It’s a rare breed of professional that has worked on the vendor side of HR tech, as well as the TA practitioner side. So, when we got the opportunity to chat with Josh Rock, currently Talent Acquisition Manager at Nuss Truck, and former executive at JobDig, LinkUp and CollegeRecruiter, we jumped at the chance. Recorded at SHRM, it’s a candid conversation about the industry from both sides of the fence.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HRs 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: Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? We're live from the Aaron Booth at the SHRM National Show in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. I am your host Joel Cheeseman, flying solo as Chad is getting his tan on in Portugal. And we are, well, happy to welcome Josh Rock TA manager at Nuss [laughter] Nuss Truck & Equipment.
Josh Rock: That's correct.
Joel: Tell me you are blue collar without telling me you are blue collar Nuss Truck & Equipment. Josh, welcome to the podcast.
Josh Rock: Thanks Cheese. What's going on, man?
Joel: Yeah. You're a longtime listener.
Josh Rock: I am.
Joel: First time interviewee.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: So we're excited to have you on. Now you are one of the magical unicorns [laughter] that have made the transition from vendor.
Josh Rock: Yep.
Joel: To practitioner.
Josh Rock: Yep.
Joel: Let's talk about the vendor side first. 'Cause you've had a long journey.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Go.
Josh Rock: I usually say I'm a recovering HR vendor. Never really goes away from you.
Joel: Do you ever recover [laughter]?
Josh Rock: No. No, you don't.
Joel: There's no 12 step process for that. Is there?
Josh Rock: Well, there might be 12 steps. I'm drinking lots of Mountain Dew, but we're still working on the recovery part. Yeah. I started my career 16 years in advertising. Worked with a company called JobDig in Minneapolis with Toby Dayton and Crew. Starting with.
Joel: Sasquatch.
Josh Rock: Exactly. 12 employees doing print online. I helped bring radio, developed it into TV. They created this thing called Fetcher, which became LinkUp.
Joel: Oh my God.
Josh Rock: Which is now Getwork by Adzuna.
Joel: Fetcher.
Josh Rock: I mean, it just goes on and on. I mean we even did a white label of cats one we called JobDig Tracker.
Joel: LinkUp is their site as well.
Josh Rock: LinkUp is...
Joel: Were you there for that?
Joel: Okay.
Josh Rock: And then LinkUp became Getwork, which is now owned by Adzuna.
Joel: Got it. So Toby Dayton exists. Let's just get that on the tape.
Josh Rock: Toby still exists... Now Toby exists now he's all on the jobs data side, the labor force market data, and that's what they do. That's what Toby does now.
Joel: Yeah. He's blogging kind of now.
Josh Rock: He's blogging now. Yeah. Yeah. He's still finding his way. Toby's a great guy. He just, he is evolving.
Joel: I love Toby.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: I talked to him once in the aughts. And then I mysteriously got a bottle of Irish whiskey and Sasquatch shirt [laughter] about four years ago. [laughter] And that's all I know of Toby Dayton.
Josh Rock: He's just showing you that he is still around. [laughter]
Joel: And now that, now with VR, he will live forever.
Josh Rock: Yes. Yes.
Joel: In some form or fashion.
Josh Rock: I haven't seen him in forever. It's crazy.
Joel: Is it true that he is part of the Target family and he is like super rich and just does this job thing for fun?
Josh Rock: No, I don't think, he may be, I don't know if that lore is exactly accurate but he is related to the Dayton family. I think the former governor of the great state of Minnesota, Mark Dayton is a like uncle or something to him. But yeah. Yeah, there's some lineage there.
Joel: Yeah. And another one of our favorite Minnesotans, Steven Rothberg.
Josh Rock: Oh.
Joel: You've worked with.
Josh Rock: The Gopher. The Gopher fan. That is Steven Rothberg, who will not end talking about hockey in Canada. Because he is from Winnipeg [laughter]
Joel: Is he a Jets fan?
Josh Rock: Yeah, I think he is a Jets fan. I can't confirm or deny that fact, but he will always hold or linger Canada hockey over anything else.
Joel: So as you look at the industry now.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: And what you came into, is it night and day or is it the more things change, the more they stay the same?
Josh Rock: No. It's completely different. I mean, granted you're still gonna have vendors trying to find, I mean, we're here at SHRM '23 where there's three football fields of vendors trying to get the attention of non-buyers.
Joel: Some have crazy podcasters.
Josh Rock: Some have crazy podcast podcasters.
Joel: To try to get attention.
Josh Rock: I've seen a few of you around here.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: You and Tin Cup and Sherry over at the other company over here and. Yeah. There's a bunch of you guys. But it's still the same thing where oftentimes the vendors are selling to non-buyers and they don't know how to get garner the attention. And so when I was on that side, I always tried to make the buyer the angel. What is their problem? Give them the solution to sell whoever that needed to sign the check and make them look good. It had nothing to do with my product or what I was offering or the solution. It was making them look good because then they were in long term.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: And some of these guys, they're just looking for the quick transaction that doesn't work anymore. So there is a bit of a change. And granted we don't see the job boards like we used to. There's no Trump the monster mascot here anymore.
Joel: Not after the legal issues with Donald Trump.
Josh Rock: Yes.
Joel: Trumpsters no more.
Josh Rock: Yeah. Trumpsters no more.
Joel: We both remember that.
Josh Rock: I mean. Indeed's here, there's no ZipRecruiter.
Joel: Kind of.
Josh Rock: Well, they got a big booth. I don't know what they're doing.
Joel: Well the banner that hangs from the roof.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Looks like they printed it out on their HP printer.
Josh Rock: That's okay.
Joel: At the office somewhere.
Josh Rock: I mean, they took the canon out this morning and printed a new one because.
Joel: I'm only jealous of Indeed. That's why.
Josh Rock: That's fine. You can be jealous.
Joel: Our podcast is better than theirs though.
Josh Rock: Well, when we talk about your podcast, let's go back to the intro where you're talking about punching HR in the throat.
Joel: Yep.
Josh Rock: Coming from a hockey guy. Drop the fricking mitts, [laughter] I mean we got game five here tomorrow night.
Joel: We do.
Josh Rock: Vegas versus Florida. I may still go.
Joel: City could burn tomorrow.
Josh Rock: No, they're a positive rider here.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: They're fun. They're not Golfers winning the national championship and starting car fires after turning over cars.
Joel: The couches will be safe in Vegas tomorrow if they win the cup, which they just won it, so.
Josh Rock: Yeah. Yeah.
Joel: There's just, it's just another day in Vegas where a pro team that just moved in wins another title.
Josh Rock: I actually have a photo from my JobDig days where a bunch of University of Minnesota students had one of our newspaper boxes lifted up and were throwing it into a fire during a national championship ride.
Joel: Can you explain newspaper box for the kids that are listening? [laughter],
Josh Rock: There's this thing called print ads [laughter], where you each week call your account representative and change the content and put it in tree turned paper that they colored and distributed to mass locations.
Joel: Yes. And change the content means the date. [laughter]
Josh Rock: The date... They may have reorganized the position listings from... Every nursing position in your organization maybe put the admin person first. Who knows?
Joel: There you go. There you go.
Josh Rock: Yeah. Good times.
Joel: Damn world.
Josh Rock: Black and white. Sell it by the inch.
Joel: Okay. So things have definitely changed.
Josh Rock: Definitely.
Joel: And now you're on the buying side of the equation. What got you to take the leap into the light?
Josh Rock: Well, funny thing 'cause we're still talking about it to this day. It's a thing called layoffs. I was laid off and there wasn't companies in the northern region of Minnesota that did what we did. And so I went to teach my customers what I was doing as a... Or not as a vendor but as a practitioner.
Joel: Yep.
Josh Rock: And I'm still doing it. So it's fun. I enjoy it. I love when these new sales people from these companies that are here and others call me up and they're like, "Yeah, I wanna sell you this." I'm like, "You haven't even asked what my problem is? What I'm experiencing as a TA leader."
Joel: Yeah. So, let's start there. So a lot of vendors listen to our show. They're doing that same thing. Give them some tips on how to approach a buyer.
Josh Rock: First thing, stop it.
[laughter]
Josh Rock: I laugh because one, before you call a potential buyer case amount, go to their career page, find out what they're posted, what they've got posted. If you're calling for TA guy like me. Go to their LinkedIn, find out what they're about, find some connectivity between you and the buyer. Whether it's Twitter, finding out they're a sports fan, or they like food. Find some commonality between, but then when you open up the conversation, say, "Hey, you know what, here's who I am. Here's who I represent. I wanna know more about what your problem is today. What are you experiencing?" And then paint a vision about what your service will solve. But don't put it on you like you're God's gift. Say, "Hey, I wanna make your job easier and be a partner. Not just a vendor." Those are the ones that win when those people call me. They're the ones that get my time.
Joel: The ones who say, "I heard you on The Chad and Cheese podcast."
Josh Rock: Exactly.
Joel: Are definitely getting a blank check from you, is what you're saying.
Josh Rock: Yes. Yes, yes. They're getting... They will get my time, attention. Maybe escalate to my leader for a potential conversation and a check.
Joel: There you go. How many calls a day do you get on average?
Josh Rock: I don't get calls. I get emails.
Joel: Emails.
Josh Rock: I get emails saying, "Hey, come do our demo." You don't even know what I need, but yeah yet you want me to join your demo. Waste my time for you to pitch your product when, you don't know what I need.
Joel: So is it safe to say if you actually got a call, it would knock you out of your seat, because somebody actually did the work to dial the phone.
Josh Rock: Yeah, when those people call me, I will take the call. I will usually chew them up just a little bit.
Joel: Sure.
Josh Rock: Just saying, "So how long you been there? Tell me more about what you do. What's your product? Why should I buy from you and not your competitor? Whatever, X, Y, Z." And make the sales person actually work for it. And then I'll usually let them know. I'm like, "Hey, did you look at my LinkedIn profile before you called me? 'Cause you know, I was you before you were you."
Joel: Yeah.
[laughter]
Josh Rock: I just make them stew just a little bit. You gotta have a little bit of pain. 'Cause trust me, I'm going through pain when leaders are calling me asking why they don't have candidates for decent mechanics or what have you. But I wanna find a partner, somebody who's in the trenches with me, not just sitting behind a screen.
Joel: Yeah. Of the vendors here, who has impressed you? Who's an actual piece of shit?
[laughter]
Joel: Let's get down to the nitty gritty.
Josh Rock: You know, one who... Or who I'll just give it away. The vendor who impresses me Motivosity.
Joel: Motivosity?
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: I don't even know who they are? What do they do?
Josh Rock: They do rewards...
Joel: They motivate you...
Josh Rock: They do rewards and recognitions.
Joel: Oh, that makes sense.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: And what's different from what they do that impresses you?
Josh Rock: So for one, their corporate culture for one. First thing, they're based out of Utah. They...
Joel: Why are they all based out of Utah?
Josh Rock: I don't know.
Joel: That's weird.
Josh Rock: I don't get it. I don't think there's any companies here that are based out of Minneapolis that I found anyway. But they don't work Sundays. So you come to National SHRM. With 23,000 practitioners in the room. And the expo starts on Sunday and you have nobody in your booth. That's saying something. You spent tens of thousands of dollars to be here and you don't staff your booth on a Sunday because your culture is that set.
Joel: Was there something in the booth that said, "Sorry, we're not here. We take Sundays off for religious reasons."
Josh Rock: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a big sign in front of their booth. But moreover, I knew their... I know their platform. I've seen it. I've demoed it. Their salesperson calls me. Her name's Kennedy. She's fantastic. But I'm like, "I wanna know what you've brought forth new that I haven't seen in the last year."
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: So get your senior sales leader and let's talk about it. And so I can't give away what's coming from them, but in my eyes, as a practitioner and somebody who's in a somewhat retail space, it's a game changer.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: I'm super excited about what they're gonna do and how it can impact my service lines and my people.
Joel: Who else has impressed you? If anybody?
Josh Rock: I stumbled across this company that I think you might know Aaron.
Joel: Oh, stop.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: What a coincidence. [laughter]
Josh Rock: I mean, what a coincidence. One I walked by actually yesterday and their staff actually engaged me and said, "Hey Josh, I see you have influencer on your tag. Tell me more about what does influencer mean at SHRM 23?"
Joel: Oh, okay.
Josh Rock: I'm like, they wanna know more. They don't wanna just sell me. They wanna know more. So what we talked about earlier about doing it right, they did it right. They stopped me on the way through.
Joel: And they have red Nikes on as well...
Josh Rock: I'm actually kind of jealous of the red Nikes. I'm rocking the white Adidas.
Joel: Of course you and I are old enough to remember the career builder Chuck Taylors. Back in the day.
Josh Rock: Yes. I have orange Chucks.
Joel: Orange Chucks. [laughter]
Josh Rock: I have orange Chucks because JobDig was orange.
Joel: That's your answer to why are you an influencer. I have Orange Chuck Taylors.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Any other companies though that have impressed you?
Josh Rock: Let me think.
Joel: That says a mouthful. [chuckle]
Josh Rock: Yeah. I see a lot of the same stuff, unfortunately. Nobody has really wowed me. I mean, I go from HR tech and seeing the triple wide booth of Paradox to a single stall with very little signage.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: That's kind of telling. I see...
Joel: What does that tell you?
Josh Rock: They're not here to hit buyers. HR tech, they're there to hit buyers. This isn't their environment.
Joel: They're here to say they were here.
Josh Rock: They were here.
Joel: Okay.
Josh Rock: Yeah, yeah. So that's telling me something. I like Paradox. Great organization from what they do. Obviously, here we're seeing the spend differently than we saw in March at HR tech, or at UNLEASH, excuse me, and last fall at HR tech. The spends are different. We're seeing some maybe possible telltales on acquisitions.
Joel: Okay.
Josh Rock: Should be interesting to see...
Joel: Okay. Say more about that. Any predictions?
Josh Rock: I look at what Eightfold is spending and I'm wondering where they're gonna go. That's interesting. Yeah. And just being on the outside, not being on the vendor side anymore.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: Being on the buyer side.
Joel: But you have that perspective.
Josh Rock: Yeah. It's like...
Joel: Like, you know what's coming.
Josh Rock: I'm like, what's going on here? But seeing some of the new companies, I mean, seeing Siobhan from Reejig, she's fantastic.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: And what they're doing. They're not here. I would have loved love to see them here.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: But we'll see them in Paris at UNLEASH World and HR Tech. But yeah, no, it's the money that's been spent in this vertical. Now we're in a cycle of non-buying. What's gonna happen? It's kind of fun. And...
Joel: And you're not talking about Nuss.
Josh Rock: No.
Joel: You're talking about everything that you see.
Josh Rock: Yeah. On the vendor side.
Joel: Do you... Is the term nuclear winter too strong?
[laughter]
Josh Rock: It might be close.
Joel: I'm very serious about that.
Josh Rock: Yeah. It might be close.
Joel: Really?
Josh Rock: Yeah. HR Tech for me last year was a telltale of who's spending and who's trying to make it an image to who's going to gonna be acquiring or be acquired.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: And here it's different, which is kind of fun. I get to see the different side of the perspective. Some companies are trying really hard. Some aren't trying very much.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: But everybody's struggling at getting buyers.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: I'm hearing it everywhere. We're seeing more layoffs.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: We're seeing people are switching. We're seeing the churn from vendor to vendor to vendor. And the tough part is, as a practitioner, I don't know who's gonna support me. The guy that I had managing my account at XYZ Provider has is now gone to somebody else. Now I got somebody else who I have to teach. That sucks. I mean, I may come from the Cal Ripken era of Longevity and staying with one organization forever, but now we don't. Now we just see people moving to companies or spinning off their own. Their new tech startups. Yeah. It's kind of fun.
Joel: Keeping your buyers educated on how the product works is a challenge for companies. Any dog shit you see here in the exhibit hall?
Josh Rock: I don't see dog shit besides some of the pet insurance companies, because maybe they have some dogs at their booth site. I feel bad for the people on the ends, the people back by the meals who spent a lot of money to invest, and they're not getting any traffic.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: I feel bad for those guys. I feel bad for their sales reps who are trying really hard and want that great experience of being here and get impact, and they're not getting any.
Joel: And then you have the big company like Kroger.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Who just has someone that's manning the booth, I guess.
Josh Rock: Kroger is here... The grocery store?
Joel: Kroger is here, yes.
Josh Rock: What? Are they handing out bread?
Joel: They have one of those...
Josh Rock: Ramen noodles?
Joel: By the bathroom, next to the bathroom.
Josh Rock: Oh, really?
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: Maybe I'll go back and get a thing or ramen noodles on the way.
Joel: Plug for Kroger, everybody. Plug for Kroger. I want to wanna talk about job postings.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Because Indeed is here. You mentioned, geez, they might be the only job board of significance that's here. Oh, Talon is here, talon.com.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: How do you see that?
Josh Rock: Acquire is here.
Joel: Who's here?
Josh Rock: Acquire.
Joel: Acquire?
Joel: Okay. How do you see that space? Google for Jobs, obviously. What is that? He rolls his eyes. So we'll get to that.
Josh Rock: There was a great nonverbal there.
Joel: But you know, Programmatic, Indeed. Like it's not just post on whatever and hope for the best.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: How do you see the job posting business?
Josh Rock: I mean we're seeing, obviously, aggregation. Everybody is doing Programmatic, geo-targeting, geo-fencing. Some people say they do it, and some of them really suck at it.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: They are just...
Joel: Who sucks at it?
Josh Rock: My local radio stations and TV partners that say they do it, and they don't know what I do and why I should be doing it, I have to tell them who I want to geo-fence and/or target around. They don't know it enough. They're just saying, hey, we do this. Great. Everybody can do this. I want people who do it well and position me the right way.
Joel: Okay.
Josh Rock: Those are the ones I watch out for. For us, on the blue collar sector, I don't care if you're gonna post me all over LinkedIn. Because guess what? Diesel mechanics aren't on LinkedIn.
Joel: Right.
Josh Rock: Shocking. I wanna put them on Programmatic, where I can geo-fence my competitor and inundate the living daylights out of it, so whenever they go onto their phones to look up a parts manual for working on a Peterbilt, which is our competitor, they see my stuff and they wanna come work for me instead.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: That's fine, but I still got to do some of that stuff. I still got to do the Indeeds and at least have a presence, but I'm not gonna spend a ton.
Joel: Yeah. How does social media play into your recruiting efforts?
Josh Rock: I love social media. I'm all over it.
Joel: Say more about that.
Josh Rock: We do a short apply. We do pre-forms on... Or on Facebook, where candidates can just put their phone number and all that. While it's a lot of extra riffraff for me, I don't know what I don't know. I call them up genuinely interested of who they are, where they wanna work, what kind of career they want, because even though they may say they wanna be a diesel mechanic, they don't have the qualifications or the skill set to do it, I can pivot them into a couple of different roles, then through our tuition reimbursement program that we offer, get them schooled in diesel.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: So they can become a mechanic and give them a complete different career trajectory.
Joel: So is your strategy more, there's a job, learn more today, as opposed to we're gonna karaoke and dance on social media to get your attention?
Josh Rock: Yeah. I'm gonna profile my people. I'm gonna show actual people who work in my organization and say, hey, if you wanna do what these people do, call me.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: Let's talk about it.
Joel: What's your take on the future of sourcing? My take is that LinkedIn has sort of won.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: The HiringSolveds, the HighQs, the people that have sort of done this, they've either pivoted or gone out of business. But I wanna hear your take on sourcing versus you mentioned social media and then job posting. Where does sourcing fit in?
Josh Rock: You know coming from healthcare prior to being at Nuss, and I was doing sourcing before that organization even knew what sourcing really was.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: They didn't have anybody doing it. I did full cycle. I would post my stuff out there. I'd go out there and look on state board lists for nurses and pharmacy techs and you name it. Nobody had done that at the organization.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: And so it was crazy for them. They weren't even doing video interviewing for that matter, which was crazy. Now we all do it for pandemic. We've all had to. But sourcing is still important. We can still use great tools and technology to bring candidates out and find them where we don't know that there are. You know these people as well as I do. Shannon Pritchett from hireEZ. Shannon's a good friend of mine.
Joel: Lovely person.
Josh Rock: Yeah, she's fantastic. But their technology bridges some of those gaps so I don't have to have all the tools.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: She can help... Their tool can help me build a string and make that easier.
Joel: Talking about tools, Jobcase has built itself as LinkedIn for everyone who's not on LinkedIn. It sounds like that's the kind of people that you're looking for.
Josh Rock: Yeah.
Joel: Has Jobcase been a tool, effective tool for you?
Josh Rock: I haven't gone to it yet.
Joel: Because?
Josh Rock: Just haven't done it.
Joel: Okay.
Josh Rock: Not... It's just not that I have anything against it. I just haven't done it. I go more boots on the streets. I visit probably 30 different schools a year.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: And I go right to the schools. I'm on the advisory board of just about every single one of them. Telling them what makes candidates successful, talent successful in our organization later on. Giving them the buying signals of what it takes to get a career with us. And then visiting them often and cultivating relationships. People want to come from El Paso, Texas, Jacksonville, Florida, Lima, Ohio.
Joel: Yeah.
Josh Rock: To somewhere in Minnesota.
Joel: Importance of SMS to your recruiting.
Josh Rock: I love SMS. I'm constantly texting people. I use, since we're talking vendors, I use Emissary. It's inexpensive. Now my current ATS provider, Dayforce Ceridian, is bringing out SMS. I haven't used it yet, because it's just coming out. It's supposed to be out third, fourth quarter. Who knows, they may delay it. It'll come out next year. That's kind of how it works. But they're doing on a per text basis cost, which kind of baffles me. $0.07 a text. I'd rather go subscription and not have to worry about what my bill could be at the end of the month.
Joel: Yeah. That's a nice margin, though. [laughter]
Josh Rock: It could be. Depends on who the backbone is for their... If it's directly in them, or if they're using a partner, which I believe they are, some of that revenue could go to the partner. And so that's why they do it. So I've advised them to maybe go to a subscription model. We'll see what they do.
Joel: Their partner is probably Twilio. But any way. [laughter]
Josh Rock: Probably.
Joel: Let's go to AI. Few companies here, not a ton. I thought there would be more ChatGPT, obviously. Writing jobs, letters to candidates.
Josh Rock: Cover letters, resumes.
Joel: Companies that do that. Companies here being disrupted. Give us your take on AI and the industry.
Josh Rock: You know, AI is obviously bigger in other areas. I'm gonna see it more in technology, maybe in corporate America positions. I'm not likely gonna see it in diesel. I'm not likely gonna see it in health care, at least practitioner side. Nurses and stuff, they don't need to. They're board licensed. They don't need ChatGPT to write a resume for them. They can talk about what their patient acuity is, their patient volumes. And that's what's gonna sell. Not because ChatGPT said, I took care of this many patients and these procedures. So yeah, it's gonna be, it's already there. We're already seeing it in cover letters. We're seeing BS and...
Joel: Do you care as a recruiter if a cover letter was written by AI?
Josh Rock: Do I read cover letters?
Joel: Okay let's go there.
[laughter]
Josh Rock: That's an assumption. I don't read cover letters because you know what? You don't need to sell me. Your resume is gonna speak volumes to what you've done and how it's relatable to the position I have. I'm not gonna waste time. I mean, we know this, that the average recruiter makes a decision on a candidate in six to 30 seconds. No one's gonna read a cover letter? The hiring manager will read the cover letter. I'm not gonna read a cover letter. I just wanna know why are you relevant to the position and how are you gonna make the team better tomorrow than we are today? That's what the resume does. The cover letter is just added fluff to a hiring manager.
Joel: Yeah. Talking about relevancy, we hear a lot about VR in terms of training and it sounds like something that you are on it.
Josh Rock: It's big in our space.
Joel: So yeah, so talk about VR, whether it's recruiting, training, upskilling, et cetera.
Josh Rock: So in the diesel industry, VR is definitely used a lot for training on how to find issues in a truck. A technician can put on a set and look through from the outside directly into a small component of an engine and find out how do I either A, diagnose the issue or repair the issue if I haven't done that procedure already. A lot of the schools, shout out to my friends at Western Tech, they're doing that right now with their students. Their students actually get trained both in the classroom, hands-on and VR on how to repair those 18 wheelers that we're seeing delivering our toilet paper to Target. And so it's great for them to see if they can't get hands-on because they may or may not have the equipment on site, how to do it virtually so they can know how to navigate to get to the issue. One, expediting the repair, but then two, doing it in a quality performance that makes the customer happy and gets the product out faster.
Joel: Have you ever had Mountain Dew with a light beer?
Josh Rock: You know what? I saw some dude on TikTok or whatever doing Mountain Dew with beer. I don't know. I see some of that crazy mixology stuff.
Joel: All the kids are doing it. You can be an alcoholic and a diabetic in the same activity.
Josh Rock: I thought that's what Jagerbombs were for. Red Bull and Jägermeister.
Joel: Speaking of, it's almost closing time at the conference. So we better wrap this up. That is Josh Rock, everybody. May or may not be a porn star [laughter] name.
Josh Rock: It could be. It could be. My radio is where it really took off, but we'll leave that for another story.
Joel: Josh Rock. Josh, for any of our listeners that wanna connect with you or know more about your company, where would you send them?
Josh Rock: So for me, you can find me on LinkedIn, obviously, usually using Josh Rock. I'm easy to find. But in Twitter Josh E Rock. You may look for the old JRock96. That's the old handle that got hacked. You might find it as crypto nerd now, unfortunately. [laughter] I'm still trying to get that back. Fricking Elon Musk. But for Nuss, you can find us at nussgrp.com. A Mack and Volvo dealer group in Minneapolis. Eight locations, 400 employees.
Joel: Thanks for sitting down, man. I am Joel Cheeseman of the Chad and Cheese Podcast broadcasting from the Aaron booth at SHRM National in Las Vegas. And that is another one in the can. We out. Peace.
Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey. Or just watch big booty Latinas send and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.