you can go see who you know and where they work. Like that's number one, right? So if I want to go and dive into that, I just hit the network button. So that's personally a thumb about me.
Joel Cheesman (20:37.523)
Yeah. I guess if you wanna kiss ass on people who can pay you or give you a job, like you will go to the network 'cause that's directly who you're connected to. Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (20:45.822)
That would be smart if you yeah. I mean, if that's the move, that's what we're going for. You got that.
Joel Cheesman (20:49.779)
Maybe I'm getting if if they can start serving up if they can start serving up a praying mantis versus a scorpion, then I'm all in. I'm I'm all in. I'm all in. By the way, I was I was hoping to use this as an opportunity to tell everybody to go follow Chad and Cheese on LinkedIn, but who knows what the hell's gonna happen with like company pages and and organizational pages. So so yeah, so so fuck it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (20:55.242)
It'll happen. It'll get there.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:05.118)
Do it. Do it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:10.196)
I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. Well then just follow you and ch you and Chad. And you know, JT and Emmy and me. Yeah. It's Chad and T yeah. That's true. That's true.
Joel Cheesman (21:15.795)
We w it's it's a triple threat. It's Chad and she and me and you can get the the company page too. By the way, our newsletter's up to like three thousand readers. We're kind of proud of that. Kinda proud on that. All right, let's go to events.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:26.222)
Sick. Let's go. As they say. Dude, Steven.
Joel Cheesman (21:32.947)
All right. So Chad is not on this week. He's in Dallas for the SIA conference. He's doing some cheesy shark tank competition. Dallas or the Shark Tank competition? Okay. Dallas, not so much. All right. Then we're next week we're headed to Amsterdam. Very cool. The e-recruitment conference. Gonna hang out with Levin and Steven McGrath.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:40.392)
Right. That sounds so fun. I want to do that someday. I'd be like, well, well, well. Definitely the shark take concert con the competition. Mm-hmm. No. It's fine. Take it or leave it.
So
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:02.012)
Say hi for me.
Joel Cheesman (22:02.274)
And all the other Europeans drinking Belgian beer and eating eating very good food that's not that's not loaded with preservatives and all the shit in America. My poop looks much better when I'm in Europe, by the way. Yeah, TMI, I know. And then then we come back and go to Vegas. We do a total one one eighty on on Europe, head to Vegas. By the way, Amsterdam or not Amsterdam, Nashville is more Vegas than Vegas now.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:13.658)
Mm.
that was TMI. my god.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:22.964)
Damn.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:32.37)
Nash Vegas. Nash Vegas.
Joel Cheesman (22:32.637)
I feel comfortable saying that. Vegas now is good food shows business stuff. Vegas or Nashville is get drunk, make bad choices, and not really know what time it is anymore. Like you could be at bars and next thing you know, you're karaokeing and it's two AM. And how did that happen? Anyway. Anyway, by the way, our travels guys sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing, whose shirt I'm wearing. This is
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:37.684)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:45.098)
I don't disagree with that. Yeah. my gosh, yeah, hundred percent.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:58.628)
Hey yo. That's such a cool shirt, yeah. I dig it. That's that's fair. I agree. We had a great booth for us to all sit in last week. That was really fun. I want to do more live shows.
Joel Cheesman (23:02.271)
This is one of the better shirts that I that I saw. It's I b a marketing agency should have good shirts. Am I right? They should have good shirts. All right, guys. That's right, guys. Okay, if you want to know where Chad and I are going, that's the end of our travels for this year. Vegas, by the way, will be at the workday frontline workers thing, Paradox. that'll be fun for a day of that. what else we got here? We got fantasy football mo.
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:18.57)
It's a lot.
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:23.366)
Nice.
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:30.783)
damn huge huge
Joel Cheesman (23:31.261)
I know you're a huge fan of the fantasy and the football, but not necessarily the fantasy football. week three is in the books, gang. number one, let's go from first to worst. We got Jarrett Joles Jolderzma. I asked everyone how to pronounce their names, so this is good. Joel Jarrett Joldersma. Dij Dajan Amare, Nicholas Tyshak. And then we got easy ones. Nick Livingston, Scott Clark.
Bosco Vucho Vujitovich, me at number seven, McKenzie Maitland, Moll Molly Sly, Chad in the ten spot. He's just begging to be at the bottom. then we have Ben Ben Kuntz and we have Desiree Goldie.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:09.737)
Ha ha ha ha.
Joel Cheesman (24:16.903)
In the caboose position. big thanks to our friends at Factory Fix for making our unhealthy obsession with football possible. Let's get to topics.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:27.444)
Fun.
Joel Cheesman (24:32.917)
That's right, folks. You waited 24 minutes till we get to the actual meat of the show. Here we go. Mo US job openings fell to 7.08 million in August as layoffs eased and the labor market stayed sturdy. But conference board consumer confidence plunged to 81.9, its lowest level since 2014, as Americans grew gloomier about prices, personal finances, and jobs.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:35.722)
man, listen to us. Blah blah blah blah.
Joel Cheesman (25:00.551)
Amid the Iran war, energy costs, and higher inflation expectations. Keeping up with the positive news intertwined with the negative stories, frankly, Mo is a getting pretty exhausting and even more confusing as the months go by. What do you make of all this economic yo yoing, Mo?
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:19.764)
I think it's gaslighting. Just plain and simple. It's a lot of gaslighting. I think there is a lot that's not being discussed that's right beneath the surface. It's like, you know, the unemployment rate sounds pretty good, right? They say like older people are employed at a high rate. They just gave up, guys. They they're dejected. They walked away. And if you haven't applied for a job in the past four weeks, you're not even included in any of these figures whatsoever. And these things are tracked. It's just they're not necessarily the ones publicized. So
the government is going to push the better sounding number, period. End of story. So like the U6 is the one that's going to actually capture people who are underemployed and who have quit, you know, searching for a while, who are dejected, or people who, you know, have a couple part-time jobs but can't find the full-time job, right? But that doesn't sound great. So it's just it's not going to be pushed. So I think it it's infuriating. You know, I I talk to a lot of people who are in utter job search hell these days and
to have them f continually see these these different headlines saying everything is great, you know, it's just like, come on, man, like we we know what's happening here. So it's it's really it's frustrating. I saw another statistic recently, it was a headline and I think it was Gizmodo. It was like 71% of Americans have like had it. It's like, dude, that does not happen when everything's all hunky dory. Like that's just, you know, this this consumer
sort of confidence number and the way people are feeling is is for a reason. And so I'm enough enough with this gaslighting is what I think.
Joel Cheesman (26:53.385)
Yeah. I think it really starts with trust. I think there's a real problem with the government numbers. we all know like Trump has been strong arming fed you know, offices of of everything. he wants good numbers. Who's to say that he's not sort of analy or, you know, sort of pushing for different things? a recent poll showed that forty six percent of Americans now distrust the economic
Maureen Wiley Clough (26:57.108)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:00.529)
yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:09.759)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (27:21.489)
day that's coming out of Washington. Kevin Wheeler, who by the way, if you're not, if you're not, if you're not subscribed to Kevin Wheeler's Substack, you really should. He's he's just churning out some really good stuff. But he had a post earlier this month he where he said, quote, when I talk to when I talk with recruiters and even more importantly, the job seekers in recent graduates, I hear a very different story. This was following a good labor report.
hiring is slow, finding a job is difficult, and many companies are reluctant to add headcount. So as far as Kevin Wheeler's going concerned, he's not falling for the banana and the tailpipe. Now, I I do think that there are some strong sides that's keeping a little bit of it afloat. Like healthcare jobs are saving everybody. How many vendors at Erecfest are like, we're really focused on the healthcare sector? Like that's
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:58.47)
Right. No. Good.
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:14.303)
Right, right, you don't say.
Joel Cheesman (28:16.137)
That's who's that's who's hiring, that's who's spending money because baby boomers are getting sick and we need need to take care of them. The other side I think is construction, whether it's data centers or whatever we're doing. I'm like my wife works at a works at Indiana and they're building new new facilities. And she had a discussion with the construction guy, and he said everyone is leaving him to go build data centers.
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:20.616)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:24.424)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (28:41.929)
Because they're paying so much for those jobs that they're pulling out a lot of construction workers. Also, there's not enough construction workers, so they're all getting sucked out by data centers. So there are there are parts that are strong. Obviously, AI continues to be strong. Also, I don't know if you heard, but Burger King has new nuggets now. so I know every every everyone's flo everyone's flocking to BK for nuggets. So I'm sure that they're they're they're in a hiring spree as well. But they're
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:42.527)
my gosh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:47.506)
I buy it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (28:54.25)
Sure, absolutely.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:01.074)
I have not, but of course you have.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:08.138)
That's so funny.
Joel Cheesman (29:09.961)
But there are three three primary things that I've identified that are that are really sort of driving this whole narrative. Number one is the inflation trap. People still have jobs, but thanks to inflation, their money doesn't go as far. So I might have a job, but I can't buy the shit that I used to. I can't take my family on the trips that I used to or whatever it is. So so yes, employment is low, but I don't feel so good about it because I'm not keeping up with inflation. the number two is
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:29.652)
Yeah. Very frustrating.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:36.242)
Right.
Joel Cheesman (29:39.53)
The the low fire or like low hire, low fire, is real, but I don't think we talk enough about the how that affects people. If if I have a job, maybe I like it, maybe I don't, but I'm really scared to leave because I probably won't get a different job. I have so I have no there's no hope. I don't get paid enough to keep up with inflation, but I can't leave because I probably won't find another job.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:42.256)
Or low fire. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:50.793)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:09.36)
And you need health insurance. No.
Joel Cheesman (30:09.601)
And in some cases, well, I've I watch Mo on tick on TikTok. You're on TikTok content-wise if you're not watching it. I see Mo on TikTok. she's telling me once I get to like 32, I'm too old for the job market. So I'm screwed there. so I have no I have no mobility. I can't go to like another city where it like things are hopping. So I feel s I feel like if I quit, I'm screwed. That's incredibly detrimental to people's psyche. And then and then from a macro perspective, like, okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:15.998)
Yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:21.332)
Yeah, you're screwed.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:30.452)
Feel stuck.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:34.771)
It really is.
Joel Cheesman (30:39.199)
We're at war again. We're in a terror fight with Canada. What? social media, every my whole feed is like how bad it is. It just feeds my already negative biases, maybe. So you have inflation, you have low low hire, low fire keeping me stuck, and then you have sort of these geopolitical issues that I think is driving so much of of the of unhappiness in in the country.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:50.108)
Anxiety. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (31:05.246)
Yeah. Absolutely. It it's it's really it's heartbreaking. But I think I mean, I'd rather hear the truth, right? And have people share what's actually happening than hear this BS PR stuff, right?
I do think it will change. I do think that there will be silver linings out of this. I think there are gonna be so many brand new businesses built from this. Okay, yeah. I mean, if if the world continues to exist, which is a big conditional statement at this point, we don't all die.
Joel Cheesman (31:27.711)
Say more about this silver lining 'cause I think our listeners
Joel Cheesman (31:35.542)
yeah. I forgot A's gonna kill us all. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (31:37.426)
If we don't all die, we will see a lot of these people who are, you know, laid off or get squeezed out of the job market, who will n s necessarily have to go start something on their own. So we'll see a ton of new solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, creators, people that will be, you know, of all ages, frankly, because they they gotta make a buck, right? Like you you gotta do what you gotta do. And we we don't live in a society where you can just be taken care of if if you don't do something, right? So you will see a lot of these new initiatives take
take flight and I think that that's really hopeful and exciting. Hopefully they will be made in a new model that is better and less exploitative than some of those that exist now. but I'm I'm hopeful in that front because you will have so many people who are swinging it going out on their own for the first time and hopefully that will create a brand new sort of offering and economy in and of itself. But I I recognize also that a lot of that is sold to us as like hopium, right? And it's like, be your own boss, like you know, contractors, you know, and
Joel Cheesman (32:35.071)
Totally.
Maureen Wiley Clough (32:37.106)
And so I say all that, you know, with the the two things can be true at once, right? So I cannot just sit here and be so depressed about what's going on in the world because that does no good to anyone. And so I'm choosing to also focus on that fact that there will be a lot of new good coming out of this situation. And things, the pendulum always swings. So I I have hope that employers will be on much better behavior once it's less of an employer-centric market. I think
Joel Cheesman (32:47.689)
Yeah. I mean
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:03.082)
you know, candidates will be able to call more of the shots. Like I I think it just needs to come back more to the center. Right now it's just insane.
Joel Cheesman (33:07.785)
Yeah. You know, lost in all this, you know, go start a company, go go hustle and do your own thing. I mean, people people forget, you know, what I don't know the the exact number. It's like eighty percent of small businesses fail in the first year and then like ninety-five percent in the second. So just because you're telling people to go start a new business doesn't mean they're all gonna be successful. In fact, most aren't, which will start a whole new wave of depression and you know, downtrodden malaise in the in the country. I know.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:13.5)
Mm-hmm. Don't quit your day job though. God.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:21.066)
Absolutely true. Yeah. Absolutely true.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:29.552)
Absolutely not.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:34.686)
I was trying to keep the vibes high, Joel, and you brought me right back down. But I will never do the grift of like just start your own business. Starting your own business is really freaking hard and it nothing's guaranteed. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (33:37.245)
I do think it's there's a there's a
Joel Cheesman (33:43.508)
It is hard. And as more people do that, it becomes harder because it's more and more people like there's more influencers and more like the more there are, the harder it is. Yeah. Which is why my only my my OnlyFans hustle never quite took off because there's too much competition in that in that space. In that space. All right. I pretty sh there's also a spike in franchisees. Apparently. Apparently the kids are starting subway sh subway stops and I don't know, Portello's franchisees. I don't know.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:49.62)
Dude, you're you're bringing me back down, Joel. I was I was hoping. Too much competition. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:05.555)
yeah, yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:11.892)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (34:13.565)
So you're saying there's a chance.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:15.05)
Saying there's a chance. W we have to we have to keep that hope, right? Otherwise it's just too bleak.
Joel Cheesman (34:23.381)
Keep it keep it optimistic, Mo. let's take a quick break. Take a breath. and we come back. then. Make sure, guys, make sure you're following us on your social media or your sorry. I guess social media were there too. wherever you follow us, make sure you subscribe and leave a review. I want to get to 100 reviews by the end of the year. We're like 10 away. So whether it's good or bad, just go to go to app, go to whatever, leave us, leave us for you guys. We'll be right back.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:25.882)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:30.57)
That was a lot. Whew.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:37.674)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:44.746)
Do it, do it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:53.02)
You're frozen, have been for a long time. Can you I can hear you. Okay. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (34:55.263)
Can you hear me though? Okay. Then it doesn't matter, really. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (35:04.499)
Mo, I'm taking your silver lining and I'm flushing it. I got more more malaise for you. Gallup, Gallup this week finds that 27% of U.S. workers now fear technology could make their jobs obsolete. That's up seven points over last year. And the highest is among those 18 to 44. While indeed reports, 46% of job seekers now abandon applications because shocker.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:08.714)
Damn it.
Joel Cheesman (35:33.897)
The application process is too tedious with Gen Z and millennials most likely to drop off. They have no attention spans whatsoever. So Mo Mo, let's get in. We we talked about the macro with the the economy. Let's get into some of the micro. Like what talk about the pain the job seekers are are enduring right now.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:36.434)
Ha ha
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:42.312)
boy. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:53.789)
I mean
Some of these statistics out there are like something insane in terms of how many jobs out there are ghost jobs or harvesting your data, right? That sort of stuff. So I can see the friction that people are facing when they're in the job search process and they go to an application and they're asked like regurgitate something that they already uploaded in their their resume, like or do anything that's kind of over the top because it's like, dude, is this even real? Like like what what is this for? Right. And and so like you said earlier, you know, trust is just at an all-time low. So I can see absolutely
Joel Cheesman (36:02.111)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (36:24.668)
why people are like abandoned cart to that application. there's a sense that you know people are you know not even gonna have any sort of real shot at these jobs and
You know, keeps getting borne out. It's always been the case that if you have some sort of warm introduction, some sort of referral, like you are much more likely to end up in a job versus like an application into the void online. So yeah, I get it. And millennials and Gen Z are also like, dude, like even if I get a job, like which which seems like a far shot at this point, will they just let me go in a a heartbeat afterwards? Like people have seen the system and what it's doing. So
I can understand why you get to a certain point in this application process and if it's too onerous or laborious or it feels exploitative, people are just like, nah, I'm gone. So I get that. I do get it. I hope it also means that people are just being more intentional with what they're applying to.
Joel Cheesman (37:12.607)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:19.492)
and how they're going about the job search process because like I said, it really is so critical more now than ever, especially for I mean, poor Gen Z who doesn't have the connections that are going to come naturally with time, right? and the experience that comes with time as well. Like they're kind of grasping at straws when it comes to getting their foot in the door. So I hope that the abandoning of these sorts of applications and whatnot indicates that they are, you know, going in real life and trying to make these connections with people and
you know, finding other methods by which they can get their foot in the door with these organizations 'cause it's just grim. It's grim out there.
Joel Cheesman (37:52.566)
Well, fortunately for the kids now, they have the for you section default on LinkedIn. So they don't need a network to get noticed. they can just they can just provide funny content and get and get jobs. You're gonna have to if you want a job. You're gonna have to cut through the clutter, you're gonna have to entertain, be insightful. I mean, look, it's it's not that you had a post on wherever I saw, it was you and it was just numbers.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:56.042)
Your favorite. Your favorite. But not everybody wants to be a content creator, man. Like, trust me, there are many days when I'm like, what the hell am I doing? You know, it's just I do
Ugh, I think it's like a billboard, right?
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:22.724)
was that yeah. Yes.
Joel Cheesman (38:22.835)
And it was like it was like how employees view, you know, twenty eight it was like eighteen, no, thumbs down, you're too young. And then it was like that magical window of I don't know what it w twenty four to thirty four, whatever it was. And then it like got really bad after that. so you got you gotta you gotta do shit like that. You gotta like just copy your favorite influencer and and do your own version of that.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:29.096)
Yeah, yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:34.026)
Yeah, it was like it was like, yeah. Well and this was for women specifically.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:46.568)
I don't know that that's the job search advice that I would give people, but you know, hey to each their own.
Joel Cheesman (38:49.491)
You know, everybody's just screwed. You can look at every demographic. I guess I guess the boomers are s the boomers are just run the boomers are still running everything and own everything, even though they're not too old to be doing it. They figured out it's everyone else that's too old to do it. So so there's th they seem to be like the only happy ones. The problem with Gen X Gen X now is, shit, we're too old. Okay. Well, we're screwed again. We've been screwed our whole lives. So now what's what's one more decade?
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:55.028)
Dude, you are depressing the hell out of me today. Jeez.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:03.236)
boy.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:07.02)
my. There's gonna be a creator boom. I'm telling you there's gonna be a creator boom.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:15.594)
We've been screwed forever.
Joel Cheesman (39:20.149)
And and you at least have us knowing w what it would how it was worse. You used to apply to a job, there was no AI. It was like an email or a letter, or you applied and heard nothing. Like just just the black hole. We don't hear about the black hole much anymore. It's all about the ghosting and which is kind of the same thing. But so I think when you look at millennials and and Zs being the most unhappy, because Xers do remember when nothing happened when you applied to a job.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:26.504)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:30.548)
Mm, mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:40.84)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:48.881)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (39:49.982)
Now you got people applying to thousands of jobs automatically and not hearing anything and not even knowing if a person is actually going to see it. Right. And so it's a total mess. Like jobs get posted. Companies get hundreds of ideal candidates that aren't real. They're all automated. And then they turn the job off, right? So real human beings don't even get a chance to apply because all the bots applied immediately after it was posted. Okay. So then companies go.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:54.984)
And that is looking, yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:05.341)
yeah. yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:15.484)
Yeah. So crazy. Poor recruiters, honestly. That sounds awful. How do we find the real people? Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (40:19.929)
these aren't real people. Like, how do we like what are we doing? How do we find yeah, how find real people? And then, so then more AI gets implemented to fight the bots. And and through all this, the the the real carbon-based life forms that are playing by the rules just get screwed. And then they're forced to go into this shitty ATS, you know, that that hasn't been updated in 20 years. And now it's like,
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:31.432)
Yeah, AI is always the answer to AI issues.
Joel Cheesman (40:47.465)
The Gen Xers are still willing to go through the process because we've had it hard our whole lives. But if you haven't, it's like, this is bullshit, man. I'm used to like the easy button. I'm used to buy now. I'm used to like Apple Pay. What what is this? What is this forty minute shit about? And then and then I have to do a new register for a new ATS every time I apply to a job. Like the whole thing is it's maddening. Yeah. And I don't I
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:52.402)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:56.038)
Yeah. That's true. That is a cultural issue. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (41:08.21)
It's maddening. The whole thing's maddening. But you're right, there is that cultural aspect of like we have grown up in the, you know, ease economy, right? Like everything is just so fast and simple. Like you said, the easy button. It's tough.
Joel Cheesman (41:21.555)
Yeah. And I did like I talked to probably a handful of startup founders when I was in Recfest. I because I asked. I would say all of them, maybe one did not. All of them said like they have been able to slash headcount by fifty percent.
Maureen Wiley Clough (41:36.414)
Damn. Like actually slash headcount? Wow.
Joel Cheesman (41:38.803)
Yeah. They're like they're like the AI thing's real. They're like I I've been able to cut half my staff and not miss a beat and be that much more profitable. With not missing a beat? Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (41:42.729)
Hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (41:47.122)
Really? Would their customers agree is my question. Mm-hmm. Cause I feel like it's a race to the bottom with the services just getting weaker and weaker for a lot of these these providers.
Joel Cheesman (41:58.548)
And you so here's another one. This is this is why you listen to the Chad and Cheese show. So I was listening, I was talking to an insider that will remain anonymous. But one of the things that's going on is so before companies got paid per click, right? And you had click fraud, which was a thing. So if if my if if indeed have jobs on you know Joey Bagadona's job board, like if it started getting like a million clicks, it could say like, well, wait a minute.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:02.96)
Ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:07.514)
Ru.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:13.972)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (42:28.329)
Your site only has a thousand, you know, visitors. How are you getting like a mink? So there was some level of of like click fraud. I'm sure so there was some abuse for sure. But now, because everything is like pay per applicant, they're paying like for nurses and high-level shit, like $100, $150 per applicant. Okay. So my understanding is there's a ton of fraud going on right now where
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:31.685)
Right. Like a click form.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:49.01)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (42:56.059)
AI is applying to these, like, here's what's happening. I'm I'm job board X. I get one nurse applicant. Okay. And then what I do is I take that one nurse applicant and I AI that profile and I apply all over the place to every healthcare system on the planet, right? So I just made, let's call it, $100 per applicant on that one person. So basically, this hoarding of people and then like
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:03.882)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:18.248)
Well, damn.
Joel Cheesman (43:24.079)
spamming all the job boards and then all of course the companies the companies are the ones paying a hundred, hundred fifty bucks or whatever per applicant. So it's just this it's just this horrible ecosystem that apparently is going on. Allegedly, Mo. Al allegedly. But it's
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:25.532)
Oof what a mess.
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:31.946)
Cakes.
Yeah. Damn. You know what? I I think we're gonna need to tell people before they tune into this episode that they need to pop an antidepressant. Dude, whoa. This is this is grim. Let's turn it around! Let's turn it around! Let's do please god!
Joel Cheesman (43:48.96)
Well maybe we can turn around with Madonna and and who'd you rather. Can we can we can we can we try it? Let's go. Let's sex it up. Here we go. All right. All right, Mo, let's play, let's play some Hood Ya Rather. guys, if you don't if you don't know the rules of Hood Ya Rather, what we do is we talk about two companies, startups, that got money this week. And I read a summary of both and Mo and I both decide who we'd rather. Who we'd rather. Are you ready to play, Mo?
Maureen Wiley Clough (44:17.544)
I'm ready to play. Lay it on me.
Joel Cheesman (44:18.789)
All right. All right. In one corner, we have Spot with two T's. Spot raised a 21 million Series A led by Baldurton Capital and base 10. Y Combinator and Fortino to scale its AI native ATS and CRM for recruitment agencies. Recruitment agencies. And the two 2024 startup unifies sourcing, outreach, and candidate data while keeping humans in control. They're expanding to New York.
And Sydney, that is spot.
Maureen Wiley Clough (44:48.402)
Oof. Sexy. Sydney and New York. I like that.
Joel Cheesman (44:51.989)
And in this corner, Hiring Cafe, a San Francisco Agenc job discovery startup. Stop me if you've heard this one before, has raised $6.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Spark Capital with ZipRecruiter and Indeed.com Angels participating. it's AI indexes, company career pages, matches resumes to live roles, filters ghost jobs, and lets users run 24-7 talent search agents.
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:09.99)
Okay. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (45:22.057)
For free, Mo. That is AT that's the wrong that's the wrong sound. Sorry, guys. Let's try this again. There we go. Mo, we got ATS, C R AI, my, spot versus hiring cafe. Who would you rather?
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:27.338)
Ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:35.449)
my
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:40.008)
I'm gonna go hiring cafe. I want those ghost jobs out of there. I love I love, you know, you got some big players in there. It's Angels, you got Indeed, you got what was the other one? ZipRecruiter, right? Like these are legit players in the space. They know what's up. And yeah, I don't know. It has cafe in the title. I like food. That's good. but yeah, I I think I think that I'd go that direction personally. Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (46:03.742)
Okay. Yeah, that was all pro cafe stuff. Do you have any negative spots or you just want to like be totally one sided?
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:06.77)
Yeah. Mm no, I just I feel like I'm gonna be totally one sided on this one. I just no. The other one sounds lovely too. I'm just saying if I had to choose, I mean I'd love both, but if I had to choose, I'd go with the the established players in Indeed and Zip Recruiter putting their hat in the ring with this guy on on Hyron Cafe. And like I said, because they're helping match job seekers to openings, like that's it, we're in desp we just talked all about why that's so critical.
Joel Cheesman (46:35.923)
All right.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:36.124)
And that's what I hear constantly. So I'm going with that. Mm-hmm. Sitting at the cafe.
Joel Cheesman (46:38.793)
Mo Moe's at the cafe hanging out. All right. Hire Hiring Cafe reminds me of Cafe Press, which is where you can buy like shitty merch, like custom merch. So while hiring cafe works for you, for me it's it's all automatic it's like it's off to a bad start. The cafe. Yeah. Cafe press. Now you're from Seattle, so cafe automatically sounds great. Sounds great.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:46.693)
totally.
That's true, yeah. Yeah. Is it shitty? I I've never bought from there. It's just it's a it's it's a no just because of the name. I think the name matters very little. Yeah. I'm in. I'm in.
Joel Cheesman (47:08.285)
So we have we have two disruptors. one is looking to unseat Bullhorn, which focuses primarily on on agencies. And the other one is looking to disrupt Indeed and LinkedIn. so Spot has 21 million dollars so far to do that, and Hiring Cafe has seven million dollars. Does does anyone listening
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:30.346)
True. There's there's a disparity there. Is more.
Joel Cheesman (47:32.713)
Does anyone listening think $21 million is gonna do a damn thing to indeed market share? Job Case for historical purposes had a hundred million and couldn't make much of a dent. so so there you are. So wait, but they have an agent. They have an agent, Mo, which is which is which is really hot. So I want to show you something. this is a picture of perplexity, who we all know. you mentioned Muse.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:45.178)
Couldn't do it. There you go.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:50.888)
Yeah, everybody's got an agent.
Joel Cheesman (48:01.28)
Grok has something similar. Everyone a open AI has dots. Did you see dots, the dots announcement? So dots dots is their new muse, I guess, their new bot, whatever.
Maureen Wiley Clough (48:05.956)
no, no.
my gosh. Is it a cute little fuzzy thing like Muse? okay.
Joel Cheesman (48:14.649)
no, it's not an actual keychain thingy. But site funny side note, Elon owns dot dot com. So if you if you search dots or dot.com, it goes to grok, which is kind of entertaining. But anyway, so this so this is this is a picture of perplexity. And you basically put in your LinkedIn profile URL and Perplexity's bot starts to go to work.
Maureen Wiley Clough (48:23.169)
it does same.
Maureen Wiley Clough (48:27.208)
That is entertaining.
Joel Cheesman (48:42.343)
It looks at job boards, it tailors your resume, it basically does all that stuff for you. So
Joel Cheesman (48:51.593)
The agent that Hiring Cafe has, do you think it's gonna be better than what Perplexity and Meta and OpenAI create? We you would hope so. See, everyone else is on this other side of of the ledger. Everyone thinks like Jack and Jill and out now Hiring Cafe is gonna produce a better bot or better agent to search for jobs than all these big guys with data centers and billions of dollars.
Maureen Wiley Clough (49:02.09)
I would sure hope so for their sake.
Joel Cheesman (49:21.009)
I say no. but anyway, so now Hirn Cafe has seven million dollars to take on, not only indeed, now they're gonna take on Perplexity, Muse, Anthropic, etcetera. So you see you see where I'm you see where I'm going here, Mo. I'm going I'm going on the other I'm I'm going to the other other side of the ledger here. so so so basically spot spot is Ollie versus Patty the baddie. Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (49:32.338)
Yikes. Tall order. I see where you're going. I see where you're going. I see where you're leading. That's fair. We could agree to disagree.
Joel Cheesman (49:50.504)
It's a it's a tough fight, but it you know, it it's gonna last a few rounds. Hiring Cafe, on the other hand, is like Godzilla versus Pee Wee Herman. I mean, it's just gonna be it's just gonna be it's gonna it's gonna be brutal. It's gonna be brutal. So for that reason, for that reason, yeah, I'm going
Maureen Wiley Clough (49:59.658)
boy. boy. Interesting. Interesting take.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:11.174)
I respect. You'd rather spot. Alright, I'll go to the cafe, you go to spot, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (50:11.901)
I'd I'd rather spot. I'd rather spot Mo. I'd rather spot. Just make sure you clean up just make sure you clean up the wet spot when you're done.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:19.755)
I don't know what that means, but I don't think I like it at all.
Joel Cheesman (50:24.085)
All right, let's let's take a br let's take a break. We'll put this show out of its misery with some talk about Madonna, Madonna and Ageism.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:28.172)
my god.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:34.014)
The show out of its misery and dying. We're just like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Joel Cheesman (50:42.441)
Well Moher like a virgin days are long gone. Madonna's twenty twenty six VMA's comeback drew agist attacks on her looks and sexuality at the ripe old age of sixty-eight. Critics called her too sexual and too intent on seeming young. The View, one of your favorite shows, I know, Mo, co hosts blasted the double standard saying women are shamed whether they age boldly or gracefully.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:44.682)
yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (50:57.098)
Can't win.
Joel Cheesman (51:11.443)
And that living well at that age is a blessing and it shouldn't be a target. Not all women agreed, however, Mo. Here are here's the podcast Chicks Chicks in the Office with their take on the whole Madonna, Madonna issue.
Maureen Wiley Clough (51:25.226)
Don't know these guys. Don't know these don't know these chicks.
Maureen Wiley Clough (52:00.095)
Ha ha
Maureen Wiley Clough (52:22.794)
Get her off the stage.
Joel Cheesman (52:24.701)
All right, Mo, Aegism is your account. give us your take on the Madonna controversy.
Maureen Wiley Clough (52:27.162)
it it's my vibe. Well I mean women just we we never can win. That's the deal. There's is just no way. No way to win. People I mean people just lay into you no matter what you do. And to your point I think sometimes women can be our own worst critics. But you know, with with this I frankly had no idea Madonna launched another album this year.
Joel Cheesman (52:35.785)
Especially when it comes to other women.
Joel Cheesman (52:53.173)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (52:54.342)
So my bad. But I think it's sick. She's still out there doing her thing. as far as how she looks doing it, I kinda think that's her choice, right? And I think people are unduly harsh on women, especially over
frankly like thirty-five on how they look. But you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't, you know, people who call her an old hag if she got up there and were gracefully aging or whatever the hell they want to say. and then, you know, calling her too sexy. I don't know, don't men like in their seventies and beyond have kids and stuff like like how is she too sexy? And then they're you know, it's just like, come on, people, let's let's chill. But I can't I more can't get over what I just heard about the
awkward interaction on stage with this like up and coming star in Sabrina Carpenter and Madonna. she's I mean, I I'm actually a little bit surprised that you don't know her because you do have kids. But anyway, she's a big pop star. And I can't imagine the uncomfortable scene of your pupil didn't get back to me. Like that's horrible. Like absolutely horrible. But yeah, we should never throw one another under the bus, regardless of generation.
Joel Cheesman (53:40.789)
Who I don't know by the way.
Joel Cheesman (53:57.354)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (54:02.592)
What what can we learn from like in from the workplace perspective? Like that was was this a win for older workers, particularly women? D will it change nothing? Cause my take was you had the women on the view are mature.
Maureen Wiley Clough (54:15.07)
I don't think ch
Maureen Wiley Clough (54:21.018)
Mm, yeah. I don't watch the view. But yeah. But they're yeah. Forty plus. Seasoned. Yeah. Been around the block.
Joel Cheesman (54:23.007)
Well they're they're older. They're they're they're seasoned. They're seasoned, if you will. And then and then like the the chicks in the office podcast, obviously a younger a younger demographic. So so I'm c as a woman, did that surprise you that the younger women sort of went after her and then of course and then she was defended by I didn't I wasn't surprised by d the defense by the older like Whoopi Goldberg is gonna defend Madonna, but the younger
Maureen Wiley Clough (54:33.722)
Or younger, yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (54:48.871)
Right, right, right.
Joel Cheesman (54:52.069)
Ladies, did that surprise you? were you like, shame on you guys? What was your take on that?
Maureen Wiley Clough (54:57.802)
I mean, to me, I think what they were saying was kind of fair. Like I would probably not have assumed that Madonna would win album of the year based on the fact that I didn't even know there was one. granted I'm not like totally finger on the pulse of like everything that's happening in the music world, but I would bet she wasn't like top of the charts. And if and if she was, well then well then that sure, that was Aegis and shitty of them. But if if it were just like more of like let's recognize someone who's been a legend for forever.
Joel Cheesman (55:01.257)
Okay.
Joel Cheesman (55:09.652)
Uh-huh.
Joel Cheesman (55:24.297)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (55:24.5)
Then maybe that's something different than album of the year, right? But I didn't necessarily think what they were saying was Aegis, because I think what they were pointing out was like the incredible awkwardness of these folks being next to each other on the stage and not having a unified front. Like that seemed a little weird. Like it was antagonistic.
Joel Cheesman (55:39.967)
So it was more like she's she's out of touch.
Maureen Wiley Clough (55:43.326)
Well, that would be kind of and I mean perhaps that's more what they were implying, but I I maybe I was just so hung up on the concept of like how incredibly uncomfortable it would be to be on stage and have her be like, Well, your people don't get back to me. Like what? Like, my god, don't talk about that right now, you know? I think but you know, it's a it's a fair point. If if this wasn't like the number one album, like what are they doing? Make her the legend, right? Like have the right award, you know? I don't know. I wasn't necessarily catching like
Joel Cheesman (55:51.786)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (56:12.87)
the vibe. they were saying that she wasn't singing and stuff, but they do that for like young people too, right? Like people get on stage and like not sing. And I think that's always weird. So I couldn't quite tell. I do think that you don't know what it feels like until you're older. And so I suspect that were they in the position that like Whoopi Goldberg and the people on the view were, they might be like slightly less damning of Madonna, right? but yeah, I think it's tough.
Joel Cheesman (56:21.45)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (56:35.699)
Yeah. You know, part of the part of me says, you know what, the nineteen eighty three Madonna is looking at the twenty twenty six and like and saying, Yep, I'm st I'm they're still talking about me. Like I'm I'm doing the things that get attention and but and I'm old enough to remember Madonna's first appearance on the VMAs, like when Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy were doing the and she was in the she was in the wedding outfit and she was
Maureen Wiley Clough (56:53.108)
Yeah.
All good press, right?
wow.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:03.673)
wow.
Joel Cheesman (57:04.751)
on something. She was rolling around the stage, like her panties were sh it was very, very, it was very out there for 1984, whatever it was. And then she had a sex book in 92. You're probably even too young to remember this, but she had a book, she had a book called Sex, and it was her like in bondage and she was naked on the side of the road. And yeah, you could you can still find this book online, I'm sure. So so her
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:07.114)
Whoa.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:17.99)
I don't know this about her.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:24.122)
Really? I had literally no idea about this. I'm sure I could go pick up a copy.
Joel Cheesman (57:31.519)
Her brand has always sort of been sexualized, show skin, get people talking, piss people off, you know, divide and get attention. So part of me is just like, she's just doing what she does. She's just 68. and so I I think she's happy with all of it. I don't think that I think she's the old, the old women are talking about it great. The young girls are still talking about me. Like as long as I'm relevant.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:34.642)
It's always been in your face, yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:42.472)
It's worked for her. Why stop? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, rock on. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (57:58.164)
People are talking about her. Totally. I mean, and as far as like her appearance, I don't know, there's a part of me that's like, dude, when I'm 68, will I be just like so excited to just like hang it up and not give a shit anymore? I might. shit. I mean, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (58:00.617)
Like who gives a shit?
Joel Cheesman (58:09.631)
Well, my whole thing as I'm watching the performance is like she's gonna break a hip, man. I like I can barely walk up the stairs without my knee sounding like a bag of peanuts cracking, you know, under it. So yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (58:19.964)
Hey, I love the representation. You got people doing all sorts of different stuff in their 60s now, and hey, one of them's being a fucking rock star, so that's cool.
Joel Cheesman (58:25.971)
It is wild. Like no no one would look at Paul McCartney, who's a lot older than Madonna actually, and say like, he's too old to be be doing that. I think I think because she's sex I I think she got what she wanted. I I think she knew if I put on a one piece and some fishnet stockings and pull a laser out of my ass, there was a lot of stuff we didn't show in that. But like
Maureen Wiley Clough (58:31.048)
Indeed.
That is true.
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (58:42.908)
It'll get people talking. Yeah. Yeah, I I'm like I didn't see this, so I feel like I'm I'm kinda coming at this a little bit uninformed, so my bad. She will.
Joel Cheesman (58:49.903)
She she she will sell more tickets and more streams and whatever else because of that. R interesting side note 'cause 'cause we're we're we haven't we haven't done a history lesson yet today and I'm gonna
Maureen Wiley Clough (58:56.518)
She totally will.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:01.528)
no, man. Well you did you did give me her coffee table book history lesson just a moment ago. Yes.
Joel Cheesman (59:05.103)
So so does the band Jefferson Airplane mean anything to you? Okay. Maybe Jefferson Starship, depending on how old you are. So Grace Slick is the singer. Are they from Seattle? Jefferson? I guess San Francisco. anyway, so Grace Slick in 1989 famously said that all rock and rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:11.602)
Yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:17.702)
I don't know.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:28.68)
shit. Ouch.
Joel Cheesman (59:31.507)
And when she said that, I remember when she s I was a teenager when she said I was like, Yes, that's awesome. You are too old to be rocking. And so so now that I'm now that I'm over fifty, I'm like, Hey man, it's cool. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:35.824)
Yeah. That's so funny. Now that you're that age, you don't think fifty's old anymore, right? Like that's the funny thing about getting older is you start the it's the that like gate keeps going up. That that boundary keeps moving.
Joel Cheesman (59:49.16)
I appreciated her sentiment of like, you know what, let the young kid that like rock and roll is rebellious, let the young kids do it. We're all like rich and happy. But we do all like but if you've like how Mick Jagger still goes out there with kung fu kicks and the shit that he does is pretty is he's gonna hurt himself.
Maureen Wiley Clough (59:52.668)
Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:04.73)
Yeah. Yeah, and to your point he does not get shit for it, does he? Or maybe he does. I don't know, I haven't checked. It's it's it's a double standard for sure.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:10.771)
It is a double now, if Madonna had gone out in a pant suit or something professional and professional in air quotes, but if she had if she had come out in a more traditional sixty eight year old woman attire, would we be talking about this?
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:17.394)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:24.71)
Yeah. She'd get roasted for that. She'd also get roasted for that probably. Like what happened to her? She's let herself go. You know? It's like that's the thing. You c She would not She would not Nope.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:31.571)
But she would not have made it on this podcast if she had been wearing a pantsuit. Because she's in the fishnets, because the laser's up her ass, sh we're talking about her.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:39.198)
That's w that's why we're man, I I did not see this performance laser soez, I guess so. Dang.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:44.063)
Well, you have some homework to do, Mo. You have some homework to do. And while you're while you're thinking about that, let me give you a dad joke.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:51.438)
yeah. Give it to me. There we go.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:55.817)
Mo, what do you get when you cross an angry cow and a mad sheep? What do you get when you cross an angry cow with a mad sheep?
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:01:04.04)
Yeah, I like to think of myself as fairly clever. I can never come up with them. No.
Joel Cheesman (01:01:07.647)
Hm. An animal in a really, really bad
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:01:14.294)
Okay, there you go. That one I could never have gotten. Alright. Well, well done. Well done. Ow! Wow we
Joel Cheesman (01:01:20.552)
We out.
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