Rippling Aims for Super Bowl Win

Get ready for a high-octane breakdown as Joel Cheesman and Emi Beredugo take the mic to dissect everything from "bougie" McDonald's Valentine’s stunts to the high-stakes world of Big Tech. The duo dives deep into Rippling’s bold Super Bowl debut featuring Tim Robinson, debating whether the "evil genius" move is a brilliant recruitment play or a calculated nod to Wall Street.

While Microsoft celebrates a massive LinkedIn revenue milestone—proving the platform has officially pivoted from a resume database to a short-form video powerhouse—the hosts shift gears to the grittier side of the job hunt. From the rise of "Resume Botox" and ageism to the "resume slop" currently clogging AI-driven hiring funnels, the gloves come off. Plus, don't miss the heated critique of ZipRecruiter’s new "Be Seen First" feature, which Emi and Joel argue might be doing more harm than good for the modern candidate.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:32.636)

Yeah, pack it up, pack it in. Let me begin. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Take The Under Cheeseman.

Emi Beredugo (00:42.518)

And I am Emi. Where did I go? Beredigo.

Joel Cheesman (00:48.124)

On this week's episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, Rippling suits up for the big game, LinkedIn is changing the game, and aging job seekers are lying just to stay in the game. Let's do this!

Joel Cheesman (01:06.268)

What's up, Emmy? Good, it's been a minute since we've been on together. How was your holiday? Happy New Year? Like, what's going on?

Emi Beredugo (01:07.761)

Hey, how you doing?

Emi Beredugo (01:13.806)

I know, can we still say that in February, happy new year? But I think, yeah, I think we can. mean, I, exactly, you can do whatever you want. And Jo, I just got to say that I missed you. I did, I did. No, I really did. Like, it's been ages. I sat there going, hold on, it's February. When am I coming on the show? And here I am, here I am. Thank you.

Joel Cheesman (01:18.95)

We can, we can. It's our show.

Joel Cheesman (01:28.208)

Did you?

Joel Cheesman (01:37.884)

Well, we missed you too. We missed you too. I will have to say that my sister, as you know, is a proud card carrying member of the Emmy fan club was very excited when I alerted her to the fact that you and I were going to be we're going to be on this week. So a quick shout out to Holly Cheeseman, Bricker out there in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Emmy is Emmy is on this show. So I got to know the Super Bowl. You probably heard of it.

Emi Beredugo (01:45.698)

Woof woof

Emi Beredugo (01:52.559)

hey. Hey, Holly. I'm back.

Yeah, I think I have.

Joel Cheesman (02:04.444)

Give me give me Europeans perspective. Obviously, it's it's a huge thing here. It should be a national holiday. I'm pretty pumped up. Like what's your way gonna watch? Is it a thing or not so much?

Emi Beredugo (02:16.234)

No, it's just something that we see, you know, online. I mean, to be honest, the only time I watched it was when Kendrick Lamar was on, just because of the whole kind of drama between him and yeah. Yeah. I am, I am. So now I'm like, OK, he's won Grammys, there's more drama around him being on the Super Bowl. I am, I'm going to watch it. Yeah. I don't know where it's playing in the UK, but I'm going to be, I won't watch the...

Joel Cheesman (02:26.798)

Okay, the Super Bowl halftime show. Are you a Bad Bunny fan? you watch? Okay.

Joel Cheesman (02:38.8)

huh.

Emi Beredugo (02:44.268)

game but I'll just watch the halftime show yeah

Joel Cheesman (02:45.274)

Yeah. So did you see the Grammys this past? Okay.

Emi Beredugo (02:49.812)

No, I didn't. But yeah, but I saw the clip. I saw Trevor Noah kind of singing to Bad Bunny. I was like, yeah, go on. Love that.

Joel Cheesman (02:56.124)

Did you see the Cher meltdown? Did you see any of that stuff? Yeah, she's gone full dementia. Yeah, she's old. People get old. I'm going to get old. You get old. We get old. And she's on stage for get some stuff. Anyway, if you get a chance, check that out. But it's clear that this could get political. The Trump administration, Bad Bunny, the immigration thing.

Emi Beredugo (02:59.736)

No, no.

Emi Beredugo (03:05.966)

no! Yeah!

Emi Beredugo (03:12.98)

I'm yeah, I'm going to get on YouTube and look.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Joel Cheesman (03:26.138)

This could end very interestingly for everybody. I hope it doesn't overshadow the game, but it might. Do you like the commercials? Because that's one of my favorite parts of the Super Bowl ad.

Emi Beredugo (03:36.332)

Well, see, again, I don't really watch the commercials because, you know, unless it's in press, unless they talk about it over here, but otherwise, it's like, no, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (03:44.442)

Yeah, I'm a freak like that. I love the rankings at the end. USA Today, probably the only time I read USA Today, if it's not a random search, is to see how they rated the commercials. I think this is the first year that 30 Second Spot has reached $7 million, which is stupid. Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (03:56.397)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (04:03.8)

Really? Seven million for just a half time? For commercial?

Joel Cheesman (04:08.112)

I remember when it was a million and people freaked out. Now it's hit up to seven million. So companies are spending a ton to get the eyeballs that you get only at the Superbowl. So I'm expecting to laugh a lot, maybe a little teary-eyed from the ads, but yeah, I'm pretty excited. We will inevitably talk about the game after the game, but I'm glad you're at least watching the halftime show.

Emi Beredugo (04:23.809)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (04:32.747)

yeah, I will be there.

Joel Cheesman (04:34.748)

Well, I know it's been a while. you have a shout out for us?

Emi Beredugo (04:42.318)

Do you know? It is time for a shout out. Now I know, I know, I should come up with something professional, but I don't know if you've heard about the drama that's going on with our, I'm gonna call them the people's king and queen. So David and Victoria Beckham, have you heard of? Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (05:04.7)

So I actually do, this has filled my social feed randomly. So I do know there's something with one of their kids and the mom and the new wife. So I mean, a lot of people won't know like me. So fill us in and what's going on with the Beckhams, the people's royalty there.

Emi Beredugo (05:12.706)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (05:21.606)

absolutely. So to answer your question, my shout out goes to Victoria and David Beckham. So my king and queen. So if you like, but basically what's happened, they've got a whole bunch of kids and these kids are all part of their brand Beckham. And you know, they carefully curated their brand, you know, they are unified front. There are no scandals apart from the, you know, the

Joel Cheesman (05:29.072)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (05:37.648)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (05:44.859)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (05:45.25)

David, what is it? The Rebecca Lewis cheating scandal. So that was ages ago. They've managed to cover that up. But now they are a polished brand. They're an aspirational brand. Exactly. They're better than the Kardashians, you know? And I like the Kardashians, but they are better than the Kardashians. But what's actually happened, they, out of their kids, they've got one kid who's a bit entitled. And that kid is called Brooklyn Breckham.

Joel Cheesman (05:54.01)

Yep. They're Kardashian-like, if you will. Yeah. Okay.

Emi Beredugo (06:11.554)

So Brooklyn, I don't know who he thinks he is. He thinks he's talented. He's not. He's entitled. And he jumps from career to career. One day he's going to be a chef. Next time he's going to be a photographer. Basically, the long and short of it is that he got married to a billionaire's daughter. Now I think that billionaire's daughter is marrying into that kind of the Beckham name, as he is, know, marrying into the money. But...

Joel Cheesman (06:11.576)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (06:31.612)

Sure.

Joel Cheesman (06:38.01)

Where they make their money? It's like a consumer product, right? Like everyone knows, like L'Oreal or something. Okay, all right.

Emi Beredugo (06:40.938)

I to be honest, I'm not too sure. am, yeah, I am not too sure. But basically Brooklyn Beckham has gone wild. He's basically kind of, you know, not talking to his family. And they basically said that Victoria Beckham ruined his wedding. And when I say ruined, it's like because she does inappropriately on him, apparently. So I want to know where those videos, someone show me those videos. No, I'm waiting.

Joel Cheesman (06:57.712)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:04.38)

Do we have video of this? there a video of her? Yeah, okay. So it's all he said, she said at this point. Okay.

Emi Beredugo (07:08.544)

Someone's got it on their mobile phone, I'm sure. So that's there. And then also Mark Antony was doing his MCing and then he stood up and said, look, let's bring the most beautiful person in the room up on stage. Now it's a wedding. So who's the most beautiful person? The bride, no matter what. However, he was talking about Victoria Brackham. So she came up on stage and that's where she did the inappropriate dancing on Brooklyn. So while he's going wild, while he's like getting on

Joel Cheesman (07:25.884)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:29.628)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (07:34.096)

No.

Emi Beredugo (07:37.632)

Instagram and writing posts about the Beckhams. Victoria and David Beckham have just held their ground. They're dignified. They're not saying anything. They realize that they're, you know, the kids are a brat, basically. So for that, I'm applauding them. And that's why they're my shout out for the week.

Joel Cheesman (07:43.469)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (07:55.834)

So, a little devil's advocate, like, for Posh to get on for the beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman comment, that's a little out of bounds, right? Like, she should have let the bride have her moment.

Emi Beredugo (08:05.936)

it is. Yeah, but that's not her fault. Mark Antony was on stage and said, Victoria Beckham come up. So what you going to do? You know?

Joel Cheesman (08:13.648)

But she could have said, no, no, no, it's not me. It's her day. It's all about her.

Emi Beredugo (08:17.09)

Yeah, but he might have been telling the truth. Maybe she was the most prettiest person the room. No, I'm only joking. Like, you know, obviously she should have said no. But however, we're only hearing one person's side of the story. We're only hearing from, you know, Brooklyn Beckham and his wife, Nicola, or Nicole, something like that. That's how much interest I take in her. But I just think they've held their ground, you know, they are dignified. He owes everything to his parents. He would not be where he is without Brian Beckham.

Joel Cheesman (08:32.55)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (08:43.964)

Yeah, he's the lucky sperm club for sure as we say here in the States. me if I'm wrong, the names of the kids are where they were procreated, where they were consummated, because they...

Emi Beredugo (08:46.278)

my god, 100%. Lucky Spurn Club, I love that.

Emi Beredugo (08:58.228)

I think only Brooklyn is. So you've got Brooklyn, you've got Harper, you've got Romeo. I mean, they're all shitty names, to be honest. But so this is before the glow up era. So we're not coming up with crappy names. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. It's a bit tacky. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (09:05.627)

Yeah.

So Brooklyn is the one who got consummated in Brooklyn, New York. it's all very entertaining for sure.

All right, I'm going to take that love story and bring it down to another love story. Emmy, know Valentine's Day is right around the corner and you know that I love a good fast food meal. So interestingly, more and more fast food places or what you would think of as like mainstream restaurants are doing fun things around Valentine's Day. So historically White Castle,

Emi Beredugo (09:27.266)

I do, I do know that.

no.

Emi Beredugo (09:41.954)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (09:44.604)

which I don't even know if you've been or seen a White Castle. They're like really small little, they're called Sliders Little Burgers. Anyway, so White Castle is a fast food place, you can make for one day of the year, they have reservations. There's like candles on the table. It's real romantic. They have a special menu, et cetera. So not to be outdone. McDonald's is up in the game on Valentine's day. Okay. So they're saying, all right, Castle, hold our beer. Or in this case,

Emi Beredugo (09:46.828)

No, never heard of it.

Emi Beredugo (10:09.138)

okay.

Joel Cheesman (10:14.908)

Hold our McNuggets. So here's what's happening. McDonald's is dropping a special Valentine's package. It's caviar with McNuggets and an entire kit for a meal, okay? So they partnered with some caviar company. This isn't like McDonald's is now serving caviar. So on February 10th,

Emi Beredugo (10:34.593)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:37.788)

which is right around the corner, so I want people to know, and this is a limited sort of supply. You go to mcnuggetcaviar.com on Tuesday, February 10th, and you can sign up to get this special Valentine's Day package of caviar and McNuggets. So we have some video of TMZ covering this. Check this shit out.

Emi Beredugo (10:39.31)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (11:36.645)

you

Emi Beredugo (11:39.404)

Yeah, I'm not trying it out.

Joel Cheesman (11:41.66)

My comment is why would you mess up a good McNugget with some fish eggs? Like barbecue sauce is good enough. Barbecue sauce is...

Emi Beredugo (11:46.178)

You know, barbecue sauce, exactly. There's nothing wrong with barbecue sauce. Why is McDonald's going bougie? That is the...

Joel Cheesman (11:53.372)

Cause it's good marketing, Emmy, because people like you bring it up and talk about it on the show. But anyway, shout out, shout out to McDonald's, and up in the ante on Valentine's day, which I got to think would, would the, would posh eat a McNugget if it had caviar on it.

Emi Beredugo (11:59.466)

Exactly. Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (12:06.19)

Wow.

Emi Beredugo (12:13.088)

She's far too refined for that. She's not going to go. She's probably never stepped foot in McDonald's before, so no.

Joel Cheesman (12:19.462)

She probably has not and she has not signed up for free shit from Chad and cheese, which is a travesty. Let's hear from our buddy out in Scotland, Steven McGrath.

Joel Cheesman (13:18.204)

You

Joel Cheesman (13:43.022)

Love it. Love it. By the way, you might have realized that we have a new sponsor for our Chicken Cock giveaway. Special thanks to Proven Base for taking the new spot. And obviously, thanks to Van Hack for supporting that giveaway and spreading the love one bourbon at a time to our fans around the country. And with that, Emmy.

Emi Beredugo (13:49.719)

Yeah?

Joel Cheesman (14:09.948)

All right. Speaking of Super Bowl, Rippling is dropping their first Super Bowl ad on Sunday. It's a 32nd ad that will appear in the third quarter. It stars comedian Tim Robinson as a quote, evil genius, corporate mastermind whose world domination plans collapse due to crappy back office software. The spot is part of the rule your business campaign aiming to position Rippling as the seamless all-in-one HR solution.

It's the first of a five part series featuring the comedian that will also be seen on streaming, social media, and all your TV platforms of choice. VP of brand Nick Weisner says, it's a big shift to mass awareness for broader business audiences. Let's take a look at that new ad from Rippling.

Joel Cheesman (15:31.938)

Okay, Emmy, your thoughts on Rippling's Super Bowl multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad.

Emi Beredugo (15:38.51)

I watched it earlier today and I just thought, what the hell am I watching? But then I watched it again, went, this is actually quite funny and quite clever. And I get what they're doing. When you think about the, I suppose the B2B SaaS market, there are so many people in that playing field. It's crowded. So if it's so crowded, you need to stand out. And that means brand differentiation.

Joel Cheesman (15:58.554)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (16:04.098)

That that's going to really matter now. You need to be top of mind. You need to be there. The platform that, you know, clients or potential clients are going to go to. You want to make sure your existing clients don't churn. So I get what they're doing. If they change their approach, go down the kind of mass awareness campaign. They're going to stop being.

I suppose they don't want to be invisible. Like I said, they want people to remember who they are. They want that emotional recognition that, know, soft drinks have cars, car companies have, you know, potato chip companies have. And when they think of, okay, they're paying points in their company. you know, fragmented systems, shitty onboarding systems, things like, you know, not being integrated properly. And they weren't looking for one stop solution. Hopefully in with that advert now, they're going to go.

Joel Cheesman (16:28.763)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (16:43.74)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (16:54.247)

I know someone. Rippling. So I like it. I think it's clever.

Joel Cheesman (16:59.984)

So you know what they're doing, which is good. So it's always odd to me when B2B companies advertise on the Superbowl. If you're a consumer product, if you're food, drink, whatever, you need mass market appeal, like totally makes sense to me, especially in today's world where everything is so fragmented and disparate. But I always sort of raise my eyebrow when a B2B company advertises. And I have...

outline three reasons why B2B companies typically advertise in the Super Bowl. The number one reason is their CEOs usually weren't hugged a lot as a kid. So they want to put their brand out there. And I'm reminded most of a company called GoDaddy, which still exists. It's you buy domains. Makes no sense to advertise a domain service on the Super Bowl, right?

Emi Beredugo (17:35.041)

Okay.

Emi Beredugo (17:39.982)

Ha ha ha!

Joel Cheesman (17:56.806)

But he had like stars and it was funny. so his head used to be the logo. They've evolved from that. Salesforce is another one. let's put Mike McConaughey on the ads and like make them funny. And he's a CEO that's really out there. And if you look at Conrad Parker, who is Rippling CEO, he looks like he wasn't hugged a whole lot as a kid. So I could totally see him being like, I need some attention. I need some love here.

the second one, which makes sense to me is, recruitment and retention. People are more likely to work for your company. If they saw you on the Superbowl, it sounds totally stupid, but people like to tell their friends and family. Hey, I work for X and if X advertise on the Superbowl, then grandma knows it's a real company. So I feel good about it. So my employees are happy and I can probably get a lot more applicants that.

Emi Beredugo (18:28.366)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (18:33.123)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (18:37.965)

for that company.

Emi Beredugo (18:44.332)

Hahaha!

Joel Cheesman (18:50.714)

now know me and now want to work for me because I'm cool enough to be on the Super Bowl. And the third reason, probably the most important is the, here comes the IPO message, which means this is for Wall Street. This is for all the analysts that are watching the game and every meathead Wall Street knucklehead that's on CNBC and has a podcast is watching the Super Bowl. They're going to see Rippling.

Emi Beredugo (18:52.631)

Yeah?

Emi Beredugo (19:03.606)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (19:15.068)

And then four to six months from now or whenever when Rippling goes on their tour of Wall Street and talks about the IPO, all these analysts are going to go, oh yeah, I saw them on the Superbowl. They're a legit company. They're for real. And they're going to listen to what you say and they're going to buy the stock. So the three reasons that I think Rippling are doing this is one, get some attention to the CEO. You have to see what needs to feel good. Retention and recruitment of people. And number three, I think the IPO.

Emi Beredugo (19:37.464)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (19:41.912)

is probably coming. So with that, and if that's your litmus test, it's a strong ad. Like it's, fine. It's, it's very kind of like, what the fuck did I just watch? But it's a five part thing. So I'm assuming that the next ad will make more sense to that one. It's sort of like the, the, the billboards. Yeah. The billboards in the U S they used to like,

Emi Beredugo (19:48.35)

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (20:01.038)

Storyline is kind of like building out. Yeah

Joel Cheesman (20:06.048)

One billboard would say a message and be like, what the hell is that about? And then a mile down the road, the next billboard would say another to like complete that. And eventually at the end of the road, you're like, that's what that was. I was, I was looking at a shaving cream ad. So there is some precedence this working. it's been a while since a company in our space has advertised, you know, the days of monster, advertising when I grow up or career builder.

Emi Beredugo (20:12.365)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (20:15.886)

Yeah

Joel Cheesman (20:31.312)

The career builder monkeys, I'm going way back for people, is long gone. So I just, I was like seeing the industry on game day. I can tell people, Hey, I talk about them on my show on a regular basis and they're really stupid because they're like, they're, they're embroiled in this, you know, sabotage deal in Ireland and people are like corporate spies. So, so it's fun for me cause I can talk about shit as well. But yeah, we'll, we'll see if all those things come to fruition and particularly the IPO.

Emi Beredugo (20:42.646)

Yeah, now you know who Rippling is.

Emi Beredugo (20:49.87)

Yeah, scandal. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (21:00.848)

would be pretty interesting in my opinion. But so far, guess we're both going to sign off on the Rippling Super Bowl ad. All right. All right, let's go.

Emi Beredugo (21:02.765)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (21:09.85)

100%. Like I said, I think it's clever. And I think what it does, it reaches out to those influencers in the organization. You've got the people in procurement who obviously they're responsible for buying it and end users. But what about those people who influence their hiring decision, any decision? If they're watching their advert, they go, hey, by the way, over the weekend I saw this advert.

Joel Cheesman (21:32.467)

As long as it's a good ad, I mean, you know, it's not my money. So who, you who, why do I care? But, uh, you know, money, money aside, uh, it's always fun to be an advertiser in the super bowl. But one, uh, company who won't be advertising apparently is LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is, uh, heating up the money, making the money printing machine, uh, as we learned, uh, this past week on the Microsoft earnings call, which revealed that LinkedIn has surpassed $5 billion in

Emi Beredugo (21:34.144)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (22:01.116)

quarterly revenue for the first time. The growth has been driven not by recruiting tools, Emmy, not by hiring, but by its advertising business, LinkedIn marketing solutions. Most notably, the growth has been fueled by the platform's push into short form video content, i.e. we want to be like TikTok, just like everyone does. Emmy, this is not your grandpa's LinkedIn.

Emi Beredugo (22:08.084)

Nope. Nope.

Joel Cheesman (22:28.89)

What are your thoughts on the new highs?

Emi Beredugo (22:32.59)

know, LinkedIn is changing. You know, like you said, you know, when it first came out, it was a professional networking platform. Now it's, you can say it's a social media platform. It is, you know, instead of having, I was going to say, instead of having dance videos, you know, they've got professional content. However, I've seen some dodgy kind of videos on LinkedIn. I'm like, this should be on Instagram or, or, you know, TikTok or any other platform except for LinkedIn, but it's working.

Joel Cheesman (22:53.734)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (22:59.758)

It's working. They've learnt from TikTok. People have short attention spans. People don't want to read long articles. They just want to get the information in short bursts. So them capitalising on this, know, pushing these TikTok style videos, it's translated into revenue. You know, I think the, if I'm right, the paid video ads, they grew about 30 % year on year over year. So it is a proven model. Well done, TikTok, you know, on capitalising on, you know, what we already know.

Joel Cheesman (23:07.164)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (23:20.876)

Yep. Yep.

Emi Beredugo (23:29.41)

Fantastic.

Joel Cheesman (23:34.811)

Now, dodgy's dodgy's bad, right? I just want to I want to translate for the American audience dodgy not not so good.

Emi Beredugo (23:40.718)

Yeah, dodgy is bad. So I forget, I need to like, kind of like neutralize my language.

Joel Cheesman (23:46.204)

Yeah, yeah. Chad talks about a dodgy stick that gets out like a million channels on his TV for, you know, a dollar or something. That's dodgy everybody. Stealing cable is dodgy. Yeah, I'm reminded of when Microsoft purchased LinkedIn for $26 billion. How much

Emi Beredugo (23:50.4)

Yeah, Yeah, don't don't do it people.

Emi Beredugo (24:08.514)

Yeah, everyone laughed. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (24:10.074)

people freaked out about how ridiculous that was. So apparently that's only 15 months of revenue now for Microsoft. So it's, it's turned out to be a really, really good business decision for them. Look, think, I think LinkedIn started as a professional network, which was hot back in the day. And I think that that business has a lot of challenges.

Emi Beredugo (24:29.783)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (24:37.532)

If the market is down, that's a challenge. If people aren't hiring, there's comp, you know, other competition, obviously indeed. So, you know, I think that, um, it's hard because I think the, the old stat is people look for a new job every two to three years. Right. So that's two to three years where people aren't going to indeed or back in the day monster or anywhere else. So LinkedIn having a way that you're always going to constantly engage with the platform. And let's be honest.

Emi Beredugo (24:42.712)

There's no job postings, yeah.

Emi Beredugo (24:52.974)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (24:57.933)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (25:06.534)

Took a while. used to be like a white paper articles from, you know, some company you followed. And now it's thanks to video short form videos of people like JT and people that we know, Mo that are posting really good content. And that is really taking off. The other thing is if you are a, if you're a SaaS business, if you're a B2B business, LinkedIn is the place to be. I mean, I know that you can be a lot of places, but

Emi Beredugo (25:17.826)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (25:34.81)

You are guaranteed to be in front of the buying audience if you're on LinkedIn, at least for the time being. So I think they've really just sort of struck this sweet spot of we have engagement in content that people want to like be sticky to. And we also have that audience to where now advertisers want to, come in and, and be a part of that. The bigger question I have, and I think this is going to be a theme for me, probably for the next six months to the year. If you pay attention.

Emi Beredugo (25:37.602)

Exactly.

Emi Beredugo (25:47.811)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (26:04.75)

So what we didn't talk about is what happened to Microsoft stock after the earnings call. It's down. It's down a lot. if you are a software company, life sucks right now as a public company, if you look at Salesforce workday service now, SAP, pretty much anyone in that space, the, the, the street, the analysts on wall street have decided that generative AI is going to fuck your shit up in a big way.

Emi Beredugo (26:11.384)

Hmm.

Emi Beredugo (26:24.962)

or struggling.

Emi Beredugo (26:33.39)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (26:34.586)

Now, earnings on all these companies were great, but everyone has bought into the narrative that business is not good in the future. And if you think it's bad for them, what do think business is like at Eightfold, Phenom, Rippling, Deal, Personio, like all these software companies in our space, if the big companies are getting revalued,

from like 30 to 40 times earnings down to 20 ish times earnings. What do you think is happening to our software companies? Now we don't know because they're private, but I can't imagine that the investment landscape is good for them. So, so rippling getting into the ad game and if they go IPO, like it's going to be really interesting to see what happens to those companies in our space because the broad market has said software companies, you're going to get your ass kicked.

Emi Beredugo (27:16.503)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (27:25.59)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (27:32.346)

by generative AI, you're gonna get your ass kicked by chat GPT, Gemini, all the companies that we talk about on a regular basis. So good for LinkedIn. They've hit a sweet spot. They've hit it, but the business at large of software is really challenged. And I'm gonna watch this and it's gonna be a really hot topic in our space for the next year or so. And with that.

Emi Beredugo (27:39.532)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (27:57.574)

Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about resume Botox, which if you didn't have that on your bingo cards, you're not alone. I didn't have that one either. Guys, if you like what you're hearing, please give us a like a follow, let your grandma know whatever we'd love. We'd love to hear from you. We'll be right back.

Joel Cheesman (28:20.828)

All right, Emmy, this is from our friends at Business Insider. Amid a white collar recession, ageism in the job market is pushing workers, particularly those in their 30s and 40s, to quote, reverse age their resumes. They omit older work experience and other things like their education and when they graduated to make them look a little bit younger. This trend, driven by employer risk aversion and concerns about how expensive the older people are,

is leaving experienced workers struggling to find jobs. While some states and cities have laws protecting younger workers from age discrimination, there is limited legal recourse for those perceived as too old due to market dynamics. As someone who just turned 26 myself, I mean, I'm having a hard time understanding this story. So maybe you can share some of your thoughts on the rise of resume Botox.

Emi Beredugo (29:09.678)

26 again.

Emi Beredugo (29:19.534)

like the phrase, the way, resume botox. Every year there's always another new phrase that comes out, so I'll be using that one. Look, I... This is basically describing something that's been happening for a while. The difference is that in the past, it was really impacting people in their 50s onwards. Now that, I suppose, that age limit is coming down. So, do I like it? No. Is it the reality? Yes. Is it going to remain the reality?

Yeah, I do think so. People are always shaving years, decades off their resume to look like they haven't been working as long. know, they don't put their pictures maybe on their resume. They don't put when they graduated from whatever educational institute they went to, for example. They don't list all their, you know, all of their career history. So this is not a new concept, as I said. And but is it right? No. Why is it happening? I suppose

Employers are quite risk averse, know, many a time, and I don't agree with this, you know, they, if they want to hire, they want to hire someone who was doing that particular role recently. You know, they don't want to have to train someone up. They want someone to have recent experience. They want someone to understand recent challenges.

Joel Cheesman (30:29.884)

Thank

Emi Beredugo (30:36.876)

That is short sighted. That's not going to work in a market where you, for example, you can't find particular skill set, for example, or in the emerging market. So it is a very short sighted way of looking at the situation. However, when those employers are saying that I want someone tomorrow, they also want someone who is not going to cost them a lot of money.

Joel Cheesman (30:38.16)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (30:58.106)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (30:58.964)

And I think that what they're thinking is that, if I go for someone mid career, so that would be someone in their forties, they're equating years of experience with the price tag, you know, how much are they going to cost me? And especially in a shitty market where people are obviously trying to watch the bottom line, they are fortunately going, I don't want to go down that route. Now, what does it mean for candidates? Candidates are basically, they're screwed over.

Joel Cheesman (31:13.457)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (31:26.158)

You know, those 40 year olds who are more than capable of doing their job basically are lined by a mission. You know, is that ethical? No. But is it a survival strategy? Yes, absolutely. Would I do it? 100%. You know, I'm like you, I'm 26 again. But if I'm in an unfortunate situation where in a couple of years time I don't have a job, will I be lined by a mission? Yeah, I'll remove some of the years experience because I've got bills to pay.

Joel Cheesman (31:32.546)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (31:36.422)

Yeah. Yep.

Joel Cheesman (31:50.064)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (31:54.156)

And I think it's awful.

Joel Cheesman (31:59.558)

So I read this as Gen X gets fucked again, frankly. Like we, we miss that on the boomers, riches. we missed like sex was going to kill you. Drugs were going to kill you growing up. we, we've just gotten kicked around our whole life. And this is, this is the next thing to me, just when we're in line to take it, take the reins to, to head the company, to like be the, the, the big wigs. Then this happens. Being old is bad. Being old is bad. And, and thanks AI basically.

Emi Beredugo (32:02.414)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (32:09.319)

Hahaha!

Emi Beredugo (32:23.925)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (32:29.384)

look, I've been, I've been in this space since the nineties. What I have learned in 28 years, no person starting can do no, like part of our advantage of the podcast is that Chad and I are old guys and have context nuance and we know history and we can say, look, what happened 20 years ago? Like you can't do that. And historically workers that were new didn't have that.

Emi Beredugo (32:49.322)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (32:58.502)

context, that nuance, that ability to bring historical perspective. The problem is AI today can learn as much as I did over 25 plus years in no time at all. So where AI might not have some of the nuance or comparative basis of what happened then and now, it's not quite there.

Emi Beredugo (33:02.188)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (33:14.754)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (33:24.92)

It can know everything that someone in their forties, fifties, sixties and older took years and decades to learn. So our, our, our secret sauce is sort of gone. Our ability to, know everything that, that needs to be done in a job. to me, to me, we're in this like sweets, this really short window. If you're an entry level, right out of college, sort of white collar knowledge worker life sucks.

Emi Beredugo (33:53.39)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (33:53.852)

Because those, those coding jobs, those like, Hey, basic marketing tasks, those sales calls, like all of that can be done as good probably as could be done by someone who's 24, 23, whatever. And then we're too old because we cost too much. So employers in my mind are looking for that, like, let's call it 30 something. Who's not too expensive, has a little bit of like.

I can play nicely with people. understand the dynamics of business. Those people are the only people right now in my estimation that are winning in this new world. That's a very small group of people. Then of course, guess the very old who are writing the checks are still kicking ass and will kick ass until they die, which is probably never because science will catch up to a point where the boomers just live in Fiatum.

Emi Beredugo (34:40.96)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (34:50.14)

That's the reality at work. So we're in a survival mode. If we're in our forties fifties of, okay, I'm going to dumb size myself. And probably there's no narrative about this now, but am I taking less money? Because now I have less experience. Maybe I don't really have that MBA. Maybe I don't have that 10 years at Deloitte or whatever it is. And maybe I'll be lucky. I just get my foot in the door and then they learn how awesome I am. And then maybe I'll reveal some of these things later.

Emi Beredugo (35:11.096)

Maybe they don't have an option.

Joel Cheesman (35:18.96)

But to me, it's a sad narrative on the business world that older people with experience and scars and everything that traditionally has been a good thing for business now is a negative. And that's a sad, sad statement of affairs.

Emi Beredugo (35:36.206)

Absolutely. Makes me want to cry.

Joel Cheesman (35:39.854)

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. didn't... I didn't mean to. Maybe it'll work out okay. Maybe it'll be okay.

Joel Cheesman (35:49.66)

All right, let's get to another big problem of the day. Dijour, if you will, resume slop. We heard about the eightfold story last week and other cases, but we've been talking about quiet hiring, resume slop for a while now. But the mainstream finally is catching on to this issue. Harvard Business Review published a report recently entitled, quote, AI has made hiring worse, but it can still help.

Emi Beredugo (35:59.031)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (36:18.0)

which was kind of a positive spin on the story. Basically, it says, AIs implementation has led to challenges, including decreased trust due to the mass production of polished candidates, decreased accuracy despite increased speed and ethical concerns surrounding bias and inequality, which I don't think we've actually scratched the surface on on this issue. HBR adds, despite the shortcomings, AI can enhance hiring when used properly.

Emi Beredugo (36:37.963)

Nah.

Joel Cheesman (36:45.262)

enforcing structure and consistency, reducing bias and improving measurement accuracy. Unfortunately, humans are involved and they screw everything up. Emmy, employers are unhappy. Job seekers are unhappy. This will probably get worse before it gets better, but what's your take on all this slop?

Emi Beredugo (37:03.582)

Everybody's unhappy. Again, I'm going to start crying. Look, my take is, you know, it makes me laugh. A lot of the vendors of kind of AI tools, you know, they're saying that, you know, AI is going to fix everything. And don't get me wrong. I agree with you. There are so many benefits. I'm a massive fan of AI, but they're, I suppose they're, you know, they claim of AI fixing hiring. That's not happening. That is not happening. There are too many things that's actually broken at the moment. Like you say, you know,

candidates are unhappy, employers are unhappy, you know, and it's going to remain that way for a little while. And, you know, I think what I...

Joel Cheesman (37:41.072)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (37:44.814)

What I think that employers need to do is respond better to this because what people do is when they know that everybody's using AI, that's fine. But I don't know how to handle things when it goes wrong. So when it goes wrong, just go, I'm just going to go back to my old way of hiring rep. Maybe I'll just do in-person interviews or maybe we'll rely on referrals, for example. which is not actually the per that's that's not helping anything either.

Joel Cheesman (38:01.272)

Yeah. Okay.

Emi Beredugo (38:14.486)

especially when they brought in the tools to actually make hiring better, fairer, you know, for example. So all they're doing is just kind of reinforcing bad habits that bringing in AI is actually doing. So I agree and I disagree. You know, I think that it lies with, do I agree that AI is making hiring worse? It does make hiring worse if you don't implement the AI tools properly. If you don't, for example,

Joel Cheesman (38:16.604)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (38:31.494)

Yep.

Emi Beredugo (38:44.416)

train the AI tool on good data, for example, that's not going to reinforce bias in the hiring process, you know, which then scales up in your organisation. If you're not doing that, then of course it's going to make the hiring process worse.

But if you do it properly, if you do it fairly, if you follow the legalities of the law, then yes, you are going to get the benefits of speed. You are going to get the benefits of better efficiency, which means that, as I always say, humans can recruit us, whoever else is using AI, can use their skills in more value-added areas. But I just don't think we're 100 % there yet.

Joel Cheesman (39:32.092)

So do you have the show Landman in the UK? Landman, know Billy Bob Thornton probably. So very hot show here in the States, Landman. It's very good. It's about the West Texas oil industry. Anyway, there's a scene in that that people watch and there's a lot of them that know the show is the sun ends up shacking up with one of the girls in the show and Billy Bob comes and has dinner at their place.

Emi Beredugo (39:34.754)

No, no, I don't think so.

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (40:01.25)

After he's just one, after the kid has just like, worked over the legal team of the oil company and he comes in and they're kind of in love, but they don't know. And she just lost her husband and he's sort of in between stuff and just quit his job. So Billy Bob walks in and he says like, what's going on here? And he's like, no, really what's going on here? And the girl in the scene says it's clumsy. In other words, the process of their relationship is clumsy. They're working out a lot of stuff.

Emi Beredugo (40:06.925)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (40:30.702)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (40:31.356)

This is the clumsy period of what's going on with this AI thing. And I think it's appropriate for a history lesson.

Joel Cheesman (40:42.684)

Okay. Let me show my age here again. Uh, when I, when I first applied for jobs, it might've been the same for you. Um, I had this thing called a newspaper and the newspaper had a classified section and in the classified section, there were big display ads, which from those, knew were like the rich companies with a lot of money. And then like you had five line ad, uh, that you knew were probably startups or small businesses or like maybe some scams in there occasionally. And you would go to.

Emi Beredugo (40:44.383)

Yeah

Joel Cheesman (41:09.04)

this place called Kinko's and you would get a really nice copy of your resume on paper. And then you would also write up a cover letter for each job that you wanted. And then you would mail this resume to the company and then you would call about a week later and say, I just want to make sure you got my resume. Thanks. We'll call it. Don't call us. We'll call you kind of thing. And eventually you try to find someone in the company and it's all goes back to like, it's not what you know, it's who you know. And, and those were pretty good times for employers.

Emi Beredugo (41:28.29)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (41:34.168)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:38.64)

Most everybody was local. Like you had a hard copy. wasn't a flood of people. Like it was, it was okay. Like that was probably the good times. If you wanted to apply to a job in a different city, you had to go to this thing called a library. You had to get the newspaper from that city. You had to look for jobs that were like a week old because the paper didn't get there till whenever. And then you shipped out. If you were smart, you did it FedEx. So you knew it landed and then you could call them and say, like, I see you got my resume. I'd love to talk to you about so and so.

But this was a nice time for sort of everybody because as a job seeker, had to take my time. I had to think about the job. I had to actually like, I do, I am a fit for this. Yes. Okay. I'm going to do all the time that takes to do this. And as an employer, like you only got people generally who were local that were fit for the job that took the time to apply. And the internet fucked all that up. The internet said every job, everywhere digitally apply, like, like everything. And then, and then employers freaked out.

Emi Beredugo (42:24.44)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (42:33.858)

Everyone can see it.

Joel Cheesman (42:38.49)

And they said, we're going to have pre-screening questions and are you 18 or over? Do you have a driver's license? Like, we're going to try to weed out as many people as possible. And what eventually happened was employers just said, screw it. We're not even going to like respond to any of these people. And that's the, where the black hole came from and job seekers were like, well, okay, out of a hundred jobs I applied to two companies got back to me. Okay. So my win percentage is 2%. So I got to send out 200 resumes if I want four responses. And then like the game began. Right.

Emi Beredugo (42:54.242)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (43:07.928)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (43:08.462)

And companies are just avoiding it because, whatever these knuckleheads go into the black hole, I don't have to worry about it. And then AI came around and said, you know what? You've been applying to these jobs digitally and no one responds. Well, guess what? We figured out that if you have the keywords and the skills and whatever, like the company will get ahold of your resume and they will call you. And who cares if you have those skills or not, they're actually calling you. So for candidates, it's like.

Sweet. I'm actually getting calls for jobs, but now employers are pissed off because they're calling candidates and the candidates are saying, I'm sorry, who are you? what is this job? I don't like my, my bot, my bot applied to this. I don't know what's going on. So you have lazy apply, you have AI apply, dot co, which is really interesting. they're automating the whole thing. So, so employers are pissed off because well, gosh, darn it.

Emi Beredugo (43:39.117)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (43:45.07)

When did I apply? Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (44:03.396)

I used to be able to throw these things in the waste bin of the digital waste bin, but now I actually I'm on this cat and mouse game of you're perfect for this job. And they go, well, actually don't have that skill. So I'm wasting time. I'm wasting money. I'm really mad. So what do what employers do? Well, we're to do quiet hiring and we're only going to go to LinkedIn and our own database and sourcing tools. And we're not, we're not even going to post the job, screw the masses. Like we're to go right to the source.

Emi Beredugo (44:12.844)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (44:25.346)

We might advertise the role. Yeah.

you

Joel Cheesman (44:32.476)

Of the problem with that is everyone goes to the source. So the, a candidates that everyone's targeting is getting contacted. They're like, I'm not even looking for a job, man. What the hell is going on? And then you have this, this slop thing and cut. So I agree with you. You're not going to stop the job seekers from. Scirting the rules. You're just not employers have to figure out how do I manage this flood of people?

And I think we're starting to get there. I'm working with a company that I've invested in, full disclosure, Alex.com. Basically their thing is interview everybody. Like it'll scale, like source screen, like give it to us. It's sort of paradoxes like that, but I guess a little bit more clunkier for people, texting and whatever. you have this, I'm talking to a startup that hasn't launched yet, but

Emi Beredugo (45:20.482)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (45:27.984)

They want to be able to see applicants come in and then try to verify how human they are or how genuine the applicant is. So this could be based on phone number. could be based on a bunch of criteria. So when you go to your ATS, you'll see the candidates, but you'll see a green light, maybe a yellow light and a red light. And the red lights are like, this probably is not a person you should contact, but the green, that's probably a real person that is really like responded to this job. So I agree with you that.

Emi Beredugo (45:37.07)

Hmm.

Emi Beredugo (45:50.636)

real person. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (45:58.224)

The job seekers are going to job seek. Like they're going to do their thing. The employer is going to figure out you can't quiet hire for the rest of time. You can't like, this is a thing you have to deal with and they're going to be technologies. I think coming down the pike that help you scale interviewing, help you get to more people. Because ultimately like, let's be honest. Employers want the passive job seeker. They want the person that has a job that doesn't have time to search for jobs.

Emi Beredugo (46:06.36)

Bye.

Joel Cheesman (46:25.766)

to constantly look for opportunities that work. Now, when that's done fairly, it's awesome because the old day was like, hey, Emmy, we're going to send you an email every day and this email will have jobs on it. Some of the jobs might work, most of them won't. We hope that you click on the jobs that look interesting and then apply to it, which never happens. Once you get a job, you don't check that email ever. But if you could have an agent on LinkedIn,

Emi Beredugo (46:29.271)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (46:45.323)

Yeah, you're not looking again. No.

Joel Cheesman (46:52.776)

or indeed, like, think AI apply just looks at Google for jobs, right? So they're, they're applying directly to the companies, which companies kind of want, right? So you have this world where I'm a great candidate, but I'm working. don't have time to search for jobs, but my agent is going to go out, look at jobs, apply, go through the process. And then when there's a match, they'll contact me and there'll be a face-to-face interview. Ultimately, bots are going to interview bots in this process.

Emi Beredugo (46:58.51)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (47:22.128)

and then humans are going to come in at some point. mean, I, I don't know what else at, at a base level at the top of the funnel, I don't see how you get around robots interviewing robots and then trying to make as good a match and as, as fair match as possible to, to then have face to face. I think there are definitely issues around bias that are going to come up and that's going to be a thing, but I'm curious, what are you, you don't want that. You don't want that future.

Emi Beredugo (47:22.304)

I hope not.

Emi Beredugo (47:38.296)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (47:49.454)

I want to have as much of a human element in the recruiting process as possible because I just don't think that, I don't care how sophisticated the technology is, I don't think you're actually going to be able to recreate a machine that can understand human relationships, understand and be empathetic, for example.

understand the complexity of certain situations, understand how to manage ambiguity. I just don't believe that will happen. Those are human skills. And I think we're, you know, at LSI, but I just think we are not going to be able to replicate that in the machine. And I definitely don't think that that should be, even if they do, I don't think that should come into the hiring process, you know.

Joel Cheesman (48:16.282)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (48:28.467)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (48:35.79)

people are three dimensional, that you're impacting people's lives. People aren't problems to solve, like an algorithm to solve, for example. They are three dimensional human beings. And when you make too many decisions with any kind of technology, including AI, and you get it wrong, the implications are bad. You're impacting someone's livelihood. You're impacting someone's human rights.

Joel Cheesman (49:00.346)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (49:05.858)

And that's me saying that as someone who loves AI, but I love AI with guardrails.

Joel Cheesman (49:12.208)

I think that's I agree with you and I think I just like Certain restaurants can get away with the kiosk Certain restaurants can get away with you know come in don't talk to anyone Click on a whatever kiosk tell us what you want and then a human being will come out and bring your food Certain restaurants can get away with that

Emi Beredugo (49:22.925)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (49:35.13)

You can, if, if in and out burger, which I assume you at least know of, if you've never been to an in and out, or Chick-fil-A, if you, if anyone ever went in there and got a kiosk, they would freak out because the expectation is I'm going to see a person and in and out, they're going to be in like a 50 style white uniform with a red apron and a little cap. I'm going to, that's an experience that I want to have. And I'm willing to pay more for my burger.

Emi Beredugo (49:39.405)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (49:57.271)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:03.076)

and wait in line longer because of that experience. think ultimately there are going to be employers that have a similar attitude. In other words, we're not just going to throw you in the machine. We're a white glove organization. are world-class. You're going to talk to human beings. And at the higher echelon of companies, if you're not at that concierge white glove experience, you're not going to get the best talent. In other words,

Emi Beredugo (50:05.793)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (50:21.443)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:32.918)

If let's just pull out, let's say I'm a highly skilled AI professional and I apply to Google and Meta and Amazon. And of those three, Amazon puts me into an obviously automated process. I feel cold. It's cold and corporate, whatever. But when I call Meta and Google, and I'm just making this up, I get like a human being. They kind of know where I'm from. They make small talk. They make jokes. What? It's a human experience.

Emi Beredugo (50:56.43)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (51:02.82)

Like I'm more likely to go to that organization. So similar, similar to any brand where there's an expectation of human beings or not. Like, yeah, I'm, you know what? I'm working at McDonald's. I'm not expecting white glove service. I'm going to have a bot and I'm going to have a bot too. And that's how this is going to go down. that's how I think, interestingly, it will, it will sort of pan out.

Emi Beredugo (51:05.646)

100%, yeah.

Emi Beredugo (51:19.96)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (51:29.552)

You will have companies that have white glove, real people, and that's their brand. And they, they attract people that like that. And then others that are just automated and that's probably a money situation. That's probably, you know what, this is about the bottom line. This is about cutting costs. We don't need to put people in a limo and bring them down for the interview. And companies are going to divide just like everything else in the world about the haves and the have nots. And the haves will have human beings and people that talk to you and the have nots, not so much.

Emi Beredugo (51:32.376)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (51:59.566)

See, I think that, I get your point. I think that could happen initially. If it comes down to cost and they're going back, you know what, it's actually better to fully automate this step, bring in AI. Like let's say for example, there are companies out there using AI interviewers. So they've got an avatar interviewing a candidate. And in the short term,

Joel Cheesman (52:10.598)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (52:23.722)

medium term, they might think, you know what, in terms of productivity, we don't have enough time to screen all these candidates because we're doing volume hiring. They may decide to go down that route. But I still think that over time, once they start realizing that people are going to drop out of the hiring process, even if they get on screen, they go online and go, my God, there's an AI interviewer, not a real person. There's going to be a high rate of dropouts.

Joel Cheesman (52:28.476)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (52:48.308)

Yep. you

Emi Beredugo (52:51.638)

So if they keep having a high rated dropouts, those candidates are going to get pissed off. Those people are going to tell other people. Those organizations that were using things like AI interviewers are going to find it harder and harder and harder to attract people to the organization, harder to hire people in the organization, which means they'll end up reverting back to human hiring. And that's what I think will happen. I just don't think that you can.

certain parts of the hiring process you can afford to fully automate and fully have AI taking over that process.

Joel Cheesman (53:26.854)

I think a lot of that is dependent upon how the employment rate or the unemployment rate. I mean, when companies are hard up, like they'll give you the white glove, they'll love you, like come aboard when they don't need you so much, like job seekers are begging for interviews. They're like, just like the resume Botox.

Emi Beredugo (53:34.72)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (53:49.282)

No.

Joel Cheesman (53:49.892)

Right? Like we're in a period where, man, I just want an interview. I just need, need to scale back my experience. So I actually get in the door. So I think, I think there's an ebb and flow of the market is tight. The market is not. I just think. Company like right now, I think it's a, it's a, it's a dollars and cents thing. It's a, we don't need so many people we're automating, which means, okay, we're spending less on it. Head count is 60 % of a business's expenses. Right? If you can cut that down, the market loves it.

Emi Beredugo (53:58.904)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (54:15.884)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (54:19.74)

Wall Street loves it. Like you can do the same work. When Amazon says we will not increase head count up to 20, 30, the market goes, hell yeah. That means you're not, that expense isn't increasing as you're growing the company. Um, that's the peanut, you know, the Peter burner jelly of business. If you can hold head count down. So

companies will have similar to how Disney said, you know what, we're hiring better, better people. We're spending more on the experience. We're going the extra mile. Yes, it costs more as a business, but at the end of the day, we're going to get more loyalty. We're going to get people talking about us. We're going to get, it's going to be better for us in the long run, even though we're spending more today, that story is going to have to be told to the market someday. Some company is going to say, you know what?

Emi Beredugo (54:58.22)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (55:02.573)

Hmm.

Emi Beredugo (55:09.836)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (55:11.866)

We could scale back recruiting, we could go fully automation, but you know what? We want to have people talk to people. And we're willing to spend the extra money to have that because we found that when we do that, our acceptance rate is higher. Our retention rates are higher. We spend less overall. Like that story will eventually have to be told. And whoever tells that story is going to inspire other companies to say, you know what, if they did it and the market rewarded them.

Emi Beredugo (55:31.854)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (55:36.654)

I'm gonna do the same.

Joel Cheesman (55:39.056)

We can do it and the market will reward us. That story hasn't been told yet, but I think it's just a matter time before it is. And speaking of stories, we have one more left after we take a quick break. And guys, if you haven't left us a review on your favorite podcast platform of choice or YouTube, you can see our beautiful faces in the flesh on YouTube. Yes, it's true. Please do that for us.

Emi Beredugo (55:46.89)

I agree.

Joel Cheesman (56:04.454)

We love to hear from you. Give us a follow, subscribe and tell us what you think about the show. be right

Joel Cheesman (56:15.974)

All right, I know ZipRecruiter is not a big thing in the UK, but potentially what they're launching may inspire some commentary from you. So ZipRecruiter has launched Be Seen First, a feature allowing candidates to prioritize their applications by adding a role-specific note. This feature hopes to tackle the challenge of increased application volume, i.e. resume slop, and weaken candidate differentiation by introducing deliberate friction.

Emi Beredugo (56:19.744)

No.

Joel Cheesman (56:45.924)

requiring candidates to demonstrate their interest in the role. While optional, the feature impacts application ordering, placing submissions with be seen first notes ahead of standard applications in the review queue. has ZipRecruiter just solved the problem of applicant overflow or is this another miss from the ailing job board?

Emi Beredugo (57:05.359)

This is a fuck no.

Emi Beredugo (57:14.444)

No, I don't like this at all. I think it's, no, I think it's shit. And I'll tell you why I think it's shit. I get it. On paper, if you say, if I put friction in the application process and candidates need to take more time by, you know, filling in a mini cover letter saying that, why am I good for the role? These are my skill sets, basically everything that's in a CV. And here's my availability. I can start ASAP. I get that.

you know, some people may think, not everyone is going to take the time to do this, you know, not everyone is going to take the time to sit down for 20 minutes and do a little mini cover letter. However, it doesn't look at the full story because this is going to impact people because let's say, for example, you are someone, let's say you're someone from a marginalised background where it's harder for you to...

Joel Cheesman (57:52.784)

Mm-hmm.

Emi Beredugo (58:08.046)

to land a job. That conversion ratio from how many CVs you sent out to get in an interview is much higher for you than someone who's not from that particular group. So if you go...

Joel Cheesman (58:18.947)

Hmm.

Emi Beredugo (58:21.642)

OK, every single time I'm going to have to do a mini cover letter. All that's going to happen is that you get application fatigue and then maybe over time, your first one might be great, but over time, the quality of what you're submitting in that little mini cover letter through being seen first, that actually decreases. So you're impacting those people. You're impacting people who basically may be busy, you know, maybe they have a caring responsibility, so they don't have the time to invest.

And just because a client may go, OK, great, we've got a smaller pile of candidates who, obviously, they're a lot more intentional because they put more time into it. These are the candidates I should see first. But does that mean just because they've taken that time that they're the best candidate for the role? And what happens to all the other candidates? Are you going to ignore them and not look at their CV?

Joel Cheesman (59:13.841)

Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (59:14.368)

So I think it doesn't actually solve the problem at all. At all. And that's why I hate cover letters. And this for me is just another mini cover letter. And I think it's just shit.

Joel Cheesman (59:28.752)

You know, I love that you bring in the perspective of what if I don't have a keyboard and a computer or laptop? Like what if my phone is my own? So now I have to tap out a little note every time I apply to a job. it's sort of restricts folks with lesser means, I guess, or people that don't have those, those resources, a chance at a job. I, aside from that,

Emi Beredugo (59:35.116)

Heh!

Emi Beredugo (59:47.852)

Yeah, what if it's you busy? Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (59:55.256)

I thought it was very humorous. We reported a while back that ZipRecruiter basically fired their AI department over in Israel. And this is a very non-AI solution to a problem that can probably be AI'd if you try it hard enough. I mean, this is a very old school. This is a screening question basically. Like, are you willing to put in a little mini cover letter to be seen first? So what happens when everybody has a little cover letter like

Emi Beredugo (01:00:14.784)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:22.798)

Everyone's seen the same way. And then you're just, you're back where you started. You're backwards. And what, Yeah. And what, and who, who determines that? Is it number of words? Like if I just put in, love Ironman and Hulk, like does that, have a letter, like it's all good. I'm seeing, I'm seeing first. I also think this could be a, a step towards we're going to charge for this.

Emi Beredugo (01:00:23.15)

Then what? You're in the same situation. Same situation, yeah. But then it's like, who's got the best written cover letter? Yeah. Is it the right tone? Yeah.

Emi Beredugo (01:00:48.492)

Yeah, 100%.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:49.242)

In other words, you're used to doing this. Now, if you really want to be seen first, pay us X and then your resume will, go to the top of the list. And there's old timers will know a company called headhunter.net who career builder, eventually bought was an old school. Was brilliant at the time. It was a, auction kind of like eBay where people paid to be on top of the, the resume of list of resumes. And the more you paid, the higher up on the list that you got.

Emi Beredugo (01:00:54.903)

Hang on.

Joel Cheesman (01:01:17.628)

So you had this eBay style sort of a competitive auction where people were bidding more and more to be at the top of the list. And then companies on the other side, their jobs were seen first if they paid more like in the auction style to be seen. interestingly that ZipRecruiter is sort of setting the stage for, okay, you've been seen first, but if you really want to be seen first, like give us a little coin because we're a public company and the socks and the shitter.

Emi Beredugo (01:01:20.366)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (01:01:44.272)

By the way, it's headed towards $2 a share. It debuted at 19 back in the day, just so you know. By the way, their podcast, which still sucks, still only has 20 reviews on Apple. So the company has better things to do than this thing. I think it's a total stinker. And it totally underscores how they do not have the technology chops to create something that is better to decipher, like who's seen first, who's a real resume.

Emi Beredugo (01:01:46.776)

close.

No.

Emi Beredugo (01:01:56.233)

no.

Emi Beredugo (01:02:03.213)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:02:12.368)

who's matching better to the job. Like they are, they are clearly failing at that. If their solution is this, let's let the humans create a mini cover letter.

Emi Beredugo (01:02:20.878)

But they seem to be failing at everything. Cause every time you talk about ZipRecruiter and they've got a new feature, the feature's shitty. And it's like, I don't understand how they're still around.

Joel Cheesman (01:02:32.058)

Yeah, did I mention their stock is at $2 pretty much? Yeah, it's it hits an all time low on a weekly basis because I do follow them. One thing that is not failing though, Emmy, is my dad jokes. And I know it's been a while since you've heard one, but let's let's go. Let's let's do a little bit Super Bowl little football inspired dad joke. You ready?

Emi Beredugo (01:02:34.158)

yeah.

Emi Beredugo (01:02:40.784)

my God.

Emi Beredugo (01:02:47.266)

Okay.

Come on.

Emi Beredugo (01:02:56.206)

Yeah?

Joel Cheesman (01:03:00.442)

What state should the Tampa Bay Buccaneers move to? What state should the Tampa Bay Buccaneers move to?

Emi Beredugo (01:03:14.83)

I don't even get that.

Joel Cheesman (01:03:16.122)

Hahaha!

Joel Cheesman (01:03:21.028)

I'll explain it in the green room. Amy, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining me. Hope you had fun. We out!

Emi Beredugo (01:03:22.487)

my god, you're gonna have to.

I did. We out.