Zip Phils LinkedIn Fakes and Darwin's Box
- Chad Sowash
- Jan 28, 2022
- 29 min read
Yeah, yeah, there's a unicorn on this episode that'll make you think of SNL's "Dick in a Box" skit, but there's so much more.
Like, how about startup Otta receiving investment from an Indeed cofounder, or ZipRecruiter unleashing some cyber dude named Phil on job seekers or LinkedIn's fake profile problem. No? Well how about a psychedelic frog? Oh, and Craigslist is still significant.
Gotta listen or you lose out.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
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 (22s):
Oh yeah. Neil Young has demanded his music be taken off Spotify because of podcasters, Joe Rogan quote "spreading fake information about vaccines" end quote, proving podcasters all suck. Hi kids. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast, the sugar in your coffee. This is your co-host Joel "rocking in the free world" Cheeseman.
Chad (42s):
And this is Chad "heart of gold" Sowash.
Joel (46s):
And on this week's show office space isn't just a nineties film classic and you ought to know isn't just a great nineties lyric, LinkedIn's fake menace and ZipRecruiter introduces us to Phil McCracken. Yeah that'll kickstart the stock price for sure. Let's do this! Rockin' in the free world.
Chad (1m 8s):
Neil Young is he's putting his foot down and it's like, no, fuck this shit's not going down with my name on it. But yeah, you saw this right?
Joel (1m 18s):
I did. And, listeners will know that a Spotify gave Joe Rogan a hundred million.
Chad (1m 23s):
Yes.
Joel (1m 24s):
Probably not knowing that artists would start leaving the platform. But here we are.
Chad (1m 29s):
And in a quote from a letter written by Neil Young, quote "I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines." And he's talking about Joe Rogan's podcast, "potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately take today and keep me informed of the time schedule." If you take a look at Spotify today, all of Neil's shit is off, unfortunately. And also last month, 270 doctors, physicians and science educators also signed an open letter asking Spotify to stop spreading Rogan's baseless claims.
Chad (2m 12s):
Bullshit. Bullshit was my part.
Joel (2m 14s):
So do you think this spreads into other things like, I mean, look, Apple music has podcasts, I'm sure that have people talking about vaccines and mistruths and conspiracy theories. Like are people going to get off Apple music? And Google has the same thing. I mean, if you go to Netflix, people are mad about Dave Chappelle's latest comedy act. Do people say it starts saying like, pull me off of Netflix or is this sort of a one-off?
Chad (2m 40s):
Well, first off Chapelle? What he said, didn't kill anybody. So, I mean, they
Joel (2m 44s):
Killed me with laughter baby.
Chad (2m 45s):
We've got apples and oranges happening here. Not to mention most of those other podcasts probably don't equal. Rogan's estimated 11 million listeners per episode. There's a huge difference. It's apples and oranges on, you know, Tommy and his local podcast talking about how, you know, he's taking Ivermectin versus Rogan saying it. There's just a huge, a huge difference. Now, do we see other artists actually follow suit? I don't know. I don't know, but it is good to see somebody like Neil Young has always been an activist. Right? And this doesn't surprise me.
Joel (3m 23s):
Well, Chad, for my money, we're not, we haven't made it until some artists says I'm off this platform because of the Chad and Cheese podcast spreading just regular bullshit.
Chad (3m 34s):
Talking to you, talking about putting the expectations high.
Joel (3m 40s):
Yeah. And it'd better be Justin Bieber. Anyway. Shout outs. Should we get to some shout outs?
Chad (3m 48s):
Yes!
Joel (3m 48s):
A lot of shit going on this week. That's crazy. Okay. So my first shout out, I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. So my son Cole is 15, which means he can legally work in a few places. There aren't a lot of companies hiring 15 year olds.
Chad (4m 4s):
Right now you worked before, you were 15 though, right?
Joel (4m 6s):
I was 15, I worked at the high school that my parents worked.
Chad (4m 11s):
Okay. Just kind of getting an idea of when you actually started working versus kind of like when our kids did, right?
Joel (4m 17s):
But I cheated like my parents, the high school. So for a summer I changed the locker combinations. So I actually knew everyone's locker combination. Anyway, I won't go down that wormhole. Okay. So there are four employers that are around here where we live most are nationally recognized. And I decided to apply for my son, which was a nice little exercise in how people apply for jobs. So the four employers that my son applied to was McDonald's.
Chad (4m 46s):
OK.
Joel (4m 46s):
Culver's, which is a little more regional, it's a burger place, sorta Wisconsin flavor. You can get cheese curds there and everything, but good food. Chick-fil-A and then Subway, which makes fine subway sandwiches.
Chad (5m 1s):
Yes.
Joel (5m 1s):
So I'm going to rank them from worst to first and just give you like a little summary of how it was. So the worst, the absolute worst application process was Culver's. Culver's was sort of old school, which I was fine with for awhile. And then they got to the end and they wanted my social security.
Chad (5m 23s):
Ohhh no.
Joel (5m 23s):
Which is awful. I mean, a lot of kids don't know their fucking social security number. So that was like a major ehn I'm outta here. So that was out on that one. Number two was Subway. Subway did localize that I could apply to multiple sort of Subways near me.
Chad (5m 43s):
Smart.
Joel (5m 43s):
So I could send one application to a bunch of different stores. They did ask for like references, which if I'm 15, I don't know if I have a ton of references other than my history teacher or something, but they asked for, required it. I couldn't just skip it.
Chad (6m 0s):
For a Subway.
Joel (6m 1s):
Making subways. I needed some references, 15 years old. They did not ask me my age, which was interesting. Mostly there was asked if I was at least 15. So I applied to Subway was fine. They sent a little email. We'll see if I hear from them. I haven't heard from yet, it's been a few days. Number two is going to go to Chick-fil-A. So Chick-fil-A was a little, a little standard, you know, put your name in dah, dah, dah. And they, even the hurdle for them was they requested a resume be uploaded or like text. And I simply put in, I don't have a resume. I'm 15. Going to just see if you know, is supply that short that they'll they'll contact me.
Joel (6m 43s):
So I applied within probably an hour. I got a text saying, we'd love to set up a Zoom interview with you. Do you have any availability this week? So I, a few messages went back and forth and my son has a Zoom interview today after school with Chick-fil-A.
Chad (6m 57s):
OK.
Joel (6m 58s):
So we'll say that that was a pretty good, that was pretty good experience. But number one, it was McDonald's McDonald's, as we know is a Paradox company. So I chatted with Olivia.
Chad (7m 13s):
OK!
Joel (7m 13s):
Which was very interesting. So Olivia was like, Hey, what's your name? Where do you live? What are you looking for? Are you 15? Yeah, it was, it was if I was 15.
Chad (7m 25s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (7m 25s):
Felt like an organic. Okay. This is how I use my mobile phone and the web. Cause I use my mobile just because I wanted to get that experience. So within actually during the process, I went through some pre-screening questions, which weren't many. So McDonald's is hurting for people. It was like, are you, are you, can you work in the US? Are you at least 15 years of age? Do you have transportation? Okay. You're good.
Chad (7m 51s):
That's all they need to know anyway though.
Joel (7m 53s):
Basically. Yes, basically. Yes.
Chad (7m 54s):
So yeah.
Joel (7m 56s):
So after I passed the pre-screen then it said, we'd love to bring you in for an interview. Here's I don't know, three or five days and times that work. Do any of these work for you? So we have an interview with McDonald's on Monday.
Chad (8m 9s):
Okay.
Joel (8m 10s):
Next week. So we'll see how that goes. But.
Chad (8m 14s):
Is that onsite? Are you doing Zoom?
Joel (8m 17s):
That one's onsite.
Chad (8m 18s):
Okay.
Joel (8m 18s):
Chick-fil-A is on Zoom. This one's on site, but McDonald's the application and the chat bot experience and all that was solid.
Chad (8m 26s):
Nice. Then Chick-fil-A they contacted me with texts. Subway was sort of, eh, we'll see what happens.
Joel (8m 33s):
And then Culver's social security number. Come on, dude. Seriously.
Chad (8m 36s):
That's stupid.
Joel (8m 37s):
And they use a company called Talent Reef?
Chad (8m 39s):
Yeah.
Joel (8m 40s):
Talent Reef. I don't know if it's the default on their system or if companies request that, but yes, Talent Reef was there ATS. And apparently they work with a lot of other fast food places. So shout out to make McD's for being number one.
Chad (8m 56s):
Do you think that they only went through this very shortened process at McDonald's because they're hurting for people or because that's really just the information that they need.
Joel (9m 4s):
Maybe it's both.
Chad (9m 5s):
It could be. It could be.
Joel (9m 7s):
I think if you're dealing with teenagers, that it should be as organic to what they know and as quick and easy as possible, when you get to like, what's your social security number, like I'm going to McDonald's?
Chad (9m 22s):
And teenagers it's for that position period. So if I'm 30 years old and I'm applying for just a basic position at McDonald's, you don't care what your fucking age is. We don't need all that shit. What we need is this. And that's it. I don't need your prior experience unless you're looking for management, management position. But yeah, no, I totally get it. That's cool.
Joel (9m 42s):
I think the chat might throw off some older people. I don't know.
Chad (9m 47s):
You weren't thrown off so.
Joel (9m 50s):
Well, I'm really smart. So,
Chad (9m 51s):
All right. Shout out to Rick Richard over.
sfx (9m 54s):
Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Chad (9m 56s):
Rick Richard CEO over at Staff Up for the amazing 15 year Haitian rum that he sent. Did you get yours yet?
Joel (10m 4s):
Yeah, I'm allegedly getting some. I'll report back next week.
Chad (10m 8s):
I think you deserve any, but anyway. I had a taste of mine last night, a little straight and then some on ice and it was pretty magical, very buttery. Very good. So I really, really enjoyed that.
Joel (10m 20s):
No, you're not general a rum person. Are you?
Chad (10m 23s):
I'm not. No, I'm not, but I wanted to taste it much like we taste bourbon. I don't want to put Coke and all that other fucking shit in it. I want to be able to get the taste of the actual alcohol itself. So that's why I went straight. And then I did with a little ice. So it was really good. Thanks Rick. Appreciate it. My man, big shout out to Maya Huber CEO over at Skillsets in Israel, Robbie Shaw CEO, over at Hello Hire in Toronto. And also thanks for listening Barb Hyman over in the land down under she's the CEO of Predictive Hire and she's also been on Firing Squad. So everybody keep listening, keep sharing and thanks for listening.
Joel (11m 5s):
Yeah. She kind of came after me on LinkedIn this week. I won't go into that, but yeah, she's feisty. She's a feisty Aussie as if there's anything.
Chad (11m 12s):
I think she was looking for me when she was coming after you, but yeah.
Joel (11m 17s):
Yeah, you might've gotten the same heat that I got the same smoke in my message box anyway. Okay. That was a lot of shout outs. So shout out for me to Craigslist.
Chad (11m 28s):
Yes.
Joel (11m 28s):
They're still around. So Aim are buddies and Aim reports Craigslist revenue was up 17% from a year ago thanks to huge jump in recruitment ads, Aim estimates Craig made $660 million in revenue last year. A 17% increase from 2020 damn double digit percentage bump stops a two year slide that saw Craigslist top-line dropped from more than $1 billion in 2018, you might remember we talked about that to $565 million in 2020 traffic continues to slide however, but job postings brought in $152 million in 2021 a year on year bump of nearly 30%! Gig ads also brought in $10 million up 75%.
Joel (12m 11s):
So Craig shout out to you, buddy. You live on.
Chad (12m 15s):
Yeah. And if you're not currently getting like an Aim Group newsletter or I mean, they've got some great business intelligence in our space go to aimgroup.com
Joel (12m 28s):
By far the best global perspective on everything markets, whether it's cars, jobs. I mean, yeah, fantastic. Fantastic.
Chad (12m 35s):
I don't know if you know or not Joel, but the Chad and Cheese podcast is now available on Audible.
Joel (12m 42s):
That's way too classy for us. Isn't it? Audible?
Chad (12m 44s):
And their creating their own podcast content. And I knew it would only be time before they started styling, you know, Chad and Cheese as well. It's kind of like one of those things where it's like, we can create some of this content and you have to be on Audible to listen to it, but we really need the mass effect of all of those other podcasts.
Joel (13m 7s):
Yeah. Are they an Amazon company?
Chad (13m 9s):
Yeah.
Joel (13m 10s):
So they have money anyway.
Chad (13m 12s):
Yes.
Joel (13m 12s):
Speaking of money, shout out to Twitter. They launched NFT approved profile pictures this week. So if you have a bored ape NFT, a crypto punk or whatever, you can add it to Twitter and your profile pic will be a hexagon as opposed to a circle. So virtue signaling taken up a notch by Twitter. I saw that Gwenyth Paltrow just bought a bored ape and added it to her Twitter account. And she has like 3 million followers. So anyway, NFTs are a thing and Twitter is helping it be a thing. So shout out to them.
Chad (13m 43s):
Big shout out to Michael O'Dell that's right he registered for free stuff finally and he wants to know where his fucking t-shirt is. Man. Our listeners are spoiled!
Joel (13m 54s):
They're very demanding. Where's my free shit?
Chad (13m 60s):
I get texts and messages asking why they haven't won beer or bourbon yet. First off you got to register Chadcheese.com/free and then be patient grasshopper. Be patient.
Joel (14m 10s):
Yeah.
Chad (14m 11s):
It's hilarious. I don't know how many people I've received messages from. And my response is, did you register? And they're like, oh, what? Yeah, I know you're giving away free shit. But yeah. So I'm just supposed to know telepathically to send you shit. That's not how it works, kids.
Joel (14m 27s):
And Chad, where do they go to get free shit? And who's sponsoring our free shit.
Chad (14m 32s):
You go to chadcheese.com/free or just chadcheese.com and click on the free in the upper right-hand corner. You can get beer from pillar.hr. It's it's delivered right to your front doorstep bourbon from Sovren slash our buddies over in the Netherlands Textkernel and last but never least, get one of those sexy ass free t-shirts all provided by emissary.ai baby.
Joel (14m 60s):
By the way, we're doing a, a live show sponsored by Pillar here locally at an Indianapolis brewery called Sun King. So if you're in Indianapolis and you want to join us, hit up Chad or myself, we'll send you an invite and get you into the show. So that's exciting as well.
Chad (15m 17s):
There are only so many seats. So we can't promise that you're going to get in. So you better be quick!
Joel (15m 23s):
Hey, I'm cool with standing room only. I'm having delusions of grandeur anyway, because I want to play Madison Square Garden someday as the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad (15m 32s):
Onto events. Are you ready for in-person events finally?
Joel (15m 35s):
A little bit. A little bit.
Chad (15m 38s):
Okay. Okay.
Joel (15m 39s):
I'm ready for some human interaction. You know, I'm a people person Chad.
Chad (15m 43s):
We're still working on getting some things pulled together for Unleash in March. So I'm pretty excited about that. Early May we're going to be in Belgium for the E-recruitment Congress in Ostend, Belgium go to Erecruitment-congress.com. Check it out. If you're in Europe, be there.
Joel (16m 3s):
Yeah. We better see some euros at that show.
Chad (16m 8s):
There's no reason you shouldn't be there. And then July at Knebworth Park in England, it's RecFest. This is going to be a one day event. Joel and I are going to be emceeing the disrupt stage was just the tech stage and you can go to recfest.co.uk and get them tickets.
Joel (16m 26s):
And podcasts from the week we had Firing Squad with BeRemote. Let's just say the guns came out from one of us on that one. And we had a great European show as well so check those out. Birthdays celebrating this week and into next week, Don Sabatino and old agency guy Happy Birthday to him. Friend of the show, Josh Dwayne formerly known as Z is apparently celebrating the big 4-0! So Happy Birthday to him. Gloria Okino Ed forever team Chad Zetusky our boy in Philly celebrates a birthday. Matthew Miller, Nicole Adamson, Frederick Patton, Debra. I'm going to butcher this.
Joel (17m 8s):
And I actually did go to the LinkedIn profile to see if the audio was there and it wasn't. So this is Deborah (what did he say?). I'm guessing Adam Bergen, Ivan, the Irish recruiter, Stojanovich all celebrate birthdays.
Chad (17m 29s):
Love it.
Joel (17m 30s):
Thanks for listening and Happy Birthday!
Chad (17m 35s):
Ed Is so John I'm telling you.
Joel (17m 41s):
So John
Chad (17m 42s):
Topics!
Joel (17m 43s):
Topics. Oh, Chad, it's a unicorn alert. Is that a Dick in a box? No it's Darwin Box. The India based human resources management software service has achieved unicorn status after a $72 million Series D funding round totaling, $110 million to date. The proceeds will go towards market expansion and product innovation as well as sales and marketing. Darwin Box is also set to launch operations in the US this year and double its total workforce. Currently around 75% of its business comes from India and 25% from other Asia and Middle Eastern countries. The company claims 650 client companies in India and abroad. It operates out of 12 global offices with over 700 employees and has 1.5 million users from 90 countries and expects to achieve profitability by 2025.
Joel (18m 34s):
So Chad, are you thinking inside or outside this box?
Chad (18m 36s):
Stay out of my, my box.
Joel (18m 39s):
That's what she said.
Chad (18m 40s):
Seven rounds of funding to get to 110 million. I mean, this was, this was a slow rolling boil for them. Although they obviously are seeing great growth and the human capital management industry needs these young startups to upset the apple cart, no question. The quotes from the article, "despite the pandemic, Darwin Box grew significantly in Southeast Asia, while India has been a strong market for it as well. The six-year-old startup gets about a third of its revenue from Southeast Asia while the Middle East contributes only about six to 7%, but the bulk of the revenue is from India."
Chad (19m 23s):
My question is why rush to the American shores? I mean, why open up another battlefront? Remember when Germany opened up the Russian battlefront World War two, you just can't sustain all of these Battlefronts. And when you come to the US it is the biggest one you're going to have to open and you're going to have to put more resources there than anywhere else. So I don't understand why not own the areas that you're already doing well in as opposed to, you know, trying to spread yourself too thin. I believe and tell me what you think that t`he main investor or one of the main investors who is an American and invested in Netflix and Airbnb, they are probably pressing for this.
Chad (20m 8s):
I personally don't think it's a great idea.
Joel (20m 9s):
Yeah. When I first heard about this company, I thought it was like a monthly box of goodies that employers get like Birchbox. Like I thought this was an employment box that you would get every month. Anyway. I totally agree with you. I mean, they've been around since 2015, they've grown organically. There's a billion people in India and some of the other markets that they serve.
Chad (20m 29s):
Yeah.
Joel (20m 29s):
The site looks at, I mean, the site looks really simple and like just visually, they can't come to the U S, they like redesign the whole fucking thing if they're coming to the U S and, and we talked about Handshake last week. Yeah. We talked about how the fuck, like, so you get to these points in the money, and we're like, okay, we're going to take on college market. Okay. We're going to do virtual job fairs, give us more money. And then it's like, okay, what are we going to do next to raise more money and in Handshakes case it was, we're going to take on LinkedIn. I think Darwin's Box's case it was we're going to take on America. So give a $72 million. Obviously a lot of investors were pretty excited about that. Wrote a check.
Joel (21m 9s):
So I think it's just like, where's the growth coming? And it's a really easy answer to say like, well, if we just tackle America and get 5% of the market and 10% over like, so you start doing the math, but investors don't think far enough along like you just can't make it in the U S like you just culturally, visually, there's too much competition, too many brand names that people trust, like this keeps happening and it's going to keep happening more and more as European businesses, Asian businesses look to grow and make more money. They're going to hope to grow in the US and good fucking luck. As we've seen throughout the history of this show in the history of our careers, it doesn't usually work out very well.
Joel (21m 52s):
So I'm not real bullish on these guys come into any anywhere, really outside of their base, their lane, like stay in your lane. There's a billion people in India. Like there's enough business there to make a mint. I don't know why you would think about coming to the U S.
Chad (22m 7s):
Spread into Europe. Yeah. I mean, you know, they say currently 90 countries will get penetration and sustainable growth in all of those, right. I mean?
Joel (22m 16s):
I agree.
Chad (22m 17s):
It's just that I do agree that, you know, America is a huge pot of gold. There's no question, but the biggest problem, once again, is when you already have 90 battle fronts, per se, you're fighting the battle on 90 different fronts. Don't open a huge front, like the U S.
Joel (22m 38s):
Yeah. So good luck to Darwin Box. And if they need growth, they should just send out boxes to employers with, with sweaters and shoes and stuff like that.
Chad (22m 50s):
Darwin awards.
Joel (22m 51s):
Anyway, Austin, Texas based Office Space software, which is also one of the cities the movie office space was filmed in announced and approximately $150 million strategic investment. The Office Space platform lets companies simplify how workers use and interact with their workplace managed desks and room bookings and maintain social distancing. Office Space recently launched a service called Neighborhoods, which is intended to manage a quote, "new hybrid reality" end quote, helping businesses get their workers back to the workplace. Chad, is this Office Space open for business? Or are you going elsewhere?
Chad (23m 26s):
As long as you don't take my stapler. So this comes from a single investor with $150 million Vista and Vista is a pretty damn big name, much to your chagrin. Mr. Cheeseman, Airbnb is not going into the office space business. So companies need to figure out their back to office slash hybrid work strategy. The only thing though is I believe that this will be big. There's no question companies do need to re think, understand where they want to do hot desking. How many locations do they have? I mean, there's just so many different options that you can provide to your employees. But I think much like Peloton's window of growth during the pandemic, the office space recalibration window will be much shorter than everybody thinks.
Chad (24m 12s):
So I do think this will be big. I just don't think it's going to be big for long, cause it's not gonna be necessary.
Joel (24m 18s):
Yeah. If anything, we're hearing stories of people reducing the amount of office space, exactly what they need because of work from home. I mean, we, we talked about this in length, but look, there's, there's going to be a certain number, a certain universe in companies of people who want to be at work more than others, or if at all. Look younger, people probably want to be there and get mentored and have interactions that they would normally have. Whereas people like us just want to stay in our slippers and sweats, but then you have executives and how they interact. So, so yes, there will be office space just like there are still newspapers, they'll be smaller. They'll be a little bit more agile, a little bit more techno focused and distance conscious.
Joel (25m 2s):
So companies like this, you know, the there'll be a place for them. Is it an amazing growth opportunity? Like you mentioned, Peloton and Zoom and some other pandemic success stories. I don't know if the growth is going to be there for this and how they may be one of the few that do it. So leaving not much competition, but I think you and I are much more bullish on companies like WorkChew which we, which we've spoken about that give workers wherever they are, access to restaurants and hotels, to be able to work at at tables and guarantee a wifi connection and guarantee a plugin and give them free ice tea and free coffee while they're there. Like, I think that is a much more dynamic business than something like this, which is just trying to sort of salvage the old world office space and make a profit from it.
Joel (25m 57s):
So success sure. Business sure. Huge success? You know, the next Apple, probably not.
Chad (26m 2s):
I think office space transforms dramatically, especially with apps like WorkChew, or you're meeting individuals and hotel lobbies and restaurants. And because these are now new workplaces that you can go to and you start to build these new tribes, these new cliques, these new, whatever you want to call them. Right? So you do have the connection to your business, but you're not at the water cooler with them every day. Or, you know, you perspectively could you be, could be going in a few days a week to the office, but the rest of the time, you don't want to go. Maybe you work from home or maybe you work from, you know, a hotel lobby or something more swanky who knows. But I think we have to think differently about how we collaborate. You always ask, and I think this is a great question.
Chad (26m 44s):
Do you think that the iPhone could have been created in a hybrid workforce?
Joel (26m 48s):
I said remote, not hybrid.
Chad (26m 49s):
Remote, sorry. In a remote workforce. Not today because that's not how our brains work because that's not how we've been trained. Could it be in 10 years? Oh fuck yeah. I think we can actually do much better, much faster remote and or hybrid. I mean, I think we're moving in the right direction, but I don't think that office space per se is going to be around for long. Yeah.
Joel (27m 9s):
Yeah. I agree. I mean, some really good companies use this service, so there's obviously something there.
Chad (27m 16s):
Short-term. Now that's all they're need it.
Joel (27m 19s):
Short term short term. Well, I don't know speaking of short or long-term. Next on the news London-based jobs platform, Otta has secured 20 million in series a funding. The startup is now planning to expand its us presence with an on the ground commercial team and double its product and engineering team in London. Interestingly angel investors include Indeed's co-founder Paul Forrester. Alex Bouaziz of Deel. Ben Herman, formerly of Canvas now at Kin Ventures and the two dudes who founded and run Beamery. Company takes a data-based approach to matching candidates with vacancies at tech companies, drawing on such information as founder bio's, employee reviews, salaries and industry specifics, sort of like a Crunchbase for job search.
Joel (28m 3s):
Chad, is this a company you, you, you ought to know or is this just rain on your wedding day?
Chad (28m 10s):
Yeah, this is to me is kind of a jagged little pill.
Joel (28m 15s):
I like that.
Chad (28m 16s):
What stood out to me were the investors. So I took even more time, went to the website because I wanted to actually go through the process. The website itself looks like an old backdrop to the dating game back in the seventies. Number one, number two, as soon as I landed on Otta's website, I saw the tagline, your calling is calling and I about shit, because remember that was the tagline that Monster used ffor a fucking super bowl commercial. So it's almost like you're trying to shoot yourself in the foot. Right?
Joel (28m 48s):
Right. Good catch.
Chad (28m 49s):
And then you get into building profiles. So they asked certain questions around building, you know, your profile took about 10 minutes and really, it was kind of like a skinny profile, more of like what your wants were not really as much of a profile. Then they don't use the LinkedIn API so you've got to go to LinkedIn to get your profile PDF. You've got to load the PDF into Otta, and then it only pulls over the titles of my career history. So then you have to take, I don't know, another 10 to 20 minutes, which I did not do, to add three bullets to all of those things.
Chad (29m 30s):
So none of this seems revolutionary, mainly just the UX. It seems like it's trying to take historically shitty unstructured data being the resume and job description and break it down rather than trying to parse my LinkedIn data. So to me, I don't see anything special here yet. They're trying to say that, you know, they're the Crunchbase of you know, jobs or people or whatever, I don't see that. They also talk about competing against LinkedIn. I don't see that either. I see, because they're not a network. I see them competing with Zip.
Joel (30m 3s):
And the other job board in the world.
Chad (30m 5s):
Indeed. Yeah.
Joel (30m 5s):
Yeah. The Crunchbase thing was amusing because when Indeed came out, it was like where the Google for jobs, which I think a lot of people got, I think people made that connection, but to say where the Crunchbase is, will be confusing for a lot of people considering Crunchbase is sort of this niche site of how companies get money and whatnot. So yeah, to me, like a job board, I don't know. Okay. Number one, I don't know why anyone would launch a traditional job board today. There's so many other opportunities to make a lot more money with technology and AI and hell the metaverse would be more interesting than doing another jobboard. Or, but to me it needs to be an IQ test.
Joel (30m 46s):
Like it's so like, you know, hand on the forehead, like doh, I get it. Right. So when Monster came along, it was like, okay, newspaper ads on the internet. It's way cheaper. You can have unlimited space, jobs reach across borders. Like, oh shit. That makes sense. The second one was Indeed, oh, wait a minute, one place to see all the jobs. Oh shit. That makes a lot of sense. And then you had people copy it and do the same thing. I got no, oh shit moment with Otta. And until they do that, I'm not buying aside from the fact that they have some pretty interesting angels.
Chad (31m 22s):
Yeah.
Joel (31m 22s):
I mean, Paul's pretty smart guy. Whether he sees an acquisition target or flip on this company, or I don't know what he bought into, but I'm at a loss? To me it's just another help wanted sign on the you know, digital world. And I also hate the name. I think Otta's stupid. Like let's take a break and get to a LinkedIn and ZipRecruiter.
Chad (31m 45s):
Do it.
Joel (31m 46s):
All right, dude. LinkedIn is in the news and on our show, again, this is from Jan Tegze , he's a future guest for our European show. So make sure you tune into that. Anyway he says, LinkedIn has a fake profile problem. You're kidding. Right? Jan gives us seven reasons why this is happening, including email spam, sticking it to LinkedIn's connection requests, limits, and catfishing, your favorite topic. Chad fake profiles, certainly can't derail the LinkedIn cash express can it? Which leads us to the boring news before we get to the commentary. So Microsoft Corp reported revenue at LinkedIn rose 37% year over year to $3.53 billion in the company's fiscal second quarter ending December 31st.
Joel (32m 33s):
An increase of 36% as measured in constant currency. Microsoft noted that LinkedIn's growth, was driven by advertising demand and its marketing solution business, which increased 43% year over year and by an improving job market and its talent solutions business. LinkedIn keeps printing money, but yet dealing with these scandals. Chad fake profiles, what you got?
Chad (32m 57s):
LinkedIn is not going to do anything about that because it does nothing but bolster the number of profiles and insures, startups by even bigger packages, with more seats, these startups are creating fake profiles. These companies, these startups are creating fake employee profiles so that they can buy more seats to get beyond the per seat limit for recruiters. Right? So they're gaming the system, but they're gaming the system with LinkedIn benefiting, right? It's like telling Facebook that propaganda is being used by fake accounts and then Facebook sees the accounts are spending money and also keeping user users engaged with their bullshit info.
Chad (33m 41s):
But it's, it's all about the cash, not the human cost. And I don't think that LinkedIn sees this as a real problem. I've submitted several fake accounts over the last year or so.
Joel (33m 52s):
Naughty naughty.
Chad (33m 53s):
None of them have been returned or have actually received a response back about the fake account being removed. Because I mean, they just say, Hey, just go ahead and block them because they'd rather me block them than them actually removed.
Joel (34m 7s):
Yeah. On the fake profiles, three things really stood out to me. So number one is companies are starting fake accounts to make it look like they have more employees than they really do, which is either genius or really stupid. I'm not exactly sure which? But I mean, obviously if you're a startup.
Chad (34m 23s):
It sounds like fraud.
Joel (34m 26s):
It's total fraud. But if you're a startup you've got nothing to lose, right, like make 12 fake accounts, give yourself a CTO, a CFO, some developers, some salespeople, and then you look a lot bigger than you were initially. So that I didn't think that that was a thing. So apparently that is a thing that, that stuck out more than anything. Number two, you know, show me a LinkedIn limitation and I'll show you a strategy to get around it. I think they traded one form of spam for another. So instead of a legitimate account, sort of automating a thousand requests, connection requests a day, you get a thousand fake accounts requesting, you know, 50 a day or whatever the limit is. So they traded one for the other.
Joel (35m 7s):
Number three, what does this do? So nobody gets hurt. But I'm curious about this, all these sourcing tools that rely on these profiles, if there's a growth in fake profiles, all these sourcers salespeople, whatever are reaching out to folks that don't exist. At some point that has to come back to LinkedIn doesn't it? Doesn't that hurt them on some degree?
Chad (35m 26s):
Yeah, but if they don't get responses from those fake individuals and it's what they're used to anyway.
Joel (35m 31s):
Just move on.
Chad (35m 31s):
Yeah. This is a just move on kind of, kind of scenario and it plays into LinkedIn's earnings. But I mean, remember when we used to sit back and look at Monster earnings and ask how in the hell is this relic still making fat cash while Indeed and Simply Hired, they're not gaining traction, right? We always have to remember those days because the HR recruitments, this industry moves so slow, but there are obviously, cause we talk about them every week. There's so much more competition today than there was back then for Monster.
Chad (36m 15s):
There's so much more competition for Zip and Indeed and LinkedIn. So from an earning standpoint, yeah, these are all great numbers, no question, but again, it's a slow moving iceberg that's melting.
Joel (36m 26s):
Yeah. So everyone, when your LinkedIn account rep calls you for your annual renewal, ask them of that growth. How many are fake profiles and see what the answer is and let us know what the answer is.
Chad (36m 38s):
Please.
Joel (36m 38s):
Speaking of zip, have you met Phil? Chad?
Chad (36m 41s):
I have. He's a lame motherfucker.
Joel (36m 44s):
He's lame, dude. He needs a new hairstyle anyway. So there's a new commercial from Zip that touts someone or something named Phil that'll get you a job powered by ZipRecruiter's ai technology. The company says Phil learns and improves with every interaction you have with him so he's always getting smarter and always finding new ways to help you get hired. Phil welcomes users on the site saying, quote, "as you look for jobs, I'll be your strongest ally, constantly seeking out new opportunities for you and helping you stand out to employers" end quote, Chad, Zip stock dipped below $20 a share this week near its IPO price.
Joel (37m 27s):
Phil can save them, right?
Chad (37m 28s):
Shit. Phil can't even get it right when it comes to creating a goddamn profile. So at first Phil seems hyper-local because they only asked at first about my desired location and you can't choose remote that's on the first screen. The second one, you go to the next page. And then it asks again for desired location, right? This is like amateur hour shit. And then there's a box you can check for remote work. So at first they asked you one thing and they try to box you in. And then second they ask you again. And then again, it just makes no sense. Then it's it serves up five jobs that you can thumbs up or thumbs down where it's trying to teach the algorithm something it's going to take more than five, but then you can upload your resume to their profile builder.
Chad (38m 19s):
And guess what? You just have to reenter the same shit. Fuck Phil. I mean, Phil to me is just another ploy to waste my damn time. I give you my information, parse my fucking information. Load it into your system. And then have the system asked me related questions that go to more of my contextualized data. This is the same old shit being served up under a new name. And this name is Phil.
Joel (38m 47s):
And the old name used to be Jeeves. Remember Ask Jeeves. It was.
Chad (38m 51s):
He was more helpful for sure.
Joel (38m 53s):
Than getting ourselves on this show for sure. But Ask Jeeves was a, I guess a mascot for a site called Ask Jeeves, which was a search engine.
Chad (39m 1s):
Which turned into Ask.
Joel (39m 2s):
Jeeves. Jeeves was just a mascot. He didn't really actually do anything, which I kind of feel like Phil is. Like, is he a mascot? Is he's not a chat bot. He's not like an interface to converse with. I'm just, I'm really confused by this. So I went out looking for some commentary that wasn't mine.
Chad (39m 23s):
It's horrible.
Joel (39m 23s):
So I'm going to let the words of Dan Reich and every man who jots his thoughts down on Medium.
Chad (39m 31s):
Excellent.
Joel (39m 31s):
Okay. Encompasses. So Dan said of ZipRecruiter's Phil quote, "ZipRecruiter has managed the impossible, making the job hunting process even more dehumanizing than it already is" end quote. My man then went on to translate Phil's automated messaging in this way, quote, "hello. You've replied to an inbox that has never had a human look at it. I can understand how you might make that mistake. We may do think there was someone named Phil taking an active interest in your career. So you did the logical thing and tried to send, "Phil" in quotes an email. It happens. What you apparently failed to figure out is that we're going to text you links to every open position within a thousand miles of you, regardless of what industry it is in, because this is a numbers game and we intend to win.
Joel (40m 20s):
And we're totally willing to manipulate you into behaving the way we want" end quote. Bravo, Dan Reich, Bravo.
Chad (40m 26s):
Bravo and you wonder why companies like Otta think there's an opportunity because they see companies like Zip, who should have things tight. They should have their system tight. They should have these different, you know, chat bots or whatever they are they should have them tightened up because they should know the industry. And when you see something this bad, you've got to say, well, yeah, there's definitely gaps. We need somebody to fill those gaps.
Joel (40m 52s):
It's a crazy time, Chad.
sfx (40m 53s):
Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
Joel (40m 58s):
Speaking of crazy, let's talk about toad venom after the break. All right, Chad.
Chad (41m 3s):
Yes.
Joel (41m 4s):
This is from our friends at Town and Country Magazine. One of your favorites. A recent article asks.
Chad (41m 11s):
I get all my good recipes.
Joel (41m 13s):
Why is everyone smoking toad venom? Click bait probably, but stick with us. Pot and LSD are so yesterday. Now there's a weirder, wilder, new drug appearing on the menu for money types in search for mind expansion, the toad known as Bufo, I think I'm saying that correctly named after the venom of the Sonoran desert and Fabian toad venom is a drug you would apparently not want to take more than a few times, but celebs like Mike Tyson and Chelsea Handler swear by it. Hunter Biden has described it as a salve and helping him kick drug addiction. Until recently it was so obscure the US government did not list it as a controlled substance until 2011.
Joel (41m 53s):
One user said "within seconds, seconds of inhaling the Bufo, all of a sudden I was seeing prisms and geometric shapes. And I felt like I was passing out, but not in a bad way. I started to drift into something. A different world was opening up" end quote. Sorry, Chad, this is not a party drug. Things can go terribly wrong as they did in 2020, when a Spanish porno actor was charged with the murder of a fashion photographer during an ill-conceived Bufo or Bufo ceremony, obviously I haven't done it cause I don't know the name. I think I'll pass on this one and get a beer. How about you?
Chad (42m 27s):
Yeah, it's interesting because they try to, I think demonstrate parallels between mushrooms and this toad venom and the big difference, at least from a time standpoint is like, if you're on mushrooms and you have a trip on mushrooms, it's going to take hours. Apparently, at least from what I've read and what I've seen on YouTube, which was
Joel (42m 43s):
Chad and I had a little light viewing party.
Chad (42m 45s):
It was like 15 minutes. It's like a 15 to 20 minute trip. So when you talk about the, you know, the mushroom trip, which is going to take hours, gotta be a guided tour. This is, a guided tour, but it's like 15 to 20 minutes. It looked like something I did not want to put myself through. Let's just say that.
Joel (43m 6s):
Yeah, adults barking at the moon, needing support from like three people watching them so they don't kill themselves. I love the one with like everyone had a pillow to like cushion the legs thrashing and pumping like I'm good. I'm good folks. I'm good folks. Although the Tyson interview was fun. He died. Yeah.
Chad (43m 28s):
Yeah. The Tyson interview, you can check it out. Look up Bufo and Tyson on YouTube, the article starts off with "in South Hampton soccer moms dropped their kids off at school after taking their thrice weekly microdose of psybicilin mushrooms, then meet for oat milk lattes. The question is, how do I get into that group? Right? I don't want to be in to, I don't want to be in the 15 Bufo group. I want to be in that group.
Joel (43m 57s):
I'm pretty sure Portugal has that group. Oh, this was a hell of a show. Frog venom, everybody.
Chad and Joel (44m 4s):
We out.
OUTRO (44m 39s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
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