LinkedIn Has a Serious Gen Z Problem

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel and Maureen trade barbs and insights like a comedy duo on a caffeine bender before diving into heavier stuff like mental health in a world gone wacky, in addition to the latest news around the world of work.

In a rollercoaster of a month, U.S. companies slammed the brakes on hiring, with ADP’s February private payrolls report showing a measly 77,000 jobs added—half of what the eggheads predicted and a steep drop from January’s beefy 186,000. Meanwhile, Employ snatched up Pillar, an interview intelligence tool, probably hoping to outsmart the hiring slump.

Over at ZipRecruiter, Q4 was a bloodbath—revenue tanked 18% to $111 million, with 2024’s full-year haul down 26.6% to $474 million, flipping a $49.1 million profit into a $12.9 million loss; the stock hit rock bottom, leaving only Severance fans to pick up the pieces—cue the sad trombone. Commenters on X are cackling that the Four Horsemen (Google, LinkedIn, automation, AI, and freelancing) are galloping in, with one suggesting ZipRecruiter go private or sell out, while another whispers Paradox might be the real job-board slayer.

On the AI front, HeyMilo ($2.2M) and Alta ($7M) scored seed funding to flex their virtual agent muscles—HeyMilo’s screening candidates like a nosy aunt, while Alta’s chasing global sales domination; Mo’s probably picking Alta because, duh, bigger bucks. LinkedIn’s still the envy swamp, with Vice noting Gen Z’s drowning in “Director of Ego” vibes—users are bailing to escape the cringe, though employers keep them chained to it like a corporate ball-and-chain.

Finally, HiBob’s survey dropped a buzzkill: only one in three women feel empowered at work, less than 10% have mentors, and men are hogging raises and promotions—34% to 22% and 46% to 32%, respectively. Commenters mutter about crab bucket mentality, wondering if women hold back to avoid the claw-back from their own squad. Mo’s take? “Trump’ll fix it, maybe.” Sure, lady, and I’ll hire a crab as my next intern.

LinkedIn Has a Serious Gen Z Problem

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Joel (00:30.83)

You don't have to take off your clothes to have a good time, but it sure as hell does help. Hi kids. It's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Tara free cheese man.

Maureen Wiley Clough (00:41.503)

And I'm Maureen, AKA Moe. Everything's fine, nothing to see here, Clough.

Joel (00:46.102)

Right and on this episode zip recruiter crashes LinkedIn is killing Gen Z and who'd you rather? Let's do this.

Joel (01:00.514)

First time together, Mo. Are you nervous?

Maureen Wiley Clough (01:03.543)

I mean a little bit. slightly uncomfortable. I don't know. Just kidding. This is going be great. That is a plus. That was remarkably hilarious. So we got to take people back to this. was at HR Tech last year, sitting in your booth on your couch. You were in there with smart recruiters, right? And I'm sitting there talking to you for like a full five minutes, fully assuming you knew who I was because you know we had met before.

Joel (01:04.863)

Little bit.

I'm just glad I finally know who you are. I'm glad I finally know who you are.

Joel (01:18.968)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Maureen Wiley Clough (01:31.925)

and had a long conversation. And at the end you're like, so what's your deal? What's your deal? What you doing here? What you trying? And I was like, Joel, it's Mo. I was like, am I that forgettable? I mean, wow. It was amazing. How was that for you?

Joel (01:33.902)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (01:48.846)

So I'm 53, I'm 53 and my brain is dying. So let me throw that in there. I did not put together, because people that listen to us regularly know that you and Emmy and JT are now sort of on the show. And before you were on the show, were sort of, both Chad and I had like thrown in people that we wanted and like let's, and you were Chad's person. So Chad was like, you gotta get to know Maureen.

Maureen Wiley Clough (01:55.608)

it starts early.

Joel (02:18.41)

I was like, okay, cool. And we never, you never, we never got on the show together. So at HR tech, think Chad reached out to you and said, okay, you gotta make nice with Joel, like get to know Joel. and, and I'm like, why is this, why is this chick like as interested as she is, like she has this podcast, maybe she wants to be on the show. And it was, it was all, yeah, it was, it was kind of weird. And then Chad was like, that's fucking Mo. you're also Mo and you're Maureen.

Maureen Wiley Clough (02:37.227)

Gattin' me up.

Maureen Wiley Clough (02:42.913)

That is amazing. Right. It was a little confusing. Yeah. I'm both. Different vibes. Yeah. We can be more than one thing, right? We patched it up. Here we are.

Joel (02:47.286)

Which is confusing to me. Little confused. Maureen Moe. Like who is this person? Yeah. Like I'm cheese. I'm Joel. Like I can be confusing too, but I'm glad that we, finally got on. Now this, now this is the funny thing. you've only done a like with Chad and he's always in Europe and he's drinking. so you, you thought you thought I must have to be drinking on the show. So when we got on, when we were in the green room, you're like,

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:07.516)

hahahahah

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:13.813)

I literally thought it was a prereq.

Joel (03:17.484)

Is it okay if I don't drink? Cause it's like 10 AM where you are and it's Wednesday. So I said, what are you talking about? No, you don't have to drink. Like I never really drank. I'm drinking water. and so it's just funny that you thought a prerequisite to be on our show was to be drunk. It, it makes it easier and we're way more tolerable and entertaining when you're drunk, but no, it is not. It is not a prerequisite. Unlike saying thank you.

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:26.519)

You

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:31.767)

I really and truly did. I really and truly did. Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:40.811)

Good to know, I was like, this could become a problem.

Joel (03:43.82)

Yeah. Unlike saying thank you in the, in the oval office, drinking on the Chad and cheese podcast is not, is not a priority. Any, any thoughts on the, the insanity that is the world right now? Did you see the speech?

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:46.871)

Right.

Maureen Wiley Clough (03:54.733)

man, just, feel like, you know, I didn't, I didn't see the speech. I kind of got like clips from people and heard the takes from people. I'm like, I don't need to see it to know what it's gonna be. And I know I'm gonna hate it. And it's just gonna make my blood pressure rise. It's gonna do something to my body. And I just don't need that. So I avoided and yeah, you know, it's just like the mental health aspect of all of this. Like I have to kind of tune it out a little bit. I gotta go like.

Joel (04:07.48)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (04:19.672)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (04:20.695)

touch grass literally and proverbially, I've got to hang out with family, friends, community. I just got to turn it off, frankly. It's like, I've done what I can do for the most part, and I need to be like relatively informed, but not super informed, right? Like I just need to kind of like get through this period. So I'm like that meme that's been around for like 10 years. That's like the dog sitting with a cup of coffee at a table with fire behind him saying, everything is fine. Like that is how I'm trying to live my life right now, because it's the only way I know how. And it just feels like...

Joel (04:26.861)

Yeah.

Joel (04:43.49)

Everything's fine.

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (04:50.465)

this sort of ominous cloud, like 2020 vibes, like, shit, like stuff is happening. That's how it feels to me. And I'm told by my therapist countless others. So there you go.

Joel (05:02.126)

Your therapist says drink on the podcast that you do to help you get through. He'll get you through these times. Yeah. It's only only 46 and a half more months left, Mo. So we're, we're in, we're in the home stretch. We're in the home stretch. I'm good. Good. Do you watch the Oscars? Is that your, is that, is that a thing you do or no?

Maureen Wiley Clough (05:04.348)

Yeah, she's like, get you through whatever you need to do, girl. No shame. Yeah. What about you? Yeah. We're going to be fine. Everything's fine. How are you doing? Yeah.

You know, it's funny, I couldn't watch the Oscars because I my internet went out. Apparently Seattle had the power go out, the internet go out in one week. And I was like, shoot. And then I got on my slaying or whatever online and it wasn't hooked up to the right ABC channel. So, no, I did not watch it live, but I did see clips. And let me tell you, the thing that gave me life was Cynthia Urvivo and Ariana Grande's performance of Defying Gravity. holy chills. my gosh. Incredible. Yeah, that was like

Joel (05:40.536)

Uh-huh.

Maureen Wiley Clough (05:50.348)

I literally sobbed. So clearly I needed to get some things out.

Joel (05:51.512)

Yeah. The, the, the Oscars to me now are like the Grammys. I don't know anyone. I've never seen these people. like, unless it's, unless it's an old guy history movie like Oppenheimer, like I probably haven't seen it. So, but I have, is it a Nora? Nora won best picture. Right. So my wife, my wife tricked me into watching this because it's about a stripper. And I said, I'll give it a shot. See how it goes. and it's.

Maureen Wiley Clough (05:59.799)

Hahaha

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:05.021)

You're not there. You're not going.

Yeah, it did, yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:17.729)

She knows the way to your heart. That's a lovely woman.

Joel (06:19.488)

Yeah. And by the way, it's, it's a naughty movie. It's a naughty movie. I was, but I said, there's Russians are in it. mean, it's, it's oligarchs. Yeah. but, but I came away and I was like, that sucked. That was awful. And then it ends up getting best picture. Yeah. I hated it. I hated it as much as I hated parasite, which also won best picture. Yeah. I hated both of them. Yeah. Give me old guy history movies about world war two and I'm in otherwise.

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:22.773)

Yeah. Well, it's got it's got Russia in there, right? Like Russia situation.

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:31.532)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:35.453)

Really? So you hated it.

Maureen Wiley Clough (06:41.185)

I never saw that. I never saw that. Okay. You're there.

Joel (06:48.906)

Otherwise not. So also happened this week. it was almost a topic. so target as you, as you know, cause you listen to the show and you've been on it, you know that they have abandoned like everyone else, their DEI initiatives. However, they were, they were more into it than other companies. Like they had special sections about it and they celebrated it. So there's a apparently a 40 day boycott of target going on and everyone's going to Costco instead. Who's been sort of steadfast.

in their, in their DI initiative. So are you a target shopper? Are you going to like, are you going to boycott or you Walmart person? What's, what's your shopping online? Amazon, right? Cause you're in Seattle.

Maureen Wiley Clough (07:16.961)

So applaud.

Maureen Wiley Clough (07:21.395)

I am, yeah, yeah, 100 % Costco though. I mean, that's Seattle too. So yeah, I'm a big Costco fan, always have been. Companies that do the right thing right now, I want to give you all of my money. This matters. And so Target, I've never really been big on it anyway, so I'm fine. But I know that it's a very mainstay in a lot of, especially working parents' lives, and understandably so, right? But I think at this point, the best thing we can do is make

Joel (07:28.6)

Yeah.

Joel (07:40.588)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (07:50.911)

very deliberate and intentional choices with our money. so Target, you ain't getting any of mine. Sorry, it's not happening.

Joel (07:54.744)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and no chance they have a $1.50 hot dog anytime soon at Target. unlike Costco, unlike Costco.

Maureen Wiley Clough (08:01.271)

No, you're right. There's no way. No way. You always weave in, you always get that fast food reference in. I really admire that about you. You can make it happen no matter what. It's really impressive. You are, you are, you're a pro.

Joel (08:08.398)

Joel (08:15.648)

I'm fantastic, Mo. I am so brilliant. I'm not cure, I'm not curing cancer, but God damn it. can tell you which fast food place to go to. By the way, real quick chipotle as everyone knows, I love a good chipotle. almost made my shout outs as well, but they are not going to raise prices because of tariffs because God damn it. It's chipotle. They're the only fast food place that has come out and said that. So don't expect price increases because it's already so efficiently. It's so cheap as it is. Right.

Maureen Wiley Clough (08:25.057)

very critical.

Maureen Wiley Clough (08:43.959)

Look at that.

Joel (08:44.526)

the prices will not be going up at Chipotle. So let's get to some shout out shall we? know you have one that's on your

Maureen Wiley Clough (08:49.495)

you

Maureen Wiley Clough (08:53.375)

Yeah, I just want to shout out the very brave employees at Metta who are peeling back the curtain. And I'm not saying another phrase, by the way, you'll note I did not mention anything about kimono. We learned, right? We learned. Anyway, but I'm here to teach. so anytime. So the employees at Metta who have let us in on the inner workings of what's going on at that absolute.

Joel (09:04.493)

Yeah, I'm not very smart, Mo. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Maureen Wiley Clough (09:20.427)

shithole at this point. I'm so impressed with them because even though some of them were summarily fired because of revealing what happened inside the organization and the things that Zuckerberg and others were saying, even still people are leaking to the press. So Business Insider came out with an article today talking all about what's going on behind the scenes, including the fact that

Metta actually has this list this list that's of people who will never be able to be rehired at the company again Which is apparently very unusual for a company And so people are finding out that they're not getting these jobs are getting ghosted by recruiting agencies that were Before that point really excited about their candidacy at Metta and they're like what's going on turns out They're on this list and apparently not even like being related to the CEO can get you off of it. So that

Joel (09:50.126)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (10:08.671)

especially now that we know meta is axing people that they find to leak information. The fact that people are still doing it, like just major props to people who want to allow everybody to know what's really going on behind the scenes in corporate. And it's it's dark, man. So props to I don't want to call whistleblowers. That sounds big. like props to the people who continually reach out to journalists and people like me, other creators and tell us what's going on behind the scenes, because if they weren't to do that, we would have no idea what was going on at these organizations. So thank you.

Joel (10:38.242)

God bless those folks. bless those folks. And God bless the Canadians, by the way. I've, I almost forgot to mention that our shout outs are sponsored by Kiara. that simple and smart text recruiting, made cost effective by our friends at, at Kiara. And I almost love the Brits as much as I love the Canadians, which brings me to my, my first shout out, it goes to Hung Lee. Not only my favorite porn star.

Maureen Wiley Clough (10:38.817)

Hat tip, God bless those people. Call me good.

Joel (11:05.27)

Also one of my favorite pundits in the industry. Hung hung shot up some rainbows and sunshine and glitter up our ass in his newsletter, which you should be a subscriber to if you're not this week. set up of our show quote, not everyone's cup of tea, which is kind of a backs backhanded comment by a Brit, but Chad and cheese remains the best podcast in the business. Ooh, sharp up to date industry coverage and commentary.

Maureen Wiley Clough (11:21.591)

You

Joel (11:33.154)

Don't be fooled by the rambunctiousness. That's a really big word. There is serious analysis just underneath. So Hung Lee, that deserves a shout out. Anyone who does that for us gets a shout out. That's a shout out.

Maureen Wiley Clough (11:36.373)

You

Maureen Wiley Clough (11:48.215)

That's wonderful. Well, I got one more. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Could you roll some footage? Can you roll some footage for the people who are actually looking at this on YouTube?

Joel (11:52.312)

What else you got? I'm ready. I'm ready.

In honor of Chad who's at a Champions League soccer game in the Netherlands, roll that beautiful bean footage. Here we go.

Maureen Wiley Clough (12:06.858)

you

Joel (12:14.872)

Zuck as Elvis.

Maureen Wiley Clough (12:25.367)

Thank you.

Joel (12:25.582)

All for the listeners that had to hear that but not see it, what did we get to see, the YouTube, the watchers?

Maureen Wiley Clough (12:31.635)

We just got to see, and we wish we could unsee, Mark Zuckerberg throwing his wife Priscilla Chan a 40th birthday party, a massive, beautiful soiree, as you would imagine, for a billionaire. And he decided to channel his inner Benson Boone, who I'm sure you have no idea who that is, Joel, but for those of you who don't, I'll also tell you he won a Grammy, I believe he won a Grammy, he was at the Grammys and did a very, like, in-your-face performance whereby he came in wearing a tuxedo.

Joel (12:55.499)

huh.

Maureen Wiley Clough (13:00.959)

and then had someone rip it off of him mid performance. And he revealed this like very, very tight fitting form fitting skin tight, really light baby blue jumpsuit with a very deep V. Like we're talking deep V. And Mark Zuckerberg decided like, happy birthday, baby. Happy 40th. I'm going to do that. Same thing. I'm going to pretend to be Benson Boone in front of everyone who I'm assuming they know and love and make your birthday

Joel (13:16.877)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (13:29.705)

all about me. so really sweet, probably the best birthday gift I could possibly imagine a husband giving a wife. And not only did he do it in the confines of that safe space, he then put it on the internet for all of us to see and digest. And now my eyes hurt. yeah, that's, guess, know, money can't buy you taste, class or style.

Joel (13:30.968)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (13:44.408)

course.

Joel (13:52.022)

I'm guessing it was not on TikTok. So maybe the TikTok users are safe from from all that, but Reels and Instagram, you're screwed.

Maureen Wiley Clough (13:52.791)

Ooh, yeah, you're right. I doubt LinkedIn got it either. Yeah, I was like, what is, god damn it, yeah.

Joel (14:02.206)

I'm curious, you're way hipper than I am. What do you think about Zuck's evolution of like super nerd hoodie flip flops to now? I'm not exactly sure how I would explain or describe. Yeah. The curly hair, the neck, the kickboxing. Would you rather have the old Zuck back? Is a new Zuck okay? A hundred percent. You'd rather go back to the, the Jesse Eisenberg. Give me Jesse Eisenberg.

Maureen Wiley Clough (14:04.855)

Mmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (14:12.887)

Roman Emperor or whatever.

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (14:23.558)

100%. No, no, no, no. Give me old naive. mean, hopefully naive. Yeah, give me that. I mean, I still wasn't like a huge fan of that vibe either. I mean, Facebook, the origins were like a way to rank girls hotness on college campuses. Let's not forget that. So and he also like screwed over his co-founders and stuff. So like it's never he's never really been someone that I would like prop up as someone to emulate. Let's just put it that way. But like this look.

Joel (14:33.251)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (14:47.918)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (14:50.379)

The thing is, this is a look, like it is a curated look. So literally someone is receiving money from Mark Zuckerberg. a hundred percent. He's got a stylist, probably multiple. And it's like, who thought that wearing these stupid t-shirts with like symbols on them and this hair, like who thought that was a good idea? It's just this weird, and it comes at the same time as this like masculine energy, like him kissing up to these like bro influencers. It's just bizarre. And like, we all see you having this, it's essentially, I think it's a

Joel (14:55.97)

He has a team, right? Yeah.

Joel (15:13.454)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (15:20.277)

midlife crisis and I was waiting for the divorce news to drop and I was like, what?

Joel (15:21.57)

Yeah. It's, it's, mean, where you live. mean, Bezos went again from super nerd to like Terminator and, even, and even, even Bill Gates went from like a paste eating dork to clearly PR got to him and he had some like cool glasses and like sweater vests and shit like that. yeah, PR.

Maureen Wiley Clough (15:31.863)

Yeah, yeah, totally did. I know.

Hahaha!

Yeah. But I'll still, I'll stand Bill's look. Like it's still appropriate. I'm into it. Bezos, was like, when he did the whole like, who do we want as bond next? I was like, I a hundred percent think he's fishing for people to be like you, sir. You know, like you should be 007.

Joel (15:48.524)

Yeah.

Joel (15:56.859)

hahahaha

No chance. I know you're down on Zuck and you're down on Meta, but I'm going to give them a little love.

All right. Let's talk a little money. so every year they publish people who have given a billion dollars or more to charity. You may not agree with the charities. You may think it's a big tax, you know, tax deal, but I want to mention the people who've given a billion dollars because God damn it. That's a lot of money to go to charity. We're talking people like Reed Hastings, Michael Bloomberg.

Patty Quillen, who's Reed Hastings wife, Dell technologies, Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett, no shock. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, your buddy and his wife, a physician, Dr. Priscilla Chan, and retired professor Ruth Gottsman have all given a billion dollars. And for my money, if you're giving that kind of money to charity, I'm going to give you a shout out. I probably will not give them.

Maureen Wiley Clough (16:46.231)

doctor.

Joel (17:01.002)

any free shit from Chad and cheese though, because they have enough stuff. Zuck does not need a Chad and cheese t-shirt, but if you want a Chad and cheese t-shirt, you got to go to Chadcheese.com slash free, fill out the, information and we'll do our best to use my children's labor to get you a t-shirt out in the mail. Those are sponsored by our friends at Aaron referrals. We also not just t-shirts Mo we got whiskey.

Our buddies at Van Hack, another fine, fine Canadian, Canadian business. And this, this comes tariff free to all of our listeners. If they win that, they get whiskey. We've also got rum from our friends at plum. We've got maple syrup, aged in Pappy's barrels. that's from our friends at Kiora. And, yeah, like I mentioned, if it is your birthday, then good times await.

Maureen Wiley Clough (17:39.895)

Beautiful thing.

Maureen Wiley Clough (17:45.729)

Hehehe.

Joel (17:59.63)

because there might be a bottle of rum from our friends at Plum.

Joel (18:08.717)

love that sponsorship. Plum lost. So people left Plum. We're hopeful that just for the fact that we can do that sound bite with this sponsorship, that they retain their sponsorship, even though they've lost a few of the people that used to be really close to us. Sorry, that's a side note. All right, let's get to the people that are celebrating another trip around the sun. Kyle Kip Hager, Mel Skatz, and Michael Deloya, Robert Williams, Tracy Morris, David Altman, Ryan Gibbons, Chris Wallach.

Maureen Wiley Clough (18:11.618)

Amazing.

Maureen Wiley Clough (18:24.832)

so too.

Joel (18:38.712)

Craig Hunter, Amanda Hall, Emily Kunkel, Leanne Chase, and Dean DaCosta. I'll celebrate another birthday this week. We will be traveling, and we will have some more quality time together, hopefully much better than the time that we spent at HR Tech not knowing exactly what was going on. So we're headed to Transform in Vegas.

Maureen Wiley Clough (18:53.365)

Yes, we will. Yeah. We'll erase it. Yeah.

Joel (19:05.006)

That's going to be March 17th to the 19th. I believe we will have a hangover suite party if you're interested in joining us for that Hit hit chat up or mo up or anyone in this podcast? For an invite to that Chad and I will also be headed to Chicago on March 25th for the recruiting leaders summit put on by the folks at RecFest I love me some Chicago mo. I don't know if you enjoy the Windy City, but we're talking

Maureen Wiley Clough (19:12.247)

Ha

Joel (19:32.642)

We're talking Italian beefs. We're talking Chicago dogs. We're talking deep dish. we're talking old style. Like I love me, some, some, Chicago for more events, can cut out to Chad cheese, dot com forward slash events, I think. And you can find out where Chad and I will be and possibly mo for a little, little bonus bonus for that.

Maureen Wiley Clough (19:55.319)

Little bonus.

Joel (20:02.158)

All right, real quick. this, came across the, the wire, this morning. our friends at employ, you may know them as job by jazz, HR, lever, a few other ATSs. they've acquired pillar, and in interview intelligence tool. it's not, it didn't make it to the show. Maybe we'll talk about it in more depth, next week, but I wanted to throw that out there because I like to keep our listeners on the, on the forefront of the news that's happening. also kind of a bummer, the, the economic.

shit show continues. Uh, us companies slowed hiring dramatically in February. That's according to ADP's monthly private payrolls report. Only 77,000 jobs were added last month, roughly half the estimate and way below January's upwardly revised 186,000 jobs. So

The bad times continue for the job market and for the job boards in most cases. Mo, let's get to some real news from the past week. ZipRecruiter reported a tough Q4 with revenue dropping over 18 % year over year to $111 million, blaming soft hiring demand. Full year 2024 revenue fell 26.6 % to 474 million.

Maureen Wiley Clough (20:54.869)

Big bummer.

Maureen Wiley Clough (21:02.142)

Yeah.

Joel (21:22.574)

with a net loss of 12.9 million compared to a $49.1 million profit just in 2023. Shares hit a 52 week low on the news as Barclays, UBS, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan all adjusted their price targets for the stock to the downside. In fact, the only buyers of the stock may be the fans of the show Severance that you can see on Apple. If you have not seen this commercial, here it is.

Maureen Wiley Clough (21:46.593)

You

Maureen Wiley Clough (21:52.053)

It's something.

Joel (22:24.115)

Any thoughts on the news out of ZipRecruiter recently?

Maureen Wiley Clough (22:27.455)

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's not surprising with the world being such a dumpster fire that there would be fewer job openings on these job boards, right? But I guess my curiosity is really piqued when I think about, how is their competition doing? What's happening there? Because what I read in one of the articles we looked at was that those folks are doing a little better. So guess I'm wondering, what's your take on that as an industry insight?

Joel (22:52.376)

So say that again in a way that maybe I can understand it. So, it's a job.

Maureen Wiley Clough (22:55.095)

Competition. How are they doing?

Joel (23:03.298)

Well, I mean, competition. So, I mean, zip recruiters, a shit show. I mean, it was down 25 % on the news of the stock. recruit continues to do pretty well. although their staffing industry or the staffing business is seemingly much more healthier than their job or business. I'm of the opinion that gender to AI is going to kill glass door because when I can go to gender to AI and say, what's it like to work at Eli Lilly?

I get a pretty good answer that doesn't like force me to go to the last door and see their, their reviews. So long-term, think it's really tough. talked about the show last week where they have a walled garden. have to log in. There's no search box. Like imagine going to Google and there's no search boxes. Like you'd freak out. What is this? Um, that's basically what indeed is done. LinkedIn is fine, but LinkedIn is a much more diversified business. Um, than those others globally. mean, see,

Maureen Wiley Clough (23:47.847)

That's rough. UI. Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (23:56.363)

Yeah.

Joel (23:59.806)

Stepstone, mean, generally speaking, they're all very, very challenged businesses. And when I look at ZipRecruiter in particular, know, public companies offer you a window into their business that private companies or lot of companies don't. in 2023, Chad and I spoke and I brought up what I called the four horsemen of the job board industry. These are four trends that I saw that were really cutting into job boards.

Maureen Wiley Clough (24:15.329)

Yep.

Joel (24:29.518)

and making life really, really tough for them. When I made this statement in 2023, ZipRecruiter stock was around 20, $22. Today it's around five to $6. So in that short period, that's what ZipRecruiter has done. So my four horsemen were number one, was Google and LinkedIn, Google for jobs, people being able to find jobs and look at descriptions. We're going to keep people from going to those sites. LinkedIn, I can find anyone that I want for the most part.

Automation, I think hits the blue collar worker in a big way. Companies are automating. They want bots carrying, you know, boxes they want, you know, people are getting squeezed out of the blue collar. you know, my local McDonald's is all kiosks when I order, there's no one at a cash register to take my money. that, that takes away from, the jobs that are out there. And then AI, I think on the white collar side, who needs a copywriter today?

Maureen Wiley Clough (25:04.895)

and

Joel (25:22.57)

Every image that's created for everything is AI. AI is doing so much of white collar jobs and as we'll discuss and who'd you rather, they're doing more of the customer service. They're doing more of the sales stuff. They're doing more of the marketing. So I think that is going to continue to chip away at job boards. And then the fourth one was, just think the gig economy phenomenon or freelancing. think young people, I'd rather DoorDash, Uber, go

Maureen Wiley Clough (25:30.975)

Yeah, we'll get into that.

Maureen Wiley Clough (25:39.351)

Totally.

Joel (25:51.454)

do some stuff on Upwork or Fiverr, like just diversify instead of like get a shitty job that I don't like. think that's playing into this as well. Now, interestingly, when I, when I made the statement, it was Google. I was talking to an executive, late last year. and he said to me, the greatest threat to indeed was paradox. And I thought that was fascinating.

Maureen Wiley Clough (25:58.219)

Yeah.

Totally.

Joel (26:18.83)

Um, and, and I thought about it it was, was pretty brilliant. was, but like, yeah, like I have, I have a recruiter. have a tech, like I have a co-pilot. have an agent that will go out, talk to job seekers, go find them, um, go through the whole process. So why do I need to even post a job like publicly available? Um, so I, I think the job board industry is going to continue to suffer from this. And I think that zip recruiters gradual decline.

is just an embodiment of that. need to go private. someone needs to, it needs to be career builder plus monster plus zip zip recruiter or, recruit holdings needs to add them to glass door. And indeed, like somebody needs to take zip recruiter, off the board because they are, they are failing, pretty badly, but that is, that is zip recruiter. Let's take a quick break after all this uplifting news and conversation and,

Maureen Wiley Clough (26:54.387)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (26:59.767)

Bye.

Maureen Wiley Clough (27:06.935)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (27:12.087)

Hahaha

Joel (27:14.306)

We'll come back and play a little Who'd You Rather?

Joel (27:22.414)

So Mo, you've never played. Who'd you rather? All right, well, if you're a first time listener, here's how it goes, kids. We talk about two companies, startups that have recently gotten some funding. And at the end of the summaries, both Maureen and I will tell you who we would rather.

Maureen Wiley Clough (27:25.855)

my first time.

Joel (27:46.786)

Make sense, Mo? Enough sense? Yeah. By the way, she signed the contract, so there's no turning back. Let's play a little Hoot-ja-rather. All right. First up in this corner, we have New York City based Hey Milo. No relation to Hi Bob, by the way. They're an AI powered candidate screening platform. They've raised $2.2 million in seed funding this week. The startup offers agents, an agent service that automates the initial interview screening process.

Maureen Wiley Clough (27:48.321)

Yeah.

Joel (28:14.794)

autonomously conducts tailored interviews, asks follow-up questions and delivers analysis. The company will use the funds to expand operations and develop further technologies. And in the other corner, it's Israeli based Alta, an AI company specializing in virtual agents for sales and revenue operations. They've raised 7 million in seed funding. The company plans to use the funds to expand its global footprint and integrate

Maureen Wiley Clough (28:29.719)

Thank

Joel (28:44.256)

its technology into enterprise sales and marketing infrastructures. And that is the two competing companies on who'd you rather. All right, Mo, we've got Hey Milo versus Alta, who'd you rather?

Maureen Wiley Clough (29:00.695)

I'm going alta, alta, alta, tomato, tomato. I'm really concerned with AI right now. I just had an experience that was like, it made my blood run cold and it was with Claude by Anthropic, which is like allegedly one of the good guys out there, right? Like they're more ethical and they care about safety. Well, I put a press release into Claude to just see if it could help me with a summary so I could create a script and it came back.

and it put in details that were just flat out not in the press release. And I was like, why did you write this? I didn't see it in the press release. And it wrote back like, sorry, I fabricated those details. And I was like, you what? Like, what the, what are you talking about? And so I wrote like, I don't understand why did you fabricate those details? It was like, I'm sorry, I did the wrong thing. It actually creates problems with trust and credibility and it goes against safe and ethical usage. And I was like,

You still aren't telling me why you did it. Like that makes no sense. It like proactively made shit up out of thin air. So my distrust in AI is higher than it's ever been. Apparently like it hallucinates all the time and this is nothing new. I talked to a lot of people and like, yeah. I was like, well, I feel like a lot of people just like take it as creed and just throw it out there and don't even think about it. So I'm a little concerned about that. And so when I think about what Hey Milo's doing, like on its face, sure, I understand the concept of like helping people.

especially smaller HR teams who have like a glut of candidates coming in and all that, you know, like eight million applications or whatever. Like I understand the concept of it, but I think there's so much opportunity for like unconscious bias and other stuff to seep into the process. It's going to push people out who should be given a fair chance. And I'm not saying that, Milo does that. have no idea. They might be the best thing ever to hit AI and you know, candidate recruitment.

Joel (30:35.565)

Hmm.

Joel (30:44.515)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (30:46.923)

but I feel like there's slightly less concern for me when it comes to working with existing systems in sort of the revenue side of the organization where you've got like hard numbers and things that are automated tasks potentially. Not to mention, I also really like that one of their AI automated agents is actually a dude named Alex. Like they have Katie, Luna and Alex. I'm like, finally, I'm so sick of them only being women. Thank you, thank you, we got Alex in there. So I just feel like.

Joel (31:06.286)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (31:13.963)

There is, and also they have more money. So hopefully they could do more cool stuff. I just, yeah, I'm going out for those reasons. All day, baby.

Joel (31:20.888)

All day. There she goes.

Maureen Wiley Clough (31:27.286)

Ha

Joel (31:27.63)

All right. So when I, when I look at, Milo, um, my first, my first thing to just say, they're going to need a bigger boat. Um, they, they are, they are admittedly riding a good wave. Um, there's an apex predator in this space, uh, called paradox. Um, there will be room for other players. don't know. Again, they're going to need more money to make a difference. I would think, but, you're, we're going to see more and more of these sort of.

Maureen Wiley Clough (31:37.001)

Hahaha

Joel (31:57.944)

Conversational AI, co-pilot, agentic services, there's going to be a ton of them. There'll be very few competitors that evolved from that. Do they create a niche and become really good at say healthcare or we're really good at a certain maybe blue collar jobs? I don't know. Maybe we're SMB only, but it's going to be really hard with the current landscape to do it. It's not that I'm necessarily bearish on Hey Milo.

But I love me some Alta, similar to what you were saying. Look, every company that I know is thinking about how do we do what we do with fewer people? And, and when services like this start dropping about like, Hey, have an AI agent for all of your sales calls, all of your marketing shit, all of your customer service. And when you, when you, when you see demos of these products, it's not, it's not the olden days where it's like,

Maureen Wiley Clough (32:38.507)

Exactly.

Maureen Wiley Clough (32:47.799)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (32:55.278)

Press one if you'd like to get our contact information, press three. It feels, and it's more and more feeling like an actual conversation with a human being. Some of the sales are amazing. They know what time it is in the zone that they're calling. It's pretty incredible what we're seeing there. Every company is going to say, how do we replace 80 % of our sales, customer service, and marketing team?

Maureen Wiley Clough (32:56.913)

Hahaha

Maureen Wiley Clough (33:20.887)

Exactly.

Joel (33:24.354)

with AI and these companies are in a prime position to make sure that they are there to get all the money when, when that gets spent. So Alta for me as well. Gets my, gets my, gets my, gets my hoot-ja rather. I'm feeling a hot and bother time to talk about LinkedIn. Obviously my.

Maureen Wiley Clough (33:36.193)

They swept, they swept today.

Ha ha ha.

That's what we do when we think LinkedIn, we get kind of hot. my God. Ridiculous.

Joel (33:50.99)

All right, LinkedIn from this from this from vice and a story entitled quote, LinkedIn might be the worst social media app for Gen Z and quote, can you say clickbait anyway, social media platforms like Instagram and Tik TOK often spark envy by showcasing curated, highly reels of people's lives, making users feel inferior, less noticed, but equally potent linked in triggers what they're calling quote.

Maureen Wiley Clough (33:59.959)

you

Maureen Wiley Clough (34:04.46)

No kidding.

Joel (34:19.71)

LinkedIn envy driving some to delete their profiles due to constant self-comparison with others exaggerated professional achievements. Users report feeling terrible about themselves with the platform becoming an egocentric breeding zone, quote, full of cringe-worthy inflated job titles, like someone claiming to be director of security when they're just a frontline support vendor. Moe, LinkedIn envy. It's a thing. Your thoughts.

Maureen Wiley Clough (34:46.177)

So true.

It's a thing. You're right. That was such a clickbait headline for sure, because let me tell you, I think it's that way for every generation. And I think it's just like the job version of the envy, right? Like Instagram's like the curated, like, this is my home. This is the day in the life. And this is just like professional version, right? But I can 100 % attest to that feeling. Like I remember feeling that way often earlier in my career. So maybe that's sort of the Gen Z aspect is these people are earlier in their career. And now I know better because I'm like, yeah, that doesn't check out.

You write your Harvard MBA, but then I go and I ask, this actually happened, this is great story. I had a company that was acquired by a private equity firm and my new boss, I went on LinkedIn to look him up and I was like, who's this guy? Like I'm gonna have, you know, what's essentially a job interview for the job I currently hold. When I met him, I was like, I'm gonna talk about Boston, because he went to Harvard and I went to Tufts and perfect, like we'll just chat Boston. I get on the phone with him, I'm like, so Boston, he's like.

Joel (35:34.222)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (35:43.575)

He got like really uncomfortable and I'm like what he's like, yeah, that was an online certificate and I was like dude bro Like you can't write Harvard MBA if you had an online certificate and that stuff is all over the place on LinkedIn So first of all, it's things are not what they seem always that was like such an amazing moment by the way But it also just encapsulated for me like you really you don't know what people are saying on there whether it's true or not and People get to certain places and rungs on the ladder

by a lot of different things, including luck and who you know. So it's just like, I don't really look at it in the same lens. I don't feel bad about myself anymore because I think so much of it is nonsense. I think before you kind of have been around the block, like that could probably impact your world. Do you a little bit more? And it totally makes sense. Like everyone or a lot of people on there are just like, dude, I just got promoted and I'm making like a gazillion dollars and here's my hack to do it. And you know, it's just, there's a lot of that on there, but I personally don't think it's any.

Joel (36:23.95)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (36:36.984)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (36:39.339)

worse than what you see on Instagram. It's just like in the professional realm. lost my hair butt.

Joel (36:44.546)

That's all right. So I, one of the, one of the aspects of the story that I thought was interesting was that you, there's a sense that you can't delete LinkedIn because it's your professional footprint. Whereas I want to leave X like I'm out or Reels is stupid. I'm not going to join. Like LinkedIn does have this, you have to be on it feel. So, so I do think that is a difference between, between LinkedIn and other platforms. And so far, no one can dethrone LinkedIn.

Maureen Wiley Clough (36:52.64)

yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (36:58.035)

So true.

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:03.999)

Yes, I stand that.

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:08.969)

You... Yeah, no, it's true.

Joel (37:11.106)

Like social media, feels like every five years there's a new, there's a new thing that everyone can join or join or change up. poly work, poly work, like, yeah, poly work we mentioned was a like kids, the kids needed a LinkedIn and they're, they're gone. so for the, for the meantime, LinkedIn Tim tends to be it. my sister who's, late to the game on LinkedIn, was hit on for the first time.

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:15.265)

Totally.

Yeah, I agree with that though. You can't. They're out. They're gone.

Joel (37:39.114)

on LinkedIn and I'm curious, I'm curious, cause I, I've never been on LinkedIn. I'm sure that shocks you. but I also don't know any, I don't know any men, who have, or at least have admitted to that, but it seems like a serious problem with women. Are you finding that with you and your, friends that are female?

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:39.482)

Ha

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:45.415)

You

Maureen Wiley Clough (37:51.477)

Yeah.

Yes, I have had marriage proposals or maybe they were marriage threats. Like I've gotten, I will marry you. And I'm assuming English, not first language for this person, but like stuff like that comes and you're just like, like what, like what are you talking about? Right? So yeah, that does happen.

Joel (38:13.614)

So it's more sarcasm, like shot in the dark thing. Like never.

Maureen Wiley Clough (38:17.815)

I mean, I don't know his intentions, but I was like, this, I will marry you sounds like a threat. I mean, in this, maybe, don't worry, don't sell yourself short. It could still happen, but it's like, so, and I'm not the only one who has this happen. Like other women that I talked to have this kind of stuff occur often. So it's a thing for sure, but to your earlier point, like you absolutely need to have LinkedIn profile. Like that's where I think it's like 90 % of recruiters look to LinkedIn for jobs.

Joel (38:24.43)

Yeah, I've never gotten that marriage proposal.

Joel (38:34.904)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (38:46.491)

I read that somewhere at don't quote me exactly, but it was something super high. And anytime you want to do any sort of networking, you have to go to LinkedIn to see where people are and who they're connected to and all that. And so you might not like it, but you should at least have like a shell profile. not saying you have to go post every day or something, become a super user, but you should at least have something. And maybe if it makes you feel like shit, don't go on it a lot, but like you need to have something there.

Joel (39:11.576)

Yeah, it really, it really has become a necessity. mean, I have a, I have an 18 year old son who's going to college and I mean, it sounds horrible, but I'm like, dude, LinkedIn is probably not going anywhere. people, people are lazy. People like shorthand. like, they like quick sort of glance and get a sense of who you are. And so, you know, I really pushed him into a brand name school, which he is, he's going to Indiana. So he's going to like a big 10 school.

Maureen Wiley Clough (39:25.237)

It's not.

Joel (39:40.888)

I'm going to try to push them into like internships with brand name companies because that's what employers want to see. They want to see a college they know. They want to see interns and companies that they recognize. And to your point, I think people are really focused on padding their profiles and whether that's right outlying or I'm going to get that quick online certificate or whatever to say that I went to Yale.

Maureen Wiley Clough (39:46.551)

This is how it goes.

Maureen Wiley Clough (40:00.865)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (40:07.863)

So cringe. So bad.

Joel (40:09.686)

And have you, and then, and then they put that in their top, top of the profile. Like that's their main. Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (40:13.461)

Yes, the top part. That is exactly what this guy I was talking about did. And I was like, my, come on, man. Like, you can't do that. Yeah.

Joel (40:18.222)

Yeah.

Yeah, so there's obviously a lot of pressure. On Tinder, it's I'm 6'3", and here it's I went to Harvard.

Maureen Wiley Clough (40:27.465)

Right, right, right, totally. Yep, I'm the CEO, right, of my own one person company that's in stealth mode. you know, like that's the kind of stuff you see. things are not as safe here.

Joel (40:39.136)

Should LinkedIn crack down on that? Should LinkedIn have some sort of verification or to like that's getting pretty rampant from what I can tell. It'd be nice if they had something.

Maureen Wiley Clough (40:47.711)

Yeah, it would be. I don't know how exactly they'd do it, but if there's a will, there's a way. It might be a good idea. At least crack down on the scams, right? Because there are enough scams on there. That's the thing I see as more disturbing than anything else. The other stuff you can kind of filter out, like, cool, you're CEO of, yeah. Exactly.

Joel (41:03.278)

where there's a dollar, there's a way. I someone who went to an Ivy League school would pay LinkedIn to have like a check mark at their college at the top of their profile. Yeah. If you're paying a quarter million dollars to go to school and get a degree, like you'll pay a hundred bucks a year or whatever to get that verification. it's, yeah, a new frame around your profile, know, little Ivy League, little Ivy.

Maureen Wiley Clough (41:12.649)

yeah, yeah. Verification verified Yale student like, yeah, you're right.

Maureen Wiley Clough (41:21.917)

Mm, yeah. Strong point. That's another money making move for them. Yeah. They're gonna crush. They're gonna crush. yeah, yeah. I have the anoint, yep, yep. Super smart. Mm-hmm. That's a really great call. Yeah, there you go. You should get a cut. Get a cut, for sure, for sure. But yeah, there is a lot of opportunity, I'll say, for Gen Z to get on LinkedIn because like...

Joel (41:32.046)

You could have Ivy. Yeah. And stuff. Oh man. You're, welcome. LinkedIn. just want fifth. want 15%, 15 % of everything. All right.

Maureen Wiley Clough (41:47.199)

A lot of people aren't in Gen Z and my social media consultant slash video guy, like he realized recently, he was like, holy shit, I need to be on LinkedIn. Like, why am I only on Instagram? And I was like, I've been telling you guy, like you should get on here because it's just, there's a dearth of voices in that space. So why not?

Joel (41:49.09)

They have to.

Joel (42:02.882)

Yeah. And now that they have video, you're going to see more of this sort of FOMO stuff on LinkedIn. Yep. Yep. All right. Let's take a quick break and, I don't know. We'll talk about women empowerment or the lack thereof.

Maureen Wiley Clough (42:06.389)

Yeah, totally. Tik-Toki stuff, Yep, it's a thing.

Maureen Wiley Clough (42:17.075)

Good times.

Joel (42:22.35)

All right, a new survey from Hi Bob.

Says only one in three women say they feel empowered to perform at their best at work. And less than 10 % of women said they have a formal said they have a formal mentor at work. So 90 % do not. Morgan news for women, sarcasm inserted 34 % of men surveyed. So they earned a promotion in 2024 compared to 22 % of women while 46 % of men said they received a raise last year compared to 32 % of.

Women Moe you're a woman thoughts.

Maureen Wiley Clough (42:59.701)

Yep, therefore I will speak for all women. Yeah, this tracks, this totally tracks. It's rough out there, it's rough out there. mean, that survey hit on a lot of points that have been continual frustrations for women in the workplace, right? Like it's just, we're not getting that upward mobility. We're not reaching the higher levels of the organizations. Part of that's due to not having, you know, a mentor or an advocate, right? Like that's totally a thing. And it's...

I also noticed that whole survey, it was interesting to see the degree to which presenteeism and like actually button seat in an office. Like people were saying how much that mattered, both men and women, but they were saying it mattered for different reasons. The women were saying it was important to be there so that their colleagues and other people around them could see their contributions. And men were saying that it was important because they needed to show their boss there, like to climb the ladder essentially. So it's like, I feel like there's this persistent, frankly, as a myth.

Joel (43:48.814)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (43:52.673)

that if you do good work, you're gonna be rewarded as a woman and women buy into that. And it's like, no, that's not quite enough. But the mentorship thing is a really big issue and not having representation of women at upper ranks of the organizations, that's super hard too, because if you can't see it, you can't really be it, right? And that's truly a problem. And so I also thought, like that was a very long survey and they went into a lot of different details, which was really cool. I think everyone should check it out.

Another thing that I thought was interesting was men thought that the way their companies thought about women was emblematic and signified by the company culture. And women didn't think that. They were like, no, no, no, no, it's not about the culture. We don't care about this performative bullshit. It's like, are you actually giving me benefits that help me? Are you giving flexibility? All of this. So it's more like put your money where your mouth is. Organizations like, do you have childcare support? Do you have maternity leave? Do you have paternity leave? Right?

Joel (44:38.958)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (44:49.515)

the way things that are going to actually become more equitable for women in the workplace is when dudes take paternity leave. Like that is, I think, one of the single most important things organizations can do is encourage and inspire men within the organization to take that leave as well. That levels the playing field in a way that nothing else really will. yeah, I mean, none of this surprises me. It's tough. Women are facing burnout at higher rates than men. There are all sorts of reasons for that. Another thing I thought was really interesting in the survey was

the result that women were like excited to get away from the house to go to the office because they wanted to get away from their family. And I was like, that also tracks like I get it, you so nothing like groundbreaking in there very much in line with what I feel, what I've seen other women around me over the course of my corporate career feel and experience. So we got some work to do.

Maureen Wiley Clough (45:43.127)

it's going to get better. Yeah. So hopeful. It's a great time.

Joel (45:44.974)

The good news is I'm sure in Trump's second term, things will balance out a lot better than they have. Yeah, I can tell. So they surveyed 2000 employees, full-time employees, primarily in hybrid or in-office environments. So it's a pretty good survey, pretty good number of people. 51 % identified as women. So it was a pretty even-handed set of data.

Maureen Wiley Clough (46:04.565)

Yeah, pretty decent.

Joel (46:15.52)

I do think that on the support side, there has been, think a challenge in the Me Too era and the cancel culture that men are just afraid to do mentoring. And this could be things like mentoring a child because as Professor Galloway always says, like the Catholic church and Michael Jackson fucked it up for young boys because men can't have a relationship with a young boy.

Maureen Wiley Clough (46:30.924)

Hmm.

Joel (46:43.822)

Because everyone looks at it and goes, Oh, is something going on there? Like what? That looks kind of weird. And I think that there's probably some hurdles for men to think about. I'm going to mentor this female for obvious reasons that come into play, right? Are they having a relationship or they fooling around? I mean, so I think there's a barrier there that, is, um, maybe not there going the other way around. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but, I think that that is prevalent, but I do think that more and more.

Maureen Wiley Clough (47:01.815)

It just, it does happen.

Joel (47:12.654)

tools that are coming out. coach hub is a company that we've talked about that will mentor you through technology and it's male, female, whatever, but there's no boundary about, if I get close to this person, you know, physical, like physically I'm in their proximity. Like people are going to do what

Maureen Wiley Clough (47:28.471)

So it's all remote? that what you mean? Is it all remote? Is that what you mean by that? Like it's not in-person mentoring?

Joel (47:33.87)

Yeah. So coach hub coach, I've got a ton of money recently and it's yeah, it's sort of like an online mentor. they, they, they coach you up. They look at what you're doing and like help you with certain things, like how to sell and sales process and sort of meant to you that way. Um, so let's say like Mike Shashevsky is like mentoring you on how to relate to people or talk to people or negotiate. Um, I think that will help level of playing field a little bit from that standpoint. One the things that I'm interested, interested in from you.

because it's usually a man on the other side of this podcast. I want to talk about the crab crawling out of the bucket phenomenon. If you don't know about this, if you put crabs in a bucket, if one of them crawls out, they will pull it back in. In other words, they won't allow one of their own to climb up and sort of escape.

Maureen Wiley Clough (48:16.427)

Not familiar with that one.

Joel (48:30.158)

And there's a psychologist named Dr. Naomi Elemers who talks about women in a similar way that women are sometimes their own worst enemy because women don't champion other women the way that they should. women sort of, there's a hesitancy to strive for something because of how it will look to other women. And I'm curious your thoughts on, I guess, women being maybe sometimes their own worst.

Maureen Wiley Clough (48:53.271)

Mm.

Joel (48:59.874)

barrier to success. Is that off or do you sort of relate to that?

Maureen Wiley Clough (49:05.151)

do relate to that. And I think it's like got a very logical reasoning behind it, right? It's like, there are only so many seats at the table, right? And so there's this sense of competition and I've got to get that one seat because there aren't that many women in the corporate world, right? Representation is off. It's definitely not the 51 % of the population, right? For a host of reasons. So I think that there is some component of that that is accurate.

I've seen some women be super threatened by other high achieving women at their organizations. That's certainly a thing. Just kind of like that scarcity versus abundance mindset really at its basic form, right? Like, shit, there's like only so many times I can get the shot, right? So I think that's there's some truth to that for sure. I do think that there is a really big push for that not to be the case because we recognize like that's not how anyone's gonna get better. That's not how this is gonna improve. Like we really need to proactively

surround ourselves with women who we want to promote and sing the praises of. And so it's really, I think, a huge building movement that there's this whole hype woman movement, Like people, women cheering other women on and this concept of like, there's plenty of room for all of us. Like there's enough room at this table. You don't need to do that. So I really think that's shifting. But I think traditionally that was kind of a thing. yeah, but getting back to like the men, yeah, go ahead.

Joel (50:23.128)

Okay.

Did you, did you keep an eye on, um, I don't know if you follow WNBA, Caitlin Clark, um, you know, when she came into the league, not at all. Uh, so it always shocked me how she comes into the league, everyone watches arenas, you know, sell out and then all the other players like want to beat her down and, and like tear her down. And I always thought that was really strange.

Maureen Wiley Clough (50:34.069)

I don't. Mm-mm.

Joel (50:51.214)

because her success is becoming their success. like the rising tide raises all the boats. So yeah, while I had you on, I wanted to get your take on that. Well, these aren't universal truths for sure, but I am curious.

Maureen Wiley Clough (50:51.371)

I didn't see that.

Huh. Live Saul boats. Yep. Supposed to anyway.

Yeah, I'm glad I could speak for all women. I will say that I don't, know, yeah, right, right. For all women. I will say when it comes to the other conversational point, which was around men not being comfortable taking on mentoring younger women, I don't think companies are intentional about mentorship. I don't think they're thinking through like, how can you do this?

Joel (51:14.776)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (51:23.895)

And that's hurting Gen Z a lot. I mean, there was a study that came out by Adobe that said that 83 % of Gen Z wanted a mentor and only 42 % of them had one, right? Something like that, or maybe it was like 53%. But there was a big delta there. And so I don't think companies are being intentional about this at all. So I don't know if it really has anything to do with male, female, certainly in some situations, I can imagine that playing out. But I think that companies just flat out are not recognizing the value of mentorship and not facilitating it.

Joel (51:52.622)

Do you think a woman in an executive or management position feels comfortable taking on an entry level or a new employee and mentoring them? Or do you think that that's an uncomfortable scenario for women?

Maureen Wiley Clough (52:08.267)

I mean, I know that when I was at a past company, my then boss, who was a man, proactively sought out a mentorship opportunity for me with the highest ranking female in our department. And that was awesome. And she took it on like with a lot of excitement and was great. And that was all him, like kudos to him for seeing like, hey, you know, I'm going to help her find her way here and like setting that up for me.

Joel (52:16.064)

Okay. Okay.

Joel (52:30.092)

Had he not intervened, do you think that connection would have happened?

Maureen Wiley Clough (52:35.453)

Maybe over the course of time, if she got to know my work, right, she was like 17 layers above me. So that would have been a very small chance. So it may not have, but that was really, that was really instrumental to me at that organization. Like it super helped to find the path I was on, helped me feel a lot of confidence. She helped me through, hey, I'm coming up on my maternity leave. Like, what's the vibe? Tell me about it. Like she showed me what she had done and told me all the sort of things to expect, which

Joel (52:37.323)

Okay.

Joel (52:59.021)

Yeah.

Maureen Wiley Clough (53:04.299)

Like otherwise, I don't think I would have gotten. So yeah, I think in short, like having a manager who advocates for you and looks out for you and provides those opportunities to you is just like so baller and it does not happen enough. Like it really has only happened to me like once, twice maybe in my career. And that's just like sheer good fortune of being with a leader who gets it, right? So like it can't be understated how important it is, like where you happen to fall at a certain organization and who your manager is and like.

Joel (53:33.08)

Hmm.

Maureen Wiley Clough (53:33.719)

I mean, you're always one management change away from hating your job is the reality, right? So there you go. Yeah, saying there's a chance, man. Saying there's a chance.

Joel (53:37.678)

So you're saying there's a chance. So you're saying there's a chance, which brings us to this week's Dad Joke. Are you ready?

Maureen Wiley Clough (53:47.159)

God, I'm nervous. Okay, yeah, lay it on me. Okay.

Joel (53:49.58)

It's not too bad. It's not too bad. I'm easing into it. And my sister who listens now said, that one joke was not good. So we're going to, we're going to pull it back a little bit today. what, what do you call guys who make women in the kitchen jokes? What do you call guys who make women in the kitchen jokes? Single.

Maureen Wiley Clough (54:03.777)

God.

Maureen Wiley Clough (54:07.553)

assholes.

Maureen Wiley Clough (54:11.988)

That's good. That is good. I love that. That's accurate. That tracks.

Joel (54:14.882)

That's Mo everybody and that's another one in the can. We out.

Maureen Wiley Clough (54:19.638)

We out.