Chad is reenergized and back after another stint in Europe, Joel is drinking Corona's on a beach in Mexico, and Mr. ATS (Peter Gold) slides into the guest host seat to talk news, moves, and we answer questions like....
Is Stepstone's master AppCast plan working?
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INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad (25s):
Gonna be a path in motion. All I need is some page up cash. Take the platform high St. Elmo's fire. Holy shit. I think I blacked out there for a minute. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast, where today we will be catching you up on all the news, money and acquisitions you missed out on. Okay. So that's a lot, maybe not all of that, but we'll do our best. I'm your host, Chad 'man in motion' Sowash. And today we are Cheeseless, but I am bringing the gold baby, Peter Gold. That is, and guess what? Mr. ATM, Mr. ATS himself will be joining us.
Chad (1m 5s):
So sit back, relax and stay tuned because we will be right back. Oh yeah. The eighties Peter, the eighties. Oh yeah. You know, you had that on your playlist. You have it on your Spotify playlist right now. Don't you Peter?
Peter (1m 25s):
I don't even have Spotify.
Chad (1m 27s):
Oh my God. Oh dude. So Peter, Mr. ATS Gold. How's it hanging? How are you doing?
Peter (1m 34s):
Yeah. Yeah. Not bad. Not bad. A bit tired today.
Chad (1m 37s):
Tired from what, what have you been doing that has tired you out?
Peter (1m 40s):
I've been at my bike today. It was a bit of an epic ride in it. The thing is I knew it was a big ride, but it didn't quite turn out. Well, it was kind of, it did turn out how I expected and I knew it would be bad, so it was bad. And so, but the problem is I knew I had to get back for you and I left late.
Chad (2m 1s):
Your left late, but you made it, you made it in your all knackered out.
Peter (2m 4s):
It was good even though I'll tell you, it was, it was a dilemma.
Chad (2m 7s):
Oh yeah. How so?
Peter (2m 9s):
Well, about six hours in, I was saving my cheese sandwich. And have you seen the film, the War Horse?
Chad (2m 17s):
Yeah. It's been awhile ago, but yeah.
Peter (2m 19s):
Do you remember the start where you've got the horse and the boy at the farm?
Chad (2m 25s):
Yeah, uh huh.
Peter (2m 26s):
That was filmed on location in Dartmoor?
Chad (2m 29s):
Oh, no shit.
Peter (2m 30s):
It's called Ditsworthy Warren Farm. And that's exactly where I was going today to have my cheese sandwich, But yeah, time was ticking because I was late and I'm riding along and I'm thinking I'm not going to make it to Ditsworthy and the pub and get back for Chad. And so I'm kind of riding along, I think I'm Chad or cheese? Chad or cheese? And I did not. I thought, hang on. I'm supposed to be Chad and cheese obvious. So anyway, made it to the pub. I mean the last descent down to the pub below is a real humdinger at descent, rocky gnarly, fully off type thing. And you know how you should never think about bad things happening?
Chad (3m 10s):
Yes, you'd never do that shit. Cause it's going to happen.
Peter (3m 11s):
You get a puncture coming down here. Yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't go. So I got to the pub, I had my beer. I'd already inhaled my cheese sandwich. Cause I didn't go to the Ditsworthy Warrens cause I had to get back for you. And yeah. So here I am eight hours later after riding my bike I'm here.
Chad (3m 28s):
That's how important I am people. That is how important I am. We had to come back for Chad. So that's he could, he could guest host on Chad and Cheese. So I am, I'm damned excited to be back on the mic. Cheeseman is vacationing on the beach in Mexico somewhere. I am still in a haze after being in fucking Europe for the last three weeks, which was a blast by the way. So I wanted to make sure listeners out there that I brought a guest on who had some, you know, a good amount of industry experience, but even more so opinions. So that's why I called Mr. ATS, who was just on the show about a month or so ago, was it Peter?
Chad (4m 8s):
He received some pretty damn good fanfare. I think he paid for it, but no matter it doesn't matter for all those listeners who might've missed the it's Mr. ATS podcast, first and foremost, listen to it after this, give them a quick Twitter bio about you. Who is Mr. ATS?
Peter (4m 26s):
Mr. ATS is me, obviously. Built an ATS back in 1999. Sold that business, been working in the industry ever since, in blogging, analysts, worked for some of the big vendors. And yeah, and I know I'm just Mr. ATS.
Chad (4m 40s):
Like who, who are some of the big vendors?
Peter (4m 43s):
Worked for Loomis and worked for Cornerstone. And I do some consulting work for, Toleo, Job Partners and some of the smaller vendors.
Chad (4m 53s):
Dropping those names. I love it. I love it. Well, shit. Let's go ahead and transition into shout outs. I want to first go and say shout out to Europe who is doing vaccination passports and proof of testing the right way. We flew into Paris. We spent a week in Malta. We spent a week in Budapest, another week in Tavira Portugal. Then a couple, a few days back in Paris before we came back to the US and I got to say, dude, it was fucking easy. And it was much different than the 1940s version that we have here in the United States, where they're like, show me your papers. It was all on your phone, all digital QR codes.
Chad (5m 36s):
It was easy shit. So I got to give a shout out to Europe for doing vaccination passports. Right? Have you traveled at all? Have you had to deal with them or?
Peter (5m 44s):
I've been to Scotland and Wales and they were different to England when it came to a COVID. I mean, of course England, Boris has done an amazing job because he's such an amazing leader.
Chad (5m 59s):
Dick.
Peter (5m 59s):
Yeah, completely. Everybody's now panicking and getting the boost or trying to get the booster because there's nobody to deliver the boosters. So I went for my booster yesterday and my 2:30 appointment was going to was delayed by two hours.
Chad (6m 12s):
Wow. Damn dude. And you guys, I mean, you're above what we are here in the US with regard to a vaccination percentage. And it's weird because we, I think depending on where you are in the states, but I think this is pretty much standard throughout. If you want to go get a shot, you can get a shot. If you want your booster, you're not going to have a problem getting in to get the booster. So it's weird to hear that a country like the UK or countries like the UK are actually having issues.
Peter (6m 41s):
Yeah, well it's kind of what you'd expect from Boris really? Isn't it?
Chad (6m 47s):
So you have any Shout outs for us?
Peter (6m 48s):
Oh, I do, I was going to have a shout-out for Olivia, my favorite splat bot.
Chad (6m 53s):
Oh yeah. You're not, you're not a, you're not a paradox. Olivia splat bot fan.
Peter (6m 57s):
I don't really mind chatbots. I just think, you know, if it's not always appropriate and if you're going to use a chat bot at least get it right?
Chad (7m 4s):
Right. So what's get it right look like?
Peter (7m 4s):
Don't ask open-ended questions in a single field text box, when somebody's on their phone. You can, some of the questions, like how long have you been in the industry? And that's absolutely fine, you know, a long time or 20 years or whatever, but then say, what is it that you think makes a good XYZ? I mean, it's like, seriously, you want me to answer that to a pseudo human being chat bot? On my phone?
Chad (7m 32s):
So is there voice, is there availability for voice to text or even leaving regular voice audio messages?
Peter (7m 39s):
Nope, not that I can see anyway. I mean, maybe there is further down the process. There may be, but I just think at the top end of the application process, if you've got a job that's quite senior and you're not going to get many people apply for it anyway, really all you need is their name, their email address and their mobile number. And maybe ask them two questions. Yeah.
Chad (7m 58s):
Yeah. That's not really a Paradox/Olivia issue though. Is it that's more of a process? The company? Well, I, yeah, well, I mean the company - the company's process is all fucked up and they're asking way too many questions, especially on the front end. Yeah.
Peter (8m 11s):
But you would expect the tech vendor when it's using its own tech to be a Paragon of virtue, as far as how you set it up to be.
Chad (8m 21s):
So what you're saying is Paradox actually doing the hiring themselves. You've gone through that process and that wasn't quite as slick as you thought it would be.
Peter (8m 29s):
Correct. I thought it would be far better. And that actually I don't. I mean, if you're on LinkedIn, why not just have easier just apply on LinkedIn, but of course there'd be no need for Olivia then. And that's a real paradox, isn't it?
Chad (8m 41s):
It is a real paradox. It really is. More shout outs on my side. I want to shout out to listeners who connect. We appreciate you guys out there, not just listening, but also engaging whether it's connecting on Twitter, following us or connecting on LinkedIn, Antonio Arias Lopez who's the global head of talent, acquisition, and employer brand at MBCC group over in Germany. He loves the podcast. Thanks for listening, Antonio. Peer Goudsmit over in the Netherlands, connected with me on LinkedIn, said that he's a big fan and we're obviously big with the Dutch. Go figure? Sarah Calorie from Market Drayton. That's over there in England.
Chad (9m 23s):
She loves the podcast. Thanks for listening. We love our listeners all over the world. Thanks for connecting and following us on social media and keep on listening. Plus get your friends, family, coworkers, and anyone, you know, to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese wherever they listen to podcasts or go to Chadcheese.com. Last but not least. I got to give a shout out to scotch. Everybody loves scotch, right?
Peter (9m 47s):
I was thinking about them as well. To be honest, he was giving away free whiskey. I've not worked out what I need to do to get some yet, but I did see that was giving free whiskey away.
Chad (9m 55s):
I'll tell you exactly what you have to do as Adam Gordon would actually put it, not just scotch it's scotch malted whiskey with a value of a thousand dollars per bottle. Go to scotch.win to register for the expensive stuff. Again, a thousand bucks a bottle! We're giving away scotch the expensive stuff at scotch.win. If you want some bourbon, some other types of whiskey. That's cool to go to Chadcheese.com/free Sovren sponsors, free whiskey to your doorstep once a month. Not so much in beer from pillar.hr. That's right. A bunch of craft beers on your doorstep or who knows?
Chad (10m 38s):
Maybe you want a comfy t-shirt ChadCheese t-shirt again, go to Chadcheese.com/free, or just go to Chad cheese.com click on free in the upper right-hand corner. And that Peter is how you get the free shit.
Peter (10m 51s):
I'll get some free beer later then.
Chad (10m 52s):
I love it. I love it. So you ready to talk some topics?
Peter (10m 57s):
That's why we're here, I think isn't it? Is that it are or are we done now? Can I go?
Chad (11m 2s):
And you can't go because it's time for topics. All right, right out of the barrel smoking hot Page up acquires Path in Motion.
Peter (11m 12s):
PathMotion. Chad, no in
Chad (11m 14s):
Pathogen. I keep hearing the man in motion from St. Elmo's fire. That's why. Okay, so
Peter (11m 19s):
It's your Spotify list again, don't have Spotify and you won't get names wrong.
Chad (11m 23s):
Well, that's why I have guys like you to keep me straight. It's not that big of a deal. Okay. So from the press release, here we go. Quote "PageUp acquires PathMotion, a pioneering SAAS platform that allows organizations to create highly relevant employee generated content to attract and engage quality applicants. PathMotion's sophisticated AI powered discussion platform makes it easy for organizations to connect candidates to real employees and share authentic employee content. With a single click, organizations can create and share on brand employee generated content with prospective job seekers.
Chad (12m 10s):
PathMotion compliments, PageUp's, acquisition of clench recruitment, marketing software." So Peter. PageUp, do you think adding PathMotion, especially after the Clinch acquisition to the portfolio was a must?
Peter (12m 22s):
To be honest, I've never really understood PathMotion. I've never really understood the real value that it offers. And you know, you're, there'll always be anecdotal examples of where people have bought it and had a play with it. And I've had a look around some of their customers and I don't think it's particularly great experience and I don't see the point of it. And the fact that PageUp is saying Clinch and PathMotion will be integrated with their own ATS, but still available to be bought standalone, to integrate with other ATSs. I can't see that happening. To be honest, Clinch made sense. You know, Clinch is a career site, CMS, and it's kind of expected now of ATS vendors to have a career site, but there's a massive disconnect between what I would call a true CMS and what an ATS offers, you know, and I've been there with Hire Pad that was a full CMS with ATS integration.
Peter (13m 19s):
So we would build a career site, all the extra pages, feed all of the jobs and multiple ATS into one place. The candidate had a better experience. So people like Tribepad, for example, they try to be that standalone social career sites. When they tried to get ATS integration, you know, that almost killed them off. So I said, well, if you can't beat them, join them. So they did and they became an ATS and the rest of the state's history. But I think PageUp hoovering up kind of wastes and strays won't bring them success. And for me, like I say, PathMotions never made a lot of sense. Clinch does, but PathMotion, I don't get why, I really don't.
Chad (13m 57s):
So one thing, many marketing platforms are missing is content generation. And this seems to majorly bolster the value of Clinch. Yeah, you can have a career site that you create and then you want to be able to fill it with content. But for the most part companies, they suck at creating content and they're fucking horrible at creating content. So this platform could perspectively help them get past that obstacle and being able to allow their employees to create authentic quote, unquote, "authentic" content for them to actually share not just on their website, but also to be able to press out via the socials.
Chad (14m 40s):
So do you agree that most of these quote unquote "marketing platforms" are really just infrastructure, they missed the big key of a content generation partner.
Peter (14m 50s):
You see, I don't necessarily agree that we need loads of content.
Chad (14m 53s):
What's going to bring people jobs? Is that it is that the only content?
Peter (14m 56s):
If you look at where the traffic is on a career site, it's all around job search. Now, once people get an interview, then they will go and look at content. But do you think people really believe all the kind of marketing bullshit that companies put on their career site about themselves? No. Is PathMotion the answer? I don't think so because that content needs to be kept up to date. And when I had a quick look at one, in one example, I just thought I kind of expect it to be real time and it wasn't real time. It was kind of, you know, here's a question you can ask, choose who you want to ask the question to and God send it off and they'll get back in touch with you.
Peter (15m 37s):
But it was just, the whole experience was really clunky and horrible and not really seamless. And didn't really make me think, that's impressive. It just made me think that's a bit 2003. So, and I think this whole authenticity aspect, I don't think people buy it. It's just, for the majority of jobs, people saying, I just want a job. And I think if you get to a point where if you're say somebody on a 80K a year or more, you're quite an experienced person, you're in quite a senior role, then you're more likely to talk to people in the organization and find information out or talk to your friends or go into Glassdoor.
Peter (16m 20s):
So for me, I think we need to take a step back from this massive content generation element of the career site. And just say, let's make the process as slick and easy as possible. You can look at your traffic, you can look at your data and you can say, how many people come to the career site? How many first timers, how many bounds, how many go to the job search? How many go to the content? And are they returning people which will kind of support the fact that if probably people who've already applied for jobs and they're coming back now, to look for some more information. So I just think we've got it very wrong. And if we can't get the basics, right, which is find a job, apply for a job, maybe use a chat bot to apply, find and apply for a job, get that bit right.
Peter (17m 0s):
If we can't get the basics, right? What's the point of the content?
Chad (17m 3s):
I totally agree, but I don't think this is an or scenario, right? I don't think it's content 'or' a slick process. I think what we've done over the years, is we've come up with these marketing campaigns that have been real shit. They might've been too polished. They might not have seemed genuine or authentic, but what we didn't do, which is exactly what you're saying is we didn't have a great process for once. They were interested to get in to the application process or at least into the system. So it's, it's really been a shit UX, no matter how much good content you might've put together. I think personally, this is an 'and' scenario. You need to be able to, from a recruitment marketing standpoint, you need to be able to touch those people who care and they want to learn more about you.
Chad (17m 47s):
And you've got to do it with good content.
Peter (17m 49s):
Well, you gotta have the right content. You've gotta have the right content that people want. So for example, hourly workers, and this was done, and this, I've done a survey on this. And they basically said, we'd like a pay calculator. I want to know if I apply for this job doing 20 hours a week, how much will I earn? How much would I take home? That's the kind of stuff those workers want. Whereas people who are going to work in head office, yes. They want to say, have a peek over the fence. They want to say, well, okay, let me look what it's like in your office.
Chad (18m 18s):
Right.
Peter (18m 19s):
Let me meet some people. And let me have a look at where I'll be working maybe.
Chad (18m 26s):
Right.
Peter (18m 26s):
So content is important, but it's about getting the right content that the target audience want. And I don't think we've got that right. I don't think we're intelligent enough or investigative enough to actually say, you know, this is what our target audience wants, and this is what we're going to give them. Everybody just does the same. Every career site looks the same.
Chad (18m 47s):
And why do you think that is? Because they're all having agencies who are, like-minded putting them together for them.
Peter (18m 58s):
Yeah. And everybody and talent acquisition people are sheep.
Chad (19m 1s):
Okay. So let's, let's move toward PathMotion's, footprint, Asia, PACrim, Europe, the US, they're looking at this broad scope, right? I mean, PathMotion, PageUp is fairly big, but they're not really a household name in the US. Shouldn't it? Do you think that they should focus on specific regions and try to own those regions before trying to get a scatter shot at this? Or do you think, Hey, go for everything?
Peter (19m 28s):
I think, well, my understanding of PathMotion, of PageUp is that they are very strong in Asia Pac and typically American vendors are not strong in Asia Pac.
Chad (19m 36s):
Exactly.
Peter (19m 36s):
So I would focus on that region and become the defacto HCM in that region.
Chad (19m 48s):
I think a company like PathMotion, more than likely this is a clearance rack type of a buy. It's something that actually fits on the content creation end of Clinch. And again, we both think Clinch was a great buy for them, but I think they need, definitely no question, they need content creation ability, but also they need to focus on the path to application as well. Either way it doesn't matter. There's a great soundtrack for these guys.
Chad (20m 29s):
All right. Going on to our next story. Okay. Kids. So if you didn't listen to the latest European Chad and Cheese podcast, entitled TextKernel Lands a Whopper, Joel, Lieven and Hung Lee talked about this next acquisition, but I believe they left a lot of daylight in talking about the deal, not to mention Peter, I knew you were coming on and I wanted to hear what you had to think. So here it comes. Dutch recruitment software from Textkernel backed by private equity firm Main Capital Partners has acquired US parsing and matching rival Sovren, also friend and sponsor the show.
Chad (21m 12s):
Main Capital Partners said a deal that aims to expand its business across North America and Asia Pac and strengthen its technology base. Sovren based in Texas delivers a similar AI software to Textkernel will boost the Dutch firms position in the so-called search and match technology used by recruiters to screen candidates. It's private equity owner, Main Capital Partners said in the statement, the deal is valued at 30 to 40 million euros. That's about around 45 million US dollars, first and foremost, congrats to longtime sponsor Robert Ruff and the crew over at Sovren.
Chad (21m 53s):
Peter this is a much different conversation than we just had on content. Your thoughts on this space and also this acquisition.
Peter (22m 3s):
Yeah, I think it's a great acquisition for Textkernel. They're both very solid companies, obviously Sovren a very US centric. Textkernel very much MEA focused, although they have got business in the U S and they've both been doing this for 20 odd years each, so they know what they're doing. Kind of, you always have to wonder, is it two old timers that make shovels getting together to eat out the final remnants of a declining industry? You know, CV parsing, what will that even be a thing in a few years' time? Or will they pivot because the still life in the old dog and they could become the world's largest and oldest with the biggest dataset AI skills engine or something along those lines.
Chad (22m 44s):
Yeah. Well, one thing that you have to remember is that you can't get the data. If you don't parse the data. And one of the hardest things to do with all this shit data that we get from job descriptions and resumes, what's the worst content that's out there today, job descriptions and resumes, the things that matter most. Well, these two organizations Sovren and Textkernel probably are the best when it comes to parsing that data. And when we talking about parsing, we're talking about making that data available so that it can be consumed by matching engines, by AI machine learning, all that other fun stuff.
Chad (23m 27s):
Right? So from my standpoint, and again, we're close to this and I'm incredibly biased because this is my favorite segment of the industry. You can't have good matching without amazing parsing. So they're probably thousands. I would say there definitely are thousands of platforms that are actually out there today. And you who are listening today, probably use Sovren or current or Textkernel from a client standpoint, or one of your vendors uses them because they power the whole fucking world when it comes to parsing and matching.
Peter (24m 2s):
Even some of the big skills engines have a piece of Sovren or a piece of Textkernel in there doing their thing.
Chad (24m 10s):
Yeah. Yeah. So Textkernel the big dog in Europe, EMEA Sovren, you know, the big dog here in the states. I see this as a huge coup for Textkernel to be able to, they are now there's no question. They are the top dog in the world. And number two is no where in sight, I mean, you've got great companies like DaXtra, and, and, and some, some, some others that are out there, but they're nowhere close to what now what Textkernel is. And then you have to take a look at, go to market, Eight-fold is trying to become a core talent platform.
Peter (24m 52s):
Yep.
Chad (24m 53s):
While a new global juggernaut being, you know, Textkernel is poised to power, all of Eightfold's competitors. I mean, from my standpoint, this is a genius way to actually own the market, instead of going out and having the biggest brand and spending millions of dollars on creating a platform that you will compete against the entire world with both of these organizations said, fuck that, you don't need to know my name, but you do need to use my tech. So they they're powering everything out there today.
Peter (25m 24s):
Yeah. They're not Intel. They will be in every HCM stack.
Chad (25m 28s):
Yes.
Peter (25m 28s):
And I think it's where, where else would they go? Because it's not just about recruitment or not, let's say head, office type recruitment matching skills to jobs. It's also, if you think about temporary work or gig workers, freelancers, if you can then look at saying what, okay as say, somebody like Manpower, let's say, or, or Alexander Mann, they've got thousands of temporary workers and they're having to find somebody to do one job. So it's like, Hey, find me somebody to do this one job. Well, if the machine can actually say, well, we can not only find the person that's got the right skills. We know where they've worked before the matching becomes even more finite in actually picking people out for contract type jobs.
Peter (26m 11s):
I think the opportunity is in the massive high volume, hourly paid space, temp space, freelancers, you know, actually going beyond just, you've got these skills, you could also do this job at saying availability, match, location. All of those kinds of things.
Chad (26m 26s):
You're talking about 70% of the market is what you're talking about.
Peter (26m 31s):
Massive.
Chad (26m 32s):
So yes, I agree. I agree. A hundred percent. And, but I, again, I believe one of the things that we have done as an industry shit is we have spent hundreds of millions, billions of dollars on attracting candidates into our own personal databases. And then we allowed them to sit there and fucking atrophy. They just went into a black hole and faded away. When, if you had tech like this to parse and match against new jobs, new wrecks that actually popped up. That's where the money is people. So I'm pretty excited about this and very excited about seeing what Textkernel has next. So we'll be talking more about this, there's no question, cause this is an exciting space, but until then, we're going to go ahead and take a quick break.
Chad (27m 22s):
And we're going to be back to talk about threatening things toward the friends over at Indeed. Be right back. All right, Peter. So when we talk about this industry today, Indeed is the major player. Am I wrong?
Peter (27m 34s):
They are.
Chad (27m 38s):
Yeah. They're the major player. The question is how did they get where they are today? The next thing that I want to talk about is Appcast versus Indeed. But seriously, it's really a gang effort to be quite Frank, more major programmatic players versus Indeed these days. The next one caught our eye as this update came straight from the smart job board website. It's not an earth shattering announcement, unless you start to connect the dots, and this is a message to job sites, employers and vendors listen close, because here it goes, quote, "Here at Smart job board, we've been working hard to offer an option to import jobs from our partner network, to all of our customers.
Chad (28m 24s):
It's a great option to populate your job board with jobs. And in case you experience a lack of job content partner networks, such as Appcast will quickly and easily populate your job board by importing jobs from the network to backfill jobs, these jobs will look like native job postings. We will include the job alerts to job seekers and also be counted in jobs by city, state, category, widget." So Peter, why is this a big deal?
Peter (28m 51s):
I'm not convinced it is to be honest. I don't think, I don't think that's where the issue is going to be. First of all, Indeed are not going away any day soon. I don't see it.
Chad (29m 4s):
No.
Peter (29m 4s):
They're too big. And the reason they they're so big as they are frictionless, you know, a recruiter doesn't have to do a thing to get their jobs onto Indeed nothing.
Chad (29m 12s):
Other than pay, other than pay. Yeah.
Peter (29m 14s):
Organically don't know. But that's how they got so big. And the organic features always been free.
Chad (29m 19s):
That was a long time ago. Yeah. That's how they're leveraging money today, but go ahead.
Peter (29m 26s):
Yeah. So, but there's no friction there and the aggregators, I actually think make the candidate experience worse, not better. So I think the real issue is Facebook or Meta.
Chad (29m 39s):
Okay.
Peter (29m 40s):
Because if you look at how their marketplace has grown.
Chad (29m 42s):
Okay.
Peter (29m 43s):
They claim to have a billion users on the marketplace and they are growing and e-commerce is part of their future growth. And they've got some, a million shops on their platform already. So they can already tell you about cheap stuff from China that you didn't know you wanted, but you're going to buy because it's on Facebook and in the same way, they could theoretically tell you about jobs you didn't know you could do. And who you didn't know, anybody didn't know, you knew somebody at that company and you didn't know, it's actually closer to get there, then your current job and why it would be a better job all around. And for me, Facebook's AI is really where they're going to start being able to leverage all of that information they have about you as a person.
Peter (30m 24s):
Not only do they know when you're unhappy, they know when you need more money. They'll know which people, you know, like a saying and who you could get lifts with or whatever. And I actually think that's where the big risk is for somebody like Indeed, because you know, in the same way that Indeed indexed jobs, Facebook can make it frictionless. They could say, yeah, Hey, your jobs are on Facebook. And now you can do whatever you want with them based using our AI and we can help find people for you. And if you've know me, I used to sell loads of old stuff on eBay. I've not used eBay for years, but it also Facebook marketplace.
Chad (30m 55s):
Again, I don't think this, I don't think this is an 'or' scenario. I think this is an 'and' scenario. Like I said, you know, we're talking about Appcast and we're talking about all the different programmatic players, but remember Indeed and Simply Hired having their backfill wars. Remember that? That's where they gain a shit ton of traction with regard to, and also kneecapping job boards all over the place and being able to provide quote unquote "backfill," which was really just Indeed jobs on that website and that led back to Indeed. The big question is what happened to Indeed IQ?
Chad (31m 36s):
I mean, StepStone buys Appcast, Recruitics buys KRT, or, I mean, right. Radancy buys Perengo and then what the fuck does Indeed do with Click IQ instead of building a big distribution engine, like Appcast or Pando or JobAdX, what do they do? They actually turn it internal and we haven't heard shit about this.
Peter (31m 59s):
Disappeared, hasn't it?
Chad (32m 1s):
Yeah. So we've talked on this very show about customers and how they hate Indeed's tactics. Trojan horse, strong arming, not to mention Indeed just raised their resume product pricing from what I'm hearing about 20%. And they also took away the engagement credits, which means they raise the prices and took away incentives to use that very product. So I see some first and foremost, some issues, much like Monster had back in the day when everybody hated them, but they felt like they had to use them. Then you have the Facebooks, let's say the Appcasts where they're starting to actually build bigger networks. That's where I see a big change happening.
Chad (32m 41s):
And I'm hoping to see a big change happening so that companies don't have to just hope and pray that Indeed doesn't raise their prices. They have options because today it seems like they have no fucking options.
Peter (32m 50s):
Yeah. I mean, I saw a post earlier today about somebody saying they were using one of the job boards in the UK and the day before their contract was about to expire, they had a price increase of 30% and they're saying, well, hang on a minute. It's not working. So why would I pay 30% more for something that's not working, but what choice did they have? And so obviously they have a choice of not going with that job board, but there's, it seems to be a lot about a lot of it going on whereby everybody's struggling for candidates. And so they're kind of saying, well, let's just do more of the same. And it's like, no, don't keep doing more of the same, try and do something different, but nobody seems to want to do that.
Peter (33m 33s):
So we just go down the same old, do more of the same, even though it's not working.
Chad (33m 39s):
Exactly. So this is not a prediction, but it is awesome to see a company like StepStone who bought Appcast for what? We're talking about a German organization buying this big infrastructure in the U S and to perspectively bleed that out globally. But what the hell are they going to do? I mean, you know, StepStone fucking hates Indeed, right? I mean, this to me seems like the perfect fucking strategy. And again, it's behind the scenes kind of things, but we will watch this. I am excited to see what happens, but I'm also excited about the next piece of the show, which we call get ready, kids, buy or sell.
Chad (34m 23s):
So Peter, you know how to play buy or sell. And for all those Virgin ears that are out there, you've never heard buy or sell before, here's how it goes. A startup just receive cash. I will describe the funding, give a quick overview of the vendor and then Peter and I will either buy or sell the company. Pretty easy. Right. Are you ready? Peter?
Peter (34m 47s):
I'm ready. All right. How much money have I got?
Chad (34m 53s):
It's all, you can buy anything you want, man. Okay. So the first, the first startup up is called Adept ID. Adept ID, the developer of a machine learning power technology, talent matching software that identifies hidden talent in the workforce, announced a raise of 3.5 million in seed funding led by Zeal Capital Partners, Better Ventures, JFFs, Employment Technology Fund, and investors participated in the round. The investment comes at a pivotal time for the future of work. As the pandemic amplifies labor shortages in high growth sectors and increases the need for upward job mobility.
Chad (35m 40s):
Adept ID closes the labor gap by identifying hidden talent among the 80 million working Americans without college degrees and connecting them with relevant in demand jobs or training based on transferable skills that have been observed and hundreds of thousands of job transitions. Since launching the public API earlier this year, the company has already licensed its AI models to year up generation USA and Enel green power to programmatically improve their talent strategies and facilitate an inclusive approach to discovering and developing talent. Sounds like magic. What do you think Peter, you're going to buy or sell?
Peter (36m 19s):
Got AI so it must be magic obviously. So these hidden talent, are they going to kind of find them under the table and then sack them because they're hiding from work or are they actually going to give them a different job?
Chad (36m 30s):
Good question.
Peter (36m 31s):
Yeah. I do like the concept of finding hidden talent, but there's a couple of issues with it. Candidates or employees may find it a bit creepy and also employers are already really bad at internal mobility. So I think there'll be a lot of resistance from that perspective, but I do love that it makes sense and the machine can theoretically do this. So I'm a buy.
Chad (36m 57s):
You're a buy on that one. So that is a big, (applause) okay. So it does sound like magic. My bit, my question was after this press release, does it come with a set of Ginsu knives? I mean, it just sounds like they can do anything. It was founded in 2020 by Brian de Angeles and Fernando Rodriguez Viva. The three things that are important to me when quickly assessing will it automate? Yes. Will it scale? Yes. What are the experience that the founders actually have? None, none.
Peter (37m 31s):
Yeah. That probably applied for a job once and they didn't enjoy the experience and they probably got a garage, a big garage.
Chad (37m 41s):
More than likely, but let's be honest. This piece of the process, I believe is one of the most important and hardest to master it is the heaviest fucking lift when it comes to platforms. That's why Sovren and Textkernel, who we just talked about have really owned their respective geography because this shit is hard. And here's the biggest key, expectations are high when you're dealing with customers on this, especially after a bullshit press release like that. So yes, the market is validated. iCIMS buys a opening.io. Textkernel just dropped a load of cash on Sovren. Eightfold received shit, tons of funding and is predicated on matching.
Chad (38m 23s):
But all of that to me is a head fake, because remember companies in this space who have bit the dust like Restless Bandit, Crowded and Entelo is still out there flailing. This is a hard segment. This is my favorite segment, but to be quite quite Frank, Brian, Fernando, I wish you guys luck, but guess what? This for me, (firing squad - machine guns) it's a sell. I can't do it.
Peter (38m 50s):
Maybe they use Textkernal technology then.
Chad (38m 53s):
Well then if they do use Textkernal Colonel technology, they have none of their own techno technological assets. What they do have a secret sauce, which I appreciate. But at that point they still don't know the industry. It's a big lift and it's a very technical lift.
Peter (39m 9s):
When has that stopped anybody from being successful?
Chad (39m 12s):
That's it? That's my point. That's my point. I agree.
Peter (39m 18s):
I agree. They won't be the last.
Chad (39m 19s):
Next a company we both know VideoMyJob. So this announcement comes as a message on LinkedIn from CEO, David Macciocca. Here it goes "I'm excited to share that VideoMyJob has secured $2 million in funding. I am grateful for our incredible team and amazing customers," blah, blah, blah, a bunch of momentum stuff with the new round of funding. We'll accelerate our innovations that continue to make a VideoMyJob, the best video solution for talent acquisition, employer brand and recruitment marketing teams worldwide. The employment market has significantly changed, yeah, that's no shit, and companies are thinking about new ways to attract and retain talent.
Chad (40m 2s):
We're approaching the great resignation, everybody's using that, and companies are struggling to find new employees to join their business. This is a global problem.VideoMyJob sees a lot of white space and ambitiously wants to be the category owner of video in talent teams. VideoMyJob is a platform that helps employers use video through sourcing employees' stories via their mobile phone video, which means companies can put the power of video in the hands of their people and see what content comes. Sounds very familiar to a little PathMotion, right? So what do you think, are we going to buy, are we going to sell VideoMyJob?
Peter (40m 47s):
Well, you know, the thing is before COVID nobody was cameras on, whereas now, everybody's cameras on.
Chad (40m 50s):
Yep.
Peter (40m 51s):
So in theory, there's no confidence issues about people putting their cameras on. So you could argue now is as good a time as any for video. But the thing is whilst we're happy to join a Zoom meeting and sit in front of a camera, press the record button. And the thing is, most people turn into monologue zombies or want to be thespians. And so I looked at some of the examples on the website and I'm thinking this is all just way too cheesy for me. So although I had to cheese sandwich earlier, I'm going to say this one's too cheesy for me. And I'm gonna sell.
Chad (41m 22s):
Hello? Okay, well, that's a sell. Well, first off, let's go ahead and let's go to automate, will, it automate? No. eh, but you're in effect crowdsourcing, which can be a source of, you know, powerful automation. And especially if you're sending, you know, authentic content. So that's not a bad thing. Will it scale? Yes, because employees, if you're engaging them, will be doing the work. The question is, who's doing the editing, who's doing the approving? Yada yada yada. There's going to be resources necessary to be able to handle all that content that comes in. And the experience play, yes, David and team, they definitely have experienced not just in technology, but in the recruitment space.
Chad (42m 3s):
There is only one medium. I believe that's more powerful than video and that's audio. And because audio is more portable, which means it's can be used pretty much anywhere. That being said, I personally, I can't believe that this company hasn't been sold yet. Seriously if you look at iCIMS, we talked about them earlier. iCIMS acquisition of Altru, which was reported at 60 million fucking dollars. If the iCIMS marketplace demonstrated that video was worth buying, then what are all the other core talent platforms doing wrong? Are they even looking at this? That's my question. This is an enriched audio and visual experience.
Chad (42m 43s):
Not to mention it can be authentic and it should be something that your employees are providing content for. So I believe, for me, this, my friend is a buy. (applause) They don't have a lot of money, already pulled in from a funding standpoint and I don't think it's going to be hard to buy them. So next on the list and last on the list, we have our friends over at myGwork. So report from Sky news 24, Haymarket is leading a 1.6 million pound investment in myGwork at a time of intense scrutiny of employers, diversity and inclusion policies.
Chad (43m 27s):
myGwork is a recruitment and networking platform for the LGBTQ plus community and is tapping into a prominent network of high worth investors to fund its international expansion. myGwork which counts, Glaxo, Smith Kline, Pearson, and the accountancy firm E&Y among its clients. Based in London myGwork has offices in Madrid and Florida, and also works with companies such as BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world. It was founded by brothers, Adrian and Pierre in 2015. Peter, how you feeling about a little, myGwork?
Peter (44m 4s):
I couldn't really get my head around what it was or what it is, because it's got a feed of jobs on there from employers, but the jobs are just standard jobs so I don't know if there's any relevance to those particular jobs and the community. So that was the first thing. And then you've got the community aspect and I just think that possibly, and they're kind of trying to target too many different types of people. So I just didn't really get it. And the founders, I couldn't really fathom out too much about the founders. I couldn't quite work out their background. So obviously it's a very topical subject and it's a very important subject.
Peter (44m 44s):
So I'm going to be a hold.
Chad (44m 48s):
I'm going to be a hold. Okay. So let's, let's call myGwork, the LinkedIn for the LGBTQ plus community. myGwork is a space for an underrepresented community. Employers want and need to tap into more underrepresented communities. Employers need to demonstrate they're working within under-represented communities, employers like easy. This is easy. Now I don't want to say that I believe that there are silver bullets for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, because I don't believe that they are. Although when companies are exploring options, nothing is more glaring of a buy than myGwork for the LGBTQ community, which is why this to me is a buy.
Chad (45m 35s):
We've worked with these guys in the past. I see them more as a LinkedIn, which is broad because you know, what kind of job can a person with, you know, an LGBTQ person do? They can do all of them. Right? So again, I think it's, it's more about penetration into a community that you are not currently penetrating. So that being said, we are at our last ad break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some creepy shit. We'll be right back. I always feel like somebody is watching me. All right, Peter
Peter (46m 8s):
If you sing like that they've arrested you.
Chad (46m 12s):
I'm working on it, man. I'm working on it. So Peter, what's the creepiest thing your demented mind could conjure up about the workplace?
Peter (46m 22s):
I probably best not to answer that question to be honest.
Chad (46m 27s):
Okay. So our last story comes from ZDNet. Excessive surveillance is having profoundly negative effects on the workforce. Yeah, no shit. Remote monitoring and surveillance tools could devastate employee relations, unless efforts are made to put more power into the hands of workers, the author of a report by the European commission's joint research council or JRC warns, Kirsti Bell who spent five months compiling the JRCs extensive electronic monitoring and surveilling in the workplace report, that sounds creepy in itself, says an increase in employee surveillance threatens to undermine the trust and commitment to work amongst staff who are left in the dark about how data is gathered about them.
Chad (47m 14s):
A spike in the use of quick and dirty monitoring apps prompted by pandemic era remote working is especially concerning. Particularly those who use more invasive techniques to snoop on people working in their homes. Is this 1984, or what? Is this going to continue? Or are governments going to allow this?
Peter (47m 29s):
Well, the thing is this, there's good tech and bad tech, and you can use anything for good reasons and bad reasons. So let's just look at this from a different viewpoint. What if we flipped it on its head and said, okay, let's look at it from a wellbeing perspective. What if the company can see you're working too many hours, so actually stops the flow of work to give you more time off, or the company sees you are getting tired. So schedule some time off, maybe books, you know, books you at the spa, or God forbid flies you off to Portugal. Could you imagine that?
Chad (47m 58s):
I would love it.
Peter (47m 59s):
Is that what Joel did with you? So you're working too hard?
Chad (48m 4s):
Yes.
Peter (48m 4s):
Now I know that's a bit utopian. Okay. But what if that was the case? And let's imagine obviously this, isn't hard to imagine for many people, but imagine your manager's a complete and utter Dick. Now, obviously not many are, but there's one or two around now. Not only would the company be aware of this, but maybe they wouldn't need so many managers because some of these managers, you know, they ask you to send them weekly reports and you can say, well, hang on that data's in Salesforce or in HubSpot or whatever. Oh yeah. But I like you to put a weekly report together for me each week and then we'll talk through it. It's like, what kind of manager is that? And the thing is the machine, the surveillance machine would have access to that data and would see how you're doing. And like I say, maybe get rid of some of the managers.
Peter (48m 45s):
So I don't think it's all one way. I don't think it's just a bad thing, but it depends which way it goes. I mean, obviously if it's used for the wrong reasons, then that's not good. But if it's used in a better way and it's all about helping the employee, then it could equally be used for that reason as well.
Chad (49m 5s):
Well, Peter, it sounds like you would be perfect to be able to join one of the misinformation slash propaganda wings of the marketing for this type of technology. I don't think human beings have it in us to actually use this type of tech the right way. Are we getting the shit done? And that's the big question. And that's the thing that we have to focus on is, why are we watching these individuals? Why aren't we just looking at performance? I mean, are they on the phone? Are they making calls? Are they hitting their customer service numbers? Are they hitting their sales numbers? Are they hitting project timelines, dates, all that other fun stuff.
Chad (49m 45s):
That's, what's important. What we're doing here, is we're focused on control. And I wanna, I want to end this whole thing by using a quote from Kirstie Ball who actually pulled this together over months and months, her quote is technology is not a replacement for proper management techniques. I don't think we can allow humans to make this decision because there are way too many dicks out there. What do you think?
Peter (50m 7s):
Yeah, there are. And maybe the technology, like I say, gets rid of them, but I think you've, I think just looking at it from two ways is important and it doesn't always have to be bad, but like you say, humans are not the greatest species on the planet and we don't exactly kind of get on well with each other. But I like to think that there is a better side to us all and that something like this could be used in a positive way by some companies.
Chad (50m 34s):
I would like to think that as well, but unfortunately.
Peter (50m 37s):
You Americans.
Chad (50m 37s):
The human race hasn't done much for me lately. Peter, thanks so much for coming on the show. I know you're fucking knackered out from eight hours and only a cheese sandwich. Go take a nap, get something to eat and we'll look forward to having you back on the show. Thanks. Thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it.
Peter (50m 59s):
My pleasure. Good to talk to you.
Chad (51m 1s):
You too, man. We out.
OUTRO (51m 2s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.