SmartRecruiters: Times Are Changin'
It's a jungle out there. Inflation is still running rampant while unemployment remains historically low. Some companies are saying get back to the office, while some are saying never come back again. And some businesses in our space are seeing incredible carnage, while others are riding high. The real sign of the apocalypse though? LinkedIn thinks its solving the inclusion problem. It's enough to wish you had free beer. Mass hysteria, buy-or-sell, LinkedIn-sanity and free booze. You're welcome!
TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level.
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (24s):
Oh yeah. Happy Labor Day America. Summer is temporary, Chad and Cheese are forever. Hey kitties. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel old "dirty bastard" Cheeseman.
Chad (36s):
This is Chad, "and no top secret documents in my desk drawer" Sowash.
Joel (41s):
On this week's show Snagajob and Smart Recruiters get all shook up. LinkedIn pokes, prods, and Nudges, and free beer in Dublin.
Chad (51s):
Yes.
Joel (51s):
Yeah, let's do this.
Chad (53s):
I keep asking myself this question. So it, tell me what you think. If you were working for a company, let's say Lockheed Martin, a company everybody knows!
Joel (1m 3s):
Somebody that would never hire me. Lockheed Martin, okay. Let's talk about it.
Chad (1m 7s):
Okay. Okay. So, and you were a part of their super secret is skunkworks division and you left or you were fired, and you took company proprietary information or even classified information with you home. And then the company found out. What do you think the company or the government would actually do?
Joel (1m 29s):
Well, first of all, this is a real hypothetical cause I'm working for a defense company on super secret projects but.
Chad (1m 35s):
Yes.
Joel (1m 35s):
The answer to your question is someone in a black suit and sunglasses and probably an earpiece would come knocking on my door, looking for me. And I'd probably be in the pokey for awhile.
Chad (1m 45s):
Yes. Yes. It's, I mean, I just think it's interesting that we have this guy who leaves his job. Right. He was voted out, leaves his job. He takes secret documentation and everybody's like, well, it's okay. It's like, no, it's not okay. It's like, if somebody took super secret documentation from your work or proprietary information, you know those NDAs and shit that we all have to fucking sign. What do you think would happen? You would either go to go to jail, go to court, but something would happen. And everybody's like, ah, it's not a big deal. No, no. It's a big deal.
Joel (2m 19s):
Trump may still think he's president though. That could be a mental loophole that he could play in court.
Chad (2m 26s):
You still can't take those documents out of.
Joel (2m 30s):
I know.
Chad (2m 30s):
You can't. Even if you're president, that's what skiffs are for. I mean, it's just, oh my God is fucking crazy.
Joel (2m 38s):
The guy dances between the raindrops and he always has. And
Chad (2m 42s):
We shall see.
Joel (2m 42s):
If something happens this time?
Chad (2m 44s):
Let's talk about somebody who deserves to be in the limelight. That's Sabrina Williams. That's Serena Williams. That's right kids?! Nearly 41 years old. She's playing in her last tournament. 27 years, 23 grand slam titles, four Olympic gold medals, 14 grand slam doubles titles and a Serena slam. But wait, kids, there's more Serena. Just put on a clinic by knocking off the number two ranked player in the world to stay alive at the US Open, not since Jimmy Connors came back have we seen someone playing for just the pure fun of the sport? She's the greatest tennis player in history, hands down, full stop, man.
Joel (3m 25s):
Yep.
Chad (3m 26s):
I hate to see her go, but I love to see this the way it's playing out.
Joel (3m 30s):
Yeah. I love the interview where they said, you know, like, how do you feel about beating the number two player in the world? And she says, I'm still pretty good. And of course the crowd goes wild, but I was thinking about this cause it was asked on one of the sports radio talk shows that I listened to is who wouldn't be on your Mount Rushmore of all time athletes. Wow. I think for sure. Serena is probably on mine. The others I would put on there and, and it's tough, but just my lifetime and my experience, I, I would probably put Muhammad Ali on that mountain top.
Chad (4m 2s):
OK.
Joel (4m 3s):
I would probably put Michael Jordan on it. And it's tough between like baseball, hockey, soccer, the global number one sport. Yeah. But I would probably go Tom Brady in that four spot. How about you?
Chad (4m 16s):
Yeah. I'm going to go old school with Jim Thorpe.
Joel (4m 23s):
Oh.
Chad (4m 23s):
Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali. They were just amazing. And they were pure athletes, much like Serena and Venus Williams.
Joel (4m 31s):
So we agreed. Serena is the best female athlete of all time?
Chad (4m 36s):
I would say best tennis player, female but definitely, definitely. I would say top three easily, a female athlete. She might be number one. I'd have to sit and I'd have to crunch that one.
Joel (4m 47s):
We may have to do some bourbon and discuss this.
Chad (4m 49s):
That's a good call.
Joel (4m 51s):
Because I can tell you I've totally pissed off my Canadian in-laws by not putting Wayne Gretzky on that mountain top.
Chad (4m 60s):
Well Dude. I'm telling you right now, Jim Thorpe had Olympic gold medals. He played professional baseball and he played professional football. And I think there was another sport he played professionally.
Joel (5m 11s):
Yeah.
Chad (5m 11s):
We forget about some of those.
Joel (5m 13s):
Yeah. I mean, yeah, Babe Ruth. I mentioned Gretzky. I mean, you got like soccer, right? Pelé or I don't know where Ronaldo. I mean, there's a lot of soccer players. I'm sure our worldwide audience would, would put a soccer player on there as well. But anyway, sorry, Canada. Gretsky didn't make my list. Didn't make my list. All right. I guess we're in shout outs now? Sorry, listeners. I'm gonna give a shout out to Snap. Chad investors in the camera company. No, seriously that's what their LinkedIn profile says they are. A camera company.
Chad (5m 43s):
Yeah.
Joel (5m 43s):
Anyway, investors are wishing they could snap out of this nightmare. See what I did there? In light of their stock price declining nearly 80% this year, the company announced.
sfx (5m 54s):
Layoffs!
Joel (5m 58s):
Layoffs. That's right to the tune of 20% Chad of their workforce. That's more than 6,400 employees.
Chad (6m 7s):
Wow, Shit.
Joel (6m 8s):
Remember when we used to talk about Snap locations and Snap being a fortune recruiting well, safe to say, that's now on hold. Maybe they can pivot out of cameras and become a rotary phone landline business. Shout out to our friends at Snap.
Chad (6m 26s):
Somebody who loves them a rotary phone, that would be Katrina Collier. So shout out to Katrina Collier on the global publication of the newest edition of the Robot Proof Recruiter. That's right kids. It's upgraded, check out the upgraded Robot Proof podcast earlier this week, where we sat down with Katrina and also a big shout out to Charlotte Marshall for coming on the podcast to talk about compelling and re paneling candidates with your brand. Check out all of our interviews on Chadcheese.com or wherever you listen to interviews.
Joel (7m 5s):
Well Chad. You heard that DJ horn? Means DJ Sol. Your boy, must be in the news again. No Goldman Sachs CEO, David DJ Solomon has ordered the worker bees back to the office. The Wall Street giant lifted all COVID protocols this week that have kept some workers away as it pushes all employees to return to the office five days a week after Labor Day school's in session. And we want you in person, the New York Post reported someone at Goldman Sachs saying the party's over shout out to Goldman Sachs and the beatings will continue until morale improves. Everybody. Shout out to DJ Sol.
Chad (7m 45s):
Oh my God. Okay. So a big shout out to the big podcasting platform YouTube? What?
Joel (7m 58s):
YouTube?
Chad (7m 58s):
Laminate surveyed 3000 US podcasts listeners and YouTube is the most used platform for podcasts. That's what they came out with. And this comes after a Cumulus report in may where YouTube snag, the number one position platform from Spotify.
sfx (8m 13s):
What did you say?
Chad (8m 15s):
A couple of very weird points as we see Apple as our number one listening platform for podcasts, I think this deserves one of those Joel LinkedIn polls. So we should probably put one out there. See if people see a couple of things, see where people are listening. Number one, we can see that on our analytics, but just, you know, as a broad base, but then also see if they want to see, you know, a Chad and Cheese video version of the podcast.
Joel (8m 43s):
You missed the LinkedIn polls. Don't you Chad, you the LinkedIn calls. You have Amazon prime. Don't you? The videos? Have you seen the Val Kilmer documentary?
Chad (8m 54s):
No.
Joel (8m 54s):
That would be like Val Kilmer.
Chad (8m 56s):
Yes. Yes.
Joel (8m 56s):
Top gun. I mean, Doc Holiday, Jim Morrison's? A lot of really good stuff. Anyway, if you're interested in Val and it's a niceness nostalgic ride down the eighties and nineties, which was great for me, but I was pondering the question. What's a better Valcom or Jim Morrison or Doc Holiday?
Chad (9m 12s):
And Doc Holiday every single day. I mean, I think one of his best roles.
Joel (9m 16s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, wrong Chad. Cause the answer is Jim Morrison. What he studied for painfully as you'll see in the documentary. But speaking of LinkedIn policy might have to see, which is a better Val? Doc Holiday or Jim Morrison? Chad, you might've heard it's football season.
Chad (9m 37s):
Yes, can't wait.
Joel (9m 38s):
That deserves a big applause
Chad (9m 40s):
Stoked.
Joel (9m 40s):
Stoked, stoked. The ball state Cardinals opened their season in Tennessee to play the volunteers by the way. Take the 35 and a half for Tennessee on that one. Anyway, we got fantasy football again this year, Chad and our friends at Factory Fix are sponsoring fantasy football. And time is running out as you listen to this, if you want to play, get your ass to Chadcheese.com, click the link for fantasy football and sign up. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. We've made some altercations to the lineups. Chad, including your flex player can actually be a quarterback. So two quarterbacks playing in the same week. How much fun is that?
Joel (10m 20s):
We thought about having three kickers every week, but decided against that. People's minds might blow up if that was the option, but we're, I'm pretty excited about fantasy football. I know you are too.
Chad (10m 31s):
Yes. And a shorten bench as well. So that I think will be the big kicker.
Joel (10m 35s):
Yup. Game faces and A games are what you're going to have to bring this year to fantasy football with Chad and Cheese sponsored by FactoryFix. That's not all the free shit and fun that we've got going on Chad.
Chad (10m 50s):
Of course not.
Joel (10m 50s):
We got whiskey from Textkernel, Aspen Tech Labs is sponsoring our beer drop. T-shirts are going to now have the JobGet logo. And we're frantically printing up those shirts to hopefully have them at HR Tech, which is in two weeks not to jump the shark to our travel schedule, but we're hoping to get some t-shirts there. We're doing events at HR tech with This Way Global and to Tatio is that how we pronounce it Tatio?
Chad (11m 19s):
Tasha Tatio?
Joel (11m 20s):
Patio featured on top pod TA Pod or whatever that is. If you want to get in on some of those events hit us up on the DMS, you might get an invite, but it is a red carpet exclusive event from Chadcheese. Cause you know what? We can't rent out Caesars. You know what I'm saying? Like we can't rent out a big enough place for all of our fans. We gotta be somewhat exclusive, but dammit, in two weeks, Vegas, we're gonna have a ton of fun Chad, at HR Tech and every month we have fun with free shit for our listeners.
Chad (11m 50s):
I think the Tuesday night event is full, but you can still reach out to us around the, that's right kids, the penthouse events with This Way Global. So we might have a few slots for that one, go ahead and reach out. But I guarantee you they won't last long.
Joel (12m 7s):
I feel bad. All of us, Chad, it's crazy. It's crazy. And we love our fans who are celebrating birthdays this week, Chad another year round the sun for some of our fans.
Chad (12m 19s):
Happy Birthday!
Joel (12m 19s):
Our number one fan on the list here is my son Cole Cheeseman.
Chad (12m 26s):
Cole Cheeseman!
Joel (12m 27s):
Everybody. My baby boy is celebrating 16 years on planet earth.
Chad (12m 30s):
Holy shit!
Joel (12m 30s):
He'll be driving soon. You have been warned if you went in the Indianapolis Metro area, but Happy Birthday to Cole and what he wants for his birthday Chad is a ticket to see Wu Tang, Oz, Busta Rhymes, which we are both going to see tonight.
Chad (12m 47s):
In Indianapolis. Yes.
Joel (12m 47s):
In Indianapolis. Yes. It will be more akin to a Dave Matthews concert, I think for, for Indianapolis than New York City. But yeah, we're going to step to the Wu for his 16th birthday. What could be more fun than that? Also celebrating a birthday Olivia Marquette, Matt O'Donnell, Shani Underwood Etel Feinberg. I thought that was Ethel, but it's actually Etel Adam Nelson, Stacy Shaw, reportedly Chris dollar Billets, Chris Hoyt, Bill Boorman.
Chad (13m 29s):
Yes!
Joel (13m 29s):
And Chris Murdoch all celebrating birthdays. Happy birthday to everybody.
Chad (13m 32s):
Hello. TOPICS!
Joel (13m 33s):
So you broke this late last week. What's going on with Smart Recruiters and Snagit.?
Chad (13m 39s):
Yep. Broke two big pieces of news last Friday about Smart Recruiters and Snagajob both were verified through multiple sources, but were not corroborated by either company at the time. Now guess what kids? We have corroboration number one, C E O of Smart Recruiters Jerome Ternynck is stepping down as CEO and into the chairman of the board of Smart Recruiters. Jerome, formally announced earlier this week through a short blog post saying quote "to lead this next phase of accelerated growth, we have agreed in partnership with our board of directors to bring in a new CEO with deep experience in leading in growing companies of our size and scale.
Chad (14m 22s):
This will allow me to transition to the chairman of the board so that I can continue to partner with our Smartians to make an impact on the customers every day" end quote. Jeremy Johnson, Smart Recruiters, CFO will step into the interim CEO position. Smart Recruiters had a 10% reduction in force just weeks ago. So what the hell is going on over there?
Joel (14m 49s):
First of all, I think it's Martians like Martians.
Chad (14m 52s):
Is it?
Joel (14m 52s):
Yeah. Yeah. That's clever. Clever. So I first met Jerome when he first launched Smart Recruiters back in, I think 2011, it was a free ATS back then I thought, yeah, good luck with all that. I don't think they would have done very well on firing squad if we had been doing firing squad at the time they went paid a play and Google launched hired, which made them go back to a more freemium based model. I think the ATS industry is seriously under pressure for a lot of these folks. No one can IPO. We're seeing a lot of consolidation, conversational AI and platforms like DEEL, and Oyster sucking out a lot of the oxygen in our space.
Joel (15m 33s):
And like we've talked about job boards provide a lot of the ATS functionality for free if you're a small business, it's much easier and more cost effective to use ZipRecruiter or Indeed for your ATS, if you can. And there are only so many big companies to service for the bigger ATSs. Smart Recruiters has raised $225 million and investors eventually want their money. They're on a 12 year run right now, as well as Jerome has been at the helm that long. New leadership will button that thing up and I think it will be gone in 18 months or so. I also wonder, and we won't know this until maybe after the fact, but also wonder when K1 was looking for new companies, ATS is to, to gobble up and they ended up on Lever.
Joel (16m 20s):
I gotta think Smart Recruiters was in that conversation. Either Jerome left it up or something happened where they were hoping for a big payday from K1 like Lever did. And that caused the board to say, hold on a second. Do we have the right guy at the helm? I think so, whoever, whoever runs this thing is going to cut, cut the fat, get this thing up to full profitability and sell the thing off. Cause I don't see them going IPO in the current state. I mean, I think we talked about this a lot. I do, you know, you're on the clock when you take money. And at that 10 year spot, which Lever and Smart Recruiters both were at, investors want their money. They want return if they don't, they get really antsy. And I think this is largely what happened here. It's not show friends, it's show business.
Joel (17m 3s):
And this proves once again, that that is true. Even in the employment ATS software industry.
Chad (17m 9s):
Yeah. I think we've got to remember that, you know, the founder, CEO generally, isn't the CEO who takes that the company to the next level, right? And the first part of his quote was to lead this next phase of accelerated growth. We saw Colin over at iCIMS, he left so that Steve Lucas could be that guy to prospectively, to IPO. But again, it's that next phase, that next stage of the rocket and we do see, and we have seen for years where CEO stay too long, you have to be incredibly interspective as a CEO so that you don't hang on too long.
Chad (17m 50s):
Also remember that the CEO wasn't the only position rumor to be changing. The CMO and the C T O were also part of last week's rumor. So Smart Recruiters PR was happy to send me Jerome's blog posts, although are eerily silent on the other positions. So what do you think about this? No denial whatsoever that no, this isn't happening. They're just being silent.
Joel (18m 13s):
No one wants to scare customers that there's like huge changes going on. So a lot of this stuff, you know, is quietly done or it happens over time or it's announced, you know, Friday at six o'clock Eastern. So everyone just sort of forgets about it. I, you know, just think this was a situation of like time ran out. They probably missed a sale opportunity to K1 and said, look, we need to make some serious changes and make some hard decisions. And that's what happened. I don't think this is a situation like, you know, the Google guys come up with a phenomenon in search and then three, four or five years down the road, they go, holy shit, we can't manage this company. It's way too big. We need, some adults to come in the room. I think Jerome is an adult, he just ran out of time. That's how I read into this, but yeah, time will tell but I think this thing will be off the board in 18 to 24 months.
Chad (19m 1s):
That's a prediction from Joel Cheeseman kids.
Joel (19m 4s):
It's hard medicine. Sometimes Chad.
Chad (19m 7s):
Some other hard medicine that's taken the Snagajob news was corroborated by CEO Matchu Stevenson. He said, quote, "the 40% figure was high. That was one of the percentages that we were told was high, but any reduction is painful, especially when it impacts talented individuals due to the factors outside of our control. We did have to make decisions in response to recent changes in market conditions and the uncertain economic outlook" end quote. I then asked about representing blue collar essential workers, because those jobs are exploding right now. We see tons of those. So, you know, why, are we seeing those issues?
Chad (19m 47s):
And then Matchu's response was quote, "Broadly it's still a robust job market in hourly that said there are pockets of hourly, such as e-commerce fulfillment that have seen a pullback in recent months as consumer behavior has evolved, quote unquote "post COVID" combined. With an uncertain economic environment where the Fed is trying to soften the labor market we need to be able to weather a potential prolonged recession" end quote. First and foremost, he's pointing out pockets in government and saying that we're in a recession. Are those diversions from a business that has been able to, to meet expectations? Because that's what I'm hearing. I really like Matchu but this response to me is more excuse than actual reason.
Joel (20m 30s):
Yeah. I have a coach that I think of when I hear this response.
sfx (20m 34s):
Way off.
Joel (20m 35s):
Yeah. Someone who's a little bit in denial. They're like, this is, this is spinning it for their customers. You know, the media people like us in the market. Remember when we used to talk about Snagajob as like a competitive, like tier two job site?
Chad (20m 49s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (20m 49s):
One for the kids. Yeah. We used to talk about Monster, CareerBuilder and Snagajob was the 800 pound gorilla for hourly jobs. I mean, they essentially were ZipRecruiter before ZipRecruiter and speaking of ZipRecruiter Snagajob was fighting a multiple front war that I think has really sort of come to roost here. Zip was spending tons of money on advertising, which Snagajob was not willing or able to do. Indeed was a way to search that appealed to younger folks, you know, 15 years ago. Some of us remember when Google was actually cool and cutting edge. Mobile probably caught them off guard to some degree. They seemed unprepared for social media as well. And all the, while this was happening, the gig economy was growing exponentially.
Joel (21m 33s):
A battle the bold style attempt to rebrand and compete in the gig economy failed. Our listeners might remember Snag when they changed their name and launched an app that failed. And now we're back to where we started and the same pressures are still there. And there may be even more than they were before because the gig economy is growing exponentially as we know, you know, zip is now a public company. Indeed is bigger than it was. So, you know, with service industry hiring so tight Snagajob should be living its best life, but the world, as far as I can see as apparently passed them by. Frankly, unless some private equity comes along to save them, it's really hard to see a future of growth and maybe even existence for Snagajob in the next five to 10 years.
Joel (22m 18s):
Thanks for the memories, I guess. But yeah, this is trying to put a lot of lipstick on a pig, as far as you know, their CEO's spinning this. I don't see any good news if you're a Snagajob investor, employee or customer.
Chad (22m 32s):
So you mentioned Zip and he actually had something to say about Zip. So quote, "while they're more of a horizontal marketplace, Zip's earnings and projections, the last couple of quarters highlight the shift. They've raised earnings at the end of Q1 and then pulled back their forecast for H2, a couple of weeks ago end quote. Look, we just came off of one of probably the best growth patterns that we've ever seen in this industry, especially for recruitment marketing, right? To be able to actually go out and try to make money on job postings.
Chad (23m 12s):
And we're getting ready to reduce staff dramatically.
Joel (23m 14s):
ZipRecruiter is a little bit of a victim of their own success. They did such a good job of being like the hourly service seasonal employer. And now they're trying to shift to being a job board for professionals. And frankly, I think, I think that's a confusion of the marketplace. I don't know. I don't think people know what the hell to do with ZipRecruiter anymore. Again, I think it's sort of like trying to, you know, Hey look at these guys over there, you know, they're having a hard time too. All the while, you know, we talk about Glassdoor and Indeed and others, you know, having pretty good quarters. And again, this is, he's pointing out a few quarters for ZipRecruiter. I'm not bullish ZipRecruiter for the long haul, but I think we're talking about macro changes that have impacted Snagajob that are a decade plus in the making.
Joel (24m 0s):
And they just missed step after misstep and it's coming to roost. Like it's just, you can't keep it up without, you know, paying the price at the end, unless they do some major pivot to save the company. I just, I don't see a future with Snagajob as a major player in our industry.
Chad (24m 20s):
Yeah. Well, good luck to Jerome to Matchu and even more so to the staff at Smart Recruiters, heads down, keep your assets working. Same at Snagajob. Good luck, good luck there. But when we come back, we're actually going to be talking a little buy or sell. So some of those new kids that are coming down the block, we're going to be talking about those in just a minute.
Joel (24m 44s):
Good luck with all that Snagajob. All right, Chad, I think this is week two in a row of buy or sell. I mean, how great is that?
Chad (24m 55s):
And we did buy or sell in the Europe show.
Joel (24m 57s):
Yeah, we're doing buy or sell everywhere. Yeah. We're not doing unicorns as much, but Hey, people are still getting money. So it's fun. All right, kids, you know the game, we read three companies, they usually raise money. We have one in one this week that hasn't raised money, but they just launched and we thought they were worth talking about. So I read a summary and Chad and I either buy or sell the company. Are you ready to play, Chad?
Chad (25m 23s):
Let's do it.
Joel (25m 23s):
All right, let's do it. First up is Glints. That's GLINTS. The job board based in Singapore and launched in 2013, long time ago, announced it has raised 50 million in a series D. This brings Glints total raise so far to $80 million. The platform cu