On this week's episode I'm joined by Quincy "Queen of Chatbots" Valencia as Joel continues his aspirations to be more like his idol, Clark Griswold, with a family Vegas vacation. I got nothin' man, seriously.
Any who, this week's episode is packed with goodies like:
Radancy acquiring Ascendify
LeapXpert gives creepy a run for its money
Kelly Fusion launches DIGITAL WORKERS!
300 million jobs to be replaced by automation
Everybody gonna ChatGPT - Hireology, Beamery, Seekout, Phenom, who else?!?!
Is GDPR Europe's secret weapon?
... and your office mates say that you talk too much, you never shut up!
It's another tech packed episode and The Queen of Chatbots is holding court!
You're welcome!
TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY:
Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors, you're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, rash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
[music]
Chad: It's a Cheese-free week, kids, welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm your co-host, Chad, always blame the new guy, Sowash.
Quincy: Yeah, and I'm today's co-host, Quincy, I have opinions on that, Valencia.
Chad: And on this week's show, Radancy stops the technical Botox. Kelly introduces us to their new sexy digital staff, and a LeapXpert is watching you, it's official. Everybody's gonna ChatGPT, let's do this. Well, hello.
Quincy: Well, hello to you.
Chad: Okay, listener, you guessed it. Cheesman is on vacation. Don't understand the whole taking a kid six-year-old kid to Vegas.
[background conversation]
Quincy: What?
Chad: But that's what's happening.
Quincy: Every six-year-old needs a flyer about the latest nudey show.
[laughter]
Chad: That's a very good point. All those cards that they pass out...
Quincy: Yeah, when you're walking down the street.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Quincy: That's true. I should have named myself Quincy, the lactate of the Chad-Cheese Show, Valencia.
Chad: The lactate.
Quincy: Well, every time I'm here, Joel, isn't.
Chad: Well, I gotta say, welcome back to the show Quincy.
Quincy: Thank you. Thank you.
Chad: I think you're actually eclipsing Tim Sackett's appearances on the show.
Quincy: Woah!
Chad: I think you now... Plus plus, I don't believe Sackett has ever guest hosted. So guess what kids?
[applause]
Chad: That's right.
Quincy: This is my second guest hosting appearance.
Chad: Wow, man, that's doubling up and nobody has done that, so let's go ahead and let's hear a little bit about Quincy. Anybody who has been in their pandemic bomb shelter and they're finally coming out, they haven't been listening to podcasts, they don't know who you are, give them a little Twitter bio.
Quincy: I've been around forever, Chad, almost as long as you.
Chad: Oh.
Quincy: I can't help it.
Chad: So much bullshit. Why do you gotta pull out the age thing?
Quincy: Because it's all I have on you, Chad, despite my charm and personality, it doesn't hold a candle to you. You are like six months or eight months older than me, so I have to point it out. So I've been around, I've been a practitioner, I've been a technician, I've on product, and now I'm taking a seat in the analyst's seat, taking a turn there where I joined the analyst community for HR technology a year ago. On April 1st, not an April fools joke and it's been really fun. So I spend all day looking at new technology, old technology, the companies that provided what they're doing right, what they can do better, and then I talk about it. So kind of like what you do, only in a more formal way.
Chad: And what Cheesman does, looking at OnlyFans and TikTok all day, so very similar. Just different ways...
Quincy: Similar but different. Yes, exactly. So thanks for having me back.
Chad: Alright, okay. Quincy, let's go ahead and let's jump in to shoutouts. Guest first. Who's your first shoutout?
Quincy: So I relocated to South Carolina almost a year ago, and so my first shoutout as we enter the summer towards season...
[music]
Quincy: Is to all the great white sharks that are hanging out off the coast of South Carolina and washing up on the beach because... Yes, washing up on the beach, it feels very Amity Island, 1975. And I'm here for it, man. I'm telling you, I just... That's my life now. I came from South Dakota to South Carolina, and it's a very, very different feel.
Chad: That is a different feel. You were in Atlanta, then you went to South Dakota, and then you went to South Carolina now. So what I'm hearing is this is not a 'Jaws' situation where you're not swimming nude in the ocean doing laps often.
[music]
Quincy: I never said that, Chad. You're putting words in my mouth.
[music]
Chad: Okay. Okay, okay. Alright. Enough of that. Shoutout to 10 Guy who this week launched a human-like avatar, get that, candidate application and recruitment platform, which mitigates bias and promotes a more diverse and inclusive workforce because that's what they have in Sweden. Long and the short of it, kids, the robot head is out and they've pivoted to the avatar. So what are your thoughts on that?
Quincy: Well, I have to be honest, I think that their technology is super cool, and I've thought of that since the head came out, but I've also never stopped being creeped out by the head, so I'm pretty excited about this shift, I think... I'm much more likely to not... I'm less creeped out by the great white sharks off my beach that I am by the head. I think that using that tech to apply it in this new way is great, I'm excited to see it, and I haven't had a conversation with Elon in quite some time, maybe I need to have that soon.
Chad: When we originally went to Sweden, and I think it was 2019, we talked about how the robot head is fucking cool, just from the standpoint of robots taking over the world, kind of cool, but we told them it's just not scalable, so from a novelty standpoint, they're going to get a lot of press, which is fucking awesome, but to be able to scale, they've gotta do something, and this is exactly, exactly what they should be doing, so I...
Quincy: I agree. You know what, I think there's still a place for the head though, so I just suddenly got a thought of like... It's like the Wienermobile from Oscar Mayer. They can put that thing on a truck and they can drive it through the streets all over Europe...
Chad: Oh my God.
Quincy: And attract some attention for the really cool stuff they're doing that's not so creepy anymore.
Chad: It is, it is. And we've always said that if you go into, let's say, for instance, I don't know, another Swedish organization like IKEA. And the first thing that you see is the 10 guy Bot who asks you if you need anything or just points in a general direction of kitchen or betting or whatever it might be. Then that could be a nice little Wienermobile moment as well.
Quincy: It certainly could. It's 10 Guy is gonna be the Wienermobile of HR tech. But in a really, really good way. I really do love their tech, I think it's pretty awesome, I love this new thing, I think it's smart.
Chad: Excellent.
Quincy: Alright, shoutout number two from me, so I've been thinking about tech, 'cause that's what I do.
Chad: What you do.
Quincy: And what I've seen that's really kind of made a difference and made a noise that doesn't happen to be ChatGPT, it's the skill space stuff, man, and I just wanna give a shoutout to our friend, your friend as well, Jason Putnam over at Plum, he made the move into that space a little over a year ago, I think, and I think it's super smart what he's doing with Caitlin there and redefining really what skills mean? It's not just about, do you know Excel?
Chad: Yeah.
Quincy: It's about what soft skills do you have and what desire do you have, and where do you thrive as a worker, an employee in an organization and what they're doing at Plum I think is super cool. And the fact that Jason made the move there, I think it's a really smart move on his part, and on Caitlyn MacGregor's part to bring them in, so shoutout to Jason, hope he's well. Good stuff there.
Chad: We say it on the show all the time, leadership is everything, and being able to get a guy like Jason who understands go-to market, understands narrative messaging, also has amazing networking power, then we...
Quincy: Absolutely.
Chad: Then we also have on the other side, more kind of like hard skills per se Maya over at Tadio.
Quincy: Oh, she's my favorite.
Chad: Yeah, and what they're doing. So we're starting to see... And what I would like to see is more of these assessments that are really focused on... If you can get it narrowed down like Plum or even on the hard side, like Tadio, to me, it just makes sense. So leadership, being able to bring these assessments really out of the shadows.
Quincy: I agree. And then so the next time I co-host Chad and Cheese Podcast, I hope that my shoutout will be to those organizations who have the foresight and the vision to put their money where their mouth is and actually invest in some of these technologies and bring them into their workforce to make an actual difference and not just have them as platitudes on a wall.
Chad: Throwing down the gauntlet. That's what Quincy does.
Quincy: That's right.
Chad: Alright, my last shoutout goes out to Arthur Grand Technologies. Oh, you're gonna love this one. In an article reported by Newsweek, a Virginia-based tech company that has sparked outrage after allegedly posting a job on Indeed, our friends over there that stated the business was only looking for white candidates for a business analyst role. Now get this, the tech firm has issued an apology on LinkedIn, which I think has since been pulled down and accused a "new junior recruiter" of adding discriminatory language on the job description when it was not present in the company's original text. Oh come the fuck on. It's the blame the new guy game, right. And that move, that move, I gotta tell you though, never gets old, never gets old.
Quincy: Clearly not, but I just absolutely call bullshit on that. It reminds me of something that happened when I worked at Home Depot way back when Moby-Dick was Minnow. And it was a big push into putting things in the stores about... We're hiring for Spanish-speaking candidates, which is really smart. This is in the mid-2000, early oughts, I think when this... It was. It was the early oughts when this happened, and it turns out the minute that the bigs we're hiring sign went up, the day they went up in all the stores... Yeah, the translation that they used to create those particular we're hiring signs was of a vernacular that actually many Spanish-speaking countries understand it to mean we're soliciting as in we're soliciting a hooker on the street and that was the day that my friend and employment marketing had to go in front of the CHRO and CEO and explain how the hell that happened. Very similar vibe here. Some people had some fun recruitment, marketing, faux pas recently.
Chad: Oh my God.
Quincy: And in the past. To go along with yours.
Chad: Well, and we'll see more faux pas possibly as we go to events, so the first event that we're getting ready, all geared up, it's gonna be a party is Unleash, so there's lots of learning, networking, business and parties and that kind of stuff, but... Okay, so I understand that this year's ticket sales is 75% higher.
Quincy: Woah.
Chad: Right now today compared to last year, so... You've been to Unleash before, right?
Quincy: No, as a matter of fact, I have never been to an Unleash.
Chad: What?
Quincy: I know. Isn't that crazy?
Chad: Dude, we have to totally, totally rectify that. And let me tell you why. One of the things I love about Unleash is that they've integrated the community where in most events that you go to, they split off practitioners from vendors, I mean it's really... It's two countries. Unleash doesn't do that. They pull them together. They are integrated on the Expo Floor with the stages actually being on the Expo Floor, so it's really cool, they have a main stage, they have all these sub-stages that are on the Expo Floor, and it's a pretty awesome, awesome event. I think Unleash and RecFest, just in my personal opinion, are probably the most different and most innovative events that are actually happening out there today.
Quincy: So when we go to HR Tech, which we all do as one does, if you're in this industry, I think it's a great event, don't get me wrong...
Chad: Oh yeah.
Quincy: I see what happens up there, tons of opportunity to network and really see what's coming up, that's new and fun, so I love that there, but it's really sort of a vendor fest, if we're honest, a lot more vendors attend these days than buyers, that's where we're missing out, is that opportunity to interact with the people who are actually using this super cool new tech or the stale tech that just people who just have money to buy big boots. But that's another topic for another show. How is Unleash different from that?
Chad: Very much, it's more integrated. So they're not trying to cordon off all of the practitioners.
Quincy: So you actually do get to interact with people who are using the technology.
Chad: And that's the vibe, man, the vibe isn't, oh, I know I'm hoity-toity and I'm gonna go out and be cordoned off, away from all the vendors and the vendors there's a respect that the vendors aren't always trying to be seeing blood in the water as they see practitioners all around them, so yeah.
Quincy: Oh that's good.
Chad: If you're going to be at Unleash, this is where you can find the Chad and Cheese on Tuesday, the 25th, Joe and I are going to be on stage during the vendor summit with our buddy, Chris Conrad from Textkernel, you know those guys?
Quincy: Absolutely.
Chad: That evening are gonna be at the HiringBranch event at the high roller. Have you ever been on the high roller?
Quincy: I have not been on the high roller because I don't do heights.
[laughter]
Chad: It's much easier to do heights in the high roller because there's a bar in it.
Quincy: Okay, well, that's a requirement. You might be talking me into it.
Chad: It goes one revolution in half an hour, so it takes 30 minutes for one revolution. We're gonna see how many drinks we can actually get during that time, so that's the hiring branch, high roller party that we're gonna have, and then we're going to run to a dinner with our friends over at Plum. We're gonna see Caitlin, Jason and the team. Then next on Wednesday, this is day one, you can find the Chad and Cheese at the WorkHuman booth from noon to 4:00, where we're gonna be giving away t-shirts doing interviews and probably drinking. Go figure it. It's Unleash. That's the WorkHuman both from noon to 4:00 on day one, then right after that, I believe at 4:30, we're gonna be doing little drinks before dinner with our friends at Tadio, like we did last year in Vegas.
Quincy: That was a great event.
Chad: Or you're gonna love this one. Then it's the Talent Toke event, right after the drinks with Tadio, we're gonna walk over to the Bellagio, we're gonna toke up because weed is legal in Vegas kids, and we're gonna enjoy the dancing fountains while we are getting high, and this is all before dinner on day one, and that's just the start of our calendar, so we're really, really excited about Unleash, and if you haven't gotten your tickets, register, go to chadcheese.com, click on events, all the stuff is there. Then we're gonna find ourselves in early May, we're gonna be at Coronado Beach in California for ICIMS inspire we're scheduled to close out day one on stage with a special guest, that's so secret, they haven't told us who the special guest is yet.
Quincy: That's exciting news. The last ICIMS event I attended, which was in November, I happened to see Arnold Schwarzenegger at breakfast.
Chad: What?
Quincy: I did. It's true. I have a picture. It was a fun-filled day, but I was trying to sneak and get the picture because you don't wanna be that one that goes up and says oh my god, can I get a picture. And so I happened to mosey over to somebody I didn't even know who was sitting at the other end of the breakfast bar and said, "Hi, we don't know each other, but would it be okay if we pretended to take a selfie, but really with our cameras faced the other way so we can both get a picture," and he said, "That's genius," 'cause that's what I am. So I now have that picture, so we'll see if you have any celebrity sightings at the next ICIMS event.
Chad: The expectations at this point are now high, thanks to you. Okay, make sure you go to chadcheese.com, click on events, register for those events. We have plenty, long list of events this year, those are just two.
Quincy: Hey, is Joel taking his kids to the Talent Toke event in Vegas? Is this a precursor event for that event?
Chad: I don't think he's taking the six-year-old or the 16-year-old or 13-year-old to the Talent Toke event.
Quincy: You never know.
Chad: That was a good question. That was a good question.
Quincy: Thank you.
Chad: One thing that kids do like, and I think you do as well, is free stuff. Are you registered for free stuff?
Quincy: I'm registered for free. I've never gotten any free stuff.
Chad: Oh you've gotten a t-shirt, whatever.
Quincy: I do. I get a t-shirt every year. I have a Chad and Cheese shirt collection, and I wear them all over the world and take pictures.
Chad: I do love that t-shirts from JobGet. We also send beer, which is courtesy of Aspen Tech Labs. That's right. Beer landing on your front porch. What could be better?
Quincy: Who doesn't want that?
Chad: If you don't like beer, we got whiskey from Textkernel, so you get a bottle from Chad, you get a bottle from Cheese, so two bottles.
Quincy: Now you're talking.
Chad: And last but not least, if you got a birthday, don't forget the rum with Plum. Joel's not here this week, so we're not gonna go through through with birthdays 'cause that's his baby. But...
[vocalization]
Speaker: Really? Could you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums.
Chad: That's right. Go to plum.io. Get your assessment taken. You're gonna love it, I promise. And a Plum crew will see you in Vegas.
[music]
Quincy: What do got for us today, Chad?
[music]
Chad: Oooh, it's an acquisition alert kids. Acquisition straight from the Radancy blog, CEO Michelle Abbey...
Quincy: That's obnoxious.
Chad: Michelle Abbey writes, "Today, we announce that Radancy has acquired Ascendify, adding value to our Radancy talent acquisition cloud." What a fucking name. Radancy Talent Acquisition Cloud. Anyway, "through advanced candidate relationship management, CRM capabilities, this acquisition enhances our suite of solutions focused on helping enterprises maximize ROI, that's return on investment, kids, reduce costs and find qualified candidates to strengthen their business." Ascendify received $13 million in total funding according to CrunchBase, a seed of two in 2013 and 11 million series A in 2017, only 33 employees according to LinkedIn. So the team was pretty lean. Radancy gains a brand spanking new CRM and features, which include advanced sourcing functionality, whatever the fuck that means, workflow automation, interview scheduling and event management to augment their candidate marketing capabilities. Quincy, your thoughts?
Quincy: Yeah, so Radancy is weird, it's a fine company, I'm assuming. But I don't understand, they're a talent acquisition platform when they really only play in certain parts of that space. On their website, or was it a Ascendify, no it's on their website, they said, Together we're delivering the world's leading TA platform to which I say, I don't really think that's true. I'm just gonna put that out there because it's limited and what it's doing, Radancy is a relic of what it used to be, which was TMP, which was really great in what they did, nobody's arguing that, and they're continuing to do that, they've had some pretty cool technological advances, and I will say that this acquisition makes a lot of sense because I think that Ascendify and some of the features that it brings, plugs in some holes that were in Radancy's offering, but I think that they're going a bit too far to say to the world's leading TA platform, and I take offense to that. What are your opinions?
[laughter]
Chad: So, in performing due diligence for CRMS and recruitment marketing platforms over the years, do you know what brand never came up and the... Check these guys out list Ascendify.
Quincy: Correct.
Chad: And here might be the reason why since 2012, Ascendify has served over 50, five zero enterprise clients, averaging five new clients a year with their leading CRM and recruitment platform that screams, I'm running out of cash and I need a sugar mama now. Right?
Quincy: That's exactly right.
Chad: And Radancy has a CRM and a marketing platform, so why buy another? Well, what's hitting Radancy in the face right about now, I'll give you a hint. TalentBrew, technical debt. TalentBrew been around for how long.
Quincy: Ever.
Chad: Right, you can't beat technical debt, it's kind of like aging, you can get Botox, you can get a face lift, lipo, you can do all the things, but you can't outrun time, so it's the same thing with tech, it needs to update or the amount of daily maintenance piles up and the platform basically is worthless, so you have to rip and replace, which is so fucking hard, we saw companies like Monster literally die on the vine because they couldn't rip and replace.
Quincy: That's the truth.
Chad: Much easier for an organization like Radancy because of all the different instances, clients, those types of things, but still... But I give Radancy a lot of shit, they hardly ever make the news anymore, but over the years, they've gotten well over 500 clients pounding on their tech, and this feels like a smart move, a rip and replace kind of provide better infrastructure. But at the end of the day, to answer your question, nobody, I don't believe one platform can represent all of the talent acquisition function without being able to integrate with partner point solutions.
Speaker: Well, and they don't even try to. We know Radancy is a leader in its portion of talent acquisition, which is a really important segment of TA, but they don't go across the board, so I do think, like I said, and you've actually said as well, Ascendify brings some features and functionality that Radancy doesn't have today, so I think... And they probably got it for a bargain price, we don't know this to be true, but we know now. Well, we know some of that, but they're... Based on what they published, but I think that's really smart. I don't think it solves their technical debt issue coming from my last gig was in product, so I can tell you that doesn't necessarily do the trick, but obviously they saw something in it to add to what they have, and certainly it will add support to their current client base and perhaps give them an edge in prospecting where clients are looking for something that had pieces that Radancy didn't have so good for them, and good for Ascendify.
Chad: I've gotta say that TMP, when they made the move and they started creating TaletBrew to be... And because every agency wants to say they're unbiased, TMP really was, I think the agency that move toward a biased scenario, they're only gonna promote their own shit, and they've gone down that road, so what they've done is they've flipped from an agency model to a tech model, why, because they want to get acquired by JAM spring. Because the technical platform is gonna have a hell of a lot higher valuation than just an agency. A portfolio...
Quincy: Tech is good.
Chad: Yes, sure and so you're 100% right.
Quincy: Because tech is scalable, human-based businesses are not as much...
Chad: Exactly.
Quincy: And that is a universal and certainly the case in the HR tech space, and I think that was actually a smart move for them as well. I do know people who work there, I'm sure you do too, They're fine people, they're good at their jobs, there's reasons that they stay there, and TMP has done some things very well and tuning in becoming Radancy and what they've done. I still wish they wouldn't say that they're the world's leading TA platform.
Chad: Everybody says it. Everybody says that, and on the other side of that, you have the Shaker recruitment marketing of the world who do not, will not acquire tech, just so they don't have to play these money games, 'cause obviously Shaker's not looking to get acquired, they've been around for over 70 years, and that's I think the big difference. Shaker is really looking for the purity of what an agency is, and TMP at the time before Radancy. Now, Radancy, they were looking to get acquired and to be able to get a much larger valuation, they had to get into tech. Now, the problem that they're going to have, that they're gonna continue to have is being able to keep up with the market, and then the technical debt that they have to pay every single year, I think they're gonna rip and replace a lot of their CRM capability. They're old, kind of like CRM light that they had before, 'cause they really didn't have a robust CRM before they're gonna rip and replace, and I think they got it for... I think they got it for a good deal. So.
Quincy: Well we'll see.
Chad: I think it's a smart move.
Quincy: Can I just say about Shaker, who does what you do quite well. Every time I think of them though, I automatically think of Don Draper on Mad Men, which is a fine thing that gives me the warm fuzzies. Yes.
Chad: And I'm sure Joe Shaker would love to hear that on with the show.
[music]
Chad: Oh, that's right kids, somebody got money, LeapXpert raises 22 million in a series, A round, 36 million in total funding from TechCrunch with the spike and work from home in hybrid work. We've seen an obvious increase on workers, dependence on personal devices, it's been a particular challenge for the financial service industry, which has strict governance and compliance requirements. In September, the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined a Wall Street banks. Listen to this, including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, 1.8 billion, over failures in monitoring how staff use their personal phones to talk about work. Enter LeapXpert, which allows employees to message customers or colleagues through their popular apps, including WhatsApp, WeChat, iMessage, Telegram and Signal while monitoring and archiving their business-related chats. LeapXpert was founded with a mission to help companies seize the opportunity to transform business communication. Is it just me or is this about as creepy as employee monitoring gets.
Chad: I can't... I hate everything about this. I can't even think of something I like, I try to do. 'Cause I try and be balanced, I hate everything about it. Look, I understand the challenges that these financial services companies have and they're real and they need to protect themselves, and then you know how you do that, Chad, you invest the money and you get your employees separate mobile tech. Because I know that they say they have ways to capture personal info and chat separately or do not capture those, but I don't believe it, and I haven't seen it, and I just... Yeah, this is about as creepy as it gets, I hate absolutely everything about it.
Chad: And that's the thing is that we're talking about an industry that is fucking rich.
[music]
Chad: Rich. These fuckers have so much money, there's no reason that they can't have a separate device or separate mechanisms, so that you don't have to utilize my personal device. So at the end of the day, I think that employee monitoring is just a horrible thing, and it's funny 'cause Julie would call this icky, that's her term for this.
Quincy: I agree with Julie is it is icky, I don't like it. I wouldn't invest money in it, I think that organizations who are touting people bringing their whole selves to work and providing a better experience for making people engaged, cannot do that when they're monitoring their every move, they need to suck it up and find a different way. This isn't it, folks.
Chad: Amen, okay, let's stay on the creepy side of tech...
Quincy: Why not.
Chad: But it's a little less creepy, I promise.
[music]
Chad: Automation, you might have heard of it, kids.
Quincy: Well, I've not.
Chad: Straight out of CNN business news, "as many as 300 million full-time jobs around the world could be automated in some way by the newest wave of AI that has spawned platforms like ChatGPT.
Quincy: Let's hear about it.
Chad: According to those crazy economists over at Goldman Sachs, well, apparently Kelly Services got the memo, this one straight on a Yahoo Finance as companies face economic uncertainties and fierce talent competitions, and workers report unmanageable workloads and disengagement from their jobs, Kelly becomes the first staffing provider. Did you hear that? The first staffing provider to tackle these challenges by deploying...
[vocalization]
Chad: Digital worker, in addition to their not as cool human workers, obviously. What will these new sexy digital workers be called? You might ask, that's a great question. They will be called Kelly Fusion Digital Workers.
Quincy: That's not a good first and last name, it's not even a clever middle name.
Chad: I would have expected how Blinky the board, something of that. Anyway, these solutions will automate routine tasks and allow employees to focus on their more meaningful work, this sounds amazing. Quincy, am I right the first? Talk to me, goose.
Quincy: It sounds to me like branded RPA, that's what it sounds like. It's been around for years and years and years, and it doesn't sound new. However, I'm gonna give prop to Kelly, for a couple of things. A couple of years ago, I was on your show, it was the prediction show, and I predicted... Maybe it was three years ago now, I don't know, but I predicted that RPA was gonna be a big thing coming up, it's been around, it's not new, but companies are finding new ways to employ it within their organizations to do exactly this, which is automate those things that should be automated. Giving their very valuable, actual human being employees, the opportunity to do more value add, more strategic, more fun work. I think this is smart on Kelly's part, do I think that they're doing anything new in revolutionary. No, sorry, Kelly, I just don't. Every system out there is doing this, exactly, you have automated interview scheduling, you have automated... You name it, you already got the stuff out there, but packaging it together, however, and having a central resource to do this work, if that's impact what it can do, I haven't seen it yet.
Quincy: And then branding it, I think is smart, it would be a nice revenue stream for them, so, kudos to them for that.
Chad: Yes.
Quincy: What do you think?
Chad: Well, I remember when Tim Meehan over at Pontoon created their RXO recruiterless solutions back in 2019, and it wasn't new then, what was new was the messaging, was the narrative, was the productization of exactly what you're talking about. It is much more prevalent now than it was in 2019, so Tim was way ahead of his skis, I think with regard to the market. Not to mention we had a pandemic. Now, everybody's ChatGPT, everybody is, how do we automate? How do we do all of these things? This is amazing marketing and productization, which is exactly what you're just talking about.
Quincy: I'm hearing you say, wait, it's not the first?
Chad: It's not the first.
Quincy: Go figure.
Chad: Yeah, I know, right? Who would have thought? A big question. Do you see RPO staffing? This to me, just makes a hell of a lot more sense because I believe in the keep it simple, stupid model where we try to package things to make it easier for people to understand this digital... Kelly fusion, like digital worker, it makes sense because it is working in conjunction with their "human workers." Do you see that happening more? With that industry.
Quincy: Yeah, for sure. It already makes sense. I've worked for several RPO organizations in my time, and I will tell you that I have never worked for one that didn't do this already, they just didn't brand it and productive it, market it in that way, if they weren't doing it, they wouldn't make money. RPOs historically have been people-driven organizations, and that's why companies buy those services, it's been white glove, it's been hand-holding of the candidate, and in many cases, because RPO organizations are made of people who've been in this space for 110 years they do it better because this is what they do this is their day job.
Quincy: Automating has been in the back end, because if they didn't do it this way, these organizations wouldn't be able to scale and make money, so it's been there for years, kudos to Kelly for putting it out there as an actual product. I think it's smart. It's gonna get some attention. I don't think it's new.
Chad: Yes, the big difference between talent acquisition, staffing and RPO, is that talent acquisition, it's your job. The other two, it's a business, they focus on EBITDA, they focus on margins, they focus on all of the business aspects of it, which means efficiencies and less headcount is the biggest thing that they need to focus on, and that being said, everybody's gonna ChatGPT. This week, in addition to Hireology and B. Murries, ChatGPT news over the past weeks, we now have SeekOut and Fenham joining the ranks of the hyper-automation. Is everybody gonna have a ChatGPT instance here?
Quincy: Oh, I don't know. I think anybody who plays in the ChatBot space should. It's the next level, it's the next step up, it's the next ability to deliver a more humanized experience, to deliver it in a way that brings empathy to the process, all the things that all of us have been talking about for years and years that are very difficult frankly, to deliver. And I'll call it a dumbbot the smaller language model, the ones you have to train for every single intent and bring back, so if you're in that space at some point, I think you should look to bring it in, I don't think everyone should put all of their eggs in that basket. I don't think everybody should put all of their money there, I don't think that the big players in the world should change their entire road map to incorporate it, but I don't think that it's gonna go back. Words and what it is that it's doing. What do you think about it?
Chad: So I think everybody is going to have some type of instance one way or the other, either to look cool or to actually facilitate business. So take a look at a Textkernel, they are not using ChatGPT, but they did acquire a ChatBot because they wanted a better mechanism in which to be able to collect user data, it's not something that has to be synchronous, it can be asynchronous. Then you have companies like SeekOut, why do they need a ChatBot? Well, there's a ton of different reasons, and a lot of it has to do with experience. So I think as we start to see this big wave of everybody understanding that, Wow, now that the ChatBot's cool again, large language models are amazing, but the domain specific language models and all of that data that you're actually... You're training your algorithms on, 'cause everybody's training algorithms, how do you get that data easily, more data into that machine so that it can feed it. Well, chatbots, text, messaging, WhatsApp, what have you, I believe is the perfect answer.
Quincy: Oh, I agree, and chatbots are not just chatbots. And if you move beyond that, we're saying that ChatGPT is a ChatBot and it is, at its core, but all the large language models can deliver a lot more than just a question response sort of experience. We've seen it. We don't need to go through all of them ad nauseam, although I will say that Fenham and their release, it looks like their list of features and what they can deliver are straight from a ChatGPT created list of what ChatGPT can do. Which is funny to me, I would love to see it. I think they probably can do these things, I think that organizations who are extending their functionality would be wise to examine doing it within the realm of a large language or generative AI model.
Chad: And what I would like to say is that anybody who's doing due diligence on any of these organizations, I don't care if they have a ChatBot or not, you need to feel it, touch it, taste it, test it yourself, having a sales person demo this shit. Is not the fucking answer.
Quincy: Amen to that.
Chad: ChatGPT, being able to be as transparent as it has, where you can see it, feel it, touch it, taste it, engineering your own prompts, there's just it's like the new bullion, but it's better and it's cooler.
Quincy: Well I used that same analogy in my head as I was preparing for this show.
Chad: There it is.
Quincy: We are in the same space. It's the new bullion.
Chad: Yes. But that being said, GDPR... Italy just ban ChatGPT citing GDPR, access to personal information and privacy, Italy says Open AI doesn't have the legal right to use people's personal information in ChatGPT, these large language models are pretty exciting and scary at the same time, it's interesting 'cause one of my friends... One of my developer friends, John Rice on LinkedIn, actually said, "US tech titans were ruling the internet, ruling data collection and seemed unstoppable, the lead they had over most European tech companies was nearly insurmountable until GDPR." His focus here is like, Look, everybody thinks this is a compliance and privacy play. No, this is slowing American tech down so that Europe can catch up. What do you think about those two things?
Quincy: Yeah, I think it's both. I think it bums me out, I think as a technologist and an HR tech fan girl, I get excited about the new applications that are coming up, and then GDPR regulation steps in, like the responsible parent who won't let you eat too much candy before dinner, and it bums me out. That said, I think there's truth to both. I think it is about data privacy, I think in general, that Europe has led the world in that way, and putting some breaks on some things that potentially... I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that everybody's out to get you, and then everybody's gonna bleed my bank account. That said, I think that some regulation and some caution and moderation is important, so I appreciate that, but I also think there's truth to the other bit, European tech needs to catch up and they are. We've seen a lot of it. You've certainly seen a lot of it, you and Joel talk about it on this show. But... Yeah, I think there's a little bit of both in there. What do you think about it?
Chad: Well, I think all I have to do is say, Cambridge Analytica and SVB. If we don't find a way to fucking understand these Goddamn things that are happening, these new tech platforms that are popping up and we don't start providing guardrails, then we're going to find ourselves in a heap of shit, really. Again, we weren't ready for Cambridge Analytica, we wanna focus on TikTok and how TikTok is owned by China, ByteDance and China. Totally get that. Understand that, but yet we still have an organization in our fucking backyard, Meta, Facebook, that work directly with a non-US company to be able to provide Russia with data. It's one of those things where it's like, Oh my fucking god. This is all about narrative. This is all about being able to... I think in some cases, yes, maybe slow the US from an innovation standpoint, so the Europeans can catch up, but at the end of the day, Cambridge Analytica, SVB, we might not slow this down, Joel calls it, putting the toothpaste back in the tube. I think we have to, as the adults in the room, because I'm gonna tell you right now, corporate America, they're gonna go after that dollar and they don't give a shit on how they get it, and again, that's what they've been charged to do.
Quincy: They have... So having that, the parent making you wash your hands and not eat too much before dinner is a critical part of this development so that we don't end up with a case where... We all remember the case of Amazon a few years ago, who had to pull back their recruiting engine because it was fraught with bias, and we don't want that, we wanna take the tech that I think can do amazing good in the world and let it be applied for good and not for evil.
SFX: Shall we play a game.
Chad: Get ready kids. On the other side of this break, we're gonna talk about one thing that Quincy hates.
[music]
Chad Oh yeah.
Quincy: We go way back here now.
Chad: Not just a Quincy pet peeve, but survey...
Quincy: Survey says.
Chad: 95% of people have worked with someone who talks too much. Preply recently surveyed over a 1000 workers and here are their key findings, go figure, 95% of respondents have had a co-worker who talks too much on average, chatty co-workers spend 90 minutes of their workday talking. Americans say the worst time to encounter their talkative co-worker is when they're trying to finish something up and go home, a talkative co-worker has prevented 71% of work getting done.
Quincy: And yet let's all rush back into the office. Shall well. So, I mean, look, I probably have been... In fact, I'm sure I've been that chatty co-worker...
Chad: At the end of the day?
Quincy: No, never at the end of the day. Are you kidding me? No, I'm a morning person. Well, other people hate it, they haven't had their coffee yet, they don't wanna hear... When we started the show, today, I sang to you, Chad.
Chad: You did.
Quincy: I sang.
Chad: I know.
Quincy: So I'm a morning person, I'd probably been that person, but you know how I limited that, I work from home, and I've worked from home since 2008 before working from home was cool. I had a lot more done, I'm a lot more productive. People... I like you, you're nice, we'll have a drink after work, but during the day, leave may be. Just let me be.
Chad: So, the top three things not to talk about because they're annoying as fuck. Number three.
Quincy: ChatGPT.
Chad: Kids.
Quincy: Oh, wait. No. Sorry.
Chad: Kids, maybe kids and then ChatGPT. Number two, politics. Number one, gossip, and then the three best ways to handle... That's right. Handle these co-workers. Number three, directly say that you can't talk, which is what I do, I'm busy. Number two, avoid them entirely, so just run or number one, listen for a bit and then say, Oh, I have something to do. What's your go-to?
Quincy: I put my Team's messaging on Do Not Disturb, and then I forget it sometimes. It's like that all day. I don't know. No, yeah, you know what, here's the thing I do like chatting with my co-workers. It's fun, engage with them, we have a good time. It's certainly not all about work all the time, but there's a time and a place, and people need to learn to read the room or the computer screen and understand if people aren't available, I don't think that you should put people in the position where they can go I don't have time for you. Go away. It's uncomfortable.
Chad: It is.
Quincy: Even me, as saucy as I am, I don't wanna hurt people's feelings.
Chad: Lies, lies. Yeah, I have to say that I... Especially building and managing sales teams, most of your best sales people are one or two people, one who just totally laser-focused and they just knock your shit out and they nail their goals, and then you have the other one who is just so fucking good, half of their time, they're nailing their goals, the other half of the time, they're talking to people in the halls, I mean, I know some of my best sales people, I had to lure them back to their office, Hey, leave him alone. He's not a goal. You are, I did it.
[laughter]
Quincy: I see, I've seen opposite, the people who are talking that much, the sales people, they think they're just that good, but they really need to be a little bit more focused on research and prep.
Chad: Amen. So that being said, Quincy, thanks for joining us on another show.
Quincy: Thanks for having me.
Chad: We appreciate it. And next week, kids. I'm sorry, Joel's gonna be back. So we'll try to have Quincy back, but until then that's another one in the can Quincy.
Chad: We out.
Quincy: We out.
OUTRO: Wow. Look at you. You made it t through an entire episode of the challenges podcast, maybe you cheated and forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal, a Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your five whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off on the guilt, let's save some soap, because you will be back. Like an awful train wreck you can't tuck away and like Chad's favorite question, you can't quit them either. We're out.