ZipRecruiter & JobAdder Screw-Ups
Maybe they're just well-rested from the Labor Day weekend, or maybe they're just antsy with HR Tech in Vegas next week, but the boys are pretty salty this week. After covering the big news of the week: Sense acquiring Skillate, the move-in for the kill, covering news out of ZipRecruiter, Jobadder, and California. It's all very fantastic! But never fear, we release some stress from the campus of Cannabis Community College. All's well that ends well. See you in Vegas!
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 (0s):
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. d and
Joel (21s):
Oh Yeah. Google is clamping down on employee travel, limiting execs to business critical trips only. Guess that means we won't see Google at HR Tech next week then. Huh? Hey, kids you're listening to the Chad Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" Cheeseman.
Chad (42s):
This is Chad "bittersweet symphony" Sowash.
Joel (45s):
And on this week's show Sense goes shopping, Zip saves America and JobAdder gets punched down under, let's do this
Chad (54s):
Oo. Man ooo Vegas, Vegas, and then Nashville and then Paris. And then Chad's keeping his ass in Europe for about three months. But other than that, I mean, it's gonna be a slow 2022.
Joel (1m 10s):
Yeah. I've I've been detoxing for two weeks in preparation of HR Tech.
Chad (1m 14s):
Smart.
Joel (1m 15s):
Yeah. Very smart. And then I'll probably be detoxing the two weeks after HR Tech. Geez, we got a lot going on. We do, but we got a lot going on this week. Should we get to shoutouts? Cuz we get a lot to cover.
Chad (1m 27s):
Let's do it kid. It's a bitter sweet symphony shoutout as Susan Vitale, the Chief Marketing Officer over at iCIMS and Mike Wilczak, the Chief Product Officer over at iCIMS, literally two amazing people are leaving iCIMS.
sfx (1m 45s):
What did you say?
Chad (1m 46s):
Yeah. Leaving iCIMS. So Susan started at iCIMS as a marketing coordinator in 2005 and has climbed the ladder all the way to CMO. You can't think of iCIMS without thinking of Susan, who's been a part of the core iCIMS team, I mean forever obviously. Yeah. If anyone has ever heard me speak of Mike Wilczak they know I'm a fanboy. Mike has done everything from partnerships to leading MNA and now the Chief Product Officer. There's not a more plugged in person in the industry than Mike, not just tech but funding also. So these are two great people leaving two very big holes to fill over at iCIMS.
Chad (2m 28s):
They say they're gonna be back. When and where don't know, but until then take a breath, blow some of that iCIMS Willy Wonka cash and enjoy life my friends. It's bittersweet though. Yeah,
Joel (2m 41s):
Yeah it is. And, not to throw pontification on this, but to do that before the impending IPO, which we think is still gonna happen is a little curious. It's a little curious to leave before an IPO, but both of them are very smart and obviously did what was best for them and their families and great people. I might add. Always great people, always a little New Jersey attitude from Susan Vitale that I know that this show she needs to come back just to get back on the show and whatever company she ends up with. But nice melancholy bittersweet shoutout on that one.
Chad (3m 17s):
I think with, with the chains off, they'll be on the show. They can come on the show.
Joel (3m 21s):
The chains are off
Chad (3m 22s):
So much better.
Joel (3m 24s):
Susan Vitaly, unchained. I can imagine that that show's gonna be a best seller. Little more on the bid than the suite on this one. This shout out for Megos to Marilyn Loden, the woman who coined the phrase "glass ceiling" in 1978, which still inspires women today has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 76 years old Loden first said the phrase during a panel at the 1978 Women's Action Alliance conference in New York City. In 2018, she told the Washington post, she hoped the saying would quote "become an antiquated phrase where people will say there was a time when there was a glass ceiling"
Joel (4m 9s):
end quote. Of course we all know there's still a lot of work to do on that glass ceiling. Shout out to Marilyn Loden, the woman behind the glass ceiling.
Chad (4m 21s):
Yeah, not quite there yet kids keep working. Shout out to our listeners. So last week I opened up the show with a question to you, Joel. Yeah. What would happen if you were working for a defense contractor, you were quit fired and you took sensitive information, possibly confidential material home with you. Listeners you can listen last week's show for Joel's response. I'm sure you know what it is. But I had a few anonymous responses from practitioners at government contractors. Here's a quote from one quote, "penalties can include termination, civil and or criminal prosecution by the company, the government has its own roles, which are playing out in the news, AKA Edward Snowden and Reality Winner.
Chad (5m 8s):
So if you remember Reality Winner leaked a one page intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections to a news outlet and received five years and three months in a federal prison. Harboring or leaking confidential or compartmentalized information is a serious offense. It doesn't matter. I mean just ask Edward Snowden. Where's he at today?
Joel (5m 35s):
Yeah. Didn't Trump call for the death penalty for Snowden back in the day. I seem to remember that.
Chad (5m 42s):
Imagine that. Yeah.
Joel (5m 44s):
Yeah. Let alone put Hillary in prison for what she allegedly did or didn't do. Yeah. It's tough when you put the mirror back on you.
Chad (5m 52s):
But just regular people who do this stuff as a job are getting slammed or finding themselves in Russia. Right? Because that's the only place they can live without getting thrown in jail. But yeah. It's but yeah, it's, you know, we, we fire a dude and he thinks it's okay to take shit.
Joel (6m 11s):
Would we be shocked if Trump ended up in Moscow?
Chad (6m 14s):
No!
Joel (6m 14s):
I would not be shocked. It would be shocking, but I would not be shocked.
Chad (6m 19s):
I wouldn't be shocked. And I would would also not be shocked if we found him in Moscow. And then a few years later "he fell out a window."
Joel (6m 30s):
Along with the release of the pee pee tape. That apparently is as he exists somewhere. Oh man. Oh fuck. All right. Let's let's get back on track here. I gotta shout out to Salih Mujcic. Salih Mujcisc lives in Australia and is head of Product Innovation at Hello Monday and he's a Chad and Cheese super fan. Chad the fact that we can reach so many people around the world is awesome. And frankly, it's really humbling when people around the globe reach out to us on the socials and say, thank you. And that they really love this show. So I wanna just take a second to thsank Salih Mujcic for listening to this show and being a big fan.
Joel (7m 10s):
He's probably riding a kangaroo and drinking a Fosters right now as he's listening to this, shout out. We appreciate it, man. Keep it up and keep listening. Thanks
Chad (7m 20s):
For listening. Thanks for the connections and make sure all your friends, family, people that you work with. They're listening too.
Joel (7m 26s):
I told him to leave a review like everyone else who listens to the show.
Chad (7m 30s):
Oh, good call.
Joel (7m 30s):
Which he is hopefully gonna do this week.
Chad (7m 32s):
Yeah. Let's hope that happens. Free stuff.
Joel (7m 34s):
Hold on, Chad. I got a special shout out.
Chad (7m 38s):
Oh yes, no, go, go
Joel (7m 39s):
Cold Cheeseman who celebrated a birthday, we noted that on last week's show is now Chipotle's newest employee.
Chad (7m 53s):
Oh my God.
Joel (7m 54s):
Actually we have, we have a clip from his interview. Ready? Ready? Hold on.
sfx (7m 59s):
Oh my God. I want Chipotle, Chipotle's my life.
Joel (8m 4s):
That's right.
Chad (8m 4s):
And then right after that hired.
Joel (8m 6s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think he's more excited about the free food that employees get than he is the salary. But, but I'm a proud Papa to see him employed in corporate America. Shout out to Cole, Cheeseman, eating a Bar-b-que bowl and loving life.
Chad (8m 25s):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, let's talk a little bit about free stuff. So Cole gets some free foods. He's gonna have to work for it, but he gets a little free food, but you, my friend, listener, anybody out there can get free stuff. You go to Chadcheese.com/free to register. And guess what? We have new t-shirts that's right. Brand spanking new t-shirts coming out, powered by our friends over at JobGet! That's right if you're gonna be at HR tech, I believe hopefully we'll be able to get some of these new t-shirts out and you can go to the JobGet booth to get, get it?
Chad (9m 5s):
Your free t-shirt.
Joel (9m 6s):
Everyone say a prayer that we get those in time. I'm I'm a little less optimistic, but we'll see. We'll see.
Chad (9m 13s):
Just in case then Textkernel's giving away whiskey that's right. Two fifths of whiskey kids. You get one from Chad, one from Cheese, from our friends over at Textkernel because the Dutch like whiskey apparently. And then we have beer from Aspen Tech Labs. That's right. Check out Aspen Tech Labs, free stuff, free stuff, free stuff.
Joel (9m 42s):
Free stuff. Love our sponsors giving away shit and killing everybody's liver and clothing. I love it. Clothing our fans gotta love it.
Chad (9m 50s):
Clothing our fans. So we've got fantasy football from Factory Fix to talk about.
Joel (9m 56s):
Yes, sir. We drafted on Tuesday.
Chad (9m 57s):
Yes. How do you feel about your team? I not too bad. Not too bad. It's going to be an interesting league this year. We threw in quarterback as kinda like a Superflex.
Joel (10m 8s):
Yep.
Chad (10m 8s):
And then we also shortened up the bench to only five with no IR.
Joel (10m 13s):
Yep.
Chad (10m 13s):
So it's going to be a very interesting season. The one thing that I thought was funny was like 15 minutes before we started the draft, we got a message from Joe Wilke over at JobGet, and his power went out right before the draft started. So he had to hop in a car and go to the Panera, I guess, which was the closest because Joe would not autodraft he was not having that.
Joel (10m 39s):
That's dedication. So yeah, the two QBs will be interesting. I, I felt like you came out strong on that. You got Mahomes and who's your second guy. Oh,
Chad (10m 47s):
Burrow, Joe Burrow.
Joel (10m 48s):
Burrow. That's right. Like that, those two could carry you through most of the season. Let's hope the BI weeks are gonna be a bitch.
Chad (10m 54s):
Yes.
Joel (10m 54s):
I mean, a lot of people are gonna lose people. There's gonna be some trades. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised that the winner has a 500 record. I mean, that's how like weird this league could get, but yeah, we'll, we'll be posting the leaderboard every week on the socials. We'll be talking about it here on the show, but yeah, big ups to Factory Fix for supporting fantasy football, another addiction of the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad (11m 18s):
Yeah. We're gonna have Factory Fix kind of like Wayne's World top to bottom of the week videos.
Joel (11m 25s):
Are they gonna do that?
Chad (11m 27s):
Yep. And then we're gonna do, we're gonna do also, you know, some of the trades that happen, stupid trades, smart trades, all that other fun stuff. So the guys over Factory Fix, man, they love them some football.
Joel (11m 39s):
They do. Good Chicago boys who won't have much to do after week four or five in Chicago than to talk about fantasy.
Chad (11m 44s):
Oh God don't say that.
Joel (11m 45s):
Cause that's roughly when the season that season will end. Well, speaking of Chicago, are we going anywhere soon?
Chad (11m 50s):
First off, you'll see that we will be donning the Shaker Recruitment Marketing gear very soon because next week kids ~ HR Tech in Vegas. Now it's okay, our dance cards are full. Tuesday the drinks with Chad and Cheese on Tatio event is full. Wednesday we have the penthouse podcast with drinks with This Way Global that is also full, but you can find us roaming the floor. You can buy us a drink I'm sure on our way from party to party. That's cool. We really wanna see you guys go over to JobGet look for some t-shirts go to over to Textkernel, look for drinks.
Chad (12m 34s):
Any of our sponsors, check 'em out. Tell 'em that Chad and Cheese said hi. We have that going on. Obviously Vegas you're prepped and ready. Right? You've your liver's ready.
Joel (12m 44s):
I'm pretty ready for Vegas for sure. I mean, it's one way. It's one thing to talk about it, but until you actually get in the game, you know, reading about it and looking at past experience is never quite an adjustment for what's gonna happen. I mean, look, we've been cooped up for two years. This is the first HR tech that people are gonna really throw their, put their hair back, put on the Sunday best.
Chad (13m 5s):
Let it fly.
Joel (13m 6s):
Probably get a little bit nuts. I'm guessing. So yeah.
Chad (13m 9s):
Yeah.
Joel (13m 9s):
It'll be interesting.
Chad (13m 11s):
Well then we're going early October we're going to Nashville for Inspire. So gotta check that out.
Joel (13m 21s):
Vegas.
Chad (13m 21s):
Yes. Vegas then Nashville. That's a great follow up, but there's no question kids we have after that mid-October yes. Unleash in Paris! Man if you have not been to Unleash America, go to Paris. It's a great reason to get out, enjoy Paris, enjoy HR TA Tech. It's Paris. Not to mention 20% off kids. That's right. 20% off, go to Chadcheese.com register for all of these events. Oh yeah. Go! Spend money. You gotta go 20% off on the Unleash event. Register. We can't wait to see that be there.
Joel (14m 2s):
That's a good bit of a change there. That's a good, it is. That's nice. That's Grouponesque! Very nice. Well, someone, some people who love a Groupon, but one of them may have to settle for rum.
Chad (14m 15s):
What?
Joel (14m 16s):
That's right, Chad, you know, we've been doing birthdays for quite a while and you know, we're always looking for creative ways and companies are coming to us for creative ways to promote their companies and get their name out there. Well, our friends at Plum said, Hey guys, what if every month we picked a birthday boy or girl to get a nice little bottle of rum on Plum. So starting this month, boys and girls, if it's your birthday, you got a chance to win a nice bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. Geez. That's some good marketing right there. Well, let's, let's highlight. Who's celebrating this week. Another trip around the sun.
Joel (14m 56s):
Happy Birthday! Jim Lowe. Lucas Roscoe. Who won whiskey at one point? Didn't he? Oh, JD Gentry. John Tehan. Kevin Lowe, which I first read is Kevin Love as a Kevin ears fan, but found it was not the Kevin Love. Now Amy Hoover, James Ellis. Oh, Gary Cross. Nancy Holland, Dan Shabel and Matt Adam. Long timer at NAS. All celebrate another trip around the sun. Happy Birthday, everybody Happy Birthday every day.
Chad (15m 32s):
The sun on Plum with some rum.
Joel (15m 37s):
Damn. We're good. Damn.
Chad (15m 39s):
Topics!
Joel (15m 39s):
All right. We're rolling here. All right. San Francisco based Sense a recent firing squad guest, by the way, if you haven't checked that out, I highly recommend it in the archives. They pulled a double applause, double rainbow rating, not to spoil.
Chad (15m 57s):
Double rainbow!
Joel (15m 58s):
They've acquired India based Skillate in terms of the deal we're not disclosed, but Skillate had last raised 1 million in its pre-series A funding from angel investors in 2019, and also raised undisclosed seed funding from incubate India fund back in 2017. Skillate is an AI recruitment platform incubated within SAP startup studio and Sens is a talent engagement platform. In addition to expanding Sense's matching capabilities this acquisition brings AI powered talent engagement to senses customers, The likes that include Sony, Coca-Cola, Anheiser Bush along with the majority of unicorns in India.
Joel (16m 42s):
Founded in 2016, Skillate employees 36 people, that's according to LinkedIn and the three Skillate founders, as well as it sounds like all the employees will be joining Sense. Chad, what are your thoughts on this deal?
Chad (16m 56s):
Skillate. I thought that was an item on the Bob Evans menu. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No,
Joel (17m 3s):
It is enough. Skillate is enough.
Chad (17m 7s):
Yeah. So since the 90 close to $90 million in funding, 40,000 users, daily 700 companies using, 600 of them are staffing companies! 30 million ARR. I mean the team is legit. Focus on healthcare, retail, hospitality, warehousing, but mostly staffing, obviously Skillate's been around since 2016. 2 rounds of funding amounts were not listed according to Crunchbase. And they were, as I think you'd said an SAP incubator program. So the thing that's interesting here to me is that it seems like Skillate does almost the exact same kind of shit that Sense was doing. Yep. So why buy?
Chad (17m 48s):
Is this a portfolio buy? Is this an Aqua hire or maybe they're just trying to get rid of vendors parsing and matching? Because as we know many of these platforms that are out there today, who tout parsing and matching or just matching as one of their products? Well, it's actually something that's white labeled from another company. So I'm wondering if this is like shoring up senses real true technical assets and then also getting, you know, good acquihire at the same time?
Joel (18m 20s):
Yep. Yep. I think you're onto something there. You mentioned the $89 million that that since is raised, which includes SoftBank, little player in the VC game.
Chad (18m 27s):
Hello.
Joel (18m 28s):
That gives you a lot of money to go shopping. When you get that kind of money, they want you to spend it. And you had mentioned that crunch base was a little bit lacking in funding information on Skillate. But I had found that they had raised $1 million in a pre-series A, and another undisclosed in 2017. So let's call it less than 2 million that they had raised. So this was a really affordable acquisition for them. And, I'm gonna highlight three things that make sense to me in terms of this getting done. And I agree with you that it's a lot of similarities in terms of what they do. Yeah. But number one, Aqua hire, I mean the three founders are gonna be joining Sense.
Joel (19m 11s):
I'm gonna guess they're pretty smart people. It sounds like most, if not all of the employees from Skillate are gonna be joining since a lot of which are probably developers. So that was a good move for them. Number two, I think customer acquisition is part of it. Although most of Skillate's customers look pretty small. There aren't any big hitters in there. Integrations are pretty similar although I think the Smart Recruiters is one that that Sense does not have currently. So that may be some that they can do. But I think most importantly to highlight here is the SAP relationship. To get into a company that has relationships with SAP, who frankly can spend the kind of money that Sense is gonna need to be acquired.
Joel (19m 57s):
The list of companies that buy companies that have gotten $90 million is pretty small, but SAP is in that universe.
Chad (20m 3s):
Yes.
Joel (20m 3s):
But for me it was a good move to say, Hey, let's get close to SAP and a company that was funded by them, just in case we want to be acquired down the road this might be a really good relationship to have. So acquihire, a few one integration at least so that they don't have. Maybe a few customers that they didn't. But I think the SAP connection was paramount in doing this deal that got Punkaj's attention.
Chad (20m 29s):
I think. Yeah. I think we're gonna be seeing a lot of this kids. We're gonna see a lot of consolidation, but a lot of the consolidations going to be with companies that look like they do just about the same thing, but what they're actually doing is they're shoring up their tech and they're shoring up their teams. Again, this is an Indian company. So more than likely they got an opportunity to get some really good developers and some tech on the cheap. So good for them.
Joel (21m 1s):
Yeah. We talk about India, not a lot, but quite a bit, as companies I think start shifting away from China. I think India is gonna be where a lot of the energy money starts flowing. Indian companies are gonna be well well positioned to, to profit from that. So good on Sense. Keep your eye on them. They're doing a lot of really good things. I was really impressed in their firing squad and we'll see them in Vegas I think. Maybe.
Chad (21m 27s):
Yes.
Joel (21m 28s):
Maybe a drink with Punkaj. Really get him talking. All right. Our second story here involves JobAdder. Come
Chad (21m 38s):
Come from the land down under.
Joel (21m 40s):
From Sydney JobAdder headquarters. So the following message came in from one of our super fans regarding ATS provider JobAdder. Quote, "I'm assuming you're on top of the fuckup that JobAdder has made to their customers with price increase announcements. It's all over LinkedIn" end quote. Sure enough it is all over LinkedIn. Australian and Kiwi customers especially, aren't very happy. Here's a taste of the commentary from LinkedIn. Following the price increase, quote, "you unilaterally increase prices without any prior communication or intent" end quote. Quote "You need a better PR person full stop"
Joel (22m 20s):
end quote. And this one in response to JobAdder's holding a webinar to hopefully iron things out. Quote "you're hosting a live webinar but once again, telling your customers to listen and interact on your terms."
Chad (22m 36s):
Yes.
Joel (22m 37s):
"This is tone deaf and adds fuel to the fire" end quote. Ouch. A video apology from CEO Martin Herbst on LinkedIn seemed to only add fuel to the Bar-bee. Chad, what are your thoughts?
Chad (22m 49s):
Martin, Martin, Martin, nothing like shooting yourself in the fucking foot man. All of JobAdder the entire company is trying to stop the bleeding from this self-inflicted wound. And Martin pulled the goddamn trigger. We're looking at, I think 7% increase for new customers all the way up to 50% increases for customers who've been around and loyal a while.
Joel (23m 14s):
Did you say 50%?
sfx (23m 15s):
boooooo
Chad (23m 16s):
So, and this is not just a comms issue, okay. Let's dig in a little bit deeper because I watched the whole webinar and I, there are just some distinct issues that's happening with JobAdder. First and foremost, JobAdder is extremely exposed. All contracts are month to month. I mean what the actual fuck? So instead of moving to a more secure annual model and then slightly raising prices every year, which is expected, they stay in a monthly contract situation that bring out huge price, increase bomb. I mean, it's crazy. Martin's reasoning was, well, we haven't raised prices since I've been here.
Chad (23m 57s):