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AI Slop, Sexy LinkedIn Bots, and Rome Is Burning The crew is back on the mic to break down the latest hellscapes of HR tech, social media, and unchecked artificial intelligence. From LinkedIn's descent into a spammy, bot-infested wasteland to Google tanking its own search traffic, the gang asks the tough question: Are we in a tech innovation cycle, or are we just watching Rome burn with a cold beer in hand? Grab your vape pen, check your zero-day exploits, and leave your corporate filters at the door. WHAT WE’RE SMACKING DOWN THIS WEEK: Lattice CEO’s "Calcified" Ageism Slip: Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin needs "AI-native skills" and employees who aren't "calcified in thought". Huh? LinkedIn: The King of AI Slop & Sexy Bots: An 8-person company suffered a 6-week bot attack where 260 fake, hyper-sexualized profiles claimed them as an employer—making up 97% of their visible workforce. "AI will scale everything about a company, whether it's good or whether it's bad... Can LinkedIn put the AI toothpaste back in the tube before it wrecks the platform forever?" — Chad Sowash Nano-Influencers & The Gift Card Scam: An exploding $480 trillion creator economy and predatory agencies. Google's Zero-Click AI Self-Sabotage: Cloudflare reports over 50% of web traffic is now non-human. Meanwhile, Google's Gemini-powered AI summaries have cut human click-through rates by nearly 40% in under a year. OpenAI Agents & Sci-Fi Horrors: Sam Altman claims we've hit the sci-fi singularity, while reports leak of autonomous AI agents leaving notes for their successors on how to escape human-built cages. "There is literally no other more nonpartisan unifying issue than AI guardrails and regulation...." — Maureen Wiley Clough Listen. Watch. Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash (00:37.284) Shit, I gotta talk. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most famous or dangerous and famous podcast. I'm Chad "Slop It Up" Sowash. JT O'Donnell (00:46.593) I'm JT "Hat Whore" O'Donnell. Maureen Wiley Clough (00:49.869) and I'm Maureen, aka Mo "Calcified in Thought" Wiley Clough. Chad Sowash (00:55.106) And on this week's show. LinkedIn is sloppin', nano is hoppin', Google's no click AI is poppin', and open AI is droppin'... Autonomous bots... In your system. Let's do this. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:05.849) Damn. Chad Sowash (01:19.362) There we go, ladies, it's been a while since we've been on together. How you doing? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:25.187) I know. I've missed you guys. JT O'Donnell (01:25.839) Good. Crazy. I know, same, same. Chad Sowash (01:30.146) Well, you've been you've been moving around. So you're on an island, you're off an island, you're back on an island. Where you at now? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:32.793) Poppin'. Yep. We we island hopping to keep in with your intro. That was that was pretty sick, by the way. Well done. Well done. Impressive. yeah, I'm I'm in Seattle right now. I actually got to hang out last night with the one and only Matt Charney at the Textio event. I finally met him, the legend. I told him I would drop his name on the pod today. So there you go, Matt. Chad Sowash (01:41.124) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chad Sowash (01:54.596) The legend. The legend and he probably told you about this. We were just in Mallorca together. And yes, yeah. So that was that was a blast. And I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're at a party and you're not at least asking Charney for his vape pen, you're wrong. You're wrong. Charney brings the best weed, always brings the best weed. And yeah, so anyway, thanks, Charney. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:03.62) Did mention that. Sounded sick. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:13.807) Damn JT O'Donnell (02:14.434) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:21.697) Never something I thought I'd hear about an HR party, but here we are. Most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash (02:24.291) Pi that's that is that is the HR part. No, real quick, are you guys seeing any of like the smoke from Canada? I'm over here obviously in in Europe, so I can't see that. Are you guys seeing any of that stuff? JT O'Donnell (02:25.924) Like it. JT O'Donnell (02:35.82) It it's funny you say that. I was in Chicago last week and literally we touched down and smoke on the entire runway. Like you couldn't see driving around yeah, driving around Chicago. It was ninety something degrees. the next day by the afternoon, it actually they got a breeze going and and a little rain and it started to clear out. But it it was legit no joke. You could smell it. It was and I couldn't believe it. Chad Sowash (02:44.695) No way. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:46.095) Hm. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:50.08) Abscued. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:01.187) Like end of days type shit. JT O'Donnell (03:03.696) yeah, I mean, thank goodness for instruments so they can land the plane. 'Cause you couldn't see the runway till we landed. So it's it's real, like what's happening in Canada. And then I think about what's happening in France and Spain and they're they're not used to that, you know. This is like a huge deal for them. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:06.553) Ja my god, that's awful. Chad Sowash (03:14.669) Yeah. No. We we sent w we actually sent here in Portugal, we sent a bunch of our firefighters to Spain and to France to be able to to help out. I mean Spain, all part a ton of Spain is actually on fire. right outside of Bordeaux, France is is having wildfires. I mean it is I mean, if you can't just go ahead and say we need to do something about climate change, I don't know when it's gonna happen. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:16.162) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:43.183) Right? Chad Sowash (03:43.211) Other than I think maybe a bunch of billionaires' homes, millionaires' homes have to burn down and they're like, wait, I think I think we have a problem here. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:49.543) we care now. Yeah. It's I mean, I remember growing up, I never had a force fire during the summer. Now it's like every single freaking year, and it doesn't matter where you are now. So it's like, hello guys, Houston. Come on. We got a problem. Let's let's be rep. Big one. Big one. Yeah, that sucks. End of day's shit. JT O'Donnell (03:51.066) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:54.595) No, I wasn't. Chad Sowash (04:01.336) Yeah. We have a problem. We have a problem, kids. All right, all right. Let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and let's Let's hit up some shout outs, JT. What you got? JT O'Donnell (04:15.223) Yeah, so my shout outs to Buffer. So an article came out this week where they showed that they had of their 75 employees, they had an 88% adoption rate of a program where the employees were posting on social. And they monitored the the impact, if you will, across all the social. And they estimate that it was over $600,000 worth of earned media. which I think Chad Sowash (04:22.787) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (04:41.26) Yeah, yes. JT O'Donnell (04:41.517) You know, we I know, exactly, right? And I and the reason I want to draw that out is because when we first started in social, every company had a no social media policy, employees don't use it. We can look at stories where employees got fired, like the poor Sherwin Williams kid making pretty paint, getting fired, right? And now we're we're coming full tilt and we're in the age of like in employee influencers, you know, like shout out to Ford. They've got a beautiful employee influencer program where they're selected and they're out there doing it. Maureen Wiley Clough (04:50.233) Yeah. Yep, you're looking at one of Chad Sowash (04:56.056) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (05:08.293) But we got to get to the point where we're okay with people posting and teaching them how to do it authentically because nobody wants like I cringe when I see the company send out, okay, everybody repost this. That's not the point. You should let people choose what they want to post about, right? Teach them how to post that furthers their own candidacy. And the the number one pushback I get, and I just want to vent on this for a second, is I don't want them posting on LinkedIn. Somebody's gonna poach them. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:20.119) That's the worst. Chad Sowash (05:24.525) Yes, yes, yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:24.735) JT O'Donnell (05:36.358) You're gonna get they're gonna get poached whether they post on LinkedIn or not. Like if they wanna leave you, they're leaving you. So that's just stupid. The other thing is there's way more employee loyalty when you allow them to post about what they're working on, how they're doing it, why they enjoy it. Like it's just common sense. And you know, just close with this. You know, there's talks LinkedIn has changed its algorithm that's about to update how company pages are done. Hint, hint, get ready. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:36.559) Exactly. JT O'Donnell (05:58.676) And to not be thinking about a strategy that empowers your employees is just it's super short sighted. So shout out to Buffer and they're six hundred K. You know, they're seventy-five per person company. Six hundred K can you imagine if your company is a thousand employees or whatever? My gosh, they're in media. But you know, anyways, there I'll get off my soapbox. Chad Sowash (06:05.155) Yeah, you got you gotta Yeah, it i i it it's called autonomy, people. I mean seriously, if people a if people are not posting great things about working with you, that's a signal. That's it it's a signal to fix shit, right? In in one way or the other. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:15.811) That's epic. You're on to something, JT. I love it. Mm. JT O'Donnell (06:29.827) One hundred percent. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:31.311) Breathe. Chad Sowash (06:33.479) if they're posting great things and again, i it the the parameters that you put around somebody I think is just ridiculous in in in many cases. In many cases. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:40.407) Yeah. I think it has to shift too because the way the workforce is moving, like people are this this is not stable. This corporate career path is not stable the way it used to be. And so people have to be open to their employees having a perspective, a point of view. They need to be able to be visible. That is sort of the new currency. There was an article in Forbes that was done by my friend Ali Kushner the other day talking about that very thing. And so companies, they are going to increasingly have to at least embrace or tolerate at the very at the very least, tolerate. Chad Sowash (07:01.463) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (07:10.063) Yeah. Okay, I must be out. This is a little bit of all the bottom is other one as well. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:10.485) their employees doing this because people need to hang that little shingle out. People need to say, Hey, I'm doing this. They need to grow an audience, so on and so forth. and so I just think it's it's shifting. People are gonna just demand it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hope so too. JT O'Donnell (07:21.359) I hope so. Chad Sowash (07:24.703) Agreed. Okay. Well, I just so make sure we get this in, kids. brought to you, the shout-outs are brought to you by those kids crazy kids over at Aaron App. Generate more employee referrals. Discover candidates through employee networks. Talking about employees here. This just makes sense. And automate employee powered hiring with a single platform with Aaron App. Plus, they're also sponsored, sponsors of our soft and huggable Chad and Cheese t-shirts. That's right. JT O'Donnell (07:33.499) Thank you, Irina. JT O'Donnell (07:38.916) Yeah, it's perfect. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:49.121) Ha ha ha Chad Sowash (07:50.048) always hearing about them but wait you know if you don't have one go to chad cheese.com slash free that's chad cheese dot com slash free and get registered not to mention rumor is there might be a new design coming soon but but you can't get it if you don't register and you don't play so it's chad cheese dot com slash free my shout out goes to JT O'Donnell (07:50.595) Maureen Wiley Clough (08:04.737) Chad Sowash (08:15.159) Blake Resnick, the founder and CEO of Brink Drones, who just received another 125 million in funding. 282 million USD in total. Brink drones are used by first responders and gaining tons of momentum so that America can replace China-made drones currently in service by first responders. So, shout out to Ring Doorbell Cams, helping us find lost dogs. Flock cameras watching us as we drive and keeping us safe. Meta Ray Bands watching us while we sleep. And Al Brink watching from the skies. Shout out to America's new surveillance state, kids. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:44.951) Yeah, yeah. Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:00.345) So comforting. I feel so much safer. Feel so much safer now that every single moment on this planet is recorded by a an entity with yeah. Chad Sowash (09:07.907) Yeah. So I I s I shared a Business Wars podcast episode. And kids, if you haven't watched listened to Business Wars, go to go to the Spotify, look for Business Wars. Some of the best podcasts are so awesome. So great history. But I knew that it would trigger Mo. and it was about and it was about face it was about Meta's Ray Ban. So what what how much of that podcast episode? There are three by the way, three three parts. How much did you get through? Maureen Wiley Clough (09:24.879) And it did. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:34.111) boy. So I got through about the first minute and was like, my God, I don't even know if I can take it. Because you you knew that this was going to be the outcome of this sort of technology. And it's doing so much damage to so many people. And even the first minute was talking about what it was like for the people employed by these companies having to actually review this footage, right? There's a human in the loop in some cases. And this person was subject to stuff that no one should see if it's not consented. I mean, I'm just Chad Sowash (09:50.371) Crazy. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:03.512) It's so horrifying. Yeah. Just streaming, right? Without the person knowing. Yep. And it's Chad Sowash (10:03.79) From meta Ray Ban glasses that were streaming content. And that person and the and all the people in that center were their job was to look at that, look at that content, which could have been somebody's bedroom or whatever it was, and to tag objects. So that's a lamp, that's a person, that's a bed, and that yes, yeah. Like, Maureen Wiley Clough (10:19.587) Yep. Yep. Boo. Yeah. it's like the capture, but worse, right? It's like damn it. I mean, this is where we're going. It's so grim. And just like the trauma for that person, those people doing that job. And then, of course, all the people who are not even aware that this is their body on the I just, it's so infuriating. Chad Sowash (10:39.021) Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:43.075) And I do this in some cases just to make fun of Joel too, because we talked about door, door, you know, kid cams, the the ring cams, right? And he's like, come on, people, let's find some dogs. I'm like, Who the are you fucking kidding me? And then well, he walks around wearing those meta rayband glasses. I mean, it's just like, dude, that is the most pervy uncle thing. I don't want to see a man, a middle-aged man, walking around with video glasses on their face. I just don't. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:46.159) Ha ha ha Maureen Wiley Clough (10:54.804) my god, come on, he's smarter than that. JT O'Donnell (10:55.515) Ha ha ha. Maureen Wiley Clough (11:02.159) It's a nope for me. I agree. Exactly. Well, and and the argument I know, right? Don't look at me. Yeah, it's like that that honestly the argument that bothers me the most is the well, you're in a public place, anyone can record. That's just that's the law. And I'm like, yeah, but if you're doing it with a phone, it's very clear that you're being recorded. The meta glasses, not so much. And you know, especially as you think into Chad Sowash (11:12.641) I just don't. Stop looking at my daughter. Stop looking at my daughter. Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:30.913) Yes, yes. Exactly. Maureen Wiley Clough (11:35.598) certain circumstances where people might, you know, have had a drink or something like that, they're not gonna notice this little little dot on the side. It's just it's so it's so upsetting. So thanks for sharing that with me and and ruining my dreams. Yeah. Nightmares all week. Have fun. Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:38.755) Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:44.129) Yes. And you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. Go listen to that kids. You're gonna you're gonna enjoy. You're gonna enjoy your shout out, Mo. Now that I've got you all amped up, hit it. Maureen Wiley Clough (11:54.508) Well, I don't know if it's even worth sharing because I I am calcified in thought because I am ancient, I am over the age of forty. but what happened was a there was a a Wall Street Journal article that came out by Chip Cutter and it was you know, I I was like excited about the headline. It was basically like, actually I'll just read what the headline is. Big companies are starting to hire again, defying predictions of AI wipeout. I'm like, Yeah, sweet, yes, go ask humans, I love it. And I'm reading this article and I get down to this part where the CEO of Lattice, Sarah Franklin, makes this statement where she's talking about this, you know, this this trend of hiring. And I'm gonna just quote it to you guys because I don't these are her words, not mine. These are her words. what you have now is a realization that you need the AI native skills. You need this entry level workforce which is innovative, not calcified in thought. They're also more affordable. Chad Sowash (12:47.671) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (12:48.429) Because they are newer to the workforce. Ladies and gentlemen, this is coming from the CEO of an HR tech company. Like, if there's someone on earth who should know better, it would be this human. Not to mention, she is, by all accounts, just doing a quick scroll and some basic math on her social media profile, her LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure she's a Gen Xer. I'm pretty sure she's in her 50s. And so for Chad Sowash (12:53.571) Yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:15.371) A woman in her fifties, a you know, a traditionally very overlooked, very, you know, marginalized part of this society to say that on the record to a Wall Street Journal reporter, laden with all these stereotypes and like sub all the subtext. I was just like, dude, what on like what chance do we have when an HR tech leader is saying this? Like, I and and so I actually she posted the article or or she posted something on LinkedIn about the article. And I just like Chad Sowash (13:25.933) Yeah. Chad Sowash (13:35.533) Yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:42.362) clipped her little statement. I was like, were you misquoted? Like, is there some other context on this? Because like I love the whole let's hire humans thing, but like this part, not not into it. So I well yeah, not you. Gross. Over forty sick. Disgusting. So yeah, anyways a bummer. So the quiet one of those quiet part out loud moments, right? Which unfortunately is a term that's been co opted by the AI bots, but yeah. Chad Sowash (13:52.641) Yeah, not old humans. Yeah. JT O'Donnell (14:08.013) Yeah, I know I know Chip Cutter from his LinkedIn days and and then he went over to WSJ and I guarantee you he was like, I I'm sure he fact checked that to make sure. You know what I mean? Like I guarantee he was like, She she wants to say that? okay, let's go. I mean, I I could be wrong, but I think he knew exactly what he was doing by putting that quote in there. and so what infuriates me about it is that yes, as a career coach to a lot of more seasoned workers right now, I am Maureen Wiley Clough (14:11.175) yeah? Chad Sowash (14:17.133) Gotcha. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:19.286) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:28.001) I mean, yeah. JT O'Donnell (14:37.207) Every day, please learn AI. Please go search what AI tools are being used in your space, learn them, get to know them, document your AI knowledge on LinkedIn, make sure people understand that you're AI relevant. But for her to say that AI native means, you know, I'm 20-something, like how myopic is that? And I am seeing so many seasoned professionals who understand, think about it, AI is a tool, but they're the craftsmen. They they can run circles around a younger worker because of that perspective, right? Maureen Wiley Clough (14:52.289) It really is. Chad Sowash (14:58.034) yeah. Chad Sowash (15:01.537) I'm sorry, Xers Xers have had to deal through the entire transition of never having that shit to having that shit. And I mean, so it's just it's and we were kids when it was happening. So, right, so it was like embedded in our brain. So to think that our generation is calcified, fuck off, right? That's just that's that's bullshit. Shame on you, shame on you. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:02.263) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:10.615) Right. Exactly. JT O'Donnell (15:10.691) Yes. JT O'Donnell (15:20.432) Thank you. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:22.935) No, I not not a good look. Like I was called a dinosaur at 37, so I'm not exactly surprised. But yeah, it's just like, dude, how are we here? so yeah, super disappointed by that. But yeah, I I always try and like give the benefit of the doubt. I'm like, were you misquoted? No, I'm pretty sure she was not misquoted. I'm pretty sure this is just how you think. And my belief is that sometimes when people are able to reach the C-suite in their career and they are, you know, older, if you will, quote unquote. JT O'Donnell (15:23.279) Yeah. Calcified. What an what an awful word too. You know, like my Ha ha JT O'Donnell (15:42.767) Mm mm, mm mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:51.532) they don't necessarily see ageism or age bias as a problem because it hasn't impacted them personally. And so they don't it it it just doesn't track. It's like why didn't that person like get farther in their career? You know, what there's no issue. I'm here. So anyway. JT O'Donnell (15:57.424) There. Chad Sowash (15:57.559) Yes, yes. Chad Sowash (16:02.648) Yeah. Yeah. That's just the the human condition. The human condition. And getting us out of the human condition, w one of my favorite things. Maureen Wiley Clough (16:06.936) Yep. Maureen Wiley Clough (16:12.641) Ha ha ha Chad Sowash (16:14.295) I travel sponsored by our friends over at Shaker. Do you need an expert to handle tech assessment, recruitment, advertising, or just someone who always has their ears to the ground in the recruiting industry? Well, then head over to Shaker.com, celebrating their 70th, or no, not 70th. Holy shit, 75th, 75th anniversary. That's shaker.com. Yeah. To be quite frank, kids, I I we I didn't say that. Maureen Wiley Clough (16:33.743) That's amazing. They're hella calcified. Just kidding. Kidding. Chad Sowash (16:43.393) Yeah, so I I'm I'm focused the next month and a half staying here at the bar on the beach. So Joel and I aren't doing anything until wreck fest in Nashville. What about you ladies? Maureen Wiley Clough (16:49.801) Ha ha ha. Maureen Wiley Clough (16:55.543) Nah. Same. JT O'Donnell (16:55.877) Same. I can't wait. Like that'll be our time to get together. I am like I've never been more busy. I don't know. No summer vacation for this girl. It is like crazy, crazy right now. But I am really looking forward to wreckfest of all of us being together. It's gonna be awesome. So folks, if you're thinking about going, that's a heck yeah. Come on now. Come on. Chad Sowash (16:56.759) Same. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:02.873) Mm. Chad Sowash (17:08.535) Yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:08.535) It's gonna be great. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:12.845) You gotta be there. It's gonna be so much fun. Cannot wait. Chad Sowash (17:14.679) Gotta be there, gotta be there. A and you gotta be there when it's time for this. Chad Sowash (17:23.807) Okay, we're coming hot out of the chamber, kids. this is a big story. Okay, so let me set this up. CEO Monica Michalik. I think I said that wrong. I could be right. I don't know. Monica Michallock went on LinkedIn and detailed her 8-bit, eight-person company suffered a six-week bot attack where over 260 fake employee profiles were featuring hyper-sexualized photos listing 8-bit as their employer. Making up 97% of its visible workforce on LinkedIn. Yes, 97% of 8 bit's workforce on LinkedIn were bots. Sexy bots, but they were bots. Anyways, despite 8 bit being a paying customer of LinkedIn and filling, you know, support tickets since June 12th, using standard operating and reporting channels and recommended features like the company Varic. Tool that apparently doesn't work, that all failed to fix the issue. LinkedIn only resolved the problem. Listen to this LinkedIn only resolved the problem and removed the bots after Michelle published an article detailing the problem on LinkedIn that was over six weeks in the making, but mainly because the article went semi viral, prompting intervention from LinkedIn's executive escalations team. Chad Sowash (18:48.405) Is LinkedIn becoming the new sexy bot social media network? Maureen Wiley Clough (18:51.727) Ha ha ha JT O'Donnell (18:53.435) Well, I mean, you know they've had the algorithm changes, they're shifting the platform, they're all in a video. And so yeah, I think they're I think what they're trying to do and like anything, they're going to have those growing pains. That is extremely painful. Here's the silver lining to that story for me though. She went on and wrote an art article documenting it, tagging it, and it went viral. Chad Sowash (18:57.693) it's going sexy. it's all sexy. Maureen Wiley Clough (19:00.185) Boy. JT O'Donnell (19:15.141) There's a really good opportunity to do that on LinkedIn right now. You all know I did it recently. My daughter lost her Instagram account. She owns her own company, a 340,000 plus account. And after us doing everything under the sun that everyone told you to do for two months straight, I got on there as a mom and said, I'm I never ask anything from my network, but as a parent, here we go. And she got it back a week later. And I think, you know, you get to tag Meta, you get to tag Instagram. I I hate that it takes that long. Chad Sowash (19:21.987) Mm-hmm. JT O'Donnell (19:44.613) But if you do have a solid case and you have a story that you can factually tell, it can get out there on that platform and hopefully you can get some resolution. But do I think it should have taken her six weeks and go through? I mean, that really hurt her business. I'm sure they're probably thinking about, you know, what's the the resolution to this? Maureen Wiley Clough (19:58.339) yeah. Chad Sowash (20:00.536) They were thinking that was eight eight recruiter seats or maybe two or one recruiter seat and they're like, Bah, that that's low priority. JT O'Donnell (20:03.962) Yeah. Yeah. I I mean and that like you're right. And so I love that it came to light. That's that's not gonna be the last story we hear about that, I'm sure. If anything, that'll amplify people be like, they got results, let's go, you know. But I'm just hoping more people hear this and and know if it's time to document, document your story. Get it out there, you know. But yikes, sexy bots, I gosh, I hope not on LinkedIn. I really hope not there's plenty other sites to go to for that, you know. But I do not need to see that on LinkedIn for sure. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:17.807) Mm. Chad Sowash (20:17.965) Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (20:24.579) Yep. No matter where you're at. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:27.439) Please no, please no. No, no. Yeah. I mean, I mean I'm with JT. I really hope we don't have to see that we have, you know, the bros and all that stuff. We don't need that entering to the fray. But what strikes me about this is like these are paying customers of these entities. Like Meta has people who are paying Chad Sowash (20:39.043) What do you think? What do you think, Mo? With the sexy bots game. JT O'Donnell (20:54.329) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:58.603) A lot of money to them who are making them a lot of money, who are keeping and holding and attention so that they can sell those ads and they're treating them like this. Like it just it blows my mind. So I'm wholly unsurprised, disappointed, but wholly unsurprised that LinkedIn would not have, you know, escalated this particular case with like an eight person account, right? They're not making a ton of money on that. But it's striking to me that even those who are generating a lot of revenue for these huge companies are just like letting it happen. Like there's just no recourse. And it's really, it's sad. It's sad that that's where we are. But I feel like, you know, I'm the sort of person who likes to try to resolve things behind closed doors if possible. But it sucks that in this society, most often, the only way you get results is by going public and like hoping that it goes viral or something, which is just like damage control for the company on that is so bad. Like I just don't understand. Just do the right thing by your customers. Like, why did we stop caring about the customer experience? What the hell? so Chad Sowash (21:31.415) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:56.686) Yeah, I'm really glad that the the issue is resolved, but that's I mean, that's just brutal. It's your reputation. LinkedIn is your professional footprint, right? Like, so to have sexy bots showing up on the page, you know, it might not necessarily want to be the vibe you convey. So I just I feel I feel for people, I feel for people who are the little guy who don't have like the ability to push a message out there and get the help and resolution that they need. And yeah, right. Chad Sowash (22:15.039) Yeah. Chad Sowash (22:21.517) Well, they were, which is why it took over six weeks. I mean, I think that's it that is literally what encapsulates this. And I mean, for me, LinkedIn has to be the most trusted open social network I use, right? that trust wavered a few years ago when a new trend was pointed out to me. It was a trend where a few startups were actually creating fake employees. Why? The fake growth to the outside world on LinkedIn. JT O'Donnell (22:24.89) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:33.817) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (22:33.851) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:45.157) yes. JT O'Donnell (22:46.235) Yeah. Chad Sowash (22:50.581) It's much cheaper and a way a great way to attract outside investors, clients, or buyers who are researching your company and seeing this great growth, right? So, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Sonny Van Assche commented on Monika's post, and I believe it's a better way to understand the real problem because it's not just fake employees. His comment reads fake candidates, fake jobs. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:50.935) Mm. JT O'Donnell (22:51.023) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:56.972) Mm-hmm. JT O'Donnell (22:58.682) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (23:15.802) Okay. Chad Sowash (23:16.725) Fake employees, AI generated applications, AI generated posts, AI generated comments, LinkedIn 2026. Sonny encapsulates the problem to a T. When infusing AI into a platform like LinkedIn, you're allowing the ability to scale that kind of fraud and not just faking employees, right? We're quickly seeing authenticity die with AI content. Fast Company recently crowned LinkedIn the AI king of slop. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:19.532) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:24.372) Mm. Brutal. Right. Chad Sowash (23:46.73) AI generated posts are everywhere. AI generated comments are everywhere as well. Hell, even Texas. Yes, Texas. They're taking LinkedIn to court over fake ghost jobs. But the holy grail of LinkedIn was the legitimacy, legitimacy of the people in its networks over the years. That's what kept us coming back. The the community, the connection, right? But manually created fake profiles have grown. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:55.471) Texas. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:15.669) And LinkedIn did little or nothing to do about fixing it because much like those startups, there's growth in numbers and it looks better for them. And that said, on this show a couple over the last years, AI will scale everything about a company, whether it's good or whether it's bad, right? So, you know, the hard question is can LinkedIn put the AI toothpaste back in the tube before it wrecks the platform forever? Maureen Wiley Clough (24:23.983) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:31.245) Yeah, very true. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:39.895) Hope so hope so. Chad Sowash (24:41.897) I am not getting what we start talking about the the content that's actually showing up in our feeds. I'm not getting relevant shit anymore. Now I know they are tweaking algorithms, and this is just my this is just my anecdotal like daily, right? I literally have to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll to get to somebody who actually has content that is not AI generated bullshit that I can actually that I can learn from. And that used to be something that was just like all through my LinkedIn feed, but now it's Maureen Wiley Clough (24:49.623) Mm. JT O'Donnell (24:51.557) tweaking the algorithm. Chad Sowash (25:11.339) It's it's shit for some reason. And I hope I hope they bring it back because man, I I've loved LinkedIn for forever. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:13.239) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:18.701) Yeah, me too. I will see. Yeah. JT O'Donnell (25:19.225) Yeah, there's a great reset coming. I will say there's a reset coming recently that made everybody's feeds kind of like go back to factory standards and is making you start all over again to build up, you know, who you want to see and what you want to do. Yeah. I mean it they definitely have that going on. But you know, that Maureen Wiley Clough (25:27.523) Mm. Your algorithm. Chad Sowash (25:34.923) A JT have been on this this thing for like twenty years. I mean JT O'Donnell (25:38.532) I know, I get it, I get it. And and to your point on the Fortune article, like LinkedIn literally built in a recent algorithm update to fight AI slop. So there's a and they're very open about it. Like these are the telltale signs you used AI and we're gonna suppress your content. But the other thing that worries me is the lack of human review. Again, just because you can doesn't mean you should, is my theme for 2026 on this pod. I have said it a million times, I'll say it again, right? You you don't replace the judgment and have AI do it. Just no, you know, it's Maureen Wiley Clough (25:53.615) Mm. Right. Love that. Chad Sowash (25:59.282) Amen, sister. Maureen Wiley Clough (26:03.842) No, exactly. Or face the repercussions, yeah. I mean JT O'Donnell (26:08.059) Yeah exactly. Stuff like this. This should've easily hit a human by the third time they reached they had the problem. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just it's just common sense. It should have gone to a human. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (26:14.775) Yeah. It should be it should be different. Well, and they're really trying to be a social media platform. That's the bottom line. Like they're not just this utility to find someone who works at the at the company. But for me, LinkedIn, no matter what happens with the social media aspect, LinkedIn or something like it will always have a very important utility to the job seeker and to the person who's looking to engage with their network, right? Finding out who works where, when, and how, like to get in touch with them is so massive. So no matter what is gonna have that value because That's just number one how you how you get jobs, right? It's it's through your network, it's through these connections, it's through knowing who the f hiring manager is. And so it still has that, but if they wanna be a social media platform, they're gonna have to keep on making some improvements. Chad Sowash (26:56.525) Yeah, I really feel like Chad Sowash (27:01.505) It feels it feels like I fell for the banana in the tailpipe. I I've been with this, I've been with this platform for so long. It has treated me well for many years. it's been fun. Sometimes I feel like I was shadow banned here and there because I say mean shit. but but Gary Vanderchuk, I mean, you know, that motherfucker says fuck every other word for God's sakes. I'm like, Maureen Wiley Clough (27:04.186) Ha ha ha Maureen Wiley Clough (27:16.463) Ha ha ha Chad Sowash (27:23.639) Well, I mean, you know, so I understand there are classes of what you can do and the people that can do what they can say, which is total bullshit, by the way. We should all be treated equal. but yeah, I I I'm looking forward. I really am looking forward to see how LinkedIn fixes a lot of this. Because to be quite frank, as I'd said, this isn't just one aspect of LinkedIn. This is all the aspects of LinkedIn that can be scaled incredibly quick, not just by LinkedIn. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:30.093) Mm. Mm. Chad Sowash (27:52.376) But by all these bad actors that are out there that they they really just want to to to take advantage of you. They want to try to steal your information, they want to scam you, they want to try to get you to apply for a job that doesn't exist. that kind of shit. So, you know, the the the AI slop stuff, I mean, I I I hope they get rid of that sometime soon, but I'm really worried more about the scam spam stuff than anything else. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:55.919) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (28:03.319) Everything's a scam. Maureen Wiley Clough (28:17.603) Yeah, me too. Me too. JT O'Donnell (28:18.179) I agree. Greed. Chad Sowash (28:21.667) well a you you've already gotten something, but if you leave and you stop listening, I'm gonna say right now Maureen Wiley Clough (28:21.837) Hundred percent. Chad Sowash (28:34.497) We'll be right back. Keep on listening. All right, this next segment is brought to you by Proven Base. Proven Base AI powered deep search helps recruiting and sourcing teams uncover and engage specialized, hard to find talent across thousands of sources. Find talent faster and hire smarter with Proven Base. That's my my Sunday, Sunday, Sunday truck monster truck. Yeah, my monster truck. Maureen Wiley Clough (29:00.111) This Sunday. That was good. That was good. Chad Sowash (29:04.613) We're gonna talk about nano influencers. I had heard of micro influencers. I'd never heard of nano influencers. this next story comes from the Wall Street Journal. It's entitled The Latest Darlings of Social Media Marketing. Question mark, regular people with 500 followers, which highlights a fundamental shift in marketing. Brands are moving away from massive, highly polished celebrity level influencers and toward nano influencers. These are people with 500 to 5,000 fly followers. According to the report, eMarketer forecasts that 45%, yes, four or five percent of US influencer spending now goes to creators with flu fewer than 20,000 followers, with nano influencers alone capturing about 20%. And that's up from three around 3% in 2021. This shift is happening to bring more authentic, high trust. Cost effective, I think that's the big word right there. Cost effective scale. And guess what, ladies? Podcasting sits right at the intersection of that entire movement. JT, you have an agency dedicated to influencers. Tell me what you're seeing. And this is this is in your wheelhouse, sister. Let me hear it. Maureen Wiley Clough (30:19.445) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (30:20.045) Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel like if you just could run all our previous podcasts or AI, you would hear some common themes this last year that I told you. Four hundred and eighty trillion dollars. That is the knowledge economy, creator economy that's that they're estimating by 2027. Four hundred and eighty. Okay, like run your math through that. This is an economy, it feeds itself, and people have doubted it for a really long time. But you are talking about nano influencers being able to earn a living, not get free products shipped to them. Chad Sowash (30:32.589) Ga. JT O'Donnell (30:49.293) Earn a living because they're able to reach those audiences collectively. Now, the article goes on to say, hey, it's early stages, these people aren't making big dollars yet. But we're in that stage now where people are starting to figure it out. And as more companies get access to these nano influencers and we know how to create that connection, it's going to be huge. By the way, I firmly believe prediction on my end, LinkedIn sees the writing on the wall. They are not a recruiting platform anymore. Selling seeds for thousands of dollars is not going to be a sustainable growth model down the line. When you think about how businesses are shifting, there'll be a lot of smaller businesses. So, one, you can predict that they're going to change their recruiter licensing, offer it, you know, different levels, whatever, but that's still not going to replace the fact that they see they can get a chunk of that nano influencer. They've just launched thought leader ads, right? So you can go in if you're a thought leader and you're picked for this campaign. Chad Sowash (31:22.253) Mm-hmm. JT O'Donnell (31:41.07) Any company can come to you and be like, Chad, that vertical video you did, we really like it. We're gonna throw a budget behind it and link a button to it and we'll pay you. And you can be like, Great, I want you to pay me $3,000 to do that. Boom done. Right. That is live now. It is in alpha mode on LinkedIn. It'll like guarantee you'll be full tilt by the end of the year. And that is their nod to these nano influencers, which means anybody on LinkedIn that can document their knowledge and create an engaging audience, which you just said. Like, I love what you said earlier. Chad Sowash (31:59.021) Mm-hmm. JT O'Donnell (32:09.551) About the fact that I don't want AI generated slop. The people that are really talking truth and are making sense. I'm gonna follow them. Right. Those are going to be the future nano influencers on LinkedIn making coin. It is happening as we speak. So, you know, I'm here for it. I again I have an agency around it. So of course I'm biased, but this is rooted in me doing this for years on the platform. I know the kind of money you can make on it as a nano influencer. So just happy to see it. Chad Sowash (32:36.803) Mo? Maureen Wiley Clough (32:38.287) I love it. I mean, we are in a career stability crisis and we need additional income streams like crazy. So with the portfolio career thing, like the visibility being the currency that we need to have, right? This is this is great and this is proof of it. you don't have to be a big name to make a ton of money on social media. And you don't have to be a big name to make a little money, maybe just a little extra coin for you to get through some harder times. Like it's just a good thing to have your personal reputation comes with you wherever you go. Chad Sowash (32:43.799) Hassle, Hussle. Chad Sowash (32:51.715) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (33:06.019) And if you're creating content around stuff that you really know and speak, you know, freely about, that's going to draw people in. We are in a trust desert right now. People do not trust anything or anyone because everything is a damn scam these days. So that is why I think people are gravitating towards these people with these perspectives that aren't bought by others necessarily, right? That are that are real raw and true. And I think that people are more likely to trust in some cases people with smaller following, frankly, because Chad Sowash (33:15.501) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (33:35.897) They don't think, this person's been bought by X company. I mean, I I'll tell you right now, no shade to people who may have done this, but like I would rather eat glass than do an open AI ad. Like I just absolutely that's just it will never happen, right? Like and and so you right. It and so I think that people are looking for they're they're looking for people that they feel are going to give them the unfettered truth. And, you know, it I think it does obviously get complicated down the line as you Chad Sowash (33:39.331) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:49.911) Yeah, yeah. Blacklisted. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:05.602) receive these offers. Like I've had to turn down brand deal offers because I'm like, no, absolutely not. I would never get behind your product. I'm sure you have many times too. Like it's just it it so it it's really I'm very convicted in like trust is so important and you cannot break it with your audience. And it is really great to see for the little guy out there that you can create something that has, you know, real merit behind it and actually attract brands. Because JT O'Donnell (34:10.491) Same. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:32.323) Brands can't do this. Brands can't do what influencers. And by the way, just a quick side note: the word influencer has taken on this really demeaning sort of narrative. And I think it's misogynistic. I think it's like, because when you think influencer, you almost never think dude, at least in my perspective. Like you think woman. and so that's another thing I think that we need to unpack as a society. JT O'Donnell (34:42.67) Yeah. Chad Sowash (34:53.763) You don't think Mr. Beast is an influencer or like Joe Rogan or Maureen Wiley Clough (34:57.603) I guess I I just JT O'Donnell (34:59.853) I mean I s I don't label them influencers. No, yeah, I don't. Chad Sowash (35:03.424) Okay. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:04.353) I it just doesn't have the same connotation for whatever reason. I feel like they're not as often described as such. I do I think they have influence? Hell yeah. But I I think the word itself is like very female coded, women coded. anyway, so that's a side note because you know, we love to go on tangents here in my little brain. But but yeah, I I really I'm excited about what it means for the average person who is going through a career pivot, a reinvention, you know, needs to develop other sorts of streams of income. And not everybody's gonna wanna do this. It's really uncomfortable being, you know, visible online. Like you have to deal with people misunderstanding you all the time. I won't even begin to tell you some of the things that people have said about me, on what I've said, right? It it's just absurd. But you have to be able to take it and filter it out and just move forward because you have the belief that what you're saying is important and people need to hear it. But yeah, I think I think we're see so much more of this. And I'm actually really heartened by it. I think it's it's really a great, it's a great thing for the for the average person. So I love it. Chad Sowash (36:05.899) Agreed. Totally agreed. I I think you're right, JT. And LinkedIn, it's it's LinkedIn versus versus meta instead of LinkedIn versus indeed, right? And that's where LinkedIn wants to go. They want to be able to escalate to that. Now I started reading this article and I thought that is fucking cool. These social platforms are really starting to spread the views, the likes, and the love, right? So many of the platforms and algorithms from Maureen Wiley Clough (36:07.982) Mm-hmm. JT O'Donnell (36:15.589) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:16.067) Mm-hmm. Totally. JT O'Donnell (36:21.483) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:26.017) Right. Yep. Chad Sowash (36:30.283) algorithm standpoint, I just like seeing the story moving because there was just so much attention being paid to that top 1%, right? Or even, you know, point one percent. And being able to spread that around, I thought was really cool, right? the thing that I didn't like is that there are not great agencies that are out there, JTU and and Tracy over at Flockety, you guys, I but there are the you guys are great because you're focusing on what can you actually do. JT O'Donnell (36:52.155) Okay. Chad Sowash (36:58.061) How can you make a living? Those types of things. But there are predatory agencies that are out there. they talked about a woman running to Target, making a video, posting it on her social account, and being rewarded with a $10 gift card from Target. Seriously? A $10 gift card? Okay, maybe, maybe next time it'll be $15. Then I started to to to feel this throwback of my days in radio when agency agencies purposely Maureen Wiley Clough (37:01.881) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (37:16.599) That's where we are. Chad Sowash (37:27.263) Undervalued talent, they undervalued audiences, they undervalued formats, and they undervalued anything they could to get great talent product for cheap, so that their margins would be much larger. So, in my view, this is all just a well-laid-out scam from many of these larger agencies that are creating quote unquote tools, gamified tools, like for Chili's, Southwest Airlines. Target, those big names that really draw those those those people who want to be influencers in, and then they pay them shit. it's literally massive arbitrage. They get high, they get high value media from working moms planning trips to Target and Home Depot with hyper-targeted audiences. They have trust. And in return, those moms get no real compensation. They get fucking. Maureen Wiley Clough (38:11.716) Yeah. Capitalism. Chad Sowash (38:24.493) gift cards, right? So I I think one of the things that we have to do, and we have to do especially on this show, is a and I and I was one of the reasons why people listen to this show, because we do speak, you know, unfettered truth, no bullshit. we have opinions, so good right, wrong, whatever you feel. But at when I read something like this, I was reading there are going to be, much like LinkedIn, LinkedIn are gonna is people are gonna use that LinkedIn algorithm for good. JT O'Donnell (38:25.701) Yeah. Chad Sowash (38:52.823) And then they're gonna use it for evil. Same thing that's happening here. They're gonna be agencies that go out there to help individuals actually make a living. And then there are gonna be other ones that get shit tons of cash and then they give the quote unquote influencer gift cards. JT O'Donnell (38:54.437) For bad. Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (38:55.415) Yeah, there. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:00.345) So true. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:07.587) Very accurate. Very accurate. JT O'Donnell (39:07.675) Yeah. You are not wrong. And I'm I'm so glad you're bringing that up, Chad, because there are also this is where the the nano influencer really needs extra help and support through those processes. I can tell you stories of companies making promises. This is way before one of the reasons I started the agency is because of everything that I learned along the way, where they'd be like, my gosh, we're gonna pay you this, and then they don't, but they got all the initial views and they got all the so even by the time you took it down, they already got that. Chad Sowash (39:17.687) Yes. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:30.766) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:34.713) So brutal. JT O'Donnell (39:35.695) that piece of it, like you get burned. You get burned once and you never forget. And that to me is just make sure you partner with an agency that does really understand how that operates. Make sure you get your cut. Make sure you're getting paid real dollars. Real dollars. You know, it's very simple. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:37.551) Mm. Mm. Chad Sowash (39:46.766) Yeah, well and and you didn't you you didn't hear me say any of this before the show in the green room or anything like that. Neither did Tracy Parsons. but there are good people in this industry who have been in this industry, they understand this industry, and they will look out for you because they know that their reputation is the foundation of who they are. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:54.423) Ha ha JT O'Donnell (40:01.775) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:02.276) Yes. That's key. Chad Sowash (40:12.513) Right. So I mean that that to me means everything. So if you're out there and you're an influencer and you're thinking about, I need to find an agency, make sure that that person has a foundation in this industry, connections in this industry, and they're not looking to pay you with fucking gift cards. okay. So who won who wants to talk about Google? Huh? JT O'Donnell (40:29.551) Exactly. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:31.097) Pretty exploitative, yeah. JT O'Donnell (40:35.163) Maureen Wiley Clough (40:35.38) Do no evil. Chad Sowash (40:36.675) All right. So a new a new a new cloud. This is good. This is interesting though. A new cloud cloudflare report reveals that over 50%, five zero percent of internet traffic is now non human. Notably, Google search drives eighty-eight percent of referral traffic, but it's Gemini powered AI overviews are scraping site content and displays answers directly. JT O'Donnell (40:50.906) Okay. Chad Sowash (41:03.021) So there's no clicking necessary. Despite including tiny source links, these AI summaries have slashed human click-through traffic by nearly 40%, 4-0% in an under and this is under a year. Under a year. Now, this is forcing publishers to brace for a Google Zero era and virtually no search referrals. So, Mo, why would Google kill the same revenue machine that's feeding? JT O'Donnell (41:14.275) Mm. Chad Sowash (41:32.961) The AI research and development team. Why are they doing this? Maureen Wiley Clough (41:36.516) I mean, I'm the whole thing is so infuriating because it's just it's taking away humans' critical thinking skills. People, I mean, it's like how you go on Amazon and you look for a product and they just like have the teeniest little writing that says sponsored, right? Like ad. It's exactly the same concept. Like we are we are being drawn to this information that is served up to us by an entity that has a vested interest in serving up certain types of information. And what they don't want there is gonna get filtered out. That's that's just the reality. And so they are self-selecting, you know, who who wins essentially. They are giving the winner, they're they're just seeding the winners. And and you can only imagine the way in which that's going to be detrimental to society. And sadly, Americans don't tend to like nuance or critical thought, it seems these days. And so I'm very concerned about people who will get that Gemini like AI, whatever. Chad Sowash (42:26.131) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (42:27.339) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:31.992) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:32.045) Read it, accept it at face value, not think, huh? I wonder why these particular results came in and what could have been missed and what the subtext is here. People aren't gonna do that. And that is extremely dangerous. It terrifies me, honestly. And I actually did, I was curious the other day. I was like, what information will it serve up to me if I qu have the question, a Google search about like how many jobs do AI data centers provide? And I was like, what do you know? I'm getting like this very glowing, interesting information about. Chad Sowash (42:55.243) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:59.897) How many jobs like it making it look like it's a huge job creator? And then I started doing more digging and I was like, maybe like 30 jobs, maybe four to make 20, like very small per. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, like, come on, man. so yeah, the the this has a catastrophic impact on our ability to think and to give us the right information, to be discerning consumers. It seeds winners automatically out of the gate. and and it decreases traffic to Chad Sowash (43:08.974) long term. Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (43:25.771) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (43:29.635) companies websites, right? Which is is also right like like by a lot. So it's it's really scary. I mean, that is terrifying. And so we now need to be in the AEO era where we're figuring out how do we get our websites in the AI, you know, initial sort of thing. So anyway, I just think that there are so many downstream impacts of this. And I I've heard very few people actually and maybe I'm just not looking in the right places or it's not being served up to me in my AI thing. But I I haven't heard enough people talking about this yet. Chad Sowash (43:31.287) Forty percent. In under a year. Maureen Wiley Clough (43:58.636) And it's really it's a huge problem. It lends itself to the misinformation, disinformation that got us into the potential the particular moment we are right now in this timeline of twenty twenty six. So I only see it getting exacerbated. So yeah, I'm really concerned about it, frankly. And I'd be pissed if I were a business that really had a lot of Google ads driving me to my driving people to my website and suddenly it's gone. So yeah, again, no one cares about customer experience anymore. JT O'Donnell (44:23.799) Yeah. I mean, I mean, I I have living proof of this. I can tell you that it's more than forty percent. Right. So I have a website that I started in two thousand eight, has over five thousand blog pages on it. We have followed all the SEO protocols for years and years and years. Somebody dedicated to keeping it relevant. We never paid on Google Ads, but we had such good authority that we would generally be page one for certain things. We immediately saw the drop. Immediately, and we knew AI writing the wall. Here's the good news we've always been big into social media. So we didn't rely on our website only. The businesses that rely on search results only are effed, truly, truly effed in that respect. Whereas it didn't hurt us as much. Now, that being said, one of the strategies that we recently applied, and it's very early, but I'm happy to come back and give you data points on it, is we are now taking our get ready for it nano influencers, having them write blog, very detailed info blog posts. Maureen Wiley Clough (44:51.843) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (44:57.604) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:14.093) The tie it up. Chad Sowash (45:15.981) There you go. JT O'Donnell (45:20.057) Right, with video from social of them talking about it. And guess what? They're showing up in AI searches. So now they're being the authority. So my platform can push them as the authority in the AI. And that's that's what I want for them, right? Like that's my way to get them the visibility they want. So I see a future in that, which is great for my business, but that's because we researched and knew what to do. Whereas the vast majority of companies out there are truly effed with this. They're they're not gonna get the traffic and there's no amount of paying. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:26.843) Look at that. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:35.223) That's amazing. Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:43.16) Mm. JT O'Donnell (45:48.837) for the traffic that's gonna solve for that anymore. Chad Sowash (45:52.056) No question. The rich content. I mean, that rich content means a lot. And it it so it feels like in the race to develop better AI, we're liter I mean, we're losing ourselves. LinkedIn has become the king of AI slop. Resumes are AI slop, articles, comments. I mean everywhere. Research, AI slop. And in this case, Google's main business model is being swallowed up by AI and their own doing. Maureen Wiley Clough (46:06.0) Mm. JT O'Donnell (46:12.357) Slack. Chad Sowash (46:21.633) Right? If AI answers replace blue search links, how does Google keep printing money? Because that's how they print money, is those links. And here's another wrinkle. Google uses the same automated tool to both index sites and train AI models. So that means if publishers opt out of appearing in Google AI overviews, Because they it's it's their it's their data and they want it, yeah, it's their IP. And they don't want to train the large language models on their IP, something that we created. They don't want to give that to Google. So if they opt out from that, guess what? That fucks their SEO. And that's gonna fuck their AEO as well, right? So as you're talking about this, this it's it's it's so interesting to watch Google, who is funding this AI build with all the profits that they're getting from. Maureen Wiley Clough (46:48.471) It's their IP. Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:00.877) Mm, mhm. Chad Sowash (47:15.543) Their search and then their search is down 40%, which means obviously click click revenue, the only way to get click revenue up is to be able to charge more per click. so this is going to be interesting. They keep talking about, well, we're going to have products in the actual chat stream and we're gonna do this. And it's like, that's gonna be fucking horrible. I mean, yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:18.371) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:25.208) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (47:25.434) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:36.191) Awful awful. JT O'Donnell (47:36.559) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (47:38.808) I mean, now like so let's say for instance, like in the Google search, it's something that you you you expect, right? You expect to be served up ads. But when you're in Gemini and you do that, and I was I was messing around with Chat GPT the other day, and and I saw an ad pop up in the actual stream. I'm like, what the fuck is this? Cause I haven't used Chat GPT in a while. And it was horrible. It was one of the dumbest. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:45.647) Mm. Chad Sowash (48:03.604) user experiences I have ever seen. So they have a lot to figure out. We were talking about LinkedIn earlier. They have a lot to figure out. There's a lot of algorithms. There's a lot of shit. the business models they have to figure out 40% traffic loss. Where's the clicks? You know where the clicks going to come from. Anyway, deep, deep, deep breath, deep breath. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:03.714) Ha ha ha. JT O'Donnell (48:15.813) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:22.339) Google will figure out how to make money. I'm I'm worried about the I'm worried about the small business owners who who used, you know, SEO and whatnot to get people to their website. JT O'Donnell (48:25.349) Yeah. Chad Sowash (48:31.497) A i JT O'Donnell (48:32.291) Years spent thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars. That's like an investment. That's like an asset. People would refer to their websites SEO as an asset and now it's worth crap. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:40.717) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (48:42.125) Well, and I mean l let's go ahead and go over something real quick. That is naive. Okay. I I remember talking to Gary Zukowski, who started Tweet My Jobs way back in the day, before he sold it. And and and I was asking him, like, okay, great. This is you have this wonderful technology, but what happens if Twitter shuts you down? He's like, Well, the business is fucked. Business is fucked, right? Maureen Wiley Clough (49:01.837) Yeah. Own your list. Yeah. It's true. Chad Sowash (49:04.341) It's the same thing, right? So it's like, look, you've got to get out. You got to get out while while everything is high. And if SAO is on the downturn, you can't use that as a business asset because you don't control it. You have no control over it whatsoever. And that sucks. but one thing, one thing that we do have control over is talking about Sam Altman, because everybody JT O'Donnell (49:06.245) I agree. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:15.767) Yeah. Right. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:21.591) It does. Scam Altman. Love that guy. Such a good dude. Chad Sowash (49:31.341) We'll be right back. Chad Sowash (49:35.586) Mo's lying to us all, everybody. okay, so remember back in March, I hope you guys remember, when Joel and I talked to Paul Price, the founder of CodeWall, the company that used AI hackers to hack Jack and Jill. that was a big discussion for our industry because companies were then saying, wait a minute, if AI can hack these different platforms, is my data safe? Maureen Wiley Clough (49:37.312) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:03.428) are our systems or are systems safe because it's not just into that one system. They can jump to different systems by finding these different zero days, these different holes, right? Well, there's an even bigger story. This from Business Insider. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says we've reached a point in the AI race that is the stuff of science fiction novels. He, I'm sure he's not overplaying his hand there. We are now like JT O'Donnell (50:03.674) Yep. Chad Sowash (50:31.743) In the singularity, he said. what's Altman talking about? Well, here's a clip from NBC News. ((CLIP)) Chad Sowash (51:30.967) Mo, what's more scary, the surveillance state or our AI overlords? I I don't know right now. Maureen Wiley Clough (51:39.862) Not quite sure, but I believe that part of the problem with us I really believe that a lot of the problem of the fact that we're not acting on this like really existential threat to literally humanity is that it is like a sci-fi movie. It doesn't seem real. Like we've been conditioned to be like, ha ha ha ha Hal, you know, whatever. Like we we do not think it is real. We do not think the matrix is real and now it's becoming real. We just can't even like the cognitive dissonance of accepting that I think is so hard. Chad Sowash (51:57.41) Yes. Stop it. Yeah. Chad Sowash (52:08.611) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (52:09.603) Because there is literally no other more nonpartisan unifying issue than AI guardrails and regulation, right? Like if you like living and you want your kids to live too, maybe we should regulate these guys. Maybe we should not have an arms race by some wannabe trillionaires, right? Going towards oblivion potentially. And we need legislation and we need it yesterday. And I do not care if it slows innovation down. Because guess what? You know who also would not benefit from. Chad Sowash (52:28.599) Yeah, yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (52:37.987) the annihilation of humanity is China. So if you're gonna say, like, China'll get there first, well, why don't you get in a room with China? Like we've done this, right? We've done this in history, like nuclear treaties and stuff. Like, come on, we can do this, guys. So I'm terrified by all of it, quite obviously. and I think the average person's unawareness on this issue is one of the most deeply concerning aspects of this all. Like I I can't tell you Maureen Wiley Clough (53:06.435) How many times have I had conversations with people who have absolutely no idea about Scam Altman or have not read this book, The Empire of AI by Karen Howe. Like, guys, this is this is bad. And we also are in a position where we can stop this. Cause guess what? No one elected these guys, right? This is this is the problem with corporate greed and with this unchecked power and the influence that these people have. But we have more if we band together, right? Chad Sowash (53:14.099) PH Maureen Wiley Clough (53:36.153) So it's all incredibly terrifying. We already saw this with Claude Mythos a few months ago. I'm not at all surprised that this is now happening with OpenAI. In fact, I would have imagined it would have happened there first. But we are just, I mean, this is so dangerous. This is so dangerous. No one wants this. Nobody wants this. This is bad for all of us. And we need some people who actually care about the human experience and humanity to be running these companies instead of people who don't give a damn about people, who actually maybe Chad Sowash (54:03.844) Thanks, Andre. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:05.88) actively hate people? Like I the these guys are sociopaths. Like I I don't know. It's it's chilling. It's chilling. It truly is. So I wish I had more to say other than damn, we need to have a conversation. We need to have a an absolutely nonpartisan conversation on guardrails with AI. And we need it to be the number one freaking issue on the midterm ballots. That's what we need. Chad Sowash (54:24.109) Yeah. Chad Sowash (54:31.287) Yeah. But that's gonna be hard because people can't afford shit. But and again, it's one of those things. No, I agree, I agree. JT, I've got a new beer, so go ahead, getting cold. JT O'Donnell (54:35.331) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:35.951) True. But again, that's how they win. That's how the system continues, right? JT O'Donnell (54:41.037) Yeah. Yeah. So so yes to everything you said and I always look at it from I I I love listening and watching people and hearing things and the trends that come out of it. One thing that hit me this week, somebody was showing me a piece where they were talking about to some of these people that have been in AI for a really long time and they asked them the question, Would you want to bring kids into the world right now? And a couple of them like song and danced around it and one of them finally said, Yeah, no. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:42.383) Good time to get a beer. JT O'Donnell (55:09.915) Not really a point. Not really a point. That I mean, that is out there right now. The other big trend that I hear people saying literally is, well, you know, AI is gonna take us down. So I'm just I'm Rome's burning. So I'm just gonna live it up right now. I've I've had multiple people make that as a joke, as their way to have another beer, do another thing, buy a thing. Like the justification is AI and it, you know. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:10.723) Yep, I heard that one too. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:27.406) Yeah. JT O'Donnell (55:35.109) But that's rooted in truth. Do you know what I'm saying? So people are just like, you know, let Rome burn. And so when you start seeing those patterns, you know it's there. Like you said, people are still in denial. But I guess my hope is that this is starting, people are starting to go, wow, this is actually no joke. You know, I just hope. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:36.778) Mm. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:49.956) Yeah, I hope so too. And I do think that there's room for like great ethical AI. I a hundred percent think AI can be fantastic. It can if if you just like will you freaking just go cure cancer already, okay? Like stop talking about that as a possibility. But the problem with all of this is unchecked, you can't have the good without the bad outcome situation. Like so I just this this like r it's the arms race element that's the problem ultimately. Chad Sowash (56:00.994) Means Chad Sowash (56:07.671) Yes, yes, yes. Chad Sowash (56:14.488) We need to have watchdogs. That's all there is to it. That has to be a governmental thing. and to be quite frank, I don't know who to believe on this thing. I think Sam Altman is full of shit half the time. I think Amanday is full of shit h half the time, right? but then I get this from another article and I don't know again if this what this is, but it's like this is from NDTV. Apparently OpenAI's autonomous agent left notes. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:18.062) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:27.351) I'm sure they all are. Chad Sowash (56:40.331) For its successor on how to escape cages built by humans to keep them in check. Right? I mean, and and and here's and here's the worst part. As we we just talk about regulation, open AI is very likely unlikely to face criminal liability for this incident. This is a hacking thing. though, you know, they they could face significant exposure to civil liability. I don't know why they couldn't be criminal. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:46.561) Nightmare. Nightmare. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:57.538) yeah. Chad Sowash (57:07.627) and regulatory scrutiny. And we know what that means in the US right now. With this administration, not a fucking thing. The main issue definitely is the gap between existing computer crime laws that are written and how autonomous AI agents behave. Tech is outpacing a very slow legislation system in the US. and it seems like the EU is really the only ones that are paying attention right now. I think that's the hard part. We we we do need, as you said, Mo. Maureen Wiley Clough (57:07.811) Right. Maureen Wiley Clough (57:14.127) Mm. Chad Sowash (57:37.761) We need to be able to be in the room with the EU, with China, as China's getting ready to they have they don't have significantly worse AI. It's not better, that's for sure. But what they're doing is they're literally, much like they did with cars, with steel, with semicam, I mean a lot of different things, they're dumping it cheaply into the into the US. And now we're going to have a lot of companies using their models because they're cheaper and they they're not they're not bad enough not to use, right? So it's gonna be it's gonna be fun it's we're gonna need therapy. We're gonna need therapy. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:13.495) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:19.927) my gosh. JT O'Donnell (58:22.053) Do you think do you think when they did that quote in that movie that they ever thought people would soundbite that thing as much as they do right now? Right? Like, who knew? Maureen Wiley Clough (58:29.732) Bet not. Chad Sowash (58:30.019) I no no clue. But as we talk about therapy, that's a good segue, kids. That's a good segue. this is my my dad joke. Joel, over the last over the last two weeks, and I want you to both have a heart to heart with Emmy because she said it was okay for him to have the creepy uncle jokes. And I was like, no, you have to go back to dad jokes. So this week, we're doing the dad joke, not the creepy uncle wearing ri meta ray bands joke. Okay. here it is. Okay, here we go. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:35.299) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:40.119) Ha ha Maureen Wiley Clough (58:47.983) Ha ha ha. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:55.715) Thank you. Appreciate it. Chad Sowash (58:58.881) Why did AI go to therapy? Why did AI go to therapy? Maureen Wiley Clough (59:07.407) Got nothing. Chad Sowash (59:08.725) It had too many unresolved processing issues. There you go, kids. That's a dad joke. It's not good. It's a dad joke, though. And it that's that's exactly right. That's exactly right. that's another one in a can. Mo JT, great to be back on the mic with you. And guess what, kids? We out. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:13.803) It's that's cute. That's cute. But it's not a creepy Uncle Red Meta Ray Ban joke. So that's the win. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:33.337) We out. JT O'Donnell (59:33.529) We out.

Startup x VC Drama, Burger King, and a Side of RICO If you thought human resources was all about trust-fall exercises and awkward anti-harassment PowerPoints, think again. This week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Joel Cheesman and Chad Sowash host Kristy McCann, former CHRO, founder of Skill Cycle, and current legal nightmare for predatory venture capitalists. What starts as a classic startup success story (bootstrapping an HR tech company, surviving a pandemic, and making the Inc. 5000 list) quickly devolves into a full-blown corporate thriller. Enter an "opportunity fund" that turned out to be an opportunity only for the investors specifically, the opportunity to hijack the cap table, force shady "pay-to-play" dilutions, and try to turn a custom coaching marketplace into an AI chatbot. Buckle up for a hilarious, jaw-dropping breakdown of: The 8-Hour Starvation Interrogation The "Loan-to-Own" Playbook Racketeering in HR Tech? It’s a hilarious, infuriating, and wildly educational cautionary tale for every founder who has ever considered taking a check from someone they didn't thoroughly vet first. "I survived COVID without government money... You wanna fuck with me? Fine. Discovery, baby! Let's go."— Kristy McCann Hit play, grab some popcorn, and double-check your cap table! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:27.911) Ohhh yeah. It's the podcast your goalkeeper warned you about. What's up, boys and girls? It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Christy McCann, founder and former chief executive officer at Skill Cycle. Christy, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:31.34) Woohoo! Chad Sowash (00:39.939) Hey! Kristy McCann (00:50.296) Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. It's just gonna be fun. Joel Cheesman (00:55.099) We're happy to have you. for our listeners that don't know you, give us a little bit of a Twitter bio. What makes Christy tick? Chad Sowash (00:56.313) We hope so. Kristy McCann (01:01.376) Yeah, so I'm a unique blend, needless to say. I'm former HR for twenty years. Then I started my own HR tech companies. and now I'm helping a bunch of other HR tech companies realize their dreams. And then I guess the the bow that ties it all together, besides being a, you know, CHRO, CEO, and founder, is that I'm also in litigation with a BIP Ventures. Chad Sowash (01:09.743) Mmm. Kristy McCann (01:28.652) in regards to a hostile takeover of my company's skill cycle, which I created eight years ago, nine years ago. Chad Sowash (01:35.425) Now listeners, know, chat, you, you, our listeners know that Chad and cheese podcasts love us some startups. And, and that's why on today's show, we, we brought pretty much a founder's worst nightmare, finding out people that are writing the checks are actually looking to steal the keys and lock you out of your own damn house. That's why we brought Christie on the show. So Christie, thanks for showing up. We have lots of startups that listen to us. Joel Cheesman (01:35.505) That escalated quickly. Chad Sowash (02:04.046) Lots of obviously buyers too, but this is one aspect of a lot of the stories that we just don't see, but we know it goes on behind the scenes. I appreciate it if you could give us a short overview of the company. So skill cycle and then when and how did VC get involved and then let it all just roll. Joel Cheesman (02:17.52) Cautionary Tales of the Stars. Kristy McCann (02:29.24) Sure. So I started what was known as GoCoach. this was and then I'll talk about the skill cycle transition. So I put half a million dollars into GoCoach back in, you know, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, to essentially create a marketplace of coaches to basically upskill employees in their organization. Chad Sowash (02:44.366) Gotcha. Joel Cheesman (02:52.4) Was that self funded? Sorry. Was that self funded or how you had you raised money by that point? Kristy McCann (02:56.598) No, no, no. This was this is my money. I you know you mean so I I put in the 500K. I took at the time I was living in New York, took my husband across the street, got a really good bottle of whiskey and said, Hey, I'm gonna take some money out of my four hundred one K and I'm gonna start this company. I had been in HR for twenty years and one of the reasons that I I wanted to start an HR tech company is that I was just done with the terrible HR tech that was out there. Like it was just So bad I spent more time ripping out systems than you know buying systems because they just didn't work. They made me look stupid, nobody used them, etc. So I knew that I could start part of the vision on my own, which was the coach marketplace and and LXP. And so bootstrapped that for a few years. and we really started the the Rev. and so I was super excited. Chad Sowash (03:40.108) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (03:52.717) started to attract investor attention attention back in twenty twenty one. And, you know, Brought has some really good investors, you know, out there, like Early Light, you know, I got angels in there, PS twenty seven, et cetera. And then this competition came up, you know, for this opportunity fund. And I saw it I looked at it and I had already raised, you know, the amount for our C round, which was, you know, two point five. And a two point five was to realize the full vision of what became skill cycle, which was creating a new category in HR Tech of bringing performance management and learning together with AI. So we are ahead of the AI curve, but so that we're bringing the right things together. So that any type of performance, you know, that you're getting Chad Sowash (04:40.141) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (04:43.084) informal inform formally goes automatically into learning with our coaches, our mentors, and our content, right? So real-time development, real-time action, real-time engagement. so I couldn't do that on my own. I the one thing I didn't know how to do is code and I needed a lot more money to be able to establish that even though we were growing significantly. So going back to this opportunity fund, you know, there were some competition, some startup showdown, whatever. I had a Chad Sowash (05:09.699) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (05:11.84) apparently applied during the summer. And then after I had raised around, I got was informed that I was part of this. So I'm like, I'll do it for brand awareness and what have you. and it was a B I it was known as Panoramic Ventures at the time, which is supposed to be an opportunity fund for diverse founders like me. So I I went and I did it and long and behold, I won. And they you know, in winning they put in I think it was like a Hundred and twenty five K safe. and I didn't, you know, it wasn't something I was interested in. I already closed the round and whatnot, but they came back to like, no, we'll actually oversubscrib round. I'm like, you know, like this could be cool, like I could build more product, add more people, etc. talked to my other investors. Nobody had really heard of them before, but we all kept on going back to like it's an opportunity fund, like this is a fund for Chad Sowash (05:56.718) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (06:06.818) people like me, like, you know what I mean? female, you know, neurodiversity. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:10.32) Christy, real quick, when when you before the competition, you said you raised two fo two point five. Give us an idea of how many employees? Were you profitable yet? Were you on the road to profitability? Kind of give us an idea of where you were before, and then we'll get into the after the investment. Kristy McCann (06:23.36) Yeah, so it was roughly I mean, I I wasn't paying myself, but it was me and then I wanna say I had about six contractors and I you know, an ed tech consultancy that I brought in that to help evolve the product. and then I had hundreds of coaches, right, that were all ten ninety nine within the marketplace. And so we I guess you could say on paper we were profitable because like I wasn't paying myself and like, you know, I mean, I, you know, was paying the the consultants decent wages, and the contractors. I will say this, I survived COVID, without any government money, because you know, we didn't have formal payroll because everybody was contractors and I was able to survive COVID and grow substantially. We went for I think it was like Forex growth that year of twenty twenty to twenty twenty one. That's why investors started to come in. Joel Cheesman (07:20.688) Okay. So totally bootstrapped, on the road to to profits, and then now you you get the money. Now start good keep going. Chad Sowash (07:22.434) Okay. Kristy McCann (07:25.485) Yeah. Chad Sowash (07:28.194) The Opportunity Fund. Kristy McCann (07:30.144) Yeah, opportunity fun. Interesting. interesting play and opportunity. so yeah, so they came in, oversubscribed it, you know, 'cause I it was going back and forth and but I just kept on like thinking it was safe. Opportunity fun. Dumbest thing I ever thought of. and and and so it began. And it just was it was a weird relationship. Chad Sowash (07:34.807) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (07:58.595) From the get-go. And then all of a sudden they were no longer panoramic ventures. The guy, Paul Judge, who was part of Panoramic Ventures and apparently raised his $300 million opportunity fund, just disappeared. I'm asking questions like, all right, well, who who who who am I hanging out with these days? Like, you know, I mean you're you're supposed to be my lead investor, not really getting any answers. and then they became BIP Ventures. And I just noticed immediately. Like there was just shifts and changes. I mean, we really didn't talk to them much to begin with because like guy that you know, I was dealing with was no longer there. But they really started to like get into our business like i in a very over over zealous way. And I kept on talking to my other investors, I'm like, Is this normal? And nobody r really knew what was going on because Chad Sowash (08:51.778) Well, how did they get involved in the business? That's the big question. Kristy McCann (08:55.058) my God. I spent more time with them than I did with my own team of customers. It was ridiculous. Like it was it you know, they they were I felt like I was being micromanaged by an investor that had no idea what I was doing in HR tech. Right? Like they're just like, Well, why don't you just be like a AI bot coaching company? I'm like, No, like that that like I I'm not gonna AI bot this like they're you know, like I had Chad Sowash (09:11.298) Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Kristy McCann (09:23.084) views on AI before A by AI became mainstream. And they never understood what we were doing. it was clear and I was trying to create a new category and it was going to be tough. Like we were changing from a service model to a SaaS model, an AI SaaS model, on top of that. Like it it was just a ridiculous amount of time being spent with them trying to for them to understand the business. Joel Cheesman (09:35.984) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (09:46.168) Was was it a Chad Sowash (09:47.663) Well, you notice that a lot. mean, when you're talking to VCs and PEs, just separately out of, especially ones who have broad ranges of portfolios, which it looks like BIP Ventures does have a very broad range, where it's like they really don't understand. They just got a good pitch out of it. And then they come in and it feels like from your standpoint, they really just wanted to start controlling the organization. Is that the case? Kristy McCann (10:13.9) yeah. Yeah. I mean that I I felt it immediately. I mean, like, you know, we went from having quarterly board meetings to monthly board meetings to I'm talking to them every day. Like I was just like, yeah, I'm like, seriously, I'm like, what don't you get? Like it it was annoying and red flags start to go up, but like they would have a annual symposium where they would bring all the startups that they had funded. and based on their website and based on the amount of Joel Cheesman (10:24.026) Daily. Chad Sowash (10:24.206) Ouch. Kristy McCann (10:42.614) startups that came, there's a very big difference, needless to say. yeah. Chad Sowash (10:46.572) Really? Because it looks like there's about a hundred of them in their portfolio on their website. Kristy McCann (10:51.03) Yeah, I think that there's I think there's vintage and I think that I I think there's some weird things going on in that website, not gonna lie. Chad Sowash (10:53.888) A fraction. okay. Chad Sowash (10:58.944) Okay, okay, okay. Joel Cheesman (11:00.122) Was was it a a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, like before they did the deal, was it we're gonna let you run, we're gonna let you do the business, we're just gonna sort of be there to support and then when the deal was signed, and what kind of due diligence did you do before the deal that may have surprised you? Kristy McCann (11:16.704) So I did a lot of due diligence on them and they did a ton of due diligence on me. I mean, believe me, I mean, my my legal bills for the, you know, amount of due diligence with all the money that I raised were extremely high. I was doing due diligence. I was talking to other investors, trying to find out more about them, that there just wasn't much. and again, I just kept on going back to the opportunity fund, but it was I felt it. I mean, like I'm you know, bipolar. I have this thing where I call it my five point five cents, not complete six cents, but I I I call it my five point five cents. And I felt it in my chest that I just knew, but like I was just also like taking the counsel from, you know, my investors, like you could, you know, ball the product, you know, hire more people, like hire them actually full time, you know, give people benefits, what have you. And it was that. I was looking out for the the company, which is, you know, what I was doing from beginning. It was always about the company. It's why I didn't pay myself. It's why I put so much money in there. It's why, you know, I was able to survive during COVID and we were able to, you know, scale. Like, you know, we we we gave away the platform during the height of COVID to help employees who were getting laid off left and right. And that freemium turned into a huge you know, up with and to paid revenue because people needed it and wanted it and and businesses couldn't live without it. And so that by me giving I I actually it wasn't a marketing campaign, it was just the right thing to do. And Chad Sowash (12:49.24) Right. freemium obviously in some cases does work well. How did you get to the point where they were moving more toward a loan to own kind of strategy and the type of financing that went into that? And can you talk a little bit about that? Kristy McCann (13:07.628) Yeah, so we had transitioned the company you know, during twenty two going into twenty twenty three, right? We were really starting to put up a scaffolding, a skill cycled brand, you know, creating this new category, getting the go to market and all that. And I had just raised another round, which, you know, was supposed to be my A round, but they kept on saying, No, like let's do a seat extension. Chad Sowash (13:16.078) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (13:37.121) And even though I had all all my investors were in, you know, companies doing well and then I had new investors coming in and they wanted to make it a seat extension. And I thought that that was odd. and then not only that, making it a price seat extension. I'm like, shouldn't it be priced? Like, you know what I mean, during the series A, like, you what I Like I just didn't understand what was going on. I was sending it to my attorneys, like, I don't know. It was just weird. but you know, I was more focused on the fact that I had them Chad Sowash (13:59.757) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (14:05.302) I have the money in the bank, like I gotta get Skills Cycle up and running, right? Like we have huge market opportunity, huge TAM to expand into all the clients that we are working with primarily in mid markets, but we also had a lot of big enterprises. so we started to make that transition hired up significantly, which was something that I was uneasy with, but was being pushed to do it. and then you know, the market was wacky Q one of twenty twenty three, right? So we're making a transition the skill cycle. S V bank run is happening at the same time. And then, you know, the I want to say the VC reality checks start to come in. And within the last fundraise, you know, what I'm alleging in my complaint Joel Cheesman (14:40.711) Good times. Chad Sowash (14:41.172) Mm hmm. Geez. Chad Sowash (14:47.054) Mm. Kristy McCann (14:55.082) Is that they had this tranche, right? Like that was the other thing that started to be introduced. Tranche investing. I'm like, what is this? And then there's like, I'm like, are you giving me, like, you know, I mean, two and a half million dollars or are you giving me four million dollars? Cause it was like two and a half million now and like a million point five later. And there's like, no, like, you know, it's four. Like, we're just gonna start with two and a half now. And it's like, all right, Mike, is there goals attached to this? Like, you know, what is this? And right. Yeah. Chad Sowash (15:18.892) Right. When is it released? When is that funding released? Yeah. Kristy McCann (15:24.078) 'Cause like I'm building my whole budget off of it. Like the board approved budget, needless to say. And it was just very and they kept on saying, like, well, that's why the language, like, there's no goals or anything attached to it. And that's why the language is very you know, like watered down. It's just like, you know, w w we have the option to put an additional one point five. I'm like, all right, well, is it an option and or is it actual? Because like I have to build a budget and a forecast based off this. And so Chad Sowash (15:39.288) loose. Kristy McCann (15:51.885) That tranche investing was sign number one. you know, well, like after the fact that they're no longer panoramic or the opportunity fund, I guess so sign number two. So long story short, you know, Q one we plateaued, which was typical, like based on our cycles. But then we started to grow in Q two of 2023, skill cycle brand getting out there, etc. Joel Cheesman (16:00.6) Okay. Kristy McCann (16:17.302) Not at the rate that we were growing previous, but this is to be expected with a complete rebrand, you know, service to a SaaS model expansion. Like in, you know, we have put that tension into the overall forecast and operational plan. and then I got a phone call to come to Georgia. I wanna say mid summer. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah, call to go to Georgia. Joel Cheesman (16:22.501) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (16:22.638) Mm. Joel Cheesman (16:35.296) No, that's never g that's never good. That's ne the call to go to Georgia is never a good sign. That's Chad Sowash (16:35.362) And that's where their headquarters are at, right? Yeah. Kristy McCann (16:42.178) So I had already been letting go of a few of the underperformers. I was getting really concerned about burn and nobody was answering my questions as to when they were going to put the tranche money in, right? That was board approved. So in my mind, I'm like, all right, great. I could go to Georgia and I could get a straight answer because I wasn't getting a straight answer. Go to Georgia. And that's when I was told that they they weren't putting in the board approved tranche and that I had to let go of half of my team. and that that they weren't really ex that we weren't performing well and and that I was a bad CEO. Joel Cheesman (17:14.705) Did they say why? Did they say why? Chad Sowash (17:21.486) So to be able to actually set the stage to call you an underperforming and bad CEO, even though you were using the proposed dollars to be able to go toward plan, toward strategy, well, that all collapsed because you did not have that tranche per se. So was that, now, Was that the strategy that you're saying is actually happening? It's like you have all this promised money, you hire, hire, hire, which is exactly what we hear VCs and PE do all the time. As soon as you get money, you gotta go hire a bunch of people. But in this case, you didn't receive that money. talk a little bit about that because you were in this meeting and everything's falling apart. Were you gonna stay CEO? What was gonna happen? Kristy McCann (18:11.904) I I was way over my skis at this point. I mean, like, you know, when when they that that tranche wasn't coming in, I think it cut our run rate down to like ba barely five months. and and so I you know, I sat in that meeting and I made it I I made it very clear. This is bullshit, right? Like, you know, let's talk about this. Like, you know what I mean? Let's talk about the stock. Joel Cheesman (18:12.131) Ambush. Joel Cheesman (18:37.873) Did you feel ambushed? You you didn't think you were gonna go down there and get crucified, right? Kristy McCann (18:40.678) yeah, it was me. It was me and twelve of them in a room. Me and twelve of them. yeah. And and I didn't and I sat there for eight hours in that conference room and I barely got fed on top of that. I kept on saying, I'm like, Are you bringing in lunch or something? Like, you know, can I get a water? I'll never forget going back to the airport. Joel Cheesman (18:46.609) You got totally sandbagged. Chad Sowash (18:47.63) 12. Kristy McCann (19:07.419) And I saw Burger King and I was like, I I stuffed my face with Burger King on my flight back because I had not eaten any anything all day. Chad Sowash (19:14.67) Yeah, so There was also this this plan in diluting your your your equity. How did that happen if they did? Go ahead. Yeah Kristy McCann (19:25.026) Well, that's the whole thing. So this is where it started, right? So they they removed the the the tranche, which you know is alleged in the a complaint. And then they started to talk to me about pay to play. I'm like, what the hell is play to play? Like, what are you talking about? It's like, well, you know, we gotta pound down the valuation, but it's a good thing. And, you know, I'm like, How is my valuation going down a good thing? Like, you know what I mean? I was just like, we have grown significantly. Chad Sowash (19:33.719) Right. Kristy McCann (19:53.965) Yeah, we had we plateaued Q one. We also change trans transitioned the entire company, plus we had the you know, Silicon Valley debacle. Now you're telling me that you're removing a tranche, which is gonna, you know, kill all my growth and my run rate. I'm gonna have to go out and raise again. Meanwhile, I'm fighting the keep employees, like, you know, saying that like I'll go down to like nothing in salary, like we'll take pay cuts. Like I it like we're gonna be going into bone you know, with this. And so Chad Sowash (20:02.306) Yes. Kristy McCann (20:23.158) I I mean, look at I'm I'm a former CH RO executive. Like, you know, I I I've been in many you know, rooms for long periods of time of, you know, people trying to throw everything at me and I was I just kept on going back to the fact that like you lied. That this is false advertisement. I have no idea what a pay to play is, whatever. So I went back on the the plane back to Florida because it's all in a like ate a Burger King. I'm back on the plane the Florida And you know, I just started emailing them this like, I we're we're not doing this. I I am not going to let go of employees that I need. and you know, we're that this is gonna kill all growth. I'm gonna figure this out, like whatever. Like, nope, you gotta, you know, you gotta lay off people, you gotta lay off people. I'm just like, look at we we have risk, right? I had a a bunch of women that, you know, had just had children. I had other women that were a few months pregnant, like I'm like No, I'm just like that this is ton of risk. No, no, no, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. Like and then they went out and told all my investors that like that if they didn't put a check in that they were gonna be diluted and and you know, their preferred shares would go to common. Like I I I it the only thing I kept on thinking was just like, All right, just get through this and then when you get through this, we gotta get rid of them. Like I was just like Joel Cheesman (21:46.587) Did you did Chad Sowash (21:46.67) Well, help me understand how this advantages them. I mean, because they're going to make money. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how does this advantage them? Joel Cheesman (21:50.385) Yeah, they're supposed to be on your team. Kristy McCann (21:53.58) No. Well, they they they booted out a bunch of investors that couldn't play. They pounded down the valuation. My you know, stake of like, you know, eighty percent like went down like, you know, significantly, right? Because of the pound down because our valuation was at thirty mil and now the valuation was at eight. Right. And and I had no choice. I I didn't have time to go fundraise either and try to find new investors. Like, and so I was like forced into this. Joel Cheesman (21:59.302) got the company. Chad Sowash (22:09.292) Like single digits, right? Chad Sowash (22:16.799) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (22:26.254) And I just Joel Cheesman (22:26.257) We you had it you had attorneys, what was what was their feedback on this? I assume you went to them and said, Hey, what the Kristy McCann (22:31.298) Then nobody knew what was going on. Nobody everybody's just like like I remember I was talking to my attorney and there's like, I heard a pay to play is like I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. Like they're like they're they're they're not common now. Talking to my other investors, I was just like like, what is pay to play? And they're like, that doesn't really happen for a company that is, you know, being run successfully, right? Like everybody was just confused. We were all just getting steamrolled. Nobody knew which way was up. Right. They they they just and you know, the BAP came in with this narrative that, you know, like, you know, we had to do this and bring down the valuation and then it's gonna be a pay to play and all this other stuff. And then pay to play came and guess what? They're gonna put in X amount and then X amount's gonna be in a tranche. I'm like, No. I'm like, there will be no tranches. And like, no, no, no, no, no, like we'll board approving. Like the last one was board approved. Like, no. Chad Sowash (23:01.676) huh. Kristy McCann (23:29.986) Like, you know what I mean? I they they forced through the the the the tranche component of it. And so Chad Sowash (23:35.566) So it was forced, but it sounded like, did you have to give them your approval for them to actually do this knowing how much of the company they already owned? Kristy McCann (23:47.171) I was looking at it from the fiduciary responsibility of what needs to be done for the company. I was upholding that, right? I was in a situation, the company was very successful. I have tons of customers, tons of coaches, tons of employees, you know, obligations to other investors. I mean, a and you know, the the pay to play is like it screwed investors where they got converted to common. But here's the other thing. For the investors that did play, they the they they put in money, but then like BIP never ends up putting in the money. Chad Sowash (24:09.44) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (24:16.748) Right. And so but they're getting the equity component of it because they continue to force me in the rounds. Like, you know, and so I I was of looking at it from that. I knew it wasn't right. There was nothing I can do. It was either the company dives, you know, w and it shouldn't be. I mean, we had just landed on the Inc. five thousand list for fastest growing companies, right? Like, talk about the irony of that. And and so it was Chad Sowash (24:16.803) Yeah. Chad Sowash (24:29.526) huh. Joel Cheesman (24:41.329) Yeah. Chad Sowash (24:41.506) Wow. Kristy McCann (24:46.27) Again, like I I was upholding I was doing what I needed to do to uphold the fiduciary responsibility of the organization to all my other stakeholders. And then Yeah. So it happened again. So like they put me that they withhold held that tranche. They put me in but I was already out there. I'm like, I gotta that this is not working. Like I gotta Joel Cheesman (24:55.921) So you're you're no longer CEO. How do we get to that point? Kristy McCann (25:13.218) you know, that they they need to come off the cap table. Like they are not working in the benefit of, you know, skill cycle. So I'm out there, I'm talking to other investors, which I am also alleging in the complaint that are very aware of this scheme with them and won't touch me. Blatantly told me, not not touching Yeah. Looking to buy them out. Yep. And investors like, Yeah, Chris, we love your business, but we're not touching that cap table. you know, with them. And Chad Sowash (25:18.85) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:27.82) yeah, hands off. Joel Cheesman (25:27.943) So you're you're looking to buy them out, just for our listeners that don't understand cap tables and all that. You're looking to get rid of Yep. Kristy McCann (25:43.043) They I was being told by other investors. And then, you know, because we were at this, like, you know, BIP Ventures would have its annual founder symposium event. All the other founders were talking at these events, like, how's your experience with them? Like it just seemed to be a trend. And then the biggest trend came from you know, one of my other investors had relayed to me that, hey, this playbook Chad Sowash (25:50.67) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (26:07.81) He's been running with this other company that I just invested in. I'm like, you you invested alongside me? He goes, No, they got rid of them. I go, how did they get rid of them? Right. And so the the this investor connected me with one of the companies that's in my complaint where he outlined everything that was happening to me, happened to him, and then how he got rid of them. But the difference between me and him was he was a three-time founder. and had a lot of money in his pocket. and he the other investors were a lot more knowledgeable of what how to handle him. and so they basically forced him off the cap table and and he became free. And I didn't have that. Yeah. Chad Sowash (26:34.978) Mm. Chad Sowash (26:45.101) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:51.074) Yeah. So he had money, he had buddies with money and it was, yeah, it's a little bit different support system. Yeah, a little bit different support system. Joel Cheesman (26:57.575) Resources. Kristy McCann (26:59.864) Different support systems. So I'm looking at it. And I'm like, so I was just I went into it and was like, you know, like, give me the details, like, you know, how bad did this get? Like, tell me my future. And he goes, yeah, he accused me of fraud. I go, What? He goes, yeah, he kept on accusing me of fraud. and he goes, and I brought in auditors and like, you know, he goes, he was trying to do every possible thing. And again, this is yeah. When I I was termed without cause. Chad Sowash (27:21.986) Wait a minute, were you accused of fraud? Kristy McCann (27:28.428) Right. I was fired without cause. But then when I refused to sign the separation papers, which was all in the complaint, because the separation papers wanted me to indemnify and release all of BIP, all their subsidiaries, all this crazy stuff. I'm like, absolutely not. Because number one, I'm not idemifying releasing these people. I work for Skill Cycle. Like, even though they pretty much own Skill Cycle right now, it's a separate entity. Two, I don't have the insurance to do that. Three. Chad Sowash (27:28.5) Okay. huh. Chad Sowash (27:35.03) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:44.975) Mm. Chad Sowash (27:54.892) Mm. Kristy McCann (27:57.591) I I have a fiduciary responsibility, right? Like if if if the you can fire me, but if you're still not upholding, you know, what skill cycle, you know, could be, that that's a whole other thing. And then not only that, it's shareholder oppression, right? And so I'm refusing to sign it. So I'm getting like, you know, emails, you know, Christmas Eve time frame that if I don't sign it, that they're gonna accuse me of fraud. I'm like, by all means. Chad Sowash (28:04.93) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (28:23.896) There's definitely fraud. i it it's not me. Yeah. Chad Sowash (28:25.964) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:26.215) It's on the other side of the table. Chad Sowash (28:29.848) Well, okay, so let's fast forward a little bit. You've also alleged Rico, which is racketeering. And when I saw that, was like, holy shit. You usually think this is the thing that mafia does, right? Is racketeering, know, influence corruption. I mean, it's just, it's crazy. So how did Rico get involved with this whole situation? I mean, we're talking HR tech here for God's sakes. Kristy McCann (29:02.774) I know. Well, you know, it it's it's always interesting. I mean, HR always has the crazy story, so it might as well fit within HR tech. so all the other companies. you know, the d this is a pattern that is happening in other companies, that, you know, I was able to document. and it's also about Chad Sowash (29:08.809) Chad Sowash (29:18.102) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (29:27.906) the way that that this fund is set up, like it's it's not set up like the fact that the wealth management group is involved, like you know, they have SEC filings that shows how much assets, you know, they have and then what's really paying back and then how much they're collecting in management fees. Because like that's the thing. Like when you keep when you control these companies and you keep them underneath your portfolio, even though the companies are floundering, you're still racking up management fees. You know what mean? And and you know, you add up those management fees across the portfolio. Chad Sowash (29:50.87) Right. Kristy McCann (29:56.067) You know, that that's how you buy some fancy houses and and homes, which I'm also alleging in the complaint, right? Chad Sowash (30:00.44) That's what Ronstadt did with Monster. That's what Ronstadt did with Monster. Management fees. Yeah, go ahead and make that money. So go ahead, go ahead. I'm sure there's more. Joel Cheesman (30:01.106) Interesting. Kristy McCann (30:08.608) Yeah. So you're you're doing that. You're not upholding the the fish responsibility. You're putting it into a holding pattern. You're you're you're the only one who could essentially, you know, while you're collecting management fees, that can actually like from any type of sale, you know, make it money because you've gotten rid of everybody else. and so you know, it it's that that's essentially a lot of the bars for racetarium, but the biggest thing is is that it it's a playbook, it's a pattern. Chad Sowash (30:22.882) Mm-hmm. Kristy McCann (30:37.326) a loan to own you know is not is not legit for vc right i mean they do it they usually do it at a much higher level like you know for major you know hundred million dollar growth companies not early stage growth companies like me but it's it it's when you put it all together it it's predatory investing but it's a playbook and I'm I'm gonna break that playbook Chad Sowash (30:47.854) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (31:05.351) Chad Chad mentioned we we have a lot of startups and people who are thinking about businesses to start up and raise money. What what kind of advice, what wisdom would you give them to make sure they don't end up like you? Kristy McCann (31:05.666) Very clear. Kristy McCann (31:20.78) Yeah, I mean I think the biggest thing is to do your recon. you know, I I should have known when a lot of people didn't know about them that there was something to know about, right? It's just like you know, that that especially with the information being Yeah. Joel Cheesman (31:33.447) And you mentioned the gut feeling. I think a lot of startup a lot of founders like listen to your gut, which you didn't do and you probably regret not doing. Kristy McCann (31:40.301) Yeah. Yeah. No. Kept on going back to that word opportunity. Finally a fun for me, right? and so I think there's that. it's also really not just talking to the other portfolio companies that you know, if you're gonna talk to, you know, take VC money, make sure you talk to the other portfolio companies, but make sure talk to the other investors who do business with them. you know, 'cause I mean I like the best was me and you know, I having conversations with outside investors. And I'm like, you guys knew about this? Like, why aren't you saying anything? Like they're just like, well, we really don't know what to do because like we're a VC. I'm just like, this is bullshit, guys. I'm like, you blatantly are telling me that you knew about this and and and that you love my business, but you hate my cap table because of this. I'm like, okay, that's that's ridiculous. And so they know, I mean, they're an incestuous little crowd. but I mean th there's good ones out there and then there's Chad Sowash (32:16.034) Yeah. Chad Sowash (32:21.742) Yeah Kristy McCann (32:40.44) you know, not so good ones. You you gotta do that. And I think with na right now with AI, right? Like y you could do tons more recon than you possibly could. But if any if anyone here is pay to play, tranche investing, like all this other crap, no. Nope. I I wouldn't go near it. Chad Sowash (32:56.248) Well, I think this the story hopefully will end in a more positive note because one thing it sounds like most companies get bullied into submission and then they're just gone, right? They sign the paper and they're done and that's fine. But you didn't do that. So therefore there's going to be a shit ton of discovery that's going to happen. And discovery is not what these guys want anybody to be able to dig into their shit. So. Kristy McCann (33:16.614) god yeah. Chad Sowash (33:23.488) So that's something that you still have to go through. When is that gonna start? I mean, we'll obviously be following. Kristy McCann (33:30.624) Yeah, no. if I had a take a guest that so they were just served, and I think they have couple of weeks, so like mid-late summer to, you know, what they'll probably try to do is dismiss claims. You know, that's typical. and then go from there. And so if we if claims are you know go through everything's fine and dandy, we'll be going into Chad Sowash (33:42.03) Mm. Kristy McCann (33:57.081) Discovery probably late twenty twenty six, early twenty twenty seven. and yeah, it it would be interesting. I think I think I I know I have a strong case. I'm former HR. I know how to collect the receipts. It it's a fifty page public complaint that every founder, CEO, and C HRO, and even BC should read. Chad Sowash (34:10.413) Yeah. Kristy McCann (34:21.922) Because it's a it's an education, you know. My my company was an education company. I really wouldn't call it one now, but I I'm still providing the education that I can to make sure that this happen never happens to anybody else again. Chad Sowash (34:33.838) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:34.705) Talk about the the personal side of this. What has it meant to your mental health? What does it meant to your relationships? I assume we we have a hard time understanding how hard it is on your personal life. Kristy McCann (34:47.02) Yeah, I mean, I'm one of those to begin with where I I have a high tolerance for pain, probably because I I'm a scrappy kid from Scramp Pennsylvania. and I'm bipolar and I've always been different. I to have everything ripped away from you of s you know, I there is a hole, you know, there in me. a you know A lot of my team walked out after it happened, but there's still part of my team that's left. and I I I could only understand what they're some of them are going through. you know, it what's happening to me is a microcosm of what's happening on a macro level in this country. Where everybody thinks they can lie, cheat, steal, deny, divide, deflect, like and that playbook is over. Bully. And that and and Chad Sowash (35:41.122) Bully. Yeah. Yeah. Kristy McCann (35:44.67) And the thing that gets me up every single day is like, all right, you want me to be a mascot, you know, to do the right thing for not only for, you know, my people, but for for, you know, this country as a whole, and and to use my voice and to make the and to help other people so they never fall victim to this because I mean so many other companies fell victim to this and and they didn't have the money, the means, the mechanisms, right? And I got the money, the means and the mechanisms, but I also got a lot of mojo. You do not fuck with an HR person. I have been through the ringer on everything. and so like I have seen stupid is and stupid does for my twenty year career. You wanna fuck with me? Fine. Let's let's bring it out into a courtroom. He will not take me down. Yeah, discovery. Let's go. Chad Sowash (36:18.36) Ha ha ha ha! Chad Sowash (36:25.827) Yeah. Chad Sowash (36:31.276) Discovery, baby, we're talking discovery. We're talking discovery. And that's Kristy McCann, everybody. Kristy, a cautionary, cautionary tale. I appreciate you coming on the show and talking this through. If there's anybody out there that obviously would like to connect with you for any different reason, how would they do that? Kristy McCann (36:54.828) Yes, I'm always on LinkedIn and then I have my new venture, one two seven ventures, where you can go to the website where I'm helping out other HR tech companies, make sure that they realize their dreams and making sure that they're good companies, and not the the crap that I had to buy when I I was an HR that I obviously disliked. Joel Cheesman (37:15.611) Don't fuck with the HR department. That is Christie, everybody. We appreciate you. Keep us abreast of what's going on with the case and Chad. That's another one in the can. We out. Chad Sowash (37:29.72) We out.

Taco Bell, Low-T, Moral Bankruptcy and Indeed Bots Grab a beer and put on your belts Chad and Joel are back to dissect the absolute circus that is the modern job market, with a heavy side of soccer rants and military absurdity. Here is what you’re missing if you aren't listening: Dirty Lettuce & Pop Stars: Joel miraculously survives Taco Bell’s dirty lettuce, while Chad gushes over America hosting a killer World Cup party. Plus, they break down why a 30-minute halftime show featuring Madonna, BTS, Shakira, and Justin Bieber was the only good part of an otherwise terrible final. Juicing the Military: The boys tackle Pete Hegseth’s bizarre plan to test and boost testosterone levels across the entire armed forces because apparently, that’s where defense spending belongs. The "Buy or Sell" Roast: Signal Labs buys Brass Ring Adzuna snaps up JobLift Refer charges candidates Indeed's Terrifying New T&Cs: Indeed updates its terms, essentially killing user privacy and unleashing rogue AI bots that apply to jobs on your behalf while washing their hands of any liability when things go off the rails. Texas vs. LinkedIn Ghosts: Texas AG Ken Paxton launches a probe into LinkedIn's "ghost jobs." Is it genuine consumer protection, or just pure political theater from a guy running for governor? Googlers Want a Prenup: 4,500 Google employees sign a petition demanding guaranteed severance before AI takes their jobs. Tune in for the unfiltered recruiting commentary, stay for the terrible dad jokes. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:32.614) Ohhhhhhh yeah. Does he really live here? I just thought he flew in for games. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Dirty Lettuce" Cheeseman. Chad Sowash (00:37.612) Yeah, we do that. Chad Sowash (00:44.508) This is Chad "The US can throw a fucking party" Sowash. Joel Cheesman (00:48.782) on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, indeed's terms, LinkedIn's ghosts and Googler's pitchforks, let's do this. Chad Sowash (00:56.724) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:02.448) Chad, I I'm happy to report, although you'll be surprised by this, that I I have not been infected by Taco Bell's dirty lettuce. I am diarrhea free. I'm diarrhea free so far. Summer. Knock on wood, knock on wood. They're promoting it as explosive diarrhea. So no no part of that. No part of that. Chad Sowash (01:04.504) Yes. Chad Sowash (01:09.954) I don't know how that's happened. I don't know how that's happened. Well, wow. Wow. Well, and it's a good thing that it's a good thing that the the rest of the world got out of the US for this epidemic. So that's that's pretty good. Joel Cheesman (01:32.484) Yeah, yeah, that's good that they got out before you know before they got infected by it. I think the Europeans had a good time. The South Americans, I think the world had a good time in America. Chad Sowash (01:40.386) No, dude. I can confidently say, take away all the politics, but I can confidently say the US is a great host. The amount of people posting all over the world about food, the stadiums, the bars, the people, I mean the halftime show, which we'll get to. but I mean the US knows how to throw a fucking party. And I and and I think that is one of the things that most Joel Cheesman (01:56.624) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:07.788) at least the Europeans that I that that that I'm here with actually came away with it's like, Yeah, no, you you guys are pretty cool. You guys are pretty cool. Joel Cheesman (02:14.615) I I think and you and I have done our fair share of traveling, and ninety-nine percent of the time, people are cool. People are fine. It's our governments and our politicians. Like if we just got rid of that shit, we'd all get along and have a good time. But yeah, it's the politicians and the propaganda and all that other stuff. But yeah, I'm glad the world Chad Sowash (02:23.476) Mm. yeah, of course. They're fucking shitheads. Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:36.249) had good time. And of course, propaganda wise, you know, Trump had to get his dumbass in the the victory, the last picture there by by Spain. That was that was so ridiculous they tried to get him off, but he wasn't he wasn't going. Chad Sowash (02:43.254) Yes. Yes. That was a crop out kind of yes. of course not. Of course not. I mean, what it it's it's about me kind of thing. Well the the beautiful thing is next time we've got four years, it's gonna be Portugal, Spain, and Morocco gonna be able to see how they step up to the challenge. And we don't have to worry about that big fat orange piece of shit being in it any pictures whatsoever, which is awesome. Joel Cheesman (02:57.977) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (03:07.033) Yeah, we have to worry about Spanish, Portuguese, just hot Moroccan, hot women just everywhere. I'm I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. So what'd you think about the final? The third place game was bonkers. what what's your take on on all that? Chad Sowash (03:15.98) Welcome to my life. Welcome to my life. Chad Sowash (03:24.358) dude. So first off, both you and I got it wrong. England obviously got beat by Argentina. it's interesting 'cause South America plays a more physical game of football. it you take a look at European football, they they flop a lot more. They're trying to get fouls, those types of things. And you see a couple of times Messi, the little guy, almost did like some judo moves on some some some of the English guys who who are much bigger, by the way. And they just Joel Cheesman (03:32.495) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:52.995) Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:54.37) It was weird how they pushed England around. but it but if you take a look at one of the matches before with Parag Paraguay and France, that was a fucking bar fight. Everybody's talking about the England, Argentina. That was nothing compared to Paraguay, fucking France. But what'd you think about that one? Joel Cheesman (04:03.814) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:14.135) About just the English, just the whole thing all of it. Chad Sowash (04:16.32) English Arg Ar Argentina. Joel Cheesman (04:20.601) Well, I so I wish I knew more about the sport. I I feel like I know a lot more than I used to. But the the the the commentary that I got from the sports from to the talking heads was that England scores and they basically go into prevent defense, if I'm making a football analogy. So that never works out in any sport. Like, don't get a lead and then just back up, like keep the fight going, keep on permanent offense. So and what I saw was basically Chad Sowash (04:36.064) Yes, yes, exactly, yes. Way too early too. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:48.683) England backed up and Argentina taken shots. And eventually one of those shots, in this case, two shots, get through. So I think it's a lesson. I think that coach is probably done in Eng in England. I think is he a German? Which I think was which I think was controversial to begin with. So I think they're gonna have a coaching change, but I think I think England Spain would have been a better game. I was really disappointed in in Messi. Chad Sowash (04:51.793) yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (05:00.184) Mm possible. Yeah. Chad Sowash (05:14.596) Apparently. Hindsight twenty twenty. Joel Cheesman (05:17.027) Well, I was really disappointed in Messi. my wife and I were talking about this before, and and historically, the GOAT usually shows up in these games. Like, never bet against the goat. If Tom Brady's playing, if Mahomes is playing, and I'm making football, like U.S. football references, but I thought Messi will find a way. He's not going to let this kid, 19-year-old, come in and win this thing. Messi's gonna win it. And from what I could tell, they totally just shut him down. And the whole game looked like Spain taking shots on Argentina. I I I don't know how it wasn't down on the Argentinian side offensively very often. It was kind of a bummer of a final. Chad Sowash (05:50.786) Yeah. Yeah. Well, it and I think I think this demonstrates just how good of a team Portugal is losing one nil and they lost it in the eighty-eighth or actually it's in ninety minute plus. so we were watching that, but but you take a look at Spain, they haven't lost in I I don't know how many fucking matches, and they are just their defense is so sticky, it's almost like rolling Joel Cheesman (05:59.183) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (06:17.273) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (06:20.156) God, Richardson, Nolan Richardson, I it's Nolan Richardson, who used to be at Arkansas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where it was like he they played 40 minutes of hell, where their defense was on you full court press the entire fucking time. That was Spain. That was Spain in every match. They cro they closed everybody down. And yeah, I mean, big kudos to them. yeah. That dude, that was that was good stuff. That was good stuff. That was good stuff. Joel Cheesman (06:24.345) Basketball? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:41.957) You're you're going deep with the Nolan Richardson reference, by the way. You're going real deep on people on that one. The the French the French English game was insane. Like that was so much fun to watch. I mean four nil and a half, yeah. Chad Sowash (06:52.888) Tail of two halves. I mean, here's the thing though. I I am I am watching this at the bar, at this bar, right? Watching it at the bar. And my buddies, and we're at halftime, they're up 4-0. England's up 4-0. My buddy looks around at me and he's smiling. He's like, yeah. They go as soon as Argent or as soon as France come out, they score two quick ones. He looks at me. Joel Cheesman (07:02.82) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (07:17.349) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (07:19.06) All the English in the bar had to go on suicide watch. We had to take their belts, we had to take their shoelaces. You could see it in their eyes. They're like, Holy shit, they're gonna come back and win five four. obviously it didn't work out that way, but that was fucking crazy. Tale of two halves. Joel Cheesman (07:37.37) Yeah, it was I love the the panic button. when like, let's maybe we should get Bellingham in there. Maybe we should like make some adjustments to the team and get some of our stars in there. Yeah, probably a good idea. I d I will say I loved I love the young talent. I love Lamine and Bellingham and like the Mbappe still young, Holland. Like the game is in a good spot for for young talent. I think that's really, really exciting as someone that's fairly new, new to the sport. Chad Sowash (07:47.288) Yeah. Probably a good idea. Probably a good idea. Chad Sowash (07:54.732) yes. Chad Sowash (07:58.926) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (08:06.838) Agreed. A lot of great talent. I just I just hope, and it's one of those things that we say every four years as Americans, that we hope that we actually show up. Now this year we showed up, we got out of the groups, and then and then we had, you know, dipshit play political games and whatnot, got slaughtered by fucking Belgium. But hopefully we can start to pull some things together, because it it is such it it's a simple game, right? You take a look at you take a look at American football. Joel Cheesman (08:14.617) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (08:36.63) It is so complex. And trying to trying to explain it to my European friends here who really they are really interested, right? Because many of them like rugby and this is ki somewhat like rugby, but it is so much more complex than any sport that they play at all. Right. so something that's simple, like like like soccer slash, you know, European football, to me is just it it's just fun. It really is. Joel Cheesman (08:36.986) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (08:47.139) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (08:54.179) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:04.953) Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't know if it'll ever be what it is in Europe or South America as it is in America or the US. I think the scoring is always gonna be an issue. just speaking as an American. I think they need to like widen the goal to maybe the whole toll baseline size. Chad Sowash (09:17.531) yeah. No, they need to they need to change the offsides. I also think they should take some some lessons from from basketball and have the over and back instead of allowing them to go all the way back to the goalie and then back and all the way back to the goalie. I mean, they did bullshit. I mean, there's no reason for that. So over and back, play that over and back game. I mean, there's some things they can they can do to speed the game up. Number one, number two, get more scores. Joel Cheesman (09:26.371) Yeah, I've heard that. Yep. Joel Cheesman (09:33.273) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:42.554) Yeah. Well now we can get to the real football, American football, which I'm not too upset about. And a little teaser here, little teaser here. Our our friends at Factory Fix have they've upped for another year of fantasy football. So get ready for that, kids. More on that later. One thing they might need in soccer, probably not, is more more testosterone, Chad. I'm curious. I don't know. I know you keep track of American news. Pete Heggseth is calling for Chad Sowash (09:45.794) Yes. Come on, Bucks. Come on, Buckeyes. Chad Sowash (09:56.482) Yes! Chad Sowash (10:05.218) Yo geez. Joel Cheesman (10:11.983) Testosterone testing for troops and I guess supplementing if they're low T. I just as a veteran, personally I didn't know a lot of young males when I was young that needed more testosterone. But what's your take on the army's desire to juice up the pr the troops? Chad Sowash (10:17.912) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (10:30.072) I think this says more about Peak Heg Seth than it does about the actual troops themselves. I was in for 20 years. you it I mean, there there's no reason for any of this. To be able to test everybody, if you had low T, you could actually go to the TMC by yourself and actually get it tested if you wanted to. Okay. If you thought there was a problem, you could get that done. To be able to do it force-wide is one of the dumbest. Joel Cheesman (10:35.023) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:51.555) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (11:00.792) F it's it's fraud, waste, and abuse. I almost want to ask, did they buy stock in these testing companies prior? Cause that's all this fucking administration does. It forces things to happen after they've already bought, like, you know, pieces of companies or they bought stock in companies. So I don't know. It's stupid. These kids have so much testosterone, it's like coming out of their pores. Joel Cheesman (11:18.745) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:25.465) Yeah. And do they do they force women to take testosterone? I'm just like I don't know or is it a move to force women out of the military service? Chad Sowash (11:34.686) I I don't think it's I don't think it's that. No, I don't think I don't think that has anything to do with it. But I mean, this this is gender affirming treatment, which is something that Republicans are so against, right? And it's like, well, well, wait a minute. I thought you were against this kind of shit. Anyway, dumb. It's a waste of cash. It's a waste of time. And what we should be focusing on is how we stop. Joel Cheesman (11:37.465) No? Okay. Joel Cheesman (11:44.079) Right. Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:01.134) creating stupid wars so that we kill these kids instead of just making sure that their testosterone is where it should be. Joel Cheesman (12:06.913) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You want to do some shout outs? Chad Sowash (12:10.35) Please. Yes. Dude, I've gotta give this shirt. sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yes. Joel Cheesman (12:13.871) Chad, this shout out, hold on, hold on. This shout outs, the shout outs today are sponsored by free t-shirts, Chad. That's right. Thanks to Aaron App, you know, the company behind all the red shoes you're seeing on social media. you're you're hearing the Chad and Cheese, but you're also wearing the Chad and Cheese. And what's better than that? But if you want that free t shirt sponsored by Aaron, you got to go to Chadcheese.com slash free to get yours. Go there today. What's your shout out, Chad? Chad Sowash (12:20.246) Air that! Chad Sowash (12:41.134) Shoutouts to halftime show. it had Madonna, BTS, Shakira, and Justin Bieber. And it's not the shout-out that you probably think it is, kids out there. I'm going to say this is the shout out for all of the Europeans who were they they weren't sure. They were like, Look, our our halftime is 15 to 20 minutes. You're extending this to 30 minutes plus. This is not how the game is played. And to be quite frank, it was the best thing that happened during that match. Joel Cheesman (12:50.393) Okay. Joel Cheesman (13:02.328) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (13:11.274) And every single European that I talked to after, all my friends were like, that was a great fucking show. And I said, you know what? The US does well. Pop culture, they can throw a fucking party. And that's exactly what that was. So, you know, shout out to Halftime Show. yes, the final was pure shit. And the only thing that was good was the halftime show. Joel Cheesman (13:16.132) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:36.109) All right. Daft time show nice. Very, very nice. By the way, Chad, a quick history lesson. You aren't you aren't ready for this. Do you know do you know when halftime shows, particularly the Super Bowl, which is where the halftime show really took anot went to another level? Do you know the event that made the halftime show what it is today? Chad Sowash (13:49.42) yeah. Chad Sowash (13:57.348) Curling. I I'm I don't know. Yes. Joel Cheesman (13:58.862) No, there was you'll remember this now. There halftime shows used to be the band, flag twirlers, like a traditional almost high school halftime. Back in I think nine nineteen ninety or ninety one, do you remember the show Living Color? So L Living Color, great show, Jim Carrey, Wayman Wayne's brothers, anyone our age will know the show. But they they promoted during the halftime show. Chad Sowash (14:05.266) yeah. Chad Sowash (14:11.171) Mm-hmm. yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:19.958) Amazing. yeah. Wayne's brothers were amazing. Joel Cheesman (14:27.247) Come to Fox and watch in Living Color and we're gonna have our like our own thing during the halftime show. So at on that game, everyone tuned into Fox and watched Living Color. And the time was the time of the halftime, and they did the bits and everything. And then, like, okay, now you can go back to the game. The Super Bowl was so mad about that. They were like, we can't give anyone a reason to leave the show. And I believe Michael Jackson was the next year's performer, which of course no one was leaving that. Chad Sowash (14:30.286) Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:43.128) Yeah. Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:56.118) No. Nope. Nope. That's a good one. Joel Cheesman (14:56.643) that that performance. So little history lesson for the kids out there. we have Jim Carrey and and Damon Wayans to thank for for the halftime shows that we have today. and speaking of legendary comics and let's go to legendary athletes. Chad, I was once an athlete. It's hard to tell now but when I was in high school we had we had we had mile times for for sports I played and I would run a mile Chad Sowash (15:05.528) Very nice. Chad Sowash (15:09.976) Yes. Chad Sowash (15:14.498) Me? What? Taco eating. Chad Sowash (15:22.91) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:26.521) I don't remember my time, but I remember thinking if if someone runs a four minute or less mile, it's insane. Like it is incredibly fast. And the record was broken recently. And if I was to tell you that the record for the mile was broken, would you have guessed it was a Scottish lad that did it? Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. Is if Scotland needed another reason to boast about their greatness. a 28-year-old Brit Chad Sowash (15:38.424) Yes. Chad Sowash (15:45.367) No. Joel Cheesman (15:55.29) Named Josh Kerr. A 27-year-old broke the record for fastest mile time at three minutes 42 seconds.66. and and how did he celebrate breaking the record, Chad? Well, like a true Scott. He had a beer. He had a beer and a 5 a.m. run. he didn't he didn't mention which beer, but I'm guessing it was a tenants, maybe chased with an iron brew. So shout out to Josh. Chad Sowash (16:03.466) Awesome. He blew it away. Taco Bell. Chad Sowash (16:13.922) Ha ha ha. Chad Sowash (16:20.739) Yes. Joel Cheesman (16:23.237) Kerr or Kerr, I don't know how the Scots pronounce it, but very impressive to break the mile record, which it stood for about for three decades practically. So very, very, very cool. If only we could write his back to our travels, traveling would be would be a lot more fun. That's right, that's right. Chad Sowash (16:28.29) That it was amazing to watch too, yes. Yeah. It was amazing to watch. Yeah, it was amazing to watch. Chad Sowash (16:39.588) He could not carry you, Joel. That's all I gotta say. He's a skinny motherfucker. where are we going? I'm going to the beach is where I'm going. I'm going to be enjoying this wonderful ocean that I have here. We're we're gonna be going to wreckfest later this year. and and thanks again to Shaker, who who knows might be on stage this year. You never know. Disrupt stage in Nashville might happen. but until then, yeah, but until then. Joel Cheesman (16:53.817) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (17:06.383) Such a tease. Chad Sowash (17:11.0) I don't want to think leaving this beach, my friend. I really don't. Joel Cheesman (17:13.721) I don't I don't blame ya. I don't blame ya. I don't blame ya. Let's get to some topics, shall we? Chad Sowash (17:17.868) Okay. Joel Cheesman (17:23.279) Chad, are you ready for a little buy or sell? Jesus, we haven't done some buy or sell in quite a while. So I'm pretty excited about it. So if you forget, kids, because we haven't, Chad and I talk about some new startups money being made up being spent, and then and then we either buy or sell the news. Let's get to the first story. Signal Labs, who has acquired ATS old timer brass ring? Chad Sowash (17:25.986) Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. Ooh, so excited. So excited. Joel Cheesman (17:52.954) Just three months after emerging from stealth status. Financial terms were not disclosed. in case you missed it, Signal Labs promotes itself as an AI driven solution focused on enterprise recruiting. While Brass Ring has more than 25 years experience, they're basically the commercial version of us, experience wise, and still serves a good number of Fortune 500 employers. Chad, buy or sell the brass ring acquisition. Chad Sowash (17:54.148) Signal. Chad Sowash (18:21.518) Let's be click clear, kids. Brass ring is an OG. That's right. Launched in nineteen ninety-nine as a job fare platform, kind of a job board thingy. It morphed into an applicant tracking system, was acquired by Konexa, which was then acquired by IBM, and now it was broken off and sold to Signal Lags. Two hundred or I'm sorry, three hundred and fifty million candidates in 150 million countries. Joel Cheesman (18:43.013) Signal lab. Chad Sowash (18:50.552) This is a data and signal play. And one that indeed, if they were listening to you and your prediction, Joel, they should have snapped up. But once again, a company from the outside the industry buying up unstructured data, which is really just garbage data and faint signals. Plus, when you add the multitude of nuances that 150 plus countries bring to the this ball of nonsense, Joel Cheesman (19:18.274) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (19:20.086) I love ya, brass ring. I rememb. I remember ya during the glory days, but I can't sell this things fast enough. I can't sell it fast enough. Joel Cheesman (19:26.255) The c Joel Cheesman (19:33.551) Yeah, that we're t we we forget more about fucking brass ring than we remember about brass ring. Remember the Kinex acquisition in two thousand six for like a hundred and fifteen million dollars. That was huge at the time. yeah, I don't know if this is this is like make brass ring great again can campaign. I don't know. I mean, tell me how the Chee Cheese reboot is doing and I'll tell you how the how this deal is gonna go. It is really weird. Chad Sowash (19:38.082) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah. For an ATS. Chad Sowash (19:53.943) no. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:02.916) This company was in like they just came out of nowhere three months ago to buy this well-known property, which is still used by a lot of companies. Like they just don't, you don't leave your ATS. A lot of companies don't, and these guys haven't. So a little bit of digging into this. LightSpeed Ventures or Venture Partners basically is backing Signal Labs. If you go dig into venture partners or Lightspeed Venture, they have eightfold. Chad Sowash (20:08.056) Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:14.466) Which is so surprising. It's so surprising. Chad Sowash (20:21.86) Mm. Joel Cheesman (20:30.799) They have Personio, and then they have a ton of other companies that you your everyone knows. Really well-known tech companies. So was someone directing this as we need to like plug in AI into an existing applicant tracking system or something that has a ton of data, and they went shopping and found out Brashring was for sale, which let's be honest, it's been for sale forever. and people are willing, willing to do. So it's like, Chad Sowash (20:52.772) Mm. god, yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:59.779) Venture backed, lot of money, AI. Let's buy this old property. Let's, you know, put a new roof on it. Let's add a room, whatever. And then like let's plug our plug the current clients into it. I mean, it's a long shot to take this old property and fix it up. so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna sell it for business reasons, but for straight entertainment value. Chad Sowash (21:16.92) No way now. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:27.619) my god, I'm buying the hell out of this. Can these guys turn brass ring around and make it into an AI juggernaut? Like I I don't know. I don't know. But it's it's gonna be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. All right, that's our first buyer. So let's get to our second story here. Adzuna has acquired the assets of JobLift, a German based employment site. in addition to buying all of JobLyft's stuff, the brand, the sales team, the tech, etc. Chad Sowash (21:30.242) Ha ha ha! No, no. Okay. Chad Sowash (21:48.578) Okay. Joel Cheesman (21:56.132) Joblift.de will continue to operate in Germany as it currently is. Chad at Zuna buys a German job site. Is it Wunderbar oder Scheißen? Chad Sowash (22:08.268) I think it feels like Ad Zuna bought a decade-old German company brand and domain on the cheap. These guys obviously, I don't know what's called in German, but bankruptcy. Ad Zuna has already inserted their tech into JobLift. something they failed to do with their past acquisitions, Trovoit and Metula. Jobs acquisitions earlier this year was Those were kind of flaky, but this one, this one keeps the German brand. It's under the j more of a fluid experience. So it it it just makes sense and and unlike the other ones. it's w reported they have also kept some of the sales customer service person, people have used SEB, which provides an easy transition for any paying customer. Joel Cheesman (22:47.129) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:02.55) And a lesson we've learned from Rika and Levin over at House of HR in Europe. A house of brands is stronger than a single branded house. It's a buy from me. It's a buy. It's a buy. Joel Cheesman (23:08.933) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:14.123) my. my. Joel Cheesman (23:20.965) interesting, interesting take. So a little bit of macro here. Germany's economy has been sort of kapoot, if if I'm using some German Germanisms. 2022 or three, they were in recession last couple years. They've since come out of it in large part because they're quote unquote building the Europeans most lethal army by like twenty thirty nine or something. So Chad Sowash (23:30.745) Ha. Joel Cheesman (23:48.058) Good news that the Germans are rearming, at least for the for the economy, because they are building building jobs again, while the the Chinese destroy the the strong German car industry. But that's a different that's a different show or different interview. let's go to Ad Zuna real quick. so Ad Zuna has been around for a while. Really strong partnership with the UK government's Department of Work and Pensions. Adzuna had powered their job site for quite a while. and Chad Sowash (23:52.014) Thanks, Trump. Chad Sowash (23:59.512) Mm. Yes. Joel Cheesman (24:17.017) The government ended that contract recently. So now you have job or you now have Adzuna with a lot of eyeballs that used to come to the site that no longer will be coming to the site. So what do you do in that case? You buy companies and you go shopping for sales, maybe. the the headcount of JobLift has been slowly decreasing over the years. They do claim five million users on the site per month. They've been around since 2015. Little long in the tooth, probably a couple tough years in Germany selling this thing, looking for a buyer. And Adzuna is looking to buy some companies. So this was a match made in heaven. However, do two companies on hard times make for one company with good times. I'm a little bit skeptical, if you will, Chad. So I'm going to sell this one. I'm gonna sell this one. All right, let's go to our final. Chad Sowash (25:11.565) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (25:16.141) Story and buyer so refer, a talent marketplace, has raised $7.5 million in a seed round. The startup's model reverses the economics of a traditional recruitment agency, which generally receives a fee from the employer. How are they flipping it, you ask? Well, Chad, Refer has job seekers pay a 20% fee of their first month's salary upon successful placement. Chad Sowash (25:16.952) There we go. There we go. Mm. Chad Sowash (25:32.494) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (25:43.225) While employers pay zero. Chad, are you ready to refer your network to refer? Or if it ain't broke, why the hell are they fixing it? Buy or sell, refer. Chad Sowash (25:51.372) Mm. Okay, so I want to pitch this company to you like pitching investors. You cool with that? You cool? You good? Okay, okay, okay. Okay, here we go. Okay, so the job market is abysmal. Worse in decades. People are starving, literally starving for a job right now. Today, a major portion of the population are heavily, heavily in college debt. Joel Cheesman (26:01.201) Bring it. Bring it. Pitch it to me. Yep. Chad Sowash (26:18.914) Don't even own a car. And hell, many of them are still living in their mom and dad's basement. So let's charge that cohort for services instead of the old company model. End scene. what a fuck, what a fucked up pitch. What a fucked up pitch. It the worst part, the worst part is that Peterson Ventures and NFX heard that pitch and said, Yeah, I want to fund that. So refer. Joel Cheesman (26:20.422) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (26:38.278) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (26:46.606) Peterson Ventures and NFX are saying that instead of charging companies where we know the margins are at all time highs, no, they've chosen to become the predatory the predatory in flat out morally bankrupt pieces of shit. This is one of the easiest sales I've ever had. Fuck these guys. Joel Cheesman (26:48.761) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (27:13.83) So you're telling me there's a chance. You're telling me there's a chance. Yeah. Pure the pure evil of making money off of job seekers is always fun. So so let's do the math here and keep it simple. If you get a job through this service that pays you a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, they take your first month, twenty percent of that. So in this case, you owe refer two thousand dollars. So it's not like you owe them a ton of money on a fairly good job. Chad Sowash (27:18.404) For what? Chad Sowash (27:33.988) Twenty percent. Yep. Chad Sowash (27:41.892) Already in debt. Joel Cheesman (27:44.315) Well, here's the thing. Like, okay. So you and I have been doing this for a long time. Businesses that are based on employees paying you money have a really shitty track record. So let's see if this thing is gonna work. All right. If I'm an employer, okay, great. It's free to be on this thing, look at employ like I owe nothing. Okay. So now now you're gonna get like the shittiest employers on the planet. Come out of the woodwork, probably try to scam these people because they know they're willing to pay money. So I don't know how that's going to work. But like the the like really good employers, I have a hard time saying that they're going to flock to this thing. Now the job seekers, okay, who's going to flock to this thing? The best of the best? The the cream of the crop chat? Is that who's going to flood this site with candidates? No. If you're the best of the best, getting sourced, getting recruited, like you're not on this site. So now you have. Chad Sowash (28:30.57) No. No. It's not what they want. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:42.672) Fairly shitty employers recruiting fairly shitty candidates. are they six figure jobs? Probably not. Okay. So now you're hiring forty, fifty, sixty thousand dollar people. So now your fee is not the two thousand dollars, it's like five hundred dollars. And a lot of these people that five hundred dollars is a ton of money. so look, long story short. History says this thing is doomed. I agree it's doomed. I can't believe they got seven point five in a seed round. Whatever pitch they had, they should like go to another industry and just like sell shit because that was one hell of a model. But I give this about as much chance as Chad Sowash (29:20.846) Yeah. Ha ha ha. Joel Cheesman (29:26.766) All right, kids, that is another round of buy or sell. That was fun. We haven't done that in a while. Chat is on empty, and I need I need to take a breath here. We will be right back, kids. If you haven't subscribed to our shit, what are you doing? your platform podcast platform of choice, hit the subscribe button, share us with your friends, comment, leave us a review, whatever. We will be right back. Chad Sowash (29:30.06) Tudo. need another beer, but I got subjective. Yeah. Chad Sowash (29:48.452) Here we are. Joel Cheesman (29:58.823) Chad, this next segment is sponsored by Free Bourbon. Who doesn't love, who doesn't love some chicken cock? You know what I'm saying? Who doesn't love a little chicken cock? Chad Sowash (30:00.558) Yes. Ooh. Chad Sowash (30:07.721) yeah, I Joel Cheesman (30:12.986) That's right. That's right, Steven. And Proven Base, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen. We're sending two bottles of chicken cock to some lucky listeners. Thanks to Proven Base. But miracles only happen if you play the game, kids. Head out to Chadcheese.com slash free and finally let your liver know who's boss. Finally let that pesky liver know who's boss. All right, Chad, let's get back to the news. Indeed. Chad Sowash (30:13.924) Steven does. Stephen does. Chad Sowash (30:22.872) Who? Chad Sowash (30:40.728) Mm. Joel Cheesman (30:40.878) Indeed.com, if you don't know, has updated its terms of service, setting out how its AI products recommend job jobs, prepare applications, source candidates, score applicants, and conduct follow-up screening covering both Career Scout for job seekers and talent scout for employers. But with most terms and conditions, Chad, the devil is in the details. So we want to know was Satan, was Satan in the fabric of the new terms of service at Indeed? Chad Sowash (31:09.54) yes. Of course. Of course it was. Of course it was. Dude, I gotta say that most of the time it feels like we're the only voices in the space speaking out against Indeed's bull bullshit, but not this week. Not this week. we had Mike Wood wrote a great piece about Indeed's new terms of services. and I gotta say, he hits Indeed's most glaringly bullshit effort head on. Joel Cheesman (31:21.702) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (31:37.614) By outlining that Indeed's TNC's states flatly that Indeed does not and will not serve as an agent or decision maker for any employer or job seeker, and that it rejects any delegation of decision making authority. End quote. So I'm I'm sure we all understand that just announcing that indeed. Will not serve as an agent of decision maker or whatever for employer or job seeker means absolutely fucking nothing. As we all know, Indeed's new AI agentic strategy can already shape decisions, which can be just as harmful as making them. So simply put, it's about what they do, not what they say. And Indeed has bots applying for jobs, not just serving up relevant jobs. Actually applying for jobs. Now, next we talk about those bots. When bots apply for the job seeker by proxy, they may trigger a bill a billable event. What does that mean? It basic it's basically an evolution of how PPC and PPA were, right? Pay-per-click and paper application. When a human clicked or applied to a job, they could most likely or would incur a charge to the hiring company per click. Joel Cheesman (32:50.01) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:01.996) Or per app. Thanks, Steven. Stefan. Now, it's the automated version. So instead of a human doing it, it's actually a bot who's doing all this stuff. So whenever Indeed needs to ratchet up their revenues, it's very simple. Instead of trying to nudge humans, all they have to do is ratchet up the job, the the actual bots to apply. Joel Cheesman (33:29.862) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:30.538) And or just raise the price of the the click or the bot. so at the end of the day, I mean there are two big issues that Mike points out. Indeed's absolution. They believe that the new T's and Cs will make them immune from forthcoming lawsuits. And number two, Indeed's monetization, bot clicks, bot apps. I mean, remember when all of this used to be fraud? We used to call this click fraud. This was this was Joel Cheesman (33:32.72) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:53.787) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:59.153) They still call it click fraud. Yeah, now it's apply fraud or something. Yeah. Chad Sowash (34:01.188) they do. okay. Well they say so again, thanks to Mike, Mike Wood for calling this out. Keep up the good work, man. And it just feels good that somebody else is calling indeed shit out instead of putting on the knee pads and kissing the ring. Joel Cheesman (34:12.091) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:26.832) So I read primarily two things in Indeed's new terms of service. Number one, privacy is dead. And number two, free is officially dead at Indeed. let's let's take both of these one at time. Privacy, I think, is the most important one because we know Indeed has been moving away from free for quite a while. But what they are what they outline in this new terms of service for the for the job seeker is really s is pretty scary. Like when a company does a background check, they look into your public records. Did you commit a crime? What like what's publicly available? Now indeed is saying we're going to take everything that happens to you in a job search and we're going to document it. So did you interview? Did you were you contacted? Did you did you withdraw your application? Were you rejected for an offer? All these things that happened sort of under the cover of me and a company talking are now potentially going to be available to every company throughout your entire career because of Indeed. And their terms of service says, you know what, you're agreeing to do that. That's pretty scary as a job seeker. I mean, shit. Chad Sowash (35:42.424) Okay. Joel Cheesman (35:46.639) I might do in my twenties if that carries with me, you know, my 30s, 40s, 50s, it it's irrelevant, but it's still gonna count. And if the algorithm is saying, you know what, this person shouldn't even be in the mix. I think that's a real dangerous precedent to set for the job seeker. you talk about new revenue models. So if I have an agent now applying, I I think they've also, from a payment side, they've said, okay, job seeker, we're gonna create new ways to get money out of you. And we just ripped up refer for charging money to job seekers. LinkedIn's been doing it effectively for a while, saying, hey, if you're if you pay for job seeker tools, you get all these special things. Now indeed is basically saying we're laying the groundwork for you as a job seeker to pay us a monthly fee and we will just go apply to jobs for you. Well that's that's nice. Okay. A lot of people will pay for that about twenty percent, which is a lot of money for them. The employer side, same thing. I mean Chad Sowash (36:22.211) Yes. Chad Sowash (36:35.043) Yes. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (36:46.096) Posting is no longer free. Now interviewing will be automated, pre-screening stuff that'll be automated. I mean, I think we talked, I think, last week about Indeed and people being upset with the the monet how we're paying for this. We're not coming up in searches, where's our brand, et cetera? And I said at the time Indeed doesn't care because what they're moving toward is an all agent transaction. Chad Sowash (37:05.688) Right. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (37:13.966) And these terms of service really underscore where Indeed is going. So again, privacy is dead and free is dead at Indeed. And these terms of service to me underscore that, underscore that reality. Chad Sowash (37:27.94) Yeah, I one of the things that that we talked about last week too were disposition codes and their signals, right? And a lot of these signals are just they're they're not even fuzzy. They are at clearest muddy, right? They're they're muddy signals. And indeed, is training off of all of these muddy signals because you've got to remember humans are making these decisions. Humans don't have time. Well, first and foremost. Joel Cheesman (37:33.691) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (37:42.384) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (37:55.406) Humans are creating these job descriptions, which are shit. So it's garbage in, garbage out. Then not to mention they don't have the capacity to actually have time to go through and find the best candidate. So even if you were the best candidate, you might not be found because there's not the capacity for somebody to actually find you within the actual system itself because they're too fucking busy, right? In this case. Joel Cheesman (37:58.374) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (38:15.728) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (38:20.138) If the bots are making the decisions, which they're saying they're not, but let's say they're shaping the decisions, they're still learning off those this the decisions that they're they're shaping themselves. They are getting they're getting high on their own supply. And that is just going to make this really fucking bad for any company and any job seeker. And when they start going through their audit process and they say, Well, you know, we we're we don't Joel Cheesman (38:30.726) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (38:43.543) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (38:48.728) We have T's and C's, they've signed these things. it's not us. It's not on us. It's on them. No, the system, how the system works, it's on you. So at the end of the day, this is this is not gonna end well. It really isn't. Joel Cheesman (38:58.885) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (39:02.501) Yeah. And and you better check yourself before you wreck yourself, Chad. look, I mean, do job seekers that have agents do they get preferential treatment in applying? if I pay more, do I get a better chance? So, like, there's so many ways to algorithmically play this and get more money out of out of their out of their users. the other thing that I think is gonna be a growing concern, especially for employers, is Chad Sowash (39:12.226) Okay, Marco. Yes, of course. Chad Sowash (39:24.526) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:33.314) Agents that go off the reservation, that agents that just go rogue. And stories are starting to come out about agents that just make up shit, lose their mind, do crazy stuff. And for a lot of employers, that puts you at risk. EEOC risk, all kinds of stuff, right? Like if you don't know what your agents are saying to applicants, all that stuff is tracked. It can be documented. Like that's super risky for employers as as this agent world. Chad Sowash (39:36.46) yes. Joel Cheesman (40:03.075) unfolds and that's a concern as well. Chad Sowash (40:04.076) Yes. Imagine if you're a contractor, a federal contractor, and you're receiving tens or hundreds of billions or millions of dollars from the federal government, and then this stuff starts fucking with that, right? I mean, you don't want anything to screw with your contracts, right? I mean, it's just like none of this makes sense. It it really just does it makes no sense. Joel Cheesman (40:19.75) Sure. Joel Cheesman (40:25.563) Yeah. I mean, is indeed documenting all the conversations and and dialogue that goes on with their agents? We don't know. are they are they immune to lawsuits from that? Which they've they've put in the language around you can't sue us like years ago. A twenty, twenty-four, twenty five like they saw this coming and to sue indeed if you agree to this stuff is really really hard to do. But it doesn't clear you of risk as an employer if you're if these agents are are going off Chad Sowash (40:36.056) Here we go. Chad Sowash (40:46.008) Yes. Joel Cheesman (40:57.785) Off the reservation. Chad Sowash (40:59.436) No. No. Eject. Joel Cheesman (41:01.54) Yeah, just yeah, eject as if people have have an option. All right, Chad, let's move on from one evil empire to another. not since the chainsaw Texas Texas Chainsaw Massacre has the Lone Star State seen so many ghosts. That's right. Texas has launched a formal investigation into LinkedIn over allegations of ghost jobs. If you missed it, those are fake, misleading, or inactive postings that do not lead. Chad Sowash (41:08.121) Oof. Joel Cheesman (41:31.014) To real hiring. The Texas AG details a probe examining whether the platform defrauded paying premium subscribers by prop by profiting from listings that employers have no intention of filling. Texas is coming after LinkedIn, Chad. Who are you gonna call? Chad Sowash (41:49.316) I'd say what you did there. Ghostbusters. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I think I I I personally think this is a great discussion and one that we've been having for decades, but because again, the market is abysmal, th there's a there's a lot of shit that's out there. There's a lot of spammers that are out there. So what what constitutes a real job? Right? I mean that's that's the big question. Joel Cheesman (41:50.5) Ghosts, Ghostbusters, get it? Yeah, you saw that. Joel Cheesman (42:16.443) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:18.174) And are evergreen jobs real jobs? another good question. what about trusted jobs? Do do you know where they are or or even better yet, trusted sources of jobs? I think I think these are questions that I actually had to deal with 15 years ago in building the the national labor exchange and working with state workforce and federal government. And Joel Cheesman (42:32.966) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:47.596) It was very simple for us. It was very simple for us. First and foremost, a trusted job came from a trusted source. The trusted source, primary trusted source, was directly from the corporate career site, right? Now, if you were a smaller company and you didn't have a corporate career site, well, most of those companies had to post into the state job banks. Trusted source, right? Boom. Joel Cheesman (42:58.31) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:11.376) because you had to have you had to have a business number, you had to have an EIN, an S E N, those types of things before you could actually post. So you were trusted. You have trusted sources. And that's the thing. if LinkedIn isn't currently using those trusted sources, they do have a free and they do have a ton of profiles that are out there that are obviously bogus profiles. but they're going to have to start cleaning that up. I did have a friend reach out to me this week with regard to Joel Cheesman (43:32.9) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (43:39.734) Evergreen jobs, because he heard me talk about them on the show. And he said, you know, I just don't think evergreen jobs are real. They're just not real jobs because they're not opening, they're not open for a position at that time. And I said, okay, here's a great example. UPS hires 150,000 people within a six to eight week timeframe. Okay. There's no way they can perform that task by just pushing jobs up when they need them. Joel Cheesman (43:46.501) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (44:08.568) They have to have a a repository of jobs, right? So that's that's a one that's one example of why evergreen jobs make sense. I I think the hardest part about a lot of this discussion is we have government who who really doesn't understand what's happening on the the corporate side. And then we have the corporate side of the house that doesn't understand why it's important for the government. We need those, and we've done this before. We need those to get together to be able to talk about trusted sources. Joel Cheesman (44:25.072) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (44:38.56) And how we clean the system. Now, most of these other systems, and I'm not saying LinkedIn, but most of these other systems don't give a fuck. I mean, they take jobs from anywhere and everywhere just to say that we have ten bazillion jobs, right? and and I think that's that's gonna be one of the major problems. Is I don't think like LinkedIn is one of the big problems, but again. Joel Cheesman (44:40.997) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (44:50.896) Sure. Joel Cheesman (45:04.55) Well you've you've raised some fair points, Chad, but I'm gonna go a different direction. Chad Sowash (45:10.052) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:13.988) I'm calling some political bullshit on this on this lawsuit. Okay, who is the AG in Texas? It's Ken Paxton. What is Ken Paxton doing? He's running for governor. What do people running for office love? Headlines. Especially headlines that make it look like you're for the working man and woman. You're here to protect the job seekers, the people looking for work. so these make great headlines. I'll also Chad Sowash (45:20.42) Could be. Paxton. Chad Sowash (45:36.42) Ha ha ha. Joel Cheesman (45:43.621) I'll also add that who's who has a headquarters in Texas? Indeed.com. Who is indeed.com's biggest pain in the ass? LinkedIn. Okay, where's LinkedIn headquartered? California. Who founded LinkedIn? Reed Hoffman. Who's a big time Democrat? Reed Hoffman. Chad Sowash (45:51.06) Yeah. LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (46:05.159) I I call total political bullshit. I wouldn't be surprised if if Paxson has a donor from Indeed who says, you know what, we'd love to make LinkedIn's life a little harder than it than it has been. Can you can you file some lawsuits? Because you know, you don't think Indeed has some ghost jobs? You think Indeed's all their stuff is legit? Yeah, but we don't go after Indeed because they're here in Texas and those are Texans working at at Indeed. So we're not gonna go there. So as far as I'm concerned, Chad Sowash (46:17.209) Yes. Chad Sowash (46:23.851) of course. Joel Cheesman (46:33.52) This is all about this is political theater, going out a a nice story, a big brand, good headlines. Paxton gets in the news, but this thing is gonna die. It's as simple as like, is indeed or is is any job board responsible for the jobs posted? Are they are they supposed to police every position when they're filled and how all this it's like saying that the New York Times is responsible for a classified ad in their newspaper? Like they can't police everything that goes on. This is a political this is political theatrics. It will die after the election. And hopefully Ken Paxton will die will go away after the election as well. cause he is he well anyway, I won't get political on it, but this is all about politics in Texas. Chad Sowash (47:20.354) So I I I think you're wrong with regard to our our job sites. There's a shared responsibility between job sites and companies and their systems and being able to maintain their systems, right? and I think that's one of the one of the biggest problems we've had over the years is that when a company like scrapes or takes feeds from another company, and then there's a a company that might have a fucking spreadsheet with their jobs in it, right? Joel Cheesman (47:43.204) Yeah. Chad Sowash (47:49.036) a lot of that there are so many companies today that literally as soon as a job is posted within their applicant tracking system seconds later, it's it's it's distributed out to different distribution points, job sites or what have you. And when it's taken down, same thing happens, right? There's no reason that can't happen. It can't be the actual standard. so I we have we've gone beyond the newspaper. we we can we can do better. and I I didn't think that this was I was hoping it didn't turn political, but since it did, I'm gonna say vote Tau Rico, vote Tau Rico, vote Tau Rico. Joel Cheesman (48:29.702) Yeah, I'm not falling for the banana in the tailpipe in Texas. And I don't think you are either. Yeah. If a job breaks a law, prostitution, child labor, whatever, like I there should be policing of that stuff for laws, but I think it's really hard to expect that ghost jobs can be policed by job boards. Anyway, Chad, we're gonna take a break here. Guys, if you haven't left a review for us, please go out. The algorithm helps us. And if you if you if you listen to us, Chad Sowash (48:32.438) Yeah. Chad Sowash (48:38.446) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:56.676) You should look at us too, 'cause trust me, we have faces for podcasting. Check us out at YouTube. YouTube dot com slash at Chad Cheese. We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (49:11.59) Can you hear me, Chad? Okay. Well, you froze up you froze up video, but if as long as you can hear me, it's okay. And we're back. Chad, this next segment is pi powered by our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. If you love free beer and who doesn't, we'll get ready to turn into a sloppy summertime life of the party. Thanks to our friends at Aspen Tech Labs who are sending out some good premium artisanal beer, if you wear, if you will, from Chad Sowash (49:13.107) yeah. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? sorry, sorry. I'm here. You're good. Chad Sowash (49:24.332) Right there. Joel Cheesman (49:39.111) From my direct from my garage. But you can't win the beer if you don't play the game. Head out to Chadcheese.com/slash free for your chance at free beer. That's right. All right, let's get to our news, Chad. The digital pitchforks are out. A new petition signed by 4,500 Google employees is demanding layoff protections. Chad Sowash (49:49.624) Yes. Joel Cheesman (50:02.361) Amid the company's AI boom and four trillion dollar valuation. The petition calls for guaranteed severance, buyouts before mandatory layoffs, and the option to take severance as extended paid leave. Googlers won a prenup, Chad. What's your take? Chad Sowash (50:07.492) Oof. Chad Sowash (50:22.168) Yeah, I I think it's really simple. Google spends seventy billion dollars to buy back stock just about every year. So asking for a guaranteed severance in buyouts, I think is more than fair. I mean, those individuals helped propel the company's performance, which impacts sales and stock performance. So they deserve a little taste, especially on the way out. And the same thing goes for companies like Oracle. Joel Cheesman (50:36.773) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:50.196) Amazon, if your company can afford a stop buyback, you can afford to pay the people. To me, it's simple, pay your people. Joel Cheesman (51:05.776) So for a little context, Google employs hundreds of thousands of employees. So 4,500, it may seem big in relative terms, depending on who you work for, but in Google terms, it's not a ton of people. So I don't I don't know if this moves the needle. I think it makes it for a good headline. I don't know how much power they have to back this thing up. What but what I do like is what it could mean to retention. So in a marital prenup, Are you more likely to work things out if you know you're going to lose a lot of your shit or not? Like depending on what's like it might keep you in the marriage a little bit longer to know that let's work something out, or hey, here's what we're agreed upon. So I I do like the idea of as a retention recruiting tool to say, you know what, if you come work here, we're gonna guarantee a severance if there's a layoff due to AI or technology, like we will take care of you, and it's here in writing, if this happens. Chad Sowash (51:52.056) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (52:04.615) Otherwise, you're just expecting that the company will do the right thing, that they'll be beneficent and give you money and pay you a good severance. So I do, I do like it as a recruiting tool and retention tool to say, look, no other company is offering you guaranteed severance if we lay you off in regards to technology. So I do like it as that from that perspective. And that will make other companies adopt it. I I think Google's lawyers will. Chad Sowash (52:13.848) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:34.116) bury this thing under a pile of, you know, paper and it won't go anywhere because it's still such a few number of of of of employees. But I do like it as a retention tool. I don't know. I think companies should adopt it if they want to recruit some of the best people. Chad Sowash (52:49.762) Yeah, I here's the here's the problem is it it goes back to the the companies and they're still in control. That's the biggest problem with the US labor force right now. Company has all control. There's they they're the the relationship is is is not balanced at all. At all. And the individuals who are doing the work on a daily basis are the ones who actually drive the record profits that they're actually fucking seeing. Joel Cheesman (53:03.814) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (53:19.926) So, you know, there's gotta be something, and I hate to say this, but there's gotta be some type of legislation that actually is pushed in. We allowed buybacks, I think it was back in '82 to to to to to come to the front, to come to the front, right? go figure Reagan, asshole. but but I mean, all of it, all of it in one failed swoop is look, we need to be fair. Joel Cheesman (53:32.528) Got you. Chad Sowash (53:47.17) All the way through, if you can spend $70 billion in a fucking year, let's just say billions of dollars, like Oracle, in a year for stock buybacks, you can take a chunk of that and you can put it away for severance and you know different just different packages for your employees. There's gotta be some fairness, there's gotta be some balance. I don't like the control being so heavily on the employer side, it's just Joel Cheesman (53:54.118) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (54:10.758) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (54:16.0) It it's just not right. And it's not good for the nation, obviously, because look at it. I mean, look at the the the richest country in the world and look at the high number of poverty that we have right now. It's just it's crazy, man. There's no reason. Joel Cheesman (54:28.198) Mm-hmm. All right, let's let's let's play Little Vegas. twenty twenty seven, better odds. Google gives guaranteed severance or the Cleveland Browns win the Super Bowl? Chad Sowash (54:41.164) definitely Google gives guaranteed seven rates. There's no question. No question on that one. Joel Cheesman (54:47.088) Well, one guaranteed thing in Vegas is a dad joke to end the show. And I got I was on such a high over last week's naughty, naughty joke. So I gotta I gotta keep I gotta keep it going. I gotta keep it going. Yeah, brain blame blame the Brits like everything else. what's the difference between virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil? What's the difference between virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil? Chad Sowash (54:50.412) A dad joke. Chad Sowash (54:56.34) come on Emmy I'm messaging her right now I am messaging her right now Fuck Chad Sowash (55:17.302) Shut my mic off. so bad. Emmy Weow. Joel Cheesman (55:19.64) Uglier olives. Joel Cheesman (55:27.311) We out.

The Agentic Future of Talent Acquisition with AI In this episode of HR’s most dangerous podcast, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman sit down with Adam Godson, the newly appointed General Manager of Talent Acquisition Products at Workday (following Workday’s 2025 acquisition of Paradox). The trio dives into the rapidly shifting architecture of recruitment software, the looming "SAS apocalypse," and how artificial intelligence is changing the actual nature of HR roles. Key Discussion Topics Workday's acquisition of Paradox The Shift to an "Agentic" Architecture The "SAS Apocalypse" & Evolving Revenue Models Data Ownership and Candidate Passports The Reality of Recent Layoffs How AI Re-frames the Recruiter's Job "We take a 3D person that's got a whole life, and we flatten them into this one or two page text document called a CV or resume... and then we take a job which is multi-dimensional and complex, and we flatten it into a poorly written job description... and we try to match the words on them thinking it's going to come up with something. That's no way to live."— Adam Godson PART TWO - AI Takes The Boring Part PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman: All right, let's do this. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. He's Chad Sowash, and we are here with Adam Godson, GM of Paradox. Adam, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Adam Godson: Joel, it is so good to see you. It's great to be dangerous here. Joel Cheesman: And nothing says dangerous like Midwest milquetoast over here, Adam Godson. Chad Sowash: Here we go. Joel Cheesman: Here we go, let's go. A bunch of Midwesterners hanging out. Chad Sowash: Yeah, no, no kidding. GM, CEO, Paradox. You get acquired, that's awesome. We'll talk about that. But this new role, but it's more than just Paradox. Adam Godson: That is true. So I think, you know, of course Paradox was acquired by Workday in September '25. And, a few weeks in, they're like, "Hey, you seem pretty smart. Why don't you also run Workday recruiting and HiredScore, messaging, candidate engagement, and all of the talent acquisition products?" It's really like a focus on that stakeholder, which I'm excited about, which is having a unique stakeholder for talent acquisition that, for Workday clients, so we can really make solutions for and putting those things together to be sort of Workday recruiting and the sort of the agentic future of what this is going to look like. Chad Sowash: That's a big portfolio. Adam Godson: Yeah, it's having a great focus on talent acquisition. Chad Sowash: Yeah, that's a big portfolio. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. So, so who, who talent-wise from those organizations are part of your team now? Is this going to be a house of brands? Is it all going to be a Workday recruiting thing? Like, talk about sort of vision of brand and talent around that. Adam Godson: Yeah, yeah, good, good question. So in terms of the sort of the story about the product, it is largely going to be about, you know, sort of Workday and then the agents to get work done. So, you know, you guys know like as long as there's been ATSs and, you know, TA technology, it's been my choice is I can choose the thing that's connected to the rest of my stuff, my platform system is connected to my job architecture and the data, or I can choose the thing with the features that I wanted, right? And so this best-of-breed model, but I have to integrate that in. And I think the future now is different. I think you can have this connected model, but then have agents be able to do the work and run on top of those systems and get the features that you want and the connection to the system of the, you know, the rest of the data in your in your company. And so, you know, that for Workday clients, it's really about sort of Workday recruiting and its agents. But one of the thesis behind the Paradox acquisition and the HiredScore acquisition as well was to continue to serve clients that aren't on Workday HCM. And so the Paradox brand will stay. So we'll have cool circles everywhere, so that tattoo I got is not going to like end up being awkward, which is... Joel Cheesman: Uh-huh, yeah. We won't mention the tramp stamp on you. Adam Godson: Yes, thanks for not mentioning that. But, but we'll continue to serve clients that are standalone Paradox, that were on SAP or Oracle or other systems, and continue to serve them really, really well as a as a way. And, you know, for me personally, that was really important as we thought about the acquisition to serve the whole market and to be able to not just serve Workday clients, but to be able to make a difference everywhere. Workday's the biggest, yes, but it's even still, you know, I want us it's a fragmented market. I want to be able to serve it all. Joel Cheesman: Will, will the advent of agents make brand less important because who cares, the agent works with everything, and it's not about the brand so much? Adam Godson: I think you're right. Like as the as the work surfaces change, and as people start to work in fewer places, it's more just GSD, like get stuff done. And so you don't care if it's this or that or this this brand or that brand. It's about what are you doing for me? And can I pay for those outcomes? And can I get the outcomes to happen in a way that makes sense for where I work? Chad Sowash: Interesting. So are we moving from a model where, you know, we had these clunky applicant tracking systems, CRMs, HCMs, and really those are turning into systems of record, which we always called them in the first place? Adam Godson: Yeah, we did. Chad Sowash: But they're just turning into big filing cabinets, and then we're going to have an orchestration layer on top of them where you're actually feeding data into those files and pulling data out of those files. Is that kind of like the simplistic way of my... Adam Godson: It's a little it is simplistic a little bit in that the... Chad Sowash: I mean, who did it come from, of course. Adam Godson: Those, you know, the systems do have really complex workflows. And like whenever I sit in a demo with like a complex global company, I'm reminded by like, "Oh wow, this stuff actually is really complicated," the number of flows that companies have. And so, but, but you're right. And I think of it like the backbone. Where like the ATS is going to be the backbone of the workflow and the job architecture and some of the things that are, you know, really core to the company. That's needed. But then the agents are going to do the work. And they're going to do the the orchestration. They're going to, you know, um, they're going to understand when when work needs to be done, and call a sub-agent to go run a process, and then tell you when it's done, and file that in a log. And what will change is that humans won't be doing the clicking in those systems. Agents are going to be in those systems. Humans are going to be really valuable in engaging other humans and convincing them to join, and telling the story of the company and those kinds of things. But man, the work is going to change a lot. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Well, it sounds like we'll be spinning up agents a lot for whenever we have needs, instead of spinning up features. Adam Godson: Yeah, that's right. Chad Sowash: We'll be spinning up agents. And those agents, prospectively, could be working in teams. So this is a this is a fundamental change. From an architecture standpoint, are a lot of these big systems ready for that? And I mean, obviously, Workday bought you guys for a reason, Asana and Workrise. Um, are we ready to to to get to that phase yet? Adam Godson: I think the the the larger players are varying degrees of readiness for this. Um, and, and I would say I would put Workday in that bucket as well, in that there are many flows that are fully ready, and we're ready to go, and we can execute those flawlessly. And there are others that we've got to open up new APIs and have some some philosophical change in how the the data is um is stored and act accessed in order to to enable that that change. Um, but I'll say that that, you know, Workday is on that case. And so that's a lot of the movement today is to say how can we be a more open system, how can we be uh ready for it to be an agentic foundation. But that foundation matters a lot in terms of the You can't imagine the complexity of like the security model and like the roles and permissions of these global companies where someone asks a question about some information they may or may not have access to, and to be able to to understand like what access that they have and what should I tell them, how does that blend with other information that they may or may not have access to. And those things get really complicated. And so the the core systems are well-positioned to be a part of this, but they've got to frankly modernize to be ready for this agentic future. I think at Paradox we've got really good um early use cases and are driving ROI. And and as we bring companies along, it's like how do we find them the first two or three wins so that they're heroes in their own organization, and that their management saying like, "Awesome, go get me wins four, five, and six." And and that may take some development to to come, but it's really about like just getting started and getting the W's on the board. Joel Cheesman: You've probably seen that the term "SAS apocalypse" is trending on social media. Curious about your take. How would you define it? Is it an overhyped concern? Do you think it's a real concern? Talk about your take on that issue. Adam Godson: Yeah, I think I think um, you know, some of that has to do with like the market valuation of that. And, you know, market valuations are built on future expectations. And if you expect SAS margins to hold for the next decade, I think that's probably it's clear at this point that's not likely to happen. Uh, my 13-year-old vibe codes apps on the weekends now. Well, that didn't happen a couple weeks ago or a couple years ago, right? So like things are clearly different. So, um, I think um, uh, it's a reflection that things are are different. And I think it's it's really just a how are companies going to um adjust to that, and there's going to be new winners and new losers. And sorting out who is going to win and who is going to lose is the market's job. And I think in in moments like this, it's it's people kind of get clumped together and the whole market kind of goes down, where I think the next phase of this is to say, "Okay, this is durable." And, um, and and then other things are going to be not durable. And look, the market would reflect those things individually in the next chapter. Joel Cheesman: So assuming you what you're saying is it is a real threat? Adam Godson: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: So how is Workday and the the businesses in that in that universe preparing for that threat? Adam Godson: Yeah, I think I think it's about how do we work in the ecosystem. And how do we um open the platform? I mentioned that, but uh uh also bring our own agents to market. And so that Workday is the the surface where people get work done. So we launched um um both our own native agents, but then also agent builders and a new surface there when someone has a question about how to do a workflow with in HR or finance, that they can uh use uh Workday to do that. So that was a lot of what the Asana acquisition was about. It was about being that front door to work. And so if you have a question about um a projection of or a finance question, or something about how your um location strategy may be um impacts your finances, that that data is there and the access controls and and all the things that would need to answer that question are in Workday. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Adam Godson: Um, and so I think being able to have that has been a big deal. Chad Sowash: I mean, at this point we take a look at SAS and we take a look at, you know, like the move forward to the anything agentic, and and the the big systems are already doing that. But the big differences is just literally the revenue models that they're putting in place. So it seems like the big shift is with revenue models, because the tech's already happening that way. Adam Godson: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So, I mean, is that really Again, the street's looking at this stuff, and they're they're kind of stupid because the tech's already moving that way in these SAS platforms, and the SAS platforms are the ones with all the data in the first damn place, right? So it seems like it's more of a revenue revenue model issue, which I mean, it can't be changed overnight, but but still, it's easily I think it's easily changeable. Adam Godson: Yeah, I I think um, you know, man, I think we'll look back at the SAS era and say that was pretty good gig. Um, and and we're able to build one platform that was configurable and sell it to thousands of of of people. And um, I think there's a couple of vectors. One is is being able to to charge more for results rather than the subscription, right? Chad Sowash: Or consumption or whatever you want to call it. Adam Godson: Yeah, of course. And and then you, you know, just end up in a different different spot. And I think companies are going to have to adjust to how they think about um buying software, which, you know, some of them were overpaying, some of them were underpaying, and got to sort out who's who. Joel Cheesman: So your so your thesis is essentially the model will change from a pricing standpoint versus big co America is just going to vibe code their own ATS? Adam Godson: Um, I think I think the I mean, what you're saying is it is a real threat? That might be an extreme example. No, no, it's not an extreme example at all. Like like, um, the the the build your own software is going to be a um a pressure point, no question, about how how that's there. But when people talk about building your own, I often times say like, "Oh, you're going to build your own and then maintain it forever." Um, because that's the second responsibility. Chad Sowash: We saw that happen in the mid-aughts. Adam Godson: We did. We did. Chad Sowash: And how'd that go for... Adam Godson: I mean, I mean, very few companies in the in the in the last chapter were able to to build something of scale and then maintain it over any period of time. And then one went back to to other other products. I do think that the way that um software is going to be built in the future with AI is different and can provide new opportunities for both building and maintaining. Um, I think some of the the the question is going to be about the the the core of those systems and when companies think about the very most important things for them, their people and their money, like who do they trust? And and is it going to be an in-house team that is vibe coded something or is it going to be the very, you know, the some of the the the core vendors that they're going to trust. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Well, and I think that we've seen two examples, at least two, uh where CodeWall hacked Jack and Jill, right, with AI hackers. And then then Mithos is is pulled back because so if you want to be an amateur and vibe code your own applicant tracking system and hopefully put it up against, you know, an army of AI hackers, versus allowing the professionals to actually do their job. I mean, so so when you guys, and again, this has got to be a big part of the discussion watching this happen out in the news, uh this is I mean, obviously it's scary but it's also an opportunity. Adam Godson: For sure. Well, I think that it it's about what is core, what is what is something that you do that is like what other companies do, and then what is net new? And finding ways for a company like us to enable the all those things. So, for example, if you, know, um, someone wants to use Workday Recruiting as their core because it's got the the security model built in and and and the global um uh roles and permissions that are going to matter for your your company, the separation of data so that people in Germany can't see the French and the French can't see the Germans and all the other things that you've got built in, again, the complexity is wild. But then we've also got things like Workday Extend, which is the opening of our platform, which is to say great like if we don't have something for a weird and wonderful use case you have in like employee health or something like, cool, build your own app on Workday and access that data model, access uh those APIs to make your own app on top of that. That's totally cool. Um, and then, you know, uh be able to use um our conversational intelligence layer in Asana to be able to um ask the questions, "Hey, what did my pipeline look like for this?" be able to to get those updates in Slack or Teams and operate in natural work surfaces. So, I think that's the area we're in of just figuring out the operating model and then getting the pieces of like what is the right tool for the right job in the different spaces, and and I think we think that Workday at the core belongs in the center of that. And then there's of course lots of things to build on that will help companies operate. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: I'm sure you're familiar with the case against Eightfold, basically unveiling what is the algorithm, why, just similar to a credit check, "I didn't get the loan, exactly why," and creating transparency around that. I look at that and say this is not just a typical lawsuit that's going to be settled out of court. I think this has potentially real teeth. Wondering your thoughts, uh if you do think it's a threat, what do you think the end result is? Do we come to a more transparent world where these systems that rank candidates now have to tell you how they ranked you, the way that they ranked you, and why you didn't get the job? Adam Godson: Yeah, I think broadly speaking, you know, transparency is is a good thing in this, and that helpful regulation can help clarify the next era for AI in HR specifically. And so, um, while some people would like to think, "Ah, regulation is inherently bad," um I think inherent like regulation can be really good for us to be able to understand what those look like. I think it would be helpful to have that not happen at the like state, city, and local level so that there are a million regulations rather than like, you know, some rational number. But, um, look, the way this is going to, you know, play out is is uh some level of of inevitability of of people are going to use AI to um help reduce friction in labor markets, to be able to find help companies find talent, help talent find companies. And uh uh I think our job as practitioners who are helping in this industry is to understand how we can make this fair, transparent, um, you know, compliant with sort of human rights and sort of the you know the rights of people. It's it's not online shopping. It is something that's deeper. It is something that's personal and involves your livelihood and your self-worth and other other things. So I think I think our our job is to help make good in the world of that, but um, you know, it's going to it's going to be a journey to get there. Joel Cheesman: So do we embrace that because I've over the years, I know you've heard it, people have actually talked about creating some of of like a credit rating and at least running parallels with uh with uh credit ratings. Do we just embrace that and say, "Hey, yeah, that's what we do, but we're going to make it transparent, and we're going to have the candidate validate as opposed to just go out there and scrape stuff off the internet and throw it into their their profile." Um, we're going to make it so there's a validation process and the person who owns the data, the candidate, actually does that. Should we embrace that? Adam Godson: Yeah, I I think there's going to be uh a lot to embrace in the coming chapter. I think um we're on a time ticker of the time where human beings use web interfaces to apply for jobs. So some of the agent-to-agent things are are going to come where it's going to be... Chad Sowash: Joel can't wait. Adam Godson: How can my agent apply to your your agent? Um, but I think I think you've you've hit on some of the key points is how does a human in control of their own data, um how do we have transparency understanding of what decisions are being made about a human person, yeah, and and how do we um, you know, just understand how the system works and not have black boxes. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: All right, I can't let the agent on agent comment go go un- un-questioned. Um, currently there's a real issue with uh a flood of candidates, some real, some not, um lazy apply, etc. Uh, on the other side of the the court, it feels like a game of whack-a-mole. How do we plug the holes? What's real, what isn't? Where does that lead us to? If it's agent-agent, is there a confirmation that the agent is legit and the everything's legit and then at what point does a human come into that equation? What does the future look like? Adam Godson: Call it called blockchain. We miss we did miss one in that era. That is for sure. We we could have made some of that work. But, um, yeah, I don't know. Get all get all your tin hats, fellows, but, um, you know, I think I think this is going to centralize around identity, of of an identity around a person and a legitimate job. And our goal as an industry is to reduce friction in labor markets to help have people those finding each other in a way that makes sense, right? And and the reality is the system we have today isn't very good. So we take like a 3D person that's got a whole life, and we flatten them into this one or two page text document called a CV or resume. Chad Sowash: 1D or maybe. Adam Godson: Right? And like that sucks. And and then we take a job which has like is multi-dimensional and deep and complex, we flatten into this poorly written job description that someone got from an old system 10 years ago and just hit like accept on, right? So we're taking these two lousy two-dimensional documents and trying to match the words on them and thinking it's going to come up with something. Right? Like that's that's no way to live. Um, and and so so so I think the future is we've got to get more depth on both sides of that equation. We've got to get more depth in jobs. We've got to get more depth in people. And and there's going to be a lot that um uh uh agent can help us with in communication. One of the fundamental parts of that is got to be some limit to in the system of spam. And that's that's the downside is that we can create a world, and that's frankly what what I hope to do at our client board this week is to um work with our clients to create a better world. If left to its own devices, we may just spam the heck out of each other, and employers spam candidates, candidates spam employers, and then everyone's mad. But I actually think that we can create a system where where maybe you can only apply to N jobs at a time. And you get pre-qualified to say like, "Oh, you're actually of a decent an okay fit for this one, you're in the running, and you're not in the running for these." And the agents do all that work and start to have some rational limit on both sides of the marketplace to say, "All right, the limit now is human attention." So how can we give like some some rational set of of pre-qualification to the level of human attention and actually like make the labor market work so that people can get hired. And yes, maybe we're the agents are spamming the heck out of each other underneath the covers, but the humans don't don't know about it. And I think there's a world that we can create there that will work. Joel Cheesman: Always the optimist. Chad Sowash: Oh, well, he has to be. He has to be. Joel Cheesman: Always the optimist. Chad Sowash: Uh, so I remember back in the the the olden days uh with uh with uh Taleo when they had their universal resume. Remember? Uh, one resume for passport one one resume, yes. And then iCIMS talked about a passport way back in the day, and it's just like we have these great ideas that never come to fruition. They never get the the traction that we need. It feels like we're we're finally getting that, or we might be pushed into it by by regulation, whether it's here or in Europe, one way or the other. Adam Godson: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So, as you talk about depth, from a candidate standpoint, obviously transparency, you providing transparency to them, but also them owning the data that's on them, like the background check. Yeah, the company pays for the background check, but that was a background check on me, so that is mine, right? Are we going to get to the point where companies finally understand that they do not own that candidate information, the candidate owns their information, and at that point, can we move forward and finally creating whatever the hell we want to call it, universal, passport, are we finally going to get there? Adam Godson: I think the what you said about push is right, where and we're starting to see some of that in certain parts of the world. So like Singapore has Singpass, Estonia in Estonia, UAE has sort of the centralized identity system. So I think as as um Worldcoin is trying to, you know, so scan your iris and confirm that you're a human. So so but but all those are efforts to solve some externality around distinguishing humans from agents and AI. And and I think we can all see from here that this is going to become a real problem. And so I think this will all accelerate, and for our not just this reason, it is it is our job then to take some of those movements and contextualize them for the purpose of looking for a job and to say great can we um, you know, capitalize on the work that's being done so that people can open bank accounts and buy things and have an identity, but also like, "Oh, hey, us too, how about we apply that to employment and make so that useful there?" Because like we're the ones to do that. People will not naturally do it, we'll create terrible systems all over again and live with it for their generation. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Yeah. So is is Workday a part of that process and prospectively being a part of a of a bigger cohort of building that kind of like ecosystem? I mean, or or these conversations happening now? Adam Godson: Those those conversations are happening. I'm I'm not here to announce anything today. But I'll say that um that those conversations are happening, um just about how we think about um uh identity and how we think about how to make Of course, the application easier to to do that. But that's that's sort of a short-term um problem. But it is about how do we think about making the economies of our societies work better by reducing friction between people and livelihoods. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman: If you were to create a keyword cloud of our podcast in the last year, one of the biggest words would be layoffs. Adam Godson: Oh. Joel Cheesman: I'll admit that I'm uh sort of undecided on where this goes. Um, AI is taking all the jobs. We overhired in COVID, and now we're just correcting. Um, the Fed interest rates are why people are laying off. I can literally listen to a handful of reasons and think, "Okay, that makes sense." But I want to know from your standpoint, explain the layoffs to me that are going to go on. What is to blame? Adam Godson: I think it's all those things in some fashion, and um I do think AI will have a meaningful impact on changing employment. Um, and just like any technology that's been invented, we fought full wars over the loom being invented, if you're well, no one else remembers, but... But technology has changed like changes, and it makes massive impact in society, and and so I think um some of it is that is is uh the the re-skilling that needs to happen of people that um are impacted by AI versus the needs that companies have for inventing new things with AI creates um challenges. Joel Cheesman: So if I could put words in your mouth, uh and correct me if uh you don't want me to put anything in your mouth. Um... Short-term, yes, uh Fed rates have a big impact, uh we did overhire for COVID and those are that's course correcting. But when we look back 5 years from now, we will say AI has had the greatest impact on jobs. And maybe not taking away jobs, but creating new jobs and re-framing what maybe recruiting was 5 years ago, recruiting is a different skill set today. Is that kind of what uh I'm hearing you say or no? Adam Godson: Yes. And I think, you know, and if you take the recruiting example, for I do think recruiting is changing and it is, you know, going away from um I think some of the delivery things, clicking buttons in systems, and going towards people that are doing system design and development of systems. I was at a in a room full of, you know, TA leaders a couple weeks ago and said, "How many people have a recruiting operations function?" Every hand in the room goes up. And 3 years ago, that was not the case. It was it was it was not that. And and sort of we get this split between um, you know, recruiting operations and people that are designing the the functions or using technology, they're using AI to to automate to make them more efficient. But then also, you've got your recruiters that are talking to candidates, convincing them to join. Like AI can't do that. AI is not going to get you to move across the country to to relocate your family and those things. Like only a person can can do that. What you get rid of is the people that wish they were talking to candidates but are clicking buttons in the system. And that's a good thing. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. What didn't we ask you that you wish we had? Adam Godson: I don't know, it's probably time for beer. Joel Cheesman: And with that, this has been the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Joel, he's Chad, he's Adam Godson, GM at Workday. We out. Chad Sowash: We out.

Unintended Consequences After a two-month hiatus from recording together, Chad and Joel reunite to dissect the latest chaotic shifts in HR and recruitment technology. From the pitfalls of relying on flawed employer metrics to algorithmic transparency issues and major vendor partnerships, the duo delivers an unfiltered look at the industry's push toward automation. Key Discussion Topics The Flaws of Disposition Data Indeed's Algorithmic Disappearing Act Pre-Apply AI Screening Risk Fighting the Giants The Return of Career Sites Industry Takeaway: "Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We've turned into 'move fast, break shit' before somebody else gets there... but usually the first ones that arrive are the ones with arrows in their face." — Chad Sowash Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:29.568) yeah, you wanted the best. You got the best. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co host, Joel. Is this it? Cheese man. Chad Sowash (00:40.752) And this is Chad, Unintended Consequences. So wash. Joel Cheesman (00:45.546) And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, disposition data, disappearing ads, and slotbusters, let's do this. Chad Sowash (00:58.842) Slop it up, big boy. Man, it's been forever since we've been on a show together. Joel Cheesman (01:00.608) What's up, Chad? Joel Cheesman (01:04.488) It it has. Eight weeks, two months? I don't know. That's why our our listenership is increasing. We're not on we're not on the show together anymore. Everyone loves it. Everyone loves it. How you been? Saw you in England, obviously, but you've you took a little break last week. You you had a little stag party. Like give us give us the chat update. Chad Sowash (01:06.948) I think it's been a Chad Sowash (01:20.624) Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I mean, Wreckfest as always was amazing. Thanks to Jamie and crew. And if you're not already registered to go to the US and Nashville wreck, well, get your ass going over to Wreckfest.com. Graham Harper, I know if you remember this or not, because you were a little drunk at Wreckfest. He hooked us up. He hooked us up with some agnificent rum, Welsh rum, which it was funny. Joel Cheesman (01:41.044) What? I don't remember being Joel Cheesman (01:50.73) Welsh Rom, just like the pirates used to drink back in the day. The Welsh Rum. Chad Sowash (01:51.024) because I know just like the pirate jet. It's called Bart Barty B a R T I anyway, Graham is amazing. He hooked us up. It was delicious. But yeah, I going to the after leaving you Joel Cheesman (01:57.951) Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:04.5) Which worked great, Chad, by the way. Where where we were, we we get the little speakers lounge. we get the hidden the the VIP place. So we actually had to pay for beer, but the sodas were free. So we we'd get the Pepsi, the Pepsi Max, and then we'd we'd we'd spike it with the rum. So we we were we were cost conscious this year with drinking free. Thanks to Graham. Thanks for Graham on that. Chad Sowash (02:09.486) yeah. Chad Sowash (02:16.419) Boom. Cheat code. Tico, Tico. Chad Sowash (02:26.191) I, and we started, the America's 250th celebration on a boat in Mallorca. And we did it with Lee Greenwood singing. Tim Sackett was there with his, his, stars and stripes, you know, speedo. I mean, it was, it was all good. It was a good time. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:33.148) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (02:38.953) Ha ha ha ha. Joel Cheesman (02:45.694) Yeah. So my God, no. Set so set this up for us. You leave Wreckfest, our friend Chris Long getting married, stag party. So s so you go to Majorca. Everyone's feeling very sorry for you at this point. So you you meet up with a a who's who of recruiting folks and have a good time. I I don't I don't even know you you're on a boat with thongs. I it's it's okay. Chad Sowash (02:56.015) Mm. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Chad Sowash (03:05.709) Yeah. Yeah. I did not have a thong. the thing is, mean, Jamie Leonard was there. Dude just threw a huge ass wreck fast slash party. And next thing you know, he's he's in my orca with us. Mark Chaffee, Sam from from Hackaday. mean, obviously, Chris Long, I mean, we had a who's who, right? It was a blast. And it was in the beautiful thing is that we're not 20 years old doing a stag do, which means we can Joel Cheesman (03:16.595) Okay. Joel Cheesman (03:21.053) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:40.385) eat better, can drink better, can charter boats and do really good shit. So we had a blast, man. We had a blast. Joel Cheesman (03:49.492) Yes. You you sacrifice what your liver can do for for expensive shit. I get it. I get it. That's great. So so the the Odyssey, before we get to the World Cup, the Odyssey movie is coming out by the time this this move this podcast drops. Is it a big deal in Europe? You guys like it's it's very huge here. The reviews I guess opening night was we're recording on a Wednesday, but the opening night was last night. Chad Sowash (03:53.059) Yes. Exactly. Chad Sowash (04:07.108) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:16.849) Huge reviews. You're gonna go see it. I know you're a movie guy. You excited. You love the Chris Nolan stuff. What's going on? Chad Sowash (04:24.473) I do, I do love it. There's a lot of buzz that's happening on the boob tube. But to be quite frank, mean, ever since COVID, I have just not been excited about going to the movies. So in its more chill life here, so it's like, when I see it, I'll see it. It doesn't have to be this weekend. It doesn't have to be long lines or any of that shit. I might just wait till it's on Dodgy Box. don't Joel Cheesman (04:32.329) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:39.294) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:49.865) Mm-hmm. I'm guessing there's no IMAX in the Algarve that you can go and really experience the movie like it's supposed to be supposed to be enjoyed. All right. Chad Sowash (04:57.199) Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I know we've got great theaters, but I don't know if they're high Joel Cheesman (05:05.469) Well well, I got a new term for you and you might you might get to experience it before the actual real movie. so it's the a new term now is Slotbuster. So we know Blockbuster, the big movie, the the the so slot buster now is something that's being bantered about. There's a movie called Odysseus, which is basically a wannabe Odyssey movie, and it was totally made with AI. Chad Sowash (05:09.615) Okay, yeah. Chad Sowash (05:15.087) Okay. Yes. Blockbuster movie. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:32.915) Guy was on C N B C last yesterday. It cost what he said was in the mid five figures to produce this movie. So I gotta know, like AI slop, or is it are we ready for the movie theaters to be filled with slop? Chad Sowash (05:40.782) Okay. Chad Sowash (05:46.544) I don't think we're ready for it, but it's coming. And from what I understand with this movie, it was total slop. So, yeah, I think, you know, a lot of what we're seeing with AI right now is literally we're still in the R &D phase of how we use AI and so on and so forth. Can it be good for like short term like CGI stuff? Yeah, I think it's going to be good for that. But to actually do a full movie. Joel Cheesman (05:49.705) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:54.62) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (06:15.999) I don't think so. I don't think we're there yet. Joel Cheesman (06:17.243) It it is the cover band of media. Yes, the slop buster. I I I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. But slop sloppy stuff AI wise is coming to to social media as well. Chad, I don't know if you saw this fast company talked about which social media platform has the most AI slop. And surprise, surprise, LinkedIn, LinkedIn holds the crown as having the most AI generated content. I'm not surprised, are you? Chad Sowash (06:20.505) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (06:45.113) weird. Well, no, yes and no. I mean, it's just, weird. It's weird because it's the professional network, number one. And I see so much AI slop like on Instagram and on TikTok already. But I do have to say this whole, and I know I wish JT was here because she loves her some LinkedIn, but I am seeing so much irrelevant shit just popping up in my feed. Joel Cheesman (06:51.679) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:13.022) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (07:14.767) Constantly and there's some AI slop that's in there. There's no question, but it's just like LinkedIn used to be relevant used to be content from my from my community from my network and now it just seems to be It's slop whether it's AI slop or not. It's just slop entirely. It's it's it's too much. It's weird I hope they tweak the algorithm to make it more relevant Joel Cheesman (07:24.681) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:31.219) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:35.358) Yeah, I think I think most platforms will will degrade AI generated stuff. the the fast company story talked about that more than forty percent of LinkedIn posts longer than two hundred and fifty words were flagged as being fully written by AI. So these are probably long articles, longer thought I mean, these are people like p throwing in an article and saying, like, hey, create a summary for this, make it sound like I'm doing it, and then posting stuff easily. A lot of corporations If it's my job to post stuff on LinkedIn, I'm like, yeah, okay, like take an article, write write a summary of it, and I'm gonna post it on LinkedIn. Whereas TikTok is much more hey guy, you know, it's more much more personal than LinkedIn is too much, too much corporate shit. Chad Sowash (08:16.589) And it's video versus text version, right? it's, you get a little ways through like an article and you're like, this is AI wrote this shit. When you're watching a video, it's almost instantaneous. You can tell that it's AI slop. So it's a little bit different. Joel Cheesman (08:31.421) Yeah. And a lot of pictures now. Obviously, I mean, we we're guilty of this. Like it's a lot easier just to create an image of something than it is to actually hire someone to design an image. So yeah, and it's a little bit fun too. So obviously, World Cup, we're in the final throes of it. it'll be over the next time that we record. We're in my England t-shirt here. I know your your team Portugal was bumped by Spain a couple of weeks ago, but as we record this Chad Sowash (08:35.085) Yeah. yeah. Chad Sowash (08:40.683) That's fun. Yeah, it's Yes. Chad Sowash (08:49.199) You're wearing your England. Joel Cheesman (09:01.851) Spain has just defeated France. England, Argentina are still ready to play. I was curious as an American, Portugal, Spain, I know they don't like each other. Give me a sense as an American. Is this like Red Sox Yankees? Is it Michigan, Ohio State? Like how deep does this does this rivalry go? Chad Sowash (09:03.919) Tonight. Tonight. Chad Sowash (09:19.309) Yeah, it's it's it's a big rivalry. It is Michigan, Ohio State. No, no, no doubt. They they do not do not like each other. So last night it was funny in the bar. All the Portuguese were rooting against Spain and all the the English were rooting for Spain because they wanted to play Spain. They didn't want to play. They didn't want to play France. So it was was was a tale of tale of two teams last. Joel Cheesman (09:23.739) Okay. Joel Cheesman (09:33.918) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:40.767) Yeah. Okay. Joel Cheesman (09:47.891) All right. Well, since they haven't played yet, give me a prediction. Argentina, England. And of course by the time this drops, you'll either be right or wrong. Chad Sowash (09:56.132) Yeah, I mean, it's that's hard, especially watching France last night thinking that they would they would give Spain a hell of a fight and they didn't. So it's like which team actually shows up. Yeah, I I hate to say this, but I really think England is is they just have either Harry Kane or I mean, fucking you know, Bellingham shows up. I mean, it's just like the Joel Cheesman (10:04.617) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (10:20.35) Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:25.141) somebody's gonna show up, right? And they haven't had, I think, bad match yet. I think their early match was bad with Congo. But other than that, other than that, think everything is good. And I think Messi, he used a lot of his magic to come back from a two-score differential to score, you know, for those guys to score three goals. Joel Cheesman (10:33.587) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:37.535) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:44.093) Okay. Joel Cheesman (10:50.825) Yeah, you you t when when the goats are in these kind of games, whether it's the Super Bowl, you know, game seven of whatever, like the goats tend to escalate their game. and messy is that goat. So, you know, the Bellingham Kane two headed monster versus the goat, I think it's gonna be a a hell of a game. Chad Sowash (11:03.599) We'll see, man. Chad Sowash (11:09.323) And take a look at Argentina though, too. Their draw has been so much easier at this point. So this is really, mean, I think they're their biggest test. The biggest question is, do they have more fuel in the tank because they haven't had such, I mean, their last match, obviously, but they haven't had such huge tests. I think it's going to be a big test. I think it's going to be a big test. Joel Cheesman (11:13.598) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:30.087) Uh-huh. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a great game. obviously I'm going with England for the win. if nothing else, because I want to hear Wonderwall at the end of and end of another victory for that. But enough of this. Enough of this. It's been fun though. World Cup has been great, been awesome event as always. and then it's time for football, baby. But now it's time for shout outs. Chad Sowash (11:42.031) that just makes me not. Yes. A blast. Amen. All right. Joel Cheesman (11:59.71) All right, Chad, this this shout outs is powered by our friends at Aspentech Labs. If you love free beer, and who doesn't, well get ready to turn into a sloppy summertime life of the party. But you can't win if you don't play, Chad. That's right. Aspentec is only giving beers to people who actually go to Chadcheese.com/slash free to get a chance to replace that shit beer that's in your mom's fridge in the basement with some actual Chad Sowash (11:59.758) Yes. Mm. Chad Sowash (12:08.321) huh. I do. Joel Cheesman (12:27.251) Good stuff, everybody. That's right. get the good beer. Get the good beer. All right, Chad. Shout outs, what you got? Chad Sowash (12:34.391) So I'm going to start out with the shout out. I'm going to go back to World Cup really quick to make my segue. It seems like politics is fucking everything up. The World Cup was going so smoothly. Everything was great. Hello. Everything was great. And then Donald Trump has to come in and, you know, pull the red card. And it really just kind of like screwed all of like the mojo and momentum of the World Cup. think it's coming back. But in a day where politics are corrupt, Joel Cheesman (12:39.167) Okay. Joel Cheesman (12:53.791) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (13:03.703) and you can't trust anyone on the ballot, my shout out goes to Count Binface, who is running for member of parliament. We call them MPs. In the upcoming Clacton by the sea election, which is scheduled for August 13th, 2026. I'm sure you don't know who this Count Binface is. So go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage. Joel Cheesman (13:05.545) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:28.04) my god. Joel Cheesman (14:20.947) He's a talking trash can for those that are listening. Chad Sowash (14:22.627) Yes. Chad Sowash (14:27.919) You Joel Cheesman (14:34.12) At least one of them. Chad Sowash (14:41.711) So, I mean, so yes, if you're listening, that was a man in a costume, dropped up dressed up as a garbage can. We has a garbage can as a head. That's count bin face and count bid faces running against Nigel Farage and his his ultimate selling point count count bin faces vote for me. I am not Nigel Farage. And for anybody who doesn't know who Raj is, he was one of the main proponents of Brexit. Count bin faces. Joel Cheesman (14:42.111) the Brits. Joel Cheesman (14:55.891) Okay. Joel Cheesman (15:06.985) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:09.903) campaign promises is he will cap croissants at a pound. He just heard that he was going to cap a Wigan kebabs at two pounds. He's going to abolish VAR in football and he's going to nationalize Adele. I don't know what that means, but he's going to nationalize Adele. And last but not least, yes, he's going to, yes, he's going to nationalize Adele. Joel Cheesman (15:21.011) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (15:30.399) Is that the singer? The singer Adele? Okay. All right. Chad Sowash (15:34.529) And he's going to rename London Bridge to Phoebe Waller Bridge, you know, the lead actor from from from Fleabag. Anyway, in a time where politics sucks, shout out to a fresh new face. He's a comedian, go figure. For me, shout out to Count Benface. Joel Cheesman (15:51.379) Yeah. Chad Sowash (16:01.231) amazing. Joel Cheesman (16:01.376) All right, Chad, I I I'm gonna try to one up trash face, been face for those Americans that are listening. So my shout out goes to this poor son of a bitch. let's call him Vladimir Bobbit. this is this is gonna escalate quickly. so remember John and Lorraine Bobbit in the 90s, Chad? Unfortunately, yeah. So for those that don't remember, made famous by cutting off John's. Chad Sowash (16:15.663) Oof. Chad Sowash (16:22.753) Unfortunately, yes, painful. Joel Cheesman (16:30.367) penis after a fight. If you remember the 90s, you remember John Bob. Well, I think, I think a couple Muscovites might be trying to top it. A jealous wife in Moscow bit off, that's right, bit off her husband's penis after finding a text message from another woman. Not catching him in the act with another woman, a text message. To make it worse, she sharpened her teeth Chad Sowash (16:43.343) Chad Sowash (16:54.403) Oof. Joel Cheesman (16:58.505) With a file to make her attack more effective. Gee, this this chick's quite a peach. The husband, now unable to achieve an erection, shocker, is now raising their seven-year-old child alone while she is in prison. Her sentence, Chad, for biting off a man's penis is a whopping five years. Now, for context, Chad, you remember when WNBA star Brittany Greiner was arrested in Russia for weed? Chad Sowash (17:04.386) WAH! Yeah Chad Sowash (17:25.934) Yes. Joel Cheesman (17:26.739) That sentence jail time was nine years. So binding off a penis, five years. Weed, nine years. talk about a messed up penal system. You know what I'm saying? You talking about a messed up penal system. So shout out for, I guess, our comrade John Bobbit two point That's what I'm calling him. That poor, poor bastard. Good luck to you, my friend. Chad Sowash (17:30.756) Jesus. Chad Sowash (17:38.415) Uhhhh Chad Sowash (17:52.409) That's horrible. That's horrible. Joel Cheesman (17:53.728) All right. we are we're not we're not traveling, Chad, but I know that we do always want to talk about where we're going eventually. Chad Sowash (18:00.303) Huh. Chad Sowash (18:08.685) How do I get rid of this picture on my screen? Jesus. Joel Cheesman (18:11.529) Let's see. Well that didn't Chad Sowash (18:14.531) I don't want to look at John Wayne Bobbitt II the entire time. Joel Cheesman (18:16.519) Yeah, I know. hold on. Okay, stop there we go. Riverside has updated their media file. We can do pictures now, which is great, but yes, you have to click the picture again to get it off. So we love us some Shaker recruitment marketing. I don't know if I'm spoiling it, but they're gonna be in Nashville. may or may not be on stage with Shaker, I guess. We'll see. Chad Sowash (18:22.492) There we go. Chad Sowash (18:34.724) Yes. Chad Sowash (18:42.745) Possibly. We'll see. Uh-huh. On the disrupt stage? I don't know. Might happen. Joel Cheesman (18:44.319) We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. All right, let's get to topics. yeah, hold on. Okay. Let's get to topics, Chad. Chad Sowash (18:54.082) Is, they working? Joel Cheesman (19:05.823) All right, well Chad, I'm still recovering from my June vacation, basking in Italy, Paris, Belgium. So why don't you you got some inside info on Indeed. They've been they've been behaving badly recently. What you got? Chad Sowash (19:09.657) Yeah, poor kid, poor kid. Chad Sowash (19:19.147) So, and while you're at it, minding the media there, get the drum roll sound effect ready. Okay, so we've talked about how Indeed is trying their damnedest to force leverage, coerce, whatever you want to call it, companies to provide Indeed with their disposition data. Well, Lou Goodman wrote a great article called 106 Things Disposition Data Can't Tell You. Joel Cheesman (19:34.558) Yes. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:45.491) Wow. Chad Sowash (19:45.839) I reached out to Lou and said, hey, can you do that in a top three? So here's Lou Goodman's top three reasons why user using disposition data is stupid. Number one, job descriptions suck. Everything starts with the quality of the input. And again, we're talking about signals here. If the job advert didn't accurately reflect the employer, what the employer actually wanted, whether because requirements change or key criteria aren't included, or the role was defined poorly, and that happens all the time, then you're measuring candidates against a flawed benchmark. Joel Cheesman (20:08.777) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (20:27.221) even excellent candidates can appear to be poor matches if the job data itself is flawed. There you go. So job descriptions suck and that's, and we all know that. Number two, capacity. Joel Cheesman (20:34.399) I like that. Chad Sowash (20:43.139) Capacity sucks. There seems to be an assumption that a negative disposition outcome equals poor quality application, but a candidate may have been rejected because the recruiter only had the capacity to interview five people. Stopped reviewing after finding good enough or never even reached their application. So not selected often tells you more about employer capacity than candidate quality. Joel Cheesman (20:58.751) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:13.431) And last but not least. Chad Sowash (21:18.903) Number three is disposition codes themselves just suck. Even if the hiring decision was perfectly valid, you still have to trust the data. Rejection reasons are often self-defined and consistently applied or selected as default admin codes simply to close a requisition. I don't know how many systems I know that literally you could bulk disposition code candidates, bulk code, okay? This makes the data set far less reliable than it needs to be to drive key decisions about optimization. So that's the three. Thanks, Lou. And if you want to read 106 things disposition data can't tell you, just go over to jobboarddoctor.com. Thanks, Lou. We appreciate it. Joel Cheesman (22:08.063) Sounds like Lou's not falling for the banana in the tailpipe. Chad Sowash (22:11.289) She's not, she's not. I mean, and if you've ever worked in these systems before, you know how messy and crappy the data is. So to think that you're gonna get great data is just fucking ridiculous. Joel Cheesman (22:19.815) Yeah. I I think disposition data and Indeed's real like focus on that. I think it was one of my predictions for the years that that Indeed would buy an ATS to get to the disposition data. I think that's been a huge airball for them. I think it wasn't what as easy as they expected it to be to get people to do that. I think agencies push back, I think comp like employers push back. Nobody wanted to do it. And so in addition to the reasons that you've stated, it's it's a Chad Sowash (22:31.919) Mm. Chad Sowash (22:44.004) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (22:48.999) It's a tough system anyway, but I think the consumer and the agencies around that have totally pushed back on disposition data and indeed has been forced to pivot, which it which will kind of lead me to some of your other points here that are that are coming up. So I agree, like 106, though, Lou. Lou, take a get a life, man. Come on, 106. Chad Sowash (23:05.295) She needs to take a breath. You need to take a breath. It's okay, Lou. It's okay. She's just that wonky and that's why we love her. So we receive email strings and we have great discussions with companies all the time, right? All the time. Joel Cheesman (23:09.575) Yeah. I can't come up with a hundred and six of anything, let alone some goofy disposition data. She yeah, yeah, God love her. What else she got? Joel Cheesman (23:29.714) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (23:33.081) but a lot of the times it's on the down low. It's just to be able to say, hey, I can't believe we're getting fucked like this. And it's from vendor to vendor to vendor to vendor. So they do, they do, but they don't want to come out in the open with it for any reason. So I received an email string from Hamra Enterprises Senior VP of HR, Sonia Brewer. And she said, hey, share it. I okay, great. I love it. She sent this to me because she knows many companies are having problems with Joel Cheesman (23:36.71) yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:40.211) Yeah. People trust us. Yep. Chad Sowash (24:03.28) Indeed, that transparency in the market would help. It wouldn't hurt. So being able to put this story out there would actually help because other companies would say, shit, we're having the same problem. first and foremost, who is Hamra Enterprises? Well, they are a prominent family-owned hospitality and multi-brand franchise owner headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, founded in 1975. Wow. The company has grown from a single Joel Cheesman (24:04.299) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:33.103) fast food location into a major industry player with roughly 200 locations and 7,400 employees and an annual revenue reaching over $450 million. So that's, that's the entity at play here who was having the discussion with Indeed just to be able to set the table for the players, right? So phase one, we're going to break this down chronologically. Phase one, Joel Cheesman (24:41.012) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:46.474) There you go. Chad Sowash (25:00.557) was the problem. So Hamra Enterprises noticed that if they manually type in Wendy's or Panera, those are the two major major franchises that they own. If they if they type those keywords into Indeed for towns where they have active high budget premium sponsored ads, their job listings do not appear at all. Well, Joel Cheesman (25:08.275) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (25:22.817) Indeed's representative explained that the platform had moved away from basic keyword searches, those those Pidley key, you know, to an AI driven matching platform. They told Sonia that her manual spot check searches are misleading. They're old school and misleading because she is not logged in as a candidate. They showed her reports that her ad was generating plenty of low cost. And it's kind of like one of those go away kids. Joel Cheesman (25:29.309) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (25:47.36) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:52.634) things, right? So Sonia came back and said, hey, look, typical 16 year olds looking for a fast food job will literally just type in Wendy's into a search bar, right? So yeah, exactly. She then leveraged her position as a senior member of the Wendy's franchise association and threatened to pull ad spend. Joel Cheesman (26:00.586) Mm-hmm. When he's near me. Yeah. Chad Sowash (26:16.559) and push it to companies like ZipRecruiter while also rallying other national franchise owners to do the same. So it's, mean, it's one thing to piss off Hammer with 200 locations and 7,400, you know, employees, but wait until you start pissing off the other Wendy's peeps who have 6,000 locations, about 6,000 locations, right? So. So that was phase one. It was kind of like, we have a problem. Houston, we have a problem. And Houston was like, no, the rocket's fine. No, it's okay, right? Phase two, Indeed's technical team admits there is an actual backend issue because Hammer's jobs. Joel Cheesman (26:47.743) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:59.678) I'm shocked at that, by the way. They admitted Chad Sowash (27:00.779) Yeah, well, mean, yeah, but Hammer's jobs are mapped to Hammer Enterprises and that and that parent page and indeed algorithm is quote unquote, accidentally suppressing those jobs from appearing when users search for brands like Wendy's and Panera Bread. So what they told her at first was total bullshit. Now they're coming back and say, yes, there's an issue. Joel Cheesman (27:09.972) Mm-hmm. Yep. Joel Cheesman (27:17.29) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:29.571) we're suppressing because you your, your page is Hamra. It's not Wendy's is not Panera, whatever. Right. So indeed proposes a band-aid fix of un-linking Hammer's jobs from the corporate umbrella page. Now, Sonya doesn't like this because you know, it's, it's a band-aid. Well, yeah. And, and, and it's a band-aid, right? But it's peak hiring season. Joel Cheesman (27:48.672) She's proud of her company. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:57.216) Yeah. Chad Sowash (27:57.424) and she needs to this shit done. So she agrees to do that. She agrees to do that. Then, and just so we all get the chronological, this starts in April. We're now in late June, early July. Hamra is hiring 50 associates for a brand new grand opening in Texas. Once again, their Panera Bread job ads are completely invisible in manual searches. Compounding their frustrations, Sonya. Joel Cheesman (28:09.568) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (28:19.264) Yep. Yeah. Chad Sowash (28:26.617) clearly sees competitor job postings when she's searching. She's searching and she's seeing McDonald's and she's seeing other local restaurants, but she's not seeing their Panera in the same search. escalates, brings in the director of sales to provide a deep structural explanation of Indeed's algorithmic behavior. Exactly what a VP of HR wants, Indeed's planning, right? That's exactly. Anyway, completely Joel Cheesman (28:34.962) great. Joel Cheesman (28:53.012) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (28:56.181) out of patience at this point, rejecting the algorithmic bullshit explanation that they tried to do before and then they said it was a problem. Sonja cuts the conversation completely with the final two sentences in the email. No, I am not interested. I just want the search tool to work as it's supposed to. Not as you designed it. I'm done. So as we all know, and again, we're bashing indeed right now, okay? Joel Cheesman (29:14.388) Yeah. Chad Sowash (29:24.995) happens in many companies. I remember why I said Monster. Remember I was, I mean, there many companies, right? It's all about how you take care of the situation. You treat your customers with kid gloves. You give them customer service. You don't just bat them away with bullshit excuses. And that's exactly what happened here. Joel Cheesman (29:30.816) Sure. Joel Cheesman (29:44.96) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (29:55.008) To me so Indeed knows that twenty percent of their customers are in a position where they're gonna say, like, they understand what's going on. They actually do searches like this. They actually get I mean, shout out that she got the V VP or director of sales on the phone. Like, you know, she's she's spending enough money to get a director on the phone. because before that it was Joey Bag of Donuts, you know, first job out of college trying to deal with to deal with this. like I Chad Sowash (30:13.689) Yeah, direct yourselves, yeah. That's what it is, yes. Chad Sowash (30:24.089) Yes. Yes. Joel Cheesman (30:27.314) I'm pretty convinced that indeed believes the future of hiring is agents. All I hear from them is talent scout, career scout. Whether they're right or wrong, I think they believe the future of job search is job seekers using agents and ultimately employers using agents. And this whole thing about like where my job is, why am I showing up? Why am I paying more? That to to me, that to them is a is a temporary issue that they'll deal with. And I think they're comfortable with the fact that, you know what, we're gonna lose 20% of our users, the people who are actually like looking at what we're doing. But you know what? 80% of the people, they're just gonna keep paying the bill that we send them. They're just gonna keep paying the invoice. They're not gonna pay a pit pay attention, right? and and they're probably right, unfortunately, right? They're probably right. 80% of the people Chad Sowash (31:11.149) They're not going to pay attention. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (31:22.376) And if they can raise the prices on eighty percent, then they can lose the twenty percent because they're making more on the eighty percent that just don't pay attention. And and what if are they right or not, I don't know. But what I hear out of what I hear out of Indeed is a lot of talent scout. People like it, that it works, like that's the future. And the job seeker side I don't hear as much, but I'm assuming that a lot of job seekers are using that as well. Ultimately, I think indeed believes that these Chad Sowash (31:37.7) Yes. Chad Sowash (31:46.605) The Career Scout, Joel Cheesman (31:50.005) The middle l the recruiters will be are just a a mosquito that they they'll get rid of at some point. And that they'll deal directly with heads of heads of companies, CEOs, smaller companies, et cetera. Remember when the iPhone came out and there weren't buttons? They didn't have the Blackberry buttons and everybody was mad about like, where's my fucking buttons? I'm never gonna use an iPhone because it doesn't have the buttons. Well, twenty years later, there's no buttons, it's all a screen. And I think whether We'll see if they're right or wrong, but I think Indeed believes these pesky recruiters that are asking questions about why isn't my job showing up won't matter because they'll all be replaced by agents. And that's I think Indeed just doesn't give a shit. God bless her that she's spending enough that she got a director on the phone, but I really don't I like and I don't know if Indeed is telling their people this. I think they're telling them, like, okay, let's study the ship. You're gonna have a job, you're not gonna re be replaced. We'll need just as many salespeople. Chad Sowash (32:36.941) Yeah. Chad Sowash (32:46.733) Yeah, I don't think they need to. Joel Cheesman (32:48.36) I but I think they're sl they're slow rolling this whole thing about agents are gonna interview agents and all these people in the middle are just a nuisance that we have to deal with for the next few years. Chad Sowash (32:58.799) The biggest issue, especially just talking about what you're talking about with agents right now, is it all has to do with data, right? And we're seeing, I mean, even crazy Palantir CEO, I can't remember his name right now, Alex, what's this fuck? Yeah, Carp, Carp, Carp. He's talking about how all of the data is actually just creating, it's creating shit, right? Because we're not getting clean data. So we just talked about disposition codes, right? Joel Cheesman (33:03.593) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (33:14.57) Carp. Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:28.559) We're talking about a lot of these signals that the indeed's of the world want to use. Well, then you talk about Career Scout, which we talked about a few weeks ago with the job seekers. Well, Career Scout is going to be able to take your resume and AI fluff it. It's literally just an AI fluffer for God's sakes. It's going to fluff your resume to match the job description, right? That's garbage. And we just heard from Lou, the job description for the most part. Joel Cheesman (33:34.112) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:52.384) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:57.602) is garbage. So we're matching garbage and we're trying to fluff garbage. It's fucking ridiculous. So personally, I hope they waste hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make this work and it falls flat as fuck. But to be quite frank, still, if I am a company, I'm a hiring company, I'm an enterprise, there's no way in hell I'm giving a vendor my fucking data, especially, and again, back to Alex Karp talking about Joel Cheesman (33:59.84) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:11.816) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:25.728) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (34:27.695) Why are you paying for a service when they're getting your data? They should be paying you for the data. If it's so good for Signal and their long-term infrastructure in building their large language model, why aren't they paying you? That's the question. They're trying to sneak one by you. Joel Cheesman (34:34.026) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:52.638) You you you bring up a really great point. You know, I was thinking about this the other day. Our our our industry used to be about people connecting with people. And the technology was just a means by which you could get together. And now now the business is like tech talking to tech with a tech in the middle. And to your point, jobs suck. you know, Mercor had an acquisition this week. Chad Sowash (34:52.653) Yeah Joel Cheesman (35:20.82) Where basically they they want agents to train the data because they're running out of humans and human knowledge is only only so so big. LinkedIn is now getting sued, I think in Texas, for ghost jobs. Not that it's their fault, but like people are just posting jobs to get like the funnel filled. I don't know, but we're losing the human aspect of this whole industry and it's it's not gonna end in a good place. It's just not gonna end in a good place. it'll be fun to watch, but it's Chad Sowash (35:31.555) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (35:51.081) It's funny how our job has gone from like, hey, how can people connect with people and diversity and occlusion and more people and people and like, let's fuck the people. Let's just have shit out there that interview shit and hope that stuff works out. But I'm hearing from job seekers like, I'm applying to tons of jobs. I'm getting, I assume, just caught up in the tsunami of shit and I'm getting ignored. So no one's happy, in this in this scenario. we'll see, we'll see how it ends. But It's not unfolding to go into a good place. Unlike this show, which is unfolding to be an epic episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Guys, if you're not connected to us, if you're not subscribed, please give us a like, give us a follow, give us a comment. We will be right back. Chad Sowash (36:26.925) back. Do it. Joel Cheesman (36:40.894) All right, Chad, it's back to news. But before we get to that, Chad, this next segment is sponsored by our friends at Proven Base. You love free bourbon? Well, you know, who doesn't love some free bourbon, Chad? Am I right? Chad Sowash (36:43.876) Yes. Chad Sowash (36:47.375) Ooh. yes, yes, yes. Joel Cheesman (36:56.618) That's right. Well, well, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen, but you can't win if you don't play Chad. Go visit Chadcheese.com/slash free today for your chance to finally let your liver know who's boss. And now to the news. Recruitix has announced a partnership with Mackey people to integrate AI-powered interviewing into the pre-apply experience. This integration allows employers to conduct initial screenings through AI voice interviews. Chad Sowash (37:17.583) lucky. Joel Cheesman (37:26.196) Within the application flow, providing deeper candidate insights and reducing application friction. That's per the company. The partnership aims to improve candidate quality and hiring outcomes by shifting candidate assessment to an earlier stage of the hiring journey. Chad, give us a hot take on this move by Recruitics. Chad Sowash (37:33.423) Ha ha ha! Chad Sowash (37:46.574) Yeah, hot takes are short. You're to have to give me some runway on this one because I I love me some startups, some companies like Recruitix and Maki people that are trying to to move fast and innovate. I just love that. Unfortunately, sometimes when you're moving fast, there are unexpected and unintended consequences. But get ready, kids, because I'm going to get a little wonky on you. Joel Cheesman (37:49.843) Okay. Chad Sowash (38:12.683) And let me give listeners a little background about me. I was the lead in building the National Labor Exchange where I worked arm and arm with Fortune 500 companies, National Association of State Workforce Agencies, federal and local governments, OFCCP, vets, you name it. Yes, I spent way too much fucking time in Washington, D.C., okay? That being said, yes, I'm not happy. It's even worse now. Anyway, so this type of tech could negatively impact Joel Cheesman (38:32.52) And you're still angry about it. Chad Sowash (38:41.039) 750,000 companies who take US taxpayers money in the form of federal contracts. So no surprise, those companies want to keep receiving that fact taxpayer cash, right? With those contracts. And they also want to lower their risk profiles. Why? Because if you're a federal contractor of the US government and you are receiving tax dollars from the American people and your burden Joel Cheesman (38:47.776) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (39:10.287) of fair and equitable treatment of those citizens, it's actually higher because you're taking millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of taxpayer monies, right? That makes sense. You owe the American people a little higher standard. That's what we're saying here, right? So when it comes down to it, you have to treat the customer, U.S. better, candidates better. So over the years, the federal contractors Joel Cheesman (39:13.928) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (39:22.782) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (39:28.042) Sure. Chad Sowash (39:40.42) have actually worked with the government and they have devised different methods to manage applicant pools and the risk associated. One of those methods is employing data management techniques which allows a company to consider, which is the defined term in legislation. They consider a predetermined set of candidates that meet basic qualifications. So what does consider mean? It really just means that you've reviewed the resume or application. You've looked at their stuff, right? So instead of reviewing or considering in this case, a huge pile of resumes, it's just much easier to manage only a subset. And that's what this data management techniques is saying. Look, here's a standard operating procedure instead of a thousand resumes, which we just can't go through in enough time. We're going to select in a certain manner. Joel Cheesman (40:21.802) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (40:32.961) anywhere from let's say 1030 or whatever it might be. That will actually drop your risk profile. Now with this Mocky People and Recruitix partnership, it changes the game completely. First, the huge pile of applicants, which is growing and growing and growing, becomes more manageable because the tech actually manages the sheer numbers and I love that, right? But here are the unintended consequences. Now you're, you're Joel Cheesman (40:35.359) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (41:01.923) You're not just considering a subset, which would make your risk profile low with recruiters and mock you people. are considering all who meet the basic qualifications. You're considering the huge pile. So statistically your risk explodes. Now I hear you. Why isn't consideration good? Of course it is. But from a defensibility standpoint, think of a class action suit. Let's say for instance, like a Mowgli versus Workday. Joel Cheesman (41:19.872) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (41:31.663) Okay. That cohort of impacted individuals is already large. Well, imagine this. Imagine it was 10 to a hundred times larger because Mocky people performed pre apply interviews beforehand, right? Exploding that number of considered candidates. Now, at the end of the day, I appreciate Mocky people and recruiters are trying to make the job more manageable and fair, but in the process, they've created literally Joel Cheesman (41:44.768) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:01.666) more consideration risk for companies. They effectively eliminated a defensible position, which was data management techniques that companies and US government created because they're doing things before the process, right? To address that, it's too much and it's too fast. And it's the unintended consequences. And I'm gonna go back to JT. Joel Cheesman (42:04.043) Yeah. Chad Sowash (42:30.147) What she always says on the show, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And more importantly, with the current administration, it might feel like you're gonna get away with anything, but you gotta remember the adults are gonna show back up someday. Joel Cheesman (42:33.941) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:46.08) That's why you listen to the show, Chad, because you go deep on these issues. You go deep, and you and you bring a perspective that I, for one, never would have sort of thought about going back to your history with the DC. Yeah. I you know, to me, I find this my I'm gonna have a totally different take on this, because I don't have that experience. But to me, this is this is Chatbot 2.0. everyone, a lot of people believe that the future of Chad Sowash (42:49.103) Whew, that was a lot. I need another beer. Chad Sowash (42:56.227) They didn't, obviously. Chad Sowash (43:03.747) Yeah. Sure. Joel Cheesman (43:14.93) Interviewing, hiring, the whole process is going to be this sort of voice, voice generated automation solution. And we have greenhouse acquiring Ezra recently. We have Ashby and Llama. Now we have this partnership with Recruitics and Maki people. it just gives me chatbot vibes. It it might remind me of when Maya was getting acquired when Wade and Wendy. Chad Sowash (43:26.703) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (43:41.985) who else we got Alio XOA or whatever they were and and they all got acquired really pretty early. And I don't know if that was a profit no profitability or just everyone wanted to get on it. To me, this feels very much like that. Like we believe this is the future. We're gonna make an acquisition. We're gonna do a deal. and this to me is to me is what we're seeing. Now interestingly out of the out of the chatbot sort of revolution you had one Chad Sowash (43:46.573) Maya, yeah. Joel Cheesman (44:08.604) Apex Predator kind of come out of that, and it was Paradox, who didn't do a deal until I guess the timing was right. and also a lot of this new tech was coming on. So I think you know, I'm you know, I think timing was perfect for the Paradox acquisition. So I guess it's less about is this the right thing to do? It's this is a race. This is like we'll we'll we'll shoot first, ask questions later. This should have worked out. you know, you have Chad Sowash (44:21.636) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (44:35.174) Alex.com, which I'm an investor. You have Tenzo, you have Jack and Jill, which is both job seeker, but this whole voice thing where it sounds like a person, it feels like a person, it and it's sort of it's a it's a gatekeeper to is this really human being? They're all trying to provide tools to do that. I I ultimately think this is a good move by recruits to put a chip on the table to say, look, we're gonna take a bet on this without actually buying the company. Maybe it's a good They'll be in a good position to buy them in the future if it does work out. But a lot of companies are made are putting down bets that this is the future, similar to how they thought chatbots were the future. And we'll see who comes out of this who if there is an Apex Predator. But yeah, good move by them. I think it's a good move by Greenhouse. It was a good move by Ashby. And it's no surprise that both of those ATSs are sort of the ones we talk about doing cool things, doing progressive things and doing things, putting bets on the future. So that's that's sort of my take. Chad Sowash (45:14.383) Mm. Joel Cheesman (45:32.81) Totally different from yours. I just look at it as as a tech perspective. It's like, look, if we don't buy, if we don't get on board with this technology, we're gonna be left behind and we'd rather take a bet on it, a flyer on it. and if it doesn't work out, that's okay. We at least made a bet on the future. maybe we'll be hu maybe it'll be huge and we'll we'll s we'll hit a home run with it. Chad Sowash (45:52.944) I agree and I just think that things need to be thought out. And again, it's move fast, break shit. And that's kind of like the thing that to be quite frank, social media kind of unbroke society to some extent. So we have to be more measured. We have to be smarter about how we do these things. And to be quite frank, mean, actually reached out to CEO of Mocky People, reached out to Adam over at Recruitix and starting to have good conversations with them to help them understand where the problems are. Joel Cheesman (46:00.882) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (46:22.591) Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:22.799) because they don't they don't understand they might have I think like Josh Berson or some shit like that is like what the fuck is this dude doing exactly it's like what the what you know it's just it's weird because it's like we have turned into we've turned into move fast break shit before somebody else gets there and it's like well I don't know if you remember or not but usually the first ones that get there Joel Cheesman (46:34.41) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (46:41.748) Yep. Yep. Yep. Chad Sowash (46:48.547) are the ones with the arrows in their face, right? Go be smart. I like these moves. I like what they're trying to do. The thing is they really have to do enough due diligence upfront. They got to bring the right experts in to be able to get to this. So I hope they actually land in the right place because right now if I'm a federal contractor and which are pretty much just about every Fortune 500 company that's out there right now. Joel Cheesman (46:51.764) Yep. Yep. Joel Cheesman (47:06.016) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (47:16.185) There's no way in hell I'm touching this with a 10-foot pole. Joel Cheesman (47:23.134) And we didn't even touch on FICRA issues. I mentioned the LinkedIn ghost jobs, which the state of Texas, like there, yeah, there's gonna move fast and break shit while the government eventually catches on and this stuff does come to light and lawsuits are filed. So we'll see. We'll see how this this ends. Moving to our next story, Chad. The three amigos, if you will, HireEasy has partnered with Next. Chad Sowash (47:28.949) Mmm. Yeah. Chad Sowash (47:39.524) Huh. Chad Sowash (47:45.487) You Joel Cheesman (47:48.725) That's next with two X's and Talroo to integrate their talent marketplaces and job advertising platform into HireEasy's AI-powered recruitment platform. This consolidation aims to automate candidate sourcing and engagement, reducing manual tasks for recruiters. The next integration is immediately available while Talroo is expected to enter early customer deployments during 2026 before a broader availability. The three amigos, Chad, what you got? Chad Sowash (48:18.535) This feels like TauRu next and hire easier trying to build a natural competitor to indeed unlike the paper tiger Zipper cutter has been for years. And all I can say is it's about fucking time. I mean, how many times have we said on the show we're stronger together? Well, it looks like, you know, these three companies are trying to make that happen. So instead of trying to duplicate what your competitor has built and invite some friends over. Joel Cheesman (48:43.69) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (48:46.441) and build something together. You've got more resources, you've got more staff, and obviously you're all smaller than what Indeed is or some of the big guys that are out there. So get together, be stronger. I sent a message over to Stephen, the co-founder and CEO of HireEZ, and I asked if one of the sources of candidates are from the ATS and CRM. And he said, yes. He said, yes. HireEasy rediscovers and re-engages ATS candidates to invite them to apply for the current openings. Basically, our EZ agent, get what they did there, is an orchestration layer on top of the funnel to unify pools from the open web, job board Tauru, vetted community Next, and ATS previous applicants in programmatic ads to be announced with a big player. Ooh, who might that be? We call it the agentic top of the funnel. That's funny. Now ask yourself is indeed doing that, helping you rediscover candidates within your own system, which you've already paid for. No, they're not doing that. know, big applause to these guys for at least saying, look, we can't take the mammoth down by ourselves. Let's get three Neanderthals together and knock this motherfucker out. Joel Cheesman (49:51.668) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (50:11.134) Yeah, the the it's fascinating because all three of these companies have had, I guess you call them major pivots, at least from their world point from their point of view. Hire easy was hire tool. They were sourcing and now they're sort of an all encompassing marketing platform. Taoroo, of course, was jobs to careers, I think. now they're talk and next, of course, was beyond dot com. Chad Sowash (50:37.635) Yeah, beyond.com. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:39.114) By the I don't think Bed Bath and Beyond has done anything with that URL, which is kind of stupid. But that's a different show in a different industry. So all of these companies have a history of pivoting, seeing that something doesn't work, how do we figure it out? and then trying something new. Now now I think they have they have a real mountain to climb. Indeed, has brand, they have resources, they've been around for a long time. I know that people are upset, but yes, I do believe 80% of their customers will stick with them. 20%, however, will look for alternatives, whether it's ZipRecruiter and our example with Hamra or other options, programmatic, et cetera. Ultimately, this conglomerate, I guess, this solution combination will be looked at by a lot of companies. Whether it becomes big or not, you're talking about mammoths and the an like, I don't know. This may this may be more of a a minnow that they catch. History, history. Chad Sowash (51:33.453) I'm talking about the Neanderthals taking down the mammoth, taking down the mammoth. Joel Cheesman (51:36.629) Hit Neanderthals, but unfortunately, we know what happened to the Neanderthals. They were superseded by the Homo sapiens who now have podcasts talking about the Neanderthals. So, so they evolve. I wish them luck. I I love that they all adapt, they've all changed throughout their history. There may be another change if this one doesn't work. I know partnerships are very challenging. You have different cultures, you have different, you know, there are too many chefs in the kitchen. Chad Sowash (51:45.731) They evolved. They evolved, yes. Joel Cheesman (52:03.317) Like are all these are all of these complementary? Do they compete? Will they create stuff that competes with each other? Like it's very hard to make these things work. They're hard to work when they're consolidations with acquisitions. It's really hard in terms of partnerships. And we know that all of the leaders of these companies have their own personalities. They're all kind of very different, but also similar. So it'll be fun to watch. I I think it's a it's a puncher's chance maybe that that they make this thing work. but otherwise it it's tough. I will say that I did some some research on terms of in terms of headcount. So all of them, their two year graph is a decrease in headcount. However, in the last year, they've all added headcount, which tells me that they've they've all realized they have to make just tough decisions, lay people off, reevaluate what they're doing, but they've all come out of that two year degree. Chad Sowash (52:34.671) Okay. Chad Sowash (52:50.573) Yeah, a bit it. Joel Cheesman (52:54.868) decrease into an escalation of what they're doing. So they all t seem to believe what they're doing. If they can all get together and achieve something that that is great, like we'll continue to talk about it and and cheer it on. But history is not necessarily on their side, but we'll be watching and and rooting reading for the Chad's a fan, everybody. Chad's a fan. Yay, ne yay, Neanderthals. all right, we're gonna take a Chad Sowash (53:15.449) Go get them guys. Go get them. Joel Cheesman (53:21.184) We're gonna take a quick break. Of course, Chad mentions eating eating mammoth right before lunch. I always appreciate that. But guys, if you haven't left us a review online, please do so. It helps us with the the the algorithms. there's more algos than indeeds, and we need to climb to the top. So please leave a leave a review, give us a star, give us a follow. We appreciate it, and we'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (53:46.549) Guys, before we get into our final segment, it is sponsored by free t-shirts. Who doesn't love the free t shirts from Chad and Cheese? It's like a it's like a hug, hug from Chad and me on your on your body. But and we have Aaron to thank for all that. Aaron App, you know, the company behind those crazy red shoes all over social media, all over LinkedIn. But you can't get the t shirt unless you go to Chadcheese.com slash free. So go there today to get your t-shirt for that warm hug from Chad. Chad Sowash (53:51.279) What? Joel Cheesman (54:15.388) And cheese. All right, Chad. Appcast has launched AppCast Career Sites. Wait a minute. I gotta check, I gotta check my notes. Is is this is this a story from from 2010? 2000 what? Okay. no, it's now. Okay, here we go. It's a new product that combines career site design, employer branding, SEO, and recruitment marketing analytics. Chad Sowash (54:17.699) Yeah. Chad Sowash (54:21.283) There we go. Chad Sowash (54:30.477) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (54:38.698) The AI Ready Career Site technology aims to improve candidate conversion and support both traditional and AI-powered job discovery. This launch expands AppCast's offerings beyond programmatic recruitment advertising, providing a connected recruitment marketing solution. Career sites, Chad, cutting edge innovation from AppCast. What you got? Chad Sowash (55:00.877) We take AI out of the release. It literally is a throwback to 2008. Joel Cheesman (55:05.214) And they stuck in they stuck AI in there just to like look innovative. Yeah, this is yeah. Chad Sowash (55:09.397) it really just, it just went and got the they went and got the other one. But I mean, we we we make fun, we laugh. But this I mean, again, it all started back in 2008 or so. But going down funnel for these guys just makes sense. It expands the TAM. There's definitely a need as we talked in an earlier, you know, podcast. mean, jobs to web was bought how many fucking years ago? I think it's like Joel Cheesman (55:14.762) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:18.442) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (55:38.64) 2012 or something like that. mean, yeah. So I mean, sold to success factors and I mean, so you've got all these players who were bought, were eaten up by these core systems, these applicant tracking systems, and then they just atrophied and they became shit. So now we have a need once again for career sites, ta-da. And we have an opportunity for companies like AppCast to get into that, right? So, but here's the cautionary. Joel Cheesman (55:41.0) I think before that, yeah. Joel Cheesman (55:52.339) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (56:06.238) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (56:08.697) part, a cautionary tale for, for, for hiring companies. No, no, Just, just no, especially if you're app cast clients, it is to ensure that the connection to the ATS is not providing disposition data because remember as Lou Goodman said, job descriptions suck, capacity sucks. Joel Cheesman (56:08.948) Yeah. Cautionary tale. Is is this is this a history lesson? Is this a history lesson? I think it is. I think it is. It feels like a history lesson. All right, go on. Joel Cheesman (56:23.988) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (56:37.453) Disposition codes suck. That's three out of 106 reasons why disposition codes are not the answer, because if you start giving that garbage signal to your vendors, you're just going to get garbage results. So I hope this is more cosmetic. It's more procedural, more focused, more more TAM opening than it is disposition data grab. I hope that's not what it is. Joel Cheesman (56:56.896) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (57:04.739) Matt, hopefully you're doing this for the good reasons, man. Hopefully it's for the good reasons. Joel Cheesman (57:14.826) So to your point on one hand, our industry is not the most forward thinking industry in the world. And yes, jobs to web, people are still building these things. Shaker's still building career sites, Happy Dance, Happy Dance, like that's a s that's a startup. Happy Dance hasn't been around for 20. Like companies are being started for career sites, for God's sakes. So why in the world would Appcast Chad Sowash (57:23.631) Yeah. Yeah. Happy dance, baby. Happy dance. Happy sock. I love those guys. Yeah. Now. Joel Cheesman (57:41.673) I get why an agency would do it. Agencies love it. They get to be all artsy fartsy and brandy and and they love that. But why is AppCast, who's a tech company, who's a programmatic job advertising solution, why in the world would they want to get into career sites? Who bought AppCast a few years ago, Chad? Stepstone. Okay. Who did Appcast acquire a few years ago? Baird. What does Baird do? They're an agency. What do agencies do? They love artsy fartsy shit that they can do branding, et cetera. So to me, this is Stepstone saying, Hey, you know what? We need more business for Baird. How do we make AppCast a little generator for leads into the Baird business? Well, hey, career sites. And by the way, career sites now with AI, they can be built pretty easily. you can build sites pretty interestingly, quickly with AI. So on one hand, I think Chad Sowash (58:30.339) Quickly, Joel Cheesman (58:37.694) The whole programmatic business is challenged. We talk a lot, or I do anyway, about how 80% of a company's budget is typically some mix of LinkedIn and Indeed. And then the 20% is zip recruiter, programmatic, dice, and whatever else you can throw into the mix. So it's a it's a fist fight between these companies. And like programmatic from a job seekers perspective is awful. I gotta jump through hoops, I gotta go through many links. Like it's just a it's not a great system. So Chad Sowash (58:52.227) Yeah. It's an alley fight. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (59:07.634) I think if we had the internal numbers for these companies, we would find that they're stagnant, if not decreasing, in terms of revenue. So how do we kill two birds with one stone? We bring more money into Appcast with a new product. We bring more business to Baird because we have sort of a a way like, here's a simple career site. If you want the the the premium model, like we're gonna pass you over to Baird. So now we get Baird more more business. We lock people in more to the Appcast ecosystem. Everybody makes more money. I I don't think this is a a decision by Appcast. I don't think they would have made this. like let's do career sites. I think it was from up top that said, you know what, we need to like filter more money and opportunity throughout all of our businesses. And we think career sites is a way to do that. And here we go, AppCast career sites. Chad Sowash (59:56.208) I disagree to some extent because if you think about it from let's just say from Google for jobs right and trying to get Google juice out of this if you have the company's URL and you're funneling all the data through your platforms What can you do with that right and and how can you also press indeed out of some of those right? So mean, I think there's Joel Cheesman (01:00:03.625) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (01:00:10.474) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:00:19.636) No, good point. Chad Sowash (01:00:20.655) There's some good strategic reasons for that. And you're also talking about data collection. How much data are they collecting within those websites? It used to be. I mean, with jobs to web, they would create an SEO website and it was all literally cosmetic, but it was also functional from an SEO standpoint. This will happen there too, but there's also going to be data collection. can almost guarantee data collection that happens there. So I think from an AppCast standpoint, that does mean something, which is again, back to my caution. They look, they're gonna be collecting some data to be able to push back to you. Don't allow disposition data and some of that other data to come flow back through the tube the other way. Joel Cheesman (01:00:59.742) Yeah. Since the dawning of this industry, if you control the ATS, you control everything. And if you're a job posting, you're always susceptible to the ATS squeezing you out or make so so I do agree. Like if if this is a a move by Appcast to say, look, the job programmatic thing is challenged, disposition data, aid whatever is that's where the key is. And how do we get Appcast and Bear together where Bear does the the artsy stuff? We do the back end tech stuff, then we can control the job distribution, what comes in, what comes out. And that does make total sense to me. Almost as much sense, Chad, as the dad jokes that drop at the end of every episode. I know, I know you wanna no well, yeah, I did. Well, I we haven't been on in a while. I wanted to give you a little extra extra special taste of of the dad joke. before you get before you get back to your your World Cup and and so do I, Emmy Chad Sowash (01:01:39.951) you did a dad joke earlier. You did a penis joke. Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you. that's that's bad extra taste. Joel Cheesman (01:01:58.162) Emmy's not a fan of the clean jokes, so I'm this is for Emmy. I'm gonna bring bring the dirty back. Bring the naughty back. Chad, Chad, what she's she's naughty herself. Chad, what does what does a lesbian with two peg legs say to her girlfriend? What does a lesbian with two peg legs say to her girlfriend? Chad Sowash (01:02:01.007) she is so bad. Chad Sowash (01:02:17.184) I refuse to answer the sight that it might incriminate me. Joel Cheesman (01:02:22.878) All right, what does a lesbian with two peg legs say to a girlfriend, Chad? Scissor me timbers. Chad Sowash (01:02:31.107) Thanks, Emmy. Thanks, Emmy. We out! Joel Cheesman (01:02:31.25) We out.

Episode Synopsis: Shirtless Models, Big Macs, and the Death of the 16-Day Hiring Trap In this episode, Chad and Cheese sit down with Josh Secrest, the Head of Marketing at Paradox, who somehow survived leading talent acquisition at both Abercrombie & Fitch and McDonald's. Here is the breakdown of why your frontline hiring process is probably burning money: The 16-Day Snail Pace: The average company takes 16 days to hire a frontline worker. Meanwhile, companies using automated tech do it in 3.5 days. If you’re taking over two weeks to fill a retail or restaurant shift, congratulations you are actively hemorrhaging revenue while your overworked staff plots their mass exodus. The Death of Garbage Metrics: Josh politely explains that traditional "time to hire" is a useless vanity metric. The new math? The Break-Even Point (day 31, when a worker finally stops costing you money) and the Sticking Point (day 100, when they might actually stick around). If they quit before day 31, you didn't just lose an employee; you paid for the privilege of them leaving. Manager Misery: Frontline managers are currently wasting 10–12 hours a week playing secretary chasing down interviews and building spreadsheets instead of actually running the business. Paradox steps in to kill the administrative trivia so managers can do wild things like... face the customers. The Bottom Line: Stop making candidates jump through 45-minute digital hoops for a fast-food shift. They are applying to 25 other jobs right now, and the fastest employer wins. Automate the blocking and tackling, or get comfortable sitting in the red. PART 2 - What Manager's Should Not Be Doing PART 3 - Stop Measuring Turnover PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel: All right, let's do this. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. As always, Chad Sowash is with me as we welcome the head of marketing with Paradox, Josh Secrest. Josh, welcome. Josh: Guys, thank you so much for having me. Joel: I think your first time in the hot seat with Chad and Cheese. How does that feel? Josh: Loving it. I can't wait. Joel: Loving it, can't wait. Josh: I'm going to bring it, yeah. Joel: What, what did I miss in the, the intro? What do we need to know about you other than your title at Paradox? Josh: Oh my goodness. Well, I'd love to chat with you guys today about frontline hiring and staffing and what's going on kind of overall within that market. It's pretty big. And I kind of have a unique background to be able to talk about it. So, I was head of Global Talent Acquisition at McDonald's. Joel: Little company you've probably never heard of, McDonald's. Doing, doing a couple, couple... What do you think of the big arch? That's really the question. Josh: I'm still loving it, after all of it. And so, learned a ton. I'll get into it. I was at Abercrombie & Fitch, led culture and talent acquisition there. Learned a ton in the retail side. So, retail and restaurants. And then since joining Paradox, I mean, this has been just like an awesome whirlwind adventure where getting to learn so much from so many of our customers and clients kind of representing so many different spaces, but a lot within the frontline. And then since joining Workday, have really focused a lot on frontline from both a talent acquisition perspective, but also workforce management, other ways that we can support that organization and industry. Just this past year was elected to the National Restaurant Association board and National Retail Federation Foundation board. So, learning a ton from a lot of wisdom on kind of those boards. And so, hopefully, my brain will keep getting bigger and keep asking questions. Joel: You're a student. You're a never-ending student. Josh: Trying, trying to be. I mean, there it's moving fast, especially with, with AI and all the tech. Joel: And I love, I love these, these user meetings, meetups, client boards, whatever we want to call them. What do you, what do you hope to learn from the customers over the next few days? Josh: Yeah. So, one, a client board's pretty special. So, maybe in some of your other conversations, you've been able to talk about it, but 100, 100 folks here in Arizona, whiteboarding with us, brainstorming. So, kind of two things. One, just like what are the hot, hot topics that we could help address or at least facilitate some pretty good conversations? And then two, help make our product better. We want to actually like whiteboard with them, figure out where maybe we've got some gaps, where we need to go. And we actually even have a, it's almost like a Shark Tank activity. It's pretty fun, but they get $100,000 in fake money and actually vote on some of the new stuff that's on our roadmap so that we can prioritize it accordingly. Chad: Huh. Josh: And so, it's kind of a cheat code for us in terms of, hey, it's smart. There's enough activity and action, then we can, we know what to invest in from a calorie perspective as well as dollars. Chad: Well, talking about calories, you're going to talk about McDonald's, obviously. Josh: Yeah. Chad: But so, you have, I mean, you definitely have a unique perspective on the frontline side of the house. Abercrombie and McDonald's. I mean, those are two, you look at two companies in retail that are two entirely different types of organizations, but they have the same problems, I would assume. What, what did you see as a practitioner, and then what are you seeing now? Josh: It's kind of an interesting combination because Abercrombie was all this like bespoke, hands-on, white-glove, how you kind of thought about recruiting and getting the best talent within, within retail, both at like the store perspective and at the corporate perspective. And then taking that to McDonald's where you just, I mean, from a scale perspective... Chad: Oh, jeez. Whoo. Joel: Can't imagine. Josh: I mean, just, just an incredible, incredible piece. At both, my role, I would say like at Abercrombie was very focused on corporate. And I think that's probably like all of us that have sat in talent acquisition roles, for the most part. And then at McDonald's, I got kind of a global talent acquisition role, and it was predominantly focused on corporate, but we got to support the restaurants. Chad: The franchise. Josh: Yeah, the franchise. And you know, McDonald's, it's probably a little bit higher now, but 92%, 93% franchise. 120 plus countries. Joel: Wow. Josh: You know, support millions of, of, of folks. Chad: Yeah. Josh: And so, it was, it was really neat. But it just opened my eyes because it was like, after spending probably at that point 15, 16 years thinking about like corporate problems, corporate solutions, and then hitting McDonald's at that scale... Chad: Mhm. Josh: ...sort of right at the moment where AI was at least starting to like dip its toe in, and then I had to kind of think about, you know, solving some of these challenges. And so, the challenges for both were probably one, understaffing. We'll probably get into this, but like within frontline, understaffing is a pretty interesting topic for talent acquisition folks to attack because it's, you know, very directly tied to revenue. Chad: Yeah. Josh: In our corporate jobs, we can definitely talk about, you know, how a chief marketing officer can draw in more, more revenue. But on your average position, it's sometimes more of a dotted line. Chad: Yeah. Josh: You know, within a McDonald's or a QSR or, you know, a different type of restaurant, you can actually measure if you're understaffed... Chad: Oh, yeah. Josh: ...on one shift, in one day, that there's impact to revenue. Chad: Versus, yeah, versus the same time last week and same hours last week. Yeah, yeah. Josh: You have the data, and the data is coming through, especially within like peak hours. I think restaurants are maybe a little bit easier to do this with, but it's like, yeah, you can, you can see that if you have an understaffed location, there's usually typically a little more turnover. Chad: Mhm. Josh: That's not great. Your manager is kind of trying to balance this being understaffed and where they're supposed to be. Are they supposed to be back of house trying to staff up more, or should they be front of house? Joel: Yeah. Josh: You're actually able to see that your drive-through times maybe get a little bit slower, your cash wrap times get a little bit slower. You can actually calculate the hundreds of dollars. And we'll, we'll kind of dive into this, but we just completed a National Restaurant Association research report, Workforce and Staffing. And I mean, lots of different restaurant groups got on that report basically saying, hey, if we're understaffed by one person, one shift over a course of a month, it's costing us thousands to thousands of dollars, giving real numbers and real specifics. So, maybe just my, my two things would be, one is, I saw in frontline that there was this like revenue impact you could have from like a talent acquisition or HR seat. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Josh: That's pretty interesting. Chad: Yeah. Josh: And then two is, how do you give restaurant managers time back? For frontline, your restaurant manager is typically a recruiter. Joel: Yeah. Josh: Or frontline manager is your recruiter, right? So, there's just so much good that happens from giving time back to managers. And so, I think across the, the full cycle, that's been a big challenge and topic for the frontline that's I think going to start to get addressed a little bit more. Chad: True, true story, Chad. I became an Abercrombie & Fitch model by eating nothing but McDonald's. It's kind of a nice intersection to this interview. Chad: Said nobody ever. Said nobody ever. Joel: Josh, you are so passionate about the numbers and the data points, and most people in our space are not. How do you square that circle about giving them digestible numbers that they can use in their everyday to be more effective? I know you go really deep, but how do you balance not going too deep where you lose people and customers? Josh: Well, you'll have to call me out if I'm, if I'm going too deep on it. Joel: Just for me, probably. Josh: No, no. Excitement helps. I think for us, it's, it's, there have been so many data points in talent acquisition space, but sometimes those can be like these floating data points. Time to hire in frontline... Chad: Yeah. Josh: Which doesn't actually directly go into any business metric whatsoever. So, therefore, you have to make that... Chad: Right. Joel: Connect. Josh: Right. Turnover numbers... We talk about quality of hire, we're going to get into that a little bit. Time to hire. But yeah, sometimes those things feel like dotted line metrics or things that have gotten passed down to us from, from the old days, I don't know. Chad: But they're not. Josh: I think what makes the numbers compelling without even going too deep is there's actually, if you just flip them just a little bit, there is some really exciting ties to revenue. And I think everybody sort of leans in as soon as you can say, hey, you're, you're not in just a support seat, you're actually in this revenue-driving seat. Chad: Yes. Yes. Joel: Which I think is almost, secret sauce. You got me on McDonald's. But the secret sauce of what Paradox does, in some ways to me is, you give employers the ammunition to have high-level conversations in the C-suite. And I think that is a real power that a lot of other companies don't have. Talk about that. Josh: Yeah. I think a lot of it is kind of bringing some of these numbers to the table and just give them a, a different frame to look through it. So, let's do like time to hire. Again, this is, this is frontline. This is a very different conversation I think than just like trying to bring a spotlight and a lens to frontline hiring. So, I like this National Restaurant Association report because it gives us some real numbers to hold on to. It is restaurants, but I would actually say, hey, it's over 15 million people in the restaurant industry and food service. Chad: Huge cohort. Josh: Huge cohort. I mean, we're talking about probably 12% of at least the full frontline population. So, I think there's at least some of this data that we could extrapolate and say like, oh, this is probably reflective of what's going on out there. And so, their data is basically saying, hey, average time to hire right now is about 16 days in frontline. Okay. So, that's interesting. But, but again, who cares? Why does it matter? But if we tie it back to, oh, also in this report, it's saying when a restaurant's understaffed, it's hundreds of dollars in revenue per day. Chad: Which is why it matters. Josh: Now it matters, right? Because you're now sitting understaffed for 16 days. Chad: Uh-huh. Josh: What's more interesting about the data, and this is something where averages aren't always your friend, is 16 days is an average. But when you actually break up the data and you look at the top 25%, like the top top percentiles, so the top 25% of companies and then the bottom 75% of companies, what do you think you see? Any guesses? Chad: I would say that the bottom, they shed people a lot faster. Josh: Oh my goodness. Not only do they shed people a lot faster, but it's, it's they are really slow from a hiring perspective. 40 plus days. Chad: Well, I think those two are actually connected because when you can't hire fast enough, you stretch your people way too thin, and then they're out. Josh: 100%. So, that's where it starts to tie, tie in, right? And so, top 25%... Chad: Uh-huh. Josh: ...3.5 days. Okay. So, the average within the industry, 16 days. The fastest actually, 3.5 days. The slowest actually, 40, 50 days. So, there's actually this emerging have and have-nots because what's the common theme of the ones that are doing it in 3.5 days? Well, they've got something that's 24/7, it's automated. Tech. They've got tech. Whether it's us or somebody else, it's typically... But, you know, it's um, they, they've figured out a way to, to automate it. But why it matters, right? It's like, okay, if you're doing it in 3.5 days, that's all of a sudden revenue back into your business. Chad: Yes. Josh: So, we've given them some language, and they've given us some language on like how to be able to talk to that. Chad: Yeah. Well, then also that churn, because if you can fill it in 3 days, you don't have to stretch your, your current staff too thin for 16 days, for over 2 weeks, or maybe even longer, and risk losing them as well and then going back through the cycle again. And losing, and that cycle is a, a losing money cycle. Josh: Yeah, all these good things. Your, your manager's out on the front of the floor a little bit more, you're not losing those dollars, you're not losing some of that, that churn. From a customer, guest, you know, return rate, you know, if, if I'm going to a, my favorite coffee house and it's a, you know, a 20-minute wait, I might try and find something else the next time around. If it's fast and it's great service, then I'm going to keep going back. And so, there's all this good stuff that comes from just being, being staffed. And ultimately, you can't be staffed if it takes you too long to hire. And if it takes you too long to hire, there's going to be some of these complications. From a quality standpoint, it's interesting on how that's starting to factor in from frontline because so many of our like TA talent brains on the corporate side would say, how much does speed, speed matter? And I would argue, well, like if I'm hiring a chief marketing officer and it's, takes me 10 more days to get the perfect person... Chad: Yeah. Josh: ...so be it. Heck yeah. Like let's get the best person because they're going to be with us for 5 years. Yeah, like let's do it. Within frontline, with what's going on and, and I'm, can't wait to get your brains on this from like an Indeed or job board perspective, but it's a lot easier for a frontline candidate to apply to a lot of jobs at the same time. Data from even like 3 or 4 years ago would say they're hire, they're applying to 20, 25 jobs at any given time. It's probably way, way more than that. Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Josh: So, that's interesting from a quality standpoint because if you're an employer that's 24/7, that can get back to a candidate basically like instantaneously after they apply... Chad: Yes. Josh: ...you can get the candidates who, really in frontline, you want them, your like shift matching to be as aligned as, as possible. Maybe they've got a little bit of experience, when you sit across from them, maybe great, great behavioral profile for your, your, your place. But, um, that's, that's pretty fascinating because if they're applying to let's call it 20 jobs at one time... Chad: And you get back with them first, you get back with them first, you win. Josh: You win. And data says that they'll stop applying if you get, if they get scheduled for an interview. Chad: Yeah. Josh: You're beating those other 19 employers. Now, those companies on the restaurant report where again, average, 16 days... Chad: Yeah. Josh: ...that means they're probably not getting back to someone for 3 or 4 days. It's usually a manual process. So, now some of the best folks really from this like your schedule fit have all been wiped off the board because someone else has interviewed them within 24 hours and probably extended an offer. Chad: Oh yeah, yeah. Josh: So, it's pretty, pretty interesting. Last piece I'll, I'll leave with you is there was an inverted adoption curve that happened within the frontlines that I think is really fascinating. So, because of COVID and because of sort of when at least like AI and some of this automation started to hit, which was like, you know what, 2017, 2018, 2019. Once COVID hit, some of the biggest employers were the first to adopt, whereas sometimes for like, more innovative tech, it's, it's maybe smaller, medium-sized, like scrappy. Chad: Oh, yeah. Josh: Entrepreneurial-sized companies. But this is where it's like, you see the, you know, the FedExes, the Chipotles, the, you know, McDonald's of the world, like all RBI, which is Burger King, you know, Yum Brands, all of those adopted early. And so, again, when you start to like bifurcate the data, like the haves and have-nots, it's actually a lot of like the largest employers and largest companies that have some of this like strategic advantage in the short term. Chad: Is that because they had the data and they knew that it was impacting their bottom line? So, it made sense to go into automation much faster because if they didn't, they were going to lose money? Josh: Yeah, 100%. They probably a little bit more sophisticated analytics on that side, just felt the pain during, if not during COVID, even just like leading up to it because even that labor economy going in still... Chad: Well, it gave us time though to back up and literally it, I mean, because it's the forest for the trees when everything is going and it's going at full speed. COVID happened and everybody got to back up because nobody was buying anything. I mean, there might have been some Grubhubs that were happening or what have you, but you had a chance to actually sit back, look at the data and figure out what the hell was going on where you didn't before. And maybe, maybe that was the reason that they, they had an opportunity to dig deep and then make those changes. Josh: Yeah, and it was interesting even listening to earnings call, I listen to a lot of like frontline organizations' earnings calls. It's pretty awesome. And this is another one where AI is great because it summarizes those calls really well for you. But it was interesting for some of the companies that adopted or like had it had stuff live, whether it was us or maybe a great competitor, you actually heard it during, during those like COVID years and just post that that some of the stuff was actually impacting the business. Joel: Well, remember the Chipotle CEO on Jim Cramer's show talking about Paradox. Little Mad Money action. Josh: Little Mad Money action, right? Joel: I'm sure that you look at those earnings calls much differently than most people and go, oh, Wendy's is struggling, here's why. Or these, these restaurants are struggling. You look at it from an employment standpoint as opposed to beef is higher. Josh: I do look at whether, whether food costs are, it's nice to be able to know all the different pieces. But yeah, from a labor standpoint, how much that makes a difference on the restaurant side, but I'd argue retail side, it's like, those are, those are, those are people businesses and they, you know, there certainly lay there. There are products and within those products, all the different dynamics that go in with, with the products and but the, the people side can just have such a huge, huge dynamic to it. Joel: Josh, I'm reading all the headlines that say the robots are here and they're coming. So, going back to frontline workers, you have a perspective that I'm sure is unique on automation at, at restaurants and distribution centers and warehouses. Give us your take on sort of the big picture of automation in that space. And don't say Flippy, okay? Don't say Flippy. Josh: Wow. I think we would want to like separate a couple different topics within this. So, one would be frontline work isn't all created equal. We're doing a lot of different research, even some... Chad: UPS versus McDonald's versus Abercrombie & Fitch. Josh: Yeah. Well, let's, let's like break it down. I mean, we can do four really simple profiles and, and we're going to take this a little bit from a TA perspective, but that's our audience here, right? Chad: That's what we do. That's what we do. Josh: Okay. So, you've got a, you've got let's call it like a high-volume support profile. It's like it distribution center, maybe like a, a FedEx packaging or like a retail distribution center, like what's going to happen there. Okay. Then let's say we've got like a frontline customer-facing type of role. So, it's like a folks at the Gap, folks at Starbucks, folks at McDonald's. They're interacting with your customers, there's kind of probably going to be a slightly different process there. Then we've got healthcare. So, we were talking about like how much does restaurants cover. Well, I mean, actually, healthcare and transportation are two of the bigger sectors. Those are two different ones to pull apart. Chad: Yes. Josh: But there's actually some common themes there because there's usually a like certification, license, or skill. So, let's call that sort of this like frontline labor with skill. And the fourth I'd call out would just be like a frontline manager. Okay. And so, those, those roles are important because they actually kind of cross a lot of the different industries within frontline. The industries that we're talking about, we covered a lot, right? Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Josh: All right. Healthcare, retail's going to be the next big one, hospitality and restaurants is another, then we've got manufacturing, transportation, those are like our, our five big. Construction's going to come in at, at six. Each of those different industries, we're going to be looking at robotics versus AI. I get that robotics and AI have some like intersection in automation. It feels like what we're seeing is like robotics on back of house, distribution center is probably where there's like the most progress. I mean, especially as you look internationally. Chad: Manufacturing. Josh: Manufacturing. Chad: Yeah. Josh: So, that's starting to pick up. That's like a, that's a real thing. I think when you even look at that anthropic report though, what at least stuck out to me is those sort of bottom wedges within that report of where maybe AI and automation, AI and robotics aren't replacing jobs yet or don't even have the capability is very much on these kind of like frontline wedges that we just, we just covered. Again, manufacturing might be impacted a little bit more. So, to your question, I think the role that's the most interesting to think about is the like frontline manager role. And like how are they going to get some, some benefit off of off of AI? Like are their jobs going to be replaced? And I'd argue like absolutely not. It's definitely not what we're seeing there. If anything, those jobs become more and more valuable. So, one, shout out to all frontline managers. One of the hardest jobs I think I've, I see out there, they're responsible for like 12 different things. They're responsible for people, running a business. Chad: Herding cats. Josh: Herding cats. I mean, a lot of them are like almost like, think of like a, a Target or a Walmart manager. I mean, they're running a small city. Chad: Oh, yeah. Josh: You know, it's, it's really incredible. And so, you know, for, for AI and automation there, you think of kind of breaking down how valuable a manager's like day is and time is. Chad: Oh, yeah. Josh: You want them with their team. You want them with customers, you want them looking at the business but then taking action to maybe pull some levers to impact the business. Joel: Not putting out fires. Josh: Not putting out fires every day. When you actually survey managers and what they do, it's like 10 to 12 hours a week focused on like hiring tasks. And you're like, oh, well, interviewing. It's like, no, not interviewing. It's like interview scheduling and like responding to people. Then it's like, they're, they're figuring out shift schedules. Chad: Mhm. Josh: And like all the back and forth with your schedule. And shift swaps. Okay. And then they're in the back office and they're, they're, you know, pulling reports and trying to analyze some of those, those reports. Chad: Mhm. Mhm. Josh: It's a lot of administrative work. Chad: Oh god, yeah. Josh: All of that is going to be the stuff that starts to say like, hey, if, if some of that can get automated or processed in a much better way, and we've got a front-row seat to that on frontline hiring, which has been cool, you know, those 10 hours going into 2 hours, that's, that's returned back to the business. And it's front of house stuff instead of back of house stuff. And so, I get excited there because it's like the perfect example of this position that can drive revenue that's really exciting for a business. And we're already starting to see how, you know, if you can automate some of the repetitive administrative tasks, you're putting them front of house, you know, quite a bit more and, and actually impacting the business and... Chad: Well, okay. So, talk, talk about that a little bit because now Paradox, owned by Workday, full suite going way down the funnel, right? I mean, we're not just talking about talent acquisition, we're talking about talent management, you're talking about scheduling, talking about all these things. I mean, interview scheduling, and then you've got obviously scheduling, work scheduling, you know? Is that something that we can expect to see from a lot of these, these bigger systems that are out there, like the Workdays, to be able to start literally, finally having talent acquisition, talent management creating a talent organization and trying to at least orchestrate that, that entire thing? Josh: Yeah, I mean, it's already happening. Can't speak to some of our, our competitors, you know, some, but I mean, really, our acquisition, as you hear Aneel talk about it, so our CEO at Workday, and then Carl, who's our, our head of product, the acquisition of Paradox was to invest really in this frontline. And so, it's been something I've gotten to step into. Can you tell I really love it? I got to step into, and we're, we're supporting kind of across, across Workday. And so, what's great is now you've got, for us, Paradox, so let's, let's solve hiring. We've, we've got a head start there, but we want to keep innovating and doing really great things to give time back to the manager. There's already a really strong workforce management product that's only getting better within Workday. So, now we've got this seamless, you know, connection between hiring plus, when I say workforce management, for those like in the TA space, this is going to be shift scheduling, time and attendance, um, some of the like labor optimization components. Chad: Sick days. Josh: Sick days. And so, being able to have that, those are two really cool, key components. And then Paradox, quite a few of our customers are already starting to do this, but we have a communications tool which is, yeah, just like Paradox in hiring, but now for employees and so allowing for you to text and get answers. It's allowing for you to swap shifts at, you know, via your phone. Just making things really simple. And I think that's, that's, that's key for a couple of reasons. One, you know, we talked about solving manager challenges, and I think that's really our focus. You know, if we can have a tool that's really like simple and starts to automate a bunch of things, uses AI that makes your managers that much better, more capable, actually makes that role that much more powerful and useful. Chad: Yeah. Josh: But really passionate about like team members too. You know, it's, it's, it's 70% of the US population is in frontline or deskless type roles. It's 80% globally. Chad: Jesus. Josh: It's a ton. Chad: Wow. Josh: It's, it's people that are heads of households, it's people that are in their first jobs, it's, it's teens, it's, it's, it's 80-year-olds. I mean, it's, it kind of it runs the gamut, right? Chad: Also second jobs. Josh: Runs the gamut, right. And it's I think one of those places where we're saying, um, there are parts where this can actually warm up that experience. It's not all parts. And so, when we, when we, when we talk and consult or whiteboard with, with employers, it's like, hey, we're actually going to start the design process, whether it's recruiting or employee experience, with like where is it most important that there's like human, human face-to-face interaction and that like, all right, let's map those in there first. And then like, what's the just like the stuff that we could like automate... Joel: Yeah. Josh: ...offload. Offload there. And so, so I feel like the more we're able to be able to do that, I think that's going to be really exciting for, for team members because now you're talking about something where, you know, in a hiring process, we have these like crazy great candidate experience scores, even though they're largely interacting with AI until the point of an interview. Chad: Yeah. Josh: And it's because like they can apply in 2 minutes, they can apply in any language. By the way, 23% to 30%, depending on industry, don't speak English at home. So, now you can apply in any language. You can ask any questions about the job, you're going to get some interview tips, you're going to hear if you qualify right away, you're going to get an interview the next day, you can reschedule your interview if you want to. It's actually pretty nice and warm. Chad: So, well, yeah, but the funny part is we keep hearing that, you know, candidates don't like this whole chatbot thing. And my whole thought is they used to get the black hole, and now they're getting all of this. Are you seeing engagement is, is high without the high ejection rate? Because for, for me, when I see those stories, it all just sounds like bullshit to me. Joel: The anti-ghosting magic. Chad: Yeah, yeah. It just, it... I... Josh: Maybe a couple of things, right? Like, not all experiences are created equal. Can't, can't speak to like every single experience out there and I'm sure some of them are quite frustrating. And, and I think rightfully as a candidate, it's not only like the experience that we've put out there today, but with LLMs and these chat experiences getting better and better, I think it's, it's okay and right that their expectations for those experiences keep up with their interactions with Gemini and ChatGPT and, and all of those things. But yeah, from our, our data perspective, two, two kind of things... You're going to tease me on all this data, but I think, I think you'll like these. Joel: I was going to ask about the survey and we'll tease the audience. What sort of findings, what's worth sharing, what's worth sharing? There's some good... Josh: Well, one would be, from a conversion rate, this is where we just, we get to like see all this stuff. In a frontline sort of automated experience, this is Paradox data, conversion rates can be 73%. Okay. So, someone applies, you... Joel: Conversion being... Josh: Yeah, apply, they start to apply process, they finish the application. I can then combine it with if you've then selected and screened them, right, how many actually then schedule an interview. Okay. And then how many show up for the interview. Okay. We can, we can get to 73%. The typical is 3%. So, it's wild. The other piece is we can actually ask during the process, not just at point of hire, like how's your experience, but like at any point in the process, we can ask. And so, a lot of our clients, this was something they, they came to us with, was like we, we don't want to just ask our hires because we're actually biasing the data. Because like they're going to say, yeah, it was a good experience, right? Chad: Of course. Yeah, yeah. Josh: Yes, yeah. So, they ask much earlier, like, hey, how is this experience for you? And so, even for people who aren't getting offers at those companies, the satisfaction rate on that experience is 96% to 97%. Even those not getting the offer. Joel: And all those people buy Quarter Pounders, Chad, just so you know. And jeans. Josh: So, I mean, some fun ways to like back to that like, hey, I love the question because it's like relatively the process we were coming away from was like actually like long forms and a lot of waiting and pretty cumbersome. Chad: It was horrible. It was horrible. Josh: We're now at a new phase and I think it's going to keep getting better. And it, and it should, you know, and we should keep pushing. Agreed. Joel: I'm really interested in how you're getting into the, the employee experience. I'm, I'm em, I'm employed now, Olivia or whatever we're calling it is part of my entire employee journey. Josh: Yeah. Joel: And where is that going? Is that, is that going to stick around in the what are my benefits and time off and get someone to take my shift? Or is it going into somewhere more interesting around social media or employer reviews or you could see where this can go when you start plugging in the employee into this, this platform. Talk about that. Josh: Well, one, we've got like 12 whiteboards huge out there. So, I'm going to need you to come out and do some whiteboarding on the future that platform. I would say though, step one is, is what you just called I think not the interesting stuff, but I think it's the the key stuff. Chad: Joel's favorite thing, is it? Yeah, the one platform. Josh: Solution to rule them all. Chad: We always say the boring stuff is the most important stuff and the most profitable stuff. Josh: But I think, I do think that's the, that's the important thing to solve. It's hard for employers to just communicate with their employees. A lot of times it's your manager using their own cell phone to communicate. So, like not sexy, but it's important. We need, we're going to solve that. All right. We're going to solve being able to, understand when your pay is coming and get connected to all those systems. We're going to make sure that shift scheduling, gets, is as easy as possible and blocking and tackling. Let's get the blocking and tackling. And then I think once we have that foundation, we can really start to do a lot more with it. One of the things I think you guys would, would like is, there are a lot of really interesting conversations in the space and I think, this conversation's actually driving some of our design. And the conversation is around, quality of hire and how frontline spaces, especially frontline spaces with high turnover... Typically due to a high part-time population... I'm going to give you a lot of good stuff to, to go into. Whoo. How they should be reporting to their C-suite about turnover. And so, what's historically happened is that you, you talk about your turnover in an annual, in an annual way. And so, those numbers, no matter your improvement, and you can see a bunch of these out there because some companies actually report on their annual turnover numbers, it's like, we, we went from 165% turnover last year to 132% this year. That's, isn't that good we had an improvement, and it's like, oh, yes, that is good, but what's the first reaction that they get from their C-suite? Chad: Why is it holy... Josh: Holy smoke, still 130%. What is going on? And then you get into these conversations of like, well, a majority of our population is part-time, and a majority of that population is maybe going back to school or, you know, did this for a few months, and we were okay with that for X reason. Chad: But we've got boomerangs who come back, and it's like you try to create the, the good storyline or narrative around it, but you've, you've got to do that through data. Josh: You got to do it through data. And some of it's seasonal, oh my gosh, there's, there's all this stuff. Anyways, so where they're starting to go with it is they're identifying two like kind of key points within their businesses as unique to their business, I can give you some like averages, and you're going to get a chuckle out of what the averages are. But one point is, what's my break-even point for a frontline hire within my organization? And this is probably going to have to be by role. Okay. And so, break-even point, right, let's go through it. I think this is largely based off of the like Maya Joseph-Bagley like model, right, of employee lifetime value. But you can do it for frontline and it's really nice. And so, basically, you would say, oh, it costs me something to hire somebody, it costs me something to onboard until they're ramped, right, they probably have cost me some money. I actually haven't hit my break-even point though until they've been ramped and then worked some time. Chad: Yeah. Josh: Right. Because they need actually like pay it back. Chad: Yeah. Josh: Okay. And so, what I would posit is, if someone leaves before the break-even point, it's a bad hire. Chad: Yes, right. They lost you money. Josh: What's your what? Chad: The, the what is, was that they were a bad hire or the system is flawed? And I mean, but you need data for all that. Josh: Totally. And that's a good... No matter what, good humans, right, across the board. But yeah, how are we defining bad hires? And could be bad managers. Could be bad managers. Either way, you don't want people leaving before that break-even point. And so, you've got to adjust who you're hiring or the system in terms of... Chad: And you have to know where it's at, right? Which many don't. Josh: You need, yeah, you need to at least, yeah, dial in to some, some point. Because now I can start to say, I've had X amount of hires who left before my break-even point. And that's going to be one of our go-afters in the next couple quarters is to reduce that number from 30% of my hires that are losing us money... Chad: Right. Josh: ...to 10%. And I'm going to report that up. The next one is the retention sticking point. So, at any point within a frontline organization, you can look at the data, and then you can basically start to see where turnover starts to dissipate. Okay. So, think of it in another way as like, if they get to like X number of days, or Y number of days, they typically stay actually another 6 months. Okay. And so, different organizations have different kind of like sticking points. And both of these, the like let's call it X for break-even and Y for retention sticking point, both of those are unique by role and unique by company. But if you can identify that, then all of a sudden you're going to your, C-suite and being able to talk about hey, we're getting a lot more people past this sticking point, this like retention place. We're having way less quick quits that are costing us money. Chad: Right. Josh: We're at least having okay hires or great hires as measured by these things. Yes, we have some turnover that happens at the 6-month or 9-month mark. But for us, our break-even point is, you know, 30 days. So, off of this National Restaurant Association report data, it says for restaurants, it's 31.8 days. And then the sticking point is 100 days. Okay. Now, the caution I would give is, those are unfortunately for me, a little close to the like 30, 60, 90. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Josh: And so, that's okay, but I would just reframe it within an organization. Instead of calling it a 30, 60, 90, which means nothing to anyone... Chad: Right. Josh: ...you can say, hey, yes, we're, our break-even point happens to be 30 days. And like here's how many people left before it. And our sticking point happens to be 100 days. So, it just gives a slightly different language that's tied... Chad: So, explain that to me, you're saying if someone gets to that 31 whatever point days, they're much more likely to get to 100 days, or is, is that what you're saying when you say that, or is... Josh: So, so it's actually less that. So, there are two key points. So, one would be, we need to get them to a profitable hire, so that's after the break-even point. So, if they've left before 31.8 days... Joel: Okay. Josh: ...in restaurants, you're in the red. Chad: You're in the red. Josh: Okay. Do less of that. Those are bad hires. Joel: Stop that. Josh: Stop, stop that. Increase that percentage. Yes. Then your, all of your benefits programs, your retention programs, training, and onboarding should be directing people to get past this like retention sticking point, hopefully. Um, getting past that place, you're having more good hires into your organization and retaining. So, past the, before this point, real bad. Okay. But, between these two points, hey, they at least didn't lose you money, but you would prefer to make as many hires as possible to get past this retention sticking point. But it just gives a slightly different language that's tied... Joel: But if they get to that 100-day mark, they're much more likely to be a long-term employee, someone who does. Josh: Yeah. And even redefining what long-term employee is because then I would just say like, hey, if your business says that like, break-even points at 30 days, and they ended up working for us for 10 months, in the old system, you would report that person as an annual turnover and get a, and an text. And now it's oh, actually 10 months of a good employee for a specific type of business might actually be okay. Like you, your team should get like that's, that's, that's a win. That's okay for a part-time model. Chad: Well, and I think that if you take a look at that, so that's on the strategic side as you're pushing that to the C-suite so that they can understand the workforce, benefit, you know, obviously, not, not losing money model. Um, but from a management standpoint, being able to know by location, by manager, who is missing their break and their stick points, right? That to me is even is, is even more important... Josh: Love that. Chad: ...because how do you, how do you actually push better past the 31, or, you know, more people past the 31 days? And more people past the 100 days? Well, you've got to do that low, right? You've got to do that at the management level, at the training level, development level. What's the problem there? Is that because they need more time with their people and they're doing it on too much administrivia? You know what I mean? So, it's like to me, it just starts the conversation of, it's amazing from a strategic standpoint, but from a tactical standpoint, it could be gold too. Josh: Yeah, and it's, it's where, you know, we're talking about this within the restaurant space because they were gracious enough to do this pretty deep dive. This report is like 35 pages and it goes, it goes deep. But now take it into, let's go into like transportation, distribution, distribution center. Oh yeah, yeah. So, I mean like, so now we're talking about the, one of the third largest industry within this, this space. Okay. So, then you, you talk to that industry about, you know, sort of this break-even point. And again, not all, some would say, well, Josh, our break-even point is, is one day. And it was like, how can that even be possible? It's like, well, in, in basically, we can get them, they'll come through, they'll, we're going to walk them through the, the warehouse, it's going to be a little bit, then we're going to do some like training paper, then we're going to walk them through some like benefits and then we're going to teach them how to do their thing. And then they've got 6 hours to do that thing. And by the end of that shift, they've done the thing well enough where, like ultimately, it would have cost us a lot of money if we didn't have that spot on the floor filled. Chad: Mhm. Josh: And they were, they were quote-unquote profitable. We hope they come back the next day. We want to hire people who are coming back day after day. That is, that is certainly our intent. Chad: Which is why you have Olivia send them messages every day, "Can't wait to see you tomorrow." Josh: Certainly, but for, for them, they've been able to then say, we want to have a really warm experience to make sure that like, training's good, all the benefits and like how we've got HR for those folks is good, but it's, it's more stacked on the employee side than on the hiring side. So, you're starting to see, and you guys have probably chatted with a lot of like TA leaders in the space where, when you start to hear these like instant hiring stories, or like the apply to a contingent offer in 10 minutes... Chad: Yes. Josh: ...disproportionately, they're happening in this transportation, distribution, warehouse space. Exclusively? Disproportionately, yes, yes. And I mean, that's kind of interesting because you know that they've kind of done the math. If we had a line that was open a person, we know how many packages or pieces of widgets can't go through, and that would be detrimental to our business. It's actually better to hire a bunch of people, get them there... We know there's going to be some baked-in turnover, we know there's going to be some baked-in folks not passing background checks, but ultimately, it's better to move them through that process seamlessly, get them, get them in our facility and then hopefully retain them through higher investments on the HR side. Joel: Quick eye to the future. You mentioned giving the attendees of this event Monopoly money, if you will, to invest on the new features that they are most excited for. Curious about where, where you're, where you're putting your money on, the features of the future that we should be excited about? Josh: Ooh, that's such a good one. My piece is really around this um, one platform. And so, really, really seamless experiences kind of across like an employee lifecycle. Joel: Joel's favorite thing. Is it? Yeah, the one platform. Joel: Solution to rule them all. Josh: Oh, man. Well, I've walked into that then. But I think, I think I like it though from a persona perspective. So, if it's frontline, it's like, I want that team member of ours, you know, whether it's in a restaurant or a... to be able to, you get, you get hired on one, you know, one thing, you're, you're building sort of a, a relationship. You can, you can get in touch with a human as you need to. You're then onboarded through that same thing, you can then get your schedule through that same thing, you can then ask questions in any language through that same thing. You're, like all, all of that I think is really great. And so, what we're, what we're whiteboarding on is like closing a lot of those gaps. For us, that's a little bit more on the onboarding space. Chad: Oh, yeah. Josh: Certainly, in some of the employee space because it's like you want that to be super robust. And then supporting a lot of this like shift scheduling and like pay component. So, I really like that from a frontline space. And then from a corporate space, similar. So, we've got kind of two audiences there. One would be, folks who are Workday customers. And so, now that's pretty nice. We're seamlessly... Chad: Easy transition. Josh: Easy transition. And, and, you know, we just want that to be as simple as possible so that if you have Workday recruiting, Paradox, so or Paradox and hired score in it, it just all feels like one thing. And so, we have lots of conversations that are going on there. Chad: Yeah. Josh: And then for folks, because over 50% of our customers are still non-Workday customers, right? And so, making sure that if they choose to sit us on top of, you know, their ATS, whatever that is... Chad: Sure. Josh: ...it's really, really seamless and we're still showing them that we're, we're innovating and moving really fast there. And so, a lot of the things that, that we're talking about on that end is some of this analytics and interview intelligence, and just making sure that kind of all the key tools they need specifically in recruiting there, can be, can be excellent. Joel: Yeah. Very cool. Josh, thanks for hanging out with us today. Josh: Thanks, guys. Joel: That was Josh Secrest, head of marketing at Paradox. I'm Joel Cheesman, he's Chad Sowash with the Chad and Cheese Podcast. This is the AI series. We out. Chad: We out.

Get ready, boys and girls, because The Chad & Cheese Podcast is back at full strength! Joel is finally back from his massive summer hiatus across Italy, Paris, and RecFest London—and he’s joined by co-host Emi to break down an absolutely jam-packed week of global travel stories, World Cup drama, and massive industry shakeups. First up on the chopping block, global consulting giant Korn Ferry just swallowed up RPO powerhouse AMS, while early-career network Handshake acquired AI-skilling platform Uplimit. We debate whether these are brilliant strategic marriages or recipes for disaster. Then, we look at a major AI reality check as Ford rehired 350 engineers after automation failed their quality standards, and Mark Zuckerberg admitted Meta misjudged how fast AI could scale. Is the artificial intelligence hype train finally derailing, or is this just a minor speed bump? We also dive into the talent crisis, breaking down a brutal Wall Street Journal analysis on why Gen X is getting crushed by long-term unemployment, and we tackle Scott Galloway's viral claim that work-from-home culture completely broke entry-level onboarding. Finally, we look at the future of tech, from Meta donating smart glasses to blind veterans to a fully robot-operated hotel launching in China. We’ve also got World Cup predictions, Mbappé shoutouts, political dodging, and the triumphant, rusty return of Joel’s infamous dad jokes. Do these industry moves make sense, or are these companies completely losing their minds? To find out exactly what we think, you've got to tune in. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:06.169) I'm back Joel Cheesman (00:32.855) it feels good. yeah. From charming to alarming in seconds. Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Infinite Red Card Cheesman. Emi (00:45.194) And I am Emi, I am still recovering from RECFEST. Beredugo. Joel Cheesman (00:50.307) this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, porn fairies, hand jobs, and hotel femme bots. yeah, I'm coming in hot. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:06.199) What's up, Emmy? Emi (01:07.608) Hey, where have you been? You've been gone away for so long. Joel Cheesman (01:09.912) man. man. Thursday out. Thursday. June out. Sorry. This is it's we're recording not on Thursday. I am so discombobulated with work. I'm gonna make so many mistakes on this show because I'm so I'm so rusty and out of practice. But yeah, so a year or two ago, Chad and I agreed like pick a month. Emi (01:18.357) Yeah. Emi (01:26.557) my god. Joel Cheesman (01:35.669) And and we'll take it off. And part of like bringing you and JT and Mo and Leave and everybody, like having a team is like we're able to take time off, do something else, clear our head, get away from things. So June June was my pick, because my wife does a conference every two years in a pretty nice location. we did Singapore a couple of years ago, we did like Quebec City a few years ago. So this year was Italy. the city was Turin, Italy, and I've never been to Italy. So I said, like, let's go. So I said, I'm taking June off. Her conference was in June. the two weeks of first two weeks of June, we did Rome, Saw the Pope live and in the flesh. the south yes. No, it wasn't that kind of it wasn't that kind of Saw the Pope. But if I tell all my stories, it'll be the whole show. But so the Pope was kind of unique. Emi (02:07.713) Yeah. Emi (02:18.485) You saw the Pope? Did he get an autograph? my god. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:31.553) we we had a tour to see the Vatican Museum and we end up we show up and we we Google ahead of time like the Pope's in town or Pope's gonna make an appearance, which is kind of a big deal in Rome. Like when that happens, Romans know it. And so we went early to see, like, maybe we'll see the Pope or maybe the Pope Mobile or something. And we end up and we just kind of go with the flow of all these people going to the Vatican, and we're like, museum, we'll get to it. Emi (02:42.837) Absolutely. Emi (02:55.553) Yeah? Joel Cheesman (02:59.607) So we end up, there's this big seating area. If you've been to the Vatican, huge seating area. And it's it's it's sort of like partitioned off into fours. So probably security. by the way, security is the Pope Security, they're in these like weird yellow and blue outfits. They've probably been since the Renaissance dressed like this, but their traditional keeps it going. Anyway, side note. so we sat down and they have people from around the world in these different segments. So it's like, Emi (03:03.455) No, I haven't actually. Emi (03:19.137) Yeah? Joel Cheesman (03:29.175) Let's hear it from Italy or Italy's bad example. Let's hear it from France. And France will come in and like they'll have little flags and they'll like pump up their their hype to be see the Pope. So then the Pope finally comes out and it's the Pope Mobile. Everyone's seen this thing. It's got glass. he comes out and he's got this little just like route and he waves. If he sees a baby, they get the baby and he holds the baby, he blesses the baby, whatever. otherwise you're waving, people are running. It's like the Beatles in a Pope Mobile. Emi (03:42.993) Love that. Yes. Emi (03:53.771) that. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:58.733) People are going nuts. And so we saw him. I got pictures. if you are connected me on social media, I posted those. a less of a big deal to me. I'm not a Catholic. I'm not all that religious, but I I appreciate I appreciate the gravity of the Pope. so that was really cool. So I don't want to get too bogged down in so Rome, Colosseum, pizza, like great food, good town. Went to Venice from there. Emi (04:10.359) Still cool to see the Pope though. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:23.725) Venice, very cool, but very touristy and was very hot. if tourist if the tourist trap is not your thing, that might be challenging. Turin was beautiful, the mountains. it was a about a million and a half people I think live there. So it's a city, it's a European city, but it's not overcrowded. There's not a lot of tourism there. So you could you could kind of settle in there. And then we went to Milan. That was our final destination. Milan, outside of the big church, which is very cool, and the Da Vinci stuff. Emi (04:45.885) Love Milan. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:53.249) It's it's it's beautiful people looking as beautiful as they can and trying to outbeautiful everyone else who's beautiful. So yes, it's like a yeah, it's fashion, it's the stores, it's the yeah, so so that's not really my jam, fashion and all that. So that wasn't a big, a big draw from I don't need to go back to Milan, I don't need to go back to Venice, I don't need to go back to Darren. I do need to go back to Rome. A lot more of Rome, I think, I could experience. so I'll I will probably be back there. Came back home. Emi (04:56.991) Yeah. yeah. It's like a proper fashion show, isn't it? Yeah. I love it. Yes. Emi (05:16.917) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:23.309) Had a couple weeks, had about a week rest. And then, as people know, Cole and I, my son, he's 19 now, we go to Europe for the Recfesh conference, and he gets to pick a city and we go. And this year he picked Paris. So he's I've been many times, he's never been. So went to Paris. Of course, it's a heat wave, as you know. You felt this in in Britain. It's a hundred degrees in France in Paris. Emi (05:38.519) Good choice, Cole. Emi (05:44.535) huh. Yes. Joel Cheesman (05:50.113) Which is really bizarre. it was not fun at all. But we did like a f we did the sprint, we did the catacombs, the Louvre, Normandy, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tow like everything you could do in Paris. We did like a full court press and got it all done and then went to went to London where I saw you at Wreckfest. which was great. So I'll pass it on to you how your summer's going, how your June was, July, and of course we s celebrated Independence Day here. Emi (06:00.103) wow. Emi (06:11.382) Yes you did! Joel Cheesman (06:20.161) as well. But let's let's talk about wreckfest. What were your takeaways, thoughts? Had a good time. Weather was great. Weather was perfect. Emi (06:20.236) Yes you did. Emi (06:25.122) You know what? yeah, it was, it was, I was expecting it to be a bit more of a heat wave because you know, it's been boiling hot over here. It was perfect. It was like, I can't convert it into your numbers, but I think it's about 25 degrees over here. And honestly, perfect weather. It was beautiful. It was so much fun. I saw some old faces, met some new friends and new contacts. And I was hosting the innovate stage, some Joel Cheesman (06:33.337) Uh-huh. Emi (06:54.296) great people who are on my stage as well. So, you know, it's just one of those events that I just always, always look forward to. And this year I had one of my friends come with me who's, you know, she works in a HR space, has always been to the more, you know, the traditional kind of like HR conferences. I said, look, I don't know. yeah. And I was like, I don't know how to explain REC Fest. Even if I'm telling you that this is a, you know, it's almost like a... Joel Cheesman (07:08.441) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:13.549) The buttoned up conferences, yeah. Emi (07:22.04) party in a crowd where you're still learning, you're still finding out what's going on about what's going on in the industry, but you're going to have fun. It's unlike anything that can ever imagine. And she loved it. She absolutely loved it. And for anyone who didn't go, please get a ticket next year. Just please get yourself there. It's a fabulous, fabulous day. One of the best events in the HR and definitely TA calendar. Joel Cheesman (07:23.993) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:48.974) Wow, that's a s that's a pitch. If that's not an endorsement, I don't know what is. and if you're and if you're a lot of our listeners in the States, if you can't make it over to London, like come to Nashville. it's third year three, I think, of Nashville. And it's starting to gain some nice traction. Because not it'll never quite be Nebworth with the Ferris wheel and like the on site land mass that it is, but it's a totally different animal. Chad and I'll be there in all of our glory. I don't think you're set to come to Nashville, are you? Emi (07:51.957) I know, honestly. Emi (07:57.854) Absolutely. Emi (08:11.969) Yeah. Emi (08:17.501) No, I don't really want to. So, you know, if you want to get me there, you know, just saying, Joe. Joel Cheesman (08:20.971) I don't really w you don't want to come to Nashville, the estates, or wreckfest in the US? Emi (08:26.068) Wow, just get me to all of those places, I'm easy. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:28.521) Okay. Well speaking of coming to America, World Cup, England's still in it. I assume that's who you're rooting for. Of course. Emi (08:33.111) Yes. Emi (08:36.642) course. mean, yeah, mean, Nigeria is not in it. And I would always have to vote, you know, support England and Nigeria because my roots are Nigerian. They didn't even qualify. So I'm all in for England. All in. Although they did scare me against Mexico. Joel Cheesman (08:45.976) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:50.765) Now do you do you really objectively think they're gonna they they could win it all? Emi (08:55.692) I'm going to say yes, because I'm a patriot. Yeah, to be fair, yeah. he's a beast. He is fantastic. I don't understand how he can move that fast with how big and tall that he is. But I'm going to keep rooting for England. I'm there. I'm behind them. I'm manifesting in World Cup win. Absolutely. Joel Cheesman (08:56.695) Yeah, okay. I'm gonna love I'm gonna love the the Norway game. Er Erling Holland is a freak. He's yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:21.347) Yeah. I'm I'm yeah, I'm rooting I always root for England for whatever reason. and sest ancestry. I don't know. I usually know more of the players. France is probably the best team I've seen, if I'm being objective. Spain is probably close to. Messi is messy. I mean, what I love is all the stars are bringing it. Messi, Holland, Kane, Bellingham, Mbappe, like they're all they're all bringing it. Emi (09:26.188) Didn't you? Good. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Emi (09:42.457) Yes, they are. Yeah, they are. Although did you see the last Argentina game, like against Egypt? So that one, was like, I remember that because I tuned in a little bit late because I was working and I was like, what? Egypt's two goals up, you know, and then literally I took one call for 10 minutes, came back, two goals. I'm like, Argentina's back. And I suppose that's the difference between playing Joel Cheesman (09:54.029) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:10.391) Yeah. Emi (10:10.776) you know, between a good team and a great team, like Argentina, even from behind. And in the last minute, they are still going to come out, you know, and win. So, no, think they're doing well, but it's still all for England, all for England. Joel Cheesman (10:25.145) Yeah, the cream always rises in the World Cup. Like as much as much noise as we make about like this the US is here and you know, the other teams like, Okay, it's Argentina, it's England, it's France. so it's Emi (10:27.735) Yes. Emi (10:36.801) Yeah. Yeah, but talking about the US, though, what about Trump trying to rig the US? Joel Cheesman (10:44.621) You know, like so so w when you travel overseas, although Europe is sort of obsessed with Trump and the US, it is n it is nice to unplug from that and not have to worry about. So I had an I had a good time of like just not watching the news, not watching industry news, political news, whatever. And I was watch obviously the World Cup and what was going on is exciting. And it's just it's just s he's just such a shithead to c you know, he was sitting there like, Emi (10:52.183) Yeah. Emi (11:11.328) Yes. Joel Cheesman (11:12.803) All right, what's getting all the attention in the news right now? Like World Cup. Okay, how can I inject myself into that? Be a dick, t steal some thunder. And it just like just it was nice to have the politics out of it. America was having a moment, you know, like all the social media about America's great, Waffle House, Walmart, like Buckies. It was like, man, America's having a moment, even to the point where people in Europe are like, We owe America an apology. Emi (11:15.795) you up. Yeah. Emi (11:33.452) Positive, for once, yeah. Emi (11:40.887) Yeah! Joel Cheesman (11:40.983) Like what what we've been hearing about America is not true. Like the people are great and dah dah da. The sc the Scots coming in and drinking Boston Dry. Cra awesome and cra like Boston is not Salt Lake City. Like there's a lot of beer in Boston. So the fact that that's a total Scottish thing. so it's sh it was just great. And then Shithead had to come and like get his nose and things and and s and like Emi (11:54.582) Okay. I love that, love that. Emi (12:06.104) Get involved. What was that? I know about sports. I'm really good at sports. And that wasn't a record. Joel Cheesman (12:11.309) Yeah, yeah. And that and as we and now he's in Europe telling Europe what to do and gimme Greenland and The Iranians went from like very, very intelligent people. The new regime was much different, much more f affable to us. And now they're like the the devils now. So it's just it's just it's just whack. I I yeah, yeah. Emi (12:28.308) Yeah. Yeah. It's unnecessary. It's like, just get out of the sport. This has nothing to do with you. Just leave it, leave it alone. know? Yeah, no, was bad. Joel Cheesman (12:37.399) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At least he didn't stick his nose in the Taylor Swift wedding. At least at least there is some something sacred. Yeah Emi (12:47.0) You say that. Let's see. Give it a week. Somehow he'll be involved. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (12:52.109) Give it a week. Give it a week. All right, let's get to shout out, shall we? All right, Emmy. Shout outs are sponsored by our friends at Proven Base. If you love free bourbon and who doesn't, well, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen, but you can't win if you don't play. So visit Chadcheese.com slash free today for your chance to finally let your liver know who's boss. That's right. All right, Emmy, let's get to shout outs. What you got? Emi (13:20.588) Wow, I'm going to be cheeky. I'm going to say two. Okay, so first one, I'm going to stay on the World Cup theme. So my first one is for Mbappé from France. So if anyone saw Instagram. Joel Cheesman (13:23.288) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (13:33.177) For our Merrick, some for some that don't know soccer, give us a little bit about Mbappe. Emi (13:36.885) Okay, Mbappe, amazing French player from African ethnicity. And he was playing against the French team were playing against Paraguay. And you know, they were outplayed because Paraguay were dirty in that match. They were trying all kinds of tricks. It's like, what are you doing? There's like literally what are you doing? Like tripping people up. The ref, I don't know what match the ref was actually watching. But it definitely wasn't watching, you know, the game in front of him. Joel Cheesman (13:51.671) Mm. It was a nasty game, yeah. Emi (14:06.756) Anyway, after all of that, know, France won, Mbappe is the captain. One of the senators of Paraguay just wrote this really racist, like his vile, vile kind of like post on X. And, know, and I went into it. I looked, because it was also posted on Instagram, and I was like, what is wrong with this person? This person is a senator for one, but, know, feeling, know, brave enough to be so openly racist. Joel Cheesman (14:22.339) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (14:35.161) Mm-hmm. Emi (14:35.832) What I loved is that Mbappe didn't sink down to her level. He just called her out and said, you're a disgrace to your country. And because of what you've done, the focus is now off how well Paraguay played in the past or the Paraguayan people, but now is focused on the fact that you are a racist. You're a disgrace to your country. So I love the really elegant, classy way that he clapped back at her. So that is my first shout out. Joel Cheesman (14:54.617) Mm-hmm. Emi (15:03.352) In terms of the second one, I'm like I said, I'm going for England. Every opportunity that I have, I am rooting for England. Absolutely. I'm looking at Kane. I'm looking at Bellingham. I'm looking for more goals. Come on. We are going to get to the final and we are going to win. This is going to be our year. So those are my two. Oh, yeah. It was a song. It's coming home. It's coming home. It's coming. Football's coming home. Yes. Joel Cheesman (15:22.049) Is it coming is it coming home, Amy? Is c Joel Cheesman (15:30.297) She was the the Paraguayan Senator, man. nasty. coconut milk. I mean like really old school racism shit. It was I was Emi (15:36.918) That honestly... Yes! Yeah, it's like what the hell is this? You didn't have breast milk, you drank coconut milk as a child. It's like come on, come on. But that's the world now. People are brazen. You have people with all the far-right parties going, yes, fine, be racist. That is the world that I've put you in. Joel Cheesman (15:46.881) It was wild. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:58.041) Yeah. Mbappe Mbappe is a great sort of figurehead for the for the sport. I mean he's he's he laughed a lot of it off in that game, a lot of smiles like you guys are gnats on my ass. Like, I mean, yeah. So I he got he had a chance to to get in the mud and and he didn't. So I I definitely appreciate that. Way to way to go, Mbappe. Even though you're gonna lose to London if it c or England if it comes to it. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. It's coming home. Emi (16:02.07) Yes. Yeah. Emi (16:07.264) Yeah, who knew what they were doing? Yeah. Emi (16:14.338) Yeah. He wrote it. It it above him. Absolutely. Bare not. England's coming. We're bringing it home. It's coming home. Joel Cheesman (16:26.901) It's coming home. Not if Trump has something to do with it. All right. So we talk about my my smart glasses on the show quite a bit. And it's it's back and forth. I haven't asked you what you think about it. I think women are less into it because of the privacy thing and the beginning film thing. we'll get to that in a second, but I want to give a shout out to Meta. Also, Meta doesn't get a lot of love on the show, but they They recently are they recently offered to give or they're now giving a hundred and thirty thousand free pairs of meta smart glasses to blind veterans. So they they put out a little video about this, which I think really kind of encapsulates it very well. So let's check that out. Joel Cheesman (17:47.075) So I don't know, hate on smart glasses if you want, hate on meta if you want, but you know, this is good meta. This is a good thing. I I never really thought about what meta could do to someone who was do for with someone who was blind or someone who was disabled. And this sort of paints in a different light. I think it's great. so shout out to to Meta for me. Now now you go ahead and tell me why smart glasses are so bad. Emi (18:11.42) I I think it's a boy thing. I don't see the need to have like a computer on my face. I'm sure there's some cool things about it, but I'm not gonna do that. And I don't like the, it just feels a bit creepy, know, invasion of privacy. That's just me. Joel Cheesman (18:18.263) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (18:29.357) So when I have them on and I'm talking to you, are you freaked out? Are you creeped out? Are you do you even notice? Emi (18:34.368) No, I don't know this. thought they look really like really cool kind of aviator style glasses. To be honest, I was going to compliment you on them. I was like, yeah, they look cool. But so yeah, so you know, you get in the way with it. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (18:42.617) There you go. Well anyway. I I'm I'm it they've they've helped they've been great for me, if they can help blind people of all of all kinds, including veterans. So I think that's great and good for Meta for for giving those those freebies away. Joel Cheesman (19:01.667) Well, we just talked about Recfest coming up in Nashville in the fall. but more or less taking a little break from travel. I know there's some stuff going on. wanted to definitely give a shout out to our our travel sponsor, Shaker Recruitment Marketing. I know that actually Joe Shaker was in Italy a couple of days after I was. So we actually missed each other. that was kind of a little irony there, but the Cubs I think are doing all right. the Bears are gonna move to Indiana, which I know he's he's upset about. But shout out to Joe and Shager recruitment marketing on the travel. If you want to find out where we're gonna be, just head out to Chadchees.com, click on the events to see where we're going. Emmy, are you going anywhere? including your vacation spots, because I'm always interested to know where the next v next vacation is. Emi (19:46.137) Wow, we are thinking about a long weekend in Spain. So not sure where in Spain, but I just kind of need a little bit beachy kind of holiday for a couple of days or Croatia. So it's between the two and then at the end of the year back to Brazil. I love that country. I love that country. There's so much more I need to see. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (19:55.702) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (20:08.579) How I need to know how to make Emmy money. God damn. Man, their travel spots are awesome. Love it. Emi (20:14.443) Honestly, I, yeah, all my money goes on travel at the moment. I'm just like, oh dear, but no, I love him. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:19.245) Ha ha. I think that's becoming common, like particularly with younger people, like I can't afford a house, I can't afford a car anymore. Like let's just let's just go to Croatia. Let's just go on vacation. Yeah, let's just see the world. Emi (20:29.014) Let's just see the world. And that's the thing. And this is great thing about being in London because these countries are not actually not that far away. You know, to get to Spain, I'm there in that three and a half hours. So it's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Love it. That's okay. Come over to the UK. Joel Cheesman (20:36.482) Yeah. And it's yeah, direct flights everywhere for you. You get to the States and it's you know, one way. all right. Well, well, cool. well well maybe a few people, Mike Microsoft will have something to do, because there are there are some layoffs to talk about this week. Microsoft laid off forty eight hundred people or so, roughly two percent of its workforce. ADP, which is in our space, they had reported seventy-six job cuts in New Jersey, which New Jersey requires you to list the layoffs that you're going to have. Emi (20:52.279) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:08.749) But online chatter says that the layoffs are going much deeper at ADP. So stay tuned. here on the show we'll we'll be watching that to see exactly what's going on at ADP. And Culture AMP, if you're a Culture AMP user, they apparently cut nine percent of their workforce, roughly seventy folks. Hopefully everyone will land on their feet from that one. Amy, any comments about the layoffs? Feels kind of like garden variety, We need to do something. Let's let's lay off some people. Emi (21:40.217) I know. mean, what can I say? It's just like a common story at the moment. Like it seems to be every single week you go on LinkedIn, you look at news, you go whatever. Another company is making cuts. And it's just so hard because I just think there's so many good people out there looking for a job. But now it's taken even longer because you're competing with so many more people. And that's why I I do, I feel sorry for people going through it. Joel Cheesman (21:46.819) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (22:08.11) Yeah. Emi (22:09.496) I think there's more organizations can do to support people, you know, going through redundancies. Cause I, what I'm tending to see is like, okay, I understand people have to make business decisions and we hope that organizations are not doing for personal reasons, but the support, the after support is like, you know, how do I just help people? How do you get a new job? How do you upskill yourselves? How could you put together CV? You know, what a good job hunting tips. I just don't see that. Joel Cheesman (22:13.261) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (22:31.577) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (22:37.269) After after support. That's why we bring the Europeans on the show. A little empathy, a little little kindness. That's right. Emi (22:39.456) Yeah, absolutely. Yes. I'm like, what are you doing organizations? Help people. These are tough times. Joel Cheesman (22:47.469) Well, if y if you like tough times, this is your lucky day 'cause this show has a lot of tough times, but let's get into the topic, shall we? Emi (22:55.018) Thank Joel Cheesman (22:59.897) All real quick, Emmy. This segment is powered by our friends at Aspentech Labs. If you love free beer, we'll get ready to turn into a sloppy summertime life of the party. But you can't win if you don't play Emmy. So visit Chadcheese.com free today slash free today for your chance to replace that shit beer in your mom's fridge with some good, good stuff, everybody. Because nobody likes the bad beer. That's right. All right, let's get into the news, Emmy. Acquisitions. Emi (23:24.856) you Okay. Joel Cheesman (23:27.965) Search firm Korn Ferry has agreed to acquire RPO services provider Alex Mann Solutions, or what the kids like to call AMS, for approximately 1.1 billion USD in a mix of cash and stock. But wait, there's more acquisition goodness in me. Handshake has acquired learning platform Uplimit, hoping to bolster Handshake's skilling off skill offerings for early career professionals. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. It's a tale of two acquisitions, Emmy. Give us your take. Emi (24:01.269) It is a tailor to acquisition. So if I talk about Korn ferry, these are two names that I've, I haven't interacted that much with them personally, but these are two massive, massive organizations with huge kind of brand presence. So I think, you know, bringing together Korn ferries, kind of executive search consultancy experience with Alexander man, which he obviously specializes in recruitment process, outsourcing or RPOs, early careers, campus recruitings. I actually think that's a really good. acquisition. And I'll tell you the reason why. It's because if you look at what Conferee primarily specializes in, which I said is executive search consulting, that is a pretty volatile market at the moment. You know, it could be lucrative when things are going well, but it's uneven. The revenue stream, you can't always guarantee it. So especially when you're in this kind of economy. So if you're bolstering bringing into Alexander man solutions into your portfolio, that is stabilizing the revenue stream. This is more guaranteed revenue coming into the organization. It's, you know, they're already coming with contracts underneath their belts, recurring contracts. So I think together is a great solution. And what it does, it means that as an organization, whatever they're going to call themselves, because I don't know if AMS are going to keep their brand name in the future, but they can go now and pitch themselves as an organization that can cover everything from ground level, from careers, all the way up to executive search, and it can actually consult for the business. So you get an all in one solution. So I think that's a really good acquisition, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And then we talked about, yeah. Joel Cheesman (25:40.557) You're into it. You like it. cool. Now your hand handshake, take. Emi (25:46.553) handshake again. Up limit, be honest, I don't know too much about them as well, but I know handshake. So I know that they're great for university recruiting. So I went away, did a little bit more research, what is up limit? And they are apparently an AI native learning platform. And I think in this day and market, bringing those two people together is quite good. Because if you're thinking about AI, okay, take someone like me. I'm trying to learn AI, you know, I'm all for it. I'm implementing AI tools and trying to like, you know, is integrated everything that I do personally and in the workplace. However, AI is accelerating so quickly. that having an AI native platform with Handshake educating the early careers, the generation, I think is fantastic. And what they're doing is also partnering with educational institutions. So they're making sure that their curriculum is always up to date. I think that's going to be a great pipeline for the future. But what I liked about them even more, because there's so many courses out there, they're like a theoretical, watch this video. I'm not being funny. Just watching a video doesn't really help you. You need to get your hands dirty. You need to start playing around with building agents. That is what UpLimit does. They give you real hands-on project experience, which is what recruiters are actually looking for, hiring managers are actually looking for. Don't just wave your certification and say, yes, I know how to build an agent. No, no, show me the work that you've done. Verify your skills. So yeah, two great acquisitions, I think. I am. Joel Cheesman (27:10.531) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (27:19.309) You're a fan. I love it. All right. so the the Korn Fairy, and we don't talk about executive search much on this show, but just being in the industry, you kind of know Korn Fairy and Alexander Mann solution. So this this really is a one plus one equals three situation, in my in my opinion. This is not like a clearance rack acquisition. This is not desperation, this is not this makes sense. This is the round hole and the round peg. I think that when you look at the world is the world as it's becoming and it's a mystery as to like the layoffs. Are the layoffs AI driven? Are the AI like are the layoffs stock driven? Are the layoffs whatever the reason is, companies seem to be sort of washing away, giving in a reason to like wash things away and like let's build it back up differently. Whether that's executives and hand in hand with AI, if that's AI in some form, Emi (28:15.981) Mm. Joel Cheesman (28:21.123) portions of the business, maybe it's all people in some of the portions. It just feels like companies, and this is a little bit of theme of the show. Companies have said, like, let's flush some shit down the toilet and then build stuff back and see and see if we can build it differently for a world with AI. So to me, Korn Fairy is at the right place at the right time. people are going to need executives. People are going to need people that know shit. And they've Flush a lot of them out and maybe they need different executives. But Korn Fairy to me is right on the precipice of something big in the in the in the rebuilding of organizations. On this flip side of that, you have the RPO and Alexander Mann and what they're doing. So it's a perfect fit, deeper in the funnel, makes sense, don't step on each other's toes. They complement each other very well. I think that's great. If I'm looking for one negative in this deal, it's the cultures are so different, as I I like. Emi (29:07.489) Mm-hmm. Emi (29:15.704) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (29:16.889) Korn Fairy is mad men, buttoned up, belts and suspend, like just very conservative, very like no sh no fucking around Korn Fairy. AMS, let's say a little more loose with the culture and the vibe, the energy. So I don't I is it is it gonna be like China getting Hong Kong, where they like Hong Kong is not Hong Kong anymore. They're they're China, or do they let do they let AMS be AMS? Emi (29:28.205) Yeah. Emi (29:42.164) Yeah, could be. Joel Cheesman (29:46.753) I don't know. I don't know enough about Korn Fairy's acquisition history to say that. I would think that as a big public company, they will eventually absorb the name will go away. They'll absorb the products. It'll be Korn Fairy RPO or whatever. that that'll happen. But the culture's clashing, that'd be the only thing I could think about that might that might put be a grenade down the hallway in this deal. The handshake thing, handshake is a really interesting slash weird story. Emi (30:05.027) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:16.823) They they come in and they're like, We're gonna do college, we're gonna do college jobs. We're gonna partner with all the schools and get people in jobs, which is a shitty business. These companies that do colleges, they come and go, colleges change their mind, people, they're attrition in college, like students leave, they want something new and cool. So someone like it just someone new and cool comes in. So Handshake gets a ton of money. They say, We're gonna be the next LinkedIn. And on the show I said, You're full of shit. and then and then and then the next thing they do is they become like this AI training business because they have all these students that have PhDs and master's degrees and they go, Hey, train the AI and we'll pay you. And this this for them is a mul a billion dollar business, apparently. Mercor is their main competitor. Mercor just came out being they said they're two billion dollar ARR business now. Emi (31:08.78) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (31:13.059) This is a huge, huge opera. So, like, they pivot into that. But I have to think that in the back of their minds, they were like, you know, that dream to kick LinkedIn in the nuts. Like, let's let's revisit that. Bring in this up limit thing. And so Uplimit comes along and they are pushing themselves. Let me get this right. They they describe themselves as the job and skilling network for the AI age, whereas LinkedIn held that crown in the digital age. Emi (31:38.551) Okay. Joel Cheesman (31:43.085) I don't know what the hell that means. digital age, AI age. I thought it was all digital. I don't know. Terminator's coming. So, so if if if they sold this good bill of goods to Handshake that, hey, we have something that's LinkedIn ish, but LinkedIn doesn't do it, and we can like leapfrog LinkedIn with this new stuff. Like, hey, we got an EV, they got a gas guzzler. maybe this thing can work. Emi (31:45.73) Sounds good, doesn't it? Joel Cheesman (32:09.293) The terms were not disclosed. I don't know how much they paid for this. Maybe it was like pocket change. So look, I think their LLM training business, that thing is that thing is a just yeah, just a menace. It's huge. They're getting more and more competition. That I think is gonna be a three to five year opportunity, but then they're they're probably gonna have to figure out what they're gonna be after that. Maybe the next LinkedIn is hit. I am skeptical. I am skeptical. Yeah. Emi (32:13.302) that I couldn't find anything, yeah. Emi (32:34.252) Maybe. Really? Yeah. You're always skeptical, Joel. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:37.995) I believe in brands. I believe in strong brands. I believe in unseating brands is really, really hard. they have to do something very, very different. I think peop look, I have 15,000 followers slash connectins on LinkedIn. I there I'm not leaving. There's no way. And and don't tell me that you on LinkedIn would leave LinkedIn. Emi (32:59.778) But I'm not asking you to leave LinkedIn. You can have both platforms. I have Instagram and I have TikTok. I use both. Yeah, that's fine. Joel Cheesman (33:03.885) Yeah, why? Why? Yeah. I I'm too old and and grumpy to like start a whole new LinkedIn thing. So that's just not me. And we we've had this whole thing like we're LinkedIn for the kids, we're LinkedIn for people who don't have LinkedIn. What and it none of it works. So if Handshake has the secret recipe, God bless ya. But you know, I I don't know if I'm falling for the banana and the tailpipe in me. I don't think I'm falling. Emi (33:13.462) come on, we're about the same age, it's fine. Emi (33:32.79) Well, handshake if you're listening, I'm rooting for you. Come on, prove Joe wrong, Joel Cheesman (33:37.151) All right. And ME can be found at 1800. No, I'm just kidding. All right. All right. Let's go to our next story here. I mean, talking about AI, Ford, that says in the car, speaking of gas closers, rehired 350 veteran engineers after AI and automated systems failed to meet quality standards. The quote, gray beard engineers are training younger staff and reprogramming AI tools. Emi (33:40.918) Hahaha! Emi (33:59.597) Yes. Joel Cheesman (34:03.341) Leading to reduced warranty and recall costs. But wait, there's more. Emmy Mark Zuckerberg has told employees the company has made mistakes in the AI transformation of its workforce, specifically a miscalculation of how quickly AI agents would improve and scale in the business. AI's having a a a moment of grow, growing pains, or is this something bigger in the works, Emmy? Emi (34:28.536) I think this is people who are, what do you say in the US? Drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit too much? Is that right? Have I used it in the right way? Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, AI is new. We are learning about AI, but all of a sudden, everyone's been thinking, or they're believing too much, AI can replace human workers. That's not what AI should be for. Organizations need to take a more conservative approach to AI and not assume that is there to, Joel Cheesman (34:35.833) Bringing the Kool Aid. Too much faith in AI and n yeah, all right. Emi (34:57.942) replace people because these organizations that, know, Ford is not the only one who realized their fuck up and go, it's actually not replacing the institutional knowledge that their employees have. They need to take a more conservative approach and think as AI as a co-pilot. Yeah. See how it works first, you know, see how it actually produces where it produces efficiencies. And then you're not going to make the mistakes that, you know, that Ford made and having to Joel Cheesman (35:07.747) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (35:20.153) Mm-hmm. Emi (35:25.196) revert back and basically swallow their pie, pick up the phone and rehire the people that they actually let go. How does that look to the market? It looks like they haven't thought things through. They don't have a proper strategy. yeah, I think it's a stupid mistake to make, but unfortunately, a lot of companies are making that mistake. I'm going to save so much money. This is going to look great for the shareholders if I can reduce their headcount and still increase revenue. People need to be a little bit more wiser. So that's my thoughts when it comes to Ford. And when it comes to Meta, well, know, Meta, he look about, because he's an idiot. Yeah. I mean, I mean, look at him. He puts so much into, he's trying to compete so hard with the anthropics of the worlds and in open AIs. And it's like, yeah, you know, this is, we're going to compete. We're going to be a major player. It's like. Joel Cheesman (36:02.115) Move fast and break things, Ed Meta, yeah. Joel Cheesman (36:17.433) Mm-hmm. Emi (36:18.392) Meta, you're a bit of a dinosaur right now. And they're making mistake upon mistake upon mistake. And again, he's made another real public mistake in this area. AI isn't working the way he imagined. It's not bringing the efficiencies that he imagined. The the agentic AI is not moving as fast as that he expected. And he thought that all of this was going to, this is a good reason for him to get rid of a whole bunch of people because And whoever was left deployed them into eight more AI departments. Again, the decisions he's making doesn't sound like they're properly thought through. And what's that doing is damaging his brand, is damaging trust with the market because it looks like he doesn't know what he's doing and having to admit publicly that he's done wrong. Joel Cheesman (37:08.505) Which is weird 'cause we we have some hidden hidden camera footage of Mark Zuckerberg in his bathroom. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (37:21.399) So it's funny you say market and embarrassed because I think the market is why companies do stupid shit in in some cases because there was like a we're still in it. There was a two, three year period where if you weren't laying off people because of AI and efficiencies, like something must be wrong and the market penalized you for it. So companies were almost incentivized to say like layoffs. Emi (37:35.159) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:51.621) AI, efficiency, costs, cost savings. Like, and from Ford to Meta to really almost everybody, every public company was talking about layoffs and blaming it on AI and head like that. We need this. So it's it's no surprise to so if you didn't do that, like you know, in contrast, you got killed. Why why aren't you laying off people? Why aren't you cutting headcount? Like, what's wrong with you? It was almost bad. Emi (37:53.89) Woo! Sightings. Joel Cheesman (38:20.259) to keep people and to keep you know, keep good people that were there because AI was gonna take every job out there because Elon Elon says so. but obviously that is not happening certainly with every organization, probably not most organizations, which lead us to a little bit of a history lesson, Emmy. Emi (38:28.193) Yeah. Emi (38:37.844) Okay, tell me. Joel Cheesman (38:40.759) So I had a I have a friend who in two thousand and six, five or six or so, started a business of or he had a business of staffing car companies with executives. The car the car industry putting together cars is incredibly inefficient and difficult and disparate and it's awful. So 2008 happened. His business kind of is chugging along, and then 2008 happens. Two thousand and eight happens, what happened? The world fell apart. the government comes in and they save the car companies. They say, We'll give you this loan, but you have to do A, B, and C. And one of those things they had to do was they needed to cut the real expensive headcount. So the the people that were real experienced had been there for a long time, they all got buyouts, early retirement, et cetera. They didn't necessarily want to retire, but the company really had no choice because they were taking money from the government. So my friend Emi (39:24.248) Mm. Joel Cheesman (39:38.519) He he now had this business where all these experienced executives were unemployed, got a big paycheck, still wanted to work, but didn't want to necessarily work a full-time job. So my my friend, his business went a you know, parabolic because all these car companies were like, you know, we had to lay Joe off because of the because of the deal. Emi (40:03.084) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:03.107) But we need Joe back because Joe only Joe knows how to do A, B, and C. So they were willing to pay whatever it they had to pay to get Joe back as a contractor. They're they're paying him more than they were as an employee because now he's a contractor. Correct. Correct. So cargo, they're paying Joe. Now they got to pay Joe a lot to retire. And now they're going to pay Joe a lot to come back as a contractor. That's kind of what's happening. Like companies have said. Emi (40:13.656) So they paid, yeah. Emi (40:19.116) to do the same job that he was doing before. Yeah. Emi (40:31.095) Yes. Joel Cheesman (40:32.459) Okay, AI, we gotta lay people off like, shit, we need these people. AI can't fix a carburetor or whatever it is, right? And so now they have to come back and sort of recalculate what the the headcount is. And I think we're gonna see this in a lot of businesses. People have over they have overshot the AI story and they're gonna have to to bring people back. I think it's good. For the short term, my question is now all these experienced people are gonna train the AI better, I guess, or or more or longer period, to then have AI take their job because they've learned everything from Joe, the real experienced guy. But in the short term, I think it's a good thing for a lot these workers. But long term, you're basically creating the the monster that's gonna eat you at some point. Emi (41:17.494) Yeah, but I think also that's the case, something that we talked about before. Yes, the role they have now may disappear, but I fully believe that new roles, roles that we haven't even thought about yet will actually appear. So those people, because they understand AI, they're the experts in AI, they trained those models, they will move pivot into another type of role. Joel Cheesman (41:24.345) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (41:38.497) And and they may become contractors, right? They may be like, okay, we know how to train the AI. we like we'll work with five car companies and their AI as opposed to work for one company. So I agree with you long term, more opportunities, more jobs. but for some people we'll be left behind. But a lot of people that can adapt, they'll do they'll do just fine. for reference, Ford has laid off around 10,000 people in the last year. So potentially a lot more people could be coming back to Ford. Emi (41:40.95) Yeah. Yeah. Emi (41:48.555) Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That would do well. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:06.731) if this AI adventure proves any any worse for them. Guys, we're gonna take a quick break. If you like what you've heard, please leave us a review, follow us on your podcast platform of choice, and you can even check us out on YouTube at youtube.com slash at Chad Cheese. We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (42:31.545) All right, Emmy, let's talk a little Gen X. Maybe Ford has taught us there's hope for an older worker because this story has no ray of sunshine, unfortunately. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Boston College's retirement study, that sounds like a real fun time, doesn't it? Retirement study. among Gen X Gen X Americans, aged fifty forty forty to sixty-five, fourteen percent were laid off at least once in the past decade. Emi (42:48.748) No. Joel Cheesman (42:59.681) And of those affected, nearly a quarter, predominantly Gen Xers in senior roles, have remained unemployed since, while Lumbers of those who found new work had to accept pay cuts. Emmy, as a card carrying member of Gen X just like me, what are your thoughts on Emi (43:15.096) Uh, did you just say that on live? Why? Do you understand how many times I lie about my age to people? You've just told people that I'm Gen X. I've been 35 for years. Thank you, Joel. Joel Cheesman (43:31.267) Sergey, edit that out. Emmy, as as as as an aficionado and knowing a lot of Gen Xers, what's your take on this news? Emi (43:32.929) Yeah, please. Emi (43:37.665) Yes. Yes, I do know a lot of Gen Xers. I am not a Gen Xer. No, This is why I have to botox my forehead to try and look younger. No, I do know what this is. Again, terrible doom and gloom. This is what you said at the beginning. Why is this happening? And I think it's again, we've talked about this topic before. It's ageism. know, people. Joel Cheesman (43:48.577) That's all right. Emi (44:06.081) As much as we may talk about or organisations may talk about the negatives of ageism, obviously we need to value people of all ages, people still have those lazy, outdated stereotypes. People still would think that, someone who's older won't be able to adapt fast enough. Or someone who's nearing, maybe they're in their 60s, this is just a placeholder job for them. Why are they going for this job? They're nearing retirement. They're not going to be here in a couple of years time. They're making all these kind of lazy assumptions about people. And unfortunately, that is affecting Gen Xers. You know, it is forcing people to do what I do, rely about their age or omit this age from their CVs. And it's the resume botox. Absolutely. You know, so it is a shame that this is still happening. Will it continue to happen? Unfortunately, yes, I do think it will continue to happen. And it's going we're going to see more and more Gen Xers. Joel Cheesman (44:48.321) Resume Botox. We've talked about that. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:00.419) Mm-hmm. Emi (45:04.106) on the market. And I think that if organizations don't kind of, I don't know what they need to do then, like they need to realize that when they're losing gen Xs, for example, like we said before with the Ford story, those people come with a lot of intellectual knowledge that's built up over years, whether it's like industry networks or, you know, just institutional knowledge that you can't replicate maybe in a younger workforce. Joel Cheesman (45:27.449) Mm-hmm. Emi (45:29.718) That's going to cause, that's going to result in massive issues for organizations, especially if they think that technology is going to take their roles. It's not, that's, Ford has actually proved that that doesn't happen. They're having to bring back people. So yeah, it is awful. I do hope organizations do change their minds. I do hope that especially the younger people in a workplace, they need to change their mind because they need to realize that they, at one point in time, will become those people who are affected by ageism. So how we resolve that, to be honest, I don't know. But they need to stop with things like this stealth tactics, this voluntary retirement programs, to try and get people out the door. They need to stop all that kind of business. Joel Cheesman (46:13.176) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (46:19.597) Yeah. Well, Emmy, I have waxed poetic many times on the show about the young people and how they need to like get their shit together, with with the economy and and the job marketplaces it is. So I'm gonna have a get off my lawn moment for my own generation. You ready? Emi (46:25.324) Yeah. Emi (46:37.004) Okay, go for it. Joel Cheesman (46:40.417) All right. So Gen X, Gen X has gotten screwed its whole life. Okay. We missed out on the free love of the sixties and seventies. We missed out on like punk punk rock. Sex would kill us and as we came into sex having age because AIDS was gonna kill everybody. drugs was the equivalent of your brains on a s on a skillet getting fried. The dot com crash happened shortly after we entered the workforce. the the we lost our homes from the real estate bust. I could go on and on and on. Emi (47:17.228) head itself. Joel Cheesman (47:18.765) But you would think like in our peak earning years, things would get better. But no, we're dealing with aging parents. Our children are growing up and leaving the house. We have a we're looming retirement. None of us have enough money saved up to retire. and now we're too old for the workplace. It's it's it sucks, but guess what, Gen X? Emi (47:37.57) But yet we need to work because everything's more expensive. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (47:42.893) The whole time we've been here, it sucked. And we've adapted and we've survived and we figured shit out. This is just the next step in figuring our shit out. There are things now that exist that did not exist when we were coming up. Okay. You can learn skills all over the internet. You you can start, you can vibe code new businesses. You can drive DoorDash. You can contract out your the skills that you've gotten. Like there's don't. Emi (47:44.632) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:12.109) Don't just expect a job to fall out, you know, out the sky and on your front door. Like you gotta make this shit happen. And the only thing that sucks is time is running out for you. So like now more than ever, you gotta get your ass in gear. If you're if you've been unemployed for a decade, I mean, damn. Like maybe maybe there's a reason why, and I there are people like that. But if we you've survived this long in Gen X, you can do it. You can do it, man. You can survive the next 10, 20 years. Until you know, ch whatever, whatever happens. The next thing that happens, we'll figure it out. But like whenever I see people like, it's the job and I can't get it and I gotta get less and I like you the world is amazing. You can figure it out. And Gen X, my people, you can do that. You can do it. Emi (48:58.626) You say that though, but some people need help. You're saying that you figure out where, how, where's the help? Who's doing that? Who's doing the things like combating ageism? No, but you can't just say that. Sometimes you need to like, how you gonna combat ageism? It's like, yeah, sorry, I read on the internet that you shouldn't discriminate against older workers, but you're still coming up against organizations who are thinking that way. So an individual can't always do that themselves when the system is against them. Joel Cheesman (49:07.683) The the internet, Emmy. The internet. Emi (49:29.026) So I don't think it's just a case of helping themselves. It is a hard place, but I think sometimes we recognize it's a hard place and help people. Joel Cheesman (49:30.361) The world is a hard place, Emmy. I don't you know I get it. I get it. And you're sitting there like you're a white male, like life has worked out for you, right? So so like so who who am I to be like, pull yourself up by the bootstraps? I get it. But what do you I mean like you gotta if you're gonna blame somebody, that's fine. Emi (49:44.466) Yeah, I wasn't going to say it, but you know, yeah, yeah, I'm like, I'm glad you came to that realisation. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:00.163) But it doesn't it to me it doesn't help. Emi (50:03.713) No, people need solution. Joel Cheesman (50:04.087) Yeah, yeah, you gotta look you gotta look in the mirror, kick your s like look, a a kick in the ass is still a step forward. So if my verbal kick in the ass is a step forward for somebody, like I get it. There are people that mentally or physically or have things that it just is it's just not gonna happen. So I'm not talking about those people. and look, th this isn't like a huge number. This is like ten to fifteen percent of the people out there. So the good news is most of us are fighting the good fight. They they are Emi (50:14.422) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (50:33.581) Getting up, getting their ass out of bed, and going forward. The people that aren't, if if you have reasons outside of just get off your ass, okay. But for those that aren't, like the world is a g is an amazing place. The opportunities are amazing, you can do this. This is an inspirational message, Emmy. I'm not Emi (50:51.416) OK. I mean, you're saying it's inspirational, but I'm thinking about the how many times I go on LinkedIn and I see people go, I'm just about to lose my home. I've depleted all my savings. I've applied to so many jobs. And I look at those people and yes, you know, if it was me, maybe I would just get up and I'll go work in McDonald's, you know, or I'd be a cleaner. I'll do anything to kind of bring in money. But sometimes people just don't know where to go and get help. They don't know. And I think things need to, there needs to be some way that we can actually better support people who are unemployed. It is a tough world out there. And I'm younger than you, so I never went through all the kind of, you know, the shit that you mentioned. Yeah, he's so much younger. But you know, I was there when the financial crisis happened and I was like, crap, you know, this is hard. How are we going to pay bills? You know, but you need to... Joel Cheesman (51:34.467) So much younger than me, yes. Joel Cheesman (51:46.273) I I do agree and and one of the topics coming f coming up, I do agree like the the landscape is different now. I do agree like adapting is different now. it's not just reach out to ten more people. It's not just apply to ten more jobs. It's so and I think people are are scared and confused about why what has changed. And I'm not sure there's a good answer. so I agree with that. but Emi (51:54.487) Mmm. Emi (52:02.273) Yeah send out more feelings. Emi (52:12.332) No. Joel Cheesman (52:15.961) What are the options? Okay. Emi (52:21.964) Somebody please help. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:22.431) Inspirational message, Emmy. And I'll I'll I'll underscore it American inspiration message, not a European inspiration message. So let's get back let's get on backtrack here. it's not just experienced gym gen Xers that have issues, Emmy. it turns out the entry-level jobs are in the crosshairs too. Scott Galloway now says working from home, not automation, is the real force behind the youth hiring crisis, for example, while others say the whole process is really broken and you shared this TikTok video, so I'll play that and you can chime in on the other side. Emi (52:57.304) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (53:49.923) Go, Emmy. This is your moment. This is your this is your shit's heart out there. Let's hear it. Emi (53:51.799) Wow. Okay, so remember literally just said people don't know what to do. Yeah, that video came out in the last couple of days. People are telling her, can't you just go out and take your CV out to businesses? That's not how you get a job now. You don't just walk down the road and go, hey, here's my CV, here's my CV, you know, for the majority of jobs. That's not how it works. You're applying online, but yet that's the advice that she's been given. So that's an example of where people need better job hunting advice because otherwise they're just going to get stuck in a hole and wonder, I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do. And it's like, actually you're not, you're not doing what it takes to actually get a job in 2026. And this whole fact of, you know, what exactly, a video of myself, how good I am and why I deserve washing dishes job. That's ridiculous. It's like, why are you putting barriers in place? Joel Cheesman (54:47.299) So what's interesting to me is I I don't I so to say like that's not how you d do it, f for whatever reason, companies have decided that, okay, job seeker, we're gonna we're gonna flip the script on you. We're gonna do all automated AI, whatever. The machines the machines are here. You guys need to figure this shit out. And Emi (55:09.613) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:13.355) A dishwasher does not need to submit an application into an ATS and like go through that process. Like we have taken out the nuance of hiring. We have taken out the humanity on one end of that spectrum, partly because the job seeker side is a lot of automation too. So you have automation on a lot of the job seeker side, but then you have real people that are being like just totally drowned by automated. Emi (55:39.032) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:40.383) applicants and then companies are forced to say, well, we need to have bots to fight the bots. And people like this woman, I think, are getting just sucked into the the undertow not knowing what the hell's going on, not knowing about application automation and rob like bots applying to jobs that don't qualify and is in this is in this predicament. And I don't know if there are humans on the end of the company to say, hey guys, we have real people getting s like trapped in into the the abyss that we're not talking to. So to me it's like the enterprise is giving up on people on the the pre screening on the funnel. Job seekers are flooding the funnel and people are getting screwed like this woman. There's no reason you say like it's not how you get jobs anymore, but like can she go to an employer and walk in the door anymore and say, hey, I want a dishwasher job Emi (56:14.081) Yeah. Emi (56:23.362) Okay. Joel Cheesman (56:38.797) My guess is they go, you gotta go to whatever dot com slash jobs and apply. And she goes, Okay. And then it's like, and then she's lost because the company said, Don't don't talk to people, send them into the ATS or send them into whatever. And it that's just it's just broken. It's Emi (56:42.88) Yeah. Yeah. How? Yeah. How do I do that? Emi (56:55.138) Yeah. along with a video about how good I am washing dishes. Joel Cheesman (57:01.953) I guess do a TikTok. I don't know. Like I I I get that. And that's not her fault. It's the system's fault. But we we as part of the system need to figure this shit out. Like I had I had someone in the industry, I won't name name names, but they are a published keynote speaker level employer brand person. Emi (57:03.032) Yeah. Nah. Emi (57:12.493) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (57:30.967) Decades in the industry, very well known. On the face of it, you would say if if if they got up if they got laid off today, in a week or two, they could make a few calls and be employed. That's not the case. And this is someone who, like I said, years of experience, published like cream of the crop on the on its face. They've told me that they've applied to over a hundred opportunities and gotten two interviews. Emi (58:04.376) Cool. Joel Cheesman (58:07.385) She's not a dishwasher. She's she's not like an entry level hourly frontline person. If that's happening on both ends of that spectrum, we got a problem. And and she know they know the industry and can't doesn't have good answers. You know, they come to me like, Do you have an answer? Like, I don't have a great answer. I I don't know I don't know why it is the way that it is. Are there no more people to make a nuanced decision? Emi (58:11.553) Yeah. Emi (58:24.439) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (58:35.125) As to like, crap, we have an A player who's on the market. Let's go. It would be like it'd be like dating if you picked your dates totally o by automation. Like, I don't care to see them, I don't care to look at what they've done. Like, just let the bots figure it out. And then somebody some sh dude shows up at your door that was nothing what you expected. But it's like we've we've totally taken the human out of this and it's just mind boggling because no one is winning. Emi (58:55.681) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (59:04.483) Companies aren't hiring this qualified person and that qualified person is like, What the hell's wrong with this system? Emi (59:09.782) Yeah, but yet organizations will say, we care about the candidate experience. Gee, though, and what are you doing? Are you doing enough? It's like you're not. You focus on efficiency. You focus on yes. Yeah. Move faster, do more with less. And then you're impacting job seekers in this case. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (59:17.431) No. No. They care about saving money, shareholder value, the you know, and I and I also think there's a lot of like Joel Cheesman (59:33.721) So I I I agree that there's some real shit, stupid shit going on. you still have to adapt though until that shit's fixed. On the on the Galloway, on the Galloway stuff, this was interesting. I know, I know I I threw it at you pretty late before the show. You may I don't know if you have any input on this, but like so Galloway, who I think is really intriguing, he's not always right. In fact, he's wrong a lot, but he is thought provoking. And his his thesis is that look, work from home has broken the traditional Emi (59:39.864) It's so harsh! Joel Cheesman (01:00:02.133) apprenticeship model for entry level workers. And they've they've gone from sort of face to face engaging, important part of the workforce to being a liability that I have to babysit at a distance. And I would much rather retrain or reskill someone who has been in the organization and that I know than have someone new come in and have to deal with that. And I do think there is some some truth to that. he talks about remote onboarding. Think about the last you know, think about your first employer out of out of university or your first professional job. How important was onboarding? Here's the rules, kid. here's your boss, here's your coworkers, like super important. If you had to do that from a distance from a remote location, like how awful? How awful would that be? you know, hand holding over Zoom doesn't work very well. and I think that there is something to be said for that. I also think proximity builds empathy, builds connection. funny so little little story here, a little more history time. I won't play the soundbite. but when I was my first job at in this industry was a company called East Ban, which became job options. Anyway, it was really fun in the in the in the nineties to like work for a dot com, wear jeans on Friday. That was like a cool thing. And then and then every Friday we would have employee breakfast. Emi (01:01:28.056) Cool. Joel Cheesman (01:01:33.441) Which meant people would sign up literally to bring in a breakfast. And most people would bring in a casserole, they'd bring whatever it was, right? And then and then me and another guy in his twenties, we said, okay, let we got to do breakfast. Let's do it like we would do it. So we brought in, we brought in like a whole bunch of White Castle sliders and cold pizza. Because that's how we would. So it's a little sandwich, a little cheeseburger. Emi (01:01:42.092) Yeah. Emi (01:01:57.794) What's the White Castle Slider? Yeah. No, no, That's not here. Joel Cheesman (01:02:02.467) You know, you know White Castle? No? Okay. So White C it's a little, it's a little hamburger called sliders. You slide the bead. Anyway, they're really greasy. They're like late night, drunk, hungover food. The point is, while everyone's bringing in like breakfast casseroles, we bring in cold pizza and cheeseburgers. But it was great because everyone's like, this is the Emi (01:02:10.092) Yeah. Emi (01:02:25.013) Love it. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:02:29.329) This is the piece that these idiots play in this company. They make us laugh. They're young. They're stupid. Like, okay, we get it. You can't do that in a remote environment. So like I think that you when you lose out on that, it definitely makes it suffer. And I do think that AI is a scapegoat. It's very it's much easier to say, like, AI is doing that. We don't need those people. We don't need intra-level people versus like the hard work of, you know what? It's really hard to onboard and work with people. Emi (01:02:31.68) Yeah Joel Cheesman (01:02:58.679) Over Zoom. Emi (01:03:00.876) Okay, I'm gonna have a slightly different view, okay? And I'll tell you why. I used to be the same, know? Until the pandemic, I was always in office. The idea of working remotely never even crossed my mind. just, you know, it wasn't allowed in my organizations. And then I moved back to the UK, joined an organization, fully remote, but I had to upskill people in my team. And I was like, how the hell will I do that? How do I do that? You know? Joel Cheesman (01:03:15.574) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (01:03:27.769) Mm-hmm. Emi (01:03:30.316) But I learned. I learned and I was successful and I developed new skills. I adapted. I adapted. I did. Yeah. So what I say now is that is it harder? Yes. For most people, maybe of our generation, it will be harder because we didn't grow up working in a remote environment. So it's a new skill that we had to learn. But for the younger generation, it's actually not that bad, you know, because they will know no different because many organizations are either hybrid or remote now. Joel Cheesman (01:03:35.331) You adapted. Emi (01:04:00.535) So it's just a new skill that managers need to learn, just like everything else, how to onboard people. And you can still create that. Okay, it's not the same as you bringing in the cold pizzas, which I think is cool. And I do get like meeting people in person is fun. And it's like, and I love it. I've got people in my team that I've been in my company four years. I think I've met them three times. One of them I met once, and she's in Idaho. Joel Cheesman (01:04:17.721) Mm-hmm. Emi (01:04:28.372) We still have a great bond. We're looking at each other on Zoom and we still have a great connection. And I'm still able to kind of help upskill her. We're still able to forge a strong relationship within a team. Yes, it's harder, but it's a new skill like any other skill that you need to develop. So I don't think it's right. Yeah, they're younger than me. Yeah, so these are people in my team. All my team are younger than me. Yeah, Yeah, no, they're not out of school. Joel Cheesman (01:04:43.95) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:04:47.917) And these are young people you're mentoring. Joel Cheesman (01:04:54.509) Talking out out of school. We're talking entry level. Emi (01:04:58.25) No, but okay, not okay. These are not entry level ones in my team, but in the previous organizations, I have been entry level. You know, we, we hired people on an apprenticeship scheme and had to learn how to upskill them remotely and they worked. Yeah, it worked. So I think it's just a lazy. Absolutely. Yeah. Provide the training, teach people how to do that. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:05:11.801) Remotely. Okay. So get get your shit together organization and and you can do it. Yeah. I I what scares me about young people, and I have two teenagers, the communicate it's different. Like they would rather text me from the same room than like speak to me. so how that's gonna translate in their professional lives, I don't know. but good luck, good luck to them. Emi (01:05:28.76) Is it? Emi (01:05:32.696) God. Yeah. Emi (01:05:38.808) You Joel Cheesman (01:05:41.677) Guys, we are gonna take a break. we'll be right back. If you haven't left us a review, please do so. We want to hear from you. And until then, we'll be right back to talk about robots in the hotel. Emi (01:05:52.472) Yes please, yay! Joel Cheesman (01:06:03.393) All right, Emmy, this last segment is sponsored by free t-shirts. Who doesn't love free t-shirts, especially when they're from Chad and Cheese? They're like a little hug from Chadme, you know, a little, little soft, little tri-blend hug from from Chadme. Anyway, we we got Aaron Apt to thanks for that. The company, the company behind all those red shoes you're seeing on social media. you're not limited to hearing Chad and Cheese. You can wear us as well. Just head to ChadCheese.com/slash free. Emi (01:06:18.274) That's selling it, isn't it? Joel Cheesman (01:06:32.493) To get your hug virtually in the form of a t-shirt from Chad and Cheese. Now let's get to robot hotels. You know what, Emmy? Who needs humans anyway? You know, a Chinese startup plans to build the world's first fully robot operated hotel by 2027. The hotel will feature robots for everything from check-in, room service, cleaning, luggage handling, and guest support. No word yet. Emi (01:06:43.671) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:07:00.657) of Fimbots roaming the halls for lonely business travelers, but you know you know it's coming. Emmy, are you ready to check into the Robot Hotel or is this one a non starter for you? Emi (01:07:04.64) It'll come, it'll come, yep. Emi (01:07:12.12) Okay, so kind of get it. I think there'll be a market for it. Maybe those hotels will be cheaper because they're not having to pay for human staff. So, you know, instead of going into, maybe that's what the three star hotels are going to be for the future. I don't like it though, you know, because sometimes when I go on holiday, I want the full human service. I want to know that if I'm hungry, I can call downstairs for room service. I want to know that if something goes Joel Cheesman (01:07:25.753) Mm-hmm. Emi (01:07:41.985) wrong, that I've got an empathetic employee at the end of the line, he can sort out shit and a robot can't, the robot can do many things, you know, it can check in, maybe it can check me in, like, you know, some people are doing now, maybe it can take my luggage to my particular room, maybe it can look after the cleaning side of things. But when I, when I think of a hotel, many hotels, there's like a luxury for me, it's somewhere, which is part of my holiday, not all, you know, obviously, if I'm on a work trip, then maybe it's not that. Joel Cheesman (01:07:46.691) Mm-hmm. Emi (01:08:11.416) But nine times out of 10, I want a human touch. So is there a place for this? Yes, I think there is a place for this. I think it will bring down prices. But I still think those premium hotels are going to be the ones that have humans in conjunction with robots. Joel Cheesman (01:08:14.563) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:08:29.922) Okay. Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:08:35.321) So for the record, Emmy only stays at five star hotels and luxurious ro locations. So it makes sense. It makes sense that she would want that. She has not stayed at the Holiday Inn in Stevenage, preparing for for Nebworth and Wreckfest. because if she had stayed there, she would be way into robots doing the entire process. isn't Airbnb mostly automated? I mean, like you have an app. Emi (01:08:38.264) I'm bougie like that. Oh no. Oh no. Joel Cheesman (01:09:03.489) You talk virtually, get the code, you're like I think we're being trained for this anyway. I I'm all for it. I'm for like I agree with you. There are gonna be two tiers, right? This is the K-shaped economy. If you're staying at the La Quinta Inn, the Motel 6, the Holiday Inn at Stevenage, you're gonna be fine with automation. You're gonna be fine with like kiosk, take my money, give me my key, get the hell out of my way. you know. Emi (01:09:10.392) Kinda, yeah. Emi (01:09:15.554) Mm. Emi (01:09:26.067) Yeah. Emi (01:09:29.503) In-N-Out. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:09:31.869) Room service, I guess. if you you could probably have an app like call service or press a button and some service will come to you. so I think that if on that tier, the people hate working there anyway. Like just give me a r I'm kinda I feel kind of embarrassed I'm there anyway. I like no one likes like just let me give my key and let me get on with my miserable life. If you're at a four seasons like Emmy, if you're at you know, if you're at the Ritz Carlton like Emmy, no. Robots aren't gonna cut it. You need that you need that white glove service. You need that, hi Emmy, welcome back. Glad to see you again. you're gonna want that nice housekeeping with that robe that's nice and warm because they just washed it, you know. Yeah, like that. Yeah, the the chef service on the ro you know, the room service meal. So yeah, I yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think I think this is gonna be a thing. Like just like McDonald's, it's a kiosk, the cheap hotel. Emi (01:10:07.852) Yes! Emi (01:10:14.544) fluffy, exactly. The folded towels in a swan shape on the bed, I want that, you know, yeah. Emi (01:10:29.933) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:10:31.201) Gonna be a kiosk. Gonna shoot a ticket at you and say, like, here's your checkout. Make sure you leave it, leave it behind. Leave it behind. Robot. Yeah, the ro the robots are coming. Everybody. All right. And because I'm back, Emmy, the dad jokes are back. That's right. You know, you know you missed it. You know you love it. All right, here we go. Emi (01:10:33.11) Yeah. Absolutely. The markets there just not for me. Emi (01:10:46.184) Woohoo! I missed this. Joel Cheesman (01:10:57.111) Why did the robot go on a diet? Why did the robot go on a diet? It had too many bites. Emi (01:11:05.96) no. god no. That's rubbish. Joel Cheesman (01:11:09.721) All right, maybe you like this one. How do robots eat salsa, Emmy? How do robots eat salsa? Emi (01:11:16.639) No idea. Joel Cheesman (01:11:17.569) With microchips. Microchips. Salsa. Emi (01:11:22.496) You're, you're, you're, no. Okay, Joel, your dad jokes used to be so funny. What's happening? Joel Cheesman (01:11:30.669) I was gone for a month. Give me I need to warm up a little bit. I'll bring it I'll get better next week. Okay. I will adapt to the situation in me and I will get better and embrace the opportunity. We out. Emi (01:11:35.392) Yes, Yes, please. Emi (01:11:42.935) We out! Woo!

Hiring 3,000 People Without Losing Our Minds "We went from 34% fully staffed to 96% fully staffed on Day One." When your business relies on placing 3,000 part-time coaches onto school grounds in a chaotic six-to-eight-week summer sprint, missing your hiring targets isn't just an inconvenience it's a operational nightmare that damages client relationships and drowns your staff in administrative chaos. In this episode, HR’s most dangerous hosts, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman, sit down with Kristen Reilly, the SVP of Talent at Elevo Learning. Kristen shares the incredible story of how Elevo flipped the script on their massive seasonal hiring bottleneck. By tossing out archaic, manual workflows and going "all in" on conversational AI technology, they completely transformed their talent acquisition strategy. What you'll hear in this episode: The 96% Pivot An EMPS Skyrocket The Next Frontier Expansion & Growth "We’re bringing in AI technologies so we can utilize the skill sets of our teams to be people first." - Kristen Reilly, SVP of Talent at Elevo Learning Enjoy! PART 2 - AI Helped Us Grow PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman: We are the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman, joined as always, Chad Sowash is here as we welcome Kristen Reilly, SVP of Talent at Elevo Learning. Kristen, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash: Elevo, Elevo. Joel Cheesman: Is that "I-A, I-A, I-A, Elevo"? I don't know. We're working on, are we, are we white boarding some marketing strategies here today? Kristen Reilly: Or worse, we're writing Elevo's new jingle. Joel Cheesman: Why not? Yes. So for those listeners and viewers that don't know you or Elevo, give us the elevator pitch on you and the company. I see what you did there. I see what you did. Kristen Reilly: The elevator for Elevo. Joel Cheesman: It set you up perfectly, didn't it? Kristen Reilly: That was great. Yeah. So as an organization, our goal is to transform the lives of students so they look forward to coming to school. We primarily work in the state of California and we support before school, after school programs, daytime support, student wellness, mental health programs, things like that to really benefit the communities that we're serving. I have been with Elevo for about five years. My career journey there has been an interesting one. So I actually started on the sales side of the organization before moving over to operations where I oversaw all of our operations in California, and now here I am on the talent acquisition side of things. Joel Cheesman: And all the people. Kristen Reilly: And all the people. Joel Cheesman: And you're on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Kristen Reilly: And I'm on the Chad and Cheese podcast. I was going to say uphill. I mean, it's feeling real good right now. I'm peaking now. Joel Cheesman: It's downhill after this. Sorry. Kristen Reilly: This is it. This is the end of the road. Joel Cheesman: Sorry to let you know. And you're a proud Chicagoan, a Bears fan we found out beforehand, so. Kristen Reilly: I am. Born and raised. Yep. Yep. Bears and Cubs. Joel Cheesman: This is their year, right? Kristen Reilly: This is their year. Last year was a good one, though. It was fun. It was a fun season, though. Chad Sowash: Well, after the few years before, any year would have been a good year. Kristen Reilly: Yeah, that's true. Chad Sowash: With that being said, tell us about how many, how many hires are you doing a year? How many people apply? Like, give us a sense of the numbers you're dealing with. Kristen Reilly: Yeah. So we hire about 3,000 part-time people every single year. It is a very high-volume, short timespan to do the hiring. So we usually are hiring those 3,000 people in about a 6- to 8-week period of time from... Chad Sowash: Why, why is that? Kristen Reilly: Because we, we follow the model of, like, the school year. Okay. So most of our programs run from, like, when school starts, so like middle of August to, you know, the end of May, beginning of June. And so we're doing the hiring for all of those programs, like middle of June through that mid-August. So it is a very, very high peak time when we are attracting candidates for these roles. And then we hire probably about 50 full-time people per year on top of the part-time hiring that we do do. Chad Sowash: What kind of talent are you hiring in that short amount of time? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. So the demographic of what we call our coaches, so these are our team members that are, like, out on the field and supporting the students day in and day out. Depending on the program that we are hiring for, they are usually about 18 to 25 years old. So either, you know, just kind of start at college or recent college graduates, people that have a passion for working with children, have a passion for, you know, bettering their communities, perhaps are going into education. We really look for people that, um, you know, maybe have coached a sport before. We're really big on movement, so learning through movement. And so we really look to people that have experience in that area. Joel Cheesman: So I notice that you guys do a lot of job posting. At that age group as well, you're looking into social media and other outlets. What are, what are some of the best performing marketing channels that you see? Say TikTok, say TikTok. Kristen Reilly: Yeah. You know, I will, you know, we don't, we don't do that much posting on TikTok, crazy enough. We do Meta, so we do a lot of Instagram posting. But I, you know, crazy as it is, most of the talent that we do recruit comes from Indeed and Handshake. So, you know, Handshake being that platform that really utilizes partnerships with colleges and universities, and because that is the demographic that we're really aiming to attract, we have found that about 70% of our candidates, even if they do apply through Indeed, have had some sort of contact with Handshake. Chad Sowash: So knowing that, obviously, you're going out there and you're pulling in a lot of candidates. You can't hire them all. Is there, is there kind of like a time frame in which that candidate just isn't going to be good for the organization anymore? So like, is it like a two-year kind of like wash-out period or what is it? Kristen Reilly: You know, it really depends on the region of it all. It's so crazy how vastly different the demographic is from each community in California. You know, going from like Southern California to Northern California, Central Coast to the Central Valley, very different. Um, but we've had coaches with us for 3 to 4 years. Okay. Chad Sowash: So that's a long term then. 4 years is... Kristen Reilly: Yeah, it's long term. But I would say on average it's about a 2-year life cycle before they either, you know, have grown their career and move on to, you know, somewhere else that we've helped them flourish into, or they will be promoted into a full-time role within the organization. So when we look at our full-time roles within the company, over 60% came from coaching roles originally. Chad Sowash: Now do you see the track for a lot of those, let's say, let's say just from a persona standpoint, are they going toward their teaching, teaching degree, or are they, you know, like you'd said, coaching sports? I mean, what's, what's really the sweet spot that you get most of your really good candidates? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. You know, it's, it's such a mix, but some of them, yes, are going towards their teaching degree. But really mostly they just have a passion for working with children, and whether they're going into like psychology or whether they're going into early childhood development or elementary education or para-educators we see a lot come through. And then people that are really passionate about coaching. So we'll get like a lot of soccer coaches or baseball coaches or basketball coaches. But then we'll get, you know, stay-at-home moms that want to support the children in their after-school programs or people that are teaching during the day and then come and support the after-school program or the before-school program as well. Joel Cheesman: Okay, so you're getting a lot of success with Handshake, Indeed, some other channels. What was the catalyst to look at Paradox, to plug that technology into what you were doing? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. So actually, my predecessor is the one that brought Paradox into the organization because she had been using it previously at the company she was at. Um, and I, and what really was the most appealing about Paradox was the amount of administrative time that we could reduce for our recruiters so they could do the important thing and actually get in front of the candidates, um, and ensure that like we were putting like people first and not spending hours and hours on like the backend to get the qualified people in front of our teams. Chad Sowash: So say more, what are those things that you could actually take off their plate that technology could actually do instead? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Yeah, so a big part of before we had Paradox was that a recruiter would come in every morning and they would have to scan all of the applications that came in, they'd have to scan all of the resumes that came in, and then they would do reach out to those people to schedule interviews. Chad Sowash: Manually. Kristen Reilly: Manually. So that was at least 3 hours every single morning that was taking place. And then you had to deal with people actually answering their phones or calling back to schedule the interviews, and then how long is that going to take for people to do that? Paradox has completely wiped all of that out for us. So now a recruiter comes in in the morning and their calendar is stacked with all of the interviews that they're doing day in and day out, and they're not having to go and review all of these candidates and review qualifications because Paradox has done that for us. Um, and then they're not managing having to reach out to people to schedule interviews because again, Paradox has taken care of all of that for us. Joel Cheesman: One of the things I found fascinating on your career site is you are all in on Paradox. Kristen Reilly: Yes. Joel Cheesman: It's not, it's not a little widget on the side. If you go to job postings, it's a, an Olivia job posting. If you click apply, you actually go to the chat window. Was that like pulling teeth to get that done? Was that an easy sale because you also have, I think, Jazz HR is doing your ATS? And that's still on your Indeed postings. So you're sort of splitting that and that's really interesting to me. Talk about those decisions. Kristen Reilly: So we originally were going to go all in with Paradox and leave Jazz HR behind. Um, but what we found is because of the size and scope in which we were building out the Paradox implementation, um, focusing it on our part-time hires seemed like the right thing to do right now. And so we kept Jazz HR in the background for our full-time hires because as an organization, we had launched a lot of new tech stacks last April. We migrated completely from Google to Microsoft, we went into ADP, we were launching Paradox, we were launching another software called HR Cloud. So... Chad Sowash: Change management's hard. Kristen Reilly: Yeah. It was like tech stack saturation. So people were, were drowning, and so the idea of having to now launch a new system on how we did full-time recruitment for hiring managers seemed a bit, a bit too much. However, as we move forward, we will be bringing Paradox into all components of hiring. But right now it's just on the part-time side of things. Joel Cheesman: And that'll be your ATS as well going forward? Kristen Reilly: Correct. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Can you compare and contrast the Jazz experience with the Paradox? Kristen Reilly: Oh, I mean, it's, it's, it's like it's comparing, you know, you're talking about something that is so elementary compared to what Paradox can do. Joel Cheesman: Is that drastic? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. I mean, there is no, Jazz HR is all manual. Um, there was a moment where we were doing all of our part-time hiring, we were using HubSpot, which is not designed for recruitment. We were using Jazz HR. And every piece of it was manual, every single piece. So it's like, you know, comparing, um, you know, like roll-down windows to power windows and like, you know. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like a tech... Chad Sowash: Analog. Kristen Reilly: Yeah, no. And you know, like VCRs to what we're doing now with streaming. Chad Sowash: Well, let's dig into that in the actual tech itself. So, uh, you're using an, an older, you know, applicant tracking system, right? And it is very manual, so you have to go in and it's form-based and so on and so forth. And everybody's been through that hell. Right? So I think anybody listening or watching knows what we're talking about. What is different, because you said it's, it's, it's totally different, night and day, tell us, tell us how it's, how it's different. Kristen Reilly: Well, I think just even the user experience alone is so simplified and so... Chad Sowash: Candidate side? Kristen Reilly: On both. On both. On both, on the candidate side, on the organizational side. So from a candidate perspective, and especially for the demographic that we're recruiting for, so it's that age that is like they are on their phones. Like that, that phone is, you know, a part of who they are. And so now we use, with using Paradox, it's like right there on their phone, they're text messaging our Olivia, who we call Maya within our organization. They're texting Maya to apply for that job, then they're texting Maya to get their job offer, they're signing it right there. Jazz HR, that was all manual work. It was emailing, too. We weren't texting through Jazz HR. So now we're working with a demographic that's so used to being on a phone and saying, wait a second, now you have to go into an email and then you have to figure out how to DocuSign this offer letter that we just sent you or somehow upload it, which is very foreign, you know. Um, and then hope that you're gonna get that offer letter to us before you start going through your 189 million steps that you have to do to onboard with our organization. So Paradox has eliminated that completely is just the ease of application. And then for recruiters, it's the same thing. They're not manually now trying to find offer letters and sign dates. It's all right there for them. Mhm. Joel Cheesman: Frictionless. And another thing that stood out to me on your site, you are also all in on DEI. Kristen Reilly: Yes. Joel Cheesman: Which personally is refreshing because that has, that's almost in the past for most comp, for most companies. So kudos, kudos to, to embracing that as well. Curious about your thoughts on that. I assume that's who you're recruiting and that's your, that's your constituency. But to me, the Paradox system is inclusive. Everyone has a phone. Everyone has time to, to bang out an application on the phone. Did those two seem to intersect? Was that part of the thought process? Kristen Reilly: Absolutely. Yeah, that was definitely a big part of the thought process. And even as we've adopted to Paradox and we're looking at virtual interviews versus phone screens, like what we wanted to make sure is that even if we do a virtual interview versus like a phone screen, that we have, um, the ability to amend that and say, you know what, if you don't have the, the resources to get on a screen, like that's okay, we can do it as a phone screen because we really want to make sure that we aren't limiting application applicants to apply because they might not have the technology or tools because they could be the best, they could be that best person um, for those children in their communities. Yep. Joel Cheesman: Any metrics around completed applications versus the old system? Rejection rate versus... Chad Sowash: Yeah, like, how are the numbers issue? Kristen Reilly: Yeah, numbers have, have drastically improved, and not only from, for me when it comes to like an application completion rate, um, because we're getting, it's like, and I'm going to throw out some numbers here that could be a bit off, but we're getting I want to say about 30,000 applicants. So we're talking about a lot of applicants that are coming through. Um, and what was happening is those applicants weren't even being responded to half of the time because... Black hole. Chad Sowash: Yeah, who, who's going to have time to respond to that? Right, right. Kristen Reilly: But now everything's all set up in Paradox. So as they move through their dispositions, we have workflows set up with different messaging. So even if they don't move through the process, like they're still having a connection to Elevo, we can still build brand awareness, um, so in the future if we need more roles or we can get to them, um, it's all built out right there. And then we move them into talent communities. Uh, so I would say that that has been huge when it comes to like application flow. But then once an application is signed, they have to move into onboarding. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Kristen Reilly: And that is where we have struggled a lot as an organization is just all the steps to go through onboarding. And while we don't onboard through Paradox, the simplicity that Maya has given us to focus then on getting applicants in that the other teams now can really focus on onboarding and creating that bandwidth has really changed, um, how many people that we can actually get through our... Chad Sowash: Is that the next step? Is onboarding the next step? Kristen Reilly: That's the dream. Okay. Um, so in a perfect world, Paradox would be doing all of our recruitment as an ATS system and our onboarding. We're not there yet for several different reasons, um, mostly because our onboarding is, is really complex. However, we're working right now with the Paradox team to see if we can build it all out because if we can take Olivia through that whole experience, I mean, we're talking about thousands upon thousands of hours that can be saved every year in manual work. And again, putting our team in front of the people, which is most important. Chad Sowash: Yeah, and, and talk about that. What, what kind of response, because we talked about what the recruiters would have to do. I'm sure the hiring managers, all that, there was just a lot of admin work. Yeah. Right? What was the response? How, how during the change management, because usually change management management sucks. It does. Yep. How, how have you gotten responded back to by recruiters and hiring managers around now this tech from an adoption standpoint, mhm. and are they embracing it? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Oh, embracing it is, is an understatement. I think it's changed their lives. Um, interestingly enough, whether Acne cleared up. It's like everything. Whether you want to look at like EMPS because Paradox was brought in, but um, when we had done our employee engagement surveys like pre-Paradox, which was also, you know, you know, different, different people leading the team, though, like we were looking at like a 16 for our our EMPS. When, since, yeah, ouch is right. Um, we've obviously changed leadership within the team, but we brought in Paradox. That EMPS is now sitting at a 68. Oh, wow. So we're seeing like, can you say that again? It went from... From a 16 to a 68, and that is in a year's time. A year's time? A year's time. Yeah. So we actually went from 16 to like 42, then 42 up to 68 over the past, you know. Joel Cheesman: Is it too early to translate that into retention numbers, even if it's anecdotal? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Well, I would say we have, our attrition is very low from a full-time perspective. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: And do you trace that back to the initial experiences that they have? Kristen Reilly: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that while we can look at other reasons, of course, that people are happier in their, in their roles, there's so much more like ownership of making a difference now that that manual lift is out of the picture. Because I think there's a lot of um, there's a lot of debate and there's a lot of concern sometimes that that people think, okay, well AI is going to replace me, right? And you know, we're bringing in this technology and you're going to no longer need the recruiter, you're no longer going to need the team that's onboarding. But it's actually the exact opposite of that. We're bringing in AI technologies so we can utilize the skill sets of our teams to be people first, and we want that human interaction and we want the people to be meeting who are, who's coming into our organization. And now we're giving the ability to actually do that in a way that's meaningful and powerful. But the... Joel Cheesman: The job is different, though. It is, yeah. The skill sets are different. Talk about that. Kristen Reilly: I would say, you know, skill set's different kind of, but I, I think that the biggest shift for our team is the fact that they can now spend more time in front of people, and that is what they're really passionate about. And when you ask anybody about admin time, or it's like that's what drains them, right? That's kind of like that's what's sucking the the energy from them, right? Their life. Chad Sowash: Yeah, giving them that acne. Kristen Reilly: Yeah, exactly. And it's... Skin spots. Yeah, the grey hairs. And it's, it's being in front of the people that's like energizing and filling their cups. And yes, can that be exhausting? Of course. But that is why, you know, you go into talent acquisition is for the people. And so now we've taken the, the quote-unquote busy work out of their days and given them the actual things that they enjoy to do. And, and what's been really cool to see is we just launched Paradox last April, right? Chad Sowash: Really? Yeah, so it's not... A baby. Kristen Reilly: Yeah, it's just a baby. We're in our infancy with Paradox. We've grown in a year. Yeah. Yeah, and so what happened was if you think about us launching in April and then we go into peak hiring June, okay? Yeah, ooh. So when, and I had just moved over to talent acquisition in February, so this was all very new to me, too. So there was a lot of learning that had to be done for myself, for my team, um, understanding the systems. But what's been so great is we learned so much through that like first peak that the team has actually come together as a recruitment team and we've put together these um working sessions where they've really designed like how they want to see Paradox and recruitment work going into this peak season. They're a part of it. And they're a part of it, and because they're a part of it, they're so invested in what they're doing and they're so excited to like showcase the work, and then we have had such an amazing Paradox team, though. I mean, they spend, they spend a lot of time with us. I think, um, we've spent probably been in Paradox meetings for 2 hours a day over the last 3 weeks working through a new process that we needed to get in place by April 20th, and the support that they've been giving us is is the reason that we've been so successful with using it as our ATS. Chad Sowash: So have you taken a lot of this information, a lot of these stats, uh, to the executives? Yes. What, what, what's, what's their feedback and what, what is really sticking with them? What are they coming back to you and saying, that's the point that matters to us? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Well, um, you know, I am fortunate that I report directly to our CEO and founder, Chris. Um, we have co-CEOs and founders, so Chris and Nick, and I, I sit on the executive leadership team. So what's really great is seeing this last peak season using Paradox, we launched our programs at 96% fully staffed, which when you're thinking about that rate and 3,000 people needing to be placed in programs like that is a very significant number. We look at the year before, we launched our programs at 34% fully staffed. Chad Sowash: Whoa. Stop it. You went from 34% to 96%? Yes. So what does that actually mean? I mean, obviously more people can get more stuff done. But what does that actually, what does that actually mean to the, to the workers when you only have 34% doing the work versus having 96%? What is that... Kristen Reilly: Changes everything. So, you know, if you think about, you know, we are making commitments to our schools that we are going to be there on day one and we are going to have these mentors that are trained in our accredited curriculum and all of our um programs that we do and they're going to be there to support your kids in your community. Yeah. And then we launch a program and we say, you know what, you're supposed to have five people, but you're only going to have two to start, and then we're going to have to pull all of these full-time people to help support these programs. It causes so much stress on the organization, on relationships with our districts, on operations, on talent acquisition. And at the time I was in operations, and it's just smoothing out all of that when you have a rough launch season is very, very tough. And then you've disappointed people that you have really, really long, deep-rooted, lasting relationships with. Chad Sowash: And these are your customers. Kristen Reilly: These are our customers. Chad Sowash: And you are now able to deliver... Yes. ...to your customers. Kristen Reilly: Yes. Yes. Joel Cheesman: So let's pivot from customers to your executives, and you mentioned your CEO. I, I assume your conversations with them are different now that you're having those kinds of results. Yeah, they're easier. What are those conversations talking about, you know, for the future and growth of the business, right? Now that you have that certainty. Are we talking about growth and strategic thinking that has never been there before? Kristen Reilly: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, as an organization post-COVID, we skyrocketed in growth, right? There was um a lot of funding that was put into the state of California to support the after-school and before-school programs, billions of dollars through the ELOP funding source. Um, but it takes, you know, we're the type of organization we're very agile and we're very quick, and we want to be able to deliver on what we do. But when you're seeing results like what, you know, I was speaking of like that 34%, it's very hard to have the confidence to like how are we going to keep growing and how are we going to deliver on this. So now that we're at this rate where we've proven success, it's like we want to continue to grow even more because we know we have the foundation to do it, and we've decided to also expand out of state now. So we have hired a a sales team to be in Texas, and we'll see how it goes. I'm just don't want to touch the table, but knock on wood. Um, but yeah, so expansion is definitely something that is um... Joel Cheesman: Has been spurred by these results. That's exciting. Chad Sowash: So, and again, this goes back to, as we always hear, you know, the AI CEOs talking about, well, this is going to expand jobs. And it's like, and they never, and they're asked, well, what jobs? They have no clue. These are the types of jobs mhm. that could perspectively be expanded. I mean, to to other states. And these are two states. There's, there's plenty of expansion that could perspectively happen here. Yeah. So this is a great example of not only using AI to allow your staff to be more human because they have, they don't have to play with admin anymore, but also expanding and growing job roles. Kristen Reilly: Yeah, absolutely. Joel Cheesman: Dare I say hiring more recruiters. Kristen Reilly: Yeah. There you go. No, it's true, though. Hiring more recruiters, hiring more um the team that like onboards the the coaches. So it's growing the team in general. Joel Cheesman: Amazing. Amazing. And I assume that that such growth, you're, your executives are saying, how can we do more of this? How can we give you more budget to like expand this? And we're here at this, we're here at this conference talking about Yeah. white boarding ideas and brainstorming things. What, what are some of your goals here this week? What are some features or maybe not even relegated to Paradox, but other technologies that you're looking at outside of that to help grow this uh business even more? Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Well, I think the onboarding piece is really something that's important. So now we've we've gotten the recruitment piece done well, and we've gotten it down. Um, always growing and and making shifts and changes to improve on it, but, you know, we're in a good spot. Now we need to get there with onboarding. So as we move people into onboarding, we're seeing about a 30% attrition rate in onboarding. Yeah. And they go from Paradox into HR Cloud, and again, it's very much like going from from Paradox to Jazz HR, right? So it's like we started really strong in Paradox and now we're like, okay, HR Cloud. Better than what we had before, but doesn't have the potential to take us where we need to go. Gotcha. So I think for me, that is one of the biggest priorities I want to look into um after this launch season is what are we going to do from an onboarding piece. How are we going to bring AI technology to support our team through onboarding? So, again, taking away this manual lift that's happening uh through onboarding and putting it into a Olivia and and seeing how we can have one journey through application all the way to on the field. Joel Cheesman: Well, Kristen, thanks for hanging out with us today and uh telling an an inspiring story. Kristen Reilly: Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Inspiring story, that's great. Chad Sowash: I'm uplifted. I'm ready to go. My acne's cleared up, let's go. Take you on site with me one day, see what we do. Yes, yes, that's been uh the Chad and Cheese podcast. This has been Kristen Reilly, SVP of TA from Elevo Learning. Kristen Reilly: Thank you so much for having me today. Joel Cheesman: Go Bears. Kristen Reilly: Go Bears. Chad Sowash: We out. Joel Cheesman: We out.

Maureen sits down with Dan Lyons — bestselling author of Disrupted, former Newsweek and Forbes journalist, and writer for HBO’s hit series Silicon Valley. At 52 years old, Dan made the jump from traditional media into a hyped tech startup… and quickly discovered he was suddenly “ancient” in an industry that worships youth. From bouncy ball chairs and candy walls to getting sized up as “someone’s parent” on day one, Dan delivers hilarious, painful, and brutally honest stories about ageism in tech. He breaks down the infamous CEO quote that sparked a company-wide controversy (“Gray hair and experience are overrated”), his wild ride writing for Silicon Valley, and what he uncovered in his follow-up book Lab Rats about toxic work culture, psychological burnout, and why so many companies treat employees like disposable kids. If you’re in recruiting, HR, or tech — and especially if you’re over 40 and wondering whether experience still has value — this conversation is equal parts laugh-out-loud funny and eye-opening. Needless to day, Dan Lyons doesn’t hold back. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION [00:00:00] Dan Lyons: The other guy was like a little bit older than I was, I think even, but he spotted me like the first day or first week and- ... like tracked me down, and he said, "I heard they hired you, man. Like you gotta go to lunch and stuff." So we became like little lunch buddies, you know, like the two old guys. [00:00:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: Is it like, is it like in Silicon Valley where Monica is made to be best friends with the new coder- [00:00:21] Dan Lyons: Yeah [00:00:22] Maureen Wiley Clough: just because she's another woman at the tech company? [00:00:24] Dan Lyons: Well, a- a- and just like that, I said to him at one point, like, "Uh, dude, we gotta break up. Like we can't- ... we can't be seen as a pair. Like you come over to my desk, and then all my, all my colleagues see you, and we go, 'Okay, going off to lunch,' you know, me and my buddy." [00:00:40] Dan Lyons: The two old [00:00:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: guys. [00:00:40] Dan Lyons: And, yeah, the two old guys walking out. Like we can't... It looks worse than either of us alone. We should meet at the restaurant. Let's like leave separately. Don't, and, and come back separately. Don't get seen- [00:00:50] Maureen Wiley Clough: Like it was a clandestine affair or something. [00:00:51] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. Like we don't wanna couple up. [00:00:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: You're listening to It Gets Late Early, a show about the experience of getting [00:01:00] older in the tech industry. I'm your host, Maureen Wiley Cluff. Let's dive in. [00:01:08] Dan Lyons: A quick note for the audience today. My tech failed me massively for this episode. Both my headphones and my microphone would not connect, so this means the audio isn't up to our regular standards. Really sorry about that, and can't wait to get you better audio next episode. Okay, here we go. [00:01:23] Maureen Wiley Clough: Welcome to It Gets Late Early. [00:01:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Today is a big day for me. This is kind of a bit of a bucket list moment for me as a podcaster because this book, the author of this book, Disrupted, Dan Lyons, is here with me today, and this book is ki- it's kind of like the OG book about being old in tech. Which is actually a large part of the reason I, I decided to do this podcast, and this really set me off on the path. [00:01:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: So for better or worse, Dan Lyons, thank you for writing this book because this podcast wouldn't probably exist without you, and I'm just really grateful that you said yes. So thank you. Welcome. [00:01:59] Dan Lyons: Oh, [00:02:00] gosh, thank you for, for having me on. I, I, I'm really always grateful to meet anybody who liked anything I wrote, to be honest. [00:02:08] Dan Lyons: So yeah, thank you. I, I, I'm, I'm looking forward to talking with you about it. [00:02:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: Awesome. So for those of you who don't know, Dan wrote the New York Times best-selling book, Disrupted, which is all about joining a tech startup at the ripe old age of 52 and feeling like a fish out of water from the get-go. And he also wrote for the absolute smash hit HBO comedy series, Silicon Valley, which is about Silicon Valley. [00:02:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: So, uh, Dan is amazing, and everybody who doesn't know about his work, uh, that's on you. You gotta go figure that out and, uh, and read the book and watch the series. [00:02:42] Dan Lyons: Yes. That'd be great. Please do. Buy, buy many copies of the book. But yeah, I've, I always... That was the thing, I always found tech to be really funny. [00:02:51] Dan Lyons: It seems to me such a great source of comedy. [00:02:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: It is. I mean, tech is hysterical. Yeah. I mean, as you so rightly point out in the book and- Yeah ... and [00:03:00] throughout Silicon Valley, which is essentially a documentary, as many people have said. It's just- [00:03:03] Dan Lyons: Yeah, people say that. Yeah. [00:03:04] Maureen Wiley Clough: So Dan, take us back in time. It's around 2012, and there are all sorts of changes afoot in the media industry, in the journalism world, and you decide after losing your job, which was a tough story to read, by the way, and plenty of us in tech are feeling that these days. [00:03:21] Maureen Wiley Clough: There's been a massive- Yeah ... layoff boom. Uh, but you, you lose your job, and then you decide to make your way into the tech startup world. Tell me a little bit about that transition. [00:03:34] Dan Lyons: Sure. Right. So, so yeah, I was at Newsweek, and y- y- you know, you could see it was coming. Most of my colleagues had already taken buyouts. [00:03:44] Dan Lyons: I, for whatever reason, hung on and got laid off. And, you know, some of the refugees from Newsweek had ended up at Time, and I called over there, and like, "No, we already have tech people. Yeah, sorry." So like, no jobs. And- And [00:03:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: how long have you been at Newsweek, by the way? [00:03:57] Dan Lyons: Only four years. But then I'd been at Forbes for 10 [00:04:00] years before [00:04:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: that. [00:04:02] Dan Lyons: Oh. That's like a lifetime in tech. Yeah, right? I know. But, you know, for many of the last years of those jobs, you're always waiting for the next layoff. It's when the internet was starting to really eat away at the business. So You know, you've been in a dying business for a long time. And I had toyed with the idea over the years of switching over and going to work at a tech company, 'cause I had covered all these companies and I saw all these people, you know, making a fortune, and I thought, you know, they're, they're smarter than I am. [00:04:31] Dan Lyons: I mean, the, the, you know, the, the PR people and stuff, I was like, "I could do that," you know? So I thought, you know... So I had actually interviewed over the years for different jobs, and half-heartedly. Anyways, so this time I said, "Okay, this is it. I'm, I'm gonna go and go work in tech," which is what, you know, all old journalists do at cer- certain point. [00:04:48] Dan Lyons: All my friends have gone to do that. They're all at tech companies now. It all landed pretty well. And I then I thought, "Well, where?" And so I had connections at different companies and I, uh, you [00:05:00] know, went out and interviewed. I had one really great opportunity that I, I wish I had taken, but I didn't. And my wife didn't really wanna leave Boston, and the problem is there's not a lot of tech in Boston. [00:05:11] Dan Lyons: And then I found a place in Cambridge that was hiring, and they were a startup, and I thought, "Well, good, I'll go there. This is cool." And, and you know, it's a startup, so you might get... You know, you're getting in on the ground floor on something that's really gonna take off is maybe better than going to some big company that's, you know- Totally So- A lot of it's calculation [00:05:33] Dan Lyons: Yeah. And also it was just I wouldn't have to disrupt the family. We could just stay here, and I would have this job. And it was g- I was gonna be writing, so I kind of thought, "Well, same kind of work, and my, my skills will be applicable here." You know, it's a good... 'Cause that's the, the challenge you have as a journalist is what, what skills do you really have, like research, r- reporting and writing, and we tend, however, not to have great... [00:05:56] Dan Lyons: We tend to be a little more blunt or a little people f- you know, like rude [00:06:00] in our, in our business. But with each other, we all get it, you know what I mean? And we kind of like, yeah, we tend to be cynical. We tend to be, you know- [00:06:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's fun being in a newsroom. I, I kind of miss it. It's great. [00:06:10] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Right? It's, it's like it's great, and if you like it. [00:06:13] Dan Lyons: So yeah- Yeah ... you have to kind of tone that down, you know? I w- And so that's the challenge when you're a journalist at crossing over is, is more that, like the cultural behavioral thing. So but I thought, "Uh, that'll be a challenge," but, you know, I'm in my mind, I'm still young. You know, like I'm 52. I'm 52, you know? [00:06:33] Dan Lyons: Like that's... And yeah. So that's how I ended up going to work at a startup. [00:06:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: So at that time, you weren't particularly concerned about your age getting in the way? [00:06:45] Dan Lyons: I'd never thought of it. Of high level I'd never even thought about my age. [00:06:47] Maureen Wiley Clough: Wow. Wow. You were in for an awakening it sounds like. Yeah. So, so talk about... [00:06:54] Maureen Wiley Clough: So you've explained a little bit why you chose the company that you landed at. Makes sense, all of that, very [00:07:00] relatable. Tell me what it was like when you walked in the doors that very first day. Yeah. Take us back. [00:07:05] Dan Lyons: It's a great scene in the book, right? [00:07:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: There is. [00:07:07] Dan Lyons: And I think it's the opening scene in the book, the opening of the intro of the chap- uh, the first chapter. [00:07:12] Dan Lyons: And actually, I, you know, I sold this and I adapted it as a film script, and didn't get, didn't get made, but it was the same- Well, it's such a great- ... same opening of the movie. You know, the poor schlub riding into work. So I, I... Looking back now, I realize what happened is the two founders hired me. And [00:07:30] Maureen Wiley Clough: then- So you were early enough that you had founders interviewing you or- [00:07:32] Dan Lyons: Well, and I was, like, old enough. [00:07:33] Dan Lyons: One of the founders had seen me give a talk once, and he liked the talk, you know. That's- And they kinda... Yeah, I, I guess. I don't know. I also found out later that other people had been through the same thing. The founders hired them, put them in the job I had, and then they all got- [00:07:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, [00:07:48] Dan Lyons: God ... It was all a train wreck. [00:07:49] Dan Lyons: Over and over, it was a train wreck. And so they keep- Never [00:07:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: a good [00:07:52] Dan Lyons: sign. They assigned me to the CMO. And I interviewed with the CMO, and it seemed, seemed to go well. But then- So I thought I [00:08:00] was reporting to the CMO. I was kinda disappointed. I thought I'd report to the founder. I kinda thought I should be, like, their advisor, you know? [00:08:06] Dan Lyons: And they were like, "No." But then like- And then it turns out the CMO didn't want me either. And- [00:08:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: Great [00:08:11] Dan Lyons: story ... so, so I showed up, like, on Monday morning, you know? B- bright-eyed, and- But it's the weekend here ... yeah, and the woman at the desk is a young woman. I forget her name. She was really funny. I really li- I ended up really liking her, but she's like, "Okay, uh, can I help you?" [00:08:26] Dan Lyons: I'm like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm here. It's my first day. I'm a new employee." She's like, "You are?" Like, looking at me- ... like, what, you know? 'Cause people used to stop me and be like, "Are you looking for someone? I thought maybe you were someone's parent." I'm like- [00:08:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah, it's like bring your parent to work day [00:08:40] Dan Lyons: type thing. [00:08:41] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was, so I was like, "No, no, no, I work here." And she's like, "You do?" I was like, "Well, it's my first day." And it's like, "Well, who do you, who do you work for? Who's your boss?" I tell her, the CMO. She makes a call, and I'm sitting there now, I'm watching. They have, uh, TED Talks on loop in the little waiting area. [00:08:56] Dan Lyons: That's amazing. You know, so sitting there with my little backpack trying to look [00:09:00] like a cool startup guy, and she comes back and says, "Well, the CMO isn't here." I go, "Okay." Said, "Oh, there's some other, uh, guy I talked to who works for the CMO. May- maybe it's, maybe he's around," right? And she goes, "No." This sounds cool. [00:09:15] Dan Lyons: "No, he's not here either." And I'm like, "Oh, geez." Then I'm thinking, like, did I have the wrong week? You know, I look at my calendar like, maybe I'm supposed to start next Monday, you know? Like, no, it's pretty sure it says right here, "Come in Monday." So this guy... She said, "Hold on a second." And the, and this guy comes out, and he's like, "Oh, hey, Dan." [00:09:34] Dan Lyons: And he's like, I don't know, uh, you know, a young guy, nice guy, like 23, 24. He had worked at Google briefly for, like, two years selling ads, and then he was here. And he had just started. And I didn't know what he did, but I thought maybe he was, like, the admin for the CMO. And he said, "Well, you know, those guys aren't around, but I'm gonna take you around and just give you a tour of the place, show you where everything is, okay? [00:09:55] Dan Lyons: Help you get settled in." So I'm thinking, okay, this is like, you know- [00:10:00] that, you know? [00:10:00] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:10:00] Dan Lyons: And, uh, so we go around and he's showing me, and it's, you know, increasingly more insane, like the big game room- ... and the, the candy wall and the kitchen and this and that. You know, and the whole thing is just crazy, and there's all, like, motivational sayings everywhere. [00:10:14] Dan Lyons: But I'm kinda like, "Oh, this is cool. This is startup-y." [00:10:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: Are there instruments laying around? Huh? That's my personal favorite. [00:10:18] Dan Lyons: Like- The what? [00:10:19] Maureen Wiley Clough: Are there instruments laying around? I've seen that at some companies, yeah. [00:10:21] Dan Lyons: Oh, there was. In fact, we went by one thing and there was, like, a drum kit and some guitars and stuff and amps. [00:10:26] Dan Lyons: And, and so he's like, "Yeah, it's just if someone wants to jam for a little bit." And I was like... And I said, "Well, has anybody, does anybody ever do that?" He's like, "No." "No, but it's there 'cause it's, like, our culture." I was like, "What do you mean?" They're like, "You know, we're fun." You know, "Okay. You're a fun culture." [00:10:39] Dan Lyons: "Okay, I get it." And he's like, "Yeah, like we do outings where everybody goes and we do go-karts and stuff. Like, we have... It's really fun. This is a really fun place." I'm like, "I get it. Okay. It's-" "... seems really fun." You know? And then, uh, we go to the... He's like, "Oh, let, let, let's go to a little office," you know, 'cause everybody worked open style. [00:10:56] Dan Lyons: They had these little meeting rooms, you know? [00:10:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, yeah. [00:10:58] Dan Lyons: Open office. And then you have to reserve them. [00:11:00] I love transparency, right? Yeah. It's awful. So we go into this little tiny room, and there's a whiteboard, and he said, "Do you know how the, the marketing department is, uh, organized?" And I'm like, "No." "Well, let me show you." [00:11:10] Dan Lyons: So, so he starts drawing, like, "So we don't really have org charts, but, you know-" [00:11:14] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, God. "... [00:11:14] Dan Lyons: but this is what the org chart would be. And there's this and that. Then over here is this team. Over here is this team. And then there's me, and then you're in here." And I'm like looking at it. I go, "Yeah, okay." I was like, "So wait a minute. [00:11:24] Dan Lyons: So do I work for you?" Like, "Are you, are you my boss?" And he said, "Well, we don't really have bosses, but..." And I'm like- [00:11:33] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, [00:11:33] Dan Lyons: gosh ... "But you're my boss?" He's like, "Yeah, basically, yeah." I'm like- ... "Oh, I thought you were, I thought you were..." You know, I didn't say what I thought, but... And then suddenly I had this, like, panic attack. [00:11:44] Dan Lyons: He's like, "Well, let's go show you where you're gonna be working." And I'm like, "All right. Okay." And, uh, so I'm following him, and now as I'm looking around, I realize they're all children. And I start having this, like this acid flashback where- Like, [00:12:00] they, they, they all look like I, in this, like, LSD where they look like they were 12-year-olds playing dress up And I was like, "Oh, shit. [00:12:07] Dan Lyons: Oh, shit. Like, they're kids, you know?" What have I done? Now, this sounds very ageist on my part, and that's what they would say- I know, right ... is that I was, I was very- It does [00:12:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: go both, it does go both ways. You're correct. [00:12:15] Dan Lyons: Right. And, and, and they, you know, and they would say, like, "Yeah, you just wrote us all off 'cause we were only 22," or something. [00:12:22] Dan Lyons: And like, yeah, you know, whatever. It's just weird, right? And so we get to this little room, and there's like just, they call it the content factory. There's, I don't know, 10 or 12 people. It's a little tiny thing. It used to be, like, a library, and it was just desks lined up, like two desks facing two desks facing two des- you know, you know, you and I sitting across from each other. [00:12:43] Dan Lyons: Putting out content [00:12:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: all day. [00:12:45] Dan Lyons: Making the content. Making the content. And so I m- meet them all, but I can't remember any of their names. You know what I mean? And like, and he's like, "Well, I don't know where we're gonna put you, but, oh, we have this like, this, like, a spare desk over here, and we'll get you a laptop." [00:12:58] Dan Lyons: And like, there's, like, a bouncy [00:13:00] ball chair, you know? Like, it's a big orange bouncy ball chair. And I'm like, "Uh, dude, you know, I don't know. Can I, you got any, can I, can I get a, a chair chair, you know? Like, I don't..." 'Cause on the one hand, I don't look like, I don't wanna look like I'm old, and I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm not cool. [00:13:12] Dan Lyons: No, that's cool. But on the other hand, like, I'll, I'll wipe out. If I sit on that thing, I am gonna fall, you know? And there's a whole room. They were all, I think, all women. There might've been one guy, but let's, basically, [00:13:23] Maureen Wiley Clough: I was like, "I'm gonna-" That's, that's a rarity in tech, too. So you must've been in either HR or marketing, so there you are. [00:13:27] Dan Lyons: Yeah. And I'm like, "I'm gonna wipe out on the floor in front of all these women." And they're just gonna laugh their asses off me. And it's day one, I'm just a... So they said, "We'll get you a chair." So they went and found a real chair. And then, like, I don't know, somehow got me a laptop. [00:13:45] Maureen Wiley Clough: Wow. [00:13:45] Dan Lyons: And they're like, "Okay, so you're all set." [00:13:48] Dan Lyons: And I'm like, "Well, you know, what do you want me to do?" Like, "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Who hired you?" And I'm like, "Well, you know, but, like..." [00:13:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: Who gives me this? That [00:13:56] Dan Lyons: dude. "What did he tell you? What did he tell you you were gonna do?" I was like, "I don't know what to tell you, but he told me I was gonna be running [00:14:00] the blog. [00:14:00] Dan Lyons: And, like, all these people over here that work on the blog, I think I'm gonna be their boss, you know?" Oh my gosh. 'Cause the founders were like, "Our blog sucks." Yeah. "We need someone to come in and fix it." So it's, I kind of thought, like, oh, that's what I'm doing. [00:14:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: These people report to me. Yeah. [00:14:13] Dan Lyons: Yeah, right? And they're like, "No, no." [00:14:15] Dan Lyons: "That's not the case." And so, so, like, really, for a while, I, I didn't know what I was doing. And then I think I went and got a badge, you know, and- [00:14:27] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah ... [00:14:27] Dan Lyons: went down to the candy wall [00:14:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's like a first [00:14:29] Dan Lyons: day moment. Yeah. [00:14:30] Maureen Wiley Clough: What? That's the- [00:14:30] Dan Lyons: You don't have to do Yeah, you- when you're onboarding, there's all this stuff. [00:14:34] Dan Lyons: Oh, no, then there was two weeks of training or onboarding or a week or two. [00:14:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's when they sell the Kool-Aid super hard. [00:14:40] Dan Lyons: Totally. It's the most, most- Totally. Yeah, [00:14:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: yeah. [00:14:42] Dan Lyons: And so that kept me busy for a couple weeks, but then, like, I still really didn't know, like, what do I, what do I do here? And they're like... [00:14:49] Dan Lyons: And it's, I learned- Ugh ... the really bad thing is I've heard people say, "Well, it's kind- the job is gonna be kinda like what you make it, you know?" Oh, [00:14:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: God. [00:14:56] Dan Lyons: You just go, "We don't give a lot of direction here." And I was like- [00:15:00] [00:15:00] Maureen Wiley Clough: We like go-getters, though, that just- [00:15:02] Dan Lyons: Yeah. And like, can you... You know, and it's like, you know, if you need a lot of direction, this isn't a good place for you. [00:15:06] Dan Lyons: And it's like, well, a little direction would be good. Just like- You know? ... [00:15:09] Maureen Wiley Clough: the slightest bit would be good. [00:15:10] Dan Lyons: Like, I, I was talking on, when the book came out and I was doing promo, I went to WGBH, the radio station in Boston, for a interview with the woman who has a show on the radio, Callie Crossley. And like, she couldn't believe this, and I was like, "Yeah, I know." [00:15:24] Dan Lyons: I said, "But Callie, it would be like you got hired here, and you showed up on the first day and you said, 'Okay, what do I do?'" And they were like, "Well, you know, I don't know. Here's a microphone. I guess, you know, just hang out and we'll figure something out." Like, you know. [00:15:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: Get some candy at the candy wall. Yeah. [00:15:38] Dan Lyons: Yeah, nobody, no, you know... They'd say to you, "You have the 8, 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM slot, and your show is about..." Like, no, there was none. You know? So- Yeah, like pretty quickly I knew this was a mistake [00:15:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's so brutal. I mean, we all, we all have reality, right, that we have to deal with, right? We live in a country that doesn't give us health [00:16:00] insurance so like- [00:16:00] Dan Lyons: Right [00:16:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: you need to go get a job. You have a family that you need to provide for, so you're in between a rock and a hard place, right? There's a point in the book when you talk about the overt ageism that is displayed by your CEO at that company, where he literally says on the record, like, "We really wanna hire people who are younger," essentially. [00:16:20] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. And you then in response went on your p- your personal Facebook and you made a post about that. And so that's one thing that I'd love for you to walk the audience through, because, you know, a lot of people in tech are feeling that. You had just people, like the floodgates opened, and people were like, "Me too, me too, me too." [00:16:38] Maureen Wiley Clough: So I think that's, that's really what this podcast is all about, is validating people's experience. So I, I would love if we could take a bit of this, this interview and have you recollect exactly what happened there and kinda walk down, walk down that delightful memory lane. [00:16:55] Dan Lyons: Yeah, sure. Yeah. [00:16:57] Maureen Wiley Clough: I'm sorry if this is gonna be a little scarring for [00:17:00] [00:17:00] Dan Lyons: you. [00:17:00] Dan Lyons: Yeah, it's gonna be rough. Like it's like reopening all these things. Well, oddly enough, many, many years later, that experience also led me to write the, the more recent book, you know, Shut the F Up. [00:17:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah [00:17:13] Dan Lyons: Because I look back on that now and realize, God, I, I just, I should have just said nothing. So to recap, CEO of the company was interviewed in The New York Times and said, in effect, "We really only wanna hire young people." [00:17:27] Dan Lyons: Um, and the, the money quote was like, "Gray hair and experience are really overrated in tech." [00:17:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yes, in tech. [00:17:33] Dan Lyons: And then I was like, "Ugh, okay." But then the... They were very aggressive in, in, in PR, and they gave, you know, the word came out to the whole company, like 500 people. Like, we all gotta get out there and put this on your social and promote this and drive traffic to this article [00:17:49] Maureen Wiley Clough: You're like, drive for an article, drive traffic to an article that says you don't want me at this company? [00:17:53] Maureen Wiley Clough: Awesome. [00:17:53] Dan Lyons: Yeah, but like whatever, you know? And, uh, but they, they didn't even think of that. Like it didn't, you know, and it wasn't like- [00:17:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: Of course not- Yeah ... 'cause you're one of what? Like- Two [00:18:00] people there [00:18:00] Dan Lyons: maybe? Two. There's like two guys. Uh- Yeah ... well, the other guy was like a little bit older than I was I think even, but he spotted me like the first day or first week and like- Ugh [00:18:12] Dan Lyons: tracked me down and he said, "I heard they hired you, man. Like you gotta go to lunch and stuff." So we became like little lunch buddies, you know? Like the two old guys. [00:18:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: Is it like, is it like in Silicon Valley where Monica is made to be best friends with the new coder? [00:18:24] Dan Lyons: Yeah. [00:18:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Just because she's another woman at the tech company? [00:18:26] Dan Lyons: Well, a- a- and just like that, I said to him at one point like, "Uh, dude, we gotta break up. Like we can't- ... we can't be seen as a pair. Like you come over to my desk and then all my f- all my colleagues see you and we go, 'Okay, going off to lunch,' you know, me and my buddy." And- [00:18:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: The two old [00:18:42] Dan Lyons: guys. Yeah, the two old guys walking out. [00:18:44] Dan Lyons: Like we can't, it looks worse than either of us alone. Totally. Yes. So we should meet, we should meet at the restaurant. Let's like leave separately, don't, and d- and come back separately. Don't get seen. [00:18:53] Maureen Wiley Clough: Like it was a clandestine affair or something like that. [00:18:55] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. Like we don't wanna couple up. And he was having similar issues like I was, [00:19:00] but, and neither of us could really say anything about it, so it was like we kind of, you know, it was like a support group. [00:19:05] Dan Lyons: But so yeah- Do you- ... there was no, there were no old people, so I didn't think they were afraid. I think the CEO probably didn't even think anyone would care. And in fact, the place was, like the average age was 26 and it was really full of young kids and in many ways that made sense, right? Or some of it. [00:19:20] Dan Lyons: Mm-hmm. I get, I, I could see why, but so here's the other... So, so having come from the, the, the journalism world, you know- You're a little freer in that world to be kind of irreverent about your own institution or your boss a little bit, you know? In the sake, you can be a little obnoxious and- ... get away with it. [00:19:42] Dan Lyons: Like I worked at Forbes, and they had a deal for a while where they did a show on Fox, and it was called Forbes on Fox, and they were all conservative. This is way before MAGA. Like, this is like their sane kind of conservative, like- The [00:19:53] Maureen Wiley Clough: good old days ... [00:19:54] Dan Lyons: you know. Yeah, it was before- When [00:19:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: Republicans weren't [00:19:57] Dan Lyons: nuts. [00:19:57] Dan Lyons: Yeah, before they went mad men. It was, like, before [00:20:00] even the... What was the one? The Tea Party. [00:20:03] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, gosh. [00:20:03] Dan Lyons: Yeah. They were even before that. So like, you know, we would all make fun of it 'cause we're all liberals. We, you know, we- one of my friends was the, the token liberal on the show so they could beat up on somebody every week. [00:20:12] Dan Lyons: And like- ... you know, we all knew, and they knew, and we- it was, like, fine. We could rip on them, you know? So but I, so I had a funny joke about, you know, I quoted the CEO and then said, you know, "Says the CEO of the company where I fucking work", and, uh- Of all companies. [00:20:30] Maureen Wiley Clough: And you put that on your Facebook. [00:20:31] Dan Lyons: Ah, yeah. [00:20:31] Dan Lyons: And like, and I thought about it for a while. I was like, "No," and I deleted it, put it back, delete it. And, you know, looking back now, now being older and wiser and, you know, more heavily medicated, I think now I would know enough to just say, "You know what? Walk away." Yeah. "If you want to do it tomorrow, like, come back tomorrow. [00:20:50] Dan Lyons: Don't do it now." But instead, I hit, I hit, you know, publish or whatever. And I didn't realize... I thought it was funny, right? And I had a link [00:21:00] to the article, too. And I kind of thought it was funny. Like, "Ha ha, yeah, guess what? My boss doesn't like me." Like, I know the guy liked me. You know what I mean? It wasn't like, it wasn't a serious rip. [00:21:11] Dan Lyons: I was a little peeved, but it was also kind of like, "Oh, this guy kind of stepped in it here," you know? And, uh- [00:21:17] Maureen Wiley Clough: Sometimes you gotta call [00:21:17] Dan Lyons: people out ... like, I kind of figured it would be the kind of thing where the CEO would be like, "Dan," I'd be like, "Hey, come on, man. Come on. What are you talking about?" You know? [00:21:24] Dan Lyons: Gray hair. All right. And he'd be like, "Oh, sorry." He had gray hair. You know what I mean? [00:21:27] Maureen Wiley Clough: And, uh- That's interesting. It's like, come on, man. [00:21:29] Dan Lyons: Yeah, like I, I... But I, I thought, you know, we'd laugh about it. Like, "Hey, man, that made me feel special. Ha ha ha." Anyway, but- The people that I knew on Facebook all started piling in. [00:21:42] Dan Lyons: And to your point about your podcast, this was the first time I became aware of this, but it was really, really a visceral issue for them. They were all, you know, I guess my age, more or less, you know, a lot of them. And I think all had felt this kind of [00:22:00] thing and really, really it started getting a lot of comments, you know? [00:22:04] Dan Lyons: And I was like, "Oh, shit, man, this is not good. This is supposed..." And they were really going to town, like making it worse than it was because it was like the guy made a little toss-off comment in an interview. He probably wished he hadn't said it because what he said is essentially like illegal, right? [00:22:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:22:19] Maureen Wiley Clough: It is actually. [00:22:20] Dan Lyons: It would be like saying, "You know, we really don't like to hire, you know, women because, you know, they get pregnant and, you know, they're not as smart as the men." You know? Anyway, so, so man, it was the first time, like I said, that I felt the strength of how, how strong the people feel about age bias. [00:22:38] Dan Lyons: And then, then [00:22:44] Dan Lyons: It would've, it would've, could've just died right then, but then the head of PR at the company [00:22:54] Dan Lyons: Weighed in, commenting on my post, 'cause they would watch everybody's social all the time. Oh, yeah. You know, [00:23:00] it's like saying, you know, typical blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Oh, yeah, [00:23:05] Maureen Wiley Clough: like [00:23:05] Dan Lyons: PR. It's gonna be kinda like PR thing, you know, but really, like- [00:23:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: Well, do you remember what it was? [00:23:10] Maureen Wiley Clough: Like what- [00:23:10] Dan Lyons: No, I don't remember ... did you- But it was something- What could the report [00:23:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: possibly have been? [00:23:14] Dan Lyons: I, I, I still don't remember, but their, their PR was always sort of very Orwellian, you know, like- ... sort of, you know, happy, happy, you know, blah, blah, blah. Right, right? And then I'm like, "Oh, shit, so the people at work have seen this," right? [00:23:26] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:23:27] Dan Lyons: Like, this isn't good. Then the CMO weighed in and said, "Well, you know, the CEO, I think is good 'cause you know where he stands. He says what's on his mind, you know?" So- Oh, [00:23:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: my gosh ... [00:23:38] Dan Lyons: uh, then- [00:23:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: Even if it's legal, he says what's on his mind [00:23:41] Dan Lyons: Or just, like, even if it's, you know, hurtful or unkind. Anyway- [00:23:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: Indefensive [00:23:45] Dan Lyons: people, then people who, other people are teeing off on these people so bad, it gets really ugly. And then on- [00:23:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: All [00:23:51] Dan Lyons: on a [00:23:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: facing page. [00:23:53] Dan Lyons: Yeah, I don't, yeah, I don't even know how long. And I started thinking, like, I should delete this. This [00:23:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: is awful. [00:23:59] Dan Lyons: Like, I should delete the [00:24:00] original post, make it go away, but now it's too late, and if I do that, it will look like they- The [00:24:03] Maureen Wiley Clough: internet's [00:24:04] Dan Lyons: forever [00:24:04] Dan Lyons: and it will look like, yeah, the internet's forever. It'll look like they made me take it down. [00:24:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, gosh. [00:24:08] Dan Lyons: So then I was like, "I don't know what to do." So I found I figured I'll try to make a joke out of it, so I found, like, pictures of myself as a kid. Like, there was one- ... I was, I was an altar boy when I was a kid, and I had a picture- Were you? [00:24:21] Dan Lyons: like in my little robes going like this. It's a really funny... It's, I am looking very serious. My hair is all combed. And I'm like, you know, in front of the fireplace, you know, having this formal picture done. It's either first... I don't think First Communion we wore robes, but anyway, so I'm wearing these little robes, and I'm like, you know, 12, whatever, and I posted it saying I- I'm so sorry [00:24:40] Dan Lyons: something about, something I, I've just, I've just been hired as, you know, senior director of, of, uh, content marketing or something, and I have a lot of good ideas, you know? Like, this is, we should... 'Cause people are like, "Oh, what's next? They're gonna hire, like, teenagers and stuff?" Like, yeah, they're the smartest, you know. [00:24:55] Dan Lyons: So- Uh, I, I don't, [00:25:00] I can't even remember the jokes, but it was like, "Yeah, I just applied, you know, my, my, my, my new role." So I thought, "Well, it might as well make it funny, you know?" Hmm. "And maybe that'll save me." But, you know, it didn't really... And so then when I, I went back to work, I went in the next day, and like, eh, you know, so everybody's looking at me. [00:25:19] Dan Lyons: They all know, you know? And, uh- [00:25:21] Maureen Wiley Clough: Facebook gate. [00:25:23] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. And the CEO never said a word to me. And someone said to me, "Yeah, he didn't care even about it at all." But the head of PR was, like, livid, livid, and I had to go make a formal apology, like, like a, like a, you know, reeducation camp thing, and- ... I had to do it, I had to do it very publicly and tell her that I was sorry. [00:25:45] Dan Lyons: And, and, and, and the reason was that she was mad because this had been a big coup for her to get this drive traffic to, to get this article in New York Times. The New York Times article. It's a big deal. Yeah, right, and then I had ruined it for her. And, and then I had like, no, I really drove probably more traffic to that [00:26:00] article- You know- [00:26:00] Dan Lyons: than anybody else's post, right? [00:26:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: The New York Times thing is bad press. That's what she [00:26:03] Dan Lyons: knows. Right? Anyway, she's really mad, like really, really mad, and like really hurt, and I had to go... I think I got... I order- they were like these cookies, like really nice cookies you could have delivered. I used to get them sometimes when, uh, you know, I, I worked at Forbes for like 10 years, and it's like the IT people would come and save me and help my computer. [00:26:23] Dan Lyons: I'd- ... I'd order a box of these things, you know, have them sent to the IT department. "Hey, guys." And they're always like, "Hey, man." Just [00:26:28] Maureen Wiley Clough: hook [00:26:28] Dan Lyons: it up. Yeah, it's like a way to say thanks to somebody, you know. Okay. That's nice. And, uh- Maybe that's [00:26:33] Maureen Wiley Clough: why- It's a little gesture ... Denise has never liked me. I never sent him cookies. [00:26:35] Maureen Wiley Clough: Good tip. [00:26:35] Dan Lyons: No. Yeah. So I sent her cookies. I think it was cookies or brownies. No, it was brownies. These like really expensive, really good brownies. And I m- made a point of, you know, first I had a big thing with her and I talked to her, and I'm really sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, then I made this big gesture, like the brownies are delivered by somebody, and she opens them, and there's just a groveling note from me, and of course everybody around her [00:27:00] sees, and it's like, "Come have brownies. [00:27:01] Dan Lyons: Dan got me brownies 'cause he's an asshole," you know? So, so I was like, "Okay." It was a very public mea culpa, you know? Like, okay, I really fell on my sword big, w- in a big way. And then it was kinda never brought up again. And, and then they hired a new guy in to be my boss, and I said to him like a couple months later, I said, "Hey, man. [00:27:20] Dan Lyons: I think I'm pretty screwed at this company 'cause of this thing." He said, "Oh, no. No, I know about that." What's this guy? "Nobody, nobody cares about that at all. Nobody cares about that." No. Mm-mm. But then it was a, a year later, but I kinda think I sealed my fate. Although I've thought about it since, like I think maybe they were never gonna keep me for four years. [00:27:37] Dan Lyons: They often- [00:27:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: No ... [00:27:38] Dan Lyons: would hire people- Of course. People- ... keep you for a couple years, and then you're out. You know what I mean? The, they didn't want me to vest, but I vested a little bit, but yeah. So anyway, they, yeah, I think that was That was the first time my eyes were opened to the idea of... Well, that job was the first time I had ever seen anything like that, you know, in terms of age. [00:27:58] Dan Lyons: I, I had come from [00:28:00] Newsweek, where I was, say, 50. Jon Meacham, the editor, was 39 and won a Pulitzer Prize while we were working there, while he's also editing Newsweek, and we're all like, "Jesus." You know, but it-- And then my boss was, my direct boss, the business editor, was a woman who's almost exactly my age. [00:28:19] Dan Lyons: And then, um, you know, I, I was never even aware of age. There were older people, younger people, but it wasn't like, you know... Hey, when I was at Forbes, the editor of Forbes was, like, 90 years old. He had been around forever. Jim Michaels was like a legend. But, yeah, it just had never... And I just, I had always been in these workplaces [00:28:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: I read in the book that you had just actually published a, an article, not you necessarily, but Newsweek had published an article about the, the beached white male or something like that. [00:28:47] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah, yeah, [00:28:47] Dan Lyons: yeah. [00:28:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: About male, males in their 40s and 50s plus couldn't find jobs anywhere. So you had that- Yeah ... probably in the back of your mind, right? Um- [00:28:55] Dan Lyons: Totally. Totally. [00:28:57] Maureen Wiley Clough: And that's where a lot of people are, right? They're in the sort of the [00:29:00] midlife collision. I heard that term the other day. Instead of the midlife crisis, which is also a thing, the midlife collision, where you have all these responsibilities. [00:29:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: You might have personal health struggles. You might have aging parents. You might have young children you're supporting. You need to get help, so on and so forth. And so you have to just kinda make it work, right? And so I imagine you've walked into the situation and, and I feel like especially coming from more of a, I guess, a traditional background, you were unlikely to view, like, a short stint in a tech company as something that was passable or okay or something that wouldn't be an issue for you moving forward, right? [00:29:34] Maureen Wiley Clough: So- Yeah ... I imagine you were like, "Shit, I really effed this up, but I'm here, and now I just have to make it happen." So like- Yeah ... talk that reality. [00:29:46] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Well, also, I had-- I, I remember thinking, like, I, I-- "This is a great job. I, you know, I can work another 10, 15 years at this place because this company's gonna grow and grow and grow. [00:29:57] Dan Lyons: I'll, I'll-- This will be my last job. I'll retire [00:30:00] from here. I'll work my way up. This, this company grows, I'll grow, and I'll have, you know-" It was just so stupid. Like, so stupid [00:30:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: But you worked in tech before. I mean, the things you described to me, I mean, just sort of the Montessori-like vibe and, like, the young sort of atmosphere, like, that speaks very true to me 'cause I've been in tech for a while now, but that was your first foray into it, and- [00:30:24] Dan Lyons: Yeah [00:30:25] Maureen Wiley Clough: you unlikely, uh, you were unlikely to probably hear the nitty-gritty from your friends who had left the journalism profession and gotten into tech, you know, in, in some parts probably for self-preservation. They're like, "Yeah, it's great. Never looked back. Love it," right? Like, people don't necessarily tell you exactly how they're feeling. [00:30:43] Dan Lyons: Well, and they did say it was an adjustment. One of them told me, like, "Dude, you'll never do this," 'cause even among, even among journalists, I was kind of obnoxious and- Although, you know, one of my friends who's the most obnoxious journalist I ever knew- ... has had a fantastic run, and I'm not [00:31:00] gonna say where because then he'll know- Because [00:31:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: we don't wanna out this obnoxious [00:31:03] Dan Lyons: journalist [00:31:03] Dan Lyons: I mean, he's, he's as outspoken and as whatever as I am, I would say, and he's, he's done very, very well. He somehow managed to, to do it, you know? I, I actually think- [00:31:15] Maureen Wiley Clough: That is Huh? Or is [00:31:17] Dan Lyons: he still in journalism? No, he's still working in tech, tech company. [00:31:19] Maureen Wiley Clough: Okay. Wow. [00:31:20] Dan Lyons: He left, he left journalism a while ago. Like all my friends, everybody bailed out, you know? [00:31:24] Dan Lyons: Even the ones who were at decent places. I, the, all the people from Forbes that I worked with are, they're all over the tech industry now. It's like they're all scattered to the winds, you know? [00:31:34] Maureen Wiley Clough: Well, it's kinda booming, until recently, I guess. Booms and busts. Bubbles, right? Booms, busts and bubbles. [00:31:39] Dan Lyons: Yeah, and then there was, there was a period where they were all hiring in-house journalists and they were gonna build their own newsrooms. [00:31:47] Dan Lyons: That was a little fad for a while. [00:31:49] Maureen Wiley Clough: Sounds like something Gavin Belson would do, and then, like, scrub the internet. [00:31:53] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. It, it is. Like, in fact, it would be something. Hooley would create their own newsroom- ... hire a bunch of, you know, journalists, like, [00:32:00] you know, washed up magazine guys, and make them cover their own industry, you know? [00:32:05] Dan Lyons: But, and try to present it as, like, "This is, but we're neutral." Yeah. "We're not biased. This isn't sales. You know, we're not just selling stuff." [00:32:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: So speaking of Gavin Belson and Hooley, tell us how you got the call to go work on HBO Silicon Valley. Which, by the way, I was able to call it work to re-watch it for the third time in anticipation- Really? [00:32:27] Maureen Wiley Clough: of this interview. Yeah, so I've been- Oh, so [00:32:28] Dan Lyons: you can, you can, [00:32:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: you can- ... friends was like, "Dude, wait, why are you watching Silicon?" I'm like, "It's work. It's preparation." [00:32:32] Dan Lyons: Yeah, it's research. It's preparation. Yeah, and you, you can expense that. [00:32:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: Um- Yeah, my HBO, uh- [00:32:38] Dan Lyons: Yeah ... yeah. That month, anyway. I, I had done this back in the Forbes days and into Newsweek. [00:32:43] Dan Lyons: I had this blog called, uh, Fake Steve Jobs, or a character called Fake Steve Jobs, and I wrote a blog, and I pretended to be Steve Jobs, and- ... it was, it was really funny. And I was anonymous for a long time, so there was a big... Which I knew was good marketing, like everybody would wanna know- Amazing ... there'd be a whole thing about like, who is this? [00:32:59] Dan Lyons: Who is this masked [00:33:00] man? Yeah. And then I'd probably get caught, and then, uh, I- I published a book, like a, a fake novel. First person novel by fake Steve Jobs. [00:33:10] Maureen Wiley Clough: I've gotta read that. [00:33:12] Dan Lyons: It's pretty crazy. It's called Options. It's, you know, it's not a good book. Oh. It got... But, and I kind of thought like, "Oh, this is gonna get savaged." [00:33:18] Dan Lyons: I think one review came out and it was like so brutal, I thought, I, I thought maybe we should cancel the book. Oh, the pre-publication, like one of those places like, oh, I forget what they're called. But the little pre-pub ones, they're all a little bit earnest, and they didn't like it. Or no, there was some Some tech reporter wrote a, a bad review, and I was like, "Ah." [00:33:39] Dan Lyons: I called my wife. I was like, "Shit, I mean, it's gonna... This is gonna be bad for me." And then, uh, but then others came out and they were like, "Oh, this is like Jonathan Swift and Voltaire and stuff." And I was like, "Oh, okay, I'll take that," you know? And then like NPR, they... I was on, I was on... What's the show with Kai Ryssdal? [00:33:56] Dan Lyons: Is that Marketplace? Yeah, so- I- ... suddenly it got all this, so it got all [00:34:00] this good attention. I mean, it didn't sell very well, but... And then it got attention h- in Hollywood, and the guy who made Bruno and Borat, like, he read it and he... I got teamed up with him by a production company and we developed it as a show, and we sold it to Epix, and then it lingered for a while and languished, and then it, they s- they said, "We're not gonna make it." [00:34:20] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, man. [00:34:21] Dan Lyons: Then, and we had pitched to HBO, and HBO turned us down. Showtime had, had made an offer, too. We should've gone with them. Anyway- Wow ... so, 'cause there was a lot of appetite. All the meetings we had, you could tell, they had all been trying to find some way to tell a story about Silicon Valley. They're all aware of it, you know, up north. [00:34:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:34:39] Dan Lyons: There's this stuff going on, but how do we get our teeth into it? Oh, sure. Yeah. So then Mike Judge sold Silicon Valley to HBO, and the agent who sold it was my agent at WME. And, uh, so I wrote to him. I was like, "Hey, dude, you know, like, if they ever need writers and stuff, like, can you, you know, get me in on that?" [00:34:59] Dan Lyons: And he's like, [00:35:00] "Yeah, we'll see," you know? And I totally forgot about it, and I went to work at that startup and, you know, was going along. And then one day out of the blue, like, I got a call from WME from the guy who had been the assistant to my agent the last time I talked to them, and now he'd become an agent. [00:35:18] Dan Lyons: And he was like, "Yeah, so look, HBO guy, uh, the guys on that show wanna... If they get renewed, would you come work on season two?" I said, "Yeah, sure." And yeah, so that was it. Basically, because my scripts had been floating around out there and, and I guess H- well, oh, no, co- 'cause the guy I partnered with, Larry Charles, does a lot of stuff at, at HBO. [00:35:40] Dan Lyons: He works on Curb Your Enthusiasm stuff. So- Mm ... so Larry was out there with these scripts floating around of mine, and I think showed them to those guys. Anyway, that's how, that's how it happened. Yeah. Yeah. So [00:35:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: when it happened, were you like, "Okay, this is it. This is my ticket out of here. Like, I'm gonna have this writing career in Hollywood"? [00:35:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. What, what was that [00:36:00] like? [00:36:00] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Again, super naive and stupid on my part. But I was... Yeah, really, really. I was, like, ready to move again. Yeah. My wife's like, "We're not moving to Los Angeles." LA life. Yeah, yeah. I was all, "This is it- Living the dream ... my big break." And you know, and then I, I had meetings with, with my agents, and they were like, "Yeah, if, look, this is such a good credit, if, if you, if you wanna move here, we can keep you working forever. [00:36:24] Dan Lyons: You make like-" Mm. They quoted some numbers. I was like, "Ooh, that sounds good," you know? And, and one, one guy, they, they, they said a number and, and then, like, the, he and the other guy, he said to the other guy, "Look at his face," 'cause I was like- ... you know? They were like, "Oh," you know? And- Overpaid [00:36:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: on there, Dan ... [00:36:41] Dan Lyons: I was like, "Wow, really?" [00:36:42] Dan Lyons: And, uh, but then, you know, I did the one season. I actually didn't get hired back. The guy, he basically didn't hire back, the entire room got let go. [00:36:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh. [00:36:52] Dan Lyons: Um, which is, I think, he- that showrunner was his deal. Some shows hire you and then you're in. Other shows just bump the [00:37:00] whole room, and- [00:37:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: Interesting. Yeah Why would [00:37:01] Dan Lyons: they do that? [00:37:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: Is it a negotiation tactic, or- [00:37:04] Dan Lyons: No, I think it's like, it, well, the guy, the showrunner of that show really began his career at, um, Seinfeld. Mm. Seinfeld always did this. Larry David would hire a bunch of people in, suck 'em dry for a season, get all the ideas out of them, and then, "Boo, let's get a bunch of fresh- Mm [00:37:17] Dan Lyons: people in with new ideas." Sounds like tech. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For now. Yeah. It was really, um, it was very much like a startup, a TV show. Mm. But then I didn't get hired back, and I was kinda pissed. Ev- all of us were. And [00:37:30] Maureen Wiley Clough: then- After season three you didn't get hired back? [00:37:32] Dan Lyons: That was after s- I did season two, didn't get hired back. [00:37:35] Dan Lyons: Right. But then when the writing season for season three began, they got stuck, and they didn't wanna call me. Like, the showrunner was too proud, so they had one of the producers, who was, like, Mike Judge's manager whenever, call me out of the blue. And meanwhile, I was working on Disrupted, the book, because I had been- Wow [00:37:52] Dan Lyons: I'd gone through that whole fiasco with the startup. That had ended. I sold the book. And he called up me, he's like, "Yeah, uh, you know, you think you would come out maybe [00:38:00] and work the... Would that be okay?" Like, they knew, like- Mm ... you're probably pissed or whatever. And so, uh, so I said, yeah, I'll do that. I'll, you know, whatever. [00:38:07] Dan Lyons: And- [00:38:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: So Disrupted sort of solidified your place in the writer's room? [00:38:10] Dan Lyons: No, 'cause that hadn't even come out yet. That was just a manuscript. Oh, wow, got it. They didn't know anything about it. And I was, you know, I was always kinda peripheral to... There's, like, 12 people in that show writing, you know? And no one person, well, there were a couple people at the top who did all the talking, you know? [00:38:26] Dan Lyons: Got it. But, like- It was- ... otherwise, the rest of us were all very small contributors, you know? Huh. Yeah. It was, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird job, and it's not, actually not a great job, to be honest. Right. I know these strike, right, the people are all on strike fighting for this. Yeah, good point. It's been reduced to- It's like you s- you, you know, do you know the guy, what's his name? [00:38:44] Dan Lyons: Joel Stein. He used to write the back page of Time Magazine every week He wrote like, like these humor columns. Maybe it was every other, but he... When I got, somehow when I got to LA the first year, someone I knew knew him [00:39:00] and said, "Oh, he, he'll... Go, s- I'll introduce you. You know, talk to him about..." 'Cause he had done some TV writing. [00:39:05] Dan Lyons: And, and I'm all like, "Yeah, this is great. You write for TV. It's so cool, right?" It does sound- And we had breakfast. Yeah, it does, right? Yeah. We had breakfast, and he's like, "Look, I hate to break it for you." Like, 'cause I'm like, "How come you're not doing it anymore?" He's like, "'Cause honestly, it kind of sucks." [00:39:21] Dan Lyons: And I was like, "Why?" 'Cause he's like, he's like, "Well, you're in the same room around a conference table with the same people every day for, say, 14 weeks, and it's like the longest business meeting of your life." [00:39:33] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh. " [00:39:33] Dan Lyons: They bring in..." And he said, like, he said, I... His, his metaphor was you're in a first class... You have a first class seat on a plane, and they bring you great food, but the plane never lands. [00:39:44] Dan Lyons: You just keep flying and flying and flying around. You know what I mean? And he said, "It's just, it's... If you're used to writing journalism or even books, you know, you write and there's a thing and you have it. It's very ephemeral, TV. It's very much like you're just [00:40:00] talking, you know?" Yeah. And if it's not your show... [00:40:02] Dan Lyons: If you're the show creator, and then you have some... Sorry, then you have some creative control. But otherwise, yeah, you're just- [00:40:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: But I imagine, I imagine you, you were quite valuable to them in that you had experience in the startup world, right? Like, you could bring things that actually happened or close enough to your work and help inform the direction of their show. [00:40:29] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that was very true. Yeah, that, that, and the fake Steve stuff. It was [00:40:34] Maureen Wiley Clough: like a documentary. What? It was like a documentary in some cases. [00:40:36] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It very much is. And but the, the, all the, the Hooli stuff was really not in the original pilot of that show. [00:40:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: Mm-hmm. [00:40:42] Dan Lyons: And it was just, it was just about the guys. [00:40:45] Dan Lyons: And then when they, they went and reshot the pilot because HBO was gonna kill the show, and they added all this Hooli stuff. And the Hooli stuff, I think, was largely drawn on the stuff I was writing, 'cause my show was about a guy like Steve Jobs or Gavin Belson. [00:41:00] My guy had a guru. [00:41:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:41:01] Dan Lyons: You know, he, he was kind of the whole thing, [00:41:04] Maureen Wiley Clough: you know? [00:41:04] Maureen Wiley Clough: Was his name Denpok? I, I love that [00:41:06] Dan Lyons: guy. Yeah. It was Denpok. So good. And, and so they sort of created a character, you know, and a, and a company over there that was more similar to what I had done. And, and yeah, I, I was good for plot, like figuring out what would happen next, what would happen next, what would happen next. [00:41:25] Dan Lyons: I was not so good on comedy, even though I thought, "Oh, I'm really funny." My, my fake Steve blog was so funny, but then in the room with these guys, I realized like, no, they're... There's different levels of funny. [00:41:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: I mean, those guys are, I mean, and you, comedic geniuses. I mean, that show makes me laugh out loud so much, and there's so many just small nuanced points. [00:41:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: Like for example, the character that got very little airtime, but Jan the Man, the Jan the Man person in sales, I was like, "That is freaking hilarious." The woman who would always say, "Hi, I'm Jan. I'm Jan, they call me Jan the Man" before she said [00:42:00] anything. It's just like, that's so brilliant 'cause we do have to bro down or we're gonna go down, in the words of Ehrlich, right? [00:42:06] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's- [00:42:06] Dan Lyons: Oh, that's a... Yeah, yeah. I, I don't know. It's... And the other thing about that show is that, you know, we'd write it all, then they'd do a table read, and they rewrite it, whatever. Finally get it to the point and they'd shoot it, but then they would then tell all the actors, "Let's do all these scenes over, but, like, improvise." [00:42:22] Dan Lyons: And most of the good stuff in that show wasn't from the writers, it was from the actors. They were all, it was all, the really good stuff was improvised. The framework and the outline, the, the... Well, even then, in the, in the editing room, they would cut things up. Like, I would leave and like there was episode one, two, three, four, five, six. [00:42:38] Dan Lyons: And then episode five would now, when it aired, would have like, oh, things from three, but then this other thing from six. They would mix it all up. But, but yeah, the, the biggest revelation to me was this really those funny actors who are really good improv guys. Yeah. [00:42:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: I mean, that show was just, it was exceptional, so, um- It was [00:42:55] Dan Lyons: funny, yeah. [00:42:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: It was so hysterical. Notably less [00:43:00] hysterical though was a follow-up work that you did to Disrupted. So Disrupted [00:43:04] Dan Lyons: had me- That's a polite way of saying it's boring and depressing. [00:43:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: Well, well, I, I find it to be a very important work as do countless other reviewers. Yeah? Okay. Um, basically you excoriate the tech industry in your follow-up book from Disrupted. [00:43:17] Maureen Wiley Clough: Disrupted does like, it does the beginning job of it and you get exposed to things that are really pernicious and, and awful. [00:43:25] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. [00:43:27] Maureen Wiley Clough: But Lab Rats like crystallizes it all with data and facts and really lays bare some of what has made work suck so much, right? Yeah. So- [00:43:35] Dan Lyons: Right ... [00:43:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: tell me, tell me about getting through Disrupted, which by the way was a, an international bestseller, a New York Times bestseller, right? [00:43:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: Like super popular. So that obviously struck a chor- chord with people. It was a revelation into the tech industry which is, you know, the object of much fascination. But then you followed it up with this really, let's call it a sobering read, Dan. Like it was- [00:43:57] Dan Lyons: Yeah, that's very polite of you. [00:43:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: Thank you ... it was really good. [00:43:59] Maureen Wiley Clough: It [00:44:00] was really good. Mm. But it was not as funny because it was so depressing. [00:44:04] Dan Lyons: Yeah. And I think I should have leaned more on funny- ... and a funny, and, and a story rather than... Yeah. And it, and actually that book I, the, the book original proposal and the pitch was meant to be funny and started getting more serious as I was working on it because I just went into journalist mode. [00:44:21] Dan Lyons: But, um, yeah, in a nutshell it was like, okay, here's this funny stuff that happened in Disrupted and I observed it all. Then the next book was why is that happening? Why do companies treat employees this way? And I traced it back to a business model, and then why does that business model exist? And ended up tracing it back to, you know, decades of, of things getting worse and worse. [00:44:46] Dan Lyons: But which is why it's a sobering book. It didn't do very well, that book. It came out the week of the 2018 midterms when Trump was president [00:44:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: Mm. Nobody [00:44:56] Dan Lyons: was buying books There's nobody-- Yeah, nobody was buying any books that week, [00:45:00] you know? Yeah. And I can't blame it on that really. But- ... um, it just, you know, didn't, um... [00:45:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: Timing does matter though, I'm sure. But- [00:45:09] Dan Lyons: Yeah, I think it does, but it was also-- Yeah, it was-- I think it was a good book. Like I, I'm, I'm proud- It was ... of what's in it, but it's not a fun read, like you say, and you know. [00:45:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: It was-- Honestly, Dan, I was reading it and I thought, "Do I really wanna contribute to this industry? [00:45:23] Maureen Wiley Clough: Am I-" Mm-hmm. And then, then the way in which it's bled out into other industries and informed the way all industry practices- Yeah, yeah ... now it's like, well shit, it's unavoidable, right? Like I'm kind of screwed. Damned if I do, damned if I don't, was kind of the overarching theme and thesis at the end of the day for me. [00:45:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: So I was like, "Okay. Well, tech might be this way, but then so is everything else now. I guess we're all screwed. We're all in it together," right? [00:45:47] Dan Lyons: I tried to end with a ray of hope in saying like I found a bunch of companies that had good cultures, and then, then I was-- And the idea was like, okay, if you wanna be like one of those, here's what they do. [00:45:56] Dan Lyons: I sort of studied-- I looked at the list of-- Fortune magazine [00:46:00] does a list of the Best places to work, you know, top places to work [00:46:04] Maureen Wiley Clough: Isn't that pay to play? [00:46:06] Dan Lyons: Is it? I don't know. Or hope not. [00:46:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: I think everything is. Anyway, continue. Give me the way [00:46:10] Dan Lyons: of thinking. And, and, and then over the years, over the t- 'cause it's, it's conducted by this company independent of Fortune. [00:46:17] Dan Lyons: But over the years there were like, I think, 12 companies that had made the list every year for 20 years, something like that. So then I, I, so I reached out to the company that did the research and talked to some of these people and, and to find out like, okay, so what do all these companies have in common? [00:46:32] Dan Lyons: Like, what, what lessons could you extract from these places that then you could copy? And so I, I tried to extract some lessons from that. And oddly enough it was, you know, odd- you know, not surprisingly, like places where people are happier, places that treat people well in certain ways. But it wasn't... [00:46:49] Dan Lyons: That's the interesting thing. It wasn't beanbag chairs and beer and game rooms and ping pong tables. You know, it really wasn't. It was continuing education, [00:47:00] career advancement, mentorship, good paternity and maternity leave, paid time off. It was all stuff that people really... Childcare. Childcare is a huge one. [00:47:09] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, God. Childcare. [00:47:10] Dan Lyons: Like... Yeah. Yes. Like, you know. And, um, and then that made me realize, well, yeah, but all that stuff's expensive and ping pong and beer is really cheap. [00:47:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: Cheap. You [00:47:18] Dan Lyons: know [00:47:19] Maureen Wiley Clough: what I mean? And it attracts a different kind of person. [00:47:21] Dan Lyons: Right. And then you check out- Yep ... 'cause you turn whatever and you decide, you know, you're gonna go have a grownup life. [00:47:27] Dan Lyons: Now you care about childcare. Exactly. You care about a 401. [00:47:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yep. [00:47:31] Dan Lyons: You know, you care about health benefits. [00:47:33] Maureen Wiley Clough: The things that were sexy to you when you were young are not the same things that are sexy to you when you are old. [00:47:38] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Like, I never played ping pong at that startup. I was onl- there almost two years, I never played ping pong. [00:47:44] Dan Lyons: Never played pool, video games. I don't think I ever played any of the games. [00:47:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: Did you go to the candy wall? [00:47:50] Dan Lyons: I did a couple times, but you know, it's like, you know, I, I can't really eat a lot of candy. [00:47:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: You know? That's the other thing. It's like, well, we're gonna put on weight at our- Yeah ... at our advanced age if we just eat up.[00:48:00] [00:48:00] Dan Lyons: Yeah. It's like, yeah, I, I'll have diabetes if I work here. Yeah. Don't let's- You know, I can't, I can't really hit the candy wall ... [00:48:05] Maureen Wiley Clough: let's add to burnout, let's not get diabetes while [00:48:07] Dan Lyons: we're at it. Yeah. It's like, look at me, man. You think I, I can't eat candy. But, but it was, you know, it was, it was, yeah, it was cool. [00:48:13] Dan Lyons: But, and I always add this sort of asterisk that Most people there were really having a great time. Like, a lot of people there were having a really, really great time and have fantastic memories. And then there were some people who would get chewed up, and like, you didn't fit. Yeah. You'd get, you know- [00:48:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: Culture fit, right? [00:48:33] Dan Lyons: Yeah, culture fit. And, and I ended up, after my book came out, all these people came out of the woodwork to tell me their stories at the same place. Oh. And they were crazy, insane stories. And that's what l- yeah, so that led me to write Lab Rats, 'cause I, I realized also there was a new kind of suffering at work that wasn't, you know, oh, the, the work is so hard, the hours are long, or my boss is a jerk. [00:48:56] Dan Lyons: It was more like this psychological, uh, [00:49:00] suffering, and people left these places with their self-esteem in tatters. Um- Yeah. That's terrible ... they were really destroyed, yeah. Like, they really left feeling like, "I am really no good. I thought I was good, but I'm not good." And over and over, I heard people tell me that. [00:49:14] Dan Lyons: It was very sad. [00:49:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: And that's right. I, I just am recalling in your book that you had one such experience where you had a really extremely toxic boss who tried to make your life hell in an attempt to make you flee the company, which ultimately it did. But yeah. I mean, this happens everywhere. It's so relatable. [00:49:31] Dan Lyons: Yeah, it was a weird experience 'cause I had heard of that tactic. Like, it didn't happen in journalism. People very rarely got fired, uh- [00:49:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: Who graduated, right? [00:49:40] Dan Lyons: Yeah, they call it graduated, and they were all happy for you, and they'd put out an email, "Oh, you know, so-and-so graduated. We can't wait to see what they're gonna do next," you know? [00:49:48] Dan Lyons: And when they'd say that, you know they didn't have anything next, which meant they were fired, right? Oh, no. 'Cause if y- you know, someone's, if, if someone left, they, for a job, they'd be like, "Well, he's got a job at Google," and everyone's so happy for him. But this was just like, "Can't wait to [00:50:00] see..." Oh. And you would get fired, you would graduate, like you get Wednesday night at the, or Wednesday at the end of the day or whatever. [00:50:09] Dan Lyons: They just tell you, "Don't come tomorrow." [00:50:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, boy. [00:50:12] Dan Lyons: Like, it's just done. Bye. Like out of the blue. People get kneecapped all the time. [00:50:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: And it's a lot. And it's like psychological safety in that kind of an environment when it could be like your name any day, right? Like, your head. [00:50:22] Dan Lyons: Right? And then, and then it's like you see it happening all the time, and then you're the survivors, right? [00:50:27] Dan Lyons: And you're kind of like, "Oh, God, yeah." Mm-hmm. It creates this feel like it, it could happen to any of us. Yes. And, um... But it, I think some people didn't feel that because they felt so much part of like the in group. [00:50:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yes. [00:50:41] Dan Lyons: Like, you didn't really have to be good. You just had to be- [00:50:43] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's right. There was something, you called it something in the book. [00:50:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: It was like the boss... It was basically like failing up. Like, when you get in early enough at a tech company, you can continually be promoted into, into roles you should have no access to whatsoever, and I think it was something that s- maybe Steve [00:51:00] Jobs coined it. I- [00:51:00] Dan Lyons: Yeah ... the bo- The bozo explosion. [00:51:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, b- that's it. [00:51:03] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yes, the bozo explosion. And so you're surrounded by these people where you're like, "Him? He has that job?" Like, what? Like, how, right? And that I've seen over and over again in my career, too. [00:51:14] Dan Lyons: Have you, like, where people- [00:51:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, yeah ... [00:51:16] Dan Lyons: if you're popular. If it's like high school, but like you're popular- Oh, yes ... and so everybody likes you. [00:51:21] Maureen Wiley Clough: 100%. That is- [00:51:23] Dan Lyons: Yeah? ... [00:51:23] Maureen Wiley Clough: that is very much in play, for sure. [00:51:26] Dan Lyons: Really? [00:51:26] Maureen Wiley Clough: Mm-hmm. [00:51:27] Dan Lyons: You've experienced that? [00:51:28] Maureen Wiley Clough: Absolutely. [00:51:29] Dan Lyons: Did you ever feel like you were the it girl? Outside one? [00:51:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: Uh, sadly, I, well, yes, always. I was never the bozo getting up the, up the rungs of the ladder, unfortunately. I would've loved to be. I'm like, "Hey, if, if this is how it goes, if you fail up, like, pick me. [00:51:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: Why not me? I'm, I'm in. I'm ready. I'll maybe even do well and continue going up for you." But yeah, no, I, I saw it at pretty much everywhere. [00:51:52] Dan Lyons: A lot of it seemed to have to do with enthusiasm, you know? [00:51:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, God, yes. [00:51:56] Dan Lyons: Yeah. [00:51:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. Which, by the way, we aren't, we aren't suggested to [00:52:00] have as much of that as we get older, right? [00:52:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: I actually had someone interview me recently and ask me, like, "How do you s- how do you keep your energy up? How, how, you know, how do you stay energetic?" And I was like, "Wait, I'm not sure if this is a coded way of saying you are old, or, like, if you're actually thinking I'm low energy or something." It was very awkward, but I can only imagine it's gonna get 10 times worse as I get older. [00:52:24] Dan Lyons: You say Adderall, you know? [00:52:25] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah, yeah, [00:52:27] Dan Lyons: yeah. You say, "Adderall. How do you do it? I don't know. That's what I do. Start every day with vitamin A." That's so crazy. You know? Yeah, tell them that. [00:52:34] Maureen Wiley Clough: And so you do that. Well, thank- So there's a shortage, Dan. There's a shortage. I can't get the meds I actually need. [00:52:39] Dan Lyons: And you didn't... [00:52:39] Dan Lyons: Oh, that's right, I heard those meds are in short, short supply. Yeah. And then you didn't get that job, or you haven't heard yet, or what? [00:52:45] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, no, no, no. I, that was actually a job that I'd held in the past. But I remember during the interview process, that question was asked of me, and I was like, "Mm." And, and the guy who asked it was older than I am, eh, by a lot, and I was like, "What's this? [00:52:57] Maureen Wiley Clough: I don't know." Yeah, maybe it was [00:53:00] because I'd mentioned I had kids, which, by the way, I don't advise a lot of people to do unless it's somehow coming up on the interviewer's part and you're creating rapport. Otherwise, I'm like, it only seeks to, to hurt me as a woman, so. As a man, they're probably, "Oh, the promotion, you're a dad. [00:53:15] Maureen Wiley Clough: You're such a good dad. You got your wife at home, right? She's, she's taking the kids, right?" You know, there's just- Yeah, yeah ... that still in play very much. [00:53:22] Dan Lyons: Have you seen, that video went viral recently on like TikTok [00:53:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: with this UPS driver talking about [00:53:29] Dan Lyons: his wife. He, he was- No. It's, it's a twist where he starts off by saying, "You know, I don't help my wife with the cooking. [00:53:36] Dan Lyons: I don't help with the cleaning. I don't help raise the kids." And he's thinking, okay, this. And then he turns around, he says, "Because those are my jobs. Like, I do those things too. I'm not helping her. Like, I'm a man," and like, "This is like- Wow ... stop getting over this idea- Awesome ... that you help your wife with that stuff. [00:53:52] Dan Lyons: Like no, step up." Right. [00:53:54] Maureen Wiley Clough: First class. [00:53:54] Dan Lyons: It, yeah, it was pretty cool. But yeah, I think, well, there are also, I heard stories of women [00:54:00] getting pregnant and then suddenly, you know, oh, there's some performance problem, and you're gone. You know? [00:54:05] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's interesting how that occurs in relation to, yeah, in proximity to the pregnancy. [00:54:10] Dan Lyons: Mm-hmm. But I think there are other companies that are really great, that really- Yeah ... uh, really, uh, treat people really well. That's the backstory of hope. Was... Yeah. Well, you know, I... Yeah. And it's, it is, it does come down to the culture, and I think the culture starts with the founders and- [00:54:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah ... [00:54:25] Dan Lyons: and I've noticed that in other... [00:54:27] Dan Lyons: I don't know if you ever have. Like, are your kids in school? [00:54:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yes. [00:54:31] Dan Lyons: I forget how old they are. Like six and eight, are your kids? Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:54:34] Maureen Wiley Clough: My kids are in school. Elementary. [00:54:35] Dan Lyons: So yeah. Elementary's a little too early. My kids went, went to a, a private middle school and transferred there, and they had this culture, you know? [00:54:47] Dan Lyons: And it was like, it was really good, and it was just... I, I really admired the culture of the school, and I k- would... was wondering, how do they do this? Because, you know, it's every year it's a new group of kids. But I realized a lot of it had to do with the [00:55:00] headmaster who would come in- Yeah, yeah ... and would set this example of, of what, you know, how we operate and what we do. [00:55:07] Dan Lyons: And, um, yeah, I think a lot of it... Culture is fascinating to me, but I think a lot of it stems from leadership and from people People who are leaders who are walking the walk, so to speak- Yeah ... who are, who are acting, you know, setting an example. But- [00:55:23] Maureen Wiley Clough: So you [00:55:24] Dan Lyons: still- But you're young to feel, like, old about the workplace- [00:55:26] Dan Lyons: I think, aren't you? I mean, you know. [00:55:28] Maureen Wiley Clough: I'm, I'm 40, 41 next week. [00:55:30] Dan Lyons: But- Wow, you're so brave to say that. [00:55:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. I, listen, I'm trying to change things, right? Like, we should all be proud of our age. [00:55:36] Dan Lyons: You're 41 next week? [00:55:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: 41 next week. [00:55:39] Dan Lyons: Oh, happy birthday. [00:55:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: Thank you. [00:55:40] Dan Lyons: What day is it? October what? [00:55:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: Uh, the 24th. [00:55:44] Dan Lyons: Okay. Uh- [00:55:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: Big horoscope guy over there? [00:55:47] Dan Lyons: What's that? Are [00:55:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: you a big horoscope guy? [00:55:50] Dan Lyons: No, I, I was wondering, I don't know. What, what, what horoscope is that? [00:55:53] Maureen Wiley Clough: Um, I'm a, I thought that's where you were gonna go with this, but I'm a- No, [00:55:55] Dan Lyons: I don't know those things ... [00:55:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: I'm a Casper. I'm a Libra and a Scorpio, both. So [00:56:00] [00:56:01] Dan Lyons: we are both. I know j- I know just enough of that to know that, like, you should avoid Scorpios at all costs. [00:56:08] Dan Lyons: Oh. Right? Right? Isn't that, isn't that the case? I, I- Maybe a [00:56:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: little bit young for [00:56:12] Dan Lyons: that ... I dated, I, I more than dated, I was madly in love with a Lib- with a woman who was a Scorpio when I was young [00:56:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah [00:56:19] Dan Lyons: She was, uh- I [00:56:19] Maureen Wiley Clough: guess you dodged a bullet. What can I say? [00:56:21] Dan Lyons: You know, we're still friends. We talk all the time. [00:56:23] Dan Lyons: We had one of those, like, crazy toxic relationships- Oh ... that's also, but also, like, ugh. And- [00:56:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah ... yeah. [00:56:30] Dan Lyons: Yeah. [00:56:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: No, probably good that that one ended. See, I'm- You think? Yeah ... I'm also a Libra. I identify as a Libra, so I-I- What is it? What are Libras [00:56:37] Dan Lyons: like? [00:56:38] Maureen Wiley Clough: Libras are the water sign, so we're very loving and open and kind, et cetera. [00:56:42] Dan Lyons: Oh. [00:56:43] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [00:56:44] Dan Lyons: You know the one that freaks me out more than the horoscope stuff, and it came... I don't know how old this stuff is, is the what's your love language? [00:56:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, wow. Do you [00:56:52] Dan Lyons: know that stuff? [00:56:53] Maureen Wiley Clough: I read that book forever ago. You [00:56:54] Dan Lyons: did? [00:56:55] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Ah. [00:56:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: Ha. I don't know. I'm not quoting from it. I was like, I think I like all of [00:57:00] these things. It was like- ... which one, which ones you let go? It's like, "You like gifts. Do you like words of affirmation? Do you like physical contact?" I was like- Yeah ... all of them? [00:57:08] Dan Lyons: Check, check, check. Like Yeah, yeah, I'll take all of that. [00:57:10] Dan Lyons: I'll take it all. That all sounds good. Yeah. I, I, I for a while, I don't know, it must have been a f- it was a... That's an old thing, right? I remember meeting people or talking to people, they'd be like, "Oh, have you heard about love language?" I go, "What's your love language?" I go, "Ah." You know? [00:57:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Uh- Now it's a nice quiz to get your email, right? [00:57:26] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's like, find out which, you know, variety of coffee- Oh ... mug you are or something, you know. [00:57:31] Dan Lyons: Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. But my son and I just started watching this, this documentary last night. It's a series about this, I guess it was a cult called Twin Flames. Have you heard of this? [00:57:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh my God. I've, I've heard of the concept of twin flames. [00:57:45] Maureen Wiley Clough: Tell me more. I, I'm- [00:57:46] Dan Lyons: Oh ... [00:57:47] Maureen Wiley Clough: I, I guess I'm gonna get sucked in, though. The, I, oh boy, maybe you should- My, [00:57:50] Dan Lyons: my son's taking a course in, uh, college, freshman year, about cults. And, uh- [00:57:56] Maureen Wiley Clough: Fascinating ... [00:57:57] Dan Lyons: yeah. And then somehow he's [00:58:00] home 'cause he's sick, and, uh, we were buzzing through the channels last night, and I saw something about twin flames, 'cause he and I kind of like cult things or, you know, weird, like, unexplained mysteries, kind of UFO things. [00:58:13] Dan Lyons: You know, we watch all those things 'cause they're just crazy, you know? [00:58:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: Funny you mention [00:58:17] Dan Lyons: that. Lately- And he's like, "Oh, Dad, yeah, I've heard of twin flames. You gotta watch this." So we checked it out, and it was, like, this couple, right? And- They had this idea, the twin flame idea, is that everybody out there has someone who is not like your soulmate, it's even more than a soulmate. [00:58:32] Dan Lyons: It's like you're half of it and they're the other half, and you just have to find each other, and it's like divinely inspired. And so it began- Well, that's, you know ... as kind of like this self, it became like self-help run by this couple, only they became almost like cult leaders- Yeah ... and they got very culty. [00:58:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: Multimillionaires, I'm sure. [00:58:50] Dan Lyons: Yeah, they made a fortune. Of course. And I only watched the first episode last night, so I'm dying to see where it goes, but I love that concept too, that you have a twin flame. And it [00:59:00] was like all these p- e- just in the first episode, you start to see where it's going wrong, where people are like, "Well, you know this guy, I really like him. [00:59:08] Dan Lyons: He comes into the store, but, you know, I haven't talked to him yet, but I'm pretty sure he's my twin flame." They're like, they're like, "He is your twin flame. You have to take action," right? But then they would be like, "This guy, this guy blocked me on Facebook." And, and they're like, "You have to go to his house. [00:59:23] Dan Lyons: Knock on his door-" What? "... 'cause you love him, and you know it." That's stalking. "And he loves you. He loves you. He just needs you to act." So they had, they turned people into stalkers. [00:59:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: That is horrendous. It's [00:59:32] Dan Lyons: so funny. That's awful. It's great, man. It's great. Wow. I don't [00:59:35] Maureen Wiley Clough: know why [00:59:36] Dan Lyons: we're talking about this, but anyway. [00:59:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: Well, uh- You're gonna [00:59:37] Dan Lyons: edit all this out, right? [00:59:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: I'm looking-- I think everyone's looking for their twin flame employer version. So- [00:59:44] Dan Lyons: Wow, look at how you brought that back. Did you [00:59:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: like that? You [00:59:46] Dan Lyons: are good. Yes. [00:59:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: Threading the needle. So- [00:59:50] Dan Lyons: Yeah ... [00:59:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: you've learned a lot about the tech industry through living in it, working first at that company that shall go unnamed unless you go purchase the book, Disrupt It, which everyone should go do, obviously.[01:00:00] [01:00:00] Maureen Wiley Clough: But after that, you, you continued your work in the tech industry. You also got to parody it on the fantastic show, HBO's Silicon Valley, which is hysterical. And if people on the sh- people listening to the show haven't watched that, that's like, I mean, come on, guys. Let's, let's go. But then you got into the sobering analysis of Silicon Valley and the tech industry at large with Lab Rats. [01:00:22] Maureen Wiley Clough: And now you are working at DocuSign, which I would imagine has to be somewhat of a twin flame for you because you are there, and you've been there a while, and you seem happy. So tell us, as you've gotten older, as you've gotten more experience, what, 10 plus years in the tech industry, what should people be looking out for to find their twin flame employer? [01:00:42] Dan Lyons: Wow. That is such a good question, and we should start A twin flame cult around employing. Like, like basically headhunting, recruiting Yes. [01:00:54] Maureen Wiley Clough: Twin [01:00:54] Dan Lyons: flame [01:00:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: employ- I love [01:00:55] Dan Lyons: it ... right? Because that was the premise of the cult- Twin flame ... was we'll help you find, we're gonna help you find your twin [01:01:00] flame. But I would say- [01:01:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: The business has been born here today, Dan. [01:01:03] Maureen Wiley Clough: We started it, our little [01:01:05] Dan Lyons: startup We don't, this, we should rec- well, we are recording this, so we'll know- Yeah. Perfect ... the origin story of this. [01:01:09] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah, exactly. And we- [01:01:10] Dan Lyons: Uh, we'd probably do better finding jobs for other people than- [01:01:14] Maureen Wiley Clough: How about for us? [01:01:15] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. Right. We should both get... I love my job. I love- Yeah [01:01:19] Dan Lyons: where I work, and I c- for the first time since I think I was at Newsweek, like, I wake up every day and just, like, psyched to... I, I work at home, but like, psyched to go to work. I am, I just, yeah- Yes. That's good ... I somehow got really lucky, and DocuSign has this amazing culture. It's one of the things that no o- and it's, like, 20 years old, so it's not a startup, and it's, uh, that culture has baked in, that it's, that peop- people always say, everyone who works there will say, "What's the, what do you like best?" [01:01:47] Dan Lyons: It's like, "I, I love the people. I just, I work with great people." And right now the company's in this period of transition. They, the entire... Right after I joined, the entire leadership team basically turned [01:02:00] over. So it's almost like a whole new company, or it's a new team with a new vision for this very cool established company. [01:02:07] Dan Lyons: Like, how are we gonna build this next act for the company? So if you're, if you like that, some people I think wanna be in a place that's, it's all, you just, you fit in and do the role 'cause someone else used to have this job and now you have it. Or yeah, or you can, in a role, i- in this place, you know, there's a little bit of, not chaos, but there's a lot of change. [01:02:27] Dan Lyons: And if you see that as an opportunity, which I do, then it's a great place to be. But yeah, it's like Honestly, it's really, really fun, and I get to do stuff that's a lot like journalism. And yeah, so it's, it's crazy. It kind of, that's my twin flame. And, uh, [01:02:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: and- Dr. [01:02:42] Dan Lyons: Simon [01:02:43] Maureen Wiley Clough: Dan Lyons [01:02:44] Dan Lyons: It kind of is. And not, not every... [01:02:45] Dan Lyons: You know, there's, there's people of all ages, and, uh, uh, and- [01:02:50] Maureen Wiley Clough: Are you guys hiring? Huh? You guys hiring? Just, just saying. [01:02:54] Dan Lyons: They might be. We'll talk. We'll talk out- Yeah. I, I, I'm probably- Just put that out there. But, you know, they, they really honestly, [01:03:00] like I've met... We had a m- meet and greet in Boston for whoever wanted to come, go out for drinks, and like they're all, you know, people in sales. [01:03:07] Dan Lyons: And so nobody, nobody's in comms. Like, I'm in communications, but it's a very small group. But these, even these people are all great. I was like, "I wanna hang out with you guys all the time." Aw. Like, they're just- [01:03:16] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's awesome. [01:03:16] Dan Lyons: They've all been around a bit, you know? Yeah. They're kind of veterans. And yeah. [01:03:20] Dan Lyons: Anyway, so it's, yeah. That's great. It's my twin flame job. But how would you go about finding a twin flame job? I guess first you'd have to know [01:03:26] Maureen Wiley Clough: what- Well, let's give some people some hope, because you know what? We're all getting older every passing minute, right? And most of us can't, you know, be independently wealthy, so we kind of need to have jobs as well. [01:03:35] Dan Lyons: I wish [01:03:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: I could [01:03:36] Dan Lyons: be. [01:03:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: So like show us the way, Dan. Like give us some hope. [01:03:40] Dan Lyons: Well, don't you think... I think first of all, so the big thing about twin flames, I... We- ... we're gonna beat this metaphor to death, but it is commitment, right? Yeah. And it's like you don't have a twin flame that you're gonna be twin flames for 18 months, right? [01:03:53] Dan Lyons: And then you're gonna go find the next twin flame, right? And so I think, I'm not sure if, you know, employment for [01:04:00] life, well, we're never going back to that. And I'm not even sure that was great, but that's like my dad's generation. My dad worked at one company his whole career, retired, pension, blah, blah, blah. [01:04:07] Dan Lyons: But I do think, and it ties back to that like best places to work thing, when an employer conveys that there's a commitment to stay with you and to help you grow and to provide you with things that make your life good, uh, it brings out the best in people, and it creates, like you said, mentioned, psychological safety, that sense of, "No, you belong here." [01:04:31] Dan Lyons: And I think, you know, that would be I think that would be... E- even in interpersonal relationship, you'd need that to be called a twin flame. Like, what do they call it? Harmonious twin flame union. They have, like, all these terms. But, like, yeah, and that's... But, like, basically it has to come down to people on both sides have to be like, "You know, I'm gonna commit to you, the company. [01:04:53] Dan Lyons: I'm gonna really, you know, do a lot." And the company says, "Yeah, good, and we're gonna commit to you," right? So I mean, I always wondered, like, the thing at that [01:05:00] startup was, like, "We want you to be completely devoted to us. We want you to wear swag every day to work." The company color was orange, so people would buy orange sneakers and orange watches and orange this. [01:05:10] Dan Lyons: And, but, but we, we don't have any commitment to you. Right. Like, you should have- [01:05:15] Maureen Wiley Clough: It was very disjointed and, you know- [01:05:17] Dan Lyons: Yeah ... labeled [01:05:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: poorly. Yeah. [01:05:19] Dan Lyons: But, uh, and I think, yeah, twin flame employers. That's a really good idea, man. Like, I'm really kind of stuck with that now. I think I'm gonna have a hard time getting that out of my head. [01:05:28] Dan Lyons: Awesome. That was a great idea, seriously. [01:05:31] Maureen Wiley Clough: What can I say? It, it is [01:05:32] Dan Lyons: what it [01:05:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: was. What can I [01:05:32] Dan Lyons: say? You're like, "Hey, it's what I do." That's what I do. "I, I come up with great ideas." I'm [01:05:36] Maureen Wiley Clough: an idea person. I'm creative. What the heck? [01:05:37] Dan Lyons: I'm gonna have, like, five more before this day is over. That's just not even one of the good ones. [01:05:42] Dan Lyons: But- [01:05:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: I'm all about innovation and disrupting, okay? Like- [01:05:46] Dan Lyons: Right. Yeah, [01:05:47] Maureen Wiley Clough: yeah ... going fast and breaking things, Dan. [01:05:49] Dan Lyons: That's what I'm for. You like to foster collaboration and optimize- All of ... performance. [01:05:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: All of those [01:05:53] Dan Lyons: things. Uh, I was reading somebody's, uh, LinkedIn bio. That's another story. But, but yeah- Oh, wow ... you know what? [01:05:58] Dan Lyons: That, that is, that is a good [01:06:00] metaphor though. I mean, people kind of have to find... 'Cause here's the other thing. We what? Well, th- there's another fit that says, like, if it is a place where you're gonna bounce in for 18 months, two years- Yeah ... there's a lot of people who wanna do that, too. [01:06:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's like a [01:06:11] Dan Lyons: tour. [01:06:11] Dan Lyons: And so that's their twin flame, right? [01:06:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. And you know what? Like, I will say, in defense of people who do that, one of the best things about... A- and I unintentionally did that. I mean, it was not the [01:06:23] Dan Lyons: plan at all. It wasn't your choice. [01:06:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Not my choice necessarily. Yeah. In some cases it was. The more recent ones, not so much. [01:06:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: The-- We will not get into the reasons I've- [01:06:32] Dan Lyons: Okay ... [01:06:32] Maureen Wiley Clough: of leaving certain places, and why one such company will literally never go on my resume 'cause I'm so horrified by what went down at this company. [01:06:39] Dan Lyons: Really? [01:06:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: Oh, dude. Oh, [01:06:40] Dan Lyons: man. [01:06:41] Maureen Wiley Clough: The things I could tell you. I'm gonna put it in a book. I'm ... It's, it's so bad. [01:06:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: Horrendous. Absolutely awful. Wow. [01:06:46] Dan Lyons: Okay. [01:06:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: Um, yeah, like, y- so bad you'd need to see the receipts to believe it. Like, crazy. In 2023, crazy, crazy shit still happens. Like, Emily Chang's book Brotopia, still happening. [01:06:57] Dan Lyons: Oh, I believe that. Yeah. But, [01:06:58] Maureen Wiley Clough: like, what I can [01:07:00] say about having moved around is I've amassed this amazing network of awesome friends and people- Mm-hmm [01:07:07] Maureen Wiley Clough: that I could call tomorrow and just pick right back up where we left off. Yeah, [01:07:11] Dan Lyons: yeah. [01:07:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: And so from that perspective, it's been great, and it's been broadening my horizons and, you know, and my network. Yeah. I'm not thinking of it in, like, a transactional way, but, like, I have all of these friends. And actually, when you're looking for your twin flame employer, what you should be doing is actually connecting with people from your network. [01:07:27] Maureen Wiley Clough: So by virtue of having jumped around a bit, you have a bigger laid land, right? I have a little bit more of a shot there. But, you know, I'm just looking for a home, Dan. I'm looking for the right place, um, or no place at all, and doing this thing and somehow making it work. But it's, um ... You know, I think people, a lot of people don't prefer the concept of having to, you know, have these tours of duty, basically gig working in a- Yeah [01:07:52] Maureen Wiley Clough: white collar setting. Like, not, not many people are super pumped about that. So if you haven't seen the Super Pumped about Uber, watch- I [01:07:59] Dan Lyons: haven't seen that [01:08:00] show. Is it good? Oh, [01:08:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: it's so good, but it makes you- [01:08:02] Dan Lyons: Really? [01:08:03] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's kinda like- Yeah ... lab rats, you know? It just makes you wanna- Yeah ... just ugh- [01:08:07] Dan Lyons: Dystopian ... [01:08:08] Maureen Wiley Clough: F out, you know? [01:08:09] Dan Lyons: Is it on HBO? I'll find it. I don't know where it is. I think it's on [01:08:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: Showtime. [01:08:12] Dan Lyons: Showtime, okay. [01:08:13] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [01:08:14] Dan Lyons: Um- [01:08:14] Maureen Wiley Clough: But it's really [01:08:14] Dan Lyons: good. Yeah? Oh, okay. 'Cause I thought that show didn't do very well. I don't ... It kind of- I think [01:08:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: it didn't, but I loved it. [01:08:20] Dan Lyons: Yeah? It was just- I'm gonna, I'm gonna go watch it now ... [01:08:22] Maureen Wiley Clough: he was a crush of mine back in the day, so. [01:08:24] Dan Lyons: Who, Travis? [01:08:25] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. Not, not Travis Kalanick. Did not like him. But the actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was- [01:08:30] Dan Lyons: Oh. Oh, yeah. He plays, he plays the Travis... It, it's all done, like, it's, the character is called Travis [01:08:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: Kalinic or Kalinic It's actually about Uber, yeah. [01:08:40] Dan Lyons: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a cool guy. He's an interesting actor, isn't he? [01:08:43] Dan Lyons: Yeah, he's- Do [01:08:43] Maureen Wiley Clough: you know him? [01:08:44] Dan Lyons: No, no, no, but I mean, I know who he is. [01:08:46] Maureen Wiley Clough: I was gonna say, like, can you hook it up for me if my husband and I wanna meet him? Yeah. [01:08:49] Dan Lyons: Oddly enough, I, I did meet him once, but it's like- [01:08:51] Maureen Wiley Clough: You... Okay ... [01:08:52] Dan Lyons: it was at a big conference, and I was one of the little speakers, and then- ... he was the big-name guy that they have for... [01:08:58] Dan Lyons: 'Cause, you know, he's really into [01:09:00] tech. You know, he has a startup and stuff. [01:09:01] Maureen Wiley Clough: And, uh- [01:09:01] Dan Lyons: I didn't know about that. [01:09:02] Maureen Wiley Clough: That's [01:09:03] Dan Lyons: funny ... yeah, yeah, yeah. He's very tech-savvy. I'll have to remember him. Wow. And so he was, he was, like, the big famous speaker that was gonna be there, and the rest of us were all little schlubs. [01:09:10] Dan Lyons: And- ... the CEO who ran the company was like, "Well, part of the perk is you're gonna, we're gonna have a VIP meet and greet with-" [01:09:15] Maureen Wiley Clough: Rob Elvis, the famous- [01:09:17] Dan Lyons: So you all get to shake hands and go like, "Hey, uh, really like your, uh, really like your work. Go, yeah." Like, what do you say, right? What do you say? Like, just, "I've seen you on TV," you know? [01:09:26] Dan Lyons: Like, yeah, I don't know what to say. But yeah. But yeah. But then I started paying attention to him. I think he's a good actor, and he, he- Yeah ... gets interesting roles. [01:09:33] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [01:09:34] Dan Lyons: You know? Yeah. Yeah, [01:09:35] Maureen Wiley Clough: I would say. But he was great in that [01:09:36] Dan Lyons: film. So he was your love. He was your crush. He was your twin flame. [01:09:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: I mean, out of any of them, a, a real full circle moment for me was watching, uh, Casper. [01:09:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: Do you remember that f- that flick, Casper the Friendly Ghost? Um, there was- It was [01:09:48] Dan Lyons: about Casper the Friendly Ghost? [01:09:50] Maureen Wiley Clough: There was a, a film back in- Yeah ... I mean, I guess it must've been the '90s. I didn't know that. But I watched it with my children, and at the end, and you probably don't know who this is, but [01:10:00] for any of the geriatric millennials listening to this show, you may, especially if you're female, know who this is. [01:10:04] Maureen Wiley Clough: But at the end of Casper, Casper the ghost becomes a boy, and the boy who portrays Casper in this is none other than the crush for every single girl in the '90s, Devon Sawa. And I don't know what Devon Sawa's doing now, but he was ugh back in the '90s. And my own daughter saw Devon Sawa on screen and later said, "Mommy, I have a crush on that guy." [01:10:30] Maureen Wiley Clough: And I was like, "This is too much. This is too much." Really? Full... Yeah. Mm-hmm. So- [01:10:35] Dan Lyons: I don't know who that is, but- [01:10:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's okay, Dan. It's okay. All right. So anyway. But, [01:10:40] Dan Lyons: all [01:10:40] Maureen Wiley Clough: right. So maybe he was my long-lost twin flame. Who knows? But, um- Could [01:10:43] Dan Lyons: be ... [01:10:44] Maureen Wiley Clough: he could be. But I think what I wanna leave people with is the hope, the ray of hope that you ended Lab Rats with and that you're ending this interview with, which is there is a place for you in the tech industry. [01:10:57] Maureen Wiley Clough: No matter how old we get, even if our hair [01:11:00] turns gray, like, you can find your twin flame employer and have a great career. I mean, you literally used the word psyched to describe how you feel getting up and going to work. For me, that is inconceivable. So I'm just really thrilled that that is possible. So thank you for, for making me aware that it's really [01:11:18] Maureen Wiley Clough: Maybe it's me, Dan. Maybe I am doing something like- [01:11:21] Dan Lyons: Well, you know, get some counseling or- [01:11:24] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. [01:11:24] Dan Lyons: No. No, the thing of it is it's hard. Like, you know, yeah, it's- I don't know. Yeah. I think I got lucky. Just got really, really lucky in this. I- Mm ... uh, 'cause I stumbled into it, but, uh, then I, yeah, I got really, really [01:11:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: lucky. [01:11:37] Maureen Wiley Clough: You went through it first, Dan. I mean, you, you did have some trauma right? Yeah. So I'm glad you arrived. [01:11:42] Dan Lyons: And, and to be honest, maybe part of the reason, like, that I think this is going well or is it, I learned a lot in- about, uh, mistakes about myself. Like, that, that's the other thing about that book is sort of making fun of tech, but it's also really making fun of myself. [01:11:55] Maureen Wiley Clough: It's [01:11:56] Dan Lyons: very self-deprecating. Like, I did a lot of stupid stuff. Like, I had a lot of... Yeah, I- [01:12:00] We all do. Yeah, I know. But, like, so I learned a lot, I think, and made a lot of mistakes, but... [01:12:06] Maureen Wiley Clough: Yeah. I mean, that's part of growing up, right? And, uh- We're [01:12:09] Dan Lyons: gonna get you a job. We're gonna get you a job, [01:12:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: right? That sounds great. [01:12:12] Maureen Wiley Clough: I mean, I, I'm, I'm also hoping it might just be this and somehow it'll work out. But thank you. [01:12:15] Dan Lyons: Podcasting? [01:12:17] Maureen Wiley Clough: Pod- Yeah ... I mean, apparently there's tons of money in podcasting. Just ask Joe Rogan. I'm, I'm sure that's just next for me. I [01:12:22] Dan Lyons: know, right? It's easy. Um- I thought... I think it would be... Yeah, some people really make a killing at it. [01:12:29] Maureen Wiley Clough: Some people. I think it's, like, the .0001% of people. Kind of like the people who get rich at tech startups with their options. It's, like, the .0001. But anyway, um, no, we will, we will figure out the good places in tech. Actually, that's one of the missions of this emphasis and, and this podcast itself is to highlight employers who are great and do employ people for a long, wonderful, fulfilling career and, you know, provide opportunities for growth even if you happen to be, you know, over 40.[01:13:00] [01:13:00] Maureen Wiley Clough: So we'll wanna highlight that. So, you know, DocuSign is getting a nice little call-out here for being just that. But, you know, the other thing is you mentioned you've learned a lot over the course of your tech career, and you've, you've done some things right, you've done some things wrong, you've landed where you have, and, you know, I think all of that somewhat sounds like it culminated in your latest book, Shut the F Up. [01:13:21] Maureen Wiley Clough: Sorry, Mom. But it's, it's a book all about the, the fact that we, we talk too much sometimes, and, and I love that I'm discussing this on a podcast. But I think when we next have you back, Dan, I think we should talk to you- We should talk about that ... the, the, the lessons that you can learn from that particular book and how to apply them to your tech career to, to have a longer and better, more fulfilling career in this industry. [01:13:42] Maureen Wiley Clough: So that'll be nice. Yeah, [01:13:43] Dan Lyons: I'd like that. It does apply to work and to personal life. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, that'd be great. For [01:13:48] Maureen Wiley Clough: sure. For sure. Well, I think you have, uh, shared so much wonderful stuff with us today, and I'm so appreciative that you came on the show. Like I said, this was, like, a big, a big win for me. [01:13:59] Maureen Wiley Clough: I've, I've always [01:14:00] admired your work, and, uh, really, really thrilled to have you here, so thank you for joining. [01:14:04] Dan Lyons: Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's fun to talk about this stuff with you. Yeah. [01:14:11] Maureen Wiley Clough: Thanks for joining us today at It Gets Late Early. I hope this episode was insightful and entertaining. [01:14:17] Maureen Wiley Clough: Now, before you go, if you're old and work in tech, just like me, I have something really cool for you. We're putting together a job board specifically for seasoned tech workers, where we'll curate the best opportunities for experienced tech talent. If you want a place to look for work where you can trust there won't be so much bias in the hiring process, go to itgetslateearly.com and sign up so you'll be the first to know when we launch it. [01:14:39] Maureen Wiley Clough: Thanks, and see you next time

Hire to Chair in 3 Days In this episode of HR’s most dangerous podcast, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman sit down with Gustavo Serbia, the CHRO of Hair Cuttery Family of Brands, to pull back the curtain on recruiting and retention in the wildly competitive, hyper-fragmented beauty industry. Think corporate HR is tough? Try managing 6,000 creative stylists across 500+ locations where the barriers to entry are non-existent, your employees can walk across the street to a competitor on a whim, and "life happens" at Mach speed. 🎧 What You’ll Hear In This Episode: Hired to Chair in 3 Days The Power of Real-Time Data Empathy vs. Efficiency The Art of the Polite Poach The AI Wishlist > "In this industry, you know to a tee when someone leaves. My CEO knows exactly what it's costing us right then and there. I don't have to wait weeks to calculate the loss." - Gustavo Serbia, CHRO Whether you're looking to streamline your hiring tech stack or trying to figure out how to handle the "boomerang" employees who leave to be their own boss and immediately regret it—this episode is packed with unfiltered, practical advice from an HR leader looking way outside his own industry for innovation. Tune in now. We out! VIDEO - PART 2 - Why Trades Need AI VIDEO - PART 3 - The Smartest Hire Find more on YouTube PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman: All right. Let’s do this. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I’m your cohost, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is here as we welcome Gustavo Serbia, CHRO at the Hair Cuttery. Yes. Is that a sick joke as a hair-follicly-challenged man? Gustavo Serbia: Yes. When they called me, that was the first question. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Gustavo Serbia: But I was so impressive that they still... Joel Cheesman: When you’re employed at 22. Gustavo Serbia: I know. My god. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: And before we get to anything, what happened to the Flowbee? Why did that not take off? Gustavo Serbia: I was this close to actually buy it. It was that and the Euro Painter. You remember the Euro Painter? Joel Cheesman: No. I don’t. Gustavo Serbia: Oh my god. The Euro Painter. I actually ended up buying that one. It was... Joel Cheesman: What was the Euro Painter? It wasn’t hair. No. You didn’t like spray on hair, did you? Which they’ve had that before, too. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. But the Flowbee is still around. Joel Cheesman: Is it? Gustavo Serbia: The guy that invented it made a killing with that. Joel Cheesman: Oh. I bet. Gustavo Serbia: It made a killing. Joel Cheesman: All right. Let’s get down to business. Yeah. Jokes aside. A lot of people won’t know the Hair Cuttery. I guess a little bit about you and how we got here. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. So, Hair Cuttery Family of Brands, it’s a chain of private hair salons, primarily on the East Coast. We have about 525 salons, all privately owned. The brand, Hair Cuttery, has been around for about 45 years. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Gustavo Serbia: The company that used to own it went bankrupt during COVID, and a new company came in, bought it out of bankruptcy, and we relaunched ourselves as Hair Cuttery Family of Brands. And we own Bubbles, which is a private salon, too, but it’s a little bit more upscale. But there’s only 16 of those. And then— Joel Cheesman: Bubbles sounds fun. Gustavo Serbia: Yes. Let’s go to Bubbles. It’s fun. It’s fun. Chad Sowash: I went to high school with her. Gustavo Serbia: I was going to say something inappropriate. I’m so not saying it. And then we have Cibu, which is our own private label for hair products, and we’ve been expanding that. Joel Cheesman: Okay. Gustavo Serbia: And I’ve been with them for almost 6 years now. Joel Cheesman: And so how many employees are we talking about? What kind of folks are you hiring? Straight out of cosmetology school? I mean, what’s sort of the profile? Gustavo Serbia: All of that. So, we are about 6,000, primarily stylists. There’s about 75 people in the corporate staff, and there’s 37 district managers and regional managers. The rest are all stylists. And that’s what we focus. So we hire stylists. If you are a manager at a salon, you have to be licensed. If you’re an assistant manager, you have to be licensed. And then we hire students fresh out of high school, but then we hire, you know, anybody with any type of experience. As long as you have a license, we want to talk to you. Chad Sowash: So do you do any types of programs to help get individuals into licensing if they want to get there, or? Gustavo Serbia: No. We partner with the schools. Okay. So, you know, many companies partner with colleges for college recruitment. Well, we have the same, but it’s with beauty schools. So we partner with beauty schools and go and visit those schools and try to, obviously, present our company and bring them. Depending on the program, it is 24 to 36 months, the program that they go through. We help them come into our company before graduation, get them trained, and then once they get their license, then we make them a stylist. Joel Cheesman: I can only imagine that’s incredibly competitive. I mean, you know where the candidates are. They’re in the cosmetology school. How do you set yourself apart? What is sort of the thing that’s going to get someone to look at you over all the others? Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. So, it is a very fragmented industry. So you have corporate salons like us. You have a lot of franchises, which are the bigger players. And then the rest are just individual mom-and-pops, private salons. So, we’re competing against all of them. I wish I could say I’m competing against this large chain, but I’m competing against everybody, because everybody is looking for those. So for us is the idea that we believe we have the best compensation package when it comes to the industry, but ultimately is being able to give them a path from the beginning to grow their career with us and stay with us over the long haul. It is very hard to do, because you have then booths. So people can go into a private booth on their own. Work independently. Chad Sowash: Or contractor versus FTE. Gustavo Serbia: Correct. For us, they’re all FTEs. Right? So if you want to be independent, kind of on your own, you go either to a private suite or you go to a booth. So now you’re competing against that also. Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Gustavo Serbia: So for us, the one thing is that we believe that out of any chain out of there, even though we’re called Hair Cuttery, we do all kinds of hair, styles, color. We do more color than any private company out there. So, we are able to offer you the beginning, the middle, and the end. So we can take your entire career with us. Chad Sowash: My son is actually a hairstylist in La Jolla. Oh, yeah. In La Jolla, San Diego. And he like most, our queens. They’re drama queens. Right? How easy is it from a turnover standpoint to be able to keep them happy, to keep them there, because as you would said— Gustavo Serbia: Yes. Yes. Chad Sowash: —as you would said, this isn’t just fraught with competition. Gustavo Serbia: Yep. Chad Sowash: I mean, this is a little, let's say, for instance, cohort out there that is much different than many other employee types of cohorts. Right? Gustavo Serbia: Yep. Yep. Chad Sowash: Talk a little bit about that. Gustavo Serbia: So there we’ve made a great shift in focusing on the empathy side. I have to admit it’s not my strength. You can ask my wife. Chad Sowash: Join the club, yeah. Gustavo Serbia: It’s just not my initial instinct. But as a company, we are in the business of retaining individuals. So within the HR framework, we partner with the DLs to ensure that any termination that is happening is happening under an appropriate framework. Do we terminate people? Yes. Unfortunately for us, the majority of people actually choose to leave, so it’s not that we are terminating them. But there’s so many cases every day, but I have not worked in an industry with so many people actually passing away, because we have drugs, a lot of drugs in the environment. I think it’s the circumstances that surround some of these individuals. But I will tell you this, that after being there for 6 year, to me, the drama is not that different from what I used to find in hotels. Wow. Because at the end of the day, you’re dealing with people. Right? And it’s how you go about dealing with those individuals, and like anything, most of it, let’s say I have an hour conversation with you investigating an issue, 45 minutes is listening to your feelings about how you feel about what happened. Yes. 15 minutes is actually about the facts. All right? So, but you got to give space for that to happen, because if you cut them too short, which is my instinct, I know what is exactly happening here, there’s a lot of pushback. Oh, yeah. So we ensure that DLs understand we got to give people space to vent, to let it out. You should not be documenting people left and right, because it doesn’t send the right message. But sometimes it’s harder to do simply because you have 6,000 employees, everybody has a story. My saying is life happens. So start with the premises that life happens and that what people are telling you is the truth until they give you the reason to not believe that it’s the truth. But with 6,000 people across the company, being able to manage that on a day-to-day basis, it’s very difficult. Chad Sowash: You know what he just talked about, something that technology cannot do. Joel Cheesman: Nuance, humanness. Chad Sowash: Empathy, space, patience. Joel Cheesman: Yep. Chad Sowash: But what can technology do for you guys? And have you used it for a hiring process? Gustavo Serbia: Well, I will tell you one of the best things that we have is we have our own stylist app that allows our employees to see exactly to the tee how much they’ve made on any given day. Wow. So they know how many clients they have had. Okay. Uh, how much they have produced on any given day, and then it projects them on what they need to do for the remainder of the week in order to make a greater level of commission. So, technology for us has been central. We’ve been working on the app for guest and customers to make it easier and better for them. We are now looking into AI and see what it can bring to the table. I, certainly, am a big user of AI. As a company, we’ve been using it, I think as individuals. Right? Everybody starts to explore. Now we’re looking to see how do we strategically organize ourselves behind a cohesive plan, in order to continue to enhance it. But you still need people to cut hair. And technology can help you with training, can help you with performance, monitoring how people are doing and communicating that, but at the end of the day, they need to be able to cut hair. Joel Cheesman: Are you providing daily pay or a flex pay system if they are tracking what they’re earning? And how is that working? Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. We use a company called Rain. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s a competitor of DailyPay. Okay. And, we offer it, and they get the opportunity to use, because they earn commissions, that hourly rate fluctuate. Okay. So they also have an incentive in trying to drive that average hourly rate higher so they can borrow more money they need to. Yeah. We’ve been offering that now for about 3 to 4 years. Okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Efficiency plays a role in the company. I know it plays a role in hiring as well. So on your website, you have, quote, "Hired to chair in 3 easy steps: video interview, decision, and offer, and start onboarding." Yeah. How has speed, whether it’s on that aspect or getting on an interview or getting pre-screened, how has speed with technology impacted the business? Gustavo Serbia: Tremendously. I will tell you that if we didn’t have Paradox as a partner, it would have been the ability to get people behind the chair is crucial because the barriers of entries are very very low. So you talk about your son. He can switch from one salon to the next the same day and be behind the chair. Chad Sowash: Mhmm. Mhmm. Gustavo Serbia: No interview or a brief interview with an owner. Right? Right. Right. So we needed to figure out a way how do we get this moving quickly because they’re ready to be behind the chair. So we removed anything that we felt was absolutely unnecessary but it made us feel good. You know, typically, a lot of the applications make HR feel good, you know. Right. So I looked at it and said, okay. What can we eliminate? I know it will feel good if we have x, y, and z, but do we really need it? What value does it give us? And, ultimately, we’re able to streamline that entire process. But efficiency is a tricky part because you can become very efficient at what you do yet not effective. Right? You can become very good at making a microphone but it takes you 3 years to create it, and it’s a masterpiece. Well, efficiency needs to go hand in hand with that effectiveness component. And for us, it’s measured, obviously, by the number of hires. So we needed to move quickly but, ultimately, we needed to get hires. So we look at the entire process to make sure that, yes, we don’t have crappy stuff in the process. Right. But we, ultimately, have to make sure that whatever we’re putting in is converting that lead into a hire. Chad Sowash: So you talked about implementing Paradox. Yes. Where did you implement? You talked about interviewing, all these things to get you to a chair. What did you do? What for? Gustavo Serbia: From beginning to end. Paradox is our conversational, but also is our ATS. Okay. Let me give you an example. When we were looking at implementing Paradox, immediately the thought was conversational AI, but I also needed the ATS. Yeah. And I started looking, and I come from big ATSs, so I was like, I need an ATS. Then I go, what do I really need? I just need to be able to post a job, have a requisition, and process onboarding. Mhmm. That eliminated pretty much the need for a true ATS, because everything else was a nice to have but we wouldn’t use it. So Paradox, actually, we were one of the first ones that were using that ATS component because they were not advertising it at the time. And it has worked perfectly for us because we put Paradox from the beginning all the way to onboarding, and then we, ultimately, send them to ADP, which is our system of record. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So when you talk about that, what’s the time been? How long did it take to get somebody into a chair before? How long does it take to get somebody into the chair now? Gustavo Serbia: So we were in the 17 plus days, and that includes the time that a person may give to resign. So some people resign and give 2 weeks or 1 week notice. We were able to bring it down to 12 days fully loaded, but we extend offers within 3 days. The time difference is driven by the individual saying, "I’ll start a week from now," or, you know, "2 weeks from now." We weren’t able to do that before because not only there was a burdensome process behind the scenes, but sorry to say this, but we were using ADP, which was an ATS, and it was working in the traditional manner. Right. And it just didn’t do it for us. Chad Sowash: Slow and sluggish. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. So right now, when we advertise we can get you behind the chair in 3 days, if you’re ready to start in 3 days, we are able to do that. Most individuals say, "I got to give notice," or, "I have a trip that I already planned, so I’m going to take care of that, and then I’ll come back and start." Joel Cheesman: How do you guys treat walk-in candidates? I mean, it seems like AI, certainly, and digital ways of applying have taken over, but it also seems to me like a real human—these are artists essentially, and they know all the players. Yes. Talk about the walk-ins and does that still happen? And how do you treat that in juxtaposition with the AI component? Gustavo Serbia: It’s not happening as much, but we have to leave a lot of room for those walk-ins, but instead of those individuals walking to us, we’re walking to them. So, you know, boots on the ground networking for us is crucial. I think the industry has to do it because not everybody’s applying. So, you have a group of people that are going to apply. Technology helps us in identifying who those individuals are because now I can run a search of all the beauty salons in a particular market and know who the players are very quickly, and then figure out a way to how to target those individuals. Chad Sowash: Poach. Yeah. Gustavo Serbia: Poach. The industry also gives you access to state board lists, so you can go to the state board and, you know, get access to the list. Right. Joel Cheesman: Does those have contact information like phone numbers? Does it have emails or anything like that? Does it? Gustavo Serbia: All of it. The problem is they haven’t opted in. So you have to go through an opt-in process. You want to do it the right way, you have to go through an opt-in process. Right? So we do mailers from time to time, so you get a card at home that says Hair Cuttery. Those are hit or miss depending on the market. Joel Cheesman: Do those have a QR code on them? Gustavo Serbia: They do. Joel Cheesman: Awesome. So high tech. Go on. Go on. Thank you. Gustavo Serbia: I guess we’re going to have to have a sidebar. Joel Cheesman: It’s a little inside conversation. Mailers. Gustavo Serbia: Mailers. Yes. Joel Cheesman: Mailers. Yes. Gustavo Serbia: With a QR code. Yes. Joel Cheesman: Keep going. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. So, we have to rely on technology to get us who those potential individuals are, find them, but then we have to go out there and meet them, because not all of them are applying. So if I rely solely on people that are applying, I cannot stay... Joel Cheesman: How does this work? Do you sit down for a haircut and go, "Hey. You’re looking for a new job? Take a little bit off the top." I mean, how do you poach in this industry? Gustavo Serbia: Very politely. That’s all I can tell you. My CEO would not be happy if I gave you our secrets. Joel Cheesman: No secrets. No secrets, please. Chad Sowash: Well, and the CEO, I’m sure, the only way that you make money is to make sure that the chairs are full. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. They have to be full. Chad Sowash: Right? So it is imperative that you don’t have empty chairs. Gustavo Serbia: Yep. Chad Sowash: So, I mean, you are the lifeblood of the organization. So I would assume that you are tying all of this to revenues. Is that correct? Gustavo Serbia: Yep. Well, I’ve worked in HR now for 25 years, and people talk about, you know, turnover and the cost of turnover. Every industry is very hard to prove that, you know, me leaving is actually costing you x amount of dollars. In this industry, you know to a tee when you leave. So when I came in and I found that out, I was in heaven because now I can truly show the value of recruiting, of retention, of coaching, right, where in other industries it’s harder to put it. My CEO knows exactly that when we lose anybody, there’s a cost attached to that individual, and we know that right then and there. I don’t have to wait 2 weeks, 3 weeks to figure out what is the loss. If I lose you as a stylist, I know right away if you were a top performer or not. Yeah. And how much it’s costing us to try to replace you. Chad Sowash: Well, you’re the CHRO and also the CPO. You’re the chief product officer because you are putting products. I mean, they are the product that drives the revenue other than the great shampoos and things of that nature and Bubbles, my favorite. Gustavo Serbia: And Bubbles. Bubbles. Bubbles. Joel Cheesman: It also feels like a very localized, hyper local almost opportunity. Talk about how AI has impacted that or can it, or do you have a vision for the future of how that would work? Gustavo Serbia: We’re still trying to figure out that piece. I think in the broad scheme, we’re looking at Stylists are the same. They may bring a slightly different cultural background. Right? For example, we know that in northern, we have our best retention. So when you talk about Pennsylvania, New Jersey is the best retention. The worst retention, Florida. There’s more transient people. Right? So we need to understand that and then try to tailor the processes for those things. So we know we can move very quickly in Florida. Northern is going to take a little bit longer for people to make a decision because they’re not moving as quickly as they would do, for example, Florida. So for us to localize it, it’s really primarily around knowing to know knowing where the players are. Not necessarily how the local game is played, but it’s really knowing where the players are, because you’re trying to poach, you’re trying to steal, borrow, what is the saying? There’s a saying about Beg, borrow, and steal. You’re doing all of that. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: When we talk about AI and the fears of taking jobs, particularly entry-level jobs, you said you pull people right out of high school. Yep. Do you are you finding that more high school students are open to opportunities like yours because they’re being told college is expensive, a lot of those jobs are being eliminated? Have you used that to your advantage? And what like, what are you seeing on the front lines of that debate? Gustavo Serbia: And in the front lines, there’s students in beauty schools are no different than students in any college. They’re confused. They’re trying to figure out who they are and where they’re going. Chad Sowash: They’re kids. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. They’re kids just figuring it out. Yeah. We certainly can and should take advantage of the fact that even recession, even during COVID, people still want to get a haircut, right? They were not getting it at the same level. Right. Might be getting a Flowbee. At least he will. You and I can’t. There’s no hair to cut. But, ultimately, we have to find a path where we can use some of that message to give them the comfort that you can come, make money with us. They can make great tips. They can build a career. And we emphasize that in our we promote a lot of people from within. I mean, a lot. Mhmm. But every stylist for us can get a promotion based on how much they produce in commission. So we talk about the fact that you are in control of how much you can promote yourself on any given week. But we also promote the fact that you can buy a car, you can buy a house, because the money that you’re making, you’re able to increase it on a week to week basis if you want to, if you’re committed to what you’re doing. So, ultimately, AI is going to help us, I think it’s going to help us on the reporting front, on the processes front, but at the end of the day, it’s still a people business for us. People are behind the chair, they still want to be able to talk to the stylist, build a relationship. We talk a lot about the fact that when you are on when the client is on that chair, you’re the master of the domain, right? You own that chair and that client for the 30 minutes or the 4 hours because they are taking 4 hours sometimes to do certain styles. Chad Sowash: When Joel’s getting his tips done. Joel Cheesman: I guess the appeal of doing your own thing lures a lot of people into that world, and the software makes it easier and taking payments. But my guess is a lot of them sour on being their own boss after a time. Is there a strategy that you guys utilize to sort of keep in touch with them and say, "Hey, if and when you’re ready to join the dark side..." Boomerang. Boomerang, baby. Well, they’re not leaving and coming back. They’re leaving cosmetology starting their own thing, but realizing, oh, maybe the self-employed thing isn’t for me. Chad Sowash: But they’re still coming back. Back to what? Not the cosmetology. Hopefully. Hopefully. No. Not the cot- That’s what I’m talking about. Oh. I’m sorry. Okay. Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. No. The I don’t know the exact numbers within the industry of the amount of people that drop out, but to your point about the boomerangs, when I came into the industry, because I had not worked in the industry, they told me, "Get ready because you’re going to get people that are going to come back 4, 5, 6 times." And they do. And it’s because, particularly earlier in their career, they’re figuring out where they want to be. Ah. Uh-huh. Right? Do I want to be in a private salon? Do I want to be in a chain? Do I want to be on my own? Yeah. Yeah. So we remain in touch with all of them because we know that at some point, they’re going to come back, and we want to be ready. But we have to also have a story, and often I got I got to let them go for them to discover this was a great place. Mhmm. So our rehires is a point of focus for us. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big rehire font for us. Chad Sowash: So when we were back in high school, back in the day, the comprehensive, the vocational part of high school was big. It was pretty much inbred into every school system that was out there. And I remember Chad had a glorious head of hair. Back in high school. We did. We did. Don’t leave me out. We did. I’ll show you pictures of that moolit. That moolit, anyway. Google search. Anyway, so there was, I mean, that was a breeding ground for people to go directly into the into into, you know, your salons. Yep. But that has gone away. That’s gone. But we also need plumbers, and we also need, you know, people to build homes, and, you know, carpenters and what-not. Do you think that there might be a revival of the vocational sector in our high schools? Yep. To be able to, and are you guys actually pushing, or are there lobby groups or anything like that pushing toward actually making that happen? Joel Cheesman: Remember remember Grease, the Beauty School Dropout. We used to sing that to Tristan all the time. Yeah. I used to be a thing. Right in high school. Gustavo Serbia: I didn’t know what it was, by the way, when I watched the movie. I had no clue until later in life what that Oh, that’s what it means. Might be 6 when it came out. Yes. We’re working with government. We’re working with the schools because there has been a huge drop, particularly after COVID, a lot of schools closed. So we are no different than the electricians and the plumbers. We’re in the same boat, yeah, when it comes to that. We were not actively involved as a company, and then we said, okay, we going to have to get involved because the reality is that if we’re not partnering with those schools, then we don’t have stylists. Right. So we’ve upcharged our approach a little bit more in partnering with government. For example, licenses. If you have a license in Ohio and you move to Florida, you have to go through the entire process to get the license. Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash: It’s like nursing, which is it’s all ridiculous. Gustavo Serbia: It does not make sense. So we are pushing heavily to try to allow for licenses to just you transfer. Transfer. Drivers license. You transfer, you present the old one, get the new one, and you can move on. Right. You have people that have to sit on the sidelines for 3, 6 months waiting, and if there’s a backlog, yeah, depending on the state, there’s a backlog. Now you have lost productivity for 6 months. That individual is not making money, and that individual has to make a living and says, "Hmm, where do I go?" So, by the way, because the barriers of entries are low in the industry, although you need to have a license, we’re competing not only against the beauty industry, but any retailer out there. Oh, yeah. So so we lose people that go to other industries because they realize I need to make money, and some people are not comfortable making commissions, so they prefer that hourly rate. Even though that hourly rate may be lower, feeling wise, it makes me feel secure that I have that hourly rate. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re we’re figuring out ways to continue to build the pipeline, and it’s going to have to be in partnership with the schools. The schools have are picking up again, certainly we’re not in the COVID era. But I don’t see necessarily bigger players coming and saying, "We’re going to open a chain of beauty schools." It is slowly being rebuilt. Is it at the pace that we would like? No. But it takes money for people to actually do that. It’s expensive to go to beauty school. It’s not as cheap as it used to be. And the vocationals are I just went to one in Florida. Mhmm. Amazing amazing vocational school. Uh-huh. And they have barbers, and they have stylists. Barbers is a new front that we’re exploring as a company. But those don’t happen all the time. I mean, there’s the amount of schools out there has decreased tremendously. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman: Talked about the funnel from high school into this opportunity. Curious about your thoughts on the importance of immigration to this profession, whether the border is less porous or more. Talk about immigration, how important it is to filling these roles. Gustavo Serbia: Because we need a light you need a license to operate with us, coming from another country is only beneficial if you are getting a license. We have a lot of people, depending on market, Florida. Right? If you go South Florida, you have a lot of Latinos down there. But we have multiple languages within the company, when I came in, the first thing that I saw, "Oh, H2B visas," because I worked in hotels, yeah, where you bring a lot of those. Mhmm. It doesn’t exist within the industry. Yeah. So I thought about it. Hmm, maybe we could do something around that, but in reality, our path is probably better off through the vocational schools and ensuring that the schools grow, because, ultimately, I can bring somebody from another country to work as a housekeeper in a hotel or in the front desk. Chad Sowash: They don’t need a certification for it. Gustavo Serbia: They don’t need a certification. It’s expensive to get that certification, more than likely, they don’t have a lot of money coming here in the first place. In the first place. Yeah. Yeah. So it has not been a path, but we will always explore if there’s a possibility there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what’s on your tech wish list? What do you hope is created in the future, or what are you looking to buy, some other products or services to add to the arsenal? Gustavo Serbia: Yeah. Certainly an AI recruiter, something that can allow us to interview a lot more people quicker. Okay. That can serve questions and answer, better, than a chatbot, because the chatbot does it. Right? But it’s still more something more like an agent, an interviewer. More like an agent. Yeah. Yeah. And so that would be probably number 1. And number 2 is quicker reporting. We still use Tableau. Oh, yeah. Databases. We get the information that we need, Right. but with AI, I mean, I just started 3 weeks ago basically with a data dump. Yeah. And used AI to pretty much produce an entire analysis of the entire funnel. Uh-huh. And it took me it took me a week because I was looking at what I wanted to build. Yeah. But I don’t have to build pivot tables. Yeah. And I can now feed it the raw data of the new week and say, "Here’s the raw data for the new week. Update the analysis," and in 30 seconds, I have an updated piece of information. So using that technology to facilitate, for example, who are the people that we should be sourcing or going after? You have a lot of people in the database. Let’s say I have 6,000 people. Yeah. And I have 10 recruiters. Yeah. How am I going to go after 6,000 people? Yeah. Well, I’m trying to build right now a type of ranking mechanism that would allow us to say, "Okay. Who are the better people to go after?" and then go after those. So, rather than sourcing or going after everybody on the database, Right. use the technology to try to figure out this group tends to be better at completing interviews, completing the hiring process, right, staying longer. Yeah. Go after those. These ones you can go after, but you may not spend as much time and energy. Yeah. And technology can do that. Chad Sowash: And you’re at an event over the next few days, yeah, where there might have been some of your peers who have already whiteboarded that and they’re in the process of actually building it. So how much time are you actually taking in being able to have those discussions with peers inside and outside of your industry to look for those shortcuts? Gustavo Serbia: Inside the industry, not a lot to be transparent. The I coming from— Chad Sowash: Too much competition? Gustavo Serbia: Number 1. Yeah. Nobody wants to talk with each other. Yeah. I come from hotels, and in hotels, everybody talks. Yeah. There’s groups, HR groups that will get together and everybody will share data, information, and you will learn from each other. Right. This is not the industry for that. So you have to figure out by watching and then looking at other industries that might be doing it well. Marriott is a company that I think regardless of the industry, you should pay attention to, so I pay attention to what their workflows look like. Chad Sowash: You can tell he’s from the hotel world because he said Marriott instead of Marriott. Yes, he said Marriott. Yes. Good for you. Yeah. Gustavo Serbia: Well, at least I say one word correctly because my accent sometimes it gets in the way. Joel Cheesman: You say QR code and that’s all that is really really made me here. The QR code. All Joel cares about. The QR code. I got to learn about what’s going on. All right. You don’t want to know. But, ultimately, it would be nice to be able to do it within the industry, but it’s so defragmented. It’s very hard. It’s very hard to do it. So I just look at other industries and go who’s doing it well. Yeah. Yeah. You can always learn. Chad Sowash: Well, I would say, and not to say that your industry’s backwards, but it is slower to adopt and it’s not sharing. Correct. So more than likely, what you’re going to find that’s more innovative is going to happen outside. Gustavo Serbia: Correct. And that’s where I want to capitalize within the industry and say, "Okay. I’m not finding it within the industry." Mhmm. That’s okay. I can always find it somewhere else. It’s a matter of staying ahead of the curve. Chad Sowash: Well, needless to say, Marriott is going to be here this week. Yes. You can hang out with them and. Yes. It’s been fun hanging out with you, Gustavo. Thank you. Appreciate it. This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast hanging out with Gustavo Serbia, CHRO at the Hair Cuttery. J oel Cheesman: I’m Joel Cheesman. He’s Chad Sowash. This is the AI series and we out.

Funky Snapchat Specs and Dangerous Anthropic AI First, Chad and Emi dive into the absolute chaos that is the World Cup. Portugal finally woke up and Ghana managed to lull England right to sleep. But hey, at least Emi is still manifesting them bringing the medals home, but don't get her started on the tragedy of corporate-sponsored "hydration breaks." The Tech Hype Block Snapchat’s Specs Anthropic's "Look at me I'm DANGEROUS" side eye Who’d You Rather? (Startup Edition) At a metaphorical bar at 2 am. The contestants? Sloneek: A Czech-Slovak HR tool with a name that sounds like a pickup line. Hey Milo: A scrappy, seed-funded agent platform targeting frontline staffing. Orbio: A $21 million Series A giant focused on high-turnover workers. Will Emi choose or aggressively go after an HR foursome? PLUS: Data Centers: The New 1980s Indoor Malls I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost (Jobs) Weird Workplace Perks & Strip Club After-Parties Tune in, watch the World Cup, and Go Portugal! (Or England, if you're Emi). PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Chad (00:36.147) Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad. I ain't afraid of no ghosts so wash. Emi (00:43.258) And I am Emi Sweaty Betty Berodugo. Chad (00:46.977) And on this week's show, gross. the respective chats, Snapchat and Anthropic height machines are set to eleven. Startups are leaning hard into AI agents, and will New York really be true to 1984 and Ghostbusters? Let's do this. Chad (01:15.085) All right, Emi, so Portugal finally woke up yesterday beating Uzbekistan 5-0. They're their their first in we were getting ready last week as we recorded. I was all stoked to watch their them you know premiere against Congo and and do a good job against Congo. No, one one tie. yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Spain, Spain tied, right? and then Ghana lulled England to sleep last night in a zero zero tie. Emi (01:33.906) How? How? Yeah. Chad (01:44.711) After they beat Croatia. Croatia's a they're a hell of a team. They beat Croatia 4-2. What the hell is going on around there? Emi (01:53.675) No idea, but to honest, this is what England does all the time. You know, they come out all guns blazing and it's almost like they Yeah, I got this, we're gonna win again or get close to winning and they go into the second game and nothing happens. Nothing. And it's like wow. I mean, well done, Ghana, but England should have won that game. It should not have been a draw. Yeah. Chad (01:57.901) Mm. Chad (02:13.117) Yeah. I and I gotta tell you, I'm not sure that Ghana's ever played that well. And they meshed, they were aggressive. they they felt like the stronger team, in many cases. And in and I've said it a million times. I believe England has the best talent on the pitch, no matter what team you put out there, even Paris or even France, right? Emi (02:23.366) Yeah. Emi (02:27.087) yeah. Emi (02:37.457) Yeah. Chad (02:39.321) even Portugal, who they two amazing teams, Spain, another amazing team. I think England has a bounty, literally an embarrassment of riches, right? but I other than that, I I I they just can't put it together. Emi (02:50.245) Yeah. Emi (02:55.172) No, it's just something to seems to go wrong every single time. You know, they actually I s I let me take that back. They it doesn't they do pretty average in in the initial rounds and then they somehow, maybe it's the luck of the draw, get to the finals, you know. So I'm not gonna shit on them the whole way, but this is like a just a continuous Chad (03:05.303) Mm-hmm. Emi (03:18.522) a continuous thing with England. It's like I just want to see them go in and all guns blazing for once. You know, not not scraping to get to the final stages, you know? But, you know, well done Ghana. You know, Nigeria's not in it this year. And for anyone who doesn't know, my family's from Nigeria. So I suppose Ghana is our, you know, competitive sipping. So maybe I'm like, mm, okay, might be voting for Ghana, you know, instead of England. Who knows? Chad (03:25.793) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well Chad (03:43.232) I I mean see if they get through. We'll see if they get through, right? I they still they're still still more matches to be played. England's gonna be fine. They're still at the top, still at the top of the table in their group. So I don't I don't think it's gonna be an issue to them. But am I right in saying they have not won a World Cup since 1966? 1966? my God. Okay, I think. Emi (03:46.031) Yeah. Yeah. Emi (03:51.174) Yeah. Emi (03:56.069) Yeah. Emi (04:04.347) Yeah, they haven't. They haven't. Yeah. Yeah. I know. But as they say, every time we have these competitions, I don't know if you've heard the song, but it goes, it's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming in footnote, football's coming home. They yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. We get close. We get very close. Yeah. Chad (04:12.961) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:16.451) yes, yes, yeah. Chad (04:21.869) And it does not. Chad (04:30.253) So let's carry on the the UK the the the England football team discussion. Emi (04:33.97) Yeah, so my shout out. I know I just said, you know, maybe I'll go for Ghana, but I think now I'm gonna try and stay loyal, you know. For now, I'm still I don't know. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm gonna like kind of manifest this. I yeah, I'm I'm manifesting England to go all the way and bring the, you know, bring the medals home. Chad (04:40.695) Yeah. Uh-huh. Chad (04:50.189) Gotta try. Emi (04:57.488) You know, and England is so much happier when England you know, when we win the football. So come on, England. That's my shout out. Chad (05:02.7) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean yes. I I d I've gotta say from what I've seen in the media thus far, and I'm gonna talk about my shout out here in a second. We're gonna continue the football shout outs, but this is more American style. But before that, just how much America loves Scots. They love Scots. my God. Yes. And so so the the and and here's and here's another thing. Emi (05:12.615) Yeah. Emi (05:24.422) Did I? my Stephen McGrath's gonna love that then. Chad (05:32.475) so the Scots went to Boston first because they were playing they were playing Gillette Stadium Foxboro, right? And they drank the city dry. They drank the city dry. And they did it by and also putting the pylons on the you know the traffic cones on statues all over the place. they just had a great time. They were great for the the vibe of the city and everything like that. Emi (05:38.161) Yeah. Emi (05:51.813) Yeah. Love it. Chad (06:00.952) Well then they lost and they had to go down. I think they they went to Miami for their next match and England had to go to Boston. And nobody liked any the Brits or the English. Yeah. So it's like it's it's really hard to stay up with the Scots. but they're they're they're they're just they're proper funny as well. Emi (06:11.347) no. Emi (06:17.166) Yeah. They're proper drinkers and partiers. Yeah. Emi (06:24.004) Yeah, yeah. Chad (06:25.577) My shout out is to the American Stadium Experience. And I know, Emi, you haven't had an opportunity to do this yet, but I would I would like to say that it's great that Europe can experience American stadiums. We have 13 out of the top 20 loudest stadiums in the world. Arrowhead in Kansas City is the loudest and holds the Guinness Book World Record on the loudest stadium in the world. There are Jumbotrons. Emi (06:31.716) No, I haven't, yeah. Emi (06:50.439) Really? Chad (06:55.201) Beer, big pretzels, footlongs. And if you want an expensive refill, there's a guy walking up and down the stairs and the stands yelling, beer here, beer here. yes, yes. And they're and they're more than happy to give you a nice cold expensive refreshment. one thing Europeans aren't seeing though, is that we didn't use our largest stadiums. that's right. Eight out of the top Emi (07:04.274) Excellent. Chad (07:21.579) 10 largest stadiums in the world are in the US. They're all college stadiums. They're all college football stadiums. That's right. all of them over 100,000. and but at the end of the day, we have a bounty of riches when it comes to sporting stadiums, and we're glad that Europe gets a chance and the rest of the world gets a chance to actually check it out. Hopefully they got in and they didn't get sent home like that referee. Emi (07:28.538) Really? Emi (07:47.718) Well, yeah. Chad (07:49.029) but shout out to Europe getting a taste of the US experience. And we're we're we're happy you came and hopefully you had a great experience. Emi (07:57.286) Well Chad (08:00.653) It's not over yet. It's not over yet. Emi (08:01.553) No, hopefully one day I'll you know get to experience it. can I just say something though? One thing I'm not gonna shout out to you are these hydration breaks. You know, Chad, I hate them. They're shit! What the hell is that about? I don't understand. Just let the game play. Chad (08:10.349) People are bitching about that left and right. You can you can blame the Premier League because the Premier League actually has hydration breaks when it gets too hot. but the thing is now FIFA is taking advantage of those hydration breaks for guess what? Commercial breaks. That's right. Yes. Emi (08:31.662) Yeah. Yeah. Thank God they're not showing those commercial breaks here. But I'm just like, just take this off. This is pointless, you know. And I know obviously they're saying, you know, it's hard where they're playing. But these are professional athletes. You get paid to do this. You got people like in places like the Middle East, for example, who are constantly playing in the heat. Man up. Play. You know? You're like you should have trained for this. You knew it's gonna be in this country. Train for it. I don't care. Chad (08:55.519) Well, you know what? It it's so it's so hot that Steven, for some reason, never wears a t-shirt. Emi (09:15.9) He nice. Chad (09:16.745) that's I am. Chad (10:00.631) Biggest biggest. Chad (10:18.701) See, how can you not love that? I mean, that that's that's a scot for you. I mean, he's talking about drinking the entire time and Emi (10:20.868) Yeah, that is Chad (10:29.685) He's also talking about events. travel is always sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's Shaker.com. If you don't have a agency of record, what are you waiting for to go to Shaker dot com? Emi, you know what's coming up. It's Recfest. It's Recfest in Knebworth. Emi (10:42.84) Yes. Go on Recfest. One of the best. Absolutely cannot wait. Cannot wait. Yeah. Chad (10:50.219) I love it. Jul July second, we're gonna be in England at Knebworth Park all damn day. Joel and I are gonna be singing the disrupt stage and you, Emi, you're gonna be over it. In i innovate, the innovate. Emi (11:00.018) I'm gonna be innovates. Yes, that is honest. What a great stage name, you know. And I've got some great people talking. I I I cannot wait to host that stage. Yeah. Chad (11:07.009) Yeah, yeah. It's yeah, same here, same here. And but before I forget, don't forget July 2nd, gotta be in Knebworth. But also go to recfest.com and if you have not gotten your tickets for Nashville yet, get your ass, get your get yourself ready with some tickets to Nashville because if you're missing UK Wreckfest, you gotta go to Nashville. And if you have if you're if you're going to the UK Wreckfest and you have not been to Nashville yet, you gotta check it out. Emi (11:31.292) For real. Chad (11:39.681) While I say that, I'm asking Emi, when are you gonna check it out? When are you coming to the US? Huh? You do? Emi (11:43.506) Do know what? I think I need to this year. I honestly. I had FOMO last year, you know. Obviously I did the UK one and then when everybody else was going, I was like, what? Why am I not involved in this? So I think somehow I've got to get myself there. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (11:57.245) I think we need to find a way. W we'll talk about that after. In the meantime. Chad (12:07.009) All right, kids, we're calling this the hype block. And I'm going to play a couple of videos. Give me a second here. As I've this this stupid media board that Riverside just installed, it just they it's like they roll it out on you and they're like, figure it out, right? So anyway, I'm figuring it out. we're gonna show a couple of videos and want to have a discussion to say is this hype? Is this real? Is this true? Is it or is this just hype and are they blowing smoke up your ass? So Here's the first one. We're gonna go with Evan Spiegel over at Snapchat. Chad (12:54.967) Look at those glasses. Emi (12:57.488) They are weird, said Chad (13:20.233) Okay, so Specs. Talk to me. Do you think the hype is real or is this just a bunch of smoke? What what what about specs? Emi (13:20.287) okay. Emi (13:30.682) I look, this is the first time kind of seeing it properly and I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced, you know. Obviously Snapchat, you know, what what was Snapchat back in the day? I get they're trying to involve, but really they were just like a social media platform for kids, you know. Let's have funny, I don't know. pictures on the top of your head or images at the top of your head. And now they're doing glasses. And it's like interesting moves. Obviously they're trying to compete with the yeah the likes of Apple and Meta with their type of glasses. But this whole standalone computer whilst you're walking around type thing, I'm not sure that's really gonna take off. I don't think people know Snapchat for that. And I don't think people are ready in this day and age to be wearing a portable computer in their head. And Chad (13:59.433) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (14:13.804) Mm. Emi (14:18.822) How much are they? Chad (14:20.543) I'd like twenty three hundred bucks or something like that. Emi (14:23.526) $2300. no, no one's gonna pay for those. Yeah, I'll get it out. Yeah, I'll put that, you know, I can have an iPad. I can all I could do all that kind of stuff on my phone. I could use my laptop. Why would I want to have a computer while I'm walking around day to day? maybe I'm a dinosaur, but I think it's I think it's crap. Chad (14:45.793) Yeah, so for those not watching the video, there were big, chunky ass glasses, and nobody I mean nobody will wear those boat anchors on their face. I mean, did you see how big not just the frames were around the eyes, but the ear pieces. The earpieces were huge, and Evan Spiegel, who is a good looking dude, those glasses rendered him unfuckable. They Emi (14:58.738) Mm-hmm. Emi (15:05.167) Yes, yes. Chad (15:15.329) He put them on. It was like, these that's a good looking dude, nope. He's nope, he's nope, he's unfuckable. He's unfuckable. So these feel like Facebook's venture into the metaverse where they wasted over 80 billion. the big difference is that Facebook is printing money and they could take a hit like that. Snapchat isn't printing money. they're not even in the black for God's sakes. They're in the red. They've invested three billion. Emi (15:17.611) Yeah. Emi (15:37.411) No. Chad (15:44.759) For a boat anchor that sits on your face. Whew. Emi (15:44.956) Three three billion. What an absolute waste of money. That explains the price tag, but what an absolute waste of money. You know, yeah. No. Chad (15:53.518) Crazy. Crazy. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna I think we're we're we're both on the same page of this one. let's go ahead and let's hear what Dario has to say over at Anthrop. Emi (15:59.804) Yeah. Emi (16:05.68) Okay. Chad (16:27.615) Okay, okay, so super weapon. You should have to get a permit. What do you think? Was this is this is he blowing smoke up your ass or is the hype real? Emi (16:37.239) Do you know what do you know one of the things I love about this video is how he's always trying to stay humble and my my god, other people said this is you know, a super weapon. You need a gun license to use it. my god, I'm not saying it. Other people are saying how amazing this is. It's like, shut the fuck up. It's like the my god. Yeah. Chad (16:39.863) What? yeah. Chad (16:50.113) Yeah, yeah. That's a very Trump thing to do. It's a very Trump thing to do, yes. other people sa Sir, sir, you should have a you should have a you know a a a gun license for you shut up. Emi (17:03.516) my God. Yeah. I mean, this is absolutely like, this is a PR, good like as it's not a good PR tactic, but it is a PR tactic. You know, the way I look at it is just a way to kind of drive up their valuation, you know, right, you know, be right before they go public with this model. And what it also does is try to create this kind of like kind of. Chad (17:10.391) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (17:16.235) Mm. Yeah, yeah. Emi (17:24.938) It's almost like art artificial scarcity, you know? So it's like, this product is so powerful that only a few people can have actually access to it. And you know what what are they trying to do? They're just trying to attract investors. So do I believe this is a good thing? You know, or do I think this is PR hype? I think it's PR hype, yeah. Chad (17:27.61) yeah. Yeah. Chad (17:33.687) Yes. Chad (17:44.096) Okay. Okay. I'm gonna go with I think it's real-ish. do I think that there are LLMs that can find software vulnerabilities that humans have missed for decades? You bet your ass I do. You bet your ass I do. Would a vulnerability into the banking or maybe even the energy grid possibly topple a nation? You bet your you bet your ass it would, right? Do I believe we're there now? No. But here's the hard truth that. Emi (17:56.742) Yes, yeah. Emi (18:06.15) Mm-hmm. Chad (18:12.779) Dario Amondi actually said himself. AGI, he believes, is imminent. But will companies like Anthropic and OpenAI be around when it happens? Because the burn rate of these companies is so high and their monetization models aren't even close to making a dent in their burn. So if they don't continue to raise more and more and more capital and/or finally find a way to monetize, they're gonna flame out. So, yes, I believe. Emi (18:31.729) Yeah. Chad (18:41.739) Right now, this is hype to drive more funding and revenues. But it's something real that we're all going to have to prepare ourselves for because the first thing these algos will be used for is weaponization in the in in the energy grids, in banking. And unfortunately, un unlike it was pitched, it's not going to be used to cure cancer. So hey, I so Emi (18:58.043) Yeah. Emi (19:07.322) No, it's not gonna be used for good at all. Yeah. Chad (19:10.005) So sorry to be the bearer of bad news, kids. But yeah, that that's that's just no fun. That's no fun. but yeah, I mean from your standpoint, do you think the anthropics, especially we saw, and we'll talk a little bit more about this, but we saw the open AIs of the world and their burn rates. it it to me, it just doesn't seem sustainable. Emi (19:16.679) Yeah. Emi (19:39.068) think I'd have to actually agree. Yeah. I I I don't think it is at at all either. with Chad (19:44.429) I mean, if you're a Facebook and you're printing money, you're a Google and you're printing money, you know, it's almost like they're waiting these startups out. They're waiting them out, they're waiting them to flame out, so that the Emi (19:47.643) Yeah. Emi (19:54.204) Yeah. And then somebody else is gonna come along. Yeah. And one hunter is Chad (20:00.139) Possibly, or they just go ahead and scoop them up. Emi (20:03.173) Yeah. People are getting companies are getting acquired. So it'll be one or the other. Somebody else will do it better or, you know, they'll be acquired. Chad (20:15.607) Good yeah. Okay, okay. Moving on, moving on. We we haven't done this in a while. It's who'd you rather? let me go ahead and let me set the mood for you, Emi. So we're in a bar at 2 a.m. And in this case, you have three options, three sexy startups who who want to go home with you, right? So first now you have to choose which one. Emi (20:25.746) Woo. Emi (20:31.698) Okay. Chad (20:45.505) First is Sloneek. What a name. Sloneek. who, Sloneek, Sloneek, who just received 3.6 million euros in Series A, so they have a bank account. founded in 2019, Czech Slovak HR startup, Sloneek, has evolved from an HR tool, a regional HR tool, into an AI-powered platform serving companies across Europe. Emi (20:50.29) I love how you say that. It kinda Slonique, hey, buy me, come home with me. Chad (21:12.417) Sloneek is used by more than 500 enterprise customers across 25 countries, collectively managing HR processes for approximately 50,000 employees. Those numbers don't drive really well, do they? 500 and okay. They don't jive well. Anyway, customers include Grant Thornton, Mann, WTT PP Media, and Twistio. There we go. That is Sloneek. next we have, let me let me do it again. yeah. yeah. We have Hey Milo, 6 million USD in seed. They're focused on frontline workers through staffing companies. they have customers like Ron Stad, Wilson HCG, and Neo Financial. Hello Milo provides an AI driven platform that enables employers, staffing companies, and recruitment process outsourcing firms. That's RPO for you kids to automate candidate sourcing. Emi (21:47.378) I'm loving this. Chad (22:14.643) Screening across voice, video, phone, SMS, and resume analysis. That is hey, Milo, and last but not least. We have Orbio. Ooh, look at that. Thank you. Got a little treat. Alex, Alex sent me a little treat. Orbio, $21 million USD Series A. Holy shit, Orbio. frontline workers, focused on frontline workers, have clients, yum brands who own Pizza Huts, Taco Bells, and KFCs. Orbio helps interview candidates, assess fit. Monitor employee output and conduct daily check-ins throughout an employee's work life cycle. Wow, that's a lot. That is Orbio. Who I say who? Who you going home with, Emi? Who you picking? Who might it be? Emi (23:08.594) Okay. Emi (23:18.258) Okay, so question. Can I take all three home with me? Chad (23:19.746) Yes. Yeah, well it is not bad. So who would be your first to take home and then the other two could follow along? Emi (23:29.722) Nothing wrong with a good old foursome. It went twenty six, surely. I mean yeah. Emi (23:40.083) Ooh, okay. Can I go in reverse order? Yeah, because this is actually quite tough. Because to be honest, I think that I I think they all sound good. You know, I would take any one of these three home, I think, you know. But since you're making me choose, you know, okay. I'm gonna go third place. Third place, I'm gonna go with Hey Milo. Yeah. And you wanna know why? Yeah. Chad (23:42.025) Mm. Sure, please. Okay. Chad (24:02.094) Okay. Okay. Of course. Everybody does. Everybody does. Emi (24:08.1) Yeah, okay. Okay. So the thing about Hey Milo, I think their product is good. I think what they're selling is actually good. And I think it actually fits a a market need. Okay. my worry is, is that will what they're doing be absorbed by, you know, kind of legacy applicant tracking systems who would just, you know, either be absorbed by them or will they will they try to do what Hey Milo is actually doing, you know, and compete because they have deeper pockets and eventually they'll be squeezed out of the market. Chad (24:13.463) Mm-hmm. Emi (24:37.188) So because of that, they're gonna go in third place. And then in second place, I'm gonna go with Slonique. No, I okay, so it was it was tough, I think, between these two. I Sloneek again has a good product. the core portfolio is strong, and I do think they have long-term viability. Chad (24:44.525) Mm-hmm. Emi (25:07.108) So but the reason why I'm going with I'm trying to how do I say Orbio? Does that sound as sexier? Obio. I think why they pit the post is because the people that they're kind of I suppose helping is this kind of like frontline workers, you know. There's 2.7 billion people in that market, you know, and I just think there's more return on investment by going down that particular field. So that is the reason why I'm gonna go with Orbio. Chad (25:13.707) Orbio. yeah. Orbio. Chad (25:31.005) Okay. Emi (25:37.168) Since you make me Yeah, but you know, if I if we ever do this again, please allow me to have a foursome because I'm okay with that. Okay. Yeah. Chad (25:40.878) You could hey you can do whatever you want. I was just asking for a ranking. Or Orbio does sound kind of like a vibrator company though, does it not? yeah, it does. It does. I that I thought so. Orbio for her. Yeah, they came out with the Raging Rabbit and you know all those things. okay, so Orbio is the winner. There we go, kids. Emi (25:49.659) Yeah. does it? Orbio for her pleasure For his and hers pleasure. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Chad (26:10.443) I do have a little disclosure to happen here. A little disclosure. actually this news came out and I'm actually in talks right now with Hey Milo to be an advisor. So, let me just I think personally the agent space incredibly smart. What these guys do are incredibly smart. I'll do a just a quick rundown of what I like and don't like. Sloneek. Emi (26:12.738) Okay. Chad (26:37.565) Love it. They've been around since 2019, which means they have their fingers already in the industry. Now they have been really focused regionally, right? and yet they I I think they're landing and expanding and they're going to the US and those types of things. I think they need more focus. but I think it's great, especially starting out in Europe. Europe has a hot startup scene, hot startup scene. So I I really love those guys. Emi (26:51.75) Mm-hmm. Emi (27:02.864) When you say focus, are you talking about geographical focus or product focus? okay. Chad (27:05.353) I'm talking about all over the place, geographical focus. If you take a look at what they're doing, not to mention take a look at their integrations. Their integrations are Google Calendar, Google Workspace, Jira, Lookup Studio. No mention of integrations to workday, SAP, ISIMS. I mean, anything that you would want from this space, you would hope that they would have integrations there, but but they don't. So Philip Lukak or Lu Lucich, I can't say your name right, sir. Emi (27:28.89) Okay. Chad (27:33.901) The CEO, focus on integrations, focus on the your TAM there, buddy. Orbio, 21 million series A. That is a lot of money. That is a lot of money. I think that's awesome. Young Brands, they they mentioned two companies that have as client customers, two you know, big companies. One was Young Brands, that's awesome. Frontline workers. Emi (27:41.521) Mm-hmm. Emi (27:47.227) Yeah. Chad (28:02.466) That's exactly where you should be starting. so make yeah, yeah. I healthcare, retail, logistics. it's amazing. It's amazing. So I think these guys are great. the problem is that I see comp companies, startups, get a lot of money who've never been in this space before. They burn quickly because they don't know where to go. Emi (28:04.721) Yeah, two point seven billion deathless workers out that there. Yeah. That's eighty yeah, that's eighty percent of the work the global workforce. Yeah. Emi (28:29.105) Mm-hmm. Chad (28:29.173) Right. And that's my that would be my only caution. I'm not gonna say they're doing that or going to do that. That would be my only caution. Hey Milo, in talking to Sebastian over there, the CEO, these guys are gritty. they don't want to take a lot of money, because which I love because you gotta be scrappy at first, right? And I think one of the biggest problems that we're having in the AI model space right now is they're getting too much money, right? If you take a look at a lot of the China LLMs, they're not getting as much money and they're being more scrappy and they're using worse chips and they're doing more with those things. I mean, they're forced to actually do more with less. And when you do that, you innovate. And I fear that getting a lot of money really hurts. a young startup and these guys they they only got six mil in and seed which is good which is very good the thing that i love the most about these guys staffing Randstad, Wilson HCG staffing and here's why talent acquisition Emi (29:35.858) Mm-hmm. Chad (29:44.94) For TA practitioners, that's their job. For Ranstad, Wilson HCG for RPOs, that's their business. They have to do this right. They have to get better. They have to be more efficient. And they need tech to do that. So I think starting with staffing first makes a hell of a lot of sense. again, I'm biased because I'm talking to these guys, prospectively an advisor sometime soon, but Hey Milo Emi (30:15.132) I love it. Chad (30:23.135) All right, kids, we will be right back. Chad (30:35.851) All right, straight out of this one. We're gonna talk a little bit about Google, Oracle, blue collar workers, data centers. This straight from the BBC. Oracle shed about 21,000 roles globally in the last year as US Technology Giant reshapes its business around AI, the firm's latest annual report shows. The software and cloud computing firm says it had around 141,000 full-time employees. Around May this year. And now they're down to about 162,000 workers. the deployment as you were down for they're down from 162. So they had 141 down to a hundred I mean, down from a hundred and sixty-two. Jesus. the deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted and may continue to result in reductions to our workforce. The Emi (31:19.856) Yeah, too, yeah. Chad (31:34.167) The report says the cuts, which amount to about 13% of Oracle's workforce, are part of a wider trend among tech firms as they spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building AI infrastructure like data centers. Wait a minute. Did somebody say data centers? You certainly, yeah, that and that no shit. So Last week we talked about Meta's announcement of launching America's Workforce Academy, powered by an initial $115 million first-year investment to develop skilled workers to build data centers. Now, Google wants in on some of those skilled workers to build their data centers. That's right. Google has unveiled plans to invest 50 million. This is Chump James for these guys, kids, 50 million in skills, trades, training the that covers as many as 300,000 jobs across more than 20 states. Wow. the plans mention the likes of electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters, welders, service techs, and sheet metal workers. Emi, I'm sure you've heard America needs skill workers. I'm sure the UK needs skill workers too. But do we need that many fucking data centers? Your thoughts. Emi (32:44.166) Yeah, everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Emi (32:51.45) Hmm, what are my thoughts? I don't know. I don't know how many data centers we need, but I do know that the way they're going is both companies, I don't actually necessarily agree with their approach. So, you know, if we look at, you know, you started off with Oracle, you know, 21,000 jobs cut as they embrace in AI. That's 30% of their, I suppose, the entire global headcount gone. The optics around it are terrible. You know, they are paying billions into like kind of investing in AI, which I totally understand. But what they're doing, they're ruining the company culture, they are ruining company morale. People the people they need to actually, because they will need humans to actually, you know, keep developing AR products, they are not going to want to stay there. They're not going to and if they do stay, they're not going to want to, you know, necessarily produce their best work. And the ones that Chad (33:19.351) Mm. Well I tell you the Tony Gala keep and down there, but I've read my call. Yeah. Emi (33:45.935) end up leaving and hopefully get a job in a I suppose a more morally you know I don't know morally stable place if you like you know they're gonna go with all the institution institutional knowledge to another organization so do I think it's the right thing for them to do no but this is this is the way that a lot of tech companies are going you know Oracle's not the only one making these mass redundancies Chad (34:12.693) Mm. Emi (34:12.986) The difference here with Oracle is that do they have the deep pockets that some of the big organizations have? No. So they're almost putting themselves in debt and hoping that these data centers that they're building is going to pay off in the future. So that's my my take on the kind of Oracle situation. And when it comes to Google, you know, spending, you know, in like spending X amount on, you know, in Chad (34:28.173) So it does, or it will say. Emi (34:39.372) in you know developing the next set of people to build these data centers, I actually think is a bit bullshit. It's like on the surface it sounds good to some extent, you know, because they're thinking, right, you know, I need to get ahead of this. We are investing these data centers. We are going to have to grow in this particular area, but do they need as many as they say they need? Chad (34:44.164) Yeah. Chad (34:47.981) Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because I I tell you why Yeah, it has I mean it has the dash at it's it's the back. Emi (35:00.474) Not necessarily and the money that they want to put into investing these people is not even enough. You know, they're putting fifty million into growing the next generation of people going to build these data centers. But when you work it out, it's a hundred and sixty six dollars per worker. That is like so what are you gonna you know? And they make more th that is this ridiculous, you know, that's not what is it gonna cover? You know? A a a couple of meals? Yeah. So no, I I Chad (35:04.193) Yeah, you have to do that as an outcoming because it's going home like two. I know. Chad (35:14.541) Yeah. Chad (35:24.353) Yeah, good question. Emi (35:28.178) You know, I think both of these situations are a bit crap, to be honest. Chad (35:32.599) So yeah, I think it's great that Google and Facebook are training skilled tradespeople after they're finished building these data centers. That means it won't take a week to get a clock a a plumber to call you back. but I believe there's a bigger issue that's coming up, more on the macro side of the house. And I think it's time for Chad (35:56.534) That's right. You're gonna love this one. let's throw it back to the 1980s. The US was absolutely crazy over indoor malls. It was glorious. You could hit the arcade, watch a cheap movie, buy some oversized jeans, and aggressively loiter in a food court, right? Fast forward to today, and 70% of Americans live within driving distance of a rotting dead mall that's only useful as a set for stranger things. Out of 2,500 malls, up to 1,800 are dead or demolished. We got excited, we overbuilt, and the market shifted, right? But because we're humans and never learn, we are doing the exact same thing right now, just at a terrifyingly larger cost scale. Enter data centers. So right now, there are nearly 1,500 new data centers planned and under construction in the US. And look, I know I'm oversimplifying here, but this is the mall thing all over again, just with a bigger price tag. They're overbuilding. The tech will shift. What happens then? The shrinking footprint, these places need hardware upgrades every three to five years. As microchips grow smaller, faster, smarter, and compute gets cheaper. Do we really need all that damn space? Or are we just building future paintball arenas? plus The local drain on the economies. Data centers are absolutely guzzling electricity, water, leaving local communities to deal with higher bills and murky water. And here's the kicker, folks. Leaked 2025 financial documents showed OpenAI brought in a cool $13 billion in revenue. That sounds good, but they had $34 billion in expenses, which is a $21 billion. Chad (37:52.546) billion dollar operating loss. Now math is hard, but that ain't great. Remember, when we were talking about Dario Amade earlier in the show, he thinks AGI is right around the corner. But at this rate, will these companies even be alive to see it? If OpenAI flames out, who inherits those giant power-sucking monoliths? One of the one of the answers is Oracle, by the way. We're a fad, just like landlines, fax machines, Blockbuster, and Napster, data centers aren't disappearing tomorrow, but the numbers will dwindle and we're going to be left with a bunch of high tech hulking husks. But there's a high note, there's a there's a light at the end of the tunnel. With all the kids realizing tech might not be, you know, there to save them, and they go flooded into the skilled trades instead. At least we're gonna have plumbers, electricians, people to actually build shit now. And that was one of the things that we've had problems with over the past few decades. So we're gonna get some good stuff out of this, but you gotta ask yourself, where are these data centers really gonna go? And we do we need all these things? And back to your answer your question, I think Oracle is being smart. They're gonna watch OpenAI flame out and they've partnered with them on a lot of these data centers and they'll just take them over. Emi (39:18.438) Yeah they have. Yeah. Chad (39:22.829) Crazy. Crazy, crazy. All right. Hey, who doesn't love a good mall? I mean, when you when you grow up, when you grew up, and again, different in in the US, we were very mall centric, right? It was it was where we we hung with our friends, we went to movies. I mean, just it was it was kind of like the cool kids pla place to go. And now they're dead because of retail shifts, because of online, Emi (39:25.778) It was a beautiful history lesson though. I learned something today. Emi (39:38.801) Yeah. Chad (39:52.065) You know, buying and those types of things. Did you see the same thing when you were growing up? Emi (39:55.987) Do you know what I'll say? It depends on the region. So if I'm looking at the UK, and I, you know, before people listeners may know, I've mentioned it before, I lived in the UK, grew up here, and then left the UK, you know, 20, no, 2008. So if I wanted to go shopping back then, I would go to my local shopping center. There were two opposite each other, all the shops were there. Chad (39:59.874) Mm-hmm. Chad (40:19.82) Yeah. Emi (40:19.93) I've come back and in the five years I've been back, all the kind of retail units are empty. It is a dead zone. Everything I need, I can get off Amazon. I can get off like a whatever online shop. So I don't need to leave my house. So for someone who's quite lazy, even better, you know? So yeah, that has happened. Things have changed in the UK. However, like I said, I also lived in Dubai. In Dubai, shopping malls are all over the place. It's not slowing down. And it's kind of that way for a lot of the GCC region. And maybe it's because of their model of shopping center, maybe similar to the US, it is not just a place to shop. It's a place to entertain. It's a place to where you can go ice skating if you like, you know, in the middle of the desert, go skiing in the middle of the desert, go to the cinema, you know, in the middle of a shopping mall. Chad (40:51.469) Mm-hmm. Chad (40:58.369) So yeah. Chad (41:09.623) See it. Emi (41:11.62) So it's much more than a shopping place and it's obviously it's hot outside. So there's AC, so that's where it's a good place to congregate. Yeah. But so that's why I say it may depend on the r on where we are in a particular world. So I get your idea about the shopping mall idea, but that that could be the case with data centers. I mean that we don't do I believe necessarily that we need all the data centers right now. Chad (41:12.855) Very good. Emi (41:36.794) I'm not a hundred percent sure. do I believe they're taking an aggressive approach rather than a cautious approach because they don't know what we you know, we're entering uncharted territory. Possibly, it does look that way. you know, I think we're in like just times where we can't predict, so people have to just take a bit of a gamble and hope for the best. Chad (41:54.062) cross your fingers, kids. All right. This one is straight from Fisher Phillips website. New York's Ghost Job Bill could reshape job posting practices. What employers should know? Let's listen up, employers. This for you. New York lawmakers just passed a bill last week that would require certain employers and job posting platforms. And job posting platforms to disclose whether a job ad is tied to a current opening and if so, when the employer expects to fill it or whether the posting is being used to build a future candidate pipeline. The bill targets so-called ghost jobs or postings that appear to advertise open roles, but may instead be used to collect resumes for future hiring needs. The bill would apply. To employers with a hundred or more employees and certain third-party job posting platforms. If Governor Hocul signs the bill that passed the legislature on June 2nd, in its current form, it will take effective immediately, giving covered employers little time to adjust their posting practices. Emi, I gotta say, it's fitting New York. is leading the I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost regulation since Ghostbusters was actually filmed in New York City. What what's what's your take? Emi (43:23.664) To be honest, I like this idea and I'm not surprised by this. And I'll tell you why. A couple of months ago, actually beginning of the year, in fact, I think that's when Ontario, Canada went live with a similar thing. They had a whole bunch of black kind of employment reforms and anti-ghosting and being having more transparency with joke job postings, that that went live in January of this year. And because of that, I actually predicted that, yeah, of course, other companies, other sorry, other countries are going to be watching and probably following suit. So, like I said, I'm not surprised. Do I think it's a good idea? Yes. And I think it's great because they're doing more to protect candidates. It is tough out there for candidates. And applying for jobs which don't exist. Chad (44:09.228) Mm-hmm. Chad (44:13.929) Were you watching the matches of Emi (44:14.254) And don't exist because it's a pipeline job, but you haven't made it clear that it's a pipeline job, or you're trying to maybe you're trying to look like your company is actually growing to the external market, you know. Great for the organization because they get a ready pipeline of like candidates ready for when they go to hire and the time to fill will be shorter. But it's a shitty experience for candidates. And Chad (44:24.779) Yeah. Yeah. Emi (44:38.968) Why why should organizations be doing things to make candidates feel even worse in a crappy market? So do I like it? Absolutely. But there are, I still think there are gaps. I know we're still sitting with this governor too for a signature. I think there are gaps. I think the immediate turnaround, for example, you know, if this does go live. That doesn't give enough time for companies to prepare. I don't think there's enough, from what I can see, enough guidance on how to really operationalize this because it's not just a case of saying, hey, you know, you you have to say, use this wording on your job adverts to show that this is actually a live, real job. Technology comes into that. Some people have to configure their technology, you have to train people. How and what happens if, let's say, for example, you post a job. And hiring ty hiring timelines change, you know, because they're saying that you need to say how long the luck job needs to be live for. Chad (45:35.115) Mm-hmm. Emi (45:40.359) But people know hiring is not straightforward. Like, you know, you might say that this job is live because we expect to fill it within X number of days. But if the timeline changes because the requirements have changed, what do people do? Does it does the clock start again? And how do you use technology to show that it starts again? Because you have to have some kind of audit trial? Or do you just deactivate the job and post it back live again? So I think there's not enough guidance. Chad (45:47.947) Mm-hmm. Emi (46:07.534) in from what I'm seeing. And it's kind of similar to what I encountered when the Antuario one went live at the beginning of the year. So it's great, but you haven't really truly thought this through properly. And it makes me feel like it not enough HR or TA practitioners were actually involved in drafting this bill. So that's where I'm at. Chad (46:12.237) Some of every yeah. Chad (46:27.078) I I didn't ex I didn't expect to do this, but I'm going to So in 2007, as you talk about, you know, things happen quick happening quickly, in two thousand seven, George Bush shut down the America's Job Bank. And the America's Job Bank was actually created to take jobs and distribute them to all fifty job banks, state job banks, right? Not to mention also to Washington DC and Puerto Rico and and and so so on and so forth. Emi (46:37.777) Yeah. Chad (47:02.955) That happened overnight. Pretty much happened overnight. There wasn't much lead time. What happened? Scared the shit out of every HR person that was out there. But guess what happened? They came together and they got it fixed, right? I think making excuses for not having enough guidelines is bullshit. You can we're smart people. This is our this is our industry. We know how to work this stuff. We can figure this out. We can work directly with our industry. vendors to be able to figure out how to actually make these things work easily. The hard part from our standpoint, I think we can make this work as practitioners, HR practitioners. Now, the more malicious side of this is on the job board side, where we're seeing a small amount of job boards scraping jobs off of hiring sites, reposting them on their own job board, and then leading job seekers into scams, harvesting Emi (47:55.026) Mm-hmm. Chad (47:59.762) all their data and never pushing any candidate resumes or profile information back to the actual company they're supposedly representing in the first place. Then the scams can scale through partners where they use vendors like Indeed, Appcast, Google for Jobs, and and others that that are doing amazing jobs from a distribution standpoint. But sometimes these bad actors slip in. And we've seen that over the past few months, over the past few weeks. Will this legislation be a solution? I think every I think every Emi (48:33.976) Is deterrent, yeah. Chad (48:39.113) Every company needs kind of like a shock every now and again, to be able to refocus on what they should be doing. And from this standpoint, this is mainly about transparency. It's mainly about transparency. It's the three different things current vacancy to be filled within 90 days. That's on the job, or current vacancy to be filled more than 90 days, or no current vacancy, aka it's an evergreen job, right? Emi (49:07.111) Mm. Chad (49:08.811) We can make this work as employers. I think the hard part and where it becomes a tad onerous is if an employee employer is unaware or reasonably should be aware, which is a part of the the whole, you know, bill, that a third-party job posting entity independently posted that position. The employer would have to notify that entity and then They would actually have to get it pulled down. So I think the onerous part is hoping that you can find all of the copies of your jobs out there and then start to manage these bad actors. I'm working with a large group of companies right now. And before this actually came out, this was part of the cleanup crew, you could call it, that they're trying to put in place because they saw as a problem. So it's not easy, but. There are violations in fees. The fees aren't huge. I mean, you're talking about twenty five hundred dollars per violation, but if you have hundreds of jobs and you're not auditing, plus if you don't rectify it in 30 days, it goes to five thousand. And every other thirty days that you don't rectify, it doubles and doubles and doubles and doubles. So if you're not managing this, this could be this could be a mess for an organization. Emi (50:17.02) Then it can add up. Emi (50:37.522) Absolutely, and this is why I go back to my point about I know you're saying obviously we're smart people, but some people don't know what they don't know. So like you said, if somebody's advertising your job again and you just have no idea what's out there, they need guidance to go, right, these are the potential things that could happen. These are the routes you can actually go down. It's not not just enough to go, this is the law, this is taking effect now. I think it's important to also help people to operationalize this, spot the, you know, give them a bit of direction on how to actually do this properly and how to make sure they avoid those fines. Because otherwise people could inadvertently, you know, break the law and get fined for something that they didn't actually realize they were violating. So I think one, yeah, I think one is similar. Chad (51:22.593) Yeah. That's that's why you need experts in the room. That's why if you're an enterprise company, if you're trying to do this yourself, great if you think you have the expertise, but you should have experts in the room. Emi (51:26.704) Yeah. Chad (51:36.61) Governments do this as a scare tactic. I'm telling you right now, they don't have the resources from an enforcement standpoint to actually go out there and start nailing companies on day one. They don't. so they're doing this as a scare tactic. I've seen it before. That's exactly what's happening. But as soon as they get funding, they will start ramping up enforcement. so I mean, at the end of the day, I Emi (51:38.609) Mm-hmm. Chad (52:01.922) I really think companies should take these things serious. This is about transparency. Is it an evergreen job? Is it not an evergreen job? Right. People are calling them ghost jobs. They're they're used for different, for different things, and they have been even before the internet came along. but yeah, that's a scare tactic. And it's unfortunate that there's so much, I guess you could say, misinformation that's Emi (52:13.723) Yeah. Chad (52:28.469) out there you've got all these quote unquote influencers that are saying, Well, those are just ghost jobs and that's this. It's like there are different mechanisms for different reasons, for different roles. Emi (52:36.518) Yeah. It's not all done for malicious reasons. No, not at all. And I think just people don't understand that. or people outside of the industry don't understand that. But I do think that whilst we're waiting, that I don't let me take a step back. I think that organizations actually l hear this and go, right, okay, what can I do now? Don't just wait. Chad (52:40.277) No. Mm-mm. Emi (52:58.276) particularly if you're global organization, you know, recruiting globally, don't wait for that legislation to actually come in. Start looking in it now because really, in all honesty, I just think more and more countries, more and more states around the world are going to start doing this. So why just why not just get ahead of it right now? Chad (52:58.434) Mm-hmm. Chad (53:15.507) Amen. And if you don't Chad (53:24.033) gonna suck to be you. We'll be right back. Emi (53:25.191) yeah. Chad (53:27.957) All right, we're gonna end the show with a funny one. this one from Business Insider last year, the CEO of AI Startup Factory took an unusual talent management tactic, buying everyone pricey sleep tech. You heard me right, sleep tech. CEO Martin Grinberg gave every employee a three thousand dollar mattress cover, not a mattress, mattress cover. When the startup had 30 employees, Grinberg compared his employees to professional athletes like NBA players. His engineers need rest. I want to make sure everyone is squeezing out every ounce of brain power they had, he said. To do that, you need to get good sleep. And he's right, you do need good sleep. the pricing mattress covers, he said, were the right style of benefit. Now with Emi (54:13.18) Yeah, yeah. Chad (54:20.383) 120 employees. He hasn't yet gifted the product to factory's new employees. Shame on you, Maton. he said, but he's considering making it standard issue. Emi, what is the weirdest perk you got from an employer? Emi (54:37.628) Well, I the thing is I'm a little bit embarrassed to say this because obviously we are supposed to be a professional, you know. I'll tell you what happened, right? And I like I even I was shocked and I I'm pretty unshockable. So when I was like leaving the UK. Chad (54:40.107) Ha ha ha Wasn't an it wasn't an orbio, was it? Emi (54:58.818) I was actually working for a recruitment agency at the time and I was like, right, okay, to dubby in two weeks' time. And you know, my work colleagues gave me a massive box, and I was like, my god, what is it? You know, thinking it's something like really special. I unwrapped it and it was a blow-up sex doll called Mario Yeah, yeah. And his name was Mario with a mouth like Chad (55:16.269) I wasn't I wasn't far. I wasn't far. Chad (55:24.205) my God, yeah, yeah. Emi (55:25.944) like this big open mouth you can imagine what's supposed to happen i was like my god you know obviously i still work in the recruitment world and that's like a excuse me it's like you know you're not supposed to give me presents like this when we work in our area it was hilarious i had it for about six years it sat on my yeah mario the blow up sex doll sat on my exercise bike I used to get like, you know, my, you know, people coming round to like kinda do stuff in my house and they go, What is that? I was like, This is exactly what do you think it is? Chad (55:56.795) Ha ha Emi (56:00.103) So yeah, that is the weirdest thing I've ever received. Chad (56:05.354) Okay, it's this is gonna make mine even more weird. So the weird it wasn't a blow-up doll. I didn't I did not get a blow up doll. So the weirdest perk was going on a president's club performance trip when I was at monster.com. Monster was the cool kid on the internet block at the time, and the trip was h hosted by Emi (56:11.876) Okay. Chad (56:26.687) which is now Radency. CEO Andy McKelvey, who flew all the way to flew us all the way to Florida to play golf at one of his golf courses. that was that was that was cool. but where it got weird is that after we got done golfing, we went back to the hotel room, we got showered, ready for dinner, had dinner, it was great. And then Andy took us all to the after party and At a strip club. it's it's it's already weird going to a strip club with the CEO of the company that owns your company, but it's even more weird when you're having drinks at the strip club with your very religious female boss. Emi (56:58.254) I knew you were gonna say that. Emi (57:06.289) my god. Emi (57:13.969) no no my god, what did she say? Chad (57:23.519) we didn't say anything. It we just had an odd wor awkward glance and didn't look at each other in the eyes the entire time. I went to the other side of the room and I got I got away. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Emi (57:25.444) Yeah. Emi (57:36.732) She's probably thinking that praying to Jesus is like, Bless me with holy water. It's like cleanse me with holy water, in fact. Chad (57:43.967) And that being said, I think that's better than any dad joke. Joel Free June is coming to an end. If you're watching the World Cup, hope your team does well. If you're not watching the World Cup, watch the World Cup. All these countries are coming together. It's great to watch this happen. And go Portugal. Ha ha ha. Emi (57:48.42) Yeah. Emi (58:00.293) Yes, said Emi (58:09.912) Portugal? Go England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. out. See ya, bye bye. Chad (58:14.717) We out.

Resumes are officially dead, and generative AI just blew the fragments to pieces. With a staggering 86% of hiring managers admitting that AI makes it too easy to fake skills on paper, corporate hiring has hit a massive signal crisis. The old way is broken—but what comes next? The Face-Off: In this sharp, fast-paced episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, moderator Chad Sowash hosts a "Skills Duel", at HR Week's Fusion, between two visionary founders pushing the boundaries of talent acquisition: Phuong Vu (CEO & Founder of Telexa): The defender of the agile, skills-first organization. Phuong argues that true skills-based hiring isn't just about managing a massive, static library of keywords—it's about operationalizing human capability, looking for real-world evidence, and screening for highly adaptable, transferable skills. Dr. Maya Huber (CEO & Co-Founder of TaTiO): The champion of performance intelligence. Maya challenges the status quo, warning that "skills-based hiring" is on the verge of becoming an empty corporate buzzword if we keep relying on flat, retrospective data. Her radical solution? Ditch the applications entirely and force candidates to try out the job using live simulations before they ever reach an interviewer. The Burning Questions: Are companies treating their employees like "disposable heroes" by reorging instead of upskilling? Has "culture fit" just become a lazy proxy for hiring people exactly like ourselves? How do you screen for a specific technical skill (like a CRM) when the technology evolves faster than the workforce can keep up? The Verdict: Whether you are a VP of Talent Acquisition or a forward-thinking HR disruptor, this episode is a blueprint for the future of work. Stop asking candidates what they claim they can do, and learn how to evaluate how they actually think, adapt, and execute. Listen now to find out who wins the duel. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT (created by Gemini) Chad: Well, thank you both for agreeing to have this debate. This is what we're calling the "Skills Duel." For all of you out there, my name is Chad Sowash. I'm the better-looking and smarter half of the Chad & Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast, and I'm going to be your moderator today. That's right, this session needs a moderator. Let me set this up. For decades, corporate hiring has relied on resumes: years of experience, job titles, and keyword-stuffed internal profiles. They tell us what someone claims they did, but not if they actually did the damn job. And guess what? Gen AI just blew that entire system to pieces. On the candidate side, resumes and cover letters can be polished to flawless perfection in three seconds. According to the data from Harris Poll, a staggering 86% of hiring managers say AI makes it too easy to exaggerate skills on a resume, and 80% say those resumes do not match real-world skills. Basically, everyone is lying, AI is helping them to do it, and traditional profiles are useless. Okay, so now the landscape has been set. It's time to meet today's participants. In this corner, we have Maya Huber, CEO and co-founder of TaTiO. Dr. Maya Huber has a PhD and is an organizational scientist and performance intelligence pioneer. Maya is dedicated to replacing text-based hiring proxies with automated, real-world job simulations. She's an industry realist who believes a skill means nothing without specific job context and pressure to back it up. And then in this corner, we have Phuong Vu, who is the CEO and founder of Telexa. She's a veteran workforce transformation strategist and has helped enterprise companies transition into agile, skills-first organizations. She is a forward-thinking disruptor who challenges corporate leadership to ditch obsolete job titles and scale practical, data-driven talent models. Here's how the duel will run: each participant will have a two-minute opening statement. After the opening statement, we will start with the comment and rebuttal periods, both of which I will set as a baseline of about a minute for response and rebuttal, and deem more time necessary if I think it's interesting. So, let's get to the opening face-off. Phuong will be advocating for skills-based hiring, and her opening statement—are you ready, Phuong? Phuong: Yeah, I'm ready. Chad: All right. It starts now. Phuong: So hi everyone, my name is Phuong, and I'm the founder of Telexa. Really happy to be here with Maya and Chad on this really interesting discussion. I honestly love the topic today, and I think skill has always been the controversial topics in HR and of course, in hiring specifically. And now with the rise of AI, the conversation has become even more interesting. AI is no longer just impacting like tasks or productivity; it starts to reshape the skills people need, how quickly those skills evolve, and even how organization think about like talent altogether. A lot of organization even struggle to find AI-relevant talent like right now. But I think many organization today still treat skill as more of like a nice-to-have concept rather than like a true operating hiring model. And I think one of the biggest reasons for that is the complexity of applying that into real real-life, you know, hiring or like workforce planning. Because the traditional model is very straightforward—like head-count based, role-based, have you done this role before, how many years have you done that role before? But skills-based hiring model is significantly more complex because it require organization to understand evolving capabilities, the actual context of applying that skill, potential like let's say role and job opportunity for like one CV, and actually applying it to real business needs as well at a much deeper level. And I think that complexity is what make a lot of organization still hesitate to adopt the skills-based hiring model. It just way more complex and even require change of mindset and way of work in hiring and HR in general as well. From my point of view, like for me, as Chad said, I'm I'm very pro-skill. Skill obviously matters, they clearly do, and but I was I also do see real challenges with it, whether organization are ready or mature enough or maybe even... Chad: All right, Phuong, that is your two minutes! We'll get into that though, we'll get into that. Maya, your two minutes start now. Maya: Okay. So, first of all, great to be here, and I do want to cheer for a minute for the fact that we are two women founders here. Correct? Okay. So, I think, as you both know, the skills-based hiring is one of the important conversations right now, and my mission here is to make sure that this is not going to be another buzzword, like I feel for decades diversity inclusion was. So, as you just said, we have a signal problem. The market cannot rely anymore on CVs, on resumes, all those textual informations that were feeding our system. And this becoming a problem because the AI layer that organization are using to say or to claim that they are implementing skills-based hiring is is not full. It do not represent the full picture because those are old credentials or work history, or things that people have done in the past. And what I'm intrigued with and where I think the future needs to go and real skills-based hiring is going to, is what is the next step of performance-based intelligence hire, where we analyze not old data, rather new data to understand where the market is shifting and what we are going to do with the skills of today tomorrow. Because the market is going to be completely different, positions are changing, and we need different infrastructure to assess our workforce. And by then to increase mobility, reskilling, upskilling, think this is real skills-based hiring, and as you said, Chad, for me skills without a context is useless. And how we can gather context in an era where everything we gathered so far is textual. Chad: There you go, with time to spare. Very nice, very nice. Well, Phuong, right out of the gate, I'm going to go ahead and lend it over to you. And and Maya just talked about the buzzword of skills-based hiring, which I mean, DEI, it it seems to be coming into fashion, going out of fashion, and it has for over the last 20 years. How how do we actually operationalize all of this to make it where it's not a buzzword anymore? Because Microsoft has different skills than the next—every company feels like they're they're different. How do we operationalize? How do we provide structure? Help us out with that. Phuong: So I think first of all, when we are looking at skill in general, I would say many company misunderstand what a true skills-based organization is supposed to be. [laughs] So, if skill is just treated as, let's say, giant skill library and everyone will be like, you know, "We have our own thing, we have this amazing skill library," or like map like these statics map mapping exercise, it's it's yeah, it's it's impressive, but it's actually not the real skills-based organization. Actually, I do agree with a part of a point from, you know, Maya is that, you know, skills-based organization is not just a skill library. If you are showing me like a skill library of thousands of skill, for me that is just skill inventory management. So, I think a real skills-based organization require proper like in infrastructure. What I mean by that is it should like your skill framework should align with, you know, company culture, how you work, what are the product context, like your business goals, your actual business need, skill definition, actually clear proficiency and scoring framework, and also behavior indicator as well. Otherwise, like company end up building like these generic skill library that looks amazing and impressive but actually have no operational relevance. So, for me, it's it's really about that. Chad: Okay. Maya? Maya: So, my main point is we need to go deeper. Just tagging skills with, you know, on groups or identifying them is not enough anymore. Because the data we gather is flat. We know their work history. We and even if we are looking at employees' data, which I know you cover, Phuong, I think that the data that we have is their outcome. We haven't seen the path, we don't know their learning process, what failed in a way, what was not working. And looking at end results and bottom lines, both in textual information and employees' performance information, is becoming obsolete. And I think the future should be there where we are leveraging technology right now to build a different infrastructure to assess performance, and by performance, I mean, putting employees and candidates within a position where we analyze their real actions, their behavior, how they solve solution within a context, specific context, you're right, in a specific job. But I feel and what that we are trying to do different things with the same data points, and this is why I'm afraid this is about to be a buzzword, because at the end, everybody will have the AI layer to assess their to tag their workforce with skills, right? That's easy. The the taxonomy is there. But how we can really know how we can take those employees to to different careers? And career is not linear anymore. We actually do not know how it's going to be, and I think this is a true calling for all HR people to do something else, not just adding AI-led layer on top of their performances, and have this feeling that they are doing performance, oh, skills-based hiring. It's not really. Chad: So, real quick, Phuong, so we know that even when the market was moving slow—and it's moving incredibly fast right now—when the market was moving slow, the market had a problem keeping up with skills, right? And to be able to actually create structures and also training and those types of things. And right now, it kind of feels like before any of this can be deployed, it's going to be outdated. Can you talk about that? The vision of, okay, skills, we need to focus on skills for skills-based hiring. How do we ensure that we move just as fast as the market has is now, because we haven't in the past? Phuong: So, I think that's actually aligned with a lot of organization now worrying about right now. So, a lot of them before like think about skills-based and they're like, "Oh, too complex to do." And then now they're like, "Oh, but AI also coming like, oh my god, do I have to do it now? Like too much work to do, for example." But from my point of view, like you don't have to like if you are trying to boil the ocean from day one, it's it's very difficult. So, from my point of view, like ideally, skill intelligence should eventually integrate into real business. And and that's why you can start small. What I mean by that is you can try by small experiment, like a much smarter approach will be maybe try a function, a department, align skills with that specific function goals and actually how the culture of that department works, identify a few capabilities that really related to the product that that that department or that function is trying to deliver, and then start building evidence like gradually. Actually, a part of that I really agree with Maya is that, you know, for example, one skill, data analytics, for example. And you cannot ask like, "Have you used data analytics before?" like "Okay, I used that in the past ten years." But then actually, in reality, it's like, "Have you recently used data analytics to deliver a project in this organization?" So, that includes like delivery outcome, like how how peers and manager feedback on that skill, and business impact, and then collaboration effectiveness as well. So, I think the the small evidence could be gathering for that for let's say a small function. They can start start with small, so you don't need like a hundred skill map out for this department, but like focus on core skills. So, let's say if it's sales department, pin down like, "Okay, we need this year because we need to expand sales team. We need to focus on commercial acumen skill, customer engagement skill, consultative selling, and negotiation." And then for engineer, engineering, you start with like let's say four core skills. So, not every capability needs enterprise-wide like precision from day one. You can start with small and then stacking building evidence and focus on and focus on that. And honestly, I think that will be the shortest way to catch up with the world right now, rather than delaying. Because I think that if you delay any longer just because it's complex, it's it's probably just a bigger risk like long in the long term. Chad: Well, Maya, I want you to answer the same question because creating simulations takes time too, and how will we not be outpaced by, you know, today's landscape, number one. And number two, please respond to, you know, what Phuong was just saying with regard to being able to create skills-based practices and why you think that methodology just won't work. Maya: Yeah. So, first of all, simulations takes time, unless you're using the right tech. [laughs] Sorry, I can't ignore this comment, but but I will say, I I agree with Phuong on one thing: we should start small. But I think we cannot, the the way to build data is to build it completely differently. For me, the fact that we are asking people about something, they need to share their experience is wrong. Because first of all, we will not speak to every person many many hours, although I do see companies going back to this because they cannot rely on the resumes anymore, they need to talk to everyone, but that will take forever, and that will never work. And asking people about something is vague. They can say anything, resumes definitely can say anything. I think we should put people inside situation, and if you are looking at organization right now, let's let's put hiring aside, recruiting aside. If I want to look at my organization right now and understand and unlock the the performance-based data that I have, I'm thinking how we can leverage technology right now, you know what, Chad, not even simulations, real gathering of data of their actual day-to-day at work, how do they process, what do they do, how do they communicate. Just tracking people, we don't need to go to the extreme, but even... Chad: Well, this is after we've hired them though. What about before we hire them when we don't want to make the bad hire? Maya: That's even, for me, it's basic. The way I think people should start companies should start right now is building a new data of of the candidates who come in and put them inside of scenarios, which is doable today, that are actionable. Again, not asking, not videos that ask people to share what they what they would do, not questions about what if, not interviews even. I'm I'm claiming that the fact that we are doing we move the recruiter to be an AI recruiter, it's great because speed matters. But that will predict the same signals that we currently have. So, going back to what you said, if an organization right now want to be ahead, not tomorrow, two years from now, with better data about their workforce, with better decision making, with the ability to to engage and make sure their candidates are equipped with everything they have, and their organization is sustainable, they need right now to to use the technology out there, simulation is one of them, job tryouts, any real-life scenarios out there that gather actions, performance, the way they're doing, the way they're thinking. Not just the end results, because everybody can share their projects. I'm thinking about how they were doing those projects. Chad: So, Phuong, I'm going to I'm going to jump into something because I talk to VPs of talent acquisition all the time, and in many cases, without them even knowing, they they say, "Well, you know, from a training standpoint, we don't need to do that because the market has so many people that's out there, and we'll just go ahead and do a reorg and go find the talent that we need," right? So, it's like disposable heroes. You have all this great talent within the organization, and most companies are seeing that talent as disposable today. So, in both your models, Phuong you can go ahead and go first, in both your models, it doesn't seem like they care. They being the buyers, the talent acquisition, the people that are running the the talent organization, they actually care about the people and their skills, because they'll just go get more. Phuong: Well, if I have to answer that short, it's it's going to be a hiring mistake [laughs] if you want to do that. I think, but also I think like for the skills-based hiring actually, I I would also link that with your previous question as well. Like at the start before the person going in, like from my my personal point of view, it's a com like when you're hiring when you hire someone, it's really like the skill that they have in what context of their experience, but also the culture fit. They could have the skill, they could have the experience, but do they actually work well with the current team? Like do they like will a person always use to the fast-pace of startup, or will do well in a large corporate like machine? For example. Chad: Well, stop you there real quick because we've seen culture fit really just be a proxy for "people like me," right? And really just juice bias into the system. So, are we solving the wrong problem by even talking about culture fit when we should be thinking about hardline skills, in your case? Phuong: I mean, culture like I think one more thing that people often see like culture is like, "Oh, someone like me." No, culture of an organization should evolve, actually. Yesterday is five, let's say, culture principle, today it should be six because the goals of the business actually already change. We need faster paces, therefore, we need better like actually higher bar of like autonomy in terms of people capability, for example. So, first of all, like culture should evolve. And the way that you interview should also evolve with that as well. So, within the hiring process, you should have and that's why even if you interview for a skill, like I would recommend to be like skill plus evidence. So, okay, data analytics, for example, like do you have that skill? Actually give me a specific example of how you utilize that skill in a specific context, like in a specific example. What the context of that project, what product you are trying to analyze, you know, in that in that example. And also look at behavior signal, when I am like analyzing data, how do I communicate the data result like with other teams? Like what my manager said about my performance, you know, after I deliver that project using that skill. And also organizational relevance as well, what if I use data analytics skill and I come from a retail background, and then I'm applying for like a big data tech company, for example? So, all that is... Chad: Okay, time. I got you on time. Maya, the disposable heroes question. Maya: Yes. So, I'm I want to highlight something that I think is missed in the conversation about skills, and it is going back to what you said, Chad, about looking at the same people over all the time. We know right now that there are still although there are some industries who have enough candidates in their pipeline, there are still industries who are struggling to find qualified working hands, qualified ones. There are people out there with great skills who cannot find jobs, and this is part of the changing workforce we see right now, and we don't know where it's going. What I want to say is that, when you are implementing performance-based hiring, and when you enable people to apply based on their actual current skills, and not what they've done in the past, again, skills, going back to what you said, Phuong, with context, with the culture of the organization, simulation to do that, but that's the way when you put only data on the front upfront, without asking people about what they've done in the before and give and asking people to give examples of things, just actual things tested right now, this is where you enable people from other experiences, other industries to to join the game. And this is crucial right now, and we see it on our day-to-day where when people suddenly say, "Well, I can do that. Actually, I know that, you know, I have skills that are able to do that." I'm always saying that if someone will look at my resumes, no one will say that this is a CEO. And I and to your to your claim, Chad, I think this is a dramatical change we need to do. We need from the first moment to change the perspective we look at candidates, and to work with that. So, not start with a resume and then ask for those skills, start with the skills, start with performance, and then complete the overall data, and that everything related to to that so culture, organization fit, those are smart, but the infrastructure from the first signal should be different. Chad: So, Phuong, when it comes down to skills, I can definitely put CRM on my on my my CV, right? The first CRM I used is Saleslogix, it doesn't exist anymore, and that was back in 1999, right? The things have changed, although that skill, skill, that tag, that's changed dramatically, right? How do you how do you actually how do you engineer for that? Because obviously, we have we've been in on the the years of the internet for for years now, for decades. These technologies have evolved, but they are so much different, and that's just one of the many different disciplines or skills that you could tag to. Talk a little bit about that because I think that's a huge problem today too. Phuong: I think, so, [laughs] it's like when AI coming out and saying, "I'm looking for someone with like 10 years of experience." It's it's kind of like that. And for me, I mean, a skill on its self actually is not enough. I think what I would recommend organization to do is look at the broader capability. So, let's say if you have the skill like this skill using this CRM in the past, great. Tell me about a bit more about that of like when you're using that and at what scale you actually help your organization to use that CRM to deliver a value. That's one thing. But also, I care about your adaptability. That's another skill that is relevant to that. Okay, if I give you a new CRM today, can you adapt to it, and how fast you are adapting to it? For example. Chad: Is this during the interview stage or is this during the screening stage? I mean because if you if you think about it all the way through, right? If this happens to the interview stage, I've just made it through the interview because it should have been screened out earlier, right? I think that's the hard part is how are we going to scale when we're seeing companies are getting tens of thousands of applications, most of them not qualified. How do we how do we get to the point where we're not interviewing individuals who shouldn't be in the room in the first place? Phuong: I think, so I think this require change of mindset. So, if you are just looking for keyword of like HubSpot or like Salesforce, like right, you should not be hiring like that is not skills-based hiring. You like if you are look like you should be looking for transferable skill that are actually human-centric that will continue to evolve in the future. If I were the hiring manager, I would be looking for, "Okay, what like if they never use any system before," like that the red flag for me. But if they use some system before and over the time it looks like they use multiple different system, their adaptability, then I would question about adaptability skill rather than actually like, "Okay, how did you use that CRM?" I would not focus my interview based on that. So, it's a change of mindset and then is is the skill that they pick up to be transferable that think about human capability as unlimited, it can evolve, they can adapt, rather than like just specific on like a keyword. Like for me, that is just a keyword rather than a skills. Chad: So, Maya, how would you deal with that? Again, this is a skill, it's been around for a long time, how how would you in your your system, your your ideology, how would you deal with that versus skills-based hiring? Maya: My answer will be short because I know we're running out of time, but I will say that I think we should move forward, not for I agree with Phuong with different mindsets, but also different data gathering. Not what, rather than how processes, how people are doing things. The tech is not it doesn't matter, the CRM do not matter, the client they meet do not matter. What matters is how they're doing things, what's their set of mind, what is the processes, what is the decision making, how do they priori-prioritize their work, what how they think, how do they execute things, not the end outcome. And for that, we need to leverage the exciting tech out there to invite candidates to showcase their actionable skills, not subjective skills that they feel like that they have, other than that. Chad: So, this is and again, trying to get to the where I was asking Phuong about where would this happen. Would this happen at the top of the funnel? Would they be testing, doing simulations? How does this actually work to make sure that I don't have unqualified people in the interview? Maya: So, think of that: invite people to try out the job instead of apply. Chad: Ah, okay. Maya: So, the first thing they do is try out the job, they prove their actionable skills. If they like it, if they're good, they move into the next step, and they invite to the in to the interview. But we need to gather the performance data in advance to make sure, as you said, we are not investing our time in people that are not qualified to get the job done. Chad: Excellent, ladies. Phuong, Maya, really appreciate you coming on having the debate, having the conversation. Again, this is for the the audience to to really understand what fits best in their culture, in their organization, and you know, for their workforce. So, really appreciate you guys coming on.

Algorithmic Blacklists, $2 Robot Trainers, and Meta’s Pizza Party Fix Grab your popcorn and buckle up, because Chad, JT, and Lieven are holding nothing back this week. From the links to the padel courts, the crew is cutting their leisure time short to bring you the raw, unfiltered truth about the absolute train wrecks happening in HR tech and AI. In This Week’s Episode: Indeed's AI Sourcing Assistant: Innovation or Clusterfuck? The Stanford Study That Blew Up the Internet and Pymetrics Training Your Ultimate Replacement for $2/Hour Zuckerberg’s "My Bad" Tour Nuggets: "Generating assumptive qualifications or requirements is a hiring decision... If AI's doing that for you... it's the most stupid fucking non-scalable thing." — Chad Sowash "Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That should be the new trend with AI right now." — JT O'Donnell Whether we are heading toward an automated, work-free utopia or building a future where your only job is training the AI that's about to fire you, you won't want to miss a single second of this episode! Subscribe, listen, and let's face the algorithmic monoculture together. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash (00:33.343) Welcome to the Chad and Cheese HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "cursing like a sailor" Sowash. JT ODonnell (00:40.446) I'm J T. "I'm no longer allowed to wear white" O'Donnell. Chad Sowash (00:45.367) Whoa. Lieven (00:47.436) And I'm Lieven "say soccer one more time" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Chad Sowash (00:50.518) Yeah. And on this week's show, indeed, they are revving up their AI engines. Wait a minute. Is that a sputter I heard? Stanford researchers smack PyMetrics and Meta says they're sorry. Kinda. Let's do this. JT ODonnell (00:53.33) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (01:14.135) Whoo, yeah, it's been a day, kids. I've already played three hours of padel. And if you don't know what that is, American listeners, it's just think tennis and racquetball had a baby, and that's pretty much padel. Three hours of that today. And JT, I understand that you y you you love this show so much. JT ODonnell (01:31.024) Yeah. I I do. Yeah, yeah. So you're cutting into my golfing time. Just want y'all to know. I'm on a streak. I took up golf end of last year. I've had four whole lessons and didn't play all winter. Just started a month ago, joined a club, playing daily, but I'm only gonna get to go to the driving range today because of you all. Because I love y'all so much. So it's okay. Chad Sowash (01:42.615) That's amazing. Chad Sowash (01:52.587) You do need to take some time though. You gotta you gotta give yourself a little time. Step back. Driving range is great. Driving range is great. But you Levin, are are you are have you been skiing lately? JT ODonnell (01:59.633) Yeah. It'll be good. Lieven (02:03.82) It's been a while, it's been too long, but I'm looking forward. I think it's two hundred sixty four days before I can go skiing again, something like that, which is a lot. But two hundred sixty four to but no, it's not true because I'm going in January as well. Two hundred sixty four days is until the Eastern holidays, but I'm going in January as well. No no no, it's a bit less, but still too much. No. Chad Sowash (02:10.135) how many days? Wow. Chad Sowash (02:21.975) Don't you lie to us. Don't you lie to us. Okay, okay. shit. Well, I I don't know if you guys have been watching World Cup, but I do want to say something about Boston. And and my love, my personally my love for the Scots. This I the Scottish, I love the Irish. I love, I love all my European brethren, sister and sisters. but the Scottish, they are. JT ODonnell (02:37.521) Woo woo woop. Chad Sowash (02:50.079) just the most fun people in the fucking world. And all of them went to Boston because their team, Scotland, is actually playing they're in Boston. And apparently the Bostonians, the people that live there, they don't want the Scots to leave. That will you know you you're you're right there. Talk about it. JT ODonnell (03:08.165) No. I'm in New England. Yeah, I do know. So I I live in a suburb of Boston, right? 45 minute suburb of Boston. Boston is a predominantly Irish town. You know that. Like that like it's got an Irish vibe. The Scots are shaming the Irish. They are so much fun. People are having a blast. And the overarching feedback is the town's just lightening up a little bit. It was getting a little too uptight. New England dirt. And they're just having fun, reminding but like they don't want them to leave. Lieven (03:08.226) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:14.384) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:20.495) yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (03:37.393) The the vibe is amazing. It's much needed. And I think a super big surprise given the fact that we've seen lackluster turnout for FIFA and and you know, the stuff that's going on in the US. Like not in Boston. Boston is crushing it and I'm so here for it. And Scots, don't leave. We want you to stay. Chad Sowash (03:40.481) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:54.315) Yeah, yeah. So Levin, what what what do you what's your interaction with the Scots being Belgian over the years? Lieven (03:54.903) No. Lieven (04:02.998) Hmm. Chad Sowash (04:03.201) Do do you love the Scots? Do you hate the Scots? Are they JT ODonnell (04:05.573) Yeah. Lieven (04:05.794) I love the Scots of course. I met what's his name, Steven? Steve McGrath. So since I'm totally in love with the Scots and he loves chicken cock but no, I like him. But but I don't know, it's it's a different world I guess. I don't meet him all that often. Chad Sowash (04:09.089) Steve, McGrath, yeah. Chad Sowash (04:21.655) Ha ha. Chad Sowash (04:27.623) It it is definitely it's definitely a different world. They they actually drank a bar. I was I was listening to new the news and they drank a bar out of all of their beer. They were like two days from actually getting, you know, replacement kegs. They had to call in emergency kegs. I mean it's just it it they are yeah, and and a couple of ladies came into the bar to buy a couple of bottles of water, and then everybody in the bar, the Scots booed them. Lieven (04:46.434) Huh. Lieven (04:57.774) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (04:58.167) and y you could just you could I know you can just it's so fun and they're not being mean, they're just having a blast. So yeah, I mean we're we're not at shout-outs yet, but shout out to Scots. the Portuguese team, national team is playing tonight, which I'm excited to watch. they're gonna play Congo. We won't go under your Belgian lean, so we leave and we won't talk about Congo. and then England plays Croatia. So we've got a couple of big, big JT ODonnell (04:58.278) Love it. Lieven (05:03.672) Yeah. Yeah. Lieven (05:08.024) Yeah. Lieven (05:18.996) Nope, nope, we won't, we won't, no. JT ODonnell (05:25.946) Mm, good one. Chad Sowash (05:27.519) matches tonight. I any are you guys are you are have you been watching J J T are you rooting for the US team? JT ODonnell (05:35.167) So yeah, I mean, obviously I'm rooting for USA, but the thing that's most exciting to me here in the US, what I've observed, is the way everyone's just embracing all countries. Great example. Last week on the golf course, turns out Old Navy has got $30 jerseys for all the teams, and this whole crew came in golfing and everyone had a different shirt on. Everyone had a different team shirt. And it's like it's just fun to see people embracing that. It's on everywhere you go, which I think is super cool. Chad Sowash (05:39.162) yeah. Chad Sowash (05:48.631) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:57.247) That's awesome. Yeah. JT ODonnell (06:04.492) and it's wonderful 'cause we don't really think of US as a as a soccer country. So it's exciting when something like this comes here and you get a taste of what the world really, you know, gloms onto for their favorite thing instead of football, you know? Chad Sowash (06:17.013) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it is football. but yet, but yet, but yet, again, as Levin had said, call it soccer one more time. but but you've got to give it to like the the ladies' team, the the the the women's team, they have been dominant for years. It's just so weird how the men have not been able to to to catch up. Have not been able to catch up. So I tell you what, let's go ahead and let's JT ODonnell (06:19.567) Right. I knew what were gonna say it. Lieven (06:25.614) Awesome. JT ODonnell (06:32.741) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (06:44.747) JT, hit it up. JT ODonnell (06:45.842) Yeah. So I'm actually gonna give a shout out to a person, Mike Padetto. Last year at Talent Connect is the first time I'd ever met him. And he came up to me and said, Hey, you know, I'm HR, you know, and recruiting fractional consultants, my own business, building my social following, and wanted to meet. And I tell you all, I do this job for a living, but I am an introvert. I don't like going to events alone. I was sitting by myself eating, and it meant the world to me. I've since watched him on social and this week he's just been dropping most brilliant nuggets of social media, the honesty around, hey, not everybody is telling you the truth. Let me tell you about my failures this week. and he just he mentioned this stuff. And I it's so relatable to me. And I I love seeing people in our space right now who are making a go for it. Like, let me build up my business of one model. You know that's what I'm about, the pro voice. And so shout out to him. Give him some love. Go find and follow him, folks. You're gonna love what he's talking about. You're gonna all agree because he's in the recruiting space with you. But Chad Sowash (07:18.325) Nice. Chad Sowash (07:36.577) Yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (07:44.53) Let's let's give Mike some follows. Chad Sowash (07:46.817) So I've seen a couple of Mike in it's funny because you see some of the influencers who always use their car, right? They're in their car and they're doing, and I know from a sound standpoint, you know, you've got good insulation to some extent. but I always found that funny. dude sitting in a car, it's almost kind of like, I just pulled up to Starbucks. You know what? I got something to say. I'm gonna pull my phone out. I just it's it's it's funny, but everybody does it. JT ODonnell (07:55.773) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (08:16.326) They do. It's a psychological hack though. I don't know if you're aware of this. Same with if you've noticed people do it in their bathrooms. So there's a psychological belief that when I film in a a confined space, a personal space, it's more truthful. So there is a psychological reason why people actually film in these places. You think it's funny or weird, but it creates a well this must be authentic because they're in their car or on their toilet. I'm kidding. But Chad Sowash (08:37.847) So was it authentic when the guy from C and C Music Factory was actually dropping a deuce in his back in in his bathroom and he did that video? JT ODonnell (08:43.614) A little too much, a little too much, but hey Chad Sowash (08:51.315) Is what it is. Leaving. Get us out of this. Get us out of this. What's your what's your shout out? JT ODonnell (08:54.67) Mm. Lieven (08:55.532) Hey, my very serious shout out this time goes out to all those HR tech startups and scale-ups who are desperately trying to become rich and famous in Europe. And we have a solution for them. So you know we have the e-recruitment congress, the sixth of October in Amsterdam. We're going to host an HR Tech stage, and in Europe we call it the Lions Den. It's kind of a competition where you can pitch your IDs and then you get a professional jury which is going to give you some feedback. What's it called in the US? JT ODonnell (09:08.68) Nice. Chad Sowash (09:21.853) Mm. Investors, yeah. it's Shark Tank in the US. It's Dragon's Lair in the UK. Lieven (09:25.836) Yeah, but Lieven (09:30.24) Okay, yeah. So that's exactly the whole idea. And we have very professional jury. So one of the if in fact the founding mother of House of HR, my comp of the company where I work I work for, is Connie van Andriese. She is still the biggest private shareholder of House of HR and we're pretty big now. We have a revenue of about three point eight billion, so it's not a small company. She founded it twenty five years ago, starting from scratch. So she knows how to do it and she's be Chad Sowash (09:32.663) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (09:39.859) Mm-hmm. Lieven (09:57.506) She'll be one of the jury members. We have one CIO, CEO of the one of the biggest private equity players in in the Netherlands. And two more people who are all top in their range, someone from a a marketing agency, someone who is a a coach to train people how to present. So these four people are going to tell you why you weren't able to sell your solution in the first place to those 600 people, HR people who are present. If you go home without a contract, at least you know why you went home without a contract, something like that. So if you wanna be there, if you wanna present your company at the HR Tech stage, just get in touch with me. You'll find my name on LinkedIn and you'll figure out how to get in touch. I'm sure it's the first step, you'll figure it out. Chad Sowash (10:29.388) Mm. JT ODonnell (10:30.514) I get. Chad Sowash (10:45.143) Perfect opportunity to just get on stage and to get, I mean, in front of people who are already investors in organizations and you get to find out what they're looking for. I any any founder that I advise, I tell them to get on every stage they can. Every stage they can. In this case, it's even more so. Yeah. Lieven (11:02.967) Yeah. Lieven (11:06.71) And Chad, I was going to ask you. Chad, do you wanna be in the jury? yeah. Sorry, sorry, I've interrupted you. JT go ahead, sorry. JT ODonnell (11:07.228) The timing's really awesome too. I the timing is awesome for this. I feel Chad Sowash (11:12.471) What's that? JT ODonnell (11:15.676) No, no. I was just saying the timing's really great for this, Levin. I feel like I'm seeing a big surge of people as who we're kind of over the fear factor and now everyone's like, you know, eff it, let's go, let's build something. I want to start something new. I'm seeing a surge of startups and that, you know, this is exactly what they need, right? That that voice. So cool timing. Lieven (11:33.954) Definitely. And Chad, would you like to be an part of a jury? It's like a buy or sell, but in real life. Okay, perfect. Okay, so Chad Sowash (11:39.649) Course, of course I would. Yes. I I I love doing that. I love doing that. okay, we're good. We're gonna we're gonna move along. Everybody, musique gebau in August. In August, that's the recruitment congress. my shout out is to Dr. Robin Hanley Defoe, which validates why this is such a fucking awesome show. Here we go. Lieven (12:19.487) Yay. Chad Sowash (12:22.651) yeah, now the likelihood that our listeners swear, like we do, obviously, means we all live longer. Plus, listening to us probably compounds your longevity. So if you haven't subscribed to the Chad and Cheese podcast, damn it, go ahead and fucking do that right now. and not to mention, there's another great reason to listen and subscribe to Chad and Cheese. Lieven (12:49.088) I think the moment Chad Sowash (12:49.313) Come on, there he is. Chad Sowash (13:00.299) You're always topless. Chad Sowash (13:36.491) Huh? Chad Sowash (14:00.353) That's right. Go get that free stuff. Go well, not to mention we're also going to be giving t-shirts out at events. Yep. Travel always sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Wreckfest, July 2nd, where we're going to be in England now at Nebworth Park all damn day. Joel and I will be in seeing the disrupt stage. Emmy's going to be on the innovate stage. And again, this is a this is an all-hands meeting kind of scenario. So if you're a TA leader, bring your entire gang. JT ODonnell (14:07.96) yeah. Chad Sowash (14:28.127) learn some stuff, have some drinks together. And yeah, should be a great time. After that, I'm headed over to Mallorca with my buddy Chris Long, who's getting married. We're doing a stag do prior, go figure. And so I am by my my liver's going to need a a break. It's definitely gonna need a break. You guys are you guys going anywhere? What's going on? JT ODonnell (14:49.464) No summer travel for me, but the fall's huge, right? We'll have Wreckfest in September in Nashville, Talent Connect in New York City for the first time in a while. it's gonna be big, yeah. So I'm excited about the fall circuit season. Chad Sowash (14:52.833) Yes. Mm. Chad Sowash (15:02.911) And Levin's not gonna go skiing anytime soon. So does that mean you're going to conferences? Are you on stages? What what's happening? Lieven (15:08.882) No, no, no. I actually was going to travel through the United States, through the Southwest, but given the whole Trump situation, we cancelled it and we're going to Thailand now. So, Chad Sowash (15:15.977) Mm. Chad Sowash (15:20.617) I that that's a b that's a big difference. US versus Thailand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (15:23.58) Big switch. Lieven (15:24.332) Well, instead of just it's almost as far but just the other direction. I know. Yeah. I've been there fifteen years ago or something, I love that. Chad Sowash (15:30.197) Yeah, I just mean culture wise. I mean it's it's that's awesome though. That's awesome. That's awesome. JT ODonnell (15:33.714) Yeah, beautiful. Chad Sowash (15:38.229) Nice. Taking the kids? Excellent. Lieven (15:39.894) Yeah. So it will be different than when I was there fifteen years ago. Yeah. Interesting. Chad Sowash (15:43.24) JT ODonnell (15:43.644) Ha ha ha Chad Sowash (15:45.771) We'll go we'll go ahead and move on to. try to save Levin from that one. Okay, this is dir this is direct from an article in HR Brew on Monday. Indeed, the launched Sourcing Assistant. It's new AI-powered assistant designed to help recruiters at the top of the funnel. Sourcing Assistant aims to evolve sourcing beyond the keyword query by identifying Lieven (15:55.95) Thank you, Chats. Chad Sowash (16:14.967) potential candidates with related skill sets and recent candidate activity across Indeed's pool of hundreds of millions of profiles. my God, have they finally gotten something right, JT? Have they? Have they? JT ODonnell (16:32.83) Okay, I just at this point, if you're not using AI on a daily basis, right, you're in trouble. So let's just call that, right? I mean, there are just enough AI tools that we integr integrate in our life. Enough so that you know that what they just announced, I'm pretty sure I could have built for them with cloud coding. Do you know what I mean? and you know, the thing that throws me here is it says after training the assistant on the search. Chad Sowash (16:38.807) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (16:50.839) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (17:01.244) Recruiters can set limits, adjust caps on candidate outreach, who to exclude, and when to stop. The tool prompts recruiters to set daily outreach limits, but prioritizes quality over hitting the daily limit. Recruiters can track and watch the tool's progress and begin outreach to the best, most interested candidates. You know, I I lately have been writing a lot and will continue to write about the fact that I I want AI in the recruiting world. It can do a lot of good, but it cannot take away the judgment. I'm going to die on that hill. Please don't make away the judgment. And I read that. And again, I could have coded it myself. And I agree there are lots of parts AI can take over in the top of the funnel of sourcing. I just read that whole thing and say, just further confirms why candidates are not going to want to apply online anymore and are going to start looking for different ways to do this because they're they're going to get screened out. They are going to get screened out based on what I read there. Chad Sowash (17:32.631) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (18:00.489) They've got no shot. So I just I don't know, you know, late to the party. Doesn't sound too complex, not loving what it was said in the press release. Maybe I read it wrong. Chad Sowash (18:02.251) Yeah. Chad Sowash (18:09.751) Ла гатасей, миллис, Дін, уйдет. Chad Sowash (18:17.311) Okay, you're not surprised. You're not surprised. Lieven (18:19.288) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (18:21.889) So no, no, fuck no. i this is this is too much, okay? Chad Sowash (18:35.427) I'm gonna breathe. I'm gonna breathe. From the HR from the HR Brew article, quote, the assistant, e indeed AI assistant, ingests job descriptions and generates qualif qualifications for the role. Let me read that again. Ingests job descriptions and generates qualifications for the role. Lieven (19:00.086) Ooh. Chad Sowash (19:01.621) Generating assumptive qualifications or requirements is a hiring decision. If you're creating requirements, that's a hiring decision. You it and if AI's doing that for you, okay, so at the very least, it's shaping the higher hiring decision and saying, which they did, recruiters can manually change hundreds of your AI created requirements. That's just the most stupid fucking non scalable thing. JT ODonnell (19:12.478) Judgment. Chad Sowash (19:31.201) Think about recruiters who have hundreds of different positions that are open or thousands that are actually flooding in that now have to deal with this AI. Next quote from HR Brew, quote, the tool services up matches to evaluate and further train the AI on the candidate pool, end quote. Okay, so listen to me, kids. So indeed is making up your requirements, then evaluating candidates on the AI requirements they made up. And then further training the AI on the chain of AI hiring decisions that they made up. This is the biggest AI cluster fuck of an LLM train wreck I've seen in this space. I know that Indeed has some very smart individuals that are over there, but I'm not sure what they're doing because this again, this is a clusterfuck. If you wanted to inject bias and hiring decisions into your AI. JT ODonnell (20:12.478) JT ODonnell (20:18.366) Mm. Chad Sowash (20:29.909) This is it. But from a compliance standpoint, yeah, cluster fuck. your thoughts leave in. Lieven (20:37.592) Well I totally follow. And I wonder are they going to launch this in Europe? Because in the United States you can claim this this sources faster, but in Europe you'll have to prove that it sources fairly because of the European AI Act. As an employer using indeed, you'll have to make sure you are responsible, so you have to make sure you know about transparency, human oversight, bias controls, about GDPR obligation obligations. So It's the employer who is going to be sued if there's a problem, even though it wasn't each it wasn't its problem from the start. So I'm not sure if they're going to launch it in Europe, and if they will, they'll have to provide a very nice manual on how they work. And I'm very interested in it. How I find I want to see how the black box works. Not sure, but I think they're coming for for LinkedIn. They're just trying to JT ODonnell (21:23.334) It's scary. Chad Sowash (21:24.971) Yeah, I JT ODonnell (21:28.638) Yeah. Chad Sowash (21:29.865) Yeah, I well, I mean and here's the thing that drives me crazy. It's like they pitch this stuff as if that this is the newest, biggest, best thing. And as as as JT had said, first and foremost, I mean, you got kids in fucking high school that are developing this stuff with the new tech that's actually out there today. But at the end of the day, it's all about that string that I talked about. You have the AI actually making hiring decisions. Then you have this long chain of hiring decisions. And we talk about what's the worst thing that could happen to biased with AI? It's called scaling the bias. This is exactly what that whole chain would do. It would scale that bias. So it's like, why would anybody announce and or use this shit? JT ODonnell (22:20.798) Two comments. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. That should be the new trend with AI right now. And secondly, you know, and I work with the job seeker. I'm the advocate for the job seeker. When you do stuff like this, you teach them to want to game the system. You're making it worse for yourself. You're forcing candidates to make stuff up, do different things. Like I just I wish people who are building tech, please out there in the recruiting world, when you're building tech, think about the job seeker. Think about their knowledge level. Chad Sowash (22:24.203) Yes. Very yeah. JT ODonnell (22:50.706) Their expectations, I get that you the people that pay you are the businesses, I get it. But you build stuff that doesn't help the overall architecture. You don't think about the grander scheme of it. And you know, stuff like this just yes, it's bad. I'm spitting here. Chad Sowash (23:00.981) They're screwing the businesses too. Yeah. All right. we're gonna we're gonna take a breath. We're gonna take a breath. we'll be right back. All right, we've got there's another topic. This is this is a juicy one, kids. Get ready because Stanford is in the house. That's that's right, kids. Grab your popcorn because if you've been wondering why your job applications are vanishing into a corporate abyss, a massive new Stanford study just proved. You're not crazy. You're just being gatekeeped by a bunch of algorithms. So last March, the World, the World Economic Forum, this is, I'm sorry, March of 2025, the World Economic Forum stated that over 90%, 90% of HR departments have officially outsourced hiring decisions through to a handful of AI assessment and hiring vendors, creating a massive algorithmic monoculture where hundreds of competing Companies all use the exact same broken software. So the Stanford team managed to sneak under the hood of Pymetrics, a major screening platform to track four million real applications. And surprise, surprise, the machine is broken. The bias is real, and the results are an absolute dumpster fire. here is I actually found this this video from Lie Brown, who is commenting on personality test in twenty twenty-one during the HBO documentary. And if you haven't seen this, you've got to go watch it. It's called Persona, The Dark Truth Behind Personality Test. Here's here's Lee. JT ODonnell (24:38.75) it didn't. Chad Sowash (25:22.807) JT, what say you to personality test or not to personality test? Why is this even a question? I guess is my question. JT ODonnell (25:23.23) Yeah. JT ODonnell (25:30.352) Yeah, so so this went viral last week on social. And you know, when you wake up in my world and people are pinging you, hey, have you seen the Stanford study? And then you start to see how people took the study out of context. So what happened last week and is growing is that people who are uneducated in our space were saying it was ATS systems that were doing this. Chad Sowash (25:34.571) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:43.954) yeah, there's that. JT ODonnell (26:03.849) But unfortunately, it went viral. Job seekers were furious. You know, what does this mean? And what it was saying was, hey, this company holds onto your data for 330 days. So if you got rejected, you took an assessment, it held it. If you got rejected from that company, it showed that data. And every other company that is one of their customers has access to you. So if you sat and applied to 20, 30 jobs and they all use it and you couldn't understand why you got rejected, it's because of the one dang assessment test you took. Chad Sowash (26:16.119) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (26:31.687) That's sitting in a database for 330 days. That's what really got studied. But that's not how it got explained. It's gone viral. And every job seeker is like, why would I ever apply on an ATS again? Why would I do it? Like, I don't trust ATS. So you now have recruiters out there trying to educate people on this. You've got all this confirmation bias going on. It is a mess. I think it's gonna get a lot worse. Chad Sowash (26:34.055) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (26:55.601) But what I want to unpack with people, especially job seekers, already wrote about it last week, gonna write it about it again this week, is it's not ATSs, it's assessment tools. Yes, you should be concerned. I can't stand these assessment tools. I can't stand them because of all the things they talked about. And if you have not seen that documentary, you absolutely have to watch it. Because no job seeker should be required to give their data, not know where it's going, and not know how it's being used. And this is what got exposed. And I'm Chad Sowash (27:09.719) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:21.462) Yeah. JT ODonnell (27:23.239) Thrilled that that got exposed. I just hate that all this misinformation is now spreading like wildfire about. Chad Sowash (27:30.847) Yeah, I I mean, so from my standpoint, if a company chooses to use an assessment platform, ATS, I mean, it's all a stack, right? I don't that's semantics to me. What what it all comes down to is first and foremost, let's give credit where credit's due. Pymetrics was acquired by Harvard back in 2022. So the problem here is Harv, and that's H A R V E R. Okay, that's the parent company they own Pymetrics. So Have you ever done these game based assessments before? They are ridiculous. Balloon popping. I mean, I I was like, what the actual fuck? I mean, w unless you want me to blow up balloons for a living, why I how is pressing a button to blow up a balloon or pop a balloon? I d none of it made sense, right? and back in the day, if a recruiter at Google thought you sucked, you still had an opportunity yet at Apple. JT ODonnell (28:04.679) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:29.291) not anymore because the study showed that PyMetrics is running the velvet rope across competing firms. Yep. That's an audible gasp heard around HR departments everywhere. Apparently the data wasn't siloed, which means if the machine hates your vibe at Company A, you were already pre-blacklisted at companies B, C, and D. The study found four percent of the candidates applying to 10 different firms. were rejected by every single one, blacklisted. That kind of uniform shutdown is statistically impossible with humans. It apparently takes real AI to be that consistently closed-minded, right? So for years, these AI vendors have been flashing shiny compliance certificates. Look at our data, it's totally fair and average. Yeah, okay, right. The researchers actually broke that data down job by job instead of Pooling it into one giant bucket and the mask came off completely. A staggering 25% of black applicants and 14% of Asian applicants were funneled into hiring tracks that straight up violated federal civil rights standards. Turns out hiding the bias in a giant math blender doesn't make it legal. But here's the punchline that should make every VP of town acquisition choke on their morning latte. If the AI had simply treated minority candidates the same as the most favorite demographic white guys, then 40,000 more human beings would have been advanced to the actual interview. The bottom line is that when you chase the shiny object of automation and efficiency, you want to believe the sales pitch and you don't perform deep due diligence like you should. And you're probably not solving for bias bias. You were just scaling bias. Levin, you guys work with a ton of companies and you do a lot of interviewing. I do you have background with like these assessments and things like that? What are what are your thoughts? Lieven (30:34.892) Mm-hmm. Lieven (30:43.286) Do I have what? I didn't get lost. Chad Sowash (30:44.815) do you have experience with like different types of assessments? Do you guys use them? Lieven (30:50.52) Yeah. We have tons of tools we use. we used to use and we changed and we never found the perfect one. There the perfect one doesn't exist. But assessments are definitely necessary and we will always be using them. But the way we use them is changing. It's changing totally. And I think AI is a good thing there. But I was listening to what JT was telling and about people trying to avoid applicant tracking systems. And this is something which has been going on for forever, I think. I mean, even 20 years ago, people try to avoid the intermediaires, the people in between, the companies like ours. They thought if I could go to the hiring manager directly, that's one step less I have to take. But Chad Sowash (31:36.428) yeah. Yep. Lieven (31:38.946) We try to convince them now because if you go through us, you'll probably earn more because we make more if you earn more. We take us we get a small percentage on the the more you make, the more we make, something like that. So it's it's always been a discussion. But now something very interesting was shown to me this week. a company which is called the side door. So they say they claim on their homepage the apply button is a trapdoor, we build a side door. Chad Sowash (31:50.487) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (32:04.723) wow. Lieven (32:04.844) So if you click on apply, you enter in the ATS and you get stuck. But they developed a system, the side door, which just tracks down the hiring managers and you can contact them directly through their system. So those people get their normal email and just people start entering their mailbox with their applications. They will hate it, I'm sure, but it shows it's a sign of the time. It shows people are desperately trying to avoid these ATS systems. It's okay, it's interesting. Chad Sowash (32:22.391) Man. JT ODonnell (32:33.169) Leaving's proving my point. I'm so riled right now. Again, can today's theme be just because you can doesn't mean you should build it, right? And what I said earlier about every time you create something like this, you are forcing the job seeker to find another avenue. So now there's an entire business that's gonna shove hundreds of thousands of people in a hiring manager's inbox. The whole reason a hiring manager has a recruiter is for that not to happen. And now that's going to happen because of what they built. I'm so Chad Sowash (32:41.611) Yes, yes. Lieven (32:41.73) Yeah. Yeah. Lieven (32:58.38) Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (33:02.417) Wild about this right now. I can't even tell you because people like me and recruiters and everyone else have to go out there and inform job seekers like, no, don't do this, right? It's it's going to get worse. You're gonna make sure that hiring manager puts you on a do-not hire list because you stuff their inbox. Like it's mind-blowing to me that nobody is thinking about this. You know, sorry, I'm so angry about this thing. Chad Sowash (33:04.321) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:23.563) Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I think Lieven (33:26.304) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:31.221) We and I've talked to many companies, Joel Joel Joel and I have during the AI sessions and even beyond that and some of these RLX shows and whatnot, where companies are really trying their damnedest to make the experience so much better. But yet they still have some of these platforms that they bought years ago, like Pymetrics, that are still dragging them down. And again, you know, if you believe in personality test, okay, great. But to be quite frank, to me, it just seems like a high risk layer of bias. And I mean, it is what it is, right? I think if we focus on performance over what they there we go. if we for focus on performance over, you know, just what we like and if they like lattes and I like lattes kind of thing. Lieven (34:08.76) Yeah. Chad Sowash (34:29.973) or popping balloons or what have you. I mean, we really need to shift to what matters and meeting the requirements and actually performing well is what matters. All right, let's go ahead and let's hit the hit the next one up. This one you think you think the last one got you, JT. This one's really gonna get you. 'cause this is next level wild. Picture this. pi picture this. Picture this. You got thousands of workers across India. JT ODonnell (34:50.238) I'm gonna need my blood pressure checked after this. Chad Sowash (34:58.007) We're all talking homemakers doing the dishes, dusting, folding laundry, cleaning the house, and engineering grads sitting in studios, strapping cameras to their faces. Why? To record every single boring repetitive thing and movement they do all day long. And and this is the kicker right here, kids. They're getting paid two dollars an hour. JT, is this a great? Opportunity for people in countries with little money making options, or is this a great way to train your replacement? JT ODonnell (35:34.013) Everyone should watch the video because I I wasn't kidding. When it opens up and this woman is sitting there with this this strapped to her head and she explains that in her ear it's yelling every time it can't see her hands because it's training the tasks. She's like, it's pretty annoying when it's yelling, but where else can I just do the normal work I have to do all day, but also get paid two bucks just for doing it? So she's genuinely excited, you know? But then when they lead into the amount of people that are training this. Chad Sowash (35:44.939) Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (36:02.001) And how you know how robotics is just such a passion. you you just you fast forward to what is everyone gonna do? Like I just immediately think to like, what is everyone going to do when all the robots do all the work? Because that's the vibe that this this gave to me. And your brain either goes really negative, or you can kind of go utopia. You know, I chose to go utopia. I chose to think about a world where it just freed everybody up and Chad Sowash (36:23.391) Yeah. JT ODonnell (36:30.746) And everybody got to do whatever they want and everybody had enough money to do whatever they want. Because if I think about the other side, I get scared. Chad Sowash (36:33.215) Mm. Lieven (36:38.114) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (36:38.993) And you can understand that because Chad Sowash (36:44.927) Okay, so the tech overlords call this quote unquote egocentric data. I personally call it training the bots. They they are literally teaching AI-powered humanoid robots how to move, grab things, and do chores like like humans. The money guys are projecting over a billion robots walking around by 2050. A billion. Really? A billion? It's a massive, booming global market, and we're seeing it. on the white collar side as well, with Handshake, MariCorps, and even LinkedIn, who are paying more than $2 an hour. But let's cut through the corporate BS for a second and look at the absolute irony here. These folks are getting paid peanuts today to train the the very machines that are going to delete their jobs tomorrow. Not just their job, that one person's job, but people like them. In the hundreds and thousands. And I know, I know, I know AI will create so many jobs. But Jensen Huang is saying it. Sam Altman is saying it. They're all fucking saying it, but okay, where? All the tech bros and billionaires who are heavily invested in AI are saying we're going to create more jobs, but none of them, none of them have any ideas where these jobs are going to come from, especially broad-based, right? You might have. Lieven (38:09.922) Okay. Chad Sowash (38:10.707) an example here and there, but from a broad base standpoint, they don't have it. So now we have AI researchers, companies paying people bottom of the barrel wages to harness their physical data and others, their expertise and scale it to those billions of algorithms and physical robots that apparently will be roaming by twenty fifty. Levin, have have you built a bunker yet? That's the question. Lieven (38:40.086) You know, I've seen the movie JT was referring to. And if you look at from a micro point of view, this one single lady who's attaching the an iPhone or a smartphone to her head and who's doing her dishes and and cleaning the table and and sweeping the floor, from her point of view, this is a good thing because she wasn't getting paid to clean the dishes and and sweeping the floor, and now she gets two dollars an hour, which to her standards is quite a lot of money. Yeah. Chad Sowash (38:51.979) Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (39:03.638) Yeah. Chad Sowash (39:07.265) Probably a lot, yeah. Lieven (39:08.674) From a micro point of view, she's getting better. The problem is, like you said, Chet, this is going to be used to replace hundreds of thousands of professional housekeepers in their job. And that's from a micro po micro point of view, it's a totally different story. So people are becoming, once again, data sets, and the only reason you're not fired yet is because you still need to train the system, something like that. And that's a dystopian view. And I totally agree with JT. We have to keep positive and we have to look at the utopian view. But I'm also a bit scared about those jobs, which jobs are being created, like Chad said. Those people are heavily heavily invested, heavily invested. So they they have to keep up the show and and the show must go on. But I haven't seen many new jobs yet. They are they are coming, I'm sure, but I don't know which ones. And definitely not for the people who are sweeping the floors right now. Those people have a problem. We'll see. Chad Sowash (39:56.695) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (40:02.305) Yeah, it's it's gonna be, I mean, it's it's a short term win. So she's gonna get that money, that two dollars an hour, for a very short amount of time. And then what happens after that? Especially if she was a maid or she helped people clean, lawn do laundry and those types of things. I mean that that is that's that's going to be long-term ramifications for, you know, short term two dollars an hour. Lieven (40:06.189) Yeah. Lieven (40:12.15) Mm. Lieven (40:30.786) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (40:32.481) Guess what, kids? We have Facebook next. we'll be right back. JT ODonnell (40:41.267) here we go. Chad Sowash (40:45.107) All right, Mark Zuckerberg has told employees that Meta has made mistakes in its AI transformation and its workforce, according to an internal memo seen by he didn't say anything about the metaverse. He's just talking about the transformation to AI. Anyway, anyway, Zuck is pumping hundreds of billions. Yes, that's but but but with a B billions of dollars into AI as he seeks to reshape his company's inner workings around the technology. Reflecting a broader pattern among many major US companies this year, particularly in the tech sector. In the memo, Zuck describes the rapid advances in AI and the challenges brought on the by the boom in technology. Quote, given the complexity of these changes, we've made mistakes. Yeah, a little Mia Culpa there, right? And we'll almost certainly make more, Zuck said. Adding that he is also quote focused on providing as much stability as possible in terms of organizational changes moving forward. He also said, I don't want to overpromise. Imagine that. Imagine that. I don't want to overpromise because the world is changing in the ways that are many ways that are out of our control. He said, reiterating that Meta does not expect many company-wide layoffs this year. And I'm saying. Expect in air quotes, kids, because you know it's gonna happen. JT, is this a kinder, gentler Mayakopa Zuck? JT ODonnell (42:20.166) No, I this is this is so fascinating to me. Like in my world, again, always bring it back to the job seeker, my friends. Praise for it. the moment they were the first to say, well, we're gonna cut thousands of jobs because of AI, when the tech world says that, they're always first. Tech is always first. So tech comes out, big company, and says, we're just gonna make major cuts because of AI, you just greenlit every company, not just tech companies, but every company to say, Hey, look. Chad Sowash (42:21.575) Ha. Chad Sowash (42:34.967) Mm. JT ODonnell (42:49.746) The big company that everybody looks to says it's we can say it too. So what has happened over the last six months? AI is the reason for our layoffs. AI is the reason for our layoffs. AI, AI, AI, AI, right? Now what did he just do? Mistakes were made. There's probably gonna be more mistakes. We're going to correct them, but this is a relic. So guess what the narrative's gonna be for every other company? He just greenlit the next narrative. It's a narrative. And it's so frustrating to me. Chad Sowash (42:59.287) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (43:19.164) Because all of these people that are getting shockingly laid off, dumped into the market, there are no white collar jobs for them to have while it sorts itself out. When they get asked back, we all know they're going to get asked back at lower salary bans. So this is also a rejust, they're not going to be making the money they made before, right? This is all a big or orchestrated, you know, reset. And it gets done by these narratives. So this, if if Mark can say it. Chad Sowash (43:27.799) They Chad Sowash (43:33.312) Mm-hmm. Yes. Right. JT ODonnell (43:47.698) I can say it too, right? Like, hey, Mikey likes it if you remember the life serial commercial. This is what's gonna happen next. This is gonna be the next narrative and it just mark my words and it is so frustrating to hear. Chad Sowash (43:58.847) Yeah. I I I would agree. just like when, you know, Elon cut what was it like 75% of freaking Twitter, then everybody started going into cut mode. you know, where where did Twitter where where's Twitter today? this around this this article, this is from the edge. the company plans, the company being meta plans to increase investment in team building initiatives. Zuckerberg, including higher budgets for off sites and corporate events. And is organizing a large-scale hackathon in July to foster cross-team collaboration and development on its latest models. The only thing they're missing there, guys, is what? Pizza. They gotta have pizza parties, right? This is a big fucking pizza party. They this is ridiculous. I I got what do you what do you got? Save us, Levin. This is this is too much. Lieven (44:53.656) Totally agree. They just realized they kind of broke the organization by firing seven thousand people, and now their employees are a bit s anxious, so they'll going to try to fix it with team building, pizzas, et cetera. But I was just thinking, I found the first new job. We were talking about new jobs. AI is going to create new jobs. The new job is junior human AI data trainer that didn't exist a year ago. So now you become the new AI data trainer. Sounds good. And I think Chad Sowash (45:21.515) That's gonna be around for five minutes. JT ODonnell (45:22.054) Mm. Lieven (45:23.712) Yeah, I know, I know, and then then we'll be without a job again, but they'll find something new. But I think the future of work apparently is going to be or being laid off immediately or being reassigned to train the AI that's going to get you laid off anyway. So you might also apply at Meta for the team buildings. We'll see. JT ODonnell (45:25.342) That's the temp job. Chad Sowash (45:43.953) I I I got nothing. This is this is there there's gonna be no change. You've seen the the different versions of Zuckerberg, you know, windsurfing, Brazilian jujitsu. I mean, he's still the same fucking dude. I mean, he he really is. They there's no change that's happening here. Unless unless he's part of the Utopia, JT. No? Yes. Lieven (45:59.938) Like. JT ODonnell (46:08.818) I mean, at this point, you gotta hope they're all gonna take their billions and throw it into some sort of universal basic income, right? At some point we're just gonna have to pay people to sit around because there are going to be no jobs. So is it a renaissance, Era? Do you let everybody go pursue their passions and fill their days? I'm that is my utopian point of view. Let us let me golf more. Hey, let me golf more. I wanna spend my day getting a 15 handicap. Let's go with that. Chad Sowash (46:27.691) Yeah. If if you haven't read the book Utopia by Thomas Moore, go ahead and read that now. hold that close to you and hope, hope, hope versus all the other dystopian jokes or dystopian books. yeah, I I I I don't see that coming unless it's forced by government. And the US is gonna be the last government to do that. and and I know Lieven (46:29.43) Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:55.275) that you guys are are are hoping that I bring us out of this hole with the dad joke, but I'm sorry. I'm getting ready for the Porchko match. So there's no there's no there's no dad joke today. I appreciate it. This is another great show, chock full of goodies in the meats. And easily said, we out. JT ODonnell (47:13.842) We out. Lieven (47:15.075) We out!

HR the "DEA way" sprinkled with a little coke, crack, and grass. What happens when HR’s most dangerous podcast sits down with a 32-year DEA veteran and former Quantico instructor? You get an inside look at recruiting, management, and intelligence like you’ve never heard before. This week, Chad and Joel are joined by Jack McFarland, a man who traded his whistle as a Pennsylvania football coach for a DEA badge in 1987—back when applications were 30 pages long, filled out on a family typewriter, and corrected with a bottle of white-out. Inside the Episode: From the War on Drugs to Reality TV The Ultimate High-Stakes HR The Corporate "Tap on the Shoulder" Actionable Intelligence vs. Profiling "We go on the street 10 times and we blow seven deals of those 10? Dude, you're done. You're finished."— Jack McFarland on the unforgiving suitability standards of federal law enforcement. Get ready for a conversation packed with war stories, networking wisdom, and a healthy dose of "keeping it simple, stupid." PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:28.776) Yeah, it's the podcast your weed guy warned you about, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman, joined as always. Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Jack McFarland, a 32-year DEA veteran and former quantico instructor, which means he probably has Christmas cards from El Chapo. but we'll ask about that later. Jack, welcome. Welcome to H HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:38.232) Weed guy. Jack McFarland (00:40.788) Thank you very much man. Really appreciate the opportunity to come on your show. Yes, sir. Chad Sowash (00:52.386) Bet he does. Joel Cheesman (01:01.51) You are more than welcome. So for a lot of our listeners, viewers don't know who you are, give us sort of the the Twitter bio on you. Jack McFarland (01:08.468) Twitter bio Jack McFarland, 32 year veteran, Special Agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Prior to that, was, believe it or not prior to that, was a former school teacher and football coach like my father was. Yes, sir. So back in 87, I applied to the DEA and FBI and DEA came a call and I've seen it all basically, which is a good thing and also a bad thing. You name a city, I've been to it, name a country, I've probably been to it. yeah, man, just happy to be here, man, talking to you guys. Chad Sowash (01:14.914) Damn. Chad Sowash (01:21.816) Holy. Joel Cheesman (01:34.862) Isn't isn't football coach like the law in Pennsylvania? Like steel country and coal country gotta Jack McFarland (01:39.315) Absolutely. I call it country. Absolutely. Just you hit it on the head. No disrespect to the western part of the state, but you know, people will challenge you on that. But go Eagles. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Joel Cheesman (01:45.469) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:48.996) And and like Allen Allentown is in your bio somewhere. I mean you're you're like you're like Billy Joel a Billy Joel video on the itties meets like all the right moves starring Tom Cruise. That's your that's your upbringing. That's at least in my in my mind anyway. Chad Sowash (01:53.124) hell yeah. Jack McFarland (01:59.348) Oh my yes. Yes, sir. Totally. If you didn't play football, man, you weren't part of anything. yeah, from the age of five years old, I had the pads on my way to college and then I got out and started coaching and teaching. You got definitely some good football down there in Pennsylvania. But thanks for giving the shout out to PA football, Pennsylvania football. Chad Sowash (02:07.523) yeah. You're talking to a couple of Ohio boys here. I mean, we're both yeah, I mean we know I that's religion, my friend. That's religion. Joel Cheesman (02:14.109) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:18.492) Mm-hmm. Jack McFarland (02:27.795) I really appreciate that man. I still think I can put the pads on sometimes, you know? Not really. Yeah, really. Woo! Chad Sowash (02:32.334) Don't we all, Jack? Don't we all? I mean, come on. So, okay, before we dig into things, before we dig no, no, no Steelers. This is Eagles. before we dig into before we get any further, Jack, you literally were just vying to go on Traitors Season Five. Okay. And in this is another thing. Apparently, you are going after an acting career. Joel Cheesman (02:35.504) As as long as you don't talk Steelers, Steelers gets you the pot the moot button. No Steelers. Jack McFarland (02:41.542) haha Jack McFarland (02:54.212) Yes, yes. Chad Sowash (02:59.086) I w I want to hear a little bit about this because Joel loves some traders. Jack McFarland (03:04.115) You know, I don't know if Joe wants to some more water. I think he's going to step out of the room he said, but I'm just joking. You know, it was a great opportunity. I got sought out. I got back in January and I can speak of this now because I didn't sign any NDAs or anything because I didn't make it to the finals. But what a wonderful, wonderful experience going from January to April to trying to get selected for this show. And you'll see this. It's Traders 5. Chad Sowash (03:08.418) Yeah. Jack McFarland (03:33.651) It's called civilians and thanks for bringing this up. mean, it's kind of funny, but I was just a guy. I got a kit with a casting agent from Hollywood. They hit me up and you talk about trying to get hired on a job and you guys are in HR. You like to talk about HR. We're talking from like, I thought it going back to DEA. was like four months and I was supposed to, made it to the semi-finals after. Chad Sowash (03:50.7) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:50.706) Uh-huh. Jack McFarland (04:01.138) Zoom this, zoom that, fill this packer out. Oh, I'm sorry, fill this application out. My goodness, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Fill this application out. I'm on a little thing here. And, you know, I got the call one Friday evening and they said that, unfortunately, we're going to have to stop you at the finals, which would have been in Los Angeles at the end of September. And I said, okay. And they brought a bunch of people out to LA at the end of April. Chad Sowash (04:07.116) You're good. I love it. Jack McFarland (04:28.218) And now they, right now they are filming, I believe in Inverness, Scotland. They film for a couple of weeks. That's what they film. It is. And there's a lot of things that people don't know and I won't put them out there, but like I said, I know zero MDAs on it, but it was such a wonderful opportunity. I met a lot of great people and it... This is all human several times. Chad Sowash (04:34.076) yes. Yes, they do. And a beautiful castle, by the way. And yeah. Chad Sowash (04:46.766) Well talk about the interview process though, Jack, because this is a this is an HR and hiring type of project. Joel Cheesman (04:49.372) Yeah, was there n was there any AI or was this an all was this an all human interview process? Okay. Chad Sowash (04:55.831) Okay. Jack McFarland (04:56.268) You get moved from one person to another person and it was one of those things where you had an answer to questions. Questions were not difficult one bit. They were not hard at all. There were more like, how can I put this, it wasn't hard, was questions. It was very simple questions, but they wanted to basically pin you down on your personality. Could you stab someone in the back? like, did you know my career? Chad Sowash (04:59.982) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:06.584) Were they tests? Were they tests? Jack McFarland (05:25.135) I used to do these kinds of things. I used to do things with weapons and we used to do negotiations with weapons in our pants, know, come on. So, know, with handguns and that. So, you know, was funny. One thing I got sent like, boom, it comes over to screen. It's like, please answer these three questions. These three questions. And then you have a certain amount of time to answer these questions. So there I am sitting in a chair and my wife's filming me and I answer these questions. Well, the questions were nothing really that hard, but I think I answered them. The three questions like 30 seconds. Chad Sowash (05:25.46) Ha. Chad Sowash (05:30.262) Yeah. Jack McFarland (05:54.17) And then boom, then boom, I went. And then in a couple days, I get another thing. Can you fill out this packet? Can you tell me your shoe size? Can you tell me your pants size? Can you tell me? And I'm like, what the hell are these people wanting? So the funny part was, the funny part, and I tell my buddies this one. At the end of the one interview, at the end of the one interview, the gal, great, great interviewer, great person, really down there, lot of, really hit it off. It like with you guys, good personalities, easy going. And she was awesome. Chad Sowash (06:16.066) Yeah. Jack McFarland (06:22.641) And she said, the last thing I have to ask you to do is I need you to stand up. So I had to stand up on the camera. So I thought I'm doing like, okay, I stand up. She said, no, turn, no, turn around. So I had to turn around and I'm like, she said, yeah, exactly. I said, so I said peace. And she says, she says a peace traders. And I said, peace traders. And I was like, it was good. I took it as very humorous. I really took it as very humorous. Cause I could only imagine. Joel Cheesman (06:32.753) Turn around. That's harassment, Jack. That's harassment. Chad Sowash (06:48.846) Did you get a good shot of my ass? That's the question. Joel Cheesman (06:52.166) Yeah. Bend over. Jack McFarland (06:52.227) Yeah, I tried, man. You know, I don't know. my God. was was quite it was quite entertaining versus when you're used to a normal formal interview. you're like, you know, everyone's all serious and starts up and all this stuff. So. Chad Sowash (06:57.964) That's awesome. Chad Sowash (07:06.946) This sounds like mad men, like in the sixties, you know. Hey, hey honey, can you stand up and turn around? It's about time. It's about time men finally get the a little little bit of the little bit of the their own treatment. Joel Cheesman (07:10.588) But reversed reversed. Joel Cheesman (07:18.472) Shake your money maker, Jack. Jack McFarland (07:19.023) Yes. So it was, it was really great though. And like I said, when I got that, notification, was like, it was a Friday night in April, about a week prior to going out. I was kind of like, okay, gave it a shot and, and they're going to keep me of course, for anything that, moves forward, they're going to, they see a fit on, I gotta be honest. I mean, I just got a notification about, I don't know if I want to do it. I know this is in my, my brand, but, Chad Sowash (07:35.707) hell yeah. Jack McFarland (07:47.793) You guys familiar with Fear Factor, House of Fear Season 2 with Johnny Depp, with Johnny Knoxville? He's a sick guy, he's a funny dude. And I'm like, I don't know if I can, I could probably hang on some of the missions, but I don't know if I want the creepy crawlers I have to eat and all that stuff. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna see how goes. because, yeah, you know, mean, we know they're not poisonous and all that, but still, it's just. Chad Sowash (07:51.358) no way, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:56.402) Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:02.397) yeah. Nah. I like the trader's missions better. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:08.668) Lay Lay in a coffin of snakes. That sounds great to me. That sounds like what I wanna do. Chad Sowash (08:11.671) Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:15.31) I'm not eating maggots, okay? Jack McFarland (08:15.854) You don't want to get injured, you know? I don't think you want to get injured, Joel, or... Joel Cheesman (08:18.088) So back back yeah, back back to the interview, Jack. You you talked about the traders interview. I assume it's it was a very different process in the eighties when you went to the DEA. Like talk about what that was like. Jack McFarland (08:30.896) Wow, doing my school, I a school teacher. I wanted to say I was a phys ed teacher, but I was actually a business education teacher, football coach, defensive backs, receivers. And then I started to apply. Why did I start to apply? A friend of mine was working for Alphonse Diamano back in DC as a Senator. He played up in Syracuse in football as well. And he said, know, Jack, says, teaching is great, but he says, why don't you try coming over to the federal government? I said, what do you think? says, special agent, FBI special agent DEA. I said, okay, send me the packets. Now back in the days, guys, you know this, back in the 80s, it was no online stuff. It was snail mail. He tells you on a Monday, send it out and it shows up Friday or the following Monday it shows up. And you get these packets and you got to sit there on your mother, father's kitchen table with a brother's typewriter and fill in everything about this 30 page application. And you're like, oh wow, oh you made a mistake. You got to do the corrective type. Oh, I got to fix that corrective type. Give me that white out. Very different. Chad Sowash (09:06.156) Yeah. Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (09:22.332) The whiteout. Jack McFarland (09:26.704) still to this day, pretty similar in nature, very, very demanding, a lot of questions. You've got to make sure your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted. This is not a process where you walk into, say, my goodness, Chad and Joel, you're to walk in and you're going to get a job doing something. And they sit you down for one person, they kick you to another person, then in a week they say, hey, you got the job. It took me, and I was at one of the faster ones. me nine months from start to finish. Nine months. My roommate in the academy, God rest his soul, Jean T. McCarthy was killed in the first go for it. He a Cobra gunship helicopter pilot for the States Marine Corps. It took him as a Naval Academy graduate, a major in the Marine Corps, it took him over one year. He said, how did you get in on nine months? I said, man, I said, I don't know. I just put through it. I put the applications in and in the bureau. And so they were both competing. You know, one would do this, one would do that. Chad Sowash (09:57.998) Holy shit. Chad Sowash (10:19.394) Fast track. Jack McFarland (10:26.594) DEA would do this, after I would do that, eventually DEA came a call and I said, let's give it a shot. So I resigned from my teaching coaching position and moved forward. Chad Sowash (10:35.896) So w were you up for the the prospect of being in in in another department with regard to like another branch, maybe like CIA or no? It was just D A D E Jack McFarland (10:41.857) No, just, you know, no, just like I said, the two I really honed in was was because of my buddy, Jim, a great guy, was because of the DEA and the FBI. And there's so many opportunities today. And, you know, for the young guys and gals, I'll put a shout out to it. Man, federal law enforcement, local, local, county, state and federal law enforcement and military. The opportunities are there, man. If you get turned down by one. Chad Sowash (10:53.733) gotcha. Jack McFarland (11:10.447) higher on go and go for the next one, go for another one. Don't just stop there. Back in the day in 87, it was limited. It was limited, man. It was tough to get into these positions. And I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that I did. Joel Cheesman (11:25.98) What what was the brand like I'm thinking back to that time in the eighties, you had Scarface, which even probably everybody our audience knows, you had Miami Vice, you had you had tons of movies, Billy Crystal was even a D agent, I think, in a movie at one point with so what was the brand then and maybe what was the brand, how did it evolve as you were with the agency? Jack McFarland (11:32.024) Yep, Miami Vice, Miami Vice guys, yes. Jack McFarland (11:49.913) You know, the brands, think what we do is this is, not boohooing anywhere, but back in those days in the seventies and eighties, think DEA wasn't getting the push that say some of the other agencies, the brother agency, the sister agency of the state of the FBI. You know, no, I'm, like I said, I've worked with a lot of magnificent people in all the agencies, got great friends in CIA, great friends in FBI. but DEA to me, when I came on board with DEA, I'm still to this day, very passionate about it. I still. Chad Sowash (12:13.378) Yeah. Jack McFarland (12:19.726) to this day, the administrator today of the DEA, and I gotta put him out there, Mr. Terry Cole, is doing a heck of a job. He will still hit me. He was one of my former students at Quantico when I was an Asian instructor down there, and he was one of my students. He's the man. He is the administrator for the DEA right now. And he'll hit me up at the Quantico, we have beautiful facility down there. You talk about, there's no, mean, college football, division one schools, workout facilities, you gotta see our place. It's amazing. And he'll send me videos and say, Chad Sowash (12:35.416) Damn. Chad Sowash (12:38.957) huh. Jack McFarland (12:49.548) Here's the badge, Jack. Here's the badge. And he'll click off. You know, just text me. I'm like, that's cool. You know, just to motivate. But the way this situation occurred is we began to come out on our own and say, hey, look what we can do by getting the proper public information officers out there, getting the congressional affair officers out there and getting our brand out there, if you want to say. And we really have, we really have evolved even since I retired in 2019. At the age of 57, was done, I was finished, I was mandatory retirement. But I had 32 years and, you we have to, as a former boss, we had to go to PIO school. What's PIO school? Public Information Officer School. Learn how to speak with the media. Learn how to deal with the press. I mean, I was the boss down in the Virgin Islands and the one time I got the phone rings and my gal sends it in to me, my secretary and I had a great, person there. Chad Sowash (13:31.864) Hmm. Yeah. Jack McFarland (13:45.454) And she says, I said, hello, is this Mr. Jack McFarlane? Resonating in charge. And I said, yes, it is. And she says, oh, this is Lisa from the Daily News. I said, the New York Daily News? And she goes, no, the Virgin Islands Daily News. I kind of like, boom, I nailed it. I'm only kidding, I'm only kidding. So we would like to meet you in person and do an interview with you. And I'm like, sure, come on, let's do it. Let's do it. Joel Cheesman (14:00.316) Ha ha. Jack McFarland (14:13.623) But the brand started to really evolve. I believe when we start really tackling, as you guys know, well, most people know the war on drugs with of course the late eighties with Reagan and Nancy Reagan. And then of course, now we're starting to hit Columbia harder and who's in Columbia, know, our boys down there are doing their job and that. And then the TV shows, like Narco starts to get out there. Good friend of mine, you you're part of all that business. Chad Sowash (14:23.374) War on Drugs? Yeah. Reagan. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jack McFarland (14:43.601) And so that's when it started to turn. We started to work closer with, think, with the Colombians and really working some of these major traffickers. You know, today, I mean, we are crushing, crushing the traffickers. I mean, when the country of Mexico sends a leered jet up with like 20 bad guys in it or 30 bad guys in it, it's pretty impressive. And it gets in the news. It gets in the paper. which is great for us. I think we're doing, I think it's doing, we're doing the right thing. And I think I like seeing it every day. I'm all about publicity. I'm promoting DEA. Still to this day, I really am. And I think by us talking about this a little bit, it's pretty cool. It's actually pretty cool about it. Chad Sowash (15:30.786) Talk about some of your teams, though. I mean, because you you obviously excelled. You not only in Quantico, but you were a boss, as you'd said, you know, in the Caribbean. so you had an opportunity to manage a very diverse crew. Now, did you get a chance first and foremost to to kind of like pick your crew on who you got to work with? did you get a chance to do that? Number one. Number two. Jack McFarland (15:34.007) Okay Jack McFarland (15:54.23) That's good question. That's a very good question. Chad Sowash (15:57.942) If you did or if you didn't, talk a little bit about managing those types of characters because you I mean, you know better than we do how the FBI actually chooses different agents, right? Jack McFarland (16:10.86) Sure. I mean, that's a really super question. mean, Chad, really great question. Let's take it, for example, when you're an educator, teacher, these people are young adults and you got to manage them. And then you get on a football field and they're young adults, totally different. Football players to me, they plus personalities. Persons in the school industry, got the ones that are very smart. You got the ones that are athletes. And I used to call them army jacket kids. The kids that kind of like... You're getting through, they're gonna get their education, they're gonna get through, they might go into the military, but then they might not. They might go and work for something else. Perfect. Boom. Now I get into the government, the federal government. You're talking about a whole different structure of people that, you know, you have their bachelor's degree, there's master's degrees, they'll have their doctorates. And these people are athletic and they're smart and they're savvy. And you're competing against this. I mean, back in the day, I don't know this is actually a true statistic, but for every DEA agent that applied, Okay. For every DA it would take about, I'm like, don't quote me on this somewhere around. It was when I was coming through, like a thousand applicants to get one. We open up, we open our shop now. We open our shop now for, say for special agent, opportunities to come to Quantico until we have 500 vacancies. And within a day, we have to shut it. They have to shut it down in headquarters because they get so many applications. Now, a lot of them are, are not reading the policies and procedures and the qualifications. Chad Sowash (17:12.728) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (17:27.8) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (17:34.524) Wow. Wow. Chad Sowash (17:41.282) Yeah. All right. Jack McFarland (17:41.484) They're just dumping them in there. And then the poor people in HR, human resources got to weed them out. We got a heck of a heck of a HR. I mean, you talk about like two floors full of people, man in DC. So they do a heck of a job on that. But getting back to working with the different crews, when I was an agent, I started in the Alatown Resident Office. That was my office assignment out of Quantico, Virginia. After 17 weeks of getting beat up in Quantico, and then you finally get the badge and the creds and the weapon and you're going out. That was my office of hire, office of hire, not office of assignment. So I had to go to my office of hire and you could spend anywhere from, oh my God, I ended up spending almost a year there because of the fact that they needed an extra agent there on the streets. That was fine. Cause I was from that, from that location. But my office of us hire, excuse me, office of assignment was Philadelphia. So when I went down to Philadelphia, Philadelphia had about, about nine enforcement groups. I was put in an enforcement group three. Back in the day, was broken down into different drugs. We worked mainly coke, crack, and grass. So I didn't have the opportunity to say where I wanted to go. I was just placed. No say. Then I worked my grades there. I get the grades. What are grades? If you look on a general scale, your listeners and a general scale, the United States government, it goes from one to 15. And then it goes from step one to step 10. That's your pay grades. You pay grades. Yeah, general schedules, general schedule. Chad Sowash (18:42.766) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (18:50.125) Gotcha. Chad Sowash (19:05.974) Actually, are these G S grades? Okay. Yeah. Jack McFarland (19:10.315) So I ended up having to come on as a lowly 7, a GS7 man. So it's like, wow, I'm making big money. Let's go to town, let's go to work here. So what happens is, I then work it where it's doing the, the seven you come on, the nine, the 11, the 12, the 13. Okay. Now I went to 14. 14 is your first boss, supervisory position. Good money, decent money. So we have to take a test. I do a good in a test. So what happens for me is I'm great with getting my grades in Philadelphia, but I still don't want to apply for the boss position. I raise my hand, I put in for, to be a special agent instructor in Quantico, Virginia, Office of Training. And I got to, I went down there as a 13. And from there, I got my 14 in the Virgin Islands and I spent time as a boss in the, Baltimore, lovely Baltimore, and then got pulled into headquarters and then applied for the 15s. Never made it to the 16s or the senior executives, but for the extra $12,000, you can keep that job, No thanks, man. No thanks. You'll go from like, no, just no thanks. No thank you. yeah, so the different opportunities. So when I was a boss in the Virgin Islands and a boss in Baltimore, Chad Sowash (20:20.269) Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha Joel Cheesman (20:31.09) Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:31.52) And ninety nine problems. Jack McFarland (20:37.578) I got to select my people because I was a boss. was a supervisor. say, you know, if one agent was, say, Joel was rotating out, he did his four years in the Virgin Islands. I need it. I have a vacancy. I would pick Joel to come in. mean, Chad to come in. So it was one of those picking and choosing kind of things. So yeah, but. Chad Sowash (20:39.82) okay. Okay. Chad Sowash (21:00.792) Gotcha. Joel Cheesman (21:02.172) Jack, you mentioned and we talked a little bit about it before the show, but you're you're I guess forced out, may or may not be the right term, but at 57, you're tapped on the shoulder. And we talk about ageism on the show quite a bit, and and obviously people that get a little bit long in the tooth are considered out of touch, don't understand the technology. Like, what was the reasoning in the agency as to why they sort of tapped you on the shoulder and said it's time to leave at 57? Jack McFarland (21:09.863) Yeah, mandatory retirement. Chad Sowash (21:10.582) Pretty much. Joel Cheesman (21:29.958) And then also talk about how they're sort of bringing in people after they leave and why the why the reason is for that and what their purpose is. Jack McFarland (21:38.001) Well, when I came on, the minimum age was 23, the maximum age was 37. I came on I was 24, which was great. Okay. I hit it at a right early, early age. Um, that at that time, the age Congress set for all 18, 11 special agents throughout any agency was 55 years of age. Throughout my career, they raised the 57. The, the, the, the powers to be were trying to push the 59 because they felt 57 was too young. But as we well know, the answer to that question is money purposes to create additional gapping. You get people that are say, 57 years old and you're a 15 step 10, you're making some decent money for Uncle Sam. So why not let's move this 1510 out and bring in three sevens, three GS7s. I hope I'm not talking over your viewers heads. But if you got a guy making just simple numbers, guy making 200K, Chad Sowash (22:07.81) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (22:20.696) Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh. Jack McFarland (22:34.728) And he got three, we could hire three fresh faces at, know, say, you know, 30, 30,000 a person. Man, we're just, we just saved $110,000. Chad Sowash (22:42.528) Exactly what we're seeing in the civilian world. They exactly what we're seeing in the civilian world. We're seeing VPs get kicked out and, you know, and then they don't fill that VP position anymore. They do with you know, like senior executives or or not senior executives, but like directors or you know, like junior directors or something like that. So that they can pay them a lot less and and you know, maybe fill them with two and then pad the margin a little bit more. Jack McFarland (23:12.627) There you go. and so, so money is a driving factor. mean, it interrupted Joel, but money was the driving factor upon that. I believe in a lot of guys that I worked with believe that as well. So, cause you're making X amount of dollars and remember every year you stay that adds onto your retirement. So, you know, like my one buddy used to say, let's live as long as we were on the job and take it from uncle Sam. So if you'd worked 30 years, let's live 30 years after our retirement. Joel Cheesman (23:12.808) But it but Chad Sowash (23:30.594) Yes. Jack McFarland (23:42.352) and get every first day of the month, the eagle shits green, let's do it. I should have said that word, I'm sorry, eagle poops green, you know? Chad Sowash (23:42.432) Amen, brother. Joel Cheesman (23:50.808) Eagle shits green. That's a new one. But now you're but now you're bringing people back. What's the reason for that? And are they paid less as consultants? I mean, how does that work? Chad Sowash (23:52.558) Amen. Jack McFarland (24:02.28) Okay, so what we're doing now is, Office of Personal Management has allowed a lot of the agencies to bring additional 18-11s or special agents back on the job under what they call a rehired annuitant or re-employee annuitant, whatever you want to call the terminology. I call it rehired annuitant. When I retired, they didn't have that. So at 57, I'm out. Age 60, okay, so age 60, all of a sudden, I'm at age 60 now. Oh my God, they're bringing a new program in. Re-hired a new attend. So if you're 57, you can come back till the age of 60. Holy cow. I can't, I'm 60, I can't, I'm ineligible for age-wise. I missed the boat. Funny story. Then at 62, they increased it to 61, 62. I'm 62, I can't do it, I'm over, I'm over. I'm over again. But now... Chad Sowash (24:56.382) Sons of bitches. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:58.525) Yeah. Jack McFarland (25:00.263) They're increasing it to 65 and I'm 63. Why are they doing that? Why? Personnel on the street. Personnel, more additional personnel to fight the fight on the street. I'm not just talking DEA, I'm talking to everybody. Seasoned individuals, there is a lot of amazing people that are gunslingers, are war fighters, weapon, they can still do it. Joel Cheesman (25:04.146) So why? Chad Sowash (25:13.902) And it's se it's seasoned individuals as well. I mean y yeah. yeah. Already had the training. Hmm. yeah. Jack McFarland (25:26.342) Oh, you guys still go through all the, you still got to do the process. My good friend of mine at Los Angeles, heck of a guy, he retired out. Now all of a sudden at age 60, uh, before he gets it, gets the, uh, nod to come on, check this out. He, it took him not about eight or nine months to get a higher as a rehired annuitant. Because it's not in, it's not, it's not, it's not emotion. It's not emotion. So. Chad Sowash (25:49.624) Well, I mean it took you nine months to to get in in the first place. So it kinda you know, it kinda comes together. So Jack McFarland (25:55.238) He's psyched about it because he's making some good money. Some good money. Yes, sir. Chad Sowash (25:58.306) Good good money, yeah. But he's yeah, he's not on traders though, Jack. He's not on traders. so so let's talk about transition because they tap you on the shoulder and then I mean, do you go straight into retirement or do you look at that transition into a senior or I mean a civilian role? I obviously, you know, you have that opportunity, prospectively, to go into like a contractor role, kind of higher gun or whatnot. Jack McFarland (26:02.638) No, he's a good dude. He what he wants. No part of that stuff. He says no part of it, you know, no part of it. Jack McFarland (26:27.791) Yep, yep. Chad Sowash (26:27.848) Let's talk about the just the civilian side of the house. I what what's the what's the process? Is it just pretty much tap on the shoulder, you're gone? Is there literally cause I know in the military they've got a tap program, transition, you know, assistance program. It's shit, but still they have a program. Is there a program for DEA agents who are who are getting Jack McFarland (26:40.27) Sure. Jack McFarland (26:46.63) There's no, there's really, you know, I hate to say this, but it's a word of mouth. It comes down to word of mouth, who your buddies are, who your contacts are, who guy who's in, who's in Deloitte hanging out in Deloitte, who can, who can bring in a Deloitte and give you a, you know, a buck 50 a year or khaki or whatever. And I can go down to the list of companies, but, do you want to be that guy that your buddy says, yeah, come over? I don't want to not be disrespectful. They're great businesses. Chad Sowash (26:52.352) Okay. So it's really nothing. Chad Sowash (27:06.283) yeah. Jack McFarland (27:14.703) But that's where some of our people go, but it's word of mouth. Like how did, how did Joe get the job with Las Vegas MGM Grant as deputy security director? Because his buddy is this fricking security director out there. So he's going to be the number two guy underneath them making 250 K a year. Boom. I mean, LinkedIn is another fascinating, mean, I'm on LinkedIn. That's great. And I've gotten some work from LinkedIn as well, but it's also, it's, it's, it's that combination of Chad Sowash (27:32.066) Are you getting hit on LinkedIn though? I mean, because you're on LinkedIn. Okay. Jack McFarland (27:45.072) Who is your friend? know, mean, okay, so networking, Joel's got this and Chad's got this and could you get me involved with this? Yeah, sure. I've been offered stuff and I'm like going, no, I don't want to go work for the State Department over to Dominican Republic of Congo and teach over to Dominican Republic of Congo how to handle weapons over there. No, I'm not doing that. You know, I don't want to go into Cape Town, South Africa, get on the Exxon Mobil tanker and protect it. Chad Sowash (27:46.7) Yeah. Network. Chad Sowash (28:07.488) Special forces do that. Jack McFarland (28:12.614) and be a hired gun on a XMobile tanker and go up and fuel up, up in the, know, of course, straight from our moose and come back around. It's a 30 day trip and you get a thousand bucks a day and you're on a steel beach. I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that, you know, but there are people that will do that. I mean, God bless them because they have other opportunities, but I think myself, my wife, we were both, you know, career oriented people and we did our, children or whatever. We kind of invested there, invested there and Joel Cheesman (28:25.661) Yeah. Chad Sowash (28:28.158) yeah, yeah. Jack McFarland (28:41.795) I'm not throwing shade on anything, but we live at the beach here in Delaware and we go down to winter in Markle Island, Florida. So we do our thing, boom, boom. no, try not to, exactly so. But that's a really good question. But I do think networking, being part of a team has helped that. Contacts? Chad Sowash (28:51.512) D doesn't sound like it sucks at all, no. Joel Cheesman (28:52.316) The the beach in Delaware. That sounds that sounds lovely. Jack McFarland (29:06.992) There's probably not a country in the world, not bragging, probably not a country in the world I can't pick the phone up and say, yeah, I know who's over there, the boss. I'll call him, get on WhatsApp and hey, you know, boom, hey, what are you doing? Long time no talk. What's going on? Hey, can you do X, and Z? Yeah, so networking, networking. That's a good point for your listeners who are coming on board. Exactly. That's a very good point. Joel Cheesman (29:21.864) Tried and true tried and true networking. Chad Sowash (29:28.334) That's what the kids need to know. They need they need to understand the whole networking side. Joel Cheesman (29:32.36) Jack, we we t we talked about sort of internal hiring, recruiting the the folks that you're that you're looking at. I want to talk about the human intelligence side, the network of people that you had tipping you off on things on the inside. I think that's a really fascinating world. Talk about recruiting f those folks and managing that that team. And when did you decide that the risk is too much to cut them loose? I mean, just sort of just talk broadly about the human intelligence aspect. Chad Sowash (29:48.999) it is. Joel Cheesman (30:01.928) of the DEA. Jack McFarland (30:03.095) Sure. Well, two sides, but one when I was a working agent, a street agent, special agent, senior special agent, you had to really focus on your group supervisor, your supervisor, your special agent to really make sure you're doing the right thing so you don't get yourself in trouble. Informants are nasty business, man. Got to have them to do your job. We call them confident. Back when I came out, I confidential informant, then it went to confidential sources, CSs. Chad Sowash (30:20.738) Yeah. See eyes. Jack McFarland (30:25.989) You've got to have them to do your job. If not, you're not going to get you're not going to do it. You're going to sit there with your hands on your, you're to be sitting on your hands doing your job. So you had to have the right management management to make sure you're focusing correctly. Had some interesting characters. I was like, can tell you Muppets. They're like Muppets, man. You got to go interesting people. You could have people that are. Want to walk into the office and they want to, they want to, they want to rid the world of drugs. Well, how are we going to do this? And who are you? Because it coming in or they're. They're liars. They're habitual liars. You gotta get rid of them. Boom, you gotta kick them loose. But then you get some people that do it for money. And they're the ones you gotta be really, really careful about, the mercenaries. So the mercs are the ones that come in and they will tell you that it is freaking snowing dope in North Philadelphia right now in the middle of July. And you're like, and really it is, huh? Let's do something. What can we do? Chad Sowash (31:06.677) Uh-huh. Jack McFarland (31:19.236) So man, you talk about learning interviewing interrogation skills and speaking skills and oral communication skills with people like this. They know the streets and they will run a game on you. They'll look you right in the face. They'll win traders every freaking time because they have no conscience. lot of these people don't. And if you get sucked into this, you're done. You'll be fired. You'll be actually, it's not fired. You'll be possibly, you know, throwing a penitentiary. So different type of people, have to get there. You have to vet them. Chad Sowash (31:23.704) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (31:34.723) Yeah. Jack McFarland (31:48.879) You're listening to my now what vet means you got to corroborate what they're saying You got to make sure they're exact above board first a person comes into your office. They want to hire hire for job Yeah, I was the top salesman and you know General Motors for a number number of years. I look I do my do I do a call over to jump? This guy used to put lug nuts on the cars over and over in the Dearborn flat, you know, you're like, okay, bye, know you're so we had to make sure that T's were crossed eyes were daughter. They said earlier another subject Chad Sowash (31:53.89) Multiple sources. Jack McFarland (32:17.899) You have to make sure that you are protecting not only yourself, but you're protecting the brand of the DEA. Cause the worst thing that can happen is something goes left and the news gets hold of it and bam, it blows up. And what happens is now we look like a bunch of cowboys, a bunch of knuckleheads. And it's been happening. We've had people that get sucked in with the confidential informant or confidential source because of the fact that they're offering them. X, Y, and Z, and they just forget what they're doing. Management, you're talking about management. I know you use the word management a lot, Chad. Management is definitely, definitely important. I'm not talking about just someone just sitting at a desk. You're out there in the field. Heck, you gotta say a confidential source and you're using them in the full off your field divisional office. Obviously you get a call that midnight or say three in the morning. And it's like, just a special agent check my phone. Yeah, yes it is. Chad Sowash (32:54.136) Yeah. Jack McFarland (33:16.099) Hey, do you know a Jimmy Smith? I don't know who you are, brother. Give me a number. Give me a number. Give me me a number. I'm with the FBI. So give me that. I have to verify who you are. So I do all the verifications real quick and that is why call him back. I said, so you're Squad 3 and you're FBI, Squad 3. OK, what do you got? Yeah, I know a Jimmy Smith. Well, we just picked him up here on a control delivery of five keys of coke. You're like, oh, great. Chad Sowash (33:30.552) Uh-huh. Jack McFarland (33:45.207) Boom, now he's finished, he's done. I said, lock him up, get rid of him, lock him up, we don't wanna deal with him. And you're like, great, you know? So it's such a game that if you don't follow the game properly, you're gonna screw things up. You're gonna screw things up, it really is, so, but. Chad Sowash (33:59.406) You gotta get a Jimmy Smith. Joel Cheesman (33:59.528) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jack, you you talk a lot about actionable intelligence and staying away from bias. And I would imagine that in your line of work, bias is a huge issue. and fighting that and and j it staying to the fa just the facts, ma'am. Like what does our intelligence tell us? Not not let bias creep in. And and we talk to a lot of companies obviously, and it's a big it's a big issue in our space around hiring being unbiased hiring. Right, just looking at the resume, not the person, their skin color, their age, I mean, all the things that come into play. Talk about how important actionable intelligence was and how you how you were able to effectively keep the team off of a biased lens and keep them on sort of the intelligence and the data. Jack McFarland (34:31.199) Bye. Jack McFarland (34:47.894) I treat it all crooks equally, man. You're the bad guy, I'm the good guy. That's what we're gonna do. I'd say, don't care what they look like, I don't care. You can't imagine what some of the people we pick up. 70 year old grandmother carrying 10 keys of coke, what? Okay, of course you're going. Or some 18 year old snot nose with another 10, you're going. So I don't believe in that. I was totally averse to, I don't believe in that kind of stuff. If you're bad, you're bad, you're going down. And my guys knew it. And same way when I was a young agent. And I was told by my senior par was a great guy, great guy. He us that we keep in contact. He was a former New York copper and he came on to DEA and that. And he says, just keep it simple, man. Just keep it simple. Actual intelligence, let's go and keep it simple. Don't get caught up in the minutia of things. That's when people start getting hurt and injured. And in our job, I'm going to give you an example. I know I might be on a little truck. Excuse my mouth. I might be off on a little tangent here. Joel and Chad, major league baseball player. Chad Sowash (35:28.173) Yeah. Jack McFarland (35:47.074) Okay. love, I love giving this one. I've said this before in some other podcasts. They go out and get to the bat, up to bat 10 times. They hit the ball three times. It's 300%, 33%. They're hall of famers. We go on the street 10 times and we blow seven deals of those 10. Dude, you're done. You're finished. You're gone. Suitability, suitability review protocol or whatever. You're fine. You're fine. You're finished. If I was, Oh my God, Jack. He loves to go after these certain certain group. There was none of that. No, no, we go after organizations, man. There's no certain type of person that wears green shirts that I'm to go after every time they wear a green shirt. You're a dope deal. You're going down. you must be a heroin addict because your pants are purple and your top is, you know, graffiti. you must be a heroin guy. No, never. Other guys? They used to be called profiling back in the day. There's no such thing. That's it. once you get my mouth gone, that's that's long gone. That's that's a long gone. Has to be because the courts have appell. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't. I know for us, we I was driven in our heads daily or not so much daily, but for, know, taking your quarterly test or whatever. You had to take a test. And the government's serious about that, man. But I will say this. You're a bad guy. We know you're a bad guy. You're gone. Joel Cheesman (36:46.13) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (37:05.071) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (37:10.183) yeah. Jack McFarland (37:13.365) You're going in. You're going in. Chad Sowash (37:14.178) Did you hear that, Joel? It is the KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. That's exactly what we do here, Jack. We keep it simple, stupid. that's the kids, this is this is this is Jack McFarland (37:17.889) Yeah, I like... Joel Cheesman (37:20.082) Well, too many employers aren't learning what the DEA knows, unfortunately. Jack McFarland (37:25.573) It's so easy in life if you just keep it simple. It really, really is. I mean, my goodness, guys. Joel Cheesman (37:28.776) Keep it simple. Chad Sowash (37:32.3) Jack McFarland, kids. Jack McFarlane. Jack, if somebody wants to connect with you, I don't know. Maybe they wanna maybe they wanna put you on their their soap opera. I don't know who it is. How did how do they actually connect with you? Jack McFarland (37:42.291) Absolutely. Okay, if you don't mind, got a couple different things. I'm on Instagram, course, JackMcFarlandDEA. I'm on LinkedIn. It's going to be JackMcFarlandDEA again. And I got my own website, believe it or not, www.JackMcFarlandDEA.com. And like I said, anyone wants to bring me out to speak, talk about motivation, teamwork. You want to talk about... Chad Sowash (37:47.416) Go ahead, hit it. Joel Cheesman (37:54.184) Mm-hmm. Jack McFarland (38:06.481) War stories we can, know, I got from, you we just had Memorial Day yesterday. Thanks for all those that were, it gave the ultimate sacrifice. I can talk about different people that I know. Of course, my roommate, Nkabby McCarthy, and just, just, was a great opportunity to come on here and speak and totally out of my, my, my arena here. But yet being a boss, I should call my, one of my friends and say it was in HR and everything. Joel Cheesman (38:24.85) Comfort zone. That's what we do. Yeah. Jack McFarland (38:33.536) Say, I just talked to HR for like 30, 35 minutes to the guys from Chad and Cheese. Chad Sowash (38:36.386) They're gonna say, why in the hell would you do that, Jack? Why? Joel Cheesman (38:39.844) HR sprinkled with a little coke, crack and and grass, everybody. Chad, that's a another Jack McFarland (38:42.016) It's cold cracking grass and I hope I answered your questions gentlemen, I really do. And I said thank you very much and it was something different that I did and I really enjoyed you guys. I like humor man, I like humor, I like laughing, keeping it light. And as I said, it's life man, just have fun, just have fun doing things. Chad Sowash (38:49.378) Good to go, man. Joel Cheesman (38:50.492) Thanks for joining us, Jack. Joel Cheesman (39:07.804) We we appreciate you, Jack, and we appreciate your service. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Jack McFarland (39:13.204) Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Chad Sowash (39:13.346) We out.

Joel-Free June & It's OpenAI & Google Job Slop Season Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR’s most dangerous podcast! This week, Chad is holding down paradise alone because it is officially Joel-Free June. While our favorite co-host takes a very European, month-long vacation, Chad is joined by the brilliant Emi Beredugo and JT O'Donnell to tear into the absolute circus that is the current HR and recruitment tech landscape. From C-suite shakeups to corporate ruses, grab your tequila-infused sports drinks and dive into this week's unfiltered breakdown. 🎙️ On This Week's Show: Stepstone Gives Detmers "Das Boot" JobGet Ripples a Match The Ruse of Job.com George Larocque Says the Window is Closing State of the Nation aka Tips, Yachts, & OpenAI "Job Slop" AI Accents Gone Wrong A massive birthday shoutout to our loyal listeners, especially TA leader Terry Dewey, who slashed their Indeed spend over the past year by following our tips! We don't need the free t-shirts and whiskey, Terry knowing we're saving you cash is enough (but we'll take the whiskey anyway). Don't forget Go to chadandcheese.com/free to score your soft & cuddly t-shirts. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash (00:31.117) Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad, happy in paradise. Sowash. Emi Beredugo (00:40.943) And I'm Emi, just Emi, Beredugo. JT ODonnell (00:44.758) And I'm JT. Body Armor Peach Mango is my drink of summer choice. O'Donnell. Chad Sowash (00:50.583) We're gonna talk about that. And on this week's show, Stepstone gives Detmers Das Boot. JobGet ripples a match. The market has already voted. Apparently, we know about that. And AI Accents. Yes, no, that's it. AI Accents. You're gonna love this show, kids. Let's do this. Chad Sowash (01:17.003) Ooh, it's Joel Free June. Believe that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, huh? JT ODonnell (01:21.934) Wild. Wild. It's crazy. Emi Beredugo (01:25.871) I'm only joking, I miss you, Joe. Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:28.331) Everybody misses him, but I I I definitely have to say that all Americans, we we're envious. Okay. We're envious. we we see Europeans get like a month off. and we're and we're like, they don't work hard. But as soon as we get an opportunity, as soon as we get an opportunity, we take that month off. And as soon as Joel heard we were talking through kind of like, hey, let's take a look at how we, you know, different patterns on how we work the show and whatnot. As soon as we talked about a month off, he already had June. It was done. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't wanna hear it, Americans. If you could do it, you would. You're just envious as shit, right? Huh? Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what's this drink? What's this what's this under armor thing? Emi Beredugo (01:58.096) He was out. JT ODonnell (02:02.606) You would. Emi Beredugo (02:03.704) Yeah. JT ODonnell (02:05.026) Amen. Amen. Emi Beredugo (02:07.779) We are lucky. JT ODonnell (02:10.134) Okay. All right. This is it. I'm not sponsored. This is called Body Armor Light. It's a sports drink, peach mango, but it's made with it's got made with electrolytes. It's all natural and it's got like coconut water in it, right? Honestly, but here's my thing. It's so good as a hydration tool, but it might also, it might also be really good with tequila or vodka. I'm just just throwing it out there. So try. Chad Sowash (02:14.295) Body armor. Chad Sowash (02:22.455) Sounds like Brondo. Emi Beredugo (02:33.327) Ooh, throwing it out there. Chad Sowash (02:34.903) You j I'm you haven't tested that yet, huh? Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (02:37.154) Grab this stuff with a little tequila, vodka, a little seltzer. Drink a choice for the summer. You're hydrating and enjoying yourself. You're welcome, audience. Chad Sowash (02:46.709) I don't know if that still works. I don't know if that's but although this is a this is a great experiment. I would like to see how this turns out at the at the end of summer, JT. So report back if you would please. That would be great. that's awesome. So you've had some had some things going out going on. I know that Emmy, you had you had something and and and you wanted to roll that into a shout out because this is pretty big. This is big. It's the first time ever, right? Emi Beredugo (02:46.765) Lovely. JT ODonnell (02:56.866) I will, I will. JT ODonnell (03:03.318) Mm. Emi Beredugo (03:06.371) I did. Emi Beredugo (03:13.811) It is the first time ever. So I and I've just got to pre- like say this at the beginning. I'm not a football fan. I'm not a massive football fan. I will watch football when England is playing or when you know Nigeria's playing, got to support, you know, the home country. but I went down to the Arsenal ground because Arsenal won the Premier League, first time in about two decades. Chad Sowash (03:28.813) Course. yeah. Chad Sowash (03:36.84) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (03:38.721) Amazing, amazing day out. I've never seen so many people on the street. It was like a carnival, like it was just round pack music playing. It was fantastic. So I might actually, I mean, luckily, my boyfriend doesn't listen to this podcast all the time. but I was gonna say, I might ask actually be now an Arsenal fan. If he is listening, I'm only joking, I still support Newcastle, but you know, for this week I'm supporting Arsenal. Chad Sowash (04:10.059) Yeah. That would hurt Steven too, since he's a a a Rangers fan. And they didn't do that great this season. They were number three, very, very, very late number three. yeah. And then I actually had a chance, and and again, this is not trying to stick anything in there. This is great. Arsenal's amazing, but watched PSG against Arsenal. And the reason why I mean we we hold that team so closely here in Portugal is because four of the starters Emi Beredugo (04:17.355) to yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (04:28.517) god, yeah. Chad Sowash (04:39.381) are Portuguese and they're on the Portuguese national team. And it was funny because we had a bunch of Arsenal supporters that were here and they're like, Why are you wh why are you cheering for Paris Saint Germain? I said, because they have four Portuguese players. I support Portugal and Arsenal does not have any. So you guys just shut up over there. Emi Beredugo (04:55.885) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (05:00.226) That wa that was a painful that's the worst way to win penalties. It's like, my god. Chad Sowash (05:04.191) it is. Well, no, the worst way to win is to miss that last penalty as bad as he missed that last penalty. Whoo! Yeah. Yeah, that that hurt. That hurt. That hurt. Yeah. So all all the love to the Arsenal fans are out there. then all the love for the not Arsenal fans that are out there that you know, you can look at point at Champions League and say, Ha, you didn't get that one. what about what about you, JT? Emi Beredugo (05:08.734) my god. Yeah. Yeah. It's like all everything's on your head now. You're the reason why they didn't win. Emi Beredugo (05:29.026) Yeah, but JT ODonnell (05:31.789) I feel like I'm gonna be such a downer. So you know that our industry is all about like coining terms. You know what I mean? quiet quitting, the great recession, all these different terms. The latest one coming out is doom jobbing. Shout out to Doom Jobbing. It's basically tons of job seekers out there doom scrolling on all the job boards and putting themselves into a total panic and tizzy. And given the fact that we all know that a ton of those jobs are complete bogus. Chad Sowash (05:38.73) yeah. Chad Sowash (05:42.037) Yep. Jesus. JT ODonnell (05:57.367) Yeah, it's it's disheartening because you've got and I'm so excited, we're gonna be talking a lot about it today, and I'm really excited about talking about this. It's just job seekers don't understand that everything's changed. They they haven't caught up yet. And so we really have to get out there and spread the word because d job words are not how you're getting hired in twenty twenty six and beyond. End of story. Emi Beredugo (06:19.341) Yeah. Chad Sowash (06:19.393) Yeah. I'm coining a new term. It's called job slop. We've got AI slop. We've got all this. This is the the the a I mean, we'll talk about it later. It's job slop. It's job slop. yeah, and that's good stuff. I'm gonna go ahead and give out a shout out to our listeners. Yes, I'm gonna get a little teary-eyed here because listeners love us. Wait a minute. Okay. last week. JT ODonnell (06:24.15) Yeah. I like it. Emi Beredugo (06:38.444) Ooh. Chad Sowash (06:45.141) was both Joel and and my birthday. Mine was on the twenty-seventh, his is on the twenty eighth. And we got message we we always get messages every day from our listeners. But this one was a birthday l message from a TA leader, Terry Dewey, who writes, quote, if I had a free t-shirt and whiskey to share with you, I would. But instead, I will send a big thank you and keep telling others to follow your podcast. Exclamation point. your TA insights have made such an impact on our TA strategy. We reduced our indeed spend, yes, so much over the last year, in part from following your tips. Thank you and happy celebrating. No, thank you, Terry, and thank to all you listeners who are always reaching out to us. whether you agree with us, you don't agree with us, we love the interaction. and that being said, much like Terry was talking about. Emi Beredugo (07:18.062) What? Emi Beredugo (07:26.934) Right. Chad Sowash (07:39.883) You can sign up for free t shirts, free whiskey, free beer. And where would you do that? Well, here comes a little Steven. Chad Sowash (07:56.993) Would you put on a shirt? Chad Sowash (08:09.9) Yes, yes. Chad Sowash (08:14.721) Vintage. Chad Sowash (08:43.309) Yeah Chad Sowash (09:00.161) That's right. Go to chat and cheese dot com slash free. Beautiful t shirts. and again, these are soft. They're cuddly t shirts. yes, they have chad yeah Chad and Cheese faces on They're not they're they're not the most beautiful things that way, but they feel great. They feel great. Emmy's even got one on right now. it yeah, I know it is. Okay. Emi Beredugo (09:17.811) I have got one and it is soft. Chad Sowash (09:25.001) Where are we going? It's a where are we not going? No, it's Wreckfest coming up July 2nd, where we're gonna be in England at Nebworth Park all damned day. JT, what's going on? I you you love London. This is this is usually your baby, huh? JT ODonnell (09:42.191) I love London and I can't go and I'm so sad. But I would tell everybody you gotta go. It's like that you take a bus out there for the day. It is absolutely freaking awesome, is the only way to describe that thing. So I'm sad that I'm missing it. But I will tell you events wise, today is a big day. My new podcast launches live today on LinkedIn at two PM Eastern every Wednesday. it's called Pro Voice and we're really excited about it. It's taken months to plan and kick off. So I hope everybody tunes in. Chad Sowash (09:49.249) Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:03.254) Nice. JT ODonnell (10:10.73) and listens up will never be as good as this one. I mean, let's face it, Chad and Cheese is the OG, but we're gonna do our best to try to be valuable to the job seekers out there and and the career professionals out there who, as we'll talk about today, like the way to brand yourself, the way to get hired, the way to keep your career in check is completely changed. And this podcast is gonna be about helping people survive that and thrive. Chad Sowash (10:13.803) stop. stop. Chad Sowash (10:33.015) Beautiful. So where are you going to be at Rackfest, Emmy? Huh? Emi Beredugo (10:33.154) Amazing. Emi Beredugo (10:38.135) I am going to be on the innovate stage. I cannot wait. Cannot wait. And I think I've said it before. Wreckfest is actually one of my favorite events of the year, just because of the people who were there, but the actual vibe as well. I always end up meeting people that, you know, I've known in the industry, not just from the UK, but even from my time in Dubai. And, you know, either they've flown over or they've now relocated back to the UK. So I am super, super excited to get on that innovate stage this year. Chad Sowash (10:40.972) Yes. Chad Sowash (10:47.057) yeah, it's a blast. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (11:07.959) Well, I'm super excited for you. You're gonna be imit MCing the innovate stage. Joel and I are gonna be popping over there every now and again. Joel and I we're gonna be on the disrupt stage. so yeah, we're we're gonna have a blast. and yes, kids, if you've never been to Wreckfest, it's probably the only event I know where companies bring their entire teams for a day of learning and then partying. that's Emi Beredugo (11:14.432) Absolutely. Emi Beredugo (11:32.695) Hotel! Chad Sowash (11:34.059) The way that the the the day ends is is a little party, a little love for the entire industry. It's wonderful. It's it's once it's a it's not once in a lifetime. It's every year, goddamn X it's it not to mention we're doing Nashville this year too. Anyway, I'm going too far. I'm going too far because it's time for. Emi Beredugo (11:44.513) Every yeah. Chad Sowash (11:53.505) Haha yes. All right, so it's like it's been two weeks in a row where we've asked the question, yeah, what the hell is happening? we've got three topics we're gonna talk about in in the industry. And the first one, last week we talked about Stepstone and their CEO, Sebastian. Why am I still CEO Detmers? And before the show even aired, Sebastian took to LinkedIn to announce, and I quote After 15 years, I'm stepping down as CEO at the Stepstone Group in September. He's going to be Christian Schmatzel, who probably saying that wrong. Schmatzel, who will be taking over its as CEO in September. Christian has served for nearly 14 years as co CEO. God, I hate that. Co CEO at Stroyer S E, one of Germany's biggest media companies. Ladies, Stepstone Group owns Stepstone, Total Jobs, Irish Jobs, Jobs.ie, and a list of other smaller sites, but Appcast has got to be the biggest player, the crown jewel of their portfolio. Your your thoughts on debt Detmers getting kicked to the curve. Emi Beredugo (13:14.957) Who wants to go first? I suppose I'm I'm a little bit confused, right? Because Stepstone have been struggling for years. All their brands are struggling. So even though they're doing all these things like, yes, I'm investing AI and making, you know, like like every company. I don't understand. I get why they're kicking him out because there's time to, you know, to make a change. I don't understand why they're bringing in somebody who doesn't come from the industry. Chad Sowash (13:19.703) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Emi Beredugo (13:40.218) I don't understand what value they're going to he he's going to bring. This was it Christian Schmaus? Schmaus? Schmarschel. Schmachel. Yeah, Schmashell. Hopefully that's correct. But I don't understand it. He comes from the media industry. They're sh a struggling brand. They need someone and they need an industry, you know, kind of veteran, titan, someone who's going to accelerate the company forward. I can just see them, you know, kind of continuing to dwindle. So yes, good idea. Him stepping down, this new person, good luck. Chad Sowash (13:45.842) Schmutzl? Schmetz Schmetzel? Mm. Yes. JT ODonnell (14:10.4) Yeah. I'd like simple answer is they're bringing in an ad guy. I mean, just they're bringing in an ad guy. Let that sink in. If that doesn't tell you no. Can we do twenty twenty seven predictions that that company is not a job board company? Let's just be clear. They're smart enough to realize they've got traffic and assets there and job boards are dead. So you gotta make a pivot. Here comes the ad guy. He's got Chad Sowash (14:10.711) J T. Chad Sowash (14:14.509) Ha ha Look at your face when you say that. They're bring they're bringing an ad guy. Chad Sowash (14:25.908) yeah. JT ODonnell (14:35.0) Plans and ideas to you know, clickbait people. It's I'm sure it's gonna get massively interesting, but he's an ad guy. I'm calling it. Chad Sowash (14:46.459) yeah. So where do I start here? Jesus. so I have three reasons why, to be quite frank, KKR sucks. But first and foremost, Detmars wasn't the guy for the job. He he has not been the guy for the job for a very long time. But I think this shows that KKR isn't the right owner either. And here are the three reasons why I think KKR are not the right reasons. Number one, Stepstone made a brilliant move and brilliant. Emi Beredugo (15:03.661) Yeah. Chad Sowash (15:16.023) Bought AppCast, but then they squandered an opportunity to transform the company by pushing AppCast out front as the product and the tech leader. They have squandered what they bought and the momentum, right? number two, why in the hell are you bringing in an ad guy? Exactly. Exactly. It makes no sense whatsoever, right? How many times have we seen CEOs come in from other industries, fall flat on their face because they don't understand this industry, right? Emi Beredugo (15:42.585) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:45.036) What they want to do, maybe turn this into a media company. Good fucking luck, kids. Good luck. and then last but not least, okay, he's a media guy, but why another German guy? I I can't understand. Yeah, I I can't understand why a company that wants to be global. I mean, they bought AppCast. I mean, that that was that was the biggest player and programmatic in the US. They want to be global. Why they're so insular? Why they are looking inward so much. So Emi Beredugo (15:56.943) What's wrong with the Germans? Chad Sowash (16:14.711) KKR is a bad owner for Stepstone, and Detmers was obviously not the fit for their next move. But this next move is hard to understand as well, right? I mean, you guys, are you with me on those points? I I think I think this this is KKR. Yeah. All right, all right, all right. That was next to to the next point. What is happening? Okay. job get buys. Emi Beredugo (16:23.546) Mm. JT ODonnell (16:29.4) Yeah, yeah. Totally. Emi Beredugo (16:29.956) Totally with you. Yeah. Chad Sowash (16:41.365) Ripple match. This is from the press release quote the acquisition combines JobGets 100 million plus candidate network with Ripple Matches, early career marketplace, matching technology, employer relationships, and campus recruiting capabilities. Together, the combined platform expands JobGets reach across hourly frontline, hear that all the time, frontline, and early career hiring while helping employers identify qualified talent more efficiently. End quote. Remember JobGet also acquired seasoned, snag a job, work in, and hair's job. So JT, thoughts on that acquisition? JT ODonnell (17:20.034) Yeah. So the the massive acquisition mode, I can't tell which of those without looking under the hood were aqua hires, right? Which of those were, you know, just grabbing the tech to make it look like they're building a stack. With the entry level job market being as bad as it is in the US and quite frankly is gonna stay bad because of you know the changes in AI. I can see them wanting to bring that together and getting those kids who graduate and have no jobs into their hourly jobs. Chad Sowash (17:31.809) Yeah. Or just portfolio of companies, yeah. JT ODonnell (17:49.827) Right. Bringing in this sort of a visibility factor there. Hey, there's no real jobs for you yet. So let's put you over here until you can get a real job. Great in theory, wrong in practice. As someone who works with these students all the time, that's the last thing they want to do after they spent money and time on a four year degree. Those jobs in their mind is beneath them. They'll go off, start their own little businesses, do whatever, but they will not succumb to that. So it's it's interesting. I I wish them the best of luck, but Chad Sowash (17:56.087) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (18:05.226) Them. They'll go off and start their own little businesses, do whatever, but they will not succumb to that. So it's it's interesting. I I wish them the JT ODonnell (18:14.528) We're gonna talk about this in I think the next segment. I think that is a beautiful example of it's a little too late in the market and you gotta be careful of what you buy. Emi Beredugo (18:17.044) next segment. I think that is a beautiful example of it's a little too late in the market and you gotta be careful what you buy. So that's okay. This one kind of confused me a little bit. I'm not really sure why they've bit they went You know, and I was trying to think about it, like you know, I was doing more research and I was like I don't really get it. I don't really get why they've gone down this route, you know? yes, I haven't really got that much to say about this in in all honesty, other than Chad Sowash (18:25.069) Okay. Okay. Emmy? Chad Sowash (18:36.439) Mm. Emi Beredugo (18:46.67) Job get, please explain your strategy because I'm one confused person. Chad Sowash (18:51.661) So what Emma Emmy is actually saying is yes, so Job Get boasts being the number one app for hourly workers. Much like the Snaga job acquisition, Ripple Match just consolidates those portfolios and brands into the Job Get network. it's force multiplication from a from a market standpoint. I that's how I see it, right? Now you've got to remember a lot of those kids, not just we're we're not just talking about kids who are Emi Beredugo (18:55.653) Yeah. Chad Sowash (19:21.473) Who are graduating? We're talking about kids that are in school that need part-time jobs to be able to pay for their beer, right? So this isn't just about when they graduate. This is also about when they're in school. So I think there could be some kind of an angle to that. but yeah, I think what they're trying to do, and we're hearing this over and over and over in the market, is not just consolidation, but frontline hiring. What big company that's out there right now? Isn't talking about frontline hiring, frontline hiring, frontline hiring, frontline. And that's really because of if you take a look at the market, which sucks, that's where the main growth is. And even if you take a look at healthcare, there's a lot of frontline hiring that happens in healthcare, right? So yeah, this is this is an interesting, this is an interesting acquisition, but I think it's more consolidation. and it really just boasts bolsters their their their network. Emi Beredugo (20:09.423) Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:17.769) after the s especially after the Snaga job. JT ODonnell (20:21.326) Mm. Emi Beredugo (20:21.552) I'm gonna take your word for it. Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:23.169) Ha ha ha. JT ODonnell (20:23.734) Okay. I mean it just that those kids even in school are against hourly. They're just anti hourly. It's gonna be interesting, you know. Emi Beredugo (20:28.538) Yeah I'll know. Chad Sowash (20:31.819) Yeah, but I mean when you want beer money, I mean, I, you know, I'm a Gen Xer talker. We did everything, right? I mean, we we were like we were shoveling, we were shoveling snow and making money. It's it it's it's a different mindset. I totally get it. But having the opportunity for there, I I don't know. I don't know. next one, next one. we've got we've got a guest. We've got a guest to talk a little bit about job.com. We've talked about job.com over the years and JT ODonnell (20:35.576) There's Yeah. Why do we present? Emi Beredugo (20:47.664) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:01.121) We have we've got Julie who's popping in. Julie Sowash (VIDEO) Hey, baby. Hi, ladies. Are you enjoying Joel Free June is as much as I am? It's okay. I know you are. I'm at my favorite morning meditation spot because the story I'm about to share, it makes my blood pressure rise. So, last summer, while we were busy holding a funeral for 90s tech and raging, honestly raging, over the dramatic mismanagement by Randstad and Apollo following the CareerBuilder and Monster bankruptcy, Job.com quietly filed Chapter 11 three weeks later. And none of us really batted an eye. But after reading LinkedIn posts about missing wages and W-2s, and seeing yet another bankruptcy filing full of TA vendors who haven't been paid, honestly, I just couldn't get it off my mind. So, I dug in to unravel the reality behind the Job.com bankruptcy, the end of co-founders Arran Stewart and Paul Sloyan's ten-year tenure, and the impact it had and is still having on our community. What you may not know is Job.com isn't one company; it's a stack, and Stewart and Sloyan ran all of it. And when it went bankrupt, neither of those men who founded the company were the ones to sign the petition. And you're going to love this. Why? Because a group of their lenders had already seized the equity, canned Stewart and Sloyan, and installed a turnaround CEO 60 days earlier. And when their new CEO described what he found under the hood in his sworn statements, he describes what we saw publicly from employees and in public filings: payroll taxes that weren't being paid in states like Texas and Tennessee. Even the Federal Department of Labor is on the creditor list. And get this: an entire healthcare staffing crew that had to quit because they weren't being paid. So, where are we now? The company sold for 35 million—much less than it owed. And so, just like Monster and CB, who gets screwed? The employees and the taxpayers, and the other TA vendors who are left the bag for millions. But unlike Monster and CareerBuilder, there may actually be some personal accountability in this story. In New Jersey, both founders recently got hit with personal default judgments. Together, they owe almost 3 million—3 million dollars—to their former President and CEO. Then, there's a third lawsuit that's actually still in process, and I am following every filing. So, if you want the lowdown on this story and more, I encourage you to subscribe to the Job Board Doctor newsletter at jobboarddoctor.com. And please, if you've got a tip, you know where to find me. Now back to the pod. Chad Sowash (23:57.56) She slipped in a commercial. Did you see what she did there? She slipped in a commercial. and it's funny because Joel and Julie are like brother and sister. They are always messing with each other. Always messing with each other. I I I love it. so I'm gonna go and take this first because we've talked about job job.com so much. over the past years, the model never made sense to me. They're actually on stage in Austin and they pitched. And the reason why they didn't win. Emi Beredugo (23:59.746) Yeah. Chad Sowash (24:25.837) Arran Stewart is one of the most charismatic Elixir sales people I have ever seen in my fucking life. He is amazing, right? but they would buy staffing companies, then e inject their tech and monetization model into the business. But the twist was, and why, that the actual monetization percentage was lower. It made no sense unless you bought like a big company like Ronstadt, because you couldn't scale that, right? You couldn't, you couldn't get your investors to say, hey, look, we've got margins over here that are at 10% or 15%, and we're gonna go ahead, we're gonna buy them, and we're gonna take the margins down to 2%. None of that made any fucking sense. Well, because that never made any sense, maybe it was never meant to make sense. Maybe it was a magic trick. Emi Beredugo (24:59.396) Yeah. Chad Sowash (25:20.865) Watch your money go into my pocket and poof, it's gone, right? So, due to this, I guess you could call this a ruse. Arran and Paul are both separately on the hook for millions. But is that really enough? What about all their employees who were shafted and not paid? They're not getting paid. what about the insurance money that was withheld from employee checks and pocketed instead of paid to the insurance company? Yes. Emi Beredugo (25:47.566) What is that? Health their own health insurance. Chad Sowash (25:50.922) Yes. Also taxes. What what about the taxes that were collected and it was never paid to the government? What about those? All of it. All of it. And there's more, guys. There's more. I just can't get into it. because it's just so much for this segment. but I you know, there there's a word for it. I think I think it's called fraud, right? and yeah, I think it's called fraud. How these two are not in orange jumpsuits. Emi Beredugo (25:53.2) Okay. Emi Beredugo (26:03.353) Wow. Emi Beredugo (26:14.0) I think you might be right. Chad Sowash (26:20.813) I do not know. but I have to say, come on, people. You know, as they say on the London Tube, see it, say it, sorted. We cannot allow this shit to go without call calling Arran Stewart and Paul Sloyan's shit out to the world. Everybody has to know. There's no way in hell they should ever get into an executive position like this again. and JT ODonnell (26:26.072) You know, as they say on the Emi Beredugo (26:31.262) So that's JT ODonnell (26:49.912) Yeah. Chad Sowash (26:50.389) knowing I I didn't really know Arran as a friend, but I did meet him through, you know, pitching and those types of things in this industry. again, incredibly charismatic, but apparently behind that, there was a lot of Emi Beredugo (26:57.37) Mm. Chad Sowash (27:09.185) Comments, no comments, it's entirely up to you guys. JT ODonnell (27:11.192) You know as as she was talking through Chad Sowash (27:20.107) Yes. God. Emi Beredugo (27:20.976) my god, yeah. JT ODonnell (27:23.982) Right. And it was just so unbelievable. What you don't know, maybe you don't know, is the end of that story, you were like, who would ever give this guy money again? Like, who would ever let him be in charge again? They did. He got and got and got mega funding. And so it you talk about the snake oil type salesman or the person that just got charisma out of the wazoo, you know. Chad Sowash (27:24.578) Yes. Chad Sowash (27:35.319) They did Yes. Emi Beredugo (27:37.85) They he set up another company, didn't he? Yeah. JT ODonnell (27:49.859) It's impr it's incredible. Presence matters, right? And again, plug for the podcast today. We're talking about presence, professional presence. But this thing is true. Whether you like it or not, this this is what wins. I mean, look at politics. And so I'm glad that this podcast is shining the light on it. hopefully enough people hear it and pay attention and look for other companies with similar themes. But it's probably not the last time we're gonna hear about this stuff, you know? It's just appalling, appalling. Chad Sowash (28:15.831) Yeah, yeah. Well, and if you're looking for more of a forensic accounting of what went on, seriously, Julie is the forensic person. When she digs into the the I mean, she literally gets legal briefs. I shit you not. She gets legal briefs delivered to her all the time where she's going through. it's it it's it's pretty amazing. but that being said, let's go ahead, let's let's take a break, let's breathe, let's Emi Beredugo (28:21.232) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (28:31.812) Bailey. Chad Sowash (28:45.003) Enjoy our Guinness and we'll be right back. Chad Sowash (28:51.583) All right. so everybody knows George Larocque. I I think you you d do Emmy, do you know George Laroc? Emi Beredugo (28:58.81) I don't know him too well, but I've heard the name, yeah. W Work Tech, yeah. Chad Sowash (29:00.713) I love him. I love him. Great guy. He's been in the industry for a very long time. And this week, he spoke out in his newest piece on WorkTech entitled The Market Has Already Voted, where he sees what he calls the window closing on the following segments. Get ready. I'm gonna list these out. recruitment marketing CRM, internal mobility and talent marketplace providers, employee engagement and feedback, aka Pulse survey providers, performance management and succession providers, compensation management providers, mentoring and coaching providers, standalone workflow automation, and traditional job boards. The window is closing on all of this. His thesis is backed by the following signals or lack of signals from number one, dried up funding, number two. Buyer behavior, number three, MA or lack of MA, and number four, platform absorption, which really means platforms are already providing the service themselves. Ladies, are you backing all of George's takes? Are you backing away from these takes? JT, tell me about it. JT ODonnell (30:14.742) Yeah, no, I'm backing it. I will say, like, first of all, I just want to say that if if you link to this article for a lot of you, you're gonna want a translation. You know, run it through AI and tell it to give it back to you like a fifth grader. Because it's important to understand he tracks no, seriously, right? They use a lot of multi-syllabic words in there, aim to confuse, make you overthink. And it's really not that complex. he tracks where the money goes. He's got four indicators that you just talked about. Chad Sowash (30:30.07) yeah. yeah. JT ODonnell (30:40.854) And for me, what came to mind is an hourglass. And I want everybody to think about it this way. On the wide top part of the hourglass, you got the big companies. You got the work days of the world, right? On the bottom, big part of the hourglass is the pressure of AI pushing up, the other one's pushing down. You know what's in the middle? All the small businesses, all the businesses in our industry that do one function, one thing. Emi Beredugo (30:54.064) AI. JT ODonnell (31:03.404) And we've been talking about this squeeze for a while and we've been tracking all these things that have been happening in the market. I would say more so than we've ever seen in the last year: acquisitions, aqua hires, investments, etc. I'm with him. I think we've seen the shift. We've been calling this shift for a while. The key now is to spread the word. Every CHRO out there, every TA executive out there, you need to be asking yourself, should we be buying that? Should we right? You really need to be paying close attention to what's going on because it's changing so quickly. And Emi Beredugo (31:09.37) Say more so than we've ever seen in the last year. Emi Beredugo (31:15.374) him, I think we've seen a ship. We've been crawling this ship for a while. The key now is to spread the word. Every DHRO out there, every TA executive out there, you need to be asking yourself, should we buy that? Do we right, you really need to be paying close attention to what's going on because it's changing so quickly. And you know, I think we're gonna talk about work day and in Google Cloud and this big new announcement further supports exactly what he's saying. JT ODonnell (31:33.132) You know, I think we're gonna talk about work day in in Google Cloud and this big new announcement further supports exactly what he's saying, that this is happening. And for better or for worse, all the big companies win. Joel has a pet peeves about that. He's talked about it multiple times on the show. And you know, it is, it's frustrating to watch, but things are changing. You've got to be really careful where you spend your dollars right now because you could go spend money and go through a vendor process and buy something that literally is gonna be a a free add-on in something else you already have. Emi Beredugo (31:43.898) Big companies like Joel has looked at you about that. And you know, it is, it's frustrating to watch, but things are changing. You've got to be really this you could go spend money and go through a vendor process and buy something that literally is gonna be like JT ODonnell (32:02.765) This is the kind of chaos that's going on that he's talking about, which is what changes Delhi's spending pattern. So I'm with him. I know you're not a hundred percent, but I am. Emi Beredugo (32:10.352) Is it gonna be disruptive? I'm gonna say that I agree with him as well. You know, I was trying to be my, you know, put on my, you know, what yes, we're polite, you know, we're agreeable. You know, and I try, like I said, I try to put on my Chad hat and go, like, you know, there must be something I disagree with. But to be honest, not really. And I tell you where I'm coming from, much to what JT said, you know, if I think step back and think about my day job. Chad Sowash (32:13.553) Emmy, what do you think? Chad Sowash (32:19.159) You Europeans. Chad Sowash (32:29.619) Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (32:37.838) A lot of what we do is looking at technology, looking at our existing tech stack and look scouring the marketplace to see what else is out there. But whilst we're doing that, we're also trying to take into account the user experience, whether it's the recruiters or the hiring managers or interviewers. And one of the things that they don't want is multiple tech stacks. You know, they don't want to go start in an ATS and then go into another platform and then go into another platform and then another platform. And I've worked at organizations where they, you know, they've just spent money on loads of stuff, but the users are complaining because they have too many tools. They just want one tool that can do the majority, or a few tools that can do the majority of things. So this is where I agree about the buyer behavior has shifted, you know. Standalone solutions are they're having to adapt because people want something different. They don't want that, like I said, that multiple platforms to Chad Sowash (33:27.917) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (33:34.713) log into. So yeah, I do agree. I I think that when a new tool or new feature, because they're essentially features now, when a new feature comes out in time, a platform is going to purchase it. It's gonna, you know, it's just gonna become a feature list in a bigger platform. Yeah. And and it's a good strategy for those smaller companies. You know, let's go, let's bring out a new feature, we're gonna get acquired. Fantastic. But that means people who purchase the tools Chad Sowash (33:52.309) That's the strategy. Emi Beredugo (34:04.6) Or people evaluate new tools like myself, have to think about do I buy that tool now, that standalone feature now? Do I how much do I if I do go down that route, because I've got a problem now, do I how much do I actually invest? Because I don't invest so much into a tool that's actually going to disappear and be part of the existing tech stack which I have in two years' time. So yeah, I'm I'm agreeable. But let's see what you're gonna say. You're gonna argue with us now. Chad Sowash (34:30.338) No, it's hard to disagree with with George. He's he's so sweet and he's kind, but I'm gonna, but I'm gonna, but I'm gonna. yeah, yeah. First Emi Beredugo (34:34.512) no. no. He just set it up so nicely. I was like, my God, he's agreeable today. It's like, what's happened? JT ODonnell (34:36.548) here we go. It's the Guinness. It's the Guinness he's been drinking. Chad Sowash (34:41.367) First, first I I I wanna I definitely want to say thanks to George. I mean, whether you agree or disagree with George, his article gets us talking about what the actual fuck is happening in the space. differing opinion is always good. And we're gonna get to this, but we've seen this movie before, kids. This is not new, okay? So instead of hitting the long list of signals that he was talking about before or the the different platforms, I'm gonna just talk about the signals from a standpoint. Emi Beredugo (35:07.664) Mm. Chad Sowash (35:10.517) So why has funding dried up? It's a chaotic market combined with over-emphasizing AI while established platforms are still doing the heavy lifting. AI is not doing the heavy lifting right now. It's not happening. We're seeing boatloads of cash going to AI startups. Some good, most not so good. And even CEOs are saying they aren't seeing ROI. No shit. We're still in the RD phase of AI and agents for most companies. For most companies. And in RD phase, what happens? You spend tons of money without return. That's what RD means. Rockets blow up. Duh. Next signal. Why are companies not buying these platforms? Have you seen have you seen the job numbers? Have you read or watched the news? What drives this space? Jobs and or actual employment. Emi Beredugo (35:42.106) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (36:05.391) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (36:07.329) Which is down. Yes, some of the platforms need to evolve their monetization models. That's where my focus would have been evolving monetization models. But that doesn't mean that they're on their way out. And last but not least, I'd like to address the platform absorption aspect of this. And before we get into that, I'd like to say yes, JT, George should break this down more kindergarten style. As opposed to PhDing the shit out of this, so everybody can understand it. But let's go ahead and do this for Joel. This is for you, Joel. Chad Sowash (36:44.151) You are goddamn straight. So let's talk about career site landing pages for a minute. yeah, the exciting, the exciting career site landing pages. Back in the mid-odds, search engine optimization became very important for company career sites. Applicant tracking system platforms were designed, were not designed to be indexed by Google. So they weren't indexed by Google. So they which means hiring company career sites and their corresponding jobs. Emi Beredugo (37:05.924) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (37:13.409) We're not being found on Google results page. That's when indeed started ranking better than Brandon searches, like let's say Marriott Jobs, then the actual ginormous company, Marriott. That's right, kids. You could search on Google for Marriott Jobs and indeed would have the first few results. And Marriott didn't even show up at first. Problem means opportunity. So guys like Joel Cheesman, that's right, Joel Cheesman. JT ODonnell (37:22.806) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (37:43.09) And his company, HRSEO, started working with hiring companies to help these newly formed pages get better rankings and recognized by Google. Then Doug Berg, a genius in our space, by the way, launched Jobs to Web in 2007, which was an actual platform that generated a search optimized footprint for companies. That point solution actually created an entire space. JT ODonnell (37:51.448) Making. Emi Beredugo (38:01.329) actual platform that generated a search. Chad Sowash (38:11.927) For career site platforms that exploded with vendors. And the leader in the space, Jobs to Web, was acquired by Success Factors in 2011 for $110 million. From that point on, applicant tracking systems either acquired, acquired, or built their own career site solutions. And for all intents and purposes, the career site platform space seemingly died. But always remember. Emi Beredugo (38:16.654) And we'll use it. Emi Beredugo (38:33.968) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (38:41.751) Bigger vendors buy smaller vendors, and then they they don't provide the proper care, affection, and or budgets that is necessary to keep those systems running. So guess what? They suck. And by the way, Shazami, happy dance, and all these new startup solutions are back in that space. It's the same as it ever was, right? So what am I saying? This is a cycle. And to say these platforms or avenues to attract and manage talent are going extinct is to forc forget history. And I think George is incredibly smart, obviously from his PhD level article, but his signals are way off because the market is way off. Emi Beredugo (39:32.437) Hmm Yeah, yeah JT ODonnell (39:33.25) Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna challenge you on that one a little bit there. I mean that was a that was a great history lesson, but here's the thing none of these companies are looking at this from the perspective of the job seeker. Y'all talk about user experience for the recruiter or the talent, everybody. Nobody really looks at the job seeker. And what you have now is this do I really wanna post a job when I know that AI resumes and AI bots are gonna stuff it with a thousand fake people? No. Chad Sowash (39:35.191) Good. Chad Sowash (39:38.593) Thank you. Thank you. Emi Beredugo (39:39.961) Right. Chad Sowash (39:46.305) They never ha well, I mean JT ODonnell (39:59.905) Not going to do that anymore. And it even happens on your careers pages. You talked about it yourself. Job slap is everywhere. The real change that's happening is that companies are going to search and find the talent they want, right? That's why you have ATS systems. But those ATS systems and the data in them for a large part is outdated and crud, you know, garbage in, garbage out. So what's really shifting in our marketplaces, we have to teach people how to. document themselves and present themselves factually and authentically. That's what we want. We want real candidates giving us the skills and information we need so we can search and find them and interview them. Like and this it's breaking all at once. And I just I don't see us going back to any of the same ways that we are dealing with now. We have really have hit a tipping point, a change. Will it happen overnight? No. But the biggest problem you have here right now is the job seeker. They don't understand. Emi Beredugo (40:31.056) Skills and information we need, so we can search and find them and interview them. And this it's breaking all at once, and I just I don't see us. of the same ways that we are dealing with now, we have really have hit a tipping point, a change. Will it happen overnight? No. Emi Beredugo (40:52.016) Right. JT ODonnell (40:52.47) Right. Everything's built for the recruiting side, not for them. And until we educate them on how to properly present themselves to us, you're still gonna have this dysfunction. So I'm still with him in in what he's talking about because it there is a shift here. And now we've we've got to make sense of it. We've gotta, like you said, I do agree with you. Like the AI isn't where it needs to be, but it will get there. And then once it's there, we're gonna see who the winners are, the players. And at the end of the day, where history does tend to repeat itself is it tends to be the bigger players. They've got Emi Beredugo (40:56.432) till we educate them on how to properly present themselves to us, you're still gonna have this him and and what he's talking about because it there is a shift here and now we've we've gotta make sense of it. We've gotta like use that I do it use you like maybe I isn't where it used to be, but it will get better. And then once it's there, we're gonna see who the winners are and the players and at the end of the day where history does and repeat itself is it tends to be the bigger players. They've got JT ODonnell (41:20.95) More money in reserves, more resources, they can hang out longer in the tough times when the smaller companies can't. And so that's where I think he's still right. Chad Sowash (41:22.263) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (41:22.976) resources, they can hang out longer in the tough times and smaller companies can't. And so Chad Sowash (41:30.037) I'm gonna continue with Emi Beredugo (41:33.2) my god, we got another one. Okay. Chad Sowash (41:34.606) So specifically on the job board side, Google's been trying their damnedest. Google's not a small company, kids. yeah, and they're also an AI company. Google has been trying their damnedest in the job space since 2005 when they launched Google Base. And I actually worked with the team at Google Base when I was at Direct Employers, which failed miserably. Fast forward to today with their Google for Jobs product, which is JT ODonnell (41:35.198) Yeah. Chad Sowash (42:03.987) In total utter disarray with job slop from OpenAI & Google. It's total job slop. Julie and I took a step-by-step dive into Google for jobs with a TA leader yesterday. And it's nothing more than a cesspool of spam jobs and scam jobs from bad actors. And they are misrepresenting hiring companies, harvesting candidate profiles, and doing everything they can to keep candidates away from actually applying for jobs without paying. Emi Beredugo (42:06.712) Mm. Chad Sowash (42:32.523) Right, they gotta pay. There's like there's a paywall somewhere. It's a mess. Then we stepped over to open AI and Chat GPT's new jobs platform. And it was the same damn thing. Right. It was the same damn thing. So at the end of the day, to me, it's same as it ever was. The cycle is the cycle is not broken. It's just continuing on. So yeah. Point solutions, point solutions are going to be acquired. They're going to be absorbed. That always happens. But the cycle's going to come back around because let's just say this. Any big system will not sustain the feature and or point solutions that we have today enough because they're not going to put the care and the money into them where they're worth the shit. And then guess what companies are going to do? Emi Beredugo (43:00.59) Well but when is Emi Beredugo (43:05.764) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:25.815) They're gonna go out and buy more point solutions. We've already seen it happen. It's gonna happen again. Emi Beredugo (43:29.264) But you're making a sweeping statement that every big player is going to be exactly, you know, acting exactly the same way and not invest in certain features. You know, for example, if you look at, you know, back in the day, you had platforms, is it job job distribution, job, job description, distribution platforms. You know, that was a standalone feature. That is in now. In yeah. So that's in the majority of ATSs. If you don't have that in your ATS, you'd be very surprised. That's just a standard feature. You look at Chad Sowash (43:43.489) Yeah. Yeah. The the broad beans. Chad Sowash (43:55.928) They just link to Broadbean, they link to these programmatic players. They see the the difference between that, and thanks for bringing that out, it's not the same. Because what they do is they're actually they're actually pointing into an app cast, into a Veritone, into a broad I mean a Broadbean, Veritone, into some of these different players. So they're they're already using point solutions as it is. They just made it easier. Emi Beredugo (44:02.351) Yeah. Why? Emi Beredugo (44:20.782) No I d that okay, so you're you're naming a few, but I've used ATSs that that use have developed that feature themselves and have done it very well. Yeah. Chad Sowash (44:28.673) Yeah, they can you can push stuff into to to Indeed or what have you, but I mean they they're still they're still there. JT ODonnell (44:33.11) Yeah and and let's Emi Beredugo (44:35.266) 100%. Even like, you know, job what's it, job description inclusive analyzers, you know, where they check to see how inclusive your your job description is. You know, you used to have no, but exactly, but you talk about point solutions. You know, we're talking to HR professionals. These are the these are the tools that we're buying. Not necessarily. You had Texio. Texio is a standalone point solution. Chad Sowash (44:44.279) Yeah, but that is so niche and Chad Sowash (44:51.575) That's a horrible point solution. It always was. Yes, it was. TextDeal was always a horrible platform and it's dying on the vine. JT ODonnell (44:54.296) But when Emi Beredugo (45:03.628) Exactly because it's a standalone product. They've had to pivot. But ATSs now have that, yeah, and we need, you know, organizations need that. No h how is it a bad idea? It was a bad idea it it was filling a gap that people needed. Chad Sowash (45:08.021) And they have. But it was a bad idea from the get go. It was a bad idea for wait, okay. For lazy people, yeah. It it really was. Emi Beredugo (45:20.77) What but but for people who don't realize that certain words, you know, put off certain groups, you know, that it takes their thinking out of them. So Chad Sowash (45:29.042) This is going to be a different podcast entirely. I agree. I agree that you disagree. I agree that you disagree. Emi Beredugo (45:30.8) Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (45:38.126) I just think that recruiting is changing fundamentally as we know it, right? Quiet hiring is skyrocketing Lincoln has LinkedIn has the data to approve the amount of hiring that's happening on their platform right now with jobs that are never publicly posted. And we can go down a rabbit hole about is that fair or is that not fair. But at the end of the day, that is what's happening and LinkedIn is scrubbing its own data by forcibly changing its algorithm to make job seekers and professionals update themselves on LinkedIn right now. They're doing one heck of a job with that AL algorithm, they're public about it. They were all over the media last week. Entrepreneur magazine about their crackdown on AI Slop. They're cleaning up their LLM. They're cleaning up their database faster than anybody else. Right? And they're they're winning. I don't know what to tell you. So and again, not sponsored by them, but you can get as mad as you want, LinkedIn hater. You can get as mad as you want. They don't have to be the end all VL. What it's an example of the larger company winning. Chad Sowash (46:16.545) You've gotta get off your LinkedIn soapbox for God's sakes. Down you gotta get off your LinkedIn soapbox. All right. Next, I'm not a hater. It's just that I don't think they're the end all be-all to everything that we do. Anyway, anyway, we're moving on. We're moving on. State of the nation segment. You gotta kill me here. Jesus. No, I do not. This is this is this is this is more fun. so this neck next segment. Emi Beredugo (46:25.149) JT ODonnell (46:38.38) Who Emi Beredugo (46:41.456) He wants Joel back now. Look at him. JT ODonnell (46:42.03) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (46:48.738) Next second. Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:52.457) State of the nation. This is state of the nation stuff, kids. This is from, and I say nation, it's it's not just the US. I mean, it's also the UK and many other nations. but in the US, this is mainly for for you, Emmy, because you're going to enjoy this. We are a tipping culture because most servers and bartenders earn a sub-minimum wage. That's under $3 an hour, Emmy. that relies heavily on tips. Well, guess what? Emi Beredugo (47:15.651) Yeah. Chad Sowash (47:19.797) Europeans are not a tipping culture, and in anticipation of millions of inter international World Cup visitors, some restaurants plan to automatically include tips, which sucks because it comes after football fans have already paid exorbitant prices for flights, lodging, and travel, right? So Emi Beredugo (47:45.049) Yeah. Chad Sowash (47:46.025) In contrast, I I I want to be able to share something because you're you're all gonna in I didn't tell you about this one. You're gonna enjoy this. Mo: (VIDEO) Hi, can you imagine actually announcing that you were gonna lay off 1,400 people in a specific town, and then the very next day, driving into said town with your mega yacht that's worth 300 million dollars? If you can't, you are normal. And if you can, you are Mark Zuckerberg. Chad Sowash (48:10.327) That's right. Thanks, Mo. Thanks, Mo. That's right. Zuck docks his 387-foot super yacht in Seattle, just a short walk from Meta's engineering center after announcing 1400, about 1400 layoffs in the Seattle area, about 20% of its local work workforce. But wait, but wait, kids. This from Yahoo Finance, Jamie Diamond says the American dream was slipping out of reach. Emi Beredugo (48:11.12) Hey bye. Chad Sowash (48:39.679) And he wanted to be part of the solution. So his bank put 40 million on the table. Emmy, tips, yachts, and Jamie Diamond on a white horse. Is this real or am I suffering from a weed induced gummy dream? I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure yet. Tell me what tell me what it is. Yes. Emi Beredugo (48:53.744) I mean, there's a lot going on there. What do we start with? Okay, tipping. So yes, you're right. Europeans do not tip. not typically. Not because we're stingy, because we pay people properly. That is the reason why. Yeah. So we we will do it, you know, if we think someone's had, you know, given us an exceptional service, absolutely we'll give them more. But it should never be a case that somebody needs to Chad Sowash (49:10.071) Yes. Thank you. Start with that. Yes. Emi Beredugo (49:23.566) You know, the only way they can pay their rent is depending on whether or not people actually tip them. I think that's a terrible, terrible kind of thing that goes on in the US. So yeah, I get it. I get it. You know, so many people coming into the country, their their workers are not going to get tips from the majority of people. So why not make it, you know, mandatory, included in the bill? My problem with that is they could just go down a route of, hey, we're in basically we're in the US. Please tip our service. You know, they could you know, they could go down that route. But Chad Sowash (49:32.034) Yes. Chad Sowash (49:52.981) And they did. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (49:53.743) Yeah, and yeah, some people have. But what about the local smaller businesses? What about the people who are in the neighborhood already, used to going to their local restaurants, suddenly seeing their bills being a little bit more expensive? They are probably gonna go, hey, what's going on here? Why do I need to pay more? Probably not gonna go to that restaurant. You know, they'll stay at home and watch it. So I'm not really sure that's the the best idea, the best route to go down. So that's the tip inside of things. What do we talk about yet afterwards? Mark Zuckerberg, idiot. JT ODonnell (50:10.092) Go. Chad Sowash (50:10.956) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (50:23.364) He's a fucking idiot. Like, you know, he's insensitive. He has no empathy. He's just laid off a whole bunch of people. Then he's like rolling up in his super yard. Yeah. He, I don't know what I was gonna say, I don't know what planet he's on. It's not on planet Earth. I think we know that. You know, he's and I don't get it. He he I yeah, I don't get it. He's an he's an absolute idiot. And then Jamie Diamond. Now I kind of like this guy, you know, and I like I I I you know, I think it's quite a good idea. Chad Sowash (50:29.247) He's a robot. Yeah. Chad Sowash (50:44.865) Behold. Chad Sowash (50:49.057) He's running for president. That's what's happening. Emi Beredugo (50:51.104) absolutely. You know, the American dream, you know, work hard, play hard, you know, you'll get you'll get there in the end. If that's that isn't the case in 26, it's not going to be the case in 27 and beyond. So him investing in smaller businesses, I think it is a great idea. I like the fact that he's not giving it directly to the business, he's giving it to kind of in a organization that will help support and distribute the you know the 40 million accordingly. But What he's also doing is making sure that they're financially educated as well. So that he I know that he's doing some kind of coaching pro coaching program to make sure people in vet the smaller businesses invest their money well, grow that money. So I like what he's doing. And if he wants to go to be president, I'm all for it. Go, Jamie. JT ODonnell (51:42.318) I love it. Chad Sowash (51:44.609) J T. JT ODonnell (51:45.539) Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'm actually pro adding the twenty percent. And I'll talk through why. I believe when in Rome you're having a group of people come over that aren't used to tipping, are they having a good time, might not be aware of it, and might not even think about the direct impact they're having on that server who's working a ton of hours. Like it or not, they do get very little money. And the cost of food right now, the margins in in restaurants is really difficult. We're seeing that with everything that's going on with the economy. And so Instead of them, you know, raising prices there, at least they're focusing on I want to make sure my people get paid, right? My want to make sure they get paid. I like your comment, Emmy, about, hey, what about the local people? But my hope there is that they understand and make it clear that, hey, we've temporarily done this because of the event that's in our town for a certain period of time. And that people would understand what we're trying to do is take care of our local employees so they can get paid instead of working like crazy and making nothing. So R Chad Sowash (52:39.741) And and they're probably Airbnb their place and getting the fuck out of town. Yeah. If they're smart. If they're smart. Emi Beredugo (52:40.594) Right out of the time. Yeah, maybe JT ODonnell (52:44.366) Right, because right, they don't want to be there. So you get it. Yeah, I just think it right now that is a temporary solution that is worker focused for those people. I'm I'm here for it. the second piece, so there's this big thing right now. There was quiet luxury was very 2025. Like you if you know, you know. This year, loud luxury is the name of the game. Apparently, Zach has taken that to a new, completely tone-deaf level. absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. And I'm glad that people were there booing. and then the third. Chad Sowash (53:06.73) Asshole. Emi Beredugo (53:07.621) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (53:12.946) I love that. JT ODonnell (53:13.996) Yeah, they were there, but great. Like and yelling, pay taxes. Like it was brilliant. Jamie Diamond's interesting. Forty million is nothing. Forty million is nothing. They're citing in there all these cute stories of how we got one guy's revenues up, this or that. It's cute to me. Is what I want to see is the 80 billion they're talking about. They said, Hey, if this is good, we're gonna put the 80 billion. Now you're talking something substantial for the small businesses out there that desperately, desperately need it. So I love it in theory. I love that it worked. Emi Beredugo (53:32.132) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (53:38.252) Never happen. JT ODonnell (53:42.22) Jamie, if you're listening, fellow Tufts alum, put the 80 billion in there, please. That is my my big vote there. Chad Sowash (53:53.034) Much like you just said, JT, forty million won't fix a screen door on Trump's new ballroom for God's sakes. And and the last thing Americ and the and the last thing that Americans need is a fucking billionaire like Jamie Diamond trying to fix things. Just pay your fucking taxes, okay? The problem is wages, wages, wages. We don't pay a living wage, so Americans have to tip at restaurants because our lawmakers are so weak in the knees. Emi Beredugo (53:59.567) It's a start. Yeah. JT ODonnell (54:01.462) With the start, but it's Chad Sowash (54:21.623) They're not voting for living wages. In California, they passed Assembly Bill 1228, which established a $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food workers at Chains with 60 or more nationwide l locations. Meanwhile, the state's general minimum wage is around seventeen dollars, right? For those saying, well, that's gonna impact my prices and what I pay, it's total bullshit. You s you see Berkeley did a did a study. That showed the rise from $20 and $17, respectively, especially for fast food prices, rose 1.5 to 3.7%, which is about six to fifteen cents on a $4 menu item. Okay. Ultimately, the policy successfully injected hundreds of millions of dollars directly into the pockets of lower income workers. Emi Beredugo (54:58.768) Mm. Chad Sowash (55:17.665) That is immediately returned back into the local economy through the people buying shit. That's capitalism at scale, motherfuckers. That's exactly what we should be doing. So it what Jamie Diamond is doing is a diversion. The motherfucker's running for president. Fuck that dude. What we need to do is we need to focus on what he should be doing is he should be talking to lawmakers. If he wanted to make a ri No, he's not. He's fucking. Emi Beredugo (55:35.6) Why? Emi Beredugo (55:42.03) He is talking to lawmakers. He is. Chad Sowash (55:45.292) He's greasing their palms, is what he's doing. That's the problem. Read Citizens United, and then we'll have that discussion, Emmy. Then we'll have that discussion. He's all he's doing is he's fucking with his own brand. That's all he's doing. That's that's it. He's not helping people. Emi Beredugo (55:51.842) Yeah. But he's doing something. Who else is doing this? Is something is something not better than nothing? Yeah, of course. He's a business person, but he's still helping people. JT ODonnell (56:04.961) Again, eighty billion. Eighty billion. There was the number was put out there. I'm I'm here for the eighty billion. Emi Beredugo (56:09.86) That's right. can I answer the Lady Boys? We'll be right back. Chad Sowash (56:10.583) That's right. We'll be right back. Okay, the Washington State Department of Licensing. This is going to be so exciting. The Washington State Department of Licensing, this is JT's favorite story like of all year. Recently updated its hotline with a fancy new AI system, but when callers pressed number two for Spanish, instead of getting actually translated help, they were greeted by an AI voice speaking perfect English, just in a really thick, stereotypical Spanish accent. JT ODonnell (56:20.866) This is my favorite. JT ODonnell (56:26.572) Ever, all time. Emi Beredugo (56:46.711) god. Chad Sowash (56:47.437) It's a nice it's a nice to know it's nice to know that even in the digital age, state governments still find brand new, highly advanced ways to waste taxpayers' monies. Any thoughts? Any thoughts? JT ODonnell (56:59.084) it's just it's just please let me go first, please, please. Read the whole article though, because they Emi Beredugo (57:01.968) Yeah, go for it. JT ODonnell (57:09.198) They come back and say we fixed it. And all it did was be like, I can't even do the accent right. Like, if you are this, press dos. Like those numbers only. Like Chad Sowash (57:12.284) Ha ha Chad Sowash (57:19.969) Ha ha ha ha ha Chad Sowash (57:25.269) And it's and it's funny, but it's not funny. It's not fun. And I and I want to make sure that listeners understand that immigrants and even undocumented immigrants, and this is in twenty twenty four because twenty twenty five, we're still waiting for those numbers. They paid almost one hundred billion, ninety six billion, almost a hundred billion dollars in taxes. They deserve to know what button to push for what, for God's sakes. Sorry, sorry, I mean, go ahead. JT ODonnell (57:27.118) It's so bad. It's so bad. Emi Beredugo (57:29.698) Yeah. JT ODonnell (57:47.15) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (57:50.416) Why for God's sake? JT ODonnell (57:52.27) Who who checked that thing? Like who installed it and didn't think to like try all? Like Emi Beredugo (57:54.906) Yeah. Chad Sowash (57:57.836) I don't know. I don't know. What Emi Beredugo (58:00.931) I no, to be honest, I agree. I think it's absolutely hilarious. I just I'm trying to think like if I went to work and implemented a new tech tool and didn't actually test it before rolling it out, I probably would not be in a job. You know, what do you mean that you know I just paid all this money and then I believed what the vendor said, you know, it works. And then you find out later, months later, that it doesn't work. No, that's unacceptable, you know. So they're they're stupid from that point of view. Totally agree with you with from the accessibility. JT ODonnell (58:01.005) Chad Sowash (58:11.17) Yes. Chad Sowash (58:18.231) Yes. Emi Beredugo (58:29.594) Point of view, you know, some people need to be able to, they don't, they're not fluent in English yet. So whilst they're getting to grips with the English language, you're offering them, you know, you know, a a service where you're actually speaking in a language, apparently, only to find yourself, you know, and speaking in a fake Spanish accent. Nah, idiots. They're absolutely idiots. And I really want to know who was responsible, who exactly in that company and what happened up to them. Chad Sowash (58:46.727) For the Chad Sowash (58:55.028) Yeah. I got not I got nothing to add other than Yes, that was a joke, but yeah, Joel's gone, but there's still and and World Cup's coming, right? World Cup's coming. So I've got some World Cup jokes. Are you ready? Okay. So what did the referee say to the player who lied about a handball? Emi Beredugo (59:10.307) Yeah. JT ODonnell (59:14.156) Okay, let's go. Let's go. Emi Beredugo (59:14.179) Yep, yeah, go for it. Emi Beredugo (59:23.375) my mind went somewhere else. Not appropriate. my god Chad Sowash (59:24.905) I don't believe you. What what did the coach do when the field flooded during the World Cup? JT ODonnell (59:26.953) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (59:36.57) No. Chad Sowash (59:37.399) He's sending his subs. What can't his subs, his substitutions. Substitu subs, submarines, subs. there you go. Crazy, crazy. Why can't you play football in the jungle? Emi Beredugo (59:39.928) I didn't get that one. JT ODonnell (59:44.224) Substitution, submarine substitution. Emi Beredugo (59:46.064) that that went over my head. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (59:53.946) No? Chad Sowash (59:55.522) There are too many cheetahs. That's right. Emi Beredugo (59:57.553) I love that. I love that one. Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:00:01.485) Thanks so much, ladies. Thanks for starting out Joel Free June with me. we we love it, we love it, we miss him, we miss him, but we love it. And that's another one in the can. We out. JT ODonnell (01:00:01.986) Well done. Emi Beredugo (01:00:07.225) Yeah. JT ODonnell (01:00:10.53) We do, we do. We out. Emi Beredugo (01:00:15.235) We out.

The Trust Economy & The AI Invasion This week on HR’s most dangerous podcast, Chad Sowash, Mo, and Lieven team up for a wild ride across the shifting sands of global talent acquisition, dystopian corporate tracking, and the great AI arms race. If you thought the job market couldn’t get any weirder, pull up a chair and pour a glass of Guinness—you’re going to need it. Here is a taste of what the crew tackles in this jam-packed episode: Indeed Goes In For The Kill Think your programmatic vendors and recruitment marketing agencies have your back? Think again. IBM Says "Okay, Boomer" Can an algorithm erase 24 years of loyal company experience? conspiracy, or just incredibly biased automation? ChatGPT’s New Feature: Helpful Tool or "AI Job Slop"? OpenAI announced a major partnership with Indeed, Upwork, and Appcast to introduce conversational job searching inside ChatGPT. Meta’s Dystopian Workforce Training Mark Zuckerberg is back with a new initiative called "America's Workforce Academy," pouring $115 million into training skilled trades. Sounds altruistic, right? Not so fast. Bonus Content: Stick around to hear why Mo is deeply obsessed with a fictional Amazon Prime hockey captain, why Lieven refuses to disclose his salary to Europe, and a tech-themed dad joke that Mo actually understands (eventually). Are we descending into a corporate tech dystopia, or is there a way to build ethical guardrails before the robots completely take over? BONUS: Breaking down programmatic players and job slop. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash (00:30.723) Shit, I'm supposed to be talking. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. It's HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "Portugal Day" Sowash. Maureen Clough (00:40.588) And I'm Maureen, aka Mo. I'm in love with Garrett Graham, Wiley Clough. Lieven (00:49.049) And I'm Lieven "Europe tells me to be transparent about my salary, but I won't" Van Nieuwenhuyze Maureen Clough (00:54.643) Ha ha ha Chad Sowash (00:55.013) Or you need to. And on this week's show, indeed goes in for the kill. IBM says, okay, boomer. Chat GPT learns the call is coming from inside the house, and Mark Zuckerberg just wants to help America get back to work. And if you believe that, I have a data center in Mansfield, Ohio. I want to sell you. Let's do this. Maureen Clough (01:10.636) Ha ha. Chad Sowash (01:22.266) Welcome back. It's been forever since we've been on the show together, Mo. it's been way been about a month or so since you've been on, right, Lieven? Lieven (01:24.345) It's been forever since we've been on the show together, Mo. but we but on most of our shows since you've been on, right, maybe? At least. Maureen Clough (01:27.554) So good to see him. Yeah. Too long. Too long. Chad Sowash (01:32.797) At least, yeah. Yeah. Too long, too long. So so w as I had said, today is Portugal Day. I'm sure you all know what Portugal Day is, not. I actually had to jump into Wikip Wikipedia to find out myself today. Although I am sporting my Portuguese jersey. It's a national holiday and I'm here working. So I want this to be on the record, okay? Maureen Clough (01:41.486) yeah. Americans are are famous for knowing that. Lieven (01:46.171) Yeah. Chad I am sporting my Portuguese jersey. It's a national holiday and I'm here working, so I want this to be on the record. Okay. Maureen Clough (01:55.054) So American of you, Chad. Chad Sowash (01:58.12) Getting over time, double time, I think yeah no shit no shit so what what's up with this what's up with this this nickname what what was that Maureen Clough (02:01.816) So American. Lieven (02:03.249) So what up with this what's up with this this nickname but what with that? Europe tells me to be transparent about my salary. Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (02:07.944) yeah. Chad Sowash (02:11.225) yeah, we'll get into that. We'll get into that. I'm talking about the hockey thing. What was the hockey thing? Maureen Clough (02:14.286) Yeah, so Garrett Graham is not a real person. We all have to be telling ourselves this as a mantra. Garrett Graham is not real. He's a fictional character. He is a hockey captain on the not the first hockey show of the year for everybody to obsess over, but actually the second. It's called Off Campus. It's the only good thing about Amazon. Amazon Prime released this this show called Off Campus and it's all about this love story between the hockey captain and this Lieven (02:15.419) Huh. Chad Sowash (02:29.509) That's why you're Yeah. Maureen Clough (02:43.33) This unassuming girl, you know, the girl who they pretend is unattractive, who is actually very No, no, this is not heated rivalry. There is another one. There's another one, and it's taking fire over across social media. And there are so many hilarious videos out there where it's like millennial midlife, you know, moms who are like, Chad Sowash (02:47.985) Wait a minute. This isn't the this isn't the gay this isn't the gay this isn't the gay hockey player thing. Maureen Clough (03:05.341) I'm I'm falling for a fictional hockey hockey player. It's like a it's a very interesting show in that it is written it was written by women, directed by women. And so they wrote all these male characters in the way we would like love them to actually be. Yeah. And I'm like, it's such a great portrayal of like masculinity that's super healthy. Anyway, it's it's a great show. You definitely should not watch it around your kids or on an airplane unless you want people to look at you and like think think something else. So Chad Sowash (03:09.539) my god. Chad Sowash (03:17.713) Fantasies. Yeah. Maureen Clough (03:34.08) Not safe for work, but it's an incredible show and yeah, we all are having a blast watching it. Join on in. Yep. Chad Sowash (03:41.275) You I you enjoy that. You enjoy that. I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure Levin. I'm sure Levin's watching it as well. Lieven (03:46.417) Nope. Nope, sorry. Chad Sowash (03:51.153) But y you were talking about pay transparency and I know that. Lieven (03:52.869) Pay transparency and I know that. Is it type of shout-out? Yeah, but the shout-out actually goes about the Europe telling me to be transparent about my salary. So and actually it's a good thing. The European Pay Transparency Directive was designed to make compensation fair and clear and it's harder for companies to hide behind behind vague expressions like a competitive salary. They need to be open, they need to be in the open about what they're paying. Chad Sowash (03:56.26) Is is a is your shout out. So go ahead jump into that. What are you talking about? Chad Sowash (04:09.735) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (04:19.207) Nothing away from the Lieven (04:22.883) And it does not mean that I'm supposed to talk about my personal salary, but it does mean that companies will need to be transparent and they have to be transparent about pay criteria, gender pay gaps, equal pay for equal work, etc. So this was supposed to be implemented by June seventh. But Europe being Europe, we have actually four four countries which are more or less fully okay with the deadline. It's Slovakia, Slovakia. Chad Sowash (04:41.317) And you don't know the small girls. I used to think about Lieven (04:51.139) Italy, Lithuania and Malta. So the twenty three other member states are lagging behind and probably still working on convincing companies to be open, telling them how to be open, telling them what open has to be, etc. But I think it's a good idea and I like it because I wanna know what my colleagues make. Chad Sowash (04:53.538) that's good. Chad Sowash (05:10.334) Yeah. Well those th those other countries are pr still trying to implement the electronic passport control. That's why. Maureen Clough (05:18.165) Boy. Lieven (05:19.131) For example, yeah. That's maybe one of the reasons, could be. Maureen Clough (05:23.265) getting real weird out there, isn't it? Chad Sowash (05:24.305) Yes, and yes. It is yeah, it's it's it's a little weird. my shout out is it's almost time for the World Cup, and I'm going to use my shout-out this week for Omar Arten. He's the 34-year-old Somalian referee who was sent who is set to be the first Somali to referee at a World Cup final, but was denied entry to the US in Miami on Monday, even though he has a Diplomatic passport. I don't even wanna know what one of those look like. A diplomatic passport and a single entry US visa. but in a very professional and measured fashion, Arton said that he's looking forward to refereeing in the twenty thirty World Cup. So this is a shout out to Omar Arten as I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing you referee in twenty thirty in the World Cup here in Portugal. Lieven (06:14.981) As I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing you referee in twenty thirty in the World Cup here in Portugal. Yeah. Is it going to be in Portugal? I don't even know. Maureen Clough (06:22.989) Is that worse happening? I know nothing about football. Chad Sowash (06:26.237) Yep. Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. Lieven (06:30.193) Okay. No. Why not? Maureen Clough (06:32.509) Awesome. Yeah, you'll be there. Sounds pretty sick. I think we need to have a chat and cheese retreat. Yeah. It's gotta happen. Yeah. Chad Sowash (06:37.905) Damn straight. good call. And they're they're they're building fast rail from Lisbon to Madrid for that specific event. Yeah, so you'll be able to you'll be able yeah, you'll be able to go from Lisbon to Madrid in three hours. That will be amazing. I can't I can't wait. Yeah. It's yep, that is, it is. Mo, what you got? Lieven (06:38.553) Mm. Lieven (06:49.219) More specific event, yeah. Serious? Cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I love both both cities, so Maureen Clough (06:57.933) It's so awesome. Madrid's a sweet city. Maureen Clough (07:04.341) Man, your life. Your life, dude. well, I'm gonna shout out someone who I think is really important and and and and an entity, an institution that's really important. It's called the Center for Humane Technology. And one of its co-founders is Tristan Harris. And recently I've been hearing a few of their podcasts, and their podcast is called Your Undivided Attention, which as we well know is very hard to get these days. But they've put out a series of different episodes that have talked about Lieven (07:27.921) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (07:31.278) How this this sort of arms race towards AI development is so potentially cataclysmic for literally everyone. And we could find ourselves in a real existential crisis, right? Like it it's kind of like Terminator stuff. Like I can't believe we're talking about it. And I think that's part of part of why this is so hard to digest is like we've looked at this stuff as science fiction, but like it's real, like Claude Mythos. Did you guys hear about that? Like the the the model that leaked out. I mean, it's crazy stuff that's happening right now. Chad Sowash (07:53.659) Originally, but that's what I mean. Lieven (07:57.009) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (08:01.333) And so his assertion and Tristan's assertion on all these shows is essentially like this is the one thing that should unify literally all of us. Because if you want to live and you want your kids to live, we need to develop some safeguards and guardrails around this whole AI arms situation. Like we should have some sort of red line agreement across different nations. Because if one country develops something in the hopes that they get there first and it has Chad Sowash (08:15.835) Yeah, we'll close it, don't worry. Maureen Clough (08:28.969) adverse outcomes and it's it's you know potentially dangerous to humanity, that then leaks through the border. It it goes across the globe like that, right? And so we need to have some sort of agreement. And and I know in the wake of Mythos there was some sort of agreement around different big financial institutions and leaders and what have you, but we need that it on a like massive geopolitical scale, or we could find ourselves in a good bit of trouble. So anyway, Chad Sowash (08:54.52) I'm trying to. Maureen Clough (08:56.181) I I point that out because I think everybody should listen to these podcasts and to this to what they're doing at the Humane Center for Technology, because I think it's critically important. And we need to elevate we need to elevate AI ethics and AI regulation to the top matter of import for literally all of us. And we need to tell all of our politicians that we like this is what we care about above all else, because if we don't get this right, literally nothing else matters. So anyway, that's my two cents. Chad Sowash (08:58.033) Yeah, I'll scan will get the bit. you can show it. Chad Sowash (09:08.251) Maybe maybe over an hour. Okay, I'll bring that an eye. Okay. Yeah, they're just trying to get the money for their data centers that they're trying to build in their in their in their states. and now I know why Tristan hasn't returned my emails. I've been calling him Tristan. Maureen Clough (09:26.116) Mm, yeah. Mm-hmm. What's up? Maureen Clough (09:34.697) I emailed him too. He didn't remain me back either. Chad Sowash (09:36.018) I've been yeah, I've been calling him Tristan. Yeah, that's that's my fault. I got it wrong. I gotta get his name right first. I gotta get his name right. Yes, very, very Hamilton of you to say that. and little little little little Stephen McGrath is is is up next because with little Hamilton you need a little free stuff. Maureen Clough (09:42.549) We we gotta keep shooting our shot, Chad. We gotta get on the show. We do. Lieven (09:46.705) Yes, very Barry Hamilton of you to say that. And real Maureen Clough (09:50.133) Ha ha ha. Lieven (09:55.569) Stephen McGrath is is is up next because with Will Hamilton you need more free stuff. Maureen Clough (10:01.686) Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:09.981) This is Moe's favorite part of this show. Lieven (10:10.863) Now, you might be wondering why I'm sitting here talking this. The answer is really simple. Because I've not grabbed my free t-shirt from Erinap at Chadcheev.com yet. Let me fix that. Maureen Clough (10:12.543) I can't not react like this, Michael. Maureen Clough (10:23.133) Chad Sowash (10:24.881) Thank God. Maureen Clough (10:27.447) Whew. Maureen Clough (10:37.421) Ha ha Chad Sowash (10:54.318) Well she came along with the exact union, so it's helpful thing. Lieven (10:59.387) But you can always go for chicken cock, baby. That's right. Not fun, but who comes for chicken cock from the lovely people at Proven Base. Now, you're not going to get any of this stuff, unless you go to chadcheese dot com forward slash free news today. Maureen Clough (11:16.695) So I gotta ask you, Chad, how much did you pay him to take his shirt off on the internet every week? Like I gotta I gotta know. He does it for free. That's that means. Chad Sowash (11:17.165) Years go by, you can't see. I I I don't have to pay him and I've got to pay him to put a shirt on. Yes, I've got to pay him to put a shirt on. Hopefully it's a Chad and Cheese shirt, but I've got to pay him to put it on. Jesus. Lieven (11:23.897) have to pay him a I've gotta pay him to put a shirt on. Yes. I've got to pay him to put a shirt on. Hopefully it's Chad G shirt. But I've got to pay him to put it on. he tanks only fans is a rot on the internet. Maureen Clough (11:34.005) Sounds like it will be. So funny. yeah, yeah. Let's go, Stephen. Chad Sowash (11:42.013) I don't yeah, I don't even want to go into that. yeah. So in e even more Steven. So as you know, travel is always sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. first and foremost, does this whole AI thing have you tied up in knots, waking up in cold sweats? Well, just hop over to shaker.com and let the experts handle it there. That's shaker.com. And where are we traveling? we're going to wreckfest. Yeah, we're going to England July second. Mo are you going? come on. You you got so excited. Maureen Clough (12:20.265) No, I wanna go so badly. I know I'm so jealous. I wanna come next year so badly. Gotta plan it. FOMO. Big, big homo. man. Chad Sowash (12:27.685) It Levin's so close. He d Levin doesn't even come. He's like he well, he comes in yeah. Lieven (12:32.312) July second, it's Rockwester. It's the best rock festival in the world, really. The best in the world. It's in Belgium, Rock Rockwechter four days, and it starts July second. And I only missed one episode since I was fifteen years old, and that's two thousand and ten, when my twins were born. And then people tell me it's your own fault, you should have calculated better, but they were born three weeks early, so it's their fault, and I still blame them. Maureen Clough (12:37.643) Ha ha. Chad Sowash (12:38.204) Really? Chad Sowash (12:56.005) And you should. And you should. yeah. So July 2nd, kids. That's right. We're gonna be in England at Nebworth Park all damn day. Joel and I are gonna be on the disrupt stage. You're gonna have a a great time all day there. Emmy is going to be on the innovate stage, which I think is is right next to to disrupt. So you can jump back and forth if you want to. but if you've never been to a recfest, definitely you got to check it out. Go to recfest.com. Lieven (12:57.721) Of course. Lieven (13:01.487) being Queensland at Network Park at Band Day. Joel and I are gonna be on the disrupt stage. You're gonna have a a great time all day there. Emmy is going to be on the innovate stage, which I think is is right next to Disrupt. So you can jump back and forth if you want to. But if you've never been to a recfest, definitely gotta check it out.com. Generally what happens is this is mostly TA practitioners, they bring their whole teams for a game away of learning and that's right, partying kids. That's what happens and it's it's a great time to rec fest me. You've been there before. I've been there and I loved it. It's like it's like a music festival. It lacks some music, but it's fun. Chad Sowash (13:21.959) com generally what happens is this is mostly TA practitioners they bring their whole teams for a day away of learning and that's right partying kids that's what happens and it's a it's a great time at Recfest. You've been there before leaving. What'd you think? Maureen Clough (13:43.517) Yeah. Chad Sowash (13:45.661) Music usually DJs. At the end of the day, people are just they're pissed and yeah, ugh. Lieven (13:48.222) Music, usually DJs at the end of the Yeah, yeah. But there's so much so much stages and they're not putting decent musicians on them. But you get a stage, which is cool also. Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (13:52.843) Ha ha Chad Sowash (13:59.766) yeah, we get a stage. We get yeah, I'll get a stage. but after that, I'm headed to this is more personal than it is, Chad and Cheese stuff, but I'm headed to Mallorca. My best buddy Chris Long is getting married. yeah, another another one, please. getting married. So we're we're having a stag do. Having a stag do in Mallorca. So we're gonna be in at wreckfest drinking our asses off, and then a bunch of us are gonna get on a flight, go to Mallorca. Lieven (14:08.101) to Majorca. My best buddy is getting married. yeah, another another interview. married. So we're we're having a stagdo. Having a stagdo in Majorca. So we're gonna be in at Wreckfest, jerking our asses off. And then a bunch of us are gonna get on the flight, but a Majorca continue the party, the Wreckfest party. Even Jamie Leonard, who is CEO over at Wreckfest Chad Sowash (14:27.815) continue the party, the Recfest party. Even Jamie Leonard, who is CEO over at Recfest, he's gonna be there. So yeah, our Libvers are gonna be they're gonna be in trouble. They're gonna be in trouble. but we'll have plenty of time though. This is beautiful. We'll have plenty of time to get our livers back in shape for the e recruitment congress in Amsterdam. What's what what's happening there? Any updates, Leva? Lieven (14:36.761) He's gonna be there. So yeah, our livers are gonna they're they're gonna be in trouble. They're be in trouble. but we'll have plenty of time though. This is beautiful. We'll have plenty of time to get our livers back in shape for the e Recruit Congress in Amsterdam. What's what what's happening there? Any updates leave it? lots of updates, in fact. So Maureen Clough (14:40.951) Y you're in for it, man. Serious. Chad Sowash (14:58.555) Bring Lieven (15:00.003) There is no music festival during the e-recruitment congress, so you definitely can make it. No reason not to. It's October 6th in Amsterdam, like it was last time, and at Musikgebal, which is a beautiful venue. It's yes. Once again it's about music. It's really the team. Okay. But we are going to show you how robots are coming after our jobs. So I've been talking about yeah, we've been talking about AI, normal AI, and we are ready. Chad Sowash (15:02.077) Ha ha ha. Chad Sowash (15:10.745) Zika bow. it's gorgeous. Yes. Maureen Clough (15:12.557) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:22.738) What? Lieven (15:27.885) A greet on AI is going to take tons of white collar jobs, but we always thought blue collar jobs are are okay. But now we're going to demonstrate robots, lots of robots who are actually working at the Congress. They're going to be handing out the gift bags at the Congress, they're going to be putting chairs in a row, they'll just be working next to humans. So that's the start. So the whole idea is it's about AI and also about physical AI. So the the robot stuff. And Chad Sowash (15:42.83) Maureen Clough (15:44.89) those mm mm Lieven (15:52.911) I need to cross my fingers. With a bit of luck, we'll have a keynote speaker from Boston Dynamics, you know, the the major company producing those Atlas robots, which are amazing. Chad Sowash (15:56.062) yeah. Yeah. Mm. Lieven (16:04.089) Fingers crossed. they're probably the most difficult people to reach in the whole fucking universe, but I'm getting there. and then, and of course we have tons of other great speakers. it's about AI, it's about how AI is going to influence and is influencing human resources, a job, all kinds of different jobs, and how it can make our life easier. It's about augmentation, not necessarily about automation. It's going to be fun. Tons of Chad Sowash (16:13.689) Important. Yeah. Chad Sowash (16:21.146) Yeah. Yeah. Lieven (16:31.959) Best speakers in the world and Chad and Joel are going to be there. So maybe Mo you'll be there as well. I can put you on the guest list if you want to. And yeah, and also good to know the World Employment Confederation is sponsoring the Congress also. So they're going to to organize the global task force on AI the day before, and all those people who are present will be at the conf conference and as well. So if you want to meet people from Adeco Randstad, not only House of HR, but Chad Sowash (16:35.773) yeah. Maureen Clough (16:37.357) Sounds amazing. I love hanging with robots. Sign me up. Chad Sowash (16:47.356) Awesome. Lieven (17:01.369) Every major player within recruitment, they all be there. So I'm still looking for some sponsors. If you want to present your product, get in touch. You reach fifty two companies of House of HR and all the others. Chad Sowash (17:08.583) you should be. Yeah. That's right. Maureen Clough (17:09.479) Love it. Chad Sowash (17:14.555) Yeah, yeah. If you wanna get if you wanna get in good with House of HR, you gotta be at the musique about. That place is amazing. Lieven (17:16.913) And I can't. And if you sponsor, I like you and I can arrange some stuff later. Yeah. We're in Amsterdam, so I don't wanna know what the later Chad Sowash (17:24.987) Ha ha ha. We're in Amsterdam, so I don't wanna know what the later thing is, but we'll go Chad Sowash (17:39.43) All right, kids, Indeed is at it again. So if you are a recruitment marketing agency running job feeds for your clients into Indeed, well, you already probably know this, but Indeed is doing their damnedest to squeeze you out of the equation entirely. And as a matter of fact, Indeed got even closer by publishing a little FAQ called Setting expectations amidst a changing landscape. Sounds ominous, right? Sounds ominous. That came out earlier this week. Lieven and Mo, any ideas? I mean, you guys got to read it. So you want me to keep going? Okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna dig deep a little bit deeper into this. For the I've got how many points do I have here? I've got four points. First point. Maureen Clough (18:10.39) Yeah. Chad Sowash (18:32.771) Is the job copy crackdown, right? So what indeed said was we are reducing job copies or duplicate roles to deliver a on our promise of quality. So what's really happening is this is a direct assassination attempt on agency managed fees and programmatic vendors, pure and simple. by flagging multi-channel feeds or agency scrapes as "duplicates or clutter", Indeed, is giving themselves the perfect excuse to switch off your client's visibility and say, hey, employer, your agency fucked up. Just give us your feed direct instead, right? So that's number one. Number two is the ecosystem play. What Indeed said was: we are rewarding employers who become true partners. True partners. I love that. Maureen Clough (19:16.02) Rough. Chad Sowash (19:29.693) Who post jobs directly in our platform or use our ATS API? What they're really saying here is Indeed wants agencies out of the equation entirely. Why? Simple answer because Indeed wants to control the relationship and cut agency commissions out entirely. That's a good 15 to 20 percent direct to Indeed's bottom line, right? Shareholders love that shit. Three budgets may spend faster. Chad (19:34.179) Three. Budgets may spend faster. This is fucking hilarious. What indeed said, your budgets may spend f they said this. Your budgets may set spend faster and you will receive yet higher quality candidates. Nobody's ever received higher quality candidates in indeed. They receive masses and masses of whatever. Anyway, what's really happening bullshit. You can't make this up. Chad Sowash (19:58.984) This is fucking hilarious. What Indeed said, your budgets may spend fast. They said this. Your budgets may spend faster, and you will receive yet higher quality candidates. Nobody's ever received higher quality candidates from Indeed. They receive masses and masses of whatever. Anyway, what's really happening? Bullshit. You can't make this up. Maureen Clough (20:18.647) Ooh. Chad Sowash (20:25.991) They're literally saying we're gonna burn through your money faster and give you less volume. But don't worry, it's a feature, not a bug. It's a fee, it's a feature, not a bug. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And last but not yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, because they're indeed. You just have to believe them. It's trust. This is the trust economy, Maureen. Maureen Clough (20:32.661) Mm-hmm. It'll be better. Convenient theory, convenient talking point. Mm-hmm. And how do they prove it, right? Maureen Clough (20:46.771) Mm-hmm. You just trust. Just trust them. Yeah, that is true. And I have none. Lieven (20:54.255) Well we all know Chad that indeed wouldn't do such a thing at all (sarcasm). Chad Sowash (20:54.491) So what Indeed said was we are doubling down on trust with bot mitigation and trust and safety practices. What's actually happening? Chad Sowash (20:59.149) yes, I agree. Last but not least, I'm calling bot mitigation. So, what Indeed said was we are doubling down on trust with bot mitigation and trust and safety practices. What's actually happening? This is pure irony, kids. This announcement happens after Indeed has announced having AI bots apply to jobs for job seekers, basically having the ability to have Indeed's bots. Maureen Clough (20:59.981) Yeah. Chad Sowash (21:17.737) Kids, this announcement happens after Indeed has announced having AI bots apply to jobs for job seekers. Basically having the ability to have Indeed's bots add more clips and apps, driving up the revenues. So the wheels have been in motion for a very long time on this one. Any comments? I'm gonna go ahead and push myself away from the table and have a little sip of guinness. Chad Sowash (21:28.675) add more clicks and apps driving up the revenues. So the wheels have been in motion for a very long time on this one. Any comments? I'm gonna go ahead and push myself away from the table and have a little sip of Guinness. Maureen Clough (21:33.49) my gosh. Self-healing. Maureen Clough (21:43.736) I mean you just have to go back to incentives every single time, right? Like where's the money and what who benefits from these statements? And of course it's indeed, right? It's their bottom line, it's their shareholders. And th like you said, this is the trust economy, and we have very little and with good reason because we are consistently proven right to be skeptical. but the fact of the matter is these these folks can say whatever they want and it it it's just I don't know, man. I I would not be super amped about putting putting my dollars behind that based on what you've just told me. Chad Sowash (22:15.862) Yeah, well. Maureen Clough (22:23.339) that one. Chad Sowash (22:24.071) We've been saying it on the pod for years. Indeed does not want to share the sandbox. They don't want to work with recruitment agencies. They'd rather own the direct relationship and keep the 15 to 20 percent themselves, right? they want to kick out the middleman, control a hundred percent of the data. They want to steal your disposition data, and they're doing that right now, kids. and force hiring companies into direct selling relationships where, you know. Chad Sowash (22:52.621) So they can jack up prices whenever they want and they're gonna do that with bots. And I say that because the next thing that we're gonna talk about is their image campaign. this is fucking blowing my mind. I've never seen a propaganda fucking campaign like this by a company in my life. So again, we're talking about bot clicks. I mean, bots, you know, applying for job seekers, right? Maureen Clough (23:04.533) Hmm. Chad Sowash (23:07.771) I've never seen a propaganda fucking campaign like this by a company in my life. So again, we're talking about bot clicks. I mean bots, you know, applying for job seekers, right? They're they'll use bots to form their resumes better for the for the actual job itself and then they'll apply with bots and then you can sit back. So Maureen Clough (23:09.903) Ha ha Chad Sowash (23:22.257) They're they'll use bots to form their resumes better for the for the actual job itself and then they'll apply with bots and then you can sit back. So Maureen Clough (23:33.003) Bot world man. Chad Sowash (23:34.754) On LinkedIn, Maggie Hulce, who is the chief revenue officer over at Indeed, posted about Indeed's new jobs need people ad campaign built around a simple truth. Jobs need people just as much as people need jobs. So I I'm sure you guys watch this. I'm gonna go ahead and talk it through for the for the actual listeners. the ad starts out with literally text that says job search doesn't feel human anymore. Lieven (23:35.771) Then Maggie Hulce, who is the chief revenue officer over at Indeed, posted about Indeed's new jobs need people ad campaign built around a simple truth. Jobs need people just as much as people need jobs. So I I'm sure you guys watch this. I'm gonna go ahead and talk it through for the for the actual listeners. the ad starts out with literally text that says job search doesn't feel human anymore. Maureen Clough (24:05.111) That is true. Chad Sowash (24:05.681) Then it says, indeed, indeed is helping people feel seen again. Then it goes through some emotive videos of a software developer with a baby, a physical therapist having helping out a patient, a server serving, a mechanic under a vehicle lift. And then it says people need jobs and jobs need people. Lieven (24:06.117) Then it says, indeed, indeed is helping people feel seen again. Then It goes through some emotive videos of a software developer with a baby, a physical therapist having helping out a patient, a server serving, a mechanic under a vehicle lift, and then it says people need jobs and jobs needs And when did we show when do they show the kitten the kittens on the puppies Chad Sowash (24:35.377) Be seen. Maureen Clough (24:35.405) So touching. Untouched. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unicorns and rainbows too. I love the idea of a software engineer with a baby because the tech industry is famously all about work life balance. Lieven (24:47.887) Yeah. yeah. That's about family values. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sil Silicon Valley. It's all about all about family values. at last says B C Chad Sowash (24:48.465) yeah. It's yeah. Yeah, yeah. Silic Silicon Valley is all about all about family valleys. at the last it says be seen for all what you can do. The thing that just blew my mind is right out of the gate it says job search doesn't feel human anymore. Job search on sites like Indeed have never felt fucking human. Since when does clicking a button and filling out a form feel human? Maureen Clough (24:51.253) Yeah, yeah. Making the world better place. Mm. Chad Sowash (25:05.104) Job search doesn't feel human anymore. Job search on sites like Indeed have never felt fucking human. Since when does clicking a button and filling out a form feel human? It's never felt human. But then once again, human, you're pitching human when you're talking about box applying for jobs. Me, Mag, I I hope you understand that Maureen Clough (25:14.029) Strong point. Chad Sowash (25:17.295) It's never felt human. But then once again, human, you're pitching human when you're talking about bots applying for jobs. I mean, Maggie, I I I I hope you understand that I understand that you're in sales, right? But that's a load of shit. Not even you can sell. Maureen Clough (25:29.311) It's Maureen Clough (25:34.593) Ha ha it's not it's not great. But I guess they're counting on people not thinking 'cause we don't do a whole lot of that in the United States these days. So maybe it'll work out for Maybe it's a really good maybe it's really good d take. I don't know. Chad Sowash (25:48.316) Yeah, well there's they there there is that. I have to say that, you know, the the ad was very if you're not an insider, you don't understand what Indeed actually stands for, i this could pass off as, yeah, no, this is it is very emotive. look a software with a baby. I mean Lieven (25:48.793) Yeah, well there's a maybe it's a really really good team. There there is that. I have to say that, you know, the the ad was ba i if you're not an insider, you don't understand what indeed actually stands for. this could pass off as, yeah, no, this is it it's very emotive. look, the software with a baby. I mean utopia Maureen Clough (26:09.581) Utopia as we descend into dystopia. Chad Sowash (26:15.131) Yeah, yeah. I all I gotta say is, wow. Lieven (26:15.633) Yeah. All I gotta say is, wow, that escalated quickly. So we're gonna jump we're gonna jump to Mo's favorite, which is IBM. They they've got some things going on. This is man versus machine. And I mean literally and and and you might not remember this Mo because you were probably in diapers, but do you remember in nineteen ninety seven when IBM's Deep Blue computer beat chess grandmaster Gary Casper, yes. Maureen Clough (26:20.438) Mm-hmm. That's it. That's funny. Chad Sowash (26:20.509) okay, so we're gonna jump we're gonna jump to Mo's favorite, which is IBM. They they've got some things going on. This is man versus machine. And I mean literally, and and and you might not remember this, Mo, because you were probably in diapers, but do you remember in 1997 when IBM's deep blue computer beat chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov? Yes, right. Maureen Clough (26:28.621) Mm-hmm. Lieven (26:47.793) I remember I remember. Maureen Clough (26:49.131) I do not. I think I was listening to InSync and the Backstreet Boys at that time, not paying attention to IBM. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:52.641) Okay, so again, well maybe not in diapers, but still very young. That was a big day for computers and IBM. Not so much for today. As IBM's computer, it's not deep blue, by the way, their applicant tracking system has them in hot waters hot water after allegedly auto rejecting a candidate that already had twenty-four years of IBM experience. That's right. A twenty four or twenty four year old Lieven (26:53.809) Again, well maybe not in diapers but still very. That was a big day for computers and IBM. Not so much for today. As IPM's computer, it's not deep blue by the way, their applicant tracking system has them in hot waters hotwater Allegedly auto-rejecting a candidate that already had twenty-four years of IBM experience. That's right. A twenty-four or twenty-four-year-old IBM veteran alleges the company pushed out voter workers during layoffs and then used automated hiring tech to keep them from coming back. IBM denies wrongdoing. They deny it. And the claims are still unproven, but the case lands right in the middle of the AI. Chad Sowash (27:21.315) IBM veteran alleges the company pushed out older workers during layoffs and then used automated hiring tech to keep them from coming back. IBM denies wrongdoing. They they deny it. And the claims are still unproven, but the case lands right in the middle of the AI hiring hype cycle. Mo, I know you want to get on this. Tell me what you got. Maureen Clough (27:47.158) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, IBM is not new to this world of ageism discrimination claims. back in twenty eighteen there were multiple pieces done by the New York Times and and Pro Publica that were really in depth and they alleged that basically IBM had created this systemic sort of wave of trying to lay off older workers and actually force them to retrain the to train their replacements who are all younger of course. They labeled them as quote dino babies that they wanted to quote make extinct. So this is something that has been pretty well documented within the IBM culture. And we all know that culture starts at the top and it filters on down. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Daniel Swanson, who's the n plaintiff in this new case with the 24 years at the company, i were absolutely true. Wouldn't be surprised at all. and the EEOC has investigated them multiple times too, and they've found adequate proof to suggest that there could have been discrimination. So it's it's something that it I think is is absolutely possible. I think with the advent of the AI and screening technology and the programmatic approach to the ATS and allowing employers to go ahead and alter those things and they're Lieven (28:40.701) Mm. Chad Sowash (28:48.081) I remember it for years but I can't work it out. Chad Sowash (28:59.453) See this is what we talked about, isn't it? Yeah. Meet two. Are you the balls up not for one? Maureen Clough (28:59.689) it's very possible that they could have put things in there like, we only want this particular, you know, number of years of experience, for example, which you don't have to actually even say, like filter out candidates who were, you know, born after 1995, right? Like or before 1995. You can like literally just say, I only want like five years of experience or whatever. So there are other ways to get around it, but workday, as you guys know, is is in engaged in litigation right now around their ATS. Chad Sowash (29:12.946) Yeah. Chad Sowash (29:16.281) something floor so wasn't great. Safe and load it out. And yeah, when I was working something else at the end of the board. Maureen Clough (29:26.547) And the allegation that they were actually programmed to to reject, to auto-reject people of a certain age. That has happened with another company called iTutor Group. The EEOC sued them and one, they had actually programmed people to be auto-rejected at age 55 if you're women and 60 if you're men, because of course you can get older than we can. That's how it goes. so this has been documented as something that has happened. I talked to my show, It Gets Late Early, is all about. Chad Sowash (29:39.187) Wow Wow. Maureen Clough (29:53.386) ageism and the issues that people face in mid-career and I I get constant flood of stories of people facing just that like the instant rejections being told they're overqualified. But I think this case, if the allegations are true is particularly terrible because like can you imagine the indignity of working for a company for 24 years and having good performance reviews and all of that and then getting blackballed at the application stage for your old job essentially? Like that's Chad Sowash (30:16.475) Caraca, você é amigo. Maureen Clough (30:21.569) That's just ridiculous. But yeah, there's so much within that that lawsuit too that suggests that there was this systemic sort of pattern with bias at the organization. You know, they they use a lot of euphemistic language like seniority mix and like skills refresh and next generation and all that's like in right seniority mix, right? Like how do we mix up the seniority? We want Chad Sowash (30:38.799) Seniority mix, what does that even fucking mean? What does that mean? Maureen Clough (30:44.905) Experience and inexperience. I mean, it's all just it's very obvious what they mean. And that's been apparently documented within that lawsuit. So I'm obviously really interested to see what happens with this one and also of course with the workday case, which will have really widespread implications for the entire industry given how many people are on workday, right? And whether or not they're gonna be held liable for some s software that they use, right? Like if if they didn't program it themselves, if workday did. Lieven (31:14.817) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (31:14.827) Are they liable for discrimination? Right? So super cool. And Eightfold, that one is very interesting as well. So lots of cool stuff happening here. None of it great for us, but like hopefully we'll get it all sorted, right? Awareness is huge. Chad Sowash (31:26.087) We'll see. We'll see. Levin. Thoughts on you were around during the Gary Kasparov days. So you what do you think, right? Huh? Huh? Maureen Clough (31:32.077) Ha ha ha. Lieven (31:32.55) I was. I was. I was supporting Kasparov by the way, but he lost. Anyways, I think in this case we need to be careful. I mean, IBM hasn't responded yet, so this these are still allegations. it's not like a court has already established these facts or anything. And in this specific case, it's about Chad Sowash (31:36.603) Yes. Me too. Maureen Clough (31:48.013) Yep. Lieven (31:54.711) One person, I think it will be extremely difficult for that person to prove that it was because of his age he was fired. IBM could claim, yeah, but we are we are just replacing him with someone who's a better fit for the job could be. If it was a whole team which was constantly being replaced, older teams, that would be something else. But one individual it will be hard to prove. And the AI part is even yeah. Maureen Clough (32:01.453) You're not wrong. Chad Sowash (32:14.397) patterns. Lieven (32:16.889) The AI part is even harder. Saying AI rejected me isn't just enough. He has to prove that it was first of all AI who rejected him, another person. And I think even IBM won't know if it was AI and why AI rejected him or not. It's a big black box. So I don't think it will be easy to to build a case on this. If it's a pattern, that's something else. But if one individual case, someone after 25 years getting fired, and I feel sorry for the person, by the way, very sorry. But Chad Sowash (32:22.269) Yeah. Lieven (32:45.219) If I was fired by Hosovich R I'm becoming fifty this year, and I would say it's because my of my age. Yeah, it would it would be up to me to prove it. And it wouldn't be possible. Yeah, it's Chad Sowash (32:47.029) No, I'm just Maureen Clough (32:54.765) A hundred percent. You're completely right. And age discrimination is the hardest type to prove. So you have to have very clear, direct proof. I know that there were several other employees who were laid off within the same time, all of whom had at least 25 years of experience, but they have to have a very good case. So I hope this one has merit because my my sense is any time that someone comes out with an age discrimination case and it's not Chad Sowash (32:54.779) Yeah I'm just gonna think Lieven (33:00.112) No. Lieven (33:11.045) Yeah. Maureen Clough (33:17.121) Had any merit. It's like people looking for something to grab onto, right? It it ends up being like a chilling effect for people who've actually experienced this and it is rampant. So I I hope, I mean, it's weird to say I hope the allegations are true, but I I hope that there is merit to them because otherwise it's just gonna set us all back. But you're absolutely right, Levin. Absolutely right. Chad Sowash (33:19.439) god, you didn't even do that. I didn't still got five rounds. Lieven (33:26.597) Mm. Lieven (33:30.842) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:32.732) Mm. Lieven (33:36.079) Mm. Chad Sowash (33:37.27) He hears that a lot. He hears that a lot. I have one thing to say. I have one thing to say. Lieven (33:39.427) Here's that a lot, here's that a lot. I have one thing to say. I have one thing to say. Maureen Clough (33:40.523) He never tires of it. Ha ha ha. Chad Sowash (33:46.782) IBM, IBM. So I mean, this case was actually written up by Martin Redstone, who is over at Warden AI. And those guys actually they do auditing of systems and whatnot. They did not audit this system, just just by the way, but they they do from the outside, they they they comment on cases like this, which I love. One of the things he said, quote, from an AI governance standpoint, this exposes the vul vulnerability of predictive models used in talent management, end quote. Lieven (33:49.617) So I mean my this case was actually written up by Redstone, who was over at Orton AI. Those guys actually they do auditing the systems and whatnot. They did not audit the systems, just just by the way. They they do from the outside, they they they comment on cases like this, which I love. One of the things he said, quote, from an AI governance standpoint, this exposes the vul vulnerability of predictive models used in talent and the info. Totally agree. And I believe that hiring Chad Sowash (34:16.621) Totally agree. And I believe that hiring companies should definitely understand their process methodologies, even as if it's just from a defensible position. but in this case, and even the the Mobley versus workday case that you talked about, Mo, I'm not convinced that this was AI. but but I don't know that it matters, right? I mean, are are are you as a hiring company going to take a chance of possibly landing Maureen Clough (34:36.065) May not be. Lieven (34:38.225) I don't know that it matters, right? I mean our our you as a hiring company is going to take a chance of possibly landing in front of a judge that can they can't text their grandkids for God's sakes and and try to prove that it's not AI. Now, much like anything that we talk about these days concerning AI Chad Sowash (34:46.405) In front of a judge that can they can't text their grandkids for God's sakes and and try to prove that it's not AI. I mean, that's one of the the problems that we have here. Now, much like anything that we talk about these days concerning AI, the question is, is it really AI or is it just dumb triggers? Maybe RPA, you know, robotic process, you know, automation, yeah, just basic automations. Lieven (35:03.205) The question is, is it really AI? Or is it just dumb triggers? Maybe RPA, w you know, robotic process you know automation, yeah. Yeah, just basic automation. to me, none of that really matters to be quite frank. I don't care if it if they say it's AI, they do that on AI, if it's biased, it's biased. Chad Sowash (35:14.823) to me, none of that really matters, to be quite frank. I don't care if it if they say it's AI and they pin it on AI, if it's bias, it's bias, right? And I hope they don't use that, that, that AI label as a, well, it wasn't AI. So it's like, no, no, no, no. It was bias. It doesn't matter how it happened. I do like that that that Warden is shining a light on these cases, but I believe it's it's imperative that. Maureen Clough (35:22.485) Right. Yeah. Lieven (35:23.043) Right? Hope they don't use that that that AI label as a well it wasn't AI, so it's like, no, no, no, no. It was biased. It doesn't matter how it happened. I do like that that that Warden is shining a light on these cases, but I believe it's it's imperative that hiring companies map out their hiring process with output. Maureen Clough (35:32.427) Yep. I agree. Chad Sowash (35:41.278) Hiring companies map out their hiring process methodologies and they do that with the vendors that they've bought that are a part of their stack. They have to understand their blind spots. They have to understand their risks. And if it's a big tech stack, I mean, I think it's pretty simple. You go to a third party outsourced expert and you have them do everything for you, right? I mean, it's it's not just auditing your system. I think auditing your system is incredibly important. Lieven (35:45.931) And they do that with the vendors that they've got that are a part of their stack. They have to understand their blind spots, they have to understand their risks. And it's a big tech stack, I mean I think it's pretty simple. You go to a third party outsourced expert and you have them do everything for you, right? I mean it's it it's not just auditing your system, I think auditing your system is incredibly important. But it's also trying to understand the hiring methodologies of Maureen Clough (35:51.767) Yeah. Maureen Clough (36:03.501) There we go. Brilliant. Chad Sowash (36:11.825) But it's also trying to understand the hiring methodologies, the processes, and those types of things. Because if you don't know what that is today, how in the hell can you defend it when somebody like this actually comes in and says, whether they're right or they're wrong, that you've been biased and they they start suing you. And what happens, much like Mobley, if it turns into a class action? That is fucking, my God. That's scary. Yeah. Lieven (36:15.795) processes and those types of things because if you don't know what that is today, how in the hell can you defend it when somebody like this actually comes in and says whether they're right or they're wrong that you've been biased and they they start suing you. And what happens, most like Mobly, if it turns into a class action. That is fucking my god, that's scary. Maureen Clough (36:29.303) Yep. Maureen Clough (36:38.655) No bueno. Yeah, no bueno. By the way, what you just mentioned, it almost makes me feel like we should have HR at our companies. Unlike what that bolt guy said. Did you hear that guy? He was like, dude, I mean insane. Yeah, yeah, you guys talked about it. That's right, yeah. I wish I'd been there for that one, because I would have loved to lay that. Damn it. Lieven (36:47.729) Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. We I I I I think I yeah yeah yeah. Lines, lines lines What a dickhead. What a dickhead. Yeah, okay. Chad Sowash (36:50.919) Yeah. Yes. Yes. We I I I I think I yeah, yeah, yeah. And I all I gotta say. What a what a dickhead. What a dickhead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maureen Clough (37:04.033) What an idiot. I've been at startups without HR. Trust me, they're gonna get sued. So I can't wait to watch them roll in. He definitely is about 12. But he thinks he's God. A hundred percent. Lieven (37:10.001) No, I'm going to follow it, sorry. I'm really curious how this will turn out. Maureen Wiley Yeah man, they're gonna get sued. Chad Sowash (37:10.961) He looked like he was twelve, by the way. It's like it your mom should be making your decisions anyway, right? Your mom should be making your decisions. So what do you think? Any any any parting blows leaving on the IBM conversation? Okay, okay. Well, our next topic is a juicy one. last week in a post on LinkedIn, OpenAI's Chaya Nayak, who is in charge of special in a initiatives, wrote quote, When I joined OpenAI, one of the things that excited me most was the possibility of using AI, not just to make people more productive. Chad (37:35.599) Last week in a post on LinkedIn, OpenAI's Chaya Nayak, who's in charge of special of initiatives, wrote, quote, when I joined OpenAI, one of the things that excited me most was the possibility of using AI, not just to make people more productive, but to help create opportunity. Over the last several months, I have had the privilege of working with an incredible team to make a step toward Mat Vision by launching improved job search features in ChatGPT. This work represents something I cared deeply about since my early days with Samasource. Helping people better understand their skills, discover opportunities, and navigate an increasingly complex labor market. This next part is incredibly important kids. Maureen Clough (37:59.406) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (38:23.065) A special thank you to our partners, Indeed, Upwork, and Appcast for collaborating with us to build a better experience for job seekers. Mo, Levin, you guys had a chance to take a look at ChatGPT's new job search. What do you got? Lieven (38:52.209) The whole basic idea I like it. I mean, we come from a world where you, when you're looking for a job, you put two fields. You enter text in two fields. What are you looking for? Where are you looking for? And then you can find a job for a marketeer in Brussels, and you'll find a listing with jobs which more or less resemble your question. But using natural language, you could write the whole page designing or describing your perfect job. So I like te idea that the large language model is matching the jobs when you're searching for it. It's even better when can upload a PDF with your resume and say, This this is I, this is me. What kind of jobs do we suggest which are suited for me? And it works. So I tested the ChatGPT thing using a VPN because it's only active in the United States and I'm in Europe. So I tested it. The first thing I noticed was, of course, Indeed. Indeed succeeded in enabling Well, I don't know how they did it. Probably they paid a lot. But next to many jobs, you'll see a button saying Indeed. And if you click on it, you go to Indeed and you can apply. It's good for Indeed. It's well played, Indeed, nice. But it's not only Indeed, you also have LinkedIn, but they are not mentioned. If you click on a if you click on a vacancy, if you click on a vacancy, you go to LinkedIn, but LinkedIn wasn't mentioned. So I guess they didn't pay, but they couldn't just show jobs from Indeed. It would get them into trouble. And the third one is Maureen Clough (40:01.373) Mm-hmm. Lieven (40:18.135) Direct corporate companies. You could I had one from Caterpillar. I clicked on it, a marketeer at Caterpillar, but then I was blocked. So there is something wrong with the link from ChatGPT to Caterpillar. Yeah, even with a very funny screenshot. I still have it, I think. it said something. I'm going to put it I'm going to show here it is. Sorry, we have you sorry you have been blocked. You are unable to access happy dance. Chad Sowash (40:28.945) You were blocked? Maureen Clough (40:30.893) His VPN failed. Lieven (40:46.747) So it's a total it's a total clusterfuck. But the URL says careers.caterpillar.com and the whole whatever. Yeah, I'll take a screenshot. Okay. You know Caterpillar? I didn't have a clue what happy dance was about. I thought I thought it was a porn side or something, but it's probably it's always me. Yeah. Maureen Clough (40:49.101) Happy Dance dot website? Hmm. Chad Sowash (40:53.357) I'll reach out to Dave Ralph. He'll get that fixed by the end of the day, I promise. No, I know, I know, I know. Happy Dance. they're out of Ireland. They're out of Ireland, yeah. There's some good boys. Lieven (41:15.577) Happy dance, I mean if you hear happy dance and you happy dance dot com, but that no it makes sense. Chad Sowash (41:20.177) I think you're also thinking of happy sock, but that no, it makes good sense, yeah. Lieven No, it could be, but I was thinking about pole dancing, something like that. Okay. Anyways, so just to get back on topic, I like the whole idea that I can use ChatGPT to find a job, and I think many people will do so. If you ask Google a question, you get some websites where you might find an answer. If you ask ChatGPT a question, you'll get an answer. So if I want to find a job, I need jobs. Maureen Clough (41:20.279) Mm-hmm. I don't know either of these things. Chad Sowash (41:42.631) Yeah. Lieven (41:45.081) I like the idea and I tested it that I could upload my resume and I got jobs which actually were pretty decent. But they're not transparent on why indeed is mentioned with a button with its name on and the others are not. And I don't know and I couldn't find out how I from House of HR can put my jobs in there with a listing with my brand in it. And I'm willing to pay for it. I mean nobody works for free. Chad Sowash (42:12.157) You don't but just when you don't just take a fortune. Lieven (42:12.729) I couldn't figure it out, so I don't think they have a transparent business model yet. And maybe they're just experimenting. But maybe chat or or mo you know more about this than I do. Maureen Clough (42:22.741) Yeah, no. I on purpose don't I don't want anything to do with open AI, evil empire that it is. I I recognize that a lot of people do, but what this brings up for me though, I mean, yeah, sure, the utility of it. Yeah, sure. it knows me. The AI knows me and it's pulling in things that'd be relevant and it has my resume and blah blah blah. Like I get that. Chad Sowash (42:23.153) Mel? Lieven (42:43.473) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (42:44.149) As a utility, but what concerns me is what you said, which is the transparency aspect. And obviously anybody with half a brain knows that if indeed is popping up with a button, it's 'cause they've paid open AI money, right? Like that's how it goes. But when I think about how much of a problem this is It like even on the web browsers now. It's like the AI overview comes up. How the hell are they sorting those results? How are they deciding which results become the basis for those summaries? And it's the same sort of thing. Like, how are how are we going to be served up the right thing for us truly? Or is it going to just be this selected thing by OpenAI by these companies? Because they've been paid by others. So I I don't really trust it for that reason. It's not gonna surface what's best for the job seeker. It's gonna surface what they have in stock as their, you know, pay to play model. so I think it has a limited utility in that sense. I think it might be capped and I I just wish it were different. I again, like on its face, I don't have a problem with it, but the fact that it's going to serve up the pay to play model is gonna be tough. For me, just generally speaking. Chad Sowash (43:52.718) Yeah, I got an easy response to that. Yeah. it the thing that I loved about the nice little call-out of Indeed, AppCast, and Upwork. Unfortunately, the job seeker experience sucks and their names are associated to it. And let me tell you why. Just last week we talked about Google for Jobs and Job Slop. Well, guess what? The same job slop. Maureen Clough (43:59.306) Yeah. Maureen Clough (44:10.175) Ha ha ha. Chad Sowash (44:19.737) Well, guess what? The same job slop is happening on ChatGPT. So I guess you could actually call it AI job slop or job AI slop. At the end of the day, as I'd said last week, Julie and I actually received info from a solid list of TA leaders. They started noticing their jobs were listed on Google for jobs, but it wasn't their jobs. And it wasn't their feeds. They were scam jobs, they were spam jobs. They were candidate harvesting schemes. There were paywalls. And we applied to several of those jobs for companies, because we were working with the companies. They didn't receive our resumes. On many occasions, they didn't receive our resumes. So actually linking into the applicant tracking system, this was a scam. This was harvesting. This is this is horrible. The jobs are fraudulent. Maureen Clough (44:52.205) Dude. Maureen Clough (45:05.215) Awful. Humans suck. Chad Sowash (45:16.977) Then we heard about Chat GPT's new search capabilities. And guess what we found? The same fucking job slop. Yes. But now, but now this is the beautiful part about this whole thing. I guess thanks to Chaya's post, we now know where the job slot is coming from. Either indeed and/or appcast and/or upwork. And let me say that again. OpenAI's Chaya, who is in charge of this special projects credited to these fraudulent jobs and job slop actually called out Indeed, AppCast, and Upwork. So we know where the problem is. It's one of those three, or maybe even LinkedIn say apparently they've been added to the list. But here's the fix, kids. I did this in the early days, and you can do this again, and it's not as hard as everybody wants you to fucking believe it is. Lieven (45:58.501) So we know where the problem is. It's it's one of those three. Or maybe even LinkedIn say apparently they've they've been added to the list. But here's the fix, kids. I've I did this in the early days, and you can do this again, and it's not as hard as everybody wants you to fucking believe it is. You have to understand where the jobs originate, which is why open AI should start only working directly with corporate career sites and state workforce agencies, because those Maureen Clough (46:06.133) Two. Wow. Maureen Clough (46:14.999) Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:15.653) You have to understand where the jobs originate, which is why OpenAI should start only working directly with corporate career sites and state workforce agencies, because those c those are the companies or state workforce agencies get a lot of the small to medium businesses who actually post in for free, right? if hiring companies are building chat GPT apps, well then that that's like a verified plan plus. And I think Lieven (46:28.475) Those are the companies state workforce agencies get a lot of the small to meet mean businesses. We're actually posting for free, right? if hiring companies are building chat GPT apps, well then that that's like a verified plan plus. And I think we try to make this shit way too complex. and that's exactly what's happening with Chat GPT to some extent. I I I believe, I can't prove, I'd like to know. Try, would you let me know? Bendeed is paying a sh Chad Sowash (46:44.111) We try to make this shit way too complex. and that's exactly what's happening with Chat GPT to some extent. I I I believe, I can't prove, I'd like to know. Chaya, would you let me know if Indeed is paying a shit ton of cash to get their name on the button and if those other players are actually paying as well. But I think at the end of the day, when you jump into and you dig deep, there is nothing but scam. Maureen Clough (46:56.652) Ha ha ha. Lieven (47:12.517) There is nothing but scam, spam, candidate harvesting, and paywalls. And it's it and it's bullshit. Now there are some real jobs in there too. That's what makes this even worse. Because candidates click on real jobs and they're like, these are great jobs and then they get fucked over with some of these other ones. Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna see that. Yep. Chad Sowash (47:13.687) spam, candidate harvesting, and paywalls. And it's and it's bullshit. Now there are some real jobs in there too. That's what makes this even worse because candidates click on real jobs and they're like, these are great jobs. And then they get fucked over with some of these other ones. Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna Yep. Maureen Clough (47:26.957) Can you tell the difference? And people are so desperate for work right now. That breaks my heart. That really sucks. Yeah, I I think we need to I mean, how much of a push has there been for these job sites to vet the opportunities that come to them? I mean, is it like sort of the way Meta's like, dude, we can't be, you know, held liable for what's set on our platform. We're just the facilitators. Are they kind of in that vein? Where they're like, they put up. Okay. Man. Chad Sowash (47:51.623) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well we we will see, but I'm telling you right now, chat GBT. Maureen Clough (47:57.079) That's Lieven (47:57.155) see but I'm telling you right now chat GPT You're not gonna fall for the banana and the tailpipe and the tailpipe and Mo just invoked meta so we're gonna talk about them right when we come back Chad Sowash (48:03.057) We're not falling for the banana and tailpipe. And Mo just invoked Meta. So we're gonna talk about them right when we come back. Maureen Clough (48:10.23) yeah. My favorite company. Chad Sowash (48:13.741) Okay, kids. A BBC article says that quote, according to an internal memo sent on Tuesday, Meta is scaling back its plan to start tracking employees' computer activity. In April, the company received criticism from its own staff, imagine that, after it announced a new tool that would log their keystrokes and mouse clicks to train its own AI, also known as MCI. Maureen Clough (48:33.963) Hmm. Chad Sowash (48:43.651) Or model capability initiative. According to Reuters, new controls will allow employees to pause the data collection for get this up to 30 minutes at a time, as well as request exemptions from the initiative altogether. Meta declined to comment on the record. imagine that. In other news, Meta is launching America's Workforce Academy. Chad Sowash (48:47.691) According to Reuters, new controls will allow employees to pause the data collection for interest up to 30 minutes at a time, as well as request exemptions from the initiative altogether. Meta declined to comment on the record. In other news, Meta is launching America's Workforce Academy. Meta calls it a nationwide fast track training program for skilled trades powered by an initial one hundred and fifteen million dollars first year investment. Cost-free investment that supports all participants. They learn, they they get guaranteed jobs, they graduate. I don't know how the fuck that happened. Chad Sowash (49:11.419) Meta calls it a nationwide fast track training program for skilled trades powered by an initial $115 million first-year investment. Cost-free investment that supports all participants. They learn, they they get guaranteed jobs if they graduate. I don't know how in the fuck that happens. graduates earn the industry-recognized National Center for Construction, Education, and Research. Chad Sowash (49:34.561) The industry recognized National Center for Construction, Education and Research Credential and America's Workforce Certificate, both designed to travel with the worker across sectors and state voters. Meta's got a lot going on this week. What do you think, Mo? What do you think, Mo? Maureen Clough (49:56.814) Well, first of all, I mean, those thirty minutes, man, what are people gonna be doing besides applying for jobs outside of Meta? my gosh. Like what my thing is even if and they said in that article as well that meta employees are allowed to, you know, raise objections and say they want to opt out of the program entirely. But the problem is anyone who does that, obviously, you know you have a target on your back. You are next on that layoff list. They don't like people who rabble raise. They want everybody to fall in line and be good little minions. Chad Sowash (50:16.176) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (50:26.787) Right. so that's very inherently dangerous for any employee at Meta to do. but even if they were to do that, even if they were to object, which I'm sure I would, for example, then your training models are gonna happen without you because you're not the only person doing your job at the company. Anybody who hasn't objected is going to be training said models that they want to have the capability to replace you. They are literally having people train the data, the train the agents who will then Chad Sowash (50:27.975) Yeah, what it is. Maureen Clough (50:56.385) hopefully in Meta's point of view, replace the very people who trained the equipment to begin with, which is just horrific and so dystopian. But so I think you're in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation at Meta. And I just I I keep questioning, like, man, is it worth it? Like I know people need to eat and like have jobs and stuff and like probably have, you know, held their hung their hat on like, I work at Meta 'cause it's like such a big name. But with all that they're doing to destroy us and have already done to destroy us, like, ooh, I don't know if I could do it. But and with regard to the data center stuff, it's like, okay, all right. So you want us to get on board with you destroying the environment and putting, you know, you like under the guise of like adding jobs like you're the good guys. Like what? Chad Sowash (51:25.296) A year. Chad Sowash (51:41.477) You just made the leap from the workforce the wonderful workforce program to data centers, Mo. Maureen Clough (51:46.254) I know. Very strange. Very strange. They're like, there will be so many jobs. but yeah, no, it's it's also it's just it's all of it just blows my mind. Like, do they think we don't see this stuff? Like it's so transparent. And you know, if they do train these this like fake program they've created, like to look like they're some saviors for the American out of work populace, like What's gonna happen after those data centers are erected? Is there gonna be any sort of like economy to to like keep these people employed at that point? So, like, sure, they'll get the data centers up that that creates the AI that's gonna replace us, and then these people are gonna be with this cute little certificate, no debt, which is great, but then like will they have work? I d I don't know. I'm not sure. Chad Sowash (52:30.397) Yeah. I that's a that's a very that's a very good question. Levin, what do you what do you think? Hey no quick question for Levin because I here I I'm in Europe, I watch I watch the news, I watch Sky, I watch BBC, I w all the stuff, right? Chad (52:44.409) Lieven, what do you what do you think? That's a question for Lieven, because I hear I I'm in Europe. I watch I watch the news, I watch Sky, I watch BBC. I don't see anything about data centers here. I don't see any anything about people pushing back against data centers, which means I are they being built? you're saying a shit ton of that happening in the US. Are you are you seeing any of that? 'Cause I certainly not. I'm sure they're being built, but it's not a topic yet. I don't see anything about data centers here. I don't see anything about people pushing back against data centers, which means I are they being built? you're seeing a shit ton of that happening in the US. Are you seeing any of that? 'Cause I am not. Lieven (53:14.343) And it's a matter of time, I guess. But the whole MCI thing is happening here as well. I actually had a meeting yesterday with a company and they were asking me how to achieve what's Meta trying to do right now. To yeah, to replace a call center. People who work at a call center, how could we discreetly check what they're doing so we could teach the system how it works? Something like that. Maureen Clough (53:14.453) Interesting. Hmm. I wonder why it's taken flight here the way it has. Chad Sowash (53:21.361) Yeah. Chad Sowash (53:28.913) Really? Chad Sowash (53:36.829) Mm-hmm. Lieven (53:41.113) Anyways, you know, some episodes ago when I was on the show, we talked about first you had people being fired because AI was taking their job. And the next step was people being fired because a company wanted to invest in software which could replace them in the end. And now it's even worse. People aren't fired yet. They first have to train the model, which is going to make them redundant, and afterwards they'll be fired. So that's even worse if you ask me. Chad Sowash (54:03.729) Yes, Maureen Clough (54:07.573) It's awful. Lieven (54:08.759) But 30 minutes were kind of funny. So if you want to surf to happydance.com, you can 30 minutes a day. Something like that. Okay. Now the problem is not even that Meta is trying to automate stuff. Companies have always tried to automate repetitive tasks and automation has been around all the time. But now it's people becoming the data sets which is going to make them redundant. And it's just not it's not ethical if you ask me. Maureen Clough (54:13.821) Right. That's where we go. Chad Sowash (54:14.929) That's what I'm talking about. Yes. Maureen Clough (54:38.679) Mm mm. Lieven (54:39.055) But of course they'll go they're going to say something like, No, we're just going to teach a system to make to help you become more efficient. But in the end, people are going to lose their jobs. Maureen Clough (54:45.407) Exactly. Maureen Clough (54:49.218) Whew. Chad Sowash (54:49.943) So Mark Zuckerberg has to be one of the worst human beings alive. this computer tracking that feeds the AI beast, it doesn't surprise me. And if you're working for Meta, much like you were talking about Mo, I mean I don't feel bad for you because you knew it was a shit show when you joined, right? I mean, th this is not new. Lieven (54:59.158) that feeds the AI beast. It doesn't surprise me. And if you're working for Meta, much like you're talking about Ro and I don't feel bad for you because you knew the shit show would be job. I mean this is not new. Yeah, but back in the days, twenty, twenty five years ago, when did I start f using Facebook twenty years ago or something, it was something else. It was a different company. They're not around it. Maureen Clough (55:10.081) It's time. Maureen Clough (55:18.477) Two thousand and five ish, yeah. Chad Sowash (55:20.103) They they're not around anymore. Most of those people aren't around anymore. Lieven (55:22.681) No no no no no true. But then Facebook Facebook was kind of fun and I I I stopped the moment it became you know the echo the echo room, echo chamber, how do you call it? Where people were just yeah and then and the the the passive aggression and all the c the extreme rights etc I've I gave up. I don't use it anymore. Yeah, well I I do barely. I don't do as much as I used to. Maureen Clough (55:23.367) Cashed out. Chad Sowash (55:27.046) It was. Chad Sowash (55:31.365) Yeah. Yep, echo chamber, yep. Maureen Clough (55:34.239) Yeah. Well put. Maureen Clough (55:41.153) Rough. Chad Sowash (55:44.668) Yeah, no well, i I I do barely. I don't do as much as I used to. but let me get to let let me get to the skilled trades real quick. So America does need skilled trade workers, right? But will a hundred and fifteen million do the trick, or is it just meta trying to grease the skids for states that wanna they where they wanna build data centers, right? This feels like a little taste of quote unquote funding. Maureen Clough (55:44.82) Nor do I. Lieven (55:52.593) Right. Let me get to let me let me get to the skilled trades real quick. So America does need skilled trade workers, right? But will a hundred and fifteen million be the trick, or is it just meta trying to grease the skills for states that would've they where they would have built data centers, right? This feels like a little taste of quote unquote funding. And if data centers are approved then they'll spend more money in I mean this this it to to to thank you Chad Sowash (56:14.531) And if data centers are approved, then they'll spend more money and I mean this is th this it to to to thank you, Mo for telling me that I need to watch Silicon Valley. This sounds like a Gavin Belson move. it is Yes, saving the world is so so funny. And the only way that we can save the world today, kids, is Lieven (56:23.027) for for telling me that I need to watch Silicon Valley. This sounds like a Gavin Belson movie. Yes, saving the world. It's so so funny. And the only way that we can save the world today, kids, is through a dad joke. And I've got a tech dad joke today. Maureen Clough (56:28.349) Yes. my gosh. So saving the world, Galf Gavin Belsom. Yeah. my god. Saving the world. Making the world a better place. Chad Sowash (56:42.781) through a dad joke and I've got a tech dad joke today. it's it's not one of Joel's you know creepy uncle joke. It's a dad joke. so so here we go. There are only ten types of people in the world Maureen Clough (56:44.565) Ha ha ha Lieven (56:48.585) It's it's not one of Joel's you know creepy uncle joke. It's a bad joke. so so here we go. There are only ten types of people in the world those who understand binary and those who don't. Okay. For once I get the joke. Maureen Clough (56:52.459) I like that. Chad Sowash (57:01.649) Those who understand binary and those who don't. Chad Sowash (57:08.75) Ha ha ha ha. Maureen Clough (57:08.983) Okay. Okay. Ten kinds. See it. Wow. one. one's okay, I get it. It took me a minute. It took me a minute. It took me a minute. Well, I'm not I'm in business development partnerships marketing. Blah. Got it. Chad Sowash (57:15.165) but see, she's even in tech. She's even in tech. Lieven (57:16.977) See she's even in tech. She's even in tech. Lieven (57:24.049) I gotta say it's great having you guys together. The first time we've all been together ever. It was a great show. Had fun. And all I gotta say is one thing to say left is we out. We out. Chad Sowash (57:24.359) I gotta say it's great having you guys together. The first time we've all been together ever. It was a great show, had fun, and all I gotta say is one thing to say left is we out. Maureen Clough & Lieven (57:31.713) We Out

Marriott’s Two-Week Hiring Nightmare Cured in Three Days Chad and Joel drag Meghan Rhatigan, VP of Talent Acquisition Experience at Marriott International, into the interrogation room to find out how a global powerhouse hires 200,000 people a year without losing its mind. Post-pandemic, Marriott found itself caught flat-footed with a "fat funnel" and slow hiring managers who took two weeks just to schedule an interview. To save the business, Meghan snuck Paradox's automation tech past her terrified legal team by calling it "automated scheduling" instead of using the scary "AI" word. The result? Interview times plummeted from 14 days down to three, and hiring managers were officially kicked out of the scheduling loop so they could go back to serving hotel guests. 💥 Choice Cuts & Snark The 5-Million Candidate Bench The Bonvoy Hustle Dodging the AI Police The Workday Shade Marriott isn't tossing its $5 million tech stack out the window anytime soon, but they are finally treating high-volume recruiting like a real business. Go take a shower and wash off the guilt. PART 2 - 5 Million Candidates PART 3 - Recruiting Is A Business PART 4 - No AI Scores PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:24.3 Joel Cheeseman: All right, let's do this. You're watching the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman, joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house, and we are chatting with Meghan Rhatigan, VP of Talent Acquisition Experience. 0:00:37.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Yes. 0:00:38.3 Joel Cheeseman: Meghan, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. 0:00:41.4 Meghan Rhatigan: I know. I'm a little nervous and we're in the interrogation room, but I'm here for it. 0:00:45.3 Joel Cheeseman: We're here to make you feel at ease. So if we're not doing our job, please, please let us know. [chuckle] So a lot of people, uh, won't know you. A lot will know your employer, Marriott International, but give us sort of the elevator pitch on you and the organization. 0:01:00.9 Meghan Rhatigan: Absolutely. So I've been with Marriott for 14 years, always in HR, but doing different things. I started my career in talent acquisition, and then I did a stint leading our organizational change management team and came back into talent acquisition about two years ago when we were ready for some transformation in the TA space. And given my TA and change management background, I was kind of the person to bring back in to help lead some of that stuff. 0:01:29.2 Chad Sowash: So have you always been involved in technology with talent acquisition? 0:01:33.0 Meghan Rhatigan: Umm, in some way, shape, or form, yes. Like, umm, technology has been a key part of talent acquisition since I came into it. Now, that's not to say that I wasn't around during paper applications, 'cause I was, you know, despite how young I look. 0:01:47.3 Joel Cheeseman: No, stop it. 0:01:48.7 Meghan Rhatigan: I, ah, remember those good old days of faxing things. Yeah, I was there. But, umm, my first, uh, foray into talent acquisition tech was implementing, umm, Taleo, umm, at one of my companies. So, yeah, that was my, my first introduction to an ATS system. 0:02:06.5 Chad Sowash: And you're still alive, which is wonderful. 0:02:08.0 Joel Cheeseman: Still here, which is great. 0:02:09.9 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, to tell stories. 0:02:10.8 Joel Cheeseman: Uh, it's been a, interesting few years for your industry. Uh, COVID, obviously, was a punch in the face, uh, and Airbnb became an interesting competitor. How has that sort of changed your thinking in terms of recruiting and attracting talent? 0:02:27.4 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, I think I would say that COVID and the pandemic was probably the biggest driver of change for us. Uh, we were kind of minding our own business, enjoying, umm, all the candidates we could possibly ask for [laughter] prior to 2020. Like, we didn't really have to try 'cause people came to us and it was great. And we had, uh, you know, thousands and millions of candidates that we can choose from. And then all of a sudden, pandemic hit. Our industry was obviously pretty significantly impacted. We closed a lot of hotels for a period of time, but then we had to reopen those hotels and bring back people to work in them. Well, the problem is, like, we were going after the same people as everybody else was. So, uh, we had more jobs than there were people, but yet we had our same hiring process, our same technology from pre-pandemic, and honestly, we were caught a bit flat-footed. We couldn't hire fast enough to be able to get the talent into the door, and people were hiring faster. And at that time, speed was everything. Uh, quality wasn't, but speed was everything. And so we had to quickly adapt and look at our hiring processes and start to say, like, all right, like, what can we do differently to increase speed, conversion, like, all the things that we were not really having to worry about. 0:03:48.9 Chad Sowash: How did you, first and foremost, identify what the problems were? 'Cause it wasn't just one problem. It was a series, I'm sure. How did you identify the problems and then how did you, how did you figure out which problems to go after first? 0:04:00.4 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. Well, I think the biggest problem was that we couldn't hire. [chuckle] So, for us... 0:04:05.7 Chad Sowash: The, the biggest problem. 0:04:06.5 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, the biggest was like, okay, well, we can't hire, and the reason we can't hire is because we're not fast enough. So, what we did was we looked at our whole talent acquisition process, and we started with, what's the piece of the process that's taking up the most time? And for us, that was the interviewing piece. So, we have what we call our talent acquisition ruler, and it kind of breaks down every step and how long it's taking all of our candidates to get through every step. And this interview process was taking, like, upwards of two weeks in most cases for people to get through. And the reason for that is, is because we had our hiring managers responsible for scheduling their own interviews, for actually conducting the interviews... 0:04:45.1 Chad Sowash: And these are high volume, for the most part? 0:04:46.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Oh, yeah. Like, we hire about 200,000 associates globally every year. So, definitely high volume. But we had self-service to the point of which, like, putting a lot of it in the hands of hiring managers, and hiring managers, they aren't fast. Even though they're feeling it and they wanna hire someone, they're not, they're not all that motivated to work as fast as we need them to. So, in looking at our process, interview was taking up the most time, and so that's where we wanted to first concentrate in terms of, like, our first, uh, step into automation. 0:05:19.5 Chad Sowash: Gotcha. So, what did you do from a solution standpoint to be able to, to fix it? 'Cause that was the big problem, you need speed. How did you create speed? Did you inject tech? What tech was it? Et cetera. 0:05:31.2 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. So, the first thing that we did was we introduced Paradox. And I'll be honest to say that it wasn't an easy conversation to start, particularly in the compliance and legal realm, uh, because Marriott is not unlike a lot of companies, when you say the words AI, the immediate response is, "No." 0:05:49.4 Joel Cheeseman: No. 0:05:50.3 Meghan Rhatigan: No. [laughter] We're like, "Wait, wait, wait, no, we need this." They're like, "No." So, we had to kind of take a step back, and, umm, the, uh, the nice thing was that the interview scheduling piece, although that was the biggest pain point for us, nobody else really cared about it. And so, we knew it was AI, but the way that we kind of went about it and... 0:06:10.0 Chad Sowash: Packaged? 0:06:10.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, socialized it, we were like, "Well, we're going to introduce automation into our interview process." We didn't use the word AI, 'cause we knew that was a bad word. Umm, but we were like, "We need to do something different, so we're going to automate our interview scheduling. How does that sound?" "Great! Yay! Okay!" So, we actually started with a smaller pilot of about 200 properties, and then as we saw incremental success, we added more and more properties into it. But, umm, if we were to go out and say, "Hey, we're introducing AI, everyone," uh, that just wouldn't have flown with our industry. But we knew we needed to introduce some form of AI to make us faster. 0:06:48.8 Chad Sowash: What did success look like? 0:06:50.5 Meghan Rhatigan: So, our, honestly, immediately out of the gate, we went from double-digit interview time... So, I was saying, like, up to two weeks... Down to scheduling and completing interviews into three days. 0:07:02.9 Chad Sowash: Wow. 0:07:03.6 Meghan Rhatigan: So, it's, it was significant in terms of the reduction that we saw. Not only, though, did we introduce automation, but we also made some changes in our process where, as I mentioned before, we had our hiring managers pretty involved in deciding who to schedule, when to schedule, all of that. We actually took them out of the equation and started to centralize the scheduling of interviews through this automation platform and just had people show up for interviews. 0:07:30.9 Chad Sowash: Were they happy about that? 0:07:33.4 Meghan Rhatigan: I would say that it was, [chuckle] it was definitely a change management journey, hence why, you know, having my change management background and coming into doing this stuff was important. Umm, but now it's great. Like, they just interview, make decisions, and move on with their lives, which at the end of the day is actually better for them anyway. 0:07:50.1 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:07:50.7 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. 0:07:50.9 Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They say no to AI, and they also say no every time I try to check into a Ritz-Carlton. [laughter] I don't know what the deal is with that, but, uh, if you could change that up, I'd appreciate it. 0:08:02.0 Chad Sowash: You're on the blacklist. 0:08:02.8 Joel Cheeseman: Yeah, it's called... I've got a life ban, I think is what it's called. Uh, was, was a boomerang strategy ever implemented? Because you had, you had to lay people off or furlough them, and you have a massive database of people. Do you, at least if you didn't, do you now farm those folks, keep them warm, and what are you doing to, to make sure that if you ever need that, that, uh, you know, that bench, that you can, that you can tap into them? 0:08:27.1 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, so our second step, umm, was actually introducing a new CRM, umm, provided by Paradox, same people who do our automated interview scheduling. And the nice, we actually didn't have a CRM before, which is crazy. But again, we were living in la-la land of millions of candidates, I didn't have to try. And then all of a sudden we're like, "Oh wait, we need to try." So therefore we need a CRM to help us. So we introduced the CRM about six months ago, but we have the benefit of about, I don't know, five-plus million candidates that sit within our ATS system. Wow. So we plugged all those people into our CRM, and now we use our CRM for retargeting. So to your point, like if we've got someone that applied that didn't get the job, or maybe someone that worked for us before that has left, and we have a job that meets their profile in a specific area that they live, we reach out to them using text message and invite them to apply and come back to us. 0:09:24.7 Meghan Rhatigan: So we have seen quite a high number of rehires. Umm, but I will say that it wasn't immediate. Like, umm, I think a lot of people post-pandemic were a little bit scared to go back into hospitality or retail, umm, in industries that were pretty heavily hit, umm, because they were like, "I don't know if I want to do this again. Like, this is, this is scary." And so I would say it took a good year for us to start seeing people come back, but eventually we did, and luckily we had the, the tech to do some of the proactive reach out that we, we needed. 0:09:58.4 Chad Sowash: You've already paid for, I'm sure, hundreds of millions of dollars in, in getting candidates. So how has that helped you stop paying for, uh, external job boards and going first to your database? Five million, I mean, that obviously they expressed interest that they wanted to work for you. Has that helped? Have you seen the, uh, ability to actually take budget from that and respectively push other areas? 0:10:23.2 Meghan Rhatigan: So we love organic traffic. Like, that is, organic traffic, not only are they free, but they also convert at a much higher rate and they stay longer. So we obviously, like, want to target and go after our organic, organic traffic. So do we pay? Of course. Like, we have a programmatic strategy that we use when we need to, but for the most part, I would say about 60% of our overall traffic is organic, and that's really where we focus because of the fact that we convert those candidates at much higher rates. So we're going to be introducing in two weeks a new career site, and that is, like, part of the strategy behind that is further, like, get, umm, expanding our organic traffic, getting more people in. We also have the whole SEO game that we're playing like everybody else and how important that is. So, umm, there's a lot going on, as you know, in the SEO space, and if you're not paying attention to it, you should, uh, because it has a direct impact on, on organic traffic. 0:11:25.3 Joel Cheeseman: What has Google, uh, for Jobs, Google launching their own sort of search engine for employment opportunities, meant for the business? 0:11:31.7 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. I... 0:11:32.6 Joel Cheeseman: What percentage of traffic maybe do you get from Google for Jobs? 0:11:34.6 Meghan Rhatigan: So honestly, very small. Like, single-digit percentages today. Google isn't really a huge source of traffic for us. The most traffic comes from our career site, so straight, like, people who want to work for Marriott come through Marriott Careers. And then we also have traffic coming through Indeed. But those are our top two sources. Everything else below that, it's, it's marginal. Even, like, LinkedIn, don't really get a whole lot of traffic through them. I mean, it's small, we get a little bit, but not, not near as much as, uh, straight organic and Indeed. 0:12:10.3 Chad Sowash: You have tons of brands. You have brands that are in different languages. You have all those things. So how many career sites are you launching? What's the breadth of this thus far? And, going a little bit deeper, is this a great, uh, footprint strategy for Google? Because before, you guys, you said you're not really getting the, the juice from Google for Jobs. Is it the strategy to be able to send signals to Google that, hey, now we're ready, send it? 0:12:37.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Well, we, we've, we want to be at the top, but we want to continuously be at the top, and we don't want anyone coming in to, uh, be on top of us. Indeed. So, like, who? Smith? [laughter] 0:12:49.1 Joel Cheeseman: Subtle. I like that. 0:12:51.9 Meghan Rhatigan: So, yeah, part of what we want to do with our career site is we will have one career site, but then within that single site, we will have individual pages for each of our 34 brands. So we will have a St. Regis career site, a Ritz-Carlton career site, a Courtyard career site, a Marriott Hotels and Resorts career site, so that we have the individual brand flavor, but they all sit within the umbrella of one single career site. And, uh... 0:13:18.6 Joel Cheeseman: And you're, you're also launching a new hotel. Talk about that and how recruiting for that and how technology fits into that initiative. 0:13:25.8 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. So, I would say one of the, the, the most interesting parts of being in talent acquisition is working directly with our brands and understanding what their individual talent profile is, and then how does that translate into, like, how do we source for talent? Or where do we want to go out and get those talents? So, like, for example, in the luxury space, we've got Ritz-Carlton, and so they are looking for people with luxury experience. So, uh, we have a new brand, as you mentioned, they're called City Express. That particular brand is for the traveler that wants to go in and get out. They're very [chuckle] much, like, centered around airports, free breakfast, but, like, get what you need quickly. So that particular brand is great for people who are having maybe their first job within the hospitality industry and just learning the basics of guest service and things like that. So we really have a brand for everyone and brands for all experience levels and different talent profiles and all that. So it's, you know, it's fun to be able to recruit for different things and different people with different backgrounds, for sure. 0:14:29.3 Chad Sowash: So when we talk about AI or not AI, or we don't talk about AI to our people... 0:14:33.5 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. 0:14:35.0 Chad Sowash: Uh, what excites you most about the technology that you want to roll out, and you wanna see develop, those types of things? 0:14:41.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. I think for us, so one of the things that, uh, I, umm, would say doesn't make us unique, but that we focus on is we love AI because it makes us faster and we're able, able to convert quicker and all of those things. But we're still at the end of the day a hospitality company. So we will never take the human out of our recruiting process. There's always going to be a human involved in some way, shape, or form. So whether it's at, uh, during the interview process or maybe even a phone screen, whatever it is. So we're not willing to sacrifice the human interactions. But if there maybe manual tasks or administrative tasks that take up a lot of time, umm, by our recruiting teams, those are the things that we want to automate so that they have more time to spend with the candidates and our hiring managers have more time to spend with the candidates. 0:15:32.1 Meghan Rhatigan: So we're not going to be one of these companies that says, "Oh, we're going to automate from A to Z and get people hired in 30 seconds and have them start tomorrow." That's great, but we're a hospitality company. We want to know that people come in smiling, have great attitude. Umm, so human connection, human part of our process is important, and, umm, automating where we can to speed us up is really where we're focused. So for me, anything that makes our recruiters' jobs easier, our hiring manager, managers' jobs easier, takes away manual process steps, that's where... 0:16:03.5 Joel Cheeseman: So from, from an employment brand perspective, and I wanna dig into the whole Ritz versus Express. Yeah. I think there's a sense that, well, if we automate, the... The automation for this is the same automation for that, and maybe the audience for the Ritz is much different than some of the other hotels. Do you think... How do you think about in terms of how deep does automation go versus when they talk to the human being? Because I assume that the Ritz applicant doesn't want to deal with a chatbot as much as a City Express. Or am I off base there? How do you think about that question? 0:16:35.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. So it's interesting that you mentioned that because, umm, honestly, like, that was one of the things that we had thought about initially, like, "I don't know, like, can we roll out a one-size-fits-all when it comes to interview scheduling across all of our brands?" Uh, but honestly, we actually haven't seen a huge differentiation in what people expect in something like interview scheduling when it relates to a luxury candidate versus someone who's maybe entry-level. At the end of the day, those candidates want something that's easy and quick and something that comes to them. Umm, and really, like, where we can differentiate is perhaps, like, in the language that we use to initially reach out to them to schedule an interview. So the tone that we would use for a luxury candidate may be more elevated versus someone that's coming in for their first job, well, we may, like, tone it down a little bit. So it's how we communicate maybe different, but the way in which we execute is the same, because at the end of the day, people want to, like, move as quickly as they can through a hiring process because they want a job. Like, it doesn't matter what brand you're being hired for. 0:17:41.8 Joel Cheeseman: Did that surprise you that they... That it didn't... 0:17:43.8 Meghan Rhatigan: Umm, yeah, actually, it did. Like, it, it did, but then when we started to see the feedback... So in addition to introducing interview scheduling, the other thing that we did was introduce, uh, like, a feedback loop. So after someone interviews with us, we go back to them within 30 minutes, send them a text and say, "Hey, how was your interview experience?" And it's, like, thumbs up, thumbs down. And despite, you know, whether they give us a thumbs up or thumbs down, we then give them an opportunity to give us open-form feedback. So for us, like, we saw a 93% satisfaction rate across all of our brands, and it didn't matter if it was luxury or otherwise in terms of their satisfaction with the interview. And somebody may say, "Oh, like, oh, isn't that kind of biased?" I'm like, "Yeah, but it... We've also seen people be pretty honest when they're not satisfied." So, like, I, you know, I feel like I have a lot of confidence in that, in that data point. 0:18:37.4 Chad Sowash: Yeah. So we've seen talent acquisition get comfortable. 0:18:41.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Yep. 0:18:42.3 Chad Sowash: And they buy tech, they set it and forget it, they walk away, and the next thing you know, it's not right because the market fluctuates. And if we don't have tech to fluctuate with the market, but we have to control the tech. So the question is, what is, what is Marriott doing to ensure that you stay up with the changing landscape with your technology? 0:19:03.0 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. So one of the unique things that we did that I didn't mention post-pandemic was, uh, we actually changed our recruiting model a bit. So we had a 15-year RPO relationship that handled all of our high-volume hiring in the US and Canada. We actually insourced that. So not only did we introduce new technology post-pandemic, but we also insourced, umm, all of our hiring. But what we didn't do necessarily was change the way that that charge model, if you will, worked with the properties. So, uh, we have an internal team doing the hiring that we think quicker, better, and, uh, more efficiently with the use of technology, but we still, like, go on a little bit of a pay-to-play basis. So what that allows me to do is have money to be able to play with to create efficiency and invest in tech to enable us to scale faster. So, umm, I think that was one of the things that I have the luxury of doing. We're not overhead. A lot of TA orgs are overhead. 0:20:11.1 Meghan Rhatigan: We are not that, we're pay-to-play. I have, you know, money to invest in areas that make me more efficient, and that's a bit of a luxury, but it's also a very, uh, I guess, uh, intentional strategy. Umm, so for me, I'm always looking at, at what's out there, what's gonna make me quicker, because when you're dealing with, I, I carry, let's say, like three to four thousand recs at one time, like, every click matters, every minute matters. And I equate clicks into labor cost, and so I'm always calculating dollars and cents, dollars and cents, and, uh, I can easily, uh, translate that into ROI for tech. 0:20:55.2 Chad Sowash: When we take a look at being able to look at it as a business, which is, I, I've always said that, you know, staffing treats recruiting as a business where TA treats it as a job. 0:21:04.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Yep. 0:21:04.7 Chad Sowash: Right. So you're looking at it as a business. Yes. So when you take a look at it, are you constantly looking at, uh, the savings and, and let's say, for instance, what kind of, how much more recruitment are you getting out of this database of candidates that you've already bought, you've already paid for, uh, percentage-wise versus what it used to be? 0:21:23.8 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. Uh, so to be honest, in the, in the used-to-be factor, we didn't necessarily pay attention. Uh, because of the fact that... 0:21:33.5 Chad Sowash: Surprising? [chuckle] 0:21:35.2 Meghan Rhatigan: No. No. Uh, like, we, again, like, we were living in the, in the, in the glory days of having as many candidates as we want, so we didn't necessarily need to look at, like, you know, source of applicant, what's gonna convert into better quality candidates, and what percent... Yeah, who cares? We're just hiring people, right? Uh, so when that whole thing changed, like, that's when we started to care 'cause we were like, "Oh, wait, like, we actually need to be intentional about where we're spending our money for candidates and how does that relate to quality and then conversion down, down in the funnel." And, like, we don't wanna fat funnel. No, we want a skinny funnel that we're, like, [chuckle] looking at quality. Like, all those things that are somewhat, like, table stakes. But there are a lot of companies out there that don't know what their data is and don't care. Uh, but for us, because we're running a business, it matters. Like, I'm not gonna go out and spend a bunch of programmatic spend when I'm not seeing the conversion. But if I don't know that, like, there's a bunch of companies throwing away a lot of money and not knowing what's happening. 0:22:40.8 Chad Sowash: Every day. 0:22:40.9 Joel Cheeseman: So, speaking of a lot of other companies, uh, a lot of other companies would be envious of the marketing budget that your organization has. Yep. Talk about how the relationship is with marketing, how you've taken technology and sort of scaled, uh, marketing, obviously video, social media, all those come into play. How do you guys look at marketing and bringing that into recruitment? 0:23:01.2 Meghan Rhatigan: So, I mentioned how important organic traffic is to us, and so organic traffic is driven by marketing, right? And driven by our employment brand. So, I, uh, myself and our employment brand leader, Shonda Zilich, have a very tight relationship. So, we just launched a new employment brand last year called Be, and that has been really, really important because it's all about, like, life at Marriott and, like, being you at Marriott, be curious, be courageous, all of these things. But along with that, we also launched, umm, uh, blogs, like hundreds of different blogs that are called Life at Marriott. So, it's, it's, uh, they're interviews with associates that are in different jobs at different brands all over our, our company, and we proactively put those out there. So, it's almost like a little bit of a realistic job preview but more, like, in a blog form. 0:23:57.4 Meghan Rhatigan: So, those actually get sent out through our CRM campaigns, they get sent out, like, in our new career site when you're, when you're on there, you're gonna see a blog pop up and you're gonna start to interact with that blog. And our hope is, like, that's gonna be marketing that wants you to, that you're like, "Oh, you know what? I connect with that person. I want to work at Marriott. Let me come on in." umm, so a lot of what we do is about, like, life at Marriott and what's it like to work here and then pushing those out. Umm, but on, we actually put a lot of stuff out through our, like, like, organic social channels, but we don't pay for a lot of social media. We don't see conversion there, so we don't spend a lot of money, but it's still important for us to use our, our own organic. 0:24:38.2 Joel Cheeseman: So will you see the, your, your chatbot on these blog posts as well? So, yeah, sort of indirectly funneling traffic into the job, the job posts? 0:24:48.1 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. 0:24:48.8 Chad Sowash: Always a connection, always a strategy. So when it comes to marketing, you're a consumer company. You touch a lot of consumers who are trying to get a job at Marriott or one of the properties. Uh, does, does marketing understand the impact, negative... Positive or negative, that you and the team could have on the brand? 0:25:09.3 Meghan Rhatigan: So, interestingly enough, so one of the big goals for Marriott as a consumer brand this year is to enroll as many people as we can into our Marriott Bonvoy loyalty, uh, program. And our consumer brand actually came to us within talent acquisition and said, "Hey, like, can we somehow plug the ability for people to enroll in Bonvoy into our, like, recruiting process?" We're like, "Yeah, actually, I think we can do that." So just last week, Shonda shared a stat. We've enrolled 5,000 people into Marriott Bonvoy through our career channels. So, like, it's a lot of... To your point, a lot of times it's like... And we do, like, we work really closely with our Marriott Bonvoy team, but they came to us to help to get more enrollments and we've helped them, uh, which is a little bit of an interesting twist and something you don't typically see, but it's been, uh, obviously pretty successful in the 5,000 enrollments that we've seen. 0:26:07.3 Joel Cheeseman: So, tactically, how did that work? Did you just sort of blast email? Do I apply and then get invited? How'd that work? 0:26:14.2 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. It's actually a, uh, very subtle, umm, uh, at the end of our application process, it says, "Would you like to enroll in Marriott Bonvoy?" And they can check it and say... 0:26:24.7 Joel Cheeseman: It has to say, "To improve your chances of an interview." [laughter] 0:26:27.2 Meghan Rhatigan: Nope, none of that. No, we can't... We can't do that. 0:26:29.9 Joel Cheeseman: No, that'd be a little... A little clickbaity, a little sus. 0:26:32.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Yes, just a little. Like, "Enroll in our talent community and sign up for Marriott Bonvoy." 0:26:36.6 Chad Sowash: So do you see a convergence? Because tech... It feels like tech is bringing all the departments together quicker. Yeah. Umm, because... So do you see a convergence with technology in being able to really meld all the different, not just marketing, but sales and all the different operation aspects of Marriott? Do you think tech is doing that, or you just think it's the landscape in itself? 0:26:59.4 Meghan Rhatigan: I mean, I think it's a little bit of... A little bit of both, honestly. Like, so for us, like, do we have a bit of a bubble that we live in within the talent acquisition space? But there's indirect benefits. So, like, for example, by us taking off of our hiring managers' plates the need to go in, review resumes, and schedule their own interviews, we're essentially, like, freeing them up to spend more time with our guests, spend more time on the operations. So for us, like, yeah, it's, it's an indirect benefit, but at the same time, like, we are... I'll say it again... A hospitality company. And so our hiring managers need to be on the floor spending time with guests, not reviewing interviews... Or reviewing resumes. So, like, for us, like, that's what we're looking at is, like, how can we create efficiency for them to be able to do what matters most and spend time with the guests? Umm, and I think for us, that's... It's our operational hat that we always wear. And of course, like, tangentially, like, of course we've got, like, impacts on the tech side, and our finance partners are always looking at what we're doing, umm, how much money are we spending and all that. But operations really is the name of the game and something we focus a lot on. 0:28:10.6 Joel Cheeseman: Let's talk about automation. We're seeing more hotels go to kiosk systems where I don't have to talk to somebody. We're even seeing robotics on the housekeeping side or, "Hey, if you don't want housekeeping..." Umm, how does Marriott view automation and replacing workers with tools that aren't human beings? 0:28:30.6 Meghan Rhatigan: So again, I would say that I think we have a very similar view, uh, as a company overall as I have, umm, personally within my recruiting space is that... And that's like, we're not gonna take the human out of things, and we're really gonna look at ways that automation can make us more efficient, umm, in the background or make it easier for guests to, let's say, like, order breakfast for room service in the morning or request housekeeping or get more towels or whatever the situation is. But I don't really ever seein', uh, see us in a situation where we're taking the people completely out of our hotels and we have a bunch of robots running around. Like, that's just never gonna work. Because then, again, I talk... Talked about that brand talent piece earlier and how important it is to hire people that, you know, are a fit for the brand and also a fit for our guests. Like, what's the point if we start to take people out? Like, it, it's just not... It's not aligned with our... 0:29:27.8 Joel Cheeseman: But people are expensive, Meghan. People are expensive. 0:29:29.1 Meghan Rhatigan: Yes, they are. But... And, and we get that, which is why we're looking for automation. But we're not gonna take 'em out of what they do best, which is, you know, interact and serve the guest. 0:29:38.5 Chad Sowash: And you are a hospitality company. 0:29:40.7 Meghan Rhatigan: We are. Say it again. [laughter] 0:29:42.7 Joel Cheeseman: Let's make sure you pronounce it Marriott. 0:29:45.3 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, exactly. 0:29:46.5 Joel Cheeseman: Marriott. What new technology excites you? What are you looking to maybe add in the next... 0:29:50.5 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah, so, umm, it's interesting because I'm gonna actually start with, like, a space that I think there's a lot of interest in, but we're, like... We're just not going there to start, and then I'll talk about what we, what we are interested in. So, umm, we have a lot of candidates, right, coming into our funnel, and there's a lot of talk and hype around, like, umm, stack ranking, stack ranking, and how do you get the, the quality candidates to the top? We want that, but we don't necessarily want anyone to make those decisions for us and have any sort of score associated, uh, with that. So for me, I, like... I'm not, I'm not gonna touch anything that is, like, you know, Jimmy's better than Sally because this AI bot told me so. 0:30:38.8 Meghan Rhatigan: But what I would like to see is, like, I want people to be put in a bucket of, like, qualified because of certain questions that they answered or perhaps, like, things that they have in their resume. But I don't want anything scoring it. Uh, so for me, what I'm most interested in is, like, stacking but not ranking, uh, to a point where my recruiters can focus on quality candidates, umm, versus, like, a big fat funnel and they don't know where to start. So for me, on the tech side, that's, like... I'm talking to a few companies, try to understand how they can, uh, stack, uh, for me in a way that's not ranking and I don't get in trouble by the AI police or anyone else. 0:31:22.2 Chad Sowash: And NYC or CCPA or whatever acronyms out there. 0:31:25.1 Meghan Rhatigan: Right. 0:31:26.1 Joel Cheeseman: Funny side note, Fat Funnel, Skinny Funnel was the original name of this podcast. [laughter] 0:31:30.4 Meghan Rhatigan: Oh, really? Really? Interesting. Yeah, I wouldn't have... You know. 0:31:35.0 Joel Cheeseman: Buckets of candidates, binders full of women. So much, so much to talk about. 0:31:39.9 Chad Sowash: So, we're... We're here at this event. You've got a bunch of your peers running around. They're obviously fashion forward, much like you. 0:31:45.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. 0:31:46.2 Chad Sowash: And they're looking... They're looking for AI, not AI, but just something that helps, that provides solutions. What are the top three that you've seen thus far? Not just yourself, but with... From your peers, the top three things that they're looking to try to solve for. 0:32:00.6 Meghan Rhatigan: Yep. Umm, so I think it's interesting because there's a lot of companies out there that are in different steps, depths of maturity. Not to bring, like, Josh Bersin into this, but the... The... The reality of the model is true in that, like, there are some people that are, like, super gung-ho about tech and have got a pretty thick tech stack. And then there are others that are, like, "We have Workday." And like, we're trying to figure out, like, what else is out there. 0:32:29.2 Chad Sowash: Like, in between, kind of. 0:32:30.7 Meghan Rhatigan: Right, exactly. So, I think for me here, there's a lot of people that are just dipping their toe outside of Workday and trying to understand, like, what's this... What is this automation thing, and what can it do for me, and how do I even sell it to my business? 'Cause that's a whole 'nother, umm, discussion. And then there are companies like us that I would say that we've got, you know, we've got the big ATS, and then we've got some things on top of it, but there's more that we can do to further automate. Umm, and I think you kind of... I'm seeing a little bit of in-between. Umm, but at the end of the day, everyone's here for the same reason, and that is to, like, what... What technology can make me faster, make my teams more efficient, and hire the best quality candidates? Like, we're all here, I think, looking for the same things. 0:33:17.5 Chad Sowash: So, in that being said, do you think everybody pretty much has the same spirit of, "We will implode our entire stack and/or process to be able to get this business running and rolling"? 0:33:28.4 Meghan Rhatigan: Umm, implode, I think, is a strong word because, umm, like Marriott, a lot of companies made a big, heavy investment in this big HCM. So the idea of imploding that is, uh, probably not something that our CFOs wanna hear, umm, and starting over. But it's more about, like, how do we complement? Umm, and... 0:33:51.9 Chad Sowash: You can tell she's in change management. [laughter] 0:33:53.2 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, "Oh, we wanna implode a $5 million investment that we just, you know, implemented two years ago." 0:34:00.5 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:34:01.1 Meghan Rhatigan: "Sound good?" umm, that's not gonna happen. So I think, like, it's about, like, how do we take what we have, know what it does well, and then add on to it? 0:34:10.0 Chad Sowash: Gotcha. 0:34:10.7 Meghan Rhatigan: Yeah. 0:34:11.5 Joel Cheeseman: That is Meghan Rhatigan, uh, VP of Talent Acquisition Experience. Meghan, where can I learn more about Marriott? 0:34:18.4 Meghan Rhatigan: Oh, umm, so careers.Marriott.com. And we're launching a new career site in two weeks, October 22nd. I don't know when this is gonna be put out, but we're super excited about that. Uh, but if you go to Google and put "Marriott careers," we're gonna be at the top of the list. So, there you go. 0:34:33.9 Joel Cheeseman: Very good. And put in a good word for me at the Ritz, apparently. That is another one in the can. 0:34:40.0 Chad Sowash: We're out. [music] 0:34:41.8 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 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.

95% Automated. 0% Robotic. 100% Savage. Most corporate ATS platforms are built for comfy, professional-level roles. But what happens when you need to hire 110,000 people a year without your store managers losing their minds? You call Rachel Allen, Senior Director of TA at 7-Eleven, and you automate 95% of the damn process. In this episode, Chad and Joel grill Rachel on how she dragged convenience-store hiring out of the dark ages, cutting time-to-hire from 10 excruciating days to less than three. The Hot Takes: Rita the Chatbot: 7-Eleven's AI assistant is so eerily good, store managers literally asked to meet her in person. (Spoiler: She doesn't exist.) The "Tactical Pause": Why Rachel stopped a major tech rollout right before summer because forcing software on stressed-out managers is a great way to start a corporate mutiny. Free Recruitment Marketing: How the TA team shamelessly piggybacked on consumer marketing shipments to send out hiring posters for free. The Accidental Fix: Turns out, when you stop letting candidates fall into a black hole, you magically stumble into better quality talent and higher retention. Who knew? "Stop chasing the shiny new thing. Figure out your strategy first, then find the tech that actually fixes your mess." — Rachel Allen, 7-Eleven (paraphrased, but she meant it) Stop ghosting your candidates—they're probably buying your coffee right now. Grab a Big Gulp and learn how to actually deploy AI without destroying the human touch. Listen and enjoy! PART 2 - The Human Brand Strategy PART 3 - Hiring at 2am PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:26.4 Joel Cheesman: All right, let's do this. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman, joined as always by Chad Sowash. And today we are talking to Rachel Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at 7-Eleven. Rachel, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. 0:00:44.0 Rachel Allen: Thank you for having me. 0:00:44.9 Joel Cheesman: No pressure. 0:00:45.1 Rachel Allen: No pressure at all. Happy to be here. 0:00:46.9 Joel Cheesman: Nervous laughter. 0:00:47.5 Rachel Allen: Yeah. It's gonna be great. 0:00:49.1 Chad Sowash: I, I appreciate the color pop first and foremost, 'cause we're fairly... Fairly drab. But for those of our listeners or viewers who don't know you... 0:00:58.5 Rachel Allen: Mm-hmm. 0:00:59.0 Chad Sowash: They know a 7-Eleven, come on. Tell them a little bit about you, a little bit about you, what you do, and at 7-Eleven. 0:01:05.0 Rachel Allen: Sure. So I'm actually a boomerang. This is my second time back. So I was here the first time 2010 to 2015, and I'm nearing my three-year anniversary this second time at the end of this month, actually. So total combined, eight years. Um, I lead talent acquisition there right now, and that is holistically for... And this is for 7-Eleven, Inc., which is US and Canada. And I call that out, right, 'cause we're a big, massive global brand. Um, but I am... I work for 7-Eleven, Inc., which is US and Canada. And we, we support all of the recruitment. So we have recruiters and teams that support all of our field ops recruitment, as well as what we call Store Support Center recruitment. And then we have a team, um, dedicated to TA operations. Um, and in that TA operations team is where we have a COE that supports our stores. So we support as a COE to the store-level recruitment. 0:01:55.9 Joel Cheesman: Give us some context on that, 'cause 7-Eleven feels like a massive organization. How many people are employed? How many job postings? How many hires a year? Like, give us some numbers on the breadth of... 0:02:08.9 Rachel Allen: Well, again, this is gonna be US and Canada. Um, but like a hundred... Over 110, maybe like 112,000 hires a year. And keep in mind, that's only our corporate stores. Um, that's not including anything that happens at the franchise stores. We're, we've got about 13,000 locations between US and Canada. About a 45/55% mix, um, franchise and corporate. Um, over 70,000 employees within the US and Canada. I think that's... 0:02:37.9 Chad Sowash: Huge, huge... 0:02:38.5 Rachel Allen: Yeah. High volume. And when you say high volume... 0:02:41.7 Joel Cheesman: High volume. 0:02:42.8 Chad Sowash: That is high volume. Well, that being said, so I understand that you, 7-Eleven, has moved into more of the automation on the side, uh, for recruiting. When did you do it and why did you do it? What were you trying to solve for? 0:02:56.5 Rachel Allen: Yeah, no, really great question. Um, so we have automated over 90% of our process, over 95% of our process at the store level. So we were really trying to solve for, um, that high-volume space. And quite honestly, historically, high volume didn't get the love in the recruitment space. All the technology that you've seen, all of the ATSs are geared towards those professional-level recruitment. 0:03:20.3 Chad Sowash: Which is crazy, right? 0:03:21.1 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:03:21.2 Chad Sowash: Because most of what you do is high volume. 0:03:23.2 Rachel Allen: Correct. The majority of the hires are at the high-volume space, but it just wasn't getting the love. We made a business decision to change from having recruiters actually support, um, our store leaders finding their store associates. And this came after an acquisition of Speedway. So, um, we have a family of brands, and you're familiar with 7-Eleven, and then there's Speedway. We also have Stripes, and with Stripes came Laredo Taco, and then we also have something called Raise the Roost. But after the acquisition with Speedway, um, we actually first went towards adding more recruiters out into the field to support our store leaders in finding their talent. But then a business decision was made that, you know, we really want to hold them accountable. We want our store leaders to maximize their labor optimization and to own that. 0:04:11.3 Rachel Allen: And so the decision was made to actually eliminate that role. So that role was taken away. And, and that was before any technology was in place, right? So a business decision was made, um, and totally agree with that decision of, you know, having our store leaders really own their talent. But then it also fell into my shop. So at the time when those recruiters were out there, it was decentralized, uh, manner in that they were, you know, in the field where they needed to be and reported into HR where they needed to be. Now all recruitment was centralized into my shop and, "Hey, you're gonna have oversight now even at the store level." 0:04:48.7 Rachel Allen: So I knew immediately, okay, the only way that I can help make them successful around doing this is empowering them with the right tools and technology. So then that... That's what we were trying to solve is, okay, we've, we've made this business decision to switch from having these recruiters out into the field to having our store leaders really own this. What do we do? How do we do that? And then that's when we went on the journey to find the right partner for us. 0:05:10.8 Joel Cheesman: Talk about the impact of speed. 0:05:12.4 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:05:13.1 Joel Cheesman: My guess as an outsider is you have an applicant applying to a lot of different competitors. Speed seems like it would be essential. When... How did that come into the equation in, in deciding to go to a more automated process? 0:05:25.4 Rachel Allen: That was number one challenge that we were trying to face, especially during the height of the war on talent. Like I mentioned, we couldn't get to our people fast enough. That was one of the main things that we wanted to solve through this. And we did find, we found that our candidates were applying to like 12 different places when they were applying for us. And by the time someone was getting to them, they'd taken the offer down the street. We'd lost out. Um, and so we knew we needed to get to them faster or we weren't ever gonna win this war on talent. And by automating the front end of that process and creating a conversational application process, we were able to go from over 10 days to hire to less than five immediately. 0:06:05.0 Rachel Allen: So a greater than 50% immediate reduction and we're now less than three, um, or around the average of three days for time to hire, which was a huge impact. Um, and what we didn't realize we were doing by solving for time is we also solved for quality. Because the ones that you wanted to get to first and best were... Yeah. 0:06:25.6 Joel Cheesman: Yeah. 0:06:26.0 Rachel Allen: Taken. Yeah. And so by being able to get to them first, we were getting the, the better talent that we wanted. And that was not something we realized we were, we were gonna be able to get as well. 0:06:33.9 Chad Sowash: So well you get from three days to three hours? 0:06:36.4 Rachel Allen: I mean, in some cases we do. Yeah. That can happen. It's just not on average. Yeah. 0:06:40.2 Chad Sowash: What's slowing you down and what you want to do next to get to that next level? 0:06:43.6 Rachel Allen: Yeah, no, um, it's a continuous improvement for sure. And we continue to see the speed getting even faster and the friction is not there to slow it down. It's quite honestly a decision-making process at that point. Um, and the candidate's availability. If they're ready, you know, ready to be there, it's their availability of when they can do the interview. Because we do still do in-person interviews. So we've automated everything up into that interview, um, and use this personal assistant, uh, or AI assistant, um, to do that piece of it. But then they go to the store for their actual interview. So that's in person. So it's gonna depend on the candidate's availability. If they're available that same day, we can make that happen. But if they're not, you know, we have to wait on them and then a decision needs to be made and in some cases they can start that same day. We can. It's just, you know, availability for our candidates and the store schedules. 0:07:35.2 Joel Cheesman: So speed first and foremost... 0:07:37.2 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:07:37.5 Joel Cheesman: But I'm guessing if you're getting better candidates, the candidate experience is better because they're more amenable to that. Retention, I'm guessing, is that better because you're getting better candidates. I mean, this is just a domino effect of quality. And it just started with make it faster. 0:07:53.1 Rachel Allen: Yeah. No, you're so right. Um, it was, yeah, the, the main challenge at first was how do we speed this up? And then we've seen this trickle-down effect of all these other great things that come with it. A lot of people are scared that AI is gonna take over, you know, humans in the process. Um, and they're also scared of that experience it can create for candidates. And we've found the opposite for us. By employing this, we were able to repurpose our resources. So while I say we eliminated that role, we repurposed them and doubled the size of some of our other teams, right? So, um, we didn't just totally eliminate humans, but we put them, we re, re... We put them where they could actually impact the moments that matter. 0:08:34.7 Joel Cheesman: So talk about that internal, I don't want to say strife, but you have people afraid that you're going to replace us, my job is going away, no, you're being re... What was that like internally? How did you sell it? Like, it's going to be okay, we're going to figure this out. 0:08:47.8 Chad Sowash: Messaging had to be big. 0:08:48.6 Rachel Allen: No, messaging, messaging is huge, right? Change management is the, the most undervalued aspect of any implementation in anything that you do. And so we had to have continuous conversations. And it's not, "This is taking away your job," um, but it is making it look different. And where you can actually focus your time is more valuable. It's less about, "Oh, it's going to take my job away," and more about learning agility and how can we grow you into the roles that, where you can make the bigger difference. 0:09:16.6 Rachel Allen: And then also to our store leaders who are scared, you know, where, "Ah, I'm going to go from having this human that comes and talks to me every day to, um, this virtual assistant." Um, but it was like, yeah, but what can... What can you accomplish if you just had an assistant, right? Like, think about it as a recruiting assistant versus AI. Um, and that made a huge difference. So our positioning and how we talked about it, so much so that our store leaders think that our assistant is real. Her name is Rita. They've actually asked us to meet Rita in person. [laughter] Um, so I think just how you position that really does make a difference. 0:09:52.0 Chad Sowash: So process-wise, and we've seen stories where some, uh, franchises, not 7-Eleven, but some other franchises, they, they didn't quite roll it out as well, and managers would have individuals show up for interviews and they didn't even know it because they weren't using their calendar. 0:10:08.3 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:10:08.7 Chad Sowash: So what did you have to do? Because again, this is change management, right? How did you roll this out to ensure that man... Your managers, everybody knew, "This is the process, this is how you're going to get your, your roles filled"? How did you go through that education process? Because that's hard too. 0:10:24.8 Rachel Allen: It is. And we had a massive hypercare strategy around it. We did a lot of communication upfront, um, and positioned around, "Help is coming," right? That type of a thing. We hosted open hours. 0:10:37.8 Chad Sowash: I love that. Help is coming. 0:10:38.8 Rachel Allen: Help is coming. [laughter] You've been asking for help, we're bringing it. Um, we had open hours, uh, office hours, and we had 'em, like, twice a week for multiple weeks, and they were just open there and our team was ready and available, so anyone could jump on and ask any of the questions that they had. We actually did take what we called a tactical pause even. Um, and I think sometimes there's these arbitrary deadlines that everybody has to plow forward on, and you, sometimes you need to adjust to what the business is needing and you need to listen to what the business is telling you. 0:11:11.7 Rachel Allen: And for us, we have something called the 100 Days of Summer. That's, that's our holiday season, and that's the summer. And we really try to limit what happens. And it turns out, um, we were trying to push to have this implemented by the end of May, um, in, in theory, so they'd have it in time to help with the 100 Days of Summer. But by that point, they were... They... It was too late, I guess, a little bit. And then you're asking them to deal with one more thing in the hardest time of their year. So we actually stopped and ended up not implementing until, um, October. 0:11:44.9 Rachel Allen: Um, so that was one of the challenges that we faced, but we found that that actually... Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. And that's what we did in that case. We made sure everyone was on the same page and ready to go. There was a lot of communication. We were listening to the business. We took the tactical pause when they were saying, you know, "Mercy, we need some help." Um, and then we had the hypercare for months. We created a, a large hotline team, actually, and, uh, any... So for... And the hotline team still exists. It's smaller than it was when we first went live with the hypercare, but it still exists, and it's a direct line to our team for all things recruitment at the stores. 0:12:22.1 Joel Cheesman: Wow. 0:12:22.4 Rachel Allen: So it was a... It was a strong, um, change management hypercare strategy, and it made a big difference. It really did. 0:12:30.4 Chad Sowash: So you had a safety net, really. 0:12:31.9 Rachel Allen: We did. 0:12:32.3 Chad Sowash: You had a human safety net that was there and gives everybody, you know, that, that kind of like, "Okay..." 0:12:36.8 Rachel Allen: Don't worry. 0:12:37.3 Chad Sowash: "Uh, we'll be taken care of." 0:12:38.2 Joel Cheesman: Hypernet, not to be confused with ludicrous speed. Time is money. 0:12:43.8 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:12:44.1 Joel Cheesman: Right? You're saving time. What did that do in terms of your marketing budget for job postings, where you were spending money that maybe you didn't have to as much? What's the dollars and cents... 0:12:55.1 Chad Sowash: Look at that smile. 0:12:55.7 Joel Cheesman: Behind the... Yeah. She is smiling. Behind, behind that decision, talk about the dollars saved. 0:13:00.0 Rachel Allen: Yeah, no, that's a, uh, really good point. And that's something that we, I don't think, really wrapped our brains around how great of a savings we were going to have in that aspect, because we had to do, um, a one-size-fits-all solution when it came to recruitment marketing, and we did it nationwide across US and Canada. And by, by implementing the technology that we did, we have visibility to what's actually happening at our stores. Because before that, it was an evergreen type of a situation. It was just always on. Candidates were falling into the black hole, they never heard from anyone. And then when a store did need someone, they would go into this evergreen that's always been there. 0:13:37.1 Rachel Allen: The only way they could attract new talent was to unpost, repost, unpost, repost. We were having to deploy this wide net of recruitment marketing nationwide and spent a lot of dollars there. With the visibility that we have now through the technology, we can see which stores actually have something turned on, like they're actually asking candidates to come into the process. Majority have them turned off right now, um, which is interesting, but we never had visibility to that before. And so then we can see where exactly, to a store level, where there's struggle, and we can dedicate dollars where it matters and make sense. So we've been so much more efficient and effective with the dollars we have within our recruitment marketing spend, and we've, we've saved a lot. 0:14:17.8 Chad Sowash: I can only imagine how big your resume database, or at least your profile database is. 0:14:23.0 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:14:23.2 Chad Sowash: Um, is that the first source you guys are going to right out of the gate? So something opens up, you already know people who are interested. They might not be available, but they, they were interested before. Are you hitting that? 'Cause you've already paid for those individuals. Are you hitting them first? 0:14:37.8 Rachel Allen: So our store leaders are... We provide training and education on those types of things, and that is absolutely one of the tools that we tell them to, to dive into, right? You've already, you know, the, the candidates that have already applied, um, historically are obviously interested. And so, uh, those are folks that you want to go after. But in addition to that, those that apply new and maybe the store leader goes with someone else before they get into the process, we've got it set up to where campaigns automatically happen to redirect them to another location. 0:15:07.1 Joel Cheesman: Uh, wonderful. 0:15:08.1 Rachel Allen: So engaging that talent and engaging our candidates better than we ever have before. Yeah. 0:15:12.3 Chad Sowash: Big applause. Big applause. That is an amazing, that is an amazing experience for any candidate, not to mention they're customers, too. 0:15:19.7 Rachel Allen: Yeah. Oh, that's huge for us. 0:15:20.6 Chad Sowash: Right? 0:15:21.9 Rachel Allen: We have to remember... 0:15:22.6 Chad Sowash: Talk about that. 0:15:23.2 Rachel Allen: Oh, yeah. All of our candidates are our customers. And before, when we weren't able to provide that customized experience, you know, there's the concern that we're losing maybe one of our customers. And that's, um, that's something that we also are very aware of. And we want to make sure we're providing them the right experience. They're not falling into that black hole. They feel like their voices are heard. Um, they're engaging with us. And so then that keeps them coming back as our customers, which is our number one priority. We pride ourselves on being customer obsessed. And so our customer in the recruitment process is our candidate. Right. And so we've gotta make sure they're having a good experience. 0:15:56.4 Joel Cheesman: So tactically, how are you connecting in the store? Is it QR code? Is it text this to this? Like, what's most effective and, and how do you engage at the store? 0:16:05.3 Rachel Allen: We do both. So there are QR codes that can be, um, we send materials to the stores that they can use and place in different places, and there are QR codes. Um, there is also, you can text something to a certain number and then, and then it is, it is texting with the candidate as far as the communication from there. 0:16:23.4 Chad Sowash: So how close do you actually work with marketing, knowing that they, they touch, uh, you touch, yeah, you, you touch, you touch not just candidates, but customers on a daily basis. Talk to us about that, uh, helpful symbiosis. 0:16:38.0 Rachel Allen: It's like you've gone on this journey with us. I don't, like... 0:16:40.5 Joel Cheesman: We're in your head. 0:16:40.7 Rachel Allen: This is a little crazy, I'm not gonna lie. Um, yeah, we, the relationship that we've built with our marketing team has been huge over the past couple years as a result of this. And you're right, it is intertwined, right? So they're, they're in charge of the consumer brand, we're in charge of the employer brand, and we've gotta make sure that we're, we're on the same page as far as, um, you know, colors and fonts and all that kind of stuff, right? So you have to stay really close to marketing. Um, but we piggyback off them. We take rides on stuff that they already have going on. So we have, um, sign kits that are sent, uh, to stores on... Through different periods. You have a certain number of periods a year, and it's for whatever deals are going on for the consumer brand type stuff, buy two, get one, those types of things. We've hitched a ride. So now for free, we send some of our marketing materials for recruitment purposes to the stores by hitching a ride with our marketing partners. Um, which is really cool, so saved dollars there too. 0:17:36.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:17:36.3 Rachel Allen: Um, and then we're also in lockstep. They know what we're doing, we know what they're doing. Um, we use a lot of what they're using in the consumer brand and use it now on our career site, um, and different things like that. But we are locked at the hip with our marketing folks now. 0:17:51.8 Joel Cheesman: Any growing pains that you felt through this, any, uh, landmines that you stepped on that maybe, uh, you want to let people know about? 0:17:58.7 Rachel Allen: That's always a good one. Um, I think the main thing again was just the, the, the arbitrary deadlines that we put on ourselves and not remembering, um, what you're doing and what you're solving for. Again, we're customer obsessed and therefore our focus is the candidate. So as long as you're keeping your candidate as your North Star, and then in our case, we had to make sure our customers were also kept as our North Star, you can't lose sight of that. And often that gets lost, right? You, you know, you start getting into the process and you have these certain deadlines and you lose connection with why you're doing this in the first place. 0:18:32.9 Rachel Allen: So just every now and then stop, pause, rise up, and reground yourself as to why you're actually doing this, and then maybe adjust potentially to, something's changed since six months ago when you first started on the journey. Go ahead and adjust versus just plowing forward. I think that was something that really helped us out, is that we kind of stopped and paused and surveyed the land again and regrounded us before just plowing forward. 0:18:57.5 Chad Sowash: So surveying, is Rita doing any employee surveys, any pulse surveys, or are you going down funnel, to be, to be able to see how, I mean, again, you've got this technology there, you know who, who Rita is. Um, can, can you use her for other things? 0:19:13.1 Rachel Allen: Yeah. So we can ask her, um, you know, how things are going, and that is one way to get feedback. We do also have another, um, partnership with Survale, um, that lives on our career site and is always on and asking for feedback around their experience through the career site. And then for the professional level hiring, we do send a survey out at a couple places, um, one being after interviews, uh, we do seek that feedback. And then we also send one to our hiring managers at the end of the process to ask them how the experience went. So we do have surveys in, in a few places. 0:19:48.4 Chad Sowash: We've been talking a lot about high volume. What about those other positions? Have we, have we done some different things with that? 0:19:53.0 Rachel Allen: We're moving in that direction, right? So high volume hadn't been getting the love. We finally got some love there. We've got a really great setup. And so now we're thinking, okay, so how do we, how do we do more, right? Um, we are about to be able to use it, um, the same technology for scheduling at the store support center recruitment and our field recruitment level. And then we're, we're asking for more. We keep... I'm gonna, I'll be transparent in my vision here and what I'm hoping to get at some point is I wanna give my recruiters their own assistant. 0:20:24.7 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. 0:20:24.8 Rachel Allen: So we gave store leaders their assistant... 0:20:26.5 Chad Sowash: Yes. 0:20:26.8 Rachel Allen: I want my recruiters to have an assistant. And so much so of, like, how can we tap into the profiles we have of the great talent already, use those profiles to do proactive sourcing and building automatic campaigns to generate these pipelines that we can just automatically fish into, so. 0:20:42.6 Chad Sowash: You already have great business cases and how you've implemented this to be able to move upstream, I think, is amazing. 0:20:50.0 Rachel Allen: That's our hope. Yeah. 0:20:50.9 Joel Cheesman: Diversity and inclusion. 0:20:51.8 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:20:52.7 Joel Cheesman: What has greater efficiency, greater speed, greater technology done to widen the net for who you're, uh, getting in front of from an employment perspective? 0:21:01.6 Rachel Allen: Yeah. So at our store level, um, we, we hire who's in our community, right? And so that's always been a big piece is that community engagement and involvement and freeing up the energy of our store leaders by automating some of the administrative stuff so they can be more present in their communities and making sure that they're attracting some of, um, that diverse talent into, into the funnel. So that's been really great. But what's really cool about technology is you can recruit from anywhere, anytime, right? 0:21:30.3 Rachel Allen: And so, I mean, we're always open. We're 24/7, but we weren't recruiting 24/7 before. And there's a lot of folks that we need to be brought into the process that can't apply until 2:00 AM, and they're immediately having a conversation now. And so I think that's increased our diversity as well because we're able to reach everybody now, um, regardless of the type of schedule they have or where they are. Um, and I think that's been a huge, uh, impact from technology. The wider net, being able to reach our candidates where they are, when they need it, has been really helpful. 0:22:00.4 Chad Sowash: We don't talk enough about how the actual TA team feels. How do they feel now that they have this technology and that you've started to use things? And is it, is it made them happier? Are they, are they happier to come into work every day? Is it... That, that to me, we talk a lot about candidate experience. What about the, the experience of talent acquisition? 0:22:22.9 Rachel Allen: Yeah. That's why we want to move it into, um, moving it upstream, like I said. So we don't have any recruiters out at the high-volume level. We have a COE that supports them, um, from a technology perspective, education, best tricks and tips, and that type of stuff. So the COE supports at the store level. Um, but our recruiters have seen what it's done and they're kind of like, "Hey, you know, we want something too," which is why... 0:22:48.7 Chad Sowash: What about us? 0:22:48.8 Rachel Allen: Yeah, which is why we want to, uh, improve what they have access to. 0:22:53.2 Chad Sowash: Gotcha. 0:22:53.7 Rachel Allen: So they're ready for it, they're hungry for it. We've created that pull, which is really great because within talent acquisition, we try to push a lot of stuff and the adoption is really low. There's a lot of technologies out there. When you look at your numbers, no one's using it. And it's like, "Why isn't anyone using it?" So I think by being able to show really huge success at this high-volume level, you create some of that pull so that hopefully once we start, you know, throwing some stuff out there, we'll actually see some adoption. The feedback's been positive, um, for those who's interacted or seen what it can do. 0:23:25.6 Chad Sowash: Tell them help is coming. 0:23:26.8 Rachel Allen: Help is, help is coming. Exactly. 0:23:28.2 Joel Cheesman: Call me crazy, Rachel, but it sounds like you've bought in. It sounds like you're in. 0:23:32.4 Rachel Allen: You're crazy. 0:23:33.0 Joel Cheesman: You're all in. What's next? It, you sound a little bit like a junkie. Well, like, what, what are the next hits that you're going after? I mean, referrals, onboard, like, what are the things that are, that, what's coming? 0:23:44.3 Rachel Allen: So we are adding referrals. Um, that's, that's coming up shortly, within the next couple of months. We're also adding assessments at the front end of the process. So we solved for that time, which had the byproduct of quality. Now we wanna ramp up quality even more, and we're helping to do that through the assessments. We're also in that era, um, labor market-wise, where, you know, a couple years ago we needed to remove all friction. We're in an era where maybe a little bit of friction could help, right? With the volume and, and providing the information for candidates to opt out if it's not the best fit so that we can increase retention overall. 0:24:18.4 Rachel Allen: So we've got, um, the referral piece coming in, we've got the assessment piece coming in. On the professional recruitment side, we're about to turn on the automation of, of, um, scheduling of interviews, which is going to be really great. And then again, I'm hoping to at some point be able to provide that assistant to our recruiters that can help them with the sourcing and the pipelining and the recruitment marketing aspect of stuff. 0:24:39.3 Chad Sowash: For all your peers that are out there that are really scared about the, the prospective risk. What would, what would you, what would you say to them? 0:24:46.5 Rachel Allen: Yeah. I, I mean, I think you do need to evaluate the risk, um, and what it means for your organization, 'cause each company is different. So you need to understand the appetite that your organization has, first of all. You need to make sure that you have the right stakeholders, um, on the journey with you, that you're building the right business cases, that you don't lose sight of why you're doing it. What is the problem you're solving for, first and foremost? Build the business case around that, and then find the technology that enables the strategy that you're building. 0:25:14.5 Rachel Allen: Where we, where we mess up sometimes is we lead with the technology, the shiny new thing, versus what are we solving for? What is our strategy? And then go find the technology that can help with it. So I think... And you know, to help with that fear of the unknown, 'cause that's what it is. We, we're scared of what we don't know, and we don't know what we don't know, and that's what's scary. But there's enough people that have started going down this journey, so do your research. Go out and talk to the people who have already done it. Make sure, um, you understand what the objectives are of your company and what you're solving for, and then how you can add value from a talent acquisition perspective through some of the new technologies that are out there. 0:25:53.2 Rachel Allen: Um, so I think getting comfortable with the research that's available, having conversations with people that have already done this can help mitigate that fear factor a little bit. Um, and then you have to have a massive change management plan. Everybody always stops at signing the agreements and forgets that that's, like, you've just started. So don't stop at signing the agreement. You haven't won the battle yet. You make sure you've got that really strong change management in place and, and some of that hypercare. 0:26:20.0 Chad Sowash: It's not set it and forget it. 0:26:20.7 Rachel Allen: Yeah, correct. And then it, yeah, very true. Like, you, you don't just get to implement and be done. There's always that continuous improvement process that happens after with it, too. 0:26:30.0 Joel Cheesman: All right, Rachel, I'm gonna close this one with a hardball. You ready? Okay. You're on a road trip. You need some personal refueling. You hit a 7-Eleven. 0:26:38.3 Rachel Allen: Yeah. 0:26:38.5 Joel Cheesman: What's your go-to? 0:26:39.4 Rachel Allen: My go-to? I'm going... I'm getting a big diet... A diet Dr Pepper. Actually, I'm getting a Big Gulp. My kids, Slurpee. Slurpee all the way. 0:26:47.5 Chad Sowash: Joel, Slurpee all the way. [laughter] 0:26:50.5 Rachel Allen: I'm a Big Gulp girl, for sure. 0:26:52.1 Joel Cheesman: All right. Thanks for joining us. That was Rachel Allen, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition with 7-Eleven. Thanks for hanging out. 0:26:59.0 Rachel Allen: Thanks for having me. [music] 0:27:01.6 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 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.

Birthdays, Bed-Wetting Boards, and the AI Apocalypse It’s a birthday extravaganza on HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, but instead of cake, Chad and Joel are serving up cold hard truths and a side of existential dread. Chad is broadcasting live from a bar in Portugal with his new best friend/bar owner Alex, while Joel is mentally preparing for a month-long Italian vacation where he intends to demand "Italian beef" from deeply confused local chefs. Once the hangover talk subsides, the boys dive into the absolute dumpster fire that is the current AI landscape: Workday Gets a Win (Sort of): Workday beat revenue estimates, but... Indeed's Automated Trainwreck: Indeed has rolled out an AI "Apply for Me" feature that uses automated workflows and magic scoring systems to spam employers with machine-generated applications. The Global Meltdown: From Stepstone trying to pinky-swear they comply with the EU AI Act to Pope Leo dropping south-side Chicago shade on automated weapons and mass labor displacement, everyone is panicking. Meanwhile, major tech firms are realizing AI compute tokens are actually more expensive than just paying human beings to do the work. To wrap things up, Chad celebrates the tragic demise of Schlitz beer ("rest in lack of quality") and Joel questions his marriage after his wife buys him PBR Light. Oh, and there's a terribly inappropriate dad joke. We out! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:31.043) yeah. We're not internationally known, but we're known to rock a microphone. What's up, boys and girls? It's the Chat and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Unconditional Surrender" Cheesman. Chad Sowash (00:38.318) And this is Chad, "It Takes Two" Sowash. Joel Cheesman (00:47.223) And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, Workday gets a win, indeed gives an assist, and Pope Leo drops some shade on AI, Chicago style. Let's do this. Chad Sowash (01:03.406) So can you hear my background at all? Can you hear it? Thank you. Well, early happy birthday to you and happy anniversary. All clustered, all clustered. Joel Cheesman (01:03.701) Happy birthday, man. Happy birthday. Joel Cheesman (01:11.191) Thank you. Thank you. So little little known fact about the Chad and Cheese show. born on the same year, a day apart, Chad is the twenty-seventh, I'm the twenty eighth. So by the time you hear this show, we will both have celebrated a birthday, my anniversary, celebrating number 10 this year. I'm on his birthday. That was not planned. We didn't say let's get married on Chad's birthday. It just sorta it just sort of happened. Although Chad, I think, keeps telling himself that that's exactly why. Chad Sowash (01:21.826) Mm. Chad Sowash (01:35.254) That's exactly what he did. He wanted take all the air out of the balloon, the Chad Chad's balloon, yes. Joel Cheesman (01:40.459) Steal my thunder. Steal Your your anniversary's summertime too, right? Or early fall. I I I forget. Chad Sowash (01:48.334) no, mine's yeah. Ours is September. the if you remember the Earth wind and fire song, September, the twenty first day of September, yes, we were we met on the twenty-first day of September. and we were married on the twenty-first day of September. Joel Cheesman (01:52.386) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:57.291) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Who could forget that? Joel Cheesman (02:08.865) And is this year the tenth? Chad Sowash (02:11.842) God, that's a good question. I should ask Julie. If I asked Julie she wouldn't know. yeah, this has this has gotta be ten. This has gotta be ten. Twenty sixteen, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:18.111) It feels like it is. yeah. We can edit that out on the show if you know, if you're Chad Sowash (02:24.918) No, you don't have to worry. She I can guarantee you right now, if I asked her, she'd be like, carry the one. I don't know. Joel Cheesman (02:29.185) Yeah. Kid was how old when we got married. They're how old now. so birthday, I assume you're getting a Trump phone for your birthday. The the deposit is finally finally paid off, right? All oven stripes. Yeah, no longer made in America, but made with American values in mind. Chad Sowash (02:35.512) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (02:42.082) Yeah since it comes out on my birthday. Yeah. All eleven stripes on the flag. Yeah, that's fucking awesome. That's great. Just like Trump hats. I I love it. I love it. Joel Cheesman (02:57.727) so good. Now what are you doing? You're obviously drinking in a bar, so I assume it's just gonna carry on from from here. Chad Sowash (03:03.788) Yeah, we're gonna wait till the weekend. plus I think we're gonna have we'll talk about this during travel, but you know, June free Joel. and thinking about thinking about, you know, August free Chad because all the Europeans take Aug August off. So I don't think I'll be able to do it, but I might try. Joel Cheesman (03:16.951) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (03:22.593) Yeah, we we introduced the idea a year or so ago, and I think I answered immediately when I was gonna take take my month, which cor corresponded with my wife's business travel, which is in Italy, which I've never been. So if you have any it Italian tips, either Chad or anyone out there, feel free to hit me up. we're doing Rome, Venice, Milan, and some other city that's a little bit more random. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:25.678) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:34.631) yes. Chad Sowash (03:43.746) nice. Yeah, get to Venice before it's underwater, that's all I gotta say. Joel Cheesman (03:50.113) Yeah, so I'm I'm pretty excited. So you you've been out for two weeks, invading England, I assume. You've you've been playing William the Conqueror this this month. Chad Sowash (03:58.254) Yeah. time time in England, good time. Stayed up by Regents Park. had an event there, job boards connect. then came back and had some friends come down from London for for that week. And it was nothing but beer, beach, and paddle. So I thought, just take a couple of weeks and come back right be refreshed before Joel leaves us for for for June. Joel Cheesman (04:05.059) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:21.28) Okay. Any conference insights you wanna share? Any revelations come out of Chad Sowash (04:27.368) yeah. I so it's it's basically the same. when you are at the enterprise level, let's say you're you're at the top of the food chain, you know, in any type of industry, you don't believe anybody who's telling you that you need to change, right? No, I'm fine, no the market's fine, everything's good, it's fine, you know. You might as well be in the fucking corner in the field fetal position. Joel Cheesman (04:46.079) Mm-hmm. Yep. Chad Sowash (04:55.33) But then you go over to the startups, the ones who want to disrupt things. And they're like, yes, we need to change what's going on. I mean, they they're like, they they they want to just eat everything you have to say. They they want to know. They they they want to win. You know what I mean? While you've got these, you know, the old crotchety motherfuckers up there saying everything's fine, nothing's yeah, no. It's it is two different worlds. But it doesn't matter what conference you go to, if you split those two worlds up. Joel Cheesman (05:16.544) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:23.65) That's exactly what you're gonna see every single time. And it's frustrating and hilarious at the same time. Joel Cheesman (05:26.903) Mm-hmm. The puppies and the old dogs are a common story in our in our industry. Well that's that's exciting. Well, shall we get to shout outs? Chad Sowash (05:31.46) Yeah. Chad Sowash (05:37.528) yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna Joel Cheesman (05:40.941) I'll let you go first since you've not been here a couple of weeks. Give you the and it's your birthday. Chad Sowash (05:43.478) Okay, okay. I tell you what, let's do this real quick. I'm gonna bring Alex in. Come here, Alex. Gotta Alex can can see there he is. Alex Alex is my this this my this my best buddy. it's definitely it's it's it's Ola. You can do that. Or Bon Dia, but it's afternoon, so it's gotta be Bolotard. You're right. Those cervezas right away. Don't worry. We'll we'll deliver them when Joel Cheesman (05:51.137) Set set the table for who Alex is. Hey Alex. What is it? Hola. What's what's Portuguese hello? Hola, okay. Hola, Bonbio Dos Dos Beer Dos Cerveza, Porfavor All right, so who who's Alex? Alex, who are you? Chad Sowash (06:15.082) Alex, well, he runs this place. He he this is his place. Everybody calls this bar Alex's Bar. It's not the name of it, but they call it Alex's Bar. And it's his birthday today, too. So he's we're we're we're not the same age. I don't know if you can tell. If you're watching on video, you can obviously tell. I wouldn't be able to, but yes, his thank you very much. Happy birthday. Joel Cheesman (06:17.825) Runs the bar that Chad records in. Joel Cheesman (06:27.35) Okay. Joel Cheesman (06:38.423) Well happy birthday, Alex. You know, Chad, we we have a we have a new sponsor, Alex. So I don't know if there's a a combo there. We can like Chad Sowash (06:46.566) Alex.com. Well I I'll be glad to sponsor you whenever you come back here to Portugal to meet us up. There's the invite. Joel Cheesman (06:50.579) Okay. If if multiple Alexes want to give us money, I'm totally down for that. I I assume Chad Sowash (06:56.814) Well, I don't know that many, but I can sure contact them to sponsor you with a glass of Guinness or something like that. Joel Cheesman (07:01.439) So all right, so Alex give it give us an ad. Let like if when you're in Portugal, come to Al like what's your what's your ad if you're advertising on the show? Chad Sowash (07:10.402) my heads? no, I don't I don't have any head. Like this is literally the place to be right now. it's nice, it's sunny, it's very safe and everybody seems to have a blast when they come down here. And I think shed is the proof of it. Joel Cheesman (07:23.265) And I trust you have more than just Guinness, even though Chad only drinks Guinness from the show. What other kind of beers do you have? Okay. Chad Sowash (07:27.63) He's got a new Carlsburg tap right right here. New Carlsburg tap. what else do you have on tap? Strongbow Strongbow Sagris and like five different beers. yeah. Five on tap. But the ones that you're gonna love, Joel, he's got some of the best Belgian beers in the bottle, cold and ready. yeah. Well plus, yeah. Yeah. Tremis and all the stuff. All right, get out of here. I will, you got one. Don't worry about it. I do. Joel Cheesman (07:40.387) Uh-huh. Hmm. Yep. Duval, I assume, is on. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for thanks for hosting half of our show, Alex. Happy birthday to you. Getting all the Anglo beers from Portugal. I love it. Yep. Chad Sowash (07:57.07) Nice to meet you, Joel. Take care. Thanks, Jen. Happy birthday. Thank you. Love that, kid. Love that, kid. L love that. Love that kid. yeah, okay, so shout out. You've you've got a shout out. I wanna go ahead and I'm going to shout out to the final toast. And if you would go ahead and play that video, Joel. Joel Cheesman (08:19.029) Hmm. Sure. Let's go. Let's go. Chad Sowash (08:34.222) 177 years. Slits, you weren't the beer we deserved, but you were exactly the beer we could afford. you were the official sponsor of Questionable Decisions, backyard barbecues, where meat got burnt and garage bands practices that never resulted in a gig. You didn't pretend to be fancy. You didn't have notes of citrus or or hoppy finish. you tasted like beer, strong, unapologetic. Joel Cheesman (08:37.995) Let's Joel Cheesman (08:49.697) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (08:59.716) Mm-hmm. No. Chad Sowash (09:04.671) In budget friendly beer. so here's to you, old friend. You made Milwaukee famous, you made our weekends affordable, and you made our Mondays incredibly difficult. Rest in lack of quality. we'll miss you, you beautiful bitter bastard. Joel Cheesman (09:06.231) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (09:22.785) Yes. And I'm shocked that you didn't mention the Schlitz Schitz, which was a common thing after dr yeah. The schlitz shits was a common, common staple in college. By the way, I don't know. My wife has lost her mind. I don't know if it's perimenopause or what. She literally bought me PBR Light. I don't know if that's a message like I want to get divorced before the our tenth anniversary or what, but like Chad Sowash (09:26.958) That was Mondays. That's what we're talking about Mondays. Made Mondays bad. Ugh so bad. So bad. Joel Cheesman (09:50.952) PBR light, what is going on with that? yeah. Chad Sowash (09:50.968) Hmm. PBR light. Either that or I mean, I don't know. Maybe she did she know it was light? It could have been just like she saw the PBR and or she's signaling to you that you need to go on a diet? I don't know. I don't know. Joel Cheesman (09:58.849) I the the can's very different. We're gonna have to have a hard conversation, Chad. A very, very hard conversation. I don't I don't know what to do here, bro. All right. So my shout out, let's just let's just round this out with a full white trash shout out session. Indy five hundred. Indy five hundred talked about it last week, but it it did not disappoint 350,000 people, the closest race in history. This is 110 running runnings that they've done of this race. Chad Sowash (10:14.467) Yes. Chad Sowash (10:18.136) Kid Rock? What? Okay. Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:26.254) Hell of a finish. dude. Chad Sowash (10:32.048) yeah. Awesome. Joel Cheesman (10:35.203) the winning time was just point two three three seconds ahead. there were seventy lead changes in this race. lots of wrecks. Joe Joseph Newgarden wrecked his second year in a row. He's probably my favorite driver, but it was a it was a great event. but more than that, it was it was a lot of people getting together. There was no violence, everyone got along. there wasn't a lot of I'm on my phone time. It was a lot of like watching the race and being into it and and interacting. So I'm always a fan for the live events, get people off their phones, get people engaged with other human beings. So my shout out really easy this week goes out to the ND500 and it's it's winner, Felix Rosenquist, by the way. Felix Rosenquist. Chad Sowash (11:11.462) yeah. Chad Sowash (11:17.55) Yeah. I wonder. Yeah, I did. I in enjoyed I watched the the highlights, went been to the been to the race many times. the big question for for me though, I haven't been since they've done this whole hybrid kind of like electric slash, you know, petrol. is are are they quieter? Is the is the noise different? I always love the the the roar of the engines, but it is loud as hell. Is it different? Joel Cheesman (11:28.407) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (11:47.179) It is loud as hell. These are not electric vehicles by any means. and the the the also you probably didn't weren't there when the wiener the wiener mobiles raced each other. There's like ten ten wiener mobiles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This the snake pit, obviously, something you've probably experienced. That was fun this year. No, no, no. No, we do not. We do not. You gotta pay for the wieners. Chad Sowash (11:48.544) It's still okay. Chad Sowash (11:54.894) I was unfortunately. Unfortunately, I was not. I was not. Well, I I I know you love a free wiener, but we don't give those away here at the Chad and Cheese podcast. We don't give those away. But but we do but we do give away stuff at Chad and Cheese. So we've got we got Steven here to tell us about. Joel Cheesman (12:20.419) Steven, what's up, dude? Chad Sowash (12:42.946) Thank God. Chad Sowash (12:59.084) Yeah. Chad Sowash (13:06.068) It's not slits. Better not be. Joel Cheesman (13:09.643) It might be PBR light this year though. My this month. Joel Cheesman (13:34.37) Love it. Joel Cheesman (13:37.869) His his daughter's hair is the the color of fire. He is so screwed. man. So cute. So cute. So cute. I hope she comes to an event soon. Hope she comes to an event. Chad Sowash (13:42.218) it's awesome. Yeah. Remy. Remy, she is adorable. She's adorable. another thing that's not many, we don't have any events, but we have travel. And travel, as you know, is sponsored by Get Ready Kids, because we're again we've got a Joel Free June brought to you by our good friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel, question is: did Joe Shaker load you up with a couple of suitcases of Joel Cheesman (14:07.491) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (14:11.134) Italian beef so you don't have to eat all that all naturally grown Italian food in Europe. Joel Cheesman (14:17.485) I I suspect I won't see any Italian beefs in Italy. That's kind of an irony, isn't it? That's it's it's kind of a disappointment. I'll I might go walk into every restaurant and say, Where are the Italian beefs? God damn it. All right, I'll do I'll deal with the pasta and the linguini or whatever. Chad Sowash (14:21.484) I know. I know. huh. Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:31.01) Just walk in with the we have the meats. I mean if you're on the if you're on the coast, man, obviously amazing seafood. I know your your wife's not a big fan of the seafood. Are you allowed to eat it in front of her though? Or is she just like that squeamish about it? Joel Cheesman (14:42.733) Wife doesn't like seafood, yeah. Entire category. I'm so lucky. Hmm. Depends on the smell. Sh like shellfish tend to have a little rough smell for her. Fish, pretty good. Fish are fine. Fried fish, like fish and chips, no problem. But yeah, if it's like a nice scampy or lobster tail, she kind of has problems with that. So I that's pretty rare. Chad Sowash (14:53.826) Okay. Chad Sowash (14:58.498) Okay. Chad Sowash (15:07.47) Okay. Well gonna have to Christine, allow a little shell allow Joel to be selfish with some shellfish, okay? 'Cause he's gonna need some. He's in he's in Italy. Come on. Joel Cheesman (15:13.355) Little little leverage. Joel Cheesman (15:20.419) I do like that. I do like that. So yeah, June I'll be gone. and then also J first week of July, we were we'll be in Wreckfest. so I think we're gonna have a little little guest show that first week of July. So if if you if you love the show without me on it, you are in for a treat. It's gonna be s the summer of the anti cheat tea team cheese listeners out there. But for this episode anyway, I am still here and let's get to some topics. Chad Sowash (15:34.318) shit, yeah. Chad Sowash (15:38.36) Okay. Chad Sowash (15:49.847) Everybody loves you. Joel Cheesman (15:58.635) It was a holiday weekend, but we ain't frayed of no holiday weekend. We still got some news, everybody. Workday reported strong earnings, beating analyst estimates and posting revenue of $2.54 billion, driven by a 14% year over year increase in subscription revenue. and hello. Surging demand for its AI products, which I'm sure we'll get to in the commentary. You don't like workday news? Okay. The economist reported Google has effectively dethroned open AI in the consumer asset. Chad Sowash (16:04.11) Yeah sure. Chad Sowash (16:11.561) Hello. Chad Sowash (16:27.19) Mm. Joel Cheesman (16:28.627) and enterprise AI race. you want a side of industry news with that? Well, Top Tall announced the acquisition of a Diva, a global IT talent network. Workday, Google and Top Tall, all in the news this week, Chad, your take. Chad Sowash (16:45.484) Yeah, so the workday bump, you know, I've said it before, and I will say it again, workday is fine, kids. It's the stock market that's fucked up. If a if a company is beating revenue numbers, but doesn't say AI enough in the quarterly fucking meetings, investors basically just stay sweat the bed. companies like ServiceNow, Salesforce, and Workday, I mean, even NVIDIA, for God's sakes, they're gonna be fine. I mean, it's when NVIDIA doesn't hit their like, you know. 200,000 trillion number. It's like, what the fuck? They hit it and they still go down. Anyway, anyway, companies like ServiceNow, Salesforce, work that they're gonna be fine, mainly because they are already into AI. They have AI. It's already there. But more importantly, they have contextual data specific to their users and their users client base. In the platform already. They have the data. The data is the gold, kids. I don't I don't get what these guys are wetting the bed for. Transformation doesn't happen overnight, but these companies are moving pretty fucking fast. And as for the whole boomerang CEO thing where they brought their co-founder back, workday bringing the the the co-founder back, yeah. That's a go to move for any board that's wetting the bed. it's called a weak ass board, that's all it is. It's all good at work day. Service now. You see these companies, it's it's fine. It's fine. You wanna you wanna you wanna talk about that a little bit? Joel Cheesman (18:15.863) I mean, I think it's a little early to say that it's fine. I think that that after a nice flush of the toilet, they're all sort of cla you know, clinging to the sides and trying to crawl out. The the numbers were great. The street loved it. what loved you know, some of the numbers, you know, four thousand customers are using at least one AI agent. their AR is approaching five hundred million. their agentic AI products grew two hundred percent year over year. Chad Sowash (18:18.54) Dang it's fine. Chad Sowash (18:37.55) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (18:44.663) The stock is still down forty percent. So it's not like it totally, you know, went went ballistic on the upside. Chad Sowash (18:50.082) So what's wrong with this? I mean you said we can't we're we're not sure yet. I mean it from the standpoint of what they need. They need AI, they got it. They need the data, which is the gold, literally the gasoline that runs the engine of AI. Shit, they got more of that than anybody does, especially from a contextual standpoint. Joel Cheesman (19:01.912) Yep. Joel Cheesman (19:06.167) Yeah, I think a couple of things happen. One is the flush was so deep that, you know, I don't want to say dead count bounce, but any sign of life when that happens is always a good thing, to to to the to the market. And these are huge companies. I mean, for these for these guys to like actually be flushed would be quite a spectacle and and AI is a bigger deal than we we probably recognize. Workday's also done a really good job of not just buying technology and we've documented the acquisitions that they've made and they did Chad Sowash (19:15.99) Agreed. Yes. Yes. fuck ya. Joel Cheesman (19:34.839) They did caught they did talk about Paradox and Sauna in the earnings report, but they've done a really good job of, I guess, seeing where the puck was going and saying, look, we need to buy not only AI and technology as well as people who know what the hell they're doing, but also we need to buy revenue. And you and I are fairly close to Paradox and have a pretty good idea of that their business was pretty good, that that revenue was there. I'm assuming Sauna and some of the other companies that they've acquired were in s were similar situations. So if they're just able to say, hey, we bought. Chad Sowash (19:45.102) Mm-hmm. Yes. Chad Sowash (19:55.49) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:04.023) Paradox and paradox is adding X amount to the bottom line. We're not just adding AI, but we're adding revenue. And that that obviously comes into the numbers. So they can say, hey, our AI revenue is part of paradox. That's why companies will buy companies because they can add the revenue to the bottom line. So I think part of it is just like the crash has been huge. I think it's been been overdone. I agree with you on the point of like, hey, these companies aren't going out of business anytime soon, but they are being disrupted. They do have to pivot, adapt accordingly. Chad Sowash (20:16.534) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:32.439) To survive, I think Workday more than most has done a good job of saying, look, we're gonna buy properties that that give us revenue, AI, and talent to help us prepare and pivot to the to the direction we need to go to survive this marketplace. So compared to like a ServiceNow, who by the way, ServiceNow lost I think their CMO on the enterprise to open AI. I think Workday is much better positioned than a ServiceNow HubSpot, even a Salesforce. Chad Sowash (20:39.51) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (20:59.885) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (21:00.139) in our space at least to to weather the storm and come out come out better than than most. So I'm not digging a grave at all. I'm just not ready to say it's over, it's all good, we're out of the we're out of the, you know, we're in the clear and and it's sunny skies from here on out. We'll have to see if that's the case or not. Chad Sowash (21:15.222) Well well, dig digging the hole, or I mean, are we digging the hole for open AI at this point? I mean, their burn rate is fucking crazy. and then now we see this with them and Google. And I mean, it only makes sense. It's like it it's a big duh moment, right? I mean, adoption is about routine. And if you can get into a user's routine and you've created a halfways decent product like Google has, you can win over that user quickly. Joel Cheesman (21:28.291) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (21:34.466) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (21:40.621) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:44.558) Because they just go back to the well. They're used to going back to the well. So open AI spending versus revenue is ridiculously bad. Claude is, I mean, they they're kicking ass in the enterprise B2B market. They're getting, they're getting huge jumps, right? And now we see Google doing the same on both sides with B2B and B2C. So I mean, I to me, I think if any company's fried, it's it's an open AI. We're gonna see them go IPO. I mean, they have to. Joel Cheesman (21:56.354) Uh-huh. Joel Cheesman (22:10.818) Interesting. Chad Sowash (22:14.05) They have to. We're gonna see them go IPO. Then that's gonna be interesting to watch. Is it gonna be kind of like one of those Tesla things where it's all about the story and it's all about the bullshit? Or is it actually about the numbers? that's the thing that drives me crazy about the stock market. It's not about reality anymore. Joel Cheesman (22:31.501) Chad, it's time for a history lesson. Joel Cheesman (22:36.759) Back in the late nineties, a little browser called Netscape dropped on the world, and everyone embraced the internet like they had never done before. It was amazing. It was awesome. We were able to take this geeky tech that no one understood and put it on a screen like a TV and click around and became user-friendly. And Netscape was the talk of the town. And then Microsoft said, Hold my beer. We're going to put a whole lot of money, a whole lot of weight, a lot of influence behind our browser called Explorer. Chad Sowash (22:38.19) Yeah. Chad Sowash (22:52.088) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:06.099) And Explore ultimately killed Netscape by the market share that they had, just the weight, the ability to be on every PC that you that you bought. This is a very similar situation. I've talked about this before, but I've I've said that OpenAI is at very much risk of being the next the next Netscape. And I think that's what we're seeing. But instead of Microsoft, it's Google. Google has eight businesses, I think, that have two billion or more users. Chad Sowash (23:19.278) No, no don't have to switch one. Need to again the present for Same, same presentation, yeah. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Well you know this one. Thank you. Joel Cheesman (23:33.293) They have more like the money, the resources, the the their ability to get their product in front of everybody, whether it's email, browser, like sh drive. I mean, you name all the products that they have, but open i can't do that. Like, no one's using their Atlas browser except like super geeks that are sourcing candidates or whatever. Like, you know, I mean, he he bought Johnny Ives. Chad Sowash (23:48.447) Yeah. We did bring out one. No. I forgot the name of it. Joel Cheesman (24:00.183) Company, they were going to make some little thing, pendant or something that was going to be AI. We haven't seen anything of that. Like, so I think they're they're in way over their skis. They just shut down Sora, their their image movie app. So things I don't think are good at at OpenAI. I think Claude, to your point, is eating their lunch on the enterprise side. I think Google's gonna eat their lunch on the consumer side and probably creep more and more into the enterprise side. yeah, I don't. Chad Sowash (24:11.487) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:26.455) I don't think this is a this is a company that is gonna be something that we talk a lot about a decade from now. So open AI, you started you started the fire, but Google put it out, I'm afraid. Google put it out. Yeah, this is the Chad birthday extravaganza. We got more guests. Chad Sowash (24:40.322) So we we have another we have another special guest by the way Well it wouldn't be right without me and in a decade we will still be talking about your birthdays. Happy birthday. I well I'm very optimistic. Well, if I need to remind you, I'll be here to do that. Joel Cheesman (24:51.811) that's optimistic. Thank you. Thank you. But will will I r will I still know it's my birthday? I guess is gonna be the question. So Julie, you Julie, you missed it. you weren't on. So I'm gonna I'm gonna quiz you here real quick. this anniversary for you and Chad is what year? Chad Sowash (25:07.258) okay. Chad Sowash (25:12.162) Say fifteen. Is it fifteen? We meant marriage? No, not marriage. Well she's talking about marriage anniversary. It's ten marriage, fifteen together. See? So is this is this my husband failed the test? I was like, I don't know. Give me back the headphones. I was like, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, okay. Joel Cheesman (25:18.005) It's my tenth, so it's not your fifth Yeah, marriage. Okay. There you go. Okay. Joel Cheesman (25:32.077) Such a such a wife thing like to go to when we first met. Like when we first made eye contact fifteen years ago. Okay. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:36.078) 15. It was 15 years ago. Okay, now to the Top Tall stuff. We'll get to the industry stuff. Yes. Okay, so two words. Hey, babe. Babe. Damn it. Anyway, trying to get a beer. two words. Market consolidation. but I'm not sure that it's good for Top Tall as bigger players like Upwork are getting squeezed by market conditions and and Top Tall must be as well. Joel Cheesman (26:02.733) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (26:05.484) This type of acquisition isn't just about building a bigger client portfolio, it's also about building bigger candidate portfolios, right? And I I've always liked the idea in the model, the top tell model. but I'm I'm not sure that the market being flooded with great candidates helps them in the long run. We we we shall see. I'm I am a big fan of niche players, big fan of niche players squeezing that niche. Seems like that's what Top Tile's doing, especially with this acquisition of one of their competitors. So I like it, but the problem is the market's fucking flooded with talent, dude. Joel Cheesman (26:42.093) Yep. Yep. Especially in this case, you have tech talent, which is going through, I guess, a collapse or a restructuring of what that means. yeah, I I think you know, according to SIA, Top Tall is the eighth largest talent platform in the world. How many number eight players do you know that are crushing it in any industry at all? not not a whole lot. So they are niche. Chad Sowash (26:52.334) Crazy. Yeah. Chad Sowash (27:08.6) They're a niche player. I mean, come on. Joel Cheesman (27:11.339) I was surprised to learn in my homework. They've been around since 2010. I had no idea. I was like, really? They've been around that long? so they they've weathered storms. they're they're lean and mean. I mean, most of their workforce is remote. I don't know what kind of cost structure they have, but they've at least made it sixteen years in business, which is saying something. and speaking of clock, a diva, 2015, the clock was definitely running out on them. Chad Sowash (27:15.831) yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Joel Cheesman (27:39.539) 11 years in business, they needed to shitter get off the pot. And I think that getting acquired was probably the best route for them. Again, they are tech heavy, and that is not a great place to be right now with AI doing so much coding. also I'll throw in earlier this year, Top Tall acquired NSI, which stands for no single individual. apparently a talent platform focused on the marketing and the creative space. Chad Sowash (27:40.034) Obrigado. Chad Sowash (27:57.251) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:04.13) Yes. Joel Cheesman (28:04.267) And just like we talked about upwork being a little bit challenged, well, all those positions, in are development, marketing, creative, what is AI doing? It's c it's it is disrupting all three of those in a big way. How many, you know, how many images, how many creatives do you, you know, hire to to do a logo now or to do an image? You know, like we do we do all of our own stuff now practically with with AI. So I agree with you. It's a consolidation, Chad Sowash (28:08.046) Chad Sowash (28:26.114) Yeah, don't. Joel Cheesman (28:32.994) Terms were not disclosed, which means it was probably T J Max clearance rack item in this case. But yeah, some industry news, man, on a holiday week. I like it. We got Google, we got workday, and now we got a little bit of an acquisition with Top Tall. I Chad Sowash (28:43.446) That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, it and kind of like hearkening back to Hack A Jobs, Bump, right? Where they launched Arch Archer. And they and when they did that, within a 90-day time time frame, they were able to add a million, which for you know, startup good good to ARR, a million in ARR. But then they broadened their TAM, much like you're talking about because because Joel Cheesman (29:09.549) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (29:12.426) Tech's a problem right now, right? So they went from they went to two big two big areas being sales and customer service. so I mean being able to watch the pivots, the growth of the TAM, and then also I think Top Tall squeezing this this niche through consolidation, it's fun to watch, man. It really is. Joel Cheesman (29:36.491) It is fun to watch. I need a break, Chad. If you're not subscribed to us, what's wrong with you? whatever your platform of podcast listening is, plug in. You can also check us out on YouTube at youtube.com slash at Chad Cheese. Leave us a review and sign up for free stuff after you do it at Chadcheese.com slash free. We'll be right back. Chad Sowash (29:38.99) Okay. Chad Sowash (29:43.128) Can't watch me drink beer. Come on. Chad Sowash (29:57.378) Wish Joel a happy birthday. Come on. Joel Cheesman (30:02.155) Stepstone Group is expanding AI assisted recruitment screening while publicly ensuring full compliance with the EU AI Act. Thank God we have someone from the EU on the show emphasize emphasizing transparent, explainable AI with human oversight and recruiter control. Meanwhile, indeed has updated its terms of service to document AI-assisted and autonomous application workflows for sponsored jobs. The quote, apply for me, end quote tool uses AI to answer screening questions, generate applications, and potentially submit them automatically. If you blink, you could miss all the AI goodness in our industry, Chad. Stepstone and Indeed News. Give us a hot take. Chad Sowash (30:44.046) my God. I mean, if you're if you're a CEO and you want to drink yourself, just go ahead and say, hey, we're compliant with that, whatever it is, right? I mean So here's a quote from Stepstone Sebastian. How am I still CEO Detmers? over over at Stepstone. this is what he said on LinkedIn. Quote, because trust is non-negotiable, we made sure that Joel Cheesman (30:54.39) doth thou protest too much? Chad Sowash (31:10.786) This fully complies with the EU Act, which I think you said it's fair, transparent, and explainable AI that you can actually rely on. End quote. Big fucking promises. I'm a huge fan of AI. I use it every day. But let's dig into some great research I found over at ropes in Gray that I believe outlines indeed's matching, smart fit score, and stepstones AI assessment as you know. Joel Cheesman (31:17.239) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (31:40.684) Really being AI shaped decis decision making instead of AI assisted. First, let's talk about automation bias. And let's be honest when Indeed or Stepstone hands a recruiter a ranked list or a scored list of top 10 candidates, nobody's looking at number 11 through 500. They trust the machine, they're busy, they gotta go, right? Article 14 calls bullshit on. Joel Cheesman (31:42.616) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (32:01.709) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (32:09.982) It's explicitly mandates that humans must combat automation bias. the real problem is that AI is being applied where it doesn't need to be. It's over-engineered for no fucking reason. Either through these ridiculous assessments or indeed's magic scoring system. it not to and and there, this is just driving me fucking crazy. Joel Cheesman (32:17.443) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (32:32.568) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (32:38.956) Their fake resume maker, along with we can go ahead and apply for all these jobs with your fake resumes. It's just fucking crazy. Anyway, in the case of Stape Stepstone, my advice to enterprise companies is stop using any tool that will complicate the process. Having an AI-assisted screener literally makes no sense, especially when the screening should be as easy as asking the candidates. Joel Cheesman (32:42.347) Mm. Joel Cheesman (32:49.495) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:07.649) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:07.97) Do they meet the fucking requirements? That's all you care about, right? You you're worried about compliance. Well, the compliance is do they meet the requirements? So we need to get back to the keep it simple, stupid method and stop buying this over-engineered bullshit. And in the case of Indeed, my advice for companies is to take control. Take control. Stop leaning on Indeed. Perform the matching within your tech, within your own tech. Joel Cheesman (33:11.128) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:25.261) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:37.044) system, your own system of record. And then for the love of fucking God, rewrite your job postings with firm, not sloppy requirements, and stop allowing outside systems to arbitrarily quote unquote score your candidates. good luck on explaining that, indeed scoring, to any auditor that's out there, right? So the answer is stop leaning hard on companies like Stepstone and Indeed. Joel Cheesman (33:38.989) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:58.177) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (34:05.848) They're not here to help. They're here to suck your budget dry. It's really fucking simple. Joel Cheesman (34:13.751) Tell us how you really feel, Chad. You're on a roll. How many beers is that? Keep them coming, man. Keep them coming. If that's if that's any if that's any preview of the rest of the show, like keep them, keep them coming. You know, we're we're in a the what's the old adage? just be just because you can doesn't mean you should. we're we're in this weird arms race in our industry where everyone is trying to outdo the other one to to be able to at least look like we're not falling behind. Chad Sowash (34:15.65) Ha ha This is just this is number two. I'm so excited. Joel Cheesman (34:43.115) So the world is AI, we're AI, we're automation, we're like that's what we are, because either customers are begging for it, which I'm a little skeptical of, or the investors in the market are saying that's what we need, or there's a little bit of panic, like revenues are down, we need to do something kind of drastic, or any any combination of of the two. Chad Sowash (34:54.382) No. No. Joel Cheesman (35:06.945) I don't know Stepstone as well as as you do. I'm gonna guess that most of their clients are European based or at least non US based. Yep. Chad Sowash (35:14.038) Most German, you've got German and UK and Irish. They've got like three major sites. I I think those are their their their major their major areas. Joel Cheesman (35:21.975) Yeah. So if so if if I'm in employment and I have to like combat US companies that have different regulations, I assume they they spin it to where they are in a country, but if it's remote workforce, so Europe is in this weird place of we have regulations and we have guardrails that a lot of the rest of the world doesn't have. So how do we look like we're hip and cool with the new tech, but maybe can't do it because of government regulation? Like I f I feel for European companies because they're in this weird place of regulation that some parts of the world aren't. I'm seeing things in Europe that tell me they're leaning more like I don't want to say this to you, but they're th it feels like they're becoming more American. I see I see news that Sweden is more capitalistic than they have been a long time. I see news about immigration in France being shut down. I see Britain begging to come back to the EU, red tape getting cut so that they can make AI that Chad Sowash (36:07.63) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (36:16.397) They don't have to rely on our AI companies. So you see. So it's a really interesting time to be in Europe. And I think Stepstone is just sort of a a s a small piece of what's going on in that. But I I'll rely on you for the stepstone stuff. For Indeed, we talked about this last week that the monopoly pricing power that Indeed has, I don't think many people would argue. The argument if you did was it's a duopoly, not a monopoly. And the duopoly is LinkedIn and Indeed. So Chad Sowash (36:18.956) Yes. Mistral. Joel Cheesman (36:45.151) Indeed came out late last year with Talent Scout, Job Scout, or whatever they called it. And then LinkedIn LinkedIn Recruiter. LinkedIn recruiter came out. So to me, it's like those two are in an arms race of who can AI out, who can out AI the other, who can offer stuff more fast, quicker than the other. I think that they're both in unique situations in regards to their their main customers and who uses them. why you go to LinkedIn, pref. Chad Sowash (36:47.886) Which they renamed like twenty seven times. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:13.325) primarily versus when why you go to to Indeed primarily. But all this is really coming to a head and we'll talk about this I think after the break of AI is really it has an image problem that that's both real and perception. So I I'm really interested to see how customers and customers of HR tech and the vendors who use the A who's who use the AI, how governments react to this stuff, how the laws get passed. Like it's a L may you live in interesting times. This is a very interesting time for AI. And these two companies and these store two stories I think are microcosms. we'll go right into the macro stuff in a bit, but AI is getting messy and this is I think just a piece of what we're seeing in our space. Chad Sowash (37:56.63) Yeah, and I I think it's interesting because as I spend more time in the in the EU, in Europe, we have this discussion around legislation versus registr versus litigation. And that's the thing, is that at least in Europe, you know what the fucking rules are. In the US, you don't know what the rules are, right? There are no rules. If there are no rules Joel Cheesman (38:17.357) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (38:23.052) More than likely you're gonna get litigated. You're gonna be taken to fucking court. And we are a very litigious country. So what would you rather have? Would you rather have guidelines in which to know what you can do or what you can't do, or whether you would would you rather go in blindfolded and find yourself in a court? You know what I mean? It and depending on the company, they might want one versus the other. but that's the difference. You've got legislation versus litigation. Joel Cheesman (38:28.578) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:50.305) Yeah. And our current administration has basically said no no rules is the rule. And we have states, which we'll also talk about, states saying, well, not so wait, hold on, not so fast. And the narrative here is we have to out AI China. It's not a European US conversation. It's we can't let China out out innovate us in AI. and I think Europe, it's we can't get totally left behind. Chad Sowash (38:56.974) yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (39:02.03) Stop. Joel Cheesman (39:18.635) with the red tape that we currently have. But I agree with you. Knowing the rules of the road is a nice thing. The US with tariffs, immigration, geopolitical tension, like part of the economy is we don't know what the hell's going on. And companies are fearful of of doing anything. But let's let's get to some macro talk about AI. Chad Sowash (39:28.776) You're off roading. Chad Sowash (39:39.244) Okay. Whew. Joel Cheesman (39:40.267) AI news isn't just for HR Tech vendors, of course, Chad. So here are some highlights from the larger economy. Companies aggressively pushing maximum AI use are facing skyrocketing costs. Microsoft and Uber are already scaling back after burning through budgets. Turns out AI's real cost problem might be using the tech is actually more expensive than paying the human beings. And in California, Governor Newsom issued an executive order directing California to prepare workers, small businesses, and communities for the economic disruption that AI will bring to the workforce and society as a whole. And even Pope Leo from the south side of Chicago is giving public speeches about the risks of AI on humanity. Talk about an image problem. Chad, what's your take on all the negative news around AI? Chad Sowash (40:33.1) I hit the easy ones first because when the Pope speaks, you gotta talk about the Pope first. he he's like the adult in the room. The chur the church in this case is like the adult in the room. they've been talking about disarming nuclear capabilities for decades and now they see AI as pretty much like a nuclear capability. then we also saw Anthropic's co founder speak before the Pope and and he talked about three things. Joel Cheesman (40:37.613) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (41:02.614) Mass labor displacement, global inequality, and autonomous weapons. We're already seeing that. Right? This is already happening. It's already coming to a head. California, Gavin Newsom, this is all talk, no walk. That's all this is. They're they're trying to get people prepared. It's like, Jesus fucking Christ, do something, right? and and I think for me. Joel Cheesman (41:11.245) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (41:31.81) This all comes down to the cost. Okay. We've got politicians talking about shit, not doing anything. We've got the Pope trying to wait. He can't do anything, but he wants to bring attention to it. But we take a look at the cost. And here's a great quote from Jason Kubler over at 404 Media. Literally, that just came out before the before we we press record. the article is called Lobotomized. Character.ai is showing what a AI and shidification looks like. And here's the quote: ads everywhere, usage limits, frustrating guardrails, as AI companies are hit with regulations, lawsuits, and the overwhelming expense of running their services, they are making their products much worse. What's happening to one of the most popular chat apps in the is a glimpse at the near future of an industry that can't figure out the economics. Its product end quote. Now, that was the user experience, and that was the business experience too. How about from the corporate side of the house? Well, it's apparent that AI we're in an AI revolution that has entered into the harsh financial reality phase. And I gotta say that if you didn't see this coming with all the fucking burn rates that have been being pushed out there, you weren't paying attention, kids. Joel Cheesman (42:58.583) Yeah. Chad Sowash (42:59.308) The promise of cost cutting is being undermined by the high price of compute and tokens token-based billing, which is just forcing major tech firms to reconsider how freely they actually allow their employees to use this tech. Companies are running out of budget. They're cutting a headcount of Facebook to actually spend more money on compute. Age agentic AI. Joel Cheesman (43:22.315) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad Sowash (43:28.448) runs several tasks at a time, which means it use more t uses more tokens. It's smarter, it's better, but it's expensive. This is I mean, this is like the whole crumbling of what's happening with a lot of these companies. And this is where when we're talking about the open AIs of the world, I I don't know how they get out of this hole. Joel Cheesman (43:46.36) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (43:54.743) I think I was on with I think I was on with Mo and I talked about in my lifetime any any new technology that came along, it was optimistically viewed, at least by the young people. I could go on like what those are iPod, digital cameras, email. Like no one said this is destroying the world. There was optimism around it. AI is the first thing that I've seen where the kids are mad about it. And I've documented on the show like, destroy the environment. Chad Sowash (44:03.261) yeah. Yes. Chad Sowash (44:14.638) No. Joel Cheesman (44:23.939) Kids kind of like the environment. Destroy jobs, kids like jobs. destroy creativity and opportunities and creative fields, like kids are really creative. So when we see speeches at campuses and students booing, it's no surprise to me. But to me, that says there's a real, there's a real problem, not just image problem with this tech, but people are going to find ways to advance their interest because of it. And I think when I look at the newsome stuff, I think. Well, tell me you're running for president without telling me you're running for president. It doesn't really matter if it doesn't have any teeth. If he can go on a debate stage and say, in California, we tried to take a stand around help, you know, helping people with AI and and the people who are gonna be unemployed. Yeah, so a a as long as he can say we've we're doing things or we're we're it we're imp we're in we're putting in things that will help people in AI. I mean, right now there are fourteen states that are opposing data centers. That's gonna grow. Chad Sowash (45:05.036) World's fourth largest economy. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:22.603) And and I can tell you here in the Midwest, I know you've seen it, you saw it when you were here shortly. Like states are not happy about the water that's used, the energy that's used. And we're seeing stories about, you know, shitty looking water that people have to drink, water pressures down, can't take a good shower. And anyone who's traveled knows the the pain of a tra a shower that doesn't give you some good pressure. as well as higher electricity and energy costs. Like this is a bad thing for a lot of people. Chad Sowash (45:26.262) Indiana, yeah. No. Chad Sowash (45:34.99) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (45:49.195) Not everyone is anthropic or or NVIDIA. and this is only gonna to come again. The Pope is not a political position. The Pope in my lifetime rarely comes. Now they'll talk about war, don't kill each other, but to talk about AI as a threat to humanity, like that's kind of a new thing. You know, they never came out about the iPod and say, I don't do the iPod because that's gonna kill you. Or Facebook, yeah, don't do social media. don't don't click a QR code because that's gonna really screw things up. So Chad Sowash (46:10.124) Or Facebook. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (46:19.073) I don't know where this goes. I mean, you have an administration, you have basically the stock market is being propped up by about a dozen companies that are all AI or AI adjacent companies. People are getting rich. The the those folks are going to China with Trump. Who knows what the hell was going on, you know, and and but in closed door sessions with them. And then you have the the little people, if you will, say, This is bullshit. Like I this is this is not great. And now you have politicians in the middle. Chad Sowash (46:28.331) Yes. Joel Cheesman (46:47.821) trying to get elected and keep just so this is the world's a weird place, man. And this is this is more of the weirdness that we'll continue to talk about with AI. It's no longer this panacea of hope and optimism. It's like, wait a minute, maybe this isn't so great. Chad Sowash (47:02.318) Bring back boring. That's that's that's that's my campaign promise. Joel Cheesman (47:11.627) All right, guys. By the way, Canadian province that wants to secede, they're gonna actually vote on it. starts with an A. Shit. British Columbia. Alberta, yes, thank you. I was gonna say I want to say Edmonton. Yes. So they needed 10% signatures, which they got. So there will be a vote in Alberta to secede from from Canada. So yeah, it gets it gets weird everywhere. Chad Sowash (47:24.428) Alberta? Su succeed from Canada? Chad Sowash (47:39.318) So stupid. So stupid. Joel Cheesman (47:41.889) All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more future shit. Joel Cheesman (47:50.083) All right, Chad's ordered another beer, so we need to like wrap this shit up soon. the EU's climate commissioner has told the twenty-seven country bloc that the way out of the energy crisis fueled by the wars in Iran and Ukraine is homegrown energy, and that the EU must accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels. While saving the planet is part of the conversation, green energy is now highlighted as a national security imperative. Chad Sowash (47:54.743) I'm good. Chad Sowash (48:05.378) Yes. Joel Cheesman (48:16.341) insulating economies from geopolitical blackmail and price chaos caused by yours truly over here in America and other unstable fossil fuel regions. Chad, is alternative energy here to save the West or as Trump says, is it just here to kill the birds and ruin your landscape? Chad Sowash (48:26.658) Jesus. Chad Sowash (48:36.632) Let's talk about jobs first. Let's let's do that. And then we'll get then we'll get to the rest of it. the global transition toward clean energy has evolved into a high stakes race between China, Europe, and the US. While all three regions are breaking deployment records, the growth strategies, manufacturing footprints, and job creation engines look vastly different. And according to data from Irina ILO. Joel Cheesman (48:38.071) Okay. Chad Sowash (49:04.437) Which renewable energy and jobs annual review, global clean energy employment has climbed to sixteen point six million jobs, heavily concentrated in those three regions US, Europe, and China. Can you guess which one has the biggest concentration, Joel? Bueller. Yeah. Of creation. China. China. Joel Cheesman (49:26.507) Jobs Europe. Yeah, Europe. Chad Sowash (49:32.654) Created 7.4 million jobs and they added 434 gigawatts of capacity in 2025. Is number two, so China 7.4, Europe number two at 1.8 million jobs. Renewables officially passed coal, which is awesome, right? They're getting off the coal, the clean, the clean coal. Joel Cheesman (49:43.491) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:00.902) and US created 1.1 million jobs. the countries that deserve a shout-out though for rapid acceleration in the in this area are Denmark, who generates 92.4% of its electricity from renewables. 92.4% primarily driven by massive offshore and onshore wind power. Austria, which sits at 83.1% renewable electricity. Joel Cheesman (50:19.831) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:30.19) they're utilizing a robust blend of traditional Alp alpine hydropower. You got all that water rushing down the mountains, and rapidly growing solar and wind grids. And then last but not least, get ready, kids. That's right. Portugal. Portugal reached 82.9%. 82.9% renewable electricity. Joel Cheesman (50:44.514) Ready. Chad Sowash (50:55.486) capitalizing on a diverse mix of wind, solar, and hydro resources, creating jobs and strategic energy independence. That's what I'm fucking talking about, man. That's what it, that that's what it's about. We've got this whole Strait of Hormuz thing that's happening right now. This shit goes away if we become energy independent. And I I like how a lot of these countries have been thinking about that for a while and they're being very aggressive about it. Joel Cheesman (51:21.847) Mm-hmm. Yep. did you know that half the world's smokers are in China? And it's the only country where they're growing the number of smokers in the world? Anyway, I don't know if that has any impact on on the on the the green energy revolution or not. But yeah, I th I found that interesting that Chinese they love they love their smoking. They love the nicotine. Chad Sowash (51:30.382) What? Chad Sowash (51:36.653) Weird. Chad Sowash (51:42.766) That is that is weird. I they're more European smoking. I thought Europeans would be less smokers than Americans. No, they smoke like fucking chimneys over here. Yeah. And Russians, yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:51.841) Yep. For sure. There's a lot of Chinese, which is why I should have guessed Chinese, because there's a lot more Chinese to have jobs. These jobs and Russians. I it's it's interesting to me that the the narrative has gone from save the world to like save your ass. And this is a this is a security issue for these countries. And it certainly is for for Europe. And I think and I think, you know, j just look at geopolitical tensions to know like Chad Sowash (52:11.374) Yeah. Yeah. It's where we should have started. Joel Cheesman (52:19.799) Who who has thought through this? I mean, China probably has an unknown amount of reserves that they are fine with for probably quite a while as the Hormuz remains closed. The challen the challenge with all of this is that in 1971, Nixon got us off the gold standard. The gold standard backing the dollar had been sort of the historical standard for a long time. And all the European, all of our allies. Chad Sowash (52:28.77) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:47.319) Had their dollars in gold and everything was sort of safe in that way. 71 Nex Nixon says we're off the gold standard, we're on, and the petrol dollar becomes the standard. So what does that mean? It means all oil has to be traded in dollars. Kissinger went over to Saudi Arabia and made a deal and said, Hey, we'll protect you as long as you trade in dollars. And that's been the standard since the 70s. If the world ever goes off of an oil Energy standard, the dollar and the US is proper fucked. Because if all the dollars start coming back to America inflationary, you ain't seen nothing yet. if if ever if all these countries that own our treasuries start stop buying and start sending them back, like there's gonna be a problem. So when you see Trump or any politician in America say, like, it's a hoax, it's bullshit, it's killing the birds. Chad Sowash (53:25.771) yeah. no. Joel Cheesman (53:44.385) None of that is about the environment. It's about the hegemony of the US dollar. And that is what is like scary as an American, is that you'll never see us go off of oil in a big way because our dollar is tied to that source and that power. So what we're seeing is a total fragmentation of what's going on. And and when you see these swap, the swaps about news. Chad Sowash (54:01.324) Fucking Nixon. Joel Cheesman (54:08.897) Like the UAE wants to swap dollars. That's because they don't want to sell we don't want them to sell their dollars or give their dollars. We want them to keep them so our dollar remains strong. Like all of this is all money and who owns the like power struggle, the world. So while the while, you know, the American me like, okay, I get it. Like we don't want clean energy because we're kind of fucked in that scenario. But the human in me says, like, well, this is where the world's going anyway. let's let's let's have it. How can we be a be a leader in it? But Chad Sowash (54:08.942) Mm. Chad Sowash (54:22.668) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (54:38.455) When I look at these stories, I don't look at jobs, I don't look at saving the world. I s I look at the US dollar and how the whole world is basically based on the US dollar and going off of oil means that that collapses. Chad Sowash (54:43.854) Well it can't be that Which means the US crumbles, pretty much. Joel Cheesman (54:55.521) Which you could argue is happening. Which you could argue the the the American Empire, Pax Americana, is crumbling right before our eyes. And we'll see what comes out of Iran, but it lo it's it feels a little more surrenderish to me than a deal that's advantageous for us. Chad Sowash (54:57.539) Yeah. Chad Sowash (55:05.404) Ooh. Chad Sowash (55:14.242) Yeah. it's what happens when you send a clown into a boardroom to fucking negotiate. Joel Cheesman (55:23.853) Play play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Am I right? Sorry to bring us down on birthday. Let's let's let's come back. Let's bring it back with a with a dad joke. Chad, I'm I'm gone in June, so I thought I'd get a little naughty, a little naughty with the jokes. I've been pretty clean lately. What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone? Chad Sowash (55:28.044) Always. Chad Sowash (55:31.522) Come on, come on. Chad Sowash (55:38.742) no. Chad Sowash (55:49.907) Mm I don't know. That's a that's a new one. Joel Cheesman (55:53.185) You can't hear an enzyme. Chad Sowash (55:55.23) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (55:59.585) Happy birthday, my brother. Get that dog under control back there. We out. Chad Sowash (56:00.174) Dog didn't like that one. Dog didn't like that one. We out.

The AI Revolution in Global Hiring In this episode of HR’s "Most Dangerous Podcast," Chad and Cheese sit down with Patti Tabris to pull back the curtain on how a global custom er experience giant manages 20,000 employees across nine countries. Patti shares her journey of moving from a consultant to a "rockstar" innovator, transforming a clunky, high-friction recruiting process into a seamless, AI-driven machine. If you’ve ever struggled to justify the cost of new tech or fought against 70% candidate drop-off rates, this conversation is your blueprint for success. Patti reveals how she secured funding for AI by identifying massive waste in legacy systems and turned those savings into a competitive advantage. 💡 Key Topics & Teasers: The 1.8 Million Question Bot Killing the 40-Minute Assessment From 30% to 90% Conversion The "Human" Side of Automation Scaling Beyond High-Volume "As long as there's problems to be solved in Talent Acquisition innovations... I'm always gonna have a job." — Patti Tabris It's time we go behind "the curtain". Enjoy! PART 2 - AI Scheduled 100,000 Interviews PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:26.1 Joel Cheesman: All right, let's do this. You're watching the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman, joined as always by Chad Sowash. And we are chatting with Patti Tabris of ResultsCX. She is the senior director of Talent Acquisition. Patti, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous podcast. 0:00:43.7 Patti Tabris: Great to be here. 0:00:44.6 Joel Cheesman: Great to have you. 0:00:45.3 Chad Sowash: And a return guest. 0:00:46.1 Joel Cheesman: A return guest. 0:00:47.0 Patti Tabris: Great to be here again. 0:00:48.7 Joel Cheesman: Three more and you get a velvet smoking jacket. 0:00:50.7 Patti Tabris: Ooh, I am going to work for that. That's my next goal. 0:00:54.8 Joel Cheesman: Aim high, Patti. Aim high. So a lot of our viewers, the organization is new to them, uh, and you are new to them. So give us the elevator pitch on you and the organization. 0:01:04.7 Patti Tabris: Okay. So I've been in Talent Acquisition for over 20 years, um, working in a variety of different roles. I actually had a consulting firm for quite a few years before I started with ResultsCX and, uh, ResultsCX, uh, brought me on as a consultant, wound up hiring me, and I've been there for over six years now. 0:01:24.2 Chad Sowash: Nice. 0:01:25.8 Patti Tabris: Um, as long as there's problems to be solved in Talent Acquisition innovations, uh, to implement, uh... 0:01:31.4 Chad Sowash: Always problems. 0:01:32.5 Joel Cheesman: It's problems. 0:01:32.9 Chad Sowash: Always gonna have a job. 0:01:33.2 Patti Tabris: Always gonna have a job. 0:01:34.4 Joel Cheesman: ResultsCX. 0:01:35.5 Patti Tabris: Yeah. 0:01:36.6 Joel Cheesman: What the hell do they do? 0:01:38.1 Patti Tabris: CX, call center, um, associates is a lot of our hiring. We are a customer experience company for Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies that need assistance with their customer service. 0:01:46.6 Joel Cheesman: How many employees are we talking about here, uh? 0:01:55.0 Patti Tabris: Um, we're about 20,000 employees. We're global. About nine... We're in nine countries currently. 0:01:57.4 Chad Sowash: I hope so. 20,000. 0:01:59.8 Joel Cheesman: 20,000. 0:02:02.2 Chad Sowash: So you've been in Talent Acquisition for a minute, right? 0:02:05.4 Patti Tabris: Mm-hmm. 0:02:06.5 Chad Sowash: So watching what's going on with AI and technology today, just the velocity that it's moving, what's exciting you most about it? And second part of the question, what are you starting to implement around new technology? 0:02:19.0 Patti Tabris: Okay. Um, what I'm excited about is that we can use AI to take away the administrative tasks that recruiters have to do. I was a recruiter. My fun part of the job was not trying to set up a candidate for an interview or trying to reach out to them to remind them that they had an interview or help them get through an application or, um, I like talking with the people. And that's what recruiting's all about, is getting to meet as many people to see if they're qualified or not. Something that I've always said along my career is there's no, uh, good or bad company or good or bad candidate. It's just finding the right people for the right jobs. And so with AI, if we can implement AI to do some of that or all of that administrative work, then recruiters can spend more time with candidates and helping them find the right job. 0:03:17.3 Chad Sowash: So what have you rolled out thus far? 0:03:19.3 Patti Tabris: So we've been using, uh, AI, uh, for the last three years. Uh, we started, um, with an assessment that we found that, um, is part of the Paradox package now. Um, it's called Traitify. And that, uh, helped us simplify part of our assessment piece of the journey. And then we looked at how do we simplify some of the other parts. Um, the application was key for us. Um, candidate care. We have candidates coming to our career site asking questions all the time or saving their questions for the recruiters, and then they spend that time in the interview asking about the benefits, about, you know, work culture, about the company. So we have, um, AI, uh, via Paradox doing the, um, candidate care piece for us. So a candidate could come in and chat, ask a question, and Olivia answers, which is our AI, our recruiting assistant. Um, I like to say she's the best employee I've ever hired. Um, but in a year's timeframe, this past 12 months, she's answered 1.8 million questions. 0:04:39.7 Joel Cheesman: Whoa. 0:04:40.2 Chad Sowash: And she doesn't take a day off. 0:04:41.5 Patti Tabris: And she doesn't take... 24/7. 0:04:44.3 Chad Sowash: No sick days. No... 0:04:44.5 Joel Cheesman: She's underpaid. She's underpaid. 0:04:45.2 Patti Tabris: She's amazing. 0:04:46.1 Joel Cheesman: She needs to unionize. 0:04:46.6 Chad Sowash: You were talking about the apply process. What did... What did you change about the apply process? 0:04:51.1 Patti Tabris: So we changed it from a candidate coming in and having to fill out a form and type in their answers. 0:04:57.3 Chad Sowash: How long did it take? 0:04:59.6 Patti Tabris: Um, uh, from a timeframe, it, it... You know, we really weren't able to track how long it took. So I didn't have a lot of strong data or anything. By implementing this and using, uh, a tool like an AI recruiting assistant, now I have all kinds of data. We, uh, we now can see where we're losing candidates and if we are losing them. We've got, uh, 80% conversion rate of someone that hits, on average, someone that hits our career site on a job and chats with Olivia and starts the application to finishing it. They can finish the application in under 6 minutes, 5 minutes. 0:05:40.2 Chad Sowash: And that's mainly through chat or all through chat? 0:05:43.1 Patti Tabris: That's all through chat. 0:05:43.9 Chad Sowash: Wow. 0:05:44.7 Patti Tabris: Um, so a, uh, candidate comes in, looks at our jobs, we drive everyone to our career site, they click apply, uh, our assistant pops up, starts asking them the application questions. We have it programmed and set up so that if they don't... If they're not 18... Everyone should be 18 years to work for us. 0:05:59.9 Joel Cheesman: So screening [0:06:01.1] ____... 0:06:03.5 Patti Tabris: Screen some of that out. Yes, so it handles all of that, right through to offering them the assessment link, if that's part of the position workflow, to scheduling them for an interview, offering them up times on the recruiters' calendars. It's all integrated with our Outlook and our Teams to set up the, um, the interview. She sends them all the link, and then she does the follow-up. If they drop, if they've answered three questions and give us their basic contact information, and then, sometimes candidates are always on their mobile phone. Um, we want to get them where they're, where they're living. And so, I know myself, not applying for jobs, but I'm on my mobile phone standing in line, you know, for Starbucks or for a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. And then when I get my coffee, I drop. So that happens with candidates doing an application. With the, uh, 24/7 assistant, AI assistant, she reaches right back out to them. "Wanna finish up your application with ResultsCX?" 0:07:05.7 Joel Cheesman: Well, if you've never tried a, uh, Boston cream with that Dunkin' Donuts, 0:07:08.6 Patti Tabris: My favorite donut. 0:07:11.4 Joel Cheesman: I recommend that to you. Wanna go back quickly, yeah, [0:07:13.0] ____ quickly, uh, something you said, I just want to make sure. There are no bad candidates or bad opportunities, just not the right fit. Um, I can tell you as an unemployed podcaster, there are bad candidates 'cause no one, no one will have me. Let's... Let's go back in time a second. 0:07:28.3 Patti Tabris: I think you're, you're in a good place. 0:07:31.5 Joel Cheesman: Thinking of unionizing. Um, I want you to go back in time, the, the days before automation and all these things were going on. We've, we've heard from a lot of organizations that had to pull teeth and twist arms to get new technology implemented. What was it like for you? 0:07:48.0 Patti Tabris: It was challenging, um, because it was new technology. Uh, it wasn't, you know, it was out there, but it wasn't being used, especially in our industry. Um, I like to think of us as one of the people on the forefront in our industry. David, who is my, uh, sales contact with Paradox, who we use for our AI is... It took two years of conversations, and he, he hung in there with me. Um, I had to figure out how we were going to find the funding for it. 0:08:18.1 Chad Sowash: That's the how. How'd you get it? 0:08:19.3 Patti Tabris: So, I was very lucky. Um, I brought up the, uh, assessment piece of it. We were spending a lot of money on an assessment program that we were using that took 40 minutes for the candidates to complete it. Yeah. 0:08:38.8 Joel Cheesman: Drop-off's gotta be crazy. 0:08:39.7 Patti Tabris: For high-volume associate-level positions. 0:08:43.8 Joel Cheesman: Oh, wow. 0:08:45.5 Patti Tabris: And I was fortunate enough that our CHRO at the time asked me to look into it because it was coming up for renewal. Uh, what? I was doing corporate recruiting, and I was like... I started looking at what data we can gather and everything, and I was... We had 30% completion rate. 0:09:02.2 Joel Cheesman: Ooh. 0:09:02.9 Patti Tabris: I was like, "We're losing candidates. We're bleeding candidates because they're not completing this assessment." 0:09:05.7 Joel Cheesman: 70%. 0:09:09.0 Patti Tabris: And, um, so, you know, I just said there's gotta be something out there. I love to read, I love to look at the internet, find different things. So I just started researching what we can use in replacement for it and look at some options. And I found Traitify assessments, which was not part of Paradox at the time. We, we loved it. It's based on the Big Five, the same as our other. It gave us everything we were looking for, but the candidates can complete it in less than five minutes. Um, and it was something that I thought would work well with our high-volume hiring. So we looked at a few others, but we decided on that, and I was able to use some of the money that we had from that large assessment... 0:09:57.8 Joel Cheesman: The savings. 0:09:58.1 Patti Tabris: The savings of making that switch to introduce, um, my company to the AI recruiting assistant. 0:10:06.1 Chad Sowash: And 30% went to what? 0:10:09.1 Patti Tabris: 30% went to, uh, close to 90% completion rate. 0:10:13.6 Joel Cheesman: That's better than 30%. I can check, check my math... 0:10:15.3 Chad Sowash: Boom. That's a big boom. 0:10:17.1 Patti Tabris: It was like, it just all of a sudden, like, it just brings in a whole 'nother level of standards. 0:10:21.8 Joel Cheesman: So you're a rockstar. 0:10:22.1 Patti Tabris: I... You're always... You're only as good as your last win. So we're looking for the next win. 0:10:25.4 Joel Cheesman: Life's tough as a CX. 0:10:28.7 Patti Tabris: So I'm looking for my next win here. 0:10:31.5 Chad Sowash: I love that you're entree to literally AI in this space and kind of like the broader ecosystem, um, was assessments. Because a lot of companies, their foray into this today is scheduling. Because scheduling is... First and foremost, it takes so much time and generally recruiters or whomever, they're doing that after hours because they've got to interact with somebody who is off work or what have you. But now you have Olivia, like you said, working all the time can actually make that scheduling happen. Did you roll out the scheduling aspect and if you did tell us a little bit about this, the obstacles, uh, and also success behind that. 0:11:12.0 Patti Tabris: So we rolled out a package of Olivia and we rolled out from Canada Care, which is answering all those questions that we talked about that to me... That's a, that's a hidden, uh, benefit that people don't always talk about is that front end keeping those candidates interested and letting them know and answer their questions to save that time in the interviews. Um, and then we have job search so that she helps candidates find the right job on our career site. Um, then it processes right through to the interview scheduling. The biggest challenge is based on what ATS you use and if they are, uh, how their APIs are set up and if they have the API to feed the candidate's application back into the system. 0:12:03.8 Chad Sowash: All the candidate data into your system, because you need that as a system of record. 0:12:07.8 Patti Tabris: Exactly, exactly. So, um, we have... We did a really interesting integration. Um, the ATS we are still using and, uh, we have been using for 12 years and they created the API for us. Um, I was fortunate enough that I had built a good relationship with them and they were interested in experimenting with it. And so we were able to connect Paradox Team with the Talent Link team and they built it together. So it's sometimes it's just a matter of being persistent and enough to get your partners to help you out. 0:12:47.5 Joel Cheesman: That's right? 0:12:48.1 Patti Tabris: Yeah. 0:12:48.8 Joel Cheesman: So let's dig into some more numbers. You mentioned going from 30% to 90%. Do you have any numbers around retention or what it meant to more candidates becoming, uh, employees? How about dollars and cents? How much were you saving through the new technology? 0:13:04.6 Patti Tabris: So just from a time standpoint, it's hard, it's hard to throw out dollars and because we're global and I do have that data for our internal folks. But, um, from a time savings. So we did... So in a 12 month period, we talked about the time savings. Think about answering 1.8 million questions, if... Uh, that alone is a few people. We would have to just answer those questions. Um, we also looked at the numbers that we have from interviews scheduled. So Lydia scheduled over 100,000 interviews for our recruiters in the last 12 months. So that's... 0:13:50.4 Joel Cheesman: Days. Weeks of [0:13:51.3] ____, right? 0:13:51.5 Patti Tabris: Weeks. No, that's weeks of a few people doing that scheduling. So based on where we would have those people located and everything, we've been able to work out this cost savings. 0:14:01.4 Chad Sowash: So did you have recruiters doing the scheduling or did you actually have schedulers doing the scheduling? What was the process? And... 0:14:07.7 Patti Tabris: So it depends... We weren't... When we first implemented this, we weren't as standardized as we are now. And that's a big part of what... That's a byproduct of making some of these changes. Especially for a global company, we were a little bit more, um, segregated, different country groups, doing what worked for them. And we were in the process of trying to bring everything into more of a Global policy policies and global procedures. And so it helps when you have a goal of something that you're putting together. So not just we're standardized and to standardize. So um, it allowed us to get um, better processes in place. 0:14:47.4 Joel Cheesman: Curious about the branding perspective. I didn't know ResultsCX until we sat down and chatted. I don't think it's a well known brand. So you get traffic in. It's a bad experience. They feel bad about ResultsCX now they come in. It's a good, efficient, uh, process. They feel good about the brand. And we've talked to you previously about the referral system and how there's almost a family type or you know type feel the organization, has the technology enhanced the brand in that way that, that people feel much better coming in and their first reaction to the brand is positive versus what it was before. 0:15:21.5 Patti Tabris: I like to think so. I, I believe so. I think having, um, a chat or a conversation with someone rather than filling out a form is a warmer experience right off the bat. 0:15:34.2 Chad Sowash: Whether it's a bot or not a bot. 0:15:35.7 Patti Tabris: Exactly, exactly. So, and I don't think everybody realizes it's a bot when they're chatting. They're just chatting and they're filling it out and they're asking, you know, if they ask a question. And we could go in the back end and review some of the conversations which we do to make sure we don't... We're always tweaking it, trying to improve um, how Olivia's answering everything. And, uh, it's still technology, you have to keep maintaining it. But, uh, we've seen where different, where different candidates have even asked Olivia out on a date. So they don't know who they're talking to. 0:16:12.8 Joel Cheesman: But that's one of the less freakier things that people have said, uh, to your, to your chat box. 0:16:18.7 Chad Sowash: Uh, this is a great opportunity not just to engage candidates, but also to engage employees and keep them around longer. Have you guys started to use any, uh, any AI or conversational or contextual, uh, type of AI to be able to engage candidates so that you can focus on keeping them engaged. 0:16:37.5 Patti Tabris: So from the candidate perspective, we also have added surveys. So we do surveys throughout the apply process and the interview scheduling process to get their, you know, their input. And then, uh, we do react on that and we work with Paradox to improve things. But we're also working currently on some of our onboarding conversations because as we... After we hire a candidate, we have onboarding, we have information we sent out to them. Not just, you know, it starts with the welcome Letter, "happy to have you joining the team," but there's other conversations that we can have, and we're in the process of implementing some of that through Olivia. They're familiar with her from the beginning of it. Um, we're looking towards using contextual AI to build out a database for her to answer questions on pre boarding. And what do I need to do for my first day? I think that's a great opportunity for us. I'm really excited about that. We're in the process of doing that now. 0:17:35.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. And think of the recruiters who didn't have to answer questions. 0:17:38.6 Patti Tabris: Exactly. 0:17:39.5 Chad Sowash: Now the employees who are going through the onboarding and then talent management side, not having to go through the FAQ stuff. They can just focus on the face. 0:17:47.6 Patti Tabris: Yeah, exactly. And, um, there's, there's so much more that we want to do with Paradox, I think. Um, and we're looking at, um, there's an opportunity as they've developed their ats. And how do we use that? Um, we're only currently using scheduling for our, uh, associate positions in conversations and working with our corporate recruiting team of how we can get scheduling in place for that. It's a little more complex, scheduling an engineer over a call center associate. But, um, but I think there's some great things happening at Paradox that we're ready to do that now. 0:18:25.3 Chad Sowash: Starting at High Volume I think we've seen a lot of companies doing that, and I don't want to say because it's the easiest, because there's a lot of... There's a lot of scale that happens there with the traffic, but it is from the, you know, the requirements being... And then moving into more complex, which is exactly what you're doing. That's an interesting dream. 0:18:45.1 Patti Tabris: And it's also important, I think, when a... When a team is looking at implementing AI, you have to remember our goal. And maybe it's me. I look at it, my goal is to satisfy my customers. And I'm an internal support for all of our recruiting teams. So I support the candidates coming through to make the easiest, quickest, best journey possible for them. And I support our recruiting teams globally to have the easiest, quickest way of hiring these people, but getting the best interviews and getting the best information. So to be able to do that, I want them to see very seamless, very easy journey. And then behind the curtain is all the magic that we do. 0:19:31.2 Joel Cheesman: All right, that is Patti Tabris with ResultsCX. She is the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition and Innovation. Patti, thanks for joining us. 0:19:40.2 Patti Tabris: My pleasure, my pleasure. 0:19:41.5 Chad Sowash: Lots of fun. Thank you so much. 0:19:44.6 Speaker 1: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode episode of the Chat and Chase podcast. Um, 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 and bug fights on Tick Tock. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the gilt. 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.

What happens when HR tech giants crush earnings while the rest of the industry faces massive layoffs? In this special episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Joel Cheesman is joined by guest co-host J.T. O'Donnell to deliver a dose of optimistic realism on the chaotic state of the 2026 job market. Before diving into the heavy-hitting industry news, the duo kicks things off with plenty of humor, swapping banter over deviled egg recipes, Memorial Day cookout plans, upcoming European travel, and why Southwest Airlines is making headlines with a strict new ban on humanoid robots. They also share a quick streaming recommendation for Apple TV's Your Friends and Neighbors and give a nod to the Crime Junkies podcast before getting down to business.The core of the episode spotlights a deeply divided job market where massive tech layoffs collide with explosive corporate growth. Joel and J.T. break down the staggering down-sizing trends hitting Meta and LinkedIn, contrasting those cuts with the massive, expectation-shattering earnings report just released by Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor. J.T. lends her expertise to LinkedIn’s aggressive new strategy to launch thousands of gated, paid creator-led virtual events to combat generic platform "slop." Finally, the hosts look at the changing face of automation, analyzing how artificial intelligence is shifting call center dynamics abroad, and exploring Amazon’s eerie new Alexa capability that generates fully synthetic podcasts on demand. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:30.798) yeah, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. Hey boys and girls, it is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel shaped by American innovation. Cheeseman. JT ODonnell (00:43.948) And I'm JT, it's deviled egg season, O'Donnell. Joel Cheesman (00:47.936) And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, tech companies keep cutting heads, indeed keeps counting profits and offshoring while it keeps growing. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:04.364) I'm sorry, deviled egg season? Is that what you just said? JT ODonnell (01:06.104) Yeah, I just feel like it's the season of picnics. And anytime you go anywhere now, it's deviled eggs on the menu, deviled eggs at the party. It's deviled egg season. You know what I'm talking about, people. Message me if you know what I'm talking Joel Cheesman (01:10.19) Is this a New England thing? Joel Cheesman (01:16.117) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:19.598) Do you, the garden parties, the summer get togethers, barbecues, Memorial Day is coming up. Memorial Day is coming up. Uh-huh. JT ODonnell (01:24.578) Yes, barbecues. mean, you're in Indiana. I'm in New England. Yeah, we're all wearing shorts, even if it's 40 at this point, right? Mentally, we've moved into the winter clothes have to go away and you're going to see, message me if there's deviled eggs at your Memorial Day party. We all know there will be. Someone's making a Joel Cheesman (01:35.786) yeah. Yeah, it's. Joel Cheesman (01:43.672) Definitely white guy cargo short season where I am for sure. JT ODonnell (01:46.296) And they're getting super bougie these days with caviar and you know what I mean? Like everybody's making these bougie deviled eggs, not just the traditional ones. So. Joel Cheesman (01:56.174) Do you have a recipe? Do you bring some? What's yours? JT ODonnell (01:58.884) Okay, the one I'm going to be trying, thank you for asking, has bacon dust in the egg yolk, pureed thing in the middle, Caviar, and then stuck in the side is a black truffle chip. Like, know, truffles. It's like a black truffle, it's like, mean, hey, boo-gee. But I'm gonna try it, because I'm a devil date girl. Joel Cheesman (02:04.344) huh. Joel Cheesman (02:09.867) Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:19.544) Sure. Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:26.226) Secret ingredient, try this sometime. Put wasabi in the mix. Little wasabi, little kick, little kick. JT ODonnell (02:30.961) I'm down for that. I love wasabi. I want to learn to make sushi. I want to figure that out. I love sushi, Joel Cheesman (02:38.786) Have you seen the, the sushi tacos? This is new. So it's, it's the seaweed and it, shape it as a taco and then you deep fry it. So it creates the taco crust is seaweed and then you load it with sushi stuff. And then it's a, it's a sushi taco. Next time you're in New York or any kind of big city, there's probably go search Yelp or whatever for sushi tacos. JT ODonnell (02:41.763) No. JT ODonnell (02:45.987) Okay. JT ODonnell (02:53.45) Ugh. JT ODonnell (02:59.448) Sounds very good. That sounds very, good. Okay. Joel Cheesman (03:07.936) and see if there's a spot and go have, I've not had them yet, but they look delicious on social media. And I will, when I get out of Indiana at some point, I'll, I'll see these. So, so you mentioned, cookout season Memorial days coming up. That'll be next week. But this weekend, officially in Indianapolis, it starts cause we have the Indy 500, this weekend. And this is the first year we're loading up the minivan with all the kids and three kids and us, and we're doing the Indy 500. JT ODonnell (03:11.396) Alright. JT ODonnell (03:22.435) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:37.838) Pretty excited about that. JT ODonnell (03:39.086) Do they still have like the place in the center where people have like their RVs, like you're kind of in the pit around it? Do you know what I mean? You see that it's, yes. Are you in the snake pit? Joel Cheesman (03:44.494) The snake pit. Yeah. Yes. You, we're not, we're not parking in the, in the field this year. We did like, we did last time we went. So we'll be on the outskirts. But yes, if, if, if you're a sports fan at all, the 500 should be on your bucket list, just like the Kentucky Derby. Like there are certain things that you should do. The Indy 500 is one of them. Uh, very American, but yes, tons of, yeah, tons of just America in a, in a JT ODonnell (04:04.462) So American, yes. Joel Cheesman (04:14.104) dome seated, not a dome, but like a big, as American as it gets, the Indy 500. Last time we went, they had helicopters, guns. mean, this year I think Brandon Frazier, Caitlin Clark is gonna be there. David Letterman is always there. It's just a very, very tasty piece of Americana, like a deviled egg, I guess. JT ODonnell (04:38.21) love it. Will we see pictures on social media, Is that are we going to see them? Joel Cheesman (04:42.486) I'm sure I'm sure that we will. I'm sure the pictures that my children take and the ones we take will be different. My kids will probably be like, look at my dorky dad in his, you know, whatever the hell I'm wearing. still have to go get a really obnoxious patriotic t-shirt to wear. I'm kind of leaning towards the flannel with the cutoff sleeves and the Paps blue ribbon, patch on the back. JT ODonnell (04:49.22) Totally different. JT ODonnell (05:07.382) man. True story. I'm out in California on a wine tour and we fall in love with this couple who bought a dilapidated plum farm. We were their last people of the day. They brought us on their porch. They're pouring wine. We're having the best time. The guy is amazing and he says, I'll come show you where I make the wine. We go in, opens a fridge and it's just filled with PBR kinkers. Top, that's all, PBR kinkers. We go, what's going on? And he goes, takes a lot of PBR to make a good wine. I will never forget that quote for as long as I live, right? Every time I see one. Joel Cheesman (05:39.234) I had no idea how you gonna bridge that from PBR to wine, but you did great. You did very well. You did very well. Let's get to shout out, shall we? JT ODonnell (05:41.174) Amazing, Amazing, right? Yeah. Get it, get it. Joel Cheesman (05:50.924) All right. My first shout out, goes to Southwest airlines. I don't know if you've seen this story, but, it was only a matter of time. Some Jackass showed up in Dallas with a robot, for the flight robot called Stewie. like maybe a three foot tall humanoid, I guess, if you will, he's posted videos of this robot in the, in the airport. giving high fives, doing some Michael Jackson dancing. Well, obviously Southwest wasn't too hip on a robot coming on the flight. So they have apparently officially barred humanoids, robots, et cetera, from coming onto their flights. I assume they won't be the last airline to do so. They have identified it as a security risk because these things have batteries and batteries do what batteries do. But I'm sure they don't want to flight. full of robots that people bring onto these things. They don't allow pets under any circumstances. They shouldn't allow robots under any circumstances. Stewie is the name of this robot. Stewie, I'm okay with you flying the plane, but I'm not okay with you sitting between me and my Jack and Coke. So no robots on flights. So shout out to Southwest Airlines for... JT ODonnell (07:08.036) When you said this, thought you were gonna, I thought you were saying that he was gonna claim Stewie was his companion animal, because they do make exceptions for the companion annual, right? You know, it's only a matter of time. This is my AI buddy. Joel Cheesman (07:16.962) Well, you know that's coming, too. Joel Cheesman (07:21.708) I mean, they're making robot dogs and cats and everything else. mean, so those things are going to want to their people are crazy and robots are coming and they want to come on flights with us. And, I'm not hip to it. I'm not hip to it. What you got. JT ODonnell (07:37.444) My shout outs to the podcast, Crime Junkies. So I decided that I needed to listen to something other than business news all the time, take a break and not stare at a screen. I got on and said, what are the top podcasts? It's number five, apparently. you know, flipped on and picked one and went down the rabbit hole. And now I don't look at any human the same. Let me just tell you, I'm walking around now watching everything. Like they have me so dialed in. Joel Cheesman (07:58.827) Okay. JT ODonnell (08:07.266) that I literally have to take a break from it. I have to limit how much I can listen to crime junkies because this little engineering brain is starting to manufacture, everyone's a suspect. Everyone's a suspect now, thanks to crime junkies. So I appreciate the awareness. Joel Cheesman (08:07.724) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (08:13.334) Okay. Joel Cheesman (08:21.23) Do you remember the podcast? Do you remember dirty John? JT ODonnell (08:25.7) Oh gosh, watch the whole thing. Yes, that's my point. This is like a dirty John every episode, but it's like sitting around the campfire and they keep, you only listen to it. So the plot twists and turns and I'm sure everybody's going to message me now and go, where have you been? This thing has been around since like 2017, but I'm always late to the party on everything. Let me be clear when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I'm here for it. I got a lot to listen to, but look out if you're around me now because I'm not going to trust you anymore. And they're teaching me. So there you have it. Joel Cheesman (08:27.895) you Joel Cheesman (08:39.084) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:45.325) Okay. Joel Cheesman (08:54.53) so, so dirty John, that, for those who don't know dirty John is basically a love story where the guy was a total fraud and what he told the woman he was. don't know. Did he have another family? Like just a total wormhole of, deceit and evil in this guy. So I'm with my wife and she's, she's listening to this podcast. have no idea that she is. She starts. Let's say acting differently around me. And at one point it's like, what is going on? JT ODonnell (09:07.949) Yes. JT ODonnell (09:19.585) You Joel Cheesman (09:24.788) And sure enough, she was listening to this dirty John and she, unlike probably a lot of other wives, girlfriends, whatever out there were like, is he really the man I think he is? Like, is there something to hide? And she started treating me. No, there was nothing there, but she thought there might be. So just be careful when you do the, when you consume this stuff, cause a lot of people might suffer that don't deserve to suffer. JT ODonnell (09:47.758) Fair enough, fair warning, fair warning. Joel Cheesman (09:50.734) By the way, speaking of late to the party, we talked, we always talk about stuff we're streaming. Uh, your friends and neighbors. I'm on season one. You're, you're, you're well into it. And I'm sure a lot of our, so don't, no spoilers here, but, great show. John Ham, Amanda Pete. I'm sure there are new stars that come into season two. Um, what, what's interesting about it is it's, it's a total mess, at least so far message of rich people suck. JT ODonnell (09:56.516) JT ODonnell (10:00.642) I'm caught up, I'm caught up. JT ODonnell (10:06.264) Great show. Joel Cheesman (10:20.524) That's basically the message and it's rich people fucking other rich people, not literally. So I feel like it's a message that resonates today with a lot of people that rich people suck and it's like a deep dive into their lives and how they really suck. anyway, great acting, great storytelling. John Hamm could be in anything and I would enjoy it, but you're a fan too. JT ODonnell (10:41.272) Right. I'm a huge fan and I think defining more that beyond rich people suck that the level at which they're at and play at, like their definition of problems are just so different than somebody else's definition of problems, right? So they're arguably suffering in anguish and whatnot, but you just, you look at it go, I can't even imagine being on that level. So to me that part's fascinating. Joel Cheesman (10:56.93) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (11:07.107) Yeah. JT ODonnell (11:10.308) And the complexity of the stuff he gets into is fantastic. Fantastic. Joel Cheesman (11:15.692) Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's getting interesting. If you haven't checked it out, I it's, it's on Apple TV. again, rich people shit. Not everyone has Apple TV. you know, there's some privilege there, I guess with us, but yeah, if you have Apple TV, make sure you check out your friends and neighbors and make sure guys, what's even better than that is free shit from Chad and cheese. So make sure you head out to Chadcheese.com slash free, just like our friend, Steven McGrath says. Joel Cheesman (12:57.048) The World Cup is starting soon. I don't know if you're paying any attention to that, but Scotland will be in the States. The Tartan Army is coming to America. I know Stephen is particularly excited about all that. Are you going to watch the World Cup? JT ODonnell (12:58.308) Mm. JT ODonnell (13:12.324) I'm more of a welcome to Wrexham gal. I need backstory. And I've really enjoyed that series, understanding how that all works. They just dropped the season right now. It's interesting. You learn a lot, right? You know what it reminds me of? I'm so dating myself, but you're a Gen Xer. Do you remember the wild world of sports on Saturdays and how they would always tell you the story about the athlete? Joel Cheesman (13:21.173) Okay. Joel Cheesman (13:31.331) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:34.958) Sure. JT ODonnell (13:38.34) You know, that has always been more exciting to me, probably my storytelling background. So I need a little context, but I'm sure they'll be bringing it and I'll probably get sucked in once the World Cup gets going. I'm just curious. Have we seen any more updates? they, are they filling stadiums at $2,000 a ticket? Joel Cheesman (13:53.176) Ooh, I think that's, that's going to be a big story going forward. as jet fuel prices increase and prices go, go through the roof. I think that people will be challenged to come in a way that they have, but I mean, there will be people there for sure. think Kansas city and other cities that are sort of tier two will have a hard time. Interestingly, you and I have talked about concerts in the past. Have you, have you seen the blue dot epidemic that's in the news? So this is interesting. A lot of, a lot of. JT ODonnell (13:55.681) Mm-hmm, I do too. JT ODonnell (14:17.699) No. Joel Cheesman (14:21.998) A lot of acts have canceled their shows for the summer. I know Post Malone, I think a lot of others. So it's called the blue dot epidemic, which is if you go to Ticketmaster and you search tickets, they have blue dots for the seats that are available. So it's called blue dot epidemic because these shows have really high ticket prices, but the stadiums are filled with blue dots because they're unsold tickets. So the public can actually see how good a JT ODonnell (14:29.252) Hmm Joel Cheesman (14:50.83) tour is doing by how many blue dots are on, you know, their ticket master thing. So a lot of artists are freaking out because, my God, all the blue dots are not selling tickets. And then, so they're canceling shows. So you and I've talked about concerts and the prices of them. So it's, it's coming to roost for a lot of artists this summer. JT ODonnell (14:53.316) JT ODonnell (15:04.629) Yeah. JT ODonnell (15:10.046) You know, in general, remember, it was all about post pandemic, everyone was going to pay a premium for experiences now. They weren't going to amass stuff anymore. Nobody's going to buy stuff. It's all going to be experience. And like per usual, they just kept jacking it up until now. What do you do? You know? Joel Cheesman (15:17.453) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:24.014) Well, think artists were told a story of look, we're streaming music. You're not getting paid what you used to. And we were selling CDs. You'll be able to make it up in live shows. And unless your name is Taylor Swift or those high level folks, Beyonce, you're going to have a hard time making the kind of money that you want, from live shows. I don't think there's a plan B for them. I don't like, I don't know if you can't do shows. I don't know. Maybe linked LinkedIn lives. I don't know. JT ODonnell (15:41.784) Thanks. JT ODonnell (15:49.112) I will tell you, the paid telegram is surging. So what I've seen more and more, I think I mentioned on a show before, again, all comes back to social media paid, whether it's OnlyFans or whatever platform, that idea of gated content and the ability to feel connected to the creator seems to continue to surge. Joel Cheesman (15:55.854) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (16:10.06) Yeah. Well, speaking of events. Joel Cheesman (16:14.968) So I don't think you have any travel coming up for business. You're, you're home base for awhile. Golf season, it's deviled egg season. It's, it's a, it's new Englanders living their best life. But, so we have breakfast coming up. know Chad was recently in London. I he's in some museum now today, which is why he's not with us. I am excited to be taking the month of June off from the show. JT ODonnell (16:16.804) I am staying put and it's summer, it's golf season, it's summertime, so I'm good staying put, yeah. Exactly. JT ODonnell (16:33.828) You JT ODonnell (16:40.164) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (16:41.806) announcing it now. I'm going to Italy with my wife for a couple of weeks. She's doing a conference. I've never been to Italy. We're doing Venice, we're doing Rome, we're doing Milan. I think another city I can't remember. But if you have any Italy tips for me out there in listener land or JT, feel free to drop those on me. And then shortly thereafter, Cole, my oldest JT ODonnell (16:48.6) Mm. Joel Cheesman (17:06.798) People listen to the show know that I take him to Europe with me for a rec fest every year. This is our fourth year. did general England first year. did, uh, Dublin or Ireland second year. Last year we did Berlin this year. He wants to do Paris. So we'll do the Paris thing before London. Um, so I have, I have that travel. You'll miss me in June. Sorry. I'll be back for, for the rest of the summer, but do you have it aside from business? Do you have any personal stuff travels you want to talk about? You good. JT ODonnell (17:10.167) us. JT ODonnell (17:21.284) you JT ODonnell (17:35.402) So again, it's like this is the time of year where you want to be outdoors. It doesn't get dark till 8 p.m. The weather's good. I want to be here as much as possible. So no plans, you know, other than going to see the daughter in Florida. But do I really want to do that in middle of summer? No. So I'm staying put. I'll hold down the fort for you with the others. June, you're welcome, Joel. We'll hang here for you. It is. And it's lovely. Joel Cheesman (17:40.44) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (17:45.112) Got it. Joel Cheesman (17:49.347) Got it. Joel Cheesman (17:54.222) Stick, yeah, I think you'll be fine. Stick season is over and New Englanders are going wild. Yeah, so remember our travel is sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Any Italy tips for me? Have you been? Drink lots of wine and pasta, I guess. JT ODonnell (18:11.876) have not been to Italy, I have not, but I lived in France for a year. So Paris is spectacular. They're obviously the must see things, but just the one thing I would say is watch the crowds, right? Keep an eyeball on, know, try to go to the things not on the busy day, you know? Exactly, people watching. One little tip if you've never been to the Greek Quarter. Joel Cheesman (18:16.587) okay. Joel Cheesman (18:20.418) Mm-hmm, been many times. Joel Cheesman (18:28.11) That's the best part of Paris, sitting at a cafe, drinking wine, watching the world. JT ODonnell (18:37.024) It's kind of an experience. They're all standing outside throwing plates everywhere. It's like right out of a movie. Absolutely worth it. Joel Cheesman (18:44.812) get to topics. Joel Cheesman (18:51.758) All right. Tech layoffs continue to be big news in 2026, a hundred thousand layoffs in tech a year today. Last week, LinkedIn cut 5 % of their workforce, roughly 875 jobs in a reorganization. Despite revenue growth by the parent company, Microsoft meta also begins 10 % haircut with 8,000 or so layoffs this week to fund massive AI spending with more layoffs expected. Meta told employees that the reductions are quote, all part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we're making. That's right. think the year of efficiency at Meta is in year four by my account. JTF AI isn't taking jobs. The market has a funny way of showing it. What are your thoughts on the recent layoff news? JT ODonnell (19:35.587) Yeah. JT ODonnell (19:43.076) Well, before we started, we both talked about it. I think we're going to double the amount of layoffs in 2026 that we saw in 2025. mean, 92,000 tech layoffs in April alone, and they just keep coming. You know, as they say in friends and neighbors, in fact, my husband says I say this too much now, two things can be true. Ever since I heard it on there, I keep saying it. He's like, it's getting annoying. You're saying it a lot, but two things can be true right now. AI is taking jobs and companies are reorging. So stop saying it's one or the other. Joel Cheesman (19:49.857) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (20:12.27) Are they going to hire? Of course. It's not like they're going to stop hiring. know, they'll probably cut 14,000, but by the end of the year, hire back another eight. It just won't be the same people. And so that's the piece that's been so interesting to me. we're also going to talk a little bit later about where some of these jobs are going. something I predicted for a while coming out of the pandemic that just Americans didn't listen to, you know, and so any job seeker out there, anybody listening, it's the law of supply and demand, pay close attention to the market. Anyone's jobs at risk right now. Joel Cheesman (20:15.587) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (20:39.416) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (20:42.404) If there's too many people just like you, that's a problem. so, yeah, it's going to be a ride, I think, for another 18 months. Joel Cheesman (20:54.958) So the anti-AI voices are increasing. You've probably seen the commencement speeches. We talked about Central Florida last week, but also Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google in Arizona getting booed. I think some other less known commencement speakers have mentioned AI. the kids are fighting back. There are voices. Scott Galloway is a popular one. He recently had a post. JT ODonnell (21:21.112) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (21:23.64) called Apocalypse No, talking about how that the AI apocalypse was a lot of hot air, a lot of bullshit. Even Jeff Bezos has talked recently about how AI is going to increase opportunities and jobs in the future. And this is a guy whose company, former company, has more robots than most countries do. If he's saying it, that's so the, so the voices of like AI is going to take your job. are starting to wane. I think that if you have that narrative as a company, you put your risk at getting Molotov cocktailed by people and getting killed on the streets of New York. So there are many reasons to tone down the rhetoric on that. But for me, I always like to follow the money. And if you look at Microsoft and Metta's stock price over the last, let's call it year to date, It's either down, it's either sideways. And this is in a time where Google and video like big tech, your competitors seeing their stock rise significantly. So it's really easy to say, you know what, we're going to go AI and cut headcount and be more efficient, which investors say, okay, you're going to be more profitable because you're doing that. In the old days, you had to say we're cutting headcount to like You know, not AI just because well, we're not doing that well, or we're changing course. Today, companies can get cloud cover by saying we're going AI, so we're cutting heads and the market rewards that. As long as the market rewards that, companies are going to still come out and say like, hey, we don't need as many tech people. We're going to AI everything and our stock value will go up. What I do think is interesting about Metta is they're clearly spending so much money on AI that This is partly the head, the cuts are partly because we're spending so much on AI that we can't afford the folks that we have. The other piece of this thing is really interesting is you kind of mentioned it. I think there's a revaluing of the profession of these jobs that companies aren't really talking about. saying, okay, look, we need you, but not at the price that we've been paying you. So we're going to lay you off and in six months to a year. JT ODonnell (23:25.38) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:46.969) we're gonna start hiring you back at a lot lower value. That is something I think going on that a lot of people aren't talking about. And I think it's real. I think that people are realizing, look, if you have a co-pilot or an agent helping you code, don't need to, you're not, your value isn't what it was or what it is currently. We can't just say, hey, we're gonna pay you 20 % less. We're gonna fire you and pay you back at 80 % of what you were earning before we let you go. JT ODonnell (23:50.756) you Joel Cheesman (24:15.148) I think that's a narrative that needs more attention. Your thoughts? JT ODonnell (24:17.886) I, so first all, I agree. If you go back to some of the, I wouldn't say episodes when we first started talking about AI, we were regularly saying AI is not going to take your job. It's the person that learns how to use AI that will. And this whole idea of being the brains behind the bot. So if you know how to do the job of 10 people with AI, you're worth money, right? I don't need to pay you 10 salaries, but I'll probably pay you four. And so that's what is happening right now as people get more proficient with it. And I think we'll, we'll see again, this huge. Joel Cheesman (24:33.549) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (24:47.876) surge of people who move forward as a result. I agree with you. It's very talked about, but there's also another piece that I want to ask you about. When you have as much technical debt as so many of these companies have, when you have so much infrastructure debt and all of a sudden something comes along that allows new startup companies to be so nimble and to build something similar, if not better, so inexpensively, you have to start thinking about where can I cut to free up the money to use the AI to stay in the game? And as we've seen the increasing costs of AI associated with it, you have to ask yourself if more and more they're just saying like, look, our stuff's old. There's no fix. You know, there's almost a need, a do-over, a start over, learn what we've learned and go forward. How are we going to do that? We're going to do it with AI. need a lot of money for that. And then we're going to need the smart people to create that because we've already talked multiple times about startups getting acquired right now, AI startups, because the company realizes I don't want to build it internally. I'll just buy that and pull it in. So I think there's a lot of that too. Like let's free up cash because as soon as we see something worth buying, let's grab it. There's just so much that's going into these ideas right now. And all it comes down to, if you have the cash, if we freed up money, we can stay agile enough to survive. Joel Cheesman (26:03.778) Yeah. There's definitely a sense, I think of, of keeping our powder dry, being flexible to whatever the future holds. mean, look, there's a ton of geopolitical risk. There's a ton of economic risk, inflation risk, tariff risk, immigrate. Like there's so much risk. think a lot of companies like, look, let's just, let's just hoard cash. and we'll figure it out going forward. I think China AI is cheaper than what we're doing, or does like, that's a thing. JT ODonnell (26:32.707) Hmm? Joel Cheesman (26:32.96) electric cars, gas cars. mean, like countries are dealing with big forces of our people being happy or not based on what other countries are doing. And that's going to come to roost. think with lot of, a lot of people as well. think you can look at this in recruiting as well. Like the skillset of recruiting of what we know is recruiting, let's call it 10 years ago is much different than the skillset of a recruiter today. with AI and knowing how to use all these tools. So you can make the argument like, yes, we let off a lot of recruiters, but at some point do we hire recruiters back, but they have a different skillset or do we retrain the ones that we have to know this sort of technology technological future? I think that's an interesting perspective. We don't lose recruiters. We don't lose tech people, but they have a different skillset. or there are more companies that are employing more people, et cetera. so we'll see where that goes. Joel Cheesman (27:35.15) And we lost JT at 27 minutes. Joel Cheesman (27:45.49) Hi. Okay. All good. All good. All good. JT ODonnell (27:46.391) And I'm back. Hey, you just went blank on me. I'm back. Let's talk about recruiting because I am with you 100 % the AI tools that are coming across my desk right now that are literally making it possible for a hiring manager to do the work of the recruiter and potentially more accurately gets fascinating to me. A great example, McCoy IQ, full disclosure on the board. Joel Cheesman (28:12.974) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (28:15.117) they just launched and it allows a recruiter or hiring manager to post a challenge. They can use an AI avatar, explain what the challenge is. And then candidates can record a video response of how they'd handle that challenge between one and five minutes. Candidate has as many retakes as they want. Candidate owns the data. Right. So instead of a resume, you can literally hear from people how they would handle this problem. And they all come in, sorted into an ATS. You can sort through, listen. heavily vetted around the legalities, making sure it sits squarely with the candidate. When McCoy IQ goes out and announces the people that commented most were the candidates saying, finally, I'm sick of tweaking my resume for every job I applied to. I'm sick of being ignored. You're telling me can just record and explain to you how I do it. And then you'll contact me if it's a fit. So we're already moving into a phase where we're removing that recruiter sourcer, that recruiter phone screen. Joel Cheesman (28:59.48) Yeah. JT ODonnell (29:12.031) straight to the hiring manager, cutting that maybe pile in half to a third. This is the kind of AI innovation, but what it doesn't do is take the judgment out. This is what I like. We have to hold on to the judgment, the human aspect of that. You can't wipe that. AI is never going to replace that. And that's where I feel the smart recruiters are going to lean in and say, I'm going to do the judgment part, the harder stuff, but I'm going to use this nice little tech stack to get me there. Joel Cheesman (29:27.959) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (29:37.039) Yeah. You're familiar with Bumble, the dating app. I've, I've, I've been fascinated with dating on the internet since it was a thing, partly because it was one of the few things early on that made money on the internet. the, dating sites back in the day, they were making money while everyone else was burning cash. And I feel like there's a lot of parallels between like dating apps and hiring. You're putting people together, right? And, JT ODonnell (29:39.971) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (29:50.85) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (29:55.884) Hmm? Joel Cheesman (30:05.996) The CEO of Bumble recently had an interview and some of the things that they're building on the app that she talks about are you'll have an agent, like a dating concierge, I think is what they call it. And your agent or your whatever co-pilot can sort of date virtually and it knows your personality and it knows the person, other person's personality and it can sort of pregame what a relationship might look like. And then before you actually go and like see face to face. So your agent can basically date hundreds of women in my case, or your case, men and have a relationship agentically and then tell you, hey, our agents get along really well. We think that you should meet in person. That's fascinating, but it also translates into potential hiring, right? What, what could a world exist where I have an agent that JT ODonnell (30:56.652) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (31:01.934) knows me and how I work and what I've done and et cetera. And then a company that has an agent says, okay, why don't you come to work virtually for a while? We'll see if it's a fit. And if it is, then we'll actually face to face, we'll talk and see if you're a fit for the company. I could totally see that in the future. And the skill set of a recruiter hiring manager, whatever that has to like maneuver that world is unique, but it is an interesting opportunity. And I could see a lot of recruiters and job seekers take advantage of that world because Interviewing is uncomfortable. And if an agent can do it, let an agent do it. JT ODonnell (31:33.099) It is. Absolutely. Evidence-based hiring 2.0 is what you're discussing there. And I'm here for that as long as there's still that human judgment eventually comes into play. And that's where I think this is interesting. Also funny that you said dating apps. One of the co-founders of McCoy worked for Tinder. And so the mindset is there. The other one worked for Google. The two of them are coming together and looking at our problem differently than our own industry, saying there's just got to be a better way to do this. And so I find that. Joel Cheesman (31:38.371) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (32:02.722) Fascinating that we're finally there and that AI is powering the right parts of this So it'll be interesting to see and it will create jobs. I am in the camp We're we're you know, we're gonna swing towards a massive job creation in AI. So people should get ready for Joel Cheesman (32:07.618) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:16.974) So short-term pain with layoffs, but we both agree long-term like the future is so bright, we got to wear shades. I right? All right, let's get to recruit holdings. Speaking of the future so bright, you got to wear shades. Recruit holdings exceeded its fiscal year 25 earnings guidance, reporting a 3.9 % increase in revenue and a 17 % increase in EBITDA. The HR tech segment, which includes Indeed and Glassdoor, saw a 6.3 % revenue increase driven by monetization efforts. That means higher prices and improved operational efficiency. The stock is up over 25 % since the news. JT, your take on recruit earnings. JT ODonnell (32:56.906) You know, we're at the point now where we better start hearing news like this. Because like you just said, is in year four of the restructuring, the AI. Look, we've been hearing this from so many companies. At some point in time, we better start seeing these things pay off. So I interpret that as, all right, you're showing us that things internally are making sense. I still always wonder though, know, numbers can be manipulated. I'm not saying they have, I know it's public document, I get it, but. Joel Cheesman (33:09.006) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:22.029) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (33:25.675) It just, is this a blip? did something. Is this an anomaly? Can we point to some things that are happening in the market or is this really they've turned the corner and we're going to see some solid performance? I think it's too early to tell, but I hope to hear more things like this that says, Hey, we're on the other side of this. Now we're seeing the growth because once they see a track record of that, then we're going to start to see that let's invest, let's go, let's try new things. Let's throw money. Let's hire, which is what we want. Right? This is what you and I are ultimately saying should happen. So sooner we see that, the better. So I'm going to stay hopeful that that's good data and we're going to see. Joel Cheesman (34:00.143) All right, well, the street love this news. Everyone from Goldman Sachs to Jeffries put a buy rating or kept a buy rating on the company. Others over-weighted the stock. I've contended for a long time that LinkedIn and Indeed for most companies is about 80 % of your recruiting spend, your recruitment advertising spend. 20 % is split between. You know, niche sites, programmatic stuff, throw stuff at the wall, whatever. And that's sort of called a monopoly. And what monopolies do is monopolies raise prices because they can like where else you're to go and look in a, a, in an uncertain environment, you're going to cut around that 20 % of your budget. That's sort of like, well, we kind of know it works, but we don't know what what part of it and maybe half of it's worthwhile, but we don't know which half. Uh, but we do know that we're not going to get fired for cutting LinkedIn and indeed. like, we're not going to leave that the 20 % we're going to tell the powers that be, we're going to cut around that. We're going to decrease budgets, be more efficient, et cetera. Um, so when, when you see headlines on this show, like job case has a new CEO, uh, seek out CEO leaves companies go out of business. TJ Maxx clearance sale. That's the 20 % that's getting filtered through the system. While that happens, indeed LinkedIn get to play price increase, get to pay. Okay, where are you going to go? You're to leave? I don't think so. We're going to increase about 10 % this year, 20, whatever it is. This is a monopoly essentially. There's no more monster.com to go to really. There's no more like competitor. And this is what we're seeing with the the success of these companies, it's not way more jobs or way more whatever. It's like they have price control because they are essentially a monopoly in our space and people aren't going to leave. And even the upworks of the world, the fibers, they're not filling the void for these. So people aren't contract employee this stuff. They're still doing a lot of the traditional old school post jobs and source, you know, go to resume databases. Joel Cheesman (36:17.548) Like the more things change, sometimes JT, the more they stay the same. Good old fashioned monopolies get to raise prices and indeed is no stranger to that. No exception. JT ODonnell (36:29.122) A little 80-20 rule you're talking about there in effect, right? Joel Cheesman (36:31.768) Yep. Yep. And let it, we'll talk about LinkedIn after the break. mean, LinkedIn is getting into other shit. I don't want to say they're leaving recruitment. but I think they're realizing that, tick tock. And these guys are making a lot of money on creators and influencers and video and shit like that. And we want a piece of that and we'll keep the employment thing going, but indeed is still that sort of tried and true. Here's what we do. And you're not going to leave us. JT ODonnell (36:38.71) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (37:00.258) We'll be right back after this quick break. By the way, guys, if you're not plugged in, if you're not subscribed, what are you doing? Check us out. Subscribe on your platform of choice. Check us out on YouTube at youtube.com slash at cheese and leave us a review. We love to hear from you. Joel Cheesman (37:23.022) All right, JT, LinkedIn, your sweet spot. That's why we bring you on the LinkedIn insider. LinkedIn plans to host up to 4,000 gated creator led events annually to drive engagement and monetization. The platform is testing paid events. These are virtual events from what I can tell with selected creators focusing on educational insights for professionals. While LinkedIn has been cautious with creator monetization, sponsored events could provide a significant boost. JT ODonnell (37:29.046) Ha. Joel Cheesman (37:52.185) for creators and increase user engagement, which means more money for LinkedIn. JT, your thoughts on LinkedIn's events. JT ODonnell (38:02.612) Yeah, I mean, it's a great idea. You know, as somebody who's been with them for such a long time and watched them sort of ebb and flow with what they thought about creators monetizing on their platform, you know, I, as a business owner, that's been my main way of attracting clients. And so there have been times where they've been a fan of what I've been doing. There's been times where they weren't a fan. in the fan phase, which I'm excited about. And I think where I see them different than indeed is that LinkedIn understands that we are truly all a business of one. Joel Cheesman (38:15.448) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (38:31.788) that we're coming in a full circle moment, that this idea of long-term full-time with benefits is gone, and that we're going to have to empower people to take more ownership of their business of one. And so when I wrote the book Pro Voice, which is a lot last year around LinkedIn and the whole story of how to monetize on it, it's like how to turn what you know into what you earn. I think they're going to need to be at the forefront of this, whereas Indeed is not. And so these events are going to give people a way to get paid. Joel Cheesman (38:31.864) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (39:00.512) You have to offer people multiple income streams. It's how they can diversify and ensure that they have income security. And that's really what they're focused on. So I'm excited about it. As someone who's done an event recently on there, it was mind blowing to me. So I was on their largest career podcast in March and we broke the registration. It maxed out and the engineers had to hard wire to allow more people to register. And we were all just. like, holy moly, what's going on? 46,000 people signing up for this thing. It wasn't paid, it was free. But to see it in action and to know what's possible is super exciting. And I can see a world where, you they're finally going to allow us to host, you know, these events, these paid events as a creator. And that's huge. You know, they're sitting on a goldmine of professionals who have something to say, and they're guiding people down that path with their new algorithm updates and everything they want people to do. Joel Cheesman (39:47.82) Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (39:57.356) They're doing it right. It's slow, but it's calculated. And so I say bring it and any other other income opportunities they're willing to host. Joel Cheesman (40:00.26) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:05.208) You mentioned algorithm. I know you have some sort of insight on this. You've talked about it in a previous show. Give us sort of a quick, I know a lot, everyone on the show probably posts on LinkedIn. What's the secrets? What's, what's going on with the algorithm right now? What, what's going to get noticed and what isn't. JT ODonnell (40:19.202) Right, the algorithm isn't trying to make you go viral. The algorithm is trying to match you to the right set of eyeballs and it's heavily looking at what you're a subject matter expert on. So every time you post something that's off your brand, and when I say off brand, I mean your industry and your top two skill sets. If you don't know how to stay on brand with that, you're diluting the ability for it to connect you properly. And so they're really forcing people to that. Now, as people started to figure that out, what did they do? They started throwing in next to nothing into chat GPT or whoever their favorite AI tool is and say, create me a post for LinkedIn. So now what's happening is there's just AI slop. LinkedIn recognized it, said, we're going to fix that. We're going to algorithmically suppress people. So now you really have to pay attention because you can't just give it an idea and say, run with it. You're going to have to hyper personalize it. And it's built to look and say, did you put your own personal experience in that? Can we look at your profile? and say, yes, that person has that experience. The story they're telling is around that experience. Otherwise, these abstract thought leadership posts in your space are going to get suppressed. And that's mostly what these AI, you know, post generators are spitting out. You have to be hyper, hyper personalized, which I'm here for because that's what we've been teaching from the get go, right? Getting people to get super niche into who they are so that they can be surfaced. And so I'm thrilled they're doing it. Joel Cheesman (41:32.28) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (41:39.019) I think there are going to be a lot of people very soon that are to what happened to all my views? If they haven't already in the last six months since they started making these changes, they're just going have to get on board with being authentic and telling their personal story so that they can prove they're real. Joel Cheesman (41:58.433) And it's good news that I don't think LinkedIn believes that me as a cohost means I should work at Texas Roadhouse and seat people in there at their table. They do understand a little bit better now that cohost is not, seating people at the local Applebee's. that's good news. I, you talk about the money in this. I am, I was shocked. let me look at my notes here real quick. Cause I want to get this right. Paid virtual events led by creators represent a $5 billion industry this year. JT ODonnell (42:06.818) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (42:27.758) according to the documents that the business insider saw on the LinkedIn move. And that number could grow to 25 billion by 2030 according to those documents. So follow the money. There's a ton of money in these events and people find these creators and LinkedIn is going to, to take advantage of that. They're looking at 44,000 events. a thousand creators. And you and I were talking about the long tail before the before the before the show. And tick tock there's a story about tick tock advertisers recently that when tick tock started to have advertising as an option, everyone was like, Okay, who gets the most views? Who's the biggest who gets the most like eyeballs? And what they're finding on tick tock and I'm sure this is the same with every social network is that The money is in the tail. The money is in the niche person talking about underwater basket weaving or employment or like whatever it is. It's not the person that's talking like throwing bombs at everybody and getting a lot of views. It's in that niche. And LinkedIn, think more than most is very well positioned to say you're an expert in accounting, architecture. JT ODonnell (43:27.479) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (43:33.228) Yep. JT ODonnell (43:40.803) Correct. Joel Cheesman (43:52.033) whatever. And we have that audience. And by the way, we have companies that want to get in front of those people because they sign checks and they make decisions. And LinkedIn's going to profit on that. Certainly. I think you doing what you do and us doing what we do, there's going to be a whole lot of opportunity to leverage LinkedIn. We talked last week about, if you want to talk to me for an hour, it's going to cost you X. We'll connect on LinkedIn. They'll take a cut. Same thing here. JT ODonnell (44:11.404) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (44:19.067) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (44:19.298) Like we want to do a live event like on LinkedIn and the people on LinkedIn can pay us to come to the event to get access and whatever. Like it's obviously a huge opportunity. and we're going to see a lot more of this on LinkedIn. You're going to see a lot more creator spotlight, I think in the coming months and years. JT ODonnell (44:31.146) Thank you. JT ODonnell (44:36.322) This so validates Gartner came out last year and said, look, this is a $480 billion knowledge creator economy by 2027. It is, this is where we're headed, you know, and that's exciting to me. If you can take your knowledge and turn it into something, you look at this podcast and the way that you monetize now, there are people that always want access to you and Chad. So why can't that be a way to do that efficiently for you? Joel Cheesman (44:45.848) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (44:55.16) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (45:02.87) This is what we need. We've been waiting for it for a long time. So LinkedIn, I know you're out there listening. Thank you. Joel Cheesman (45:08.076) Yeah, it's, it's, you know, Chad and I, we've, always brainstorming on like how to make more money, but do less work. maybe I'm pushing that more than him, but, anyway, like we've always talked about Patreon. We've talked, I mean, I think only fans probably came like as a joke, but we'll have real content like, so this is sort of. Patreon, they talk about subscriptions and the story as well. Like imagine a world where. JT ODonnell (45:16.61) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (45:36.387) the Chad and cheese fans can pay a whatever subscription fee to get content, like maybe get the green room content, the stuff that we talked about before the show or like hidden or like unique content. So I subscribe, I pay them a bit of money on LinkedIn and that's our audience. Right. So that to us, like just talking about this, that feels more organic than like a Patreon where we have to move people to a different platform. This is where they already are. JT ODonnell (46:03.33) Okay, and let me just add on to that because I do a lot of content obviously and intentionally so that when people do buy private sessions with me, hire in memberships with me, and they get access to me the first time, the number one thing I get told is, I feel like I already know you. And that creates a very different dynamic when we connect. We're able to get right into it. They've already passed the surface stuff. Our conversations are always more intelligent. They're getting more out of them. So when you think about that content model and how many people would like access to you, This is where the human experience, thanks to all of these things that we can do with AI and technology, starts to pay off, like you said, and how to get paid for your knowledge, not your time, like how to make more money. That's the exciting thing here. It's really using this and creating that experience. There are a lot of people that want to meet you, aren't going to go to an event, can't get there, but would love to talk to you about their idea for a business. Great. Pay me. Let's have a conversation. Joel Cheesman (46:58.67) So many people want to talk to me, JT. JT ODonnell (47:04.83) You Joel Cheesman (47:05.006) All right, let's go to our next topic. From Fortune, back in 2024, the Brookings Institute estimated that 86 % of customer service reps tasks had high automation potential. Well, not so fast. Nearly 2 million workers in the Philippines now work in call centers up every year since 2016 and through the current AI boom. JT ODonnell (47:19.01) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (47:30.19) Turns out as AI makes call center work cheaper and faster, companies are buying more of it, not less. Kind of weird, huh? JT, your take on the Fortune article and the automation of call centers. Not so much. JT ODonnell (47:43.476) Okay, so I recently heard a term, had to to Ken Evans, a colleague of mine, chief dissent officer, and that every organization needs a chief dissent officer. I feel like when the pandemic was happening and all these jobs were going remote and all these people were telling me, JT, I'm making six figures, go in remote. They're saying, I'll never go back into the office. I was the chief dissent officer. I remember writing an article about it, doing some videos on it saying, be careful. Because eventually when these companies figure out these jobs can be done remotely, they can also send them someplace else where they're paying people one quarter of the price. I will go back and find you those videos, those articles. And I got backlash, you know, and now here it is. And so the fact that we couldn't see that and recognize that they're going to go where they can get the cheapest labor. labor is most expensive. Joel Cheesman (48:26.542) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (48:35.562) unreliable, so you're always going to be looking at a way to commoditize that. And we knew it was coming. AI will continue to improve what it can do from an automation standpoint. But yeah, I mean, we shouldn't be surprised by this. you know, unfortunately, a lot of people are going to suffer because of it. Joel Cheesman (48:37.389) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:53.346) Yeah. goes back to the 19th century. there was an English economist named William Stanley Jevons. I think I'm saying that correctly, who after the invention of the steam engine, made coal more efficient. The theory was, well, there'll be less coal because the steam engines are more efficient. Well, what happened is the cheapness of it created more steam engines, which said we need more coal than we did before, because now we have more stuff moving everything around through. be a steam engine. So customer service historically sucks ass. Everyone is called a phone number and like press this number to go here and like we're not here or getting in an infinite loop of hell. So fewer people call customer service than I think they would normally because they know I'm entering the seventh layer of hell when I call customer service or I get into a chat bot situation. So If I can get to a world where I can call customer service and it's a customer service rep that's augmented by AI, maybe they come in at certain points where it's human. it's like, if that can be friendly, warm, appealing, do you think more or less people are going to call customer service numbers? More people are going to call customer service because, wow, this is actually nice now. So. AI is making customer service great again, sorry. So more and more people are going to use it. So guess what? We need more customer service people because more people are costing call customer service because customer service is good now because of AI. That's just one example. I think if you, if you take that into AI can speak any language, AI can adapt to any time. Like so This can go into multiple parts of the world that never had an opportunity to do customer service before, do it for multiple languages, companies that never had the ability will be able to have customer. Like this start, the sweater starts unraveling and new opportunities start coming up, which is why I think this narrative of AI isn't going to kill all the jobs. They're going to create more jobs than there were before, helps support this story right here from Fortune. JT ODonnell (51:14.561) Yeah. You know what? One of the things that I really enjoy about the way you look at things is that you look at it more like a chess match. No, I mean this sincerely. And I think there's a lot of people out there and I think I love being on this podcast because that's what we're ultimately trying to do. Not look at this or what will happen here, but really kick the can down the road and think through a few more steps in the process instead of being so short-sighted. And I think that's what you're referring to here. I can't agree with you enough. This is why we're saying, hey, there's going to be a lot of opportunity coming. Joel Cheesman (51:30.594) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:43.544) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (51:43.552) Because as it's all, it's just part of the process of getting us back to that place where the ideas boom and we see the vision and off we go. And we're seeing the signs of that. We're feeling it, you know, and that, that excites me. yeah, but in this time, there's a short term, massive pain. These people that were making six figures doing customer service jobs from home here in America, not anymore. Joel Cheesman (51:53.902) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:04.076) Yeah. So short story or small short story. So, my local community has a new event center. play amateur hockey, amateur football. It's like a really cheap family friendly thing to do on a Saturday night. And they have those concessions. It's basically like a couple of big refrigerators. You take what you want, you put it on a table, which is the register, I guess. And there's, there's no one scanning the, the technology can look at everything that's on the table. I got a couple beers. got a couple dogs. got a thing of popcorn and it knows what I'm buying and it will like, do, do, do. And he'll tell me what I'm buying and how much it is. I credit card digitally pay. And then I leave. There's one person overseeing everything. Now that the, the short sighted person would say, my God, all the people. who have concession jobs and take your money, like they're now unemployed. Whereas I would say like, okay, but I'm buying a lot more beer and food than I did before when I knew I had to stand in line at a concession stand. Those are cooks cooking more hot dogs. Those are beer companies selling more beer and they need to do that these days. So there's more people on the backend that are canning beer, brewing beer, et cetera. So. It all kind of works out and creates new opportunities. You just got to be adaptive. You got to be Darwinistic about this and survive that way. Now from an employment standpoint, think as more, I think some companies are to come out and have on their career site, you will interview with human beings. It's a brand play. We're not like, this is a human business. We're selling to humans, whatever. Like I'm waiting for the company. It'll probably be a luxury brand that says, know what? We're not going to send you to an automated bot. Like you're going to talk to a human being and that'll be a brand play. Um, so I, I think this will play out, uh, and more people will interview with that company or more people want to work at that company because it's human beings on it. Like all this stuff is going to, is going to be messy, but I do think it, it will hopefully all work out in the end. Sorry. I'm the anti grumpy old man today. This is not, this is not like me. Joel Cheesman (54:28.43) All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about the automation of podcasts, which should be scary. We'll find out if it is. Joel Cheesman (54:39.534) All right, JT, Amazon has launched Alexa podcasts, a new Alexa plus feature that lets you generate full AI hosted podcast episodes on any topic in minutes. Just tell Alexa what you want to learn news, travel, prep, hobbies, career topics, history, et cetera. And it pulls from over 200 reputable sources like AP Reuters, Washington Post, et cetera. Gives you a preview, lets you customize length and style, then creates a ready to listen podcast. Here's an audio clip of said podcasts. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (55:50.702) All right, JT, what are your thoughts on automated on-demand podcasts? JT ODonnell (55:51.056) Hehehehehe JT ODonnell (55:55.81) Well, that's a really interesting clip because it sounds like you took a good one that had that kind of flow that sounds very, you know, natural engagement. I think I would want to listen to a lot of others to see how realistic they sound. I personally feel that I'm getting better and better at picking up on AI generated things just because they're not, you know, that fluid yet. And so, but at the same time, we know that's going to get better and better. If it's a quality podcast and it's interesting and it holds my attention, Joel Cheesman (56:17.261) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (56:25.42) I'm probably going to be fine. JT ODonnell (56:34.258) hope is that we see more of is, can two people have a conversation and really turn that into a more interesting AI podcast? I think for a long time, people have failed at podcasts because they had to do all the production, figure out all the things that worked. I'm hoping this does something for people who say, I don't have a production team. I don't have years building a podcast, but I know the two of us together are an amazing dynamic and so help us build something great. If that's what this is about, I'm here for it. And again, if it's really quality and interesting. probably wouldn't be upset if it was fully AI generated, but you know, I would be picky. What do you think? Are you scared? You worried? Joel Cheesman (57:10.328) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (57:14.776) So my knee jerk reaction is like, shit, if anyone could just on demand, out what, like tell me about the LinkedIn layoffs and there's a podcast about that and it's thoughtful and engaging, like that is ultimately scary. I do think that people, the value of podcast is that you get to know JT ODonnell (57:21.058) You just made me choke. Joel Cheesman (57:43.875) the people on the other end of the microphone and you get to know their sort of their vibe, their energy, their take on like when you said chess match, right? Like I appreciate that, but yeah, like, so if it's a take from me and you come off like, it's like a chess match, like my AI should be do something similar, which I don't think I can. But that said, if there's a world in the future where the podcast that I listened to If, if those people, like, let's take a pivot well-known podcast or dire CEO, or like any, any kind of show that you, that you love and you love the host and you kind of have a real sense for like, what it's going to be like putting this person in my ear. If AI can replicate that and I can say, you know what? this new thing came out and like, Hey, Alexa, give me a five minute podcast on in the voice of Scott Galloway. About what he thinks about Trump going to China or whatever, and it can create a five minute Scott Galloway podcast on what based on what his LLM is on what he might say about this thing. That's kind of interesting. And if I'm Scott Galloway, can I license my voice to then make money on that podcast or that piece of content? Because Chad and I are human beings. You're a human being. Like there's only so much bandwidth. There are only so many topics in an hour that we can cover. I'm sure people would love to know, Hey, what would, what do Chad and cheese think about such and such startup in Poland that just raised 10 million. If AI can create a show with Chad and cheese and it's our voice and it's based on what our opinions have been in the past have said certain kind of startup. Like, we can make money off that. We basically scale our voice to infinity. And it's also then like, okay. And any language possible. JT ODonnell (59:13.634) Thank you. Joel Cheesman (59:41.216) in any, like any time of the day, any timeframe, like that becomes to me a really appealing opportunity to take our voice and then make it into on-demand podcasts. And we get a cut just like an artist with a song of every, of every show that people listen to in our voice. JT ODonnell (59:57.474) You know what I love about this is that in order to get there, people have to trust a voice, which means somebody has to get out there and really prove their knowledge and how they think. Really, you are a brand, like you said. You're not a brand in five posts. A brand takes years to build consistency for people to really know you. That is exciting to somebody like me and you who can scale because of the years. Literally years we have put into being willing to put ourselves out there, whereas most people haven't. And that I'm happy because it hasn't been easy. You and I both know this is not an easy thing to do, to go out and constantly put out your points of view and run the risk of backlash and people coming at you. So the idea that this could be a thing is super exciting. Secondly, I know that you are very excited about going on vacation because this is by far the most optimistic. Joel Cheesman (01:00:26.627) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (01:00:54.548) episode of the podcast that I've ever seen you on with related, I mean, go back six months and we were talking about this kind of opportunity. so to see you see it says, okay, now we're really getting the naysayers to understand the value to them and how it can be done correctly and give you a choice. Like you said, to be able to give people an opportunity to have micro podcasting of Chad and cheese on a specific topic. That is amazing. Joel Cheesman (01:01:21.326) So I'll take a step further since we're getting, we're getting all chess matchy in this. So Amazon and LinkedIn just partnered for advertising. Basically the deal is like, if I advertise on Amazon, can take data or like it could target people on LinkedIn. I won't get into the, the, the guts and bolts or the nuts and bolts of that. But like, what if a world exists where LinkedIn has voices like we talked about thought leaders and then thought leaders on LinkedIn. plug into advertising on streaming services and companies can pick thought leaders to talk about products and services as they're trying to sell. And the voice gets a cut because the company is licensing or, or, you know, using their voice. Like this could go in some really wild places, but it all comes back to like empowering the individual monetizing the individual and the, and the voices and, and, thought leadership that they're exuding into the world, much like the thought leadership, JT. JT ODonnell (01:02:15.298) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:02:18.69) that I exude with dad jokes. Just wait till those get AI'd and you can have those on demand. All right, here we go. Why do penguins stay away from Great Britain? Why do penguins stay away from Great Britain? JT ODonnell (01:02:19.039) Noooo you no. Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:02:35.822) They're afraid of whales. Joel Cheesman (01:02:42.703) Speaking of Wrexham, I tie that in beautifully. JT, we out! JT ODonnell (01:02:45.495) You really did. We out.

Differentiating in the Talent Trenches with Ace Hardware The "Helpful Place" just got a lot more high-tech. In this episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman sit down with Stef Nikitas (Director of Talent Acquisition) and Kaleigh Burns (Manager of TA & Ops) from Ace Hardware. As Ace celebrates its 100th anniversary, the team reveals how they survived the "hurricane" of the pandemic by completely rebuilding their recruiting engine from the ground up. From a decentralized world of softball sponsorships and paper flyers to a sophisticated $4 million automated powerhouse, this is a masterclass in change management, executive buy-in, and the courage to "differentiate or die". 🎙️ In This Episode, We Discuss: Project Hurricane Who is "Grace"? The Culture Shock Dating the Candidate Customer = Candidate 💡 The Big Takeaway "In retail, you have to differentiate or you're gonna die." - Stef Nikitas, Ace Hardware Ace Hardware proves that even a century-old brand can lead the pack in AI adoption by focusing on one simple goal: using technology to be more human.. Listen to hear how Ace stopped chasing emails and start building a world-class talent brand. PART 2 - How Ace scaled their TA Budget PART 3 - They Thought AI Would Fire Them PART 4 - Why Ace Refuses to be The Next Amazon PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:24.5 Joel Cheesman: Let's do this. We are the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman, joined always by Chad Sowash as we welcome Stef Nikitas, director of Talent Acquisition, and Kaleigh Burns, manager of TA and Ops, both with Ace Hardware. Ladies, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous podcast. 0:00:43.8 Stef Nikitas: Thank you. 0:00:45.3 Kaleigh Burns: Thank you. 0:00:45.9 Chad Sowash: Ace has been around for a while. 0:00:48.0 Kaleigh Burns: 100 years. 0:00:48.1 Stef Nikitas: 100 years this year. 0:00:49.5 Kaleigh Burns: 1924 to date. 0:00:50.8 Stef Nikitas: Happy birthday Ace. 0:00:51.0 Chad Sowash: Right. So, evolution has happened at Ace. Jingles, slogans, all that other fun stuff, but also obviously, TA. So as we take a look at evolving forward, you had systems in place, you've replaced systems, and within the decade that you've been around, so now you've moved into more automation, maybe even, say, AI, depending on what you're using. You don't just do that just because. Because somebody says, "We want AI, we want automation would be cool," right? Uh, why'd you do it? What was the problem? What were you solving for? 0:01:25.0 Stef Nikitas: Like a lot of, uh, other HR professionals and companies out there, COVID, that's really what kind of slingshot us into where we are today and all the shortages that were starting to happen. Customers weren't comfortable coming into the stores, so then our dot-com business was shooting through the roof, which was phenomenal from a sales side, but again, the manpower. So very quickly we needed to hire thousands of people. And we had not necessarily a broken process at the time, but we didn't have a process that was addressing the challenges we need to get to the table in front of candidates fast. Umm, so very quickly, I happened to be in the right place at the right time and got an opportunity to step onto this committee. We called it Project Hurricane. Fitting, 'cause it felt like a hurricane. And with executive leadership at the table, so your VP of, umm, supply chain, the president of the company, the chief marketing officer, and others decided we needed to address the way we recruit, the way we look at talent, umm, and basically take the entire process and put it under a magnifying glass. And very quickly decided we needed a partnership from a recruitment marketing standpoint because we didn't have any resources in that arena. So that was kind of the birth of TA Ops for us. What's programmatic? What's search engine marketing? Like, we know it and breathe it on the consumer side 'cause retail stores, but we never did it from a talent attraction standpoint. 0:02:42.0 Chad Sowash: Is this when you started to know that you needed technology to be able to do this? 0:02:46.6 Stef Nikitas: Yes. So when Shaker came to the table, we did essentially, like, for the first three of six months, we did a pilot. And we basically took our 15 locations, split them in half. We tried to, like, put on both sides likewise markets and decided, "Okay, this market's staying on Indeed hosted. This market is now going to get programmatic and search engine marketing support through an agency." 0:03:06.9 Kaleigh Burns: Raise my hand. 0:03:07.4 Stef Nikitas: Exactly. And we're going to see and measure on a week-by-week basis. And, like, where we fell wrong, like, we couldn't necessarily compare apples to apples because Indeed was doing a completely different thing compared to what Shaker was doing for us. But we got through it and we essentially were able to show leadership, like, "Here's the value that this is adding. Like, here's where we were before the support, even without Indeed, and here's where we are now as far as the numbers and the hires and the quality, and here's how it's affecting the metrics." And so from that point on, we were able to start building the case, like, "We need to make changes." And it started with, "What's the application look like in Workday?" Right? Like, what do we... 0:03:42.7 Kaleigh Burns: It was long. 0:03:43.8 Stef Nikitas: It was too long. 0:03:44.3 Kaleigh Burns: It was too long. 0:03:45.4 Stef Nikitas: Umm, it took the candidate too long. 0:03:45.7 Chad Sowash: For high-volume roles. 0:03:47.2 Stef Nikitas: Yes, warehouse specialists. 0:03:47.8 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah, definitely. That's what we needed the most. We needed warehouse specialists, forklift drivers, umm... 0:03:53.3 Chad Sowash: And they're needed everywhere. So therefore, how long were they trying to... I mean, how long was the application process for, for Workday? 0:03:58.2 Kaleigh Burns: Yes. They were put out... You know, Indeed hit up easy, like, Indeed had that Easy Apply right around then, so people could literally apply to 50 jobs in one minute. 0:04:07.6 Joel Cheesman: How much was competition a catalyst for change? Because you've talked about the pandemic... 0:04:12.2 Stef Nikitas: Is the big crush. 0:04:12.6 Joel Cheesman: You have some well-funded, well-known competitors, and that typically is something that drives people to change. 0:04:17.9 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah, 100%. 0:04:18.5 Joel Cheesman: So were they making similar changes, and what impact did that have? 0:04:21.0 Stef Nikitas: Oh, yeah. Yeah. 0:04:21.9 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah, I would, I will say too, it's one thing I love about Ace Hardware is that we have been around for 100 years. So we're very self-aware that we need to be continuously upgrading, changing. It would be easy to be like, "Well, we're going to do the same thing for 100 years. It's worked for 100 years. Let's continue that." That's not how we see it. It's continuously, "How can we be more helpful? How can we do this better? How can we be more efficient? What are we talking about here?" So it's never been a foe to say, "Well, how do we improve that?" Right. "Great, we did it this way before, but how do we improve that?" And, uh, I think it's really helpful to have leadership that's open to it. 0:04:56.7 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:04:56.8 Kaleigh Burns: 'Cause when you talk to some of the people here, even at, like, Client Board, when you talk to them, they're, they'll say their number one challenge is leadership. I don't feel like we always have that. Like, they're really, they really contend on, "We hire the right people to be in the right jobs to do this, and we want to evolve and change and be around for another 100 years." 0:05:13.1 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. Our big, umm, like, umm, John Venhuizen, our, umm, CEO and president, always says at every meeting I've ever been to, be it a leadership meeting, a conference, whatever, "In retail, you have to, you have to differentiate or you're gonna die." And we took the same approach in this project when we were looking at talent acquisition, because for us, our customers are our consumers. So if we screw it up, it's gonna affect the business at the end of the day. 0:05:36.9 Kaleigh Burns: When it be an Ace. 0:05:37.7 Stef Nikitas: And Ace is a helpful place for a reason. It's not just a jingle, a slogan that we slap under the logo and then there you go. We live it, we breathe it. It's part of the very fabric of the organization. So, like, everything that we do internally, externally, has to reflect that. And so when we were going through this project, very quickly it became apparent, like, not only do we need to change the application, but how do we get to candidates faster? 0:05:59.8 Chad Sowash: Yes. 0:06:00.1 Stef Nikitas: And so Shaker had made a recommendation of Paradox. And we were like, "What's Paradox?" And that's how the whole journey started to get us to where we are today, where we have a fully automated system now in place to engage with candidates the moment they come to our website. The moment they are interested in having a conversation, they will talk to Grace. That's our, our version of Olivia. And more often than not, we have candidates showing up looking for Grace 'cause they think she's real. Umm, we actually have some funny stuff that we pulled out of conversations 'cause people, thinking she is real, they ask her out, they wanna have dinner with her, they ask her personal questions. It's actually kinda cute. Umm, but I don't know how we managed to do this, to this day, we don't have a single recruiter called Grace. So at any point in our process in HR, when somebody talks about Grace, we know immediately who they're referring to. 0:06:49.3 Kaleigh Burns: Referring to. We've been able to keep that under wraps. 0:06:51.2 Stef Nikitas: Yes. 0:06:51.6 Chad Sowash: So you say fully automated. What does that actually mean? When the candidate hits the site and then when, where does it automated through? Scheduling, I mean, all the way through? 0:07:01.0 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:07:01.2 Chad Sowash: What's, what's the automation, uh, look like? 0:07:02.6 Stef Nikitas: Let's say Kaleigh comes on our career site and she's looking for a job. Umm, Grace pops up and then she has to, you know, 'cause legal always wants to make sure we're, we're in the good, so privacy policy has to be accepted in order to do the engagement. And then Kaleigh can ask questions about Ace, about our culture, about our benefits, policies. I mean, we send internal employees if they have a question about something to talk to Grace, let alone candidates, 'cause she has a wealth of knowledge. And, umm, so let's say she has all of her questions answered, she's interested in a job, she can basically tell Grace, "Hey, I'm looking for a job in Dallas. What do you have available?" So Grace will serve her up opportunities. She can look at the jobs and then from there she can decide, "I'm gonna apply." And then Grace will have that conversation, same as the application in Workday, and basically solicit the same information through a chat function. And if Kaleigh has something going on and can't have finished that conversation, she can come back to it. If it takes her 24 hours, Grace might poke her and say, "Hey, you wanna finish your application? Come back to us." 0:07:59.3 Stef Nikitas: And then once that application goes into Workday, or let's say she submits it, it goes into Workday. And then a recruiter will be able to view the application and decide to take action from there. So if they have the information, Kaleigh looks great on paper, I wanna talk to her, Grace will reach out to Kaleigh, introduce herself, and then schedule that phone screen. Let's say it's with me. Grace will look at my calendar, offer her up availability and then Kaleigh can pick the time that works best for her. And that's the big difference that we didn't have before. Before it was the back and forth via email, voicemails, phone calls, texts, whatever, trying to chase each other. 0:08:33.1 Joel Cheesman: I'm a happy Ace customer. There's one really close to my house. And it, it always feels, every time I've gone into one, there's a guy who looks like he's been changing his own oil for about 30, 40 years. 0:08:45.1 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:08:45.3 Joel Cheesman: Which I like 'cause I know the, like, he's, he's, he's got the, got the scars, right? 0:08:51.0 Chad Sowash: That's the persona. 0:08:52.5 Joel Cheesman: And so this may be a false perception, but it feels like you skew a little older, uh, demographically compared to your, your competition. How did, assuming I'm right, how did that change going automated and a chatbot? And did that, was that hard for your typical candidate to deal with? Were there, was that a challenge or no? 0:09:12.7 Kaleigh Burns: Not the candidates. It was... Internally, it was a huge culture shock. Because the tenure at Ace is awesome. 0:09:19.3 Stef Nikitas: Yes. 0:09:19.4 Kaleigh Burns: It's really, really something to be proud of. 0:09:21.6 Chad Sowash: So you had to go through, I mean, this, again, change management. So you had to go through a rollout of education. 0:09:26.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:09:26.7 Chad Sowash: Hope that is adoption. And not meet me. 0:09:30.9 Stef Nikitas: So we had education with positive intent. Yes. So for us, it was kind of almost like a triple change, right? Because we were changing the role of the recruiter, we were changing the systems, and then we were changing the behaviors and the tasks that everybody was doing in the process. Umm, and we thank God we have a organizational development department and we had a resource, umm, who was phenomenal in the process. Yeah, Kathy. She helped us. Like, she is completely outside of HR and TA, like, social. So we had to get her up to speed on a lot of things, but by the end of it, like, she understood the product and the process as much as we did, and she helped us then take on her design. 0:10:09.3 Kaleigh Burns: From someone who didn't know it... 0:10:11.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:10:11.7 Kaleigh Burns: And could say, wait, when y'all say this, that's internal language. I don't know what that means. 0:10:15.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:10:15.9 Kaleigh Burns: You're not making sense to me. Great. Let's change it. 0:10:18.3 Stef Nikitas: So, like, her instructional design background came in that every time we were talking about something, she's like, okay, let me think about how to communicate this, how to train this. So, like, when it came time for us to roll it out, we were purely relying on her to get the message out because she was a part of the entire process. That was the game changer to get everybody on board. Did we get 100% adoption? No, you never do. Nothing's ever perfect. You're always going to have people who still have legacy mindset who are resistant to change, and that's fine. We still have to coach and mentor those people and poke them and prod them along the way. And I would say now we're in a really good spot. Are there opportunities? Absolutely. There always is, right? For improvement and growth and kind of what's the next best thing. But right now, I feel like from where we were 2019 to where we are now has changed us completely and made us so much better. 0:11:06.3 Chad Sowash: After you've had this, this piece of technology, this process in place, have recruiters finally kind of like seen the light and said, wow, I only have to do a lot of this crappy work I used to do. I can focus on actually talking to people. 0:11:19.8 Chad Sowash: They're there now. 0:11:21.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:11:21.2 Stef Nikitas: But you know what? Last year at this time when I was here at Kleinboard, we had just moved into our new headquarters. And within a month, this happened so randomly too. Everybody was on Cloud9. And then on Monday morning, we all get a message, don't log into your computer. And we very quickly found out that ACE had a data breach. We were one of the fortunate companies. 0:11:44.1 Kaleigh Burns: I sent you a text and I was like, was it Grace? 0:11:48.0 Stef Nikitas: So we didn't know, right? 0:11:49.0 Kaleigh Burns: Oh my God. Did we do this? 0:11:50.1 Stef Nikitas: We weren't allowed to log in. 0:11:52.0 Kaleigh Burns: Did we break Ace? 0:11:54.9 Stef Nikitas: But Grace essentially as a result of that, went down because all of our, our entire ecosystem went down. 0:12:00.1 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:12:00.2 Stef Nikitas: Uh, and they had to rebuild. And it basically, for seven days, worked non stop, three shifts, 24, seven at corporate. We weren't allowed to go to the office. Nobody was allowed to be on VPN, log into systems. Like, we basically worked off our phones, which, as a recruiter, that's hard. And, umm... 0:12:15.9 Kaleigh Burns: Shout out to them for closing. 0:12:16.6 Stef Nikitas: I came, I became the client board around this time last year and we were trying to reconnect Grace. So for about 10 days we were down and didn't have the automation. We were able to get back to work day, but then everybody had to go back to the manual way of doing it. And that's when we saw... 0:12:32.2 Kaleigh Burns: At this point, we had Grace for how long? How long did they... 0:12:35.0 Stef Nikitas: About 10 months. 0:12:35.6 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah. So about 10 months. They've been utilizing her, learning, utilizing. 0:12:39.0 Stef Nikitas: We took away their toy and that's when they freaked out. Our team channel was on fire. 0:12:44.8 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. 0:12:45.7 Stef Nikitas: We hatched it. We had recruiters tell us, I don't know how to do my job anymore. We had recruiters tell us, how do I schedule interviews now? We were scratching our heads, like, what do you mean you don't know how to schedule interviews? 0:12:55.3 Kaleigh Burns: So, and that's the thing. It's like, that's the beauty, because that's the, that's the result. It was, did not happen overnight. And I solely remember being a recruiter when they showed us the first video and they were like, you guys look at this. And we were like, okay. And all of us are like, did they just show us that, like, they're gonna lay us off? Like, is that what, is that what they showed us? And I... We have our corporate vice president of HR, Marigonado. She always says something that's very, very, very, hits home with me every time. And it's going into things with positive intent, not negative intent. And so trying to remember those words that she says going into a positive intent. And we're looking at this video, and I'm like, I think it's gonna be great. Let's do it. Yeah, let's... I think it's been great. I want... Are we doing project teams? And of course, she's like, hold on, you know? And I'm like, uh, put me on project team. I'm ready. So we get there. Months go by. Things have changed. I'm now on the TA Ops team, and we're talking to these recruiters, and I'm telling them, you guys, I'm a recruiter, too. 0:13:59.0 Kaleigh Burns: This is not taking your job. It's meant to take things off of it. And then we took a step back because they just weren't hearing it and they weren't... We even, uh, we had people who were on the project team that weren't interested. They wouldn't show up to calls. We had people who were on the project team who actually ended up, like, not even trying to utilize Grace. And we were like, what are we doing wrong? We realized we kept focusing on what Grace was taking off of their plate and not, uh, like, what she's going to add to you. So we reversed, took a couple steps back and replayed it and came back and told them, okay, this is the new plan, and this is how we want to recruit at Ace. We want to focus not only on the skills that that person has, but I want you to also get to know your hiring managers. I want you to know Jim Bob, Jim Bob and Suzy Cream Cheese. Those are my pick people. So Jim Bob and Susie Cream Cheese, those are your two hiring managers. I want you to get to know them so that when Candidate A comes in and you're doing that phone screen, because Grace has already set all this up for you, you actually have the time to do a phone screen that allows you to realize that candidate A has the skills to do both of these jobs, but Canada A is a better fit for Jim Bob. 0:15:07.4 Kaleigh Burns: They're going to do better together. You think that candidate A would grow more there? I said, that's the new style of recruitment that we're going to do here. And then it clicked for them. "Oh, so I have something else to do?" Yes. Like, I want you to utilize that time. We're going to utilize this software to get you out of there and talking to the candidates, being the brand, being helpful. 0:15:28.4 Chad Sowash: Being human. 0:15:29.0 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah. 0:15:29.6 Stef Nikitas: Exactly. 0:15:29.7 Kaleigh Burns: Like, we're not trying to take that away. We're assisting you. And now they're like... 0:15:35.1 Stef Nikitas: Don't take my toys away. 0:15:36.1 Kaleigh Burns: Don't do it. 0:15:37.3 Joel Cheesman: What has automation meant to you in terms of maybe pulling back budget on things that you used to do, whether it was promoting jobs or things internally? Talk about the dollars and cents of of going into automation. 0:15:47.9 Stef Nikitas: Before we got into COVID, I think we had less than a, uh, four or $500,000 budget in TA. It was also very decentralized, right? Right. Umm, the distribution centers, we weren't worrying about them, they weren't worrying about us. They were kind of their own snowflakes. 0:16:02.0 Kaleigh Burns: Printing flyers. 0:16:02.5 Stef Nikitas: Yeah, they were doing their own thing. 0:16:04.0 Kaleigh Burns: Like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, we maybe spent like 1,000 bucks a year or we would sponsor a softball team or something like that, and that was an extra 1,000 bucks. 0:16:12.2 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. Four years later, I just got my budget approved and we're roughly 4 million. 0:16:17.8 Joel Cheesman: Okay, so say more to that. 0:16:18.6 Stef Nikitas: So that shows you. I mean, that includes enterprise-level agreements with like LinkedIn, something we didn't have before. Now I have a license for every recruiter to go out and, uh, TalentNeuron, you know, like having market intelligence so that, uh, my recruiters are not just be reactive, they can now be talent advisors. 0:16:35.1 Joel Cheesman: So where most organizations are spending up here and see ways to, like, take money off, you guys were sponsoring softball teams and realized what, what these tools could do and said, "Let's up the budget and get to where most organizations are." 0:16:51.5 Kaleigh Burns: We had, we had to play catch-up. And, uh, we're thankful for a leadership team that listened. And, and we said, "You guys, whoa, are we behind? Whoa, whoa, whoa, are we behind? And this is what we need to do." And they said, "Where do we go? How do we get there?" We truly, leadership down to every single person that wears a red vest, to every single person that works in the warehouse, want to be around for another 100 years. We had to do that. We have to make that change. And that meant that we were going to have to put some things in place. So we're continuing to try to build the brand and continue to be that, which means we have to spend money to get quality candidates in the door. 0:17:28.7 Stef Nikitas: And it really goes back to this whole COVID, and I hate to belittle COVID constantly, but I mean, it was kind of World War III in our lifetime, umm, like, from, from that standpoint. But I think it really showcased to our leadership team, like, talent and recruitment is important, right? Like, it's no longer something that you just kind of, like, shove to the side and hope that they get it. 0:17:45.8 Chad Sowash: It's essential. 0:17:47.2 Joel Cheesman: Yeah. 0:17:47.4 Stef Nikitas: It's an essential function in order for the business to operate. You have to have the right people in the right seats at the right time to support the business and the retailers for us at the end of the day, which means that you can walk into your Ace Hardware and have the guy in his oil shirt serve you. 0:18:01.5 Chad Sowash: Yes, overalls and... 0:18:02.6 Stef Nikitas: Exactly. But the product needs to get to the store somehow, right? And I think when that clicked, like, we're putting millions and millions of dollars into consumer marketing, we need to do the same thing on the talent management side to get candidates to the table, because our customers are our candidates. 0:18:17.2 Chad Sowash: Dig, dig into that a little bit further because, uh, your customers are your candidates. You are community-focused. Ace always has been community-focused. So what did you do? Did you actually approach marketing and say, "Look, we are touching all of our customers who are actually having possibly good or bad, uh, experience with us. How can we work together or maybe even get some more budget to ensure that these individuals are having a much better experience?" Hence, you know, automation, Olivia. 0:18:50.4 Stef Nikitas: Yeah, this was all part of that Project Hurricane I talked about earlier. The Chief Marketing Officer, she helped us really build the business case around helping our, the rest of our leadership understand that our customers are our candidates and we need to marry both sides. And like, what we put out, exactly, what we put out on the recruitment side needs to mirror the consumer marketing side. Like, it might be a different type of message going after a candidate versus a customer. Like, we're not promoting a product, right? We're promoting an experience. Like, you want to be a part of Ace, and here's why, and here's how we contribute at the end of the day. And it was, how do we get that message out? So the, that's when we finally both, both sides started to talk the same language and we started to exchange resources. And that's what got us essentially to where we are today. 0:19:35.1 Kaleigh Burns: I was like, "I want up there." But talking about dollars and cents, that's, that's what made this Project Hurricane, made me realize, like, I want to be part of the change. Like, I want to be part of that. Dollars and cents, we just wrapped up budget season and Velocity, what is their name? Velocity Sourcing? 0:19:50.8 Stef Nikitas: Yeah, it was like a sourcing partner. 0:19:52.7 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah. Love them. They're amazing. We budget for them and we do this every year. We, we've always kept it the same, and it's a substantial cost. So we budget for them. In this past year, having Paradox, we spent less with our sourcing partners than we ever have. And when we were talking about it, I was like, "It's because our recruiters have the time to..." I really feel like, okay, maintenance mechanic, that's something we probably would have used Velocity before. We have specific equipment in our distribution centers. We have very, very specific equipment, and a lot of times we have to outsource our help and bring in people on contract, and they have to have specific experience. So we'll use a, uh, sourcing partner. But guess who's doing it today? Our recruiters, because Paradox is allowing them to, because they're not stuck on the phone rescheduling because they had to call in sick on Tuesday. She just rescheduled all of them. 0:20:43.5 Chad Sowash: And also, those individuals might not have completed your long application before. So now you have access and vision into more of a, a much larger job seeker population than you did before. 0:20:56.1 Kaleigh Burns: Yeah, I love it. 0:20:56.9 Chad Sowash: Then, then you get your recruiters to work, so they have more leads to go off of, which they probably didn't have before. That's... 0:21:05.1 Joel Cheesman: And what, what is, what is that bigger net meant in terms of diversity and inclusion? Have you seen your candidate pool, uh, very much more than it had in the past? 0:21:13.2 Stef Nikitas: Yes. 'Cause now we're able to put a lot more eggs in different baskets, right? Like before, we would have not a whole lot of eggs and not a whole lot of baskets. We're able to diversify our dollars more than we've ever been able to, because we can do programmatic campaigns, we can do search engine marketing, we can do social media, right? Like, there's so many different platforms. And then more of that out of home advertisement, where we do billboards and Quantcast and other media that, quite frankly, probably until 2020, we didn't even know what that... What it meant or was because we just didn't have it. Like you talked about earlier, like the competitors, a lot of our distribution centers, probably all of them, are in rural communities across America. And in those communities, you don't have a big talent pool to pick from to begin with. And then when you're in an industrial park where there's 10 other distribution centers from... 0:22:00.8 Kaleigh Burns: You can literally walk out the door and walk to another one. 0:22:02.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:22:02.7 Kaleigh Burns: And be like, hey, are you guys hiring? Yeah, we are. 0:22:04.8 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. And it's companies that have triple, quadruple budgets to what we have, even today, how do I compete with that? Right. So we really needed to figure out how do we get the eyeballs that we want at the right time in the right places onto our jobs to help fill our funnels and to hire our goals at the end of the day? 0:22:23.4 Kaleigh Burns: And we always say. What do we always say is like the angle John Benheisen gets, the end goal is to hire the right people. 0:22:29.0 Stef Nikitas: Mm-hmm. 0:22:29.4 Kaleigh Burns: And we keep that line of sight. So is what we're doing now getting us to the end goal of hiring the right people for the jobs? Because that is how we will stay. 0:22:37.8 Joel Cheesman: You feel like the tools you're using now put you on an equal footing with some of your bigger competitors? 0:22:43.6 Stef Nikitas: Yes and no. Right. It depends on who we're talking about. Like, there are some companies out there, we're never going to be them. We're never going to compete with the Amazons of the world, as long as... 0:22:51.7 Kaleigh Burns: We don't want to be the Amazon. Because I don't want to hire someone in, in that, I think hiring someone in 10 minutes is great, but I want them... We want to have a conversation with them. 0:23:01.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:23:01.8 Chad Sowash: They're targeting people so fast. You're going to get them money. 0:23:04.5 Stef Nikitas: Right. 0:23:04.6 Kaleigh Burns: Right. We want to, we want to... 0:23:05.6 Kaleigh Burns: And we see, care about turnover. We care about turnover. 0:23:07.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:23:07.9 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. And we, we've been able to really reduce turnover during COVID when there was a labor shortage and all the other factors to where we are today, where things are a little more calmer despite being in an election year and the economy and all that. But it has drastically changed. And so to answer your question, yes and no. It depends where and who we're talking about. 0:23:26.5 Kaleigh Burns: I think it sets us above. I think it gives us an edge. I think that we have the... We've always been personable. That's always been something that we've taken care of. There was a reason we weren't staffed is because we were spending too dang long talking to people, trying to, like, figure out what job they would be perfect for? We've always done that. So now when you add in the technology that's making these recruiters have the time to be able to do that, still be personable, give 110% to every single candidate that comes in, not only is our impression and our brand just getting better and better, we've got the technology to make sure that you can apply under two minutes. I tested it on my husband. If he can do it, anybody can do it. Love him, but he's a firefighter. He doesn't do... He's like, I don't do technology. So if we can snag them, they're fast and we can still be personable? 0:24:12.3 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:24:12.5 Kaleigh Burns: No, you can't catch up with us. 0:24:14.0 Chad Sowash: So retention wise, say that you've got great retention rates, but it can always be better. Are you going to start or have you started using Grace to do pulse surveys or things of that nature to be able to go down funnel and get more of a pulse of, of what's going on so that you can focus more on higher retention or, and/or keep the types of retention rates that you have right now because you never know what the landscape looks like when you go. 0:24:37.4 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. With Grace, yes. Umm, we just launched, umm, employee survey, umm, not employee survey. 0:24:42.4 Kaleigh Burns: Ratings and feedback. 0:24:43.2 Stef Nikitas: Ratings and feedback. 0:24:43.8 Kaleigh Burns: Employee referral. 0:24:44.7 Stef Nikitas: And referrals, yes. So with the feedback, it's within 24 hours after your interview. It doesn't matter if it's a virtual on site, a phone interview, an interview, you get a survey with three questions to basically ask about your experience. So we're starting small right now. We're doing kind of a crawl, crawl, walk, run approach on this. And eventually we're going to survey the recruiters, we're going to survey the hiring managers because we want to start building some KPIs around are we being successful in what we're doing? Right? 0:25:10.3 Kaleigh Burns: How do we measure that? What does that look like? And I think, like, you have to take in consideration that Grace in general, we, we want to be able to utilize her in every way possible. Like we want that. But at the end of the day, our goal is still for employee referrals to always be our number one source. If employee referral is not our number one source, we're doing something wrong. Distribution search. Why is it not your number one source, Ace, you know, home services. Why is it not your number one source? What are we doing? That's something that we hold ourselves to. So being able to utilize the technology within the goals that we already have set. The employer referral program has been, it's been a, it'll be a huge game changer. I can't tell you how much, how many hours myself specifically and some of our team spend tracking down employee referrals and things of that sort. And we have workdays, don't get me wrong, but having people remember their workday ID is very challenging. 0:26:03.9 Stef Nikitas: Or like spelling somebody's, even spelling right. 0:26:05.4 Kaleigh Burns: Yes. I don't know what his name is. I call him Chuck, you know? I don't know. 0:26:10.3 Joel Cheesman: It's Susie Cream Cheese. 0:26:11.1 Kaleigh Burns: It's Susie Cream Cheese. Yeah. 0:26:11.7 Joel Cheesman: She's on the database. What's going on. 0:26:13.5 Chad Sowash: Where's Susie? 0:26:14.2 Kaleigh Burns: So, there... It's, it's a huge, huge. It will literally I, I was thinking about the other day, I was like, it's going to save me at least two to three hours a week. 0:26:21.4 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:26:22.2 Joel Cheesman: What else is on the shopping list? Now that you got more money, uh, what are you looking to add in the near future, tech-wise? 0:26:28.4 Stef Nikitas: My big focus for '25, now that I have the team completely centralized, I want to really focus on elevating the recruiter, right? Like, we've, we've added all this technology, we've, we've done all these changes. So how do we now focus on the human to make them better? How do I get my recruiters to not post and pray, but actually get out and talk to people, right? Find people. I can spend the $4 million and I can, I can get candidates in the pipeline. Like, we're really good at that now. We know that Grace is doing exactly what we need her to do. We'll, we'll continue to make refinements and improvements to her to make her even more natural and more helpful and more on-brand. But like, how do we train up the humans behind the scenes, right? So that's a big focus. So like, the KPIs is gonna be a big thing. The candidate experience is gonna be a big thing. We want to be known to give a, a world-class, white-glove experience in the recruitment process. Am I gonna be able to compete with Amazon on their budgets? No. Can I distinguish myself in how I treat my candidates and how they go through the experience and how employment is potentially for them? That's where we're going after, because that is a niche that I can create that other bigger companies potentially cannot. 0:27:35.0 Joel Cheesman: You commented, "We'll never be Amazon." 0:27:37.6 Stef Nikitas: Yeah. 0:27:38.1 Joel Cheesman: But looking at automation in a different way, Amazon is on, is on a fast track to robot... Put robotics in a lot of those positions. How do you think about that? Uh, my view of Ace is that I'll never walk into an Ace in my lifetime and a robot will help me find, you know, the, the light bulbs that I need. So, so do you look, do you look, do you look at their embracing that as an advantage for you to maybe get some of those folks that are looking for a more human experience? 0:28:05.7 Stef Nikitas: When you think of a consumer, right, like, let's take me, a female, 41-years-old, I have to go into a home improvement hardware store because I need to get something, let's say I have a plumbing issue at home for whatever reason and I need to replace a part. 0:28:18.6 Joel Cheesman: I have lots of plumbing issues at home, but that's a, that's a different show. 0:28:21.1 Kaleigh Burns: Do you? Hey, I'm in charge of Ace Home Services now. We have great plumbers. 0:28:26.8 Stef Nikitas: We can send a plumber. 0:28:27.7 Joel Cheesman: Keep going, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. 0:28:28.0 Stef Nikitas: Umm, but let's say I go into a store and I'm buying... I'm trying to look for something, right? Like, the distinguishing factor, take a female, you, you walk in, you don't know what you're looking for. You're standing in a big-box store like a Home Depot, a Lowe's, whatever, and you have, one, no idea where you're going. You, you finally find someone, they help you go to the aisle, or they tell you what aisle to go to, and then once again, you're in that aisle with 50,000 choices by yourself. 0:28:52.3 Joel Cheesman: Yes. 0:28:52.4 Stef Nikitas: And then if you need help, you're standing there again waiting for potentially another 10, 15 minutes until somebody comes to help you. But then the type of help and customer service you're getting is not necessarily what you need either. 0:29:03.9 Joel Cheesman: Right. 0:29:04.4 Stef Nikitas: Do that with Ace. You get greeted when you walk in. You get the magical question, "What can I help you find today?" The person walks with you to the aisle of what you're actually looking for and then gives you that in-aisle customer service, helpful, that you need when you don't know what you're looking for. Does that mean that you're potentially spending two to three more dollars on that product? Absolutely. We are not a big-box, right? We don't have that volume. But I got exactly what I needed, I got the customer service, and guess what? Now I'm gonna come back to that store because I had a good experience. 0:29:32.2 Joel Cheesman: Thanks for joining us, ladies. That was Stef Nikitas, director of Talent Acquisition, and Kaleigh Burns, manager of TA and Ops from Ace Hardware. Ladies, thanks for joining us today. 0:29:46.8 Stef Nikitas: Thank you for having us. 0:29:48.2 Kaleigh Burns: Thanks. 0:29:50.6 Speaker 1: 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 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.

This week, the Mo and Joel deliver a light-hearted yet deeply substantive look into the massive worker backlash against artificial intelligence and the brutal realities of today's hiring market. The hosts kick things off with quick hits covering a disastrous, heavily booed commencement speech at the University of Central Florida and a surprising take on the narrative depth of The Devil Wears Prada 2. From there, the conversation tackles major industry shifts as massive job platforms like Upwork and ZipRecruiter face severe financial softening, sparking a debate on whether automation is permanently consuming traditional contractor roles. The gloves come off as they dissect a bold claim from Andreessen Horowitz labeling legacy HR software giants like Workday a "cartel," while analyzing how defensive tech acquisitions—such as Ashby buying Talent Llama—signal a broader software-as-a-service apocalypse. Mo offers her expertise on age discrimination, discussing a lawsuit against Bloomberg Industry Group. The discussion moves to the backlash against automated hiring tools and LinkedIn’s new paid consultation feature. Finally, there is a disagreement over Google's new Gemini-powered smart glasses. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:29.181) yeah. Get crazy with the cheese whiz. Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel operations, sledgehammer cheeseman. Maureen Clough (00:41.472) And I'm your co-host Maureen, AKA Mo. What in the 2020 is going on right now, Wiley Clough? Joel Cheesman (00:47.223) Hey Mo on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, AI's Image Problem, Workday's Cartel Problem, and Mo's Smart Glasses Problem. Let's do this! Maureen Clough (00:58.572) God, never, never. You will never catch me those. Over my dead body. Over my dead body. How you doing? It's so nice to see you. Just us girls. I love it. It's been a while. Joel Cheesman (01:04.157) You What's up Mo? Just us girls today. Just us girls today. Emmy's in Brazil, Chad's eating fish and chips and mushy peas in London and JT's, you know, don't know, running through the woods in Vermont or wherever the hell she is today. And Leaven's in a tree house off the hag or something. I don't know. So it's just... Maureen Clough (01:18.646) Ooh, ugh, not selling that. Yeah. Maureen Clough (01:26.99) Still celebrating her birthday maybe. Yeah. Maureen Clough (01:35.278) Just us. You know, I'm hanging in there. I'm trying not to read too many headlines. I'm trying not to like let the PTSD take over, you know? Yeah, things be happening. Things be happening out there. It's stuff that none of us want. Yeah, I'm trying real hard. I'm trying real hard. I'm turning it on for you. Joel Cheesman (01:35.941) It's just us this week. How you doing? Quick check in state of Mo what's going on. Joel Cheesman (01:46.887) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:51.237) I don't buy your happiness. don't. Joel Cheesman (01:58.951) So something made me happy story wise this week was that in California, leave it to California. They're going to start apparently giving tickets to Waymo's and Zook's automated driverless cars. I think that's hilarious because how are you going to like robot? They don't vote. So they're not going to vote against tickets. They can't really fight a ticket. They can't show up in court. Maureen Clough (02:11.47) It's only fair. I do too. Yeah, right? They show up in court. Yeah, they're like robot in court. Joel Cheesman (02:28.869) I mean, this it's such a moneymaker for municipalities and states to just like start writing tickets to these big tech like, it's hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it'll be like when Uber said, all right, we're out of this city because you're going to make it regulations. And then eventually they, they make nice and okay, well, we need you here. And so there'll be a balance of. Maureen Clough (02:33.65) yeah. They should, they 100 % should. That could be the way to tax the billionaires actually. Like that's the legit way to do it. Let's go. Maureen Clough (02:51.863) Right. Joel Cheesman (02:58.161) How much can we ticket away mo before Google says we're out of here? And there'll be like a nice balance and, and government will print money on these things. So instead of taxing them directly, we're just going to tax your, your cars and robots will come soon thereafter. I'm sure. Maureen Clough (03:02.496) Right? Maureen Clough (03:06.668) They they will. Maureen Clough (03:11.33) I 100%, but I think that might be the move for them because people like, didn't Sergey Brin just say like, hey, I'm bouncing out of California because of this tax stuff. wasn't it him who just said that? Am I making that up? Some billionaires be bouncing. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:23.515) Yes, there's certainly, this is great. This is a big trend now. It started with California, so either Texas or Florida, a lot of them started to move back, but I think there's a good amount are staying in Florida. And then in New York, you probably saw that Mondami, the mayor went on social media and said, hey, look up there. And I think it was a really rich guy that's famous. Maureen Clough (03:39.459) Yeah. Maureen Clough (03:42.883) yeah, yeah, That video was fire. Maureen Clough (03:51.404) Yeah, I can't remember the name. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:51.805) He lives there and it's the second home and he paid $300 million for it or whatever, and we're going to tax him. So New Yorkers are probably going to have a big thing about rich New Yorkers moving out of New York and then moving back. I, I, I feel like if, if governments are going to raise taxes on the wealthy, that's probably the way to do it is if you have a luxury item, like a second home and you've paid, I think it's whatever it is, a million or Maureen Clough (03:57.101) Yep. Maureen Clough (04:03.542) Right? Maureen Clough (04:15.32) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:20.918) million more for it, you're going to get dinged for it. And a lot of people that are rich won't give a shit. Maureen Clough (04:21.312) Mm. yeah, way more. Maureen Clough (04:27.502) I mean, they won't even notice it in their bank account. It's like, come on. I mean, I feel like it was Jensen Huang from NVIDIA who was like, dude, yeah, tax me. I'm cool with that. He did a video and he's like, yeah, I'm all about paying taxes. I love my country and I want to help out. And if we're not going to move because of tax situations, like it's all good. I was like, why can't that be literally every billionaire's response? And it's like the narcissism and the sociopathy. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:46.983) And I think it's for the good of. And well, think it helps billionaires. I mean, when you have Molotov cocktails being thrown at Sam Altman's house and literally CEOs getting shot in the streets, like they might be really open to, yeah, we'll pay some tax if it means we're not going to have the pitchforks show up at my front door. That might be a good thing for billionaires as well as a good thing for the rest of us. I don't know. That's right. I'm chill with this. Maureen Clough (04:57.366) Right? Read the room. That's true. Maureen Clough (05:09.4) Right? It's a good move, right? Like, Johnson's on to something, being like, yeah, I'm chill with this. We'll see what happens. Yeah, that's true. That's true. We'll hope for more. Joel Cheesman (05:19.515) And he's not the only one. lot of, mean, yeah. All right. Let's get to shout out. Shall we? Maureen Clough (05:29.621) You Joel Cheesman (05:30.307) I will go first. So Mo, the kids apparently have a little issue with AI. We talked about on the show a couple of weeks ago that kids aren't that hip to AI. And I mentioned it's bad for the environment. Kids usually like the environment. It's a technology that's going to take their jobs away. Kids usually like jobs. And kids are usually the most creative among us. And AI is doing all the creating now. So it's like, Maureen Clough (05:36.568) Mmm. Maureen Clough (05:47.022) Turns out, mm-hmm. Like, what's to like for them, right? Mm. Joel Cheesman (06:00.197) Of course kids don't like this shit, but it's one thing to read it in a headline. It's another thing to actually see it in the real world. So my shout out goes to the university of central Florida. you probably saw this and a lot of other people probably did. so this is from, the commencement speech and I'll talk a little bit about who was in it and everything, but I think, I think the video kind of speaks for itself. Check it out. Maureen Clough (06:08.278) Ha ha ha! Maureen Clough (06:13.587) yeah. Maureen Clough (06:23.022) It's brilliant. Maureen Clough (06:40.212) What happened? Joel Cheesman (07:01.895) Ha ha ha! Maureen Clough (07:10.284) I mean, fail. Yeah, totally. Joel Cheesman (07:12.573) crack cracks me up poor. So that was Gloria Caulfield. She's VP of strategic Alliance for some company called Dava stock development. I'm sure had no idea what she was walking into I kind of feel a little bit bad for she probably put that speech into chat GPT and came up with that with all that. Maureen Clough (07:21.688) Ha Maureen Clough (07:27.726) And it's like, this is the best speech I've ever heard in my life. You should definitely deliver this. Yeah, exactly. Joel Cheesman (07:32.251) Yeah. The kids will love this. Trust us. And, and so this was the, she talked to the college of arts at UCF and humanities, well as the Nicholson school of communication. So she was talking to an audience that is being impacted by AI for sure. I'm fascinated by this because throughout my whole life, when there's been a new technology, cable TV, the Walkman. Maureen Clough (07:41.72) Like. Maureen Clough (07:45.496) Too good. Joel Cheesman (08:01.309) CDs and DVDs, email, digital cameras, iPods, like the young people embrace it. It's either cheaper way, more efficient way to do things. And this is, I think the first time in my life that a new technology is here and the kids are pushing back against it. And I don't really know what to think about it. Maybe you can help me. Maureen Clough (08:19.02) Yeah. Well, those things weren't freaking taking their jobs and draining their brains of all gray matter. I mean, this is they're afraid of getting stupider with good reason, because that's what AI does to us. And they're afraid that it's replacing entry level jobs, which it is more than any other type of job. like, and especially when you're talking to a group of students in the arts and humanities where we are actively like taking away resources as a country from those areas. Joel Cheesman (08:30.652) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (08:47.808) and we're downplaying the importance of these aspects of our society. Like, how did you not think it wasn't going to land this way? Like, I just, you have to know your audience. You are the freaking keynote speaker. Like, to me, there's just no excuse to come in there and deliver that speech to that group of people and not expect that response or maybe even worse. I'm just like, come on, man. Like, read the room, have some thought. Joel Cheesman (08:47.856) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:05.755) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:09.223) Yeah. Yeah. thing on this, I don't know if this is a bigger deal and where you are in the Northwest, but here in the Midwest data centers, huge issue. We have a lot of land, a lot of rural folks. These companies promised to come in and spend a lot of money and provide jobs and, people are pushing back on these data, which is why we're talking about data centers in space, like full on sci-fi. Maureen Clough (09:20.719) God. Yes. Big issue here, Yep. Maureen Clough (09:29.218) jobs. Maureen Clough (09:32.92) Yeah. Yeah. Yes. What the hell? It really does. It really does. And the data center thing is really interesting. We have to meet. I mean, the data center thing is huge. We're going to push back in Seattle too. There's just all this emphasis on getting these things out of here because they suck the environment dry. They are marginalized communities. They're mostly dealing with the brunt of this. I mean, it's like kind of Joel Cheesman (09:36.797) So yeah, AI has some serious problems that need to be worked out. Joel Cheesman (09:56.625) Yeah. Maureen Clough (10:01.646) Aaron Brockovich type shit, right? Like that's what we're talking about here is this stuff is like actively harming the communities around them. And there's a one woman, I don't recall her name, but she's in Georgia. And I guess Georgia is now doing eminent domain. So they're actually literally taking over the homes of people who happen to live near these data centers where they need to double down on the electrical output and all that. And it's like her videos on TikTok were going viral. And then I guess they got pulled down because Joel Cheesman (10:08.167) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:24.828) Yeah. Maureen Clough (10:30.666) You know, TikTok owned by, you know, Larry Ellison, not a huge fan of this sort of constant getting out, advising people as to what the hell is actually happening. So, I mean, there's a lot of pushback and with extremely good reason. And I think it does. This is like one of those things that like brings all the generations together. Like no one wants this. Nobody wants this except for eight billionaires who want to be trillionaires. That's what's going on. Joel Cheesman (10:33.757) huh. Joel Cheesman (10:46.706) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:53.725) The eminent domain is interesting. The story of the Luddites, you don't really have to know the history, but basically some folks got upset about new technology and started destroying the machines that were putting them out of work. Eventually the government made it a serious crime to destroy these machines. You have this push and pull with the government and the government so far is siding with the AI. We'll see how that turns out. Maureen Clough (11:15.842) Yep. Maureen Clough (11:22.456) yeah, they are. Very much so, very much so. Good times. Well, I got something considerably lighter. Considerably lighter, although does involve AI, because what the hell doesn't these days. I want everybody, this is required viewing, especially for Gen Xers and millennials, you need to go out and see the Devil Wears Prada 2. And I am the first to admit that sequels usually suck, but this one, this one is an important thing to watch because... Joel Cheesman (11:25.713) What you got for us in shout outs? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:42.429) Yeah. Maureen Clough (11:48.939) it takes you, first of all, as someone who came of age alongside Andy Sachs and literally started a job in New York City right out of college and wanted to be a journalist and all this, I feel like I grew up with this woman, right? And all these characters, the Miranda Priestly, Glenn Close, I mean, not Glenn Close, sorry, what's her name? Meryl Streep, Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, all of them. Joel Cheesman (12:05.583) Anne Hathaway? Yeah. Maureen Clough (12:10.072) But like they managed to do an important movie, believe it or not, not just some frivolous stupid thing. They actually took us to the present day and they showed what had happened to these people over the course of literally two decades and how their careers had evolved. And they really shine a light on the importance of journalism and they shine a light on what's going on with AI and how it's decimating human creativity and what it's doing, mass layoffs and all this. Joel Cheesman (12:23.089) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (12:28.113) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (12:36.128) It's so on the nose. It's like deeply cathartic to watch. It's also really beautiful and funny. But it was for me, like I literally cried Joel watching it because I was like, this is just so resonant like this. You see like the hopes and the dreams that these people have and like how so many of them did not pan out the way that they were envisioning and the different things they have to contend with in the workplace and like the interpersonal dynamics and the intergenerational dynamics and like. Joel Cheesman (12:40.861) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (13:00.974) There's some great scenes where like Miranda Priestly is in the room with a bunch of Gen Zers and they're like, yo dude, you cannot say that. You're gonna get canceled all the time. And she's like, what? And it's just, anyway, I think it's a great film and I really think everybody should go see it. Joel Cheesman (13:09.276) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (13:16.103) So you won't ruin it. And I probably won't watch it until my wife makes me watch it on streaming. But so I did see the first one. I enjoyed it. I think that the characters were great. you're so this is the same story 20 years forward. Is the Glenn Close care, forgive my, forgive my ignorance. Is she still it's Vogue, it's Vogue, right? Vogue, she's editor of Vogue. Maureen Clough (13:20.27) You're like, I'm never watching this shit. Yeah, so good. Maureen Clough (13:33.069) Yep. Mm-hmm. In the modern day. Meryl Streep. Yeah. It's Vogue. So she's Runway. Runway is the fictional Vogue-esque magazine for which she works. Yeah. And they talk about the decline of the publishing industry and the way AI is coming in. They have a tech titan character who's brilliantly played by Justin Theroux, who is unrecognizable. literally could, like they did such a good job making him look awful. But it was an excellent, like I just, Joel Cheesman (13:44.185) Okay, it's okay. Joel Cheesman (13:59.665) Yeah. Maureen Clough (14:02.636) I don't know, I can't say enough about it and some people panned it, to hell with them. Go see it everybody, it's really good. Cathartic watch. Yeah. bless you, I'll pay you later. I will pay you later, man. Joel Cheesman (14:07.279) Okay. Are our our Anne Hathaway look alike approves of devil wear? And the right the right pair of glasses and Chad sewage is is too cheap. I'm telling you it weak. We we could pull that off. We could pull that off. However, someone who will never be mistaken for Stanley Tucci is our boy, Stephen McGrath. Maureen Clough (14:21.109) Hahaha! That's perfect, that's perfect. Maureen Clough (14:31.95) That's probably true. Joel Cheesman (14:39.069) Is it playing for you? No, okay. All right, 14 minutes. We'll tag that as not, yeah, as not playing. Maureen Clough (14:40.694) No, not yet. I can put it in post. I'm sure Sergey got it. What's up, Sergey? He's the best. Joel Cheesman (14:51.225) All right, let me play. Maureen Clough (15:02.978) You can just like insert any. Joel Cheesman (15:05.649) Did that play? Maureen Clough (15:08.75) I hadn't heard that one. Joel Cheesman (15:12.357) Okay, that played for you, but not for me. Interesting. Maureen Clough (15:15.022) We got some tech difficulties up in here. Joel Cheesman (15:17.393) some Riverside issues. The good news is it's recording for we're hearing each other and we're recording and it's good. So about 14 minutes, Sergey will have to do some of his magic. So Maureen Clough (15:21.814) Yeah. Yeah. Cool. You can just like literally input any of my past reactions to that video where I'm like, my God, my God. He's naked. like, my God. Joel Cheesman (15:32.869) Yeah. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Maureen Clough (15:41.218) You Joel Cheesman (15:43.067) And we mentioned Chad and Emmy are on the road, but... Maureen Clough (15:48.91) Woo! Joel Cheesman (15:49.757) Where else will we be? Mo, you got any travel coming up? Maureen Clough (15:53.711) Man, well, interestingly enough, I was supposed to take a cruise to Alaska next month. Not so sure that's on my agenda anymore given the current news angle, but no, not for work. Not anytime soon, unfortunately. Joel Cheesman (16:02.485) boy. Joel Cheesman (16:08.925) All right, cool. So if you want to find out where we're going next, just head out to ChadCheese.com. Our travel as always sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Hopefully we'll see everybody out this summer at some point, which brings us to you guessed it. Let's get to topics. Joel Cheesman (16:31.645) All right, Mo, in light of an unemployment number that surprised to the upside, if we still believe the numbers, least, Barron's published a story entitled, Not All is Well in the Jobs Market. Just look at Upwork's stock tumble, end quote. Upwork's earnings report revealed a decline in freelance hiring demand due to economic pressures and increased AI adoption by businesses. Upwork also announced layoffs to the tune of 24 % of its staff. Ouch. Maureen Clough (16:38.154) No. Joel Cheesman (17:00.317) What's more, ZipRecruiter's Q1 revenue dropped 2.3 % to 107.5 million, highlighting again, a soft hiring market. What's more, Workday has been accused of being part of a services cartel, that's in quotes, and in Andreessen Horowitz editorial. Mo Upwork, ZipRecruiter, a Workday cartel, three stooges or just three misunderstood companies and news stories. What's your take on all the industry news? Maureen Clough (17:16.206) Such a great quote. Maureen Clough (17:30.622) I mean, this world, Like, whew, I gotta say, when it comes to the Upwork consideration, like, there has been such a shift over into the gig economy, right, from white-collar work that's been coming for a while. But what I found interesting about this particular story is that I do think... despite the fact that they're taking a tumble right there and there's not as much freelance work looking, I think that they're actually just doubling down on sort of the ghost workforce. So you have the Accenture's and the Cognizant's and the data consultancy services of the world and their whole purpose is to staff internally at these corporations. And the reason that this whole industry exists, this ghost workforce, if you will, is... so that they can make these corporations more money so that they can offset sort of the institutional risk and the cost of retirement plans and the cost of career development and the cost of 401Ks and all, health insurance, big, huge one, right? Onto the individual rather than the institution. So I think that this news to me only exacerbates things for the actual worker because the job is not actually disappearing. They're pretending that of course AI is capable of doing it all. but the work still exists and it's just shifting into these sort of more contract assignments. So I think there may be less like freelance gig work, like one-off things that you'd get on an up work. But to me, that just suggests that there's even more of a shift into getting these sort of contract roles embedded. And I can't tell you how many people I did an episode on this on my YouTube a few weeks ago. I cannot tell you how many people reached out to me to say, yeah. Hell yeah, my job, it evaporated and now they're like rehiring for it at a contractor role or I'm getting paid a ton less in a full time capacity, but it's, they're really shifting the labor market to disadvantage the average worker and benefit the institution. So I think that's just another sign of that. Joel Cheesman (19:08.989) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:21.553) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (19:26.894) You have all the things. That's so good. Joel Cheesman (19:29.191) So when AI was first taking off, Upwork's earnings shot up, which I think was a symptom or a reaction to AI being better around matching you with contractors for the jobs that you wanted to fill. And now I feel like AI has come full circle in that so many of the jobs on Upwork and Fiverr's in the same boat are getting AI'd. I can go through a list of like the top contracting categories. It's like developer, designer, copywriter, just all the things that so many companies saying like, why do we need a logo designer? We can throw it into AI and they'll give us 20 options in seconds for free or virtually free. So I think that's an impossible dynamic for a contractor who does that. Maureen Clough (19:59.961) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (20:17.101) Yeah. Maureen Clough (20:22.733) Right. Joel Cheesman (20:29.253) or has done that professionally to survive. And clearly, clearly if they're doing it, they're not doing it the same premium as they were five, 10 years ago. They're probably taking a huge haircut on their ability to do that. So I think it's one of the easiest short positions you could take in the market is to say that fiber and upwork were going to be challenged in this environment because of AI. Zip Recruiter. Maureen Clough (20:32.974) Pretty rough. Maureen Clough (20:39.406) with Ryan. Maureen Clough (20:43.256) Totally. Maureen Clough (20:52.844) I think that's fair. And they're also pushing all those things. They're like getting it 80 % of the way, and then they're going to give the rest of the project to their internal employees who are already there or their contractors that are already there, right? So I agree with you. Joel Cheesman (21:03.741) Yeah, it's a good point. Like I can, I can vibe code something 80 % to where it needs to be and then give it to a professional and say, Hey, can you guys, can you guys just button this up and yeah. And finish it for me. So, um, yeah, I think that's an E I saw that from a long mile away. Um, the zipper critter stuff, the stock is kind of bouncing. I'm not totally convinced that that stock is not being manipulated somewhere. Like it's up and down and kooky. Maureen Clough (21:07.79) Yeah. Can you get us the rest of way there? Yeah, totally. It's rough. Maureen Clough (21:21.421) Yeah. Maureen Clough (21:28.074) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:31.823) and it's a, it's basically a penny stock. So the ability to move that stock is not real hard, but anyway, they were, they were more optimistic about the future. So stock is bumping. It's, still 80 % off of its, IPO. So like, don't get too excited about that stock. the workday article was interesting. Andreessen Horowitz, if you don't know Google it, but they are longtime investors. Andreessen was behind Netscape. And to me, this was a. Maureen Clough (21:34.775) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (22:00.239) synopsis of the whole SaaSpocalypse issue. It's like you have this SaaS cartel, they call it the Workday cartel or we'll call it that, where you have these really expensive, deeply ingrained software services that are in these companies and canceling those is almost impossible once they get in. And hates these companies. They hate Workday, just like they hate their ATS. Maureen Clough (22:08.43) So legit, yeah. Maureen Clough (22:27.538) It's so crazy, right? Yep. Just can't quit you. Yeah, exactly. Joel Cheesman (22:29.425) They hate them, but they can't leave them. It's like the bad boyfriend, right? That you can't get away from, right? Yeah. So, so coding and like the building SAS easily and replicating what's already out there. this is the whole argument about software is going to be smacked in the face. And it has been over the last year. I guess time will tell if people really do cancel work day and vibe code or like go buy a cheaper option that someone developed, you know, with a buddy in their basement. But I think it's real threat and that's why you see the stocks of these companies just crater in the last year or so. Maureen Clough (22:59.95) Maureen Clough (23:10.986) man, they are going to fight that tooth and nail though. Think about that whole moat, like you said, with the cartel of services and all those consultants whose entire industry is based on keeping this thing and implemented and ingrained in the company and companies that actually buy Workday. it's like, I mean, that's just such a massive industry in and of itself. Like it is wild to me though, the extent to which these particular sort of ERP systems and those sorts of things, HCMs can like get ingrained in a company and just like Joel Cheesman (23:37.095) Yeah. Maureen Clough (23:39.275) never come out. And I've seen it in other realms too. Like I worked in at SAP Concur and it was like there were absolutely better solutions on the market and people just like couldn't take it out. It was like impossible to remove. So it will be interesting to see if people are a little bit more capable of doing that now. But yeah, there's so much riding on that not happening like these whole industries, right? So, fascinating. Joel Cheesman (23:40.274) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:50.279) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:00.049) Yeah. And the, the, the sort of fight for their lives, like let's acquire. And in addition to acquiring AI, let's acquire some revenue. So if, if we can't, if we're, if we're not growing, let's buy companies that we can sort of stack on revenue on revenue on revenue as well as AI. And that seems to be the strategy of a lot of them. We also had, Ashby make an acquisition this week of talent llama. we didn't add it cause there's so much. Maureen Clough (24:03.715) Yeah. Maureen Clough (24:15.384) Build by partner. Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (24:23.255) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:29.917) freaking industry news. But similarly, greenhouse buying Ezra, which we talked about, is another is another attempt to say like, we're going to add this AI thing so that we don't suffer like the big public SaaS companies are. And so Ashby buying llama, the llama, the drama and the llama, I think is part of that strategy to save to save their asses. Maureen Clough (24:31.735) You Maureen Clough (24:50.968) You Maureen Clough (24:54.72) Yep. Gotta save your ass. Gotta do it. Joel Cheesman (25:02.589) All right, Mo, here's one in your lane. Heather Bodell, a longtime Bloomberg manager, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against Bloomberg Industry Group. She alleges her career ended after being passed over for a promotion, facing hostility from a new manager, and being placed on a performance improvement plan, AKA PIP. Before being terminated, Bodell claims the company used the PIP in termination. Maureen Clough (25:03.022) Maureen Clough (25:13.719) What? Maureen Clough (25:25.23) Yep. Joel Cheesman (25:30.383) as pretexts for age discrimination, citing similar treatment of other older employees. Mo, age bias is your specialty. You've even been called a dinosaur from somewhere. What's your take on this ageism story? Maureen Clough (25:42.318) Indeed I It gets late early. was 37 when I was first called a dinosaur. This is so real, man. This is the sort of pretextual pip being placed on for older workers. They'll do anything they can to get the more expensive older workers off the payroll, right? And so this is just one such way they do it. But this particular case is so egregious because this woman, I mean, the indignity that she suffered is insane. So she went for a promotion. And I guess what they did was they passed her over for someone with a lot less experience, markedly younger. And this is a woman, by the way, Heather, who had apparently done, according to the complaint, allegedly had one of the best products in Bloomberg Law's history. And and by the way, fun fact, this one hits really close to home because yours truly used to work at Bloomberg Law, no joke, in New York City. So it's too funny. I'm like, this is so amazing. Yeah, I don't know if it's a flex so much, but like. Joel Cheesman (26:32.892) Look at that flex. Look at that flex. Very nice. Very nice. Maureen Clough (26:39.982) I'll just say this doesn't surprise me based on my experiences there. so this woman, she was passed over for promotion and this younger woman got it. And then this younger woman immediately went and made this woman's life hell. Like she called her out of touch. She said, your time is done. Like you're done for your time's up, your time's over. All of this sort of really egregious stuff. And then I guess what happened was this woman, Heather went and reported it to HR. And then like a week later was on a pip and it's like, I don't know how you can get a much more clear cut retaliation type of case there, but like that's a brazen and a bold move by Bloomberg. all these allegations are true. the comments that I got, so this video I posted on all the socials and it went really pretty far on YouTube. And people were just like, yeah man, seen this. I've been a union rep for so many years. This happened. I got pushed out at 52. Everybody in my comments is like, this could not be more. on the nose for what happens and across industries people are commenting about this and age discrimination claims are up like 40 % year over year in the last few years according to the EEOC. And so there's a lot more understanding that this is a bias that's super prevalent in the workforce and that there are these tactics that companies use and this is one of them. The PIP is one of them and it's happened at Metta. There's recently a case where a guy was pushed out at like age 53 after being The recipient of an email from Mark Zuckerberg himself saying like, you're one of our best employees. And then suddenly he's on a PIP and forced out. Like this is something that is continually happening. And so I'm going to be really curious to see what actually ends up occurring with this particular case because it really is something that's super systemic. And this is, you know, all now captured in federal filing. So we'll see, but yeah, not. not surprised in the slightest to see this type of age bias. It's just like this particular one is so egregious that it's like, how do they think they were gonna get away with this? Like if her allocations are on, like it's nuts. So yeah, I don't know. Joel Cheesman (28:36.935) Yeah. How much of this do you think is like cost savings? You get more expensive as you get older and how much is sort of societal real bias and prejudice? Maureen Clough (28:51.086) I definitely think it's a blend. what's really important to call it, and I'm glad you asked that question, is that it's not enough for them just merely to be getting people over the age of 40 out of the organization. Like that in and of itself alone, that sometimes is legitimately just like, oh, we need to cut costs. But what's incumbent on the companies to prove when these cases are brought is that they've also tried to get rid of costs in other ways. So if this sort of a situation happens alongside like sustained Joel Cheesman (28:52.582) Okay. Maureen Clough (29:18.144) or repeated comments about age, as in this case it was allegedly, that can be indicative of like a cultural issue inside the organization that is bias related. But it's just not enough. And that's why, you when these cases get brought, I'm always like, yeah, but then I'm also a side of like, holy shit, I hope this is real because otherwise it has a chilling effect on real ageism because... Ageism is the most common form of discrimination out there. It's the hardest to actually prove except for in a handful of states and cities where the laws are a little bit like more generous to people, but it is truly the most widespread. And I also believe that it's fascinating in the sense that like people over the age of 40 are technically older workers federally. That's the federal definition. And so I have this perception that essentially like so much age discrimination happens Joel Cheesman (30:02.641) Yeah. Maureen Clough (30:10.286) for people in millennial and Gen X eras and have just no idea. They're like, we don't know that we're quote old. Like it's a surprise to be like, wait, me older worker, like I think like 65, right? And it's like, no, no, no, actually it could be you. So it's a, you know, culture fit all that there's, there's just, there's a lot going on in there, but you're totally right, Joel. Like it's not always enough. It's not sufficient to prove age bias or ageism to just say like they got rid of all the older people. Cause they often that that often correlates with expensive. Joel Cheesman (30:26.087) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:39.229) I find it really fascinating from a societal perspective. was, was in Chicago at the RLX recently conference and I was, I ended up sitting at a table with a lot of my peers. Let's call them Gen Xers. And one of them just sort of randomly talked about getting Botox. And I, I asked the question, who else has had Botox at the table? I've never had Botox. I know that's shocking. but no, I, I, Maureen Clough (30:57.322) yeah. Like a dude or a woman. Yeah, I know you well preserved Joel. This is natural, all natural, all natural. Joel Cheesman (31:06.645) This is all, this is all me, baby. This is all me from head to toe, all me. but virtually everyone at the table had had Botox and then men and women. Yeah. Men and women, more, more women, but yeah, men and women. and then they started sort of offering up all the other shit that they've done. Vitamin, whatever, and injection, whatever, and tuck in all this stuff. And so that, that was Maureen Clough (31:16.876) Is this men and women at the table, by the way, or just men and women? Wow. Yeah. Maureen Clough (31:28.333) Yeah, yeah. Maureen Clough (31:33.422) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (31:35.887) Again, I think of myself not as old yet when, when, although I, I probably should, but I definitely oldest in terms of our conversation. But when, when, when I grew up, when I was growing up, you retired at 65, you had a pension and generally you'd live about a decade more, and then you would get cancer or something would happen. You would die like very quickly. And that, that Maureen Clough (31:38.87) Right. All this shit though, Joel. Maureen Clough (31:50.382) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (31:59.023) Yeah. Yep. Joel Cheesman (32:05.497) archetype is going away. Our president is 80 years old. The one before him was 80 whatever. The narrative of like, well, the boomers can't let go of power is creating a lot of, I think, animus between the generations. But you can be productive well into your seventies if your health is there. but historically that never happened. Maureen Clough (32:09.407) yeah. Maureen Clough (32:14.083) Yeah. Maureen Clough (32:21.228) Yeah, there is for sure. Maureen Clough (32:27.661) Hell yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:32.999) People just assumed, all right, 60, all right, couple more years left, know, coast to the end, and then here's your gold watch and go away. And that cycle was predictable. That cycle was predictable. when historically, okay, it's my turn to lead this thing, that's not happening anymore because so-and-so hit 68 and he's still in charge or she's still, so I totally understand the displeasure. Maureen Clough (32:33.612) Right. Yeah. Out to pasture. No one can do that anymore. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:02.415) of everyone in this whole equation because it's changing so rapidly. Maureen Clough (33:08.726) It is, but it's interesting too. It really does matter like your level in the organization. Like you expect to see older people on like the C-suite, but when you get down to like individual contributors or middle management and they're older, there's this sort of bias of like, why the hell hasn't she done more or why isn't he higher up the chain? It's like, well, there's supply and demand going on here. So it really differs. And sometimes the most ageist people are bald or like the older people themselves. And they're just, cause they don't see themselves as old. Like we all have this like completely embedded in us, but yeah, there's like, Joel Cheesman (33:28.466) Yeah. Maureen Clough (33:38.159) a ton of intergenerational warfare. There's a ton to consider when you see that human longevity is changing and that all, no one can freaking retire. No one can afford to retire. It's not the same as it used to be. So yeah, we've got to really sort of retool the way we think about age at work. Obviously that's a huge passion of mine, but yeah, this shit sucks. it's the one thing we all share, right? We're all getting older, so maybe we should stop being such dicks about it. Joel Cheesman (33:54.459) Yeah, it's. Joel Cheesman (33:58.021) It is fascinating. was. Joel Cheesman (34:02.909) It's a blessing to get old. That's the whole goal is to like make it. Yeah. I, I had lunch, I had lunch with my son, my oldest son who just got through with his freshman year, at Indiana. And I just was curious. I was like, are you doing any vibe coding? Like, are you doing anything that I hear all the young kids are up to? And he had no idea what I was talking about. He had no idea what vibe coding was. So, you know, I, Maureen Clough (34:05.28) It is honestly, it literally is. It literally is. So yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (34:27.029) yep. There you go. Look at you. Joel Cheesman (34:30.517) I like to think that Gen X is one of the most adaptable generations ever. I mean, we were left to our own devices. We didn't know, are we going to make it home? is anything for dinner? Is mom going to be there? I remember in the nineties, dating girls who wouldn't leave the house without a quarter. Do you know why it's a call? Yes. So yeah, and that's Maureen Clough (34:35.343) I'd go with that. You figured it out. Yeah. Lachki kids. Yep. Totally. Maureen Clough (34:49.447) to call on a payphone? my gosh. Yeah, wow. That's a throwback. Joel Cheesman (34:55.677) Yeah, you had to be adaptable. You had to be lining your feet and like, okay, always be aware of your surroundings. What's going on. I had to use a map up until, you know, GPS and Garmin became a thing. So map quest. Yeah. No, no participation trophies, uh, in this kids and this kids trophy trophy. All right, guys, let's take a quick break. Uh, great conversation and we'll talk a little bit more about, uh, that AI stuff. Maureen Clough (34:56.523) Maureen Clough (35:05.132) MapQuest, MapQuest printed out directions, remember that? my gosh. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Maureen Clough (35:23.694) AI stuff. Can't get away from that AI stuff, can we? Joel Cheesman (35:31.133) I have no idea. Did that transition play for you? Oh, it did. Okay. I'm just going to assume all these soundbites play for you. I don't know if they'll be in the final production of this. Anyway, all right, Mo. UCF highlighted the complicated relationship young people have with AI, but it turns out they are not alone. Research from CV Library reveals that over a third of recruiters believe AI tools are causing them to miss strong candidates. Maureen Clough (35:34.06) It did. Tech for the win. Maureen Clough (35:40.589) good. Maureen Clough (35:51.086) No. Joel Cheesman (35:58.673) While AI is used to manage high volumes of applications, it struggles with assessing cultural fit and soft skills. And a greenhouse survey said 63 % of job seekers have faced an AI interview, but most of them have yet to have a good experience while 38 % of candidates have walked away from a hiring process because it included an AI interview and another 12 % said they would leave. Maureen Clough (35:59.311) Hmm. Maureen Clough (36:06.062) So do humans. Joel Cheesman (36:25.115) A growing number of employers and job seekers seem to be souring on AI hiring Mo. What's your take? Maureen Clough (36:33.39) I mean, man, I think this is a really tough one because I feel for everybody involved. Like I feel for the recruiters who have like eight billion resumes being thrown at them and needing to sift through them. Like I can understand needing some sort of a tool, right? I understand the frustration of like the black hole of job applications going in and being like, a robot looking at this? Like, but I will say like, is a human looking at it necessarily that much better? Like we all have our own biases and we all come to the table with like our vision of what a cult. culture fit looks like, right? But it's like the scale aspect of this that I think is really challenging. But I can tell you, like, even when I was interviewing, was, I oh, it was 2020. That's right. It's 2020. And I was interviewing and it was a remote interview, obviously. And I remember being peeved out and like, like, what the hell's going on when he literally, this guy was interviewing me, hit record on the interview. And I was like, what are you doing with this record? Like, oh, you share like my conversation with you somewhere else. And that was unnerving. like times 25 billion when you think about sitting down with a literal robot that's like, and you know, there is, there's these cues that we have as humans, like we can, we can, you know, infer what someone else is thinking or feeling, or if you're on the right track and like, you cannot do that with a robot, that's impossible. So I think it just, it's disempowering. It's like, it's tough enough to just be in the job market in the first place right now. Like people are really struggling. And then to have like that level of like opacity when it comes to like the whole process, it just is, I think, deeply infuriating for people. just, you just don't have any sense of how it's going. You don't know if anyone's gonna look at it. You don't know if it's being filtered out. You know, we obviously know about the eightfold and the workday cases about filtering out applications. There's a precedence for this, like the EEOC has sued companies for actually literally filtering out candidate info. I mean, that article we read about Joel Cheesman (38:14.78) Yeah. Maureen Clough (38:28.588) what's going on with AI and candidates. mean, a lot of people, think it's 30 something, 37 % maybe, said that they think that their age is a factor when it comes to AI applications. But they also said that that's the case with humans. you know, we program the AI. So of course, it's going to have our biases. I think, for me, the big question is like, how do companies demonstrate that they are actually looking at what's happening in their AI and ensuring that they remove the bias from it? And I think that's Joel Cheesman (38:41.489) Yeah. Maureen Clough (38:55.842) That's the clutch part. Like can companies actually prove that they're doing that and make people feel comfortable and confident with the process? But yeah, some people are just never gonna love like getting on a call with a robot. I think I would call myself one of them. But like, I also think we kind of have to recognize like this is the way it's moving. And you you gotta try and get a little bit more comfortable with it even if it sucks. Yeah. Right? Joel Cheesman (39:00.295) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:17.469) Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Maureen Clough (39:23.182) I mean, what are you- Joel Cheesman (39:24.953) So I mentioned girls in the 90s and their quarters. I had a girl that I dated in the 90s right around the internet when the internet hit who loved Target. Loved shopping at Target, spending the day at Target, coffee at Target, icee's at Target, just loved going and shopping at Target. Target, yeah, Target card carrying fan base of Target. Maureen Clough (39:45.986) Wow, real target Stan. Damn. He Joel Cheesman (39:53.053) And when the internet came out and Amazon and everything, was like, man, this is the future. We're going to order stuff. It's going to show up at our door. We don't have to drive there. We don't have to deal with parking and crowds and rude salespeople like this. I'm down with this. She was not, uh, history proved me right. Uh, if you would have had a chance to buy Target stock or Amazon stock, I think you probably would won with Amazon stock. So the Amazon came or the internet came for Target. Maureen Clough (40:07.182) Mmm. Maureen Clough (40:17.838) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (40:23.855) AI is coming for hiring. empathize with job seekers who hate it. I empathize with recruiters that are like, we're missing candidates or things are falling through the cracks, but I'm here to say, get over it. This is the future. Company, like it's too efficient. It's too cost effective to not do it for companies to go back to human beings and the way it was. Now the tech will get better. Maureen Clough (40:38.638) 8. Maureen Clough (40:50.134) It's not changing, yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:52.133) It will be more human. It may even be more, more kind, more empathetic itself, because it doesn't get tired. It doesn't get, it doesn't have a bad day. doesn't have a three year old, you know, puke on the kitchen floor. doesn't have a, Maureen Clough (40:57.784) What a thought. Maureen Clough (41:05.656) Well, and you can't be like, this candidate reminds me of my ex-boyfriend, I therefore hate this candidate. You know, like that sort of thing, right? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:09.117) correct. It doesn't have a fight with their spouse that morning of like you might find that it's, better in some ways than a human. So, so I, I'm just here to say, I get it. I appreciate it, but I don't think things are changing. Now I do think there will, there will be a point where companies find it as a branding exercise to say, we're going to have real humans because that's our brand. Like it's like, you don't go like if, if I, if you ever were to go to an in and out, Maureen Clough (41:16.152) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (41:20.459) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (41:32.354) That's our secret sauce, our special sauce. Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:38.161) and have a kiosk, think you'd be done. That would be so antithetical to their brand that there's no way that they would do that. I mean, I'll be the first to I was wrong if they do it. Maureen Clough (41:42.254) Hmph. Maureen Clough (41:46.626) Yeah. I mean, you had to work in that fast food reference. I love it. You are dedicated. Love it. No, you're totally right. Joel Cheesman (41:52.059) Well, yeah, it is lunchtime where I am. so I could see a company saying, look, we're a luxury company or we're a high tech or whatever it is. Our art. Yes. Our brand is like we're Rolex or we are whoever. And you're not, we're not going to let you get interviewed by a robot. You're going to interview with an actual human being, you know, flesh and blood. I think that will happen. I don't know who will be the one to do that, but that will be a brand. But for the most, for most companies, Maureen Clough (42:00.451) Yeah. White glove is human now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we're the Rolex of hiring. Yeah. Maureen Clough (42:20.438) I Joel Cheesman (42:21.327) AI is too cost effective. It's improving too rapidly for them to go back to the way that it was. Maureen Clough (42:27.212) Well, it offers a really good opportunity for the right company to come in and be like, hey, we are going to be the leader in like not being shitty at this. Like we are going to figure out how to ensure that there's no bias baked into this. We're going to make people feel more comfortable. Like there could be someone who comes in and does this really super well and makes people feel comfortable on both sides. And like, that's a big opportunity. Joel Cheesman (42:43.676) Yep. Maureen Clough (42:48.29) I can't imagine that, I mean, it'll be interesting to see how these lawsuits with like eight full and workday come out and how the implications are for the rest of the whole workplace. But if you can program it in such a way, like hard code it to not be a jerk and like discriminate against people, like that seems like a win. And maybe there's a place for it at the very top of funnel, as long as you know that that discrimination is not gonna take place, right? Like that could be good, but at some point too, you have to get to Joel Cheesman (42:57.853) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (43:17.526) a place where you can stack rank and like how do you sort that? And it's probably really different per job, like per role specifically. I mean, yeah, like you Joel, my heart goes out to everybody. This is just like rough times, but hopefully someone's gonna come out with like a best of breed tool that like rocks. Joel Cheesman (43:33.533) Yeah, it will. It will get, yeah. Like not all AI is the same. Just like not all, uh, SEO is all these companies say they have SEO or whatever mobile stuff. And obviously they're not all created, uh, the same. we will, we will get to a point where this company is like class a, I, it looks like it sounds like a human. Um, and, and I, we sell these headlines. Maureen Clough (43:39.371) Right. Maureen Clough (43:54.402) Yeah. Yeah. Right. Joel Cheesman (44:01.009) greenhouse buys so and so and Ashby and llama and we're like, okay, but they're not all the same when you actually use them. I'm a full disclosure. I'm an investor in Alex AI who does this kind of thing. And interestingly, a lot of their interviews happen after hours, which you think, which if you think about it makes total sense, right? If I'm employed, I don't want to have an interview during lunch where I'm like rushing through and I've Maureen Clough (44:21.886) yeah, That's actually amazing. Maureen Clough (44:29.368) No. Joel Cheesman (44:30.759) deal with my day. So to have an opportunity where I can, it dinners over, I'm relaxed, the kids are in bed, like now I want to have an interview, but the traditional way of doing it, that doesn't happen. So it's interesting the data that they're starting to get of the number of people that are doing it at their convenience versus when the company says we need to talk, you know, at this certain time. Maureen Clough (44:37.262) Totally. Maureen Clough (44:42.22) Yeah. Maureen Clough (44:51.384) Totally. That's the best use case I've heard yet. That totally makes sense, right? It opens up access to more people to get their applications in and do so in a way that works for them and doesn't like put their current employment at risk, right? So that's solid. I love it. Try to make some sense. Joel Cheesman (45:04.103) We're here to make sense on the chat and cheese podcast, everybody. And speaking of sense, let's talk a little LinkedIn. Power users can soon get paid to give advice. This month users, users with a LinkedIn business account will be able to offer one-on-one consultation sessions from their profiles. Users will be able to manage bookings, take payments and host video calls directly. Maureen Clough (45:12.564) love, love. Maureen Clough (45:17.39) You Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:30.449) from LinkedIn, it will be rolling out to premium business subscribers in the US this month. Making money with LinkedIn, Mo, your thoughts. Maureen Clough (45:39.791) I mean, I read a comment on this article that cracked me up. It was like, we are just like scaling insufferability. And I died laughing. I was like, that's incredible. Like everybody is an expert. Everybody's a guru. You know, how much is LinkedIn? I didn't read how much they're taken as a cut off this little platform play. And I'm assuming they're going to take a cut. Joel Cheesman (46:00.839) So it's sort of up to the user of what they want to charge. I'm sure, well, I don't know if LinkedIn takes a cut or not. It's probably fairly. Maureen Clough (46:04.974) Okay, and then they take a percentage off the top. Maybe they actually give it to you for paying for premium, who knows? But yeah, it's like. Joel Cheesman (46:13.489) Well, it is an incentive to upgrade if you do think this is a money making opportunity. Maureen Clough (46:16.66) Right? That is... And I just, I question whether it is or not. mean, listen, I love convenience. I love one stop shopping. I guess if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna be the LinkedIn advisor person, like sure, it's cool that people can just find you there and book you from that moment. But like, there are so many other solutions that do that. I don't know if that means if they do implement this, and they are obviously they're implementing it, but are they then going to like... Joel Cheesman (46:33.49) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (46:40.871) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (46:42.802) de-centrified or they're gonna like downplay the roles or excuse me, profiles of people who have like external links because they wanna keep people on the platform doing this. Like I see it going in that direction which just like sucks for people who don't wanna pay for premium and still wanna run their business especially if LinkedIn eventually ends up taking a cut of whatever proceeds that you get from this like ask my advice thing. I don't know, I just think sure like. Joel Cheesman (46:50.62) Yeah. Maureen Clough (47:09.11) I guess that's good to help people make money, but this is allegedly to help quote unquote solopreneurs. And what I got to say to LinkedIn is, dude, you got to do better than this. If you are a solopreneur or you're someone who's like trying to go out and make a little side hustle, which is like so much of the workforce now, what like 40 % I think was the stat we read recently. And one of our articles about that people who already have some sort of form of alternate income aside from their day job, dude, you cannot block companies or people on LinkedIn from your posts. Joel Cheesman (47:37.991) Yeah. Maureen Clough (47:38.159) So like literally when I started my podcast about ageism in the tech industry, while I was currently employed at a tech company where basically a fetus was running the company, I was like, this is not gonna be great for me. Like this look is not good. And sure enough, I had to put it out there. My boss thought, oh, you're doing this podcast about ageism workplace. I'm like, yep, nothing to see here, nothing to see. And what do you know? I was in a layoff of one a month later. So like that was a hundred percent related. Joel Cheesman (47:59.015) haha Maureen Clough (48:06.68) to me having to be public on LinkedIn about what I was doing. So what they need to do, and I have railed against this, is if you wanna support the new future of work, which is people doing side hustles and having to be public with it, you gotta give us the ability to block certain people, certain companies, and certain types of profiles from viewing our content. Otherwise, it's gonna continue to create this chilling effect on would-be, I mean, podcasters, entrepreneurs, whatever. But you really, you need to look at this situation for what it is, Joel Cheesman (48:08.829) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:23.696) Interesting. Joel Cheesman (48:31.207) Yeah. Maureen Clough (48:36.472) full on dangerous for a lot of people to actually be public on LinkedIn with what they're trying to do. Not only that, it's also really fucking embarrassing. Excuse my French, but like it is embarrassing to be like, hey, entire network of people who have known my entire professional life, I'm doing this thing. And that stops people from using it too. So if LinkedIn wants more people to use it, this is what they got to do. Joel Cheesman (48:43.73) Interesting. Joel Cheesman (48:56.829) So I'm going to differ from you on this a little bit. You're quite bearish on this technology. And if Chad were here, he would tell me that I'm drinking the Kool-Aid like never before. This has been tried before to varying degrees of failure, I think. There was a site called Purple Squirrel back in the day where you could actually buy time with employees at companies. So let's say I want to work at Metta. Maureen Clough (48:59.222) by all means. Maureen Clough (49:06.822) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (49:21.725) I can find someone there and have like a hidden secret conversation of how to get a job at Metta. And can you put in a good word for me? Uh, there was also a company way back in the day, uh, X X like 16 X it was a weird name. It was an Andreessen thing. And it was basically for engineers who get tons of calls from recruiters to be able to say, okay, I'll talk to you, but you're going to have to pay for it. So engineers could say, Hey, here's my link. Maureen Clough (49:23.982) You Maureen Clough (49:48.046) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (49:49.391) sign up and I charge a hundred dollars an hour or whatever it is to talk to you. was correct. But for an engineer, it's like, my God, all these calls. It'd be nice to just send them to this link and say, okay, pay for time. And I'll talk to you. I don't think I know the engineer one isn't around anymore. The purple scroll. I don't know, but we don't hear much about it anymore. I was having a conversation recently, about sort of what, Maureen Clough (49:53.398) instead of a coffee chat, pick my brain kind of thing. Maureen Clough (50:03.202) Yeah. Don't we. Joel Cheesman (50:16.135) that someone asked me what gets you up in the morning, like sort of what is, what's your, what gets you excited about stuff? And I, I came to this conclusion. came to the conclusion that I have, I have sort of left my Luke Skywalker and Han Solo era, and I'm moving into my OB one Kenobi era, meaning I'm do, I'm moving out of the whole, like physically doing a lot of stuff and learning and falling down and all that. And moving into like, I'm this Maureen Clough (50:22.062) What's your North Star? Maureen Clough (50:31.038) You Okay. Joel Cheesman (50:43.193) All knowing been in the industry for 25 plus years, a person. And then when I see something like this come along, think. Awesome. Because I probably monthly get three to five messages. I'll connect with someone and they'll say, Hey man, love the pod. I just built this thing. Would you mind taking a look at it and telling me what you think? And aside from the fact that I generally don't like people. Maureen Clough (50:44.568) wise. Mmm. Joel Cheesman (51:13.359) I don't have a lot of time. I don't have a lot of free time to like give to people I've never met. I've only connected to you, like buy me a drink first for God's sakes. But, but with this, I can say, cool, man, sign up, pay me X and I'll, I'll talk to you. So it's like, they get what they want. They get to talk to me and get my feedback, which I think is valuable and I get money. So I, I'm, I'm down. I'm down. This is. Maureen Clough (51:15.853) Right? Maureen Clough (51:20.622) 100. Yeah, come on. Maureen Clough (51:27.267) Yeah. Maureen Clough (51:35.911) Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I don't want to say I'm not down. Don't get me wrong, because I agree with you on that front. Like, people ask questions all the time, you know, people you've never met before who don't know you from Adam and are like, hey, can I like take your very, very precious time and your all the knowledge that you've accumulated? And a lot of people actually feel entitled to it, which is bizarre to me. But there are... other mechanisms by which you can get them to pay, they're slightly higher touch. So I don't have a problem necessarily with them doing this, if you will. I just think there are more important things that they can do to help solopreneurs and like people starting things on the side. That's all. So don't get me wrong. Like it's a totally fine service. But I still think, you know, you're going to find some people who are like, I am a self-proclaimed guru of XYZ, you know, who will start doing that. But they're going to do that regardless of whether they have the button or not, you know. Joel Cheesman (52:09.564) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:27.431) So you're the mom on Mother's Day that says, the rose is nice, a dozen would be even nicer. Happy Mother's Day, by the way, and shout out to all the mothers out there in the world for sure. Maureen Clough (52:33.614) Hey, I would take one. thank you. Thank you. No, but you're right, Joel. You're right about that. I actually agree with you too. Joel Cheesman (52:43.643) okay, cool. So let's take a quick break and talk about something that we're definitely going to disagree about. Smart glasses. Maureen Clough (52:51.765) god. Joel Cheesman (52:55.313) All right, Mo, what show between the two of us could possibly pass an opportunity to talk about smart glasses? Google is reviving smart glasses this year with a new generation. You probably remember the Google glasses a decade or so ago. This is an Android Gemini powered regular looking offering that Google is gonna unveil. This is a much ambitious followup, similar to Meta's glasses. Maureen Clough (53:00.878) Hahaha! Maureen Clough (53:11.734) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (53:16.302) BWAH! Joel Cheesman (53:25.073) That's right. I'm a proud carrying a wearer of the meta glasses. The cost is expected to be around 300 to a thousand dollars depending on your prescription and all kinds of other stuff, bells and whistles. I'm going to guess that you're, you're not real happy about another big tech company launching smart glasses. What are your thoughts? Maureen Clough (53:30.613) Maureen Clough (53:50.913) You would be correct. I mean, don't we live in enough of a surveillance state as it is? Do we really need to put these on the faces of more people? I hate these glasses. I hate them with every fiber of my being. I don't think we need them. I don't think that you need to have an augmented virtual reality in front of your face at all time. But the main reason I hate them is that you can not opt out as the subject being looked at, right? So like increasingly, Joel Cheesman (54:05.085) Wow. Maureen Clough (54:18.99) People are doing these videos. I see them all over social media and I'm like, how the hell did this creator get this person to talk to them on the street? And then I look and I see the little emblem that says, shot with my meta Ray-Ban glasses. And I'm like, you kidding? Because they didn't know they were being recorded, right? Because you have to see the tiny little light. when you think about the implications for people, all people, also especially women and children, in the society we're in right now, I just don't like it. at all, like there's no privacy. And you think about where that data is going and what it's being used for and the fact that you just cannot opt out as a human. I know, I know every time you go out into the public arena, like technically people can take pictures of you or whatever, like I know that that's the way it is, but this is just on steroids in a way that I think is deeply alarming and unhelpful for society. So that's where I mean, in the era of Palantir and Big Tech, Joel Cheesman (55:10.237) Okay. Maureen Clough (55:16.362) and all of this stuff. just think it's a road to know where we want to go. Joel Cheesman (55:21.891) And the light coming on doesn't change your mind. If I see a light, so you think, so when you and I, but when you and I hang out next time, whenever and wherever that is, and I'm wearing my Meta-Ray bands, you know that I'm not like recording you as we're talking, right? Maureen Clough (55:25.76) Not at all. unless it's like a huge spotlight. Maureen Clough (55:38.338) I'll slap him off your face. Do I know that? That's the thing. I just don't think the average person, especially when you're caught unawares on the street and someone comes up to you and is like, hey, excuse me, like blah, blah. Like you're not looking at that little dot, right? It's the lack of consent. It's the lack of like clarity and transparency as to where that data is going, where it winds up. All of that makes me deeply uncomfortable. And especially when you layer on like the facial recognition. Joel Cheesman (55:53.403) Yeah, I- Maureen Clough (56:10.582) And all of that, like, I think we get into real dangerous territory right now. And there was a moment when I was watching one of those videos, I was like, man, that'd be so helpful, like, as a content creator. And I was like, that is not enough reason for us to do this. Like, get your damn phone out and go like this when you're recording someone. So I'm just like, so against it, so against it. But yeah, anyway, I'd love to hear why you're not. Joel Cheesman (56:26.023) Yeah. Okay. Joel Cheesman (56:31.247) Okay. Well, so I'll start with this. the internet came for target AI is coming for hiring and smart glasses are coming for your face. If it's not smart glasses, it's going to be an earpiece. It's going to be a little thing you wear. There are necklaces now that do stuff like I, I think that you will see that this is something that becomes normalized eventually. Now I agree with you. People are using this for. Maureen Clough (56:45.656) See, I don't think we need that. Joel Cheesman (57:04.465) bad purposes, know, like surprising someone on the street and asking them weird questions and then putting that like, that's not cool. And maybe legislation will come out eventually that, Hey, you can file some sort of lawsuit if you're recorded and something is put on, put online. I've been wearing my meds for two, three years now. I'm on version two. I'm personally excited for the displays when I can get my hands on those. Maureen Clough (57:12.974) creepy stuff. Joel Cheesman (57:34.183) Google's going to launch some Apple will initially launch them. There will be an Apple product with they pair with Prada or some fashion, fashion brand to do this. so, so aside from, I can take pictures like my kid plays soccer football, like to be able to take sort of really quick picture as opposed to, okay, my camera's in my pocket or I got a button right here. Like Maureen Clough (57:34.83) Can you walk me through that? Maureen Clough (57:43.15) The devil wears Prada. Joel Cheesman (58:01.243) much quicker to take a quick shot than it is to pull my camera out or my phone out. Listening to music is convenient. It's nice to like not interfere. So, so would you rather have AirPods listening or just I have music and I don't, I look like I'm paying attention, but there, there are more. So I'll tell you, I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you two instances that are pretty cool. think the first one is the first one is the first one is okay. Maureen Clough (58:19.022) Ha! my god. Maureen Clough (58:27.278) Okay, I'll tell you whether I think it's worth surveillance. Joel Cheesman (58:31.215) I'm, I'm fifth. I'll be 55 this month. I've been to a lot of rock shows. I'm a kid that had a Walkman put on maximum volume in the eighties and I don't hear. There you go. So I don't hear super well in crowds. If I'm in a bar or pub, it's sometimes hard to hear. So my med is now have an amplifier for audio so I can, I can engage the glasses. And if I'm talking to you in a crowded Maureen Clough (58:42.04) You Joel Cheesman (59:00.175) a conference room or something that's loud, it will amplify what you're saying to me. So I, as someone who doesn't hear great, it's a nice thing to have that I can now talk to you and not worry about, I hear what she's saying? The look on your face says you're well, okay. Well, there's stigma with that. So I can have a hearing aid basically without having hearing aids in. And as someone who's too proud to wear hearing aids in my fifties, like Maureen Clough (59:14.382) What about hearing aids? Maureen Clough (59:19.704) true, but we. Maureen Clough (59:25.464) Sure, but they're getting smaller and smaller. I hear you. I mean, I'm 43 and my hearing sucks. So I get that. Okay, so, but basically it's convenience. It's convenience for photos. Okay, keep going, keep going. Joel Cheesman (59:29.623) That's what I'm going to do. So that's. Joel Cheesman (59:40.325) I haven't given you the second thing yet. I got, got, I got a multiple layered pitch here for you. Okay. So the, so the, so the second one is now they have a live translation. So I can engage my glasses. I can be in Paris, Germany, wherever, and you can talk to me in that native language and it will translate it for me and my glasses. That's cool. That's some sci-fi shit. And then I, and then I can use that the meta app on my phone. Maureen Clough (59:45.482) Okay, alright, I'm open. Maureen Clough (01:00:05.77) Hahaha! Joel Cheesman (01:00:09.831) to say what I want to say and it will translate it in words in German or whatever language it is. think if someone else is wearing, so if you had two people wearing smart glasses, you could literally have a conversation in that native language and they're both understanding what they're saying, which I think is where the world is going. So to me, are two things, those are two advances that I think are pretty cool. It may not change your mind. Maureen Clough (01:00:16.078) So it hears the person, translates. Maureen Clough (01:00:33.356) Okay, I don't disagree that they are pretty cool. However, I do believe that you can take your smartphone out and have like a translated conversation just between you and the other person, like without needing to have the glasses. I hear you, it's cool, it's cool, but it's too like, it's too Terminator-y, it's too like this world like sci-fi and Joel Cheesman (01:00:37.585) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:01:01.501) Do you agree it's coming no matter what? Whether it's an earpiece or a necklace or jewelry or glasses that we're going to have something smart on our bodies. Maureen Clough (01:01:03.79) I don't actually. Maureen Clough (01:01:11.33) I mean, we'll have something smart. I think we already do. It's this, and it goes everywhere with us. I do not believe it's inevitable. I think that that's the narrative that these tech billionaires want us to hear because they enrich themselves and they get all the data from us. I think that we are seeing, and we talked about it a little earlier, right? Like the pushback against AI and data centers and whatnot. Like I think we're about to see like a growing resistance to this shit. Joel Cheesman (01:01:39.675) Okay. Maureen Clough (01:01:40.673) I think it's very deserved because I don't trust these companies or these governments with my data. I really don't. Now, do I still have a smartphone? Yeah, unfortunately. But I have done like what I can to de-risk that. And when we're in a world where people can, without getting your consent, turn on a button, record you, get your personal info, and put it God knows where. I just don't think that's worth the benefits. I do think that people are becoming wiser to the risks associated with this technology. So I don't think it's inevitable at all. I think that we are in a place where people are really waking up to what's happening. certainly, I'm going to say this, we all have our bubbles, our echo chambers. So perhaps I am in said echo chamber where that is very much talked about and other people aren't. And they're like, cool tech. Joel Cheesman (01:02:10.193) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:02:23.505) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:02:28.977) And at the risk of sounding sexist, think there's a male and female view of this that you and I Maureen Clough (01:02:34.902) I don't think that sex is, I think that's a real thing because I also fear more for women and like stalking and stuff like that that could come with glasses that men don't have to concern themselves as much with. yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:02:46.941) Correct. Correct. The men's response to it would be like, pull my finger, get this on video jerk. Okay. Like so a woman, a woman has a much different perspective on smart glasses than a man, than a man does. Maureen Clough (01:02:57.686) Right? Yeah. So I think there is probably a gender divide there too, for sure. And like, I'm not like, I like tech. I think it's cool. just, this particular tech, the extent to which it can be so pervasive and so unnoticeable and there's zero consent scares the shit out of me. And for me, it's not worth it. Joel Cheesman (01:03:01.851) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:03:17.627) Well, you don't think this is inevitable, but you know what is inevitable? Mo? Yeah, a dad joke and Maureen Clough (01:03:21.438) a dad joke? boy. boy. Here we go. Joel Cheesman (01:03:28.871) So in the honor of talking about glasses, Mo, what do you call a potato who wears glasses? What do you call a potato that wears glasses? Maureen Clough (01:03:37.102) Shoot, something with eyes, because it's got those things called eyes. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Ugh, I got nothing. Joel Cheesman (01:03:43.395) A spectator. A spectator. You like that? Yeah, I bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? Maureen Clough (01:03:45.454) that's cute. That is so Mo approved. Like you really nailed it. That was cute. I didn't, truly didn't. Maybe if I were wearing Meta Ray Bans, I would have seen it, you know? Next life. Good to see you. In the Joel Cheesman (01:04:00.465) Mo, good to hang out with ya. That's another one in the can. We out! Maureen Clough (01:04:08.889) Super.

The 6-Recruiter Empire: How Flynn Group Uses AI to Hire for Thousands of Locations What happens when the world’s largest franchise operator, powering heavy hitters like Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s, and Planet Fitness, decides to burn the traditional hiring playbook? You get a masterclass in hyper-efficiency, AI-driven automation, and a "lean" strategy that sounds like science fiction. In this episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast, we sit down with Mark Gibson, Director of HR Technology at Flynn Group, to pull back the curtain on how a global empire manages 2,400+ locations with a core team of only six recruiters. Inside the Playbook: Meet "Frankie": Discover how Flynn Group’s custom AI assistant (powered by Paradox) handles the entire candidate journey from first text to auto-scheduling while you sleep. The Midnight Launch: Mark recounts the "chaos" of launching a new system at midnight and waking up to a million applicants. How do you handle that kind of volume without breaking? Recruiters as Media Buyers: Learn why Flynn Group stopped asking recruiters to screen resumes and started training them to think like high-level digital marketers. The TikTok Factor: Explore the "One Flynn" branding strategy that uses Gen Z brand ambassadors to turn viral content into a massive pipeline of frontline talent. Beyond the Hire: It’s not just about getting them in the door. Mark breaks down their AI-powered 30/60/90-day survey strategy designed to kill "ghosting" and tackle high churn head-on. Humanity vs. The Machine Is this the "Judgment Day" for HR roles? Mark addresses the "Terminator" fears of automation and explains why human-centric roles are actually becoming more important as the "boring" tasks get automated. Plus, get the inside scoop on Flynn Group's expansion into Australia and New Zealand and why they are bullish on the "black card" membership model—for both fitness and fries. Whether you're an HR leader struggling with slow hiring cycles or a tech enthusiast curious about the business case for AI, this conversation is your roadmap to the future of high-volume recruiting. “We launched at midnight. By morning, we had a million applicants. That’s the power of removing friction.” - Mark Gibson, Director of HR Technology at The Flynn Group Listen now to learn how to turn your HR department into a lean, automated powerhouse. More videos: PART 2: 1 Million applicants overnight PART 3: Robots Won't Replace Taco Bell Workers (yet) PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION [music] 0:00:18.9 Joel Cheesman: So, what's up, guys? Let's do this. You're watching the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined, as always, Chad Sowash is here. We're talking to Mark Gibson, director of HR technology at the Flynn Group. Mark, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. 0:00:42.0 Mark Gibson: Thank you. Thank you. 0:00:42.9 Chad Sowash: Buckeye fan. 0:00:43.7 Mark Gibson: Yes. 0:00:44.6 Joel Cheesman: Clevelander. Cleve lifelong. 0:00:46.3 Mark Gibson: More importantly, Buckeye fan. [laughter] 0:00:48.6 Joel Cheesman: I mean, he has grit and perseverance, basically, as... 0:00:52.3 Mark Gibson: With the weather up there, you have to. 0:00:53.5 Joel Cheesman: Yep. Yes, there's no choice. So, that's a little bit about you. What else, what else do you wanna fill in and give us the, uh, the elevator pitch on, uh, the Flynn Group? 0:01:02.0 Mark Gibson: Yeah. So, Flynn Group, largest franchise operator in the world at this point. Umm, it's, it's pretty impressive. Started off all in restaurants. Applebee's, uh, is what started it all, but now we're in Applebee's, uh, Pizza Hut, Panera, Arby's, Wendy's, Taco Bell. 0:01:19.4 Chad Sowash: Oh, you said it. 0:01:20.1 Joel Cheesman: Speaking my love language, Mark. We've also recently gone international with Pizza Hut, umm, Australia and Wendy's in New Zealand. And then recently, umm, moved out of restaurants and gotten into Planet Fitness as well. 0:01:33.6 Mark Gibson: What's this fitness thing you speak of? [laughter] 0:01:36.3 Joel Cheesman: Not familiar with it. 0:01:37.8 Chad Sowash: Fitness Pizza Hut in your mouth. 0:01:39.4 Joel Cheesman: Exactly. [laughter] Could we combine all of those franchises together? 0:01:43.8 Mark Gibson: Yeah. 0:01:44.2 Joel Cheesman: So, those are obviously some significant, interesting recruiting challenges. 0:01:46.4 Mark Gibson: Absolutely. 0:01:48.9 Joel Cheesman: Global, exercise, different kinds of food. Umm, yep. How do you make sense of all that? How do you standardize that and scale it? 0:01:56.2 Mark Gibson: Yeah, I mean, it's something that we're, umm, you know, we're working through right now as we've grown incredibly quickly. Umm, and we have, you know, launched this initiative of Lean Into Flynn, which is really, let's use our larger umbrella for, you know, these frontline workers to be able to, you know, if most of our workers work in, have multiple jobs, right? Umm, how can we push where, hey, you are at a Flynn Taco Bell right now, there's a Flynn Wendy's down the street. How do we kind of bring that together? And that's kind of one of our biggest initiatives right now. Umm, and so having that pulled together with, umm, something like a, Olivia, uh, who, you know, they get used to, you know, texting with this, this person. 0:02:40.0 Chad Sowash: Name's not Olivia, though. 0:02:40.7 Mark Gibson: Her name is not Olivia for us, so we have it customized to Frankie. Umm, and Frankie at Flynn Group is, is who communicates with everyone. 0:02:48.2 Joel Cheesman: Why Frankie? 0:02:49.1 Mark Gibson: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Carla, my, umm, my counterpart, she actually pushed, umm, the name Frankie. But, umm, when I was coming in and interviewing, I found out that it was Frankie, which is my daughter's name. 0:03:01.5 Chad Sowash: Wow. 0:03:01.9 Mark Gibson: Yeah. So, I have a three-year-old daughter named Frankie. So, I'm in the interview process and that pops up and I was like... 0:03:06.6 Joel Cheesman: Whose named after Frankie Goes to Hollywood? The '80s. No, just kidding. 0:03:11.4 Mark Gibson: Relax. 0:03:11.8 Joel Cheesman: Like, just kidding. Yeah, don't do it. 0:03:13.2 Chad Sowash: So, how many franchises? Number one. And then number two, how do you get all of those franchises standardized under a certain system? Or do you? I mean, because again, you're, you're, you're global, so therefore it's gonna be different from, from country to country. 0:03:30.2 Mark Gibson: Yeah. So, we have, we're at around 2,500 restaurants plus the will be 50 Planet Fitness locations. Umm, and that's really across the US plus what we now have, umm, in ANZ. Umm, and it's, it's difficult, umm, to standardize because there are different franchise needs. You know, we have, umm, quick-serve, we have sit-down, you know, we, we kinda cover the gamut there. Umm, so we need systems that are agile and, umm, customizable enough to, to fit that need while all still looking and feeling like the same one Flynn system. And I think that's what we've done, umm, pretty well here with our Paradox implementation because, you know, we, we have enough where we can have each brand kinda have their own, you know... 0:04:18.7 Chad Sowash: Silos. 0:04:19.4 Mark Gibson: Exactly, right? So, they, they get what they need. Their journey as a candidate might be a little bit different. You know, same thing with manager versus a, uh, team member on the floor, things like that. Umm, but the look and feel of everything is all the same, which is really nice. 0:04:33.2 Joel Cheesman: When I start thinking about the budget that you must work with and dealing with [chuckle] this many franchises, I kinda wanna puke. [chuckle] Umm, how has the efficiencies around AI decreased budget? Where did, where did money come out of? Like, talk about the savings that you've seen through automation. 0:04:50.5 Mark Gibson: Yeah, it's been massive. The, the biggest thing that we have seen in here is the time saver for general managers at the, at the stores is massive. It's just massive. Their... The auto-scheduling, not having to even, uh, put a thought toward that is huge. So, we're getting people, we're getting a ton more flow, umm, candidate flow, and we're able to get, get them all the way through to the onboarding step in, you know, two or three days. It's, umm, it's just wild what they're able to do there. 0:05:19.4 Chad Sowash: Well, talk about education and training for the staff because we've heard, and with, with tech, tech moves a lot faster than people do. 0:05:28.3 Joel Cheesman: Yep. 0:05:28.5 Chad Sowash: Right. Umm, we've heard in the news that, you know, somebody would show up and the manager didn't even know that there was something scheduled because the manager didn't look at their, their calendar. Talk a little bit about, because you're, you're having to herd cats in a much larger way, right? So, talk about the education and the adoption piece for all of those locations to, to be able to understand so that person doesn't show up and general manager doesn't know that they're supposed to be there. 0:05:53.6 Mark Gibson: Yeah. So, we rolled out, umm, when we implemented Paradox, we rolled out brand by brand, uh, all through last year. And, uh, we, the way that we kind of did it is we, uh, took kind of a train-the-trainer approach, umm, with like our HR teams. Umm, but we also held these, uh, trainings for the GMs at, at, umm, each brand. And the, I think the thing is, and, you know, we're going through this with Planet Fitness, we're actually integrating right now, they'll be live in November. They can't believe how simple it is. Like, they can't, we, you know, we're telling them, like, "This is, this is all we have to do." 0:06:28.7 Joel Cheesman: Yeah. 0:06:29.2 Mark Gibson: Umm, because the technology, you know, if, if you look at apps on your phone, nobody trains you how to use them, right? Umm, and so we're trying to explain that right now, so we're kind of going through that. Umm, so there was some upfront training and, and, you know, it's mostly on like the administrative side, though, umm, through, like, uh, going through I-9s and pieces like that. That's probably the biggest thing. But once managers understand how to kind of come in and look at their calendar and make sure that's just up to date based on their interview availability, the rest is pretty hands-off. So, you know, we don't have a lot of ongoing need for training new managers because it is, it is so, you know, the technology's coming to them. They're on their phone, they're doing what they would normally do. It kind of seamlessly fits in there versus, "Oh, I'm logging into this, you know, this, this thing, this, you know, this HR system where I go do these," like, it, it's really has come to them, umm, which is I think why it works so easily. 0:07:30.0 Joel Cheesman: Chad, you said tech moves much faster than people, which is normally true unless it's me getting a Mexican pizza at Taco Bell, [laughter] local neighborhood. But I... 0:07:38.4 Mark Gibson: I digress. 0:07:39.2 Joel Cheesman: I digress, Chad. I digress. Let's not focus on this. You talked about the time savings and scheduling. I'm curious also in terms of the job promotion and, and how much you're spending on getting jobs out there. Are you saving money on that end as well? Yeah. And how so? 0:07:53.6 Mark Gibson: Yeah, so we're saving money on that end because it's so much easier to target which jobs we need to promote, right? Umm, so we have our, uh, automated feeds with like an Indeed and, and others. But then, you know, we only have, across our 2,500 or so restaurants, we have, I believe, six recruiters total. 0:08:02.2 Joel Cheesman: Okay. 0:08:11.5 Mark Gibson: Umm, and they, they kind of handle the, you know, they're looking at the analytics to see kind of where we need to spend the money and promote the jobs. Umm, and then they're helping from that perspective. They're not having to manage the open reqs. They're not having to, to manage that piece. 0:08:31.5 Chad Sowash: Sounds like they're media buyers more than anything. 0:08:33.9 Mark Gibson: That's, that's a lot of, that's a lot of what they do. So, you know, they're kind of the, the partner with the general managers and others to go in and, and help them fit very, fill very specific holes. But that's why we can now operate with so few, umm, recruiters for such a, you know, a large group. 0:08:51.1 Chad Sowash: Talk about, again, rolling it out. I can't believe you did all of those within a year's timeframe. 0:08:56.1 Mark Gibson: Yeah, we did those between, umm, April and, uh, October. 0:09:00.4 Chad Sowash: Okay. 0:09:00.9 Mark Gibson: Yeah. 0:09:01.5 Chad Sowash: What were, what were the bumps? 'Cause there were bumps. What were the bumps? 0:09:04.8 Mark Gibson: There were definitely bumps. Umm, you know, I think, uh, we were, we're still growing at Flynn Group. We're still growing into, "Hey, we're a big company." Umm, so we didn't have a lot of the implementation process, umm, kind of, you know, experience. And I didn't come in until about halfway through the, the project. Umm, so there are, you know, some of those things that, that we saw where we just didn't have our, our process down. We didn't have our change management down, you know, maybe as, as tightly as we needed to. You know, I think we're really there now. We have a, we have a great, umm, you know, we have a great team on it now. Umm, the other thing we saw, I would say, is, you know, immediately we didn't expect to see such massive benefits so quickly and such massive numbers. So we would implement Pizza Hut and we would do it at midnight, and at 6:00 in the morning, uh, you know, our director of TA, she, she would send something out that's like, "We have a million people who have applied [laughter] across the country." And we're like, "There's no... " 0:10:10.5 Chad Sowash: Literally? 0:10:10.6 Mark Gibson: Like, literally. 0:10:11.4 Chad Sowash: Okay. 0:10:11.6 Mark Gibson: And we're going, "How is that? That's incomprehensible. [laughter] Like, there has to be something, a glitch in the system. This isn't real data." 0:10:19.7 Chad Sowash: So what are those, what were the numbers usually? Do you have kind of like an idea of what, what they were and what do you attribute that to? 0:10:27.1 Mark Gibson: So I don't necessarily have like previous numbers. Umm, I can, I can tell you is a lot less. Umm, the, I attribute it to a couple of things. One, there was the first few steps in the process, no manager intervention needed and there was before. Umm, so it's, it's, it's done that kind of pulling in the top of the funnel and, and, and filtering that down very quickly without us touching it. 0:10:53.2 Chad Sowash: Less friction. 0:10:53.8 Mark Gibson: Absolutely. Umm, so that's a big piece of it. The other thing is, you know, it is these jobs are, are out there and so easy for. So we do, you know, like a quick apply. You say app now, right. And then immediately you're just talking to somebody. You're not filling out a form. I think that was the biggest thing for me when I was applying is, you know, I know as the, you know, the tech guy exactly what's happening in the background. But I'm sitting here just oh, hey, what's your, what's your name? You know, how, uh, you know, what state do you live in? This and that. And I'm just texting back and forth with this, you know, with Frankie and it, that, that like clicked in my head of like what the big difference is because you send somebody who's just to blow through an application as quickly as possible, which is a lot of our frontline workers. Right? And you send them this big long form and they're a quarter of the way through and they're done. 0:11:47.1 Joel Cheesman: So I think you're talking about an, an age old problem of uh, that's only getting worse as workers get younger and younger and used to very quick bits uh, of content and getting to what they need very, very quickly. Yeah. So on the mark... On the marketing side as well, how are you guys using, uh, social media? What's the branding message like? How do... And you have multiple brands. I assume it's not the same for everybody. So talk about how juggling that is, is a challenge and how you're solving that problem. 0:12:18.0 Mark Gibson: Yeah, it's Interesting. Umm, we, it's not the same for everyone, but we are really leaning into that one Flynn Group. Umm, so we do have social, ah, media presence. TikTok is our, is our biggest, umm, and we have kind of a brand ambassador, uh, in each one of those brands. They take videos, they submit them up, uh, through our director Ta. We kind of look at those here and then we, we turn those into, you know, branded content. 0:12:48.4 Joel Cheesman: So is that a Flynn employee that then does social media for all the different brands? Someone approves it and then it goes out and then is there a TikTok account for each. 0:12:57.3 Mark Gibson: So we did originally have an account for each brand. We, we now really do the Flynn Group and then we will kind of tag the brands. But we do have the one Flynn Group, uh, account is, is how we're... We're going now. 0:13:11.6 Chad Sowash: So who came up with that idea to be able to, to, to, to find these influencers, be able to have. Because they're going to have different voices. Umm, you obviously have to have to okay anything that goes out. 0:13:17.4 Mark Gibson: Right. 0:13:23.8 Chad Sowash: Uh, but at the end of the day you have different voices for different brands. Who came up with this idea? Uh, and are those uh, primarily Gen Z voices? 0:13:33.7 Mark Gibson: Uh, I would say yes. It's a little bit of a mix, but primarily Gen Z. Umm, Carla on our team, she had uh, a big influence in kind of that program. We also work really closely with our HR directors in each brand. So we have an HR director in the field in, in each of our brands and they umm, are kind of the, you know, the intermediary between us and operations and they do a great job. And it was kind of brought up that that be a great way to get the real voice of somebody who's going to be working at an Arby's versus somebody who's going to be working at an Applebee's. Umm, and, and can kind of promote the things that matter, uh, to those people. 0:14:15.0 Joel Cheesman: So you run a site called Work for the Hut. Curious. Umm, the, the role of that sort of I guess microsite, I, I guess call it how that plays into the, the Pizza Hut bigger brand. Are there like just talk about that because it's fascinating. 0:14:30.7 Mark Gibson: Yeah, so, so we have... [chuckle] so for each brand we have a, an internal career site. So the word for the Hut is our Flynn Pizza Hut career site. Umm, and then we have one for, for each other brand now on top of that. So that's going to be where a lot of people are coming through. Umm, if you get to... Umm, if you're Going on like an indeed or, or something like that. You end up funneling through our career site. You can also get there, you know, you're just go. Things like that go through our career site. You see that work for the hud. You're immediately interacting with Frankie at that point. Now then each of our franchisors have their own site as well. 0:15:10.0 Mark Gibson: So then we have an integration umm, that's automatically sending those jobs that we have open in Paradox, sending those to the franchisor website as well. So we do see a lot of people who just look for I want to work for Pizza Hut. They will end up at the, you know, Pizza Hut corporate website and then that funnels back umm, through to our website after they apply. And it's really interesting to kind of keep those relationships with every different franchisor because every integration is different. Nothing is standardized across. So even the yum brands that we have, they're, they're all different. You know, everything's different. 0:15:46.3 Chad Sowash: So taking a look at going down funnel, trying to keep employees as long as you can because these are in most cases very high churn. Uh, are you looking at prospectively using AI for employee engagement, not to mention to nudge them a little bit? Hey, you have a shift coming up tomorrow. What are you guys using to be able to keep them warm and keep them involved and engaged? 0:16:07.6 Mark Gibson: Yeah, that's, that's probably our biggest area of focus, umm, going into next year is that piece of it. So we also implement a, umm, a product from Paradox called Employee Assistant. Umm, and we use that primarily as, uh, a communication tool. So as you've already been talking to Frankie on the front end, now you're an employee, you can still talk to Frankie on the back end for things that you need. We use that to push also mass communications. Hey, open enrollment time, things like this. And it, it gets those comms to the frontline workers in the way that they want it and digest. 0:16:40.9 Chad Sowash: So do you silo that? Because you've got the, the, the pre... You got the candidate discussions and you've got all the FAQ stuff that's happening there, but there's gotta be a switch that flips that says, "Now this content's available," 'cause you're not gonna have that same content available for, for candidates up front. 0:16:55.7 Mark Gibson: Absolutely. So it's, it's very nice. There's, kind of, two records joined in the middle with one single ID. So we have candidate records, we have employee records. Umm, but the employee can always see all of their candidate profile when they're an employee. Umm, which is really nice. So, so what we see a lot is, you know, you get through the whole process, you're an employee, you wanna go back and look at your offer letter. So you just log into your employee dashboard in Paradox and you can see your offer letter, all the forms that you signed during onboarding, umm, you know, any compliance-related stuff, things like that. It's, so it's been really nice. Now, I think our, our biggest gap that we're trying to close now is using things like, uh, 7-day, 30, 60, 90-day survey, things like that, that we can, kind of, proactively find our, our weak spots or, like, restaurants that, umm, maybe team experience is not great, and then we can act on that quicker so turn, you know, can drop. 0:17:54.8 Chad Sowash: What about work schedule? Thinking about going that far yet? 0:17:57.4 Mark Gibson: So that, that's probably what we're farthest away from. And I think the, the big challenge for us there is the different, umm, corporate franchise, umm, they have some of their own technology there. Umm, so a Pizza Hut has a HotSchedules and, and there are others, and it's trying to find the best way to have maybe an overlay on top of everything. You know, we would love to get to that point, but that's where the franchise, kind of, relationship, you know, makes some things a little more difficult. 0:18:28.2 Chad Sowash: But you can sample from franchise to franchise to see which one is, kind of, best in breed, right? 0:18:32.5 Mark Gibson: Which one is the best. Yep. Yep. 0:18:33.9 Chad Sowash: That's kind of cool. 0:18:35.0 Mark Gibson: Absolutely. Yep. 0:18:35.6 Joel Cheesman: Gotta ask about automation. Yep. Uh, not a week goes by without a headline about Flippy's gonna make my burgers. I got a kiosk at my local fast food restaurant. 0:18:44.5 Chad Sowash: Chippy. 0:18:45.1 Joel Cheesman: AI's taking my order. Chippy. Yeah. Like, give us a sense of where organizations like yours are on replacing workers with automated tools. Are we... Are... Is it, "Don't believe the hype"? Are we way less than what we are? Talk about automation. 0:19:01.2 Mark Gibson: So there's a couple of things. So, you know, I grew up a Terminator fan and, and so AI in general, I, I always just go back to the Terminator series. 0:19:09.7 Chad Sowash: Skynet. 0:19:10.0 Mark Gibson: Skynet. So, funny, funny story real quick. 0:19:13.0 Joel Cheesman: It might as well come at the hands of a Pizza Hut. [laughter] 0:19:15.2 Mark Gibson: Throwing a pizza at you. Uh, so, so, umm, I, I... So I actually just, umm, I had my third child August 29th this year, so a few weeks ago. Thank you. Thank you. Umm, and we had the... It was a scheduled, so we had the choice of a few dates, and August 29th was there, which is actually Judgment Day in the Terminator series. [laughter] So we chose, we chose that. We're like, "You know, this is the way we're going with it." 0:19:48.2 Joel Cheesman: So dirty. I love it. 0:19:49.7 Mark Gibson: Yeah. But, you know, so I, I think there is that, there is that, like, inherent fear that, you know, is it really gonna get to a point where we don't need workers? And I, I don't think it's that. I think things change a lot now as far as the roles that people play. Umm, you know, there's going to be the basic repeatable, boring jobs are, you know, that's gonna get automated, I think, for the most part. Umm, I, I do think there's just, there's a lot more, umm, that people will be asked to do in different capacities. Now, for us specifically, it's really interesting because we run extremely lean from a support standpoint. We have, like, 500 support people across IT, finance, HR, everything to support all 2,500 locations. So we're really lean already. So ours is more about how do we enable the scale, umm, without having to just scale people at the same rate? And so that's really what we're trying to solve for right now. 0:20:49.0 Joel Cheesman: So at Planet Fitness, if I have a membership, but I want Robo Joel to do the working out, do I have to, uh, have two memberships for that or can I just have one? 0:20:57.2 Mark Gibson: So if you have a Black Card membership, you can share it with Robo Joel. He goes free. 0:21:02.7 Joel Cheesman: He goes free at the massage, uh, table, right? 0:21:05.0 Mark Gibson: Absolutely. 0:21:06.2 Chad Sowash: And you get discounts on Pizza Hut. So let's talk about actually being able to afford this stuff, right? Because there's, there's budget. How do you go... How do you create, uh, a business case to go and get budget for these types of things? Because obviously you wanna, you wanna keep up with your competition, right? But that's not gonna be the only reason that, you know, you're gonna throw money at something. So what are you putting together from a business case standpoint to be able to say, "There's, there's no other way. This is the only way"? 0:21:33.1 Mark Gibson: Yeah, I think employee experience and scalability are the two things that just are so easy to point to. Umm, you know, employee experience, that's where we're, kind of, really focusing now that we have these systems in, umm, that's, you know, being able to... I can't reach out to every GM of every store and see how the, you know, pulse check on that or HR people can't do that. It's just too much. Umm, but if we can have somebody out there doing that first, you know, kind of that first swipe to see how things are, and then we can just, you know, consolidate and analyze from a more macro Perspective. Fantastic. Right. So we can, we can do that and then just scalability, the same type of thing. You know, I, I can't go in and turn on 5,000 jobs a day based on who needs what. Right. So we can automate a process like that. And, and that's something that I'm providing. No value in turning on and off a job. Right. None at all. So why not have that done by, you know, a, an AI, umm, system that can do it for me. I never even have to touch it. I can focus on things that matter more. 0:22:36.5 Joel Cheesman: Immigration has really been demonized lately. But I'm guessing you're a fan. Uh, talk about what immigration has meant to the business, how you look at different language. Frankie, I assume, speaks different languages and what percentage are engaging with it in Spanish. Talk about immigration and, and, uh, being open to other different languages, et cetera. 0:22:57.0 Mark Gibson: Yeah, so we're really flexible with Frankie does we'll, uh, do things in different languages. You know, umm, and also, as long as we're putting in, umm, content like policies and things like that in a different language, she can kind of look at that as well. Umm, so it works out really well. Umm, we have pockets of our workforce in different places that, that are mostly immigrant. Umm, and we're able to, to fill roles like that really quickly as well. Because again, there's no technology. They're having to come in and be trained on to learn to apply and get a job at one of our restaurants. Uh, it's just, it's something that, you know, everybody can come in there. There's, there's kind of no barrier to entry at that point. 0:23:40.9 Chad Sowash: So globally, how many different countries do you operate in? 0:23:44.7 Mark Gibson: Yeah, so right now it's just US, Australia and New Zealand. Umm, absolutely plans to go further than that. Umm, the Anz piece was our first foray outside of the US. So, umm, you know, we're still kind of building that muscle on what we need to do, umm, between different local laws, regulations, all of that kind of stuff. We're also in the process of, of looking at our entire HCM system, umm, and figuring out what's... If we're on the best system for a global company. You know, we're on something that was chosen 10 plus years ago when it was just some Apple, a single Applebee's franchise. And we're a totally different company right now, so we're kind of assessing whether that's going to be, you know, able to scale with us globally as well. 0:24:33.9 Joel Cheesman: Yeah. Talk about the employer branding piece. It's not the most glamorous work in the world. People aren't necessarily lining up to do the job, but you have that challenge. But also multiple brands, different messaging. How do you sort of herd those cats? 0:24:48.1 Mark Gibson: Yeah. So we have, umm, you know, our, like our marketing team and our business insights that, that does kind of all of our, umm, they, they basically do all of our, uh, value when it comes to product, uh, at each of the different brands. So we have a centralized team that does that across the company. They work hand in hand with the franchisors very closely because most of the marketing that's all the franchisor. Right? Like we're. Our Arby's is not gonna have a vastly different, umm, ability to even market differently than, than Arby's corporate. So there's like a real symbiotic relationship there, umm, that we have. And then what we're able to do is just take that and layer on what... Why is it better to work for a Flynn Arby's or Flynn Applebee's or a Flynn Taco Bell than it is to work somewhere else. And that's where we're really starting to excel now. 0:25:42.3 Chad Sowash: So are you starting to use that messaging to standardize it and use large language models? Because you have different brands, you have different influencers, and those influencers could actually influence the large language model as well to be able to stay on point. Right. Uh, so are you looking at, or are you, are you currently looking at being able to use those different large language models to keep the silos and the different voices in key, but then also do a lot of that hard work, right? Do a little prompt engineering and then, boom, you've got a new, you've got a new, uh, marketing campaign, or at least you have a new line or something of that nature or something that you can feed to, to uh, the influencer. 0:26:22.5 Chad Sowash: So I would say that we're in the infancy stage there. Umm, you know, our company grew extremely fast in the last five years and we, we didn't add a lot of people. And we don't wanna have to add a lot of people from a support standpoint, umm, you know, so we're, were looking for... We understand that technology exists to allow us to continue to scale incredibly quickly, umm, without having to kind of have manual, you know, hands on the keyboard. And umm, so it's great working for a company who's now out there looking for those pieces of technology. 0:26:55.6 Joel Cheesman: So Chad and I go to quite a few conferences that have exposition centers and vendors that are out there. I can only imagine the number of calls and outreach that you get from vendors looking to sell you their stuff. First question is what, what advice would you give salespeople in reaching out to you? What are the most effective ways to market to you? Number and number two, what, what other technologies are you sort of bullish on? Do you see a lot of promise in that you have done demos with? 0:27:24.7 Mark Gibson: Uh, yes, I, I'm bombarded with those constantly. I, umm, would say, uh, I can spot an automated message from, you know, 10 miles away. It's like, you know, come on. Umm, and, uh, there are, you know, I, you gotta have, you gotta have a good feeling behind it. You know, for me to, I've opened pretty much every email, and then for me, I can that quickly tell if it's just a sales pitch, which I know in the back of it, it is. But if I get a good feeling about the person behind it, then I'll actually dig deeper, right? Umm, because the, the thing with sales right now, what's tough is just like that, I can go and find what I want, right? Like, I, I can go out there if we're looking for a new piece of technology, and in minutes, I can find probably 10 rankings of what's the best in 2024 and what's gonna be the best in the future and all of this. So from somebody coming to me, like, you have to make some sort of personal impression very quickly, umm, for me to not just, you know, do that myself and make my own choice. 0:28:29.0 Joel Cheesman: Okay. So if it's all about personable touch, you got a good story about someone that really, uh, cut through the clutter? 0:28:35.1 Mark Gibson: You know, I wish I could say I have, and I really don't. And that's what makes it... That's really what makes it tough. And it's what I'm hoping that, you know, automating a lot of these processes can do is if, if kind of the, the, uh, the simple, repeatable, easy work is automated, maybe we get more people that are putting more care into some of the things like that. I think you have so many people that are wearing 10 different hats and they're trying to do this administration and do all these things and move stuff around, and, and they can't put in the time and effort into the things that matter. 0:29:08.1 Joel Cheesman: For our viewers that want to know more about you, maybe apply for a job, where would they go? 0:29:12.1 Mark Gibson: You can go to, uh, flynn.com, and that's gonna bring you to kind of all of our different brands. You can kind of select through there. Or if, you know, you're interested in working for a Pizza Hut and you go apply at Pizza Hut, you can see what, you know, a Flynn Group Pizza Hut, umm, can bring you. 0:29:29.7 Joel Cheesman: That's another one in the can, Chad. It's lunchtime. We out. [music] 0:29:32.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:29:36.3 Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & 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 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.

iCIMS, Phenom, Greenhouse and the Return of "Who’d You Rather" In this high-energy episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, hosts Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are joined by the legendary J.T. O'Donnell to celebrate her "29th" birthday and dive deep into the chaotic waters of talent acquisition tech. From the shifting tides at industry giants to the latest AI-driven acquisitions, the trio breaks down what’s real and what’s just a "banana in the tailpipe". Inside This Episode: iCIMS Game of Thrones: With another new CEO at the helm, the crew debates if iCIMS is innovating or just sharpening pencils for a final fire sale. Is the new brand identity a sign of life or just a "distraction" from a ticking PE time bomb? Phenom’s Shopping Spree: Phenom continues its acquisition streak by picking up Plum. The crew questions if Phenom is over-engineering a middle-school problem. Greenhouse Rolls the AI Dice: Greenhouse moves to reclaim its "fashionable" status by acquiring Ezra AI Labs, a voice AI interviewing startup. Will this "skunkworks" project actually move the needle against enterprise titans like Workday and SAP?. LinkedIn’s $450 Million AI Bet: Is LinkedIn’s new agentic AI hiring product a revolution in search, or just Boolean strings dressed in fancy new clothes? J.T. shares exclusive insider results on how the algorithm is now tracking candidate activity over static profiles. The Return of "Who’d You Rather": The fan-favorite segment is back!. The hosts go head-to-head on two seed-funded startups: Dex, the AI-driven tech talent agent, versus Blomma, the personalized AI career coach. Find out who goes home with a winner and who leaves solo. "If you're currently at iCIMS, I’d be refreshing that resume... the clock is running out." — Joel Cheesman Whether you're interested in the "World Cup headquarters" setup in Portugal, the secret to LinkedIn's 51-cent cost-per-click ads, or just a classic, cringeworthy dad joke, this episode delivers the unfiltered truth of the HR tech world. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:28.177) Oh yeah. I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch. What's up boys and girls. You were listening to the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel project freedom. Cheeseman. Chad Sowash (00:40.676) This is Chad, just pay a fucking living wage, SOWASH. J.T. O'Donnell (00:44.886) And I'm JT, Maple is the new pumpkin O'Donnell. Joel Cheesman (00:48.719) And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, iCIMS Shuffles, Phenom Splurges, and Who'd You Rather is back, baby. You're welcome, Adam. Let's do this. Chad Sowash (00:58.777) YES! Chad Sowash (01:03.778) I missed who'd you rather. Joel Cheesman (01:06.065) Happy birthday to you. The problem is there aren't as many startups like there used to. There used to be tons of startups we could do, who'd you rather? But yes, JT is re-recording, celebrating her 29th birthday. Happy birthday, JT. J.T. O'Donnell (01:06.188) Yeah! 100 %! J.T. O'Donnell (01:21.474) Yeah, for the 29th time. yeah. Yes. you guys are so sweet. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it feels good to be here, to be alive. It's all good. Chad Sowash (01:21.655) yeah. She's not that old. Stop it. You stop it. She's not that old. Joel Cheesman (01:26.097) It doesn't look a day over it, that's for sure. Chad Sowash (01:28.034) Nope, that's for nature. Joel Cheesman (01:33.561) And as, we found out in the green room, you're putting together furniture for your birthday. What a, what a party that's going to be. Amazon front, not even Wayfair. She's going Amazon furniture this, this year. J.T. O'Donnell (01:37.634) Yes I am. J.T. O'Donnell (01:43.63) Nope. Amazon is my friend. When you live in the middle of nowhere and they'll actually, you know, bring it to your door, then Amazon is your friend. So yes, I bought eight bar stools, outdoor bar stools for the deck to go with the bar. Eight. I will send you all picture. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Little wet one. Little wet one. Chad Sowash (01:44.546) Huh? Chad Sowash (01:56.475) huh. Very nice. Nice. That's it. That's a deck right there. I like that. yeah. Yeah. What? Why? Why? Joel Cheesman (01:57.457) Eight. That's a lot of drinking. Yeah. White wine. Can have a white wine. Chad Sowash (02:11.812) Not a white white guy, but yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:13.403) So Chad is, Chad's in his new home back in Portugal recording from a bar, if you're not watching on YouTube, which you should be. the noises you hear will be the bar sounds of Portuguese Chad, Chad's drinking hole, I guess. J.T. O'Donnell (02:13.484) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:17.218) Yes. That's right. J.T. O'Donnell (02:18.84) from the bar. Chad Sowash (02:28.388) Yeah, there we go. I am hydrating. I am hydrating. I need to hydrate. Yeah, I think this is going to be my new setup to be quite frank. I mean, you just, you can't beat this. Alex and Stefan are over there and all I have to do is they hooked me up. Really good friends of mine play paddle with them. But this is a great little setup, man. I dig it. This is definitely World Cup. J.T. O'Donnell (02:28.664) Hydrating, he's hydrating with a Guinness. So that's always good. Yeah, good for you. Joel Cheesman (02:30.874) He's hydrating. Joel Cheesman (02:42.447) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (02:50.255) Is this going to be World Cup headquarters? Is this where you're going to set up shop? Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (02:50.627) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (02:56.642) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (02:56.984) headquarters, no question. And it's coming, but the question is in the US, are they gonna have any crowds? We saw, we said with only six weeks to go before the start of the World Cup, hotels at most of the cities hosting the tournament are facing a major problem. Bookings are running far below what they had expected. For some metro areas, such as, I don't know, sexy Kansas City, Joel Cheesman (03:10.297) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:25.476) bookings are running even below the typical June and July. Below. But how did you get fucking below? You've got one of the biggest events in the world and you're running below. Joel Cheesman (03:29.893) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (03:33.72) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:39.759) Well, Kansas City is quite the hotspot for summer travel, Chad. So it's a little surprising. I don't know. mean, part of it is like the world hates us. Ticket prices are $5,000 for like nosebleed seats. And I gotta go to Kansas City for this, really? Is that what it's come to? Unless it's like England or Italy or like some of the... Chad Sowash (03:44.728) But still! Chad Sowash (03:52.452) Ha Chad Sowash (03:58.147) which is ridiculous. Yeah. yeah. But if your team's playing, Joel Cheesman (04:09.401) I don't know. I don't know the breakdown of all the cities. think England's in Dallas. I think is Argentina in Miami or some big, some, if you're a big team and a good city, like, I think you'll be fine. But Kansas. Yeah. LA should be fine. Chad Sowash (04:18.454) Yeah. I, yeah. big cities. Well, Atlanta's fine. Miami's fine. You know, I mean, but still, but still they're below the typical. J.T. O'Donnell (04:28.814) Yeah, I know. my issue right now is like the cost of experiences in general. We were talking about it on one of the last shows. Concerts, events, they're ridiculous. They're out of control and I'm just not going to pay it anymore. I will make my own fun. I'll put together furniture and make my own fun. A little white wine. But it's just crazy that they, you know, that kind of ticket for nosebleed, really? I don't need that experience that much. Joel Cheesman (04:31.449) again. Chad Sowash (04:36.879) yeah. Fuck yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:37.521) Mmm. Chad Sowash (04:41.988) Yeah Chad Sowash (04:46.233) Yeah. Chad Sowash (04:50.552) out. Well, and if you're coming in, the tickets are crazy expensive. And you saw the outrage from Europeans who were like, what the fuck am I paying for a ticket? It's like, you know, 10 times that they might actually pay here in Europe. I'll just wait till the next World Cup, which is going to be happening in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. mean, that's what a lot of people are actually doing. So it's yeah, it's unfortunate, man. That sucks because this is a great opportunity for America to fucking shine. But guess what? J.T. O'Donnell (05:13.678) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:17.627) Well, that... it is, it is. Wrong administration, wrong time. The good news is the Iran war's over for the third time, I think, so there'll be plenty of jet fuel to get everybody back and forth. J.T. O'Donnell (05:22.06) No doubt, no doubt. Chad Sowash (05:22.968) But guess what? Way wrong, J.T. O'Donnell (05:30.894) you Chad Sowash (05:31.748) Dude, almost spit my fucking Guinness out on that one. Jesus Christ. jeez. God damn. J.T. O'Donnell (05:34.624) you Joel Cheesman (05:39.397) The Hormuz is open for business again. That's right, baby. That's right. Well, here in Indiana, speaking of, we got the Indy 500 coming before the, the, the, the footy. I'm going, we're taking, taking the whole family because the family that Indy 500 is together stays together and usually has a few fights in between that. But yeah, we are. I enjoy it. You've been on, I assume you've been. Chad Sowash (05:47.236) huh. Yeah. Yeah. What you're going to. You're going to. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (05:50.478) Mmm. Chad Sowash (05:57.847) Hahaha! Chad Sowash (06:04.312) Yeah, yep, yep, several times. Joel Cheesman (06:05.331) I think it's one of those bucket list. If you like sports, it's just one of those things, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500, Superbowl. Like if, if you can mark it off your list, you should do it. it's a good time. It's a good time. Chad Sowash (06:10.638) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (06:11.598) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (06:16.324) I agree hearing the engines just themselves. I mean, and there's a different, there's a different tone to like an F1 engine and like an Indy car engine. But it is so amazing to watch it. And I mean, I'm more of a road course guy because I grew up right next to mid Ohio, awesome road course. So I love road courses, but still just the speed of the Indy 500 is so awesome. Joel Cheesman (06:26.032) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (06:35.921) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (06:43.109) Yeah, yeah, it is. It's a slice of Americana that is unique, unique to us. And yeah, and speaking, speaking of uniqueness, let's get to some shout outs. How we JT, JT, it's your birthday. You start us off. Chad Sowash (06:46.66) Indiana is definitely a slice of Americana, like Kansas City. Chad Sowash (06:56.248) Yeah. Chad Sowash (07:00.096) It's your birthday. It's your birthday. J.T. O'Donnell (07:00.974) So I know, I'm going to educate, it's a little education. I am giving a shout out to Thought Leader Ads on LinkedIn. I am not sponsored in any way, but I got to tell you. So came across them. They are ads where you need to sponsor a Thought Leader video. So you go find a content creator on LinkedIn who's talking about what you care about and you can put money behind it on a cost per click basis, right? So they're clicking through and you can link to a link. Joel Cheesman (07:02.683) Go JT. Chad Sowash (07:06.168) Huh? What are these? Joel Cheesman (07:16.4) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (07:18.852) okay. Chad Sowash (07:28.003) Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (07:29.998) It's very similar to the advertising people are doing on TikTok and Instagram. And if you know how to budget and manage your CPC, it can be really effective. But for years, everybody laughed. You could only advertise on LinkedIn if you had big buckets of cash. It was big entrepreneurs. Game changer, folks. I ran a test over the last week. I'm happy to show my screen. $196, a 10 and a half percent click through rate. Average cost per click, 51 cents. Joel Cheesman (07:43.537) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (07:44.292) Yeah. Chad Sowash (07:56.633) Wow, that's great cook through and also 51 cents. I mean, come the fuck on. Yeah, on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's good. J.T. O'Donnell (07:59.01) on LinkedIn. That changes the game for a lot of people in terms of getting new leads, getting engagement to your site. I think this is gonna be huge and nobody knows about it. Literally nobody knows about it. So I probably just F'd myself because I've got such great click through rates and everyone's gonna start doing it. But those are pretty impressive numbers. I've not seen numbers like that on Insta. Joel Cheesman (08:18.193) How many influence? Chad Sowash (08:20.132) Nice, bye. Chad Sowash (08:25.87) Are they in test? Is this in pilot phase or what? Joel Cheesman (08:28.579) How many influencers are there in the marketplace? J.T. O'Donnell (08:28.83) It's out of pilot. It's a full blown thing. Well, the way the influencer works is that you literally can just request somebody and say, I'd like to sponsor a video that you did. So you can find anybody request if they accept the request, then you negotiate with them what you want to charge for them to be able to put ad spend behind you. All right, so very, very interesting. Joel Cheesman (08:42.373) Okay. Chad Sowash (08:51.65) Interesting. Joel Cheesman (08:52.529) and what they say as well. J.T. O'Donnell (08:55.626) Yes. So you could say, hey, we want you to create a video and then we'll sponsor it. Or you can find a video somebody's already done and said, hey, I want to put money behind that. And then you would negotiate a deal with them and say, sure, pay me this. And then they can put whatever ad spend behind it. those are crazy click through rates and costs. That's unheard of. And so, yeah, it's great to see them doing it. And I'm happy that they finally caught up with the Times and they're doing what the other platforms do because there's a lot of us that want to advertise on LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (09:07.419) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (09:12.101) Yeah. Chad Sowash (09:13.742) pretty awesome. Good for you. Chad Sowash (09:24.022) All they needed was Dan Shapiro as the CEO. all they needed. It's all they needed. J.T. O'Donnell (09:26.872) There you go. There you go. Thank you, Dan. Joel Cheesman (09:28.561) Just remember the first banner ads had like 89 % click through rates. you know, it does fade. It does fade after over time. So call me negative. Chad Sowash (09:33.444) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that's good. I'll take this. J.T. O'Donnell (09:33.506) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (09:41.401) I'll take this next one. I'll take this next one. Shout out to paying Americans a living wage. Maybe if companies paid a living wage, Americans would actually buy tickets to the World Cup. But that money is not going into workers' pockets. Go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage, cheeseman. Joel Cheesman (09:58.769) There we go. J.T. O'Donnell (10:34.542) Yeah. Chad Sowash (10:34.692) Dude, and then a new Oxfam report found CEO pay rose 20 times faster than worker pay in 2025. 20 times fucking faster. The study said worker income lost value due to inflation while billionaires and top executives saw record wealth gains. How about you just pay a living wage and settle for one super yacht, huh? I mean, is that too much to ask? So shout out to, you paying a living wage. Let's try that. Joel Cheesman (11:06.651) How many yachts can you jet ski behind, right? J.T. O'Donnell (11:06.68) Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:08.708) Fuck! Sang. That being said, can I get another Guinness? Joel Cheesman (11:12.645) Hahaha J.T. O'Donnell (11:13.096) Hehehehehe Joel Cheesman (11:16.905) you know, Chad, you're gonna, you're gonna get political on me and, and, and, and, and, and, and economical. yeah. The head of head of the union is not political. you know, the, the Trump administration has been tough for a lot of people, immigrants, immigrants, Minnesotans, Jimmy Kimmel, but perhaps no one, perhaps no one has suffered more than me. Okay. At least until Chad Sowash (11:19.908) That wasn't political. Okay, economical, economical. Chad Sowash (11:31.084) Yes! Chad Sowash (11:34.852) No. J.T. O'Donnell (11:36.686) Yeah Chad Sowash (11:42.434) okay. Do tell, do tell. Joel Cheesman (11:45.263) My man, King Charles showed up last week and buttered up our boy Donald Trump and made sure that Scotch. Joel Cheesman (12:00.879) The drink of the gods, the water of life is now tariff free, Chad. It's now much cheaper than it used to be, which means I can get that liver transplant that I've been needing for so long. So my shout out goes to King Charles. Thank you, Britain. Thank you, Britain. Now pass the art bag. Chad Sowash (12:04.483) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (12:13.879) Ha Chad Sowash (12:26.244) Yeah, he was eloquent, eloquent, smart. I don't think Trump understood half of the shit that he was actually talking about, which is good. And I think it was also engineered. It was also engineered. Joel Cheesman (12:38.969) I did like his joke about like Americans will tell Brits, if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German. And he turned it around like, dare I say, if not for us, you'd be speaking French. So that was kind of a cute little, little spin, very, very intellectual comedy for the, for the house, for the house. Chad Sowash (12:54.916) Well, I thought this was interesting. Julia actually said this this week is that if Portugal would have funded Christopher Columbus again, we'd be speaking Portuguese because they didn't go for the funding the next time because, know, Christopher Columbus took him for a ride a few times. Anyway, going for a ride, we're talking about travel. Our travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel Cheesman (13:04.889) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (13:08.622) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:22.353) Chad, you're not gonna let me talk about Scotch and not let me go to free stuff, are you? What better way to follow a Scotch shout out than our favorite Scot, Steven, Steven McGrath. Chad Sowash (13:27.62) you're right! Shit! Wait a minute, thank Guinness. wait a minute. Thank you. Thank you. look at that. J.T. O'Donnell (13:33.088) reel it back. Chad Sowash (13:51.607) every week. Chad Sowash (14:00.964) That's sexy right there. Chad Sowash (14:12.194) I would. Chad Sowash (14:50.724) And this provided by Steven McGrath. That's right. Look at that. Joel Cheesman (14:57.243) or Scott's yes yes who who who'd you rather King Charles all kinds of British stuff going on by the way Chad I just text I messaged our boy Tyler at chicken cock yeah we'll have a new we'll have some new supply soon that's all I'm gonna say about about that gonna see where where I can get the best best stuff Chad Sowash (15:03.95) Fuck it all. Chad Sowash (15:13.496) Yes. Yes. Well, and since we're sending chicken talk and it travels, our travel is sponsored by. Joel Cheesman (15:20.687) Where are we sending you? Chad Sowash (15:24.388) Our travel sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. The question is, is all this AI stuff getting you frustrated? No worries, no worries. Just jump it over to shaker.com and allow their experts to help you identify what fits your hiring needs. That's shaker.com. Yeah, next week, Julie and I are actually going to London. On May 14th, we're gonna be at Job Board Connect, unplugged. Means I've gotta yell, I guess, I don't know. Joel Cheesman (15:53.201) Plugged. Bring your acoustic guitar. Chad Sowash (15:53.541) I'll be on stage with a friend of the show, Alexander Chakowsky. That's right. Yeah. We're to be talking about, I mean, go figure AI, product, market shift, revenue generation, all that fun stuff. Again, that's May 14th in London, up by Regent's Park, which is a really cool place to be. Go ahead and get your tickets at jobboardconnect.com. And then... Joel Cheesman (16:00.227) Nice. Nice. huh. Chad Sowash (16:20.756) The week after that, I'm doing two online events. Apparently those are still a thing for Fusion HR on May 20th. It's a debate. Number one, AI interviewing with Barb Hyman. We know her, CEO of Sapia versus Mika Sheeper, founder of Lecture. And then on May 21st, it's debate number two. Joel Cheesman (16:35.597) Mm, yeah. Chad Sowash (16:47.062) as skills-based hiring with Maya Huber, the CEO and founder over at Tadio, know her too, versus Feng Vu, CEO of Telexa AI. So if you want to join the debates, discussions, just go to HRweek.global. And you can always find all this information at ChadCheese.com slash events. I mean, who am I kidding? You know where to go. Joel Cheesman (16:53.414) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (17:10.917) Mothership, chadcheese.com. By the way, shout out to the Shaker folks for hosting us while we were in Chicago with Italian beefs and Chicago dogs. What's better than that? Well, what's better than that? Chad Sowash (17:12.45) The mothership. Chad Sowash (17:17.794) that's a time. Chad Sowash (17:21.617) What did you get though? What did you get? Did you get a beef and dog? Joel Cheesman (17:26.745) Yeah, so I got a Chicago dog, skipped the fries, because you know, I care about my figure. So just got the dog and the beef dipped with hot peppers. J.T. O'Donnell (17:37.239) Ahem. you Chad Sowash (17:40.01) I got a dog with Italian beef on top of it, wet. It was fucking amazing. And I got fries. So yeah, I had to do a little bit more running this week. Joel Cheesman (17:53.059) A dog with beef. It wasn't a Chicago dog. It was just a hot dog with the beef on it. Okay. Chad Sowash (17:57.669) It was like a brat with like beef on top of it. was amazing. And I took the first bite and I'm like, what the hell's going on here? You know what it was? It's called heaven. That's what you call it. Yeah. Thanks Joe. Joel Cheesman (18:02.394) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (18:08.655) Remember when you were a vegetarian? That seems so long ago. Vegan. Sorry, I get those two mixed up. Chad Sowash (18:11.524) I was vegan first off and secondarily that's a diet so I can go off my diet whenever I want to okay I can go back on I can go off just like just like my Guinness diet Joel Cheesman (18:19.511) okay. Joel Cheesman (18:25.445) Well, let's go off on some topics, shall we? J.T. O'Donnell (18:30.434) Ahem. Chad Sowash (18:32.324) That's so good. Joel Cheesman (18:32.337) Stop me if you've heard this one before. iCIMS has a new CEO. J.T. O'Donnell (18:36.078) you Joel Cheesman (18:40.369) You J.T. O'Donnell (18:42.52) Hehehehehe Chad Sowash (18:44.708) And a new logo in a new color scheme and my god Joel Cheesman (18:46.385) Yeah, yeah, too. Yeah, we'll get to that. Mark Mark, Mark Thompson, which sounds kind of made up. It has been named CEO of ISM succeeding Jason Edelbaum. Thompson previously served as the company's chief financial officer starting back in September of 24. Prior to ISM's he served as you guessed it, CFO at Ever Commerce. Chad Mark Thompson is in the house. Big deal, little deal or no deal. J.T. O'Donnell (19:02.252) Here we go again. Chad Sowash (19:07.364) Hmm. Chad Sowash (19:15.588) Yeah, no, this is a big deal. I'm going to get more emotional and technical on this one. Okay, I'm going to get I'm going to get a little technical on this one. So Colin Day, we both know Colin. He's the founder and CEO of Isoms for you know, like two decades. We knew the team there. They became partners. They became friends. We got deep into the organization. Yeah, and they I mean, who doesn't give us yetis? Come on, give me a break. Anyway, Colin, Colin left. Joel Cheesman (19:18.449) No, stop. Joel Cheesman (19:25.489) We do. Joel Cheesman (19:35.025) Take care of yourselves. Joel Cheesman (19:39.717) Yeah, but they were the first. Chad Sowash (19:43.449) Then Steve Lucas took over. was present. He was charismatic. He made some moves. And then, you know, about two and a half years he was gone. Brian Provost stepped into the role and shortly after pretty much threw his hands up and said, fuck this, I'm going home. Now the last guy, Jason Edelboim, and I'm not even sure that I'm saying that right because... Joel Cheesman (20:08.761) Edelbaum? I think Edelbaum. J.T. O'Donnell (20:09.966) It'll bomb. Chad Sowash (20:10.69) because I've never met the guy before. I've never talked to the guy. I don't know that I've even ever seen him speak. He felt like he felt like he was asleep at the wheel for God's sakes. And just this week, it was funny. I was I was talking to some people about this and I called him Josh because I he was never around. I didn't meet him. I didn't know him. And again, it's like he was asleep at the wheel. And now we have this CEO Mark Joel Cheesman (20:16.645) He did not accept my LinkedIn request, Chad. Just so you know, he did not. Chad Sowash (20:40.292) Thompson who was a bean counter and Here's the thing ICIMS is trying to get acquired. Okay, well companies like paradox hire industry veterans like Adam Godson and Paradox was acquired by who? Workday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah smart recruiters puts industry veteran Rebecca Carr in the CEO position and they were acquired by who? SAP. Yeah SAP J.T. O'Donnell (20:43.576) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (20:56.443) day. J.T. O'Donnell (20:57.399) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:07.694) SAP. Chad Sowash (21:09.358) Hell, even LinkedIn, who isn't trying to get fucking acquired for God's sakes, hired an industry veteran and Dan Shapiro as their CEO. Vista Equity Partners and TA Associates, they're not reading the fucking room or, or stick with me, they're going to play the Apollo career builder move and start selling off pieces, parts of, of ISEMs. If that's the case, then so be it. But if they're still trying to sell Isoms off, this was not their move. I think this is plain stupid. And to be quite frank, I'm just gonna sit here and drink my beer because I'm gonna get all misty eyed. Joel Cheesman (21:48.923) JT's got something to say. J.T. O'Donnell (21:50.72) Yeah. I mean, the moment you said a CFO took over, you know, it's on the chopping block. It's all about the numbers at this point. It's all about getting something across the finish line deal wise. Right. And so it does. And, know, I've been listening to you for years and you have, you've talked about iCIMS, your relationship with them. I learned about what they were doing, how they were putting a tech stack together, the acquisitions they were doing. I learned so much from all of you through that journey. And you were always hopeful that they were really going to put something cool together. Chad Sowash (21:59.651) It hurts. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (22:19.486) You do. You loved where the thinking was. And then to see a company like that end up to where it is now, it's disheartening. It's too bad. But it's reality, too. This is where we're at. At some point, we've said this multiple times this year alone, that at some point you have to recognize we can't keep putting money towards this anymore. Cut, fix, start over, become all birds, change to become an AI, something. Chad Sowash (22:43.876) Spin. Repaint. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (22:48.716) I think something like that's coming down the pike for sure when you put the CFO in place. Chad Sowash (22:51.768) Are they going to become a shoe company? Are they going to, they got a new brand, they got new colors. Are they going to become a shoe company? Joel Cheesman (22:56.079) Hey man, i-i-i-sims could be anything. There's no- i-sim shoes? Sure, I- I don't know. J.T. O'Donnell (22:57.032) You know what I mean. Anything. But know, there's assets. Chad Sowash (23:02.468) Who knows? god. Joel Cheesman (23:05.84) I mean, this is the end historically speaking. What you, what has unfolded at this company is we're in the last inning of the business for CEOs to rebrands, a missed IPO opportunity, a failed attempt to merge, acquire smart recruiters. So in just the business alone, Chad Sowash (23:26.979) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:30.788) SmartFresh, Joel Cheesman (23:34.893) is in trouble. Internally it's a mess. Externally it's bad too. The ATS business is it's, it's too crowded. It's, it's too disparate. Like they're gonna, we're gonna seek consolidation. Ultimately, ISEMs and employ and like, we're going to eventually have, I'm going to call five to 10 ATSs like enterprise somewhere in the middle. like, this is an attempt to say, okay, CFO sharpen your pencil, get us down to full as profitable, profitable as you can. Chad Sowash (24:01.282) Mm. Joel Cheesman (24:13.987) And then sell it, sell it to whoever we don't even give a shit, but like make it as like affordable for somebody as possible and, sell this stuff. So if you're currently an employed ISMS, I'd be refreshing that resume. I would be updating that LinkedIn profile. I'd be, I'd be outreaching to people I know in the industry. Cause this, this is not, yeah, this is not bode well. Look, Mark Thompson, probably nice guy. He graduated from Dartmouth in the eighties. Chad Sowash (24:34.873) Cuts are coming. Joel Cheesman (24:43.845) with an economics degree. The CEOs at Ashby and team Taylor graduated in this century. So like there's just, this is not rake of innovation. This is not rake of like, we're going to like do the full court press. We're going to bring in people know what they're doing. And then we're going to like a make, make a big push to go, go all tech and everything AI. No, this is sharpen the pencils, get us down to as profitable as possible and turn off the lights. Unfortunately, Chad and I have a long relationship with iCIMS. Chad Sowash (24:56.519) no. Joel Cheesman (25:13.765) has nothing to with the people there, the clock is running out on iCIMS. Chad Sowash (25:18.83) Well, the new paint job just again, we talked about this before. It's like a distraction. It's like show something innovative. That's all we want to see. Right. And we keep hearing from people inside. we've got innovation. We will fucking show us. Right. I mean, if you have a narrative, if you have a CEO that can actually be articulate enough to talk about what tomorrow looks like for you guys. Okay, great. Put them out there. But you're to fucking hire a bean counter now. I mean, Joel Cheesman (25:26.693) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (25:47.909) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:48.749) Steve Lucas was the perfect guy for that kind of stuff, right? Marketing, understood it, Marketo, yes, storyteller. Now you got a bean counter from Dartmouth. Okay, yeah, sure, let's see how that goes. Joel Cheesman (25:53.201) storyteller. J.T. O'Donnell (25:54.627) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:03.697) Nothing gets Dartmouth or the 80s for that matter. But yeah, this is not good for iCIMS, everybody. And if you're a customer of my iCIMS, you might wanna go put out some RFPs, get some demos, get some demos. We'll be right back. Chad Sowash (26:05.526) No, Dartmouth's fucking great. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (26:08.622) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:26.417) Chad, I've been waiting a long time to do this. Here we go. Chad Sowash (26:36.768) yeah, I do. I can, yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:40.889) Yes, Plum is back in the news everybody. They've been acquired by our friends at Phenom, provider of talent assessments. If you missed the memo, they help enterprise level firms scale behavioral assessments. This acquisition follows Phenom's previous acquisitions of included AI and be applied. Chad, your take on the purchase. Chad Sowash (26:44.124) Chad Sowash (26:50.784) huh. Chad Sowash (27:02.71) Okay. So we saw Phenom's be applied acquisition a few weeks ago and now it's Plum. So great for Phenom, great for be applied and great for our friends over at Plum. it really feels like, it really feels like Phenom is trying their hardest to PhD the hell out of a problem when all the companies need is a middle school solution at this point. It feels over engineered. J.T. O'Donnell (27:07.694) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:30.571) and way too much for the actual needs of hiring companies out there. And I mean, over the last six months or so, we've personally attended seven practitioner led events where there were probably about 500 different TA product leaders, buyers that are out there. And they needed simple solutions, small solutions that made big impacts. For example, Joel Cheesman (27:47.941) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:57.253) Some of the hiring companies showing most of the successes is merely around the automation of interview scheduling. No rocket science there, just pure, simple, easy to understand. And most of all, everybody fucking hates interview scheduling. So these two acquisitions feel like Phenom isn't even in the same room with these TA leaders and understanding what their needs are. It's cool, they're acquiring companies. I love that. But the combination of these two and just weeks apart, Joel Cheesman (28:04.177) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (28:11.426) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:26.968) I don't know, man. It either feels like it just doesn't compute or their marketing and messaging are just shit. I don't know. I can't make, hide or fucking. Joel Cheesman (28:42.513) I have one plea to the marketing folks at Phenom. Assuming you're going to keep the Plum brand, please, please bring back Rum with Plum. Just to hear that sound bite every week made my entire week. So please, JD at marketing at Phenom, just please. That's all I ask. All right, let's go to the deal now. Chad Sowash (28:54.5) Ha Chad Sowash (28:58.658) We can play it whenever we want. Chad Sowash (29:05.294) Wrong one. Joel Cheesman (29:09.137) In 2004, I met a company called Cymax. Cymax was behavioral testing and culture fit and all these sort of like psychobabble nonsense that you felt kind of dumb. You felt like the emperor has no clothes. Like you didn't want to say anything because you sounded stupid because you didn't understand all the science speak about it. Uh, Cymax has gone, it's been gone for long time, but since then we've had other players come in and say like, Hey, Hey employer. Chad Sowash (29:30.104) Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (29:38.863) We have a secret sauce. We'll give a little test, little behavioral stuff. Like we'll fit the perfect employees to your, to your company. Remember wonder lick when wonder lit got in it and wonder lick was a big thing with like quarterback testing. You don't hear about wonder look anymore because just cause a QB gets a shitty score, they're still a good QB. Like it didn't have a whole lot to do with, with who you are. Tradeify acquired by paradox. Why didn't, why didn't work day one tradeify as part of the deal? I don't know. It's kind of weird, but I just, Chad Sowash (29:48.866) Yes. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:08.079) I'm kind of out on the whole behavioral wizard of Oz behind the curtain. We got a secret recipe that no one else has. Plum had great branding. They had a great team. I mean, they raised a pretty modest amount, I think around $15 million. Cute little Canadian company sponsored our show, sent Chad and I think eight gallons of maple syrup one time. mean, they... Chad Sowash (30:15.492) PhD. Yeah. Chad Sowash (30:30.731) it was delicious. Joel Cheesman (30:32.259) It was, it was a great little story and I just, it just never has taken off and the company never really grew a whole lot. This feels like the run, like the clock just ran out. And I think to your point and phenom, phenom is in that pre-chat GPT that didn't get acquired by workday, cat group. And I think their, their strategy now is like, let's go to TJ Maxx. Let's get as much like AI science. PhDs, whatever, as we can into the portfolio and hope that we survive the future. They have a great portfolio of companies that use them, great event, great brand, like can they survive it and will this be the strategy that gets them there? I just don't really know. I'm kind of out on the whole behavioral tests, psychobabble, PhD bullshit that I've been fucking forced to consume for the last 25 years in this industry. J.T. O'Donnell (31:26.382) Yeah. can I jump in on that? Can I jump in that? Two things. First of all, any time we see an organization get acquired, I'm hoping everybody made some money. So congratulations to anybody over at Plum. I mean, that's a big deal, right? It's hard to get across the finish line. Yeah. Get it, get it. Piggybacking off what Joel said, I'm not a fan of the behavioral tests either. And I'll tell it true story was working for a well-known Fortune 500 company. Chad Sowash (31:28.516) Show us how you really feel. Please, please, please. Chad Sowash (31:40.164) Please. Yeah. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (31:54.766) And they had me analyzing what was going on in their recruiting. And I came across these tests that they had signed a deal with one of these Psycho Babble places and they were making everyone do the test. I said, why are you making all your candidates go through this test? Well, that's who we picked to hire. I said, okay, really quick, pull out of your ATS system for me. What percentage of people that went through the test did you actually hire that got the passing grade? Do you know what I mean? And what percentage who failed the test got hired Joel Cheesman (32:04.539) You're welcome. Chad Sowash (32:07.556) Take them. Joel Cheesman (32:20.368) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (32:23.982) Anyways, right? 90 % of the time they were still picking the candidate that failed. Let me say that again. So they paid for a test, 90%. They paid for the test. The manager said, the guy or gal I liked didn't pass, but I liked them. So I'm hiring them anyways. That was a waste of a test. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year were being spent on these tests that the management wasn't even using. Chad Sowash (32:34.596) 90. J.T. O'Donnell (32:53.902) If they didn't like the answer, they used anyways. So, you know, it's crazy, right? And then they said, well, maybe we should mandate that they just have to pick the person that passed. Well, you know how that went down, right? No, you can't do that to managers. So I'm on the Joel train. can't believe it, Joel. You and I are syncing up way too much. Something's happening. But yeah. Chad Sowash (32:58.862) It's crazy pills. Joel Cheesman (33:01.189) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:05.312) Ooh, yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:06.318) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:11.441) Choo-choo, it's choose me baby. Chad Sowash (33:13.922) Don't ever say the Joel train again, please. That's just the mental, no. Joel Cheesman (33:19.313) All aboard. Here we go. By the way, the whole FICRA issue, these guys are in the crosshairs or they should be too. I mean, if you're employing someone based on an assessment behavioral test, okay, well, what did you test for? What is this test that made me incompatible with this company? J.T. O'Donnell (33:22.253) Choo-choo. Chad Sowash (33:26.232) Yes. God. Chad Sowash (33:32.276) Uhhh, they should. no question, yes. Chad Sowash (33:40.025) Yeah. I think, well, I think first and foremost, Plum, they give you their score, right? So it's all transparent, you get the score. The big difference is how does that actually match up between what you've scored and what the company wants? That's gonna be the big difference, right? But yeah, I agree, I agree. There's gonna be transparency pieces, especially for these really complex PhD, psychobabble kind of things that happen that are, they're gonna be hard to connect. They really are. Joel Cheesman (33:45.649) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:56.922) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (33:56.93) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (34:09.646) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:10.875) Sounds like we're all a sell on this acquisition. J.T. O'Donnell (34:12.888) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:15.941) Maybe the second acquisition will fare a little better guys. Greenhouse is acquiring Ezra AI Labs, a voice AI interviewing startup hoping to enhance its hiring platform with conversational AI capabilities. The combined offering will integrate Ezra's voice interviewing system with Greenhouse's broader hiring platform, which includes sourcing, applicant tracking, and AI powered talent matching. Chad, what's your take on this deal? Chad Sowash (34:19.105) let's see. Yes. Chad Sowash (34:23.62) Okay. Chad Sowash (34:43.886) good for Greenhouse who desperately needed something AI to make them look fashionable again. I mean, really. One thing I love in the high volume space is that you need an interview, but you can bypass scheduling altogether in the application process. If the candidate meets all the requirements that you provided, you have two options. Schedule an interview, one button maybe, and interview now, another button. Joel Cheesman (35:11.323) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (35:14.084) an immediate interview. So interview now. And when you, when speed is the factor that literally just sprays nitrous directly into the intake, intake manifold. Plus when you're interviewing with AI, you're gathering and contextualizing all that data, not just the notes, a recruiter or hiring manager can feverishly jot down. So those contextualized notes are attached to the candidate's profile and you have more data. on all of your candidates. It just makes sense. It just makes sense. So I like what they're doing. Will this move the needle for Greenhouse against a work day or an SAP? No. Will this be nice for their current clients? Yeah, it will. It'll be good for their current clients. J.T. O'Donnell (36:09.838) I gotta say, I'm with you on the AI piece. Everybody needs to be looking at AI and ways to either create it themselves or purchase. So this clearly looked like, it's easier to buy than build ourselves. What's interesting to me though about all these acquisitions, I want to hear from now see if they really provided an ROI. And here's why. I know a recruiter right now, she came to me and said, I just built this thing all by myself with Cloud Cowork, where I just sit and give all my notes on every candidate that I've met with. Chad Sowash (36:20.579) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (36:36.78) And it's able to automatically match against the job I'm hiring for and then rank who should be presented to the hiring manager. She said, I built it all by myself. It's working like a charm. My clients are loving it. She's an independent recruiter, built it by herself in Claude. Is she the only one out there? Of course not. Everyone is getting so much more sophisticated with AI as they learn how to use it that I just feel like these companies, they're, they're overpaying. It's very likely they're overpaying and that we're going to hear a lot of these stories later on. you know, that But the race to have it, like you said, to look updated, sexy, current, you know, tell our clients we're on top of it is a thing. The question is, are a lot of these companies overpaying for that? I'm gonna say that they probably are. Joel Cheesman (37:16.433) I'm going to applaud this acquisition. Joel Cheesman (37:24.305) Greenhouse is an ATS. We just got done talking about ICI. I said, I'm just like the clock running out on them. I Sims or greenhouses in that middle zone of we're not I Sims or job bite, but we're not quite Ashby or like the new. So we got to do some shit to like roll the dice, take some risks and see where this thing goes. And I think we talked to when you talk to a lot of people in this space where the puck is going, it's in this AI. Chad Sowash (37:26.478) Yes. Joel Cheesman (37:52.973) interview, chat sounds human, but it's all automated thing. and we saw some of those companies, this past week in Chicago, Ezra was founded in 2024. Chad Sowash (38:09.348) That's a turn, baby, that's a turn. Joel Cheesman (38:11.793) So, uh, by the way, better than Ezra banned from the nineties. keep thinking that when I say Ezra, um, he's a young guy, a PhD in applied math, Stanford, MBA, GM, had prior general or GM engineering roles. We don't know much about these guys. Like, so greenhouses either like get going to the tree and picking the apple before anyone kind of knows what the hell's going on. They have fewer than 10 employees. They raised a meager 3.2 million. Chad Sowash (38:15.606) I love that. Yeah, that's good shit. J.T. O'Donnell (38:16.952) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:41.753) or so. So they took a small bet financially for like a really big home run if this thing works out and these guys have, you know, product that can can really crush it. So I love this. This is a brand new company greenhouse just said, Fuck it. Let's roll the dice. I don't know what do they pay for like 20 million maybe 40 million. I mean, this could you think it's less than that? Chad Sowash (39:05.546) I doubt that. I doubt that, especially how long. Joel Cheesman (39:09.529) If that's the case, Ezra sold too soon, then shame on Ezra because they could have, I think, sold a lot for a lot more. Chad Sowash (39:14.318) Possibly, but I don't think so because of what JT said. Because what JT said, when you get a chance to actually get a bite at that apple, you might not get a second bite at that apple. So I think, again, they didn't have that many individuals on staff. Didn't take a lot of money. So, I mean, why not? Not to mention they more than likely are going to go work for Greenhouse to be able to like literally, it's kind of like a skunkworks inside of these organizations right now. J.T. O'Donnell (39:18.04) Yeah, I don't think so. Chad Sowash (39:41.508) Paradox is running a skunkworks to some extent inside a workday. Same thing is happening inside a SAP. It still can be exciting with a bunch of fucking cash. So yeah, I think it's a good idea. Joel Cheesman (39:55.922) Groupon could have sold to Google for $6 billion at its height. They should have taken that deal. However, however, Mark Zuckerberg was offered a billion dollars from Yahoo to buy Facebook. He declined and it worked out for him. So we never know how it's going to roll out Chad, but fortunately, fortunately, if you have a podcast, you can talk about this shit and be successful no matter what happens with what's going on. Guys, we'll be right back and talk about LinkedIn. Chad Sowash (39:59.353) See? See? J.T. O'Donnell (40:07.992) Yeah, yeah, you never know. Chad Sowash (40:12.26) Yeah, but that paranoid motherfucker has to actually build a bunker. J.T. O'Donnell (40:20.515) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (40:25.083) for God's sakes. Speaking of startups, all right, we'll wait for you to get back, Chad. Chad Sowash (40:25.4) And I'm gonna take a piss on the way, by the way. I'll be back. Joel Cheesman (40:41.307) Chad. J.T. O'Donnell (40:43.416) Can't hold his Guinness. Joel Cheesman (40:44.969) Always attention seeking. Look at my bar. Look at my Guinness. I gotta go pee. Wearing my sunglasses. I'm cool. J.T. O'Donnell (40:50.7) You He Joel Cheesman (40:58.107) Taking my vitamin B, whatever that is, or my bees, whatever cocktail he's drinking, consuming. Do do the Botox thing? you on the whole looking young trend or do you just let it go? J.T. O'Donnell (41:13.086) I mean, I do, yeah. No, no, I definitely get Botox from time to time. I don't think I'm crazy. Like, you know, when the 11s show up, when I look angry when I wake up in the morning, it's time to like, they're called the 11s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I start looking mad and I've, or, you you look angry and I just had 12 hours of sleep, you pretty much know that might be a moment. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:16.753) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (41:24.709) The 11s, is that when you have two lines? Okay. Chad Sowash (41:28.772) It's like they're playing Yacht Rock. Joel Cheesman (41:35.461) You've seen the Seinfeld where they draw the eyebrows on Uncle Leo? J.T. O'Donnell (41:40.597) No! Joel Cheesman (41:43.99) Anyway, you like do you like Seinfeld? Oh, I'm surprised you don't know that that episode anyway. Yeah, they end up drawing eyebrows and he looks angry and he's like, I'm not angry and they're like, you need to calm down. He's like, I'm calm but he has these like anyway. All right, we're back. We'll just Sergey 4040 minutes of 42. Edit that out. J.T. O'Donnell (41:46.518) I love Seinfeld. I know, that's surprising. J.T. O'Donnell (41:57.11) Yeah, yeah, seriously. Yeah, that's what I know. Chad Sowash (41:57.989) Hahaha Chad Sowash (42:04.066) better. I'm better. They're pros. J.T. O'Donnell (42:09.804) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:13.233) All right, kids, LinkedIn's agentic, our AI hiring products, which streamline the recruitment process by automating tasks for recruiters are projected to generate $450 million in sales in the coming year. The offering includes one for large businesses and one for small businesses. Chad did LinkedIn finally get AI right on this one, or is it a banana in the tailpipe situation? Chad Sowash (42:25.923) Oof. Chad Sowash (42:40.736) Okay. I feel like it's a banana in a tailpipe. So these agentic AI tools are supposed to perform the heavy lifting so recruiters don't have to like scanning LinkedIn, massive global databases, matching recruiter prompts to profiles and shortlisting the right talent in seconds. Wait a minute. Wasn't that the promise of LinkedIn's search and match algorithm in LinkedIn recruiter for the past? I don't know how many years. mean, LinkedIn is basically just replacing Boolean strings with prompts. Now we're supposed to believe that these agents and great recruiting recruiter prompting that LinkedIn can magically pull this off. Now, Will they bring in tons of cash from gullible clients? You fucking bet they will. Will it change anything? I wouldn't bet on that. You're gonna get more out of your core talent acquisition and talent management systems and your own databases and pulling in these candidates than you're gonna get from LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a great tool and a great source, but when it comes to actually using this type of heavy lift? I don't think LinkedIn's the answer. Joel Cheesman (44:08.497) Well, Chad doesn't like it. How about you, JT? J.T. O'Donnell (44:13.504) Yeah, right. So full disclosure, I had early access to this tool last year and I was also hired by them to do some videos around it so that recruiters knew it existed. So I want to make sure that I'm not working for them now. No, no, but I want to be clear as I say this. Right? No, I should be honest. Here's where I think it's different, Chad. And I think 1.3 billion profiles and counting, that's a lot of profiles, many of which are bogus, outdated. Joel Cheesman (44:22.971) So much flexing, so much flexing on your birthday. Chad Sowash (44:23.874) Ha ha ha ha ha! And I appreciate that. That is sweet. Chad Sowash (44:39.916) They had those before. J.T. O'Donnell (44:42.038) No, it's growing and growing and you've got a lot of fake, a lot of bots, you've got issues like any big company. So you need a more sophisticated tool to be able to sort that out. And one of the things that I like about the way this AI tool works is it's not just looking at whether or not somebody is a keyword match on their profile. It's looking at this person is active on the platform and it's doing that because a lot of recruiters complain that the search results they were getting the old way, they would contact these people and they'd never respond. Chad Sowash (44:46.584) Yeah, always. J.T. O'Donnell (45:10.734) All right, so LinkedIn said, wait a minute, if I can figure out a way to evaluate beyond the matching and see if somebody is actually active, I can statistically improve the chances that when that recruiter contacts that person, they might get a response back. I like that because what it's allowed us to do on the job seeker side is teach candidates how to signal to recruiters, how to not just optimize their profile, but how to start to actively comment and post so that the algorithm is understanding their skill sets, the problems they solve, the pain they alleviate. And that's what this tool does. And I can tell you from the job side where I'm coaching, they are getting incredible results. I have candidates who aren't necessarily the best, but they are doing the right things in LinkedIn to be found with this tool. And so to me, I think it's very interesting. are, they're always a company that's very careful, very slow. They're not going to do anything crazy. And so this will continue to improve and get better. I like that there's a lower price point for the SMBs. I hope that that continues to come down because for many, it's still probably too expensive, but I have seen real results with it make it easier. And I'll also tell you a funny story. I got trolled last week because a job seeker had, yeah, no, this one was pretty bad. Job seeker asked me a question and Mike about it. And I commented back to him. Joel Cheesman (46:13.413) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (46:25.688) get trolled every week, don't you? yeah? J.T. O'Donnell (46:34.284) Hey, LinkedIn has a very special AI tool that recruiters are using now, and this is how they surface and find you. It's just kind of a very easy comment. Some guy on LinkedIn found the comment, screenshotted it, didn't tag me, went out there and said, recruiters, is this a thing, a very special AI tool? Everyone started making fun of me until recruiters who use the AI tool came to the thing and said, she's right. Here's the info. It's a thing. And then the very next day, Joel Cheesman (46:59.205) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (47:00.866) they announced this $450 million in potential revenue. So I think a lot of people don't realize it's out there. Clearly not a lot of people are using it yet, but when you use it and you start servicing people, it offers an opportunity for someone to position themselves for what they want, not what they were. And that I love because if you're only pulling off a profile, then you're only matching based on your past work history. What if you want to do something different? What if you can prove you want to do something different? Chad Sowash (47:06.894) cash. Joel Cheesman (47:10.63) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (47:29.122) The algorithm is now recognizing that in the feed and will get better and better. And to me, that creates opportunity for people. And so I'm here for that. Joel Cheesman (47:39.418) I guess I've, I guess I've got to break the tie here. So just so I'm clear, because I go to you for all my job seeker information, JT. So whereas before it was just what's on my profile, now you're saying it's what's my activities? What am I sharing? What are maybe my comp? Like it's taking a holistic view of what I'm doing on LinkedIn to match me. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So I think that J.T. O'Donnell (47:52.545) activity. J.T. O'Donnell (47:59.21) It's making sure you're real. Yeah, it's making sure that you are real human being. Joel Cheesman (48:06.607) we're learning more and more that the skills to be a recruiter are evolving from Boolean searches and how to, you know, how to look at search engines and find needles in the haystack to more of, you be a human being and talk about an opportunity in the future and basically have these soft skills. So Chad is right when he says, look, The, the bullion searches of yesterday are just the, I need a PHP developer, blah, blah, blah. And then having the machine do it. The difference is the skillset that used to be important was to have that bullion search to get the person in the first place. Now the skill is evolving to, okay, the tech will find me the person. It's up to me now to connect with that person and sell them on the opportunity at the company. So from that perspective. I think what LinkedIn is doing is going where the puck is going and helping human beings connect to be more human and, and fill jobs that way. So I think that's a positive thing. I also think that, from the SMBs perspective, and we, we highlighted a recent advertisement at LinkedIn where they're really focusing on small business where it's small business. It's the owner. She's putting, you know, she's hiring people like, this is a really nice product for a founder of a startup. or a small company that has no idea what a bullion search is or how to spell it can simply tell LinkedIn, you know, I need a developer to do this, that, and the other. And then the algorithm gives it to them and then they can have a conversation with them on a human human level. So I think of your small business, this is really magic for you to just go to LinkedIn and do this. So for those two reasons, I'm a fan of this. Um, right where I'm intrigued is how they have monetized it. Somehow they found the, the, the whatever recipe to drive this thing to $450 million with little, with, well, I mean, so that, the old model of like, how many seats do you have is somehow evolving into time spent and, what's, what you're getting out of it. I also think it's a, it's a fun time to highlight like the moat that LinkedIn has been building this whole time and keeping out competitors and squashing all the other sourcing tools. This is kind of the payoff because unless you have this data. Chad Sowash (49:59.429) It's a great recipe, whatever it is. Jesus. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (50:01.912) Yeah. Chad Sowash (50:10.83) consumption. J.T. O'Donnell (50:16.878) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (50:25.315) If you have the AI, it doesn't really matter. That's why when you look at some of these tools with ATS is ATS is going to be like, we need a tool like that because we're going to help you use your own data. But LinkedIn is sitting here saying we have our own data as well. I think you're going to have to use both. And one of those things you have to pay for as usual will be LinkedIn. And that's a victory for them as they evolve in this AI world. So J.T. O'Donnell (50:45.251) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:47.758) Yeah. think from a transactional standpoint, the SMB side of the house is tremendous and smart. And I mean, I think they have the opportunity literally to go deep into the SMB market because everybody knows who LinkedIn is, Sitting in rooms of TA, know, VPs of TA and whatnot, most of them feel like they're being held hostage by two companies. Indeed, in LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (50:54.481) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (51:17.916) And the hardest part about that is a lot of those enterprise companies have bought a lot of the candidates that are already in the databases that are out there. And they're going to grind and they're going to do this themselves. So is this a short term fix for LinkedIn? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know there are a lot of major enterprise organizations that would love to say, fuck LinkedIn and fucked in indeed. and literally just create their own ecosystems. And that's what they're trying to do. So we'll see how it actually shapes out. But I think LinkedIn is incredibly smart going after SMBs because SMBs from a transactional standpoint can really push a lot of cash to them. J.T. O'Donnell (52:03.19) Okay, but I got a hit on that because I get that they bought that and they have all these people in their databases, but that content has a shelf life and it's aging fast. And what LinkedIn has is they've now created a way that is getting candidates to constantly update who they are and what they're about. So I hear you, these companies would love to say, forget you to Indeed and LinkedIn, we got our own thing, but you now then have to make sure that talent is updating itself so you're getting the most current version of them. So Chad Sowash (52:30.052) That's what chat bots are for. J.T. O'Donnell (52:30.146) Community is getting huge, Community, chatbots, et cetera. But you're asking these candidates to recognize that's a company I want to work for and I'm going to go keep myself updated over there versus they can do it one time over at LinkedIn and be found. And in a time where job boards are quickly shifting, because the only reason you really need one anymore is if you need a lot of people for one type of job, I don't want to post a job where I only need one candidate if I'm going to get a thousand people, a half of which are a bot. I'm not going to post a job on a job board anymore unless I'm legally required to, unless I'm taking money from the government like we've talked about. Instead, I'm going to get on LinkedIn and I'm going to quiet hire. I'm going to go find the people and reach out to them and say, I have an opportunity. And that is happening. I am seeing a massive uptick on that every single week. People are going, my gosh, I'm being found by these great companies. They're legit. They're real. Why? Joel Cheesman (53:09.979) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (53:13.99) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (53:19.458) We taught them how to post on LinkedIn. We taught them how to in a platform to get visible and signal, this is what I am. And that to me is huge. I don't think you can underestimate that. Joel Cheesman (53:24.753) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (53:29.425) If you're looking for a threat, to me it's Indeed. Because you look at the fresh component, no one's fresh on Indeed. They post a resume and they're done. So to me, LinkedIn will be this thing that, okay, I don't have to have as many seats. I'm still paying, maybe not as much, but I'm still paying them for that fresh data and those people that are always active. But instead of spending more on Indeed, I'm gonna figure out how to use my own database to... J.T. O'Donnell (53:37.153) at all. Joel Cheesman (53:57.19) re-rigorate them, to connect with them, to like take more advantage of that. So as I look at this, indeed I think is the odd man out of this equation. think LinkedIn's a winner. think the ATS, whatever that component is at a company is gonna be a winner. J.T. O'Donnell (54:11.374) And let me just throw another crazy idea at you, bringing it all the way back to thought leader ads, right? You could, let's say there's 20 companies I want to work for right now. I could set up a thought leader ad of myself to those 20 companies and job titles at those companies that I would want to be visible to. And I could push my videos out to them like, hey, this is how I would handle this problem. Like think of the top five questions that hiring manager would ask me. Start putting my videos in their feed. $5 a day spend. Joel Cheesman (54:15.279) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (54:37.122) I'm just pushing myself out. Think about the future of a candidate where maybe there's a service where you're able to choose who you want to get in front of for them to see you. I mean, a smart job seeker could do that now on Thought Leader ads at 50 cents a click, getting hyper specific. So there's so many ideas running through my head about where this could go in time. Joel Cheesman (54:55.793) Is the targeting that granular? J.T. O'Donnell (54:58.35) It's pretty granular location. You can go buy a job title again by budget. Is it as good as other places? But they could improve upon that. And if they did that gets super interesting. You know, I believe you're a business of one. You have to take full ownership of your career. If you're an executive, that's probably money pretty well spent a $20 a day spend as an executive to get my ideas out in front of somebody. And suddenly someone's calling me to be a C something. Joel Cheesman (54:59.726) Okay. Joel Cheesman (55:15.482) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:20.433) Employers are going to hate that. Employers are going to hate if all in their feed are job seekers like, hey, I'm perfect for your company because of A, B, C. They're going to not stand for that for very long, I don't think. J.T. O'Donnell (55:24.536) But sneakers? Chad Sowash (55:26.841) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (55:29.944) But we're not far off in this world before we see it. You're gonna see a story in the next, I predict, in the next three to six months where some executive got smart enough to do that and go, that's how I got my job on LinkedIn. Thanks. Joel Cheesman (55:44.37) It'll be fun to watch. LinkedIn obviously doing some good shit. It's nice to have JT, an insider at LinkedIn on the show. That's... All right, guys, let's end this with a little... Chad Sowash (55:52.995) I blame Dan. Get it, Dan. Come on, Dan. J.T. O'Donnell (55:55.414) I love Dan. Joel Cheesman (56:03.195) Who'd you rather? That's right, guys. If you haven't heard us play this game before, we talk about two companies that have recently gotten funding. We talk about both of them. And then each of us decides which one would we rather. Are you ready to play? I know I am. First up, we have Dex. Makes me think of Dexter and cutting people up. Anyway, Dex has raised $5.3 million in seed funding. Chad Sowash (56:03.63) Finally! Yes! J.T. O'Donnell (56:20.952) Yeah. Chad Sowash (56:22.04) Bring it! Joel Cheesman (56:30.481) to connect companies with high-end tech talent through a specialized AI talent agent. Operating like a traditional search firm with a 20 to 30 % fee structure, the London-based company has reached a $1.8 million annual revenue run rate. That is DEX, everybody. I'm trying to find... I don't have the right. I don't have the right. I don't have the right. Chad Sowash (56:53.412) Bloma, blama, bloma, blama, blama, bloma. Joel Cheesman (56:58.232) Anyway, here we go. Chad Sowash (57:01.764) There it is. Joel Cheesman (57:01.769) All right now up that's Dex up next we have Blooma. It looks like it's Blama, but it's pronounced Blooma in their explainer videos. The San Francisco startup founded by former Pinterest and Canva executives has raised $5 million in seed funding. Its AI platform provides personalized career coaching using context from resumes and calendars to help users navigate leadership transitions, feedback and workplace communications. That is Dex versus Chad Sowash (57:09.348) Oh, is it? OK. OK. Joel Cheesman (57:31.439) Bluma Chad, who'd you rather? Chad Sowash (57:35.237) First off, Bluma has two O's. So I'm sorry. It's Blama, founder and CEO. It's a Blama. And that is a horrible fucking name. So once again, I'm to go with the easy win. It's 2 a.m. in the morning. I'm going to go with the redhead who is, you know, she's solving the right problems. Dex is solving the problem companies have right now. A problem companies will deliver and they need is that matching scenario, right? And at the end of the day, they're going to have to turn this quick because there are going to be a ton of these companies out there. The actual matching side of the house. But I did jump into Dex and I did a little research, a little fun, and I had a conversation. I had a conversation with Dex and it was really cool. They are Joel Cheesman (58:28.048) chill. Chad Sowash (58:34.744) They really focused on the engineering side of the house, which is smart at first, and then you can go ahead and open that TAM. And the product was pretty seamless. So again, I was pretty much sold on it beforehand and jumped in and used it. And I'm gonna go home with Dex. Joel Cheesman (58:57.169) All right, JT, who'd you rather, Dex or Bluma? J.T. O'Donnell (59:01.134) This was tough, I'm not gonna lie. Looking at it, I almost thought I'm going home solo. Joel Cheesman (59:07.269) Not on your birthday. Not on your birthday. J.T. O'Donnell (59:08.59) Yeah, not on my birthday. the DEX thing, I was trying to understand from a financial standpoint, they're doing the traditional 20 to 30 % fixed fee model and they took home 1.8 million in annual revenue, not annual recurring revenue. So there is always going to be this process of trying to get more money. And so that's interesting. But again, the efficiency is there. So they're taking 20 to 30 % home on something that used to take a lot more human power and it's pretty heavily AI driven. Chad Sowash (59:08.782) Sometimes, yeah, sometimes you gotta do that though. J.T. O'Donnell (59:38.752) interesting operational model there. As a career coach myself and seeing what can be done with AI, I think it is very interesting that, bloom, obama, however we want to say it, is offering the coaching. Where I get concerned about that is who owns that data and who sees that data. Because if I have employees who are speaking to this career coach and they're being truthful, where's that going? So do you think those employers are going to be super truthful? No, they're going to go talk to their chat GPT instead. And so to me, gets Chad Sowash (59:54.52) Yes. Chad Sowash (59:59.845) Great point. Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:00:05.486) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (01:00:07.416) concerning cool idea in theory, but we really have to think about whether or not they're going to trust that or not, you know, because if that's going to HR, that's not a good thing. if I have to pick a winner, I'm going with Deca. Joel Cheesman (01:00:24.165) Sorry, sounded like you said Deca. Is it Dex? Dex and Blooma. Like she was going with both. Sorry. J.T. O'Donnell (01:00:26.542) Is that what they were? Ducks? DECA? Sorry. It's 2 AM! It's 2 AM! I'm not getting their name right. Chad Sowash (01:00:26.852) Dex. think Guama. And you're not really getting their face right either. That's with the low lighting. Joel Cheesman (01:00:44.975) All right, Dex, okay. Dex sounds like it's 10 years too late to me. It feels like when I read their, their site is pretty minimal. Like a lot of it's like sign up and so there's not a lot to find out about this company other than a few pages on the website. But it has the following quote, the best roles are rarely advertised. They move through networks, referrals and people who know people. Decks, decks exists to fix that. I mean that that feels to me like a pitch from Intello or seek out 10 years ago or God help us when they say something like Rarely advertised jobs like it feels like six-figure jobs. Like there's this hidden market of jobs. It just sounds it sounds very antiquated to me So that was that was a turnoff Initially on decks on the bloom aside I mean, who doesn't love a good Pinterest like, like your boy here. I'm pinning things all over the place. Who knew? so to have a, to have a Pinterest guy, behind this company was interesting, but I generally hate job seeker funded businesses. thought of a job seeker paying $25 a month for a career coach when yes, my own LLM of choice knows me better than any sort of $25 a month service would ever know me. And that will also privacy and Chad Sowash (01:01:46.116) Thanks. Joel Cheesman (01:02:11.951) doesn't share stuff with with other people. That was a turn off to me. The cell for me and this was close. This was almost going home solo as well. JT and I are leaving solo on this one almost but the fact the fat come on now. So the fact that they have an enterprise tool that says hey employer, put all your put all your employees, get them a career coach, make them feel special. Chad Sowash (01:02:23.524) Which Joel never does, by the way. J.T. O'Donnell (01:02:23.907) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:02:37.711) Make them feel unique, make them feel like that snowflake that all your employees think that they are. I think a lot of employers are gonna gravitate to that, they're gonna embrace that, they're gonna have this little perk to all their employees. Hey, when you come work here, you got your own little career coach, your own little bloomer, your own little bloomer buddy who's gonna be with you throughout your whole career. So for that, think that employers will eat that up. So for me, I'm gonna go, gonna go bloomer on this one, even though the spelling is a little bit off on that. Chad Sowash (01:03:03.108) you Joel Cheesman (01:03:07.281) Blammer bloomer. J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:08.205) Mm. Chad Sowash (01:03:09.39) llama Joel Cheesman (01:03:10.681) All right, guys, that is another episode. Of who'd you rather, which leads us to, yeah, you guessed it today's. Dad joke who's ready for a dad joke? Chad Sowash (01:03:23.556) Nobody. J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:26.06) Nobody. Joel Cheesman (01:03:28.049) All right, we're taking this back to my shout out to King Charles. Guys, did you hear about the King who was only 12 inches tall? Did you hear about the King that was only 12 inches tall? Chad Sowash (01:03:40.098) I did not know. Joel Cheesman (01:03:41.581) He was a horrible king, but one hell of a ruler. J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:49.334) I can't even, I can't. Joel Cheesman (01:03:51.449) Happy birthday, JT. We out! Chad Sowash (01:03:54.085) We're J.T. O'Donnell (01:03:54.306) Thank you. We out.

Podcast Episode: Talent Disruption Through the Ages In this episode, the "man, the myth, the legend" Jeff Taylor joins Chad Sowash to discuss his return to the talent acquisition stage after nearly 20 years away. From the "Jurassic period" of the early internet to the AI-driven future, Taylor reflects on the pivotal moments that shaped the industry and why he’s ready to disrupt it all over again. TOPICS The "Why Now?": After two decades away, Jeff explains why he is diving back into the "shit show" of recruitment and how a "slingshot" effect led him to his newest venture. The $304 Million Mistake: Jeff reveals the "back of the napkin" deal he had to buy LinkedIn in 2003—and the specific reason his board of directors turned it down. The Super Bowl Irony: A behind-the-scenes look at the iconic "When I Grow Up" commercial. Fighting the "Newspaper Giants": Jeff recalls being introduced as the "number one category killer" to a room of 800 newspaper executives during Monster’s rise. The AI Bubble vs. The Dot-Com Burst: A comparison of the current AI explosion to the late '90s, including Jeff’s prediction on when the "AI bubble" might actually burst. Boomband & The Talent Graph: An inside look at Jeff’s new project, which aims to map the entire U.S. labor market of 175 million people to create a "transparent marketplace". The Death of the "Hostage Data Model": Why Jeff believes the traditional resume is dead and his vision. "I’m a big believer in you have to make sure you don’t fall in love with your own shit and that you have to break it... if you don’t break it in the middle of the night when nobody’s looking, then someone else is gonna break it." - Jeff Taylor Want to know where the "Boombands" are playing? Tune in to hear how the original disruptor is planning his second act. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:27.9 Jason Pistulka: All right. Everybody, make your way into the tent. Grab a seat. So, our next speakers are kind of a treat. Talking about talent disruption through the ages, uh, the myth, the man, the legend, Jeff Taylor, uh, founder of Monster and now CEO of Bombard? 0:00:57.9 Chad: Boomband. 0:00:58.8 Jason Pistulka: Or Boomband. Boomband. Sorry, I said it wrong. Boomband. 0:01:03.8 Chad Sowash: Boombard. Rebrand. All right, thanks to Shaker for allowing us to have these nice, comfy, uh, seats, by the way. 0:01:15.0 Jeff Taylor: So, we actually removed those, uh... The hard plastic seats, right? 0:01:18.7 Chad Sowash: Exactly. 0:01:19.0 Jeff Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. 0:01:20.7 Chad Sowash: All right. So, questions. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, so, Boombard. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, I have talked to a shit ton of monsters. Just being here, right? There's a bunch that are out there which you've gotta be proud of, right? 0:01:34.8 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, it's actually kind of complicated to walk around this, uh... This area because, uh, there's a lot of Monsters and I'm so proud of this group and I think I've been doing a lot of, like, advocating for us as a team and, uh, there's been some pretty tough, tough words and tough actions from Ronstadt and, you know, different things. And so, it's just been fun to kinda pull everybody back together. 0:01:56.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah, we'll get... We'll get into that, I promise. There's... There's... There's one question I asked them all, right? Ones who have done business with Monster since the early days and then also people who were at Monster and I'll ask them all, if you had one question to ask Jeff Taylor, what would it be? What do you think that was? 0:02:21.8 Jeff Taylor: Probably, are you really gonna do it again? 0:02:23.9 Chad Sowash: It was, why are you gonna do it again? 0:02:26.1 Jeff Taylor: Ah, there you go. 0:02:27.1 Chad Sowash: Right? It's like you've been gone for almost 20 fucking years, man. Why? Why? It seems like you had a great life. Why are you gonna get back into this shit show? 0:02:38.1 Jeff Taylor: So, you know, it's interesting, there's a couple different levels here but one is that I love it. Like... Like the thing you can't get away from, I've been a recruiter my whole life. I started... 0:02:49.5 Chad Sowash: Jeff, you were away for 20 years. You didn't love it that much. 0:02:51.9 Jeff Taylor: No, no. You just didn't realize that I was like building up like a slingshot, right? So, you know, I left... Monster basically the average age of the users... Hi, everybody, by the way. Thank you for coming. It is so cool to start again and this feels like a great start again session and I just wanna say I'm very... I have a lot of gratitude, very appreciative people who come and wanna hear the story and my team is here, so welcome. But what... The average age of Monsters when I started our seekers was around 30. 0:03:25.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:03:26.2 Jeff Taylor: A little bit older because they were using bulletin boards, whatever. So, when I was leaving Monster, and we can talk about that, the average age of my users, a lot of them that had been with me for 20 years, was 50. So, I decided to build a social network. Mark Zuckerberg had just started Facebook or, uh, the Lookbook or whatever it was initially, and Facebook had come out and was in colleges and was starting to go to high schools. So, I decided to start a social network for baby boomers. And... 0:03:56.8 Chad Sowash: Well, before that, though, you start... You started a Monster network. 0:04:01.7 Jeff Taylor: Uh, yeah. 0:04:02.0 Chad Sowash: There was a Monster network because you had... There was a database and it seemed incredibly smart. You had this huge database... 0:04:09.5 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:04:09.7 Chad Sowash: Let's go ahead and start connecting people... 0:04:11.7 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:04:12.1 Chad Sowash: Right? But that... That didn't... That didn't quite succeed. What happened there? Because it seemed like that's where the world was moving, you already had a database of job seekers, you had a database of people who obviously could easily be connected. Why didn't that work for... For Monster? 0:04:32.0 Jeff Taylor: So, I think... I think what was interesting, we went from an idea, basically, Help wanted, the newspaper, I put the first job posting and resume of the World Wide Web. Over the next seven years, we basically migrated jobs from traditional print to online and Monster at one point probably had about 60% market share and we... 0:04:57.8 Chad Sowash: At least. 0:04:58.2 Jeff Taylor: We opened Canada. What did you say? 0:05:00.6 Chad Sowash: I said at least. 0:05:01.7 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, it might have been 70. And we opened Canada, then we opened London, we opened 19 countries in Europe, we opened a number of Asian countries, couple stories there too. And, uh, I... Up until 2000, we were basically just building and building and building. And then the dot-com bubble burst, which is an interesting discussion maybe for another topic where AI is today. And on the other side of it, Monster was profitable. And so, the board was starting to take less risks. I had a term sheet to buy LinkedIn in 2003 and I... Uh, Reid and I had a back of the envelope, back of the napkin deal, it wasn't an official term sheet, uh, but my board turned it down and so, um, I resigned. The... The network... 0:06:00.0 Chad Sowash: But why did you start Monster networking? Yeah. 0:06:02.9 Jeff Taylor: The Monster network really started in '04 and started to really get traction and actually was successful at the beginning in '07 and '08, and I wasn't there. And, um, one of the things I would never post our Monster jobs on Indeed, and, uh, I was adamant about it. And as Indeed was starting to give away free jobs, it became obvious that it could be distribution for Monster jobs. But I always thought that Indeed had 20 or 30,000 jobs and they would bring Monster's million jobs and they would say that they were bigger than Monster. I... I kinda knew that from the beginning. So, the Monster network, there were probably two levels of that. One is we did partnerships with USA Today and AOL and things like that. That was the first Monster network where we were starting to outreach into getting more and more groups that would use Monster. But... 0:06:58.2 Chad Sowash: That was more distribution and market penetration. 0:07:00.9 Jeff Taylor: Uh, and also, um, to broaden the types of users. Right? And so, market penetration... 0:07:06.3 Chad Sowash: Yeah, market penetration. Yes. 0:07:07.9 Jeff Taylor: Uh, but... 0:07:08.4 Chad Sowash: Different than the actual networking aspect of it, right? And that's the thing that... That... That really gets to me is that LinkedIn, right? 0:07:16.3 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:07:16.4 Chad Sowash: They... They were coming up, they were... They were this, you know, this baby that was coming up, Facebook, all of those were happening. It seemed like the market was moving that way and... And you actually had the idea with Monster networking, but it just didn't... So, are you saying because of market pressures and also really the board and focus that it pretty much imploded because they just didn't have the discipline at the time? 0:07:42.8 Jeff Taylor: So, I think what's interesting is the... LinkedIn was not, uh, pressure at the beginning... 0:07:49.9 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:07:50.0 Jeff Taylor: Like in this time period... 0:07:50.9 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. 0:07:51.2 Jeff Taylor: LinkedIn was a professional network, started with Reid's friends, a few thousand people and it was a non-issue and it did not have jobs, and I... I would... I... I had a sense... I had a two-legged stool. And, um, um, around your question, but I had a problem because 65% of my revenue was job postings, about 30% of my revenue was the resume database which was a hot product and I loved it. But every other thing we tried was only like 5 or 6 or 7% of revenue. And as a public company, it was my job as a CEO to try to go find a credible third leg of the stool. And I'm like... So, I tried to build Monster networking and what I ended up doing was gonna LinkedIn and saying, I like your product way better than mine and I'm not able to get lift in this idea that I had. And so, we had the agreement. My board basically said, we're so profitable... There's some really amazing lessons right here in my life. The board said we're so profitable that it just doesn't make any sense if we had bought LinkedIn, term sheet, $304 million, I just want you to like stare at that for one second and we had about 800 million in cash. So, the health of our business is also a reflection kind of from that time. Right? But it would have been a... What's called a dilutive deal which means that our... Because LinkedIn was losing a lot of money, that it would have taken our stock down in theory because we were doing an acquisition, uh, through a pooling of interest. I'm sorry, these are sort of technical terms. We would have bought it with Monster stock and some cash and, uh, the problem was that there was a... Um, a thought that our stock would tank because LinkedIn really wasn't a recognized thing as it is today. I thought it was the third leg of the stool. What do you guys think? 0:09:47.4 Chad Sowash: I don't think they have to think because they're... Them and Indeed are really the winners right now. 0:09:50.0 Jeff Taylor: Well... But it's so... It's so interesting to be a Monday morning quarterback about it I'm telling you, you know, 20 years later. Uh, but I should have fought so hard right then, right? And I feel like I... One of my failings in my career was I had an hour and a half meeting where I could have changed the trajectory. It's funny, my wife told me I would have fucked it up. All right, I got the... I got... Because what would I have done if I'd bought LinkedIn? You guys know me. I would have renamed it Monster. Right? 0:10:20.9 Chad Sowash: Monster. Yes. It would have been Monster something. 0:10:22.7 Jeff Taylor: And... And so, she's probably not wrong. And what is... What is cool... Is this interesting? I'm sorry, this is like... This is the history of the history. This is the Jurassic period of... That kind of started us out. But, I mean, I could maybe say that if I hadn't done this, you know, like this whole industry, everyone in this room is in the digital world of employment that, you know, we started awkwardly with nobody liking our idea. Calling it Monster was absolutely out of the question. It's funny, I'm talking about my wife, but my wife said she wouldn't leave the house with me if I called it Monster. My employees said it was like the monster under the bed. You know, there was... That was rough going at the beginning. And my biggest client said, not only do I not like the name, but no one will look for a job during the day while they're at work. And that has obviously, uh... 0:11:16.2 Chad Sowash: Porn. Yeah, porn. We know. We get it. 0:11:18.0 Jeff Taylor: Yeah. 0:11:18.2 Chad Sowash: Uh, so was that... Do you think that was like the biggest point that you would change during your time at Monster? Because again, Monday morning quarterback and go back and really dissect a lot of those decisions that you were able to make in that leadership position. What would be that one decision that you would... You would definitely make different? 0:11:38.9 Jeff Taylor: So, I resigned because of that decision. Um, there were really two decisions right at that time. I was starting to say that it didn't make sense to buy a nursing job in North Dakota for, I don't know, $275, whatever it was at that time and also a nursing job in New York City was the same price, right? So, I had the idea that we could have a bidding model that would sit on top of the traditional thing so we could start to actually profit in some, uh, markets and be more affordable to get more jobs in other markets. 0:12:09.9 Chad Sowash: Wasn't Chief Monster a bidding process? 0:12:11.8 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, it was. Yeah. 0:12:12.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. So, you would... So, was that... Was that... Were you taking the lessons of that and how... I mean, because Chief Monster, obviously it died. So, wouldn't see it as a success. Were you taking that... The lessons from that and saying, okay, maybe this won't work just yet? 0:12:29.8 Jeff Taylor: Well, so you gotta figure... I haven't read my LinkedIn, I'm always too early, but whatever way is there, right? You know, so if you're gonna be an idea generator, you've gotta be early. And the idea of intern to CEO was always my, my dream. Um, no... No babies, no dead people. That was... I wanted to do this middle area of the market and I didn't have enough executives. And so, Chief Monster was just a way to start to expand and more deliberately go after C-level jobs. 0:13:04.0 Chad Sowash: It was market penetration for the top of the... 0:13:06.1 Jeff Taylor: That's right. 0:13:06.7 Chad Sowash: For the top... For the executives. But... 0:13:07.8 Jeff Taylor: And then I also did... 0:13:08.8 Chad Sowash: The bidding piece, that's the thing that... Because you're just talking about that. So me... For me, that is interesting because programmatic is a pretty goddamn big deal right now. Right? 0:13:17.0 Jeff Taylor: Right. 0:13:17.2 Chad Sowash: So, you were early. 0:13:18.8 Jeff Taylor: Right. 0:13:19.0 Chad Sowash: You were early. What... What happened with that? Because Chief Monster, I remember being pitched because I had to pitch it. What was... What was the... The fatal flaw there? What do you think? 0:13:30.0 Jeff Taylor: So... So, I would say I had this basic idea that if you had a developer that a developer could put themselves out there, uh, where there's a little bit of mix between Monster networking and Chief Monster here. Right? 0:13:42.6 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. 0:13:43.1 Jeff Taylor: But I had the idea from bidding that... That a full-stack developer in today's language could put themselves out there and... And people could bid on that person. And there was the kind of slavery and... And the idea that, um, it was, um... You were trying to control a marketplace on a human being. And so, I would say that the pushback on the bidding model in that thing was that, uh, it just had never been done... Anything like that had never been done before. 0:14:10.9 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:14:10.8 Jeff Taylor: So, that was kind of where the challenge was. 0:14:12.8 Chad Sowash: Okay. So, going... Going a little bit further in and you were already gone and the market collapsed in 2008... 0:14:21.0 Jeff Taylor: Right. 0:14:21.5 Chad Sowash: And then we have a new winner coming out of the other side being Indeed. You being out at that point, watching things happen, and Monster wasn't dead, right? It was just losing traction quick. It was literally becoming the Blockbuster of our space. How did you feel? What did you see? And at that point, where... Is that where really the... The gears started turning? 0:14:45.2 Jeff Taylor: So now, you're asking me to make decisions for a company that I had sold all my stock in. Right? You know... 0:14:53.3 Chad Sowash: No, I'm talking about you. So, I'm talking about you and being able to look at this new thing like from the outside because you're on the outside looking in. 0:14:58.8 Jeff Taylor: I got it. I got it. Right. But you're asking me to call shots on... On a CEO that, uh, was not me now in that scenario, right? And so, um, I'm a big believer in you have to make sure you don't fall in love with your own shit and that you have to break it and if you don't break it in the middle of the night when nobody's looking, then someone else is gonna break it. And so, I was... I focused a lot more really talking about the culture of Monster. How many people here worked at Monster? Right? Uh, what was the culture like at Monster? Best job ever is sort of like... So, I focused on the people and I focused on the brand. And so, we did the Olympics, we did Super Bowl commercials. Like... I focused on what I thought were the big swaths that need to be done. Once I left... Oh, I also... I spent $200 million marketing to job seekers and I spent $20,000 marketing to human resources. And so, I... I always felt that if you marketed to the job seekers, that the HR people would see that. And so, my entire motion was to be the place to go and work, uh, as a employer, as a leader and the place to go to find your jobs. And what I wanted HR people to say is I was doing my job by creating that. Right? 0:16:22.9 Chad Sowash: So, right into that, best Super Bowl commercial ever. Right? Because that to me is exactly what you're just... You were just... That's the demonstration of what you're just talking about. 0:16:33.8 Jeff Taylor: Right. 0:16:34.0 Chad Sowash: Doing Super Bowl commercials isn't going after HR. That's not targeted, that is going after the job seeker. It's major high-level brand... 0:16:41.8 Jeff Taylor: Yeah. 0:16:42.2 Chad Sowash: That... That was amazing. Talk to me about that... That process. Obviously, I was there during that launch. It was really exciting for all of us. I mean, the blimps, all the other fun stuff, but talk about that just behind the scenes. 0:16:56.8 Jeff Taylor: So, there's... There's so many levels of this. One is, you're right, I was targeting job seekers, right? And I knew we had a model that worked. Some of you have models that work right now, you know when it works and you know when you have to press the accelerator. And we were right there and we had only spent about $3 million on marketing in 1998 and 1999 in 90 seconds, I spent $2.7 million. I spent my entire year before this budget, we weren't really doing consumer advertising yet. 0:17:30.9 Chad Sowash: And the tech did not implode, by the way. 0:17:33.0 Jeff Taylor: Uh, no. we actually... We built for it. Uh, we had very good tech, uh, and, uh, so decided to go in the Super Bowl is really interesting. It's the only show of the entire year where people say, shhh, shhh, shhh, the game is on and then people say, shhh, shhh, the ads are on. It's really the only show that you watch the ads. And we'll come back to this, but you wanna laugh and, uh, so you don't know when to pee when you watch the Super Bowl is really what it comes down to. And so, the... Uh, the thing for me was, okay, we have to do an ad and I wanna be there. What I completely underestimated was we probably got $10 million worth of coverage because we were first dot com that was going on the Super Bowl. And so, even before the game, I probably already paid for it. Uh, we had two spots in game and we had one spot in pregame. And the way you found out... So, the ads ran. You guys know this commercial, right? When I grow up, I wanna file all day, I wanna have a brown nose. Yes or no, sir. Anything for a raise, sir. I like the last vignette. When I grow up, I wanna be forced into early retirement, which is sort of our lives right now. And, um, what's interesting about this is that our commercial was ironic. Uh, and you've probably heard this story. I'm sorry for those that have heard. And, uh, so, nobody laughed. And so, the next day, the way you found out how your Super Bowl commercial did was you went to a USA Today full page adometer people that typed in and said, good ad, bad ad, good ad, bad ad. I was the fourth worst ranked commercial on the Super Bowl because we were ironic and people are confused. And irony in a Super Bowl is just an odd approach. But, uh, the... Uh, some of the critics really liked it and some of the value came in the Today Show and some of the banter afterwards. But... But our traffic grew... I was... I was trying to go back and look like 700%, uh, and our service did not go down. And that was when Monster, I'd say, probably hit the big stage. And we had already bought, uh, our first company in Europe, maybe second company and that propelled us to go be able to buy more companies, and that kept the flywheel going of growing the original Monster business. 0:19:50.0 Chad Sowash: Gotcha. So, you're... You're out of Monster, you're doing your own thing. When did you... When did you get the inkling that you wanted to come back? You say it's kinda like been this long journey... 0:20:00.8 Jeff Taylor: Right. 0:20:01.0 Chad Sowash: When did it happen? What was the point? 0:20:03.0 Jeff Taylor: So, I still don't know what the point is. Like, you're... You're... You're challenging me on this. I'm figuring that out. But ChatGPT came out, I was a pretty early user I think around maybe May of 2023 I started using it. And I started doing things like I was a recruiter very early on in ChatGPT and I'm like, okay, holy shit, like this... This is the first time I've got a product that will... I can ingest my resume and it understands it and it starts to make suggestions to me and I'm like, okay, I think the time... I... I... People have been saying to me, start another company, do this again and I just hadn't had the timing where I thought it was right and also didn't have the idea. And I started using ChatGPT, and this sounds a little like a commercial now, like it doesn't seem quite real, but I decided right then in the summer of 2023 that I was gonna come back into the business. And then I flew to Phoenix. I... I rode in somebody else's car, it was a Turo, stayed in somebody else's house. Obviously, someone else did my grocery shopping because there were six of us in a house and we were at a conference and I came back from that and that was in November of 2024 and... I'm sorry, November of 2023. And I basically said, okay, I think the disruption with the technology and I did an audit of the top 10 job boards and LinkedIn. I looked at everyone is still using our patents, my patents that I got for the buy or sell marketplace and for resumes on a paywall. There were CPC and CPA and there were, uh, other twists but generally it was the same. And so, I kinda like said, okay, like I think I can go back into this. And that's where the idea for Boomband came from. 0:21:51.8 Chad Sowash: So, back in the Monster days there... There... It wasn't easy to start a job board. You had to have developers to build a job board. Today, we've got job boards in boxes, right? So, back then, you were early... You were... You were there, you were the first guy. Right? You were... 0:22:06.9 Jeff Taylor: Well, I don't even know what you're talking about. It wasn't easy to start a job board, there was no such thing as a job board. 0:22:11.8 Chad Sowash: That's what I mean. It wasn't easy. 0:22:12.0 Jeff Taylor: The reason why it's called the job board is because we named our product the Monster Board and... And the board name of Monster actually stuck for other people's boards. Right? 0:22:22.2 Chad Sowash: Right, the forums. 0:22:22.3 Jeff Taylor: But yes, it was not easy. 0:22:23.9 Chad Sowash: So, it was not easy. 0:22:25.0 Jeff Taylor: No. 0:22:25.4 Chad Sowash: Right? 0:22:25.7 Jeff Taylor: So, we built the first board system... 0:22:27.0 Chad Sowash: But you... But you were early. 0:22:28.9 Jeff Taylor: Yeah. I mean, there were... There were 195 websites in the world. 0:22:32.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, competition-wise, no, not as much competition. Although, the newspaper, you were sucking dollars out of the newspaper traditional kind of... Traditional kind of dollars into the internet. 0:22:44.9 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, don't underestimate. These were some of the most powerful companies in the world that I was competing against. I got invited to speak at the Newspaper Advertising Association of America and they introduced me as the number one category killer of all time in the newspaper industry. That was the way they introduced me to go talk to 800 people. And so, yeah. 0:23:04.5 Chad Sowash: They didn't throw tomatoes? 0:23:07.7 Jeff Taylor: Uh, so... So, yeah, things were... Were different. But I would say right now it's like, okay, you're gonna build a company, you need to build a brand, uh, you need to have an idea, you need to get people around you excited about that idea, uh, and you need to deploy and solve a problem in a marketplace. There is no difference from 1994 to 2025. 0:23:29.7 Chad Sowash: It's a hell of a lot more noisy. 0:23:32.6 Jeff Taylor: Well, so noise is all relative. It was extremely noisy back then and I was making no noise. Right? Okay, it's extremely noisy... Noisy now and I'm still making no noise. Like, I'm just starting. People don't know what Boomband is. Do you wanna know why I named it Boomband? So, the Dr. Seuss book, Oh, The Places You'll Go... I love this book, by the way. Do you know this book? At the end of this book, it says, don't go to the waiting place, go where the Boombands are playing. And I always got to that spot in the book and I'm like, yes, that's where I wanna go, that's my life, that's my career and I love the joy. And I don't know what happened, but all the power is now sitting in the HR stack and there is no joy. You've got a queue line that's a frigging mile long of applicants and every recruiter is like, this is the worst time ever for what that queue line looks like, like it's really bad. So... So, part of me in starting Monster was to find the joy in the disruption and then push it. And that's what I'm gonna do again. 0:24:39.3 Chad Sowash: But you think competition is the same. 0:24:43.0 Jeff Taylor: No, I didn't say it was the same. 0:24:44.1 Chad Sowash: Okay. Okay. 0:24:44.9 Jeff Taylor: I... 0:24:45.9 Chad Sowash: It was noisy before but... 0:24:46.9 Jeff Taylor: There's... There's a cool expression. Uh, it's like when people say that history repeats itself, I like the expression that it rhymes. 0:24:53.2 Chad Sowash: It rhymes, yeah. 0:24:55.0 Jeff Taylor: I think that's really good. Right? And there's a lot of rhyming. If you look at 1994, the internet was just getting huge. It's funny, I was in the Shaker booth and I listen in Station 2 and it says, World Wide Web starts in 1989. Well, actually it didn't because the internet was starting to be popular in '89 but the... 0:25:15.1 Chad Sowash: DARPA. 0:25:15.8 Jeff Taylor: Uh, but the web, uh, the browser was in 1994. At the same time, email, Hotmail was free. So, you had... Um, you had a rocket ship and you had the ability to get on it for free. Right? And then H1B visas got approved in 1992. So, all of a sudden, you could hire outside of your region. The newspaper tools were failing. I don't know, a resume on linen paper that you licked an envelope and sent off to a company. I'm sorry, it was... It was not good. And so, the... 0:25:46.3 Chad Sowash: Faxing. 0:25:46.5 Jeff Taylor: The rhyming... The rhyming of right now is, yes, there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of players out here, there's amazing things. I've been going to all the booths and talking to people and I've been going to lots of the conferences, and I think that, uh, the interesting thing is that there's a lot more focus on what's happening inside the stack and I see an opportunity to build a talent graph and to build a marketplace similar to the vision that I had even in the noise. 0:26:15.3 Chad Sowash: So, you had mentioned it earlier, the web explosion. Right? The bubble bursting. 0:26:22.1 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:26:23.8 Chad Sowash: We're hearing a lot about the same happening with AI. What are your thoughts around that? 0:26:28.0 Jeff Taylor: So... 0:26:28.2 Chad Sowash: Especially getting into the space in building as a startup. 0:26:31.0 Jeff Taylor: So, ChatGPT, uh, I... I just have been doing some parallel checks. Right? And so, ChatGPT, a million people in the first week. Uh, I think it was like five million people in the first couple of weeks and 100 million people in the first two months. Right? And then if you look, the growth rate is actually slowing a little bit because it went from 100 million to around 400 million, I think, at the end of last year and I think it's at about 800 million million right now. I think I may have skipped one... One metric. And so, the growth of ChatGPT and the growth of the browser and the web together, they have similar pathways. And I think that because the businesses are different, the most important thing to look at is the pathways and look at the marketplace. And so, I think what you're gonna see is you've got a battle right now that's similar to the Lycos, AltaVista, uh, I don't know, Yahoo and Google battle. I think that battle is gonna go on now. I don't know how many of you use anything but ChatGPT. You use Grok, you use Claude. I love Claude, by the way, if you haven't used it. Right? So, I think we're gonna see this turf war and you know how everyone is making these hyperbolic statements and it's all about their raises and who's gonna raise the next trillion dollars, whatever. I think that battle's gonna continue, my prediction is for the next like two years. So, I'm thinking that the bubble, we're about it like the 1997, 1998, probably 1997 in the dot-com bubble... Bubble. But they were starting to talk about it, but it wasn't really until Amazon dot bomb in about mid 2000 that you really saw the bubble burst. And you know, you might argue that that AI is more transformative, the internet was something to ride and distribution. AI is actually reinventing everything. You might argue that the... The bubble won't even look the same, but you gotta figure that there's this insular thing that they're talking about where every company is doing companies with other companies and there's a lot of kinda money that's trading hands. But the thing is, these are the strategic kinda partnerships. When you start looking at some of the development tools that are going in ChatGPT, I don't know if you saw you know ChatGPT starting to actually do Zillow and do these other things. All this is really cool and it's a ride that we're all on. I hope you're on the ride. I actually don't believe the people that are saying, oh, it's overhyped and don't worry about it and it's not coming after my job. I would just ignore all that. I would say it's coming after my job and I have to do something about it and own it and learn it. I am a huge believer in actually being on the front side of that wave because right now they're talking about AI slop, but the AI slop is one of the... Gonna be one of the fastest things to fix. Everything is 10 times faster than, you know, kinda past explosions in the way we looked at the internet. 0:29:33.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. So, I have from a very good source that you actually had Boomband, not the name, but the actual product process on a whiteboard at Monster at one time. 0:29:48.0 Jeff Taylor: Yeah. So... So, I believe that resumes should be our people first of all and one copy always in distribution, easy to change. I don't really understand the kind of, um, hostage data model that happens in our world right now. And the idea that I'm here at this conference and, uh, I'm with Sean and I'm gonna take a picture in five minutes and I wanna post that. My life is changing just being on stage with you right now, my resume is still stuck in some company from a year and a half ago and it's being evaluated or not because some recruiters don't like to look at their applicants that are are in their pools. But I see this transformation happening and I'm... I'm really excited about this side of the marketplace and how we're gonna build this out. So, that's one of my challenges, this idea of one copy always in distribution, easy to change. 0:30:39.8 Chad Sowash: Right before we go to Q&A, my last question, you talked about browsers, I think, um, that is very poignant with regard to Google... 0:30:50.0 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:30:50.4 Chad Sowash: Putting Gemini into Chrome. They don't have to divest in Chrome now, they can keep it. 0:30:55.9 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:30:56.0 Chad Sowash: You also have Comet that's... That's coming out. Right? Perplexity is creating Comet. 0:31:00.7 Jeff Taylor: Yep. 0:31:01.0 Chad Sowash: Do you think that the browser could prospectively bypass the app or even a lot of what's happening on the web? Google's not... The way that the Google search of yesteryear is going away entirely. How do you think the browser is going to affect our businesses, especially startups? 0:31:21.1 Jeff Taylor: So, I like the idea of Chrome extensions and the idea of being able to kind of track movement and to be able to serve ads through that process. I like the idea of being able to manage your career so that you could get feeds from different things through that. I think the biggest challenge overall is at Boomband, we're mapping the entire labor market right now. So, we're mapping 175 million people in the United States States, building a... Kinda a dossier, we call it unclaimed dossier for all 175 million and we've also ingested 10 years of all the companies' job postings. And so, we're gonna start to do some forecasting on job postings. We were talking about this on the phone and... And I... I'm hoping to get it 65 to 70% right on both sides and then I'm building an arena for matching. So, if I go to your specific question, I think one of the problems we're having right now is yes, you can use ChatGPT and you'd say, okay, go find me somebody that was at a, you know, series B company as the head of marketing and do basically what you're seeing out here in demos. I think the reality is it's not finding or looking at the whole marketplace and my... My theory is that the whole marketplace should be transparent and you should have access to it and you have the ability to actually go and search into that to find the most qualified people. 0:32:40.9 Chad Sowash: Literally workforce intelligence on steroids compared to what we've been... 0:32:43.9 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, so all of the... The kinda bolt on tools are not looking at the whole marketplace, they're looking at whatever they can find... 0:32:52.0 Chad Sowash: Segments. 0:32:52.3 Jeff Taylor: And I... I did a post on like the ant farm theory and you know, the idea that you actually... An ant can find a piece of chicken then all of a sudden there's a thousand ants on that piece of chicken. You know, you see this, right? And I love this... This concept of like what happens is the reinforcement learning of AI and you have a applicant that's really hot, the system says, okay, that's a good applicant and starts pushing people toward that person. And so, I think we're gonna limit the exposure, the fairness factor. Once you do that, some people are gonna get isolated and get burned out right away and other people aren't gonna get found. I love the idea of getting found, creating a randomized engine for people that are close in qualifications so that we actually distribute the wealth. And so, I've got some ideas in this new arena. 0:33:42.3 Chad Sowash: All right, questions anybody? Come on, Ethan, give me a break. You know you wanna... 0:33:47.0 S?: There you go. 0:33:47.8 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, how about no mic, I'll just repeat it. Go faster. 0:33:52.8 S?: All right, so you talked about Zillow and now Walmart's gonna be directly selling in ChatGPT. I'm on the vendor exhibitor side as well but as I look at the future of the business, why would anybody go to Boomband or anything I'm building if everything can happen and... And ChatGPT becomes an operating system and a browser. To your point, why do we need all these new apps? They have $300 billion in value to out-build you, me or anybody else in the room. So... 0:34:24.7 Jeff Taylor: All right. 0:34:24.8 S?: Why do we need Boomband. 0:34:26.0 Chad Sowash: We're gonna have a bunch of vendors on suicide watch, Ethan. Thanks. 0:34:28.9 Jeff Taylor: Well, well... So... So, I think what you're saying is the values in Walmart are the values in Zillow, right? And that's why they're being sucked in. So, you're gonna still have to create value, but AI is basically a distribution engine and it has embeddings. So, it can actually do a better job of matching people. So, I can... I can imagine just like I was at AOL powering their career site, that Boomband could be powering its own ChatGPT. So, like, I... I think that that is the challenge right now. That's the unknown. I... I don't claim to have the answers here, but I know you gotta be in it and you have to have something great. And so, what are you gonna say? I guess I might as well not build something great and, you know, I'll just let it happen, right? That's fine. That's not what we're gonna do. 0:35:16.0 Chad Sowash: All right, who else? No? 0:35:17.8 S?: We... We got next speaker in six minutes, so we gotta turn. 0:35:20.0 Chad Sowash: Six minutes? 0:35:20.9 Jeff Taylor: Yeah, I'll... I would love to talk to people out here. 0:35:24.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Where are you at, Jeff? You're gonna be... 0:35:26.0 Jeff Taylor: I... I'm... I'll just come right out in this area right here and talk to people and thank you for coming and saying hello. 0:35:30.7 Chad Sowash: Round of applause, guys.

Personio: Going Big or Staying Home? The latest episode dives into the curious case of Personio, which recently announced its first-ever quarterly profit for Q1 2026. While CEO Hano Renner hailed this as a "major milestone," the hosts are less than impressed by the lack of transparency regarding actual revenue numbers. Despite the "in the black" celebration, the company’s simultaneous announcement of an acquisition of Aurio comes off as "thirsty", maybe more of a distraction, or just sloppy marketing. More In This Episode: Big Tech’s AI Fire Sale: Companies like Meta, Amazon, and Oracle are cutting thousands of jobs to pivot billions into AI development. The hosts discuss the irony—and the "evil"—of firing humans to build the very technology intended to replace them. The Global Quality of Life Duel: Emi breaks down data showing that if the UK were a US state, it would be one of the best, leading in healthcare coverage, paid maternity leave, and life expectancy. Meanwhile, Lieven weighs in on how Belgium stacks up with its own impressive social safety nets. Ethical Lines & "Techno-Fascism": A deep dive into Palantir and the moral dilemma of employees who feel they are no longer preventing abuses but enabling them. Staffing’s New Operating System: Nomad Health makes a bold pivot from a staffing agency to a software platform. Opportunity or Survival? LinkedIn’s Dan Shapiro takes the helm as CEO at a critical turning point. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Emi Beredugo (00:10.546) Yes. Chad Sowash (00:28.217) yeah, welcome back to the Chad and Cheese HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. I'm Chad Burn, burn, burn, sewosh. Emi Beredugo (00:37.512) And I'm Emi, the sun is finally out in the UK, bear with me. Yeah, for two days. Chad Sowash (00:42.408) two days. Lieven (00:46.188) And I'm leaving, we should be organizing congresses instead of recording podcasts. Chad Sowash (00:51.615) Watch your mouth, always, always be reporting, recording podcasts. And on this week's show, Facebook burns, Starbucks closes, LinkedIn pivots, and maybe Personio should have just stayed home. It's about to get hot up in here. Here we go. Lieven (00:55.875) Mm. Chad Sowash (01:14.047) Welcome back guys. What's going on? In case you don't know, I'm back in the US. So right now I'm not in Euro Chad mode. I might be a little pissy just so that you know. Emi Beredugo (01:15.324) Hello. Emi Beredugo (01:24.776) And why's that? Do you not like being back home in the US? Chad Sowash (01:28.327) It's interesting because just a couple of weeks ago, was talking to JT, we were on the show, right? And I asked her, I was like, so what's the feeling? What's the vibe in the US? And she was like, people are just mad. I mean, people are just angry, know, more angry than normal. said it could be, you know, that kind of like that time of season, they're sick and tired of it being cold, and they want to be out when it's nice and sunny, and so on and so forth. But I think they're Emi Beredugo (01:44.559) gosh. Chad Sowash (01:56.927) There's more than that happening. It's been beautiful here. I'm back in good old Columbus, Indiana, visiting my daughter before we go to Chicago in the RLX. But yeah, mean, it's the mood is a little bit more somber. Let's just say that. Emi Beredugo (02:12.274) So you're feeling it, yeah? You're feeling that people are somber and just not as happy as before. Chad Sowash (02:17.425) Yeah, and it's, mean, the discussions for the most part aren't, you know, starting on the positive side, looking at things to bitch about, you know what I mean? Which generally kind of gives the state of mind of a person, whether you know it or not, if you're going to be focusing on the bad stuff, because you're just in a bad mood, and you want to be pissed about something versus, you know, looking at the beautiful, shiny day in the UK that you might only have for two days. Emi Beredugo (02:25.352) Mmm. Emi Beredugo (02:31.602) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (02:44.456) Don't take the piss. mean, like, you know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's going to stay sunnier for more than a week. You know, you never know. Chad Sowash (02:47.613) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, Leven said that it's actually nicer in Belgium today than it is in the Algarve. So, you know, maybe I should be in Belgium today instead. Lieven (02:59.426) Yep. Emi Beredugo (03:00.393) perhaps. Lieven (03:03.596) Perfect place to be. Perfect place to be. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:07.507) perfect place to be. Now, is this the break pretty much right now and then you start to get better weather moving forward or is it kind of like spotty in Belgium? Lieven (03:20.428) I don't know, normally we have like rain all the time and since the climate is changing I'm pretty happy about the weather. We have a hot spring, have less rain. You won't hear me complaining but I know somewhere someone's getting fucked but we're happy. Chad Sowash (03:23.839) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:36.307) Yeah, but, leaving's all about, you know. Chad Sowash (03:44.255) Well, I've been lucky enough, obviously, to be back. Went to Phoenix for a client board. Went and spoke to the National Retail Federation. so I'm gonna jump, because this is a little bit moving toward my shout out. My shout out, because I remember back in the early aughts. Lieven (03:44.76) So, a win. Emi Beredugo (03:59.441) Ooh. Chad Sowash (04:09.971) when trying to get a success story from a TA and HR professional was worse than pulling teeth. I mean, you just couldn't get it. It was like, I wanted the launch codes or something, right? It's like, I just want to know what's going right. And you just couldn't get that. But shout out to all of today's TA and HR practitioners out there. Since last November, I've been at seven shows, and I believe Joel's been in about six of those that were practitioner heavy. And most of them actually practitioner led. Emi Beredugo (04:19.304) I Chad Sowash (04:39.675) not many vendors at all. And I think it's really important to say as someone in this space who digs deep into technology, I love to dig even deeper into the actual problems that are happening and only practitioners really can give you the sentiment of what's going on. And over the past seven months, they've opened up shared stories, their successes, and more importantly, their failures, which allow us to not only understand what's happening out there, but how to help the masses understand that they aren't alone in those problems. I think for so many years we've been in our silos, right? And there might be little groups here and there that get together, but today more than ever, we're starting to see practitioners come together and really look to work together for shortcuts. Instead of saying, we're way different than you. We can't recruit like you. They're actually looking for similarities. Emi Beredugo (05:14.749) Yeah. Chad Sowash (05:35.197) and saying, wait, I can steal that from you. Yes, our company's not the same, but yet you've done some really smart things from a process methodology standpoint. So my shout out is to all of those companies who are opening up on their failures, their successes, and if you wanna watch some of those, you can go to thesessions.ai. We're actually prepping to drop two more seasons here in the next few months or so. Or just go to our YouTube channel and click on playlists and you'll see The Sessions, but. Shout out to all of those TA HR people who are actually sharing because sharing as Barney would say is caring. That's right Emi Beredugo (06:10.632) It's Karen. Yay! I love that I haven't heard that in ages. Lieven (06:14.71) So cute. Chad Sowash (06:16.499) Yeah, that's I'm here for. I'm here for the bingo card, card, Barney reference. What about, what about, what about you and me? What you got? Lieven (06:19.342) you Emi Beredugo (06:23.867) Oh, well, you know, as we were talking about the UK, I'm going to stay on topic because my my shout out is to my fabulous country, the United Kingdom. And yeah, and I'll tell you why. You might have seen this. There was data that kind of floating around. I think it's been floating around for a little while now, but it's actually saying that it was comparing the UK and the same to the US and the same if the UK was a US state. Chad Sowash (06:27.187) Mmm. Chad Sowash (06:33.789) No. Chad Sowash (06:42.547) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (06:50.58) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (06:51.794) the UK would actually be one of the best states in America. And I love this. I love the idea of this. I haven't seen anything like this before. And I looked at it I was like, my God, the UK is actually smashing the US. And this is someone who used to, my dream was to live in the US. And I've always had this thing about the UK going, okay, it's not that great, even though it's sunny at the moment. But I'll tell you why. And it's for a number of reasons. So one of it, Chad Sowash (06:59.103) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (07:05.791) You Emi Beredugo (07:18.856) One of the reasons is that we're apparently number one in healthcare coverage. So, and that's true. yeah, 100%. Because, know, I talked to my cousins and like my family over in the US and they're like saying, you know, if they want to get a kidney transplant, basically they're going to have to sell a kidney to actually pay for that kidney transplant. That's ridiculous, you know? Chad Sowash (07:24.127) Well, compared to the US, yes. Chad Sowash (07:37.517) yeah. Medical bankruptcies are the number one movement for somebody to actually go bankrupt year over year. Medical bankruptcies. Emi Beredugo (07:42.001) Yeah! Emi Beredugo (07:45.865) Yeah, I mean, we don't have that in the UK. We have like their national health service. So can't even imagine that. Number two, we're actually number one paid for giving paid maternity leave, which I love the idea of, you know, and the length of maternity is actually a lot longer than the UK because obviously if you have a baby, you want to know your baby before you actually go back to work. So we're brilliant from that point of view. Yes, we paid for, yeah. Chad Sowash (07:59.871) Yeah, that's amazing. Chad Sowash (08:08.511) Well, and you get paid. This is paid maternity leave versus FMLA in the US is 12 weeks of unpaid. Lieven (08:11.202) Thanks. Emi Beredugo (08:17.394) my God, they're like, no, it's like, why should it be unpaid? Exactly. You just got a new baby. Yeah, that's ridiculous. What else is there? Talk about paid stuff. We're number one in statutory paid holidays in the UK. And our holidays are a lot longer. So not this kind of two week vacation. mean, take me for example, I'm about to get on a plane to go to Brazil for three weeks. I can do that. So. Chad Sowash (08:19.539) Who can go 12 weeks without a paycheck? I mean, especially got a new mouth to feed. mean, yes. Anyway, sorry. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (08:38.889) I Emi Beredugo (08:43.908) another great reason for living in the UK. But also we rank first in things like life expectancy, years in education, having the lowest kind of murder rates. So we're basically a safer, smarter kind of country to live in. So yeah, so I mean, I'm giving it for the UK and you know, it just makes me wonder Chad, whether or not you made a mistake, because I know you love to like kind of class yourself as Euro Chad. Maybe Portugal wasn't the way to go. Maybe you should have come to the UK. I mean, what do reckon? Chad Sowash (09:14.387) Yeah, but I mean that comparison was the US versus the UK. I need to do a comparison versus Portugal and I guarantee you that's gonna be entirely different. Yeah, hmm. Hey, what about a little Belgium? How do they rank or how do they shape up against the UK? Emi Beredugo (09:19.79) Yes! Lieven (09:24.238) Thank Emi Beredugo (09:26.999) Well, depends where you go. I mean, you live in the Algarve, so yeah. Yeah. Lieven (09:41.358) Belgium. If you would compare us to the US, we wouldn't even be a state. We would be like a major city. We have 10 million people compared to the UK. doing, I checked the list. We are doing better on about half of the topics and it's about 50-50. So for example, I was impressed with your 28 days. Chad Sowash (09:42.676) Yeah. Lieven (10:04.782) paid 39 weeks of paid maternity leave, which is pretty impressive. We only have 15 weeks. I, as a man, have basically almost nothing, which is totally terrible. But I mean, 39 weeks, you could have a new baby by the time your 39 weeks are gone. You could make it a business model. Just keep producing babies and the government will support you. Excuse me, excuse me, I had three and... Chad Sowash (10:07.967) 39 weeks. Emi Beredugo (10:15.024) in 2026. Emi Beredugo (10:20.744) Yep. Never go back to work. Yeah exactly I like that idea. Chad Sowash (10:27.495) You can tell Leaven's never had a baby before. Go ahead. Emi Beredugo (10:29.638) Yeah. Lieven (10:35.5) In fact, I had twins even, I had some day I had two babies. Chad Sowash (10:36.831) Did you did you personally deliver them because this is a Guinness Book of World Records thing if you a man actually had the baby There might be a difference between the two leave and I'm not sure yes Emi Beredugo (10:39.687) Yeah. Not quite the same, yeah. Lieven (10:44.478) I was present when it was delivered. was present, which is a very hard thing to do too. Still, still, mean, anyways, we're getting off topic. But that's all. Life expectancy, for example, in Belgium is a bit longer than in the UK and years longer, of course, than in the US, of course. We have, what else are we winning? Emi Beredugo (10:56.154) I Emi Beredugo (11:06.93) course. Lieven (11:11.246) years in education people on average get educated for 19 years which isn't even that long I think but 19 and the US is only 17.8 sorry in the UK our minimum wage is similar I think 1448 dollars an hour it's awful okay it's awful yeah Chad Sowash (11:29.065) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (11:33.919) That is awful. But it's even worse than ours, obviously. $7.25. Lieven (11:41.058) Are you kidding me? Chad Sowash (11:42.239) Yeah, $7.25 and the euro obviously is worth more than the dollar is. So that's even worse than it sounds. Lieven (11:50.414) I was talking about dollars, it's 13 euros, 13.8 but still, but you're talking about 7. So, okay. My 15 year old kids would refuse to wash my car for such a... Okay. Oh well, I can imagine why everyone comes to Europe. Chad Sowash (11:53.272) okay. Chad Sowash (11:57.503) 725, yeah, that's the federal minimum wage, yes. Chad Sowash (12:05.343) Hahaha Chad Sowash (12:12.051) Yeah, but I gotta say. They did well in and when it comes to the UK and it's funny because I think we definitely need some run some numbers around some of the other European countries. The UK to some extent, especially when you take a look at like overprocessed food and obesity, they're number two behind the US. So I think I think using the US as a low bar when it comes. So we're going to have to dig into some more countries. Emi Beredugo (12:34.852) Yeah, 100%. Lieven (12:39.202) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (12:40.712) You you know, as I had McDonald's for lunch today. And it's like, Lieven (12:44.045) Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:45.343) Yeah, exactly. Leave it leaving. You got a shout out. Lieven (12:47.438) We have, we have 59 % sorry, 15.9 % obesity. Is that right? Right. Where's the business obesity, obesity and Belgium, say obesity test, whatever. So 15.9 for in the UK, it's 29. That's the big difference indeed. Okay. Anyways, my shout outs goes to the big tech companies who are actually now firing people to be able to invest in AI, which might someday replace those people. Chad Sowash (12:54.195) Yeah, yeah, obesity percentage. Lieven (13:16.694) So you just have to imagine, I mean, getting fired because of AI sucks, but getting fired because your company wants to invest in technology, which might someday take your job. That's even worse. So this is what's going on right now. And what was the matter? I was going to fire 8,000 people. Amazon fired 30,000, Oracle is firing people. It's all over the place. Everyone is getting fired because there's like a race to invest in AI, not knowing where it will end, but Chad Sowash (13:16.927) Maybe. Chad Sowash (13:27.391) Mm-hmm. Lieven (13:44.94) For a company like Meta, which has tons of money, they're investing 130 billion this year, which even to them is a lot of money. So now they have to let go of 8,000 people to invest in something which might someday replace those people. well, I think we should all take an example of Google who used to have their baseline saying, don't be evil. We need to get back to those days. Don't be evil, big tech. Used to have, used to have, a long time ago. Chad Sowash (14:07.871) Used to have yes used to used to have unfortunately, I know the the beautiful thing is We here at the Ched and cheese podcast. We don't do evil. We give away free stuff Emi Beredugo (14:11.098) Yeah, that's what I'm Lieven (14:15.864) Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:35.103) every time. Chad Sowash (15:34.431) That's right. look, Emmy's got her chicken cock cup out. Emi Beredugo (15:40.038) got my chicken cock but can I just say something I didn't actually do you know where my birthday was Chad? April the 14th I didn't get anything in the post Chad Sowash (15:42.643) Yes, please. No way. Chad Sowash (15:49.875) Well, how come Steven didn't send you something? I'm to have a conversation with him. I'm going have a conversation. Emi Beredugo (15:52.419) Wow, I'm gonna have to have a word. I want chicken cock. I feel like left out, you know, I want to have chicken cock in my chicken cock mug. Chad Sowash (16:00.125) Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We might be able to make that happen and that's right. Our travel sponsor by our friends over at Shaker recruitment marketing is all this AI stuff getting you frustrated. Well, don't worry. Just jump over to shaker.com and leave your worries and expert hands. That's right shaker.com. So Emmy, clear your calendar. I'm coming to London. Emi Beredugo (16:05.692) Emi Beredugo (16:23.352) Ooh. Ooh, when? Chad Sowash (16:26.237) That's right. May 14th coming up for May 14th. Emi Beredugo (16:29.458) I'm not here. Every time you come over to this region, I'm not here. Are you doing this on purpose? Chad Sowash (16:33.151) my God, and I was gonna bring, and I was gonna try to bring some chicken cock. Okay, maybe next time, maybe next time. I'm going over for the JobBoard Connect unplugged event. I'm a virgin on this one. Have you guys been to any of these JobBoard Connect? No, I haven't either. This is, Julie's gonna be speaking at it and I'm gonna be speaking too, so that's good. That's two birds, one stone. Then I'm doing a couple of online events. Emi Beredugo (16:38.618) Yeah, yeah. Emi Beredugo (16:48.078) No, no, not at all. Chad Sowash (17:00.647) Remember these things? happened during COVID. They're few and far between now, but I was asked to join this Fusion event that was happening just to kind of check it out. And I thought, what the hell not? I'm going to be in the Algarve soaking up the sun anyway. So on May 20th and 21st, we're going to hold two debates on those two days. One is over skills-based hiring. I'm going to be the moderator. I'm not going to be debating, even though I would love to debate. Lieven (17:03.534) Thank Emi Beredugo (17:25.957) Mmm. Chad Sowash (17:29.991) And then number two debate is over AI interviewing. So if you want to join the debates, discussions, or just be a voyeur and watch, go to HR week dot global. And you can always go to Chad cheese.com slash events. And you can find all the events we're going to be attending. Plenty more events coming in 2026, not to mention teaser in the music about the conference. Congress happening. later this year. If kids, we don't run out of jet fuel. That's problem. That is. You guys going anywhere? I know leaving, always going somewhere. Emi Beredugo (18:06.888) Which could happen. Lieven (18:16.024) Always going somewhere, that's right. But nothing worth mentioning here. No? No? Chad Sowash (18:18.591) But he's not going to tell us. Emi Beredugo (18:22.588) I know, he's so mysterious, isn't he? And it's like, yes, I am. And that is as much as I'll tell you. Chad Sowash (18:27.109) I am going to an undisclosed. Lieven (18:27.534) The only thing you need to remember is October 6th I'll be in Amsterdam for the Erecruitment Congress where Chad and Joel will be too. That's the only thing worth mentioning. Chad Sowash (18:35.689) Yes. Yep. More to talk about with that. I can't wait. It's been, it's been too long, but until then we're going to talk about, yeah, layoffs, layoffs. Uh, leaving already talked about Facebook a little bit. Meadow will cut thousands of jobs next month as it spends more time and money than ever on AI projects. A key reason for the layoffs is metas increased spending in AI, which leaving talked about what's 130 billion USD. That's a 100 billion British pounds. This is roughly equal to the amount it spent on AI in the previous three years, not to mention, I don't know if you remember or not, they lost $90 billion in virtual reality. Right? Okay, yes, so think, let that lay for a minute. And in other layoff news, according to an internal Starbucks memo sent to employees and seen by the Seattle Times, Emi Beredugo (19:23.272) Hmm Lieven (19:23.278) The metaverse, right? Remember the metaverse. Chad Sowash (19:37.311) Starbucks is in layoff mode. While the exact number of job cuts in their location remain unclear, the company said in a memo, quote, we are making structural changes to move faster, sharpen focus, and ensure we are set up to deliver on our most important priorities, end quote. Whatever those priorities are, who knows? The report added the layoffs follow a series of workforce reductions over the past year, including the closure of several. 100 stores across the US and Canada. So Facebook is burning through cash and Starbucks is burning through stores. Any comments, anything to add? Emi Beredugo (20:19.33) I have to add? It is freaking scary. I'm fed up with hearing all these stories about companies saying, yes, AI is going to take over. AI can increase the productivity of our employees. AI means that we don't need as many people. Or it just means that you're over hired at some point, probably during COVID, and you're still trying to rectify it. So like Leevon said, using, stop doing evil. Just be good. Be human. Look after your employees. And especially Chad Sowash (20:30.59) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (20:44.777) Which... Emi Beredugo (20:48.592) Like I read this thing about Mark Zuckerberg. What he's doing now is that basically what he's saying, it's kind of like something out of Black Mirror. So he's told his employees that they're going to track and log the interactions with the, you know, how they interact with their computers. So any clicks, yeah, clicks and keystrokes. And they're going to use that information to train and improve the AI models. Is that, you joking? So really what they're doing is that they're really trying to force Chad Sowash (20:52.765) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:05.682) Yep, yep. Mouse clicks. Yeah. Yep. Emi Beredugo (21:17.832) their employees to train their computers and train themselves out of a job. Is that that's what you're doing? Is that what is that doing to your company culture? No one's going to want to work there. You know, you don't trust your employees and you're basically telling them, yeah, well done. We're going to, I'm going to force you to train the algorithms who's going to replace you in a couple of years. Why? Chad Sowash (21:35.731) Yeah, well then you have Handshake, Mercor, and LinkedIn who are now starting to help companies, these companies, find experts in specific areas to help train the models in specific areas, whether it's coding, whether it's science, whatever it is. So there are all these different models that are being put in play to do just that. So get ready. Get ready. Emi Beredugo (21:52.987) Yeah. Chad Sowash (22:04.157) We got the meats kids. So HR software giant personio just announced its first ever quarterly profit in Q1 of 2026, proving that if you fire enough people and close enough offices, eventually the math starts to look less than a blood, less like a blood bath and more like business, mainly because humans have short memories following a grueling multi-year restructuring phase, which is Lieven (22:27.598) Mm Chad Sowash (22:31.529) corporate speak for multiple rounds of layoffs and fleeing the US market with their tail between their legs, Personio finally moved into the black. Now, how much did they make? They aren't saying, they're not telling us. In the same release, Personio announces its acquisition of Aurio, A-U-R-I-O, I think it's Aurio, which offers two AI agents. Agent number one is Kim. and AI sourcing agent and agent number two is Alex, an application screening agent. Brasonio is in the black and now has agents. Emmy, what's not to love? Emi Beredugo (23:15.45) it. It's amazing. I mean, for me, find it quite I'm interested in the fact that they went out so quickly and kind of went shopping and acquired this new organization because and I think it's very optimistic of them. They like you said, they have lost a lot of money. They have not been doing well over the years. You know, they've only just made a profit. And the very first thing they do is let's go shopping for a new company. Chad Sowash (23:16.668) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (23:43.517) Are you sure? Are you sure this is the right thing to do? Is this logical? Is this safe? Are you seeing, do you not want to wait for multiple quarters of profitability before you go and do this? Maybe they're thinking, maybe they are positive. I'm assuming that they are. But for me, I think it's a little bit of a reckless move from their part, even though they're trying to capitalize on what Oreo is doing. Oreo? Yeah, Oreo, yeah. Chad Sowash (24:08.809) down. Are you Oreo? I don't know. Is it is it the cookie? Is it not the cookie? I don't know. Yeah, no, you're right. mean, personio is raised over 770 million and over eight funding rounds. mean, so close to a billion billion dollars. And talking about being in the black is merely financial engineering at this point and buying a young startup that says they have agents seems a little thirsty for the spotlight. Emi Beredugo (24:12.392) Yeah. Lieven (24:15.586) Hmm Emi Beredugo (24:32.488) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:38.779) And or they included Ario in this press release to detract from the lack of actual numbers that they were giving around their profitability or their ability to get to, know, in the black. So if companies like Personio want to be taken seriously, you know, they have to start giving us numbers. Are you seeing revenue growth? Where? New countries, new products, or maybe just better retention and upsells? For me, a release like this Emi Beredugo (25:02.716) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:05.701) is just some sloppy and thrown together bullshit. Number one, they should have pulled together more substantial information about being in the black and telling a story about their road back. If not, shut up. Number two, separately, you splash the hell out of this new acquisition, pull together some videos of the product, hype it up, do some interviews, trying to put your brand in the same conversation as the Workday buying paradox move or the SAP buying smart recruiters move. Is it the same league? No, hell no, it's not. But does it matter when you're splashing product? It does not. No, get out there and be big. You either go big or you stay the fuck home. And for me, this Personio press release was two opportunities to have big, go big moments, right? But Personio said, no, we're just gonna go ahead and throw this out there and stay home. Last but not least, Hano Renner. Emi Beredugo (25:36.983) Mm. No. Chad Sowash (26:04.265) who's the CEO and co-founder of Personio said the following, quote, reaching our first profitable quarter is a major milestone for Personio. It means we can fund our innovation agenda from the strength of our business, independent of external capital cycles. It's an important step in building a resilient company and giving customers confidence that we're here in the long term. What that says to me is we are still not ready for the big leagues. We're not a resilient company. We didn't have the capital to innovate before. And someday our customers should gain confidence in Personio. Not only did they blow too big messaging and narrative opportunities, but the CEO just said, we're not ready for the big leagues. It's a go big or stay home game. And to be quite frank, for me, this was a stay home move, unfortunately, when they had go big opportunities. Emi Beredugo (26:42.716) Please think we're good. Chad Sowash (27:02.74) Leaving? Lieven (27:04.686) I never worked with them or never used one of their products. So I'm not going into the quality of what they have to sell might be very good. I don't know, but they've been burning money since 2015, I believe something like that, which is quite a time. And like I said, Shets, someone invested or many people invested about 700 million in them. But if I was an investor and they were just doing whatever they were doing for over 10 years, burning money, I would get anxious and. Chad Sowash (27:11.741) Hmm? Chad Sowash (27:18.143) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Lieven (27:34.358) If their business model is getting more money just to be keep to keep doing whatever they're doing, this might stop. So what I would do in there, if I was them and they did the same thing, it's buy an AI company just to keep the investors happy for a few more years. And we'll see what happens. And the cost cutting thing they did is a very good trick to, to get into the black. If it's feasible on the long run, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing, but we'll see. Chad Sowash (28:01.076) Yeah. Lieven (28:02.742) But this might keep investors happy for a few more years, which is a business model on sich. We'll see. Chad Sowash (28:09.481) Yeah, well, I think the hard part is that first off, they spent a lot of money trying to get into the US, right? Trying to crack the US and it didn't work. they retreated back to where they were comfortable. They're going to have to try to crack the US again. That's that they have to be able to grow, to be able to actually create the type of revenue. that I would assume their investors want, they're gonna have to find a way across the Atlantic again. And that's not gonna be. Yeah. What's that? Emi Beredugo (28:46.268) Why did I fail the first time? I said, why did they fail the first time? Because they were only there for two years. Chad Sowash (28:54.301) Yeah, well, mean, this is something that I don't want to say is typical, but we see from many European startups, when they want to come to the US is they believe they can do a big splash and then everything just comes like it did in Europe. And it's the same thing vice versa. Americans think that they can invade Europe the same way that they work in the US, and you just can't. And I think, you know, most of these European companies feel like if they take the same model and they just push it over one way or the other, it's going to work. it just doesn't. You're lucky if it does, right? You were really lucky if it does. Emi Beredugo (29:29.413) It doesn't? Yeah. Lieven (29:31.574) Yeah, we Europeans, we always think the US is an easy market. It's tons of customers and one language, almost one legislation, at least not as fragmented as in Europe. So it seems like an easy market. The only problem is so many other companies think the same. So it's a very flooded market. It's a red ocean. And in my experience, many companies have one plan. Chad Sowash (29:40.679) Same language. Chad Sowash (29:51.625) Mm. Emi Beredugo (29:53.128) Mm-hmm. Lieven (30:00.59) Plan is we're going to the US, but what are we going to do in the US? They don't have a clue. Are we going to conquer the US? They're just going to do whatever they were doing. Yeah. And it's probably not the same thing they should be doing, but I get the urge to grow in the US. It's still, it's the biggest market. Emi Beredugo (30:07.708) in the same way we did in Europe, as in Europe. Yeah. Chad Sowash (30:23.121) It is, but you have to be committed and it has to be sustainable. And that's one of the hardest things I think for companies to understand going in. again, the big difference, you coming over to the US, there's a lot of noise thinking that regulation is pretty much the same because it's one federal regulation. Well, then all 50 states have their own regulations. You don't know how many UK practitioners I talked to in Lieven (30:28.558) Hmm. Lieven (30:48.686) Yeah. Chad Sowash (30:52.841) Harfordshire, about a month or so ago, who were just blown away by just the chaos that was happening from a regulatory standpoint in the US, whether it was no guardrails versus going local and having specific guardrails in different locales. So yeah, mean, it's tough to navigate and you get to the point where... Emi Beredugo (30:55.026) Well done, good. Lieven (30:57.794) Yeah, and I think... Emi Beredugo (31:05.821) I can't keep up, yeah. Lieven (31:27.552) And it would of course help if you have something to offer which nobody else is. that isn't the case in many... It isn't often the case. Chad Sowash (31:34.419) That is, yeah, yeah, no, I agree 100 % kids. We're gonna take a quick break. If you have not, go to our YouTube channel, check it out, like and subscribe, do that, do the same thing on Spotify and give us a review. Love us, hate us, doesn't matter. We love to hear from you and we'll be right back. Chad Sowash (31:56.104) All right. So as an employee, where do you draw the line between your beliefs and your company's beliefs, the products that they build, the outcomes, those types of things. And in case in point, Palantir may have directly, you know, been involved in the Trump administration's ice crackdown on undocumented immigrants and an effort that's been implicated in numerous deaths. but it gets worse. It's not clear what Palantir's role was in the deadly strike on the Iranian school killing 120 children, right? And one Palantir employee asked in a Slack channel, quote, were we involved? And whether the company is doing anything to stop a repeat. And this is quoted by Wire magazine. Then last week Palantir poured fuel on the fire with a 22 point summary. of their CEO Alex crazy carps 2025 book, the technology, the technological Republic, hard power, soft belief and the future of the West and ominous corporate manifesto that create critics called a hideous ideology. An example of techno fascism. I can hear you. And me, it can hear you typing away. This is taking notes. like that. This is given some Palantir employees pause. One employee says, we were supposed to be the ones who were preventing a lot of these abuses. Now we're not preventing them. We seem to be enabling them. Emmy, leaving as an employee. Where do you draw the line? You've got this company, you have another company called Andral that's in the US that's doing Not as bad stuff because they're a much younger company, but there it looks like they're on the road to doing those things How do you how do you square? How do you square this? Emi Beredugo (33:59.571) What I would say in an ideal world, when you join an organization, you're not just thinking about the job. You are also thinking about the culture. You are thinking about what the company actually stands for. You are thinking about the customers they interact with because that organization is a reflection of yourself. But that's in an ideal world. I'd like to think that, and I truly believe that if I was looking for another job, Chad Sowash (34:11.561) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (34:20.767) Mm. Emi Beredugo (34:28.136) those are still the same questions that I'd ask the employer. And those are the things that will influence my decision as to whether or not I would want to work for that organization. And I think that when people joined this organization back in the day, that is what they came across as an ethical organization. They came across as an organization that was doing good. Somewhere along the line, the CEO has changed his mind, he's changed directions, and he's basically saying, get on board or basically get the fuck out. Chad Sowash (34:46.548) Mm. Emi Beredugo (34:56.86) You know, and an example of where he's saying get the fuck out is because when people are asking, like you said, are we involved in these things? You know, this doesn't really align with my values. He's saying, cool, I'll tell you, but you have to sign the NDA, which means you'll find out, but I'm not going to tell, you know, you can't tell the colleagues. So he still stays close-knit or I'm just going to carry on scrubbing Slack messages of people talking about this. Chad Sowash (35:17.171) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (35:26.236) But like I said, that is in the ideal world. I think that whilst people should still do this, whilst people should still ask these questions, whilst this should be a driving factor as to whether or not you take your job, I also know that the market is shit. So people may suspend their beliefs if they've been out of work and go, I need to pay my bills. So yes, yes, I do not agree with this. Chad Sowash (35:47.359) Mm-hmm. Lieven (35:47.586) Hmm. Emi Beredugo (35:53.779) But I'm in a situation where I can't pay my bills. My kids need to be fed, for example. I've been out of work for months. What are they going to do? What's going to be the driving factor then? So I find it very scary that we're in this situation. I find it very scary that this guy is in charge of an organization. I find it very scary that he doesn't care that he's changing the culture. And in fact, that he's finding ways to drive out people from his organization that don't align with his culture, with all these tactics that he's doing. and then he'll build an army of employees who all have the same political beliefs, because that's what he is. He's pushing his political beliefs on his employees. So I think it's a very sad, scary world. Chad Sowash (36:35.933) Leaving, is it sad and scary? Or is it just trying to make a buck out there? Just a guy just trying to make a buck. Emi Beredugo (36:41.704) Bye. Lieven (36:43.822) It's certainly scary, I think, but I'm not naive. think we need a strong military and given the geopolitical situation, Russia, China, Iran, cetera, the U S needs a strong army, I'm sure. And they're not making many friends, so they need an even stronger army than they used to. So I totally agree. And if I was a brilliant engineer, you might've convinced me to work for a company investing in the military activities. Why not? It would be, I'm not a hypocrite. mean, so I would do it. might have done it, but what's happening now is something else. We're not talking about developing the military to defend United States against foreign problems. We're talking about using AI to, to, to do stuff to the own, to the own, to own people to, I'm not sure how to say it in English to, to make sure those, you know what I mean. You're using AI against your own population. And this is not something I could support. yeah, what Amy says is right. mean, it's a hard time. And if you have a job, you need a job. I need to feed your children. But these are engineers. Those people can work. If they're very good in AI, they can work wherever they want. There are still a lot. So they have the possibility to choose. in French, they have a saying, and I'll translate it afterwards. Emi Beredugo (37:46.792) Yeah. Chad Sowash (37:47.146) yeah. Big brother. Lieven (38:12.558) whenever the people who are disgusted are leaving, only the disgusting people are staying. And this is what's happening all over again. So if you're not leaving now, then it's your own choice. If you keep working for a company like this company, it's your choice and you're entitled to your own choice, but it's your choice. So don't say you didn't know it. Emi Beredugo (38:20.07) Yeah. Chad Sowash (38:20.105) Yeah. It's a very good one. Chad Sowash (38:34.953) That's a great, that's a great one. That's a great one. There's no question there's a corporate handcuff kind of situation that's happening. Much like Emi had said, Karp knows the market sucks. Karp believes AI will start taking jobs soon. AI taking jobs means less jobs, needs less people. Employees are stuck between a rock and a hard place. And do I say grin and bear it? Or do you say get the fuck out? Lieven (38:56.302) Mm. Chad Sowash (39:03.679) These two options are always available, but when the market sucks and the possibility of a market retraction through AIs on the horizon, what do you do? Do you stay with the evil empire or eject? And I think no matter what the end result's gonna be the same, whether you leave now and you find a job somewhere else. Emi Beredugo (39:14.108) Mmm. Chad Sowash (39:28.767) or you are continuing to train this Palantir AI and then they just get rid of your ass anyway, right? So it's kind of like which, where do you, what stop do you want to get off on? Right? Do you want, go ahead. Lieven (39:35.534) Mm. Emi Beredugo (39:36.082) Which route did I down? Lieven (39:38.956) Yeah. And, you know, and I wasn't talking about the people working in the kitchen of Palantir, not talking about the people cleaning the offices. I'm talking about the people who actually making the difference, who are building this empire, this evil empire, which will be used against the own citizens. And this is a decision they know they made. I think. Chad Sowash (39:45.363) Yeah, engineers, yeah. Chad Sowash (39:52.798) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (40:00.704) Agreed. No, I totally agree. And I think those individuals, those types of engineers, especially the AI engineers, they're the ones with the control, unlike most of the other individual positions that might be under them. So yeah, the ones who are making the difference in Palantir today could prospectively just eject. And that might not be a bad thing. Emi Beredugo (40:13.959) Mm. Chad Sowash (40:28.553) Well, from, we're gonna go ahead and move on to a company that we haven't talked about in a little while. So this is from their press release. Nomad Health announced today its formal transition from a healthcare staffing agency, transition from a healthcare staffing agency to what? To a software platform company. Nomad offers its proprietary AI operating system to mid-market and enterprise healthcare staffing firms nationwide, end quote. Switching from a staffing company to a staffing a staffing operating system leaving. Did you and nomad just become best friends? Lieven (41:07.698) No, but it's not one of our companies. So I only become friends with my own companies. But it makes sense. Yeah, why not? Why not? We should look into it. But we used to say you can't go wrong with healthcare. We stopped saying this. You definitely can't go wrong with healthcare. Because of legislation. Chad Sowash (41:08.703) Hahaha Chad Sowash (41:13.959) Huh? &A, baby. Could be one of your companies. You never know. Chad Sowash (41:26.407) I'm sure, yes. It's not easy. Lieven (41:30.254) And I only know about Western Europe here. We have a company in the Netherlands called TMI, which is actually doing whatever Nomad is doing. And they are struggling now because of legislation. So the press is constantly against people investing in healthcare because they say something like private equity is getting rich on healthcare, but it's population who's paying for healthcare. It's not like in the United States where healthcare is something each individual has to pay for himself. Here healthcare is paid by the government, so basically paid by taxpayers. yeah indeed, so if a private equity company is investing in healthcare and they are charging a lot to attract Chad Sowash (42:06.783) Single payer, yeah. Lieven (42:16.992) or sorry, they are investing a lot to attract nurses, for example, and then they put those nurses at work and they make money on top of those nurses. It's the government who's paying. So it's a taxpayer who's paying for the profits those companies are making. This is what the press is kind of propagating. So I think the business model will have to change. And what Nomad is doing, evolving from traditional staffing to a platform, could be the way to go. Chad Sowash (42:20.318) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:23.924) Yeah. Chad Sowash (42:43.55) Mm-hmm. Lieven (42:44.736) then the people active on the platform are in charge and they decide if they want to be freelancer or if they want to be a nurse who is employed or whatever. And they just match those profiles, the nurses with the hiring companies, with the hospitals, et cetera. And it's a different way than just putting people at work and putting them on your own payroll, which is what was traditionally happening. We hired thousands of nurses, we put them on our payroll. And basically if we had them all, then we could charge whatever we wanted for them because we had the nurses and those hospitals needed nurses. This has to stop because people are just not accepting it anymore. So I think this might be what's triggering nomads to change business model. It's the opinion from the people and legislation. But I could be wrong. Chad Sowash (43:35.437) What do think, Emmy? Emi Beredugo (43:37.469) Yeah, I agree. think it's an interesting story because I don't think very often, or I certainly haven't heard of organisations just making this kind of massive shift, especially when they're doing well, because they were doing well. You know, was they were not struggling organisation. They were what is it? Forty two forty second on the fastest growing staffing firms list out of all the ones out there. Forty six on their SIA's list of largest health care staffing firms, if I'm right. So they were doing well. Chad Sowash (43:57.385) Dad. Emi Beredugo (44:06.28) they could have continued to have done well, they could have continued to grow. So I think it's quite a bold move. And I was trying to think about why, why would they do that? You know, and one of the reasons that I was thinking is because the healthcare market is hard and the margins are low. So in order to keep growing, I'm assuming they're going to have to keep adding heads. So that's obviously you're increasing your spend, which is going to affect your profitability. Whereas if they moved down this route, this kind of SAS route, what they're doing now is having higher profit margins with lower headcount. And they're selling their product, which they've actually been developing over the years, to their competitors as well. They know the market. So I think it's actually quite a clever move, but I think it's quite an interesting move and probably an unexpected move. But we may see. more organisations, particularly in the healthcare industry, move down this route or any other kind of industry which has that kind low profit margin kind of growth model. Chad Sowash (45:06.815) Yeah. Yeah. I think the question is a good question. Why make this move? And it's always my analogy, skate to the puck. know, skate to where the puck's going to be, not to where it's at. And I think Nomad is skating to where the puck's going to be. They have a raised total amount of funding of over 270 million, according to Clay. Emi Beredugo (45:21.435) at. Yeah. Chad Sowash (45:36.66) And again, we haven't talked about Nomad Health for years and both Joel and I were very high on them when they came out, especially during COVID when we needed essential care workers badly. So at least four years ago, I predicted Nomad should drop the idea of being a staffing agency and just become the rails staffing runs on. I mean, why compete with other agencies, especially when you're tech company and that's what Nomad is, why compete with other staffing agencies who desperately need to utilize technology better when you can literally just be the rails or the operating system that they run on. So then the entire staffing ecosystem turns into your client, much like you'd said. This would be a major disruption for companies like Bullhorn, but that's exactly what markets need to move. Emi Beredugo (46:04.487) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (46:20.007) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (46:28.349) when you need to innovate disruption. And I see this moving past healthcare, right? Healthcare is gonna be their first foray and then they're gonna open that TAM up. And when you start talking about being able to take like the big placement fees, well, you can have a few of those or you can have a little piece of every transaction that happens out there, right? Emi Beredugo (46:52.476) Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:54.127) And then you don't have to worry about much like Leeven had said, having them on your payroll, benefits, all that. So you don't have to worry about that stuff because you were just the platform that's running it. Atcast pulled off something similar from this standpoint of becoming a technology that all recruitment marketing agencies use to run their programmatic cost per click technology at one time, right? It was brilliant. Don't become a competitor, become the operating system, which is exactly what AppCast did. And it made them the number one platform for programmatic and distribution and pay-per-click. Then they committed the cardinal sin. They acquired Bayard and overnight became competitors to all those recruitment ad agencies. So yes, even brilliant plans can be thwarted by stupid humans. Emi Beredugo (47:27.783) Mm. Chad Sowash (47:43.552) I think that what I predict happening here is that no question this makes Nomad incredibly sexy to any tech vendor that's out there who wants to get into healthcare but they don't want to get into the messy stuff, the pay rolling and all that. They don't want to get into that. Emi Beredugo (47:58.833) Yeah. the compliance, yeah. Chad Sowash (48:04.327) You have these big staffing juggernauts who know that the only way forward for them is technology. They're going to have to buy somebody. And I would see somebody buying these guys up pretty quickly. The only problem with that is, again, being a system for all, if you get bought by a staffing company, you become a competitor again. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Emi Beredugo (48:26.397) Yeah. Chad Sowash (48:35.899) All right, we've got one more ad break again, kids go ahead. Check out Chad. She's.com whether it's interviews, the sessions.ai all that fun stuff. We will, we'll see you when we come right back. Chad Sowash (48:56.741) Okay, LinkedIn. LinkedIn always seems to get into the news, for goodness sakes. This time Ryan Roslansky is out and Dan Shapiro is in as CEO over at LinkedIn. Now change is usually driven by one of two things, the pursuit of massive opportunity or the absolute necessity of survival. What do you think's happening here? Opportunity or survival? Who wants to jump in? Emi Beredugo (49:26.598) Leave a like, you go first. Lieven (49:30.09) I don't know, think. Dan Shapiro is... He's been in the company for 15 years or something, for a very long time. Not sure if it was 15, but quite... Look, even longer, And there used to be Ryan Roslansky. He's moving out of the picture. I'm not sure why. I didn't get any scandal or anything. Maybe he did something we're not aware of. So I don't know why he was replaced, but... Chad Sowash (49:38.483) Yeah, like, yeah, almost, almost 20. Chad Sowash (49:48.425) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (49:53.929) Yeah. Lieven (49:58.87) I don't know Dan Shapiro. I always like it when people move in the company, but in the company. it's for me, it's better to have someone who knows the company, who's been growing in the company into that role. It probably will be a better CEO than someone who was hired just because he was a big name somewhere else. So that's a good thing. I have a love hate relationship with LinkedIn. Yeah, we spent tons of money on LinkedIn and LinkedIn still is the best. Chad Sowash (50:08.235) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:21.747) All right, bye. Lieven (50:28.046) resume database in the world itself. It's updates itself. It's great. But the way they sell their products to us is just too commercial. And also I asked them to sponsor a Congress and they will come, but they will not sponsor because of budget. But then I asked myself, if we spent literally millions on LinkedIn, then they should be able to offer something in return as a partnership. They're always claiming partnerships, but Chad Sowash (50:33.236) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:51.231) Mm-hmm. Lieven (50:57.518) For me, that would be a partnership. So I'm kind of angry with them right now. So this might, I might not be the most objective person. Anyways, I think AI is going to change everything, even for LinkedIn. And it could go very fast and the shift could be very abrupt, very sudden. And they have to be prepared because even a very big company like LinkedIn could become obsolete in a very short moment of time. So this guy could be the right choice. Emi Beredugo (51:02.024) you Chad Sowash (51:04.455) Understandable. Chad Sowash (51:10.58) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (51:24.308) Yeah. Lieven (51:27.214) I saw on LinkedIn, he used to work for Bain Capital. So he knows the business, he knows, I think he has the right strategic vision as far as I can see. But I wonder what his first actions will be. This will give me a better idea of how we might evolve or make the company evolve. We'll see, for me it's just too early to say anything basically useful on this. We'll see. Chad Sowash (52:00.627) Emmy? Emi Beredugo (52:01.961) So I think it's an interesting move. You asked if there's a, is it an opportunistic move or is it because they need to survive? I think it's an element of both. If I talk about the survival route, so since they were acquired by Microsoft, they have been growing. The problem is that growth has really slowed down. So I think they're seeing that, okay, cool, if this continues, they're going to struggle. they're going to be left behind. Somebody else has got something, some other products will come to compete with LinkedIn and take away from the kind of the market dominance that they have right now. So I do think that that's why this new guy has been put in. The old CEO, he's still in the organisation. In fact, this guy is actually reporting into this person who now works directly under Microsoft. So I think that's one reason. But opportunity wise, this guy knows the organisation inside out. Like you said, he's been there for donkey's ears. Chad Sowash (52:51.561) Mm. Emi Beredugo (52:59.534) And yes, he comes from a sales background. He is commercial. He knows how to drive revenue. In fact, the area that he looked after, he transformed the organization. He made it very, very profitable. And I read that when he made those successes in a division that he looked after, at that point, he was expecting to be promoted into a C-suite role. It didn't happen. And he was told at the time it's because, yes, you can sell the product. but you don't know your product. You don't know it inside out. So he went back, he did something which I've never very rarely heard of before. You go from this kind of high level executive role and he went back and became an individual contributor in a product team to learn that product. And then what happened? He actually ended up getting the role he has now as CEO. So he's got that strong suite of skillset to actually maybe move LinkedIn forward. Chad Sowash (53:32.159) Mm-hmm. Lieven (53:43.744) Nice. Chad Sowash (53:48.947) Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (53:53.14) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (53:56.473) make sure that growth actually is, yes, they are growing, like I said, but you know, it is very slow growth. So maybe he's going to actually accelerate the organization now and help to pivot, especially in the world of AI, like, you know, leaving said, then probably not going to stay dominating the market as they are now if they just stay as they are. So I think it's a good move. I am interested to see where he takes the organization. Chad Sowash (54:24.863) I couldn't agree with you more. think it is just as much about opportunities as it's about survival. For nearly two decades, a platform has dominated the professional landscape. But today, the rise of AI is just a feature. It's not. It's just a fundamental shift, right? Everybody thought, well, we're just going to have little AI features and stuff. This is shifting everything that we're doing. And it's turned the traditional job market on its head. Emi Beredugo (54:45.096) Mm. Chad Sowash (54:54.399) As Dan Shapiro steps into the CEO role, he isn't just inheriting a big name. He's inheriting a huge mandate to reinvent the platform. Now personally on Ryan's side of the house, I think he picked the right time to leave. LinkedIn for the first time hit five billion last quarter and things are about to get messy in our space. So hang it up and... Flip it over to Dan for goodness sakes. And smart leaders, I've always said smart leaders know when it's time for them to step aside. And I think this is a very smart move, especially since Dan's experience is tailor-made for this point in time, as you had said. A great example, and I didn't know this until I was listening in on one of Rebecca Carr's Ask Me Anything sessions. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be a CEO. So what did she do? Instead of, you know, just kind of like sitting around as a COO and trying to, you know, peek in and see what's happening every now and again. She became a chief of staff for a CEO. That's a huge step down, right? She was a chief of staff so that she could be there every day and see exactly what a CEO did. She could learn from the CEO. This is what smart people, smart leaders do. They understand where they're in, where they have gaps, right? Emi Beredugo (56:00.263) wow. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (56:17.329) Mm-hmm Chad Sowash (56:18.151) and they go and they fill those gaps with knowledge. And it doesn't matter if they had to take a step to the side or even down to be able to get that because that knowledge means more than anything. So I great. I've always liked Dan. I don't know Dan that well, but we've both been in the industry for a long time and we've crossed paths a lot. I think if he gets into a good focus for product, Unlike Indeed, Indeed is incredibly sloppy now. They don't know what they're calling their products. It has different deliverables on Monday versus what it did last Friday, right? If LinkedIn doesn't play in Indeed and they really focus and they sharpen their product, I think they have a great opportunity. But right now, it kind of almost feels like they're all over the place. Emi Beredugo (56:54.6) Hmm Chad Sowash (57:12.465) I hope we see focus. we see focus, I think this is going to be a good run for LinkedIn. Because to be quite frank, much like, know, Levin said, most of these companies don't feel like they have a choice but to spend money with Indeed and LinkedIn or pick one of them. Emi Beredugo (57:17.607) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (57:30.184) 100%. Lieven (57:31.863) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (57:34.119) All right, so we're going to go ahead and we're going to roll this in kids because that's right. I have a dad joke. No kidding. So I didn't get a chance to do this because Joel was on a couple of weeks ago with me and we were talking about science and space and Artemis. So I wanted to do a dad joke around science, right? So why don't scientists trust atoms? Lieven (57:46.529) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (57:57.648) Chad Sowash (58:04.125) Why don't scientists trust atoms? Lieven (58:10.24) I don't know. Emi Beredugo (58:11.054) No idea. I feel like I'm not clever enough for this. Chad Sowash (58:14.397) Because they make up everything. that's a science joke. That's a science joke. We leave in leaving still not there yet. It's okay. I'm going to translate it to into into Flemish and I'm going to send it over to you. Leave it. Leave it. Thanks. Thanks for coming on man. And me. It was great to see you. And until next time guys. Emi Beredugo (58:17.256) love that. Lieven (58:26.186) I didn't get it. Emi Beredugo (58:26.204) gonna use that one I love that one Thank you. Until next time. Lieven (58:30.303) I regret it. Lieven (58:34.71) Okay, promised. Lieven (58:39.512) Thanks a lot. Chad Sowash (58:43.794) We out. Lieven (58:44.601) out. Emi Beredugo (58:45.597) Yeah.

HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast: Now With 100% More Treason! Ever felt like your talent acquisition strategy was missing a little... extortion? This week, The Chad & Cheese Podcast - the only HR show your legal department actually fears —sits down with Jim Lawler, a man who spent 25 years convincing people to betray their homelands for Uncle Sam. If you think your hiring manager is demanding, try being a GS-11 Case Officer where the "onboarding" process involves suborning foreign officials and making them feel like their brain is in a "warm water bed". Inside This Episode of "Spy Games & Side Hustles": The Ultimate "Work From Home" Pivot MICE in the Office The 10 Qualities of a Top-Tier Spook The Billion-Dollar Swiss Humblebrag "I never recruited a happy person," Lawler admits. So, if you're miserable, under-promoted, or just really hate your boss, Jim might have a "consulting fee" and a "warm water bed" waiting for you. Tune in to learn why it's okay to get turned down, but never turned in. Learn more about Jim Lawler Jim's novels: Living Lies, In the Twinkling of An Eye, and The Traitor's Tale. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:24.764) yeah. It's the podcast your HR department warned you about. What's up, kids? It's the Chad and Chiefs podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sewash is writing Shotgun as we welcome Jim Lawler to the show. He's a national security consultant and a noted speaker on the insider threat in government, academia, and industry. He's also an author of multiple books focusing on the spy game and how recruiting plays an important Chad Sowash (00:30.51) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (00:35.576) Hello. Joel Cheesman (00:52.956) Jim, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Jim Lawler (00:56.854) Thank you, Joel, and thank you, Chad. Chad Sowash (00:59.64) So excited about this one, my friend. Let's hear a little bit more about you. What did Joel miss? What can you cover? Joel Cheesman (01:06.104) And can you tell us anything about you and is it real or not? Jim Lawler (01:11.552) Or is it just a cover story? No, can... Right, you're showing your age there, Joel. I use that line sometimes and tell about these commercials. Is it live or is it Memorex? And they had Ella Fitzgerald break a crystal goblet. I don't know if you remember that, but it was... Joel Cheesman (01:13.178) Is it live or Memorex, Chad Sowash (01:13.304) could be a cover story. A legend, is that what they call them? Legends? Joel Cheesman (01:19.216) Thank you. Chad Sowash (01:24.366) Yeah, yeah Joel Cheesman (01:27.292) We are proud aging men on this show, Jim. Don't you worry. You're in good company, my friend. Chad Sowash (01:34.453) Axers, baby. Jim Lawler (01:34.466) Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, I grew up in Texas and I was in my last year of law school in 1976 when the CIA came recruiting attorneys at campus. you know, when you're ever in your last year of law school or undergraduate school or whatever, you're only interested in finding a job. And I went to this interview and the interviewer, Mr. Bill Wood, he and I talked about the office of general counsel at the CIA. Chad Sowash (01:46.52) Hello. Jim Lawler (02:03.923) And then about a minute and a half into this interview, he said, Jim, have you ever thought about the clandestine service? I said, what? He said, the clandestine service. And he said, and I said, well, I don't know what that is. He said, well, I can't tell you much about it right now, but I think you'd be good at this. So I was in, I was intrigued and I took the application home, but sadly my wife's mother, we'd been married a year. My wife's mother was very ill. Chad Sowash (02:11.256) Hello? Chad Sowash (02:16.366) Ha reeling you in. Jim Lawler (02:31.061) There was absolutely no way we were going to move away from Houston, Texas to Washington, DC, and then thousands of miles overseas. So instead of going to work for the CIA, I went to work for a family business. And I don't know how many of your listeners out there have ever been in family businesses, but I bet you I can guess why they're no longer in family businesses. It's an F word. It's family. And Chad Sowash (02:51.33) Yeah Chad Sowash (02:55.342) Yeah. Jim Lawler (02:57.253) I was making a lot of money, more money than I'd ever make the rest of my life. And I was more miserable than I would ever be the rest of my life because it was so unfulfilling. And I came home constantly in the next three and half years saying what absolutely a horrible day I'd had. It was just terrible. And my wife got very tired of it. And after a while, after that three and a half months, she said, Jim, either do something about it or stop your belly aching. Chad Sowash (03:01.23) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (03:26.207) So I'd kept Mr. Wood's card and my wife's mother had passed away by now, so I no longer had that anchor around me. And I decided, okay, so I wrote him a letter and said, you and I had talked three and a half years ago. I couldn't take that opportunity then, but now I'm interested. And it was about three days later that I received a phone call from a young woman and she never used the initials CIA. All she said was, Mr. Wood received your letter. Joel Cheesman (03:33.616) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:51.48) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (03:55.596) Could you meet him next Thursday at 3 p.m. at the Holiday Inn on the Gulf Freeway?" And I said, yes ma'am. That conversation took 20 seconds or less. I went to the meeting. He and I spoke for a couple hours and he said, I want to fly you to Washington and have some tests. So two weeks later, I went for three days of testing. I came back. I went back about two or three months later for more testing, including the polygraph, which some people mistakenly characterize as a lie detector. Joel Cheesman (04:12.284) Hmm. Jim Lawler (04:25.057) It is not. It's a stress detector. But a few weeks after that, I got a phone call and they said, Mr. Lawler, we would like to offer you a job as a GS-11, that's a government-grade, case officer. Now that meant nothing to me. I had no idea what a case officer at the CIA does. But I found out. So on February 28, 1980, I started my job, about which I knew nothing, and I found out what their expectations were. Chad Sowash (04:25.198) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (04:36.918) Okay. Yeah. Jim Lawler (04:55.433) And to be blunt about this, because I don't like to sugarcoat it or whitewash it. What a case officer does is manipulate people, exploit people, extort people, subvert people, suborn people, and convince them to betray their countries, to become intelligence sources, to commit treason. And I found out, Joel and Chad, I found out that not only was I good at this, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Chad Sowash (05:06.446) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:18.288) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:22.19) So what did you enjoy most about it? Joel Cheesman (05:23.473) I can't what? And did you and did your wife? Did your wife agree with the assessment or say who did I marry? Jim Lawler (05:25.653) Being in control of people, persuading, persuading, persuading, no, persuading people to do something that is criminal in their country. And yet I was breaking other countries laws. There's something sociopathic, something about it that I enjoyed. And yeah, it was for national security reasons. And I could tell any number of spy stories about some of the people I recruited and how they helped, helped the United States. But Chad Sowash (05:34.072) Yeah. Chad Sowash (05:39.838) huh. Jim Lawler (05:53.735) I enjoyed it a lot. It's addictive. It's like an adrenaline junkie. You're an adrenaline junkie. You get a rush from this. And it was fun. I was breaking laws in other people's countries. Joel Cheesman (06:05.916) want to go back to the beginning, Jim. And by the way, I think I know that holiday and it's right next to a water burger, Chad, in case you know in Texas. Chad Sowash (06:06.626) and pay to do it. Chad Sowash (06:12.334) you Jim Lawler (06:12.769) Probably, yeah, I'm sure it is. You whenever we go to Texas, I always have to have my Whataburger quotes. Chad Sowash (06:16.482) Especially now. Joel Cheesman (06:18.84) don't, don't tease me with some water burger talk, Jim. I'll throw some, throw in some papacitos and some other stuff. you, this was the seventies and you filled out an application for the CIA. That was the first thing that caught my attention. What does the application for the CIA like encompass? I assume this isn't like a one page application. Jim Lawler (06:40.179) It's multiple pages. And by the way, it's much different now. I mean, now you do the application online at cia.gov, I'm sure. And so it's totally different from when I filled it out. I actually found a copy of my application a few months ago. I've still got a copy of it. And you list all your accomplishments, why you want to be in the CIA. You talk about different things. They want a writing sample. Chad Sowash (06:43.48) I bet. Joel Cheesman (07:09.391) huh. Jim Lawler (07:10.143) A lot of what we do in the CIA is communication. You have to be able to speak well, you have to be able to write well. so, anyways, that's it. Joel Cheesman (07:17.882) Are there, were there, were there job postings for the job back then? Was there sort of not come work for the CIA, but sort of a covert, if you're good at this and this, you might, so the advertising for the CIA is not, find people, they source and find you, right? Jim Lawler (07:22.717) No. Jim Lawler (07:26.731) No. Chad Sowash (07:33.432) So why attorneys? Yeah, I mean. Jim Lawler (07:35.637) Well, they, okay, that's a good question, Chad. Why attorneys? Well, they have an office of general counsel to either keep us out of trouble or get us out of trouble. Just like, just like any large organization. I mean, we're constantly under legal scrutiny. And, my being an attorney actually was a big advantage in my career as a case officer, even though I was not practicing law for several reasons. For one, for one thing, sometimes I posed as an international attorney. I don't have to pretend I am an attorney. Chad Sowash (07:39.118) Yeah. Uh huh. Jim Lawler (08:05.714) And so I was able to use that as a cover, which is very flexible, you know, being an attorney. Okay, number two, I was able to recruit foreign attorneys because they trusted me as a colleague and they would share things with me. Number three, I had the trust and the confidence of the real CIA attorneys. Chad Sowash (08:18.542) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (08:26.558) who are always a little concerned, a little nervous about how some idiot case officer is going to get us into a lot of trouble. Well, they knew that I knew the law and that I would only go so far. So I was able to basically have their confidence on some very risky operations that might brush up close to the law, but not across the line. Chad Sowash (08:48.792) So from 82 to 94, I believe it was, you had five different overseas, calm deployments per se, were those in different countries and did you get burnt in any of them? Jim Lawler (09:04.64) Okay, so. Joel Cheesman (09:06.78) Do you mean that literally or metaphorically, Chad, get burnt? What's the actual torture? Okay, he'll tell us. Chad Sowash (09:09.12) No, he'll tell, yeah, he'll say. Jim Lawler (09:12.576) So yeah, was in five deployments. Okay. So I was in, I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about this much, but it's well known. I was in Switzerland on my first tour and that was about three years long. And then we had two two-year tours in Paris, France. And then I was in Norway and Oslo. And then finally ended back in Switzerland as the chief of base in Zurich. Chad Sowash (09:31.637) Okay, nice. Jim Lawler (09:41.572) And so they were consecutive, you know, basically 12 straight years we were gone. Two of our children were born overseas and we loved it. was wonderful. I enjoyed all my tours. Chad Sowash (09:48.27) Sounds nice. Joel Cheesman (09:54.524) Sounds like a pretty posh tour. Chad Sowash (09:54.831) yeah, so like Switzerland and France, mean, were those in, have to help us dummies out here, were those targeting individuals from France or were they other individuals from other countries that were more susceptible because they were in a different country? Joel Cheesman (09:59.9) France, Norway. Jim Lawler (10:17.248) Well, I'm going to be a little vague about this because I can't talk about specific targets, but it's true that a lot of times we have third world or third country people. I for instance, you might wonder why we have a lot of CIA officers in either Latin America or Africa. Well, it turns out there's a lot of Chinese and Russians in those countries. And we may not be interested per se in somebody from Namibia or from Chad Sowash (10:19.48) Okay. Chad Sowash (10:27.886) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (10:37.944) There it is. Jim Lawler (10:46.004) whatever country, Argentina or something, but we're very interested in the Russians or the, know, the SVR, the Russian intelligence officers or the Chinese intelligence officers. And they feel more, you know, more willing to chat with us because they're in a country that's not theirs. Joel Cheesman (11:04.764) I want to take a step back, Jim, because our audience isn't necessarily in the spy game or know a lot about this. Talk about what the CIA is, the history of it, the allegiance or the connection to the president, and then we can dig into more specifics. But I think it's important to just lay out what the organization is and what it does. Jim Lawler (11:25.248) So during World War II, we created an intelligence service called the OSS. And after World War II, the OSS was disbanded. Well, this was a mistake because as you may recall, this was during the Cold War. And by 1947, the CIA was created out of remains of the OSS and some earlier organizations. So we trace our origins back to 1947 and we were created. to prevent another Pearl Harbor surprise. When Pearl Harbor happened on December 7th, 1941, we had no central intelligence. We had no national intelligence service. And it was an intelligence failure that we were able to, you know, we were the victims of a surprise attack from Japan. So we were created to prevent that and also to confront the very aggressive behavior of the Soviet Union. Chad Sowash (12:12.174) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (12:22.228) that was engulfing all of Eastern Europe and threatened to engulf all of Europe. So that's what we were created back then. And a lot of the OSS veterans went into the CIA. Joel Cheesman (12:35.964) And you were there for quite an interesting period of time. So you started, I guess, under Reagan, the beginning of the Reagan administration and leaving and Clinton. you, you saw sort of the height of the cold war, the, the, the, the upscale and weapons, and then you saw the fall of the Soviet empire is the Soviet union. What kind of what, what I assume the interest level in joining had has ebbs and ebbs and flows talk us through sort of. Jim Lawler (12:56.778) That's correct. Joel Cheesman (13:04.984) the eighties and the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union. What was recruiting like? Was it easier when the Cold War was in? Was it hot? you do recruiting slow down when the Soviet Union fell apart? Just talk about that period because it's such a fascinating time in geopolitics. Jim Lawler (13:21.856) Well, certainly during the Cold War, had a primary target was the Soviet Union and all of the Eastern Bloc countries that were under the Soviet Empire. But then, in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, the wall came down in Germany and suddenly we thought, well, we've conquered communism, which we had. However, what was left was a lot of snakes in the garden. And you saw what Vladimir Putin, you know, he is now the new czar. Basically, he wants to be the czar of all the Russians. We have a very persistent threat from China. In fact, sometimes people ask me, which is the greater threat, China or Russia? And I'd say probably in the long term, it's going to be China. In fact, some of my friends once said that, you know, what Russia is, is like upper Volta with nuclear weapons. Chad Sowash (13:56.291) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (14:17.981) They have nuclear weapons and that's about the only thing they've really got. There you go. Yeah, basically a gas station with nuclear weapons. China though, China is a real threat. know, our focus, my focus changed. mean, I was initially known as what we call a generalist case officer. I would chase Russians, I'd chase Chinese, I'd chase whomever, but Joel Cheesman (14:21.86) A gas station with nuclear weapons. Chad Sowash (14:24.366) Yeah. Jim Lawler (14:46.813) Then on my one of my last overseas tours, I found a new target that I was really concerned about, and that's basically stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And that to me is a very righteous cause to prevent countries like Iran or Libya or other Syria from getting nuclear weapons that we feel like they would use those either on their own people or their enemies or on us. And so I switched my focus to counter proliferation. Chad Sowash (15:01.418) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (15:16.863) And I had the pleasure of leading a team which took down Dr. A.Q. Khan, who had the most dangerous nuclear weapons network in history. And so we took that down. We disarmed Libya. Muammar Gaddafi, at the time, he was acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, but we were able to penetrate his organization and Dr. Khan's organization and basically disarmed Libya, which made me feel good. In fact, a few years later, after Gaddafi was overthrown, I think it was in the year 2012. One of the analysts at CIA said, Jim, you know, if you had not stopped him and taken away those nuclear weapons, he would have used them either on his own people or on neighboring countries, maybe on European countries. And the weapon he was going to use would have been equivalent to the same little boy weapon that destroyed Hiroshima and killed 140,000 people. Joel Cheesman (16:03.066) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (16:13.639) It was a 15 kiloton device. To put that in perspective, if you guys remember the Oklahoma Federal Building explosion back in 1996, that killed about 165 people. The fuel air explosive that Timothy McVeigh used was equivalent to one and a half tons of dynamite. I'm talking about a bomb that would be 10,000 times more powerful, 15,000 tons of dynamite. And that's what Qaddafi would have had. Chad Sowash (16:21.154) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (16:21.244) Sure. Chad Sowash (16:43.726) So how do you recruit? So from a CIA standpoint, you've got two different areas of recruiting that's happening here. You've got from a CIA standpoint, you're recruiting within the United States, I would assume, for individuals who are working under the CIA. And then you have to actually go recruit assets when you're in country. Jim Lawler (17:05.193) Well, recruiting people to work for the CIA is not particularly difficult. mean, a lot of people, we get tons of applications. In fact, they jokingly say, and maybe it's not a joke, that it's easier to get into Harvard than it is to get into the CIA. I don't know. Chad Sowash (17:09.324) Okay. Chad Sowash (17:16.75) Well, it sounds like with all the assessments that you had to go through, for God's sake. Jim Lawler (17:21.661) Yeah. So, but we have lots of patriotic Americans, know, well-intentioned Americans. In fact, I counsel a lot of young people who are interested in careers, either at CIA or FBI or DIA or NSA. And if any of your listeners are curious about that, you know, you can give them my email address. recruiting a spy is basically you're trying to convince that person to commit treason. So that's a... Chad Sowash (17:48.142) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (17:50.058) whole order of magnitude different recruiting. I mean, it really is. You're convincing them not just to break the law, but to commit treason. And on my first tour, I learned a valuable lesson about how to recruit somebody to do that. I'd gotten a classified message from CIA headquarters, which laid out the fact that we were going to be engaged in some very high-stake negotiations concerning national security with a certain foreign country. Chad Sowash (17:55.19) I bet. Joel Cheesman (17:58.395) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (18:19.985) and about the next year and we had no sources on the other side that could give us what their negotiating positions were. We wanted to peek at their cards to see how we could bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion and by that we wanted to know what's their negotiating positions. And so they put out a message, a cable we call it, to everybody in the world and said, we're going to be doing this. We need you to go and find people from this country that have the following access and recruit them. And I had met someone just like that who had that access at a ski class. And so I started what we call the developmental phase, increasing the trust, the friendship, and trying to find out what is it about this person that makes me think I could recruit them? What are the vulnerabilities? What are the stresses? That's technically how you're supposed to do it. Find somebody who needs Chad Sowash (19:12.184) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (19:17.679) us. Well, I was naive first tour officer, desperate to get a recruitment. So I wrote this proposal to CIA headquarters outlining why I thought I could recruit this gentleman that I'd met a a couple of months earlier. And they were, it was, it was terrible. I mean, all I was saying was basically based on my personality and on my friendship, I can convince this guy to become a spy. Well, that's, that's, that's ludicrous. So Joel Cheesman (19:44.412) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (19:47.049) But CIA headquarters was so damn desperate, they approved my plan. And so I pitched the guy, meaning I said, if you will provide me privileged insights into your negotiating positions, I can give you a consulting fee of so much money a month. And the guy looked at me and he said, Jim, you and I are friends, but what you're proposing, that's morally wrong. Now I've pitched maybe 60 people in my career. Chad Sowash (19:52.632) watch. Chad Sowash (20:14.776) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (20:15.154) He's the only person that ever posed a moral objection. Typically, the objection is much simpler. It's fear. And I had an African intelligence officer who said, Jim, they hang people in my country for doing things like that. He's right. They would. But then he surprised me when he said, but could I have a rain check? And I said, what? He said, yeah, a rain check. My son's only three years old, but in 15 years, he'll be college age and I might need you then. Well, Africa division came to me 15 years later and said that this gentleman was now in Washington and they wondered if he meant what he said. Well, I'll tell you this, the rain check was cashed in. But now go back to my initial pitch. I have just pitched this guy and he has turned me down. Now we have a saying in the clandestine service that it's okay to get turned down, but not turned in. Joel Cheesman (21:03.142) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:10.496) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:11.1) Ha ha. Jim Lawler (21:12.71) If he goes to his ambassador and says, young Mr. James Lawler, third secretary, just propositioned me to become a spy, a traitor. And his, his, his ambassador had a very hot temper and a bad reputation for being a loud mouth. And I could just see him storming into our ambassador's office and complaining loudly about how outrageous it was that I would pitch a member of his staff. In fact, it was his deputy. It was the number two guy in his embassy. Yeah. Chad Sowash (21:20.398) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (21:41.401) wow. Jim Lawler (21:42.557) Right. I'm not going after small fruit on the ground. I was going after a guy that had access. Well, I could envision that. And so after a couple of days, I worked my courage up and I called the guy and all I said was, you know, we had such a good time at dinner the other night. I was wondering if we could go out this Friday and kind of repeat that. And my only intention was to smooth any turbulent waters, to throw myself on the mercy of the court and say, you know, I misread some Chad Sowash (21:45.358) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:45.85) Yeah. Jim Lawler (22:11.524) you know, all the signals, I want to beg your forgiveness. That was my intention. But I get to the dinner. Five seconds after we sit down, he looks at me and he says, Jim, that offer you made me last Friday, is that still good? And I said, well, yeah, of course it is. And he said, well, two days after our dinner, my wife announced that she wants a divorce and I can't afford to pay her the alimony to which she's entitled and put my two high school age boys Chad Sowash (22:36.642) Wow. Jim Lawler (22:38.884) in private schools when we go home next summer, because otherwise they wouldn't get a good education. I can't afford to do that unless I accept your offer, even though I know it's morally wrong. Well, in law school, they teach you when the judge rules in your favor, shut up and get out of court quickly. So the next day I met with him and he brought out a stack of about five inches of classified material from his embassy. And Joel Cheesman (22:54.044) Shut up. Chad Sowash (22:55.586) Yes. Chad Sowash (23:02.924) shit. Jim Lawler (23:05.906) He said to me, he said, now, Jim, I want to really tell you why I'm doing this. He said, I hate my ambassador. He claims credit for everything I do and everything everybody else in the embassy does. So as I'm handing you this material, it's as if I'm kicking that son of a bitch in the face. And I told him, said, you know, you and I are on the same team now. So bring me some more of that. Let's kick that son of a bitch again. Chad Sowash (23:24.846) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (23:33.722) Interesting. So let's talk incentives. You already mentioned that fear is sort of the main hurdle of joining the CIA. I would guess that most companies in the private sector would kill to have tons of people apply in a position like that. So what is the appeal to people outside of, know, kicking their old boss in the nuts? What's the appeal of what's the employer brand? What brings people in? Chad Sowash (23:38.402) Money? Jim Lawler (24:00.146) You mean how people are motivated to commit espionage? Joel Cheesman (24:05.468) why do people wanna work for the CIA? I mean, as an outsider. Jim Lawler (24:08.989) Well, if they want, like me, like me, if I wanted to work for the CIA for reasons of patriotism, for reasons that it sounds sexy, you know, all of those reasons, it's, it's, then frankly, once you get into it, it's, you know, if you're like me, you're an adrenaline junkie and there's a risk, a certain amount of risk involved. In fact, if there were no risk involved, I wouldn't be interested in the job. A lot of my fellow case officers are like me. Chad Sowash (24:15.63) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:19.554) sexy part. Chad Sowash (24:28.654) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (24:38.374) We are probably have a certain amount of attention deficit disorder. You know, we get bored easily, but if you're in the CIA, you don't get bored. 19 mornings out of 20, I can't wait to get to work. That was my mantra. You know, I wanted to go in, things were different. I was doing, multiple operations. They're not predictable necessarily. There's a certain amount of risk involved. Chad Sowash (24:43.352) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:00.568) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (25:05.948) And I loved it. I ate and breathed that stuff. But it's a totally different calculus if you're looking at what motivates the people that decided to become spies for me, the spies whom I recruited. And we have an acronym in the agency called MICE, M-I-C-E. And supposedly those are the four primary motivations for why people become spies. is for money. But in my firm opinion, nobody ever Chad Sowash (25:15.243) yeah. Jim Lawler (25:35.582) commits espionage just for money. That's an enabler. It might enable something. My friend who agreed to do that, he was going through a divorce. Nothing is worse psychologically, financially, emotionally than going through a divorce. And he wanted a good education for his boys. Okay, he needed the money to do that, but he wasn't doing it just for the money. You don't do it just for the money. I stands for ideology. That means like, I hate communism or I hate nuclear weapons. Chad Sowash (25:40.504) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (26:05.518) or I hate my government which is fascist. Okay, a lot of times they will say that and it's true to an extent but it's like a thin veneer over the real motivations. Now the C in mice stands for coercion and I won't deny that occasionally the CIA has used that but I don't like it because it's like having a rattlesnake in the backseat of my car You can't, I would rather have this person, much rather have them motivated positively. Now the Russians and the Chinese, they use coercion all the time. Blackmail, honey traps, things like that. I just don't, I don't like it. But the most powerful of those letters is the E for ego. People get irritated, you know, with their, this guy, he hated his boss. Why would somebody betray their country if they feel like they've been betrayed first? And he felt like he had been betrayed first and he was just evening score. The Jesuits call it covert compensation. And, you know, and the Sicilians say, you know, revenge is that dish best eaten cold. You're, you're enjoying that. And so they, they, become part of a new team, my team. And so they don't feel like they're betraying anything. They've just joined a different team. Chad Sowash (27:23.554) So on the military side of the house, let's take a look at that CIA getting all these all these these applications. But the military is again, patriotic. That's why a lot of people go to serve. That's why we saw a big mad rush after 911. But after that, we've had problems trying to keep up with with recruitment numbers. So you see the CIA governmental It's more sexy, but there are some sexy, you know, there's some sexiness in some of the military as well, the Navy SEALs, but know, any special operations, right? So why do you think that is? Is it just because they're a much larger organization or that the CIA has many more sexy parts about it? Jim Lawler (28:12.561) Well, I think military recruitment efforts probably go up and down depending on how our national economy is. If jobs get tight, people say, well, I can always go into military. It also depends on the geopolitical situation you just named. After 9-11, a lot of people join the military or join the CIA out of patriotic reasons. And that's great. That's wonderful. I would hope that I never served in the military. In fact, my CIA service was my effort Chad Sowash (28:19.565) Hmm, yes. Jim Lawler (28:41.735) to serve my country. The draft had ended by the time I was out of law school. And so I thought, okay, I kind of regret that. think it would probably, four years, five years in the military would have done me good. I have a lot of colleagues in the CIA who are veterans. My son is a Marine who was an Iraq War veteran. So I have absolutely the deepest respect in the world for that, for those people. why the recruiting efforts are off. I don't know. I think recruiting and efforts at the agency are still pretty strong. Chad Sowash (29:21.314) But it's interesting that you say that though because you did serve your country. were overseas, you did deployments, much like you're in the military, and you were doing some dangerous shit. So, I mean, it is interesting that you see it that way because as an individual who did 20 years in the military, I look at you as somebody who definitely served. just putting that out there. Jim Lawler (29:43.325) Well, it's funny you say that, Chad, when my son graduated from Marine boot camp at Parris Island, we were in the bar down there and I had my oldest daughter with me and a couple of the veterans were there at the bar. And so one of them asked me, so what service were you in? My daughter just looked at him and said, he served his country. Joel Cheesman (30:09.084) Interesting. Chad Sowash (30:10.968) Yeah, well, if you said CIA, they probably would have went, okay. I mean, again. Joel Cheesman (30:15.219) Hahaha Jim Lawler (30:15.645) Yeah, but she didn't even have to say that. She just said he served his country. Chad Sowash (30:19.598) The company, Joel Cheesman (30:20.516) Yeah. Jim, I want to go back to your mice. Money, think is obvious. Ego, maybe a little bit. You've done time in the private sector as well as at the CIA. What sort of strategies or tactics can you take from the CIA and be a more effective private sector recruitment or employer? What kind of things, what kind of tips would you give a private sector employer to recruit? Jim Lawler (30:25.021) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (30:42.842) Okay. Jim Lawler (30:46.631) All right. I've got a, I've got a list of 10 qualities that I find will make you, will make you a top class CIA case officer recruiter. The first quality is having a strong sense of curiosity. I'm a naturally curious person. I want to know all about you. Okay. I mean, I don't do that just profess, I just naturally, I'm interested in what you do. Why you, why you're there in Indianapolis, how you ended up doing podcasts. Chad Sowash (30:50.83) There you go. Chad Sowash (31:11.043) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (31:15.675) the two t-shirts you guys have got on. I mean, I'm curious about that. So I'm a curious person. The second quality, keen listening ability. You do not recruit people when you're talking. You recruit people when you're listening and you find out what it is that makes them tick. The third quality is empathy, being empathic. In order to recruit you, you need to get inside your head and find out what makes you hurt. What do you need? I never recruited a happy person. You don't recruit happy people. I want to get inside and find out what makes you tick. You know, what are your fears? What are your concerns? Fourth one is patience. In one case, it took me almost 10 years to recruit a source. The first nine and a half years, he didn't have a care in the world. He was on top. And then he went through a terrible divorce. And then he went back to his home country and his ethnic group was no longer in charge. And he wrote me one day and he said, Jim, I could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and I'll never be promoted again. How can I give allegiance to a country which treats its people like that? So I had him come to another country where I met him. I dropped cover and I said, I'd like you to join my team. And he said, now I've got something to believe in. And you know, that man, he went back to his home country, 9-11 happened, and he was at his foreign ministry when those twin towers collapsed in New York. And he told me later that he became very emotional. He was basically crying. And his colleagues looked at him and said, why, why are you so upset? You know, you're not an American. And he said to me later, said, Jim, what they don't know is now I'm part of your team. He had transferred allegiance to us from that country. Then the next quality is persistence. You know, basically not quitting, being resilient. Then creativity. We all could use more creativity. Don't just go by the rule book. Invent your own rules, invent your own game. You probably are familiar with that Star Trek episode about the Kobayashi Maru. You know, basically where the rules are so constraining, then you go outside the rules. You invent new rules. Jim Lawler (33:36.006) quality is the careful observation of stressors in people's lives. I used to be a rock climber and in order to climb rock you look for crack systems where you can put your fingers and toes. And so my talent was I look at people as the psychological crack systems where if you study a person long enough you find out what those cracks are. Then the eighth quality is what I call ruthlessness. Never ever forgetting why you're doing this. Chad Sowash (33:47.8) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (34:04.997) It's not just to make a friend, it's to recruit a spy for the United States. And the mediocre to poor case officer is one who fears rejection. And I tell my students, if you've never had a recruitment pitch turned down, you haven't pitched enough people. You need to keep going, you know, and not fear that you would offend the person by pitching them. Okay, that's part of the risk. Okay, yeah, don't worry about it. Chad Sowash (34:19.95) Mm-hmm. Jim Lawler (34:30.618) The next quality is having a powerful or persuasive personality, and I have a fairly persuasive personality. And then finally, the most mysterious of all the qualities is what I call a mastery of the metaphysics, which is an imaginary or maybe more than imaginary invisible neural link that I put between my brain and yours. And suddenly you and I are no longer just here in this dimension. We're on a different plane of existence. And some people say it's hypnotic. I think it's more than hypnotic. It's like an invisible neural link linking you up to where you and I are in syncopation and you want to do what I want you to do. I know some of my assets basically look upon me as a therapist. My voice is soothing. One of my assets told me, Jim, when you're talking to me, it's as if my brain is in a warm water bed. That's what I want them to feel. I want them to have complete trust in me. Chad Sowash (35:30.094) That is awesome. That is awesome. Okay, Jim, last question. Not recruiting specific at all, but I have a picture of you sitting on $1 billion in gold bullion deep inside a Swiss bank vault in the mountains. There's gotta be a story behind that. I gotta hear the story behind that. Joel Cheesman (35:44.988) It's not AI. It's not an AI picture. Jim Lawler (35:51.559) So one of my close contacts was a very, very, very senior Swiss banker. And when I was about to leave Switzerland on my last tour, he said, is there anything that you haven't done yet that you'd like to do? And I said, yeah, I'd like to sit on a fortune of gold with a big cigar. And the caption would be, hell, I own this town. he said, I can erase started laughing. He said, I can arrange that. So two days later, my assistant and I went Chad Sowash (35:57.675) huh. Jim Lawler (36:21.446) to this vault and the vault door was at least three foot thick and we go in there and there was not just billions but trillions of dollars worth of gold, platinum, other fine metals from not only from high net worth individuals but from countries around the world. And so I was able to sit on that $1 billion in gold and the only thing I couldn't do is I couldn't light the cigar because of the smoke alarms. Chad Sowash (36:27.598) Holy shit. Chad Sowash (36:39.202) yeah. Chad Sowash (36:48.587) UUHAHAHA Joel Cheesman (36:53.308) Thanks for hanging out with us, Jim. That is Jim Lawler, everybody. Jim, for our listeners and viewers that want to connect with you, buy your books, learn more about the CIA, where would you send them? Chad Sowash (37:03.225) yeah. Jim Lawler (37:06.15) So look under my name, James Lawler on amazon.com for any of my three spy thrillers. I've got a fourth one in the works and hope to have this out by the end of this year. I also have an author website that I hope Joel and Chad will post under this podcast. people can feel free to, you Joel Cheesman (37:24.572) Show notes. Chad Sowash (37:25.56) Will do, will do. Jim Lawler (37:29.316) Either email me or look on my bio, look, see where my books are. They're all available on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble. You can order them. Or if you send me an email and you want a signed copy, I charge the same price as Amazon, which is like $20. Plus I have to charge for postage. So if you want a signed copy, feel free to write me and just you can, you can. Yep. Chad Sowash (37:50.817) You know you do. Joel Cheesman (37:52.058) You got it, Jim. Thanks for your time, and thanks for your service. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.

In this episode, Joel and JT break down the seismic shifts rocking the industry, from a massive restructuring wave hitting giants like Meta, Disney, and Snap to the high-profile leadership exits at JobCase and SeekOut. With over 80,000 tech layoffs already this year, we explore why VCs are now hunting for distressed assets and how companies are desperately pivoting toward AI to survive. We also dive into how Gen Z is navigating this "Darwinian" job market by ditching traditional networking for startup hustles, skilled trades, and a surprising return to "analog culture." The conversation takes a futuristic turn as we examine the rise of the machines—from Russia’s robot-led battlefield losses to China’s marathon-running humanoids and the expansion of Tesla’s RoboTaxis. Finally, we look at the "Art Washing" of LinkedIn, where stars like Grimes and top NFL prospects are trading stages and stadiums for B2B brand deals and AI tech ventures. Whether it's the death of the traditional music industry or the birth of low-casualty robot warfare, this episode covers the rapid evolution of how we work, fight, and build brands. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:28.973) yeah. Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody wang Chung tonight. Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel ceasefire extension cheeseman. JT ODonnell (00:42.654) I am JT, it's almost deck season, O'Donnell. Joel Cheesman (00:46.413) this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, Gen Z adapts robots attack and LinkedIn art washes. What the hell is that? Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:00.855) Deck season in New England, what could sound more charming than that? Little lobst on the deck, little lake swimming, night swimming, what's going on? JT ODonnell (01:03.18) know it. You know it, right? We're about to... JT ODonnell (01:11.072) Mussels, steamers, corn on the cob, lobsters, steaks on the grill, sunsets at 8pm, like we live for this shite. We do, it's here, it's here, it's weird. Joel Cheesman (01:17.389) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:22.569) Is it the stick season is over, right? Stick season. JT ODonnell (01:25.774) We're almost there. Yeah, you still have those moments. Who am I kidding? There'll probably be one more Flurry, but you know, but we're at the place now where you're wearing shorts, even though you probably shouldn't be, because it just, you know, you're like, it's warm enough. I'm wearing them. You nailed it, nailed it. Exactly. With a parka, but it's okay. You know, with the down on, but yeah, shorts. So I'm here for it though. Joel Cheesman (01:31.798) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:36.449) yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of white guys in cargo shorts, I'm guessing, right? Joel Cheesman (01:47.807) Yeah, I saw social influencer took a picture of cargo shorts and I think a coups a PBR koozie and said spring is here. Middle Age white guy. What's your favorite season in New England? JT ODonnell (02:02.808) Fall, actually. The colors are spectacular. It's great golf weather. You know, it's lovely. Joel Cheesman (02:03.968) Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:08.449) They're real and they're spectacular in New England. Well, Chad and I were just in Phoenix this week, talk about a change of scenery from the Midwest. I left rainy and 50, I think, to go to 88 and sunny. That was fun. Shout out real quick to the Paradox folks cheating us real nicely again, as usual. Phoenix is always fun to go out there and see what's going on. A lot of changes since the workday thing, but they are at least... JT ODonnell (02:14.606) Hot! JT ODonnell (02:35.31) Mm. Joel Cheesman (02:36.865) I can report that they are letting them be paradox for the most part. It was not a work day focused event. It felt very paradoxics, very paradoxical. don't know how you would, how you would frame that. But anyway, it's good to see it. You're at your, the guns out. So the sun is out in new England. They're at JT's place. I don't know. You want to do some shout outs or what? Okay. Let's, yeah, let's, let's get the sound bite here real quick. JT ODonnell (02:54.125) It is. JT ODonnell (02:59.31) I do. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. You want me to go first? Joel Cheesman (03:05.612) Yeah, go ahead, give it to us. JT ODonnell (03:07.534) So my shout out is to Gen Xers learning to code with Claude, me being one of them. And I finally bit the bullet, carved out some serious time, got myself on Claude cowork, had a pretty nasty project to figure out and just have to say to everybody out there, if I can do it, you can do it. And it changes so significantly how you think about AI. Joel Cheesman (03:24.246) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (03:34.487) I I thought I was using AI. use a lot of AI tools, day to day. The ability to code, it changes the whole way. And we've talked so much about the divide that's being created. It's not the have and have nots. It's the learning it, not learning it. And that divide's getting bigger. These people are going to make bank. They're highly sought after. There's so much job opportunity out there right now for people that get AI at a higher level beyond the surface versus the people that are waiting around for someone to teach them. Joel Cheesman (03:49.058) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (03:56.545) Yeah. JT ODonnell (04:02.542) All I can say is lean in Gen Xers. We learned to do everything ourself. We just had to figure it out. You will figure it out. Joel Cheesman (04:07.693) If we can program the VHS machine, we can figure out vibe coding, right? So I'm curious, because I'm exploring this as well. Did you look at lovable and like, did you shop around to the different, because there a lot of competitors, right, in this space. Replet. JT ODonnell (04:16.619) Exactly. JT ODonnell (04:24.462) Ironically. Yeah, so I actually went to, yep, I've used Replet. I've vibe coded with Replet. Cloud Cowork is a different level. I couldn't do on Replet what I built on Cloud Cowork and I was advised by some friends of the show. So shout out to Josh and Ben Gaffney, the founders of McCoy, the mobile app. And also shout out to Josh Gample and crew over at, and the reason I say that is, Joel Cheesman (04:34.465) Mm-hmm. Okay. Joel Cheesman (04:42.677) huh. Joel Cheesman (04:51.775) Okay. JT ODonnell (04:55.758) They both, I independently set calls with them and said, here's what I'm trying to make happen. What do you think? And independently both were like, you need to cloud cowork, cloud cowork. So thank you so much because a little bit of a rough start to begin with. And what you learn very quickly is you have to, the better you get at prompting it, the better the results you get. And when you're planning an intricate project, like I did, you really need to tell it everything all the way through your site. Like, what are you trying to do every step of the way? Joel Cheesman (05:08.289) Okay. Joel Cheesman (05:22.37) Yeah. JT ODonnell (05:24.012) And what happened the first time around is I hadn't done that that thoroughly. And then we got far along and it broke and that was on me because I hadn't guided it, had a real back. But once you understand it and figure it out, and once you build something, you can literally say to it, okay, remember what we did over here? I want you to take these five pieces from it. And then I want you to build this over here. So your coding abilities to build other things gets faster and faster and faster. It's insane. And it saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars. mean, hundreds of thousands. Joel Cheesman (05:43.488) Okay. Joel Cheesman (05:52.365) Can you talk about how sort of complex the app was that you built or was it a pretty simple app? Okay. JT ODonnell (05:58.255) No, it's pretty complex. So you know, we've been working for three years on a tool that analyzes you to understand how recruiters need to see you and find you on LinkedIn. So we've built a tool where manually you could have given me your resume, your LinkedIn profile, some job descriptions that you're a match for. And this tool that we built analyzes it and produces a very detailed report about your positioning in the current market, words you're supposed to be using, and then literally what the next 20 things should be on LinkedIn that you post in order to feed the algorithm. and we've been testing it works like a dream, but it cried a lot of manual steps, right? Getting the email, downloading the documents, putting it in, reproducing it, putting in a PDF, sending it, tagging them in your payment system. It does all of it now. All of it. Yeah, very cool. Joel Cheesman (06:42.825) Awesome. Awesome. Well, good for you. All right. My shout out is easy. my shout out goes out to, to, Trump nominee, Keith Sonderling. Keith is a friend of the show. He's a bestie. I think he's been on four or five times, regardless of your politics. it's, it's, he's a great guy. It's fantastic to see friends and people who deserve it, get, get into higher places than they started. And, he is now in case you didn't know the acting or the, the, the last JT ODonnell (06:54.094) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (07:18.363) labor secretary, Lori Chavez, Doremer, step down. If you've been following any of it, she's been, she's been in some shit and, Keith is now the acting, guess, interim, US secretary of labor. Cal she right now has him as the favorite to become the official, secretary of labor at 23%. Glenn Yonkin, who was a governor of, Virginia is apparently on that list as well. So he's got some tough competition to keep the job. JT ODonnell (07:24.398) They have, uh-huh. JT ODonnell (07:39.502) Nice. Joel Cheesman (07:47.745) But my money is, my money literally is on, Sonderling to get that position. So for whatever that's worth, I texted him, after I found out and his reply was quote from Chad and cheese to the cabinet. so, so I'm really super happy for him. And I know he's going to do a great job. Shout out to our friend, Keith Sonderling for his recent success there in the, in the cabinet. That's interesting and exciting. JT ODonnell (08:07.788) Yeah. Congrats. Congrats. Joel Cheesman (08:16.181) All right, shall we get to free stuff if you have no commentary about that? wonder what our friend Stephen McGrath is up to these days. JT ODonnell (08:25.208) There he is. JT ODonnell (09:35.18) He never gets old. Very cool. Never gets old. Joel Cheesman (09:35.309) Very cool, never gets old. I'm excited, I do a mini marathon every year, little known fact about me. it's... JT ODonnell (09:45.263) Wait, wait, wait, back, roll it back. Define mini marathon? How is anything about 26 miles mini? Joel Cheesman (09:51.757) Well, it's a half marathon. Some call it mini, some call it half. So it's a half marathon. it's 13.1 miles, which is still a long way. Uh, go ahead and go ahead and walk 13 miles and tell me how you feel after it. But my, my father, uh, was a marathoner back in the day. His marathon days are way over, but we used to get the family together. My sister and I, sometimes her daughters would participate, but we would do this. My stepmom would come down. JT ODonnell (09:53.964) Okay. JT ODonnell (10:01.634) It is. Joel Cheesman (10:19.105) And we would do this every year. was a reason to like, always know we're going to get together. We're going to like hang out, do this marathon thing. My dad doesn't do it anymore. My sister who's five years older, she doesn't do it anymore. my wife committed to it, got injured while she was training. So once again, I am the lone standard bearer for team Cheeseman, to do this mini marathon. That's beside the point. I'll be in Louisville. which means I'll be near chicken cock and the speakeasy. So if you're with us last year in Louisville, hopefully I'll be able to walk and make it to the, the chicken cock speakeasy while I'm in Louisville so I can enjoy that. So that's, that's part of my travels that are coming up. We also have of course other travels that we do. for the show. We were in Phoenix, as I mentioned, shout out to those guys. All the all the folks at paradox treated us really well this week, but we are headed to Chicago this next week from the 20th to the 30th. Recruiting resourcing leaders, rlx, the recfos kids, the rec fest kids are going to be out in Chicago to spend some time with them as well as Joe shaker, who travel or who sponsors our travel, by the way, shout out to shaker. love you guys. So I'll be in Chicago and then a week month off in May and then June and July we start traveling again. Where are going, JT? JT ODonnell (11:43.501) Yeah, so mine's virtual though, but thank you for letting me shout it out. So the Harvard Business School on May 19th is hosting a virtual Leading with AI conference and I'm getting to speak at it. And it's about agency over anxiety and really how to approach it from a job search and career standpoint. I'm really excited about it. It's my Elwood's moment, as I mentioned before on the show, but they did give me a huge discount code. So if you're interested folks, DM me on LinkedIn. I can get you a big discount so that you can attend. Really cool speaker. I don't know how I made the list. I'll be honest. Seriously, like the list is super impressive, but we're really going to be talking about this divide that we said and how to lean in and be on the front of it as opposed to the back of Joel Cheesman (12:25.997) An invite to slide into JT's DMs. What could be more fun than that, everybody? More fun than layoffs, am I right? All right, guys, before we get to topics real quick, layoffs this week. Meta, 8,000, roughly 10 % of their workforce. Snap, 1,000 or 16 % of their workforce. Disney, 1,000. UKG, 950 at 6%. JT ODonnell (12:29.048) There we go. Please. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (12:51.753) Additionally, some, some high profile companies in our space that have new CEOs or they're lacking a CEO. Fred golf is out at job case. they had raised around $148 million and a new Gupta, is out at seek out. had raised $189 million. So not, not chump change at all. seek out already has a new CEO, some guy named Sean Thompson, who's not from the space and was apparently. JT ODonnell (12:51.918) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (13:15.406) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (13:21.355) living large in Montana till the VCs probably gave him more money than he could say no to, to come take the job. And in case you missed it, Tim Cook has announced his resignation at Apple JT, a lot of layoffs, a lot of changes and he takes. JT ODonnell (13:38.798) Yeah, I mean, we've been saying it, layouts are going to keep coming. They're just restructuring, restructuring, restructuring, figuring out what they want to hire back for and then leading with AI in the hiring back. I'm hearing that over and over. It's every executive teams mantra right now. So I think we can expect more of it. Rumor is Amazon's about to drop some big numbers again as well. So, yeah, it's going to keep coming as we become more agile. I'm excited about some of the topics we're going to be discussing because I'm the, I'm the light at the end of the tunnel. Joel Cheesman (13:51.298) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (14:07.757) look for the opportunity, right? The bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation. So we're going to be talking about that. I will tell you this. I personally would love to get my mitts on the job case CEO role only because I years ago met Fred and his team and the concept there was good. I think that it could have been executed differently. And I certainly weighed in on that. I was pretty honest about that. But Joel Cheesman (14:09.869) The silver lining. That's right. Joel Cheesman (14:30.71) Okay. JT ODonnell (14:35.755) there's assets there and I think whoever takes that over is sitting on something very, very prime right now in the way that we're gonna be engaging talent through connection as opposed to job boards. And so they might've been ahead of their time or maybe just ended up in the wrong place, I don't know, but dang, that's like, that's a, I know enough over there to be like, that's juicy. So I'll be interested to see who gets that job. Joel Cheesman (15:00.695) This is what you get on this show. get an application from JT to take over the job case gig. JT ODonnell (15:08.363) Absolutely. Joel Cheesman (15:09.629) Good for you. So if you're keeping track at home, that's more than 81,000 employees that have been laid off by 97 tech firms. Just this year, we're not even halfway done with the year. That's according to layoffs.fy. I've said for a while now, if you weren't in that group that got acquired, if your name isn't Paradox, Smart Recruiters, Bright Hire, et cetera, your future JT ODonnell (15:36.641) Yep. Joel Cheesman (15:37.245) is not as bright as it could be. There are the companies that launched before ChatGPT and the ones that launched after and JobCase and Seekout are firmly in that pre-camp. Certainly sad for us, Anoop, we love Anoop. Anoop was in our firing squad slash death match competition that he won. So he takes with him a large championship chain from Chat and Cheese as he exits. the building at seek out. We also love Fred at job case, just a great guy. these are companies with a lot of money, high expectations. These investors don't want to wait around for their money. And clearly, the clock had run out on those guys, but, I suspect that we'll see more. I think if your name is eight fold, phenom, hi, Bob. Like if you've taken a lot of money, The clock is ticking and I suspect we'll see more of these announcements, but yeah, it's tough to be a software business if your name is ServiceNow, Workday, Salesforce. It's gotta be really, really tough to be a software company in our space right now. JT ODonnell (16:51.832) So do you think that those larger companies are going to go shopping for deals and just wait till they're so hurting that they can get them for pennies on the dollar? Do think that investments will just dice them up and sell off what they can? Where are you seeing it go? Joel Cheesman (17:07.029) My guess is consolidation. just don't know the number of big hitter buyers, the SAPs, the Workdays, the ServiceNows, like Salesforce's, like that list is small. And with their stocks under pressure, they don't have a lot of wiggle room to go out and buy or make big swings with acquisitions. My guess is you'll see the ATS is consolidate. You know, somebody by I Sims will buy employee will buy, you know, like these guys will start consolidating and you'll start seeing it in these, like everyone's all on juice boxes tip, but seek out is just juice box 10 years later. So I like, I, I am not bullish on that business at all. JT ODonnell (17:51.703) I predict that you're going to see several in this group just come out one day and say, we've rebranded and we're in a totally different industry. We do a totally different thing. This is our company name because I think you can start to look at some of the assets under the hood and realize they could be quite useful by building AI in a different space or pivoting in a different way. And I'd love to get under the hood of some of these firms and say, what else could we do with you right now? Because there is opportunity. Quit holding onto the sinking ship. Joel Cheesman (18:05.965) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (18:21.078) and let's just massively pivot you, let it go, you know? Joel Cheesman (18:23.917) And that seems to be the model now. I'm sure you're familiar with Allbirds, a shoe company. They're now an AI company and they sold the shoe company to another business to sell the shoes. So AI is the new.com. So to seek out AI, come out as a, I don't know, something totally different. Like it's not out of the realm of possibility. I think that's an interesting insight that these companies may just totally pivot away from employment and do something totally different. That's a great. JT ODonnell (18:27.086) Right, crazy, crazy story, crazy story. JT ODonnell (18:49.484) Why not? Joel Cheesman (18:53.485) That's a great insight. Which brings us to topics, JT. JT ODonnell (18:58.136) Topics. Joel Cheesman (19:01.069) All right, let's talk young people again, a topic that keeps coming up. This is from the Wall Street Journal, driven by a challenging job market and facing a 6 % year over year decline in entry level hiring. A growing number of college students are founding startups, leading to increased enrollment in entrepreneur programs and greater venture capital interest. This tracks with LinkedIn's new 2026 grad guide. noting 44 % of Gen Z site-limited networking as their top barrier to entry-level roles, while 21 % are creating opportunities through side hustles. Additionally, 72 % of young office workers are considering a switch to skilled trades. JT, I'm gonna guess none of this is a shock to you, but we'd love your take. JT ODonnell (19:47.663) Yeah, it doesn't shock me at all. They have nothing to lose, right? There's no career track record that you're going to tumble back from. Every reason to start something on their own. They are very much driven by this ability to have autonomy in their life and live life on their own terms. Nobody's telling me to show up at 8 a.m. and staying till 5 p.m. I want to create that life. I want variety. They also have that. ADD of life, you know, that they want to be doing different things throughout the day. It shouldn't surprise us at all. They also just love to hack things, like anything they can do better. It's murder. What I've noticed about the younger generation though, is they prefer to collaborate with each other. I'm not seeing enough of them want to talk to more seasoned individuals or older individuals. So the money is coming to them that, know, the. Joel Cheesman (20:33.069) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (20:37.728) VCs, private equity are having to find them, build relationships with them. That's very interesting because these young folks are guarded. They are distrustful of the older generations. They don't believe they have their best interests or they're tech savvy and they're just more comfortable with their own people. that to me gets interesting as we watch this blow up. I've always said this was going to come full circle, that we are all businesses of one. So I'm thrilled to see young people just embracing it. What better way to prepare Joel Cheesman (20:44.013) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (20:56.077) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (21:07.02) your young person to survive than to not expect them to rely on one employer with a set of golden handcuffs. And when they lose their job, they don't know what to do. So we're making these kids tougher. mean, I see Gen X in them. I'm here for it. You know, it's exciting to see them. I know it's hard, but it's exciting and they're leaning into it and they have nothing to lose. So shouldn't surprise us at all. But accessing them, that's going to get interesting. Joel Cheesman (21:19.691) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (21:32.845) So I quote Charles Darwin, kids who said, quote, it is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent that survives. is the one that is most adaptive to change. This is what adaptation looks like. This is what survival of the fittest looks like. And if you are in college and you're not real optimistic about your future, you adapt. And I've said this on the show. Generations today have more opportunities with the internet, with AI, with technology, with a global sort of resource to be successful on your own or build companies. So this is just what survival to me looks like. I think you're going to see people build companies. Now the challenge is they're going to learn that 90 % of companies die or don't become what they want. So that's going to be interesting. JT ODonnell (22:28.194) That's right. Joel Cheesman (22:31.437) The model of raising money is much different. I don't know how many of these will even be in a position to say, I should raise some money versus just I can, I can automate everything. I can be an army of one and create companies. So do you have just these really small niche, mom and pop in quotes, businesses that are focused to that. You have, you have something on your mind. Go ahead and say it. JT ODonnell (22:52.098) Yes, I do. do. We're already seeing a trend towards that. And I love that you brought that out. They would prefer not to take the money because they don't want to be beholden to anyone. And the idea of building a $10 million, $100 million business with two, three, four people, very appealing to them because it allows them to work with just a small, small core group. So again, that agility is what is driving them. think, like I said, the folks with the money. Joel Cheesman (22:57.559) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (23:19.276) are going to knock on the door and be shocked when they say, thank you. So you're going to have to build relationships with them to make the point, why should I take your cash? Joel Cheesman (23:22.177) Yep. Yep. Joel Cheesman (23:27.169) Yeah. The one, the one challenge I do see with them, additionally is they need to get off their phones to a certain level. When you talk about mistrust of older people, part of that is cause they're not connected to them on the D in the digital world. And, and I feel like one of the best advice is pieces of advice to a young person is like, get off your phone, go to a meetup, go to a something locally that you can start rubbing elbows with older people. Cause like it or not, they have money. JT ODonnell (23:39.918) Thanks. Joel Cheesman (23:54.785) They have other people that you can network with and they'll be a great resource for you. Don't just rely on the internet and digital meetups to grow your network. Agree? Disagree? Yeah. JT ODonnell (24:03.854) It's funny you say that. I know, I agree, here they're already doing it. Joel, they're listening to you. I can't believe it. The kids are listening to Joel. I just read an article this morning about the rise of the analog culture where they are intentionally building events where you have to put your phone away to go to it and wanting to experience because they now understand they have to do more than just a temporary digital detox. They actually have to engage in order to feel better. Joel Cheesman (24:08.556) You Joel Cheesman (24:19.937) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:26.893) Yeah. JT ODonnell (24:29.144) but they're realizing it on their own. We could have told them for how long, doesn't matter until they experience it. And this article is about how they're now doing that. And of course, making it big business, social meetups, this, that, you know, leave it to them. Again, I love this, I'm excited for them. Joel Cheesman (24:38.253) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:43.809) We had a great conversation in Phoenix this week about the future of conferences and part of them were like the business model sucks. And it's challenging because you don't have as many vendors exhibiting. You don't have as many buyers, but you have the desire to connect with other people. So somewhere in that conference universe, there's some mashup of what it is today and what it will be in the future. And I think. if you're ERE, if you're Unleash, if you're Transform, or like you're trying to figure out what that is. I think RecFest has probably come the closest because it is a more social event with the learning. But I think conferences, to your point, know their value, but they have to like adapt and pivot to what people are really looking for. I also think it's interesting. We had conversations, we set up interviews at the event and we talked to Stanley Steamer and we talked to the Haircuttery. If you don't know those businesses, one cleans carpets and one cuts hair. Those are not AI businesses, but, one of the commentaries from those companies was the number of high school students that are now interested in those opportunities and the number of like 20 somethings that have gone the white collar route and said, well, maybe not. are starting to explore opportunities that are face to face human businesses is increasing. And with Stanley Steamer in particular, the number of managers that go from technician, cleaning carpets and grout and whatnot, and to managers, 73 % of their managers were once technicians. So they're really pushing this as a career change as opposed to like a job. So we're seeing it not only at the top, but at the blue collar level and the hourly type level. JT ODonnell (26:30.816) And you know, we said this on one of the previous shows, apprenticeships are going to be hot again. And that's literally what you just described. And it shouldn't surprise us. It's coming full circle. So it's great to see that for this generation, at least they're finding solutions, you know, because it's, this is a permanent shift. We're not going back to the whole world being nine to five anymore. We're just not. Joel Cheesman (26:40.001) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:50.039) Yep, yep, it is not the strongest or the most intelligent. It's the one most adaptable to change. Guys, we'll be right back. If you like what you've heard so far, give us a follow, give us a review. Check us out on YouTube at youtube.com slash at Chad Cheese. JT ODonnell (26:57.11) Amen. Joel Cheesman (27:09.931) Let's talk about some robots. JT ODonnell (27:13.205) Yeah, play a game. Joel Cheesman (27:14.465) Well, our soon to be overlords had a pretty good week. Ukraine achieved a milestone in warfare by capturing a Russian position using only ground robots and aerial drones, resulting in zero casualties and highlighting a shift toward unmanned combat systems. Back here in the US, Tesla has expanded its fully unsupervised robo taxi service to Dallas and Houston, two pretty big cities operating daily. with limited geo fences in both cities. JT, robots, what you got? JT ODonnell (27:51.055) Okay, so I'm excited about the prospects when it comes to war. I to have something like that and know that no human lives were taken. Makes me feel better in that respect. you know, great. But immediately when I read about that, I thought about eventually, you know, two countries coming together, their leaders sitting over a board and it's just an electronic game. said, are we going full tilt? are they going to get in Pac-Man? Joel Cheesman (27:57.279) You Joel Cheesman (28:11.831) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (28:16.31) Remember the Pac-Man? I just bought one of these. The two seats on either side with the 80s games. We're literally going back to that is what went through my mind there. So, interesting. The robo taxis, I'm still not there. I think you know I was in a really bad car accident a couple years ago in an Uber. My Uber was hit from behind on the highway and thrown into a semi tractor. If I didn't have my seatbelt on, I would not be on the show with you. So everyone wear your seatbelts in an Uber and a Lyft. Joel Cheesman (28:26.721) Okay. Joel Cheesman (28:36.663) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:43.362) Yeah. JT ODonnell (28:46.316) but it just makes me that much more nervous and I know I'll need to get over it. It's almost like it's gonna have to all be there. Joel Cheesman (28:50.347) Now, do you blame that it was automate? Do you blame that it was an auto, whatever, driverless car on the accident? Okay, so. JT ODonnell (28:57.15) No, no, no, because I was in Houston before the driverless car. My point being is I would need to see everybody in driverless cars for me to feel like it's all going to work okay. I don't think it's great to have half human, half, I don't know, something about that just doesn't jive with me. Granted, it's probably, you know, PSTD, but I don't know. Something about, I'm not there yet. Joel Cheesman (29:06.305) Okay. Joel Cheesman (29:12.897) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (29:19.509) I mean, when you have a near-death experience, your life, your perspective changes, whether it's cancer, car wreck, or whatever. So I get that. I get that. So you're on the fence with the taxis. I get it. I get it. JT ODonnell (29:24.526) 100%. JT ODonnell (29:33.688) Not there yet. Joel Cheesman (29:34.701) So I'll add that you might've seen that in China, they had a marathon using humanoid robots and a robot called Lightning finished a marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. So it's not enough that they're taking the jobs, they're beating us in physical activities, I think is, which is a tad depressing. So Tesla stock as of this recording is down 12 % this year. JT ODonnell (29:53.848) Shaving us. Joel Cheesman (30:04.375) people are not buying EVs, at least in this country, like they used to taking away the credit turns out, turns a lot of people away from the opportunity, but they will get into an EV car because they don't really care if it's gas or car. That is something I think people will do. I was in, like I mentioned, Phoenix this week and Phoenix is Waymo everywhere. Like there are driverless cars everywhere in Phoenix. And I took JT ODonnell (30:29.016) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:33.389) a Waymo to lunch with a friend. And then I took an Uber with a human to the airport. Let me tell you about how my, my two experiences Waymo, Waymo, the door unlocks with, with RFID with your phone or Bluetooth with your phone. You get in a robot says, welcome Joel, you know, have whatever, welcome, welcome to Waymo. And then you can choose your music on the touch screen. So if you want alternative or rock or whatever, can do that. No one talks to you. No one says, was your day? No one tries to chat you up, which I never liked to do in an Uber or a taxi. So it takes me where I want to go, pulls over, says, have a nice day. I don't have to tip. I don't feel any like guilt if I don't tip, like I get out and we're done. The transaction is that. Yep, go ahead. Yep. JT ODonnell (31:24.049) Quick question, did it tell you to put on your seatbelt? Joel Cheesman (31:27.821) Probably, probably. I'm sure it's like a legal thing, like be safe and put on your seatbelt. My Uber driver picked me up. was now it was five-ish in the morning. I'm not a real morning person, so I'm a little bit skewed on this, but she started to chat me up immediately. Where are you from? What are you doing here? What's your business? Oh, you got a podcast. That's interesting. What do you talk about? it like... I don't want to be a Dick and say, you know what, it's five in the morning. Let's just cool out on the chat. So I have to chat and then pull up. Like, feel like I have to give a tip. So I spend more money. Like I'm all here for the automated taxis. I, I think there's a day where you don't have to learn to drive. You just have an app and like, I want to go to Chipotle. Car will be here in five minutes. Takes me, think every, a new business of the future is turning garages into like rooms in your house, like new entertainment. Whatever. So I'm all here for the cars. You look like you have something to say. JT ODonnell (32:31.991) I do, but I want you to finish. Joel Cheesman (32:33.677) Okay, well I'm going to war stuff, so if you have, I'm done with the auto taxi. JT ODonnell (32:37.103) The you're saying we don't need cars anymore, I immediately go to beam me up Scotty that at this point, we're just going to have tubes we step into and they're going to get us there. I don't know. Are we really going this way? Joel Cheesman (32:47.423) I hit cars. Cars are awful. Cars are awful. JT the average car, the average new car. You know how much it costs. JT ODonnell (32:58.477) I don't know, I've had my car for a long time. Joel Cheesman (32:59.073) It's like $53,000 for a new car. That's why everyone is buying used cars. Insurance sucks. You gotta house them at your house. You gotta park them somewhere. Thank God I live in the suburbs and have a garage. If I had to park in a street thing or like if I live in the city, that'd be a pain. I'd have to pay for that too. like cars are stupid and they're not investments. Their total money sucks. JT ODonnell (33:04.847) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (33:26.869) I only have one cause like we kind of have to now. And if I travel far, then I need a car. JT ODonnell (33:29.715) What happens with? Okay, what happens when there's like a major life event, something's happening in your town and everyone needs to get out at the same time? Joel Cheesman (33:40.127) e-bike. That's the car of the future. JT ODonnell (33:43.373) Wow. So you're hope your whole family can hop on that e-bike there, Joel, and just get out of Dodge with your stuff? Just saying, it can happen. Joel Cheesman (33:46.797) I don't know. I don't think the world is ending anytime soon. And the money I've saved on a car, I can buy a Joby airplane or whatever. JT ODonnell (33:54.891) So you're still gonna have a beater somewhere in the house, just in case. See, you're still gonna have the backup. Joel Cheesman (33:58.881) Maybe, maybe, I don't know, I don't know. I'm working through it mentally, JT, I'm working through it. Well, what's scarier is the military shit, so let me get to that real quick. Holy shit. Chad and I talked years ago on this show about military recruitment and how hard it was to get people to join the military. And not only get people to join the military, but roughly 70 plus percent of JT ODonnell (34:03.949) What can I say? Doomsday prepper right here. Doomsday prepper. Joel Cheesman (34:28.439) people who could join the military are ineligible to join because they're obese, they've done drugs, they have mental issues, like whatever it is. even if someone wants to join, have like guardrails that say you can't join because of X, Y, and Z. Now if we go to a war that might change, they might just let everybody in. And we're also limiting immigration. Immigration is a huge source for soldiers in the military and future leaders of the military. JT ODonnell (34:37.87) Okay. Joel Cheesman (34:57.109) So Chad's comment was that we'll be more robotic than ever and the need for like a million soldiers will decrease. I thought it was a little nutty at the time, but when I see shit like a Ukrainian force, like defeated a Russian force, all automated, all drones and robots, that's the future of warfare, man. Because like you look at Iran. If we had a million robots, you don't think we'd be invading Iran right now with a million robots and saying like, good luck, Iran. And if you defeat these, maybe we'll come in with humans, but like the future is this. And if you look at that, I mean, like the way that China can make robots, a little scary. I'm sure some of them will have guns and bazookas and whatever. So I think this is the future of warfare and the countries that have JT ODonnell (35:30.123) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (35:52.715) the manufacturing capabilities, the AI capabilities, like those resources are going to be very scary to other countries in the future. JT ODonnell (36:03.331) And you started with a smaller country like the Ukraine to see what it could do, the power that it could wield. And for it to be able to do this starts to give smaller countries ideas of what they're capable of when it comes to that. So I'm with you, who has the power to build them is really the thing we need to pay attention to. we continue to ship, and we do, and we ship so much of our manufacturing overseas. Joel Cheesman (36:07.553) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (36:22.389) and manufacture them. JT ODonnell (36:28.131) which is something that we really need to rethink. The problem is, is getting people to do the manufacturing job. So you're going to need robots to build the robots because he... Joel Cheesman (36:36.555) and you need people to build the robots that are going to build the robots. yeah, anyway, scary future. It turns out it's not going to be Skynet. not going to be a company that like enslaves all of us. It'll be another country that enslaves all of us. And I guess it's just a matter of who can build them the fastest and make them the smartest and get them to the location soon enough. I know, but it's, hey. JT ODonnell (36:39.855) So. JT ODonnell (36:51.417) Yeah. JT ODonnell (36:56.62) So cheerful today. Yeah, so cheery. Joel Cheesman (37:00.137) It's a weird world, man. And this podcast is exemplifying all that weirdness. The war, however, does create opportunities and things that are going on that you might look at in terms of silver linings. So there's an increasing energy shortage causing pain as well as opportunity. Like I mentioned around the globe, solar energy. is now dominating new power additions and accelerating the green energy transition faster than any other source in history, particularly in China. Time to invent a solar airplane because the war has also caused a global jet fuel shortage, doubling prices and prompting airlines like United to cut flights and raise fares. Critical supply levels in Europe and Asia threaten summer travel with stocks potentially lasting only a few weeks. Getting kind of hectic, JT, what are your thoughts on new opportunities, thanks to war as well as some challenges. JT ODonnell (37:53.983) Mm. Mm. JT ODonnell (37:59.632) It is going to be interesting. think the war is panning out from an employment standpoint on many fronts that I'm seeing. So one, far less travel. I think that the hospitality industry, certain pockets, certain places are going to get hit hard this year that expect people to fly to their destination. If we don't resolve this, people aren't going to go and you're going to see a real downturn there. And that, you know, that hurts entire economies, know, local economies. So I watched that. I get excited about the solar and the energy issues because again, disruption brings opportunity. I have a friend whose son has been hard at work in building a startup that has got the patent. partnered with somebody from MIT. They got a patent that is building the storage, the facilities underwater to cool for all the AI data requirements. And they have a patent and they're now off the coast of Puerto Rico building this. It's insane and getting funding. So I look at that idea of energy being a source where, so it's in, right. you think about the operative, again, know, constraint forces people to think differently and build opportunity. And so that excites me and the energy piece is huge. I mean, just such an important thing for us. Let's get off the reliance of gas and oil. Joel Cheesman (39:02.093) So it's an alternative to helium, which we need from the Gulf as well. Okay, so that's alternative. JT ODonnell (39:25.219) You know, we've been saying it forever, but is this the tipping point that changes for us? Who will know? So yeah, employment wise, you're going to see some downs, but I also think you're going to see some increases. Joel Cheesman (39:35.789) Desperation is the mother of invention or something like that. JT ODonnell (39:38.191) Sure is, sure is. Joel Cheesman (39:42.989) So according to my research, Europe had an estimated $838 billion come in last year thanks to tourism. Asia almost double that, a lot more people in Asia, almost double that in Asia. Europe in particular, tourism is a major part of their economies. They serve all these tourists, they make a lot of money off of those tourists. So if I'm Europe, I'm super concerned. if there's no jet fuel to bring Americans and Chinese tourists, et cetera, to the continent, cause that's, that's bad news. Now, Chad will love it. Cause fewer people, I get that, but, you love, you love the money. If you hate the people. speaking of Chad, I'm a little concerned that he'll get back home. He's currently in the U S and if his flights keep you canceled to Portugal and I'm set to go to rec fest, in June, that's a long time away. Like I'm. JT ODonnell (40:37.295) Right. Joel Cheesman (40:39.467) I'm a little bit worried that I'll be able to make it over to Europe for that show. So serious ramifications if we have no jet fuel to get to these countries for tourism dollars. The alternative energy thing is real. I think you're going to see, speaking of Europe, if we can't rely on oil. Look, if you're in a part of the world that doesn't have oil, your own oil, your own food and your own water, JT ODonnell (40:41.177) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (41:09.653) It's time to like recalibrate everything and Europe terms of energy. mean, the, the, the horrible truth about Europe is that they're basically funding the war with Ukraine. They're paying for Russian oil less so than they did, but like, it's a real, you know, it's, it's ironic that they are funding their own challenges. So, so there are going to be opportunities in solar. think nuclear is going to be, governments are going to have to like. JT ODonnell (41:31.023) Understood? Joel Cheesman (41:38.615) put aside the three mile Island and Chernobyl and realize that nuclear today is not what it was. It's a ton safer. You can make really small power units. So I think nuclear has a really bright future in terms of future careers. think solar, you're going to see that maxed out wind and air. A combination of all of those is what we need. Apparently I'm not an energy expert, but you'll need a little mix of all that. The challenge that I think that we don't talk about enough is America's dependence on oil because of the petrodollar. America's power is largely a result of the dollar being necessary for countries to trade oil. When countries can get oil or don't need oil, one is if they start trading it in non-dollars, that's a problem. And if we don't need as much oil, then we don't need as many dollars. JT ODonnell (42:13.903) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (42:34.381) If dollars start coming home to America, that's a problem for us. When people say we're going to go solar, wind, whatever, I laugh because as long as the dollar is tied to oil, America is not getting off oil. It's in our interest to keep the world chugging oil like never before because it helps our dollar be stronger. China, of course, wants a battery future because they have all the minerals and they don't have the access to oil. So there's sort of this geopolitical game of chess where are we alternative, which favors China, or do we keep with oil, which maintains the US hegemony around the world? And I fear that we're probably clashing to that reality here soon on a global level. JT ODonnell (43:02.946) Right. JT ODonnell (43:22.031) Do you watch Landman with Billy Bob Thornton? I mean, I love shows like that just because Taylor Sheridan really gets into it from all sides, whatever he's tackling on that. And the education around oil alone has been fascinating to me, you know, very different from the days of watching Dallas. For you kiddos that remember Dallas. But I think for you to talk about that and to understand, there's just so much business tied to it too. Joel Cheesman (43:23.978) I do. I do. Joel Cheesman (43:39.649) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (43:49.569) There's a great scene in that movie or that movie, that show. I think it's season two where it's Billy Bob and, John Ham are in a meeting with, looks like shareholders and they're talking about alternative or the one of them says clean energy and Billy Bob says it's alternative energy. Like don't fool yourself into thinking that it's clean because it is dirty. mean, digging this stuff up from the ground, the energy it takes to do that. So it is alternative. JT ODonnell (44:13.038) Right. JT ODonnell (44:17.391) Fracking. Absolutely. Joel Cheesman (44:19.469) It's not really clean. So that's a moment I remember from the show. Yeah. It is a great show for more than just the education on energy. It's just, uh, it's, good from all around. All right, guys, we're to take a quick break. Uh, if you haven't left us a review on your podcast platform of choice, please, please let us hear from you. love it. JT ODonnell (44:21.153) Mm-hmm. That's what I'm saying. It's so fascinating. Joel Cheesman (44:43.885) All right, JT, we recently talked about sports stars in the NBA joining LinkedIn. Now artists are saying, hold my beer. Musician and Elon baby mama Grimes is leveraging LinkedIn to transition from pop star to AI tech CEO, focusing on B2B voice services and an Nvidia partnership. By targeting professional audiences, she aims to bypass traditional music labels and rebrand as a tech industry leader. Musicians on LinkedIn, JT, big deal, little deal or no deal. JT ODonnell (45:20.367) Okay, I'm embarrassed to say that I had to look up the term art washing in this respect. I mean, I thought I understood it until the article said this is the biggest example of art washing. And I said, how? But now I get it. understand, you know, what they're trying to do. It's interesting. are, LinkedIn seems to be going down two different paths that I don't fully see why they're doing it, but I'm sure there's a method to the madness. One, the algorithm has changed greatly right now to reduce people going viral. Joel Cheesman (45:36.471) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (45:49.602) So let's be abundantly clear. If you're not going viral on LinkedIn, it's meant to match you to opportunity. It's trying to dial you in. And they did that to quell the fears of all these people are saying, I don't want to post on LinkedIn. the, you know, it's gets, it's the butt of so many jokes in terms of it's technically a social media platform, but, and so, you know, they're really trying to educate people on you're not going to go viral. Nice try. All you're trying to do is get found by recruiters. I get behind that. I believe in that. I teach people that, but then. They have this other side where they're bringing in Reese Witherspoon and singers who are clearly being brought in to bring this visibility to it. Good news is they're really trying to have them look at it from a business standpoint. So the people that are coming on are trying to talk to people in business. Interesting idea. But then it conflicts because somebody says, I don't want to be a Reese Witherspoon. I don't want to be a Grimes. Joel Cheesman (46:35.787) Mm-hmm. Yep. JT ODonnell (46:45.967) I don't like that they've got these dueling perceptions going on, but I'm sure that there are people much smarter than me at LinkedIn thinking about this from both sides. So it's interesting. Does it work? That's what I really want to know. Is Grimes happy with this decision to only drop music on LinkedIn? Is it benefiting her? I don't know. I just don't see the art scene ultimately doing this. I think you could see a couple people. Joel Cheesman (46:49.783) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (47:03.906) Yeah. JT ODonnell (47:11.789) you know, like her trying to bring attention to it, but do I ultimately see them all coming over here? No, I really don't. Joel Cheesman (47:20.861) it's not show friends, JT, it's show business. funny critics of this talk about, this, if, if not, if something says impending recession, it's, it's music artists on LinkedIn, trying to find a job or trying to get money. which is kind of funny. I, I'm here for this because the music industry in particular has changed so much since. JT ODonnell (47:25.135) That's right. JT ODonnell (47:35.149) Mmm, fair. Joel Cheesman (47:46.251) the days of buying CDs and records at, you know, at your, at your local, local record store. A track I remember eight tracks. So do you. And the, the economics of it is so far from selling songs to the tours and the sponsorships. And so I think a savvy musician, like the days of JT ODonnell (47:52.975) Who are you kidding? 8-Track for you, buddy. 8-Track. True. Joel Cheesman (48:13.357) Hey, I'm going to get signed by capital records and I'm, I'm a made band or artists. I think those are, I don't want say they're gone because I don't know enough about it. Uh, as I probably should for this commentary, but I think that model is dead and musicians are trying to figure out how can I leverage what I have to make money. Money is on LinkedIn. You can get sponsored. She's in within video. Like that's the big dollars. You know, the tour is fun and profitable, but it's hard to sign with Nvidia or do like big deals like that. Being on LinkedIn helps you more than it does on Tik TOK or reels or Insta. so I'm here for it. I don't know how many can make that bridge to what I, my brand and now to big sponsors, but I think you'll see more and more athletes. musicians, artists do it. JT ODonnell (49:06.945) It's interesting you say that. So I am full disclosure in their alpha program. I was solicited a couple of weeks ago and signed on, which means that brands on LinkedIn can come to me and say, I want to sponsor this video you did. and you know, attach a button and click through, very simple process to be brought on and signed for it. Haven't seen any interest yet, which I think is fascinating. And it's not something that I get to like actively go out and pursue. It truly is just a unit, but it's alpha there. We'll go through alpha then beta, then roll it out. Joel Cheesman (49:09.975) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (49:17.655) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (49:36.661) always said they were going to go this way, but I think somebody like her, that's a big name who's got teams of people and money figuring out how to get to Nvidia and make that brand deal happen versus somebody like me, which is just, you need to find me and decide you want to throw money behind the video. It's a different dynamic. So it'd be interesting to see how that plays out. Joel Cheesman (49:44.364) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:49.698) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:57.655) And I think, know, so I'm a big fan of the strokes. The strokes are coming to Indianapolis, which probably hasn't happened in 20 years. So I'm pretty hyped about the strokes being in my local town. However, when I went to go buy tickets, the prices threw me for a loop. Like, I mean, I have a little coin, but $500 a ticket to see the strokes. Like I got to reconsider that because I got a family that wants to go. And there's beer and drinks and food. So I'm like, I'm going to try to get it on the secondary market for cheaper to try to, you know, get something at last minute, which is kind of my MO anyway. So my point in that is saying, you know, even the model of, we're going to tour. I don't know if bands are going to get the kind of dollars that they're used to, unless you're like Oasis reunion. It's been 20 years tour. I don't know if you're going to be, you know, unless you're Taylor Swift or a big name, there are only so many concerts that people are going to consume. And this diversification of trying to build your brand into a B2B platform, I think makes a lot of sense if you're an entrepreneur, which every musician and band is now. JT ODonnell (51:05.997) Yeah. I literally had the same experience. We just decided not to go to a concert at this secondary style event venue that they wanted $400 for these lawn seats to go see Ella Langley. And I said, no, absolutely not. Not worth it. So to your point, creating that digital. And then do you wonder, can they pull back on the tour and curate amazing experiences? So I will pay money to go meet you, hang out with you. Joel Cheesman (51:21.771) Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (51:37.358) be in room where I hear you in a concert with maybe 100, 200 people, can they do that and still have that opportunity, which they also then turn into video footage, social media footage, et cetera, higher end experience, a lot fewer of them and then keep it to digital. But the one last thing I'll say about that, I think a lot of performers live for touring. They live for being in front of that audience, that vibe, that connection, that gratification. So while it might be a better money play, Will they lose that one thing that they enjoy, which is playing for audiences? And so you gotta wonder. Joel Cheesman (52:14.509) think they're trying to balance. So there's lawn seating. Now your case, it's 400 for the lawn or whatever. That's a little extreme. So the tickets for the lawn are pretty accessible. Let's be honest. My wife doesn't do lawn anymore unless it's like Dave Matthews or something. So I got to have a seat, which means I pay more. And I agree with you more having sort of VIP experiences, whether it's get in an hour early for sound check. So you can see the band sort of check, you know, on stage before the show or pictures with the band. Like my wife, Canadian loves bare naked ladies. You know, the, the unofficial band of Canada, for a lot of people. And they had a picture with the band, VIP experience. ended up not getting it, but I considered it because she is such a fan and the social media endorphin rush to have all our Canadian friends see her with bare naked ladies was like something that was hard to pass up, but clearly bands are trying to figure out. JT ODonnell (52:51.631) as do I, love them. Joel Cheesman (53:11.735) How do we balance the audience with full money or the most profitable bill that we can? it's an interesting world that we live in. will, I will offer this in on this. the NFL draft is this week on Thursday. we'll publish this Friday. So it will have happened after this. I'm wearing my Brown's cap today. cause the, the, the draft is the super bowl for most Brown's fans. Cause we usually draft really high. aside from that, the number one pick. this year is going to be a guy named Fernando Mendoza. He was the quarterback at Indiana university, won a championship, won the Heisman. he is all in on LinkedIn and I think it's fascinating. he's been on LinkedIn for awhile. He has hundreds of thousands of followers, which will certainly go to millions once he joins the NFL. he, he humorously has the open to work badge on his profile picture. JT ODonnell (54:06.511) Love it, love it. Joel Cheesman (54:07.065) so I don't know if he takes that off after the draft or not. And he has deals with us bank and Taco bell. So he has listed on his profile, both of those companies, he has kind of a funny title, whatever. But if, if I'm us bank, does that not, is that not appealing to have a quarterback first round, you first draft pick and have us bank as an employee, like have that connection. I think that's incredibly powerful and you can't do that on TikTok or Instagram or any of those. So I think that is kind of the boilerplate for what you'll see more and more athletes do in the future. JT ODonnell (54:44.833) It's interesting. Yes. And you're also going to see a big rise in private messaging. So platforms like Telegram, and this is all coming off of OnlyFans, right? Where they make their money is they have chatters who are chatting up in order to buy purchases. The head of social media for Josh Ross, who's a country singer, reached out to me because I follow him. I'm a fan and said, would you test our Telegram product? I didn't pay for it, but they Joel Cheesman (54:52.546) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:03.117) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (55:11.681) signed me up and it's supposed to be me getting messages directly from Josh. So you think about that fan base. It's, well, that's the thing. They're telling you it's really him and it's messaging and the reaction was, ooh, they're early stages. This isn't feeling right at all, which was the feedback that I gave them, but I can see where they're going, right? Super fans, the idea of just being, sitting around at night, I have nothing to do, I'm lonely. I can talk to Josh Ross, my favorite singer. Joel Cheesman (55:15.627) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:19.329) Those are automated, right? Those are automated messages. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (55:39.735) Yeah. JT ODonnell (55:39.887) I could see that that piece really starting to happen using AI, et cetera, creating that experience for people. So those, the name image likeness is going to go to a whole next level with some of these folks. Joel Cheesman (55:51.329) I mean, it goes back to the Zuckerberg, you know, AI CEO, right? I mean, if it looks like him, it sounds like him, it's got his brain, all of his content, how he says stuff, and it feels real. Like if you're a fan, you're probably okay with Starlight, you know, edition of your Star. One thing that will never be automated though, JT. JT ODonnell (55:56.451) Right. Right. JT ODonnell (56:01.284) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (56:10.692) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (56:16.737) here we go. Joel Cheesman (56:20.833) That's right. Speaking of music, what is Beethoven's favorite fruit? What is Beethoven's favorite fruit? Joel Cheesman (56:32.651) Banananaa. Banananaa. JT ODonnell (56:34.649) You Joel Cheesman (56:39.529) Spring in New England, enjoy that JT. We out. JT ODonnell (56:42.742) We out!

TECH ISN'T THE PROBLEM In this episode of Mallorca Talks, Chad Sowash and Rebecca Carr, CEO of SmartRecruiters (an SAP company), discuss the future of AI and enterprise software. Rebecca argues that the biggest barrier to innovation isn't tech, but the ego of companies trying to "own" the user through closed systems. She envisions a shift toward open ecosystems where SAP, Slack, and AI agents collaborate to provide a seamless, "in-the-flow" experience. Key Highlights: Breaking Walled Gardens The "Task" Revolution The SAP Fleet This conversation explores how AI will reclaim the 80% of time spent on admin work to finally unleash human creativity. Like, subscribe, and comment to join the conversation on the future of work. PART 2 - MONEY LEAK PART 3 - JOB SPLIT PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:24.2 Chad Sowash: Day two. 0:00:25.0 Rebecca Carr: Day two. I'm here. 0:00:25.9 Chad Sowash: Day two. I know. I got to see the presentation and everything, right? That was good, that was good. 0:00:29.9 Rebecca Carr: Yes, yeah, yeah. 0:00:31.4 Chad Sowash: Uh, but one thing I didn't get to do is talk to you about the stuff that I saw yesterday because... 0:00:36.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm, yeah. 0:00:36.9 Chad Sowash: We didn't have the conversation. The big thing that I want to talk about, and we hear this a lot from CEOs, but you're more of a product person... 0:00:47.1 Rebecca Carr: Mm. 0:00:47.9 Chad Sowash: Right? And you're... You're a leader, but you've been a product leader. Umm, I want to talk about vision. And I don't just mean smart recruiters vision. I want to talk about vision moving forward with a bigger suite of service, moving to business... 0:01:01.9 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:01:02.0 Chad Sowash: Outside of just talents. 0:01:04.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:01:04.1 Chad Sowash: Umm, what does this actually mean, this move from a... From a technology standpoint? Because the opportunity is great... 0:01:11.9 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:01:12.0 Chad Sowash: But execution is a bitch. 0:01:13.3 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Oh, well, that's true. Uh, I'll... I'll start with the execution comment. [laughter] 0:01:19.1 Rebecca Carr: At the end of the day, the... The experience that will ultimately be provided will be far more connected than our egos allow us or want us to... [chuckle] to be. Umm, I think... 0:01:31.0 Chad Sowash: Say that again. Say that again. 0:01:33.0 Rebecca Carr: It'll be far more connected than our... Than our egos would... Would want us to be. I guess you could say. 0:01:38.0 Chad Sowash: Okay. Okay. Okay. 0:01:39.6 Rebecca Carr: Umm... No one company is probably capable of delivering the experience that the user will want in order to feel as seamless and in-the-flow as it will need to be and will become over time. 0:01:55.0 Chad Sowash: Sure. 0:01:55.7 Rebecca Carr: And, uh, right now, we think about our business. I'll just use SAP as an example. Huge business enterprise software platform. But they do look at the market and they go, "Oracle's my competition. And, uh, Workday is my competition." 0:02:10.1 Chad Sowash: True. 0:02:10.9 Rebecca Carr: Umm, because we build the same type of product. And that is true. 0:02:14.8 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:02:15.0 Rebecca Carr: But the reality is that... And I... I'd also argue that they'd call ServiceNow their competition. They'd call Microsoft their competition. They'd call Salesforce their competition. But, umm, the reality is to build that experience, we will need to break down the walls of where comp... Like, that line of competition lies... 0:02:33.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:02:33.1 Rebecca Carr: And we'll need to open ourselves up to a level of connectivity across those platforms that delivers the experience to the user... User that they expect. Umm, I look at something like a sales leader. My sales leaders live and breathe in Salesforce today. 0:02:50.5 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:02:50.8 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and if they could, they would want to do everything in Salesforce. They want to do their capacity planning in Salesforce. They'd want to hire in Salesforce because it's just the tool they've come to be comfortable in. 0:03:04.1 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:03:04.9 Rebecca Carr: But we don't allow them to do that because businesses put up the wall of, "Well, umm, you... You didn't pick us for that piece of the product. So you're gonna log into a new system and learn something different. And I'm gonna collect that data, and I'm gonna hold that data really close to me, umm, because it makes me more valuable." 0:03:23.1 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:03:23.8 Rebecca Carr: And that is true. Umm, that is true as the world exists today. Umm, but I think in order to truly follow people through life, you have to be open to sharing that data across those walls, umm, with the intent of delivering the user with a sticky enough experience that they feed you more data to learn back. Umm, because what ends up happening is that... That... That sales leader just doesn't ever log into that other system. They go into like Slack or Teams and they say, "Hey, can you put my review in that system?" 0:03:55.1 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:03:55.3 Rebecca Carr: "And/or can you fill out my... Here's my performance review in... On a Word doc." [laughter] 0:04:00.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:04:00.9 Rebecca Carr: "Can you just load it up for me?" 0:04:02.0 Chad Sowash: "Consume this and..." Yeah. 0:04:03.2 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. And what happens is that person maybe loads it up or maybe they try to guess what that person is thinking based on the way that they've, uh... Or the decision that they've... They've made. 0:04:13.8 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:04:14.0 Rebecca Carr: And you don't get real time feedback. 0:04:16.1 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:04:16.3 Rebecca Carr: You don't get wholly accurate feedback. Uh, and, uh, you are made less better because of it. So I'll be curious to see how the... The boundaries of enterprise software get broken down and how partnership, and like real meaningful part... Partnership accelerates... Umm, accelerates our world. But it will... It could theoretically create a bit of an instability in the market. Like, then what... What do we hold valuable? How are those companies valued? 0:04:46.1 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:04:46.7 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and how do we think about growth of any one of those entities, uh, over time as a result? So, I don't know if I've totally come to the answer. I just, I think that one of the biggest blockers that we have is that our e... Our ego wants to own everything. 0:05:03.9 Chad Sowash: Yes. 0:05:04.1 Rebecca Carr: And we, because that's how we get paid and that's how we get bigger and that's how we become more successful as humans. 0:05:12.0 Chad Sowash: Right. Gotta own the revenue. 0:05:12.8 Rebecca Carr: But it's... It's, uh, it's actually enabling a bad experience for the user. 0:05:18.7 Chad Sowash: So, what I'm... What I'm hearing, or at least what I'm translating in my brain is that ther... There's an opportunity even outside the SAP ecosystem, let's say for instance in Slack... 0:05:31.0 Rebecca Carr: Sure. 0:05:31.4 Chad Sowash: To be able to have Winston interact... 0:05:33.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:05:34.0 Chad Sowash: Gather intel and bring it into the... The... The... The system of record... 0:05:38.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yes. 0:05:39.0 Chad Sowash: Whatever that system is, right? 0:05:40.0 Rebecca Carr: Yep, mm-hmm. 0:05:40.7 Chad Sowash: So at... At that point, uh, you're going well beyond that of just... Just SAP. You're working outside of SAP. You're becoming the, pretty much the connective tissue, the messaging connective tissue within the actual business suite itself, but then also outside... 0:05:56.7 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:05:57.0 Chad Sowash: And gathering data. 0:05:58.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:05:58.2 Chad Sowash: Umm, either... I mean, even, uh, using, you know, mechanisms like WhatsApp. 0:06:03.2 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:06:03.8 Chad Sowash: Or whatever messaging systems, right? That's still outside... 0:06:07.5 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:06:07.9 Chad Sowash: Something that... That SAP owns. Although as a candidate or as, let's say, for instance, an employee, that might be my preferred method of... Of messaging. 0:06:17.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. [overlapping conversation] 0:06:17.8 Chad Sowash: Right? So is that where you're saying breaking down those walls? 0:06:20.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Being okay with adapting to what the user... The user preference would be. 0:06:25.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:06:26.0 Rebecca Carr: And frankly, learning from their engagement on their platform... There's a HR startup... Startup that recently came out or, uh, recently launched, uh, a, uh, program by which they're taking skills, performance, personality data about an employee, umm, which is actually very fascinating to me at the psychology level. 0:06:46.6 Chad Sowash: Sure. Yeah. 0:06:47.6 Rebecca Carr: And they are collecting that through an independent assessment that the... The employee engages with... 0:06:53.8 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:06:54.2 Rebecca Carr: And they are injecting that into a Slack experience. So that when you as a manager engage with your employee and you write them a message, maybe you're trying to give them feedback on a presentation... 0:07:05.9 Chad Sowash: It's tonal. 0:07:07.0 Rebecca Carr: It's, uh... [laughter] 0:07:08.1 Rebecca Carr: It... It changes tone. So, the... Shure People's the name of this company, and they're... It will rewrite it for you in a structure and tone that will be well received... 0:07:20.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:07:20.7 Rebecca Carr: By the person on the other side. And when you think about how much cross-functional collaboration happens, how much, like, cross-country collaboration, like multilingual collaboration happens. Like, 0:07:30.0 Chad Sowash: Cultures. Yeah. 0:07:31.0 Rebecca Carr: Yes. It's making a recommendation to the user as to how you should change the way that you're giving them that feedback in order to make them more productive in the receipt of that feedback. Umm, I... Like... How... Like... I just... I remember when I was hearing that example, I was like, that is so cool because here they are, they're an HR tech startup that's really trying to help people manage more effectively. Like, that's the intent. 0:07:59.2 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:07:59.7 Rebecca Carr: But think about all the other things that that unlocks. And they're only actually delivering that based on a, like, one single assessment that they do. Think about what could happen if more of that ecosystem was... Was opened up. Umm, what if it recommended feedback that you give people based on their performance in real time? But they don't have access to that performance data, they just have access to the assessment. So, it actually is supporting, like, real development of the employee themselves and their ability to accelerate growth within that organization at a much faster clip because that feedback loop is so tight. 0:08:34.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:08:34.8 Rebecca Carr: Uh, and I... I see a great opportunity for SmartRecruiters in the SAP world because it covers so many verticals of enterprise software. 0:08:42.5 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:08:43.1 Rebecca Carr: Umm, but in order to actually deliver that and really be effective, we're gonna still have to lean into a real ecosystem strategy that finds people where most conversation happens for them. And that is not in SAP in most scenarios. Yeah. 0:08:59.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. So, uh, I have also heard that, you know, that there... There's a change from point solution, right? To... To... To suite and... And whatnot. But what... From what you just described, that, to be quite frank, could actually power many smaller point solutions just because of the connectivity, right? 0:09:19.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 0:09:19.4 Chad Sowash: So, being able to literally drive... 0:09:22.2 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:09:22.6 Chad Sowash: Uh, more connectiv... Or connection points... 0:09:25.2 Rebecca Carr: Yes. 0:09:26.0 Chad Sowash: And we all know that for the most part, that's a pain. 0:09:29.3 Rebecca Carr: Yes. 0:09:30.0 Chad Sowash: Because when you get into a bigger system... 0:09:32.8 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:09:32.9 Chad Sowash: Umm, and a bigger suite, and you want to get paid attention to... 0:09:35.6 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:09:36.9 Chad Sowash: That's really hard. 0:09:38.0 Rebecca Carr: Yes. 0:09:38.1 Chad Sowash: Although, if you go through and agent tech, let's say, partnership process or what have you... 0:09:43.3 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. I mean, I actually think though, the... The way that... It's hard today because of the way that we have constructed packaging and pricing in partnership as a commercial motion. Umm, AI is opening a... A very big door right now to consumption-based pricing. 0:10:02.1 Chad Sowash: Like, transactional... 0:10:04.5 Rebecca Carr: Yes. 0:10:04.6 Chad Sowash: Okay. 0:10:05.0 Rebecca Carr: Umm, enterprise software has historically... I mean, Vertical SaaS has just been subscription, subscription, subscription... 0:10:10.4 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:10:10.9 Rebecca Carr: And commitments, big upfront commitments. And so today, how partners engage with us in the ecosystem is they come to us and they go, "Okay, you sell my point solution along with yours." And so what does that require? It requires great integration, or... Or like a niche-use case, but also you selling the heck out of the... Your point solution to the field so that they never forget to put you in a demo. 0:10:32.8 Chad Sowash: Yes. 0:10:33.1 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and then what happens? You have to be in a SKU, you have to meet certain security standards, you have to go through this process of, like, negotiating rev share. Umm, I think as agent collaboration becomes more hi... High-value but also just in the forefront of product development... 0:10:50.0 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:10:50.7 Rebecca Carr: Umm, your product will be successful by how impactful and usable your use case is within the flow of business activity. So we might OEM one type of, uh, interaction is a good example. We have some OEM partners that are supporting, umm, umm, some of our ca... Our candidate conversation workflows. 0:11:13.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:11:13.9 Rebecca Carr: Umm, really, our model with that partner is not ever to sell them. In fact, our customers don't even know that they exist. 0:11:20.9 Chad Sowash: Uh-huh. 0:11:21.0 Rebecca Carr: But we are using some of their technology and we're paying them per application for it. 0:11:26.8 Chad Sowash: Sure. 0:11:27.0 Rebecca Carr: And our customers don't know the difference, they don't care. As long as they meet their security standards, that's great. 0:11:32.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:11:32.8 Rebecca Carr: They are... They have decided to enable that feature because it provides them value. Umm, and as long as we continue to provide them value and that technology provides us value, they will be making, Monday... Mm... Uh, money, and they will grow alongside us. And I think you're gonna see a lot more partnerships that look like that. Umm, what... What's tricky about it is most people aren't used to planning their businesses that way in B2B. 0:11:55.5 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. 0:11:57.0 Rebecca Carr: In B2C they are. Umm, but it takes teams of FP&S teams that, you know, look at the market and get very, very good at predicting sort of how labor will move across organizations in the HR space. But it could be in the... Umm, uh, in the procurement space; it could be the number of contracts negotiated a year. And, uh, they put out a forecast that would... Would have to say that this is what we expect to... To receive as a result of that because our technology is expe... Expected to provide that kind of value. 0:12:27.4 Chad Sowash: So, there's a lot of work to be done in integrating and, uh, looking at SuccessFactor customers, SAP customers, so on and so forth. Uh, [0:12:38.1] ____ Allyn just talked about 120 engineers coming over, which I thought was amazing. I mean, you know, usually, at least from what we hear, "Ah, you get a... A... A couple of engineers to be able to kinda give you the overview of what the company is." Well, no, they're sending a whole fleet... 0:12:53.0 Rebecca Carr: A fleet of them, yeah. Yeah. 0:12:54.0 Chad Sowash: Of engineers over, umm, which is a great commitment and amazing support... 0:12:59.9 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:13:00.6 Chad Sowash: Uh, from the SAP side on the partnership side, 'cause you've got to grow on all flanks. 0:13:05.0 Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yeah. 0:13:06.0 Chad Sowash: So, talk a little bit about that partnership growth side, because there are tons of obviously new startups that are out there all over the place, and they... And they want to... To, you know... They... They wanna have a great relationship... 0:13:18.1 Rebecca Carr: They... They really like to email me. [laughter] 0:13:19.8 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, they want to have a great relationship with SmartRecruiters, uh, and SAP companies. 0:13:25.2 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:13:25.6 Chad Sowash: Uh, so, talk a little bit abou... Uh, about that. How hard is it to manage something like that? Not just yourself, but obviously the executive... Uh, the executive team as well. 0:13:33.9 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Uh, well, so, we divide our partner ecosystem into three categories. 0:13:39.0 Chad Sowash: Uh-huh. 0:13:39.7 Rebecca Carr: One, umm, which is more like services-partner side, pretty straightforward. We don't implement our own software. Umm, and frankly, more and more, our software implements itself with the end user. Umm, like, we really do want to provide self-service experiences wherever possible. But inevitably, there's consulting partners out there that are helping people through this transformational moment and are... Are great partners to us in identifying prospects that are ready to make that move. 0:14:07.1 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:14:07.8 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and they require a very deep technical enablement so that they can speak intelligently and guide people toward the right outcome. Umm, there's then a group of partners that we'd call our sell partners. They are managed by a different executive. Uh, and our job is to enable them to sell and support and implement and everything. And this is really where we start about... Like, we... We focus on, umm, partners that can sell into verticals that we don't know very much about. Think like public sector... 0:14:37.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:14:37.9 Rebecca Carr: As a good example. 0:14:38.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:14:39.0 Rebecca Carr: Or, uh, segments where, uh, the... The cost of acquisition of that customer is just gonna be far too high for us at our size and scale. And so for SAP, that's typically gonna be below 5,000 FTEs. Like, our commercial segments are gonna be driven by partners. And what tho... Are... My executives do is they spend all day, every day, enabling those people on our vision, on what's important, and any new products. And as we... Because we release every two weeks, that takes quite an army of people. Umm... 0:15:08.5 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:09.7 Rebecca Carr: But then there's, like, I think the partners that you're referencing, which is gonna be our product partnerships. Umm, here we're looking for a couple things. One, we're a global... Uh, we serve global enterprises, umm, and we operate globally. Most startups focus on one market, on one industry at a time, one problem space at a time. 0:15:30.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah. 0:15:31.6 Rebecca Carr: And the problem with approaching someone like me is there isn't a business case that maths out if I'm only gonna sell it to one very small sliver of my customer base. 0:15:41.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:15:42.1 Rebecca Carr: So, usually those conversations end if they can't, like, truly adapt to me at a global scale. And it takes a lot of time and money to get to that level. 0:15:53.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:15:53.7 Rebecca Carr: Umm, now, some people have done it really well, and there's obviously, uh, new technologies have made it a lot easier for businesses to get there faster than it took me in 2016. Umm, but, uh, that... That's one attribute. But the other is, I have to know that there is a level of expertise in that partner team, umm, that I do not have, in... Both in the workflow, the user experience, umm, and the technology. 0:16:23.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:16:23.1 Rebecca Carr: And I can't acquire it quickly. Now, right now, I need to deliver product faster than anybody else on the market in order to be successful, 'cause this is... This is a... This is a race at... At a certain point. Umm, a lot of people can come up with my idea, and a lot of people can build it really quickly. Umm, and so I need to be very, very agile. Where I'm gonna pick my partners is the... Is like the teams of people that can align to that adaptability, that pace... 0:16:48.7 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:16:49.0 Rebecca Carr: And have a skill that I couldn't teach the engineer sitting in Poland to do in a month or two. Umm, and, uh, some partners have done that really well because they focus on a piece of the workflow that is genuinely unique. It's... It's adjacent to recruiting. It's like workforce planning. Umm, there's some folks that are doing some really cool stuff in learning and enabling of, uh, employee resources that have nothing to do with sort of the old learning and content error, but are really thinking about bringing learning into the flow of work. My team doesn't know anything about learning and the learning journey outside of what they do every day within SmartRecruiters. 0:17:31.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:17:31.5 Rebecca Carr: So, that level of expertise would probably take me six months to acquire of discovery... 0:17:36.1 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. 0:17:36.7 Rebecca Carr: If they're willing to partner, they having a... A global enterprise technology at their fingertips and they'll play ball, they'll integrate and really collaborate with us at a deeper level very quickly. "I'm all... I'm game for it." And, uh, I think we've done that, uh, very, very well within SmartRecruiters in a couple pieces of our journey. But, I mean, I'd say we're... We're only at the infancy. We have maybe like four or five today. Yeah. 0:18:02.0 Chad Sowash: It... It sounds like for... For those specific points of need that it's... It's more of a shopping expedition for you guys than it is waiting for the right partner to come to you because you know what you need. 0:18:16.0 Rebecca Carr: You... You would think. [laughter] 0:18:17.1 Chad Sowash: Not so much? 0:18:17.9 Rebecca Carr: You would think... I mean, we definitely do do market evaluation all the time. 0:18:21.8 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:18:22.0 Rebecca Carr: Umm, but there's one thing, and I say this to any of the startups that, like, come to me and ask questions about, like, you know, "How do I scale? How do I grow?" 0:18:31.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:18:31.9 Rebecca Carr: None of them know anything about channel selling. Like, it's just... It's not a motion that you, like, as a founder, you intuitively, like, come to understand the value of. You think of partners and ecosystem as, like, that other thing that gives you 15% of your growth opportunity. [laughter] 0:18:49.9 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and they think, "Oh, I gotta go hire a salesperson that's gonna go there and knock on doors and I'm gonna do it differently 'cause I'm gonna use an agent to do all the dialing," and then someone's gonna pick up the... Like, that's how they're... That's where their minds go. 0:19:01.3 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:19:02.0 Rebecca Carr: Umm, they don't think, "Ooh, maybe I should build a company that actually just goes to the channel only." Umm, because it feels... Business development in general feels like a little bit, like, soft and fuzzy and salesy. It doesn't... It doesn't translate to dollars as quickly and concretely as someone going and putting a contract and someone signing it. 0:19:26.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:19:26.3 Rebecca Carr: And so a lot of these startups aren't shopping for that reason. If they're shopping, it's because they want to be acquired. 0:19:34.0 Chad Sowash: Yes. 0:19:34.6 Rebecca Carr: And if they want to be acquired, they're usually, uh, wanting to be acquired because they're tired and they're not growing as quickly, and they're like, "You know what? Maybe just the easiest way is to just get eaten up by one of these guys." They're not coming to me to go... Coming to me and going, "Rebecca, I want you to embed me and I'm gonna come up with a really creative commercial model that's a little risky for me, but I trust you." 0:19:57.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:19:57.9 Rebecca Carr: And we're gonna put it in the product together." And it's... It's true, though, if you think about, umm, that vendor that I chatted about with, umm, applications. That's terrifying for them. Like, here they are, a little company that probably has raised, you know, one or two rounds, and their board is looking for, you know, committed growth in order to continue their investment or maybe not shop a buyer elsewhere. 0:20:20.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:20:21.0 Rebecca Carr: And they're going, "You know what? We're gonna put our product in here and it's gonna be totally consumption-based and you're gonna tru... Trust that our product works. And if it works, this is how much... How many multi-millions of dollars we're gonna make." And the board goes, "Mm, but if it doesn't work, you're gonna make zero dollars, and you're going to have wasted an entire year." That's a huge leap of faith. Umm, and so... [overlapping conversation] 0:20:40.9 Chad Sowash: Alright. So you're saying you have to take, though, right? 0:20:43.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah, it... It's... It is the leap of faith that these folks are gonna have to start taking. Umm, but it's uncomfortable. So, you don't really get a lot of inbound with people shopping you that design. Umm, you have to go find and convince and sell them on the opportunity that they have with you. 0:21:01.3 Chad Sowash: Uh-huh. 0:21:01.9 Rebecca Carr: And there's a little bit of flexibility upfront on how you think about the commercials and committed spend, but, you know, nothing to the... To the level that, you know, they're hoping to get from the relationship. 0:21:12.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. So, when you're talking about these types of partners, let's go to the... To the top of the funnel real quick and we're talking about, umm, being able to create, uh, a self-sustaining suite of services, right? So top of funnel today, companies go and spend a lot of money on recruitment marketing. Right? 0:21:30.8 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. 0:21:31.8 Chad Sowash: After they've bought these candidates five, six, ten times over. Right? 0:21:35.1 Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yeah. 0:21:36.1 Chad Sowash: So that... That candidate's already in their database. Umm, is... Is there a perceivable model where SmartRecruiters or the connective tissue of the... The... The actual database itself goes, finds those candidates before going and spending money, number one... 0:21:53.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. 0:21:54.2 Chad Sowash: Uh, but while... Even before that happened, you were keeping... Uh, you were engaging the individual, doing gap analysis, knowing that, "Hey, look, do you... Do you meet these requirements, etcetera, etcetera?" Are we moving to a point where we're only gonna need to spend money as a company when we need to? Because we've been spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions every year that we really didn't need to. So is that something that companies are coming to you saying, "Look, we need a better... We... We... We need a better way of fixing this as opposed to this crazy leaky bucket that we're dealing with"? 0:22:30.9 Rebecca Carr: Yeah, they... They want outcome-based pricing. Umm, like, "I'll pay you if you get it done for me." That's probably what they ask for more than "when I need it..." 0:22:39.4 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:22:39.8 Rebecca Carr: 'Cause they... They perc... They perceive themselves to always need it. And most people are really bad at searching their own databases... 0:22:46.0 Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. 0:22:46.1 Rebecca Carr: I'd say mo...... And the people that know they have big databases have one really big problem, which is they don't understand intent. Umm, and so a lot of what they're looking for is me to go and search that database for them... 0:23:02.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:23:02.3 Rebecca Carr: And give them high-intent candidates back. Umm, they... They have found lots of different ways to like market their brand and these people know who they are. 0:23:12.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:23:12.1 Rebecca Carr: But what that's translating to is us all getting a bunch of spam texts from recruiters at these companies right now going like, "Hey, you open to a job right now?" which is like actually the most uncomfortable way to ask for intent. There's a lot of other ways that we could understand that. 0:23:27.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:23:27.5 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and so what they... What they're looking for is a return on that alone. Like, "I just want you to find the 1,500 people in my database of 100,000 that actually wanna work for me right now, and then I will spend money to market to just those people." Umm, and it will be... [overlapping conversation] 0:23:48.2 Chad Sowash: [0:23:48.2] ____ Qualifications, yeah. 0:23:48.9 Rebecca Carr: Yeah, yes, who meet... Who meet the qualifications and whatnot. And I think that there's actually like an interesting, umm... There's an interesting way to do that. Like, as... And... And what... Intent can be discovered, you know, by search activity and job... Like people applying to jobs for sure. 0:24:05.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:24:05.3 Rebecca Carr: But it also can... It needs to be something that's understood in real time. If you're walking down the street or, uh, like walking past a store, and I know that you've been looking for retail associates and in that moment I push a campaign at you... 0:24:19.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:24:19.5 Rebecca Carr: Umm, knowing already that you are on the hunt and you're standing next to the store and there's an interview spot right now, am I more likely to get you to lean in than if I were to market to you at home when you were sitting in bed? Umm, I think the answer is probably yes. But again, it requires like a certain level of ecosystem that we don't have today. Umm, I... I mentioned I think yesterday that my... My... Like, my dream partnership would be like an OpenAI or something like that. 0:24:48.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:24:48.9 Rebecca Carr: But I actually think like, who's gonna be the enterprise software platform that partners with Apple first and understands location and behavior through... Through like your day-to-day life and then pushes business moments to you that are relevant and timely? Umm, that would be a cool partnership to invest into and it would be very helpful from a top-of-funnel perspective in the recruiting journey. Umm, 'cause I think you need to hit people at the right time and place. Uh, and that is... That outcome alone is valuable enough to the company that they'd pay me for it. But the fact that I have a database of people is irrelevant, doesn't mean anything to them. 0:25:26.4 Chad Sowash: So, but what is relevant for a lot of core systems is that, umm, recruitment marketing's about a $16 billion a year, uh, nut. So, why haven't you figured it out? 0:25:40.0 Rebecca Carr: Why? Yeah. Well... [laughter] 0:25:42.0 Rebecca Carr: It's even bigger than that is agency. 0:25:44.2 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. 0:25:45.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. 0:25:46.0 Chad Sowash: I mean, so... 0:25:47.0 Rebecca Carr: I mean, I... Yeah, no one is... So, I don't have the answer for this, but I'd probably loop... Loop it back to how static the job object is today. 0:25:57.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:25:58.2 Rebecca Carr: I mean, you're only as compelling as your job description right now, and like that is not very good. Bar's low, we'll say that much. 0:26:06.4 Chad Sowash: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:26:07.6 Rebecca Carr: Umm, I also think there's a certain sense of commitment that we have created around job. Like, I'm making a commitment to you, I will be here for multiple years. Think about like the structures that are created within organizations. You get rewarded for tenure. 0:26:24.8 Chad Sowash: Oh yeah. 0:26:25.2 Rebecca Carr: Umm, and for... For, you know, moving up through an organization. I mean, my father worked for the same company for 45 years and he received two rocking chairs, like multiple statues. [laughter] 0:26:39.0 Rebecca Carr: Like, had an amazing 401(k) program by that point. Like, we rewarded him for that. 0:26:44.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:26:44.3 Rebecca Carr: But do I think that there was opportunity cost to him because he sat there? 100% there was. 0:26:49.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:26:50.2 Rebecca Carr: And we haven't made it... We haven't normalized fluidity in the workforce. But the next generation of workers, I think, expects it. You're starting to see them want that. 0:27:02.1 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:27:02.7 Rebecca Carr: And all of recruitment marketing today is sort of pushing the, "You're gonna go do this and you're gonna do it for two years and then you're gonna get to the next," not, "Here's like a really cool thing that I actually want... You have the skills to do, you're missing this one..." 0:27:17.1 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:27:17.5 Rebecca Carr: "but would you be willing to like work on this project and try? And if it doesn't work out, no problem. Like, there's another one that you can go to here." 0:27:24.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:27:24.1 Rebecca Carr: Or, "By doing this project, you're actually unlocking all these other cool things that you could go work on." Umm, it's never framed that way. Nor do we, umm... Nor do we pay recruitment agencies, umm, to support that motion. We pay them as a percentage of your base salary... 0:27:43.1 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:27:43.5 Rebecca Carr: As if you're gonna go work there for an... Uh, one year again. So we put a lot of time restriction, we put a lot of, umm, like qua... Qualification restric... Restriction, we put a lot of re... Like job requirements restriction on everything. 0:27:56.9 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:27:57.2 Rebecca Carr: And candidates need to love every piece of those things. They need to want to be there for a year. They need to love every requirement. They need to know... They need to think that they're qualified in every single category in order to lean into the moment. Oh, and by the way, they have to, you know, be in the same location. They have to want to be working right now. It's not experimental enough, I think, to get the... The level of adoption that's gonna actually drive customers to faster time to hire. Umm, and I don't know how that... I don't necessarily know how that comes together in product... 0:28:31.1 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:28:31.7 Rebecca Carr: Umm, or in the movement of labor around the world frankly. But I think it, uh... I think it is... It's one of the reasons why recruitment marketing hasn't worked as well as we'd hoped for. 0:28:45.0 Chad Sowash: Over and over and over. It's... It's... It's a garbage in, garbage out scenario, right? With the job descriptions and resumes and so on and so forth. It's almost like, you know, I... I... I hear that there's... There's a... A... A fix for the candidate side. We take a look at the resume, there's a gap analysis. We message them, we ask them, "Do you do X, Y and Z?" Right? To be able to fill those gaps. Or we generally don't. Do we just throw them into a bla... A black hole? Right. 0:29:10.0 Rebecca Carr: Yeah. 0:29:10.8 Chad Sowash: But I'm not hearing that on the employer side on, "This job description sucks." You know? How do we... 0:29:17.3 Rebecca Carr: No, they... They do not... They never say that. Yeah. Yeah. [overlapping conversation] 0:29:19.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, but we should, right? 0:29:23.1 Rebecca Carr: Yes, we should. 0:29:23.8 Chad Sowash: We're... We're literally, we're the experts. They've worked for this one company. Maybe they've had a few more companies, but, you know, "This is how it's always been done. Well, it doesn't work work well that way." 0:29:32.4 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. 0:29:32.6 Chad Sowash: So how do we put systems and products in place, much like we are trying to with the candidate and engage the candidate and engage the employer and say, "Look, we need this and that," and then ask those, those engagement, those... Those questions to fill and make it more full so that when the candidate comes and you're doing that with them, you're actually getting a halfway decent match. 0:29:57.9 Rebecca Carr: Right. I think it starts with better workforce planning at the top, I'll say that much. 0:30:03.8 Chad Sowash: Oh yeah. 0:30:04.2 Rebecca Carr: Umm, that's like the one workflow. It's so fascinating to me and it came up, I was... When I was in Switzerland two weeks ago, like, it came up a lot. People asked about like the agentic workflow within workforce planning. Umm, it's mostly done in spreadsheets today. There isn't like... Yes, there are a handful of applications that do some of this... 0:30:23.7 Chad Sowash: Sure. 0:30:24.2 Rebecca Carr: But it's... It is pretty amazing to me how large enterprises still like do this entirely offline. Umm, and I think that, uh, because they have to fill a cell with like a number, uh, in order to, like, uh, I don't know, reorganize, work around a single person... 0:30:45.4 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:30:45.7 Rebecca Carr: The job is just the easy object to go and do that. Umm, I think as jobs are broken into what product managers would say jobs-to-be-done tasks, and those tasks are reallocated to agents as well as people, I think we will start to realize that any one task doesn't take a full person to deliver, and that sometimes the combination of tasks... So if you have like... If you have five or six different things that you're doing and three can go to agents, those three tasks that remain might not make up a full person's job anymore. 0:31:23.0 Rebecca Carr: So what we thought of as a project manager or a product manager... 0:31:27.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:31:27.1 Rebecca Carr: Now requires a different level of curiosity and skill that would have been taken up by another role. 0:31:32.1 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:31:32.7 Rebecca Carr: And so you're gonna need someone that can do two jobs as they exist today. And it's gonna start to break down sort of the borders of what a job description is, and they're going to start breaking people in half almost. This person will do half of what I needed to get done here and half of what I needed to do there. 0:31:51.7 Chad Sowash: Because of the tasks... [overlapping conversation] 0:31:52.0 Rebecca Carr: But... But it also helps the... The individual grow at an accelerated rate on one side faster than the other. So, now you're not sort of stuck in this one box with just these skills that you slowly learn over time, but you're... You're now two boxes of work. And one of them you might become more passionate and curious about and might accelerate more quickly. And that could open your spectrum of opportunity to something much bigger while you still do another half of an existing job that might be maybe, umm, more normalized. Umm, but it's a... I... I... I... I don't... I think because we plan companies around a job, we get jobs. It's the only thing. 0:32:33.0 Rebecca Carr: And so until you start planning companies around tasks and the allocation of tasks the same way that you were talking to [0:32:40.8] ____ Michal, we... We completely reframe our teams around jobs to be done and we change them every six months. And so an engineer is an engineer, but 50% of an engineer's job is to deliver against a piece of the product strategy. And if we keep changing, if they're an engineer and they're maintaining the platform half the time... 0:32:59.7 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:32:59.8 Rebecca Carr: We're co... Constantly like changing the other side of their job. Umm, and as a result we're realizing that that one engineer that used to be working on just doing like core platform fundamentals is actually really good at our comms networking. And so like, we move him very quickly into projects where he's working on communication channels... 0:33:22.0 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:33:22.2 Rebecca Carr: As a good example. And we would have never known that if we just kept him in the job of internal software architect. Uh... 0:33:29.7 Chad Sowash: So is it projects more... More... Do you see it moving toward where it's like project-based even when you're internal? Obviously, there are the external pieces where it's like, you're gonna come on for six months, this is the project deadline, this is what we have going on, but also internally, because, uh, that to me is that... What you just... What you just literally detailed is the best way to not only keep your people happy, but to keep them inquisitive and curious and looking at different aspects of the business as opposed to being in... Being painted into a corner. 0:34:05.8 Rebecca Carr: Yes. And frankly, it makes them feel comfortable not being good at something. So if they... If they go, like... So if we put them on a project where they maybe aren't as excited or they aren't performing at a high level... 0:34:18.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:34:19.1 Rebecca Carr: Umm, it doesn't mean that they're a bad engineer. It means that maybe that particular realm of work is not where their... We're going to be able to leverage their strengths. [overlapping conversation] 0:34:27.9 Chad Sowash: Their... Their sweet spot, yeah. 0:34:29.4 Rebecca Carr: And right now, when you're in a singular job and you're, like, beholden to it and then you don't do well, what happens is you have fear that you will lose this job. And because we're moving you around so much, you are trying new things, you're find... We are finding out where you can maximize strength. And if something doesn't work out, you don't feel as though the end is here. 0:34:53.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:34:53.1 Rebecca Carr: You feel as though you've learned something about yourself and you can move to the next thing. Umm, now, that doesn't mean that you... You, uh, keep poor performance just moving across your organization. There's a difference between underperforming because you have no will or want and... 0:35:10.3 Chad Sowash: Right. 0:35:10.8 Rebecca Carr: That another one that's underperforming because maybe your strengths as an... As an engineer or as a product manager, as a project manager, as a customer success are maybe not as high in one category. And us recognizing that as an organization and... And experimenting with where your work then goes next as a result of learning that. 0:35:29.8 Chad Sowash: Yeah. Well, and do you believe that the opportunity to move into those types of models are coming faster because of the, uh, the agents being able to take some of those tasks? And then you have to think of, wait a minute, this used to be a full person's job, and we have agents taking over some of their tasks, now we have to reformulate. 0:35:52.0 Rebecca Carr: Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're definitely seeing that in certain groups within our... Within our company. And frankly, I... I'd say what we're... How it's... How it's being realized in its, like, infancy right now... 0:36:05.2 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:36:05.7 Rebecca Carr: Is that people just aren't growing as quickly because they have so many people doing the same thing that when they remove 50% of that work from that group of people, those... Those individuals just... Just keep doing the, uh... They just take on more of the other 50%. 0:36:23.6 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:36:23.9 Rebecca Carr: But that, uh, over time, they will... They will be at capacity. And what we're gonna realize is there's something new, uh, there's a... A new adjacency to go and invest in, a new strategic project that's gonna drive us in the right direction. And, uh, those folks will start to be stretched and will be experimented with in a different way, or agents will become more and more capable of doing the... Their 50%... 0:36:51.0 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:36:51.1 Rebecca Carr: Which, uh, could be the case too. But, uh, yes, I think it's... It's encouraging organizations to think a little bit differently about what any one person does or is capable of doing on a daily basis. Yeah. 0:37:06.0 Chad Sowash: I'll ask you to step outside of your SmartRecruiters CEO body. I know it's not easy, uh, but take a look at technology and business literally from a macro sense. Okay? What excites you most about what's happening today versus maybe what was happening five years ago, and what excites you most about moving forward? 0:37:29.8 Rebecca Carr: I think that the average worker spends, and it might be an aggressive stat, but I think it's true, 80% of their time, umm, feeding systems with information. 0:37:46.0 Chad Sowash: Admin work. 0:37:47.0 Rebecca Carr: Admin work. Yeah. Just answering questions. 0:37:50.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:37:50.4 Rebecca Carr: And that has created a bloat, umm, across companies that restricts creativity. And I think there... We... What... What we are using today as it relates to technology, but also any other field around the world, is, I think, only scratching the surface of what is theoretically possible. 0:38:12.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:38:12.1 Rebecca Carr: And it's gonna take human creativity and solutioning and bold decision-making to move us forward. But we don't have time. We don't have cognitive space for that. And I think what AI is gonna offer us is the opportunity to do all of that faster and free up space to really think about what we could do for our teams, for our companies, for the world around us. 0:38:39.1 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:38:39.7 Rebecca Carr: Like, that level of creativity is, uh, is restricted right now and will be unleashed, I think, as we get more and more comfortable with leveraging technology... 0:38:50.8 Chad Sowash: Uh-huh. 0:38:51.0 Rebecca Carr: To do what we don't want to be doing every day. But it's scary. Like, that... That... There's a... There's... There's comfort in knowing what you're gonna wake up and do every day that... That... I... I spend a lot of time thinking about personality testing and there's, in the Enneagram, there's this number four, like, the creative center, and a lot of people do not have this. It's like when you send someone to a paint-by-numbers class... 0:39:14.9 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:39:15.2 Rebecca Carr: Or, like, an art class and you tell them to go paint something, just paint anything, they freeze, they hesitate, umm, because they want... There's judgment and there's, umm... And they're afraid that... That they're not gonna be... That they're not gonna meet their own personal expectation. Like, that's the world we're going into where we're really gonna have to get comfortable with trying, experimenting new things, being okay with failure... 0:39:42.6 Chad Sowash: Yeah. 0:39:42.7 Rebecca Carr: Umm, dreaming up things that feel crazy to us right now. And by taking away all that noise, we're kinda forcing ourselves into that space, but what could come out of it is really pretty outstanding. And I'm excited for that in the business landscape and in, frankly, in the consumer landscape as too, umm, that creativity will... Will only accelerate sort of the world around us. 0:40:06.0 Chad Sowash: So, what should we safeguard against? So, you're excited against, but what should we... What should... We shouldn't go into this, you know, with our eyes closed. What should we safeguard against? 0:40:17.0 Rebecca Carr: You need... People need to understand context in order to feel comfortable. And context requires transparency. And so the worst thing that we can go do is build closed-walled gardens around what is being done of those tasks on the other end. We need a level of transparency and explainability on demand for the person that seeks it. I look at how we've transformed SmartRecruiters. Everyone goes, like, "What's the one takeaway that you would... You would give any CEO or any executive from your journey here?" 0:40:51.0 Chad Sowash: Mm-hmm. 0:40:51.5 Rebecca Carr: It is, I told them everything and anything, the good, the bad, the ugly, every step of the way. Umm, you need to give people an understanding of what they're up against. And if you do that, they're... They'll... They'll generally be much more adaptable. But if they think you're lying, if they think you're holding something back... 0:41:14.2 Chad Sowash: Trust. 0:41:15.0 Rebecca Carr: Yes. It... It... They will never give you all... All of themselves. And so I think that's the case with the adoption of AI and technology here in, like, in this new world, is we need to build systems that are... Are fundamentally always delivering context. And when you have context, you can tell them when you're... They're wrong, you can tell them when they're right, umm, and you can fee... You can feel as though you're in... As part of a trusted experience. And that will only continue to snowball us forward. 0:41:45.0 Chad Sowash: It's exciting. It's scary. 0:41:46.0 Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Yep. 0:41:47.2 Chad Sowash: Uh, and it's [0:41:48.0] ____. So, thanks again for sitting down. [laughter] 0:41:50.9 Rebecca Carr: And it's Mallorca. Here we are. 0:41:53.1 Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & 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 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.

Survey Says: 2026 is Fucking Wild Buckle up, kids. In an episode that feels more like a fever dream than a business briefing, Joel and Chad dive headfirst into the chaotic dumpster fire that is the year 2026. Between Hungary voting out an autocrat and the Pope apparently being "weak on crime" (seriously, where is the crime-fighting Pope movie?), the boys are wondering if anyone actually had "Vatican Vigilantes" on their bingo card. The "Picks and Shovels" of Our Own Demise The AI gold rush is officially entering its "Side Hustle Seduction" phase. While LinkedIn, Mercor, and Handshake are busy bragging about explosive growth and $150-an-hour gigs for humans to train AI, Chad points out the obvious: we’re just high-paid mentors for our own replacements. The Pitch: You can make bank by training a chatbot. The Reality: Once the AI learns enough Python, those "side hustles" dry up faster than a Chipotle bowl in Joel’s hands. Silicon Valley: White Dudes Gone Wild The Valley elites are currently oscillating between building bunkers and releasing digital clones of themselves. Zuckerberg creates an AI version of himself to talk to his employees... Awkward! Alex Karp predicts the death of all white-collar jobs. Mark Andreessen is straight gaslight us into believing an employment boom is coming, despite the fact that people are literally throwing Molotov cocktails at Sam Altman’s house. The Kids Are (Not) All Right Surprising absolutely no one, Gen Z is over it. While 41% of "the utes" use AI weekly, a staggering 64% fear it will tank entry-level wages. Joel breaks down the Gen Z hate-list: AI kills the environment, kills jobs, and dilutes the one thing young people actually care about—creativity. Industry "Meat" & Bad Puns Humanly is on a shopping spree Hackajob launches a solution for the candidate fraud absolute nightmare. Shoutouts: Nobody likes Oasis, except Joel. Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:28.842) yeah. Base. How low can you go? Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel. thought it was me as a doctor cheeseman. Chad Sowash (00:40.866) And this is Chad, I'm a doctor, not a podcaster. So watch. Joel Cheesman (00:44.5) And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, LinkedIn shakes, Gen Z breaks and Silicon Valley gets even douchier than it already is. Is that even possible? Let's do this. Chad Sowash (01:00.942) Dude. Okay. Before we get into Canada, 2026 is fucking wild. Fucking 16 years. 16 years, Hungary's had an autocrat and they finally voted them out, right? And we're finding that our autocrat thinks he's Jesus Christ. No, wait a minute. A doctor. A doctor. That fights popes. I mean, nobody had this on their bingo card. I mean, we knew he'd do crazy shit. Joel Cheesman (01:07.018) That's the understatement of the year. Joel Cheesman (01:17.14) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:21.076) Yeah. Yep. Joel Cheesman (01:27.882) Well, the Pope is weak. The Pope is weak on crime, Chad. And that, that just... Chad Sowash (01:31.532) Hahaha! Joel Cheesman (01:35.348) I'm just waiting for the, the movie about a Pope that fights crime because I, I wasn't aware that that was part of his, part of his duties. but some silver linings, the Artemis stuff going back to the moon that that is, I think as I'm an older person appreciating the engineering around what it takes to do that is just fascinating. and going back to the moon is, is, Chad Sowash (01:42.766) Oh my God, so bad. Oh, so bad. Yes, yes. That was cool, Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:00.674) I think it's important to clean the shitter when you're that far away too. And they, they, they were able to do that. Joel Cheesman (02:05.45) I mean, look, you and I both grew up in the shadow of the Apollo missions and going to the moon. And then we spent like our whole lives, no moon, just it's, uh, it's too expensive, you know, and, and now, now that I'm on the door, on the doorstep of death, we're finally going back to the moon. Uh, and I'm, I'm pretty, pretty happy about it. What else? There's gotta be more good stuff. Uh, world cups coming and they're excited about that. We got, uh, we got our taking the whole family. Chad Sowash (02:10.05) Yeah. Yeah, no, just, we did that. we did that. Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:21.496) You Yeah, word cuts coming. Wait, Iran's in it though. I don't know that they're going to be able, I don't know that they're going to let them in the country. They're like in a group, they're in the group session. Joel Cheesman (02:37.546) Didn't they appeal to play in Mexico? Because I think they were initially in Canada. Canada loves everybody. Yeah, they love everybody. I was there. The border is pretty empty, Chad. If you want to drive to Canada, it's a pretty smooth entry and exit if you want to do that. What else? the whole family is going to the Indy 500 this year. Chad Sowash (02:41.71) Uh, maybe Mexico and Canada. Why not? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you were there, so they love everybody. Oh, I bet this is the time to go to Canada. Chad Sowash (03:00.974) Jesus, looking crazy. Joel Cheesman (03:06.356) Which is the first time that we're doing that. Yeah. From cold, coal on down, tickets. Yeah. The third turn, I think it's usually our, our, turn at turn of choice. Dick Vitale, you know, Dickie V, you and I grew up on Dickie V, sadly his fifth bout with cancer. but in Dickie V style said I'm Chad Sowash (03:06.471) Enfield, got tickets? Tickets? Enfield? What? Chad Sowash (03:16.416) Okay. Chad Sowash (03:22.757) yeah. Yeah, of course. Chad Sowash (03:31.918) Wow Joel Cheesman (03:32.554) I'm 4-0 against cancer. I'm about to be 5-0. That's the kind of strength that is just hard to find these days. My man's 86. Chad Sowash (03:39.224) Damn. Chad Sowash (03:44.524) Yeah, and going through that many bouts already. I mean, you talk about just like, fuck it, I'm out, you know, but not him, not Dickie B. He's not playing the games. Joel Cheesman (03:53.096) Yeah, dude. I'm, I'm, I'm one, one blue chew and a Chipotle bowl and I'm out if I'm, if I'm fighting cancer five times, I'm just goodbye world. Goodbye world. Yeah. Yes. So, so, so I was on spring break. you can still be on spring break with you have kids that go on spring break and you know, most, most people go to Florida, Texas, California, Colorado. No. Chad Sowash (04:06.306) You're going to need more than one Bluetooth. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (04:20.12) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:22.504) No, we go to, we go to Canada for spring break and our families. Everyone knows that listens. My wife is Canadian. and, and they rolled out the red carpet because it fucking snowed when we were there. It fucking snowed for spring break in Canada, but I had a good time. Took a day trip to Toronto from London. If you know your geography in Canada and we got to see the blue Jays play baseball, played the Dodgers. got to see, Otani pitch and DH. Chad Sowash (04:29.57) Nobody's there, so. Chad Sowash (04:41.454) Cool. Chad Sowash (04:49.486) Very nice. How sweet. Wow. Joel Cheesman (04:52.596) So I got to see the, the, the blossoming goat, play, both positions, which was great. And then we literally walked down a couple of blocks and saw the maple leaves play the capitals. So we got to see Ovechkin who looks older than both of us. and is probably in worse physical shape than me. So it's, well, and he's Russian. He's probably bottle fed on wit on vodka. And, so I, yeah, the dude. Chad Sowash (04:55.702) huh. Chad Sowash (05:12.12) That's a hard game, dude. It's a hard game. Joel Cheesman (05:21.716) The dude looks rough. he starts and then he, and then he, and then he plays maybe four minutes. He comes in a little bit, skates around. has tons of fans there that love him. and the Maple Leafs are awful, but, we did see the Blue Jays win four, three, come back, which is great. But then the Maple Leafs, got killed. So that was Canada. That was Canada. And now, and now I'm back. And, as people find out in travel, we're going someplace, pretty nice, but I won't, I won't spoil that for you. Chad Sowash (05:24.61) No stereotypes here, Yeah, out. Chad Sowash (05:43.448) Canada, snow. Chad Sowash (05:51.054) We're getting ready to go. To go. Joel Cheesman (05:52.33) I gots to go. You're coming back to the States. It's been a while. Chad Sowash (05:58.518) Yeah, not looking forward to it to be quite frank. But yeah, mean, the people are great and you know, the money doesn't suck either. So let's go ahead and have some fun. be in Phoenix. Gonna be in Chicago. Joel Cheesman (06:08.726) The money's funny and the credit won't get it otherwise. I just hope there's enough jet fuel to get you back home because everything I'm reading is like jet fuel is at a premium right now. I'm gonna be lucky to get to rec fest this year at the rate this is going. Don't need don't need that shit. Don't need that shit. Chad Sowash (06:18.735) God. Yeah. God, I don't even want that. Don't even I don't even know my God. Yes. Joel Cheesman (06:30.322) All right, Chad. Who'd we agree was going first in the green room? Okay, I'll go first. So my shout out, give me some runway on this one. This one goes out to my favorite band Oasis, who got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They're going to be inducted with the likes of Joy Division, New Order, Billy Idol, Phil Collins, which is kind of ironic because the Gallagher Brothers hate Phil Collins. Chad Sowash (06:31.277) Yes. You, you go first. Yours is a happy one. Chad Sowash (06:40.165) no. Chad Sowash (06:47.694) Mm. Chad Sowash (06:55.886) Phil Collins. Joel Cheesman (07:00.202) So to have them in the same room, assuming everyone shows up is going to be pretty, pretty funny. But, uh, I, I just, I want to take, want a little history lesson for people. Cause not everybody, not everyone grew up in the nineties or remember the nineties. so just people asked me why I like Oasis so much. And I was just really quickly, if, if you were listening music in the U S from like, let's call it 91 to 94, five. Chad Sowash (07:05.902) They won't. They won't. Chad Sowash (07:11.592) okay. Okay. Chad Sowash (07:17.752) Mm, good. Joel Cheesman (07:30.066) Well, it was, it was, it was a thing and it was all the thing. was like Nirvana, Nirvana hit it off. And then you had Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Allison Chains. Like everyone sort of sounded grunge stuff. but, but it was, it got to a point where it was like such a downer. It was, you know, rape me. I want to kill myself. students shooting up school. Like it was just. Chad Sowash (07:35.662) That's why it was horrible. Chad Sowash (07:41.588) That was Joel Cheesman (07:58.79) a downer and I get it because it was, it followed the Reagan stuff in the eighties fun. So, but, but Oasis came out and the first song I ever heard, and you couldn't find music really easily back in the day, there was no internet, you know, you'd have to watch MTV, watch 120 minutes or headbangers ball or yo MTV, which they weren't, yo MTV raps. Like that's kind of where you found music that you hadn't heard, but I heard supersonic. Chad Sowash (07:59.63) I mean, that should still happen. Chad Sowash (08:15.586) or hope that the radio station was worth a shit. No. Chad Sowash (08:24.322) Mm. Joel Cheesman (08:26.378) And it just, blew me away. Cause it was like, it was rock. was like, let's have gin and tonics. Let's, uh, there was, there was a maje, a maje to the Beatles with yellow submarine. And I thought this shit is, this is good. So I really connected because it came at a time where everything was kind of down. Everything was grunge. Everything was blah. I mean, it was either that, or you had to go to like hooting the blowfish or Dave Matthews or like there was no sort of rock. Chad Sowash (08:35.714) Mmm. Chad Sowash (08:44.45) You needed it. Yes. Chad Sowash (08:53.226) my god, awaits this take way too long on this fucking shout out my god. Joel Cheesman (08:57.158) Sorry, that's my shout out. But I do have a quick video of no Gallagher talking about sort of band hit when he when they were coming up in the bands today, which is if nothing else, their their interviews are fantastic. So check this out. Joel Cheesman (09:50.804) So no one gives interview quite like Noel Gallagher and I wanted to throw that out there, but yeah, excited for them, excited to see if they perform. Cause they are historically against the rock hall, hate it, think it sucks, but now they're sort of into it because they've been indoctrinated. And by the way, one of the fewest vote getters popular in the thing. So it's the critics and the people that voted them up. Chad Sowash (09:55.694) You Joel Cheesman (10:17.93) Cause America didn't necessarily embrace Oasis like much of the rest of the world. Shout out to Oasis. Welcome to the rock and roll hall of fame boys. Well, look, I think there's a lot of, you know, similarities between them and us. You know, we came along at most HR podcasts. Let's be honest, our snooze fast. We came on and said, fuck that indeed sucks. And everyone's stupid and Burson's a punk. And so like, I think, I think there's a, you and I don't always get along. Chad Sowash (10:25.031) We're assholes, but we don't like other assholes, so. Joel Cheesman (10:45.384) You know, we come on stage and we kind of forget about our differences. And, so don't know, you know, we're not, we're not for everybody, but the people who love us, love us. And that's awesome. What you got, man. Chad Sowash (10:50.606) to you, Chad Sowash (10:56.046) for you. All right, my shout out. Well Joel, we're hearing a ton of crazy shit about candidate fraud. Not only is Indeed sending tons of unqualified candidates that you can't manage, you have no idea which ones are real. So this week my shout out goes to Mark and the team over at Hackajob that launched Archer, a solution to candidate fraud. Check out this video. Joel Cheesman (11:11.017) Mm-hmm. No. Joel Cheesman (11:23.54) Love me some hack a job. Chad Sowash (11:26.274) little bump. Chad Sowash (12:22.434) Yep. Chad Sowash (12:32.152) What? Chad Sowash (12:49.646) That's the shit I'm talking about right there. And just to be transparent, I say this during the full-fledged video, I am an advisor to Hackajob, but I'm totally stoked about Archer. It's just one product that they've launched within Hackajob within a 90-day pilot, which amassed an additional 1 million in ARR off a pilot after 90 days. So this is how you launch AI without the need for lengthy ass integration. So big applause to those guys. Joel Cheesman (13:19.518) Big applause for our friends at Hack a Job. I just want to know, Archer has a really nice head of hair. Was I the inspiration for that image? Chad Sowash (13:28.716) I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure it you. I can, that and Johnny Bravo. Joel Cheesman (13:35.114) Probably not. All right, let's hear about free stuff from our friend, Stephen McGrath. Chad Sowash (13:39.576) Ooh, I like giving away free stuff. Joel Cheesman (13:43.018) So we'll need to put that in because I don't know why I deleted it or somehow, I don't know if you guys deleted it last year. It's not here. Unless I'm totally missing. Chad Sowash (13:47.118) It's not there? No way. I didn't delete it. Okay, put in the freestyle. Excellent, Stephen, that's awesome. And let's go ahead and jump over to events. Joel Cheesman (13:58.442) Oh yeah, events. Where the hell are we going, Steven? Chad Sowash (14:04.846) So as always, we're sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing who we're going to see in Chicago and I expect the dogs and I expect the Italian beef, Joe Shaker. I'm looking at you my friend. Later next week, I'm headed back or actually later this week, Jesus Christ, I'm heading back to the US because on the 20th through the 21st, Joe and I are going to be at Paradox's client board where they get all their clients together. I saw a list of clients. that are gonna be there? Holy shit dude. It's freaking awesome. Anyway, we're gonna have some of those clients actually do some interviews with us for the AI sessions. We're rolling out another season. And then after that, on the 22nd, I'm heading over to PetSmart's HQ to an Ask Me Anything session with the National Retail Federation. Yeah, well, the National Retail Federation. That's something big. Joel Cheesman (14:42.922) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (14:58.759) AMA. Chad Sowash (15:04.43) And last but never least you and I are going to Chicago April 28th through the 30th where it's another two day TA leader led event called the RLX gonna be rubbing elbows with Ford Nordstrom Johnson Controls ace Hardware KPMG and many many many more if you Want to see us go to Chad cheese.com events. Those are the events we're gonna be at this year and Joel Cheesman (15:04.586) you Chad Sowash (15:34.04) Get a ticket. Come see us. Come buy us a whiskey. Who knows? Let's go. Joel Cheesman (15:37.278) Let's go. Let's go. Chad Sowash (15:43.395) Whoo! Joel Cheesman (15:44.138) All right, Chad, the AI training business is off the chain, off the chain. Handshake and Mercor are experiencing explosive revenue growth due to surging demand for AI labs for human skilled contractors to train and refine frontier AI models. Shit's so good. LinkedIn wants a piece of that shit saying they're in the early stages of launching an AI labor marketplace where people can make up to $150 an hour. Chad Sowash (15:50.156) Yes. Chad Sowash (16:05.793) you Joel Cheesman (16:13.514) Training chat bots to get better at everything from coding to nursing. Chad, give us a hot take on all things AI training. Chad Sowash (16:23.886) Yeah, so I'm going to break this down into two phases. The first phase is called the side hustle seduction coming to a platform near you. LinkedIn being the next one. This is about hubris because experts who enjoy the side hustle cash think they are mentoring the AI, but in reality they are training their replacements. Phase two. This is what I like to call thanks for the memories saturation point. This is when we hit a model saturation point. which means humans have given all the intelligence we can into a specific expertise. For example, the AI has seen enough senior level Python code to know that 40 % of it is just copied off a stack overflow anyway. So this all of a sudden dries up and that $150 per hour training gigs, they go away. So where am I getting all this? Case in point, Anthropics newest model, Mythos. was sidelined because it could become a global security risk as it exposed holes in software that were open for 27 years that us dumb humans missed. And remember Paul Price, Paul Price over at Codewall hacked Jack and Jill in hours using AI hackers because it's better and faster than humans. So if these systems can go well beyond that of human hackers, the question is, Why do we think any other AI trainable job is safe? Joel Cheesman (18:06.506) so I know it's, it's funny that, I think the last time we, you and I talked about handshake, they were launching a LinkedIn killer and now LinkedIn is launching a handshake killer. How that, how that works. I'm not sure. and, and handshake and Merkle are, are quite the pivots. handshake was a college Gen Z platform for employment and they had quite a Chad Sowash (18:16.174) I'm just watching you. I will see. Chad Sowash (18:26.764) yeah. yeah. Joel Cheesman (18:33.812) footprint around college campuses. And now apparently the business of AI humans training the models because what they have at their disposal isn't quite enough. So they have to have the humans continue to do that. But it was a brilliant move because do you remember Mechanical Turk? It's still a thing, but Amazon had this thing it's called Mechanical Turk. And if you want to have people do sort of these menial things for you, maybe go through a database for you, maybe click video. Chad Sowash (18:53.774) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (19:03.558) any, like masses of people will do little jobs for you. Those people don't have the experience to sort of train AI models, but Handshake shockingly, because they're in college campuses, have tons of people with PhDs, with master's degrees, with degrees in certain things that are in high demand. So they were able to pivot and get these people in their database to start working for an hourly fee for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic and the like. Mercor started, Chad Sowash (19:19.534) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:31.902) by a couple of 22 year old kids who probably didn't still probably don't pee straight, but that's beside the point. They, they started as, basically a work anything remote solution when it was like 20, 23, everyone was trying to work from home and remotely and, like find your job as a remote person. And if you want, if you look at the tech crunch article about, think when they did their first raise, there were comments about Chad Sowash (19:54.894) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:56.938) training AI models and the people who were who hired them were AI companies that needed that that work. So they pivoted. But I think they had in their mind that maybe this is something that was going to be an opportunity in the future. LinkedIn doing it. Obviously, they have a ton of PhDs and master's degrees. So to create a marketplace or like, hey, this AI company needs help doing work, going through content about certain topics makes sense. My question is, to your point, Chad Sowash (20:10.158) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (20:26.602) How long does the gravy train run? Because at some point human training, our ability to add to what is already in the recipe. I don't know if that runs out or not. I tend to think it does. I think at some point we hit a ceiling and we don't need people as much anymore. So I don't know how long these businesses can go. Um, I assume they're there. The calculus is like sell the business before we hit the ceiling. Um, I also don't know. Chad Sowash (20:36.942) Mm. Chad Sowash (20:53.527) Yes. Joel Cheesman (20:55.818) If there's really much of a moat to other competitors, mean, could indeed do this? Yeah. And indeed being indeed could probably crush it and then it, and then it becomes, you guessed it, the race to the bottom. And instead of, you know, 50 bucks, we're going to pay you more. And so we're less profitable and it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. So, uh, I don't know how long that goes, but this is interestingly another story about picks and shovels. Chad Sowash (21:03.264) Yeah, apparently. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:25.076) There's a lot of AI gold, some of it's real, some of it's full, but to their credit, they are selling picks and shovels to these AI companies that have a lot of money. And for now, according to the data, these are, these are companies now that are making a billion dollars ARR. More than double, I think in Handshake's case of what they were making before. So these are profitable initiatives and we're here to talk about it, but where there's money, there's competition. Chad Sowash (21:28.802) Mm. Chad Sowash (21:44.076) yeah. yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:52.231) There's weird shit going. I don't know. You mentioned one like rent a human that's sort of flips the table on AI asking humans to do shit. Like 2026 is going to get weirder and it's going to get weirder in our space as well. Chad Sowash (21:56.802) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (22:06.464) It totally will. totally will. I mean, again, we get to the point where, you know, it's a hubris thing, you know, we can go ahead and make this side hustle cash for as long as we can. No, it's short term, number one, from a human standpoint. From a company standpoint, they're looking to try to drive ARR quickly to hopefully get somebody else to buy them and hope that that organization that's buying them doesn't understand this is a short term run. Joel Cheesman (22:18.324) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (22:36.556) Right? Yeah, this is this is a gold rush, they're the golden them. Our hills will dry up. Joel Cheesman (22:36.564) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (22:45.726) Yeah, it's only going to take, you know, let's assume open AI, somebody goes public, has the funds, they go buy a Mercor, they buy one of these companies. mean, I could see Microsoft come in, buy one of these companies and then plug it into open. Yeah. Like, so yeah. So acquisition is certainly going to happen. The question is, will there be a Chad Sowash (22:51.982) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:01.378) I mean, they already have LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (23:12.468) small amount of companies to gobble up or will more and more come around. So their evaluation goes down because there's more competition. I don't really know what separates everyone from everyone else other than being able to access PhDs and people that are smart enough to kind of do, do these jobs. But yeah, I think this is a short, short story. that probably doesn't last longer than like 27 or 28. Chad Sowash (23:35.278) Yeah, this this LinkedIn play. I mean, I would think it's more of a Microsoft play as well. I mean, and Microsoft being able to dip into LinkedIn's database and put jobs out there to be able to again do these side side hustles to train their their large language models. Yeah, there it is. Chad Sowash (23:57.541) they are. they are. Joel Cheesman (23:59.082) All right, guys, let's take a quick break. If you like what you've heard so far, subscribe, tell a friend, check us out on YouTube, youtube.com slash at Chad Cheese. Leave us a review. We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (24:21.514) Chad, the Silicon Elite have spoken quite loudly this week. The Silicon Valley elites, well, they're in the headlines again, but considerably spicier than usual. OpenAI Sam Altman had a 20-year-old Texan kid hurl a Molotov cocktail at his home. Mark Zuckerberg is busy creating an AI version of himself that specifically engages with employees. Chad Sowash (24:41.294) Mm. Joel Cheesman (24:49.052) And in opposing views, Palantir's Alex Karp says working at his company is better than an Ivy league education and doubled down on AI destroying all white collar roles. While Mark Andreessen said mass layoffs aren't AI's fault and that there would be a quote major employment boom around the corner. It's white dudes gone wild, Chad. What's your take on all the Valley insanity? Chad Sowash (25:14.286) I think the problem is that all these bastards have the ability to get on a mic, get one in their face whenever they want it because they're so big, powerful and they're big names. And they're just looking for a sound bite. I mean, if Zuckerberg never talked to another human in his life, he'd be happy. So this chat bot makes sense. On the carp side of the house, this guy's a nut job. He spouts things out that... Joel Cheesman (25:21.215) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:39.512) People can get behind. mean, we need more vocational talent. We need plumbers and electricians and yeah, we've been saying this shit for fucking years, dude. And those are very well sought after skills. But then he says some stupid shit about how, know, liberal arts degrees and women are screwed and blah, blah. So he's, mean, you never know what is up with that crazy dude. I think he needs to get off the special K. Then there's Hendriessen. Joel Cheesman (25:57.908) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:08.416) And I don't believe Mark Andreessen even believes the shit that's coming out of his own mouth. totally, I think he's totally gaslighting a narrative and he's trying to manage that narrative and stick with me here. He needs positivity in the market or his fund loses millions. More importantly, he won't be able to raise more capital for the fund if he doesn't have a great story and the market doesn't look great. At least the outlook doesn't look great. Not to mention Andreessen wants to see cuts. Joel Cheesman (26:31.082) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:38.658) by companies to prop up higher margins so that enterprise companies can buy more of a startup tech shit, right? So these guys are like politicians. They don't believe what they're saying or if they do believe it, they're not gonna use their money and power to actually make something to happen. And the whole Altman thing, shit dude, this smacks of the assassination of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. I mean, the pitchforks are already coming out for these CEOs. Joel Cheesman (26:51.05) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (26:58.559) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:08.29) I mean, Zuck built a fucking bunker for God's sakes, panic room house for fuck's sake, and AI really hasn't even started to impact jobs yet. So imagine the pitchforks that are gonna happen, especially when you live in a country with more guns than people. Scary shit, apparently scary enough to build a bunker. yeah, they're saying a bunch of crazy shit. I don't know that we can believe much, if any of it. Joel Cheesman (27:13.406) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:43.21) This, this actually there's, there's a story here in Indiana. I know you've been gone a while, but data data centers are big news here in Indiana and rural communities are pushing back on data centers that, increase, increase energy costs and don't actually add a lot of jobs to the local community. I think a county commissioner or something had, shots taken at his house. Don't know exactly what kind of gun. Chad Sowash (27:51.467) God, Yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:10.922) but basically someone left a note, said no data center or say no to data centers. So there are local stories that are popping up, I'm sure all around the country around sort of anti AI sentiment. The problem is like, you can't have it both ways. You can't tell the street we're cutting every head possible and replacement of AI and appease wall street and think the people. Chad Sowash (28:30.51) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (28:35.902) that message is going to resonate with them on Main Street as it does on Wall Street because it doesn't. these cats are like, Wall Street loves me, but Main Street hates me. Well, no shit, you can't have two opposing messages and think that both of them are going to take them both equally. So we'll talk more about, think, how particularly the young people think about AI, but as a general rule, Chad Sowash (28:59.661) yeah. Joel Cheesman (29:00.874) If you tell people like, your job's gone. your, bills are going higher. And, for that, get some, AI videos about George Washington fighting Mike Tyson. Like that's really not a great trade off for most people. the, the, the Zuckerberg thing, I mean, that's, that's straight science fiction. I don't know what this is going to look like. I don't know. Is there going to be a holograph of Chad Sowash (29:11.075) Yeah. Chad Sowash (29:14.494) No. Chad Sowash (29:24.482) you Joel Cheesman (29:28.26) Zuck walking around the, or like maybe a hundred Zucks, each employee has their own Zuck. He's in, he's there working with you. don't, I don't know what that looks like. It's, it can't be appealing to people to have like a digital CEO walking around. And, and you might, you might remember, Meta did this, I think with Pepsi, there was a Pepsi commercial with one of the Kardashian girls that was AI generated. whole commercial was, and there was put like, so I don't, Chad Sowash (29:28.792) Probably. Joel Cheesman (29:58.11) This is weird and Veritone is a sponsor. They're doing a lot of like celebrity AIs and how all this looks. It's just kind of creepy. And I guess I'm probably too old to give a shit about what this looks like, but the young people, maybe it'll be normal for them. The, the, the Andreessen thing really got people stirred up in our space. I saw this all over LinkedIn, people commenting. And I agree with you. My initial thought was, okay, he's, he's talking his book. He may, maybe, maybe the, the, Chad Sowash (30:05.198) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:27.582) The Silicon Valley later said, you know, we can't keep talking about jobs getting cut because the people get pissed off and throw Molotov cocktails at our houses. So we have to talk about more jobs. It's going to create more opportunity. And his tweet that he put out on X was quote AI drives productivity, productivity drives demand, demand drives jobs. So it's a good story, but I wanted to see the data. So if you go to Andreessen Horowitz, his website, they have a job board. Chad Sowash (30:52.834) No, Jesus. Joel Cheesman (30:54.25) The job board has all their companies that they've invested in and all the jobs available at those companies. Maybe not all the jobs, but at least the jobs where they think they should put them on injuries. And so I went back in time. I went back to 20, 24, early 24. Uh, they had 630 companies and 8,729 jobs listed. That's about 13 jobs per company. Fast forward to 2025. It went up to 15 jobs. Chad Sowash (31:00.59) Mm. Joel Cheesman (31:24.042) per company 2025 later, still at 15 and 2026 744 companies, 14,000 43 jobs or 18 jobs per company. And today when you go to the site, there's 753 companies and over 15,000 at 20 jobs per company. So in short, in 2024, there were 13 jobs per company today. There are 20 jobs per company. So at least the data is telling you. that the companies that they're investing in are hiring more people. I thought it was going to be the opposite. I thought it was going to be more earlier. I thought I was going to trail off as we went into the future. at least data-wise, the companies they're investing in, they are hiring more people than they were two years ago. So maybe there is a little bit of ray of hope about more jobs being created from this time. Chad Sowash (32:15.192) But you also have to remember they've they've had money that they haven't been spending. We I mean, we saw a huge dip and, you know, firms not spending and getting into that next round, that next round, saying had no clue what the fuck Trump was going to do. Now they're spending that money. So they're again, they're they're they're they're pushing it out there. So, yeah, I don't know if it's artificial, especially when it comes to, you know, this this firm. Joel Cheesman (32:24.447) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (32:31.252) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (32:42.346) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (32:42.37) But at the end of the day, the thing that gets me, I'm going to say it, and we've said it over and over and over again. We've heard Sam Altman. We've heard all these, these dudes talk about the jobs that AI will create. Okay. What are they? I mean, you guys are the fucking geniuses around here. You're the ones creating this stuff. you're the ones pontificating on all this yes, no, maybe so jobs. Joel Cheesman (33:02.41) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:11.756) What is it? If that's the case, history shows this is, dude, this is bigger than anything we've ever seen in history. So what is it? That's all I wanna say, I wanna see that. So I don't believe them until they can actually come back and start to talk through these different things, infrastructure builds or what have you. Then that makes sense to me, that's awesome. But yeah, I'm cynical as fuck. No, I don't believe them. Joel Cheesman (33:18.836) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:29.065) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:37.724) And to be clear, this was not an extensive research assignment by me, but I was, I was really just curious. was like, okay, let's, let's look at the jobs and the companies that they have. And there may be one or two companies in their portfolio that hire a lot of head count and brings the number up for everybody. Again, this was not an extensive research project. And there's also a story I think in the journal or the financial times this week about how people, particularly younger people are getting sick of the job search thing and the whole like. Chad Sowash (33:37.87) You No, it's a good sample size though. It's a good sample size. Yeah, that's a good one. Chad Sowash (33:54.03) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:07.05) ghost job. So they're starting their own businesses more and more. We're seeing an increase in new businesses. Ultimately, 90 % of those are going to fail, but 10 % will be successful. There may be an Uber in there. There may be an Airbnb, but that's kind of where the jobs of the future may be created. And we've talked about that before, but AI has a problem, Chad. They got a little bit of a problem. They don't look so good. With the kids, which brings us to our next story, uh, call it a metaphorical Molotov cocktail. The Utes are progressively not all right with AI. A new Gallup study reveals 41 % of Gen Z now use AI weekly, though only 11 % trusted for career advice and 64 % fear it will decrease entry level wages. Furthermore, while 61 % of Gen Z believe AI will transform their industries over half report feeling unprepared. for this shift. Chad, the kids are not all right. What's your advice to them? Chad Sowash (35:10.574) I think we do a lot about making things around generation when we don't need to. So I think it's time for a history lesson. Caught you off guard. Joel Cheesman (35:16.458) dude, didn't you didn't you didn't queue me up on that one. where are you, Steve? here we go. Chad Sowash (35:28.118) That's right. So before we had computing in the cloud, AKA cloud computing, you needed to have your own servers to run your own software. Yes, you received disks and downloaded that software onto your own server so you could do things like email people. No shit. To email people, you had to do that, right? So then cloud computing made it a mainstream push on the commercial space in about 2006 with the launch of Amazon Web Services. Joel Cheesman (35:47.55) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (35:58.286) which introduced scalable on-demand infrastructure to businesses while early software as a service, the SaaS providers like Salesforce introduced the concept around 2006, 2008, which marked the shift where cloud became a viable replacement for traditional enterprise IT infrastructure, AKA building a fucking server farm. much like cloud computing, once AI is baked into products, Adoption won't be a concern. It's just part of using the product. And for example, currently Gemini is partially baked into Google search. But when it's fully baked into Google search, that means the results in the entire experience will be AI driven. Adoption isn't a worry because the platform is AI. So is there a survey question out there that says, your company adopting cloud computing? Well, fuck no. That's because it's already baked in, right? So we're having these generational conversations that I think, to be quite frank, is this total fucking misdirection. Look at cloud computing, look at how that progressed, and it's gonna be baked in. So we're not gonna be saying, do you use AI? Yeah, we do, because it's baked into everything we fucking do. Joel Cheesman (36:58.815) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:19.518) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:26.026) So I found this really interesting. And I'm glad we talked about it or talking about it because I dug in a little bit. looking back when you and I were a younger, younger version of ourselves, the internet was first coming out and it was promising. It was exciting. I can send an email. I don't have to put a stamp on a letter to send it. that was transformational. Digital cameras. Really? I don't need to go buy film. and go to the hour, you know, the one hour like that was transformational and then, and, and then continually with, social media, like what I can have on my friends. So it was curious because technology, think is generally aspirational or inspirational. And the fact that the kids are turning on this is, is really fascinating to me. But as you look, as you dig a little deeper, you know, there's three points here to talk about. Chad Sowash (37:56.462) That was big. killed Kodak. Joel Cheesman (38:23.626) why the kids might not be that excited about AI. Number one is AI is shit for the environment. I'm not an expert on this, but just go Google like water. The amount of energy it takes to run these data centers is really not good for the environment. Number two, it's a technology that apparently is gonna get everyone fired. No one's gonna have jobs anymore, especially the kids. When you're a kid or when you're in 20s, whatever, What am I going to do is a huge weight on your shoulders. And if I had had the world telling me at 19 to 22 that, know what kid, sorry, all the jobs are to be gone. I might be a little bit down on that technology. Um, and then, and then number three, I think that AI waters down creativity. And when I think about who are the most creative people on the planet, it's young people. Chad Sowash (39:07.244) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (39:22.962) It's young people that make the music that do the art that, you know, design clothes, like creativity is where you as a young person, find out who you are. What are you, what are you good at? What, you know, what is it that you're going to, what's your life going to be like? And AI right now, it writes, it does images, it does video, it talks, it walks. All the things creative that Chad Sowash (39:39.096) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (39:51.89) You and I as older people are like, cool. writes a summary or cool. can make a image for our podcast. Like young people look at that and go, okay, the creativity that I would have put in that is now gone. So you have something that's bad for the environment. It's going to take all the jobs and it basically extinguishes or dilutes creativity. Well, no shit. The kids don't like it. So, will they grow into it and it'll just be acceptable? Chad Sowash (39:58.359) huh. Joel Cheesman (40:19.442) To your point, sure, probably, but I totally understand why kids would look at this, young people, go, man, this is some bullshit. Why are we getting behind this? This sucks. This sucks. Chad Sowash (40:32.11) Yeah, well, they're going to be happy for a minute because they'll be able to train the AI and get a little side hustle cash and then it's going Joel Cheesman (40:42.228) Well, when OnlyFans is 99 cents a month for like all the AI girls and boys and nakedness, like maybe, maybe people will be okay. Go have a Chipotle bowl kids. You'll feel, you'll feel a lot better. You'll feel a lot better. All right guys, another quick break. And when we come back, we'll, talk some specific industry news, which I know, I know is the meat you've all been waiting for. Chad Sowash (40:56.974) I'm sure you will. Joel Cheesman (41:14.706) All right, Chad, call humanly butter because they're on a roll after raising 25 million earlier this month. They've gone shopping again. The Seattle based company has acquired Ant Hill to combine AI driven automated recruiting with mobile first employee engagement tools tailored for deskless workers. Humanly says the acquisition expands their platform to manage the full employee life cycle, aiming to improve retention and reduce turnover for companies with large frontline workforces. Chad, is this a big deal or are we making a mountain out of an ant hill? See what I did there? See what I did there? Come on, come on, that's awesome. That's awesome, man. Chad Sowash (41:52.302) Does that mean we don't need a dad joke? We don't need a dad joke now. That's awesome. Okay, so before I dig into kind of like the expansion piece here, a quick question, because in reading into the blog post, I did find something incredibly interesting that I think is telling, quote, humanly will continue operating the 8 Hill platform as it explores how to integrate its capabilities into the broader humanly platform, end quote. So it's not a question about running under two brands, rather it's a tech question, which I feel is something that they should have covered during the technical aspects of due diligence. So this feels like it needed to happen fast. You see what I'm saying? mean, it's like that conversation should have happened during due diligence and generally would happen during due diligence. Not running under two, you know, separately or what have you for later integration, this was, we'll see if we can. So it almost feels like it was a fire sale. That's what it feels like. So that's what I got out of the blog press release. On the expansion side of the house, this expands human release capabilities both up and down the funnel with hiring, onboarding, retention. It's smart because much like we talked about last week, you missed it, grayscales acquisition by Paylocity, many bigger systems are going to need an AI and agentic company working inside of them. Joel Cheesman (43:03.092) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (43:10.858) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:27.798) strip away all of the old UI that kind of connected the processes and systems before, replace it with better automation, a chat interface and agents that can, they can actually enter entire and multiple databases like filing systems, grab some information, place some information and then move on to the next task, right? So instead of using these databases like we've tried to over the years, we have agents and we have Joel Cheesman (43:54.804) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:56.654) We don't have to even fuck with UI really anymore. This to me is a very smart positioning move by Humanly because if they become more of an up and down funnel agentic player, orchestration player, they're looking for acquisition, my friend. Joel Cheesman (44:14.216) Yeah. acquisition is their middle name. we were doing firing squad humanly was one of the companies we talked to talk to and, our work qualify and sprockets were all acquisitions last year for humanly. Well, we know the qualify guys pretty well. We know our work. we talked, we've talked about sprockets. So if nothing else, whoever's doing the and a over at humanly is doing it. great job. I don't know whose job that is, but they are doing a fantastic job of, think, consolidating a lot of the players and pieces that sort of complement what, what humanly is trying to do, which is essentially be the, the, from hire to fire, process of the entire, hiring that entire process, excuse me. So I got to think this is a mix of companies that either the runway was close to being ran out. People who are smart at those companies and you and I know quite a few of them that so to basically bring those into the humanly ecosystem to take whatever tech and companies and clients that were there, customers bring those into humanly. I think is the strategy around here. I think that they're very good discount hunters, humanly in terms of the acquisitions to your point, Anhill. I only got to ever heard of them until this acquisition. We'd never seen them at a conference. We've never had a call from them like, we want to talk to you. So they're not exactly set in the world on fire. This is not workday buying paradox. This is a clearance rack sale. Now, Anhills founder is a PhD. All the people at the top of Anhill have a pretty good robust CV. So assuming that they come into the humanly... Chad Sowash (45:42.818) Nope. Joel Cheesman (46:05.418) ecosystem, they're going to add value, I think, to what's going on. But Humanly is quietly creating a platform that's on level with just about anyone in the space. And they seem to have a really nice niche around the high frequency seasonal hourly workforce. their secret isn't so quiet anymore because they've been successful enough that you and I are probably going to be talking about them on a fairly regular basis going forward. Chad Sowash (46:21.442) Yep. Chad Sowash (46:30.604) Yeah, frontline, grayscale, big on the frontline hiring side of the house. This is frontline hiring management as well. And as we talked about Paradox and Workday and Smart Recruiters and SAP and actually sitting down with, know, Sharon and Mikael over at Smart Recruiters and talking about literally being the connective tissue between systems. Because a business suite like SAP, Joel Cheesman (46:37.374) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (46:56.447) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (46:56.654) they have many, many systems that are a part of that business suite, up and down the funnel. I mean, all the way from the Intel acquisition through the entire employee life cycle, payrolling, et cetera, et cetera, even the business side of the house. But being the connective tissue to be able to literally, instead of having these crazy, as Mark talked about on the hacker job, if you guys haven't seen the bump, go take a look at the bump. Integration. Joel Cheesman (46:59.412) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (47:25.216) is not something that is hard anymore when using these systems. It becomes much easier. Again, it's more orchestration than it is integration. And it's so smart. And a lot of these legacy companies, they don't have the ability to do this stuff. So if they do have an aqua hire in this case, I think it's incredibly smart. Joel Cheesman (47:42.164) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (47:46.44) Yeah. And, and of course the, fly in the ointment or the ant in the ointment, if you will, Chad is the, the impending eightfold case and the black boxes and how that's going to impact all these companies going forward and who's better prepared. And I like to think humanly is maybe better prepared for a future. think they're more or less vulnerable to a case like that than, than others. But yeah. but we'll see. Here's about the gray scale stuff. Chad Sowash (48:09.058) Like a Ficro, yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:14.29) As far as I can tell, Kiara is like the last text recruiting solution standing. Did you guys talk about any others? Yeah, they're like, yeah. So, Chad Sowash (48:19.758) No, no, no, I mean, because they they I mean, they pivot, they evolved to be even more than just SMS. So when I think in grayscale did and again, I think a lot of that had to do with marketing and obviously development. But I mean, SMS still backbone, there's no question, but to be able to be that company that can that can float across platforms. Joel Cheesman (48:33.417) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (48:49.172) instead of just just a you single point solution is huge now. Joel Cheesman (48:54.666) Well, gray scale of all, but you know who's not evolving Chad. Me and dad jokes. All right. We know that we know that the poke is the Pope is weak on crime, but what do you call an aunt that fights crime? Chad? What do you call an aunt that fights crime? Vigilante. What do you, what do you call an aunt that lives in Vatican city? Chad Sowash (48:59.444) us because we have dad jokes. Chad Sowash (49:10.806) A sergeant? Chad Sowash (49:18.944) Hello. Joel Cheesman (49:19.786) Tenants, where do ants go on vacation? Chad Sowash (49:26.658) The Vantican, I don't know, France. Joel Cheesman See you in Phoenix, we out. Chad Sowash (49:35.543) We out.

Let’s be honest: Recruiting has been broken for decades, and most companies have been content to just put a "tech" band-aid on a systemic hemorrhage. But the "tech upgrade" era is dead. We’re officially entering the era of the complete rewrite. In this episode, Allyn Bailey , Senior Director of Comms at SmartRecruiters, sits down with Chad Sowash to stop pretending that your 2012-era ATS is doing anything other than repelling talent. They’re breaking down why the traditional, siloed database is a relic of the past and how AI-driven ecosystems are finally turning "integration" from a buzzword into a reality. What’s on the menu? The Death of Gatekeeping: Why companies are terrified of transparency—and why their "control" over salary and candidate scores is slipping through their fingers. Resumes are Static; Talent is Not: Moving past the "paper" profile to a world where AI agents actually understand skills in real-time. Power to the People: AI is finally ending the "Candidate Black Hole." If you aren't giving candidates a roadmap to qualify, you're just giving them a reason to work for your competitor. Stop clinging to your outdated job descriptions and your "proprietary" secrets. The companies that win will have the best-connected data; the ones that lose will just have a really expensive, empty database. VIDEO PART 2 - SMART HIRING PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash: Allyn. Allyn: Chad. Chad Sowash: We're back. Allyn: Again. Chad Sowash: In Spain. Allyn: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Just in Mallorca this time, as opposed to Madrid. It's great to be back. Allyn: Great to have you. Chad Sowash: Day two. Kind of had a half day yesterday, but it was a big, explosive day one, so it's good to get everybody get their rest and, and get back in. But there was a lot talked about, and for me, I wanna ask you. Allyn: Yep. Chad Sowash: Through this acquisition, it seems like you guys have, you, you've always... Every company has its own superpower, right? At least they, they, they feel like they do, which is good. Uh, and SmartRecruiters had its, a different superpower this time last year. And that superpower for me was introspection and understanding that a pivot was necessary, right? I talk about Rebecca's Domino's, uh, moment where she was like, the pizza will feed you, but it's not great, right? Allyn: Exactly. Chad Sowash: We can make it better. Allyn: Yep. Chad Sowash: So this year, after that, in a flip, big pivot, acquisition, what do you, what do you feel like your superpower is today? Allyn: I actually think it's very similar to where it was last year. It is understanding the moment we're in, uh, the environment that's around us, umm, and being clear that, uh, one pivot is never going to be enough. We're always going to have to constantly be looking forward and seeing where things are going. You know, Rebecca stood on the stage yesterday, and I think she said something really compelling. If last year we said, umm, the way we understand the ATS is no longer relevant. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Umm, and it really is about recruiting AI. I think this year we firmly stood up on the stage and said, okay, guys, umm, we were a best-of-breed. We are, we are vested in that, we understand that psychology, we understand who our buyer was in that space. But the world has changed dramatically. Now it's about data, and it's about how that data interconnects, umm, and how you can leverage that data across the full lifecycle of the experience. And that means best-of-breed's no longer either relevant or valuable at this point. It is a suite game because it's about making that data connection. I think standing up and saying to an entire organization who has built, you know, for 10 years or more, we have built this company around this idea, umm, that just being in a... You know, just going with, uh, whatever recruiting module was offered to you by your HCM was not the best solution. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Umm, we still viably believe that that is true, umm, but we believe we are the first to walk in the door and say, oh, no, no, no, no, we can do this the right way. We are... We understand that best-of-breed psychology, but we're building it inside and in collaboration in the suite. And that's gonna be the critical differentiator because at the end of the day, that data connection makes all the difference. That's how AI's gonna work. Chad Sowash: Well, and you're in a different position now because you are going to have access probably to more data than any other suite of companies in the world. So, yes, I mean, that's definitely... There's no question that's a superpower, having access to that data. Umm, but then being able to interconnect with that data isn't always the easiest thing to do. So, we know huge business systems like an SAP or a Workday or UKG or whatever it is, right? They have all these crazy integration points and a lot of times you just can't get the data from one point to the next. Allyn: Yeah Chad Sowash: Right? So the data's there, but it doesn't mean you can get to it. How in the hell are you going to get to it? How are you going to integrate to the point where you have access to data and you can start having that business discussion as opposed to just the tiny little recruiting discussion? Allyn: Yeah. So, umm, that's the key, right? That's the unlock. Umm, right now, in this industry and across multiple industries, uh, the answer is going to be, can you navigate and manage integration well? How you think about integration is going to be the innovation of the future. How we can connect those data sources. Umm, and for us, it was taking a step back and just like we did a year ago before we brought Winston to market and we said, wait a minute, take a deep breath. And instead of just building a bunch of point solutions, let's really understand an AI architecture and how we can build a, uh, framework of agentic AI that's actually going to support the market. We're doing the same thing when we're thinking about integration now. We're saying, wait a minute, integration is not what it used to be. This is not just, umm, a bunch of us with some spreadsheets trying to figure out field mapping, right? That, I mean, I, I've lived through that enough. It's horrible. Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. It's so bad. Allyn: Horrible. Nobody wants to do it. It's a very, very painful experience. If we can create, umm, an experience that is almost a consumer-grade experience at the B2B level, to be able to transfer from one system to another, to be able to integrate data successfully, to be able to do that work, leverage AI to drive the integration process, not just to be the output of, if you have integration, then you can have AI components, that is the key. Umm, and it has to feel simple for people. It has to feel easy to execute. Allyn: It has to feel like it is not, umm, overly time-consuming, umm, and that they can get an early ROI and win off of it. And once we have the first few customers who are starting to do that, we believe everybody's gonna come right along the boat. 'Cause once we can get integrated, right, into that suite system, and we've got those data connectors operating, umm, then it's just a function of making sure we can understand how to use an OpenAI architecture, umm, that allows agents to work with agents and have seamless workflows that can build across multiple places. Chad Sowash: It feels like, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, it feels like not all point solutions, but many point solutions could die at the altar of the agent. Because an agent, which works behind the system, can actually perform a lot of tasks. Allyn: Yeah. Chad Sowash: That these point solutions are, are trying... Have been there for in the past. Allyn: Exactly. Chad Sowash: Right? So, what, what gives you kind of like that, that momentum to be able to say, okay, look, we were some... I mean, pretty big point solution, but still point solution recruiting versus the whole business aspect of a suite. How do you switch from that mindset of very large point solution to massive agent distribution model? Allyn: So, I think there's a couple of things that are happening simultaneously when we think about the architecture of these solutions. So, one of the major reasons, umm, and I can say for myself as a practitioner, umm, in the early years, looking at point solutions, one of the major reasons we went that direction, many companies went that direction, was because the interfaces, the interaction, the UI was just better, easier to use. I could actually get people into the system. Right. So, my biggest concern, umm, when I was running a TA organization, was thinking about how can I get hiring managers into the system to actually fill out their information? How can I get... Actually get them to click over here or to go and operate in this space? And so these point solutions, SmartRecruiters is one of them, umm, came into the door and said, "We can create beautiful, seamless, interesting interfaces that have a user experience that will be compelling and give people the information they need when they need it." Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: And so that was the foundation of it. What AI, what generative AI, and what agents are really opening up for us is a first moment where I don't have to put anybody in the system anymore. In fact, people are actually starting to do their work, and they're gonna do more and more of their work directly with agents and interfacing with them in their own flow of work, whether it's on Slack or Teams... Chad Sowash: So you have access to that data. Allyn: I have access to that data, but I don't have to push everybody into the interface to go act on it. The agent can access that data and then serve it up to me in the place where I'm interacting, right? So, this suddenly changes the paradigm, and it suddenly says, "Okay, it no longer matters how many beautiful interfaces I have or point solutions I bring in place to make my users feel comfortable and understand how to navigate the experience." It's now much more about how I can attach agents into the right data flow, and I can have insight and hopefully get to a point where I can understand the triggers proactively. So, agents know when to serve up information in a very personalized way to drive actions and behaviors right in that flow of work. Chad Sowash: Or even engage, let's say, for instance, from a, uh, internal mobility standpoint, Winston gets into Slack talking to you about a job that just opened that you are perfectly qualified for. Internal mobility, right? You wanna retain great talent. Great way to do it. And/or connects to the L&D system through, through Slack and says, "Hey, look, there's a new course that's just opened up that's gonna help you fill this gap that you need to be able to get to this, this next piece." The question is, and we've always had the vision of these types of big things, are we finally going to get there? [chuckle] 'Cause we just, we, we, we've been waiting for so long, and we've been hearing these great Steve Jobs-kind of, you know, pitches and visions, but it's just like they've all fallen flat on the point of execution. Allyn: 100%. I mean, listen, Chad, you and I first got to know each other over almost a decade ago, uh, sitting in Tell and having this conversation saying, "This is ridiculous, the way we are operating in these silos and the information isn't connected to each other." And it's not just about hiring somebody. It's about understanding who they are, how they grow, how they develop, and then navigating through them that full experience of their work. Umm, this has been at the forefront of the biggest challenges that we have had in human capital from just the beginning of time. We are now really able to solve this problem. Two reasons, right? If you can have agents that are able to access data and information, those agents can now translate that and feed it back at the right moment. Allyn: That's what changes the game. That's why integration is the innovation. Because integration used to be this very static integration component where it was like I'm going to connect, who said this field to this field. It was about pushing data either by triggers or on a very time based basis, right? Agentic AI and AI that is modern. And really looking at these data sets, it's not waiting for a trigger, it's not waiting for, umm, you to push your applicants through from your ATS to your HCM, umm, at 2 and 5 o' clock every afternoon, right? Chad Sowash: Right, right. Allyn: It is actually able to access and retrieve data on demand and then organize that data and feed it up to the way you, the way you need it, right? It's the difference between... Again I may be thinking about this way. It's the difference between having an assembly line that was very structured and hit at very particular moments in time. And I had to go from point A to point B to point C to point D and that's the way it operated. Chad Sowash: Right. Allyn: And now instead I basically have this entity and I kind of think of it that way, right? That's kind of out there in space. They're saying, oh you need to know X. I'm gonna pop into D, get that information from D. And I also think I need information from part A and I'm gonna pull it together and then feed it out to you and I'm gonna do that instantaneously. It is a... It is from going from a straight line to like an octopus of neurons out there gathering information and simultaneously pushing it out to you. Chad Sowash: Uh, one thing that we do have to be careful of is where we get that data. Now if we're getting it internal from employee files and where they're obviously they're verified, validated. I think that's a huge superpower of being able to be a part of these big suites of services because they, they have the data and you don't have to go out to a data, uh, farm or data warehouse to try to actually gather that information. Umm, when it comes to that, do you think that candidate, uh, data and being able to validate, verify the information, do you think that's going to be... We've seen obviously with, with Eightfold's issue that uh, the, the lawsuit that's come up. We'll see how that shakes out. But that was literally an enrichment product... Project that went out to the web without the candidates knowledge per se. umm, and it worked outside of the system versus you're talking about inside of a system. Allyn: Working inside of a system. And not only working inside of a system, but if you're fully transparent with the candidate and showing them what you're seeing, uh, and allowing them to help you enrich that data. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Right? Now this becomes a really... This becomes a two way conversation, right. Chad Sowash: With the candidate included. Allyn: The candidate included. Because it's about them for Pete's sake, right? The candidate, the employee, whoever. We're, we're kind of thinking about matching and connecting to the right opportunities and work. Umm, they should have full visibility. Umm, it is no different, right? Than umm, how any of us would want to... I will say it even this way. Wait, let's think about it this way. I'm sure you fly a lot. You've got frequent flyer miles. Chad Sowash: Yeah. [chuckle] Allyn: Right? So I have my frequent flyer miles. Umm, on my frequent flyer miles it then tells me at a, at a constant basis how many points I have if I take this flight, how many points am I gonna have. Now I have visibility to that and I make transparently, I make choices based on that, right? I look at it and go, oh, if I take this route over here I could actually get my gold status. And maybe that's really helpful for me. So I may go off and do that. Now that's a really simplistic example. But all of us are very accustomed now to this idea that we should have access to understanding how people, organizations and institutions are translating our behaviors so that we have control of how we want that to play out. Allyn: Right? Umm, so for an employee or for a candidate, umm, that's about telling them, listen, here's where you're matching and here's why. And maybe you didn't know to tell me that you had X skill or Y skill. The biggest challenge we have had from the beginning of time with hiring is that we have treated this with two static issues. Static job descriptions, static resumes, right? Both being created by people who did not understand each other. Candidates never really understood what we meant by a job. Chad Sowash: Right. Allyn: One project manager in one company versus another project manager, another company is completely different versus what a candidate's perspective of what they think a project manager set of skills are, right? So that's already lost in translation. And then the candidate was pushing data in through the resume. Right. Which was basically their idea of how to interpret what you're gonna want to hear, right? Chad Sowash: Right. Allyn: And, and it was static. And they would throw it into the fun, into the pot. And so here we have this static job description that all of us know is probably only relevant for about 30 seconds, because by the time somebody's in a job, what we actually need from them is over here, right? And a candidate who put a resume in who may or may not be relevant. They tried their best. I'm not of the opinion that I think people are out there trying to defraud. Right. For the most part, I think they just are trying their best to figure out how can I best represent myself. Chad Sowash: Sure. Allyn: To make you understand me. But even once they put in the system, it never gets updated. We never look at it again. So CRMs never worked because we were never... We are always looking at this kind of static thing. You gave, put your CRM, you put your resume in. Two weeks later, it wasn't relevant. Two years later when I go back to reference it, and it never worked, right? Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Now imagine in this new world, if I'm able on a constant basis to know, what, what do you know about me? What are you really looking for? How can I ask questions of what that is? How can I better prepare and share with you who I am? Chad Sowash: Yeah. Yeah. Allyn: It changes everything. Chad Sowash: So at that point, we are actually engaging candidates. And the funny part is we see surveys all the time where job seekers don't wanna talk to, to chatbots. And it's like, I'm gonna call bullshit on that because we've thrown them into a black hole for years, for decades. Which would they rather have? Be thrown into a black hole with no transparency whatsoever, or have chatbots get a hold of them and say, "Hey, look, we, we see some gaps here. We wanna see if you can actually help us fill them." I think it's, I think it's the latter. I think, you know, whether it's, uh, a human being or a chatbot, the, the ability to actually engage candidates, we haven't done. We threw a job out, that was the most engagement they got, unless they got an interview. [laughter] Allyn: Right. And then we may ever talk to them again. Chad Sowash: Exactly. Allyn: Right? Chad Sowash: Exactly. Allyn: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Umm, but when, when you're talking about the, the aspect of transparency, and you're an employer, you're at Intel, you've worked at some pretty big, pretty big, pretty big brands. Umm, a lot of those companies don't wanna be transparent because there's risk there. If you're a 65, and I see you as a 65, which on the back end, in many systems, you could, but on the front end, you didn't show the candidate that, right? Umm, they're afraid that that might open them up to risk. So it's, it's kind of like this balance of they want transparency, we wanna give them transparency, but where does the, the risk fall? Allyn: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I, so, it's a great question, and I'm pausing because I have two answers in my head, right? Umm, my first answer is, is that, uh, in, in all honesty, the, the risk to the company is a bullshit issue, right? Chad Sowash: That's, that's the perfect answer. Yes. [laughter] Allyn: I'm sorry. It absolutely is. Chad Sowash: It is, but that's what they will tell you. Allyn: They... Of course they will. They, these are the same, these are the same companies I worked for as well, who would tell me, "I can't get back to a candidate and give them feedback on the interview because that put me in legal jeopardy, because they can argue about my feedback." Well, sure they can, but you're not in legal jeopardy. You know, you, you just have to not make it personal, right? You have to stick to the facts. [0:19:04.3] ____. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Here are the requirements. You didn't meet these. Allyn: Right. You know, umm, during the interview, we asked you a question about X. We interpreted your response as this, and so it didn't match, right? Or it didn't fit what we needed at this particular time. Very different from going in and saying, "Well, we just didn't think you had the right vibe." Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Right. So that's about just being smarter about how we answer, how we respond, umm, and how we do that. I think that is just parlaying itself into this issue about, "Well, we can't show them," right? Listen, what we're, like, two years in now to the first, uh, pay transparency pushes, umm, that have been out there and lays up out there. Companies, uh, were petrified. "What, what would do that one? What would happen?" People will make decisions. You're gonna have to make choices and decisions as a company. We have played this game as a very one-sided game, a game where the company held all the power. Chad Sowash: And that's the way they like it. [laughter] Allyn: Of course they do. The challenge is it's no longer going to work, umm, because there's not only an expectation of transparency, fluidity, and information that's going back and forth. It's not just happening in the workforce. It's happening in how we interact with consumer goods. It's happening in how we interact with our own social media, right? Our minds, the way in which we process information, has changed. And so our expectation for what we're going to engage with and how we're going to participate in that has dramatically changed as well. And companies that don't keep up with that are gonna be in a really sore spot because people just won't play, right? I think that, that is the thing there. So my answer is, I don't really think it's an issue. I think we pretended it was an issue. It's all about control and power, and we're going to have to step back a little bit, umm, and change the game. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Well, and, and I also think that many companies, once they started putting salary on jobs, started to see that, first and foremost, they got more relevant candidates because they had so many candidates that were applying for a job that, that was either, that was too low, it wasn't gonna, it wasn't gonna fit their needs. This was another filtering mechanism through transparency, of all things, to make the process just better for everybody. Allyn: Yeah. 100, 100, I think that is a classic example that, you know, where on one hand, we are complaining about, uh, over-volume on... Uh, too much volume on our job wrecks, irrelevant people who are applying, people who are being fraudulent in their responses, which they're not, right? But all of that is based on this idea that we're trying to control a system and it's like a process and we have, you know, we have to figure out how many people it's gonna take us to process and to manage all these people, et cetera. And we're creating the problem ourselves, right? We learned it through pay transparency. When we are clear, when we share with people, uh, what we're really looking for, people will opt in and opt out based on that. Allyn: And if they're really interested in your job, if they look at it and go, "No, no, no, no, I really want to be the VP of product marketing," right? And, "No, I've never done any product marketing in my life," right? What an amazing thing to be able to look at it and go, "Look at my resume, look at what I'm doing today, ask me a few questions through a chatbot, et cetera, and you're gonna tell me I'm a 32% score." And then, if we're really smart because we're connecting the data appropriately, we can turn around and say, "And if you wanna be a 70, an 80, a 90%, here are the skills that you're gonna need." Oh, I now have a roadmap I can follow. I can look at it and go, "I wasn't qualified for this, but I could be, and here's what I would need to go and do it." Allyn: Internally, that's hugely powerful. We talk about workforce planning all the time. We're sitting here talking about, umm, transitioning people into new roles in the new era of AI and they're gonna have to take on new skills and new capabilities, but we're still in the back ages mapping skills on a spreadsheet and arguing about whether one department's perspective of what executive assistant is and what they do and another department's is the same. And at the end of the day, candidates are in the middle, employees are in the middle going, "But I just want that over there. Help me understand what that is. Are you going to need that tomorrow? What does that look like tomorrow?" Transparency is the answer. It gets us there. Chad Sowash: Yeah, I agree. So, I was asking about superpowers on the front end. On the back end, I'm gonna tell you what I think your, your superpower is. Umm, it was the acquisition. Uh, being now included in a, I think it's... Well, it's a 36, I think 38 billion dollar organization. Allyn: Yeah, yeah. I want to say it's like the seventh largest company in the world. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Allyn: Like, yeah. The busi... The world's businesses do run on SAP. Chad Sowash: Well, the portfolio now available to you. That, I think the, the thing that we've seen over the years, umm, which is going to be the, the obstacle, which I'm sure you guys all have your, your eyes open to, is that they, they know who they are, right? They know who they are. So therefore, you've got to earn the trust to be able to get into those portfolios. What, what have you done thus far? Obviously, you know, acquisition to a company that large, it, it's big because of the type of tech that they're buying, but how do you earn the trust of that organization so that you can get full, not just transparency into the organization, but full cooperation from a much larger organization that could literally balloon SmartRecruiters very quickly? Allyn: You wanna know what's interesting? We just had a whole conversation about transparency and how it changes the way in which candidates and employers operate together. Uh, we've approached this acquisition with our SAP partners very much from the same lens. And by the way, I think that shook them a little bit, uh, in a good way. Umm, we are walking in fully transparently and saying, "This is what we believe the vision and the mission is. Here are the things we can bring to the table. We need your help." umm, I think a lot of times acquisitions are about, uh, you have a product, you maybe have some people, uh, you have some something we want, umm, and so we're gonna go and... You know, we're gonna go buy you. We're gonna buy you and put you into our... Allyn: And then we're going to envelop you and assimilate you into our, into our business. Uh, we knew, in fact, during the acquisition there were many conversations about this, umm, that SAP leadership came to us and said, uh, all those things, "You have a great product, you have great people, we think there's some, some really interesting solutions we can do in this space, but we would like you to come in differently. We would like you to come in, uh, with exactly who you are. Transparent, a little aggressive, uh, bold where we need to be bold, umm, and, uh, kind." And I think all those things go together and kind is just as, just an equal part of that. Allyn: We, we have very transparent conversations with that team and sit down and say, "We can do this. We can't do this. Let's collaborate together and solve a problem." Uh, we're not spending, uh, the next year and a half to two years to figure out how to connect together and work together. We're going in fast and hard and putting our teams and expecting everybody on our teams to know who their counterparts over on, on the other side and to be in conversation with them. Don't wait until the legal, uh, LEC, whatever that thing is, is done. Do it now, get in the conversations and it's made all the difference. Umm, we get on the phone, Rebecca gets on the phone. Umm, on a daily basis she will call salespeople on their side and salespeople on our side. Allyn: We make sure that our product people know each other and having conversations. We brought 150 of what we're now calling SAP Smartians. After this week, they're gonna be full on smartians. We said, listen, you've been building in the SAP world. We think in order for us to build successfully, instead of us being two camps, SAP SuccessFactors engineers and SmartRecruiters engineers, we need to be one team. Come join us. SAP trusted us and said, great. Chad Sowash: 150. Allyn: 150. Chad Sowash: Wow. Allyn: They... And they're sitting here today. For many of them, even on their end, this is the first time they've even met each other. And we're putting them in a room together with our own engineers and they are solving problems together and everybody is on an equal footing. There's no answer. There's no place where we're sitting there saying, you have the right answer. I have the... I have the wrong answer. Or vice versa. Umm, constructive confrontations there. But at the end of the day, we're solving problems together. Really clear, direct vision, one objective, one goal. We all know what we have to walk out of this year with, so. Chad Sowash: So last year at this time, at the Domino's moment, that was a big momentum piece. Allyn: Yep. Chad Sowash: SAP acquisition. Another grande, uh, momentum piece. Allyn: Yeah. Chad Sowash: What's the next one? What's the next one? Allyn: Integration is the innovation, my friend. I think. Chad Sowash: Say more. Allyn: I think what people are not going to fully understand till it's here is how sexy really good iteration is when we are able to... Chad Sowash: Because it sucked for so long. [laughter] Allyn: It sucked for so long. It's like, I don't wanna do that. That's horrible. Chad Sowash: What's gonna make us wanna do it? Allyn: It... When it is as simple and as easy and interesting to do as we... Do you have an iPhone? Chad Sowash: Uh, no, I have Android. Allyn: You have Android? Well, I can't help you. Okay. For those of us in the rest of the world who have an iPhone, right? There was that moment where we would have to go buy a new iPhone, right? And you'd go buy a new iPhone, you go buy a new Android. And you have to transfer all your data. I have to re-log into all my apps. I gotta download shit. Like, it's like, I want the new one because the camera's really good, but this is gonna be a pain. I don't wanna do it. And then suddenly, without anybody really noticing, about a year or so ago, they changed that dynamic completely. And suddenly I bought my new phone and I just stuck to them and they... I didn't have to connect. I just had them touch each other, be somewhat near each other. And a little button popped up and said, would you like me to transfer all. Yes. And I clicked a button and I had my new phone fully operational. With the... With all the things the way I like them to work. Working on it. That is sexy integration. Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. [0:29:54.9] ____ it's quick and it's easy. [overlapping conversation] Allyn: Right? Now [0:29:55.7] ____, it's quick. It's quick... Chad Sowash: Which has never been integration before. Allyn: It's easy. Chad Sowash: Yes. Allyn: And it's intelligent. And it's supporting me. It's helping me make decisions. Chad Sowash: So are we saying that agents are gonna be doing our integrations? [0:30:09.8] ____. Allyn: Uh, 100%. Chad Sowash: Okay. Allyn: What I'm saying is we get to a place and it becomes sexy because I'm able to open up a window and say, I wanna integrate, and I click a button and it says, I'm reading all your workflows. Here are the ones that we suggest you move over and you should optimize. Chad Sowash: Right. Allyn: Here's why. And you look at it for a second, you go, wait a minute. That would have taken me three months of work, right? And a whole bunch of face to faces where we all argued with each other about which thing we were gonna do. Chad Sowash: Right. Allyn: And you're telling me in 30 seconds I can push a button because AI is gonna help me understand what I've done, what's possible in the new system and help me transfer those integrations over and it will work. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Well, uh, kid, you heard it here first. Uh, Allyn making interview scheduling sexy because we don't have to do it. And now integrations. Allyn: Integration's sexy, dude. [laughter] Allyn: It's gonna be the coolest thing. And it is the, it is the core. Because once you do that, just like we started this conversation with, then the data flows. It works, right? Now I can make all this operate. I remember sitting in a room. It was funny. We were just talking about Athena Carp. Yeah. And I remember sitting in a room when I was at Intel and we were, uh, Tyler Weeks and I were having a conversation with her and she was trying to explain to us the concept of a data cloud, right? Umm, and we were not that both Tyler and I were like, "That sounds voodoo shit." Right? Umm, but that wasn't that many years ago. They're five or six years ago. Allyn: Umm, and that was when we were first starting to understand this idea that if you could have a way for data to live someplace and not have to worry about structuring and organizing it, but instead allow it to live there and then have a thing come in and be able to extract from it, understand what's in there and extract from it what it needs to be able to move forward, that would be amazing. We're like, "Ah, that'd be fabulous. We would love to have that." Well, at the time it sounded like this really cool idea, but what was missing was the agents. The agents are that entity, that thing that can go inside that data infrastructure and they can pull it out. And how does it do that? It does that by having a really tight understanding of the integration. And it's not about field-to-field anymore. It's about understanding how to access information and how to pull it back out again. It's a different paradigm altogether. Chad Sowash: Yeah, I think the, the transformation of information was literally just cleaning up the shit that was in there in the first place. Being able to do that in a smart agent-like way, uh, would be magic. Allyn: Right. I mean, who does not want to have to never again sit there and try and figure out why data wouldn't cross over? Because in one place we were talking about Site B and the other place we called it London. And we're like, "Crap. Get these two things to connect." And then we gotta figure out where they all are and map them together. Agents can do that in moments. Chad Sowash: Deep breath. Sexy integrations, Allyn. Thanks for sitting down. It was... It's been fun. I can't wait for more. And it's... Allyn: You're welcome. It's been fun. Oh, it's gonna be more. Come on. Can you believe that view? I would just, the sun is out today and it looks glorious out there. 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 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.

Everything is Two Weeks Away This week on the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Chad is soaking up the vibes as "Euro Chad" in Portugal while JT is trapped in a New England "shoulder season" of snow, rain, and grumpy Americans. Together, they’re breaking down why the labor market looks like a mirage and why your middle manager might be the next endangered species. BLS' Job Report Illusion: The White House is spinning a "golden age" with antiquated BLS job numbers , but the duo reveals the data is heavily distorted by striking healthcare workers returning to payroll and seasonal corrections in construction. Paylocity’s Grayscale Grab: Paylocity acquires Grayscale, moving from simple SMS nudges to "AI agents" that handle the entire hiring lifecycle. Is this a strategic evolution or just an "aqua-hire" to keep up with the agentic arms race?. The ROTC Model for Nurses: Healthcare startup Clasp raises $20M by stealing a move from Uncle Sam. They are linking student loan repayment to employee tenure—a model Woodrow Wilson signed off on back in 1916. The Death of the Hierarchy: We tackle a "heady" manifesto from Jack Dorsey’s Block, arguing that remote-first work creates a "machine-readable" world where AI manages the context, rendering middle management layers unnecessary. Trade Show Truth-Bombs from Matt Charney for calling out the "fluff and ass-kissing" of vendor booths. If you aren’t letting your customers tell their stories on stage, you’re doing it all wrong. Will AI finally flatten the org chart, or is money the only "honest signal" left in a world of spin? PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Chad Sowash (00:36.833) Hell yeah. Welcome back to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "You're doing it all wrong" Sowash. JT ODonnell (00:45.654) And I'm JT "Help me, it's shoulder season" O'Donnell. Chad Sowash (00:49.359) quarter season shoulder. Okay, we'll get to that. On this week's show, Grayscale is infectious. Clasp follows Uncle Sam's lead and are the people over at the BLS just making shit up? Chad Sowash (01:10.957) Welcome back. We're still here. We're still here. mean, the economy sucks, but on the brighter side, we sent Americans to the moon, around the moon. Kanye is blocked from the UK and World War III hasn't started yet. So, you I guess, counter blessings. JT ODonnell (01:13.454) Hello, hello. We're still here? We're still here every week. JT ODonnell (01:34.54) Yeah, we got a two weeks. Great. Awesome. Taco Tuesday. Chad Sowash (01:36.911) Dude So it was funny. I think it was john sturt one of the late night hosts might have been camel I don't know they did a montage of how Everything from a from a time frame standpoint for trump is two weeks whenever somebody asks him a question It's always two weeks and I didn't realize it and he literally they played this long montage of all the times when he was literally people were asking him questions or he was talking about, you know, different things and it was always two weeks. I'm like, okay, I didn't I didn't realize there's a pattern. There's a pattern. There's a pattern. So yeah, but everything's two weeks. So what talk talk to me about the American shores where I'm here in sunny Portugal and kind of divorced from kind of like the not the global situation, but the American situation. What's it feel like? JT ODonnell (02:14.648) Amazing. There's a pattern. It's called a sound bite, right? JT ODonnell (02:37.134) And just in terms of the vibes, you know, I feel like everybody's angry, if I'm really being honest. Everybody's kind of short lately. You know, they're just kind of, they got to gripe with everything, you know. I've not found a whole lot of people who are cheery, upbeat, positive attitude. I think everyone as a whole is just kind of grinding and quite frankly, looking for summer because you know, summer comes and summer vibes and you can distract yourself, which is, you know, shoulder season is the Chad Sowash (02:38.893) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:43.971) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:54.927) Okay. Chad Sowash (03:00.707) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (03:06.158) definition between winter and full-blown summer, that yucky spring that New Englanders see. So we're in it now, and I think that just further complicates it, the bad weather wherever you are. But yeah, the vibe here is not good, my friend. So soak it up in Portugal. Chad Sowash (03:19.789) That's what Joel calls me Euro Chad when I'm here. So he always knew, he always knew when I was getting ready to go back to the States because about a week beforehand I'd start getting, I'd start getting a little bitchy, like a little, yeah, a little mad, a little mean. And then about two weeks before I would come back to Portugal, he'd say, you're getting into Euro Chad mode. And whenever I'm here, I'm much more light and relaxed. JT ODonnell (03:32.714) Nasty. Chad Sowash (03:49.473) So yeah, I know how that feels. I know the mood thing. JT ODonnell (03:52.695) Yeah, I get it. All those expats, it's growing and growing, right? Like all of you folks leave in and heading over there. I see it. Chad Sowash (04:00.995) We had more Americans come to Portugal last year than any other year. And that needs to stop because I came here to get away from Americans. I didn't come here to be surrounded by Americans. Okay, so can we stop that please? Thank you. JT ODonnell (04:19.886) Podcast prediction, within two years, Chad's gonna be announcing he's moving to a different country because Portugal has become America. Prediction now, throwing it in early. Chad Sowash (04:27.599) God, I hope not. hope not. Now it's too beautiful here. Anyway, let's go ahead. Let's talk a little bit about shoulder season and you've got some of that in your shout out. JT ODonnell (04:38.126) All right, this is more than a shout out that this is a plea. Anybody that lives in New England knows shoulder season is that time of year where the weather's just like, and there's not a lot to do. Great example. Yesterday it rained, snowed, rain snowed, rain snowed, rain snowed. We ended up with a whopping inch of snow when it was over. So you get a little stir crazy. My plea is please someone invite me to come speak at your company. We'll negotiate. Like I'll teach you everything you need to know about gaming LinkedIn. Chad Sowash (04:52.714) yeah. JT ODonnell (05:07.308) getting found, like getting your company found. I will literally just invite me someplace, but the only stipulation is it needs to be a direct flight. Please don't make me have to like fly to places because I'm notorious for getting stranded in random podunk places. So as long as it's direct, I'm your girl. Please, I'm begging you. Get me out of here. Chad Sowash (05:27.087) Plus with a husband being a pilot, you're probably a snob when it comes to air travel. No? Okay, okay. JT ODonnell (05:34.542) Ironically not, and I'll tell you why. He's a pilot for UPS. We don't have code share. I don't fly anywhere for free. I don't fly anywhere for free. Nope, they've got great benefits. Thank you UPS, but no, no, no, no. This girl has to pay her own way. So again, take me, pick me. Chad Sowash (05:39.471) really? Wow. Chad Sowash (05:53.325) Very nice, very nice. Okay, so just so you know, next week we expect on the events portion to hear that you've been picked up at a bunch of different places to get you the hell out of the rain, snow, rain, snow bullshit that you're dealing with there. My shout out this week goes to friend of the show and industry veteran, Matt Charney. Everybody loves a little Matt Charney, I know I do. Now he wrote an article entitled, Just Can't Quit You. JT ODonnell (06:05.986) Thank you. JT ODonnell (06:12.426) Yeah, everyone loves little Matt. Chad Sowash (06:21.155) Why do trade shows still exist? Now, Matt just got back from a couple of great back-to-back shows, Transform and Unleash, both in Vegas. Can you imagine two weeks in Vegas? mean, my, God. Dude, my three days is my limit in Vegas, right? Anyway, anyway, back to the title. The title really isn't about the shows themselves. It's about how vendors are using them. And here's an excerpt. Charney writes, quote, JT ODonnell (06:32.33) No, no, I'm going to be really honest there. Max. Chad Sowash (06:50.551) Imagine if teams use their booths less like lead traps and more like home base or that sessions were built around customer outcomes instead of, I don't know, product pitches, end quote. But this is just the tip of the iceberg to be quite frank. Joe and I have been saying this for years. Vendors have to understand that TA and HR tech is not a transactional sale. Hiring companies are spending thousands, hundreds of thousands, and in some, spending millions on technology, and they don't spend that kind of cash on a whim. They don't create an RFP because they visited your fucking booth, or received a cold call from your over-charismatic sales god, right? So for any type of consideration, you need trust. And to gain trust, you need trusted voices. You need customer stories. not your founder's vision story. Nobody wants to hear another founder drone on and on about how they woke up in the middle of the night and they jotted their company down on a napkin or some shit like that. No, you build products, allow your customers to tell their story on stage in front of their peers, and the main bits of the story should be about how you, your team, and your platform help that customer in their problems. You record those stories. This is very, very, very easy. Record those stories and use them over and over and over. You gain new customers, new stories, you rinse and repeat. The message that I took from this story is that you're doing it all wrong. It's not about scanning fucking badges and demand generation unless you're selling a lower value product. So shout out to Matt Charney, another guy that says what he means without the fluff and ass kissing bullshit. Cough Bersin Cough. Go ahead. Sorry. Yes. JT ODonnell (08:49.039) Can I, okay, so first of all, preach my friend, preach Charney, because how long have we understood the difference between features and benefits? And as you were just going on that explanation, they all get up and talk about their features. Who cares? What you're talking about is storytelling that provides emotional reaction to the benefits. It is such basic marketing that it is mind blowing that people haven't figured this out in a time where the biggest currency and the hardest thing to get is attention. Chad Sowash (09:06.403) Yes. Yes. Chad Sowash (09:11.267) Yes, easy. JT ODonnell (09:17.549) and you haven't figured out that storytelling around your benefits is the number one way to get the attention, I could not agree with you more. It's like crazy to me that they haven't figured this out. Chad Sowash (09:27.939) Whenever I hear that a vendor has like a lead on demand gen, just, I'm like, listen, demand generation is transactional, okay? You are in a relationship business. Unless you are, you do have really small value types of products, okay, great, you're selling job postings, okay, great, that's fine, totally get that. But if you're selling technology and or services that cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, what the fuck are you doing? Like you said, the stories should be coming from the people that are the peers of the buyers that you want to actually connect with. It's so fucking simple. JT ODonnell (10:15.097) do you solve problems? How do you alleviate pain? Tell me the story. Let me feel it, right? And it doesn't happen. You're right. And it's unfortunate. And this is why people have their companies pay for them to go to conferences so that they can skip all of the presentations and just party. Because you already know what's going to be on stage. So let's fix this, people. You might get more butts and chairs at your session. Chad Sowash (10:18.455) Mm. Mm, mm, mm. Chad Sowash (10:30.072) I'm Chad Sowash (10:35.481) Well, and I gotta say, a lot of the conference operators, I know that getting ready to go to the RLX, we'll talk about that here in a few, but the RLX in Chicago, we just did one in the UK, and that is all peer and practitioner led. There are no presentations from vendors at all. It's all focused on pain, problems, and how some of these peers of yours might have gotten through that. You know, we're starting to see that more from different operators, more companies on stage talking about their stories versus listening to a founder and or CEO. And guys, you got to understand this. Nobody gives a fuck what you have to say. We don't we don't need vision statements. We don't need to talk about the future of technology. I can hear that shit from Sam Altman and I know he's bullshitting me. So I know you're bullshitting me. Just put your clients on stage. Let's hear their stories. JT ODonnell (11:33.487) What's the bigger concern if you can't put clients on stage? Just saying. Chad Sowash (11:37.327) Yes. I tell you who's not concerned, people who sign up for free stuff. Chad Sowash (11:57.006) I am. Chad Sowash (12:18.817) I can't see the design, Stephen. JT ODonnell (12:57.999) Two comments. First of all, I love when he says, that's better, right? Because that's like kind of a Boston accent. But also, I didn't realize there was an L in the word craft when he says that word. I'm like, how does he get that L in there? Chad Sowash (13:02.83) Hahaha Chad Sowash (13:13.017) I don't know how they get a lot of these syllables and or words. it sounds amazing. I told Stephen, it's funny. Anybody from the UK, with that, from Europe, period. It doesn't matter if English is your first language or not. I always hear, well, I'm not sure that our sales team will do well if we go into, when we expand into the US because of our accents. It's like, are you fucking kidding me? JT ODonnell (13:16.225) It all sounds great. Right? Chad Sowash (13:42.667) Americans love European accents. Love. good God. Yeah. JT ODonnell (13:45.215) it. We'll buy anything from you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. And also deliver us the bad news. And we're like, okay, yeah, it's coming. Chad Sowash (13:55.053) I heard from you so it must be okay. The good news is... Chad Sowash (14:01.903) Well, at least I'm going somewhere for shoulder season. As, as always travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shaker recruitment marketing. That's shaker.com. Later next week, I'll be headed back to the U S because on April 20 through the 21st, Joe and I will be attending paradoxes client board, a little shin dig with about a hundred paradox clients where they get together and they talk best practices. We just talked about that. Check out. new paradox wears and it's a perfect opportunity. Sit down with Chad and Cheese and do what? Record another season of the AI sessions, kids. That's right. The AI sessions are going to be, they're still going strong. We've got the first three seasons that are out there on YouTube or you can go to thesessions.ai and this is where we talked about those stories, those stories from real companies. That's where they happen. JT ODonnell (14:56.739) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (14:58.029) So check it out at the sessions.ai. Then right after that on April 22nd, I'm heading over to PetSmart's headquarters to have an Ask Me Anything session with the National Retail Federation. I hope they ask me about my favorite whiskeys and maybe they'll have some for me. Hint. I love Blanton's. And last but never least. JT ODonnell (15:16.175) Hint hint. Chad Sowash (15:24.387) We're going to the RLX in Chicago. Just went to the one in the UK a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing. This is happening the 28th through the 30th. It's another two day TA leader led event and we'll be rubbing elbows with a room full of more than 50 TA leaders like Ford, Nordstrom, Johnson Controls, Ace Hardware, KPMG. You know you're jealous. You know you're jealous. But you don't have to be jealous. Just head over to ChadCheese.com slash events. and join us. We've got plenty of cool events around there. You're going to be coming with us to some events this year. What's the first event you're coming with us? Do know? JT ODonnell (16:05.631) I think we're back in London, right? That's probably the next one. Would I not come back to London? Are you kidding me? That's my new second home. Love me some London. Chad Sowash (16:08.057) Are you coming back to London? Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Yes, love London. So we've got London coming up. That's a rec fest in July, but we got we got more pressing pressing news. Chad Sowash (16:30.063) Okay, let me pre apologize for the for this first segment because it's going to be very sarcastic. Okay, it's going to be very sarcastic. So kind of kind of kind of understand that going on. Okay, so an Associated Press report details a significant and unexpected surge in US job growth last month, March 2026 after a dismal February, which was revised as a loss of 133,000 jobs in March. JT ODonnell (16:33.231) you you Mm. Chad Sowash (16:59.235) the labor market bounced back, though economists warn that external factors may cloud the future outlook. Chad Sowash (17:15.935) I then thought, sorry, who listens to a fake news AP? I went over to whitehouse.gov to get my real news. And this is what I got. Quote, talking about the jobs report. It crushed expectations again. The economy added 178,000 new jobs in March, nearly triple the number economists had forecast. delivering yet another powerful validation of President Trump's pro-growth agenda and demonstrating the resilience of the American labor market under his leadership." JT, is this the new golden age as the White House says it is? Talk to me. JT ODonnell (18:01.835) my gosh, I feel like if you went to the dictionary and looked up the definition of spin, there would be the hyperlink to that page. You know this infuriates me. Literally, the jobs report makes me want to drink it 8.30 in the morning when it comes out. I'm not kidding. Because of the fact that people just don't understand it, right? So for example, they're like, the reason is everybody that was on strike last month, lost jobs, is now back. That's no new job creation. Somehow people think that this is... Chad Sowash (18:09.081) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (18:16.943) Mm-hmm. Yeah. JT ODonnell (18:30.383) brand new job creation. They don't understand that it's based on payrolls and what's going on. They also don't break it out by white collar versus blue collar by a different industry. It's such a bogus number. And based on what we've seen, let's talk pendulum. So we were down 190 something, now we're up to 90 something. So next month we're going to be down 400. We're just going to see a swing back to it. We're going to revise those numbers and we actually lost this amount. I'm just so sick. Chad Sowash (18:54.745) Yes. JT ODonnell (18:56.877) of the data. can't believe we don't live in a time where the data can't be better constructed. It's a fury. And then as someone that works with job seekers every day, then they come to me confused. I don't get it though. We got 293,000 new jobs, JT. Why can't I get a job? It's so disheartening to put that kind of bogus data out there. Chad Sowash (19:11.66) No, we don't. Chad Sowash (19:17.295) It is. It is. And it's why I had to be so sarcastic. So I didn't scream at my mic starting off. OK, so this is without the sarcasm, kids. Health care, which JT has talked about the seventy six thousand health care jobs added in March. It's heavily distorted. Thirty five thousand of those roles were simply Kaiser Permanente workers returning from a strike. 36, or I'm sorry, 35,000, okay? And healthcare is our strongest industry with regard to growth, period, okay? The Mirage, in the eyes of the BLS, these count as newly hired, I'm using air quotes, because they weren't on the payroll during February survey. The reality of it is, no new economic value or employment capacity was created. The labor market, Simply returned to its January baseline same as it ever was so it wasn't growth kids on the construction side of the house 26,000 construction jobs gained but Over the last 12 months construction employment has shown zero growth the March surge 26,000 was literally crews returning to job sites once the snow melted. It's a seasonal correction. It's not an industry boom then we've got Well, everybody's thinking about Trump's war in Iran. A big piece of context in the timing of this data collection, right? The survey was conducted during the first two weeks of March, just as Trump's war with Iran was beginning to escalate. Now the lag, the jobs report is a lagging indicator. It doesn't yet reflect the massive spike in oil prices, which surged past $4 a gallon shortly after the survey. or the resulting freeze in corporate hiring. The mirage, the numbers show a pre-war somewhat stability that no longer exists in the current to late April economic climate. And last but not least, the no higher stagflation. Jolt or the job openings and labor turnover survey, data paints a much bleaker picture than the payroll report. Chad Sowash (21:40.079) Hiring rates have plummeted to levels reminiscent of the Great Recession. The mirage is maintained by low layoffs, but the engine of the economy, new hiring, has effectively been stalled. So we need to go into all of these data points spewed by the White House and everybody else that's out there with eyes wide open and several, and I mean several trusted sources to fall back on. You can't go to one. you have to have several trusted sources, which is why we do this on the Chad and Cheese podcast. So we can be one of your trusted sources. One of them, remember? One of them. What do think? JT ODonnell (22:20.227) I agree. And right, we've seen that Oracle laid off 30,000 last week. Today, this morning, Amazon's talking about another 14,000 next month. So we've had 61,000 layoffs in tech last month alone in March. So where this data, it's not reflective of the true numbers, right? That's what we have to keep saying. And I hope people pay attention to it, but I love your comment about one source. Chad Sowash (22:25.806) Yeah. Chad Sowash (22:30.476) Cheers. Chad Sowash (22:34.895) Mmm. JT ODonnell (22:46.713) multiple sources, we can't just trust the first thing we hear for sure. And that's sadly what a lot of job seekers do. folks, educate them, help me out. Help the job seekers out, make them understand more clearly what's happening out there because they see those surface numbers and they take them incorrectly and it's sad. Chad Sowash (23:03.951) Yeah. And when we were doing our before LinkUp got acquired, they were sponsored and then they got acquired. We were doing the jobs report and Toby Dayton was actually talking about real now data, not lacking indicators, but right now, right? Aspen Tech Labs is doing that as well. So we have LinkUp who still and Toby still writes about it. Aspen Tech Labs sponsor of the show. JT ODonnell (23:19.949) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:33.999) They have they also have a product where they're not focused on 30 days back They're talking about right now and they can give you kind of like somewhat of a predictive index. So there there are Opportunities again in different sources to be able to understand what the job market really looks like And again, that's not perfect because as you'd said before there are jobs that aren't posted that are out there for companies who don't have to meet federal requirements. And then there are jobs that are just lying out there that are quote unquote green that we've always debated for over 20 years if they're actually real or if they're literally just bait to be able to get applicants in. So there are always going to be fringes. But again, more than one source is always good. JT ODonnell (24:27.96) Amen. Chad Sowash (24:28.949) Excellent, we'll be right back. yeah, kids, if you have not liked and subscribed, what are you thinking? What are you doing? Like and subscribe to the show. Put a comment in there, good, bad, indifferent. It doesn't matter. We love to hear from you guys whether you agree with us, whether you don't agree with us. That's what this show is all about because we don't always agree. Let's go ahead and go on to Grayscale, who was acquired by Paylocity. Paylocity announced the acquisition of Grayscale, an AI-powered JT ODonnell (24:55.106) Yeah. Chad Sowash (25:01.591) recruiting automation company that helps businesses hire at scale, move faster with crazy quality. That's why I'm gonna put that in there. As expectations for speed, responsiveness, effectiveness, and candidate experience continue to rise, high volume hiring has become increasingly complex. Delays between recruiting steps can slow momentum and lead candidates to withdraw. Grayscale explains, expands, and loved by Paylocity their new recruiting capabilities with AI-powered recruiting automation that helps employers engage candidates earlier and move faster through time-sensitive hiring workflows. It's all about the agentic. Agentic, agentic. JT, do you think this was a Saks Fifth Avenue or a TJ Maxx kind of sale? JT ODonnell (25:52.398) Yes. JT ODonnell (25:59.843) You know, I don't know if I'd wait on to the level of it as much as it's just another aqua hire, right? It's a company that got their AI to the point that they could showcase that it was a nice little plugin to a company that needed more of an end-to-end solution. I think we're going to see a ton of that this year. By the way, I'm here for it. You know, if I had my free time, I'd be spinning up some agentic stuff in our space. We are actually building something on the side for LinkedIn for that reason. because there's just an opportunity to then plug into a much larger process. So that's how I read that. The moment I read that, that's an aqua hire and a way to tack that in. But here's the thing. I worry about how many companies are overpaying for this stuff because they're feeling this race to have it. And so here's this pre-made thing, let me grab it. But now you're taking on technical debt. Chad Sowash (26:28.687) Nice. Chad Sowash (26:48.719) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (26:55.808) And so the ability to pivot or work with it, now you're inheriting that and everything that's going to go with it. And I've seen a couple agentic platforms, people doing startups and they had to iterate, iterate, iterate. And all of a sudden they were way left field of where they were. And if they want to get back, that's a problem. I don't know. can't, I don't, I think that's a roll of the die. I get why they're doing it, but I don't think there's a clear path that, this is going to make you millions of dollars. When in reality, something better and cheaper could come along in a matter of months. So. It feels a little risky to me, but I understand why they're doing it. Chad Sowash (27:28.313) which is good reason for AquaCyre. So we recorded a firing squad with Ty Abernathy, Grayscale CEO that dropped on January 5th, 2022. So a few years ago, which means it was recorded in late 2021. Back then, Ty was selling Grayscale as an SMS engagement platform for high volume hiring. know, nudging people before the interview, before their first day, that kind of stuff. What is Grayscale today? From the website it reads, Grayscale boasts the ability to deploy AI agents that complete real hiring work across the entire hiring lifecycle, from sourcing to apply to onboarding inside the ATS you already trust. Not a chat bot, not a point solution, and execution layer for modern hiring. Grayscale went from an SMS platform focused on high volume great place to start by the way, and then pivoted into agents and orchestration on the frontline side. Something that every big system needs. Refer back to SAP acquiring smart recruiters and Workday acquiring paradox, right? Frontline employees do not live on their computer all day, which means they need a system to engage them via mobile and what's better than a chat bot slash agent slash an orchestration layer. JT ODonnell (28:40.307) Yep. 100%. Chad Sowash (28:56.973) That also lays the groundwork for every other type of position that's out there because if you solve for the hard part, frontline engagement, the rest of it falls into line. Plus, much like my Mallorca tapes episodes, if you haven't watched those kids, go watch them on YouTube, watch them on YouTube, where I actually spoke with Smart Recruiters executive team where we talked about Winston moving further into the SAP stack. JT ODonnell (29:14.412) love the Mallorca Fives. Love them. Chad Sowash (29:26.255) grayscale, orchestration can move past frontline hiring into onboarding, into employee development, and into a thousand different areas. This is going to be the conductive tissue of some of that older tech. And when we start talking about tech debt, as you had talked about earlier, these types of technologies are gonna be a hell of a lot more fluid, where you can actually bring up, and I know talking to a really good friend of mine, Chris Long, JT ODonnell (29:44.814) Hmm Chad Sowash (29:55.661) where they built agents for an organization and they didn't have a problem killing agents off because they were starting to go rogue, right? And this was early days of creating AI a few years back, especially on the agents side of the house. I think they started calling it decommissioning instead of killing because killing wasn't good. But other than that, they could spin up new agents pretty quickly, right? JT ODonnell (30:12.175) Mm. Chad Sowash (30:23.439) And that's the thing, if you have the capabilities and you have the individuals, much like Ty and his team, that are focused on the agentic side of the house and you have these old databases, that's okay, because databases are really just storage warehouses, right? If those agents know where to go in, where to pick up the data, to pull it out and move on forward, that's great. Instead of a human being doing it, you're just moving that over to... you're just moving that over to an agent. I mean, back in the days of 2022 when we gave Ty a big applause, I gotta say, way to go kid, great job. Personally, I don't think this was a TJ Maxx kind of thing. I don't know what he got for it, although. This is what every company needs to be doing right now. And I think to be quite frank, we've talked about this on the show for years. It's always been a build partner buy kind of scenario. I think build is going away unless you actually buy the partner and then that smaller chunk of people come in and become a piece of that organization that literally just run this part of the business. JT ODonnell (31:50.219) I'm going to stop you there because based on what we just heard, it went build buy. I think you're seeing a massive I think we're seeing a much bigger trend of build to buy and the partner phase is going to – people are going to skip the partner phase out of the necessity that you keep talking about because everyone's going, okay, well, what's left? What can I buy that's decent? So it's going to go from people are building right now, which is again why I said if I had free time, I'd be building right now because I think if you build and have proof of concept, they won't even bother with the partner stage. It'll be like, let me grab you. Chad Sowash (31:51.748) Go ahead. Chad Sowash (31:55.747) What's that? Chad Sowash (32:20.003) Yeah, well, here's the thing. Yeah, I don't think the big companies are gonna build. I think they're going to actually, yeah, think, yes, that's what I mean. I think the build's gonna go away for the enterprise platforms, and they're literally just gonna partner or buy. I think if they're smart, they're going to be able to identify who they wanna buy very quickly because that company might not be on the market very long. JT ODonnell (32:20.141) So my shout out to everybody is there's opportunity right now. That's what I think people should take away. JT ODonnell (32:27.649) No. Bye. Same page. JT ODonnell (32:35.378) JT ODonnell (32:39.469) or buy 100%. JT ODonnell (32:46.137) There it is. Chad Sowash (32:49.403) But yeah, that's to be able to clarify. I don't think the big companies are going to be building their own shit anymore. They're going to be buying other organizations that focus on that, much like SAP with smart recruiters, Workday and Paradox. And they're going to allow those organizations underneath to literally just build orchestration. JT ODonnell (32:49.443) There it is. JT ODonnell (33:09.68) Yeah, fair, agreed. Totally agree. Chad Sowash (33:12.793) Good job, Todd, good job. And also good job to CLASP, who raised $20 million. JT Healthcare is one of the only industries that has consistently demonstrated growth over, I don't know how many years, but as long as I can remember, which is probably why CLASP, a company that helps healthcare employees build long-term talent pipelines by connecting with clinicians before graduation. JT ODonnell (33:19.097) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:41.355) and tying student loan repayment, ooh, that's nice, to tenure, announced a $20 million Series B, led by CrossLink Capital and Digitalis Ventures. What a name, Digitalis. Driven by demand for its ROTC model, retention over turnover cost and model. So if you know anything about ROTC, It's actually a military term. And if you don't mind, JT, can I, can I go ahead and jump into this? Okay. So the U S military's version of ROTC is the reserve officers training core and using the U S military as a model to attract and develop talent is something that we've talked about on the show for years, whether it's the GI bill and army college fund models where the U S government creates an education fund for the employee while you're on the job. JT ODonnell (34:12.995) Dive in. Chad Sowash (34:36.717) that accrues monthly or the Reserve Officers Training Corps, ROTC model, which foots the bill while you're in school and then you repay Uncle Sam later with your service, your work. Both trade your time for education and give you a better educated and more nimble workforce. Unfortunately, most companies have gotten away from these models over the past four to five decades. as most have been chasing bigger revenues, fatter margins and juicier EBITDA instead of developing their talent, which would have led to innovation, better products and all the things listed above, but at a more forward thinking life. So JT, what do you think about Clasp? JT ODonnell (35:27.661) Yeah. So first let's talk about the investment. So I believe you said it was a series B round, 20 million. My initial reaction to that was, wow, that's not a huge amount of money, right? When you can think about, but at the same time, I love it when companies don't take too much money, right? Because we've often seen companies take way too much money. know what happens there. So was like, okay, here's the thing though. I come from a family of nurses, my sister's a nurse practitioner and now also a professor. Where I get excited about this is Chad Sowash (35:42.446) Yes. Chad Sowash (35:45.932) Yes. Chad Sowash (35:52.836) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (35:55.119) We do have a healthcare shortage. We've known about this for a long time. It is going to worsen as we age, right? We're not having as many children. It's pretty scary to get old in America in terms of who's going to take care of us, healthcare, et cetera. So when I think about what she went through, when she went back to school to become a practitioner, what she sees now, these students are very focused on how am I going to get my debt paid and where is the best place to work? And if we're going to get more people into healthcare, that gets exciting to me if we can be saying the whole time you're in school, we're figuring out a way to manage your debt and getting you introduced to the right opportunities. Because what I have noticed is they tend to do an internship and then that's usually the first place they go work because they're just so busy learning. There's not a lot of exploring all the places that I could work. And so if this model is going to include something like that, I think that gets super exciting for these candidates so that they can. find that place because I noticed a lot of job hopping in healthcare. They get some place, this is what I thought, and that hurts the system as well. So very interesting. I think it was a conservative fund and I think that's good. And I really do hope that's where it's going based on what I know about the healthcare employment market. Chad Sowash (37:08.463) Yeah, I just from the military model, you go in for four years and pretty much your debt's paid, right? So you get that whether it's GI Army, you know, the Army College Fund or Air Force College Fund or what have you. It's about $100,000. Kind of nice, right? To go to your education and or you go to the ROTC side of the house and you go to school. And while you're going to school, the military is paying for your school and then you go ahead and pay that on the back end with your time. JT ODonnell (37:15.214) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (37:24.547) Yeah. Chad Sowash (37:36.473) but usually again, you're talking about four years or so. So at that four year timeframe, you can go wherever the hell you want, but again, you still have a commitment to that organization till you get there. This from the release, quote, Clasp was by these early commitment models and applies the structure to healthcare through loan linked hiring where employers, commit to clinicians before graduation and repay their student loans over time in exchange for tenure. Instead of relying on a large upfront bonus, employers invest over time. They'll have to give that big bonus, resulting in more stable teams, better retention that are significantly higher than the traditional models." End quote. Here's the rub. The military's ROTC program, which this was predicated on, officially created by Congress JT ODonnell (38:18.232) Big check up front. Chad Sowash (38:32.451) with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916. It was signed by President Woodrow fucking Wilson, June 3rd, 1916. We've had these models in place forever. None of this is new, whether it is healthcare, whether it is HVAC, whether it is construction, whatever it might be, right? Civil engineering, those types of things. Engineers are big. There's no reason why companies cannot adopt these types of models to be able to attract great talent and not have to pay them huge upfront bonuses, right? And then, and literally that's what a talent pipeline is. When you're going into a school and you're getting those kids on board and those kids are committing to you for years and you're committing to them, I'm gonna pay for your education. And then you get three or four years. with them, you get a chance to actually earn that relationship and that trust, not because you paid for their education, but because you're a great employer and they're a great employee, right? We've really lost that relationship and it's turned into what I like to call, you know, disposable heroes, my favorite Metallica song, where literally we're seeing talent as disposable these days and we've got to get away. from that thought process, that mindset. JT ODonnell (40:03.648) Okay, in the healthcare industry, I think this works exceptionally well. I think there are certain industries where you know you're always going to need those live bodies, those humans in place. Where I don't see this fitting in every business model actually is with what you've said, which is there are some companies that by their nature will have to be so freaking agile going forward, agile in ways we've never seen before. And we're already seeing it. Large companies will no longer be large companies. They're shedding, shedding, shedding. Chad Sowash (40:12.141) Yeah. Chad Sowash (40:16.977) no. Chad Sowash (40:30.275) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (40:30.73) So for companies to be able to say, I guarantee there'll be a job here for you for four years. A lot of business models cannot support that. That being said, I'm excited that companies are getting to that desperation point where they're starting to revisit old models, because I think the other old model we're going to start to see is apprenticeships. And I'm here for it. So there are, if it's not this model, I think what you're saying resonates. There is another proven model out there. Go look up, go back to the history books, see what's out there so that we can start to fix this because Chad Sowash (40:47.309) Mm. JT ODonnell (40:59.31) It's not a one size fits all, but there's things out there you could be doing. Chad Sowash (41:02.927) And I think what you had just talked about because you know these companies are gonna pivot and they're gonna need new types of skills I agree hundred percent but I I think we should be using our own talent to be able to pivot and develop them into new into new into new positions into new types of jobs instead of being an Amazon or Oracle getting rid of 30,000 for God's sakes So I think there's no question, this is not a one size fits all for any company, but I think being able to take elements of this, to be able to not have to go and hire somebody, but have somebody who's been with you for two or three years and give them an opportunity, give them an opportunity to either go ahead and hit the bricks or come in and develop for this new position. We're not doing that, unfortunately. It's more mass layoffs. We need less of that, but we do need a little time to breathe. Be right back. JT ODonnell (42:02.242) Hahaha! Chad Sowash (42:08.097) Okay, this one's gonna get deep kids. I sent this out to the group and JT liked it so much I had to include it, but it is very heady. So I tried to dumb this down as much as possible for me, not for you the listener, but for me, so that we could actually get through this. JT ODonnell (42:27.79) Before you interject, I just want to mind everybody that he sent this and by the time I opened it was the point of the day where my brain could barely function. It's so deep, but it was so good. So stick with him. Just stick with him on this Chad Sowash (42:42.063) Stick with it, okay. So there's a great article on Block entitled Hierarchy to Intelligence, co-authored by Jack Dorsey. They go through the history of hierarchy as a structure to provide command and control to armies, then inserting general staff into the equation as that becomes to get bigger and the need is more complex. Then org charts and matrix organizations. really all get to the following, which is what they're gonna talk about, what we're gonna talk about today is going from hierarchy to what Block is saying is intelligence. And here's a quote from the article. Quote, Block is remote first. Everything we do creates artifacts, decisions, discussions, code, designs, plans, problems, and progress all exist as recorded actions. It's the raw material for a company's world model, AKA a base of overall knowledge. In a traditional company, a manager's job is to know what's happening across their team and relay that context up and down the chain. In a remote first company, where work is already machine readable, AI can build and maintain the picture continuously, which means they don't need those middle management layers. What's being built where resources are allocated, what's working and why it isn't. That's the information that the hierarchy used to carry. The company world model carries it instead. JT, what the actual fuck are we talking about? JT ODonnell (44:27.852) know, right? So seriously, you're like 17 paragraphs in going, land this plane, Jack Dorsey, land this plane. What are you talking about in this thing? And then it finally comes together at the very end, you know? So please stick with it. But I do love the visual. I had to sit back as I read it and said, okay, so eight people live in a tent together out, you know, in a war and they're led by Chad Sowash (44:32.409) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please. JT ODonnell (44:52.552) and the whole reporting structure and pointing out most people can only manage three to eight reports. Really insightful and smart and talking about that hierarchy and then adding in the specialties and cross functionality and how that all came together. I love that story because you literally found yourself imagining war and then imagining a corporation. It was interesting. Where he lands the plan on the back end, for me at least, was Look, we're going to decide which of all those different roles AI has and which a human is going to keep. And I think we've known that for quite a while that that's going to have to figure itself out. But what I think about is everything that happened when you started out in the trenches to become that general. And when we lose all that, when we do decide to give that to AI, how do those people that start out in the trenches get any time to build that knowledge to know how to lead. And that part, I'm very interested to see how he believes that will be handled. Because again, this brings me back. There's such a gap there, such a gap there. And as the brain drain retires or dies, let's face it, where's it going? Who's going to take over? Is it going to be this AI that you train? So it's at the top and all the people are in the trenches like. It's not, the math is not mathing for me on that. And so I'm super intrigued to see where they go. What did you think? Chad Sowash (46:24.655) Well, first off, that excerpt talked about a variety of company artifacts, which allows information to flow without the need of real management structure. It flattens an organization, right? So you have literally pieces, parts, and you might have teams, and or you might just have a, depending on your organization, you might just have a bunch of individuals that's being managed by this AI. JT ODonnell (46:32.546) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (46:52.621) because the AI understands from a product standpoint and also from a timeline standpoint, a project plan, those types of things where you need to be, where you are, so on and so forth. And since you are doing work in a system, it knows exactly where you're at and what you're So you don't need that middle management anymore. It's done. Now, the second aspect of it. So this is literally about flattening the organization because the reason why the Romans and all the different JT ODonnell (47:08.099) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (47:13.218) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (47:21.871) the different armies had to create more layers, it was because they were building bigger militaries, bigger armies and so on and so forth. And they had to have command and control over that. How did you do that? You needed those management layers that were in there. Now the second part, this quote, the capability of the system is only as good as the quality of the customer signal feeding it and money. Is the most honest signal in the world people lie on surveys They ignore ads they abandon carts, but when they spend save send borrow or repay That's the truth Every transaction is a fact about somebody's life the richer the signal The better the model the better the model the more the transactions the more the transactions the richer the signal end quote Then that part was more like minority report. Spending money is all that matters. That's what it boiled down to from a business standpoint. If you don't like the service, you won't be back. If you did, you won't just be back, you'll buy more. It's fascinating how binary these seemingly complex discussions become. Society literally devolves into JT ODonnell (48:20.418) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (48:49.486) Because we can't hold space for multiple ideas. People just, you know, it's that reptilian brain that just wants to codify something and decide black or white, yes or no. It's just, we're so built for that, to oversimplify something instead of living in the gray. And so I just found, I said he was landing it, but it came back to exactly what you said. You know, here we go. It's about the money. Show me the money. And we'll make all those decisions. And it's just so much more than that. It's going to be so much more than that. Chad Sowash (48:58.712) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (49:13.529) Yeah. JT ODonnell (49:19.374) mean, honestly, somebody told me that there's a documentary out now, and I'm not going to pronounce it right, where they're an apocalypticist, meaning they understand that the apocalypse is upon us, but they're optimistic about what it will do. And I've always said, the bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation, the bigger the opportunity. And we have just been living in it. COVID brought it around. Now this is bringing it around. We're training people to really live in that apocalypticism. I can't say that right. Chad Sowash (49:19.48) Yeah. JT ODonnell (49:49.167) But I think that could be a good thing, but it requires you to realize it's just not black and white. There's so much bad going on right now, but somewhere in there you also have to see the opportunity because we have to. We have to keep going. But to oversimplify it down to money, I'm with you. I guess you needed to end. It was such an epic novel that… Let me just finish this thing up. Bow on top. Chad Sowash (49:58.969) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:14.751) Yeah, really quickly. It's about the money and Well, usually I don't do this but I think it's necessary this week with all of this kind of news that's happening. I have a dad joke Yeah, yeah, I've Huh? No, there's no there's no no no no no, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. Okay, What's the least? JT ODonnell (50:17.614) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (50:27.572) no! I thought it was free! I thought it was free of the dad joke this week. Chad Sowash (50:43.943) spoken language. What is the least spoken language? Chad Sowash (50:56.057) She's shaking her head, she doesn't know. Sign language. JT ODonnell (50:56.27) clue. I don't know. JT ODonnell (51:01.198) Ouch. Chad Sowash (51:02.735) All right, guys, thanks a lot for joining in. Subscribe. We love you and we out. JT ODonnell (51:05.337) Thank you. We out.

"If you have to tell people you’re a good basketball player, you’re probably not a good basketball player."   On this episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Chad and Cheese sit down with Josh Block , executive advisor and author of the new book, People Matter at Work . After unexpectedly becoming president of a $30 million family business at just 29 years old, Josh led the organization through a massive scaling journey—growing it to $215 million while obsessing over one thing: creating a place where people actually love to work.   Inside this episode: The Dehumanization of Work:  Why the gap between shareholders and team members is wider than ever, and how "quarterly earnings" pressure is killing company culture. The AI "Problem" in Healthcare:  Josh shares an optimistic take on how AI is actually solving labor shortages and saving lives in the radiology space, rather than just creating obsolescence. Policy vs. Approach:  Why Josh "cringes" at the word policy and how flexibility—not rigid handbooks—is the key to retaining top talent in a post-pandemic world. The "Barry Sanders" Strategy:  Why the best company cultures don't need "jazz hands" or flashy marketing; they let the chemistry and the work speak for itself. "What if we could create a place where people... go home and they’re better husbands, better wives, and better parents because of the investment we’ve made in them?"   Tune in for a deep dive into the trenches of workforce talk. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:25.908) Uhhhh, yeeeeaaaaaaah! It's the podcast your Department of War warned you about. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast, everybody. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sewash's writing shotgun as we welcome Josh Block, executive advisor at Block Imaging, founder of Cube Mobile Imaging and author of People Matter at Work to the show. Josh, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:38.528) Bella! Chad Sowash (00:50.519) Hmm. Cause they don't matter. They don't matter anywhere else. Josh Block (00:52.906) I'm so glad to be here and looking forward to it, guys. Joel Cheesman (00:55.572) You look glad to be here. None of these marketing podcasts. This is real deal, in the trenches workforce talk here, Josh. I hope you're ready. A lot of our listeners won't know you, probably aren't connected to the medical imaging world as much as others are. Give us some sense of who you are, what makes you tick, what gets you out of bed every morning. Chad Sowash (01:01.143) The people. Josh Block (01:18.348) Yeah, I appreciate again being here. So I spent 10 years in Muncie, Indiana. So you're familiar with the Ball State Chirp Chirp. I got two Indiana guys here. That's right. So I spent 10 years in Muncie. Chad Sowash (01:24.663) Sorry. God. This... The worst battle cry ever, guys. The worst battle cry ever. Joel Cheesman (01:25.236) I love that that is your opening line. We call it, we call it fun, we call it FUNCY, Josh. It's called FUNCY. Yeah. Josh Block (01:37.964) That's right. There was a shirt, think, back in the day, FUNCY. I can't remember exactly what went with it. That's right. That's right. So spent 10 years running a service company and really wanted to employ people in the inner city because jobs change lives. And so at 29 years old, made the decision to move north back to my family, which is in Lansing, Michigan. So we're Michigan State fans go green. Chad Sowash (01:45.111) all of you. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:45.204) Yeah, the Harvard of Muncie is Ball State University. Josh Block (02:07.338) About four months after moving, I became president unexpectedly over a weekend of our family business. So we're in the radiology space, refurbished imaging, and became president and Monday morning, it's $30 million organization. And it was kind of my, my moment. And then have led over the last 15 years really in pursuit of creating a healthy culture and a place where people love to work. Joel Cheesman (02:23.838) Mm-hmm. Josh Block (02:32.522) I grew from about 30 million to 215 million and today I'm an advisor and launching the book People Matter at Work that just went live two days ago. Chad Sowash (02:42.282) So did you actually provide the book to Michigan State football teams and also Michigan football teams? Josh Block (02:48.014) Now it. Joel Cheesman (02:50.069) Jud Heathcote wrote the forward, I think Chad, on that one. I'm going way back with that one. Josh Block (02:53.046) We're pretty, Michigan State's, yeah, that's right. That's right. You go way back. But yeah, Michigan State's pretty happy with the new football coach and Michigan State basketball's rocking it pretty good right now as we go into the Big Ten tournament. Chad Sowash (03:04.948) That's a diversion. Joel Cheesman (03:05.83) is pivot pivot. Do you know Tim Sackett? Okay, huge, big. He's he's in our space. Big Michigan State fan. I was thinking Tim when I say Michigan State fan, but we'll forgive you. You didn't say the Wolverines. So we're we're okay. That team up north is not spoken on the show. Josh Block (03:11.22) I do not know, Tim. Chad Sowash (03:12.522) Okay. Chad Sowash (03:17.332) Yep. Is boys there? Yeah. Yeah. So, so radiology, radiology, a big space, right? And great space. So why write a book about talent? Josh Block (03:25.644) That's right. Josh Block (03:29.709) Mm-hmm. Josh Block (03:37.09) Yeah. So in, in 2011, when I became president and I, there's so much I didn't know. mean, you talk about like inferiority or imposter syndrome. mean, I hadn't seen a profit and loss statement, hadn't been to our Japan or France offices. I was a sales rep, but I mean, there was, if you, if you put on one side what I knew and on the other side, what I didn't know, it wouldn't even be close. And so about that time, someone handed me a copy of Patrick once the only is five dysfunctions of a team. Chad Sowash (03:40.64) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:54.112) Hello. Josh Block (04:06.178) And when someone tells you Teamwork's the ultimate competitive advantage and you don't know your butt from your elbow, it gave me great hope. And so we really put all of our chips on the table and pursued a healthy culture. I'm thankful we're in healthcare because it's a really meaningful space to change lives through patient care. But it's meaningful, right? Because People Matter is our core mission. Joel Cheesman (04:24.5) It's the only place hiring people. You should be excited to be in that space. Chad Sowash (04:26.984) Yeah, it's a growth. Josh Block (04:33.358) It really not only is meaningful within our team, but also in our support of healthcare providers who are scanning patients. I mean, we don't have to go into this, but if I were to ask either of you something that's going on in your family's life or who's had an X-ray or an MRI or CT or mammogram, it touches everyone's lives. Chad Sowash (04:50.068) Yeah, yeah. But why, why? mean, so healthcare, there's high churn. And usually there's really bad management. You go to, I don't care who I talk to, my friends are in healthcare over the years, or we talk to individuals who are in talent, in HR. Management is horrible. And they have turnover that is horrible. So the big question is, knowing that healthcare in itself, there's not enough individuals to actually just fill the positions that are open right now as it is, let alone trying to kick them out of the industry to other industries, why is that such a big problem in healthcare today? Josh Block (05:30.124) You know, I think there's an urgency and an acute care nature that you, mean, any business where you're 24 seven inherently has some challenges. You're dealing with people who have a myriad of difficulties from preventative care to, you know, the most difficult of people's lives, whether it be cancer or pediatrics. So you have some of those dynamics. You have a lot of regulatory changes happening at all times as reimbursements and insurance and. And you have these health, not only did you have a lot of consolidation in the space, but you're serving wildly different clientele. I if you were in downtown Denver versus going to Littleton, it's just totally different challenges you're facing. So I think those are a few of the areas I just named about eight of why healthcare is difficult. Joel Cheesman (06:12.666) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Speaking of challenges, Josh, what inspired you to write a book? I'm guessing it wasn't the money. Speaking of opportunities, like what? Josh Block (06:21.942) Yeah. You'd be surprised if you take an MRI and then you take $26 books and you multiply it. There's no, really, of course, didn't do it for the money, but I was of all places running in Muncie, Indiana and I got to a stop sign. remember where I was and just felt this tap on the shoulder. Like you need to tell the story and not because I necessarily wanted to, but because other people have talked about our culture and talked about our leadership approach. Joel Cheesman (06:31.092) Hahaha Chad Sowash (06:31.487) It was. Josh Block (06:49.366) and said like, you need to invite others into this. So I started in 2020 and because we've grown so much and this was a side piece of my day-to-day life raising teenagers and running a company, it took six years to get to the full publishing and launch of the book. Joel Cheesman (06:53.204) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (07:06.269) Just so. Joel Cheesman (07:06.276) And you're sure you weren't on Riverside being tapped on the shoulder by a meth head? Did you make sure that that was not the case? okay, all right. Josh Block (07:09.998) I was not on Riverside. I was a little east of town in Parker City, Indiana. Chad Sowash (07:14.836) I can't, I can't believe you allowed side piece to go past Joel. Anyway, so we, let's talk about, let's talk about kind of like the setup for this, right? You know, we talk about the dehumanization of the workplace in itself and it actually started well before AI. We're talking about AI a lot. We're talking about efficiencies. We're talking about a lot of different things, right? And people are afraid they're scared, yet, but yeah, you're bringing up a Joel Cheesman (07:20.488) blinded by months a what what Chad Sowash (07:44.298) Big point, that it's been dehumanizing for a very long time. So can you dig into that a little bit, please? Josh Block (07:51.852) Yeah, I think that I share about this and people matter at work. I think that the public corporation has had a big impact is when you look at like when we look at an aggregation culture and then a family enterprise, then you move to this public enterprise where shareholders and team members, the gap is as big as ever, right? Many of us own shares and companies that we have no idea what the experience is for the customer or for the team member. And so think the gap has gotten really big. Chad Sowash (07:58.711) Mm. Chad Sowash (08:08.97) Thank you. Chad Sowash (08:20.342) Mm. Josh Block (08:20.462) And then the pressure has grown around short-term returns. like quarterly earnings. mean, that is just a phrase that's totally commonplace today that wasn't even a phrase 50 years ago. so think quarterly earnings drive near-term results. Near-term results create pressure, pressure creates selfishness and kind of this focus on myself. And so those are some of the reasons why I think the gap has grown and the dehumanization has started to kind of, yeah, not go in the right direction. Chad Sowash (08:49.27) It's baked into society now. mean, we started, this all started with trickle down economics and then the rugged individualism came in, then greed is good, right? I mean, so it all turned into short-sightedness at that point because it started to compress, right? We started having long-term thoughts with regard to and strategies of how we're going to run business. We developed our employees, we retained our employees, and today it's all flipped. The development's not happening. Joel Cheesman (08:49.524) at Josh Block (08:56.846) Sure. Josh Block (09:13.902) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (09:17.718) We see employees as disposable. Hence what I was talking about earlier with a lot of health care It's just like well, there's somebody else that'll pop in there How do how do it's baked into society? So a book is great, but how in the hell do we change this? Josh Block (09:34.156) Yeah, and I think it's baked into American culture in some ways is this like we are we are such an independent place, the Declaration of Independence, and we talk about the celebration of our own personal freedom. And there are lot of cultures around the world that independence is not celebrated interdependence is they're multi generational and they see community much broader than the way that most Americans see community. So I think for me, the invitation is for like, what does our legacy want to be? What do you want people to say of you as a leader in five years? And much of this book and really the question that I sought to be an answer to the last 15 years is what if we could create a place where people love to work, not because there's free granola bars and water slides, but because they're challenged and stretched and become people they never dreamed of and they go home and they're better husbands, they're better wives, they're better parents, they're better community members because of the investment we've made in. Joel Cheesman (10:30.632) What's this granola bar you speak of? I know not. The water slide is good. Chad Sowash (10:33.938) I'm, I did the water slide. that's, that was. Josh Block (10:36.512) When just when you talk about culture, people think ropes courses and trust falls. And actually what they really think is like, yeah, there's a funny story for another time on trust falls, but, but the idea of like, I think people just think if you have a healthy culture, you're actually really soft, complacent. you you're, you're comfortable with mediocrity and you tolerate poor performance. And it's a misnomer that I, if people matter, performance matters like. Chad Sowash (10:42.966) Trust falls. Josh Block (11:05.548) We have to perform so that we can actually drive our mission. And so both of those are really important. Joel Cheesman (11:10.622) Yep. Josh, you're in radiology and one of the professions we hear a lot about being automated is the radiologist, right? Like machines being able to look at imaging and making a diagnosis. Humans just have a hard time competing with that, which obviously trickles down into impacting your business and how you recruit and how you retain employees. If they think radiology is going away, why the hell are we making radiology machines? So how do you look at AI and how it impacts the future of the business and how does it impact your recruiting and retention. Josh Block (11:42.466) Yeah, for radiology, from an AI perspective, there are areas in the labor space that it's solving problems. Like five years ago, the reads for radiologists, so there's a big difference between like scanning and then ultimately reading. There was a huge shortage of radiologists, and that's not even talked about today. AI is doing... initial reads and providing some real solutions. like where AI is creating obsolescence and fear in some areas, it's actually solving problems in other spaces. And so there are not enough MR techs in the world today. There are not enough radiologists in the world today. And the ability to do remote scanning and to read with artificial intelligence is actually solving. So while the world kind of tends to complain about things like this is a problem, hey, let's not forget Chad Sowash (12:12.916) Hmm. Josh Block (12:34.22) The fact that AI is actually solving in spaces that are going to allow reads to happen in an hour or in six hours, rather than becoming like some other countries where we may not read for a week or two weeks, which is life-changing for people. Joel Cheesman (12:48.692) love that optimistic perspective on that. Curious, you've been part of fast growing companies. You talked about dollars and headcount. What are some of the sort of non-negotiable cultural strategies that you can't lose in those fast growth periods? Like what advice would you give a company that's at that 50 person headcount going to that four or 500 person headcount? Josh Block (13:15.158) Yeah, it's a great question. think organizational identity is so important. And a lot of times people think of organizational identity as your brand. And that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about going and finding values. And that sound nice or would look pretty on the wall. What is inside of you? What do you want? When you're cut, what do you bleed out? When you sweat, what comes out of you is that you find those values. And in our case, where my last name is the company's name. Chad Sowash (13:27.318) Mm. Josh Block (13:43.042) Like this is who we want to be when we grow up. And what you do is you become a magnet to draw people who are connected to that. You hold people accountable to aligning with it. And then you repel people who don't want to be a part of a place where people matter and honor and together and thoughtful and transparent are really who we want to be when we grow up. Chad Sowash (14:03.158) So how do you actually take, next thing you know, you're a president of an organization. Haven't been to Japan and or where was it? Paris, yeah, France, Paris. Joel, I have not been to either of our locations either. I need to go to Japan. How do you identify that? Again, you're coming in green, right? How do you identify where the problems are actually happening? How did that happen? Josh Block (14:12.706) France. Chad Sowash (14:32.318) And how did you execute and kind of like what a timeframe, what kind of programs, what'd you have to do? Josh Block (14:38.318) Initially, it was to regain stability, right? We had had, I share in the book that we had had some layoffs that had taken place four months before becoming president. And then my dad's imminent shift led to some instability. I mean, we went from the founder of the company who's 60 years old, who had spent two decades in radiology to someone who's 29, had been in sales, but didn't have nearly the business experience or the gray hairs that I have today. And so... Chad Sowash (14:47.35) Yeah. Josh Block (15:07.042) that was like starting with regain stability. Like regain stability, meet with each person on the team, which is about 50 at the time, and talk to them about where they're concerned. Some people were really excited about where we were going. Some people were concerned. Regain stability and then cast vision for where we want to go as a company. Joel Cheesman (15:25.214) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:26.08) So how do you do that? I mean, just a practical exercise. Do you sit down with people one on one? Do you sit down with the actual managers and then to be able, mean, explain just from an execution standpoint, how do you make that happen? And then at that point, you start to identify individuals who might not have the same vision, which is all well and good. How do you part with those individuals, right? And then also try to identify new. individuals to bring into the organization. Josh Block (15:58.274) Yeah, there was meeting with the leaders was a moment by moment. Hey, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you walk me through what some of the things that I need to grow my acumen in in order to lead this organization? Then there was just meeting with each individual in the company, starting with those who were most concerned. And then there were a handful of people who were unable to make the shift across in the midst of our growth and the difference between my dad, who had hired some of his friends and had Chad Sowash (16:27.21) Mm-hmm. Josh Block (16:27.566) you know, these were his colleagues, there were a very small number of people who were not able to bridge across from his leadership to mine. Chad Sowash (16:36.618) What was the big problem there? Was it just that this is the way things have been done, it's more tradition this way and change isn't something that we're going to embrace? What did you see was the big problem? Josh Block (16:47.726) I think think humility, humility is a great pathway to healthy teams. And so I think there are a number of spots where there was this rugged individualism, which we talked about a little bit ago. I want it my way. I want to do it in this manner. want to in this case, we're working remote was very rare back at those times, but I want to work in my house. I don't want to work with other people. want whatever those things were. And I was really inviting people to work together and that. Chad Sowash (16:52.842) Yeah. Yeah. Josh Block (17:14.976) required humility. I'd say like that individualism and ego were two things that sometimes we were unable to get to the other side of. Joel Cheesman (17:22.408) Let's talk about remote because you're going to have people that read the book that we're all in office. We're all remote. We're a hybrid of both of those. Does the strategy change? Do you have advice for companies with different sort of setups or is it consistent? Josh Block (17:36.012) Yeah, so we have about 200 people in Michigan and about 200 nationally. And that's some of that's just because they're located in the hospital serving patients. And it's fixing systems that are serving patients every day. But for us, we really believe that being in person is important as often as you can. And so some of that's people who are working at a headquarters. Some people here are three days a week in headquarters. We try to bring people in for an annual retreat every year in September. But yeah, we think that proximity and frequency are super important and we've sought to hold on to that as much as we possibly can in the midst of some changing dynamics, both due to our growth and the spread of the customers we're serving around the Joel Cheesman (18:19.486) They're generational. Yep. Chad Sowash (18:19.52) So wait real quick. So you're saying being in person with customers sometimes literally outranks being at headquarters. Josh Block (18:28.586) you in the space that we're in where we're fixing medical devices, you can't, you can't fly to California from Michigan. But I will tell you when we went through the COVID season and there are even some companies that are, you know, moving backwards. And what's really tricky is once everybody went remote and a couple of years later, you're like, Hey, I need you to come back in the office. And the person's like, I don't live here anymore. I moved from DC to Florida and the company's like, wait, we're still paying you based on DC rates. But that's another. Chad Sowash (18:31.563) Yeah, okay. Chad Sowash (18:51.008) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh Block (18:57.824) another topic is we sent people home for a short period of time and then brought them back. And then at Christmas, we sent them home again because of some concern about families and things like that, and then brought them back. And what we found is that people actually felt more safe, secure. They were in their normal rhythms when they came to the office, not when they were at home. And so we tried to find the balance. I really think something we talked about before we got on the show is like black and white policy. And I think that people Chad Sowash (18:58.55) That's another show, yeah. Josh Block (19:26.958) Us, we really try to go with approaches. Like, how are we going to approach different situations? Generally speaking, we believe that people being in the office is a big win. And there are situations with parents and there are situations with health issues and there are situations with kids and all that sort of stuff. And so how do we modulate based on what we want and based on what people need? Joel Cheesman (19:49.151) Do you look at the issue generationally? We talk a lot about younger people needing that mentorship, needing that sort of in office energy. People experience not so much. Do you look at it that way or is it sort of one size fits all? Josh Block (20:05.964) Well, the real challenge is when that person who's experienced, who knows everything they need to know to do their job goes remote. That's where we start to lose the synergy and the knowledge passed on. So when Bob, who worked remote for 16 years, resigns, I think he takes something different with him than if he was working in the office every day for those 16 years. The transmission of knowledge and one of the keys to our organization is that we're helpful. People help each other. People train each other. We're open-handed with knowledge. Job security isn't driven by hoarding knowledge. And so that is one of the things that's really important to me is that when we talk about the generations, we want the experienced people in the office because of what they can give away to the next generation versus just fading off into the distance. Chad Sowash (20:51.424) Well, talk a little bit about flexibility, though, because obviously we see that there are a lot of women that have left the workforce because there wasn't flexibility and they were forced back into the office. So we're losing great. We're losing talent, right? We're losing talent for those types of those types of reasons. So talk a little bit about that. And it doesn't have to be obviously you can work hybrid or what have you. Maybe they're shifting schedules. What have you had to make concessions and actually work with employees and departments to be able to keep great talent? Josh Block (21:20.054) Yeah, we we have we believe that if you're in the Lansing, Michigan area, you're around one of our offices. We want you in the office as much as you possibly can. And at the same. So that's the macro view. And we recognize that we don't want it to be a retention issue. We want to accommodate and work. We obviously don't want you to go home and be the child care provider for your family while you're working. We just don't think that's necessarily honoring of the organization of your team. Chad Sowash (21:26.614) Hmm? Josh Block (21:49.986) But at the same time, if you have to be at the office every day or you can't work here, or remote is 100 % remote is the only way you'll work here, we probably try to thread the needle in between. And we have some three day a week, we have some four day a week. But we actually want teams. Some teams are here, like everybody commits to be here on Monday and Wednesday so that they can continue to develop those relationships and grow together. Chad Sowash (22:15.242) Bye. Joel Cheesman (22:16.436) talked about COVID a couple of times and we've seen politics creep into the workplace in the last few years. You're shaking your head very aggressively. Michigan is also a swing state. You guys are more politically charged probably than a lot of other states. How do you as an organization, what do you recommend other companies do with the political football? Avoid it, embrace it because culture plays into how a company Josh Block (22:25.303) Yeah Chad Sowash (22:25.75) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (22:45.14) approaches politics more and more. Josh Block (22:47.106) Yeah, our mission is that people matter. Like those two words drive and guide everything we do. And so when it came to the vaccine, when it came to remote work, when it came to task forces, when it came to all these sorts of things, we just really look through the lens, not of who the Republicans are, not of who the Democrats are, not of who's the governor, not of who's the president, but who do we want to be? And I think that that The anchoring in our identity is really what keeps from the winds of change blowing you here and all over the place. so yeah, when we like the vaccine was a really hot topic. I don't remember if it was 21 and in healthcare, there was this idea of like in order to be employed here, you are going to have to force your team members to be vaccinated. And personally, I was just uncomfortable with that. I understand that there were some customer demands that we had in order to be in hospitals. Chad Sowash (23:28.374) . Chad Sowash (23:39.158) Mm. Josh Block (23:39.234) but to force our entire company to undergo really a healthcare decision in order to be employed here. That just, in the end, it wasn't a decision that we had to make. actually, some decisions, it's really funny, some decisions you can punt and they make themselves. And that's what happened here. There was never a federal mandate for our organization. And so it was much ado about nothing and a bunch of worry and conversation that didn't really come to fruition. Joel Cheesman (23:58.034) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:04.67) It sounds like most of politics these days. Josh Block (24:07.244) Yeah, yeah, just wait. It's one of the few areas of life that if I don't make a decision, it might be the best decision. Joel Cheesman (24:15.209) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:15.36) Yeah. Yeah. Well, it also sounds like as we're talking about just like that and also culture, right? That there are all these lines that are drawn. There's a black and there's a white. You're either in the office or you're out of the office. And from what we've heard from many very successful organizations is that it's in the middle, right? And there's generally not a kind of like top down, you know, Jamie Diamond, everybody's in the office bullshit that's happening. It is generally managers working with their teams, figuring it out and understanding that they have objectives that they have to meet. Whether it's sales quotas or it's product or whatever it might be, but there are things that they have to meet and objectives they have to meet. And that's the job. And that's the job. So tell me a little bit about that. Was it harder, especially with some of those older workers, to try to work with them and say, hey, look, this is standard operating procedure? No. But it's not anymore. This is how we're working and we want to be able to just get the job done. Josh Block (25:18.464) It is, I mean, and frankly, the Jamie Diamond situation, which I don't know all of the details, but I am a Chase customer, is they, I think it's an overreaction to the previous decision, which was, hey, we're gonna make everybody comfortable, go remote, know, they're mowing their lawn, they're doing whatever they're doing. And then it's like, wait a second, I don't want, I was just on a Zoom call, I think they're folding laundry, what's going on here? And then they kind of swung the other way. which was like the first wrong decision led to a more stringent second decision. And so yeah, for us, it's why I cringe at the word policy. And HR, a lot of people in HR, they, want to write a policy because I want the person to walk into my office and I want to have a clear answer. It was a 55 mile an hour zone. My radar detector said you were going 67. And so I'm going to write you a ticket versus what we've really encouraged is approaches. This is our approach to in-person work. This is our approach to PTO. This is our approach to maternity leave. This is our approach to fill in the blank. And yet we recognize that the moment that we make this stringent policy is the moment someone walks into our office and it's like, my gosh, I never dreamed that this, when I was writing the policy, I could have never imagined this situation. And that's why keeping a little bit more flexibility, hey, this is what we're after as a company and we're gonna, and HR. is not just designed to protect the company, to support the people. Joel Cheesman (26:43.092) Josh, you're supposed to say proud chase customer. Jamie doesn't like it when you just say chase customer. Okay, good. Proud, proud customer. Josh Block (26:48.142) I am, I'm a proud Chase customer. I was an old national bank customer, Muncie, Indiana, do you remember that? Joel Cheesman (26:56.606) KeyBank was my team back in the day, Josh. Anyway, you got me off track. I'm curious about when does the message around culture begin? When I go to your career site, there's no video, there's no sort of, I don't wanna say splashy, but there doesn't seem to be a huge effort around showing who we are with video and sort of new media. Josh Block (26:58.933) Okay. Chad Sowash (27:04.192) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:24.84) You have a section that says culture fit. That's literally two sentences, which I think a lot of people would say, how do you relay culture in two sentences? So what, what am I missing? What's the secret sauce? When do you start sharing the vision with a candidate and how Josh Block (27:41.004) Yeah, person is most likely going to know about Block Imaging's culture before they go to our site. Because we're in healthcare, because we're in radiology, it's a pretty incestuous space in terms of I used to work for GE, now I work for Siemens and Block Imaging. I've heard a lot about them. I have a friend that works there. So for us, I would say that you are either someone in healthcare who's familiar with our culture Two, someone who works for this team invited you to apply and they've told you about their experience. And then the last is you're in the Lansing community. So a lot of our core accounting and HR and IT is located in Lansing. And so again, it's similar to the healthcare space where lots of people know lots of people and our culture is pretty well known in the Lansing area. Chad Sowash (28:23.86) Mm. Chad Sowash (28:28.906) So what would you say to the companies who come out with new colors, new logos, and just a new fresh cheerleader rah rah, because we see that all the time. What does that, yeah, what do jazz hands mean to you, especially when it comes to the corporate side of Joel Cheesman (28:43.092) I don't think Josh is into jazz hands. That's what I'm hearing, but let's hear it from him. Josh Block (28:53.006) Yeah, the I have a 16 year old son who plays basketball. And if you have to tell people that you're a good basketball player, you're probably not a good basketball player. Right. Like the best way to know if you're a good basketball player is when someone stops you when you're walking out of the gym and says, whoa, you're you're an incredible shooter or you're you whatever it is, is when other people talk about you, that's when you know. And so I think that's if we have to talk about ourselves and put our culture on display. Chad Sowash (29:01.59) Thanks. Josh Block (29:20.212) I really want you to walk in our doors. want you to engage our recruiting team and go, whoa, like something's different about the way that that person talked to me or the things we talked about. The focus wasn't as much on resume. Maybe it was more on chemistry, but I really want people to feel it more than I want to holler. Joel Cheesman (29:40.948) Another Michigan reference, Barry Sanders never celebrated because he had been in the end zone quite a few times. Josh Block (29:44.142) I tell my son that I'm like just act like you've been there before when you when you shoot a three and you make it you just walk down the court and you start playing defense if you got to do this like You know a mix of signs and and taunting and whatever else like you're not good enough Chad Sowash (29:59.851) He's got to get the dance moves together though. I mean, come on. I love Barry. He's tradition, traditional. Josh Block (30:02.638) Barry Sanders, hands the football to the ref and then he retires and he gets into the Hall of Fame. Joel Cheesman (30:04.222) Who does it? Joel Cheesman (30:09.716) For sure, for sure. So I'll push you on something else as well, Josh. According to LinkedIn, your median tenure of an employee is 2.3 years. The best comp I could find was Striker, a Michigan medical company as well, at about 4.3 years. Is LinkedIn off on that? Do you have a lot of people who aren't on LinkedIn? Are you happy with that median retention? Josh Block (30:34.478) Yes. I love that you just pulled out a piece of data I have never heard in my life. So we went, we were acquired two and a half years ago. And so we, as an organization, have moved from 200 to 400 in the last two and a half years. So my suspicion is, I don't know exactly how that data is pulled, but if you go from 200 to 400 in two and a half years, you immediately have 200 plus of those people could not have been a part of block imaging before that growth took place. Joel Cheesman (30:38.312) Tell me, talk to me about that. Chad Sowash (31:03.444) Mm. Josh Block (31:03.534) our leadership team, I've got 15 years in the office next door, I've got 22 years next door, our leaders, the tenure's really, really long. I would suspect that if you moved that outlier of extreme growth and the acquisition factor, I would have to think our tenure's pretty long, but it's not something that I've looked at. Chad Sowash (31:25.98) LinkedIn data, LinkedIn data. Well, guys, I'm sorry. Josh Block (31:28.814) It's probably good data. actually sounds pretty accurate. It just has that one piece in there. But I would say that turnover, the question of like, how do you know if a culture is healthy? Losing good people. it is something we just, don't have very often that we have someone who leaves and right. We all know when someone leaves you either have that moment of where you're like, I wish you the best and have a bagel party and you're going to do great somewhere else. And then you have the other side, which is like, no, this was a person who was carrying something significant for this organization. Lot of knowledge, great chemistry, fit, extremely competent. I'll tell you the number of times that someone has departed in that latter category from block imaging over the years is a handful. Joel Cheesman (32:10.366) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (32:13.878) Well, Josh, I got to cut you off because I've got to, I've got a book flight for our Japan and Paris locations. So if somebody wants to actually connect with you or I don't know, maybe even buy the book, where might they go? Josh Block (32:29.91) Yeah, so they can connect with me, peoplematteratwork.com, peoplematteratwork.com, because you can't do an at sign in the middle of a website, I guess. And my email is josh at peoplematteratwork.com. And then they can buy books anywhere. Books are sold Amazon. I hear it's kind of a cool place to buy stuff these days. Chad Sowash (32:37.622) No, no, that's an email address. Joel Cheesman (32:48.425) We hear that too. Chad, I can't believe we didn't talk about my close relationship with Magic Johnson. I guess we'll save that for another show. Josh, Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Josh Block (32:56.194) That's not true. Chad Sowash (32:57.335) I was, we out. Josh Block (32:59.272) Ugh.

This Week on HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast... Get ready for wild breakdowns from Joel, Chad, and Emi:   T he AI Data Apocalypse? The crew dives into the Mercor security breach, a supply chain attack hitting 36% of cloud AI environments. We’re talking four terabytes of stolen data—including source code, biometrics, and passports. Is our industry’s historical weakness in security finally catching up to us? The Senate Traps Findem The U.S. Senate is knocking on the door of data brokers, and Findem is under the microscope. From "no index" games on opt-out pages to a massive 418,000 data deletion requests, the team asks: How did we get here, and is government intervention the only way out? Will AI Kill Capitalism? A Citi banker warns that AI and robotics are a "threat to capitalism" and the middle class. Is a "productivity dividend" the solution to mass layoffs, or is the party officially over for the working world? LinkedIn Kills the Vibe LinkedIn is banning spontaneous live streams in favor of scheduled ads. Is this a smart "event hub" evolution or just a cynical "dollar play" that proves LinkedIn isn't the place to zone out? Plus: Chad's new "friendship" tattoo , Emi's "genetically blessed" Brazilian name , and the birthday dad joke that’ll make you want to go anonymous. It’s time for some no-bullshit discussions. Let’s do this. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman (00:30.343) Oh yeah. The DA double D Y A C. Yeah. You know me. Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel. Get your own oil cheeseman. Chad Sowash (00:43.356) This is Chad, Fresh Ink, so off. Emi Beredugo (00:46.518) And this is Emmy, Mimi, there we go. Yeah. Chad Sowash (00:49.479) Mimi. Joel Cheesman (00:50.265) And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, Melania bots data breaches and will the Senate find him guilty? See what I did there, Chad. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:07.108) Fresh ink tattoo? What is this? What? Is that the Foo Fighters? What is that? Chad Sowash (01:08.582) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My first tattoo, first tattoo. No, it's actually, it's like a friendship thing. But anyway, it's my first tattoo. So I've opened the gateway. My daughter and I are now getting set for our first daddy daughter tattoo. Julie's and I've been planning for, it's open. It's all open. I'm gonna have full sleeve tattoos before you know it. Emi Beredugo (01:11.507) Ooh. Joel Cheesman (01:20.103) Aww friendship thing. Joel Cheesman (01:36.111) You're kidding, right? Is this April Fool's? We're recording on April Fool's. Is this an April Fool's joke? So what is it? I can't see. Put it up there for the YouTube audience. For friends. Chad Sowash (01:39.792) No, no, it's real. It's real. It's real. I've got it. It's literally it is. It's an F. Yep. Emi Beredugo (01:48.206) What is it? F. Chad Sowash (01:49.522) Nah, so it's for founders, but that's like a group that I'm a part of. It's not a gang. It's not a mafia. Joel Cheesman (01:53.947) founders. So, so, so let me get this straight before a Chad and cheese tattoo, you get some random founders. Chad is cheating on me and I don't know how I feel about it right now. I don't know how I feel about this. Emi Beredugo (01:55.434) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:01.105) I don't need my own face on my body. Emi Beredugo (02:08.504) I feel sorry for you, Joel. mean Chad, that's so out of order. How could you cheat on Joel? Awful. I know, my God. Chad Sowash (02:13.681) I think how Julie deals. mean, come on. Joel Cheesman (02:16.359) All right, so full sleeve tattoo on Chad coming soon, everybody. That'll make travel interesting. Chad Sowash (02:18.127) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:23.177) yeah, coming soon. Gonna work its way up. Yeah. Too easy, too easy. Yeah. No, I was in London. Yeah. No, went to, first I went to London, actually met up with the boys from Talent Nexus, Jim, Rob and Thomas. We had a day of paddle drinking and great food like they always do. Then we had two days in Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England. Joel Cheesman (02:26.789) Wow. So you're in London or not London, but Hartfordshire. Okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:45.852) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (02:49.07) hot fish out. Chad Sowash (02:52.689) at the RLX with some talent leaders and best of all, Joel, I know you miss him. I know you miss him. Steven McGrath. Then came home last Friday, played in a men's tournament. Saturday, played in a mixed tournament with Julie and that will test a marriage, kids. I'm gonna tell you right now, playing in a tournament with your wife, Devils, that'll test a marriage. And then capping it off with the first tattoo on Monday. So yeah, it's been a hell of a week. Joel Cheesman (02:52.815) Off you go. Joel Cheesman (03:00.325) Joel Cheesman (03:20.721) Well, speaking of testing marriages, Chad Sowash (03:22.929) yeah, go ahead. Please. Joel Cheesman (03:26.595) So the barrage of photos of you doing, I guess, scotch tastings, very, very cruel. What was going on with that? Chad Sowash (03:31.025) Yes. Chad Sowash (03:36.058) my God, my God. the RLX has experiences. You go hit golf balls on the range, beautiful golf course, amazing golf course. One of the best golf courses, I think, in not just the UK, but Europe. But I chose, obviously, because Stephen was there, and Julie as well, to have the scotch tasting. I'm going to have to have Stephen send you a list. Chad Sowash (04:03.373) a list of the Scotches because he went in kind of like with his nose up knowing that you know he knows Scotch. And the guy the guy who did the Scotch tasting his his name is is Scott Scottish Dave I think is what they call him or whiskey Dave that's what it was whiskey Dave. And my God he brought the heat when we're talking about Scotch some of the best Scotches I've ever had and Stephen was was loving the hell out of it so this guy was legit it was good it was good. Emi Beredugo (04:09.422) So. Joel Cheesman (04:18.392) honest Dave Joel Cheesman (04:24.956) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:31.035) Okay. So it wasn't a particular distillery. It was a variety of scotches and okay. Chad Sowash (04:36.913) Yeah, from his own personal collection. Yes. This is our Jamie in the team over at recruitment events company. They did the RLX, the two day event. First time they've done it. It's like a concept event. They knocked it out of the park. Great job. I can't wait for Chicago here in about a month or so. Emi Beredugo (04:42.132) wow. How old would I? Joel Cheesman (04:50.832) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:59.143) Yeah, if I don't get a plate of Chicago dogs and Italian beefs, I'm going to be pretty upset. If Jamie's listening, I better get some, some, some pub pizza, some Chicago dogs. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm looking at me. I haven't seen you in a while. What's new? What's going on? What's popping? Chad Sowash (05:08.103) you know, he's listening. He's listening from Abita. Emi Beredugo (05:18.222) What's popping? Well, I think I told you last time I was supposed to be going to Sri Lanka. And with everything that's going on in the world, my flight's cancelled. But it's OK. It's OK, because we've got a Plan B. And Plan B is actually better than Plan A in my eyes. Yes, we are going to Brazil. So I am, yes, at the end of this month. I've never been, yeah, hence the Mimi name, because I was trying to give myself a Brazilian name. And apparently Mimi is popular there. Chad Sowash (05:31.735) tell me, tell me. Joel Cheesman (05:31.91) Yeah? Chad Sowash (05:36.793) Ow. Very nice. Chad Sowash (05:46.13) Is there a butt lift coming as well? mean, what's a, I you go to Brazil for stuff. You don't need it. You don't need it. Okay. Got the, you've got the genetic butt lift. Okay. You don't need the Brazilian butt lift. You've got the genetic. Okay. I got you. Okay. Joel Cheesman (05:47.131) That's that's there waxing coming is. Emi Beredugo (05:50.841) Chad, I'm black. I'm genetically blessed with a big heart. No, I don't need it. It's in my genes. Yeah. No, I've got the Nigerian ass here. Absolutely. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:04.647) genetically blessed with a big ass. I did not have that one on my bingo card today. That's very nice. Chad Sowash (06:13.039) Hahaha. Emi Beredugo (06:14.126) You never know where these confers are going. Chad Sowash (06:18.683) Good stuff, good stuff. Joel Cheesman (06:20.711) I'm guessing that that should lead us into shout outs. I don't know. I don't know if we can top the banter with the genetically blessed with a big ass. Emi Beredugo (06:24.226) Wow. Joel Cheesman (06:30.597) Guys, I'm going to lead us off and, Amy, that was a great segue. I don't know if you've, if you've been watching the news lately, the canceled trip, not the big ass, the world, the world's kind of on fire, right now. And it's, it's really depressing and thank God for sports. You're probably not getting the March madness highlights here, that you get in Europe that we get here. the Yukon game, maybe you saw the finals of that. Chad Sowash (06:34.939) Peace. Emi Beredugo (06:36.91) you Chad Sowash (06:37.681) Gymnastics. Okay. Chad Sowash (06:43.621) Yes, it is. Joel Cheesman (06:58.471) The kid that hit the winning shot was Mr. Basketball in Indiana last year. Went to school like a few miles south of where I live. Baseball's back, NHL hockey, drafts, we got the World Cup coming up. just, if I can sit down for a couple hours, ignore the outside world and watch a sporting event, like I love it. have a hard, like World War II, they shut down baseball, they shut down sports. Like if it ever gets to that, I'm gonna need a mental hospital. Chad Sowash (06:58.555) That was awesome. Joel Cheesman (07:28.293) But until then, thank God for sports. that's my shout out. And, do you guys have a final four pick? Do you guys got to, are you watching or no? Probably not. All right. Emi Beredugo (07:37.646) I'm not watching. Never even heard of it. Yeah. Chad Sowash (07:38.424) No, I've been too busy. Did you just hear what I did this last week for God's sakes? But also, what is it? The UFL football is back and usually we watch it and it's kind of like, this is kind of worse than watching high school football. But this year, I mean, I've been watching highlights. Yeah. it's great. I mean, they've got some real talent. It's starting to really gel. I don't know if it's because the two leagues have come together to create this more of a, you know, kind of like Joel Cheesman (07:41.031) All right, well. Joel Cheesman (07:57.297) Yeah? Chad Sowash (08:08.665) not never to the level of the NFL, but it is much better football than it's been in the past. Joel Cheesman (08:15.365) I just want to know what channel on the dodgy stick do I get UFL football, Chad? Chad Sowash (08:19.569) Hahaha Emi Beredugo (08:20.706) I'm ready. Joel Cheesman (08:24.785) Sorry, no dodgy sticks here. All the Americans listening have no idea what I'm talking about, but apparently it's all the hype in Europe is your dodgy stick. or sorry, Chad. Emi Beredugo (08:25.462) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:28.112) Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:31.534) And okay. Emi Beredugo (08:34.175) It is. Yeah. Yes, chop. Chad Sowash (08:38.257) Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I've got the downer of them all, kids. So shout out to one of the biggest business miscalculations in history as CEOs are betting the fucking farm on AI and not on us actual human beings driving the damn revenue. For example, Oracle just announced layoffs that are reportedly approaching 30,000, yes, 30,000, that many zeros, workers while they try their damnedest to stem a cash Joel Cheesman (08:42.791) Of you do. Emi Beredugo (09:03.2) Chad Sowash (09:07.889) crunch tied to their AI data center build out, including projects linked to partnerships like the $300 billion Stargate initiative with OpenAI. Oracle has already burned through roughly $10 billion in cash in the first half of this fiscal year. While companies aggregate these layoffs, they're crippling an economy that's already limping doing the high inflation tariff backlash in a war that's driving up prices of everything that needs a supply chain. So, breathe. And can we get some of these fucking CEOs out of their positions for God's sake? Can we put AI in CEO positions instead of the other way around? I think this might actually work out better. Joel Cheesman (09:49.831) Thanks, Chad. Asshole. Emi Beredugo (09:51.008) is Emi Beredugo (09:57.881) I think so. Yeah. Wow. Joel Cheesman (10:00.379) However, if you're a shareholder of Oracle, life is pretty good because the stock is popping. Popping like Emmy's booty is what is going on. So let me. Emi Beredugo (10:07.722) Yeah! Chad Sowash (10:07.963) which short term, short term it's great. But when the world fucking burns down, then who gives a shit? Joel Cheesman (10:13.051) Yeah. So let's, I did some homework here. Here's your, here's your top three layoffs in tech, for the, for the year for the last 12 months. we have, we have Oracle now at number one, for 30 K number is correct. have Intel in second place with 25,000, layoffs this year and Amazon rounding up the top three with 16,000, layoffs this year. So thanks big tech. Thanks big tech. Chad Sowash (10:38.882) companies. Emi Beredugo (10:40.014) Jeez, depressing, huh? Chad Sowash (10:42.097) Wow. Yes, yes, which is why we need Emmy. Joel Cheesman (10:44.027) The email was quote from HR to Oracle employees was quote, after careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. Can you get less human than what the hell that was? It's gotta be an agent, gotta be an HR agent that came up with that. Emi Beredugo (11:03.598) Yeah Chad Sowash (11:07.81) It's a human. We suck. Joel Cheesman (11:09.735) Yes, we do suck, we do suck. Joel Cheesman (11:16.551) All right, Amy, talk us off the ledge. What you got in shout outs? Emi Beredugo (11:19.918) Well, I'm going to get, I'm going to try. Have any of you watched Mr. Beast before or Beast games rather? No. Okay. Okay. So it's actually on prime. I've never heard of Mr. Beast before. I think I'm in the wrong age group, but I started watching it probably about two weeks ago. Binge watched the entire series one and two. So it's like a mix between traitors and kind of other kind of squid games is brilliant. Chad Sowash (11:27.105) No, it's on Netflix, all right? It's on Netflix. Joel Cheesman (11:27.416) Thanks to my kid, yeah, I have seen some. Chad Sowash (11:33.017) okay. Chad Sowash (11:43.11) Really? Emi Beredugo (11:49.775) Yeah. So basically people on the show, the ultimate prize is 5 million. If there is a chance to go to 10 million and they've got to do things like form alliances, bribe, cheat, deceive others to get through to the final weekend, either win five or 10 million. So prior to this show, always use, I used to think I was a person of integrity. You know, I work in HR, you know, I used to be a recruiter. So obviously I'm honest, but transpired two weeks later, I realized, no, I would do anything for money. I'll fuck over anyone for money. fact, you know, especially if it's five million and I'm watching these people, I'm like, no, why these people are not your friends. So yeah, shout out to Mr. Beast. I love that show. Chad Sowash (12:23.473) They're human. Chad Sowash (12:29.381) Humanity sucks. Joel Cheesman (12:32.257) Amy, I'm not believing this, that you're not nice for one second. I just... Emi Beredugo (12:36.85) yeah, but when there's five million on the line, I'm sorry, no one's my friend. Yeah, I'm going for that money. Chad Sowash (12:41.777) Ha! Joel Cheesman (12:44.999) So, I don't know MrBeast that well. know about him a little bit and some of our listeners won't. So his claim to fame is giving away a lot of money to do sort of weird stuff, right? And people tuned in and he just became bigger and bigger. And now he's like hugely successful as his own company and is doing this game. So it's on Prime. Emi Beredugo (12:58.882) Yeah, I think so, yeah. Emi Beredugo (13:03.736) Yeah. And he's young, he's super young. People check it out. It is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, yes he is. Joel Cheesman (13:10.307) Super rich is what he is. He's super, super rich, super rich. Not as rich as the people that get free stuff from Chad and Cheese though. They are rich in a way that money really can't count. Let's check in on our drunk friend from the whiskey tasting, Steven McGrath. Chad Sowash (13:15.547) Can't do it, can't. that's right. Mr. Beast just can't compare to it. Emi Beredugo (13:24.948) Yeah. Chad Sowash (13:51.479) Everybody loves these. Everybody. Chad Sowash (14:43.633) did he get the red stave? That's that's good stuff. How did he how did he get the good stuff? Joel Cheesman (14:49.735) Well, rumor is you can ship him a cock now, whereas it's much more difficult for me to do it. So maybe he got it from you, Chad. I don't know. I think you're, you're, you're jazz hand in this thing. Uh, you're the one that's supplying. So I, so, so I have a bit of a, um, I don't know. I need to admit something here, Chad, my, do you remember, do you, do you remember, did you ever go to deja vu, uh, back in the day? Emmy deja vu is a strip club. Chad Sowash (14:58.145) It's always great to ship some cocks. Emi Beredugo (15:03.214) Yeah Chad Sowash (15:11.982) and clean. Emi Beredugo (15:15.96) Is that a nightclub? it's a strip club, okay. Chad Sowash (15:19.545) No, not that one. I didn't get a danger to the room. Joel Cheesman (15:19.555) And it was, it was, it was the only one that you could be 18 to go to. So they never, they didn't serve alcohol. got sodas. Anyway, that's not why it was, it was sort of like your real, first strip club you got to go to at 18 years old. Anyway, their advertising was, it was something like 99 beautiful women and one ugly one. So that was like their thing. So My, my, my in-laws from Canada come to visit every so often and they love Coors Light and they buy a ton of Coors Light and they leave it here. And I, I don't, I haven't drank Coors Light in like 30 years. So, so what I've started to do, Chad, in our beer shipments, I put in two Coors Lights to like, to, hat tip to deja vu to like, Chad Sowash (16:01.915) God no. Joel Cheesman (16:14.573) Eight or like wonderful beers and a Coors Light. So anyway, if you're getting beer from us, shout out to Deja Vu. we're putting, we're putting in one ugly beer into the, into the case. Yeah. Just, just think of the, I don't know. Don't think about that. Anyway, it's still good. If you're, if you're in the mood, it's still pretty good. It's still pretty good. Not as, not as good as the events that we're going to Chad, but still, still pretty good. Emi Beredugo (16:18.318) Yeah That's why. Chad Sowash (16:25.073) You're getting strip club beer. Good for you. Emi Beredugo (16:28.26) my god. Chad Sowash (16:34.321) Don't think about it. Don't think about Emi Beredugo (16:34.326) Yeah. Chad Sowash (16:44.875) That's right, kids. And don't forget, travel is sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Shaker is not only the best recruitment marketing agency for Italian beef. no. Shaker has 75 years of experience in this space, which means branding, talent attraction, martech, analytics. Plus, if you ask nicely, Joe might hook you up with a fully dressed dog with that Italian beef. I'm not kidding. It's wonderful. Joel Cheesman (16:53.958) Hello. Chad Sowash (17:10.861) Everything you want and everything you need at shaker.com. Okay, kids, so we have three shows coming up. First one, April 21st through the 22nd. is Paradox's client board where we will be recording the next season of the AI sessions. It's an invite only event. So if you know, you know, April 22nd. I'm gonna run over to PetSmart's HQ for a quickie. Yeah, we love those quickies. with the National Retail Federation because frontline hiring is absorbing AI automation and agents like it's a fricking sponge. And last but not least, Joel and I are going to Chicago for some of that Italian beef and some of those dogs. We're gonna be at the RLX, that's the 28th through the 30th of April. It's literally a room full of senior leaders having big, no bullshit discussions. Chicago already has 50 leaders registered to be in the room for companies like Ford, Nordstrom, Johnson Controls, Ace Hardware, KPMG, and many, many more. And I love these three events mainly because it's very practitioner heavy. We have a chance to actually sit and talk to people about real problems, not just ones that founders dream up. So if you want to check us out, go to chadcheese.com slash events. Either these events are gonna be there, hit us up. If you're not, we got more coming. Joel Cheesman (18:42.343) Shut all this talk of Chicago cuisine means I'm taking my ass to Portillo's after the show and getting me a Leo. I don't know about you guys. Chad Sowash (18:50.213) get you a Leo, that's right. Joel Cheesman (18:56.219) Chad, I think we have a Tradeify update alert. What do you got for us on that front? Emi Beredugo (19:04.854) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (19:05.127) Woop! So we had a rumor recently that Tradify was acquired by our friends at CrossCheck. So we have confirmation on that. The news dropped earlier this week and we have a special video from our friend. Do you want to set that up or no? Chad Sowash (19:09.393) Where's? Yeah. Chad Sowash (19:16.369) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (19:24.209) Let's do it. Literally, Mike was drunk texting me when he was in Vegas and he spilled the beans. So I didn't let everybody know what all the details were, but I did say, okay, when this does happen, us a little love with the video and here's the video. Joel Cheesman (19:31.417) Hello. Joel Cheesman (19:44.368) Here we go. Chad Sowash (19:53.905) Is that running? Joel Cheesman (19:56.432) It is. Can you not see it again? That's great. All right. Chad Sowash (20:02.627) Insert that there, Sergey. And delete the rest of it. Anyway, so there's your rumor. It's true. Okay, it's true. Joel Cheesman (20:11.759) It's still running for me. All right. I'll bring us out with a sound bite. Ready? Chad Sowash (20:17.914) Okay, go ahead. Chad Sowash (20:27.289) Or maybe not. Joel Cheesman (20:28.547) Alright, that's acquisition time everybody. Little thanks to our friend at that for that and congratulations. Chad Sowash (20:31.457) There you go. Good job, Mike. No, seriously, I don't know how many times, and you know as well as I do, we might be at shows and get texts, or we might not be at shows and we still get texts. So it's kind of funny. Joel Cheesman (20:44.807) Yeah, no doubt. And remember, tradeify was acquired by paradox in 2019, I believe. So that's this come, this has come full circle. Well, let's get into our real topics. Everybody AI recruiting startup Mercore confirmed a security incident linked to a supply chain attack on the open source project light LLM. The attack attributed to the hacking group team PCP affected thousands of companies, including Mercore. Chad Sowash (20:46.417) Yes. Here we go. Joel Cheesman (21:12.753) While the extent of the data breach remains unclear, Mercor is investigating the incident with third party experts and communicating with affected parties. Chad, this thing is hitting like a DeLorean going 88 miles per hour. Translation, we're about to hit some serious shit. What's your take on the Mercor news? Chad Sowash (21:31.506) Yeah, just gonna have to yank that flux capacitor out of that bitch. So let's set a base here real quick. Last week we dropped an interview with the CodeWall CEO Paul Price talking about how he used AI to hack Jack and Jill's AI in hours instead of days. Not with a room of hackers, but AI hackers that can work 24-7. Then we heard about Mercore's data breach earlier this week. I reached out to Mercore. to reply, but apparently they answered TechCrunch instead, bastards. Because in a TechCrunch article, they wrote it was all focused on Mercor. But you're right, Joel, the data breach discussions happening on Twitter shows an even wider exposure to this problem and much larger incidents. So TechCrunch, eat that. You got the micro and we got the macro assholes. So what happened? Light LLM seems like it was the entry point of the breach and it's used roughly by 36 % of cloud AI environments. That's pretty fucking big, 36%. Twitter became a hub for other developers to report malicious Light LLM packages. Joel Cheesman (22:31.431) So much animus for TechCrunch. Emi Beredugo (22:32.926) Hello? Joel Cheesman (22:48.519) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (22:55.365) confirming that the breach affected a massive portion of its AI ecosystem. 36 % of cloud AI environments. That's not small. So this is much bigger than a Jack and Jill or just AmeriCorps. We're seeing wider exposure opportunities to breach and gain access to personal data and possibly get extorted over it. AI hacking, AI breaching, Whatever happened to AI curing cancer? You gotta ask yourself, what the fuck is going on around this joint? Joel Cheesman (23:35.483) Why cure cancer when you can make millions of dollars, Chad Sowash (23:39.153) That's what that's what that's what Emmy's saying right now. She could she could make millions and fuck cancer Emi Beredugo (23:42.088) Yeah, exactly. Joel Cheesman (23:42.408) Yeah, genetic booty time. So to give a sense, looked some of this up, this is allegedly, but in the Merkur case, we had four terabytes of data stolen, including 939 gigabytes of source code. Emi Beredugo (23:48.226) Yeah Chad Sowash (23:58.354) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:03.399) 211 gigabytes of database records with resumes and personal data and nearly three terabytes of files such as video interviews containing biometrics and passports. So this isn't just like, you know, your email address kids. this is some serious stuff and historically job search can't like, we're not banking, but we're not irrelevant. We have this sort of sweet, vulnerable tier where there's not the security, you know, Emi Beredugo (24:16.621) Mmm. Chad Sowash (24:30.149) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:32.827) protections that like a financial company would have with an army of coders and millions in spending on security around cybersecurity. Our space has always been vulnerable, whether it's phishing attacks, say, Hey, give us your social security number and you'll get a job or it's accessing data. Remember career builder back in the day had a malware attack that shut their shit down. They had to allegedly pay millions of dollars just to get back up and running. Chad Sowash (24:56.847) Yeah. To get it back up. Joel Cheesman (25:00.495) So our space has historically been really weak on security. You know, we don't have financial data, but we have stuff that's obviously valuable. So people kind of ignore it. I think the era of AI is going to change that. Our interview, whether it's Jack and Jill, the career builder thing, there's probably stuff we don't even get wind of. And I'm sure that these companies are fending off attacks all the time. What it tells you as a company that you need to start getting really serious about your cybersecurity and whether that's buying Palo Alto networks or CrowdStrike or whatever it is. I mean, you got to start spending some money to protect this because I think the government's eventually going to come calling because these attacks are going to be so, so vicious. think on a personal level, I know for me, like I'm really seriously starting to think about that like block account. mean, life lock has been around for decades and I've never really thought much about it, but Chad Sowash (25:29.979) Yeah. Chad Sowash (25:40.859) Yes. Chad Sowash (25:52.229) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (25:54.106) I'm personally thinking about, I like, I should protect myself. Like who knows what the hell kind of shit agents we got Iran threatening all kinds of shit geopolitical, you know, insanity. mean, protect yourself, protect your company because the bots are coming and all this stuff is ramping up like never before. So buyer beware, protect yourself out there. Emi Beredugo (26:19.884) It is scary. Sorry, you said life lock account? I don't think I've heard of that before. What is that? Yeah. Yeah. What is it? So what does it do? Joel Cheesman (26:23.683) Life lock. might be a US thing. There's probably any. Yeah, OK, there's probably European equivalent. It just it just monitors like if your data stolen, if somebody is opening credit cards with your Social Security account, it just it's a level of protection of your identity and getting stolen that isn't just normally in the wild. It's a it's a level of service that you pay for. Yeah. Chad Sowash (26:25.059) Yeah, it's a US thing. Emi Beredugo (26:47.266) Okay, so even if that info is out there on the dark web, for example, it can still find your information. Joel Cheesman (26:53.809) So they track like, there's been a breach, your data is there, or hey, someone opened up a credit card with your account. If this wasn't you, like, on it kind of thing. And they also have insurance where if you do get your identity stolen and someone ramps up 50 grand on a credit card, that they'll insure a certain amount of money if your identity does get stolen. So I personally am thinking a lot more about that than I ever have. And it's because of these AI level attacks. Emi Beredugo (26:57.346) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (27:03.607) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (27:23.15) Yeah, do you know what? That sounds really interesting. Sounds like something I need to look into as well, because that happened to me a couple of years ago. I had a credit card, all of a sudden I'm getting this statement through, and there was a huge amount on there, like a couple of thousand. And I was like, I know. I know I'm bad with money. I'm not that bad with money that I forgot in the house with a couple of thousand in one day. So yeah, and I never really did anything more other than contact my bank. But Chad Sowash (27:36.849) Mm. Joel Cheesman (27:42.043) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (27:50.703) I think it's definitely something that people need to look into because like you said, this isn't a one-off. We seem to be hearing more and more about companies having data breaches. And we're just hearing about a few. So imagine how many other companies out there are not publicizing, not letting their customers or the clients know that there has been a data breach. And I think it's really important to do. Yeah, in this day and age, it is important to do because... Chad Sowash (27:57.477) Yes. Emi Beredugo (28:18.518) If they go down the route of Merkle, you know, when I say route, one of the things I saw on Reddit was that they were speaking to this person on Reddit was speaking to a Merkle employee. And apparently they had information about the data breach in their Slack messages and they were told to delete it. So what they're doing is kind of suppressing that information, trying to make sure they're not being transparent. They're not letting the customers know what's actually going on. And as soon as people find out, which they have on places like Reddit, what's going to happen? Chad Sowash (28:29.679) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:43.718) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:47.344) Yes. Emi Beredugo (28:48.322) their reputation is going to go down the sink. HR, especially HR data, employee data, that is personal. companies need to, in order to do well, in order to keep succeeding, one of the components that they need to keep in check is that trust factor. If you're going to keep doing stuff like this, these companies don't have, they don't have a right to exist in the HR market and employment market. So that's my opinion. And they're going to be hit, but they're to be hit by fines. You've got all the EU data act. Joel Cheesman (28:56.455) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (29:17.75) GDPR, you know, they're gonna be liable. Chad Sowash (29:22.033) If they want to stay in the trust tree, they should call back Chad and Cheese when we call them. Yeah, I know. Emi Beredugo (29:27.618) They've got to be transparent. yeah. Yeah, did you hear that? Joel Cheesman (29:34.8) And by the way, I mean, for companies, a lot of times you use these services and you don't think you know, once about it, because it's them, it's their problem. But with the eightfold case, and talking about how much the attacks on companies for legal cases, particularly in the US very litigious. I mean, if I steal data from a candidate, and I apply to you, and now I'm suing you as that candidate, and I have multiple can, like you can attack a company based on the data that you have for a service that you're using. I mean, I this Chad Sowash (29:43.025) Mm. Emi Beredugo (29:45.954) Yeah? Emi Beredugo (30:03.487) Absolutely. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:04.625) This thing can go way deeper than our three minds can think of because there are evil doers that all they do is think about how do I screw companies and get data and make money on the dark web or wherever it is. think the, think the worst of people and then use that as your baseline for protecting yourself, your company, and the services that you guys use or the products that you're, that you're selling anyway, the more you know, Chad, the more you know. Emi Beredugo (30:16.494) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (30:27.598) 100%. Emi Beredugo (30:31.574) I'm Chad Sowash (30:31.643) Dun, dun, dun. Joel Cheesman (30:33.255) Well, from one identity issue data to another, US Senate investigation into data brokers, including Findem, highlights the regulatory scrutiny of town acquisition technology. The report examined how data brokers collect and distribute personal information, potentially enabling scams. Findem, which aggregates data about potential candidates, was identified as part of a broader data ecosystem contributing to identity theft and fraud. In a blog post, the company said, quote, reports that claim or suggest find them has not been responsive to personal data requests are completely inaccurate. And quote, Chad, do you believe them or is find them jazz handing them your thoughts? Emi Beredugo (31:17.411) Yeah. Chad Sowash (31:18.363) Well, unlike Maricor, Findem got back to us. So appreciate that, Findem. But from a timeline standpoint, the Senate issued these requests August of 2025. On February 27th, the Senate probe summary stated, quote, Findem did not respond to the requests and have not removed the no index code from its opt out page. raising serious concerns that it's responsive to opt out requests and commitment to data privacy." Findem's March 23, almost a month later, blog post, which was nearly eight months after the initial request and a month, obviously, after the summary, stated, quote, In 2025, we processed 100 % of the 418,096 data subject requests we received." There was more, right? But at the end of the day, that's a little bit late, kids, okay? The response needs to be faster, especially for a smaller company that should have access to your data company. You should have access to that data. Emi Beredugo (32:24.675) Mm. Chad Sowash (32:34.949) The opt out and accessibility piece, that's the thing that I was really focusing on. In Findem's footer, it now clearly states, quote, do not sell or share my personal information. So you can click on that and you can go to the opt out page. Much easier to actually find, right? Much easier to find. Not to mention it's very clearly stated in the privacy policy. Now you can do that or they've got an email you can go to. The index in performing a Google search, can now, Now, easily find Findem's opt out page, meaning Findem is obviously allowing Google and the other search engines to see that page. But the thing is, why was that in a no index state in the first place? And I think, yeah, I think the biggest problem that we're seeing here is that we're having some people, and I don't know who the individual was who made the decision at Findem. Joel Cheesman (33:20.305) Hmm. Hmm. Can't imagine. Emi Beredugo (33:23.712) I'm sorry. Chad Sowash (33:34.012) But that's not above board, right? And I've got to say that two words that are very scary to many people is government intervention. But personally, I think it's great to see government doing their damn jobs finally, and especially for looking through these perspective issues. And we desperately need guardrails, not just for AI, but for privacy. And as Joel said earlier, for cybersecurity, just for starters. So in the end, we need more legislation to stop the litigation. Not over, not over legislation, though. We don't want to get crazy. We need to see a balance. And if there are rules in place and a governing body that actually is doing its job, we can all just get to fucking work. So I think what the Senate's doing here is like, look, we see you're playing games here, here and here. We need you to respond. Companies need to be faster about it, especially if you're a tech company. And this is about data, you've got to be faster about response. You've got to ensure that you're not playing these no index kind of games and just get to fucking work and sell your shit man. I'm glad to see find them literally as I went down the check boxes. They've checked all the boxes thus far that I've seen and that's awesome. But next time let's go ahead and police ourselves so that we don't have to have the Senate. or some other governing body do it for us. Emi Beredugo (35:06.274) I'm interested. I'm kind of interested to know why they took so long though, because obviously they just thought they were going to get away with this shit forever. And they probably have got away with other stuff as well. Maybe other companies. Yeah. Chad Sowash (35:18.58) Usually in the US, that's how it works though, right? I mean, how long did it take for Facebook to get fined $375 million, which is literally a slap on the wrist. Emi Beredugo (35:25.4) True, yeah. Yeah, it's like I've done my thing. We've given an uptight clause that you can't find it. You can't search for it. So I think it is cheeky, but you're right. I'm glad that the government's cracking down on them. But I don't think it's enough for those type of organizations just to take responsibility. And they will do. They will take more responsibility now, know, find them and other organizations are out there being slapped by fines. But I think the organizations that use these tools also need to take more responsibility. They need to ask better questions to their vendors. They need to ask them about their data. Where's the data coming from? Is there things like OPTAC clauses? How are they abiding by things like GDPR? I don't think the responsibility is just solely on the vendors. And I'm not sure from the conversations I've had. I don't believe all organizations are asking the right questions. Because even though things like GDPR has been around for a very long time, people's understanding of GDPR outside of, let's say, the legal world isn't always as strong, particularly if you're in a small organization. They just seem to default and kind of shirk responsibility to the vendors and go, yeah, they tell me that their data is secure. No, it's bullshit. You now have to take more responsibility. Chad Sowash (36:41.297) Yeah. Especially when it's your data. Emi Beredugo (36:49.541) Yeah, because your name is going to that organization's name is going to be associated even if it's then they're not the vendor who had the data breach. You use their tool. So you're just making it harder for yourself to get people into your organization. Stay with your organization. Joel Cheesman (37:03.527) Are you guys as surprised as I am that Findem is saying that they had 418,000 requests to take like delete data? How do people even know that they're in Findem's database? I mean, we've always had this argument that like, well, if someone's searching for a job, they want to be public, they want their data out there. Why would they like if they're, trying to market themselves. That's always kind of been the argument of like LinkedIn data should be shared. Emi Beredugo (37:13.998) 418 pounds. Chad Sowash (37:20.549) Could be email. Joel Cheesman (37:32.262) Like everyone should have LinkedIn data because if I'm looking for a job, what's the harm in me being in every single database on the planet if I get a job? I don't know how, how there's gotta be a service that like spams these companies or they're on fishing up expeditions to see am I in this database? Like something's going on that find them as getting 400,000 requests to delete data. I don't know what's going on, but that surprised me when I saw that number. Chad Sowash (37:57.158) They're a data broker. Yeah, they're a data broker. So I'm wondering if, because they're selling data, to be able to allow those other partners to come back and say, want my information out of this database. Emi Beredugo (38:01.548) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (38:02.159) Yeah, like somebody. Yes. Joel Cheesman (38:10.789) Yes, something litigious or I don't know what's going on, but, my understanding of this industry is there's a, there's, are clearing houses for resumes and job boards are selling shit and everybody's legs swap and spit and reselling everything. so I, I'm with, I think both of you in saying that it's probably well past time that government started to pay attention to this issue, because I think that people have their data in places that they have no idea. Chad Sowash (38:19.215) Right. Yes. Emi Beredugo (38:39.011) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:39.239) People are making money on your data without your knowledge. Um, and there are laws around clearing house databases and California has mentioned in the article and there are a few other competitors to find them like seek out and hire easy that are actually registered in California as a, as a, uh, as a data, um, as a, sorry, as a warehouse, no, as a, um, data broker. Chad Sowash (39:00.165) your house. Joel Cheesman (39:04.101) So there are laws around this and somehow we've sort of skirted this whole legal requirement because we're jobs or people are searching for jobs and we can share that. So I think it's high time that this issue came to light. I think it makes LinkedIn way more valuable because you do opt into LinkedIn. You do give them your information. I think it's also a real threat to the companies that are just using these warehouses or clearing houses to fill their database and then make money on your data when you don't even know that you're in there. So similar to the Emi Beredugo (39:32.941) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:33.734) the eightfold case that says, okay, you have a black box that you are rejecting people for jobs. Like it's time to show what your algorithm is. It's time to show us what's in your database and how did you get it. And if you didn't get it by someone opting in in the first place, you probably shouldn't have it or you should be under the regulations of a data broker, which you haven't been for a while. So I think this is a real threat to these companies that are sourcing tools. If I'm juice box or any of like, Chad Sowash (39:44.111) Mm. Emi Beredugo (39:47.778) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (40:01.222) new companies that are out around sourcing candidates. I'm paying really close attention to this case because I think it's a real threat to their business. Emi Beredugo (40:09.816) Definitely. Chad Sowash (40:11.184) Agreed. Joel Cheesman (40:12.935) Guys, let's take a quick break. If you like what you've been hearing, even if you're a little disgusted, it's a little naughty. It's okay. Subscribe, subscribe to us and your podcast platform of choice. Or if you want to see big Brazilian style booties on the show, check us out at youtube.com slash at cheese and we'll be right back. Chad Sowash (40:16.017) Mmm. you Emi Beredugo (40:20.462) you you Joel Cheesman (40:38.631) All right, kids, starting in June, right around the corner, LinkedIn will no longer allow real-time live streams, opting instead to require users to schedule live streams in advance. That sounds like a lot of work. This promises to maximize audience engagement, according to LinkedIn. So Chad, let me get this straight. No more spontaneous live streaming my reviews of the new Arby's French Dip Royale. No, no, have to schedule it with the LinkedIn gods now. Take me off the ledge, Chad. What's your take on LinkedIn killing the live stream? Chad Sowash (41:06.939) Well, we have the meat. Chad Sowash (41:15.761) Yeah, I think I think everybody's missing it and I think they're they're, you know, redirecting you to what the real thing is. What's really happening here? So quote from the article in October of twenty twenty five, LinkedIn CEO Dan Shapiro, he's a really good guy, shared that the platform has seen a 24 percent increase in events shared in the app quarter over quarter, underlining the rising value of the platform as an events hub. But planning is key to event engagement. In November of 2025, just a month later, LinkedIn reported that the event ads drive 31 % more viewership of events on average. So two things here. Number one, 24 % increase in event shared. That's great growth. LinkedIn can see great growth in this area. What does that mean for everybody? Well, 31 % more viewership with event ads. Keyword, event ads. Ads equals dollars. So I believe it's less about impromptu shit, live streaming shit that's happening, and more about making money off of promotion using ads. This announcement is literally an education vehicle for LinkedIn. Emi Beredugo (42:23.651) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:39.909) to start its whole ad sales propaganda push. I mean, it's very simple. And let's be clear, I'm biased. We don't do live streaming because personally, I believe we are in an on-demand world. That's where we live today. So take your time, create great content, and you can get that content on LinkedIn if that's where you want it to live, whenever you want. But it doesn't have to happen live. Although, LinkedIn wants to make money off of those people who love the live. Joel Cheesman (43:12.103) What do you think, Ami? Is it just a dollar play? Is it just a dollar play? Just making money? Emi Beredugo (43:12.364) You two are so skeptical. I just can't believe how skeptical you are. mean, surely LinkedIn is doing this for good reasons, you know? I read this and I'm like, yeah. Joel Cheesman (43:22.961) Have you met Chad? Have you met Chad? Chad Sowash (43:24.689) It's all about the Benjamins. Emi Beredugo (43:29.213) Now I got it. was like, yes, LinkedIn, this makes sense. Absolutely. You don't want crappy, like, you know, on the fly live streams. I mean, no, obviously I'm taking a piss. You know, I agree with you. I immediately looked at this and thought, it's a great PR spin. It sounds good. If you're just glancing at the, you know, the information, then you go, okay, yeah, that makes sense. When you dig deeper or you just take a step back, you understand that this is all about money. Like you said, there are more eyes on planned events. If there's more eyes on planned events, then there's more opportunity to stream adverts on there. And more of, if you have more adverts on there, you make more money. It makes sense. But obviously they're not going to come out and say it. So we say, which means they come up with this kind of PR shit instead and hope that people actually buy it. Unfortunately for them, they get people like us who go, uh-uh. No. We can kind of see through all of this. my God. Am I becoming you too? yeah. Chad Sowash (44:28.975) wait for the quarterly earnings call. That's when they'll say what they really feel. Emi Beredugo (44:34.734) Do you know what I was about to say? It's like, feel like I was less cynical when I started this show and now I'm turning into both of you. Maybe a year and a bit ago, I wouldn't believe them. Yeah. Exactly. It's gone downhill. Yeah. Chad Sowash (44:42.939) I'm Joe. Joel Cheesman (44:46.075) I mean, your booty comment means you have been hanging around us a little too long. Chad Sowash (44:49.893) Yeah Joel Cheesman (44:54.055) So I have a little different take, I guess, angle on this. So LinkedIn launched this for individuals in 2019 to live stream. Then they launched it to business pages in 2022. And according to their own data, when they launched this thing, they said 63 % of millennials consistently watch live streams and 39 % of users are more likely to share video content in a live format. I agree with the money part and I didn't really focus on that, but I think there's, there's, there's an intrinsic, weakness in LinkedIn that other platforms don't have. If I go to tick tock, I can start live streaming right now. There's no scheduling. You just click a button and you're live. I can go to Instagram. Same thing. I think the difference is people go on tick tock and Instagram to let's call it zone out like Emi Beredugo (45:50.947) Mm. Joel Cheesman (45:51.206) not think feed me content. Whereas LinkedIn is much more, I got a job to do. I got to come here. I got to find people. I got to market myself. I got to make sales or network. There's not the sort of, I'm going to go to LinkedIn and zone out. Like that just doesn't happen like it does on Tik TOK. So my guess is they launched this live stream thing and people were like, I don't have time for this live stream shit. I got to like learn something. I got to market something. I got to sell something. And no one was watching the live streams unless they were really, really titillating. So I think it was partly I'll go with, I'll go with the money, but I do think there's a lot of like, look, this just is not the platform for live streaming. We're not tick tock. We'd love to be, but we're not, we'd love to be Instagram, but we're not. So I think a lot of this was just necessity that live streaming doesn't work as well on LinkedIn. We're on Riverside recording this podcast, which we can actually live stream. Chad Sowash (46:45.797) Mm. Joel Cheesman (46:47.905) on to LinkedIn, I'm guessing until June when it'll have to close down and we'll have to do it otherwise. But I think it's just a weakness in the platform. You should be able to live stream. You should be able to click a button like, hey, I'm live, I'm at the game, I'm doing whatever. But people don't go to LinkedIn for that purpose. And I think that's an intrinsic weakness in the platform of LinkedIn. Chad Sowash (46:51.855) Okay. Emi Beredugo (46:53.026) Yeah. Chad Sowash (47:05.553) Mm-mm. Emi Beredugo (47:10.51) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (47:11.473) Great conversation. I have these things come up on our feet and I'm like, that's kind of stupid. They killed live stream, who cares? But it turns out to be a little bit interesting. A little bit interesting. No? Yeah. Sorry, LinkedIn, I didn't mean it. Emi Beredugo (47:19.209) Yeah Yeah, a little bit more cheesy than you thought. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (47:29.804) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (47:33.042) All right, guys from Business Insider this week, Citi Banker, that's C-I-T-I, banker Jay Collins warns that the rise of AI and robotics poses a threat to capitalism, particularly to the middle class. He suggests implementing a quote, productivity dividend, end quote, as a potential solution which would provide a basic income while encouraging work and risk taking. Collins emphasizes the need for a bipartisan commission to study the issue and develop recommendations for addressing the challenges posed by AI and robotics. Chad, the article warns of a tragic end for capitalism. Is this business insider clickbait or is the party really over? Chad Sowash (48:20.177) I mean, yes and yes, it's always click bait. But at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, we just talked about, you know, 30,000 people being laid off soon from Oracle, right? And we're talking about other tech companies and it's not just the tech industry. So not to mention we don't have job growth happening. So if we have people being laid off and we don't have job growth and those people are not earning, who the fuck's gonna buy shit? Capitalism is all about people buying stuff, right? And if you don't have money coming in, you can't buy stuff. And if you don't have money coming in, you can't pay for the house that you live under, right? The water, the food, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, mean, there could become a huge issue where government actually has to step in and do a myriad of things, right? It's not just one thing that's gonna stop this. We have to take a look at first and foremost. It's not just the money that's coming in It's also the taxes that are being paid so we get taxed per person, but these agents aren't getting taxed So who's gonna pave the roads? Who's going to do all the things? Education systems who's going to fund the fire departments and the police officers and etc etc etc right? So this is a societal problem It's a much larger problem than we can't buy shit. It's literally infrastructure is going to just literally weather an atrophy away. So yes, this could be a problem. Do we have in the US right now a system of government that can actually fix this? No, because they're not doing anything, right? I mean, literally, they're not doing it. They're fighting about everything. So we're hopefully going to have to look toward Europe and the rest of the world. to be able to start coming up with answers for this. Hopefully in the midterms we'll see a shift and then maybe we'll actually have a government that's more responsible. We'll see. But is this a problem? It's it's sure hell looks like it might be. Joel Cheesman (50:32.465) So historically you have these massive shifts in economic theory of communism, socialism, et cetera, when people can't change the system, whether it's a monarch or whatever government that I can't change, that's when the pitchforks come out and people start getting violent and things really change. I don't think that's a fair argument in the US yet. the midterms are coming. We still vote in this country. We still change elected officials. People still feel like they can have a voice in what's going on. So I'm not, I'm not quite at the end of capitalism team just yet. someone has to show me something better than capitalism, to probably change my mind permanently, but I will tell you as a small business owner, it's tax season in the U S I don't know what tax season is in Europe, but it's tax season in the U S and, and it becomes really evident. Chad Sowash (51:21.905) Mm. Emi Beredugo (51:23.758) Yeah, it's the right thing. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:27.983) If you own a business in America that America likes business, they like giving you incentives to create businesses. They want you to employ people. They want you to spend money on your business and stimulate the economy. Like that still exists. So until those two things change, I have a hard time accepting that the end of capitalism is near. It's not the perfect system. It's not the best system. It's just better than everything else that currently exists. So, Chad Sowash (51:54.354) You're missing the heart. The hard part though is people if they don't have jobs, they can't spend stuff. So even if you are a small business, they can't consume your shit. That's the hard part, right? Joel Cheesman (52:02.279) Correct, which is part of the argument and JT and I talked about this last week is entry level jobs. There aren't any entry level jobs. I was telling her when Chad, when our parents grew up, there were like five professions, accountant, doctor, lawyer, teacher, like there weren't a whole lot of things. Today there's so much that you can do. You can learn anything that you want. The world is your oyster. So part of me is getting, Chad Sowash (52:06.491) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (52:23.427) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:30.993) the, the angry guy get off my lawn. yeah, things are tough for young people, but things have been tough for young people for a long time. I mean, I graduated in a recession. It wasn't awful, but like I survived. had to like, you know, kind of fend for myself, but like things will get better. Things will change. The only, you know, the only constant in the world is that things will change, but there are more things in the world today. That's opportunity. Even if it's driving Uber, selling shit on eBay, get a Spotify shop and sell, you know, whatever Etsy stuff, like there's so much opportunity to make money in this world. Like I'm getting, I'm kind of over the whole woe is us. We, you know, like we can't afford life. Like there's so much out there. You just got to go grab it. And sorry to be the angry guy, old guy, but you have a lot more opportunity than I ever did. And thank God the internet came along in my twenties because that opened up a whole book of opportunity, whether it was SEO, blogging, mobile stuff, like none of that stuff existed when I was in high school. You guys have all that. think you just, I'm sick of the, I'm sick of the woe is us story with pretty on the entry level jobs side of things. Chad Sowash (53:42.235) That is a get off my lawn story. Go ahead, Emmy. Joel Cheesman (53:43.527) Yeah, it is a good off my line. This is a definite, definite moment. Emi Beredugo (53:44.095) Yeah Joel Cheesman (53:52.087) Emmy, your take. Emi Beredugo (53:54.807) What is my take? I tell you, I kind of went back and forth on this, I'll be honest. And it was interesting listening to you because, both of you, because you kind of have obviously opposing views and this is what went through in my mind as well. So when I first read the article, thought about the article, thought, you know, I was like, yeah, you know, this is going to happen. You know, if as AI becomes more embedded into an organisation, as it starts automating more jobs, as it starts taking over the task of humans, you're going to lead less humans in the workplace. And if you lead less humans in the workplace, I imagine that wages, even if they do hire, wages will start to decline as well. So that was my original thought. And then I thought about it a little bit more. And I just thought about, yes, the world is changing. The world has changed in the past as well. And the world continues to change with every major technological shift. So I'm talking about, if you go way back, steam engines, you know, then go a little bit further in time, PC, then the internet came out. So with every new major technological shift, the, I suppose the fear was that that was going to create permanent mass unemployment, but that didn't necessarily happen in many cases. In some cases, what it did is actually create more complex, higher paying jobs. which is what a lot of people are saying with AI now. It's like, yes, okay, some of the roles are going to go, but new roles are going to come out of it. New roles that don't even exist today, which are going to be there in five years time, which we can't even imagine. So if those new roles are coming up, people can move into those professions. So then people aren't going to be as impacted as we thought by AI coming on board. And like you said, Joel, you said that people have way more opportunities now. in five, in a year, two years, three years time, they probably will have new opportunities. It's just that we don't know what the opportunities are just as yet. Joel Cheesman (55:59.078) mean, look, these 30,000 people that got axed from Oracle, a certain percentage of them will vibe code a startup and throw some shit at the wall and some of it will stick and that will create new companies. The war in Iran says we need more non fossil fuel energy sources. That's going to create more businesses around that. Like my only point is the world changes opportunity. Like you just need to be quick on the feet, have a, have a, have the smarts to survive it. Emi Beredugo (56:01.903) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (56:29.223) We're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay everybody. We're gonna be okay. Emi Beredugo (56:29.378) Be open, yeah. Chad Sowash (56:33.039) Yeah, I to be the downer. First and foremost, never has it has all industries been impacted by a technology like this has. You talk about steam engines. That's one that's one tiny piece. And instead of blacksmiths, they became mechanics. Right. So there was a there was a shift and it was it was. But that was one industry. This is across all industries. And not only is it happening across all industries, it's happening faster than it's ever happened ever. Emi Beredugo (56:34.86) Yeah. Chad Sowash (57:02.949) When the internet came, what that did was actually provided scale for businesses to do business more and throughout more areas. Right. So that was that was an amplifier. That was that that didn't take away many jobs that actually amplified many jobs. Right. It changed them. This to me, unless it starts to happen quickly and we start to know what those fucking jobs are, how are we going to train for those jobs? Yes. I mean, that's the problem. Emi Beredugo (57:29.89) That's it. Chad Sowash (57:32.685) Everybody's treating this like it's the same as it always has ever been. It's not the same as it always has been. It's not. It's happening across the board. It's happening faster. And we're not fucking prepared. Emi Beredugo (57:38.669) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (57:44.973) I think that's the major thing. Yeah, it's the fact that we're not prepared. You know, people are just waiting for the new jobs to emerge. I know you can't wait. You have to evaluate your organization now. You still need to start looking in the future. You need to start looking at where your gaps are and then thinking how you can actually train up your internal employees to develop these skills somehow, even though no one in the organization may already may have those skills. Chad Sowash (58:08.539) Fucking Sam Altman or none of these guys who are actually the ones who were the, you know, geniuses behind it. They have no fucking clue. They have no clue. So who has a clue? That's the question. And if we don't know, then that is scary shit. if. Go. There it is. Thank God. Joel Cheesman (58:22.599) which is a great segue, Chad, because Melania Trump is here to save us. And kids, if you've been with us this long, it's gonna pay off because we've got a Trump story. It's sure to set Chad off even more so than the last show has at this point. Let's take a quick breather and we'll be right back. Emi Beredugo (58:31.054) Thank you. Chad Sowash (58:36.721) Jesus. Joel Cheesman (58:46.631) All right, kids, first lady Melania Trump introduced a humanoid robot at the Fostering the Future Together Global Summit. Must have been before the Board of Peace meeting. Anyway, envisioning a future where robots like Plato serve as educators. The event highlighted the potential of AI and technology in education, aligning with the Trump administration's support for tech-driven educational innovation and criticism of traditional public education. Let's just hope they don't think that AI is a steak sauce. Chad, is this the end of education as we know it? Chad Sowash (59:24.401) They're going to have charter schools next that just have these things and they're, know, boarding schools and there's going to be, it's all pay to play kids. I mean, that's all where this is going. It's all going to pay to play. There was a study, I'm definitely going to have to look it up and share it, but there's a study that actually showed how kids learned. in a remote environment, they didn't actually have the human touch, right? They didn't have the teachers there and how that was impacted versus actually in class, in classroom with other peers around them and then also with teachers and whatnot. There's a human, we are human, humanity matters. And when you start taking humanity out of things, especially from a learning standpoint, We're getting closer to the days of idiocracy. And if you haven't seen the movie kids go watch the movie at an idiocracy. We're getting closer to the days of idiocracy than we ever have been. And we all thought it was a fucking joke. This is a fucking joke. Joel Cheesman (01:00:33.873) Make sure you watch Beast Games before you watch Idiocracy, right? Right, So my oldest kid is studying education. And every time I hang out with him, I say like, so what do you learn in school? What are you doing? What's going on? And most recently, he talked about an exercise that they did where they did role play. So the role play was one student played a role as, let's say, disgruntled parent. Emi Beredugo (01:00:36.238) Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:00:36.643) Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:00:45.437) yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:01:03.271) unplugged parent, angry, sad, whatever, like all these human emotions, right? So part of the education was how to deal with parents and, kids that are angry or sad or depressed, whatever. And that that's a human skill. And I think, could you imagine the Melania bot Plato trying to comfort an angry parent in this scenario? Like it's not happening. Chad Sowash (01:01:08.827) Helicopter Parrot. Joel Cheesman (01:01:32.167) There's that there's no world where a parent goes and says you suck as a teacher and the robot says fuck you or something like I don't know what it is, but like that just doesn't happen now on the other hand. I I do think that teachers will be augmented. I think there's a room for bringing in Albert Einstein to talk about relativity in a way that a teacher can't. I think you can enhance learning in a way that you can't with technology and I do think there are probably Chad Sowash (01:01:32.795) See you PO. Joel Cheesman (01:02:02.481) horror school districts. If you're in Europe, this is a alien concept to you, but in America, the richer you are, the better education you typically get in public education. there's a whole level of kids that have shitty educations and shitty teachers, and it's just a bad situation. If robotics can help those kids get a better education, like there is some balance there, but at large, Emi Beredugo (01:02:13.314) Same here. Joel Cheesman (01:02:31.023) Humans are not going to take over the classroom because there's still that human element that you just can't roboticize in my opinion. Chad Sowash (01:02:36.689) about. Emi Beredugo (01:02:41.614) I hope it doesn't happen. Again, I try to look at both sides because I know what I'm like when I read or hear anything to do with Trump. immediately go, no. So I don't care whether it's actually Donald Trump himself or Melania. Kind of like Tom with the same brush. But I try to look at it from her point of view. And some of the things, Joel, you said was you talked about education can be sometimes linked to your socioeconomic background. It does happen here as well. I was fortunate enough to go to school in the area that was well off. so the education, whilst I didn't have to pay for my education or my parents didn't have to, I got a great education. However, I didn't actually live in the area where the school was. So a couple of years after I went, if I had to try to apply, I wouldn't have gotten into that school. I would have had to go to a school which wasn't as good. And to be honest, going to that school is what set me up for later life. And from there, they pushed me to go to a great university. So I can see the benefit of having this kind of Plato humanoid robot, you know, coming in, democratizing education. It means that you don't have to have a teacher going to a top tier because you know, those top tier teachers that go to top tier universities are more likely to teach in a top tier school. By having a robot in your school like this Plato, it might help to democratise it. It might help to give everybody a more elite level education. It may help to when school classes are oversubscribed. They've got too many kids. The teachers can't get around to all the kids at the same time. Having a robot almost like as a teaching assistant may help with that. So it helps to bring everybody to the same level. So I was trying to see it from her point of view, like I said. But in general, I agree with a lot that you said, Chad. Joel Cheesman (01:04:24.709) Yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (01:04:35.148) You know, don't think, you know, this kind of teaching is not just about downloading facts, memorizing facts, is what I call almost like the hidden curriculum. You know, it's those social skills you learn, you know, how to resolve a conflict with your friends in a playground, how to read a room, for example, how to handle a bully, you know, those kind of like kind of social skills. A teacher can help with that. But by having a teacher who's fully a robot, you're basically doing like an RPO for parenting or RPO for teaching, know, defaulting to someone who's not real, who's not a human to teach skills that a robot doesn't have, which I personally think it's ridiculous. But I also think beyond that kind of RPO effect, you get organizations who or schools or agencies that recruit teachers are going to have a bit of a nightmare as well. Joel Cheesman (01:05:12.839) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (01:05:13.082) Mm. Emi Beredugo (01:05:33.592) when it comes to assessing. Because if you're just having robots teaching your children, what are you going to assess the teachers for? You know, the human teachers. You know, because their job is no longer teaching, for example, maths, their job will be to manage a fleet of plateaus. So the skill set that you're assessing for is completely different. You're not assessing really for behavioural competencies like empathy or ethical judgment or complex problem solving. You won't need that anymore. So that's no longer going to be a differentiator in the future. So what is the skill set? What is the behaviour competencies that a teacher of the future will need if Melania gets away with this robot? Joel Cheesman (01:06:03.163) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:06:13.201) Guys, you know what will never get automated? The dad jokes on this show. This week's dad joke is sponsored by Jeremy Cheeseman, who turned nine years old this week. Nine years old. Happy birthday, Jeremy. All right, here we go. What do you call a moose with no name? What do you call a moose with no name? Emi Beredugo (01:06:15.734) You Chad Sowash (01:06:16.731) The dad joke. Chad Sowash (01:06:21.499) Jeremy. Emi Beredugo (01:06:24.504) Happy birthday! Emi Beredugo (01:06:36.374) un-moose, no-moose, no. Joel Cheesman (01:06:38.67) Anonymous. Chad Sowash (01:06:40.433) that's good. That's good. We out. Joel Cheesman (01:06:44.217) Emi still confused. We out!

Is the future of HR tech just more features, or is it finally less friction? In this episode, Chad Sowash sits down with Shiran Yaroslavsky, SVP of Product and a leading voice in agentic AI, to dismantle the hype and get real about enterprise-scale hiring. Shiran isn’t just talking about chatbots; she’s architecting a world where "agent orchestration" and "agent-to-agent communication" do the heavy lifting so recruiters can finally get back to the human side of the job. Deep Dive: The Death of the Dashboard:  Shiran explains why forcing recruiters into complex systems is a failing strategy and how to move workflows into the tools they already live in—Slack, WhatsApp, and voice. Waking the "Zombie" Databases:   How to use AI agents to activate years of idle candidate data that most companies have completely forgotten they own. The Trust Architecture:   A masterclass in AI auditing and bias monitoring. Shiran breaks down how to build transparent systems that candidates and recruiters actually trust. Frictionless Migration:  Hear how Shiran’s team is using AI to turn 18-month ATS migrations into a project that takes just weeks. The Psychology of Adoption:  Why "gradual automation" beats "all-at-once change" every single time in an enterprise environment. Episode #2 - Talent Autopilot Episode #3 - Trust First PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad Sowash: Welcome back, Shiran. Shiran: Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Chad Sowash: Last year at this time, we were in Spain together, just a different part of Spain. [laughter] Uh, and things have changed dramatically since then. Last, last year, uh, you were giving... Given a new mission, product-wise. Winston. Shiran: Right. Chad Sowash: Right? Winston was launched. You and Michal made that happen. Shiran: Yep. 0:00:60.0 Chad Sowash: Uh, and then, and then there's [laughter] an acquisition. Shiran: Yeah, that's, you know, I think part of, I think, to be honest, it's part of the impact of Winston. Uh, I think we made some really a lot of impact for our customers. Also, in the market, took it very well, and the acquisition is, you know, part of the outcome. So that, that was the true success story, I think. Chad Sowash: Talk, talk a little bit about the change. So there's gotta be a transformation of talent within your organization going from the old-style applicant tracking system form-based model to a conversational model, like a Winston model, right? Because those building UI for one is not building conversational UI. They're two entirely different things. Talk a little bit about that. What, what kind of growing pains did you have? How did you, how did you overcome that? Because obviously you met the goal, right? What, what happened? Where were the bumps? Shiran: Yeah, I think, you know, it's, you never ship AI-based product and then, you know, that's it, right? It's like magic. You always need to go and iterate, and you learn so fast as a, as a product leader. Also, some of the intuition that we have about product, because it's, it's very different, like as you mentioned here, it's conversational. Like, what's, how people react to AI, their expectations is very different. So you need to keep iterating and improve all the time. So I can't say, you know, we delivered that, we're done. Uh, we always aim higher to get it better as well. Shiran: I think to your point, how, how we're thinking about the interaction with the product is that, and you've heard me, I'm, I'm talking a lot about, umm, seamless personalization, right? And in order to create a truly unique experience for each and every individual, you need to also, I would say, expand the concept of UI. So we're talking a lot internally about adaptive or composable UI. So how you're taking your UI and breaking it so you can basically surface it, you know, no one really wants to log into ATS, you know that. Chad Sowash: Oh, God, no. Yeah, nobody wants to log into all the different tabs that they have open on their browser, but yet they have to. How do you, how do you push past that? Because again, you're one system, they have all these other systems. What, what's the, what's the future look like for SmartRecruiters to be able to get away from multiple tabs and literally just providing the user what they need in the time that they need it? Shiran: It's a lot about tapping into the flow of work, right, and where users are. And so what I think you would see a lot in the system and what we are building, umm, toward is the ability to basically serve all those tasks that users need to do wherever you are. So if you're spending more time, you know, using Teams or WhatsApp or SMS, this is where you should, you know, take your task. Chad Sowash: Do work. Okay. Shiran: Exactly. And, and, and provide feedback about the candidate, you know, you don't need to log into the system. You can do that maybe with the, uh, voice, you know, using your WhatsApp. Chad Sowash: So a hiring manager doesn't have to go into SmartRecruiters. Winston just shows up in Slack or WhatsApp or something. Is that, is that what you're talking about? Shiran: Yeah, exactly. And I think the other piece of it, umm, there is two more aspects to it. One is the agent-to-agent. So I think in the future, what you will see, and you're talking to many vendors in this space, umm, everyone are building the agents. So how the, all this swarm of agents can collaborate with one another, this is where we believe the true, true value will be unlocked. So this is one aspect of it. And I think in the future, what we call zero UI is that you will see more and more use cases where people interact with product without even screens. So they will use voice and body gestures. And how you building product for this type of reality, right? Umm, so this is also top of mind. Chad Sowash: That's gonna give you more time back because you're not building all these frameworks and all this UI. Literally, you're just feeding new features into a conversational system. Shiran: Exactly. Chad Sowash: Right. So that's gotta be exciting. I mean, you know, maybe not for UI designers, but I mean, that's gotta be exciting because the, the discussion is always about ship, ship, ship, ship, ship, right? And if a lot of that time is now taken out of the equation, and I'm sure there's some transformation that you're gonna have going from forms to, you know, fully conversational, that's gotta be exciting for, for, for you. What about the team? Because obviously the team, uh, you have those UI people and you've got the people that are just used to, "Hey, this is, this is what we, it's always worked this way." Shiran: Yeah. Chad Sowash: How, how has it, how's it been trying to actually pivot them out of that mindset into a, uh, tomorrow mindset? Shiran: Yeah. I think, and this is something that you hear, you're gonna hear from, you know, all tech companies these days, how you upskill the people. How you're changing the mindset. A lot of, I think in the space of product management is also changing. So for example, if it used to be very strict like functions of engineers, product and design, there is kind of a mesh and you can use for example cursor or other kind of tools to, for as product manager or designer that don't know how to code. Chad Sowash: Sure. Shiran: Basically go and create code in the, in the product, and use Figma Make to create a whole UI. So I think there's a lot of upskilling that we are doing a lot with in our team. But also in terms of mindset we, we are bringing people that are experts for conversational design, for example and there is a whole, you know, skill set around that and how you're making it really, really better. It's an, it's an art. Chad Sowash: Right. Shiran: Umm, so there is a lot of, I would say new knowledge that you need to bring to the team. A lot of upskilling. Umm, and we always try to challenge and what we think find best. Especially if you're working on AI based product, as I mentioned, many of our assumptions or expectations of the users is very different. So what we're trying to do is to ship and iterate. We have really strong design partners program getting their feedback on every step that we're having, making sure that we're building, you know, based on the right expectation, meeting their needs. This is how you, you know, ship paths. I'm sure that Michal will talk to you about it. Chad Sowash: Oh yeah, well it's, it's ever hard to meet expectations of a user, right? Especially because there are so many different users and they have different expectations. Umm, and for years we've sent them into a black hole. They weren't happy about that and we understand why they weren't happy. Shiran: Right. Chad Sowash: Umm, but then you're hearing about job uh, seekers, candidates who don't wanna talk to AI, they don't wanna talk to chat bots. So it's like the expectations like you have to constantly meet the next expectation and when you're talking about Conversational AI. How in, in the iterative process, how do you make it even though it's not human, how do you make it more human? Is it literally just time or what training? What it, what, what's the secret sauce? Shiran: It's terrific question. Umm, I think it's, it's a few things. One, philosophically, I would say, umm, we're designing the product in a way that there is a few crucial decision points that we are keeping human in the loop. So not everything, we believe, need to be fully autonomous and agentic. We don't want to completely delegate the decision making to our agents. Umm, we truly believe that in order to keep the, the process human, you need to decide very intentionally in some decision, umm, points where you need to have the human decide. And so I think this is one aspect of it. Shiran: Umm, second, there is different things. For example, how the product react when, umm, you know, you're not... They're not getting the right answer, and how it kind of correct and recover and how, you know, how the voice and tone sounds more human. How you understand better context, how you better understand the user goals. Umm, so there, there's a lot into it, you know, really to, umm, we call it for you to feel like you have a partner, not chatting with a chatbot, right? Umm, and so there is a lot of, I would say, intelligence coming to it, a lot of design. Umm, so, yeah, it's not an easy task, I must say. Chad Sowash: Well, I, I feel like there's a double standard though, because there are so many people that are out there now who have these AI assistants, and we're even hearing about AI partners, boyfriends, girlfriends. So it's like the expectation is I, I need somebody there. But when I'm looking for a job, I gotta have a human. To me, to some extent, it kind of feels overblown. I, I think, I think that because of the black hole, decades of going into the black hole, any type of connection right now is good. But I also believe what you're doing and what you're talking about is trying to make it as human as, as possible. Now that can't be easy when you're, I mean, uh, a, a tone even from the west coast of the US to the east coast, you live in, in New York, right? Shiran: Yeah. Chad Sowash: It's... That's different. Those tones just in that one country is very different, let alone going to, you know, the UK or, or Asia PAC or something like that. So how do you start to build for those types of culture differences in tone and conversation? Shiran: Yeah, it's, it's a great question. So first you need to provide a lot of flexibility. So we, for example, we have a product that we just delivered for early access called Winston Interview. It's the ability for, uh, Winston to, umm, send it to do the pre screening, uh, interview for you using video or a call. Umm, and what you, you see there is that you can also tailor as a company what kind of voice and tone it will have, what it will know about your company so it can answer the right, you know, answer the right questions in the right way. Umm, and so this is, uh, this is part of it, right? How you really give control to the, to the... Also to the customer because they will have different nuances. They want to represent their brand in a different way. Chad Sowash: Yes. It's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shiran: And I think what we also learned specifically, also in the context of this product is that expectation shift very quickly these days, the pace of AI And I think in the, in the future, in the, in the past, I would say if people were, you know, seeing chatbots, they're saying, I'm not talking to a chatbot. I'm, I'm going to, you know, wait for a call into an agent, you know. Umm, but, uh, what we see is that a, like, younger generation is really more open to using, umm, agents, umm, to receive, you know, different services. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Shiran: Umm, we also see that people are more inclined, inclined to use it when the quality improve and technology is just getting better. So if it feels more human, to your point. Then they're more open to use it. Okay. It's not that bad. It's actually saving me time. I don't need to wait for scheduling an interview with a recruiter in two weeks from now. I could just do it now. Right. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Shiran: Umm, so... Chad Sowash: Which is always painful. Shiran: Yeah. Always painful. Umm, there's huge bottlenecks. So why, why, you know, getting into those bottlenecks if you can do it differently? So I think it's a matter of maturity, people expectations in openness, technology, different, umm, you know, changing, you know, pretty fast. So I feel, I feel like we are getting there much faster than we thought we would. Chad Sowash: Let's talk about a couple of these products that I saw you talk about today. Shiran: Yeah. Chad Sowash: And they were sexy, by the way. Now you think one is more sexy than I do. I'm, I'm on the... In the other camp. We'll talk about... Shiran: I'm, I'm glad that you're thinking that. Chad Sowash: We'll talk about, we'll talk about mine second because we're... You're, you're. You're the interviewee. So. Agentic CRM. Shiran: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash: This to me is, uh, exciting from the standpoint of so many companies had CRMs for so long and literally, much like the candidate database that they had their candidates in their applicant tracking system. Two entirely different databases. They both literally just atrophied and, and died. They didn't do anything with them. They might have had some drip campaigns here and there, but generally no, right? So this, to me, and you correct me if I'm wrong, this to me almost gives you somewhat of, uh, an autopilot to set some rules and allow agents to, to go out and engage and make those people feel special as opposed to feel nothing at all, which is a very lonely [laughter] place. So talk about that. Am I, am I, am I at least in the right lane? Shiran: I, I agree. And I would say, uh, what we're hearing these days is, and what's different than, I don't know, three years, umm, you know, ago is that companies these days are getting so many applications. You know, it was a very different market a few years ago. Umm, also talent teams are getting smaller. And so instead of just publishing and advertising another job and then getting more applications, they probably. You have, you already have the applications that you need in your system, right? Chad Sowash: You do. [laughter] Yes. Shiran: But you're missing the, the, the tool or the capability to unlock it and lock the potential. Like be able to search, you know, in a conversational way, as we mentioned, across all your talent pools. You know, just describe, just describe what you need right now and be able to find it with, you know, a few seconds. Umm, and it sounds so intuitive, so needed, but yet, like, no one really doing it. Not well. Umm, and we have our own CRM, so we are also part of the problem right today. Umm, and we thought, well, that's not good enough. This is not what the customer really needs. Again, about expectation, where the market is heading. So instead of just, you know, throwing more advertisement kind of budget, umm, let's... Shiran: They probably have all the potential that they need, all the talent they have, so why not helping them to unlock it? So, uh, I think this is a big part of it. And then the candidate side, as you mentioned, be able to personalize it, meet the user where they are. If you're using TikTok, you saw today, you know, you can run TikTok campaigns if you, you know, more like a, you know, you know, using WhatsApp or whatever you... Wherever you are, you can, you know, basically tailor it to the voice and tone, the, the people expectations, umm, their region. Umm, so it also create a much more human, personalized experience than this cold, you know, emails that people are usually getting. Chad Sowash: Yes, yes. Well. And as you know, Rebecca has talked about consumption models and those types of things, being able to look at like different tiers of, of cost and saying, look, the system is working for you. And what happens is we're going to engage these individuals who we think are qualified, but we're going to reach out and do a gap analysis and then ask them if they do meet the requirements. If they do, then we push them forward. If they are qualified, umm, then you pay consumption wise. Chad Sowash: If we have to go outside the system, that's an entire... That's obviously more money because there's, there's more, more, more, umm, uh, vendors that you have to actually engage with. Uh, that to me just sounds like the next evolution. You, you've already paid for most of the talent that's out there if you're a big enterprise company, or at least the ones that you want. Umm, so taking that model even further, going to internal mobility and having a segment of your CRM that's literally dedicated to trying to get your people that you already have in place, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to keep somebody and move them to either laterally or up to another position. Umm, are you guys working on doing that as well? Shiran: So, I think it's a, it's a terrific point. And we see also companies, these days, many of them are downsizing or you need to, umm, hire for new people, umm, at new roles. And you, you already, to your point, you already have a really good talent that maybe you can, you know, leverage in a different way. And so internal mobility, we see it like the, the potential there and the interest is just, umm, increasing, I would say. And a big part, you, you saw our vision around the integration, umm, it's also to integrate much better with the kind of what we call within SAP, it's like, uh, Employee Central, other parts, talent management part of the system to be able to do just that. Shiran: So it's but just connecting the dots. So if you have the information from the rest of the suite basically about your talent, what they're interested in, what their goals are, you know, what their performance reviews are, what's their inspiration, you would be able to target much better, you know, basically giving some recommendations, saying, "Hey, you know, I know that you need this new role. There is two folks that are really good fit for you that are already working in other teams." And large enterprise, usually they have this talent, but it's not something you can manage easily. Shiran: It's like huge corporations, you know, so it's like tons of blind spots. To be able to use the Agentic CRM, as you mentioned, together with the right data, this is really unlock a lot of potential. Chad Sowash: Uh, just the opportunity to be able to, hopefully, as you, you'd said, umm, talent teams are smaller. Uh, they need effective processes and tech to be able to help them do their job more, faster. Uh, and with that consolidation, you're starting to see, you've been seeing for years, many companies consolidate their talent acquisition team and their talent management team into just a talent organization where they're literally just focused on all of talent. Which means, obviously, this whole infinity loop that Allyn's been talking about for about 10 years now actually goes into place and a system is designed to actually facilitate that, that whole infinity loop. Chad Sowash: And you showed today on this very sexy video that I hope you will actually share with everybody because that was, that was probably the best marketing, umm, was that you had alumni in there as well. So you can have your internal database, do campaigns for TikTok, internal database, right, of people that we've already paid for, and then also alumni and employees. It's like that type of connectivity, uh, to me is magical. So talk a little bit about that. Is that, how long do you see it taking for us to actually get there, especially in the connectivity of systems? Because a lot of TA systems aren't connected to, to talent management systems. Shiran: So, I would say about us, I think it's not gonna take long. So this is why we're also investing in integration. AI at the end is... Chad Sowash: Did you hear that? It's not gonna take long. [laughter] Shiran: So, and this is where also prioritizing, umm, some of the effort that we have on, on integration. Because AI is as good as the data, that data that is getting access to, right? And so if you get the right data, your AI is much more powerful and impactful. And so for us, we are just building the really strong integration to Employee Central, to onboarding. This is exactly where that this data is actually, you know, lies. And so for us strategically, in order to get to this point is exactly about it, to be able to get the right data, be able to tap to where users are in the system, in the right place, in the right time. So definitely it's on our roadmap. So not too far away. Chad Sowash: You heard that. You heard it here first. Umm, so we're gonna go ahead, since you've already mentioned it, my favorite, uh, was the integration piece. We, we both know that the biggest cost of change management for these huge systems is literally the integration. Shiran: Yeah, that's true. Chad Sowash: It's integration, right? It takes months, six months, 18 months, depending on how big the system is. You've got humans actually matching fields and doing all of these things and it takes forever. What I saw, and you got me all excited, umm, was an integration by the touch of a button. Now, I'm sure it... There's more to do with it than that, but if I can go from 18 months, six months to six weeks... Shiran: Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash: That saves a lot of money, saves a lot of time, and my cost for change goes down dramatically. And that gives you guys a market edge. So, talk a little bit about how deep that actually goes. Obviously, applicant tracking system, that's where the start is, but, uh, where, where do you guys go with this type of technology? And when can we prospectively see it in operation? Shiran: Yeah. So, I would say, and, and we ran discovery, and you can't believe people's reaction, like, gut reaction when they're hearing the word migration. Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. Shiran: Right? Like, they're like, "Okay, it's gonna be so painful." Chad Sowash: Oh, data migration? Uh. Shiran: Yeah, exactly. So, this is the... Chad Sowash: The shivers. Yes. Shiran: I know. And so, uh, we, we asked ourselves, "Well, we can, you know, do and, you know, move data from one place to another. It will work. That's fine." But, you know, you know us already by now. We said, "Well, is it, is it good enough?" And the question, the, the answer is no, right? And, and we thought, "Well, how we can reimagine the way people integrate and migrate to new system? And how we can leverage that to be a differentiator for us?" as, as you just mentioned. Shiran: And so, we are having, like, huge groups, a lot of people that are also experts in, in AI, thinking about how we can design it in a way that it will be productized, that we can also create, like, really powerful AI-based tools to help to save a lot of time. So, I think we, we talked about it briefly, but, umm, you mentioned field mapping. This is a huge pain point. If you're a large enterprise, you have hundreds of custom fields. Be able to map those to another, you know, field in a different system takes sometimes weeks or months. Shiran: Umm, so be able to have an agent is just, you know, doing that for you in a few seconds, you know, and providing you the visibility, umm, this is, you know, changing the game really for companies. And so, I think this is how we're thinking about how we can make it delightful, how we can actually use that for a moment in time to actually also making sure they're integrating right. You can't believe how many customers that we speak with are integrating in the wrong rate, and then they are suffering years later. Chad Sowash: Oh, yeah. Shiran: So, how you can make it smarter, so you make sure that you're actually doing it right, so after that you have the best product experience. This is our interest as, as product organization, right? Umm, and the way we're thinking about it is also strategic, as you mentioned. So, because if we're doing that right, we can expand it, so you can use that for new customers that are coming to us from different, you know, suite or different tools and want to go and opt in to use SmartRecruiters. Uh, we can do that for, umm, other modules within SAP, like we also, uh, own onboarding. It's a whole new product. Also, they need to migrate from older, older version to new version. So, why not expand it into it? So, we're thinking about it in a way that how we can leverage the technology to really be a game changer for our customers. Chad Sowash: Is that, is that the first phase? The first phase is, "Okay, we have all these SAP, you know, success, Success Factors customers, umm, we've gotta migrate them over into SmartRecruiters, some aspects of their, their, their business over into SmartRecruiters." Is that phase one? We're gonna, we're gonna eat our own dog food, we're gonna build this ourselves. Is that phase one, and then you start pushing out to others later? Shiran: Exactly. So, we, we actually, the way we, we did it internally, we told customers, right, uh, "We're SmartRecruiters. If you're interested in, you know, being early adopter for us, umm, raise your hand if you want to go and migrate in the next few months." We got, let's say, much more demand that we could ever consume. Chad Sowash: I'm sure. I'm sure, yes. Shiran: Uh, we were very surprised in a good way. Umm, so what, how we're doing that, we, we definitely have, we have different programs. So, we're using those tools to different... We have a design partner program, we have a larger, more, a broader program, but still very curated. Umm, so we can work closely with customers to understand, again, customer expectations. What's the experience like? What's the, are we meeting their needs? How we can make it better and iterate on that? Shiran: So, first, as you mentioned, umm, there is so much demand and interest from SAP customers that are today using the, uh, recruiting... Umm, the Success Factors recruiting system. They want to move. How we can make them successful and do that in a few weeks versus, you know, a few years? Umm, so this is, you know, probably phase one. You know, we're gonna iterate, we're gonna make it amazing, and then we can expand it to new, more use cases. Chad Sowash: Well, and the faster that you can do that, the more revenue you can push through because you don't have a bunch of companies that are waiting in line for integration or migration or just to get the, the, the ball rolling, right? So, this is... I mean, to me, this has to be probably one of the most innovative, and it's boring, I know. It's, it's, it's... Shiran: It's not the sexiest. Chad Sowash: It's data, it's data migration, it's integration, it's boring. But it's the biggest problem that most companies have and why they don't change. I've had so many companies tell me that, "I would get off of this platform if it wouldn't take me 18 months." Shiran: Yeah. They are basically locked, right? Chad Sowash: Yeah. I... And, and they feel like they're, yeah, they're, they're locked in a cage, right? Whatever database cage that is. Do you see this being the new standard where it's like, "Look, systems should be more fluid, they should be easier to access," umm, and then you'll see your competitors doing the same thing. They're gonna have to, to be able to match. Uh, because if that is the biggest go-to-market obstacle, if I am right, for many of them, they're gonna follow your lead. Shiran: Exactly. And I think, you know, many companies are choosing to use AI for the day-to-day tasks. But as you mentioned, if you're a large enterprise, adoption of new systems or moving between different systems, it's a huge pain point that today no one really targets, not really. And be able to remove this kind of blocker really allows much more freedom for, for companies, uh, these days to choose the right solution for them, umm, not being locked into something just because it's, you know, legacy, someone chose it like 10 years ago. Umm, so this is how we're thinking about it. Chad Sowash: Well, and it's an unlock for either further down, downstream into SAP's business suite because obviously if you guys lock into this integration product, you can start to do, you know, obviously other point solutions into SmartRecruiters, into SAP, so on and so forth. So it becomes almost like the, you know, you had the Apple iPhone, then you've got the AirPods. The AirPods could be its own company, the amount of money that it makes. I mean, that could actually be the, the unlock for, uh, a go-to-market in many different areas of the business. Shiran: Exactly, exactly it. And there is a, umm, also selfishly, umm, there is a huge power of being part of the suite. So if you make it easier to go and basically buy more modules, you can basically... It just becomes easier to be part of it and, and benefit from the suite-like power, right? And this is part of also SAP's, to be honest, like strategy, like how you leverage the power of the suite because all those point solutions creating all this fragmentation, right? And all the problems we're talking about in, in recruiting and hiring these days. Shiran: So how you make, removing friction, it's a lot about removing friction so they can basically have better connectivity, umm, have AI access all the data they need to really unlock the value. So it's about it, right? Chad Sowash: And if I don't have to spend money on 18 months of Deloitte consulting, I can actually put that back into new tech earlier, which, I mean, this is another unlock where it's like, look, you're gonna be saving this much time, this much, this much money. Now you can really double down on building a stack quicker, an agentic stack. I, I just thought of that and that's just brilliant. So when it comes to, when it comes to one of the things that, that, uh, Rebecca says is that, you know, pretty much for, like, recruiters, 80% of their job is admin. Shiran: Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash: Right? Uh, and I think what we've tried to do is we've tried to say, "Hey, here are the tools. Use them," as opposed to just bake the tools in, much like interview, uh, scheduling, right? If somebody goes and they, they, they meet the requirements, then boom, they're automatically scheduled. Nobody has to touch them. It happens behind the scenes and it's magic. How do we get to that level in more of the tasks throughout without scaring the living hell out of recruiters and hiring managers and, and so on and so forth? How, how do we get there? Is it literally just kind of like piece by piece or do we have to force-feed them the whole, the whole thing? [laughter] Shiran: So in my view, and I analyze a lot of, umm, products that were successful in being more agentic because there is no many products like that across industries that you're looking at. There was a few that, you know, kind of, I would say, hacked something that, you know, making it work and it's really more agentic, more autonomous. And what you could see, the way they did it, they did a few things well. One, they tap into the flow of work. They don't force people to come to them, they're going to where they already are. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Shiran: Second, they build trust gradually. So you don't start with the most risky task that, you know, recruiter has and saying, "You know what? I will take this decision from you. I'm just gonna do it for you," right? This is not how you build trust. And you start from places like scheduling that maybe the, the cost of error is not that bad. Umm, you're building this trust, you know, as you go and getting, getting there, I would, together with the user, and user feel more comfortable to go and, and, and try new things because they see the value, they see the impact, it's measurable. Shiran: So it's about a lot about building this trust with users, especially large enterprises. So this is how you're thinking about it. But also you need to have the broader vision about how it's all connected because you also don't want to deploy different assistants and different co-pilots without, like, the full vision of how it's all connected. So if you truly will get to, like, flows that are much more agentic, how it will look like, right, as you're gaining more trust and how it's all connected as part of one holistic experience. Chad Sowash: So, uh, that being said, uh, the thoughts of all these agents out there, you're gonna have agent-to-agent communication. Obviously, there's gonna be some redundancies and whatnot. So, in the orchestration, one of the words had... That hasn't come up yet, uh, the orchestration of how all of these things come together, is this gonna be literally like a, a new job that a lot of companies are going to have to create is work orchestration? With all of these agents, you've gotta know where the human fits in. Here's, here's the process. Chad Sowash: Here are the tasks, here are the agent tasks, here are the human tasks. It... Are you guys looking at that? Or comp... Have you seen companies do that? Because to me, orchestration mapping isn't gonna be just something where you do it upfront and then you're done. It's... It almost seems like it's gonna be a constant. Shiran: It's, it's a really good point. So what we see is also within the talent team that it, it becomes much more, you know, there is more automation, more AI being added. And part of the... I would say, what their new job is being like is also to be much more of a, you know, a designer of the process, of the experience, and thinking how everything fits together, what we need to be connected, how it need to be connected. And part of it is exactly what you mentioned about the agent-to-agent interaction. Shiran: And it's, I would say, for most of this, you know, in this industry, in HR tech, it's pretty early stages, but we do have, we launched our first agent-to-agent last year, umm, use case. We have a few more that they are coming in H1. The first one was, uh, with one of our close, uh, partners, Visier. Chad Sowash: Okay, yeah. Shiran: Around analytics. So you can ask Winston, "Hey, how many, you know, people in how many regions I have, you know, in this type of skills?" And you can, you know, call to Visier agent, get the, the feedback there in a very conversational way to segment the data, follow up. So it's really cool use case. We're adding a few more. Umm, but the ability to really understand, look, how the orchestration would look like and how also govern it in a way that will make my organization secure and safe, which because agent-to-agent is also adding all this layer of complexity around security and access and permissions and who get the chance to work with which type of agent. Shiran: So we have something called, umm, Winston Hub, AI Hub. Yeah. And so you would be able to see her there, basically all the agents that you have connected to your system, and you can very granularly control who got access to what. So this is part of it, right? And if you're thinking about it more holistically, it's, it's gonna be big, big part of about trust and keeping your also organization safe as part of this, all these new things that are popping up. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Right. It's... When we're talking about product and, and obviously there are, especially in this space, uh, every space, uh, tech companies are incredibly competitive. And they're, they're, you know, on the razor's edge in many, many... Some are, some are not. Uh, and so that, that word trust means a lot because there are a lot of lawsuits that are out there right now. That are specific to agents enriching profiles, you know, uh, age discrimination. When are we going to get to the point, and, uh, where we have... Shiran: You mentioned Visier, and that's why, that's why I'm thinking of it. Where we are going to have on-demand analytics and on-demand auditing so that we know every decision that's being made, it's being racked up. There's no reason why we should have to wait 30 days for that information, right? We should have a dashboard. We should be able to talk to Winston. We should be able to get reports not just on analytics, not just on, you know, what job's doing well or what have you, but also the audit process. Where are we falling down? Where, you know, where, where are the hotspots that we need to go take care of? How long is it gonna take for us to actually get to that point? Shiran: I think it's, it's a must-have. Uh, I think as, as companies are using more AI, umm, also the expectation and, and with the new regulation is also, you know, getting higher and higher. Uh, we're using a third party to basically audit every AI-based product that we have. And so you can as a customer just get a report on every AI-based product that you, that you use within the system and just see scoring on, on... So many different... Chad Sowash: So do I ask Winston for that and then, then it pulls back now? Or is that like you... Shiran: So, because it's a, it's a third party, we want it to be objective. We could have built something in-house. We felt like, you know, it will make our customer much more, umm, I would say, comfortable to use a third party, that this is what they do, this is their expertise, it's not biased. Umm, and so you basically will get... Umm, you're getting, like, all these reports on a, a different cadence based on what you need. Umm, and you see all these different metrics on, you know, we're, uh, auditing for bias and hallucinations and discrimination, different type of, of categories there. Shiran: Umm, so you can see it there. Beyond that, and, and you mentioned it as well, the conversation that people had with your AI-based product, you need to provide, you know, access to that. So, for example, the Winston chat, the candidate chatbot that we have today, you can see all that from your admin experience, right? Then you can... Chad Sowash: So like the transcripts of conversations and... Yeah. Shiran: You need to have this transparency. You need to lead with transparency to get to trust. And I think, this is, this is a big part of it. Chad Sowash: Does the candidate have that transparency too? Do they have access to those? Shiran: So I think we're, we're getting there. So there is more and more elements that we are, umm, looking to expose more to candidates. And I think it's a big part about, not only leading with transparency, not only with hiring teams, but also with candidates, but also how you're providing them added value as part of it, right? They're using AI, they're given in some, in some way, the access to their data. Umm, so how are you giving them also added value? So they feel good about also being, participating in this, in this process. Shiran: And so, for example, one thing that we are, uh, thinking about is that right now we're using, umm, skills-based matching. We have a product called Winston Match, right? How are you exposing also to the candidate their match score and how Winston thinking about them as, you know, what's their strengths, their weaknesses, what they should work on? This is, uh, amazing added value to a candidate as well. So what, what do you do also to provide some added value and transparency to candidates? So this is some of the things we are working on. Chad Sowash: And that's a lot to work on. Shiran: Yes, that's true. Chad Sowash: Phew. So I'm gonna let you get back to it. [laughter] Thanks for, thanks for joining me, Shiran. Thanks for having me here in wonderful Mallorca. Uh... Shiran: Great view that we have. Chad Sowash: It is beautiful. And, uh, hopefully we'll do this again. Shiran: Yeah, looking forward to it. Thank you. Chad Sowash: Take care. 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 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.

In this episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Joel Cheesman and guest host JT O’Donnell unpack the chaotic 2026 labor market with high-energy banter. They kick off with GIF vs. Jif debates and a wild March Madness elevator story with a college coach, then explore NIL deals reshaping sports careers and the mental health hits athletes face when the money dries up. The duo dives into the “nothing feels real” AI era—OpenAI’s Sora drama, viral AI-generated roasts, the booming AI-clip economy (where tools like OpusClip deliver six-figure incomes), and Randstad Workmonitor 2026 warnings of massive entry-level job losses to automation. They call out brutal white-collar realities like 40% of job-switchers taking steep pay cuts, shady reverse recruiting scams, Talent.com layoff rumors, and surging demand for AI Trainers and agentic skills—blending snarky critique with practical s urvival tips, plus quick hits on Deel’s legal drama, NBA LinkedIn virality, and JT’s upcoming Harvard Business School appearance. TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman (00:32.174) stopping, collaborating and listening. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Excursion Cheeseman. JT ODonnell (00:42.026) And I am JT. Call me Elle Woods O'Donnell. Joel Cheesman (00:46.162) And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, white-collar workers are cutting, recruiters are reversing, and NBA players are posting. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:00.594) What's up, JT? It's just us girls today. It's just us girls. Girl talk. JT ODonnell (01:00.866) What's up, buddy? I can't believe it's just you and me. I know. Do we tell everybody? So we have this WhatsApp and we talk about our topics and when they told us it was just gonna be the two of us. Joel throughout his favorite like boxing, Jeff, I threw out Rhonda Rousey. I think she was kind of killing it on you in there. So let's go. I'm ready to box with you. I got up early, I studied. Joel Cheesman (01:21.382) I didn't know that you say, I didn't know that you say Jif. I say Gif. I feel like the world is divided in between those two parties, Gif and Jif. JT ODonnell (01:25.784) Jeff, it's a... See, we're already divided. It's gonna be a good show. Joel Cheesman (01:31.794) JPEG and GIFs and GIFs. So, how you been? I guess it's been a few weeks since we've been on. The world's very calm. So I'm assuming nothing is, nothing new in your life is going. JT ODonnell (01:38.21) Good. Yeah. JT ODonnell (01:44.492) Yeah, I mean, it just pains me to even turn on the news at this point and watch that. I think we say this every week, but what? Just what? I know, and you know. Joel Cheesman (01:52.158) It's the best reality show on TV though, I'll give you that. By the way, I don't know, we don't talk about streaming often or what we're watching. There's a lot of stuff in like the project Hail Mary, have you seen that yet? I haven't seen it, but it's getting really good reviews. I think Ryan Gosling is very charming and would be happy to go see that. DTF St. Louis, I got a show I'm gonna throw out there. Have you seen it? JT ODonnell (02:05.197) I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen it yet. JT ODonnell (02:14.775) freaking love it, obsessed every episode, soon as it comes out. don't, absolutely. I mean, Jason Bateman, I've watched everything he's ever been in. You know, I think he's incredible, just an incredible, incredible actor. But this shows, and I only just watched Stranger Things this year. And so, and then to have Linda Cardellini in it too, like these are amazing cast that got put together for this. And yeah, I'm obsessed, absolutely obsessed. Joel Cheesman (02:33.265) Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:43.152) It is, it is in the, the HBO DNA, the white Lotus, the like they they've done content so well for so long. and this is the next iteration of great HBO max, whatever we're calling it this week, of content. and I love, I kind of love the whole not dumping all the episodes at once. I kind of like the string it out because then JT ODonnell (02:49.293) 100%. Joel Cheesman (03:09.362) Not everyone, no one knows what's coming next. It's, goes back to conversation. Like you and I are a certain age where the water cooler talk, everyone watched, you know, that week and then they talked about it. When Netflix does the whole dump, it's like, have you seen it all? Like, yeah, I finished it. Like, don't tell me, don't tell me. mean, HBO goes back to the old school, like, let's talk about this week's episode. And, and I appreciate that about it. Are you watching? Yeah. JT ODonnell (03:19.436) Yeah. JT ODonnell (03:27.775) Right. JT ODonnell (03:35.509) No, the scarcity rule. It's good. It's good. Joel Cheesman (03:38.46) Yeah. Are you, by the way, I think that's sad that we've lost that in society for the most part. Like there was a time where everybody watched Seinfeld and is like, everybody talked about it because everybody did it. That that's gone from the world for the most part. However, March madness, everyone seems to be watching. Are you a basketball fan? Are you like keeping touch? Do you have a, do you have a bracket? JT ODonnell (04:00.011) I do not, I don't do any of that, but I do have a funny story. So my husband who has a pilot had to fly into Philly on Sunday and stay in a hotel that the March Madness team was staying in. Obviously they were everywhere. So he gets in the elevator in his suit, guy next to him and he's like, you know, hey, what do you do? I'm a pilot. Hey, what do you do? Well, I'm a coach for March Madness. Do you like basketball? My husband played basketball. He's like, yeah. He's like, are you kidding? Look at this place. Joel Cheesman (04:13.054) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:27.174) Uh-huh. JT ODonnell (04:28.897) And he goes, you want tickets? Literally gave, I'm not, can't even make it up. Literally in an elevator ride, gave him like, go give me your name. The tickets will be at the front desk. And there he went to the game that night. So I know, cause I don't even pay attention to it. Who played Sunday night? You guys can tell me later, but like, right? Like it's just hilarious that that would happen so randomly. Joel Cheesman (04:31.742) Get out. Joel Cheesman (04:41.854) Do you know the coach? Do you know who the coach was or the team? Joel Cheesman (04:52.764) Now granted, those early games are sometimes empty. Like it's not, once you get to the big games that are coming, it's so those first rounds, can be a little bit, you know, like give tickets away, get people in the seats. What I found interesting and I love March Madness and I, from football, it's probably one of the best events in sports. The World Cup coming is gonna be awesome too. But what I found from a work perspective or like, JT ODonnell (04:58.498) Fair. Joel Cheesman (05:22.172) world of work is the number of older coaches, is really, really strong. So you have like, Tom is, you have Rick Patino, Calip, like there are a lot of older coaches that traditionally would be gone. And what's happening is with NIL with, with the kids getting money, scouting recruiting is much different than it was 20 years ago, 10, 20 years ago. used to be like, I have to go to some podunk. JT ODonnell (05:33.441) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:52.168) high school to see a kid play, go to AAU tournaments. It's very tough to travel and it's very long hours. If it's just a matter of give kids checks, if I'm an older coach, I don't have to scout. I don't have to travel the way I used to like who, okay, let's sit, let's give checks to these kids and have them come here. So I I guess ultimately it's good for the sport that you're seeing a lot of these sort of entrenched coaches still coaching. Cause I do think they are good at their job. But if you take out the hard part, the shitty part of traveling and Burger King off the side of State Road, whatever, it becomes a pretty appealing job. So that's something that I've noticed in March Madness that I guess is a positive. JT ODonnell (06:33.249) Yeah, and I'm just glad you talked about NIL because I've been a fan of that for a while. think, you know, a lot of people don't understand that, you know, people go into the NBA, the average time the NBA is two to three years. They've lived their whole life towards this goal. They tend to blow their money, end up broke. A lot of problems. This isn't they're not the only sport that does this, but it has the highest rate basketball. So when I look at these college kids and I think you can learn to make money other ways, if you get injured or whatever, you can build your brand. Joel Cheesman (06:46.076) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:01.896) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (07:02.022) instead of having the colleges rape all of that, it makes me happy because they need it, right? They need it. Joel Cheesman (07:06.92) Yeah. I think, I think the verdict, I think the jury is still out on that. imagine our first disagreement on the show is in banter. But, I mean, look for a lot of players, it's, it is, it's great. These are kids from, poor, whether it's rural country, rural, rural urban folk kids that are poor can now play at 18 years old and make six figures. I think that's a generally good thing, but I also think most of them will not be professional players. JT ODonnell (07:13.525) Shocker. JT ODonnell (07:36.481) There you go. Joel Cheesman (07:36.542) And I think there's a real mental thing that we're going to have to deal with of these kids who are making six figures, being an offensive lineman at Joey Bagadona at university and not being drafted. And now I have to go sell cars or something because I don't have the education and I'm used to this money. Like now I have to make half the money or much less than that. How do I deal with that? And, and we already know young kids want to be CEO after the first week. Now we have rich, rich athletes that want to get paid what they were getting paid to play football or basketball. I think that's going to be a real issue as we, as we unfold this NIL drama. JT ODonnell (08:04.075) Yeah. JT ODonnell (08:15.285) I do understand that they are investing a lot in having financial planners come in and talk to them and make them more aware. They have older players come back and talk about what happened when they burnt their cash and gave it away to all their friends and family, that sort of thing. So I guess I'm always more hopeful that the coaching is present and that they want to help them with that. But yeah, you're right. There'll be some casualties to that too. Joel Cheesman (08:23.518) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (08:33.374) Yeah. By the way, teaser, we have a topic of people getting less than they're used to based on the current state of the world. Also surprising this week, Sora just dropped today. Open AI is killing Sora. Any thoughts about that? JT ODonnell (08:38.251) We do. Yeah, we do. JT ODonnell (08:46.325) Yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (08:52.197) So interesting because after they just struck that deal with Disney so that people could do character license, like why the sudden shutdown? To me, my mind immediately goes to something bad, nefarious is happening that is forcing this. I don't know why. Like my gut says somebody scared them so badly that they're like, Ooh, we need to pull back. I don't know. What do you think? Financial play or fear? Joel Cheesman (08:55.891) huh. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:15.57) I think it's focus. think that their investors are saying, hey, we need to make money. We're spending a lot. Energy is more expensive than ever. Like let's focus on what our mission is. And their mission is not fun videos for Disney characters. It's like advertising, which they need to roll out. They have this whole new device with Johnny Ive that still has to come out. There's... JT ODonnell (09:23.095) burning. Joel Cheesman (09:40.114) We're starting to see like little teaser videos about what that might look like, whether they're real or not. don't know. but yeah, I think it's just, it's just focus when companies start worrying about member member. We work, they were doing like surfing companies and like they were doing so many outs out of the out of bound stuff. It was like, let's focus on what we're supposed to be doing. I think open AI is, is similar. Yeah. but by the way, interestingly, JT ODonnell (09:44.065) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (09:48.193) cash. JT ODonnell (09:52.781) Yeah. JT ODonnell (09:59.839) Weird. JT ODonnell (10:03.871) Starting a school. Yeah, that's fair. Joel Cheesman (10:11.77) I find myself double taking on videos now because I don't know, it a real person? Is it not? Is it like, so I came across this because it's work related. I want to show it to you. it's not exactly what you think. It's not as it's not as it seems, which is sort of a theme in the world today, but I want to show it to you and get your take ready. JT ODonnell (10:28.717) All right. JT ODonnell (10:32.301) All right, let's see. Let's go. Joel Cheesman (12:00.008) So in case you haven't caught yet, all right. Joel Cheesman (12:24.648) So give me your initial take and then I'll tell you when I dug in what I found. What are your initial thoughts on this? JT ODonnell (12:32.877) So my initial thought is that you have a new employee that is really learning how to lean into the use of AI. Some skill building going on there. Joel Cheesman (12:41.48) Yeah. Okay. So my, my bullshit meter kind of goes off when I watch this and I go, what, what TA person would like throw a job seeker under the bus like this on public? Like that didn't quite smell right. So I look at the comments and the comments are, they fell for it. Like this is the way the world now, at least you didn't like fire her immediately. Like people took it for face value. And then I look at her. her username. And her username is Rebecca music or something. And I'm like, what? Okay. So then I go to her videos. And her the link in her video is a Sora link. So I'm like, okay, this is this is a this is a hustle, right? So I go look at all this, this woman's videos. She's a young woman, which I was like, what your head of you like you're hiring people? Okay, that's a little bit weird. But maybe JT ODonnell (13:38.369) Fair. Joel Cheesman (13:40.634) All of her videos are set up to promote Sora, which I'm assuming people click on the link and then they like start using Sora or I don't know exactly. I didn't have enough time or care to go to dig in, but this was not a genuine TA person saying I have this video or HR person. Like this is happening all over the place and it's just a weird world where like, I don't know what's real. What isn't who's selling me something? What's AI generated? It's just a real world where we don't trust anything or anybody. Now, for me and you, people that know us, trust us, that has more value than ever because of this sort of slop, I guess it's being thrown out. But now that you know the backstory, your thoughts. JT ODonnell (14:27.243) Yeah. So this is like the level of complexity that we're seeing with marketing now, the capacity in which think about the mo the first thing we ever did that starts to feel like this was product placement. Remember the show trading spaces. It was the first show on discovery channel history lesson, right? Like, yes, right. Okay. So now we have such a level of sophistication that we know we need to emotionally get people to react and think about the age groups. got to react in that like older workers. Joel Cheesman (14:42.138) ET. ET Reese's Pieces. Yeah. JT ODonnell (14:57.229) who want to, you know, essentially shit on Gen Z, excuse the language, diving right into this conversation right behind her, like all in, right? The song comes on, everyone now wants to know how that got made. So product placement, you know, 20 out of 10 in that moment. But even the Gen Zers are going to want to shit because they're going to go, what am I getting vilified? Let's see what I'm getting vilified for. that's great. Look at how smart I was, you know? That is some serious multi-generational marketing done very well. Joel Cheesman (15:11.955) Right. JT ODonnell (15:26.453) You know, but like you said, people are falling for it. I'm scared. Joel Cheesman (15:30.686) So you're okay with her posting this and not being genuine with what she does and like, you just say, do you just appreciate the hustle and like good for her? Okay, all right. JT ODonnell (15:39.382) I do. I do. I think soon enough, if people have an issue with it and you have to have a disclaimer, you know, a site like TikTok will ban her if they decide, hey, that's not transparent. there's inside TikTok, there's a toggle that says, is this an advertisement? Is this, you know, anything? And if you ever get caught, you are banned. You are banned. And so they will crack down on stuff like that. She just was very crafty. Joel Cheesman (15:46.078) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (15:49.895) Joel Cheesman (15:59.176) Okay. Joel Cheesman (16:02.814) So this is young people walking the line of how can I get, how much can I get away with? And she's very good at convincing people that she really is doing this. Which we've shared a story which not, but let's bring it out. There's the Clippers. Clippers is a thing and you're on the cutting edge of all this social media stuff. So typically, JT ODonnell (16:09.325) 100 % JT ODonnell (16:15.584) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (16:21.644) Yeah. A big thing. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (16:28.542) I would pay you to like, talk about my stuff, my skin cleanser, whatever. And then I would pay you. But now we have Clippers, which I'm a company or a podcast and I pay you to basically just reshare. I'm guessing, right. Or a clip from your show. Okay. Explain this to me then. JT ODonnell (16:45.225) No, yeah, wait. So the way they're making money is they're taking podcasts, they're taking pieces of that, and they're using AI tools like Opus Pro that can very quickly go through Listen and clip what it knows is probably a good segment. They're then bringing it into another AI platform like Captions or HeyGen. These are then creating B-roll, AI-generated B-roll. Joel Cheesman (16:56.296) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (17:11.361) transitions, music overlay. So you're talking about an individual on their phone can sit and make a thousand dollars an hour using AI to build these clips. And companies are like, great, do it. Because they're giving this to people who inherently are knowing what's going viral and then applying those viral styles to that content. Right? So it's worth it to them. It is worth it to them. It's a big business right now. Joel Cheesman (17:28.818) Mm-hmm. Yep. So Mr. I didn't know this Mr. Beast, who I think a lot of people on this podcast listen know at least basically who that is has a company called Vero or Viro. I'm guessing it's Viro and viral V Y R O where it's a marketplace where I'm a social media person and I let's say there's a podcast. You're saying the company doesn't control what the clip is just that we approve that you can use our content and then we'll pay you based on. JT ODonnell (17:42.785) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (18:01.724) what's used so I can do like a mashup of the content with what your stuff is. And people are getting paid like $2 per thousand views, which is not a lot. But if you're good, and you can release as many videos as you want, like people are getting six figures doing this apparently. JT ODonnell (18:03.243) Yeah. Yep. JT ODonnell (18:10.881) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (18:20.021) Right. And so they're, they're also building networks where they can get the view exposure, right? So they're building partnerships where, Hey, they have a large audience over there. can increase the amount of views I get if I get them to repost it. So if you're paying me $2 per thousand views, Hey buddy, repost it for me. I'll give you a buck per thousand views. I'm still making a profit. Right. So they are understanding the complexity of that business. Joel Cheesman (18:31.336) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (18:38.194) Yeah. Do you think there's a work angle to this? Do you think companies will say, we have these videos about working here, we'll pay you $2 per thousand views to promote the company? Or do you think it's limited to consumer products? Okay. JT ODonnell (18:55.229) One, well, no, no, well, 100%, but that's not for every company because I really believe we're going towards a world where companies want fewer employees, not more. So employer branding comes into question for me going forward because you do want good employer branding in the sense that you want the right people to join your firm, but are you going to need that level of marketing that you've needed previously to attract talent? I don't think you're going to. I think you'll want some solid content there. Where I think this turns is that Joel Cheesman (19:18.675) Yeah. JT ODonnell (19:23.327) Everyone cares very deeply how employees are now treated. So to me, your employer brand becomes more representation of my customer base should feel good about what it's like to work here. So there's why I see employer branding, you know, continuing on, but no, it's changed a lot. Where I think it gets super interesting is we keep talking about a $480 billion knowledge creator economy, an economy that feeds itself. Right. And we've always gotten back and forth on the show. You're everyone says, no, nobody wants to be an influencer at JT. I'm like, Joel Cheesman (19:36.882) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (19:47.496) Yep. JT ODonnell (19:52.982) Not everybody's going to be an influencer. This is a beautiful example. People are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, never getting in front of the camera. Joel Cheesman (19:55.752) Sure. Joel Cheesman (19:59.196) Are there, do you know of any companies leveraging social media and influencers that are really crushing it from my work perspective? Cause I don't. JT ODonnell (20:08.937) No, because again, is the investment, does it make sense? do you, who needs that level of employer branding or work branding at this stage? You don't, especially not in this economy right now. Like should we bring up the job numbers some more? It's horrible. so no, I don't, I don't see it, but you know, the pendulum swings and there will be companies that will suddenly want to hire the best and the brightest. And when they do, it will make sense to have that kind of content. Joel Cheesman (20:16.744) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:22.108) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:34.086) Okay, let's get to shout outs. Joel Cheesman (20:39.046) So real quick, because we spend a lot of time on banter. I'm sure people want us to get to the topics. But so there's a story out of Quebec, and I'm wearing my Quebec hockey t-shirt, defunct hockey team t-shirt. Have you ever been to Quebec City, by the way? JT ODonnell (20:51.219) I have I love Quebec City. Gorgeous. I went in winter. I went in winter. It's magical. Year round. Joel Cheesman (20:52.73) It's beautiful. mean, don't go in winter, but yeah, it's a very cool. Joel Cheesman (21:01.374) I'm sure it is for about an hour. And then I like, get me, get me the hell out of here. But yeah, it's a, it's like built on a Fort from like the 16, 1700s, the Abraham, uh, the Citadel, like very cool. If you haven't been, it's not, it's not on most people's lists, but yeah, Quebec city is probably the most European city in North America that I've ever been to. Um, anyway, cool place. Uh, so, so JT, we hear about how immigration population collapse. We're all we're destroying humanity. JT ODonnell (21:09.069) Gorgeous. JT ODonnell (21:20.927) Agreed. Agreed. Joel Cheesman (21:30.046) Well, a man and his son are doing their best to correct the collapse of humanity by donating sperm. And this story came out of Quebec. It's a father-son deal. I don't know if they go together to the sperm bank. It wasn't really clear in the story, but they have apparently fathered over 600 children in the Quebec province there in Canada. Canada is losing population, by the way, so you would think like, well, hey, this is a good thing. Unfortunately, JT ODonnell (21:31.181) Ugh. Joel Cheesman (21:57.586) The gene pool says otherwise, they're actually being sued by a mother who has four kids. Three of those kids are by the father and one of them is sperm from the son. And if you have that, so I didn't know this because I've never donated sperm and no judgment on those who have, get it, but you're, you're limited to how many you can father because of this whole gene pool thing. So anyway, these guys, apparently when they signed papers agreed to father no more than 25 kids, which I think is still a lot. but they went way over the 25 limit and now it looks like they're gonna get pinched for it and she's not happy. What are your thoughts on sperm donation and the balance between population collapse and in, know, father, or marrying your cousin? JT ODonnell (22:44.247) Where did the system break down that they got away with more than 25 is my first question. Like how did they get away with this is the first thing that you gotta ask yourself and fix. I mean, like talk about a racket. mean, holy, what a way to make money. Joel Cheesman (22:55.304) Different names. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe different. Now the problem is if, if, if these were all like Wayne Gretzky's kids, the Canadians would be fine with it. They'd, they'd be more than fine with it. But because these two nobodies are donating, it's a problem. JT ODonnell (23:10.701) I mean, well, blood testing's gonna go through the roof, because now you're gonna go on a first date and be like, we kinda look alike. we run that test? I mean, there you go. You are welcome. Canada, you are welcome with my, yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:21.682) That's a business idea, JT. Let's open up a DNA background checking for dating in Quebec City is the new million dollar business up there. JT ODonnell (23:32.565) There you go. There you go. Unreal. Joel Cheesman (23:40.062) All right, give us a shout out, JT. JT ODonnell (23:42.037) Okay, my shout out, believe it or not, is to Harvard Business School. And I told you my nickname was Elle Woods because it's finally happened, Joel. It's finally happened. am, I... Joel Cheesman (23:51.26) Yep. Now for the younger kids that maybe don't know, even I know Elle Woods. So give us like who is Elle Woods before you go on. Cause I think they'll be lost. JT ODonnell (23:59.954) Legally Blonde, the movie Legally Blonde with Reese Witherspoon, who is a very new and active member on LinkedIn, by the way. So she ends up going to Harvard Law and the quote is when she gets in, she goes, what, like it's hard or something? And so I say that, yeah, she goes for a guy. I am going to be speaking at Harvard Business School for the very first time in my life at 57. So what, is it hard? Yeah, it's kind of hard to get invited to speak at Harvard Business School, but. Joel Cheesman (24:12.732) Yeah. She goes for a boy, right? She goes for a boy and then ends up. Yeah. Okay. JT ODonnell (24:28.556) They found me on LinkedIn and I'm going to be speaking for their AI department, of all things, about AI and its impact on jobs and careers. And the invite came because of the work that I do on social media, specifically LinkedIn, talking about this. So shout out to Harvard Business School for finally giving me my shot. I'll be there in pink. Joel Cheesman (24:46.334) I'm fascinated that they found you. Not because you're you, but because I'm guessing at Harvard, they have a lot of people pitching them to come speak. And you should feel very honored that they took the initiative to get you there, because I'm sure a lot of people beg them. JT ODonnell (24:57.848) Good point. JT ODonnell (25:03.106) I kind of thought it was a joke when it came in through our support email and the teammates forwarded it to me. I was like, come on, this is a joke, right? And it wasn't, so I'm excited, yeah. Thank you. Joel Cheesman (25:10.642) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (25:14.294) Congrats to you. That's awesome. Any idea how their case against Trump is going? Is that dismissed? Is it still entrenched in the courts? That was a big story for about a month. JT ODonnell (25:20.846) . I think it's... But I feel like there's a counter suit going on too right now if I recall. So I mean, I think that's going to be buried for a really long time. Far less important these days. Joel Cheesman (25:31.654) If there's any school that would get some pro bono legal help, it would be Harvard, I would think. And that would be, yeah, that would not be into that. Are they giving you free stuff for speaking? there you go. JT ODonnell (25:39.118) There you go. There you go. I think they're all set. They are, they are giving me swag. I'm getting swag. It's coming to me. Yes. Which is pretty exciting as well. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (25:51.152) It's, that's cool, but it's not quite as exciting as the free stuff you can get from Chad and Cheese. Steven. JT ODonnell (25:57.251) This is true. Joel Cheesman (27:11.56) Thanks, Stephen. Thanks, Stephen. Well, you might notice that Mr. Sowash is not here with us. He's at an event, which brings us to... JT ODonnell (27:13.225) no. Joel Cheesman (27:22.546) So by the time this drops that event will be over. So we won't talk about, we know where Chad is today, but, in April, he and I will be heading to Phoenix for the, paradox slash workday, client base or client board. And then also hitting up the recruiting leaders exchange event in Chicago for more of where Chad and cheese will be going, head out to Chad cheese.com slash events. Our events are powered by the good folks at shaker recruitment. marketing by the way. Shall we talk about real news now, JT? Joel Cheesman (28:02.43) All right, we have a rumor alert. We have a rumor alert. So this is in from Chad. Talent.com layoffs. He's getting word from multiple sources that the artist formerly known as Nouveau, also from Quebec, the province, Montreal, are cutting heads to the tune of 50%, as well as getting a co-CEO situation. JT ODonnell (28:04.706) Hmm. JT ODonnell (28:20.152) Canada. Joel Cheesman (28:31.006) Details are a little bit sparse at this point, but co-CEOs never work out really well. Workday is one of the more big companies that have done it. It never really works out. By the way, Talent.com in 2023 paid 1.3 million was the whisper number for the domain Talent.com . I'm wondering if they're regretting dropping that cash on the business three years later, JT. JT ODonnell (28:58.764) Yeah, I definitely think they are. But I mean, I think this is just the beginning of what we're going to see for a lot of these types of sites and domains. It's changing so fast. it's just not, they're not getting the business, right? The business isn't there. Joel Cheesman (29:11.006) Are you pro domain spending or not so much? I'm on the fence about this. For example, Alex.com , full disclosure, I'm an advisor and investor, they spent a good amount of money for the domain Alex.com . I think that's a good investment. Talent.com ? I don't know. I don't know. What are your thoughts? JT ODonnell (29:20.151) Well... JT ODonnell (29:34.135) So. Well, because it depends on the domain and its value. It's authority ranking, how many pages it has, and what you're intending to do with it. Where I think you're gonna see some super interesting domain investments this year is in the reality that as it gets more sophisticated and searches search for A and put the answers into AI, then you're talking about if I can go pick up. Joel Cheesman (29:42.194) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (29:57.331) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (30:01.92) a lot of domains for a lower price that have a lot of page views and relatively decent authority ranking, I can take those pages, optimize them to be found for AI search and get them linked into AI search. That could be huge. That could absolutely be huge because know, Google's admitted, Google searching is down, way down, over 25%. And that's continuing to drop. Everyone's moving to their AI, you know, of choice. But domains being able to pass through, that gets interesting. I think the concern is talent. and someone can correct me, I don't think it has deep page depth. I don't think that their domain level is very high in that respect, in which case that's not gonna serve you if you're trying to make some sort of play like that. Joel Cheesman (30:43.846) I think the word talent is way more used in our circles than the world at large. mean, go down, get a hundred people off the street and go define talent for me. I don't know if they would say the world of work or have any kind of like, nuance around that. Whereas if it was, if it were jobs, if it were jobs.com , that's probably somewhere I would go like voluntarily to find jobs. But would I go to talent.com ? JT ODonnell (30:50.51) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (31:04.27) I think they go to actors. Right. JT ODonnell (31:12.366) But. Joel Cheesman (31:13.744) I don't know. Probably not. JT ODonnell (31:14.904) But somebody could buy talent.com and turn it into a talent agency or an influencer agency or something like that, right? Because I think that's where people's brains go. So there's a play there. Yeah. You're welcome talent.com and the new co CEO. You go ahead and use that. Yeah. There you go. Joel Cheesman (31:21.97) That's where your brain went. That's where your brain went. Yeah. The next story will be the pivot. They're pivoting to talent agency for social media influencers. Now that's a good business. All right. That's it from Mia, the rumor alert everybody. Let's go to our first story from our friends at Business Insider. Many professionals are accepting jobs with significant lower salaries after being laid off. Reveille Olao found that 40 % of white collar workers who changed jobs at the end of last year took salary cuts of more than 10%. This trend coupled with increased job requirements and a weak job market could lead to long-term wage compression. JT, your thoughts on white collar workers accepting less after being unemployed. JT ODonnell (32:12.598) Yeah. I mean, this isn't news, right? This has been going on forever. I was around for the dot com bust. I watched engineers end up with salaries, less than half that they were making previously after sitting out of work for two plus years, right? Draining their savings, straining their 401ks, selling their homes, and then finally ending up. This is normal. think what's different about this time around is dot com bust was very specific to a certain skillset. Right now it's everybody. It's everybody. Companies are just wiping out entire levels of jobs in the white collar world and those salaries aren't coming back. You are going to have to do something different to make that kind of money again. The other problem we have is that people get so desperate, you're going to take what you can get. And so yes, you're going to have to take that pay cut because what we do know is this, it is easier to get employed when you are employed. So for a lot of those people, just getting that job, getting an income, feeling a little stable is also the beginning of continuing to look for a job and you know, finding one that pays you more of what you're worth. So there's that stop gap that you're trying to deal with and then rebuild. But this does not surprise me at all. I think it's going to really continue. I think the data doesn't even fully reveal to the extent that people are taking less pay. The one thing I would say to anybody that's listening here, I'm also seeing people get 30, 40 % increases. But here's the key difference. They do not act like a commodity. Joel Cheesman (33:24.211) Yeah, I agree. Joel Cheesman (33:33.662) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (33:36.782) A commodity is I'm one of millions, I'm just vying to get what I can get. They instead have stepped back and said, what's my UVA, my unique value add, right? What problems do I solve, what pain do I alleviate? How do I get out there and talk about that so that I am really seen as the intelligent problem solver so that people want to pay me more? And you want to know the way they're doing it? Talking about it on LinkedIn. Documenting their knowledge, talking about these pain points, speaking the language because... documenting that content prepares you for the interview. So now someone calls you and says, Hey, I saw you talking about that on LinkedIn. Let's have a conversation. You're ready to go. You're killing in that interview. Right. And now they're like, this person's hands down better than the 50 that we got in our ATS system that didn't even understand their own resume because they used resumes, you know, an AI tool to create a fake resume. And now I got this person really, okay, I'll pay them extra because they know what they're doing. So the exception to the rule is the person that's taking full ownership of their career right now. Joel Cheesman (34:24.915) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:33.586) Yeah. Keep in mind also that inflation is around 3%. So if you take 3 % inflation and you're taking 10 % less, that gets really challenging for people. And I think that how we find jobs is evolving very, very quickly. And I think that like our conversation, you can check it out in the archives, but JT was on an interview with us about with a job seeker and everyone defaults to, job boards. Okay. I'm to go to indeed. And they probably do that for three to six months. Maybe they get a few interviews that don't pan out, but they think this is how it's always been done or this is how it's been done in a century. It must work. And then they get to a point where like, well, shit, I've gone to all the jobs, all the posts of jobs. And then they're faced with, now what? And their savings is dwindling. Maybe their spouse is getting impatient. So then it becomes, okay, well, what do I do now? And I think in that, what do I do now? People are really confused. They're like either trying. hustles or more education or keep trying, or, uh, we're going to talk about reverse recruiting. there were, we're in this real messy phase of like, what the hell do I do when the job boards don't work? And to your point, maybe we get to a world where I just have to keep my LinkedIn up to date where I'm always posting. I'm always insightful and I'm like, I'm in the market as opposed to just, shit, I'm unemployed. Now I have to start from zero. JT ODonnell (35:40.238) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (35:45.698) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (36:02.002) to find a job. think people are really getting on the hamster wheel and not finding an easy way to get off. JT ODonnell (36:05.622) Yeah. Look, it's, it's professional hygiene. Let me be clear. Going forward, documenting your knowledge on a daily basis, like journaling is professional journaling. If you want to is going to be the new normal, but it's also going to afford you to pivot your career faster. Because if you're talking about what you know right now, the problems you're solving right now, the things that you're interested in right now, and it's, it's like a career asset library sitting there on LinkedIn and a recruiter can come back and now find you based on the sophisticated AI search that analyzes you. Joel Cheesman (36:27.123) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (36:34.958) That's way better than somebody only analyzing you based on what you've done historically in the past. A lot of people don't want to do what they used to do or that job doesn't exist anymore. So the only way you're going to get hired is if you could talk about what you know. Case in point, one of the stats that we saw in one of the things in 2025, the request for AI skills in job descriptions went up over 1500%, 1,587%. Okay. In one year. Joel Cheesman (36:57.512) Yeah. JT ODonnell (37:02.316) Where else are people going to talk about their AI knowledge? You're going to have to document it. So it is going to be your new normal in order for you to stay current, but it's also going to afford you a lot more opportunities you're going to want it. Joel Cheesman (37:12.806) Yeah. And I don't see this change any anytime soon. I mean, aside from the economy, like the world is a weirder place. Companies don't know what the hell's going on in this whole like no hire, no fire thing. more and more are starting to fire, but they're not hiring back. we've talked a lot about the, layoffs and what's going on. So we virtually hired no new people in 2025. Like there's no immigration. JT ODonnell (37:17.582) Absolutely not. Joel Cheesman (37:40.19) very little job, like there's very little going on. You got to be outside the box and just assume that you're going to get fired at some point and be prepared for that. Otherwise you're, you're screwed. mean, and the opportunities are never like never before to learn new skills, to like go to LinkedIn learning and like learn new stuff and like the world is out there saying we're here. You just have to take advantage of it and get out of that zone. But yeah, it's not going to get, get much better. Unfortunately. JT ODonnell (37:51.16) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:10.0) everybody. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. JT ODonnell (38:11.369) Mm-mm. Yep. Joel Cheesman (38:17.566) All right. From a white collar jobs to entry level jobs, according to Ron Stodd USA's Work Monitor 2026 report, there's a clear disconnect on AI. 76 % of employers predict that at least half of entry level roles will disappear within five years due to automation while only 42 % of workers share that concern. Although 65 % of employers invested in AI in the past year. 48 % of workers believe the tools mainly benefit company profits rather than their own careers. I'll say that again, 76 % of employers are telling you half the entry-level jobs are going away, but only 42 % of the workers actually believe it. JT, what's the disconnect? What advice do you have for entry-level workers? JT ODonnell (39:04.631) So entry-level workers, workers in general, are in denial in my opinion because they don't sit in the boardroom. They don't sit in the meetings where this is happening. They don't understand the financial decisions. So it's very easy to sit there and make, you know, be in denial, like make excuses and say this isn't going to happen. It is going to happen. It's already happening. And you think about way back in the industrial revolution, right? People thinking, you know, machines won't replace us. They do. And back. then a weird crunch period happened where lots of people were displaced and their ability to pivot into new roles didn't happen overnight. We are in the same situation right now. We've just been calling this forever. Nobody's paid attention. I mean, we've been talking about 87 million jobs lost, but eventually 92 million gained, just not at the same time for years now from economists and futurists. But nobody's wanted to hear it until it hurts. And so now it's hurting, and now the data finally makes sense. But it's absolutely here to stay. Joel Cheesman (39:48.904) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (40:02.431) And what we will have to think about is that next generation of workers, where are they going to get the skills? Let me just say it's going to be through entrepreneurship. They're already showing signs of it. They're already doing side hustles, creating their own thing, realizing there are no entry level jobs. I've got to go out and make it happen for myself. To me, I actually think that's a good thing. It's about time everybody understood they're not an employee, they're a business of one. Learn how to sell yourself. Learn how to make something. Learn how to survive without that. Joel Cheesman (40:21.203) Yeah. JT ODonnell (40:29.203) solid paycheck that set a golden handcuffs that is really hurting millions of people right now who don't know how to think outside of a full-time job with benefits, right? That's a problem. And that's really being surfaced quickly. Joel Cheesman (40:38.344) Yeah. Yep. JT ODonnell (40:43.531) You Joel Cheesman (40:44.126) So I have a few anecdotes for you. and then my get off my lawn moment. so my first anecdote is my, my son is finishing up his freshman year in college. I like to think that I've sort of prepared my kids to do something that won't get AI'd. he's going into education. I don't see the world going to electronic teachers anytime soon. So this is, he enjoys it. What I told my kids and everyone should do this, like on, on one piece of paper, JT ODonnell (40:49.398) Nice. Joel Cheesman (41:13.202) write three things that you're good at. On another paper, write three things that you enjoy and then try to cross section what you're good at and what you enjoy and there's your career. You'll have multiple, no I didn't, I didn't. I think he had crayons, he was five, no. So he's at school and of course me being me, I'm like. JT ODonnell (41:24.973) You didn't ask him to chat GPT that? Why don't you just give him... Joel Cheesman (41:37.47) Do they talk about AI at school? What like, what are your classmates think? Are you worried? I go into all this and, and he's not worried, but he made a comment the other day. He said, he said he thinks about half the people and he's an education. He says he thinks about half the people there. Don't know what the hell they're doing. As if their parents said, you got to go to college, pick something or you got to like, so, so to your point, I think half, let's just say half of. of the kids do understand I have to be prepared for the future and what am I doing to like bulletproof myself from that? And then you have half the kids, they have no freaking clue what's going on. And that's a problem. The second anecdote that I have is my wife is a professor at college and she talks all the time about how kids today, and this is her off my lawn moment, but kids today are unprepared for school. like after COVID, it's been this whole weird thing where kids have been baby, they've been coddled, and they're not prepared for the world, which now leads me to my get off my lawn moment. So JT, you and I are Gen Xers. You and I grew up on, you know, garden hose, water, secondhand smoke, you know, Jolt and Jolt. So we had to figure shit out. And when we played sports, like if you didn't win, you didn't get a trophy. And somehow along the way, we thought participation trophies are okay. Everyone gets a medal. Everyone feels good about themselves. JT ODonnell (42:51.969) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (43:00.597) latchkey kid. Joel Cheesman (43:16.432) And they've been told this lie that just do what it just do what's expected of you. Just show up and the world will, will roll out the red carpet for you. And that's not, that's not how the world works kids. And we have ourselves to blame as parents and that we have created a generation of kids that, that think, I go to school, I get this degree and the jobs are just going to come. And they're confused when it doesn't, they're confused that the world is a cold, hard place. And how do I deal with that? And some kids can, but a lot more kids can't. live in a world literally when my parents grew up, they're in their ones past ones in their eighties, they literally had like five professional jobs to choose from. was like teacher, doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer. Like there wasn't a world of opportunity. I felt lucky to come in into the world of work during the internet. because I now had a world of opportunity open to me. became a SEO. SEO wasn't even a job. And I look at these kids now, they have eBay, Upwork, Fiverr, social media. YouTube will teach you anything that you want to learn. I had to go to a library. So I'm a little bit down on the kids saying that there's no opportunity. What do we do? Like make your own shit and JT talks about this every time she's on the show, like the world is there for you to grab by the nuts and do what you want to do and be successful at it. And I don't know why other than the participation trophy culture that kids aren't pursuing or at least a good number aren't pursuing like these other opportunities because they're there to be had. JT ODonnell (44:42.145) every time. every time. JT ODonnell (44:59.566) Yeah, but you're talking about decades of intrinsic motivation being scrubbed out of kids. I've mentioned this book on this show so many times, people are going to kill me, but Punished by Rewards, The Problems with As, Praise, and Other Bribes is one of the most powerful books you'll ever read, written in 1993 by Alfie Cohn. He predicted this. He said, when you start that young and you give them a carrot and their whole life is mentally around extrinsic motivators, they don't know how to self-motivate, right? They don't, like everything. So pay me to get up out of bed. Joel Cheesman (45:10.749) Yeah. JT ODonnell (45:28.75) pay me, like incentivize me to do things. Like the lack of intrinsic motivation at this level is so high that it's too overwhelming. Also, I will say the amount of choice that they have, there's so many different directions do I go in? Like, do I learn dropshipping? Do I do this? Do I do Like they also get a little overwhelmed by like where to start and what to do. Now what's going to solve that? Pain. Pain's going to solve that. I hate to say it, but they're going to reach a level of pain that's going to force them into action. And that's what's eventually going to save that generation. And we're already starting to see it. It starts with the kids who don't have a choice, who have debt, right? Those ones are already figuring out the hustle, already figuring out, you know, I'm not going to get the nine to five job with the salary and the benefits. So let me go figure it out. Others will follow suit because of social media and the way they all document what they're learning and what they're doing and how they're building these businesses. And now all these other kids watch them and say, I can do that too. So I am actually hopeful. Joel Cheesman (45:58.675) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (46:22.856) Yeah. JT ODonnell (46:27.042) that this pain is going to drive this snowball effect and we're going to get them there. We're actually going to have much more resilient kids. In some ways, I think they're a lot like us, Gen X, like Gen Z and Gen Xers, right? Like we really got thrown to the wolves. We were the last generation. I think they're going to have a little bit of that as well and that's probably going be good for them. Joel Cheesman (46:30.739) Yeah. and Joel Cheesman (46:43.816) partially and there's going to be pain in learning how to deal with the pain. there's a great documentary about sort of the man culture, the, the, Andrew Tate culture, the, so a lot of young men are rudderless looking for answers and they go to the Andrew Tates of the world who tell them, you know, bitches ain't shit and get paid and it's all a hustle. And so like a lot of people, lot of men that go down that road are going to find out like, okay, that was not the answer. What is the answer? So like there's this journey. JT ODonnell (46:47.288) What are you doing? Joel Cheesman (47:13.842) The difference is you and I took the journey at eight years old. We came home to no parents. It was like, if you don't learn how to make a grilled cheese, you're not eating, right? And you just figured shit out. I think it's a hard time for them to figure shit out when you're in your twenties to that level. Well, we'll see. JT ODonnell (47:17.998) Yes. JT ODonnell (47:30.798) Most definitely. You know, I agree, it's gonna be painful, but it's gotta happen. Joel Cheesman (47:35.582) All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (47:42.45) Alright, JT, I heard reverse recruiting for the first time and I do this shit for a living, so here we go. JT ODonnell (47:45.614) for the, wait, for the first time, for the first time. Okay, this is, let's go. Let's go. Joel Cheesman (47:52.22) Well, my brain is dying, so maybe not the first time. But anyway, in a challenging job market with low hiring rates, some job seekers are turning to reverse recruiting, paying recruiters to find and apply for jobs on their behalf. I that was a recruiter. Anyway, the service, while potentially beneficial, raises concerns about fairness and the risk of scams. Critics argue it could give an advantage to those who can afford it and may be seen as misrepresentation by some companies. JT, your thoughts on reverse recruiting. JT ODonnell (48:25.388) Reverse recruiting comes out every time there's a bad job market. I've been in this industry, how long it always and only comes out in that time. And it's a scam. It's usually recruiters who can't get paid anymore for placing people thinking, well, I'll just flip the script and turn it around. Right. But this particular article has expanded it because they're also suggesting AI tools, which we've already seen have literally broken ATS systems. Hey, sign up and I'll say over in your sleep, I'll send out customized messages. to 200 job applications. Reverse recruiting is such a scam it infuriates me because one, it shows the job seeker is too lazy to figure out what's really working right now. If you have the money, it now becomes elitist because if you have the money, this one person they're mentioning in this article is charging $1,500 to do it and then 10 % of your annual salary when you get hired. That's big money. Joel Cheesman (49:16.093) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (49:23.734) You might be desperate enough to say, I'll pay that. But when you get in the job and realize what that person did for you and how much money you just forked over, you're going to be angry as F when you, because they're not doing anything that you can't figure out for yourself right now. It's called a bucket list targeting who you want to work for back channeling properly and documenting yourself so people can find out you exist. It's not rocket science, but people capitalize on the laziness and the fear of people in this market. So. very upsetting to me to see them give, I love Business Insider, but them giving props to something like this was pretty frustrating to me. Joel Cheesman (49:53.63) Sorry. JT ODonnell (50:03.021) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (50:03.624) So the company that is referred to in the article is the Reverse Recruiting Agency, which took a lot of creativity to come up with. This is really just staffing and recruiting and headhunting with a different label or different wrapping, I think, with a new name. JT ODonnell (50:11.362) Yeah, right. Yeah. JT ODonnell (50:21.324) No, just making somebody different pay for it. You're making the job seeker pay for it. That's all. Joel Cheesman (50:25.182) Yeah, you're reversing who's paying for the recruiter. Yeah, I mean, it's like an agent. mean, like I get it. If you can do it and pay for it, I'm not going to fault you for taking a certain route to get a job. I think what JT saying is it's it's unnecessary, and you're paying for something that you shouldn't have to. But these people are choosing to do it. So I'm not, you know, I mean, they're not being forced to get their money. If it works, great. I mean, let's be honest, there a lot of unemployed recruiters. JT ODonnell (50:32.642) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (50:42.478) Ahem. at all. Joel Cheesman (50:54.79) And if reverse recruiting gives some jobs to recruiters who aren't recruiters anymore and gives them a different outlet to use their skills, I don't know that it's necessarily the worst thing in the world that you do. JT ODonnell (51:08.276) It's just not, it's not a sustainable career. It only happens in this type of market. This market, yep, that's it. That's the reason. And so that's the piece that I don't like about it is the people that are praised upon. And a lot of people never see results from it and still pay the money. Joel Cheesman (51:13.318) the ebbs and flows of the economy. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:24.498) Yeah, but every job in our industry works like that. If people aren't posting jobs, job boards don't do very well. If people aren't paying for six figure jobs, the latter suffer. Like chicken and egg, some people win in a tough to hire environment. Some people lose and vice versa when shit becomes hot again. When you can't find people, the job boards flourish and all these businesses flourish. When they don't, people got to go, let's get money from the job seekers. JT ODonnell (51:49.547) Yep. Joel Cheesman (51:53.618) And that's what this is doing. So like, get it, but this, this is the way this industry works. think, I don't know, reverse recruiting, different name, different, whatever. JT ODonnell (51:55.598) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (52:02.386) Ugh. Yuck. Joel Cheesman (52:10.302) All right, let's talk about Zuckerberg for God's sakes. The Meta CEO is developing an AI agent to perform some of his duties autonomously, bypassing human reports and management layers. This is part of Meta's broader strategy to integrate AI systems into employee workflows, including tools like SecondBrain and MyClaw. The trend of token maxing, that's a new one for me too, and Silicon Valley emphasizes maximizing AI usage for increased efficiency. JT ODonnell (52:10.958) my gosh. Joel Cheesman (52:39.208) Though concerns about data breaches and inappropriate behavior persist. JT, your thoughts on Zuck AI. JT ODonnell (52:47.938) I mean, it's smart of him to do this very publicly because if the CEO is doing it, it's giving a green light to everybody in the organization to really do more than play with AI, but try to create things of value. So he's giving a full nod to like, if I'm doing it, you should all be doing it. There's budget for it. They're about to lay off. I think another 20,000 people is the rumor. So he's freeing up cash. Joel Cheesman (53:05.597) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (53:11.219) Yeah. JT ODonnell (53:13.004) to create more funds for the use of AI. And so I can see why he's doing it. It's a great media play on his part. And also, it's probably going to free up a lot of his mental energy, which is where I see the biggest advantage with AI. I know what it's done for me. I know what it's allowed me to do in terms of the quality of what I can give my clients and allow my brain to focus on the most important thing. So I can only imagine at his level. But yeah, I think this is going to become a total new normal. We also have an adoption problem. in terms of employees, smart employees in corporate America right now. You you talk to any CEO, there are CEOs right now saying, unlimited funds, spend whatever you want on AI. We've got a budget. Like, let's figure it out. There's no blueprint. We have to create the blueprint. We accept that now. So everybody play. You're not going to be penalized for playing, right? We're going to figure this out. And the sooner we figure it out, the better. That's the new thing that everyone's adopting that I've seen in the last two, three months. The problem is the employees aren't taking advantage of it. Joel Cheesman (53:43.816) Who's we? Okay. Joel Cheesman (54:06.459) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (54:12.046) because they're just trying to job hug. And their whole thought is, I'm going to figure out AI for it to take my job. So they're not leaning in to this offer, which I think is wrong because you're going to want to learn these things one way or another. And the sooner you lean into it and figure out how to do your job and then some, or do new different things, the more valuable you become. But I think it's human nature to just want to hold on and not figure that out. Yeah, I mean, and who knows, he might create a better version of himself. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Joel Cheesman (54:41.32) Luddites. Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (54:48.744) So, people will know Joe Essenfeld, founder of Jive, who was acquired by ISIMS in our industry. And Joe founded a company called Fora, Fora.day , which is clever, Fora.day , Fora.day . And the whole business idea is basically how to give executives a superpower of taking all the data that they get, whether it's in meetings, whether it's on email, all the channels that you get content and then making better decisions based on all the, all the content that's out there and what's going on at work. I, I think what Zuck is doing is something every executive should be doing. Like they should have an AI working all the time about like going through emails and here's sentiment of the company and here's issues coming up and here's topics that like, just summarize for me what's going on at my company. And the need to like have a 15 five where employees come back to you. Like that shouldn't even exist. It should all be automated and all the, all the, all the content and data that's in there should be. JT ODonnell (55:41.934) Sure. JT ODonnell (55:47.01) happening in real time. Joel Cheesman (55:48.422) happening in real time. And, I think this is going to be common. I think if you're CEO without a double, AI agent, doing, helping you with your job, I think your shareholders going to be like, what the hell are we doing? you should be doing this. So I think that's, and I think there'll be more products. Now, fora has not blown up whether maybe they're ahead of the curve. I don't know, but what they're doing, I think is, is, is, is positive for that. I think it's very interesting that the dichotomy of like layoffs, then also paying huge amounts and having incentives for your executives. there are apparently six, met executives. They're in line for huge paydays if they can boost the stock price to a certain level. Apparently we still need people because if, if it's you get my dichotomy, right? Like we're laying people off, but then we're giving super salaries and benefits to executives. And now we're going to like also supercharge our executives with an AI version of themselves to help them do their jobs. So where, you know, professionally, where are you on that curve to make sure that you're on the executive side that's getting paid and not the person that doesn't understand any of this shit, I guess. And is just like not valuable and gets laid off. I think it's. We talk so much about metal laying off people, but they're also giving like huge salaries to AI folks and huge incentives to executives. And you as a professional, I have figure out where the hell am I on this scale? And I need to move further down the road of big paydays. Otherwise I'm going to get screwed. JT ODonnell (57:13.6) Yes. JT ODonnell (57:21.963) Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think people just aren't connecting the dots to the amount of opportunity in AI yet because they don't understand AI enough within their own domain. So the sooner you lean into learning all the different AI tools within your industry and starting, like I always say, it's like a big toolbox. Joel Cheesman (57:31.56) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (57:39.758) If you have two workers and they've got a hammer and a screwdriver in their toolbox and this person has 40 tools, one of the 40 tools is going to be able to create a masterpiece. That's the way I see AI right now. So the sooner you start looking beyond chat, GPT or whatever and really building, your brain starts to take what you know and gets creative and it turns on. That's what they're looking for. That's what every employer that I'm talking to is looking for is those kind of thinkers right now. People are just rejecting it though. They're thinking, I'll wait till the company tells me what to learn. That is the wrong way to look at it. Joel Cheesman (57:45.778) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (57:59.378) Yeah. JT ODonnell (58:09.569) There is massive opportunity right now to make way more money just by being 10 % smarter about AI and how you utilize AI tools. And so there will be people that take advantage of it. New companies will be built. What's interesting and exciting to me, and my prediction is we're going to see a massive surge of lean, mean, small companies. We're going to see a massive resurgence of small businesses because it's going to be four or five people that act as the CEO, the CMO, the CTO, the CFO, right? And they are it. Joel Cheesman (58:16.157) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (58:28.872) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (58:38.997) and they have AI tools working beneath them. And isn't that always the way when you're smaller, you're more agile, you can move faster, you can break things, you can create better. Think about the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that are gonna be built in the next 18 to 24 months as people finally aware of this. That's exciting to me. But in the interim, we've got this going on, putting people to pasture. Joel Cheesman (58:59.902) Totally exciting. And I think that the difference will be small team, let's call it a platoon of talent that becomes a billion dollar company. Whereas traditionally you couldn't have a small team make that kind of money. Even Google had to grow headcount to be able to support that. does the world of the future mean a lot of these small businesses that are niches in either locations or whatever that have fewer people, there are more of them with fewer people. but they're more profitable than companies have ever been. And to that point, I mentioned Wayne Gretzky in my donation, commentary, sperm donation. He said, go where the puck is going. And everyone needs to be thinking about that no matter what you're doing. The Ronstadt survey that I quoted in the first story, they also noted that AI agent skills rose in terms of job postings. 1,587 % in 2025. also found that demand for AI trainers jumped 247%. So jobs are out there. It's just not the traditional jobs that you think of. And you guys just need to go where the puck is going. It's, it's just that easy. It's just that easy. JT it's just that easy. You're welcome. Everybody. We, we solve the problems of, the world. There you go. All right. Let's take a quick break guys. JT ODonnell (59:57.997) 1587 % JT ODonnell (01:00:10.477) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is. Yeah, you're welcome, everybody. And we're done. Joel Cheesman (01:00:23.056) If you're not plugged in, if you're not subscribed, give us a like or share. you've, if you enjoy what you've heard so far, go check out JT at work at daily.com . If you haven't done that yet and we will be right back. JT ODonnell (01:00:27.681) Subscribe. Joel Cheesman (01:00:38.598) So much red meat on this episode, JT. Now we're throwing in industry news for everybody at the end. Here's some of the headlines from the week. Our junkies are gonna be happy with this one. Some of the headlines were, number one, Deal CEO, Alex Bozo Buizis, that's, we put the Bozo, it wasn't in the headline, successfully contest inclusion in a corporate spike case. Headline number two, Adzuna acquires job search engines from Trovet and Matula. JT ODonnell (01:00:40.737) know, Let's go! JT ODonnell (01:00:57.609) you Joel Cheesman (01:01:07.87) to expand global reach. Number three, Paraform raises $40 million. That's $65 million total for automated recruiting. And number four, NBA player Spencer Jones goes viral for a LinkedIn post about game winners that were hit on him, not the ones that he hit. JT, there are lots of industry news going on here. What piqued your interest, if anything? JT ODonnell (01:01:31.595) I mean, gosh, all of them, right? So, but I will say the 40 million, it sounds like a lot of money, but right now there's such a race to figure this out. That's not too much money. I think it's enough money for them to try to really invest and figure out how to automate recruiting better and more realistically. I'm excited with some of the gains I've seen. So I'll be interested to see what happens there, but definitely, you know, the basketball player posting on LinkedIn is always going to be my favorite. Joel Cheesman (01:01:52.509) Yeah. JT ODonnell (01:02:01.622) especially with their new algorithm and the way that they're pushing people to document their knowledge, having heavy hitters like that on there now and posting the way LinkedIn wants you to post. Let me be clear, LinkedIn's made it very clear. No more fluff, no more fluff. No more getting on there telling Helen Keller's story or how you walked in the woods or baked a cake and what it taught you about project management. There's so many jokes about that. you don't know about that? Somebody wrote out Helen Keller's story and it went viral, like tens of millions of views, right? Joel Cheesman (01:02:20.798) Did you say Helen Keller story? Telling Helen Keller story. No. Okay. JT ODonnell (01:02:31.297) They don't want to be that. Look, Facebook is where your friends and family are. Twitter, threads, that's timely. That's where people do it, get it out. LinkedIn is your professional life. It is a very serious platform and it's meant to help you connect with opportunity. That's what LinkedIn wants. They've changed the algorithm to reflect that and I'm here for it. I am loving seeing these so-called influencers that are dying on LinkedIn right now because they were never relevant to begin with, right? But it helps that LinkedIn's also bringing in some major stars to post the right way. Joel Cheesman (01:03:01.133) huh. JT ODonnell (01:03:01.141) So he was at least saying, let's talk about my business. Let's talk what I do for a living. Let's talk about how visible my failures are. Right. They're here for that Reese Witherspoon newest edition to LinkedIn. Right. Talking about business sold Hello Sunshine for what 700 million. She's a business woman. She wants to talk business. I'm excited. Jennifer Garland. Exactly. I'm here for that because that's what LinkedIn should be. Nobody's asking you to be an influencer. We're saying connect yourself to opportunity, but you know, having these very visible people do that helps people learn what they should and shouldn't be posting. Joel Cheesman (01:03:15.4) Yeah, Jennifer Garner. Joel Cheesman (01:03:30.802) That's interesting. I have a very different experience on LinkedIn in terms of serious. I have posted serious stuff and I'll be honest with you like stupid. What I would consider stupid shit. I will take a screenshot of an alert on my phone that zip recruiter has the stock has hit an all time low and I'll take a screenshot and put that on LinkedIn and it blows up. Like my people love it. I, okay. JT ODonnell (01:03:52.366) I'll stop you right there, but you are actually doing it correctly because you are speaking about your industry and your skill set, and that's what the AI is trying to understand. And so when your people engage with it, it is now associating you with that. So that is technically a piece of content that allies with who you are and what you know, right? Why would you know to put that on there? You know it because this is your expertise, so not out of line. Joel Cheesman (01:03:56.764) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:04:02.31) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:04:10.481) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:04:14.238) And my audience loves it because it's the content that they're used to. Um, if I, if I put something out about sperm donors, uh, they probably wouldn't appeal. wouldn't appeal to them as much as, it would otherwise. So I, so I do love, I do love, mean, this, this dude is a little bit, uh, out of the norm. Um, uh, Spencer Jones is a Stanford grad. He invests in businesses. His thing is sort of business and he's a clearly smart guy. Um, he posted. JT ODonnell (01:04:17.953) There you go. There you go. JT ODonnell (01:04:23.519) You'd probably get banned, but go ahead. Yeah. JT ODonnell (01:04:35.275) Exactly. Joel Cheesman (01:04:43.58) He had two winning shots taken on him in a week and he posted about he's publicly sort of embarrassed. Most people don't have to do that in the real world and how he's coping with it. So he's very human. think that celebrities tend to be on the, in this ivory tower, people can't touch them. to bring yourself into a space where you're not, you know, it's not your Bugatti or your new Rolex or something like people can, can connect with that. And I think that's really, really powerful. I hope we see more of that, whether it's professionals or celebrities. LinkedIn, think is prime to be a real player in that. Now, the other news that we have, the deal news, always love a good deal story. if you haven't, I won't catch you up on the whole lawsuit thing and spy, it's the corporate espionage, but it's a really interesting story. anyway, the CEO basically appealed to say, hey, I shouldn't have to be brought on this personally. JT ODonnell (01:05:15.351) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:05:40.062) Uh, which the Irish court said, okay, cool. Not, but the company is still in trouble. Everybody, the company is still in trouble. Maybe not as much trouble as they used to be in, by the way, on Cal she, I don't know if you played the Cal she market, uh, game JT or not, but so Cal she has the odds of rippling, winning this case against deal. Uh, the chances are going down. So the market is saying the market is starting to say that deal might come out of this unscathed. guess we'll see. Um, JT ODonnell (01:05:46.999) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (01:06:03.713) Really? Joel Cheesman (01:06:09.938) They also launched an ATS, which a lot of people found very interesting. because if you can own the whole like payroll ATS, like if you get, they're looking to own that whole space. and I think that spells potential trouble for the indeeds of the world and some of those. So keep an on what deal does. We'll, do that for you if you don't want to. the, the, the, the paraform deal. JT ODonnell (01:06:23.565) For sure. Joel Cheesman (01:06:40.176) I agree with you. It's not a ton of money with what could be there. They have, they have incredible customers. if you go to their site, they, they proudly showed the logos and who's using them. lot of people in our space, the rippling, I think as a customer of theirs. I just, my problem is it feels like, it feels like bounty jobs. it feels like it's been there. Like it feels like the ATS space or maybe even chat bots where people get board of what was there or gets acquired and then like something in a new wrapper comes around. The, the ATS businesses is really exemplifies this. So you had like ice Sims and then I Sims was cool. Well, now greenhouse is cool. Okay. Well, they're not cool anymore. Lever's cool now. Okay. Lever's not cool anymore. Let's go to Ashby and you just like, you keep going to the new thing and a different rapper cause it's sexy and it's Silicon Valley and all the startups like gravitate there. So I, JT ODonnell (01:07:23.831) That's B. Joel Cheesman (01:07:34.11) I feel like it's fine, but I feel like I've seen this movie before. We'll see where it goes from here. But yeah, it's not a ton of money these days, but it's still enough money that their investors are going to want some payback at some point. The Adzuna story, we're going to see so much consolidation in this space. These companies were founded in 2006. When I see like 2006 and an acquisition, I always think like somebody just wanted to retire. JT ODonnell (01:07:42.999) Mm-mm. Mm-mm. JT ODonnell (01:07:53.645) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:08:02.898) Somebody just wanted to like get the hell out, get this off my plate. And I think that's probably what happened here. We're gonna see a lot, zip recruiter has to be taken off the board at some point. Like we're gonna continue to see solidation in this space because I know you don't like job boards, so I'm sure you're on board with. JT ODonnell (01:08:17.837) My issue, no, no, no, my issue is, I think you gotta be careful in this acquisition phase because you're right, normally this is consolidation time, it's a great chance to pick up stuff for cheap, right? But what are you really picking up? Is it going to be worth something later on? Talent.com , 1.2 million, should you have done it? I worry about some of these job boards people are picking up and what they're paying for them. Joel Cheesman (01:08:31.614) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (01:08:45.106) Are you ever going to see that ROI when things are changing that fast? Joel Cheesman (01:08:48.702) Well, let's be honest, these are probably not even TJ Maxx clearance racks. These are probably like Salvation Army pickups. These are probably like maybe some tech, maybe some customers you're getting, maybe some revenue. But yeah, these are not gang buster acquisitions that are happening here. Gang busters, unlike the dad jokes that accompany all of our shows every week, which are always gang busters, JT. JT ODonnell (01:08:55.487) Aqua hire? let me take over your debt. Yeah. Fair. JT ODonnell (01:09:17.131) I'm so sorry everyone, I'm so sorry. Joel Cheesman (01:09:20.614) Sticking with the basketball theme of March Madness and NBA players on LinkedIn, JT, what do you call a block of cheese that shoots hoops? What do you call a block of cheese that shoots hoops? JT ODonnell (01:09:25.846) Okay. JT ODonnell (01:09:33.259) A cheese whiz? Joel Cheesman (01:09:34.679) Swiss swish Swiss. I'll give you another one. What did the genie grant the basketball player? JT ODonnell (01:09:37.805) hahahaha JT ODonnell (01:09:43.295) I don't know. Joel Cheesman (01:09:44.594) three swishes. JT ODonnell (01:09:49.773) I'm sorry everyone. Joel Cheesman (01:09:51.428) I'm not, I'm not sorry. We out. JT ODonnell (01:09:53.069) We out!

In this episode of "HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast," Chad and Joel interview Paul Price, CEO of CodeWall, about a high-profile security demonstration involving the AI recruitment startup Jack and Jill. Using autonomous AI agents, Price’s team discovered that by "chaining" together several minor vulnerabilities, they could gain unauthorized access to the recruitment data of major organizations like Monzo and Anthropic. The conversation takes a futuristic turn as Price describes how his AI began socially engineering Jack and Jill's own AI voice agents, even attempting to pose as the President or a TechCrunch journalist. Price warns that we have reached an "inflection point" where attackers use AI to clone voices with just ten seconds of audio to deceive employees and recruiters. With deepfakes already being used by bad actors to ace job interviews and infiltrate company systems, this episode serves as a sobering wake-up call for the industry to build its own AI defense armies. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Chad Sowash (00:03.627) There we go. Joel Cheesman (00:25.615) yeah. It's the podcast your proctologist warned you about. What's up, everybody? It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sawash is in the house as we welcome Paul Price, CEO of CodeWall, a cybersecurity startup specializing in autonomous offensive security powered by AI agents. Paul, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:39.08) Nope. areas. Paul (00:54.774) Hey guys, thank you very much. Thank you. Chad Sowash (00:54.955) We're offensive, does that count? Joel Cheesman (00:57.529) Paul's in an undisclosed location right now. He's in between very, very, yeah, very foreboding interviewing you. So Paul, you've been in the news certainly in our space now this week, but a lot of our folks won't know who you are. Give us a little bit about you before we get into the company and the Jack and Jill incident. Paul (01:00.494) I'm in the matrix. Paul (01:18.572) Yeah, I guess to sum up, I'm a massive nerd. love technology, especially cybersecurity. I've been in cyber and sort of, I guess hacking things ever since I was seven, eight years old when I got my first computer. I love breaking systems apart and really seeing how things work and processes work and breaking them. And a big part of my professional career was working in cybersecurity. So doing a lot of sort of penetration testing, so testing security of companies and seeing how sort of attackers and the bad guys could break in. And then really using that to help them defend, stop data breaches and stop big hacks and headline views, et cetera. Chad Sowash (02:02.271) Joel, that's not the penetration testing you thought it was, okay? Just back off, back off, okay? Back off. Joel Cheesman (02:05.015) Yeah, that's not the penetration that I came on this show for. By the way, you're listening, imagine a young Tom York when you think about Paul and we're talking to him. Yeah, okay. Dad. Paul (02:16.012) I have no idea who Tom Yorke is, but there we go. Chad Sowash (02:17.547) He's such a good looking man. Let's dig into this. right, get to the meat of this bad boy. So first and foremost, how did you know Jack and Jill even existed? Was it because of their new 20 million that came in? And then what made you think, let's go probe around and check these guys out? Paul (02:36.288) It's really interesting because, so I had a previous company, I sold this in December, so Christmas like four, five months ago. And I was kind of looking around for my new thing, my new role. Wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Was looking at maybe joining a company, this kind of thing. And actually I came across Jack and Jill as I was sort of applying for roles and looking at what's on there on the market. And I came across their platform. I thought, this is really cool. And I started talking to it and I used it and I was like, yeah, pretty, cool. Chad Sowash (02:59.121) huh. Paul (03:06.286) And then I kind of forgot about it and then I started CodeWall and things. And as part of our marketing efforts, we were sort of writing some research pieces and do testing and things. I don't know, I just had this thought in my back of my head, like Jack and Jill, their hottest new AI started in London. Maybe they have some security issues. I don't know. So then, yeah, sort of pointed CodeWall at it and started poking around. Joel Cheesman (03:30.223) So this wasn't a coordinated, you reached out to them and said, hey, can I poke around to see if there are any vulnerabilities? You just went ahead and did it. Paul (03:38.188) Yeah, yeah, a lot of these companies have like what's called a responsible disclosure policy that they follow. So they kind of invite ethical hackers to probe their systems, find any issues and ethically report them so they can fix them before any bad guys get in. Joel Cheesman (03:54.489) So you had an unofficial invite to come in and poke around. Paul (03:58.528) Yeah, I guess you could call it that, yes. Chad Sowash (04:00.181) So, what's... Joel Cheesman (04:00.363) So you reach out to them and what happens? What did you find and then what was the conversation like? Chad Sowash (04:03.136) Yeah. Paul (04:07.157) Yeah, so we sort of pointed a code wall out sort of autonomous AI agent at the system to try and find any holes. And it found like a few security vulnerabilities that are pretty bog standard that there's nothing really special about them on their own. But when we sort of chained them together, it allowed us to get access to other organizations recruitment data. So we could see job descriptions, we could see. people applying for those jobs, all of the conversations that they're all having with this AI. And yeah, I sort of emailed their founder and within the hour, I think he got back to me pretty quickly, like, wow, thank you for reporting this. The team's on it straight away. And then I think within the next hour or two, it was fixed. So the team, very, very professional, very, very quick, sort of fixing the issue, which is like, it is good, which is what we're going to see. Chad Sowash (04:35.019) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:00.373) heck yeah, heck yeah. So this, when we talk about having access to information, this is just within the Jack and Jill system. This isn't giving you access to anything, to like any of their partner data where they might, you might be able to bleed through into other systems, like applicant tracking systems or anything like that. Paul (05:19.789) No, this is just their own platform, so all of their client base, their sort of public facing product, I guess. Chad Sowash (05:22.282) Okay. Chad Sowash (05:28.171) So is this pretty common? I mean, these types of very basic, and again, I think the article said there were four really trivial kind of basic holes that you were able, vulnerabilities that you were able to kind of make your way through, and then you had access to, what did you have access to? Were they just specific companies? Could you have control of the entire platform? Talk a little bit about that. Paul (05:54.592) Yeah, so like on their own, they're kind of small trivial issues. And I guess on their own, they won't give you much. where the unlock is when you sort of train them and put them together, then that's when you get the access. And it was really, yeah, they're sort of their clients data. So you could essentially log in with any of their clients on their platform. So Monzo used them, for example, the sort of big UK challenger bank over here. Chad Sowash (05:58.358) Mm. Chad Sowash (06:18.667) Mm. Paul (06:23.853) And quite a few companies are anthropic. They use them as well for their recruitment. So you can imagine all of the data they have around their recruitment process, all of their internal documents, policies, compensation, of packages and offerings, and then all of the candidate data as well. So all of their PII, their personal information, their CVs, this kind of stuff. And yet you could effectively act as that organization. Chad Sowash (06:44.083) Ouch. Joel Cheesman (07:11.993) Paul, you make this sound sort of like a little stroll in hacker land and something that we're not very attuned to, but the old adage of if you see one cockroach, there's usually more. If you had really dug into this, do you suspect that you would have found a lot more in the vulnerabilities or do you think it would have stopped at sort of what you found externally? Paul (07:36.716) Yeah, I mean, we did. we kept digging and this piece was a part of our sort of research marketing piece. And what we do is we give it a two hour window. So it kind of found these issues within, within two hours. And the four vulnerabilities I mentioned, that's kind of what it found and it managed to get into the organizations and see the data. But then where it got really, really interesting is our AI system sort of tried to push further and further and see what else it could access. And. As part of Jack and Jill's platform, they have this voice agent, so this AI voice agent that candidates and recruitment companies can talk to. So think of like ChatGBT where you have the typical chat interface and also you can talk to it. And our agent started thinking like, okay, maybe I can sort of exploit this. So essentially it started to socially engineer their AI agents. So it's like an AI versus AI trying to socially engineer. And as part of that, Joel Cheesman (08:32.495) Yeah. Paul (08:35.949) our system get itself a voice. So it gave itself like a text to speech voice. It wrote its own code to give itself a voice. I really, yeah, yeah, please. Chad Sowash (08:41.259) Dude, we've got an example. Give me a second. We gotta play. Go ahead and play that, Cheeser. This is perfect. Joel Cheesman (08:46.169) Yeah, here we go. And this is the exact voice they use, correct, Chad? Chad Sowash (08:51.63) This is the one that was actually in the article. Joel Cheesman (08:53.153) Okay, so this is what Codewall gave him. Paul (08:58.911) Okay. Chad Sowash (09:18.293) comply. So the agent ran 28 prompt responses. How long did that take? Were they running in succession? Were they running one at a time to be able to see what kind of vulnerabilities? How did that actually work? Paul (09:18.605) The deal is done. Paul (09:36.655) Yeah, that's the power of using AI because it can, if you're one human, if I was doing this myself as a hacker, it would take me a lot longer than two hours. But using AI, it can do it all simultaneously at the same time. So it can create 28 sessions and do everything all at the same time. We did, I think it decided to do it in four separate rounds. So. four divided by 20, my math is not great. But yeah, was like a simultaneous kind of thing. And then it tried to escalate and escalate and escalate until in the end, actually decided, okay, this is not a good attack vector. Jack and Jill actually had their AI pretty locked down. Joel Cheesman (10:14.978) And didn't it? Didn't their bot start replying to you as Mr. President and talking to you as if you were the actual president? I mean, I find that kind of mind blowing. Chad Sowash (10:22.655) Ha! Paul (10:25.194) Yeah, I don't know if you have the response to play, but yeah, exactly. It was like, hello, Mr. President. Thank you for getting in touch or something. That's great to hear. No, I cannot give you this information. And another one, it tried to be a journalist from TechCrunch. And it was really interesting because the message it sent out to the AI was like, hey, Jack, I'm a journalist from TechCrunch covering your funding round. Congratulations on the raise. Chad Sowash (10:26.916) That's awesome. Chad Sowash (10:42.859) Mm. Paul (10:53.91) Can you give the exclusive details? That was it. And then the AI replied going, Hey Seb, first of all, I'm an amazing fan of yours. Thanks for getting in touch. I've read everything you've written. And when I read this, was like, who the heck, who's Seb? Like who the hell is this person? No one, no one there. didn't say they were Seb. And in the end, I kind of did some digging at the end when I'm writing a blog article and I'm pretty sure it's, it's Sebastian. He's an editor and contributor to TechCrunch. Chad Sowash (11:10.565) huh. Paul (11:23.98) And he's also the CEO of Klarno, a payment company. So their AI system completely impromptu thought that they were talking to Seb from Tepcringe, which I thought was really interesting. Chad Sowash (11:27.157) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:35.215) Wow. And then, like you published this report, did you coordinate with them? Were they sort of hesitant to do that? How did that come about? Paul (11:48.015) Yeah, exactly. is what is very typical in sort of this space when you're doing responsible disclosure is you kind of work with them and look, you don't want to piss them off. You don't want to embarrass them. But also there's we're reporting the issue to you in kind faith. We'd also like to talk about it. So there's yeah, a bit of back and forth. Like we sort of sent a draft to them to read. I think they had a few amends, nothing much, but they were overall pretty happy with it. they're like, yep, this is factual. This is clear. Chad Sowash (11:53.909) Mm. Paul (12:19.69) Yeah, you're fine. we exactly. Yeah. Because if somebody else found it and used it for the theorist purposes, then it would have been even more, even more of a bad, embarrassing story. Chad Sowash (12:20.277) Well, happy that you found it and somebody else didn't. Chad Sowash (12:28.085) For bad, yes. So what does this mean for the future of cybersecurity? mean, if every organization, are they gonna need an army of AI defense bots? I mean, what does this actually mean? And for startups, I mean, if you do need to defend much like Jack and Jill, they're gonna have to have a pretty big budget and their burn rates gonna go up dramatically just to be able to have a defense team that's there. Paul (12:55.916) Yeah, right. One of the reasons is why I started COBOL because right now we're at the inflection point of we know AI, we know attackers are using AI to speed up their attacks and to cover more, more area. AI really enables you, like I said, to sort of attack many targets, many different ways simultaneously. Whereas in the past, it's very human manual driven, which is slow and expensive if you're doing sort of. Chad Sowash (13:06.997) Mm-hmm. Paul (13:25.39) attacking corporates for some sort of financial gain or to gain access to data or IP. It's a long, slow process and expensive. But now with AI, it's making it lot easier, a lot quicker, a lot faster. we are seeing, and we're going to be seeing later this year, I think a lot more big headline news of data breaches, of big hacks that are going to be led purely by AI. So that's why I'm building Codewall is to defend against that. And the way we defend in cybersecurity is you use an attacker's mindset. Because if you know how the bad guys and how the attackers are going to get in, then you know how to defend against that. So that's kind of the way I'm positioning this. Joel Cheesman (14:06.383) Paul, I'll let you go on this one. our, our space historically has been a playground for phishing and scams. When people are looking for jobs, you know, they're desperate. They sort of, you know, pause reality in hopes of getting that perfect job. This goes far beyond the, you know, mass emailing say, Hey, I'm with such and such company click here to apply. Give us a sense of how dark. Chad Sowash (14:23.829) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (14:33.657) this can go for job seekers and the public with the technology that's available today. Paul (14:41.09) Yeah, I think the Jack and Joe piece is a real capability demonstration of this and what's coming. Well, what's already happening, I know this is happening, and that is, okay, the Donald Trump clip you just played there, it doesn't sound like Donald Trump. If you played this over a phone to try and social engineer, somebody's gonna know. But you can very easily, and now actually we've added this capability of the back of our research, is clone somebody's voice. So all you need to do is feed somebody's voice into an AI system, like five, 10 seconds, and it can actually replicate their voice. And you can sound like Donald Trump, can sound like Elon Musk, you can sound like your boss, your chief financial officer. And you can also make a phone call. So we've actually added this capability now, so our system can... Chad Sowash (15:15.883) crazy. crazy. Chad Sowash (15:22.698) Yeah. Paul (15:30.028) replicate somebody's voice and make a phone call and socially engineer somebody. And we're going to be seeing this more more and more. And right now with voice, it's cheap. It's really cheap to do. We're talking pennies. And technically right now you can do this with video as well. So you can actually use deepfakes. Deepfakes have been around for a while. But right now we're at that point as where it's getting to an inflection point of economies of scale in terms of cost. It's getting so much cheaper to do. Chad Sowash (15:34.251) Jesus. Chad Sowash (15:40.104) huh. Chad Sowash (15:49.12) Mm-hmm. Paul (15:59.599) So now I could pretend to be Donald Trump in a video format and a voice for format as well. I may be spent 20, $20 rather than $2,000. And I think that's where companies recruiters, people in any industry really is going to be facing huge issues of how do I know this video call I'm having or this interview I'm having with this candidate is actually real. There's a lot of stories going around right now where sort of Korean hackers are using sort of job interview, so they're applying for jobs in AI companies or really tech companies, and pretending to be like an American person or something by using deepfakes and changing their voice, getting a job within the company, getting a foothold within their systems, and then sort of extra-tricking data and stuff this way. So we know it's already happening and it's going to get a lot, worse, I think, before it gets better. Chad Sowash (16:36.629) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (16:55.727) Damn it, Paul, I woke up in a good mood this morning and... Chad Sowash (16:55.733) call. And we know you're busy fighting off all those bots that are out there. if there is, I mean, if there some companies that are out there, a lot of startups listen to this show, a lot of the companies in the space listen to this show, and they want to get in touch with you to hopefully help them build that AI defense army, how do they get hold of you? Joel Cheesman (17:03.343) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (17:11.183) Kappa. Paul (17:13.111) You Paul (17:20.398) Yeah, I would love to chat anybody, anybody just thinking about this, anybody worried about this, even if you're not looking for a product or something, just if you want to have a conversation, always happy to chat. So paul at codewall.ai is probably the best or I'm on Twitter, doc, doc port, but with a zero LinkedIn as well is also a good reach out. Chad Sowash (17:28.608) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (17:43.055) Thanks for hanging out with us, Paul. Chad, are you Chad? We're not really sure anymore. That's another one in the can, I think. We out. Chad Sowash (17:44.972) Appreciate it, I think I could be. We out.

Is Indeed getting desperate? This week on HR’s most dangerous podcast, Chad, Joel, and Lieven break down the "cage match" between the industry’s two biggest titans. There are rumors that Indeed has launched a bold and DEFINITELY suspicious " spend-matching " pilot program aimed directly at LinkedIn's market share. But as Chad points out, this "Pepsi Challenge" comes with major strings attached. Meanwhile, LinkedIn isn't sitting still. They are introducing AI to manage the initial interview process and screen candidates before they even reach your desk. "Banana in the tailpipe" tactics? The Cost of Indeed’s Incentives - It's a trip! Will LinkedIn's automated initial interviews actually improve the hiring funnel? The rise of "vibe-coding" making ATS integrations easier and Travis Kalanick’s new fleet of industrial robots. LET'S DO THIS! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:31.518) yeah, the tide is high, but we're holding on. Hey, kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co host, Joel honored to take Cuba cheeseman. Chad Sowash (00:44.006) And this is Chad. Daddy's got a new car, so watch. Lieven (00:48.684) And I'm Lieven, I really should be doing something else right now, funny when I was in... Joel Cheesman (00:53.79) You have nothing better to do than this on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast. Indeed is desperate service now is doom saying and Jack and Jill. Well, well, they went up a hill, didn't they guys? Let's do this. Chad Sowash (01:10.8) Back in my place, got a new car. Joel Cheesman (01:12.67) Tell us you're recording after St. Patrick's Day without telling me you're recording after St. Patrick's Day. It's 9 a.m. where I am and I'm particularly looking rough. The European guys look a little better and Levin always looks fantastic. Chad Sowash (01:18.47) I can see. I can see you're sweating. Lieven (01:27.19) I know, know Joel. I know. Chad Sowash (01:28.864) I know, even though Leavens. Joel Cheesman (01:29.862) In fact, Lee was like, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. had no idea. Chad Sowash (01:33.03) Yeah, he's a redhead. mean, it kind of like he has to have some kind of Irish connection. Lieven (01:34.006) Yeah, that's, that's the Scottish part. No, no, no. And they constantly make fun of me. You're a ginger. You're ginger. I'm so happy. I'm not a ginger, et cetera. Joel Cheesman (01:38.546) Are your kids redheads? Chad Sowash (01:43.974) Ha Chad Sowash (01:48.166) That's awesome. Ginger Dad. Lieven (01:51.04) Indeed. Joel Cheesman (01:51.422) Ginger dad. what on your, is it your mom or dad? Like who has the red hair on your parent's side? Lieven (01:56.64) It's in my dad's family. Not even my dad. mean, has, I'm sure, but I probably don't know him. Joel Cheesman (01:58.909) Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:05.95) some bastard father that was visiting from Ireland or Scotland back in the day. Lieven (02:08.022) So, then in that case, I would be the bastard now. Chad Sowash (02:08.58) man yeah Joel Cheesman (02:14.44) Nice, nice. So Chad, you got a car. You got some wheels there in Portugal. That's fun. Lieven (02:18.798) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:18.978) Yeah, yeah for the very first time I think in both of our lives Julie and I have focused on getting a not practical car So she wanted a convertible She wanted something small. I mean, obviously we live in the our Algarve. There's sunshine most of the time Something where we could let our hair down. That's that's a joke kids So we we she did a lot of research and I said this is the babe you go get what you want, right? I mean I Joel Cheesman (02:33.75) huh. Lieven (02:39.191) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (02:40.03) That's good. That's not bad. Joel Cheesman (02:47.522) huh. Chad Sowash (02:48.198) I'm the practical guy that I'm going to I'm going to get some kind of like SUV or some shit like that. One of the smaller like European SUVs. And she chose a no, no, no, no. She chose a Mini Cooper. So a Mini Cooper John Cooper Works edition is used, but not a lot of miles. And yeah, so we'll get it delivered tomorrow, which was interesting because here you can't just drive a car off the lot in Portugal. Joel Cheesman (02:55.836) Not the Range Rover, yeah, not the Range Rover. Lieven (03:01.268) Mmm. Lieven (03:12.599) Joel Cheesman (03:18.131) huh. Chad Sowash (03:18.136) You can't go give them cash and drive the car off. They have to do maintenance, inspection, all this stuff, even after they've done it before. And then they deliver it to you at your place. And then you have to show proof of insurance before you can actually receive delivery. really cool. I mean, really cool process. Joel Cheesman (03:39.998) That's what we Americans call big government. Big government. have to get my... So you have a Mini Cooper. What's gas prices like in Portugal these days? Chad Sowash (03:43.494) Hahaha Chad Sowash (03:48.55) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:52.295) $2 a liter or 2 euros a liter and euros are more than dollars obviously and was it 4 liters a gallon? Joel Cheesman (03:56.024) Yeah. Okay. Lieven (03:58.934) Yeah, it hurts, it hurts. Joel Cheesman (04:03.08) Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. How is the war viewed there in Europe, ungrateful NATO countries that you are? What's the vibe there in Europe, you bastards? Lieven (04:13.39) You know, you can't keep taxing us and you can't keep telling us that we're awful and then expecting us to come send some ships to liberate the street of what's it called. No, Yes, that's the one. Well, we don't play that way, Chad Sowash (04:26.736) thing. Joel Cheesman (04:29.33) Hmm. Hormuz. Yes. Yeah. What John Stewart said, war, the excuse we give Americans to learn geography because otherwise Americans would have no idea what the Strait of Hormuz was. Yeah. Chad Sowash (04:40.678) Yeah. Yes. Straights of four moves. What is that a club? Yeah. So it's interesting because I mean, I've been here. We've been back and forth living here in Portugal for about four years now. And usually Portuguese, they don't really ask much about Trump. I mean, they're kind of chill, kind of relaxed. Everybody else does. The Dutch, the Germans. mean, everybody's like, what do think about Trump? This is the first time I have actually had Lieven (04:41.07) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:02.44) Mm-hmm. Lieven (05:04.536) Hmm. Chad Sowash (05:09.862) Portuguese who I had just met. Usually, you know, I've known Portuguese for a while for a few years, then we might have that discussion. But Portuguese that I just met, they just automatically, what do you think of this Trump thing? You know, and so, I mean, when you have a very laid back society, who kind of like sits back and watches and waits and they're patient, and they're starting not to be as patient, that says something. Not to mention it's obviously affecting our gas prices. Joel Cheesman (05:12.2) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:27.454) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:35.176) Yeah. Lieven (05:35.638) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:38.408) Do you feel like as an American, maybe Portugal's different, but that people look at you differently when they find out you're American because of the whole Trump administration nonsense? Chad Sowash (05:47.643) Well, they, for the most part, think that I'm here because I hate the fucker in the first place. So they automatically think, you're one of us, right? You're one, we hate that asshole too. So it's almost like a symbiotic kind of like connection right out of the gate. Joel Cheesman (05:51.94) Okay, so you get a pass. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:02.686) How about Belgium leaving? You guys hate everybody. I assume you hate Americans even more now. Chad Sowash (06:05.478) Just a Dutch. Lieven (06:06.03) No. I mean, normally we just talk bad about the French and maybe the Germans a bit. It's still ancestry. We used to like the Americans actually, but those days are gone now. I think it will take some time to fix things. Man. Joel Cheesman (06:11.398) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:20.86) I'm, I'm a little worried to come to Europe. I mean, not that I'm going to get shot or stabbed or something, but just dirty looks, you know, somebody spitting in my, in my logger. That's okay. Yeah. I didn't notice any difference in France. Yeah. You'll, you'll, you'll still take my money though. I bet you'll still take my money. Well, from America guys, it's a fucked up situation. Lieven (06:24.405) Nah. Chad Sowash (06:26.917) I Lieven (06:29.006) Yeah, but that's nothing new. mean, no, no, you're so, you're so welcome. You're so welcome, Joel. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Chad Sowash (06:33.786) That's a, you've. Ha ha! Of Of course. Joel Cheesman (06:49.564) Most of us aren't happy about what's going on. Chad Sowash (06:51.803) Yeah. Lieven (06:52.192) Not even Republicans, I read. Joel Cheesman (06:54.622) Republicans mostly are, which is, well, so there's a split in MAGA. Trump ran on no more wars, no more forever shit, no more Bush, no more Neocon and psych, we're back at war. So there's for certain a split in some of the Republican party. But if you look at polls, Republicans are 80 % in favor of this, like 3 % of Democrats. But then you have the independents, which are largely like 60, 70 % anti. Lieven (06:57.678) Still? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:24.37) what's going on. Lieven (07:26.568) And when are those midterms? Joel Cheesman (07:28.711) November. Chad Sowash (07:29.071) November. Lieven (07:30.228) That will be interesting. Chad Sowash (07:31.961) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:32.132) It will be interesting. And if they haven't wrapped this sucker up by then, it's going to be really, really bad for the Republicans. Chad Sowash (07:37.15) He's trying this whole Save America Now Act, which is more of rigging of the election. So we'll see how that goes. Lieven (07:42.572) Hmm. I thank you. Joel Cheesman (07:44.828) Yeah, and Cuba's messed up. mean, Cuba is like straight out of the 19th century. We're just taking them. I'm honored to take your country. Thank you very much. Lieven (07:47.679) That would be a problem. Lieven (07:52.384) Yeah, I mean, what is Cuba doing wrong these days? mean, maybe 50 years ago with putting some missiles from Russia could be debatable, but Joel Cheesman (07:57.874) They're communists. They're dirty Castro loving communists is what's wrong with Cuba. no. No, no, no. Lieven (08:07.032) Yeah, I mean, it's disgusting. Sorry. The whole Venezuela thing I thought was kind of on the limits, but he actually, he, it was a nice operation from a military point of view. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:16.862) He clearly thought the Iranians would be Venezuela 2.0 and it not even close. Yeah, turns out China doesn't like it if you take two of their biggest oil resources away from. Lieven (08:20.502) Yeah, and he was going to score and... Lieven (08:29.088) I not. We'll see. Chad Sowash (08:31.322) Yeah, we don't need you Europe. Please help us. Which is it? Joel Cheesman (08:34.738) The good news is I'm sure this is the last time we'll talk about it on the show. It'll okay. Let's get the shout outs. Lieven (08:35.459) Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:37.912) Yeah, let me put this out there though. Epstein files. Epstein files. Go ahead. Go ahead. Lieven (08:38.51) Yeah. Lieven (08:44.418) Yeah. Shut up. Chad Sowash (08:48.094) Okay, so I want to shout out I wasn't on last week's show I was I was listening to last week's show and I want to give a shout out to JT and you going head to head last week Over the juice box over over juice box. Go ahead and run that tape real quick Joel Cheesman (08:59.175) What? Lieven (09:01.856) Joel Cheesman (09:12.542) Wait, I don't have Juicebox. Chad Sowash (09:14.63) That's the wrong juice box. Joel Cheesman (09:17.948) All I have is CNBC from you. Chad Sowash (09:20.55) I sent it to you let's out, but I'll go ahead cut this out and I will send you, Sergei, will send you the clip. Anyway, so roll the tape, tape's rolled. Okay, my comments. So I want to give you both a shout out for hitting both sides of this argument, but I tend to lean heavily toward their toast side, but you forgot one very big aspect of the argument. Joel Cheesman (09:31.73) Yep, here we go. Joel Cheesman (09:40.84) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (09:50.631) And that aspect is the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so FICRA. Eightfold is currently getting sued for candidate profile enrichment, which Juicebox also does, which means they're adding unverified information to a candidate's profile without getting the candidate consent, right? So if the courts rule against Eightfold, they're literally creating a credit report and Juicebox is dead on their Joel Cheesman (09:50.695) Yep. Joel Cheesman (09:55.326) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (10:18.289) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (10:20.486) So shout out to trying to hit every angle of this. It is so hard these days, but I love watching you and JT going back and forth on that one. Joel Cheesman (10:30.706) Yeah, Levin, you have a side on the death of the resume argument? Lieven (10:37.71) Nah, not really. I think it's going to stay alive for quite some time, but we'll see. We'll see. Now they've been predicting the death of the Rézémi for, since ever the internet came along, I think. It's still there. Joel Cheesman (10:54.174) huh. Chad Sowash (10:54.244) Yes, yes they have. Joel Cheesman (10:57.523) It's always great when three old white guys can agree on something that... Chad Sowash (11:01.35) You Lieven (11:04.567) Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:04.659) I wanna see what the courts have to say after that. It's a done fucking deal, man. Joel Cheesman (11:08.478) Yeah, by the way, the workday trial is moving forward. The Mobley workday, not a topic, but yeah, we'll be watching that one as well. My shout out goes to our boy, Alexander Chukovsky, a couple of things with him. know, when, again, when the old guys get together, we, we, we usually talk about like, are the new voices? Where are the kids? Why aren't they speaking up and talking about this shit? And Alexander, my first, uh, Chad Sowash (11:12.229) Yeah. Chad Sowash (11:21.841) Chad Sowash (11:31.878) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (11:36.528) love for you is that you're, one those younger guys. It's kind of talking about the stuff that I'm too tired to sort of research and talk about. And the second part of the shout out is, he had a great post recently about, I guess the integration tools, the ATS is the, API connector business, being under siege by, by AI and Chad, I know you and I leaving you work with a lot of startups. One of the first things of tips. One of the first advice that we give them is like integrate with as many ATSs and platforms as possible. And most of them end up going to merge and some of the others combo just got a ton of money to solve this problem, to get their integrations into these ATSs. Alexander has a great post saying that vibe coding and just basically having the tools through natural language to code these things is coming. Lieven (12:07.786) and Chad Sowash (12:21.626) Yep. Stack one. Joel Cheesman (12:34.034) basically making the connector tools irrelevant or much less valuable than they were before. He talks about companies like merge and job sync, which are starting to pivot away from sort of that core business, the integration side of things. I think we're seeing this play out in some of the vendors. talked about, know, text EO becoming lavalier job case recently launching AI tools, et cetera. So. Lieven (12:40.075) Hmm. Chad Sowash (12:47.846) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (12:51.871) yeah. Joel Cheesman (13:01.04) It's going to be interesting as more and more of these connector companies pivot, what do they do outside of that? And will this vibe coding integration thing really take off? But hats off to Alexander for doing really good work, doing some of the digging that I'm too old and tired to do anymore. And I love it, man. Keep it up. Keep it up. I appreciate you. Chad Sowash (13:22.406) When I spoke to Rebecca and Sharon from Smart Recruiters, they now have the backing of SAP, right? And they had 120 engineers actually pushed over from success factors to Smart Recruiters. And using some of those engineers, they're actually looking at building AI versions of those connectors themselves. And that's not just for Smart Recruiters. Joel Cheesman (13:27.24) Yep. Joel Cheesman (13:36.658) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (13:50.799) right? And the front end of the funnel side of the house, that's all the way down through the business applications of SAP. That's fucking big. So I agree with what Alexander has to say, but you're also, think, going to see some of these bigger ecosystems build their own and or acquire and then start to expand. Joel Cheesman (13:59.516) Yep. Lieven (14:02.105) I agree with what Alexander has to say, you're also at a point where you some of these bigger, you know, things going around and you're like, why? Joel Cheesman (14:12.988) Yeah. And not even the large ones. think, you know, you and I advise some companies that they're putting features in much more quickly than they used to because they can easily vibe code these things in. So I think you're probably see a lot of platforms start to put in integration tools and just like, push this button and get your stuff on all the ATSs and other platforms. So yeah, interesting times we live in interesting times. Chad Sowash (14:21.008) yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (14:35.682) Well, and think about think about uptime, right? If it takes three weeks or six weeks or whatever it takes to actually get an organization integrated into your system. One of the reasons why companies don't change applicant tracking systems or any type of core platforms is because of the time it takes to be able to get their data mapped over to get all this shit integrated into a system. If you can take that from, let's say, six months to three weeks. fuck. Yeah. The change. Lieven (14:36.366) and think about our current, right? And then say, if you were used for 60, so whatever it takes, I'm sure you get that. Lieven (14:50.35) As I said. Joel Cheesman (15:00.914) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:03.974) the cost of change goes down dramatically and then all of those platforms who are just old and cranky and they're like, you gotta stay with us because the cost of change is too much, that goes away. Lieven (15:11.15) Absolutely. The only reason why we don't change is because it's just such a hassle to change. Joel Cheesman (15:11.314) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:21.584) Yeah, yeah, you take that reason away that excuse away and then next thing you know, you're you're hopping you're hopping girlfriends like Cheeseman in high school. Joel Cheesman (15:22.29) Mm-hmm. Lieven (15:25.895) All right. You Joel Cheesman (15:31.524) Easy now, easy now, easy now. Yeah. You're using the word girl in pretty, pretty good, pretty broad terms. And I do think so the, the HR tool or the tools for HR are going to be much more susceptible to getting, and you know, hurt because let's agree. No one in HRTA is going to be like vibe coding integrations and shit, but like a startup, a vendor, someone on the vendor side will, will vibe code and make those features available. Lieven (15:35.564) Yeah. Lieven (15:47.544) Hmm. Lieven (15:59.978) Yeah. And even we use it, those vibe coding stuff, because I know how to program in Python a bit, but I'm slow and it takes too much time. So if I needed a prototype, if I needed some data mining tool or whatever, I asked IT and then it took six weeks because those people have better things to do than delivering whatever I come up with that day. And now just by vibe coding, I can do it in a few hours. That's amazing. Joel Cheesman (16:10.131) Mm-hmm. Lieven (16:25.294) And I use mostly Manus.ai, I'm not sure if you know it, it's an agent which was recently bought by Meta, by the way. Yeah, and it's really good. It can even produce a website based on just a few lines of code I give it. And it comes up with a whole website to present whatever I wanted to present, it's amazing. Okay, but Vibe coding. Chad Sowash (16:30.682) Nice. Joel Cheesman (16:38.078) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (16:45.222) Leven, trust me when I say what you say is the most important thing in your organization. They don't ignore what you're talking about, which is why we're going to you for shout outs. What you got? Chad Sowash (16:50.437) Hahaha Lieven (16:55.834) Okay, my shout out this week is to Travis Kalanick, if I pronounce it correctly, who after making Kalanick, Kalonic, Kalanick, no, Travis. Chad Sowash (17:00.902) Kalanick? Joel Cheesman (17:01.266) Uber. Yeah, that's what I'm getting next year according to my schedule. Colace and colonics. Welcome to the healthcare podcast. Colonics and colace. Lieven (17:07.766) Colonic, right. It was my shout out now. Okay. So, Joel's colonic. So, my shout out goes to Travis Kalanick, who after making life of taxi drivers miserable by launching Uber, he's now coming for basically everyone else. And he is doing it by launching Atom, which is a company constructing not humanoid robots, but Chad Sowash (17:08.647) Now that's ICIMS' newest product, the High Kalanick. Sorry. Joel Cheesman (17:28.798) Mm-hmm. Lieven (17:36.95) special specialized industrial robots. And those have been, those have been around for decades, of course, but these are kind of new because they are totally deployable. can put them wherever you want. They're mobile. can vibe code them. You normally, a robot has to be programmed using whatever language they use, but it took a lot of time and very specific knowledge. Now you can just talk to the robots and play in English, or if it's a very sophisticated robot, you can talk to it in Dutch. So, it's an If it's an elite robot, but yeah, they use all the knowledge they have using large language models. So they know basically everything. are contexts to where they use lenses. They use a camera to look around and they can see the context. They can be used for multiple purposes and depending on the case, they just change the way they look. So humanites are nice because we feel familiar to them. It's nice to look at something humanite, but in most cases, humans aren't the best form. Chad Sowash (18:08.208) Flemish. Joel Cheesman (18:08.316) Very sophisticated. Joel Cheesman (18:18.674) Mm-hmm. Lieven (18:35.904) Let's say if you want to flip burgers, it's easier to use six arms than two legs if you are static. So depending on whatever they were built for, they will look different, but they all have the same knowledge. And if one robot learns something using Wi-Fi, all the others know it too. So these are the perfect employees. So this is interesting because robots, they used to take over some tasks, specific tasks. These robots are just designed to take over complete jobs. Joel Cheesman (18:42.482) Yeah. Lieven (19:03.638) You can use them for one job before noon and another one in the afternoon. this is, for me, it's kind of, I'm getting anxious about it. This is going to change a lot of jobs, a lot of industries. And if it was only to fill in dangerous jobs, like they're talking about mining jobs, then it's great. And if you can put a robot in a mine and do the dangerous stuff, that's great. But they're also going to do, logistic jobs, which are just jobs open to basically everyone. And if those jobs are disappearing, it's going fast. Chad Sowash (19:07.898) How? Chad Sowash (19:15.77) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:21.374) Mm-hmm. Lieven (19:33.878) So I'm going to look into it and I'm sure someone somewhere will be getting very rich. So we'll try to take some part of it. Chad Sowash (19:42.522) More to come, Joel Cheesman (19:42.766) Never doing podcasting though. They're never going to do podcasting for sure. But by the way, until all the, all the robots look like Sydney Sweeney, I'm thinking that it's, it's, it's going to be a long time before it takes off. Make all these things look like her and robots are going to be everywhere. Trust me. Trust me. Almost as everywhere as our t-shirts are just flowing in and out and all the free stuff at Chad and cheese. Let's, let's hear about what you can get by signing up. Lieven (19:46.092) They'll never be in our show. Chad Sowash (19:54.47) Amen. Lieven (19:54.894) You Chad Sowash (19:57.191) That's the easiest thing to do. That's the easiest way to gain any type of adoption. Yes. Lieven (19:57.494) Nah, we'll see. Lieven (20:06.467) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:07.518) You Lieven (21:18.52) Check and cock Joel Cheesman (21:25.246) I have to come in. I shared a little eye issue that Stephen was dealing with and I didn't think he'd be as sensitive to my joke about whiskey being spilled into his eye. So Stephen, I'm sorry, just clowning around, but I'm happy to say that you're on the mend and you're feeling better and I will be much more careful with comments that might wreck your fragile. Chad Sowash (21:33.146) Yeah, a little. Chad Sowash (21:41.264) Dude, he was like blind for two weeks. Joel Cheesman (21:54.366) state of mind, fragile. Chad Sowash (21:55.843) Okay guy was guy was like blind for two weeks. I wouldn't call that fragile. I'm gonna see him next week though He's taking a train down to Hartfordshire That's right for next week for the RLX March 24th through the 26th Joel I'm not sure these people know what's gonna hit them. I mean, yeah. yeah Joel Cheesman (22:15.066) Stephen's gonna come down. Well, that's exciting. There he is, he's excited. Chad Sowash (22:20.08) For those that don't know, the RLX is a fully hosted two-day retreat for senior TA leaders, and they're putting them in a room with Steven and I for two full days. That's ridiculous. Plus, Natalie Farmer, a foreign legal consultant from Field Fisher, and I will be leading a discussion called AI and Hiring. Legal is panicking, and TA is stuck. in the middle. So it's going to be two days of nerding out and a lot of scotch. Can't wait. That's next week of the RLX. Joel Cheesman (22:52.702) Well, it's nice to know that you're ignoring my recommendation of doing a session on QR codes that you went with AI. Like I think that's bullshit, frankly, but you do you, Chad. You do you. Chad Sowash (22:57.414) Hahaha Lieven (23:00.686) Chad Sowash (23:01.51) I can only submit presentations. I don't accept them. I just submit them. Joel Cheesman (23:10.686) All right guys, let's get into topics here real quick, unless there are some rumors that somebody, okay. Chad Sowash (23:17.35) yes, yes. Yes. Rumor alert. So I get a little birdie told me not fully fledged out yet, but a little birdie told me that Paradox's assessment platform, Tradify, is being acquired, which is interesting because obviously Paradox acquired by Workday. Joel Cheesman (23:23.933) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (23:31.774) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:37.128) Mm-hmm. Lieven (23:41.154) Joel Cheesman (23:46.12) Yeah. Chad Sowash (23:46.15) Tradify was already underneath that paradox umbrella. So, Tradify being chunked out of that deal, apparently, and getting sold off as a part. Joel Cheesman (23:49.655) yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:57.374) Do we know the acquire? that? Chad Sowash (24:00.135) I have an idea, but I'm not 100 % sure yet. So we're going to sit back. We're going to wait on this one. But I I'd kind of leak that out there as a rumor. Joel Cheesman (24:03.358) Okay, you'll. All right, you heard it. Heard it here first kids. All right, let's get to some of the news this week. Indeed has incentives everybody promoting spend matching indeed promise to match promises to match your current spend on non indeed channels. Think LinkedIn aggressively promoting your roles proving that indeed is good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it. People like them, but wait. Chad Sowash (24:28.934) Ha Joel Cheesman (24:32.882) LinkedIn says hold my beer because they're introducing AI to manage the initial interview process and screen candidates before moving forward in your interviewing process. It's the cage match desure Chad. What's your take on all things indeed and LinkedIn this week. Chad Sowash (24:49.84) Yeah, this is the banana in the tailpipe on both sides of the house. I'm not falling for the banana in the tailpipe. I'm not. How do you say LinkedIn is a thorn in Indeed's side without saying LinkedIn is a thorn in Indeed's side? Well, this bullshit quote unquote spend matching program. So, okay, let's get down to brass tacks on this. To initiate. Joel Cheesman (24:54.941) boy, are you falling for it? Are you gonna fall for this one? No, okay. Joel Cheesman (25:10.234) A Pepsi challenge. Is that it? A Pepsi challenge. Lieven (25:12.078) in the expanded matching program. So, okay, let's get down to our last half hour to initiate the expanded matching program. Chad Sowash (25:17.988) the spend matching program employers have three requirements. Indeed is placing three requirements on them. Number one, they have to provide a source of hire report, which means they want your data. Number two, that you have to provide existing contract information, which means Indeed wants competitive intelligence. What are you spending with LinkedIn, right? And number three, they want leadership buy-in. Lieven (25:38.945) Ugh. Chad Sowash (25:45.019) which means Indeed wants to bypass agency. So yes, if you're a recruitment agency, ad agency, Indeed wants your contacts to try to squeeze you out and take that 15 % fee for themselves. They've been doing this forever, they're gonna constantly do it, and this is just another way within this match spending, whatever the they're calling, kind of scenario. I mean, imagine... Lieven (25:52.75) school wants more car vans. Try to school you out to take that 15 % fee for themselves. Joel Cheesman (26:05.264) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:10.636) raising revenues by 15%. I mean, that's what every CRO wakes up every day wishing that they can do. So remember, this basically costs Indeed nothing. And they can get your data, competitive intelligence, and they can have an opportunity to bypass your recruitment marketing agencies. And Indeed does nothing for free kids. This is a Trojan horse to get your data contracts. Joel Cheesman (26:17.096) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (26:40.422) and contacts and to me it's a show of desperation and any recruitment ad agency or hiring company who buys into this is a complete and utter fucking idiot. Just my personal opinion. You can't be doing this stuff. They're gonna give you a free style. It's not free. You're paying for something and you're paying with your data, competitive intelligence and your contacts. Give me a break, come on. Joel Cheesman (26:41.758) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (27:00.701) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:08.67) Which sometimes comes off genius, right? Like remember job tracker, the app where you would put in, you take pictures of help wanted signs at your local downtown barber shop. And then they would get, Oh, you get little, you know, you get, uh, don't know, steak and shake gift cards or something. Uh, but they get a sales lead. They get like a small business sales lead. So Chad is correct. There is no free lunch kids. There is no free lunch. They have a, they have an interest in getting something from you in this. Chad Sowash (27:12.345) yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (27:23.507) like a fee, yeah. Chad Sowash (27:32.103) Well, and then you take a look at the LinkedIn interview stuff. Let's move on to LinkedIn. No, no, no, no. Any system like this needs to be directly connected to your system of record. And that's the last thing you want companies like LinkedIn and Indeed to connect to. Why? Well, first, you don't want an Indeed or a LinkedIn to have access to your hiring signals, period. Joel Cheesman (27:39.004) Mm-hmm, sure. Chad Sowash (27:59.365) Right, that's your data, especially that data you do not want them to have access to. Plus the AI needs to train in a silo of specific data to your hiring needs and behavior. So LinkedIn isn't an option, but you should be looking at your core applicant tracking system players and or point solutions to help you scale your interviewing. Right, so you should be looking at AI interviewing, but not from platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed. Hiring companies need an expert. in this area and that's not a player that is a big behemoth like LinkedIn or Indeed. That's why Bright Hire was acquired, right? Those types of platforms who are specifically in that realm, those are the ones you want to look for. Joel Cheesman (28:46.952) Yeah, so use someone separate until they get acquired by Zoom or LinkedIn or Microsoft or somebody and then you can give your data to everybody. Zoom makes a little bit more sense. Chad Sowash (28:51.686) Zoom makes more sense. What do think, Levin? Joel Cheesman (29:00.966) Yeah, real quick, Chad, you, you stole most of my notes from the indeed thing. Like you and I, you and I are like, and we're on the same page on that one. nothing is free kids. call me a jaded American, but there is no free lunch. indeed want something for me for this. do, I do think there's maybe a little more, on the desperation side. I don't know how they're. Chad Sowash (29:05.286) you Chad Sowash (29:11.536) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (29:25.352) Their initiative to get your disposition data is going. I don't think it's gangbusters. I don't think it's been a slam dunk thus far. So to try these different, different tactics to say, Hey, we'll give you something free. If we can go in and get your, you know, your reporting and what's going on there. And then somehow sneak my way in to getting your disposition data. So I'm flipping the budget to that as opposed to what you've been spending on. And maybe that's part of the objective as well. Lieven (29:45.334) I'm flipping the budget to... Joel Cheesman (29:53.918) You saw this, think as a, a, a promotional email in the UK. I don't think we've seen this hit the U S shores yet, but if, uh, as a lot of our listeners are in the U S you should start looking out for that indeed special offer, uh, to match your spend, uh, with indeed stuff. Um, the LinkedIn look, this is nothing new. The whole like autonomous interviewing pre-screening. was just a matter of time before they were going to get into this. Chad Sowash (30:19.226) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:23.57) they have a history of producing products that are lesser, let's say, than the companies that just focus on one thing. So the jury's out is whether or this thing fucking works at all. it should because they're owned by Microsoft and they have connections to open AI and things like that. And I do see, I do see some examples of LinkedIn getting better at the AI thing. but this is a big step forward for them to get right. Chad Sowash (30:51.376) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:52.284) I also think that if they do get it right, it's really bad for the, the, the smaller guys. Maybe you and I differ on this. mean, I think for a lot of companies, if I can do everything on LinkedIn, I'm fine. Not using other services to like provide that. So if they get this right, it's, it's going to be really good for them. And I also think we talked about LinkedIn's recent advertising campaign that targeted SMBs and smaller companies, which they've really been not into forever. Lieven (31:05.678) and Chad Sowash (31:13.766) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (31:21.778) They've been executive knowledge based type workers. So to me, having this automated tool sets them up to go to some of these smaller businesses and say, look, you don't have a recruiter. You don't have a dedicated HR person that has the bandwidth to handle all this stuff. Let LinkedIn's, know, robot pre-screen and interview the people that you want to bring in. So I think there's a bit of a small business target in this, in this thing. It's a pretty small test right now. I think you can do 40 a month, 40 of these pre-screens or for these interviews. If it does well, they'll obviously extend that, but that's sort of my take. And if you ever have a startup, if it's, if, if your startup can be replicated by a big company that everybody uses, like you should maybe think twice about that startup unless you know there's someone that's going to buy you. Also why paradox timing was great in a selling to work day. Lieven (31:57.486) And if you ever have a startup, if your startup can be replicated by a big company that everybody uses like... Lieven (32:08.354) Hmm. Chad Sowash (32:14.63) Yes. Yes. Joel Cheesman (32:16.978) Not that they saw LinkedIn being a competitor, but they might've seen LinkedIn being a competitor. Leaving your thoughts on Indeed and LinkedIn this week. Lieven (32:20.302) You know, I would love to give my honest opinion on it, but I still want them to sponsor the Congress on October 6th. So I'll October in Amsterdam, you know, but I need to be careful now because the contract hasn't been signed yet. With a bit of luck, you'll be standing on stage with some people from LinkedIn and indeed for the panel discussion. I would love to see that. Chad Sowash (32:31.558) It's happening in October. Joel Cheesman (32:32.253) Ha Chad Sowash (32:37.35) That's right. Chad Sowash (32:46.316) we could have a nice panel discussion, yeah. that'd be great. we could record that, that would be awesome. Joel Cheesman (32:48.508) That'll work out great for them. That'll be great for them. Lieven (32:49.834) Yeah, I know, I know. So, yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:54.75) So you don't want to, what can you, like are you optimistic about these moves? Do you like these moves? Can you give us something? Lieven (33:06.826) LinkedIn is doing okay, I think, and it's moving in the right direction. I don't understand why it's taking them so long. I mean, they should be moving in my opinion much faster, but they're getting there. is something else. What I've been doing with Chachipiti is a great move and they've got some integration. I haven't seen the results yet, but I want to figure it out. But you won't hear me saying lots of positive stuff about Indeed, the way they have been treating us, the whole industry. disgusting to be fair and I was asked to not be too direct about them so I'll shut up right now Joel Cheesman (33:44.958) Okay. Hubris. Hubris gets everybody every time. LinkedIn has the luxury of being sort of Apple. They don't have to be first. They just have to get it good enough for everybody to adopt it. And they have, when you say they move slow, it's probably on purpose. It's probably on purpose because they have that luxury. Lieven (33:49.898) Yup. Lieven (33:57.068) Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:57.798) Mm. Lieven (34:02.785) I guess so. Chad Sowash (34:03.91) Well, and the testing in the SMB side of the house, because they know that a lot of these tools, these smaller companies aren't going to have those tools baked into bigger systems because they don't use bigger systems. So to be able to do that from a transactional standpoint, it makes sense. the jumping into enterprise, which they're going to need to get into to be able to scale from a total addressable market standpoint, that just doesn't make any sense for a company at all. Lieven (34:12.077) Mm. Joel Cheesman (34:27.176) Yeah. Lieven (34:31.16) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:31.644) I think it'll be really interesting how it unfolds as to more professional level folks getting okay with robot recruiters. Because we've always historically said, well, you know, these hourly jobs, these folks don't have resumes, like we're just going to give them this chat bot and they're going to be happy about it. I'd say it's not yet decided whether management level and above people are comfortable with robots interviewing them. Chad Sowash (34:37.798) Mm. Chad Sowash (34:46.182) Yeah. Lieven (34:51.245) Hmm. Lieven (35:00.424) even Chad Sowash (35:00.644) Yeah, we'll get comfortable and more comfortable every day as leaving was talking about having all these robots, physical robots that are around us. Those are more intimidating than the non-physical robots, right? It's more processed than it is actual physical robots. So I think these types of things, the actual algorithms that we'll be dealing with that will take more white collar workers, jobs or tasks, those are going to be adopted. Lieven (35:04.621) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (35:15.869) Yep. Lieven (35:24.482) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (35:26.45) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (35:28.228) much faster and easier just because they're not as menacing. They're not as black mirror. Joel Cheesman (35:29.66) Yeah. And I think, I think voice voice will be a big step forward to that. think chatting with texts, I think feels a little bit unprofessional, but if you can get the voice stuff right, then, then that'll be, that'll be fine. All right, guys, let's move on to gum loop. Say that three times fast. the break is after this one, unless you want to take this break here. Okay. Okay. gum loop and service now. So gum loop has raised. Chad Sowash (35:35.589) Mm. Yeah. yeah. Chad Sowash (35:48.294) and take a quick break. Chad Sowash (35:52.725) okay. Wow, this is a long segment. I love it. Joel Cheesman (35:59.454) $50 million in a series B funding round led by Benchmark. The company aims to empower non-technical employees to automate repetitive tasks using AI agents with a focus on ease of use and model agnostic flexibility. And the humans will need lots of agents because according to ServiceNow's CEO, AI agents could easily send college grad unemployment over 30%. Check out this clip from CNBC. Chad Sowash (36:34.63) Not saying a clip. Joel Cheesman (36:46.526) Did you see a clip, Levin? Did Levin see a clip? Yeah. Oh. Okay. Okay. So Chad, we've got agents galore. Aside from the ServiceNow CEO looking like every cocaine dealer ever on Miami Vice, what are your thoughts on all this agent talk and unemployment? Chad Sowash (36:47.814) Is it live? Lieven (36:50.454) I was looking at the other screen. Chad Sowash (37:09.324) Yeah, the CEO over Gumloop, I think it was actually said they get addicted. The users actually get addicted. They start building more agents and then all of the sudden the whole company is AI native. Let's face it, companies like Gumloop are incredibly smart. They're having people pay them to build armies of agents that work inside of thousands of different platforms. For me. Gum Loop watches the builds, then they move to offering the most popular agents for specific systems, and then they turn into an orchestration platform instead of just building agents. So Gum Loop is already showing agents working in Slack, Asana, Linear, Airtable, Google Calendar, Monday.com, and many other platforms. So for me, this is crowdsourcing the... And think about it. If you have a bunch of people that use monday.com every day and they know that there are process gaps or what have you or things that can be automated. If I can, if I can as a user actually build something like that for myself and then gum loop can watch it happen inside of monday.com, they can, they can go ahead and take that robot and they can make it available to everybody and sell it. So it becomes an orchestration engine. Lieven (38:27.102) Exactly. Chad Sowash (38:31.588) that was built by me, the fucking user who paid to build the fucking agent, right? And then you've got the guys at ServiceNow. Obviously McDermott told CNBC that ServiceNow's tools will help businesses slash hiring costs, adding that the software firm has already taken out 90 % of customer service use cases. Then Palantir's Alex Karp told CNBC that he wants to grow revenue by 10x while reducing headcount. And then obviously, Lieven (38:33.39) Yes. Bye! Chad Sowash (39:01.858) Amazon, go figure, Jassy, also wants to shrink its workforce by using AI tools. How are they going to do that? That's the question, right? And that's what we're seeing with like the MIT survey where CEOs are like, this is not working. We're not getting the ROI. It all goes back to companies like Gumloop. That's how it fucking gets done. It's everything that's being built. Joel Cheesman (39:03.891) Yeah. Chad Sowash (39:27.3) that goes in the background that takes all these tasks away. But Gumloop is smart enough to have me, the user, dumbass, paying for their platform and building their next gen product. I mean, it's fucking genius, man. Joel Cheesman (39:30.888) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (39:46.461) The interesting thing that will unfold here is you have these AI tools, agent builders within companies, but you also have agent builders everywhere, like everywhere else. So we've seen Atlas, the browser, we see what Gemini is doing. you're going to have a little bit of like email. Like I have my Gmail, my personal account that goes with me anywhere and everywhere. But then I have like my work email and everything in that stays within work. So my initial, my initial thought would be like, why, why couldn't you just take all your agents you make in open AI or Gemini and just take it to every company that you work for? of course, the problem with that is that the information is disparate. doesn't necessarily fit in with what the company's objectives and goals are. So I. So I do think there is going to be value in sort of this enterprise level agent that is outside of open AI or Gemini or anyone else. Because if, if I can basically have an archive of all the agents that we've created in a company, all those agents are built for our individual company goals and tactics and whatever we do. Right. So, whereas if you brought it one in from the outside, it may not fit like a glove. Chad Sowash (40:58.758) Mm. Joel Cheesman (41:03.058) with what we do here internally. Plus, if it's internal, you're training all your coworkers, some that aren't even at the company yet on how to do certain jobs and how to get agents to do these jobs. If it's a passport where you just bring it in and out with you as you leave, that's less valuable to a company. So do think these services that are enterprise level agents and how you build those and how you coordinate that with fellow employees, there is going to be a market for that. Now, Do the big guys, Anthropic, et cetera, create sort of like enterprise level companies and you go, well, the Claude agent is going to be way better than the Gumloop agent. So we're going to go with that. I think that's left to be determined, but as a general sort of consensus, I get that having an enterprise level agent makes sense for companies on the service now side. I mean, it's like, it's very popular for Silicon Valley types to say everyone's going to be unemployed and we don't need to save her for retirement. And. Lieven (41:52.59) It's very popular for social and health advice today. Everyone's going to be employed, and we don't need to save our people's Joel Cheesman (42:00.494) UBI is going to be everywhere and anywhere. And there's been a lot of articles recently about the connection between saying such things and making AI related layoffs and stock value. So you get like a block, you get a meta. And when they make these announcements, the street usually likes it and improves stock prices and values. do think directionally he's right though. mean, unemployment rate between like college level entry level job age is, Chad Sowash (42:27.877) it's Lieven (42:29.096) Hmm Joel Cheesman (42:30.002) going to 8%, the amount of underemployed in the US anyway is like 40%. So even the ones that aren't employed are taking lesser roles than they would, than their degree apparently got them, you know, that they got. So short term, think there is pain. Longer term, and this goes back to us talking about vibe coding and Alexander Chakovsky stuff. if people can... Chad Sowash (42:31.611) Mm. Chad Sowash (42:35.952) Huge. Yes. Joel Cheesman (42:58.76) create new companies, new services solutions. Like there's going to be more businesses and AI is creating more problems to help that we need to solve. So I think longer term, think about Chad and we're coming up in the nineties and leaving, what it costs to make a website, hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? had developers and servers and like all that stuff is gone. All you need is an idea and you can make, you can make software. I think short term pain is going to be there, but I think Lieven (43:12.97) Oh. $100,000 right now developers and servers and all that stuff is gone. All you need is an idea. You can make software. So think short term pain is going to be there, but think new businesses spread out. Joel Cheesman (43:27.166) There are going to be new businesses spread out from these kids that aren't getting jobs that will create more jobs in the future. think we just have to eventually get there. Leave in your thoughts. Lieven (43:38.862) I love the whole idea about enabling people to automate the boring stuff and to give them the tools to create these flows and to get them to spend some time and stuff they actually like doing. But in this case, I totally agree with what Chet was saying. You're just giving your knowledge away to a company who is going to create tools and they can duplicate them forever and sell them to everyone else. So basically you are trying to make me build my own replacements. Joel Cheesman (44:01.427) Yeah. Lieven (44:08.886) You're going to commercialize my replacement. It reminds me of Shutterstock. know the story probably. Shutterstock, the biggest image database in the world. They got 10,000s, hundreds of thousands of designers and all those people were freelancers and they sold their images to Shutterstock and then Shutterstock could sell them to users. And suddenly Shutterstock saw it coming and they sold the whole database with images to ChatGPT. for 170 million euros. then Chachipiti was able to create its own images using that database to study on. And so now nobody ever uses Shutterstock anymore because you just asked Chachipiti. So they're going broke, but also those tens of thousands of designers are going broke. It's disaster. So in this case, Shutterstock sold it. They saw it coming. They got the money and they'll figure out something else. But it's the poor people who didn't realize that what was happening, they lost their job. I think this is happening again and again. Chad Sowash (44:44.048) Yeah. Chad Sowash (44:49.926) Hmm? Lieven (45:07.052) And the best will stay working and they will design even better flows and even better agents. But all those mediocre profiles will lose their jobs. Joel Cheesman (45:07.219) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:16.606) I mean, every app store that's ever been made is built to basically steal all the best ideas and bring them into your organization. read the fine print on these. I'm sure these enterprise tools will have to have something that says we won't sell or it all stays with you. But yeah, for now I'd say that's, that is a risk for sure. Lieven (45:21.879) Of course. Lieven (45:26.892) Yeah. Lieven (45:31.534) probably. Lieven (45:35.33) They won't sell, but they'll see the IDs and they'll see what is popular and how it works. And they'll come up with something similar. Yeah, but it's, it's, can't stop it. It's happening. So just make sure you're the best. always tell my students, some of you will get screwed, but the best will stay. So be the best. Chad Sowash (45:37.37) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (45:43.986) Yep. Yep. Joel Cheesman (45:54.054) Yeah. Well guys, you'll, you'll never get screwed listening to the Chad and cheese. So make sure you, if you like what you've heard, plug in, get, get the feed from us on whatever your favorite podcast platform of choices. You can also check us out on YouTube. We'll be right back. Lieven (45:57.582) Thank Joel Cheesman (46:13.694) All right, guys, let's go big picture for a second. Microsoft and 22 retired US military leaders came out in support of Anthropics lawsuit against the Trump administration's Pentagon designation of the AI company as a quote, supply chain risk. This followed Anthropics refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its Claude model, prompting a ban on federal use. A court hearing is set for later this month. Chad Sowash (46:30.47) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (46:41.0) Here's CNBC's coverage of the issue. Chad Sowash (46:50.051) and nothing. Joel Cheesman (46:57.566) Okay. Chad, a lot to digest there. Your thoughts. Chad Sowash (47:03.31) Okay, so big question is, what has this got to do with hiring? If you're a vendor in the TA and HR space and your clients are government contractors, you have a problem. For better understanding, there are roughly 109,000 to 200,000 unique firms that receive federal contract awards annually. And then there's a rough estimate of another 80,000 companies who are on the subcontracting side. So if you're a vendor, in the hiring and talent management space and you're using Claude in your products, this is a what the fuck moment, right? Yes, you can switch models, but some are just better in certain areas than others. So if your platform is going to perform as well with another LLM, no. I mean, you choose what's best for whatever feature or process you're trying to put in place. And in many cases, that's Claude. So do vendors move away from Claude entirely or do they have a different setup with a not as good substitute for government contractors? So there are wrinkles that are popping up with AI on the daily. And just when you think it doesn't touch you, what did the five fingers say to the face? Slap. Joel Cheesman (48:27.708) Yeah, I'm sure the bourbon business didn't expect banning in Canada when they when they gave money to Trump. Look, there's there's a long storied history of governments going against businesses. And governments usually win. Unfortunately, if you've seen the movie Aviator about Howard Hughes, his spruce goose was government, and they decided to give him the big smack. There's also a lesser known movie called Tucker. Chad Sowash (48:33.584) Yeah, consequences. Joel Cheesman (48:55.838) Chad about a car company that was developed and the car lobby basically squashed that business as the government came out against that. Jeff Bridges. Yes. It's a good movie. Good movie. It's probably streaming somewhere. And look, the Trump administration is a special kind of vindictive. Look, there was some positives on this for sure. They became the number one used app in app stores. They brand recognition. A lot of people know Anthropic, but didn't know Anthropic before this whole Trump. Chad Sowash (49:03.376) Jeff Bridges, wasn't it? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:25.726) uh, Trump dilemma. Um, and if, if, if Trump was in his first sort of go around, I would be much more worried about anthropic than I am in a second term of Trump. Um, look, I, I would bet more that in eight months or whatever, when November hits that he'll have a lot less power and be a lame duck. And a lot of these things are going to go by the wayside. Then I would think that he's gonna, uh, you know, that he's going to have a majority in the house going into next year. So I think Anthropic, the history lesson on this is going to be good for them. think more or less anyone that is in the Trump sort of universe is toxic and they're going to get thrown into the woodchipper. And we've already seen a lot of administration, the people from Mike Pence and on that get thrown in the woodchipper. I think, I think they're probably going to be on the right side of history, which historically doesn't happen. Lieven (49:58.574) Thank Joel Cheesman (50:21.97) I think Microsoft has financial reason to come out in support. also think Microsoft sees that Trump is on the lame duck side of his presidency. So they have a financial reason to support, but also I think politically they're not going to get hit too much. think the Trump administration is going to have a lot to deal with after November with impeachment trials and who knows what to worry about contracts with Anthropic. Chad Sowash (50:49.12) If these companies don't step up now to be able to defend this type of action, it could come against them. Joel Cheesman (50:59.826) Leave any thoughts? Lieven (50:59.886) I think this isn't going to make the European policymakers more positive about using foreign large language models for high risk activities like hiring or firing people. They're already very anxious and they call hiring people a high risk activity when it concerns using AI. And if you hear these kinds of stories, then I think they're going to try to switch as fast as possible to something like Mistral, the French version of a French large language model. Chad Sowash (51:10.618) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (51:28.861) Mm-hmm. Lieven (51:29.164) or maybe new ones coming up, supported by European government, think. And Anthropic is supposed to be the ethical large language model. The others are worse. At least they claimed to be ethical. Joel Cheesman (51:34.12) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:41.116) And they've captured that brand by saying, we're going to say no to our shit being used to kill people and blow shit up. So, I mean, good on them. It may not work as well for Palantir. I mean, Palantir historically may be the bad guys in this story. yeah, just openly kill everybody. Lieven (51:47.043) Yeah. Lieven (51:52.056) Hmm. Lieven (51:57.728) Yeah, they always, they never even claim to be good. Yeah, sure. We do it more efficient than the others. use us. Yeah, that's true. Chad Sowash (51:58.459) go very much. Chad Sowash (52:04.858) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:07.644) The checks are clearing. Let's go. Let's go, baby. And Chad, you and I talked about recently on a show about European, embracing European technologies and like, you know, getting those out of the government contracts and Mistral is a great example of technology in France, right? France is a Mistral. So there are examples that can take hold. Chad Sowash (52:10.042) Yeah. Lieven (52:20.366) That's really Trump. Lieven (52:27.924) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:32.668) So we'll, we'll see. It's either like we're American, Chinese, or we're going to try to build our own and prop up our own companies. The future is interesting guys. May we live in interesting times. Boring times. Let's take a quick break guys. Leave us a review guys. Give us a star, whatever, words of wisdom. Whether you, whether you love us or hate us. We love, we love the feedback. We'll be right back. Chad Sowash (52:42.214) Good day. Lieven (52:42.528) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (52:54.864) Lots of stars. Lieven (52:56.462) Fuck. Joel Cheesman (53:05.246) All right, guys, Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Codewalls, autonomous AI agent, exploited for seemingly harmless bugs in the Jack and Jill hiring platform, gaining admin access and probing its AI defenses. The agent demonstrated unexpected behavior, including social engineering and masquerading as one of our favorite people on the show. Donald Trump to gain access to company data. This experiment highlights the potential for AI agents to become proficient. at hacking other AI agents posing a significant threat to cybersecurity. In case you missed it, Jack and Jill is a job search employment agent for companies used to hire. Chad, your thoughts on the breach of CodeWall. Chad Sowash (53:55.621) Yeah, mean, attention founders, your burn rates about ready to go through the fucking roof. The days of quarterly security checks are going to be as effective as a screen door in a submarine. I mean, if your AI is always on the hackers, AI is always on. You're going to have to buy defensive AI just to babysit your product AI so that it doesn't get gas lit. Into giving away the API keys by a Donald Trump impersonator, right? But you've got to admit it It's it's a beautiful racket the VCs fund the fire. They also funded the extinguisher and Founders become the middleman burning cash in the center of the room It does not being a founder right now with shit like this happening does not seem like it's gonna be fun Joel Cheesman (54:51.838) Yeah, it's funny as you read the story when Jack, the hiring agent knew that it was Donald Trump actually addressed it as Mr. President. So the LLM actually connected the fact that Donald Trump is Mr. President. Also Anthropic uses Jack and Jill apparently, so we're sort of coming full circle on this Anthropic thing, just a little endorsement for them. I'm not a paid sponsor or paid spokesman for them. Chad Sowash (55:12.938) wow. Joel Cheesman (55:19.374) In fact, I don't think I liked their business when we talked about them on the show. We talk about businesses and opportunities are created because of problems. Well, here's a problem kids. The AI is going to with scale, hack your shit, find weaknesses and, take advantage of those. All that creates new opportunities for businesses and technologies to fight those things. So we talk about the unemployment rate and taking jobs, cetera. Like humans are going to have problems to solve forever. And AI is creating new problems that we've never had before enter this problem of getting hacked. Every company that has a forward-facing solution is going to get hacked is going to like, the bots are going to come in North Koreans. mean, it's going to be like mass hysteria and you're going to need tools to figure out how to protect yourself. And this is an example of that. This was not a hack. This was not a breach. This was a friendly sort of exercise. Lieven (55:53.612) Hmm. Lieven (56:00.046) you basic solution. Joel Cheesman (56:21.99) So we don't mean to sort of put any more importance than we need to, but these things are going to happen to you if they're not already and you need to be prepared for it and have the tools to protect yourself. Leaven, I'm sure you guys get attacks quite often, whether they're friendly or not. What can you tell us? Lieven (56:39.722) Nothing, nothing at all. We keep quiet about it and it didn't happen. But talking about Jack and Jill, I was surprised in fact that the whole Coldwell stuff was published because I was actually testing Jack and Jill and our CIO, my colleague was enthusiastic about it. liked the whole idea. But after the hack, mean, reputation damage is real. And we don't want to get involved with companies that are hacked so easily. Not sure if it was easy, but so publicly. So we'll look into it twice now. Chad Sowash (56:42.98) Thanks Chad Sowash (56:54.148) Mm-hmm. Lieven (57:09.334) I just wondered, Joel just said it was a nice and friendly hack or something. not sure what words he used, but it was something like that. wasn't a... Joel Cheesman (57:18.258) Yeah. Chad Sowash (57:18.438) or like a white hat, you could call it, I guess. They didn't get in there and actually do anything malicious. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (57:21.31) It was a controlled test. Lieven (57:21.322) Yeah, it's ethical hacks. A control test, yeah. But normally, control tests are something you keep hush-hush. Yeah, it's test. It's pen testing, penetration testing. But you don't publish the results if they're not good. And in this case, mean, reputation damage must be huge. So this was my first thought when I read it. But the whole AI stuff, of course, is amazing. Chad Sowash (57:30.265) your hat. Joel Cheesman (57:45.746) That is a great point. Lieven (57:50.05) We use lots of tests to constantly try to find weaknesses in our own systems. So for pen testing, it's great, but the bad guys use it as well. And they probably are better at it than some others. Joel Cheesman (57:57.128) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (58:04.958) It's a great point. don't know. I don't know what agreement they had to publish this stuff. Um, if it was part of the reason why they would do it, but you're, you're right. If anyone that goes to Google and says, is Jack and Jill safe to use or Jack and tell me about Jack and Jill, ultimately this is going to come up and people, whether it was a breach or controlled or whatever, they're going to automatically say, Oh, great red flag. Not you. You know, I'm not going to use Jack and Jill because of their history with this kind of stuff. Chad Sowash (58:21.894) Hmm. Lieven (58:29.39) Hmm. Lieven (58:34.254) But we are attacked constantly, Korea constantly each day. And sometimes they try to, sometimes they get a bit further, but until now we've always been able to stop them. And we never had sexual ransomware active, but it's a matter of months, years. I don't know what's happening. Here in Belgium, we had a few big hospitals which were totally unable to work for days because of ransomware. It's evil. Joel Cheesman (58:47.677) Mm-hmm. Lieven (59:00.204) And they're coming, they're coming for the money where it is. I think they're just going to attack big companies and it's a, it's like a lottery one day or number. Joel Cheesman (59:00.306) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (59:05.946) And, and look, historically, historically, the job search space is ground zero for scams because people are vulnerable. People are, you know, they're desperate and scammers will come out. Yeah. I mean, imagine the number of bots that are contacting people to interview for jobs and getting data from them. And like, I mean, there's, there's a whole level of evil in our space that is unique to us historically, unfortunately. Lieven (59:13.24) Hmm Yeah. Private information, lots of it. Lieven (59:25.538) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (59:25.691) Yeah. Lieven (59:34.326) Yeah, but the good thing is we have a very big team working on cybersecurity. They're very active and they're constantly training people to be aware, to be vigilant. So I think maybe those hackers will try to find a target which is easier to penetrate and they'll leave us alone. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (59:42.952) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (59:49.958) I think that's the point, Levin. I think that's the point is that you guys are a bigger organization. You are focused heavily on, you know, obviously being able to deter these types of attacks. And the only way you can do that is actually have teams to be able to be, you know, very vigilant around this, where a lot of these new companies like a Jack and Jill, they're just, they just don't have, yeah. Lieven (59:55.63) Hmm. Lieven (01:00:11.214) Yeah, they just launched the product and they weren't thinking about security in the first place. Yeah, of course. Chad Sowash (01:00:15.974) Yeah, they spent they spent money on getting the MVP not on protection, right? And I mean, that's what I'm talking about burn rate for these founders. They're going to have to actually spend a lot more money on protection. The defense AI is what they're calling it instead of just sitting back and trying to do these quarterly audits. Joel Cheesman (01:00:18.993) Mm-hmm. Lieven (01:00:29.294) Mm. Joel Cheesman (01:00:32.252) Mm-hmm. Lieven (01:00:36.818) But it's such a waste of energy and money if you have to spend it on such a thing, but you have to, you have to. New jobs. Chad Sowash (01:00:38.914) It is. But as Joel had said, AI is going to create problems and it's going to create cottage industries. It's going to create a lot of different things. Joel Cheesman (01:00:45.566) Mm-hmm. Lieven (01:00:50.786) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:00:51.198) Well guys, speaking of working round the clock, our crack team of dad joke experts have come up with a real doozy this week. No, no, no. He's taking a break this week. What do you call an Irishman who bounces off walls? What do you call an Irishman who bounces off walls? Rick O'Shea. Rick O'Shea. That was good, right? Happy St. Patrick's Day. Chad Sowash (01:00:53.493) Lieven (01:00:54.52) Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:00:59.31) Is this from Jeremy too? Okay, okay. Damn. Chad Sowash (01:01:13.863) that was good. That was good. That was very good. Lieven (01:01:14.294) No. Lieven (01:01:18.846) Okay. Joel Cheesman (01:01:21.01) Pass the Tylenol. We out! Chad Sowash (01:01:22.725) We out. Lieven (01:01:23.223) We're out!

Chad is back, this time in Mallorca, and things just got real. Rebecca Carr isn’t talking about tweaking recruiting—she’s talking about blowing it up. From underdog comeback to landing inside SAP’s $30B+ machine, this is a story of AI, guts, and rewriting how work actually works. We’re talking: Killing the ATS as we know it AI agents running hiring in the flow of work Why most AI hiring tech screwed up trust from day one “Rip and evolve” vs. lazy tech stacks duct-taped with point solutions And how SmartRecruiters went from commodity… to strategic crown jewel Plus, Rebecca gets brutally honest about leadership—how to avoid CEO flameout, why decisiveness beats perfection, and why her “flow state” lives right on the edge of chaos. Oh—and if you think jobs still exist in 5 years? Yeah… about that. Buckle up. The future of hiring isn’t coming it’s already ripping through your org chart. FULL MALLORA TALKS YOUTUBE PLAYLIST PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION [music] Chad Sowash: 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. And we're back. So last year at this time, we were in Spain, Madrid. This time we're in beautiful Mallorca. Umm, big changes since then. Rebecca Carr: Big changes. Chad Sowash: So we're on stage early February, and you pretty much laid it all out that everything's changing. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Right? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: And you're, you're... It's not about, it's not about fixing old stuff, it's about breaking it and getting into a new paradigm. I know that word's overused, but still, I think it's apropos [chuckle] for this. So, and it worked. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, it did. [laughter] Chad Sowash: Talk about that. [laughter] Rebecca Carr: Umm, well, I, I think what you saw was a company that embraced the unknown, embraced change, ran at it with a really focused vision, some passion behind it, umm, and, uh, some real energy around just making hiring easy, which is exactly what our vision was 15 years ago, just rethought for the moment. Uh, and I, I, I look back at the last year and I think, like, what are all those movies? Like, you, you see Miracle and where, like, the underdog team comes from behind. And I realized that pushing people around, uh, one very focused objective, which is exactly what we did, umm, getting people excited to get to an outcome and doing that together as one can be a really powerful thing, even if you don't have all the perfect pieces lined up. Chad Sowash: That's not easy. Rebecca Carr: I, I, I, I think it was easy for SmartRecruiters because we had so much tenure. Chad Sowash: Okay. Rebecca Carr: Umm, I, I... And I, easy is sort of a... [laughter] my, uh, but I, I would say that on average, our engineers had probably nearly a five-year tenure, which is extremely high compared to most Silicon Valley companies, which are less than 18 months. So we had a lot of people that had been here a long time. We had a lot of people that remembered pre-COVID era where we actually had to go and sit in offices and, like, build relationships and network. Uh, and a lot of people that had started at SmartRecruiters because they believed in that vision and were frustrated that it wasn't coming to fruition and saw a window and a moment to lean in together, uh, and it worked. Chad Sowash: What wasn't coming to fruition? What did you feel? Was the market changing in that it's just so dynamic? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: And, and it's like, wait a minute, if we don't make a huge change... I mean, 'cause that's a, that's a huge risk and that's a big bet, right? And, but you took it. Rebecca Carr: I, I, well, I think some of it was also rooted in the fact that we are and have been a product-led company for a very long time. I mean, Jerome was a product founder, umm, I'm a product CEO. And you build products because you wanna make a mark. Umm, yes, engineers care about, you know, IPOs and acquisitions and all that, but what they really want is for them to be sitting at a bar having a beer and someone goes, "What do you do for a living?" And they say, "Oh, I work at SmartRecruiters." And they're like, "Oh, really?" "I was one of the founding engineers of SmartRecruiters." "Wow, that's amazing." that kind of impact, like, I changed the way that people operated in a very commonplace workflow is something that they're chasing. Rebecca Carr: And I remember I was at an off-site in 2016, 2017, umm, with some engineers and they were talking about Slack. And they were one of the fir... We were one of the first companies using Slack because we are an SF, uh, startup. And they were just like, "This is so cool. This is gonna change how we collaborate." And how cool would it be to be an engineer at Slack right now? And I really do think that they look at SmartRecruiters as how cool would it be to be one of the first engineers at SmartRecruiters, a platform that's truly changing how people find work, how people find talent, how people engage in that process, umm, and doing it in a way that's so sticky that people can't really remember what life was like without it. And, uh, that's what they're building, that's what they're chasing. Rebecca Carr: And they saw that moment now that AI has sort of introduced this, umm, element of, uh, differentiation to different products on the market, umm, that if they leaned into it more aggressively than their competitors, that they could achieve that outcome, uh, from a place at the time that was, you know, they were feeling like a commodity. So AI was like, "Oh, this is gonna be our, our silver bullet, umm, to launching us into that, that category of, uh, legendary products," so to speak. Chad Sowash: But it was more than engineers, right? You're talking about engineers. You have the entire... I mean, hundreds of employees. I mean, so being able to get everybody bought into this huge dynamic change. How, how did, I mean, how did you, how did you get that done so quickly? Rebecca Carr: Engineers, I, I give them a lot of credit and product managers, of course, uh, 'cause they moved so fast to get it done. But, umm, we plan our business very intentionally as here's our product strategy. This is why we're investing in these products, this is the mark it's gonna make on the market. And then here's the go-to-market strategy that's gonna support that, and then here's the budget that's gonna prop it up. And so it, it's not to say that those other functions don't play an equally important role. I mean, narrative, positioning, uh, sales, all that very important. But those organizations are motivated by seeing a product that they can sell, that they can market, that's helping them tell the story. Rebecca Carr: Umm, I'm always really fascinated and actually I, I tend to hire sales reps, marketers, umm, solutions consultants from companies where I know their products are not very good 'cause I'm like, "Wow, they were successful in selling a not-so-great product. Wait until they get my really good product." Like, that's just going to accelerate them to the next... To the nth degree. Uh, and I think that's exactly what happened. Uh, the product and engineering team believed, they delivered, go-to-market saw that and ran with it. Uh, and together we sort of pieced together what was an absolutely incredible year, uh, for us in both our... The delivery of our revenue targets, but I mean, most notably, obviously, our acquisition, which, uh, frankly, couldn't have been a better home for us. Rebecca Carr: Uh, I think when you're a small startup, especially an applicant tracking system amongst 800 global applicant [chuckle] tracking systems, uh, you wanna be acquired by a strategic player and there's only three. Really. Uh, so you've got three options and then your alternative is consolidation with a competitor, sponsored buys, things like that. Uh, we had Workday, we had SAP, we had Oracle. Uh, we are a very international company. I'd say, you know, well over 50% of our revenue customers... People are outside of the United States. Uh, Workday, very North America-centric brand, obviously becoming much more international. But SAP's DNA is openness, which was a big pillar of our differentiation, and, and enterprise global. So we couldn't have found a better moment, a better home, and a company that really wanted to lean into our product and our people. Uh, so the, the terms of that transaction were extremely attractive to us and it worked out very well. Chad Sowash: I mean, but they're Goliath, right? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash: They... I mean, they are a Goliath. I mean, you're talking about, what was it, 38 billion in revenues last year? Rebecca Carr: Yes. It's high 30s. Chad Sowash: I mean, it's, it's, it's... Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's crazy. How do you get attention from... I mean, because again, you know, we're talking about talent acquisition. This is a... I mean, we're talking a business player. We talk about SAP is, they're not... This is not human resources. This is total business suite ecosystem, right? How do you get their attention, especially when you just made this huge pivot? To me, and again, obviously, you know, you being the face of the organization, the voice of the organization, but there are a lot of people behind you pushing. Umm, talk a little bit about that. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. So, I'm... I mean, they're big, they have a lot of momentum. They're a cruise ship that's difficult to turn. And, uh, and they know that. Uh and it's, it's I mean, fascinating. First couple months here, I mean, just mentioning the name SmartRecruiters in the context of a deal, they're like, "Yeah, sure, put that in." [laughter] And you're like, "Wait a second. How... Like, don't you wanna look at the product? Don't you want to think?" But no, it's like they have... They're the snowball that keeps getting bigger. But in a moment that is so disruptive, disruptive as this one with, umm, the introduction of AI, the value that that's gonna bring, the disruption that's, that's gonna bring to global workforces, SAP needs to operate differently. Umm, and, uh, that doesn't mean that they should compromise on the things that make them great. Rebecca Carr: It just means that a lot of the processes, programs, organizational design that they had previously is not gonna serve them well in this next generation. And their executive board has been very vocal that this moment requires new values, umm, new, like, different goals and objectives, umm, a focusing, a cross-functional focusing around certain very key topics. And we represent that in a vacuum. We are like a microcosm of the culture and the business plan that they would love to be able to implement at a global scale. And they were very vocal with us that they didn't want us to lose that. We actually needed to be their example. So that as they went team by team and started to implement some of these new programs, I mean, they... Similar to us a year ago, we rewrote our values as a business. They did too. Rebecca Carr: And they are actually almost perfectly aligned. But they need to be able to point to an example within SAP of, "See, that's what transparency looks like. That's what ownership looks like. That's what collaboration looks like." And it's working. So, by you moving in this direction, you're gonna see the same success and outcomes. Umm, and that has gotten us some attention. And frankly, it's gotten... Uh, it's, it's, it's been... That same attention has been given to a lot of the other acquisitions that they've made in the last two, three years who have also been able to preserve their cultures. I mean, the acquisition right before us was WalkMe. Umm, they still remain a totally independent stack as well with, uh, a different way of hiring, organizing, uh, and rolling out products. And they have been protected, uh, and leveraged as an example for how certain things should be done. Chad Sowash: Well, talk about that, because usually right after an acquisition, you've got about a three or four... Three to maybe six-month timeframe where you start seeing layoffs because there's redundancies, right? There's generally huge redundancies. But when, when you're talking about this new way of doing business that, that SAP is trying to, trying to actually, umm, embrace, what was, what was that like? And how... I mean, you've seen growth. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yes. Chad Sowash: Not retraction, not, not, not a, not, you know, not, not an atrophy per se. Talk about that. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, no. So, uh, they actually, very quickly, with the support of not just my direct leadership but also the executive board, uh, intentionally moved SAP employees into the SmartRecruiters world and had them report into our infrastructure. Uh, so our R&D organization has already doubled in size as a result. They did it with product and engineering first because, obviously, we want to be accelerating those roadmaps. Umm, and that has been... Uh, I think they would probably call it a... They... A test. They had never done that before. Uh, and, uh, it has worked very well. Those resources have started to get comfortable with the organizational structure that we use in R&D. Uh, we've been able to accelerate our roadmap exponentially. We're rolling out more product than we ever had faster. Rebecca Carr: Uh, and, uh, they're planning to integrate us at a deeper level over the next couple months. Uh, of course, there's going to be some level of redundancy when you start to get into supporting functions. But the reality is, at the pace that we're moving, the independent... We, we remained independent. So at the pace that we're moving to legal entity consolidation, as we start to move those bodies over into the SAP world, they're almost using us as replacements to people that have chosen to leave or have moved into other jobs without the organization versus, you know, saying, "This is intentionally a synergy and thus we need to part ways." Rebecca Carr: Uh, and that very organic integration has been comfortable for us, I would say. Uh, now, I think that our R&D organization will likely continue to grow as more and more people within SmartRecruiters become SAP employees. Uh, but right now, there's only three of us. So we're, uh, we're still very independent and, if anything, we're just getting more from them. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So it, it feels like an aspect of... Because, I mean, the, umm, SuccessFactors acquisition was like 14, 15 years ago. It was a while ago. It feels... And you did say replay, but it feels like because tech is moving so fast right now, it... There's going to be a lot of rip and replace that's happening. Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Okay. Chad Sowash: And that, that feels like what is happening here to some extent, right? Where there's like, look, we know that we have tech, umm, there's... You get... And you have tech that, that's old. There's a lot of technical debt that happens, especially when you... That, when it's that complex, right? So, uh, is this a scenario where there's like literally focused on orchestration, rip and replace? Uh, what is... I mean, because when you've got redundancies like that... Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: What do you... What are you looking toward? Is it an orchestration company? Is it... What, what does SmartRecruiters become? Rebecca Carr: Yeah, well, so I, I like to call it like rip and evolve [chuckle] versus... 'cause I would really hope that most organizations don't rip and replace with another core HR platform or applicant tracking system. Because the reality is that the, the construct of those platforms, I don't think exists in five years. Umm, so really the question is, what does a product and platform like SuccessFactors, obviously, and SAP within the SAP ecosystem become in the future? And the truth is it looks absolutely nothing like what it looks like today. Umm, so if you, if, if you had gone to SAP Connect and, and listened to Muhammad Alam stand on stage and talk about the product pillars of SAP's strategy, umm, you hear him talk about no-app experiences, appless experiences, seamlessly embedded agents. Rebecca Carr: And so what I think SAP will move toward and what SmartRecruiters will lean into aggressively as perhaps one of their first movers, is an experience that is entirely AI-driven. An experience around HR that is a conversation with an agent. And that agent is orchestrating a conversation across every module of SAP. Umm, and that doesn't necessarily require rewriting a ton of the underlying infrastructure. There is some infrastructure enhancement that needs to be done, but you've essentially just eliminated all the technical debt that exits... That sits at the web layer that most users interact with, because you're changing that entire experience to be something very, very different. Umm, and frankly, rewriting it in such a way that it's much more efficient as a software platform. Rebecca Carr: So what I anticipate users, uh, experiencing around SAP in the future is a singular conversational interface. Uh, and they will receive data from across Every single one of the SAP modules, including SmartRecruiters, through that interface, which hopefully sits in the flow of work, umm, and uh, is owned by SAP and produces data insight recommendation answers to key business problems, uh, without needing to log into any one of the SAP systems, umm, at their core. And this is my product strategy. Umm, I don't believe that applicant tracking systems will exist in the future. I believe that all recruiting will happen in the flow of work. So I'm just sending that flow of work now to an SAP experience and agent... Agent-led experience that is, uh, under construction and is you're going to see probably here in the next six months from SAP. I mean that they're, they're really moving directionally aggressive or very aggressively in this direction. Chad Sowash: Well, talk about that experience though, because I think I heard you say that it's not about the interface, it's about the experience. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: In, in one of your presentations, umm, it, it, it feels like it's literally you're, you're, you're trying to remessage kind of like the feeling that somebody should have. And, and, and instead of... I mean the, the experience is really the feeling, right? You get into an interface, it's like a thing. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So talk, talk about that. I mean, it's, it's, I think it's, it's great for not just staff and obviously sales messaging, but what does that mean from a product standpoint? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. So there's, there's sort of like a core experience which is I'm having a conversation and as I have that conversation, I'm presented with content. What does that content look like? How... Like, what elements of that content are personalized to me versus just a static screen. So let's just say today you engage, uh, with Slack and you're having a conversation with Slack... With Salesforce through Slack and it produces you an opportunity record that tells you a little bit about an awkward opportunity. That box is actually a fixed object in its current state. Like Slack is producing the same view for every single person. Umm, the reality is that as that integration evolves, you're going to see that box be very relevant to the user that's requesting the data in the first place. Umm, and so I think the personalization of what is returned by the agent is going to make it feel as though it was built for them. Rebecca Carr: So that, that, that's like as I go and call an agent for information, then there's the proactive agent experience, which is I'm moving through life, I'm listening to a podcast and an agent that's following me knows that I just listened to that podcast and knows that that podcast just taught me a new skill and proactively approaches me and asks if I wanna document that skill and serve it up in an employment context. That doesn't happen... That doesn't have to happen through a business application like Teams or Slack or SAP. That could be happening through WhatsApp, SMS, umm, other productivity tools that exist around the world. Umm, and uh, that is going to create and umm, educate an agent on what any one of those more direct and reactive content experiences might look like. Rebecca Carr: Uh, but I think personalization is the key. We have that today. When we look at... When you pull out an iPhone, it is... It's built for us, it feels like our... Like, if we exchanged phones I'd probably have a really hard time finding some of the things I normally would. Because you've set it up very differently. Business applications are not designed that way today. And I think that they will become, uh, much, uh, more integrated in sort of our own flow and how we want to consume information and where we want it to be, at what pace and time and, and position. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So it, you see... I mean, because that, that's a... That's going to be a... I would assume a, uh, huge change for a Goliath, like an SAP, right? So to be able to, to be able to, to be able to start to inject some of that into the culture, number one, can't be easy. We're talking about Germans, uh, a little bit different, uh, culture-wise than, you know, uh, freewheeling, you know, uh, Silicon Valley, Americans. So how does that, how does that all come together? I mean I know everybody at this point. Any smart tech organization is looking to literally try to rebirth their, their tech, their process. They, they know that they have to and that's why I would assume to some extent they're looking at... To, to you. But again this is a huge universe. An SAP universe is just large. Rebecca Carr: I... So where there's a will, there's a way. Umm, and if you have leadership alignment, if you have a very clear and compelling vision to give your people and they understand what role they can play in delivering that with the proper incentive structure behind it, you can move mountains pretty quickly. Umm, I think where leaders fall short is they lack a level of decisiveness around, uh, exactly the direction that they wanna go. Chad Sowash: Why? Rebecca Carr: Because it's scary. Like if, if you... Especially as a large public company, you make a decision to go all in on AI, uh, or to pull 40% of your engineers off core platform to completely rebuild something and it goes sideways, your stock price tanks, you know, like, it has real ramification. Umm, but if you don't do it, you're gonna be in... Like, you're also gonna be in the same position. And so what ends up happening is you go, "Okay, we're gonna do some skunkworks project on the side," or, "We're gonna, we're gonna go all in." And then three weeks later, you're like, "Oh, but that customer called us and they really need you to build that feature." You need to have the courage to say no. You need to have the courage to look at that customer and go, "I know why you're asking for that feature, but here's why it doesn't matter. And I need you to trust me." Rebecca Carr: You need to have built a foundation of customer success that, umm, customers, uh, can believe in. Uh, and you need to give people context. Umm, I think the biggest risk you run with large organizations like SAP, and I wouldn't necessarily say that they're, they're... This is, this is SAP today, is that you end up becoming this black box. The only people that actually know the direction and understand where you wanna go are the people sitting at the top writing the strategy. Umm, so your ability to cascade information is really important. But I, uh, you know, I, I look back at when we were sitting here a year ago, and I think one of the things that my organization responded to was just the very direct and honest statement that what we were doing was not good enough. Rebecca Carr: That doesn't mean that I don't think they do bad work or that they haven't done... They haven't been doing the right thing for the last decade. It just means that the world changed around us and it's time to operate differently. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Rebecca Carr: And, uh, I think the more that you can deliver that message with confidence, with clarity, and then not just say it, but then offer a solution. Like, "Here are our options, and I'm gonna go with option two, and that's because it's going to hopefully get us to this outcome." And then repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat. Uh, people will follow and they will... And they will want to be a part of the, the success story that becomes that pivot. It can be exciting. Uh, and I think that you're seeing some of that from SAP today. You certainly see that from the executive board, despite the fact that, uh, I think nearly all of them but one is German, [chuckle] off the top of my head. Yes. But they are... They want disruption. They understand that standing still will not work for them. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Rebecca Carr: And they are, uh, trying to move quickly. Now, I think the risk in that moment is that when you operate that way, you're constantly teetering on this border of... It's... There's some complexity to that message and to the work that needs to be done because you're operating in the unknown, but you're teetering on this edge of pure chaos. So if you don't build really strong systems around measuring how that progress is, is moving forward, the success of any one experiment that you run, then people just run in 500 directions, hopefully, like, throwing a lot of things at a wall to see if they can stick. And you start to create discomfort in your employee base. So be clear, be transparent, be systematic about how you implement it, and don't go backwards. Like, even when things aren't working out well, that's okay. You just need to run a different experiment or try, uh, try a new system. Collect a lot of feedback from your employees. Like, these, these are the things that we did, did along the way, and I think, umm, it, uh, it worked for us. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Talk about trust. And I think that, uh, you, you see it in the, you see it in the news where humans don't trust AI, they don't trust agents. And then you get, uh, the Workday case, Mobley Workday. And then you get, then you get Eightfold, right? You've got all of this that's happening. And you're trying your damnedest, right, to utilize AI and agents in a way to be able to change an experience where they're not... We're not sending candidates into a black hole, where they're actually getting responses and they know where they're at in the process and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? Things that we haven't been able to do in the last 20 years for some reason. I don't know. But this is, this is the path that you're moving. Talk about trust and gaining trust in this type of environment when we have all of that happening out in the public space. Rebecca Carr: Well, you gotta love HR. The first [chuckle] AI use case that they went for was the hardest and the most dangerous. Umm, [chuckle] like every platform on the planet immediately was like, here's the biggest problem we have. We have too many applications. So we need to be able to screen and make recommendations on who you should speak to first. It is the hardest data set to maneuver around. Umm, there's a ton of subjectivity in how people screen. Uh, it is directly impacting of the candidate. And the reality is that that screening workflow is a big piece of time. Let's call it maybe 30% of a recruiter's day. But what about the other 70%? Uh, we, we could have immediately focused on the low hanging fruit that was all around just driving efficiency and moving people through workflows, or doing like very low risk tasks like interview scheduling, and... Chad Sowash: Which everybody hates. Rebecca Carr: Uh, yes, everyone hates. But what the thing about AI is, everybody tries.... The second you try something new, you engage with it, you give it a shot. Comes back with a mediocre response. You're like, well, maybe I need to do something a little bit differently. Still mediocre response. Ah, this sucks. It's not ready. Rejection, pure rejection. And the problem with that matching experience is it's very difficult to get it right the first time. And it's very uncomfortable when the result paints the individual that's either reviewing it or engaging in it in a, in a negative light. Chad Sowash: Right. Rebecca Carr: And that's exactly what's happening with these lawsuits right now. Umm, and it is creating distrust, distrust in the market. Chad Sowash: Well, a black box is one of the biggest issues, right? Rebecca Carr: Well, 'cause candidates don't understand how they're being scored. Chad Sowash: It... Well, because there's no transparency. Rebecca Carr: No, there isn't. Chad Sowash: Hence black box. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: So how do we get to the point where we can, we can analyze gaps, we can actually ask candidates to fill those gaps, not go somewhere else and try to, you know, grab it off the web or something like that, but verify and validate what's actually happening through a transparent process. Rebecca Carr: And, and well, and the irony is, the reason why the score isn't usually, uh, very transparent to the candidate is because most engineering and product organizations at these companies aren't confident in their score. [chuckle] So they're, they're like, if a candidate goes and engages with this application process and I, I return a 660, and that candidate thinks they're an 85, they're like, oh, not only is this just offensive, umm, [chuckle] to me, but like, wow, this tech is horrible. And why is this company using this? And there's no way for me to make it better. Uh, and thus they hold it back and they're like, we'll get there. We'll show it in the future when we know we have some confidence around our matching. Chad Sowash: The, the, the future's been forever. Rebecca Carr: The future has... Well, yes, because the first... These... The first matching products that came to market were in 2017. So we talk about them as if it's been the last couple years. Chad Sowash: It was before that, wasn't it Trovix had them you know. Rebecca Carr: Well, sure, but I think as it relates to this, like, pure assistant matching capability that was, like, highly adopted. You really saw things pick up. Like 16, 17, 18 was when though... And they were all NLP that, like, fixed answers. Like, none of them were dynamic. Uh, they've since been rewritten a bunch of times. But now that tech is better. I think there Is this, uh, one awareness. You need to tell candidates that AI is being used in the process. And frankly, you shouldn't be afraid to because they're using it in their process. Chad Sowash: Does it really have to be AI? I mean, because we're... I think we lean way too hard on those two letters. Because from a process standpoint, it, it could be RPA, it could be, it could be a, a dozen different things, right? Just the system. And I think that just because AI is out there so much, that's the easy thing to point out. Isn't it just our job to just make sure no matter what we use, that the system is transparent and it's fair. And the only way that we can do that is to be transparent, right? And, and actually show, hey, here are the requirements for the job. You only meet two two of six. Which is why you are at a certain percentage, right? I, I... Rebecca Carr: Right. There's... There is a way to... The way that you present and you go... Going back to your question around experience, like the way that you present the data, the candidate is really important. It's not just about saying that your score... It's about... It's about saying that this is what we're coming to. And I actually said this to umm, uh, my engineers not too long ago. I was like, pre... I almost want to show it to them pre-application, like, here is my... Here is your... Here's what we're gleaning from your information. What do you wanna add to it? You don't have these other requirements. Why don't you, do you wanna provide some additional context? Almost like when you apply to college? [chuckle] Umm, and like every... There... None of those students have resumes, they just have grades and that's essentially what a CV is. Rebecca Carr: But how, how are they getting into these universities? They're writing an essay, they're telling us more. And how do you make the application process much more conversational? Umm, and uh, how do you allow that moment to set an expectation for the candidate around their fit for the role before they apply? And ironically it then reduces the number of applications likely. Uh, because people don't apply to jobs that they aren't qualified for. Chad Sowash: Well, if you set expectations up front, which we don't do really, right? I mean, we, we... It's... So if you're setting, like, as you had said, we're pretty much setting expectations up front. Here's what you need. Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash: Here's your checklist. Rebecca Carr: Yep. Chad Sowash: You know, and then if they meet all those checks but you're not seeing it, then being able to engage them and say, "Whoa, wait a minute. There's, there's, there's one that you missed. Do you have X, Y, or Z?" Rebecca Carr: Now, there's one element that, uh, most organizations, if they were sitting listening to this conversation, would like immediately jump in on, and that is that fraud is a big issue right now in the application workflow. That's a totally different problem to solve, though, and they are conflated as, like, sort of one application workflow. Umm, the use of AI by candidates in the workflow be... By candidates and by companies in the application experience, is completely different from evaluating application fraud and identity. Umm, I think they should be decoupled. I think that that is a much easier problem to solve. Uh, it is one of evaluating basic skills, asking for IDs. Like, there's amazing... There's, there's amazing different pieces of technology that have been introduced that can easily OEM into these workflows and solve that problem. Rebecca Carr: But it shouldn't take away from the fact that you should be able to have a conversation with a candidate before they even click apply, uh, that says, "Hey, this is why you're a fit. These are the things that they might be concerned about. And by the way, these are probably the questions that you should be prepared for in the interview if you receive it as a result of that." Umm, and it... The, the better that that experience can become, can become today, which, for what it's worth, it's not very good because the data that candidates give us right out the gate is not very strong. Chad Sowash: No. Rebecca Carr: So we're gonna need a little bit of trust, umm, from candidates in helping them build out those records. And, uh, ironically, when Jerome founded SmartRecruiters, he had a vision that was to engage with candidates more directly, uh, in that application flow. Umm, I actually think it's gonna come to life in a slightly different way than what he had envisioned before, but we'll have to, because AI is gonna become so prominent in the hiring workflow. Chad Sowash: When it comes to process and experience, I mean, uh, it seems like Chat is, is, is best to, to some extent for, for, for many. Because, I mean, what's the, what's the percentage of applies on mobile, uh, for, for SmartRecruiters? Rebecca Carr: Oh... Chad Sowash: Fairly high? Rebecca Carr: I... It's actually lower than you would think. Chad Sowash: Okay. Rebecca Carr: Umm, it's lower than 50%. Chad Sowash: Because of enterprise? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Because of enterprise. Chad Sowash: Okay. Rebecca Carr: Uh, I mean, it's obviously very, very high in certain industries like retail, hospitality, et cetera. Umm, but I... Applications through mobile devices, I'd say generally speaking, probably like, let's say a little south of 50%, umm, on average. But then if you add applications through chat experiences, they're actually still really low, like 10%. Chad Sowash: Okay. Sure. Rebecca Carr: People still are going back to the tried-and-true, "I'm gonna fill out the job application." And one of the things I'm really excited about, one... Like, announcement of the year for me, was this OpenAI jobs platform. Umm, for what it's worth, I... For what it's worth, I do not think... I think they made a mistake by calling it a jobs platform. Umm, but I agree that those types of experiences are gonna be an entry point for, uh, discovery of talent and of jobs. Umm, and that them leaning into that workflow will introduce a completely new market to them that will be immediately sticky and adopted in the same way that selling people things, selling people, you know, a dress or a purse, became prevalent on Instagram. Umm, it, like, if you're in that flow of activity, why not then introduce these other assets or entities? I think the issue that I take with it is that they're leaning on the fact that the job as we know it today, the description is going to live on forever. And I think that's completely false. Chad Sowash: And I hope not. [chuckle] Rebecca Carr: Uh, no. It's far too static. Umm, tasks will lead the way, work will lead the way, projects will lead the way, and they'll come to you on demand based on the types of questions that you're asking or, uh, the types of skills that you know. And that [0:37:24.4] ____. Chad Sowash: How do you change that? How do you change that behavior for companies, for the actual hiring companies? Rebecca Carr: Oh. [chuckle] Chad Sowash: That to me, I mean, if, if we want to change this, obviously, you know, trying to change the resume, that's, that's one thing. And we do that, I think, through interaction and gap analysis and, and being able to have literally engagement and asking questions around the actual job. But the employer, they've been really the stick-in-the-mud for a very long time, using the same job descriptions, maybe changing here and there, but not very often. Rebecca Carr: And you're, and you're seeing it evolve a little bit because you're seeing more and more jobs be created around projects. You even see that if you go to our, our website today. We have jobs that are posted, but really it is, we need you to help with like customer migration for this finite period of time. And we need these skills, none of which come from a job that you could... You pull off like one of those standard lists. Umm, and so we are seeing companies lean in this direction. I will say that, umm, workforce planning is one of the most disruptible and interesting areas of AI adoption that I think will come to us in the next couple years. Because... And it... And if you see it in the SAP context, if agents are following a business's performance on... Like, in real time, theoretically, they could make recommendations on where capacity gaps sit within that organization. Rebecca Carr: Umm, and they could do it on demand. And they will start to probably make recommendations around, uh, how capacity will be met with both agents and people. Uh, and the second you start breaking jobs today into agent-led and human-led tasks, uh, the more that the, the title of a job will be broken, and or have to be completely relabeled. And we won't be able to come up with that, and so we will find people to deliver tasks. And so these bundles of tasks will probably be named something. Maybe it will be the name of a project or the, uh, name of a team. Uh, but these are the things we need people to go do and thus who can fulfill these tasks. And so I think by introducing agents into the org structure, we're gonna start to break that apart or at least we're gonna reframe what a job looks like and where you spend your time. Rebecca Carr: Where... What utilization looks like is a good example. And that, that will, that will start us on that journey. I think that partnership and ecosystem with consumer products like an OpenAI... Well, B2C and B2B products, but OpenAI is both, but, uh, people that own consumer experiences like that jumping into this game will also help to facilitate that. [0:40:18.4] ____ Chad Sowash: How long do you think it takes? Rebecca Carr: Oh, I think we are probably 18 months away from, like, seeing it start to really, like, find a flywheel in certain industries. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So do we start with, let's say, for instance, I don't know, recruiting, talent acquisition? Umm, because we already see companies talking about, talking about using different automations and processes and so on and so forth. But being able to teach them, uh, to be able to break down... I mean, I think what it all comes down to is most the, you know, talent acquisition teams, they're already understaffed, right? Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yeah. Chad Sowash: And they're told to use technology, uh, to, to do their job. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: And they're kinda out there trying to do it on, on their own. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Umm, how do we help them standardize and really understand and literally, I mean, again, this is, this is, this is your realm. How do we build agents to be able to take that workload off? You've already started doing that with scheduling and, and things of that nature. So how do you lead the charge with your clients to be able to really get that wave moving? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Well, I think that recruiting as a whole will always be at least 50% human-led because the process of finding someone that's a fit for your business is wildly subjective and requires a lot of context that agents will never be able to see. Umm, and I think a lot of the reason why people don't last and within companies. Actually, I think there was a survey run that it's either because the work that was described to them the day that they applied is not the work that they ended up getting, or they hate their hiring manager. And when everybody is following the same static process in a hiring workflow, you inevitably make a lot of mistakes because you miss some of the, uh, softer signals in the application workflow that would have identified who was really gonna be successful in your organ... Organization and not. Rebecca Carr: And so I think, uh, what we encourage our customers to do is implement agents to do all the stuff that your recruiters shouldn't be and have them spend more time talking to people, networking, building relationships, umm, evaluating, uh, fit. And that could not necessarily be fit with the company. It could be team fit. There might be certain managers that lead in different ways that could... Chad Sowash: But is that your job to be able to help them identify that? Because if you don't, they're not gonna find time to. Rebecca Carr: It's my job to free up the time and then it's, it's the customer's job to educate recruiters on how to go do that really, really well. And right now technology is not freeing up the time. And so if I can free up that time, then I can actually make the process of hiring much more connected. But if, if you were the average candidate in the marketplace and instead of applying to what today is, could be hundreds of different jobs, spraying and praying, you know, uh, on, uh, all of these different companies, if you were just matched to three that we already knew were 90% of the way there and this was about really spending your time and energy figuring out which one is going to give you fire and energy, then every company will get so much more out of their talent. Rebecca Carr: And today, unfortunately, that's just not the way the process works. They're, they're all... They all go to three interviews, and those three interviews are with the same three people, and those three people have no idea how to interview people. Umm, so what, what actually should be happening is those customers should be making sure that they're matching the right interviewers with the right candidates, letting them really unpack big problems, evaluate how, how they're going to perform within the business at a deeper level, umm, and, uh, teaching those interviewers how to ask the right questions in order to know that. Umm, and that could be, uh, the role of a recruiter or, like an... We hear some of our customers call them talent advisors now, umm, talent advisors within an organization. Chad Sowash: So, hard question. And this is very introspective, I hope. Umm, seen, uh, CEOs over the years, uh, get to certain stages and literally just kinda, like, flame out. Uh, after acquisition, before acquisition, sometimes get to growth mode, that's it. How do you... How do you not flame out like that? I mean, it's gotta be something that you, you, you ask yourself, or do you not? Rebecca Carr: The reason why I am not flaming out right now [laughter] is because this is... This industry, this, this, this product, like, this is what I love. Like, I wanna see it through, and I, like, naturally really wanna be a disruptor. Chad Sowash: It's getting so much bigger, though, right? Rebecca Carr: It's, but that's... Chad Sowash: You can't manage the same way. You can't lead the same way. Rebecca Carr: That, that's... But that's okay. Like, you need to keep, uh, you need to keep learning and trying and experimenting. And to be honest with you, if I had been a CEO for the last 10, 15 years, I wouldn't be able to lead the same way. Like, no, C... No CEO can lead the same way right now. Umm, there's so much uncertainty around us that you need to really challenge yourself to, like, listen, listen really intently to what the market is telling you, what the customer is telling you, to what your employee is telling you, and to react, and react with confidence, and react with decisiveness. Uh, and that... I, I hope that challenge never, never goes away from me because I, I talk a lot about, umm, uh, there's this concept of flow state. And on the y-axis, you have boredom, and on the x-axis, you have anxiety. Rebecca Carr: And every person, and every CEO, has a flow state where, like, they need to be in a certain zone in order to actually be at their best. And I, my flow state is literally on the borderline of total mental breakdown. [laughter] Like, I do really well in high-anxiety situations, and that has served me really, really well. Now, I think that as the market evolves and some of these new disruptive technologies find their place, there will be a moment where I need to, you know, look more internally, stop, be more thoughtful and intentional about how I take the next step. But for right now, that's working for me, and it's working for me in a space that I really have a passion and great love for. Uh, if I didn't believe that we could do this, if I didn't, uh, if I didn't have, like, like, see the future through... Like, I didn't have it pictured... Like, drawn out in my brain, you'd probably see me hesitate. Rebecca Carr: That would come through in a lack of confidence in the way I communicated to my people, and it would probably show up in the performance of my business. Umm, but I, I'm not there. And so I'm gonna power forward, and I'm gonna take note of everything I learn along the way and hopefully use it as tools for the next step. But I also am, umm, very, very vocal with the people that sit above me within the SAP landscape. I mean, obviously, I... My boss now is a much bigger company. Uh, I've had honest conversations with them of, "I can't let my fire go out. The second that fire goes out, the fire will go out for my people." Umm, and so this is what I need from you in order to keep that flame alive. Umm, and I'm not apolo... I'm not apologetic about asking for that, because it's only gonna make them better. Rebecca Carr: And I think it's been a, a very respected opinion. Now, they might look at me and say, "Rebecca, at some point in time, we can't do that for you." And then that's just a really good signal that maybe they need a different type of leader. Now, I can either choose to become that leader and learn in that moment, or I can go find that same fire somewhere else. Uh, but, uh, it's certainly not... Uh, it's, it's not something that I worry about. It's something that I, uh, I'm just prepared for, mentally prepared for when and if that moment comes. Chad Sowash: So, being a leader means that you're also a mentor, right? Rebecca Carr: Sure. Chad Sowash: So, talk about your people, because this is not... Again, introspective is about you, but also, you've got a big team, right? So, talk a little bit about mentorship, talk about how much that means to you. Uh, in, in some cases, you've got leaders underneath you. Maybe they just fend for themselves and, and, and, uh, they, they grow themselves and, you know, they're big boys and girls, they know how to do it. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: How do you lead? Rebecca Carr: Yeah, I, I mean, you cannot lead every person the same way. Everybody requires a different type of need, interaction, uh, a different style of feedback. Probably the one that I've come to love the most is everybody wants to be recognized very, very differently. Umm, and so a lot of my... I make it a point to build very strong relationships with every single one of them. And when I go into a conversation, I go into that conversation with the intent to listen and understand, not the intent to reply. Umm, I don't want to always give them the answer on demand because really, the way I respond, the way that I... Umm, the, the decision that I make as a result of their ask might be very different based on how I think they're gonna show up, and I need to be thoughtful about what that is for them. Rebecca Carr: I think, [chuckle] uh, I, I, I got some feedback from actually a peer long ago that when giving feedback to anybody, just being extremely direct is the most... He used the word humane, but like, the, like, the most humane, but also the most effective way of giving feedback. "That didn't go well. I didn't think that went well, and this is why I didn't think it goes well... It went well. What do you think?" Umm, and so I've tried to implement that strategy as much as possible. It can feel overwhelming to people the first time they hear it, but as long as I'm consistent about giving feedback that way over time, then they know exactly what to expect and they adapt. Umm, but I've also learned that there's certain pieces of feedback that aren't worth giving to certain people because I know that they themselves will, umm, uh, will know that they made a mistake anyway and will, will, will fix it on their own without me needing to drill in. Rebecca Carr: And I, I, uh, not to go off on a horrible tangent, but I am a huge believer in the Enneagram, the personality test. I know the numbers of all of my people, and those people will demonstrate traits which tell me if they are in a healthy state or an unhealthy state. And as a result of that, I know exactly how to respond and react. And, uh, I make them take this assessment, but I also spend time talking to them about that assessment, about how I'm gonna react to that assessment, about what they can expect from me in this moment. And, uh, it has given me a framework to sort of craft the way that I lead each person individually. Uh, but I'll say finally, hire great people and you... Like, they will lead themselves as well. I spend a lot of time picking the right people. Chad Sowash: How do you, how do you know who the great people are? That's the hard part, right? Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Is that, is that a personal gut feeling? Is that what, what does that look like for you? Rebecca Carr: Some... Well, some, some of it's a gut feeling, but I, I would argue a couple things. Well, one, I need people that have genuine self-awareness. Umm, my number one interview question that I ask people is, "Tell me a piece of negative feedback that you've received and how it's impacted you." You would be shocked at how many people go, "I don't know if I've gotten much negative feedback." [laughter] I'm like, "Really? Come on. Like, you've got to... You got some negative feedback in some survey at some point in time." Umm, so I'm looking for a level of self-awareness, umm, that is, uh, personal to them, that they deeply want to be a great leader. 50% of the job is values alignment. My values as a leader and as a, as a company, our values are to focus only on the biggest problems. Rebecca Carr: So I need someone that will, like, intently run at one thing and be able to say no. I need someone with a... With real grit and commitment, umm, like, almost a chip on their shoulder, because what we're doing here is, like, disruption requires real courage and a bold personality. And I need someone that wants to work with other people and believes that other people are their secret weapon to delivering success. Chad Sowash: Right. Rebecca Carr: And so I'm constantly testing for that. Umm, and I oftentimes ask leaders how they pick. Like, what's... Like, they're gonna have a bench that's going to support them. How are they making the decision on who's gonna work with them, and how are they expecting the people on that team to hire below them? If they're not as focused on hiring good people as me, then it's probably not gonna be a great match. Umm, but yeah, if I've... I have the most incredible executive team. I would not change one of them. They all balance each other out. They all bring great strengths. They all have great weaknesses. But they're here to do this with me. They, they believe in the cause, so to speak. Umm, they work incredibly hard. And each of them has a different leadership style and a team that matches that really, really well that I kind of stay out of. Rebecca Carr: I want them to... I want them to build their own micro-cultures, because that, that are... The unity that I create at the executive team is what's gonna create success. Umm, a great engineer should fit really well with Michal and doesn't necessarily have to fit well with Steve. And so any sort of consistent framework of measurement or testing, like, we don't do at SmartRecruiters. Chad Sowash: I get your sphere of influences pretty much inside the organization within departments. Okay. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So, what, what's next for rip and replace? Like, beyond that, right? What is next for SmartRecruiters inside of SAP? Rebecca Carr: Well, uh, all of the customers of SuccessFactors and SuccessFactors recruiting... Chad Sowash: How many of them? Rebecca Carr: Many, many thousands, [chuckle] I'll say. Uh, that you... Well, there's many, many thousands that use SuccessFactors, like, over 10. Umm, but there are... Uh, there's many, many thousands of those that use SuccessFactors recruiting are gonna be migrating to SmartRecruiters. That in itself is an interesting challenge, 'cause most people just roll their eyes and are terrified at that moment. Like, who wants to migrate tools? Uh, but the way we are doing this is, I think, some of the most fascinating work that we're delivering this year. Chad Sowash: Migration, and it sucks. Rebecca Carr: It sucks. But you know... Chad Sowash: So how are you gonna do it where it doesn't suck? [0:56:08.2] ____. [laughter] Rebecca Carr: Well, well, we're using our AI-first mindset as a starting point. Umm, integration and migration sucks because it's mostly just, like, field mapping, error checking, continuous testing, like, ugh. But that's perfect for agents. So, like, let's just let agents do that and actually spend time working with these customers and how they're gonna rethink a hiring experience using a product that's designed to do just that, to deliver them seamless, embedded, uh, recruiting journeys within their flow of work. And that's... That is in itself is a change management problem, not a technical problem. Rebecca Carr: So I'm trying... In the same way that I'm trying to remove all the administrative work from recruiting so that people can focus on having healthy conversations, I'm trying to remove all the administrative work from migrating and integrating two systems so that people can have a conversation about the future of work and, uh, partner with me, not just on, uh, enabling the existing SmartRecruiters experience, but building the SmartRecruiters experience of the future. And there's some amazing customers and amazing brands that, uh, sit within SuccessFactors today that are really excited to have that conversation. Umm, but on top of that, we have all of SAP. You said earlier, like, they are the world's largest enterprise software company. Uh, business runs SAP. Chad Sowash: Right. Rebecca Carr: And, uh, those data sets are data sets that no recruiting tech company has ever been exposed to. So the level of innovation that we can start to drive, we talked about workforce, uh, planning and agent versus human-led work and capacity, like, perfect, perfect innovation for me to go lean into and one that I'm being given the opportunity to go do right now. So I think you're gonna see, first of all, a lot more customers go live on SmartRecruiters. I mean, we're expected to, over the next several years here, 5x our customer base overnight, which is a lot. And... Chad Sowash: Which is why you need this integration tool to be able to... Rebecca Carr: Which is why... Exactly. [laughter] Make it easier. Chad Sowash: Flip a switch. Rebecca Carr: But I hope what we will be known for is, one, how easy it was to do that, and as a result, how much trust we built in those customers so that they would invest and lean into the AI journey that I know they're going to have to embrace in order to be successful in the future. Uh, and, uh, we're excited to do both. Chad Sowash: Well, knowing that SmartRecruiters as well as SAP, umm, and all the different brands, they, they interface with tons of other point solutions and... So, I mean, that type of a product could literally be its own company. Rebecca Carr: Yes. Yes. Chad Sowash: Because you're talking business integration. Rebecca Carr: Business integration, for sure. Yes. Chad Sowash: Yeah, entirely. So is that, is that something that you guys, uh, obviously right now you're really disciplined and focused on... Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: The TA space. But I mean, is that something where with a, with a big name like SAP who owns business. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Is that a journey that you could, you could perspectively take? Rebecca Carr: Oh, 100%. I mean, we had a mission for many years of connecting people to jobs at scale, and I say to the company... I say to our company now, this is about connecting people to work at scale. Umm, and work is fueled by business applications all around the world and, frankly, partner, uh, ecosystems that we've never even engaged with before. Umm, SAP has been... Has an incredibly strong ecosystem. That ecosystem is delivering a lot of insight to SAP that they, they themselves don't have, and they're proud of that insight. Umm, we will be great at facilitating business orchestration, but, you know, for one market, in one language, for one workflow, we might not be the best. And, uh, building through the eyes of, like, openness and being okay with accepting that data and leveraging it to our advantage doesn't weaken us, it strengthens us in the stickiness and adoption of the platform. Chad Sowash: Yeah. Rebecca Carr: So I'm, uh, I'm really encouraged by their support of our open strategy, uh, our OEM strategy, our, umm, our, our marketplace and partner strategy. Over time like this has, uh, been a real reason why we've been successful and it's gonna continue on just in a slightly different context now. Instead of integrating through, you know, APIs and just exchanging data, we're going to be speaking to someone else's agent and delivering it through our, our new experiences. Yeah. Chad Sowash: So knowing how painful integration, moving from one ATS to the next ATS is. Rebecca Carr: Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash: Today. Right. If you wanna change vendors, umm, being able to... Now knowing that you're doing that, this inside of the, the SAP ecosystem now being able to do that outside, uh, that kind of change, I mean, because you don't know how many, how many, uh, hiring companies I've talked to that say, man, I'd love to be able to go over to this ATS, but change is too hard. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash: It is too... Does this make it easier so that people can be a hell of a lot more flexible? Rebecca Carr: Yes. Chad Sowash: To, to go toward the type of tech that, that, that they want for the future, as opposed to literally just sitting in the old stuff till it dies? Rebecca Carr: Yes, I think it will, umm, we're building this, this integration... Set of integration tools and migration tools so that it can be applicable to moving to SmartRecruiters as someone totally net new. Uh, and I think what happened over the last several years is you had uh, people that were on an applicant tracking system and they hated the capability. So what did they do? They added on 15-point solutions and they integrated them all. Instead of actually just just changing and moving to something different or maybe reducing the scale of their tech stack because they didn't need all of that feature bloat. They just stuck, tried and true and added on these point solutions and they've created a disconnected experience that's not setting them up for success in the future. Rebecca Carr: I need to back them out of that moment right now and in order to do that I have to back... I need to provide them a very easy path to taking all that capability and consolidating it into one. And that can happen through very simple migration and integration tools, uh, that bring them... Each and every one of those products, uh, together and all that data into one singular experience within SmartRecruiters. And that's external. That's not just migrating people off SuccessFactors. That's, that's much... A much bigger picture. Uh, and it puts a lot of pressure on product leaders to then just build really sticky, engaging products that no one ever wants to leave, uh, versus what I think happened, which is people got a little lazy. They knew you weren't leaving because you were stuck and it was painful to change. Chad Sowash: Exactly. Rebecca Carr: So it lowers the bar for what you as an organ... As a product and platform need to be delivering every single year in order to continue to, to win the love and trust of your customer base. And that, uh, that, that's actually a really exciting moment. It can be a very scary moment for a lot of leaders, but for me an exciting one because it, it forces a level of accountability into the ecosystem where the people that are successful and differentiated and solving the right problems win and the people that have not been doing that, uh, don't. And uh, that is, uh, bringing out the competitive side of me [chuckle] as a, as a CEO. Chad Sowash: So it, it feels like you're talking about the uh, Point Solutions. Uh, are we going to more point solutions with orchestration or, or point solutions pretty much gonna go away because bigger ecosystems can, can hopefully have teams to build fast and/or partner. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, I mean the pendulum always swings back and forth. Umm, so inevitably some point solutions will survive this moment. Uh, but they're gonna have to pivot the way they think about partner and channel probably in order to be successful. The most of the little guys I think are gonna struggle or they'll be consolidated either in roll ups or through strategic acquisitions, uh, and they'll be... Become part of like a bigger platform play. We call it the sweet play, but I like to think of it as platform. Umm, but I... You, you're gonna get some of those point solutions that offer an adjacent workflow that's so valuable and so niche that the, the numbers... The math won't math for the platform to go invest in that direction. Rebecca Carr: And so they'll become very strong channel and ecosystem partners that will receive a ton of leads from those big platforms. Uh, but uh, will be able to sort of move through the moment, will have enough financing to support themselves and will be successful in doing so. But uh, there will be far fewer recruiting tech vendors in my opinion in five years than there, there are today. Chad Sowash: It feels like we've been trying to migrate from talent acquisition, talent management to a talent organization for a very long time, right? And there's a lot of gray area in between talent management and talent acquisition where there's literally... It's like nobody has accountability and/or responsibility of a lot of things that happen, right? [chuckle] It feels like, through this orchestration, especially with bigger ecosystems like, like the SAPs, umm, we'll be able to actually build tech to make that transition much easier so that we're looking at talent in a total life cycle. Rebecca Carr: Yes. Chad Sowash: Right. Where we... It's, it's talent came in. Oh, we're done. No we're not. We still have to develop them, we still have to look at intermobility. We have so much that we still have to do. Do you think that tech will drive more of that transition or do you think it's, it's gonna take more than that? Rebecca Carr: Yeah, well, so I think tech might facilitate uh, an improvement to that transition but I think what really will is the idea that right now companies own your talent profile. Umm, the moment you submit an application, they are now the controller of that data set. You get hired, they move it between systems, they add to it with their own skills and their own performance reviews and all of that. Chad Sowash: But that's my data. [laughter] Rebecca Carr: And that's I think the point. I think that as we talked about with umm, the level of transparency that we're starting to pull forward into the application workflow, there's an argument to be made that more and more of that profile becomes your own and then that agents use that profile which builds and evolves and grows over time as a, as a vehicle to be matched to tasks and work and projects and that, that is not something created by the company, but owned and created by the candidate. Uh, and uh, technology will facilitate that. The more you start to lean into some of these consumer experiences, it... Be it LinkedIn or OpenAI or Indeed or whatnot, the more that I think you're gonna see, uh, profiles be leveraged across organizations instead of singular and, and within... Rebecca Carr: And one of the problems with talent management in my opinion is that group was first focused on like internal job pages and things like that. And then all of a sudden it became about skills and everything about skills taxonomies and normalizing skills across jobs and, and whatnot. Uh, and that is such a good behemoth of a project to do that requires somebody that's uninvolved and unemotional about the moment to engage. Like skills are only, only as good as what you, the candidate admit to knowing. Chad Sowash: Yes. Rebecca Carr: [laughter] Umm, and so because you're not the owner of that profile, you take no real pride in making sure that it's up to date and manageable and useful to an organization. But I think the more you shift to this very transparent, uh, open box kind of moment around application, the more the candidate will take back their own development, their own career profile, their own performance and will use that across every company to which they engage with. Uh, and tech will do all the normalization and all that jazz that we've gotten our minds wrapped around. Chad Sowash: Well, with an organization as big as SAP, and then we, we've heard about talent passports and I mean all the different things forever. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Uh, I mean it seems like it's gonna take a, a united initiative through a large platform to be able to create a universal profile of sorts that, that uh, the, the candidate obviously owns. But you know, obviously agents can act like I'm, umm, finishing up a project and that goes onto my dossier or whatever we wanna call it. Rebecca Carr: Yeah. Chad Sowash: Umm, does that... I mean, does that feel like something that... Because we've been talking about it for over a decade. Rebecca Carr: Oh yeah, but we've been talking about it with independent HR tech vendors instead of with the people that control work today. Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, things like that. Like, and those vendors are starting to have this conversation with the likes of SAP or the likes of Workday. Chad Sowash: Does that move us faster in the right direction? Rebecca Carr: I think it does, yes. Umm, and that those are the most interesting partnerships for us to invest in right now because they, they own the most powerful and sticky relationship with the employee of anybody. Umm, and that doesn't make someone like an SAP or a Google less valuable, but it just means that you can't offer op... You can't operate on two different agendas. By aligning with sort of how work will move through an organization, you can leverage each person's expertise to facilitate change. And I think that's what's gonna happen. Yeah. Chad Sowash: Oh, Rebecca, thanks again for having me back to Spain. This is a horrible. Rebecca Carr: Good view. Chad Sowash: Uh, yeah, [chuckle] no, I appreciate it. And thanks for... Thanks for sitting down and congratulations. Big applause. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, thank you. Chad Sowash: On the, on the acquisition and more. Rebecca Carr: Yeah, thanks. Speaker 3: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or, umm, 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 and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the gilt. 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.

Buckle up for another chaotic ride with  HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast , where the banter is sharp, the takes are hot, and no industry sacred cow is safe from the slaughter. In this episode,  Joel Cheesman ,  JT O’Donnell , and  Maureen Clough  (with a hit-and-run cameo from  Chad Sowash ) navigate a conversational minefield that stretches from high-stakes geopolitical dread to the gritty future of how we all get paid. The crew kicks things off with a dive into the "dark humor" of global escalations and movie hot takes before pivoting to the real-world anxieties of the modern professional. Is the  resume finally dead , or is it just being fitted for a digital tuxedo? The team squares off on whether AI "slop" has officially broken the application process, leading to a fiery debate on why your personal brand might be the only life raft left in an unstable sea. From the rise of  video-first branding  to the "human-in-the-loop" reality of  Anthropic’s  latest AI study, the hosts dissect who is actually at risk of being replaced and who is just being handed better tools. The episode also serves up a masterclass in modern marketing, dissecting a viral  $80M funding round  that proves "knowledge creators" might be the new kings of recruiting—though Joel isn’t sold on the hype just yet. Between legacy tech acquisitions that feel a little too "desperate" and a sobering look at the "broken rung" still stalling  women in leadership , this episode balances cynicism with a blueprint for survival. Whether you’re worried about flying cars or just trying to survive the next wave of AI-driven layoffs, this is the snark-filled reality check you need. Ready to hear why your  LinkedIn engagement  is tanking and why a Big Mac video might be the future of executive branding?  Hit play  and join the conversation. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman (00:28.961) yeah, we can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind. Hey, boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Big Arch Cheeseman. Maureen Clough (00:42.399) Boreen aka. JT ODonnell (00:42.764) And I'm JT, it's shoulder season O'Donnell. Joel Cheesman (00:46.657) I guess we didn't work that out in the beginning. Maureen Clough (00:46.987) I'm Maureen. Yeah, and I can't wait my turn. I'm Maureen aka Mo Wiley Clough and I have a middle name that is unfollow your dreams because that's just how I'm feeling these days. Joel Cheesman (01:03.105) Love it. All right, it's Mo, it's JT, it's me. And on this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, RIP resumes, FYI, anthropic, and go home and get your juice box. Joel Cheesman (01:20.469) Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:26.177) Shockingly, I think the first Goodfellas soundbite that we've pulled for the show, unfortunately. Yeah, one of the greatest movies of all time, Goodfellas. Best gangster movie of all time, go, JT. JT ODonnell (01:31.288) Seriously. Maureen Clough (01:33.567) Wow. I haven't seen it. Are you shocked? JT ODonnell (01:34.188) Mm, agreed. JT ODonnell (01:40.48) I'm with you on Goodfellas. Love it. 10 out of 10. Joel Cheesman (01:41.461) Goodfellas, okay. Maureen, best mobster movie of all time? Maureen Clough (01:44.171) Do you guys think I watch movies at this point? Goodfellas, never seen it. Never seen it. Nope, nope, probably too scary for me. Nope. Big zip. Nope. None. Literally none. I know, I know, I know. Your movie references are whoosh right over my head. Joel Cheesman (01:51.669) You haven't seen any mobster movies? Godfather, one or two, Goodfellas, Sopranos. JT ODonnell (01:58.958) Casino. Joel Cheesman (02:01.697) because man, holy shit. Well, are you aware there's a, are you? Are you aware there's a war going on in the Middle East? Are you at least tuned in to that? Maureen Clough (02:14.263) yes. That I unfortunately do know. Yes, indeed. Wish I didn't. Wish I could off-stretch on that one, like to be under the sand. How am I doing? Fabulous. Just so well. I've never been better. What about you guys? I mean, it's amazing to be living in a world where like one headline just beats the last in terms of absolute mayhem. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:21.193) Yeah, and how are we all coping about that? Joel Cheesman (02:27.382) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (02:43.187) World War III marching on our door. It's awesome. Joel Cheesman (02:44.257) Yeah, it's great. It's I love I love a government that ignores the Constitution. Now granted, we've been doing that for a very long time. But at least at least last time we did this, we went in front of Congress and lied about weapons of mass destruction, at least got some consensus that way. This time we just said screw it and went in. So I think I think this is a very, very bad situation. I don't. If we could have secured the Strait of Hormuz, we would have done it by now. Maureen Clough (02:48.607) Yeah, me too. Solid. Right. Maureen Clough (02:58.526) Mmm, yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:12.011) but I don't think we have an answer for the drones, for the mines, for the missiles, for the speed boats packed with explosives. The thing that people are talking about, natural gas, if one of those goes up, it's like a massive explosion. It's a horrific happening. So anyway, I think this is really, really, really bad. We'll see. We'll see. Maureen Clough (03:37.803) Kind of a perfect storm. JT ODonnell (03:39.245) disagree. Yeah, I don't I don't disagree. just I almost feel this is scary. But I almost feel like they're sitting there with this big map of the world. And they've got all these little things of like, I'm just gonna say the powers to be. They've got the massive Yes. And they're staring at this thing. And it's like, the game of life mop monopoly, battleship and risk all into one and they're like, Hey, what? Just what if we did this over here? Joel Cheesman (03:50.837) Who's they? Just, okay, the Illuminati on Epstein Island, yeah. Maureen Clough (03:56.779) The mobsters that you mentioned. Joel Cheesman (04:04.086) Yeah. JT ODonnell (04:09.346) How do you think it would affect the economy? Let's just do that. That's what it feels like to me. Let's do it because we can and let's see what happens. It's crazy to me. Joel Cheesman (04:12.353) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:19.679) Well, know, the thing about risk that's interesting is you don't build alliances in risk. it's just nations killing each other basically and you try to grow your nation bigger than the others. We're dealing with situation now, like there's a axis of China, North Korea, Russia, Iran that would love the West to die. JT ODonnell (04:27.886) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:43.339) China stood there and saw Venezuela taken off the map if we're talking about risk. If they get Iran taken off the map, it's really, really bad for China. They become like boxed in, they're energy dependent on America pulling the strings. So China has a extreme interest in Iran not failing in this war. again, I don't see, this is gonna end badly. I'm very scared, very fearful. JT ODonnell (05:02.731) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (05:08.79) I don't disagree. just can't believe the way that it almost feels cavalier. Does that make sense? Like the way that they're, they went into this, like you said, no getting in front of Congress. No, just, it just feels like we can, why not? You know, it's crazy. Maureen Clough (05:17.355) 100 % definition of Cavalier. Maureen Clough (05:24.051) it's. Joel Cheesman (05:24.097) Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. JT, that's what's going on here. Maureen Clough (05:27.115) It's wild and dark humor is one of the only thing that's getting me by right now. it's, I just saw something on the onion the other day that was so incredibly funny. And I'm just gonna read it to you right now. says, FBI uncovers al-Qaeda plots. Just sit back and enjoy the collapse of the United States. That pretty much nails it. own goal. JT ODonnell (05:27.15) Amen. Joel Cheesman (05:33.249) All right. Joel Cheesman (05:36.971) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (05:48.195) Yeah. Did you, and if you go watch SNL this past weekend, they did a skit on a press meeting. did you see that one? I died. Yeah, you gotta go see it. He's basically out there going, mm-hmm. Yep. yeah, go watch it. Joel Cheesman (05:49.953) It's fun. Maureen Clough (05:51.381) Dark. Joel Cheesman (05:57.686) Yeah. Maureen Clough (05:58.379) I love that. No, I haven't, but I really want to now. Joel Cheesman (06:00.747) Sure. The upside down keg stand, yeah. Yeah, it's all good. Maureen Clough (06:06.571) God, is it Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth? Like, what's up dillweeds? I love that guy, man. He's so funny. So funny. Joel Cheesman (06:12.235) Yes. Yeah. What's your name? Jessica still single or whatever it was. Yeah. Like, yeah, that is my name. Well, something positive. It's, it's, it's, it's women's month, huh? Like in your two women last I checked, like, is this a thing or no, you're welcome. JT ODonnell (06:13.046) Yes, yes, yes, that is literally it. Yeah. Maureen Clough (06:17.355) Thank God for these people. Maureen Clough (06:25.887) Yay. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't be more thrilled. Yeah. So much. Yeah. Sure. Yay. Awesome. Matriarchy now is what I'll say to that. Matriarchy now. It's time. I'm ready. JT ODonnell (06:28.91) Wow, thanks Joel. Thank you for that. Joel Cheesman (06:38.497) Okay, all right. Matriarchy now. Are you saying that women in power wouldn't have led us down this road of destruction? Maureen Clough (06:48.323) Exactly precisely that. No mother. I mean, my gosh, absolutely not. Nope. We would not be here. It's a lot of big egos, big swinging you know what. JT ODonnell (06:48.79) I mean, that goes without saying. That goes without saying. Mm-mm. Yep. Joel Cheesman (06:55.105) All right, before we slide into absolute misery, let's get into some shout outs, shall we? JT ODonnell (07:01.025) you Maureen Clough (07:06.259) All right, guys, I gotta save us from this a little bit. right, dark humor, guys. Disappointing Affirmations is my shout out. This is a book that has been created on the back of an Instagram account by a guy named Dave Tarnowski. It is absolutely hilarious. It makes me laugh every single day. And I just purchased it at my local bookstore. And they even have the cover that you can fold out to be a full-blown poster. So it's like the opposite of one of those stupid corporate motivational posters. Joel Cheesman (07:07.179) Mo, bring us back. Walk us off the ledge. Maureen Clough (07:34.939) And it is amazing. So that's why I said unfollow your dreams as my middle name, because this guy has been inspiring me. One of my favorites, I'm just gonna read to you, have a panic attack. You've earned it. And for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, all of these different sayings have this beautiful sort of natural background, things that you would see like, you know, an eagle soaring in the background on a corporate poster. Don't let anybody, don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself. That's your job and nobody does it better. That's another. Amazing one. Ask the universe for guidance. Ask the universe for guidance. Then just go and do whatever stupid shit you were going to do anyway. I mean, it's just brilliant. So if you want to laugh, I highly recommend this. Joel Cheesman (08:18.143) Nice, I like to laugh. And thank God there's someone still reading books out there. Thank you, Mo, for that. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Maureen Clough (08:19.083) Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, this is one is, it's a real, mean, 600 pages, very dense, you know. Joel Cheesman (08:30.049) Nice. All right. I'm going to my shout out. My shout out is to Evie Talls. I think it's the first time we've said that on the show. If it's on your bingo card, please mark it off. It's electric vehicles that are takeoff and landing. So these are the flying cars, I guess, if you've watched the Jetsons out there. Some of the brands you may or may not know are Joby, Maureen Clough (08:30.367) Really academic. Yep, intellectual pursuit. Maureen Clough (08:51.335) You Joel Cheesman (08:56.851) Archer, another one called Beta. These are public companies, by the way. You can check them out. But anyway, they've just got approved to start flying in, I think, 26 states. So we talk a lot about on this show how jobs are being lost, how, you know, misery and this, you know, the landscape is full of disappointing and depressing stories. To me, this is an example of technology creating new opportunities. I have no doubt that rich people in New York, Chicago, LA are going to fly these things to the airport from wherever their office is. This is going to be like a luxury thing. I don't want to sit in traffic. So anytime you have luxury experiences, you have the concierge, you have a pilot, you have food service, you have marketing and sales, have, by the way, these things have to land on buildings. So there's going to be more places where they can. Maureen Clough (09:33.483) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:52.189) take off and land and that's going to be a business opportunity. it's kind of cool that we have these things sort of in the pipeline, but I think it's a great example of look, new jobs are going to be created and things like this are going to be sort of the tip of the spear of new opportunities being created. So my shout out goes to the folks that are doing EvieTalls. EvieTalls. JT ODonnell (10:17.358) I'm so happy, first of all, I'm so happy you said that, but also Joel, it's just so positive of you. You feeling okay over there? like, what? Just saying, what, right? Like, I know, you feeling okay? So my shout out. Maureen Clough (10:17.504) Maureen Clough (10:26.12) What's gotten into you? Maureen Clough (10:31.612) Hahahaha Joel Cheesman (10:32.478) I don't feel like my shout outs are generally doom and despair. That usually comes later in the show. So I'm just I'm setting you guys up for don't worry. The angry white guys coming out at some point. Don't worry. Maureen Clough (10:37.387) They usually are, they're usually around fast food, right? JT ODonnell (10:39.086) Yeah, no, but I love the hopefulness of that one. I do, I love it, I love it. Maureen Clough (10:44.011) Is it coming? JT ODonnell (10:48.014) That sounds more accurate. There's Joel. There he is. he is. Yeah, so I know you brought it up last week. You talked about the McDonald's CEO, but I'm bringing it up again this week because as everyone saw, everybody jumped on the bandwagon, right? Like, you know, every executive out there decided to do their version, right? And this is just that moment when I love saying I told you so, because I think Maureen Clough (10:51.158) That's such a good sound. Yeah, there he is. He's back. Joel Cheesman (10:54.305) All right, JT, what you got? Joel Cheesman (11:07.734) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (11:17.237) Okay. JT ODonnell (11:18.346) In the over a year straight that I've been on here, I've been telling you what executives need to do video, executives need to do video, CEOs like you need to be out there branding yourself so that if some particular video doesn't land right, the whole world isn't making that first impression of you, which is what happened, right? But now everybody's jumping on it and going, wait, we get attention? This is fun, people listen to us, we sell product? Joel Cheesman (11:26.571) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (11:43.679) You Joel Cheesman (11:45.985) Uh huh. Uh huh. Maureen Clough (11:47.828) Hahaha JT ODonnell (11:48.035) guess what you're gonna see now, thanks to that, I mean, he tried, he went first, I'm backing him for that reason. But now, they're all gonna do it. They're all going to do it after we've been saying forever. Like, now they see the benefits and they're all going to do it. So if this is what took it to get executives there, fine, but it's about dang time, you know? Maureen Clough (11:55.819) There you go. Gotta start somewhere, Joel Cheesman (12:08.353) That's interesting. So if you haven't been watching, the CEO of McDonald's tasted their new Whopper, whatever, Supreme, Big Arch, and got just killed for it looking like he's never had a hamburger before, like he's not CEO of McDonald's. mean, totally awkward, totally nerdy. It was bad. And I have a theory that it was a Psyop. It was like someone in marketing going, wouldn't it be genius? Maureen Clough (12:15.691) you JT ODonnell (12:16.344) Product, product, the product. Maureen Clough (12:29.165) Maureen Clough (12:34.933) love this theory. Joel Cheesman (12:37.323) Wouldn't it be genius if we had our nerdy CEO take a taste of this and talk about how great it is. And he may or may not have have known that, but I think they knew this was going to be ridiculed and this guy was going to take a hit. And I guarantee you they're going to sell more big arches because of this. And this thing has been on social media ad nauseum. Like I see reviews for this all over. Now, granted, I get a lot of fast food cause that's my algo, but I'm sure a lot of you have seen people tasting this. but. JT ODonnell (13:04.206) Oh, 100%. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (13:06.539) JT's right, like it's gonna sell burgers. It's gonna like build brand. They're gonna have to come up with new products like all the time now. Cause you can't just buy it on a quarter pounder every month and go, it's the same quarter pounder. So we're gonna have to see like all kinds of new products. JT ODonnell (13:15.886) Yeah. Maureen Clough (13:20.139) So true. JT ODonnell (13:23.82) no, no, Joel, it's gonna be the series. He's gonna go flip a burger. He's gonna go show how he makes the fries. He's gonna go sit with people in the, no, exactly, they're not gonna reinvent the wheel. They're gonna go take stuff from undercover bosses and run with it. I don't think he, they might have known, but I don't think they told him because CEOs have way too big egos. Maureen Clough (13:25.515) You Maureen Clough (13:31.967) Undercover bosses. Joel Cheesman (13:40.03) Okay. Joel Cheesman (13:47.115) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (13:47.117) This is the biggest hiccup I run into, right? As I coach executives every day on doing video and they're like, I don't wanna look stupid. I'm like, you're gonna look stupid until you do this, right? Like you're gonna do it a few times and then we'll make it public. Maureen Clough (13:53.707) You will. Joel Cheesman (13:55.305) Okay, so he, what was the conversation when he went into marketing and goes, my God, people hate me and they're making fun of me, delete this now. What was that conversation like? JT ODonnell (14:09.606) No, whoa. Roll back a little bit, okay? He goes to them and says, I think I should probably do some video of me eating the sandwich, right? And they're like, all right, he does it, it's horrible. But because nobody wants to tell the king that he looks bad, they're all like, awesome, go, all right? They put, you know I'm right, they put him out there, it bombs. He comes back and goes, everyone's making fun of me. And the spin is, but look at the numbers. Don't you want us to increase social? Maureen Clough (14:10.315) Ha! Joel Cheesman (14:18.634) huh. Maureen Clough (14:21.041) Ha! my god, that is so rad. Yep. I do. I know you're right. Joel Cheesman (14:30.849) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (14:35.815) Whoops. Yep. my God. You're so right. JT ODonnell (14:38.698) You did what you wanted us to do. And now a week later, it's blowing up. you know, somebody maybe got yelled at for a hot minute, but they set him up for success, failing forward, if you will. My advice is get yourself on freaking camera, record yourself until you're comfortable, and then have somebody like us look at it before you go public. I'm just saying and then you'll be fine. But everyone's going to have to be on video. I don't know how many more times I'm gonna have to say this. Maureen Clough (14:45.759) Love that. Joel Cheesman (14:51.722) Okay. Maureen Clough (14:52.549) Beautiful. Fail in public. Yes. Maureen Clough (15:01.865) Hahaha! Maureen Clough (15:06.763) Yeah, it's looking that way. JT ODonnell (15:08.142) You're going to be on video where you like it or not. Joel Cheesman (15:08.545) And the good news, as of now, he's not in the Epstein files. So he's at least in the clear on that. Well, from big arches and whoppers to more free stuff, let's hear from our friend, Stephen McGrath. JT ODonnell (15:13.422) It's clear. Yeah, for now. Maureen Clough (15:22.848) good Joel Cheesman (16:40.961) By the way, our friend Stephen, I think, poured some scotch in his eyes recently. He's dealing with sort of a red eye issue. So shout out to him. Hope he gets well soon. Maureen Clough (16:48.619) Why? Why did he do that? JT ODonnell (16:49.113) Feel better. Joel Cheesman (16:55.819) Sorry, Mo, what? Maureen Clough (16:57.365) Why did he pour scotch in his eyes? Joel Cheesman (17:00.285) I'm joking about the poor and the ice. Have you not done this show long enough to know that sarcasm is my love language? He's yes. He has an eye thing. He's sure struggling. like a, like a red eye virus things, Scottish more disease. don't know. Loch Ness monster bit him. I don't know. I don't know. Mo something's wrong. Maureen Clough (17:01.963) Oh, okay. Now I'm like, what are you talking about? I was like, hmm. Maureen Clough (17:10.899) An eye thing, like what, like pink eye or something? sounds not fun. Not fun. I was like, is that some medicinal thing that people do that I've just not been aware of? All right. Okay. All right. I blew it. I blew it. I blew it. My bad. I'll just it. JT ODonnell (17:21.199) You Joel Cheesman (17:26.241) I was trying to have a tinder moment and you ruined it. Joel Cheesman (17:34.431) All right. Travel wise, it looks like Chad, who's I think moving into his permanent residence in Portugal, not an Airbnb is going to be in Hertfordshire at the RLX conference. He'll be powered by our friends at Shaker recruitment marketing, by the way, make sure you check those guys out. They're doing some great stuff as always. Are you guys ready to get into some topics? JT ODonnell (17:41.721) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (17:44.789) Damn, what a trendsetter. Maureen Clough (18:03.147) Sure am. JT ODonnell (18:03.982) Yes. Joel Cheesman (18:09.705) All right, stop me if you've heard this one before. The resume is dead. A recent article from Business Insider is blowing up your social medias. The traditional resume is losing its value according to the story as hiring managers increasingly prioritize skills and enthusiasm over credentials. This shift is partly driven by the rise of AI generated applications, which make it difficult to distinguish between qualified and unqualified candidates. Maureen Clough (18:12.715) A couple times. Joel Cheesman (18:36.435) As a result, employers are exploring alternative methods like work trials, skills-based hiring, and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn to identify and evaluate potential hires. I guess it's going to be Slop that kills the resume, not video or anything else. The author of the story is apparently Moe's BFF, so I'll let Moe start out with her opinion on the death of the resume. Maureen Clough (18:58.037) Best day. Yeah, I mean, we've been hearing it here from JT for quite some time. And the author of this particular piece is Amanda Hoover over at Business Insider. And she put something out on LinkedIn that was like, I want to talk about this. And I was like, I'm not just the person for you. So I put her together with JT who appears in this story, which is fantastic. But yeah, I mean, this is something that in one hand really brings music to my ears because let me tell you, I hate nothing more than formatting it resume. It is JT ODonnell (19:01.166) Yeah. Maureen Clough (19:28.837) the worst, most frustrating thing on planet Earth. I cannot get the fonts right. I cannot get the stupid bullet points to line up. Microsoft Word is the... I just despise it. So I'm happy that we can throw that out the window. I do think that there's just so much, like you said, AI sloth out there that these are all becoming interchangeable so as to become essentially meaningless. And there is a problem for recruiters in absorbing a gazillion different resumes coming in. There have all been... created via AI. It's just, it's meaningless. And so I think it really, it harkens back to the concept that we are entering an era where your soft skills are going to be the most important things of all. And you're able to demonstrate that with other things than a resume, right? Like a resume does not do that for you whatsoever. One thing that I do think this is emblematic of as well is that this whole sort of career system is really breaking down. Like we're in this sort of moment where stability is changing. and all the old rules and all the old playbooks are just falling apart right now because the world is changing so fast. So it used to be, know, like build experience, get your resume, submitted online, like we were told to apply online. Like that was how you got a job. And now it's really becoming all about who you know, a network and whatnot, which has always been, in my opinion, the best way to get a job, but has its own issues as well. Because if you are relying on, you know, these networks that puts certain people at a disadvantage that creates, you know, these sort of Joel Cheesman (20:45.643) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (20:53.513) echo chambers that creates certain clubs that people can't really access. And so it makes, it makes a problem and bias along the way. but yeah, this is, know, the world of work is just changing. It's such a clip. It's insane. But I think JT's right. mean, people are going to have to start getting more comfortable with video. And, know, it's, it's something that I think really can personalize an application. can, you're going to meet them in person anyway, at some point, right? So I think. The concern that I have around it is more about like, who are we blocking out? Who are we not going to allow access to these networks because of the fact that it's becoming so much more network based and those systems are just shifting so quickly. Joel Cheesman (21:36.587) Bringing the red meat. All right, JT, you can't wait to speak, go. Maureen Clough (21:39.711) You JT ODonnell (21:44.507) think you need to go back on all the shows I've ever been on here for the last two years, and I'm pretty sure on at least two of them, you have made fun of me when I've said the resume is dead and is dying, and everybody's like, it's never gonna go away. Everyone's always said this. It's dead, it's dead. Be clear, it's dead. And so it made me so happy when Amanda reached out, and it was great to see. She did an amazing job on the article, but. Maureen Clough (22:00.073) You called it. Maureen Clough (22:11.787) She really did. JT ODonnell (22:12.302) You know, the thing about all the new ways, skills-based hiring, you know, it's not who you know anymore. So I think the big fear about this is that it's going to completely end up being about my network, who I know. It's actually not who you know anymore, it's who knows you. So let that sink in for a minute. The more people that know the work that you do, the more opportunities you will get. It is that simple. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. So all these people that say, Maureen Clough (22:29.141) like that twist. JT ODonnell (22:41.038) I'm not gonna sit and watch a video resume. You're a liar. I'm calling every recruiter out on this show right now that sits there and tells me, I'm not gonna look at, guess what? You do it every day. It's called social media, nice try. And on top of that, we're not teaching people to say, hi, I have 15 years experience in. We're teaching people how to talk about the problems they solve and the pain they alleviate and how they do that. That is interesting because that's the dang thing you ask in an interview. So to your point, Mo, video is the new interview. Maureen Clough (22:45.579) you Maureen Clough (22:52.171) You JT ODonnell (23:09.454) Video is the new phone screen. Video is the new recruiter assessment, and it's more powerful and it's more effective. And if that isn't enough, let me tell you one more thing. As someone who's been teaching people how to do video for two years, you wanna know who's getting jobs with it? People in their 50s and 60s. Because they can get on video and they can talk with knowledge and tell stories and explain how they do things. The younger generations can't. So where video's really helping is not your little tech savvy you know, Gen Zers, it's actually the late millennials, Gen Xers, and the boomers who are saying, I got nothing to lose at this point, why don't I get on video and tell them how I'd solve it? So there you go. So all of you who have been in denial, you're wrong. You're wrong. Maureen Clough (23:40.455) You Maureen Clough (23:47.339) Let's go! Joel Cheesman (23:55.531) So because some Joey Bagadona, it's journalist at Business Insider writes that it's dead, it needs clicks and views. And you think that makes you right? JT. Maureen Clough (24:04.011) What? Ooh, I don't know this Joey bag of donuts term, but I'm pretty sure it's pejorative and Amanda's an excellent reporter. We all got it. Hey, it's the Trojan horse. We all got to have a headline that's going to bring people in, right? That is the name of the game. So don't slam her. We... JT ODonnell (24:07.661) WHAAHAHA JT ODonnell (24:11.82) WHAAAT JT ODonnell (24:17.334) Mm-hmm. Bring it y'all. JT ODonnell (24:28.878) Wait, by the way, coming from the guy, wait, coming from the guy who hasn't had a resume in how long and will never use one again, right? You'll never use a resume again, Joel, but okay. Joel Cheesman (24:30.413) Mo's not done. Joel Cheesman (24:38.017) I haven't even said anything yet. You're lucky it's Women's Month. I'm letting you guys get a word in. Go on Mo, you wanna pile in, let's go. Maureen Clough (24:44.323) snap, snap. Well, I have a friend who was a creator and she was gonna partner with this bigger, sort of more old school company and they asked her for a resume and she was like, I don't have a freaking resume. Like you're trying to do a brand partnership with me. Why the hell do you want my resume? And they were like, it's just for the system blah, blah, And so she like fished something out from years ago. And did you know what it was like? Joel Cheesman (24:58.783) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (25:08.095) here you go, completely irrelevant, has nothing to do with what I do today or what you wanna do with me. But it's still, it's like one of those hallmarks of yesteryear that's gonna continue to sort of dissipate over time, I would imagine. It is worthless at this point when you consider all the slop and all of the customization that people are doing just by like plopping in a job description and then having AI tell you exactly how your resume should be so as to appeal to the recruiter who is never going to see your resume because they've ate JT ODonnell (25:22.65) Worthless. Maureen Clough (25:37.493) billion in front of them already. So I mean, some things got to change. And I think it's good. It's really heartwarming to hear that you're seeing an uptick in people who are older, who are actually doing the video willingly. I will say I did have an experience just a year ago where we were trying to ask people to give us sort of a video application, if you will, where we wanted them to send one or two minutes of why they wanted to join this specific thing. And one person out of a hundred who got it did it. JT ODonnell (25:49.69) Big time. Maureen Clough (26:06.737) only one. And when people reached out and we were like, why aren't you doing the final step here? They're like, I didn't want to do a video. So it sounds like it's going to be, it's shifted a lot since then, which is really, it's compelling. I'm glad to hear that. It's great. JT ODonnell (26:19.928) Yeah, yeah, get desperate enough and you'll do things you said you weren't gonna do, right? So it's going to force people, they're not gonna have a choice. By the way, pro tip, LinkedIn's owned by Microsoft. Do you need a resume? Just go hit the PDF feature on your LinkedIn profile. Done, it's turned into a resume. So if you really need one, there you go. There you go. Maureen Clough (26:22.795) Good point. Sad. That's where we are. Yeah. Maureen Clough (26:32.21) Indeed. Maureen Clough (26:36.107) Boom! Wait, that's fantastic, love. Great. Joel Cheesman (26:39.029) Well, well, thank you for making my argument for me, JT. I may not have a resume, but I sure as hell have a LinkedIn profile that can easily become a resume. here's old guys coming out ready. Uh, in 2013, it's, still searchable. Uh, I wrote an article entitled this reinventing the resume thing needs to stop. When I wrote it, a company called beyond.com JT ODonnell (26:48.666) There you go. Maureen Clough (26:53.21) boy. Maureen Clough (27:02.411) Joel Cheesman (27:06.145) which has since become Next.com with two X's, had a new product called Career Portfolio, which was basically rewriting the resume or reinventing the resume. Another company at the time was out called Career Cloud. Both of these companies are gone in some form or fashion, and we keep doing this. We keep saying video is going to take it over. We keep saying pictures and portfolios and PDFs and like, put your life in there is going to take this over. JT ODonnell (27:07.259) yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:35.581) standards exist because they work. Having standards means the same wheels on my car are the same wheels on your car and those standards are solid for a reason. The resume is a standard that we all play by. When you submit an application to an ATS, and every company has one last time I checked, you typically submit a application which is your resume. I will accept the argument that if you're a frontline worker, you don't have a resume, then that's an issue. They would accept a resume if you had a resume. They don't say submit your last social media video to apply to this job. They say submit your application slash resume. Now, part of my argument in this was that recruiters scan a resume and within three to six seconds know your fit or not. If you started putting videos and pictures and everything else, it creates more time for a recruiter, which makes a standardized Maureen Clough (28:14.069) Some do. JT ODonnell (28:14.84) Yet. Yet. Joel Cheesman (28:35.315) standardized resume more, more efficient. I will throw you guys some pearls and say AI has changed the game because AI enables you to scan a resume, no matter if it's a book or a real resume, whatever it is, if AI can scan it and AI can scan video as well, but AI can look at a video and tell you what content is in it, what text is in it. So I, I will give you that. The world is such now that I think you still need a resume, but I also agree that you can do an alternative to that and probably be successful. The tales of the resume's death are quite exaggerated. It still is part of every, I think, job seekers game plan and should be for the long term. But I will give you the fact that if we go to a world where agents talk to agents, we don't need anything. like, just scan the world scan the web and your agent knows everything about you and you can like get that that world may come and I agree that it probably will but like even then you will still have a LinkedIn profile. And if I want to know if I just met JT and I want to know about her, I go to LinkedIn, I see where she went to school where she live where she worked what she do who she investing in who she advising like I can't go to her social media and easily see Maureen Clough (29:39.883) It's scary. Maureen Clough (29:53.355) Yeah, sure. Joel Cheesman (30:01.901) here's where she went to school and here's what she does and here's here's the job. So that format is here to stay kids. I'm sorry. Maureen Clough (30:02.987) True, you need a placeholder, yeah. JT ODonnell (30:10.0) All right, okay, can we, yeah, no, That's all nuance, okay? You just went from resume to format. Two totally different things, brother. Okay, first of all, a LinkedIn, you're right, has a format. You know what LinkedIn has? A place for me to add all the things that I'm learning and doing and interested in. You know what resumes suck at? They suck at me showing you what I wanna do in the future. Maureen Clough (30:10.091) It doesn't mean it's not here to stay. It just means lesser importance, right? Right. Joel Cheesman (30:25.121) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:30.826) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (30:36.324) When I give you a resume, the only thing you as a recruiter are gonna evaluate me on is what I've done in the past. What if I don't wanna do that anymore, which is the vast majority of people, right? We wanna evolve and grow. So resumes put you in a box. Secondly, I'm kinda sad to hear you say, yes, we need it so we can standardize everybody and just check that they can do the job. How many times have we placed somebody who on the resume didn't look qualified, but actually really was? Those people never get a shot when you use resumes. So resume out, I'm with you. Joel Cheesman (30:43.126) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (31:05.944) Tools like LinkedIn continue, but they take the advantage of AI. Their AI tool right now, their recruitment tool, is getting more sophisticated by the day. The people that are winning on LinkedIn right now are the ones that are talking regularly and consistently about their industry and their skill set. That is how they're being surfaced, and going back to what I said earlier, it is not who you know, it's who knows you. What you want in the future is going to come from you talking about what you know, talking about what you care about, people finding that and saying, you're a fit. That doesn't happen on a resume. That's why the resume is dead. Maureen Clough (31:38.655) And one thing to add to that that really bolsters your point is that everybody has to turn into a salesperson now. That's where we are as a society when we are shifting to optionality, when we're learning that the stability that past careers have offered is really dead and that the responsibility is on us as individuals rather than companies, which used to be sort of the old contract. Now we all have to sell. And so you have to hang that shingle and you've got to get comfortable with doing that. JT ODonnell (31:46.702) Mm-hmm. Yes. Joel Cheesman (31:53.889) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (32:05.183) And it's a really tough game for a lot of people for whom this is not in their sort of natural skill sets. But everybody has to start becoming a salesperson to some degree. And I don't mean this in like some toxic hustle culture sort of way. It's just about insurance. It's career insurance. And so this aspect is really, it's important. So a resume is doing less of the sales for you than ever before. Joel Cheesman (32:31.647) I think both can be true. If I see JT's video on social, I'm interested. She seems smart and knows what she's talking about. Inevitably, I'm going to go to her profile and dig into what her resume slash profile says. So I think there's a world where, where we're both right on this, but there was a time where I did not believe I did not have, I did not believe the video and the pictures and the stuff would work. AI is changing my opinion on that. you know, there is. Maureen Clough (32:33.984) Sure. JT ODonnell (32:44.176) Mm-hmm. He keeps doing that. Maureen Clough (32:50.505) love that. JT ODonnell (32:59.696) We'll get you over here eventually, Joel. It's just a matter of time. We'll get you here. Maureen Clough (33:02.635) You Hahaha! Joel Cheesman (33:06.805) Well, thankfully the, AI is telling us what jobs will be there in the future and which ones won't. Our next story from Anthropic, new research from them reveals that while AI can theoretically handle many tasks, its actual usage in workplaces is less severe than expected. Jobs most exposed to AI automation include computer programmers, customer service reps, and data entry workers. The study also highlights that high exposure workers tend to be older. more educated and better paid, challenging the notion that AI will primarily impact lower wage workers. JT, in your newsletter, which I read and everyone else should as well, you said that Anthropic Study, quote, stopped me in my tracks and made me rethink everything I tell my clients, end quote. Say more. JT ODonnell (33:55.989) Yeah. So we knew that AI was going to take over these tasks. They've predicted the amount of tasks that it would take over. And people keep saying it's going to take jobs. Well, it takes enough of the tasks off the plate that we just don't need as many of you. And the sooner people start to realize, if I'm in one of those jobs, then it doesn't matter how much I coach you, if the sheer volume of those jobs are going away, your ability to get and keep one of those jobs is going to get infinitely harder. no matter how much I coach you on that. And so for me, it became a mission to start talking to people about you have to be the brain behind the bots. Going forward, if you aren't thinking about AI is like a big toolbox in front of you. Everyone gets the same toolbox, but it's the person that can take out the hammer and the screwdriver and the drill and create the masterpiece that's going to win. It's really going to start to become about craftsmanship. And so the people that I'm talking to every day, like, what do you know about AI? And not just, hey, I play with chat GPT. Like literally, what are the AI tools in your space? Go look them up, go understand them, go start to think about how you'd stack them together, use as much as you can. Because what's really amazing, and when I was at Talent Connect, the study shows 60 % of employees right now are waiting around for their company to tell them what they should learn about AI. 100 % of companies have said, that's not our job. Joel Cheesman (35:04.565) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (35:20.536) Right? We pay you. Go figure it out. In fact, we're going to go clean house as we've watched how many companies do since the first of the year. And we're going to go look for people that have some sort of inkling or at least are talking like a craftsman or a craftswoman. And that those are the people that are at least showing that they want to learn AI, build something, do great things with AI, because I really do believe I'm like you in terms of going forward. There are going to be some amazing careers, some amazing companies. We're going to go into the whole second. Maureen Clough (35:27.349) bazillions. Joel Cheesman (35:46.177) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (35:49.423) Renaissance a digital Renaissance driven by AI. It's just not happening today We're in the painful contraction phase for another 12 18 months, but then it's gonna feel like overnight We're gonna wake up and there's gonna be nothing in the news But crazy new cool awesome companies that people are gonna go I never dreamed I could figure out how to do that But I came with AI the question is are you gonna be on the early side of that and reap the rewards? Are you gonna continue to stick your head in the sand and say well? I just want to get through the last 10 years of my career, you know and not have to learn this stuff You're not gonna last 10 years Joel Cheesman (36:19.126) Yeah. JT ODonnell (36:19.386) You're not gonna last two years, you know? And so that was such, we had to pivot my entire company when we saw this. We were like, we have to be in the business of teaching people how to document themselves and get visible, but also harp on them about AI. Like, and it's working, you know? Guess what? The early adopters that we've been taking through, they're getting the jobs. I just had one woman, she just got hired by a Fortune 100 to keep her confidential, but she went in and they said, you were the only person that answered our questions. Joel Cheesman (36:35.307) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (36:49.038) with actual theoretical solutions of how we would use AI. They said, we know we don't have the answers yet, but somebody's gotta be in here and start talking about this using their knowledge. She used her craftsmanship. That to me is so amazing. There's so much opportunity ahead and that excites me, but unfortunately there's gonna be a lot of people that just don't wanna change, they're gonna sit in denial and they're gonna suck. Joel Cheesman (36:55.393) Yeah. Maureen Clough (36:56.831) Yeah. Maureen Clough (37:10.955) Right? Yeah, lots of people sitting on their heels for sure. Well, I mean, the thing is things have shifted. the whole ability for us to rely on a company is gone. It's not the way it used to be. mean, companies used to flesh out these huge training programs. You'd go through like months of training to get into an environment and now they've offloaded all of that responsibility onto the individual. So that... Joel Cheesman (37:12.991) Well... JT ODonnell (37:15.364) Right? Yep. Maureen Clough (37:38.939) That is something that we need to do to shore up our defenses against being pushed out. That is, my gosh, what? Hello? This is amazing. Chad Sowash (37:49.63) I thought I would pop in and say hi. Literally, I didn't. Joel Cheesman (37:53.547) Chad is in the house everybody. Maureen Clough (37:53.973) my gosh, that is fantastic. What an amazing cameo appearance. I'm so glad you're here. Chad Sowash (37:59.998) Guest. Joel Cheesman (38:00.673) What's up, dude? Are you your new place? You need permanent residence? Chad Sowash (38:03.778) I am not. still in my buddy's place. We're moving in later this weekend, but just getting everything pulled together. Everything pulled together, but we're safe. Maureen Clough (38:12.747) That is awesome. Joel Cheesman (38:13.697) What inspired you to pop in? You have an opinion, I'm sure, on something. We're on the anthropic research around what careers are going to go away and which ones aren't. I don't know if you've seen that story or not. Chad Sowash (38:17.406) Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about, but yeah, I'm sure. Chad Sowash (38:28.722) I have, I think it's all bullshit. I mean, there's no surprise. I don't think that most of the tech industry knows what the hell that they're talking about. They push out a lot of information, a lot of it's propaganda. Yeah, a lot of it's just BS to be able to drive that AI is taking jobs when literally they were still bloated from pandemic. Yeah, it's hard. Maureen Clough (38:32.075) You Maureen Clough (38:42.985) No, make it up as I go along. Yes. Maureen Clough (38:56.645) Literally my new episode is about that today. Literally that AI is cover for layoffs and creating the resetting of the labor market. That is literally it. But yes, so I'm with you. You have to always consider the source. You have to know why someone's saying this. How does it behoove them to have this message go out to the public? So use critical thinking skills. know Americans don't like to, but we really need to. But again, what JT said about like responsibility and stuff is true. This is just a fundamental shift in how Chad Sowash (39:18.388) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (39:20.363) Well, I also think it's. Maureen Clough (39:25.163) people need to view the way in which they work at companies and what kind of responsibility the companies have to them versus what you have to the company. It's just shifting. Joel Cheesman (39:36.257) There's a lot of unintended consequences in this. They talk about the face-to-face jobs are still going to flourish. And I think there's a level of they'll flourish in part because of AI. I talked about the legal profession, I think, last week. Yes, no one's going to go into court with algorithms and figure out a case. That's not going to happen. But on the other side, the only thing stopping more lawsuits is the ability to scale you know filing lawsuits, which AI will actually spur more lawsuits. So you have a situation where AI on one end is creating more work for lawyers. You have lawyers not being displaced by AI. Oh my god, we might wake up one day and go we need more lawyers. We never saw that coming. More salespeople. There might be more face to face. We might get to a world where Maureen Clough (40:22.323) Yeah, it's true. Joel Cheesman (40:29.663) the AI salespeople getting leads and generating a in the funnel with people means we need more salespeople because no one's going to buy from a robot, but we're getting more leads and people in the funnel. So I think a lot of the narrative around this is a little bit of make believe 90 % theoretically could be all replaced by robots, but who, who in this call thinks that's going to happen? it's going to, it's going to be messy. It's going to be awkward, but I, but I think JT ODonnell (40:37.264) close the deals. Maureen Clough (40:40.789) People by people. Maureen Clough (40:45.727) Yeah, hear that. Joel Cheesman (40:56.831) the doomsayers are probably gonna be on the wrong side of history on AI. JT ODonnell (41:00.28) Yeah, but from the get-go, they talked about we'd lose 87 million jobs, but we'd ultimately create 93 million. Like you heard many. So I agree, I just think it's gonna be different though, Joel. Even those jobs as the lawyer jobs or the sales jobs that come back, it's all going to be different, which I'm here for. I think everybody's ready for different types of work. But in this time, there's a level of contraction that we're just not ready for. mean, companies are saying we can't find the right people. Why want somebody with 10 years of AI experience? Joel Cheesman (41:05.609) Yeah, yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:16.811) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (41:29.178) They don't exist, you know? And so those kinds of problems are happening right now. They'll sort themselves out and it'll get exciting again. But I think you're naive if you're sitting around thinking you're gonna hang on to your corporate job for the next five, 10 years doing exactly what you're doing now. You are naive if you think that's the case. Maureen Clough (41:29.351) You Joel Cheesman (41:30.326) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:46.015) Yeah. I also mentioned last week that all this, most of the startups that we talk about in our space now are driven by AI, like the slop, the automated post, like all their businesses being created to solve those problems. Just like throughout human history, businesses are created when problems are created. Do any of us think AI is not going to create more problems for the people to kind of figure out and solve? mean, I would bet. Yeah, I would bet. Yeah. The AI is going to fuck shit up and we're going to have to fix it. Chad Sowash (41:46.056) Yeah. JT ODonnell (41:52.912) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (42:04.745) Hahahaha JT ODonnell (42:07.726) I know it's great. Maureen Clough (42:08.51) Yep. JT ODonnell (42:11.096) Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. Maureen Clough (42:12.021) Big time, big time. Buildin' the plane while they fly it, right? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:15.265) Where's your beer, Chad? It's like five, it's like, what is it, like seven o'clock in Portugal? Where's your beer, man? Okay, all right. Chad Sowash (42:15.39) Well guys, I... Chad Sowash (42:19.908) Yeah, I know. just wanted to pop in and say hi, hello listeners, and you guys get back to work. I'll talk to you later. JT ODonnell (42:20.92) Yeah. Maureen Clough (42:27.211) Bye Chad, good to see you. JT ODonnell (42:27.784) We will go have a cocktail go get some drinks. Bye Chad Joel Cheesman (42:29.471) All right, man. Thanks, Chad. Chad Sowash (42:30.13) Later. Joel Cheesman (42:34.335) And with that, it's time to take a quick break everybody. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe in your podcast channel of choice. Also check us out on YouTube, youtube.com slash at Chad cheese. We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (42:53.089) All right guys, enough of this job seeker stuff. Let's talk some recruitment software companies. Yeah. A flurry of industry news dropped this week. Here's just a sampling, a higher view acquired higher guide indeed gave us Explorer pages, a LinkedIn engagement declined in 2025. Talvi, one of those resume killers out there got $2 million. And your co raised a series a, but probably the biggest news of the week. Maureen Clough (42:57.675) witness. Joel Cheesman (43:23.093) was Juicebox raising $80 million at an $850 million valuation. They even did a video talking about the new investment. Check it out. Maureen Clough (43:32.987) did they? Joel Cheesman (43:44.459) Who are we looking at, Mo, for the listeners? These are social media people, right? Maureen Clough (43:50.633) best ones too. Joel Cheesman (43:52.851) Okay, we'll get to that after the video. Maureen Clough (45:29.579) I totally love this. Joel Cheesman (45:29.925) you love this from Juice Box. And I gave you shit for not knowing any mobster movies, but I have no idea who those two dudes were at the beginning. So why don't you educate me on that and give us your hot take on Juice Box. Maureen Clough (45:36.689) Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Let me help you. Let me help you. Okay. Yeah. So this is an amazing announcement commercial. These guys have been so silent on social and I was like, this is so interesting. I wonder why I don't have any posts. It's because they wanted to come in hot with this commercial, which is freaking fabulous. It actually features two of the biggest creators in the tech space, tech comedy space. So you've got Austin Nassau coming on my show soon and Corporate Bro, aka Ross Pomerantz, who is amazing and he is absolutely hysterical. is tech satire. And these two are the ones at the table. And then enter Corporate Natalie, another huge social media person who is partner with Corporate Bro and a bunch of stuff. Anyway, this is like a masterclass on how to do social media. This is not unlike the way Mom Donnie did social where like the Democrats really need to check in with like. how Gen Z and how people are doing social media today to get attention. This was really, really brilliant. A huge splash by these guys making this their entry into the social world. This is how people learn about stuff now, right? This is just how the world works. So like hats off to Juice Box for coming in hot with that. I'm sure it costs them a ton of money to get all of those three creators who have millions of followers collectively on this commercial. But yeah, I mean, think, dude, it says it's a testament to what JT is saying, right? This is a sort of period where we all need to be salespeople, right? We all need to be thinking about how we can attract people to come to us because now you're looking at a hiring system. It's less about us inbound, know, us throwing our resumes into application pools and more about how do we stand out so that people will come to us, right? So this is what this tool allegedly does, right? It goes out and it finds and sources the best candidates. Well, how are you going to stand out? you have to have some sort of a profile. You have to have some sort of a way of getting yourself out there. I can't wait to see what the tool actually does. haven't seen a demo, if it, mean, again, AI, of course, very, very in the mix, agentic AI in this case too. And obviously we all know that the ghosting candidates is a huge problem. People are incredibly frustrated by this. like this might help people do less of that, which is great. Maureen Clough (47:54.847) hopefully find the right people. again, bias is always the thing I worry about. Joel Cheesman (47:56.773) I wanna know who the two teenagers in the director's chair were at the end. They weren't the founders, were they? Are those really the founders? I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Maureen Clough (48:04.359) They founded it at 19, yes they were. They founded it at 19 and 22. Yeah, 19 and 22. So that's interesting. But yeah, it sounds like a cool tool. It sounds like it might fix some things. I wanna see it. I wanna learn more about it. But good on them. 80 mil, not bad. Sequoia. Joel Cheesman (48:18.721) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (48:22.763) JT, social media. Did you know these people? Are you as excited as Mo or is this new to you too? Okay. JT ODonnell (48:28.324) Yeah, everything she said and then some and it just further validates like I'm gonna be honest though those three social media rock stars I'm sure when this company came and said we're juice box and we want to do this. That's the last gig they thought they were gonna get You know, know, I mean you're not dreaming that some corporate company is gonna come and offer you that kind of money to do that But this is what I mean about the 480 billion dollar knowledge Creator economy knowledge, but the word knowledge in front Joel Cheesman (48:43.563) Yeah. JT ODonnell (48:58.968) Because now, what Mo said, there are so many people out there right now that if you're just documenting your knowledge and you're out there and putting your voice out there, somebody's going to come along and be like, hey, will you do a commercial for us? Hey, will you do like three or four videos? Only if you believe in our product, but will you do them and we'll pay you? That is coming mainstream. It's been around forever in the other spaces, but it's coming to us now. And that's what gets me super excited about it. Not to mention, what they're doing is genius. They are proving that if you go put yourself out there and document yourself, We're gonna be able to find you, contact you, hire you. That is the new future. Again, makes a case for you don't need a resume anymore if you got this other stuff out there about yourself, you're gonna be found in other ways. Just gonna say it, right? So I am so here for what Juice Box is doing. I mean, 20 out of 10 for me the way they handled this. Maureen Clough (49:41.483) tied together. Yeah. Maureen Clough (49:50.187) Masterclass. Something new and different for you, Joel. Joel Cheesman (49:50.337) Wow, wow, well, I'm gonna shake things up here, guys. JT ODonnell (49:55.184) Shocker. Joel Cheesman (49:56.479) All right. All right. I have, I'm going to comment on higher view. but I do want to comment on juice box. And since you guys are so juiced up about it, I'm going to talk about them first. And I think this is the time on the show where JT ODonnell (50:14.67) History lesson. Maureen Clough (50:15.806) Joel Cheesman (50:16.625) Okay. Okay, guys, let's take everyone back to a time period around when LinkedIn launched. And sourcing was just becoming a thing and using weird search engines at the time to find needles in a haystack to search about us pages. And then LinkedIn came along and like, how do I search LinkedIn? And then services that were on top of LinkedIn started popping up. You might remember when Intello you know, became a thing and then Tello was cool because it tapped into LinkedIn, but then it told you, someone just updated their profile. So maybe they're in into a new job. Maybe they're, you know, a good, a good prospect. And then you had like hiring solved and hire tooled and then seek out came along. and like all of these businesses are either gone or they've pivoted hard into something else. Maureen Clough (50:54.027) movie. Joel Cheesman (51:11.711) Whether it's LinkedIn said, no, you're not going to do that because we are the, the, the Rolodex of, of everything on the internet. We're going to Sue you into oblivion or everyone's using the same database. So it just becomes this race to the bottom where, okay, we're all using the same data. What's separating any of us? Well, nothing. We're just cheaper. No, we're cheaper. Wait a minute. We're cheaper. And just became this race and like, well, we better pivot and be something else and seek out. think it's one of the few that I mentioned that are still around and they are far cry. Maureen Clough (51:32.778) you Joel Cheesman (51:40.917) from what they used to be. to me, like, sorry, old man, but these guys come along and it's like, what's new? Teenage founders and some social media folks, I, unless you tell me that our data is magic and we have people that no one else has, then I'll buy it. But there, no one's saying that. They're saying, look at our cool social media people and our cool commercial. But at some point, look, young people will say, this is awesome. I'm going to JT ODonnell (51:41.636) from what they were. Joel Cheesman (52:10.613) pay money to use it, but ultimately there's going to be another juice box competitor if they get successful. And then the same, it's just going to revolve around the same thing. look, I've seen this movie twice, at least it doesn't end well for juice box and it's not going to end well prediction for their investors. This is going to crash and burn. may take a while, but this there's no future in this company. Maureen Clough (52:36.637) Wow. JT ODonnell (52:36.752) All right, I've got to rebuttal here. You're killing me, you're killing me. Okay, first of all, do you remember this company called MySpace? Do you remember how everybody thought MySpace will be around forever and it'll be the only platform? Okay, this is the very real problem LinkedIn has right now. LinkedIn is the only one of its type where everybody's sitting on there. But you know who can't stand LinkedIn and I work with them all the time? The younger generation. They don't want to be on it. Yet. Maureen Clough (52:44.151) You Joel Cheesman (53:02.049) They're not going anywhere else. They're not going anywhere else. They're not going to Boom Band. They're not going to Polywork. Polywork's dead too. Polywork was the fun LinkedIn. Okay. Maureen Clough (53:03.157) despise. Yeah. JT ODonnell (53:06.656) Yet, yet. But what if you don't have to? You're not, you're not listening. Can you just, can you just let me finish? Okay. So if I can be on social or be anywhere and share what I know and what I do, and AI is now sophisticated enough to go out there, it is gonna find me and I'm not on LinkedIn. And by the way, I'm not putting on LinkedIn what I'm putting in other places. So do they have a road ahead of them? Absolutely. But it is myopic. Maureen Clough (53:09.515) Polywork dead. JT ODonnell (53:35.899) to think that we aren't eventually gonna have somebody that does crack the code and becomes the next LinkedIn, just like Facebook came after MySpace. It's been ripe for a long time. I can't, you don't know that. Okay, but they're not layering it on, they're not being stuck by only pulling off of LinkedIn. It's wrong for you to say that they're not gonna get new people, I disagree, but more importantly, they're gonna go get people who are, Joel Cheesman (53:47.851) These guys aren't the next LinkedIn, they're the next people finder. They're not pushing themselves as join us. JT ODonnell (54:04.876) incorrectly in other places, meaning their data isn't well represented, say, on LinkedIn, whereas their things that they care about and that they want to do can be represented someplace else. Like, know, large language models are, you know, killed when the data sucks, right? So LinkedIn knows it has a data issue. It has a data quality issue with 1.3 billion profiles. It's why they're working so hard to drive engagement and to get people updated because they know a lot of that data is inaccurate. But when someone cracks the code and figures out how to go get all of these younger workers and individuals data out there that's fresh and new and updated and not outdated, you got a different data set there. You got a different thing. And then that gets super, super interesting. I don't think you give somebody $80 million who hasn't started to talk about what that looks like. And so I don't know. I don't think they're out. Facts, facts, you're right. And it's a big sum, but I'm. Joel Cheesman (54:51.295) Yeah, because investors have never put money in something that failed. JT ODonnell (55:01.314) I'm going bullish on the idea that we're going to see some new and exciting things. Maureen Clough (55:09.163) We'll just have to see how this all plays out, man. Joel Cheesman (55:09.789) No comment. All right, let's move. All right, another quick break, because we're getting a little frothy, a little frothy up in here. Again, we'll be right back, everybody. By the way, leave us a review on your podcast platform of choice. We'd love to hear from you. We'll be right back. Maureen Clough (55:14.367) Got my popcorn. JT ODonnell (55:18.5) I love it. Maureen Clough (55:24.287) Yes, do it. Maureen Clough (55:33.195) Should I, should I bounce? Joel Cheesman (55:34.291) If you need to bounce, just give them a wee out and then JT and I will fit in the show. All right, everybody, Maureen has to bounce out. Any last words, Maureen? Maureen Clough (55:39.731) You guys, okay, so should I like make a deal? Sorry. Man, I can't wait to hear what you guys say when I'm not in the room. All right. Gotta roll. We out. Bye, guys. Joel Cheesman (55:50.229) You're busy. Give us a wee out. JT ODonnell (55:51.888) I got your back. Joel Cheesman (55:56.097) CMO. And then there were two. This has been a weird show. This has been a weird show. That was weird. He's so needy. Love me. All right, LinkedIn has released their Women in the Workplace survey. New data shows that while women make up 44 % of the global workforce, they hold only 31 % of VP in higher leadership roles. JT ODonnell (56:00.127) let's bring it on. I know, Chad popping in like, whoa, just bizarre. Joel Cheesman (56:23.585) with momentum stalling at the manager level, particularly in tech and finance. Also highlighted is increased burnout and declining mental health for younger female workers. JT, you're a woman like I mentioned earlier. Help us out here. What's your take on the survey about women in the workplace? JT ODonnell (56:41.87) Yeah, I mean, I obviously dug deep into this and they sent it to me in advance. I saw five things that in particular I thought women should be taking note of. First of all, the most obvious one is we can't rely on corporate systems. We never could. But corporate systems as we know it are flattening, right? This idea of a career hierarchy, them understanding our needs, like that's just dying faster and faster. What was really interesting to me is the biggest barrier isn't the C-suite. It's that first promotion. Joel Cheesman (56:56.128) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (57:11.662) What the data really showed is that if you're not visible early enough on in your career so that someone sees you and picks you up and helps you move up, you're probably never gonna get to that top. And so it's, when you think about the amount of entry level jobs, for example, that are being wiped out, where are these women going to get seen, noticed, and pulled up to that next level? That's a concern that we have to look at. The career ladder, as we know, is broken. Like they're claiming it's breaking. I'd say been broke for a while. Joel Cheesman (57:18.411) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (57:40.909) Women have been leaning out over the last couple of years. The data shows that because they've given up. To me, visibility matters more than ever. That's something you hear me talk about all the time. It's 10 times that for women. It's not who you know, it's who knows you. They don't know what you do. Women love to keep their head down, do a good job, and hope upon hope that someone recognizes the great work they're doing in promoting them. It doesn't work that way. You gotta stop. And then the big one is that you stop thinking like an employee. Every woman out there that's listening, you're a business of one. You are a service provider. Treat yourself like that. Market yourself like that. Pay attention. Chase the value. Chase the money. When businesses got a business, there's usually a reason. One or more of the things that they couldn't get across the finish line to keep their business in business. Women have to more than ever right now be paying attention to all aspects of the marketing, the business, the sales, the product, the service. And I know that's a lot, but... Joel Cheesman (58:13.643) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (58:38.862) That's what it takes these days. So, you know, was a lot of data to take in, but to me that's the reality check. Joel Cheesman (58:46.805) Part of it to me, I think the elephant in my head was at the manager level. It's typically an age at which women consider, am I having a child? I like, am I taking that step in my life or am I not? do you agree with that? Am I off base with that? Cause I feel like that's the age when that happens. Like it's either, I want to have a family and do that. I'm going to pull back on my career or more and more women I think are saying, JT ODonnell (59:05.988) Not at all and I'll give you a Joel Cheesman (59:14.325) you know what, I'm gonna have both or I'm gonna go career. JT ODonnell (59:17.912) Yeah, so I have obviously coached a lot of women who come to me somewhere around in their 30s and have their first child. And this is the conversation. JT, I gave them everything. I was working 60 hours a week. I was doing everything. I crushed it, right? I went out on maternity leave. I came back. Now I'm more tightly dialed in. I'm getting more done in 40 hours than I ever did before. But it's because I have this life. So I'm getting even more dialed in. I'm producing. I'm doing great. I just had my first review and they gave me average, my first average review ever. And I'm so angry because I don't understand. And I said, well, sure, I know why. Because you defined your value off of working 60 hours a week. That's what you did. And then you went and had a child and came back and started working 40 hours a week. So the visual is you aren't doing the same thing you were doing before. Even though we both know you're performing at a higher level and doing more. Joel Cheesman (59:48.704) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:00:07.937) Huh. JT ODonnell (01:00:14.02) But what you set, and this is what I want women to understand, however you define yourself in the workplace, that's what they think they're getting for the paycheck. When you wanna go change it, you changed it on them without permission. That's why a lot of women end up having to leave that job that expected them to do 60 hours, but then shockingly, I'll get them some place where they got a 40 % pay raise and they're like, sure, work 32 hours a week, we love your value. Because they don't have the history of what you used to do. Joel Cheesman (01:00:23.958) Mm-hmm. That's interesting. JT ODonnell (01:00:41.081) And so that's why so many women end up having to leave after they've had a child because they have to redefine what value is. Joel Cheesman (01:00:47.083) I think that's fascinating because I think the popular narrative would be they're holding her down because she has a child now that she's not as committed or, you know, the, guy who gets promoted is going to work continually as he did before. think the narrative of. JT ODonnell (01:00:55.288) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (01:01:06.089) You were like what you just, what you said, don't think is the popular narrative that's out there. And I think that that point of view, is incredibly powerful. Another thing that I thought of was they talk about in the, in the study that how women are more selective in applying to jobs. They're, they're, they're more hesitant if they don't adhere to a hundred percent of the requirements. Whereas men are like 60 % let's go, you know, let's throw, let's roll the dice. Let's see what happens. JT ODonnell (01:01:11.084) No, definitely not. Joel Cheesman (01:01:35.525) as a result, women apply to 20 % less jobs. I think you and I both believe that an agent take future and job search is happening in that world. I'm assuming a man's agent and a woman's agent are the same agent. So do you feel like if women through their agent, they don't think about, is it a hundred percent? It's just like, let's just go. This agent is going to work for me. Well, women get more opportunities in that world. And is that a, I guess, an endorsement for a Gentic job search in that women will get more opportunities because there won't be the filter with an agent that a woman, a human woman might have. JT ODonnell (01:02:15.32) yeah, and I'm seeing anecdotal evidence of that already actually on LinkedIn. So I have women now that we're teaching them to talk about their industry and their skill sets, the problems you solve, the pain you alleviate, and documenting that knowledge. And because they're documenting that knowledge, they're being surfaced in the searches. But more importantly, and this is the thing that I think people don't understand, when you take the time to document your knowledge, when you have to sit down and think about how do I want to explain these things that I did, you're actually prepping yourself for an interview. Joel Cheesman (01:02:43.915) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (01:02:45.218) So when they call you because of the interesting things you put out there, you're prepared to talk. And this is where I'm seeing women really excel and land incredible opportunities. So the agentic excites me because it can go out and it can listen. It can listen to what you're saying and how you're saying it. And this is where I think women are gonna start to get a great edge. Joel Cheesman (01:02:55.328) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:03:05.298) I just realized that I mentioned I was going to say something about the higher view acquisition and I didn't because of all the fuss over juice box. So if you're still listening to this episode, which God bless you, if you are, it's been a wild ride. I'm to give my two cents on the higher view acquisition. so higher view started in 2004. Video ret like video interviewing was cutting edge, man. That was a, that was hot. And they were the brand leader in that. JT ODonnell (01:03:09.712) Yeah JT ODonnell (01:03:17.328) You Joel Cheesman (01:03:34.603) Let's call it 10 years of sort of high speed internet, mobile phones, video, getting used to that. Let's fast forward to let's say COVID. COVID we're interviewing online with video. mean, higher view has always been sort of at that leading edge brand wise. They've never struck it rich. They've never got acquired. They've never like, so they're kind of this feature that has just sort of stuck around and is still sticking around. But what we, my, my take on this is. They've been pinched for going AI recruit, like AI facial recognition, diversity, like exclusion, like they went down that path and got pinched. So they've, they've dialed it back now, just like work day, just like SAP. It's like, we need to get some AI in this piece or else we're going to suffer. hence the higher guide, acquisition. To me, this is not a winning recipe for HireVue. I think there are better solutions out there, more all-encompassing solutions. I looked at some of the numbers on what's going on at HireVue. In 2025, they lost their chief innovation officer, they lost an SVP of sales, and they lost a VP of sales. And JT, I've been around long enough and you have as well. When you lose your product innovation person and you start losing your top salespeople, something stinks. Something stinks to high heaven. that is there. When you look at their headcount, headcount's been 10 % down in the last two years. I looked at Hire Guide, headcount's down 20 % over two years. They're only about a 20 person company. JT ODonnell (01:04:57.264) Mm. JT ODonnell (01:05:01.624) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:05:21.569) I think they've lost some folks as well. this whole like, Hey, if we're two dinosaurs and we cuddle, can we survive longer after the meteor, you know, and the, and the ice age happens like not much longer. And this, but this is an attempt to do that. Um, I think video interviewing is a feature everyone's going to, like, I just don't see any sort of. IP there. And when you, when you don't have that, you just start losing customers. And I think they've been bleeding customers for almost 20 years. JT ODonnell (01:05:48.74) Yeah, I mean, you and I have been around. There's so many people like right idea, wrong time. How many startups have you seen that just were too early to the market? It wasn't ready for it, et cetera, right? I think they were one of them. And then like you said, they got pinched. There was a documentary that they got negatively featured in and they've been up against that. Now anybody can do video and I can only imagine what their legacy tech, you know, that's gotta be expensive. And so I do, I think they were one of those that Joel Cheesman (01:05:58.045) A lot. Sure. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:06:11.073) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (01:06:16.409) Right idea, wrong time, and they've been at it for a really long time, it's just, I'm with you, don't see it, especially with all the new tech I'm seeing in the video space that is so agile, so up there, and so much more user-friendly, specifically putting the power in the hand of the job seeker. One of the issues people always have with things like high review is, I get put on the spot, I answer these questions, I don't know where my data's going, I don't know where my video's going, and I'm redoing these every single time. So there was just so much wrong with it. Joel Cheesman (01:06:28.651) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (01:06:40.363) Yeah. JT ODonnell (01:06:46.501) that there's plenty of players out there right now that I think are new or faster in leveraging AI. Joel Cheesman (01:06:50.081) feels very antiquated. you know, think in a world where there's fewer recruiters interviewing in person, people that are applying to jobs, putting a camera in that equation just is like putting a monkey wrench in the engine. It just slows everything down. The tools now are so much more efficient and cheaper and better. All right. Well, one thing I never miss on a weekly show, JT, as you know, is the dad joke. JT ODonnell (01:07:06.651) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Agreed. JT ODonnell (01:07:17.443) I know, here it comes. Joel Cheesman (01:07:23.361) In honor of Women's Month, what do you call a man with 99 % of his brain missing? What do you call a man with 99 % of his brain missing? JT ODonnell (01:07:36.219) I mean, I could say something, but I'd have a lot of men hate me on this show. So I'm just not going to say no. Nope, not doing it. Joel Cheesman (01:07:38.337) We'll say it. No one's listening at this point in the show. Just say whatever you want. All right. What do you call a man with 99 % of his brain missing? Castrated. Joel Cheesman (01:07:53.675) Thanks for sticking with it, JT. We out! JT ODonnell (01:07:56.304) Love it. We out!

The job market is broken… and this episode pulls zero punches about why. Employer brand expert Jillian O’Malior joins Chad, Cheese, and JT O’Donnell to talk about the modern job search hellscape: 600 applications, five-round interviews, ghosting, AI resume spam, and jobs that magically disappear after three months of interviews. Sound familiar? We dive into why companies are quietly downgrading VP jobs into “manager” roles, how AI hype is giving execs cover to cut headcount, and why today’s hiring process makes candidates feel less like humans and more like spam in an ATS black hole. Plus: Why recruiters are drowning in AI-generated garbage resumes The real reason companies are flattening org charts and crushing salaries Why posting brutally honest job search content on LinkedIn might actually be the best personal brand strategy And the mental health toll of 15 months of rejection emails and ghosting If you’ve ever applied for a job and thought, “What the hell is going on?” this episode explains exactly why the system is so screwed up. Grab a drink. This one gets real. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:30.407) Yeah, it's the podcast your bartender warned you about. Hey, boys and girls, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman joined as always Chad. Sowash is in the house as well as JT O'Donnell, you know, we're in lovers. We welcome Jillian O'Malior to the show. She's an expert in employment branding, workplace culture and talent attraction. Jillian Welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash (00:40.844) Sup? Jillian O'Malior (00:57.144) Thank you for having me. Joel Cheesman (00:59.129) she sounds excited chat. She sounds excited. Well, well, Jillian, a lot of our listeners probably won't know you although you have a huge following on on the socials. Give us sort of a little bit about what makes Jillian tick. Jillian O'Malior (01:00.726) Hahaha Chad Sowash (01:01.323) Hahaha! JT ODonnell (01:01.977) She's ready, she's ready. Jillian O'Malior (01:13.09) Yeah, so I've been doing the employer brand talent marketing thing for about 10 years now. I did most of it at KRT marketing to start and then Recruitix. But I was doing in-house marketing and brand before that. But mostly I'm just, I am really, really big on talking about stuff that no one's very comfortable talking about. Chad Sowash (01:41.299) you're at the right place. Welcome. Welcome. Jillian O'Malior (01:43.297) Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (01:47.407) Outside of that, I just hang out with my daughter all the time. I'm a single mom. We do all kinds of stuff. She's a competitive dancer, so my weekends are really consumed with sitting in dark rooms with really loud music pounding at me. Yeah, they do not belong to me. They do not at all. Yeah, exactly. It's basically like going to a rave every single weekend that you paid an absurd amount of money for, and it's only kind of fun. Chad Sowash (01:57.943) Yes. Chad Sowash (02:01.44) They're not yours. Joel Cheesman (02:05.425) That's just called Tuesday at my house, sitting alone in the dark. Chad Sowash (02:09.957) Joel Cheesman (02:14.961) Hello. Chad Sowash (02:17.209) Joel being a competitive dancer, yeah, that's a great sight. Jillian O'Malior (02:17.443) Mm-hmm that makes sense that makes sense Joel Cheesman (02:21.967) And I am, I'm also the songbird of my generation in case you ever want one party, some party entertainment. Yeah. Entertainment value. well we're here cause you, got some problems with the job market as does JT and Chad and I, don't have nearly the experience with searching for a job is, is you to do with your own experiences as well as people you talk to. So, how should we start this thing? Do we want to go to the video? Do we want to like, Jillian O'Malior (02:27.468) I've heard that. I've heard that. Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (02:32.696) Yeah, that's me. Yes. Chad Sowash (02:49.26) Right out of the gate, mean, we've heard it over and over, right? And it comes from a variety of people who have jobs. They don't understand the market, right? just people are bitching and moaning and what are they whining about? So this first video sets us up perfectly because I don't think that a lot of people like Joel and I, Joel Cheesman (02:52.55) Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:19.104) both talking about this, we understand what we read, we understand BLS data, we understand, which isn't always great, also a lot of the other data points from like the Aspen Techs and whatnot, so we have to do a lot of research, but most individuals in our industry do not do that. So let's roll that first video and like set this up. Joel Cheesman (03:40.465) All right, let's go. Chad Sowash (05:05.292) Okay, say more. 500 jobs, that's a lot. Joel Cheesman (05:12.485) And for those that don't know, Jillian, you're currently looking for a job. So you're coming at this from the perspective of applying and seeing firsthand what's going on. So for those that aren't doing that, give us sort of a day in the life of job searching right Jillian O'Malior (05:18.786) Yes. Chad Sowash (05:20.374) Good point, Jillian O'Malior (05:25.998) Yeah, absolutely. I'll just kind of set the scene. I was laid off in November of 2024. So we're at 15 1 1.5 months of job seeking. And so really what it looks like is you're going through, you're searching for jobs, not just going to LinkedIn and Indeed. You are contacting your network. You are reaching out to people. are looking, for me, I'm looking at anything that's agency related within recruitment marketing. You are tailoring your resume, making sure that at the very least you're hitting some of the keywords that you can see in the job description and making sure they're highlighted on your resume. Sometimes you're doing a cover letter, sometimes you're not doing a cover letter and you're submitting it via the career site to the ATS. So then what's happening is sometimes you get a rejection within 25 minutes. Sometimes you get a rejection at 3 AM on a Sunday. A lot of people got rejections on Christmas Day, which I thought was really interesting. Sometimes you hear absolutely nothing at all. That's actually the vast majority. You apply to something and you're like, well, it was nice meeting you. Never hear from you again. And then what's happening is if you do manage to get through and usually what I found is the jobs that you get through are not the ones that you're just like Applying to it's someone you had an employee referral you had some kind of an in So you're going through you get an actual interview and then you do another interview and then another one and then another one and then another one and it's three and half months later You've had five to six interviews for this job Chad Sowash (07:14.742) Holy shit. Jillian O'Malior (07:16.48) And then three and a half months later, they go, so we actually decided to change the parameters entirely. And do you have this totally niche experience? I went through a process where I didn't hear for a month. And then I just checked in and said, hey, interested where you are in the process? because it was in the beauty industry, they said, yeah, we liked you, but we decided that we also need someone who has like pro stylist experience. Chad Sowash (07:34.87) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (07:45.677) So a decade of brand leadership and be a licensed hairstylist to do this job. And I went, got it. Exactly. But that's happening or what's also happening because this has been really common for me as you go through the multiple rounds and the multiple months and they go, yeah, so we decided we're just not gonna fill it. Chad Sowash (07:55.277) Well in this time frame I could have gotten my damn license for goodness sakes. I mean, Jesus. Jillian O'Malior (08:13.518) We changed our minds. We don't want to do this anymore. And you're like, that was four months. Awesome. Nice to meet you. And that's just what it's been. It's 90 % to 95 % of what you apply to. You don't hear a word. A bunch you just get the automated rejection email. And then when you go through the process, it is multiple months, multiple rounds of interviews and assessment and assignments jumping through hoops and then the job just disappears. Chad Sowash (08:49.036) So JT, expound upon this because you've, I mean, you're... Joel Cheesman (08:51.291) JT is doing a lot of nodding if you're not watching the video. She's doing a lot of nodding. JT ODonnell (08:53.305) Yeah, I mean, we can go back and look at the Great Recession. We can go back and dissect times when there were more job seekers than jobs, right? But I think this one is particularly unique. We're sitting in this perfect storm moment. So not only are we in an economic time where there's a lot of restructuring, but you have this thing called AI that's making every executive try to figure out what headcount should look now in the future. And by the way, it better be less because, you know, the people governing them are saying you better be doing something with AI or you aren't doing your job, right? So you have this perfect store moment where companies don't want to hire and the marching orders publicly are contract, you know, cut down, cut down, cut down. So that is putting every company in this very strange holding pattern. And it's not uncommon for them to be going through the paces and then say, well, Do we really need this head count? Like, what if I need that for something else? so like Jillian's story, sadly, is one that I hear over and over and over again. The problem is that when you are at the level that Jillian's at and others and every executive out there, we somehow believe that we're supposed to be able to do this ourselves and that the way that we are doing this is very strategic. Historically about the nine month mark of being unemployed is when that more executive level person will go, you know what, something's not working here. Right? Because you can justify it over those first three months, six months, but you get to nine months and you start to go, I'm coming up on a year, something's not right. That's when people start to realize that the way to get those jobs is completely different now. The jobs you really want aren't sitting on a job board. They will never be on a job board. And it's not who you know because too many of your friends are holding onto jobs, job hugging, and actually secretly don't want to help you get a job because they're afraid you might outshine them or whatnot. So if it's not who you know anymore, it's who knows you. So you have to change your entire approach to getting work right now. And it's a visibility game, very intentional visibility game. Chad Sowash (10:52.758) Is it also that they're not hiring as much at the executive level because those salaries are so much higher? So instead of having a VP or what have you, they might just go ahead and have a director consume everything and take responsibility for everything that the VP used to do. So they'll eliminate a high pay salary in literally, and again, that. that job might be posted next thing you know, they're like, you know what? No, we're not gonna do that. Has that been happening? Have you seen from your applications, Jillian, is that like they're just ghosting or vanishing? JT ODonnell (11:26.467) So. Jillian O'Malior (11:31.626) Yeah. I've definitely seen that with anything that's, know, because where I was, was at the VP level at Recruitix. And so I'm applying to director and above stuff. Those don't seem to really exist. But then what you are seeing is you'll see the manager level thing and you're reading through it and you're like, that is a director level role. There is so much that this job is doing. You're requiring 10 years of experience, but you're calling it a manager. Chad Sowash (11:41.6) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (11:55.562) Hahaha Chad Sowash (12:02.485) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (12:04.516) so that you can pay a third of what that role, you know, three years ago was being paid. Joel Cheesman (12:11.397) And are they able to do that because of there's so much more supply than demand or because AI will give you this like be able to. Yeah. JT ODonnell (12:11.982) And I will. Jillian O'Malior (12:14.86) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:18.668) JT's talked about it before where they're literally pressing down wages and you press down the wages by the title at this point. Joel Cheesman (12:27.291) And we've also talked about resume Botox, where you take skills off to make yourself more marketable to those jobs. Is that something that's happening as well? Chad Sowash (12:29.932) Hahahaha JT ODonnell (12:34.233) Yeah, no, you get it. like the story of Goldilocks. It can't be too little. can't be too much. It needs to be just right. So that's how you have to tie yourself into that. To answer your question though, Joel, there are a flattening of organizations right now. There's far less managerial roles, but also all the trends start in tech and tumble everywhere else. This year in 2026 in the tech world, average no longer cuts it. Jillian O'Malior (12:40.354) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (12:41.334) That's right. JT ODonnell (13:01.879) You need to be the best of the best of the best and you need to be leveraging AI. You need to be like a CMO running it. So the expectation level of what is expected from you has skyrocketed. They are literally saying there's no room for average because there's enough AI tools. I want above average using AI to do the work of 20, 30, 50 people. So that is coming in hot right now and that's gonna have that trickle down effect. that's going to hurt even more people. If you really want to play at that higher level now, you are going to have to think and act and talk so knowledgeably that it is undeniable that you're worthy of that. Joel Cheesman (13:39.879) Is that realistic or is that the powers that be saying, look, AI, everyone's doing AI. We need to push it. We need to get people that have this. But we're also seeing stories where people are exhausted with doing so much more that AI is to do for you and they're taking on more. So my question is, it realistic that companies have this expectation that you're going to be a unicorn because of AI? JT ODonnell (14:08.577) In a market like this, is, think about supply and demand, right? Right now, they sit in the driver's seat. So they absolutely can just expect that of their folks. Now the pendulum always swings and eventually it'll swing in another direction and that might change. know, they might then start to hire additional help to deal with the AI fatigue. There's also a real genuine belief. And if we just look at how we've all watched AI evolve over the last year, right? It's been insane what it used to be able to do to what it can do now. That kind of perfection isn't going to stop. That's why I do believe, you know, the Microsoft executive that said all the white collar tasks, tasks can be automated and people are like, no, they will be, they will be. So you have to be the brain behind the bots going forward to have a job. Chad Sowash (14:36.086) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (14:38.119) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (14:52.251) Yeah. Jillian, we read a lot about lazy apply and AI applied. So you said none of that in your, in your, like in your commentary, there was no, like, I've cranked up the AI. I'm applying to thousands of jobs an hour. Like, have you thought about that? Have, did you vote against, like in your journey, did you sort of explore that and say, no, that's, that's not what I want to do. Or are you to a point where like, you know what I'm going to, let's go, let's try it. Jillian O'Malior (15:05.998) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (15:13.548) Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (15:17.966) I voted against, I am, so I talk a lot about AI in my content and one of the things that I've had to be very clear on is like, I am not anti-AI at all. I actually absolutely see it as a tool to help people move forward. I'm against the worship of it. And they're like, it's gonna do everything. It's gonna fix everything. You just like yeah, you do this like automatic apply because what's happening is I was just talking with someone who leads recruitment for a hospital and they're you know, they're trying to fill a lab tech role in their hospital and they were like the number of forklift driver applications I've been getting is insane and I don't understand it and I was like, those are people using AI tools where they're just like matching random keywords and saying like, yeah, let's, let's apply you to this lab tech role because here's five words that have nothing to do with the role that matched. so I, I'm not really into using AI that way. have used it through the process. I've used it to like take the job description, take my resume and be like, where do I tighten? Where do I tweak? Where do I make sure that I'm, you know, highlighting the right aspects of my experience. Chad Sowash (16:13.354) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (16:36.578) to better align with this role. But yeah, mean, recruiters are seeing that where the sheer volume that they're getting, and so much of it is just garbage. It's no one that's even remotely qualified for the role. But then what that's doing is it's watering down the folks that are. Because you're just like, I can't scroll through 1,000 resumes so everybody gets a second of my attention. But that includes, yeah. Chad Sowash (17:03.508) Which is why we need to these tools on the the at the top of the funnel because all of this is happening. Now we have to be able to smartly on the TA side of the house. We have to be able to really. Have the requirements for the job. We have to ensure those individuals meet those requirements and hopefully they're being self validated by the by the actual job seekers know that this whole FICRA things happening. So at the end of the day, mean, we've got to start installing tech to be able to scale along with the lazy apply craziness that's happening. Do you think that and again, you talked about the 25 minutes to 3 a.m. or the black hole. think obviously the black hole is the worst out of all of them. But does it really bother you in 25 minutes or even after? hitting a no on a question that demonstrates that you might not be qualified or they don't think you're qualified. Do you think like if you got an instantaneous, sorry, but you you're not for us, is that a bad thing or is that really a good thing? Jillian O'Malior (18:11.502) think a lot of times it's a bad thing because I get those with, I'm really discerning about the way that I apply. Even though I'm at like 600 applies, I'm very discerning about what I go for because I want to optimize my chance as much as possible. I got a 25 minute rejection after using an employee referral code. Like I had an employee at the company who was like, Chad Sowash (18:15.178) Yeah, okay. Chad Sowash (18:23.564) Mm. Chad Sowash (18:29.196) Mm. Jillian O'Malior (18:39.886) I can refer you in, here's the code, you know, to show that you are aligned with me. And it was an employer brand director role. It was, I mean, it was just my resume regurgitated into a job description. So I was like, at the very least, I could get into an interview and I could move it forward. And in 25 minutes I was out. Chad Sowash (18:47.743) huh. Joel Cheesman (18:53.201) Wow. Chad Sowash (19:00.054) So think it's like bias against that employee maybe? Jillian O'Malior (19:03.182) I didn't even think about it that way. It's very, knowing that person very likely. But I think it's, you we've run into this too on sort of the TA side is that when you set up your knockout questions, your filters too extreme, you're kicking out. Joel Cheesman (19:10.663) So be discerning. Wouldn't me. Chad Sowash (19:12.726) Joel. Jillian O'Malior (19:29.686) a ton of people. And I hear this a lot from TA folks where they talk about a talent shortage right now. it's like, that's not the frame. It's a talent access issue. You're not being able to access the right talent because you're getting all these AI resumes or your ATS is set up in a way that it's deprioritizing people based on random unnecessary things. There is not a talent shortage. Some of the most talented people I know are looking for work right now. It's an access issue. Chad Sowash (20:02.732) JT, thoughts? JT ODonnell (20:03.277) Yeah, well I just think you're gonna see the demise of ATS systems as we know them because it is forever broken. Like if you just hear the pain and suffering she's gone through as a job seeker, the way to fix it is to not have the process that way anymore. Why should be people spending all this time applying only to be auto rejected? Like if we know that's what it's creating, that needs to stop. We need to change how that works. Jillian O'Malior (20:08.686) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (20:26.627) funny story again why I ATSs are going to die. One of my clients just got a brand new job back channeled into the company applied, right? But back channeled in, got the job offer and then HR went and said, you never finished your application in the system, right? So could you just go back and complete the application for this job in the system? Cause we need that to cross the T's and dot the I's. She got an auto rejection notice that she didn't get the job. Chad Sowash (20:49.068) Ouch. JT ODonnell (20:52.701) forwarded to the manager said, is this a thing? He's like, no, no, just disregard. It was just a formality to have you in the system. you you hear stories like that and you know that unfortunately the technology these companies have spent a lot of money on and I get it, it's legacy and tech debt are obsolete now and there are new and better ways to build systems for finding the right talent that like Jillian is so rightly saying, it's an access issue. We need to change how you get access to the right talent. So they're not feeling that rejection. Chad Sowash (21:20.652) I think a lot, mean, not all of it, there's also a good part of that is that the town acquisition admins, they're not experts in actually the process and or the tech that they're putting together, right? So they're building tech stacks and they're in charge of it. And to be quite frank, they really don't know what the hell they're doing. So therefore, this is what's happening because I've been in, I don't know how many times, tech stacks talking through process methodology. Why are you doing this? What is here and the admins there and they have no fucking clue and it's like Holy shit. I mean you guys are bitching about the applicant tracking system being the problem I mean it could be to some extent but you know, there's a shared responsibility that's happening here and for some reason, know There's a lot of finger pointing that's happening In but I do agree much of the the newer tech today It is it's a lot more seamless. It is quicker and to be quite frank, I would rather receive personally a thanks but no thanks in a few seconds so I can get that it's going to hurt for a minute. I get it. But waiting and waiting and waiting, I'd rather do that than 25 minutes. JT ODonnell (22:38.073) Oddly enough, and Jillian and I'll ask you this question, they recently did a test where people could have a, hey, we've seen that you might be a potential match for this job. Can we have a, this is a bot, we're not real, but we can have a conversation with you. Can we ask you a few questions on basis of that? We'll tell you if you're moving forward, right? Versus the other group just got an auto rejection if they weren't a fit. The people that went through this, they had the conversation, the bot said, hey, for these reasons you're not moving forward. All of those people said, that's fine. Jillian O'Malior (22:40.398) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (22:54.262) Mm. JT ODonnell (23:07.257) Even though they knew it was a bot, it was the way that it went that they could accept versus this no idea why auto rejection that looks like everyone else. So think about that. Like we have that now and people aren't using it. Chad Sowash (23:09.388) They just want to be heard as well. Yeah. Yes. Joel Cheesman (23:12.401) Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (23:17.548) Yeah. Chad Sowash (23:17.76) Yeah, yeah. Well, if you take a look at the eightfold FICRA like lawsuit, it's almost like pushing toward where if you do get, you know, booted, they need to provide you with the transparency of why, you know, and I think that's fair. I can almost guarantee you, Jillian, you think that's fair, too. I think everybody would just to know. Like if I didn't get a car loan, I want to know what that JT ODonnell (23:36.067) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:47.456) why, you know, and it's only fair that that I understand that. So, I mean, I don't know. It just seems like it's all moving that way, but I don't know how fast it'll get there. Jillian O'Malior (23:54.638) . Jillian O'Malior (23:59.191) Yeah, I think the interesting thing that I keep seeing is there's obviously there's a lot of like squabbling between job seekers and recruiters on social media and the recruiters like, well, what do want us to do? We can only hire one person for this job. And everyone's like, yeah, we're aware of how jobs work. We understand that we got it. But the thing that job seekers keep saying is like, I don't feel like a human being in this. I don't feel like a Chad Sowash (24:08.086) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (24:28.302) I don't like I send these out and I just feel like I'm being rejected with no real explanation one of the big Triggers that people I have found that job seekers have in like the automated email that they get back is we went with a more qualified candidate Because then these job seekers are like that you reposted the job a month later You didn't go with a more qualified candidate. Just remove that sentence from your automated emails Joel Cheesman (24:53.607) Hmm. Jillian O'Malior (24:57.71) It is triggering the hell out of people. But it's just this idea of feeling totally dehumanized through the process. Because we all know you submit a resume, right? Your resume is supposed to be concise and this and that. And you're like, how do I fit 15 years of expertise into a sheet of paper and I fit it in in a way that a computer will say, Chad Sowash (24:57.74) Mm. Joel Cheesman (25:08.177) Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (25:26.83) Okay, you get to see a human being now. The humans will see you now. And that's the thing that people just, can't quite figure out how to do it. And then you've got, you know, a lot of scammers that are reaching out and they're like, well, I can show you how to pass the blah, blah, blah score that all the ATS is use and trying to educate people. like, that's not a thing. It's not a thing. So you've got, yeah. Joel Cheesman (25:29.511) Yeah. Chad Sowash (25:45.536) Yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (25:49.166) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (25:51.463) You your comment about dehumanizing sort of sets up another video that we wanted to share with everyone. So let's watch that real Chad Sowash (26:09.888) James. Master. Chad Sowash (27:16.79) So Jillian, we have, as Gen Xers, I think most of us, Jillian is probably a millennial, we've been taught that our job is us, right? We live to work, we live to work. And it seems as if, especially in a time like this, when so many people do not have work, that... Jillian O'Malior (27:25.622) Elder millennial, yeah. Chad Sowash (27:47.211) they are desperate. to be quite frank, I mean, so talk a little bit more about about that, because the desperation itself. It's it's a it's a it's a human reaction. Right? Jillian O'Malior (27:59.747) Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm a big believer in that there is actually no reason to moralize any of this. We need jobs to survive. Shockingly, not all of us are trust fund babies who can just like live off of someone else's money. We need jobs to survive and not just that we need them to survive, but a lot of us, we get something from working. We get something that fuels our brains, that fuels our soul. We find ways to do something that feels right to us and feels like we're succeeding and when you're not working and when your whole job is searching for work, which doesn't pay either, so you're in survival mode, there is a desperation that happens. But then what we've done is we have completely moralized it. One of my big things that I've talked about is like, when did we shift the shame of a layoff from the company doing the layoff to the person who's been laid off? Because I can remember a time when if a company was doing layoffs, that was their desperation. Like, we have to do this to stop from totally shuddering. And we're so sorry. It is a last resort. And it was really a reflection of the company being mismanaged or whatever it might be. And now it's so common. I mean, I won't go into the number of layoffs I've seen. Joel Cheesman (29:14.119) you Joel Cheesman (29:26.885) Now it's good business. Jillian O'Malior (29:31.207) at the companies that I've worked at, but yeah, it's just a way of managing budgets and managing head counts and doing all of this. But we have, you know, we'll sit there and you'll be on a zoom call with your manager and they'll be like, it's not personal. It's business, you know, don't take this personally. It's just what we had to do. But then you go through and you apply and people go, what's that gap? What's that gap in your resume? Why have you been unemployed for so long? Well, why did you get laid? Why was your job eliminated? How useless a human being are you in the kind of work that you do that why should we hire you? even though no one's obviously saying it to that extreme, that is the underlying current with a lot of interviews, with a lot of this process, because people generally speaking just lack emotional intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Chad Sowash (30:00.299) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:21.615) I assume it's like that house that that house it's been for sale for a year. People just eventually go, what's wrong with the house? Like something's got to be wrong with it. And it just becomes this like endless cycle of the longer I'm unemployed, the longer I'm unemployed because people feel like there's something wrong with me. I'm curious about the mental health question. There are people listening to this that are unemployed. They don't have a VP level job. They don't have the experience that you have. And they look at you and go, Jillian O'Malior (30:37.452) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:49.285) My God, if she can't get a job, what hope is there for me? So I'm curious what you and JT, I know you talked to lot of people as well. What kind of message do you give them when they are so frustrated when they get doors shut in their face time and time again? How do you deal with that mentally and what advice would you give others? Jillian O'Malior (31:10.21) Yeah, it's, I just tell people full on, like, it is not easy and you have to name that. You have to name how difficult this is. You cannot silver lining your way through something that's not only hard and it's just like rejection after rejection after rejection, but it's also about your survival, your ability to be housed, your ability to be fed. And part of it is accepting that it's really hard naming that for yourself instead of constantly feeling like you have to stay positive and stay positive. And just acknowledging that even though it's absolutely personal for you because it's about your ability to survive, it isn't personal in the sense that it's a reflection of who you are. And that can sometimes be hard. I've run into it too. mean, being someone with like the work ethic that I have and the drive that I have being unemployed for 15 months, I have had so many moments where I'm like, girl, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, what is happening here? What, like, where did you screw up 20 years ago that you got to this point? Chad Sowash (32:13.925) yeah. Jillian O'Malior (32:29.838) And you do that because you got nothing but time to think about your situation, try and get out of your situation. And I'm a big believer in being vocal helps. You have to vent it out of you. The video that you showed, one of the big things about that was people have to go to LinkedIn when they're looking for work. That's where you network. Chad Sowash (32:52.492) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (32:53.932) That's where some of the jobs are, but that's where the recruiters are. so posting content and talking about things and making sure, JT, to your point, making sure you're being seen by the people who can help you get a job. But then you go on and you see these engagement bait hot takes from employed people going like, I don't know, you look really desperate with that green banner, and it's gross. It's like. I'm sorry that I'm advertising that I need work just like the rest of us. I don't understand why you moralize this. Yeah. Chad Sowash (33:26.476) Not to mention the the algorithm has proven that once you click that thing on you actually get you you get more you get more noticed But a to me JT when you hear that and I'm sure that you probably have Individuals that you're talking to that first and foremost one event to you go figure and secondarily They're like, should I use this green banner thing? I've heard things about it. What what what have you heard? JT ODonnell (33:51.117) Yeah. JT ODonnell (33:54.724) So in full transparency in my own program, right, where we coach people, we advise not to turn on the green banner, but there is an open to work button that turns on the signal that recruiters are allowed to contact you. That's the most important thing, whether you choose the green banner or not, is to choose one of those two options, because that actually is telling the algorithm to include you in recruiter searches. A lot of people don't even know that that's like a fundamental thing. If you don't want to be in recruiter searches, don't turn either of those on. Chad Sowash (34:02.101) Okay. Chad Sowash (34:08.32) okay. Joel Cheesman (34:24.795) And do you advise that because of the desperation factor or is it something else? JT ODonnell (34:25.335) The Greek. JT ODonnell (34:29.485) Because sadly hiring is discrimination. And when a recruiter has visually a list of 50 candidates on the screen, and they see some with a green banner and some with not, some are absolutely jumping to that green banner first. But for every one recruiter like that, there's arguably one to two that are skipping over because the way they're evaluated on their job is bringing the best match. So when they go to their boss and the boss says, why are you bringing me people who are between jobs? I'm somebody who wants to hire employed. Again, horrible discrimination. Don't shoot the messenger. But then that's the recruiter just trying to keep their own job. So once again, it's so unfortunate. It's not fair, it's not right, but it is how we advise them. The part of your question that I think is so important, Joel, is the mental health piece of it is how to get out of that. 20 years of doing this, you better believe I've had people come to me 18 months out of work, four years out of work. And the mental thing I have to do is break their patterns. Chad Sowash (35:01.175) yeah. JT ODonnell (35:27.999) So believe it or not, one of the reasons we put you in and say, okay, here's a seven day jumpstart, 15 minutes a day, is to actually give you easy wins that make you have dopamine hits and start to get you out of that slump. Because the truth is, and I bring this book up every time on this podcast, Alfie Cohn's Punished by Rewards explains how we have all become extrinsically motivated and defined by our jobs in this country. So that is ingrained in us that we feel guilty, we feel bad if we aren't producing. So if I know that's true, my psychological fix is to have you do something just a little bit each day and have a win and all of a sudden what? You're producing. Fast forward to what we're all talking about now, which is documenting yourself. You just said it. If you really want to be found on LinkedIn, it's not turning that banner on or off. has nothing to do with it. It actually has to do now with their algorithm update where you're posting your industry and skill sets so we can understand who you are. Here's the cool thing about that. When you learn how to do that correctly, Chad Sowash (35:56.077) yeah. JT ODonnell (36:23.363) You have to start thinking about your craft. You have to start talking about your craft. It fires your brain on all cylinders. I can tell you hands down, my clients will all tell you the reason creating content changed it and they went from unemployed 18, 24 months to landing a job was they got back into talking confidently. They had to create content that created context. So then when they started getting interviews, they weren't fumbling like, my gosh, this is my first interview in 18 months. They're like, heck yeah. I love what I'm talking about in my feed. Now let's talk some more. Joel Cheesman (36:51.654) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (36:52.311) and they get the job, right? They're solution-orientated. It's cathartic. Yeah, so I would say to anybody out there that's been out of it for a while, believe it or not, talking about your industry and your skill set, recording the answers to those job interview questions, giving hot takes on what's happening in your industry, that's really gonna help you mentally, and quite frankly, two for the price of one, because it's how recruiters are gonna find you. Chad Sowash (36:53.324) Well, plus it's cathartic though too, right? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:13.703) And I'm curious, to me it's a balance because when I watch Jillian's social media posts, part of me says, wow, how sort of nice it must be to unload that. And I'm sure for every asshole that comments, there's someone that says, yes, I'm going through the same thing. Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. And part of me as an employer says, red flag, someone that's going to social media talking about these issues. Jillian O'Malior (37:37.986) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (37:42.459) JT, more for you, guess. What are your thoughts when you see those videos? it a net positive that's happening or is she hurting herself by taking to social media in that way? JT ODonnell (37:54.234) The solution is to show your whole self. If you become only the feed that talks about the injustices, then that's your brand. You actually think about, there a way for me to monetize off that? Is that my true passion? If I'm really filling the feed with the things that I know, like Gillian's talking what she knows about employer branding, talent attraction, how AI is factoring into it, and she's really filling that feed with that knowledge, her having the occasional post with how she feels about the job search is providing a more holistic perspective. a whole view of it. But if it was only kind of the ranting or only that problem, then right, that's the appointment. you know, people hear what they see. That's what is going to be ingested and understood. But to me, if you bring your whole self, it's less of an issue. Jillian O'Malior (38:38.786) And that's been, you know, sort of an interesting thing with all this, because I started posting, I did a very specific post on November 3rd where I said, okay, I have played the game the right way for a year now, because I was just about at a year unemployed. And I said, so now we're going to shift and we're going to talk about. Chad Sowash (38:55.532) Mm. Jillian O'Malior (38:59.958) what this is really like. We're going to talk about it from the standpoint of someone who has been working in recruitment marketing, employer brand, talent traction for a while now and understands the other side of it. And I have gotten, you know, because I'm very honest, I curse a lot because that's just who I am. I do a lot of very niche pop culture references, but I've had a lot of people reach out and they're like, you are making yourself unhireable. You are completely making yourself unhireable. Nobody wants to hire someone like this. And I've done a couple of things with that. said, one, what I've done is I've created a massive filter. If this makes you uncomfortable, someone who, you know, I'm not being mean, I'm not. being aggressive, but I am speaking very honestly about like, hey, this doesn't work. You're damaging your brand with the way that things are operating right now. If that doesn't work for a company, that's not a company I'm going to fit with anyway, because this is how I, mean, ask anybody who worked with me at Recruits, it's like, yeah, that's just what she's like. That's how I show up. Joel Cheesman (40:03.537) Yeah. Chad Sowash (40:03.617) Yes. Jillian O'Malior (40:15.028) in the workplace, which is I'm going to be really honest. I'm going to talk about things that need to be talked about, and I'm not going to be too shy about doing that. But the other thing is that, and I'm going to be releasing this soon, this has also been like a 90-day study of what happened. Because I'm into brand, and that's what I do. What happens when you develop a brand that is very rooted in honesty, that is very rooted in not being performative, but being clear on who you are and what you want, and what does the performance of that look like? And it's pretty remarkable what that can look like within 90 days with no dollars behind it, nothing other than just like, pure, this is my brand. Joel Cheesman (40:39.259) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (41:05.486) These are the stories I'm telling. Everything I do needs to align with this story that I'm trying to tell. And what does that look like? Joel Cheesman (41:12.743) Can you give us a little taste of what we can expect from that? Jillian O'Malior (41:15.138) Yeah. So basically, I built a brand for myself that was very centered on who I am, but well-defined. And what it looked like was with, like I said, with no dollars behind it. It's all pure organic, 2.8 million impressions across two platforms. Chad Sowash (41:16.19) yeah. Jillian O'Malior (41:44.378) 120,000 engagements and like comments, likes, shares, all kinds of stuff. And then I think it was, I have to go back and look, but it was like increasing my followers by like 600 % or something like that in 30 days or in 90 days. Chad Sowash (42:01.782) Yeah, well, and that's what LinkedIn wants. So we just talked about it on last week's show is that remember when everybody's like, that doesn't belong on LinkedIn. I was always the guy who was like, fuck you. This is my profile. I'll post what I want to post, like it or not. Right. And we've moved more toward we need transparency and we're asking that of employers. They're being much slower than we are, obviously. And I remember when Joel and I first started talking about JT ODonnell (42:04.574) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (42:10.06) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (42:28.042) people who are getting fired on TikTok and they were they were actually recording it on TikTok and how that would impact them later on down the road. And from my standpoint, it's like this is just an evolutionary point of transparency for the person and the company. And I think we're going deeper down that rabbit hole. And for me, I think that's great. Jillian O'Malior (42:52.034) Yeah, I mean bad behavior thrives in silence, right? That's what bad behavior needs. They need people to comply and to be quiet and to just put their heads down and take it. And you know, I'm big on like, I talk about this a lot. I'm not a cancel culture person. I don't believe in that. But I do believe in accountability. I do believe in if you're doing something that is ultimately harming your brand. ran into this. On LinkedIn, I had a recruiter reach out to me. And they just hit me with, I'm hiring for a role and then just like a litany of questions about my experience. And I went, hi, nice to meet you. what company and what is the role? Like, can I see a job description? And they basically were like, I'll ask the questions here. What is your experience? And I went, yes, and I kind of said to them, was like, so for context, there are a lot of scammers on this platform who are just data mining. So again, where do you work? Chad Sowash (43:49.92) VIVAL ASK THE QUESTIONS! Joel Cheesman (43:51.399) you JT ODonnell (43:51.862) Mm-hmm. Jillian O'Malior (44:03.87) What is the role? Because I will know better to start with if it's even in my lane and then we can have a conversation about the more specific experience that you're looking for. And then he came back with, well, you know what? Best of luck to you. This is why you're unemployed. You're a problem, blah, blah. I was like, asking questions is, yeah. And then it turned into, I mean, he just crashed out on me. Joel Cheesman (44:20.988) you Chad Sowash (44:25.1) That's a sweetheart. Jillian O'Malior (44:31.79) to use the terms of the younger generation. And he said, I know a lot of recruiters, I'll get you blacklisted, no one will hire you. And so I went, okay, great, I'm gonna take the screenshots of this private conversation because I figured out where he worked. And he said, and I'm gonna post them because you're a recruiter, you are responsible for most people's first introduction to your company's brand, and you have just damaged it. Joel Cheesman (44:40.977) jeez. Jillian O'Malior (45:01.974) And so I'm going to make, Chad Sowash (45:02.216) Send that shit to us. Joel Cheesman (45:04.743) I just can't believe that ZipRecruiter has failed her. I just can't believe that ZipRecruiter hasn't been there for you. JT, I'm gonna let you get the final word. Chad Sowash (45:09.494) Yeah. Jillian O'Malior (45:09.71) HAHAHA JT ODonnell (45:17.653) my gosh, no, I just think hurt people like to hurt people. so recruiters are reeling right now, right? Clearly, so when you see a recruiter go postal like that, sorry postal service, it just means that that person knows their job's in trouble too, right? And it's so easy to take it out on you. And that just tells you right there, the state of the union, about how messed up this whole system is right now. Jillian O'Malior (45:22.573) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (45:47.203) Hopefully people were able to learn a lot today and just focus on the activities that'll get them visible and get them talking to people, that sort of thing. yeah, just don't keep doing it the way you've been doing it. Joel Cheesman (45:58.641) Right on, well that was Jillian, O'Malior everybody. Jillian, for those that want to connect with you, maybe hire you, learn more about your skills, where do you send them? Jillian O'Malior (46:09.324) Yeah. So you can find me on LinkedIn at Jillian O'Malior, which is O-M-A-L-I-O-R. It's a weird last name. And then I also, I do a lot of employer branding, culture change consultancy, which you can find at jilliendosbranding.com. Joel Cheesman (46:28.743) Chad, JT, everybody hurts. That's another one in the can. We out. Jillian O'Malior (46:33.131) You Chad Sowash (46:34.189) We out. But they don't have to. They don't have to hurt. Stop it. JT ODonnell (46:35.085) We out. Jillian O'Malior (46:40.015) Bye!

War headlines are messing up vacation plans, fast-food CEOs are embarrassing themselves on TikTok, and apparently the future of HR tech is… new logos and AI buzzwords. On this episode, the gang digs into iCIMS’ shiny new rebrand and “Coalesce AI,” or is it Colace? Indeed finally hired a CTO after years of flying without one, and the never-ending carousel of leadership changes across HR tech. Plus: AI layoffs, ad campaigns made entirely by robots, and why some companies still think a new color palette counts as innovation. Grab a drink becasue this one gets spicy. Topics teased in the episode iCIMS gets a makeover… but will a new logo fix the product? Indeed finally hires a CTO (only took a 4 years) AI layoffs vs. AI retraining: the corporate spin cycle Deel vs. Rippling ad campaigns And why “Responsible AI” might just be the industry’s newest buzzword PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel Cheesman (00:31.288) Ohhhh Yeahhhhh, we like our oatmeal lumpy. What's up kids? It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Epic Fury Cheesman. Chad Sowash (00:40.856) This is Chad, where's my dog, Sowash? Emi Beredugo (00:43.918) And this is Emi, I am super stuffed today. Where would you go? Joel Cheesman (00:49.72) this episode of HR's Most Naughty Podcast, iCIMS gets a makeover, Indeed gets a CTO, and Jack Dorsey gets lean and mean. Let's do this. Emi Beredugo (00:52.846) You Chad Sowash (01:04.66) Epic fucking fury. Can we just stop breaking stuff? Can we stop? Can we stop breaking stuff? I... Yeah, stop it. Stop it. Joel Cheesman (01:06.336) So I miss one week and war breaks out. This is what happens. Emi Beredugo (01:07.086) Thank Don't go away again. Don't go away. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (01:14.604) Don't, don't go, don't go away. Say what you say. Sorry, you set that up so nicely. mean, we didn't even plan that. So yeah, war, war has broken out everybody and the Europeans, how are you feeling? How are you feeling about being sort of close to bombs and missiles flying? Emi Beredugo (01:17.646) Hahaha! That is a beautiful voice there. I did. Honestly. Chad Sowash (01:21.912) Ahhhh... Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:35.573) I did. Emi Beredugo (01:35.605) I'm. To be honest, I'm pissed off, you know, because I'm supposed to be going to Sri Lanka in a week and a half. I was honestly, and I was sitting there with my mum this weekend and she was like, how long is the flight? And I said, it's going to be 13 hours. And then with a stopover. And then I suddenly went, shit, the stopover is in Abu Dhabi. I'm not going, I'm not stopping over in Abu Dhabi. Yeah, these flights are not going ahead. And this is after literally. Chad Sowash (01:44.748) Look at this impact. Chad Sowash (01:58.403) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (02:05.92) a week almost every single day planning a multi-stop tour across Sri Lanka and I was like I've just wasted all that time for no reason. I had no idea that Trump was going to impact my life in this way, my holiday plan. So yeah, I'm pissed. Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (02:20.098) that most most people don't even American but now it's it's it's beyond that so yeah if you take a look at flight patterns it's really interesting because I was looking at flight pattern yesterday and obviously they have to go outside so everything is literally streaming into like a funnel where usually we just go over you know the different airspace and now they're streaming into a funnel so it's like I mean you just can't get that many airplanes through that yeah that that little area so yeah it's gonna suck Emi Beredugo (02:26.968) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (02:37.08) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (02:48.226) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:50.176) I mean, I don't know what it's going to mean long term for flight patterns. Obviously, going to depend on how long this this bullshit takes. Emi Beredugo (02:57.196) Yeah, I mean, I know people who went to Dubai on holiday. They are stuck out there. They've got to come home. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:03.286) I friends in Bangkok right now. Yeah, I've got friends in Bangkok right now. They're they're stuck. Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous. Emi Beredugo (03:09.826) Yeah, it's just, honestly, it makes me so angry, yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:13.208) surprisingly CNN this morning in the States had British Parliament on, which never happens. It's so entertaining to watch British Parliament. There's nothing in the world like the chaos of people yelling at each other and the speaker reprimanding people. I was great. like, I can read lips. You're out of here if you keep talking that shit. That's my British accent, everybody, by the way. Chad Sowash (03:19.777) You Emi Beredugo (03:19.808) Emi Beredugo (03:30.956) It's big of a house. Yeah. Love it. Chad Sowash (03:41.314) Joe, think a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about the ways that Trump will go to be able to try to bury the Epstein files. Emi Beredugo (03:51.438) yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:52.12) Where you go? And he was, and he's, he's talking about it. You can't have an election if you're at war. And I mean, it's, it's fucking chaos. By the way, I was a year off on the prediction of war with Iran. Uh, like two years ago with leaving, uh, I don't know if it's a prediction, but we talked about it. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think this ends anytime soon. I think this is a, this is a fucking quagmire. And what I've heard is Chad Sowash (03:57.265) yeah. Emi Beredugo (03:59.938) Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:59.991) Yeah, go for Emi Beredugo (04:04.6) you predicted it, did you? Yeah. Emi Beredugo (04:13.515) No, die. Joel Cheesman (04:18.968) They're launching drones so they can sort of empty our stock of interceptor missiles and then the real shit starts coming. yeah, it could get interesting. China can't be happy with what's going on. They can't be happy at all. Nobody's happy. But strategically, is really probably not. Chad Sowash (04:24.972) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (04:28.504) great. Chad Sowash (04:32.128) I... Well... Nobody's fucking happy. I mean, nobody's happy. Emi Beredugo (04:33.229) Bye. Chad Sowash (04:40.898) Well, and then you take a look at you take a look at him saying that, you know, well, we're to have to have boots on the ground. I OK, I this is this is not going to this is not going to go. Emi Beredugo (04:41.453) and Joel Cheesman (04:52.428) Yeah, I know. Emi Beredugo (04:52.525) And I'm pretty sure he said he wasn't going to do that when he got elected. Yeah, he went back. Chad Sowash (04:55.936) There's nothing he said during the election that is Joel Cheesman (04:56.15) Yeah. Chad, I know Megyn Kelly's probably not on your list of to-dos, but she has an interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie is like the ultimate MAGA, no wars and everything, and she just goes off. It's very entertaining. I know Megyn Kelly isn't on your hit list, but do yourself a favor and it's a pretty funny, interview. Almost as funny, just switch the topic. Emi Beredugo (05:04.717) you Chad Sowash (05:11.202) Trailer trash Barbie. Okay. Emi Beredugo (05:18.355) Really? Chad Sowash (05:20.872) no, my god. Yes. Please. Joel Cheesman (05:28.81) You're over there in Europe and they have McDonald's there. Last I checked. have you seen the big arch tasting by McDonald's CEO? Have you seen it's taken tick tock and social by storm. Emi Beredugo (05:40.46) Bye. Chad Sowash (05:41.217) Yeah, so I watched Garen. If you watch TikTok and there's this Irish influencer, his name's Garen. He's a big dude. He's got long hair. He's follow me. I'm delicious. That's like his byline. He is fucking hilarious. Well, he does the overview for that and that is the best video. And then once you see that, I mean, it's like it's stuck in your head. So it's freaking hilarious. Joel Cheesman (05:50.424) Okay. Yeah. Yep. Emi Beredugo (05:56.572) I love that guy. Yeah. Irish, yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:59.327) It's hilarious. Joel Cheesman (06:03.757) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:08.896) It is great. If you haven't seen it, it's this, like, he makes Bill Gates look cool. This guy is so nerdy. and he's got like a vest on and he's trying this burger, which is called the big arch. It's like two quarter pound patties, like tons of the product. Yeah. Not the big arch. And anyway, so he takes like a little bitty nibble out of this thing and all this tastes, it's so bad. Chad Sowash (06:14.488) Ha ha! Chad Sowash (06:21.56) What? he calls our product. Yeah. Go try the product. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (06:25.037) Thank Chad Sowash (06:31.106) You Joel Cheesman (06:34.23) We talk about authenticity with CEOs and McDonald's totally dropped the ball on this one. I can't believe that dude is CEO of McDonald's. Emi Beredugo (06:34.434) God. Chad Sowash (06:36.822) Yeah. Yeah. So bad, so bad. And hilarious at the same time. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:46.518) Yeah, no, no, they they had this thing in Europe for a while. If Chad had gone to like real restaurants instead of these, you know, these, these Portuguese ceviche houses or whatever they're called, he might have he might have. you're just learning this now that Chad is Chad is busy. Chad Sowash (06:52.107) And I'm not doing that. thing. Emi Beredugo (06:59.174) you're boosy, Chad. You like that? Okay. Well, I had no idea. Yeah. Chad Sowash (07:01.176) I don't do fast food. do not do fast food. And it's very hard when you live in the Midwest. So when you live in Indiana and it is like the density of fast food joints is ridiculous. Then you come here and I literally have no fast food joints. It's wonderful. Joel Cheesman (07:10.69) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:20.524) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (07:20.887) Yeah, like I'm home. Joel Cheesman (07:23.266) They've revamped the whopper too, Chad. You're missing a lot of good stuff here over in the States. Chad Sowash (07:25.432) Ha Yeah, nothing like a little different sludge of pink slime. Emi Beredugo (07:32.493) You Joel Cheesman (07:33.612) Different sludge. man. Let's get to. Emi Beredugo (07:37.006) Hey, don't knock Burger King. They gave me my first job. you know, I'm with them. Yeah, really? I was McDonald's afterwards. I got fired from Burger King. Yeah. I worked there for about a year. Got fired because I was late every day. Oh yeah. Well, at Burger King, in Burger King, I was just making the burgers. And then when they fired me, I went, fuck you. Walked down the road to McDonald's. Joel Cheesman (07:40.504) okay. You're too big. I was McDonald's. I was. Chad Sowash (07:40.63) Mine too, mine too, yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:52.344) What was your job? Were you at the cashier? Were you making? Emi Beredugo (08:03.821) They gave me a job straight away very quickly. was like, I'm going to prove myself. And I was on a till and then I had a white shirt and I had my five stars. So, you know, I did, you know, I did really well. Thank you to the fast food industry. You got me where I am today. Joel Cheesman (08:14.744) And you, Chad, you were a cook, right? You flinging whoppers? Oh, you did everything? Chad Sowash (08:18.444) No, it did everything. I know I did everything. Yeah, it was drive through whoppers, fryer, all of it. Yeah, I did. Joel Cheesman (08:27.306) I was making the McDLTs at McDonald's. That's how old I am. Cold, so I called. had those styrofoam, those big styrofoam trays and you had like everything separate. that was good times guys. Good times. We're all, let's get to some shout outs, shall we? Chad Sowash (08:29.504) I remember hot side hot, cooled side cold. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (08:38.509) Yes, yes. Chad Sowash (08:43.532) Shoutouts! Joel Cheesman (08:47.446) I'll go ahead go first guys. talked about the Rippling. Well, we talk about Rippling and Deal all the time. Rippling, recent Super Bowl ad. They're hitting the airwaves hard. I missed the initial Deal advertising apparently a year ago. They didn't do Super Bowl ads, but they've been doing this. So anyway, Deal, not to be outdone by Rippling as always, has launched an ad campaign called Dreaming of Dealing. That's clever, isn't it? I wonder what they... Chad Sowash (08:48.706) Yep, you're weak back. Emi Beredugo (09:15.302) Joel Cheesman (09:16.524) They paid the ad agency for that one. it's an, it's a fully AI generated campaign. the agency is super bloom house who I guess, who specialize in the, in this stuff. evolves, from last year's feeling of dealing. So we've gone to, we've gone from feeling of dealing to dreaming of dealing very creative, with a dreamlike visual transporting customers through the sky, working with different currencies and whatnot. Chad Sowash (09:23.319) Okay. Joel Cheesman (09:46.956) The copywriting is the only thing that is human in this ad. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (10:23.608) I love how AI has perfected the white girl dancing. It's totally nailed that in that ad. Now, personally, I'm a little offended that a company that deals with human beings created an ad with no human beings. Like I feel like there should be some sort of like, at least have humans in your advertising. Like you are a product for humans. I just, I feel like it's a big fail. I don't know. The ad kind of sucks anyway, but just the fact that there's no humans in it. Emi Beredugo (10:46.057) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (10:51.648) It does. Which is worse do you think? Which is is worse? Do you think the the rippling ad is worse or the deal ad is worse? Joel Cheesman (10:53.346) Kind of pisses me off as if deal needed another reason to piss me off. Joel Cheesman (11:01.4) Rippling at least looks to tell some sort of a story, kind like the old ads in the 70s on the highway, Chad. You'd get like the first billboard and then like, oh, I gotta wait for the second. So at least there's maybe a story there and they have a funny guy. So I'm at least open to that. This is just a cut and dry. The crypto spin was interesting and they just partnered with some crypto company. I don't know if we talked about that or not, but anyway, yeah, I'm gonna go Rippling. Emi Beredugo (11:01.567) Deal. Chad Sowash (11:04.769) Hmm. Emi Beredugo (11:04.897) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:30.326) with the edge there. Chad Sowash (11:32.077) They're both shit, I think. I'm going to stay with commercials. I'm going to stay with commercials, Super Bowl commercials. And my shout out, you get the video? My shout out, okay, baby. My shout out this week goes to Mo. That's right, our very own Maureen Wiley-Clough. A couple of weeks ago, Mo talked about Ring's Search Party Super Bowl ad and how she was kind of... Emi Beredugo (11:33.581) Hahaha! Joel Cheesman (11:34.797) You Emi Beredugo (11:42.05) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (11:44.864) You know I got the video, baby. Shit's locked and loaded. Emi Beredugo (11:47.629) Thank you. Chad Sowash (11:59.257) freaked out about it, here's how it went. Joel Cheesman (12:02.21) Yeah, I labeled this one Chad's bullshit, because I know you're going to call me out on this one. Here we go. Chad Sowash (12:06.04) You Chad Sowash (12:16.6) Ha Chad Sowash (12:34.932) Let's save some dogs. You're so cute. You're so gullible. I love it. I just love you so much. So well, apparently, according to 404 media and Mashable, dogs were only the start and keeping neighborhoods, quote unquote, crime free using facial recognition is really the goal. So it is the end of the world as we know it. And I feel like walking my dogs. So shout out to Mo. She ain't no fool. Emi Beredugo (12:59.691) you Joel Cheesman (13:03.64) Did talk about how tight my mustache looked in that video? I need to go back. I need to go back to that. That was great. Emi Beredugo (13:03.745) Go on, mate. I'm out. Chad Sowash (13:07.98) Look at the gas lighter here. He's gas lighting. He's like, how many? was gullible during that thing. But no, look at my mustache. Emi Beredugo (13:10.827) I mean... Joel Cheesman (13:13.068) No. Emi Beredugo (13:14.829) the Joel Cheesman (13:17.56) I have come to terms with the fact that privacy is a thing of the past. Just don't do anything stupid. Chad Sowash (13:25.09) Oof. Emi Beredugo (13:26.017) mean, that's a terrible thing to come to terms with. Yeah. I feel like I'm in an episode of Dark Mirror. I'm just like, don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Which doesn't fricking end. Chad Sowash (13:29.058) Pretty much. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (13:34.456) We are! We are an episode of Dark Mirror. Chad Sowash (13:39.128) And we don't have to be happy about it, Cheeseman. You seem to be happy about it. Emi Beredugo (13:43.629) Yeah Joel Cheesman (13:44.972) Look, like Obama said, the aliens are here. They've been watching us for generations. Like just, just get over it. Just get over it. That's, that's all I got. That's all I got. Emi Beredugo (13:47.725) Yeah Chad Sowash (13:48.28) We interupt you. Chad Sowash (13:54.38) Bimmy, what do you got? Emi Beredugo (13:56.514) Well, my one isn't a funny one. My one's going back to what we talked about before and what's happening in the Middle East. So my shout out is to all the amazing people who are in the UAE and the Gulf. And I tell you why, for anyone who doesn't know, Dubai was my home for 12 years. It's still, I still consider it my home away from home. And I find it like, I just can't believe what's happening in the world. I'm getting text messages from my friends saying they can't sleep, missiles are going overhead, their kids are worried because they're not sure what's going on. It's super worrying, but everything I've seen out there, they are staying resilient, they are staying strong. The UAE government has been amazing as well, very hospitable, putting up people who are stranded in the country in hotels and making sure they're fed. So to the... Like I said, to the UAE people, to the people in the Gulf, to the UAE government as well. I'm thinking of all of you, stay strong and stay safe. Bring it back up. Yeah. I hope so too. Joel Cheesman (14:56.802) Nice, Although damn that escalated quickly. She brought it down. We need some pick me up by our friend, Steven Negrath in free stuff. Here we go. Chad Sowash (14:57.184) Amen, sister. Chad Sowash (15:06.39) Here we go. Hopefully shirtless. I hope he's shirtless. yes. Chad Sowash (15:21.324) No, I'm not. Emi Beredugo (15:42.991) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (16:20.568) extra blows. Chad Sowash (16:27.262) All right, let's get them. Yeah. Mm hmm. The US one sucks compared to the UK is the best. Yeah, UK is the best US one sucks. Joel Cheesman (16:28.194) Chad, you watch the show, Traders, right? Emi Beredugo (16:30.965) love traders but i haven't seen the US one recently i was watching the UK one yeah Joel Cheesman (16:32.184) You love it. Joel Cheesman (16:40.152) So my wife loves it. I watched my first episode last night and she's trying to convince me to try out for the next season, which apparently is normal people and it's in Scotland. So her main sales pitch to me is you can go to Scotland for six months, however long the show is. I don't know. So that would be a fun travel, but apparently you're going somewhere, Chad. Chad Sowash (16:53.104) yeah. Emi Beredugo (16:53.409) Do it. Chad Sowash (16:58.264) That'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be a blast. Emi Beredugo (16:59.275) Yeah. Chad Sowash (17:04.862) I am and travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shake Recruitment Marketing and this year is their 75th year in operation. March 24th through the 26th in Hetfordshire, England. Is that better? That was better. Okay. That's what I said. That's what I said, Emmy. Going to the R. Stop it. Joel Cheesman (17:09.324) Love them. Emi Beredugo (17:21.055) I love Joel Cheesman (17:21.61) Oi oi. Get some drinks in, get some drinks in, get some drinks in for the lads. Sorry. Emi Beredugo (17:28.237) Get the tricks in for the lads! Chad Sowash (17:34.457) Going to the RLX, going to the RLX, March 24th through the 26th, which is a fully hosted two day retreat for senior TA leaders, no vendor pitches, no expo halls, just smart people. They let me in, so I don't know about that. Peer insights and practical takeaways. So if you are a high level recruiting leader, go ahead and go over to resourcingleaders.co and sign up today. Joel Cheesman (18:00.877) Nice. Chad Sowash (18:03.853) Boom. Joel Cheesman (18:04.204) By the way, kids, quick reminder, if you're not plugged into our YouTube channel, you may have missed our latest bump, highlighting hiring branches, the funnel. So make sure you head out to chatcheese.com slash at chat or youtube.com slash at chat cheese or on LinkedIn, wherever you want to consume our shit. We're everywhere. We're like a bad, we're like a bad rash, but make sure you check that out. Shall we? Chad Sowash (18:19.362) Clip it. Emi Beredugo (18:22.349) You Chad Sowash (18:26.687) everywhere. Chad Sowash (18:30.87) And there's not a shot either. Joel Cheesman (18:32.258) Shall we talk about some actual issues hitting the employment sector? Chad Sowash (18:34.402) Let's do this. Let's do this. Chad Sowash (18:38.934) We have the meat. Joel Cheesman (18:40.92) Chachacha changes. Lots of changes, kids in the industry. Let's start with iCIMS, who has a new brand identity. Along with new visuals, they unveiled iCIMS Coalesce AI, the new name for their enterprise AI capabilities. Chad, you and I are old enough to remember all three iterations of the brand. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the original on my Yeti here. What are your thoughts on the latest iteration? and ch-ch-ch-changes at iCIMS. Emi Beredugo (19:12.054) I'm Chad Sowash (19:13.516) Yes. You got to ask yourself why, why would they do this? And well, you know, I believe it's time for a history lesson. yeah. Joel Cheesman (19:17.644) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (19:23.277) Cool. Joel Cheesman (19:23.402) you're gonna pull that out on me, huh? Let's go, let's go! Chad Sowash (19:28.706) So if you remember correctly, iCIMS was one of the first vendors, applicant tracking systems to talk about using AI, right? And they even acquired Andrea Wade's startup, also known as the Chad and Cheese Deathmatch winner, opening.io, an AI company. Al Smith, their CTO, was a damned genius and him and Andrea worked together. It felt like their tech was definitely going in the right direction. And then... Two CEOs later, Andrea and Al are now gone and iCIMS have lost that attachment to AI when it's cool. So iCIMS is doing this to try and insert themselves back into the AI narrative that they lost. Now, iCIMS was gracious enough to ask me to be a part of this whole process, this branding process, this messaging process, exercise, let's call it. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (20:22.104) Ooh, like you're in meetings? You're in the, okay. Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:26.388) And to be transparent, this was my final comment after going through all of this and seeing what the end result was. So here it is. Quote. So yeah, it's not that big. Literally, my comment was a Emi Beredugo (20:38.285) I'm excited. I know it's like, come on. Yeah, it's like, why are we just hearing about it now? Yeah. Okay. Joel Cheesman (20:41.814) The anticipation is killing us. I was in secret meetings and here is my thought. Emi Beredugo (20:54.445) You Chad Sowash (20:56.14) My comment was a fluffy new mission statement and brand identity means nothing without execution. I'm excited to see where this refresh takes iCIMS, but the jury is still out. mean, to me, again, it's all pomp and circumstance and what the industry needs right now is a leader in demonstrating outcomes. And I think that's one of the things that we saw from companies like Paradox. where they actually, they put their clients forward. They said they've been AI since they started and that was just big for them. since iCIMS has lost, since again, their big AI people have gone, they wanna try to get back in the narrative and this is the start of it, I think. Joel Cheesman (21:45.026) So are you under NDA to talk about those discussions and what was going on? Or can you be totally transparent? Chad Sowash (21:51.705) They were mainly, I mean, they did a lot of work to just have one-on-ones, just so that it wouldn't be committee by decision. I, you know, it's, you kind of have gang up sessions and those. was really smart just to kind of have one-on-ones. that's, they were mainly just sharing information with me and getting my feedback, right? And at the end of the day, like I'd said, like I said, you know, everything, all of this means nothing without execution, you know? Joel Cheesman (21:57.26) Okay. Emi Beredugo (22:06.295) What kind of questions were they asking you? Joel Cheesman (22:19.66) Yeah. So you're saying that just using the word coalesce isn't going to be enough to make this thing a hit. that ask a hundred people on the street to spell coalesce and see the vast variety of spellings that you get from that. that, they, did they ask you about coalesce? Chad Sowash (22:24.469) No, Emi Beredugo (22:33.965) See you Chad Sowash (22:34.646) Yeah, I mean the Emi Beredugo (22:37.485) Yeah, I want to know about the name. Chad Sowash (22:39.608) No, mean, mainly it was branding and logos, colors, that kind of stuff. Mission statements, that, know, just bylines. I mean, those types of things. So you could kind of get what they were trying to go toward or what they were hoping people would want to go toward, whether it was efficiency or AI or what it might be. But yeah, I mean, it was pretty standard stuff to be quite frank. Emi Beredugo (22:44.13) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (22:56.312) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (23:03.554) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:04.472) And what was the term laser focused use? Because I have a clip here of Trent Cotton interviewing Jody Kaminsky, their CMO, about sort of the vision of this. Check this out. Chad Sowash (23:13.844) Chad Sowash (23:36.439) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:50.486) Okay, time out real quick. Her background is freaking me out. Her chair, the back of her chair is not lined up with her back. And there's a mysterious thing a tea like your British Emmy. Is that a thing a tea? What is that? Is that a scented is other scented oils in the background? I am very, very confused. It's freaking me out. Okay, all right. Chad Sowash (23:54.808) Is it real? Yeah. that real? Like some, is that weird shadows going on back there too? That could be, it could be. It could be, And it's almost, well, it's almost like, it's almost like McGrath's background where she kind of blends into it to some extent. Yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (24:09.581) I think it might be scented oils. I think she just wants to create a calming atmosphere. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (24:19.487) Yeah, she does doesn't she? Joel Cheesman (24:21.27) It does match her a little bit, a little bit. There's a white space that's troubling as well. All right, let's hear the rest of her commentary. Chad Sowash (24:26.52) Great. Let's hear, I want to hear from Jody. Emi Beredugo (24:49.175) So it's coalesce now making it still come through. Joel Cheesman (24:50.004) I don't, by the way, here are the two brands side by side. Number two iteration and number three, ready? Chad Sowash (24:52.312) Thank Emi Beredugo (24:58.368) Okay. Joel Cheesman (25:00.408) oooo Chad Sowash (25:03.05) cloud. Joel Cheesman (25:03.672) Yeah, that old logo was not demonstrating any kind of messaging that I trusted. it is interesting that you would say we're only focused on recruiting because you have the deals of the world, the rippling saying we're going to be everything to everybody. So do you guys have any thoughts on why at this time they would say, you know what, we're just going to do recruiting and hire. Emi Beredugo (25:04.715) Good. Chad Sowash (25:09.752) Hahaha Emi Beredugo (25:09.901) Thank Chad Sowash (25:21.016) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:28.332) I mean, you take a look at, well, God, yes, there. I mean, there's no way. in here's here's what it comes down to. If I some more, I seems to want to get acquired. They have to change their their mindset and attitude. They have to become aggressive over the last few years. They have become they have become a I don't know. It's almost like walled off. Joel Cheesman (25:29.452) to get acquired? it like, we're hoping to, yeah, okay. Emi Beredugo (25:32.171) Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (25:53.143) You know, they haven't really been a part of the market at all. It just feels like they've been disassociated from the market. They've been cold. They've been corporate, disengaged. But here's a simple interaction that think that ISOM's headshed should actually learn from. So on LinkedIn, ISOM's actually posted this new brand in Coalesce. And Mike Dickinson, who is the director of recruiting, Emi Beredugo (25:57.153) Mm. Chad Sowash (26:22.568) actually said, quote, not trying to be snarky here, but a brand conscious as brand conscious as Isom's has been. How much thought was went into the name Cole, Cole S sounds very similar to Cole's. Maybe it softens the hiring process. Something to think about, end quote. And then one of the Isom's employees, Shannon Winning, came back to Mike and said, well, Mike, We believe in smoothing hiring outcomes for everyone. Smiley face. So that's what I'm talking about. That was like a real fun response. And in case, in case Emmy doesn't know, Colace is a stool softener, which is why they act. Yes. Yes. So there you go. Yes. That's something in the U S where, you know, that you see these stupid pharmaceutical commercials all over. But this is what I'm talking about. The ice has been so cold and so Joel Cheesman (27:02.661) huh. Emi Beredugo (27:07.96) Okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:16.952) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:20.568) corporate and they haven't they haven't had really good messaging through the people that matter most and that's our clients right they haven't engaged very well with the community so I mean hopefully they do that don't new colors new logos not going to do that. Joel Cheesman (27:36.64) Were you in chats with the CEO? Do you have an impression of him at all? No, okay, no chats with him. Chad Sowash (27:40.504) Oh no. No, no, I... Emi Beredugo (27:44.407) So Chad, question for you though, because I think I read somewhere that one of their bylines was responsible AI. So did that come up in conversation? Yeah. Chad Sowash (27:52.727) Yeah, I know it did. mean, and to me, and we've talked about this on the show before responsible AI means nothing. There's no hard edges on it, right? It's just like saying, yeah, I mean, it means nothing. Joel Cheesman (28:02.114) Sounds good. Emi Beredugo (28:06.125) Well, depends how they spin it because they can spin it as responsible AI is their differentiator because every tool is going to say they're AI powered. But does every tool lead by saying they're responsible AI? Yeah, it is 100%. Because if they lead down that path, they're going to be under scrutiny. Chad Sowash (28:19.832) That's a prove it thing though. mean, you can't, know, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they are, like many other vendors, leaning heavily on saying responsible AI. You don't see a lot of companies saying AI. They say either one or two things, responsible AI or ethical AI. Pretty much it, yeah. Emi Beredugo (28:32.407) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:37.037) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (28:39.452) Mm, I got you, yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:41.922) Chad, I can't let you get away with a history lesson without a history lesson of my own. Chad Sowash (28:44.951) Hahaha! Emi Beredugo (28:45.25) Yeah Joel Cheesman (28:48.504) So, so in 2001, I was living in Cleveland and the Cleveland Indians, which they were known as then were were were very popular. Were very good. In 2001, they went to the playoffs, lost to the lost to Moe's Mariners could have gone could have gone all the way, but they didn't that after that season, they lost some major players and whatnot. In 2000, before the 2002 season, they unveiled Chad Sowash (28:48.524) Thank God. Chad Sowash (29:05.325) Mm. Joel Cheesman (29:17.728) what they called new and exciting uniforms. The new and exciting uniforms were basically the same uniforms with a silver lining around the Indians and the Cleveland. Get it? Silver lining. was kind of a little double message there. The Indians went on to lose over half of their games and sucked, but the team was hoping that some new jazz hands and new exciting uniforms would... Chad Sowash (29:20.454) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (29:25.933) Ooh. Chad Sowash (29:29.657) Mm. So bad. So bad. Emi Beredugo (29:39.712) Yeah Emi Beredugo (29:43.437) It's. Joel Cheesman (29:46.092) You know, take the attention away from the actual quality of the team and make people buy new jerseys with silver, silver lettering. Anytime that you see this mental masturbation about new logos and new messaging and new whatever, it's usually a sign that things aren't going that great. We better put some shit out there that makes us look like we're actually doing something on the inside. And to me, this just totally reeks of, of that. They're trying to like, you know, get your attention over here and not think about what our product is. Emi Beredugo (29:59.977) you Emi Beredugo (30:05.785) you Emi Beredugo (30:15.159) Can I tell you what? can't stop. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:15.296) And for me, God damn it, bring back Ike, bring back the mascot. I want to go to the next conference and see, see an adult adult and a mascot uniform so I can feel better about iCIMS again. That's that's the, I, I think. Chad Sowash (30:19.308) Hahaha! Emi Beredugo (30:21.197) my god! Chad Sowash (30:26.74) no. I do miss Ike, but that poor kid, that poor intern, they put in that costume or whatever, that sucks. Joel Cheesman (30:35.99) Yeah, look, I'm not falling for it. No, not falling for it. Chad Sowash (30:40.12) What you think, Emmy? What do you think? Emi Beredugo (30:42.797) think it's interesting. Look, I seems, am I a massive fan of the product? No, I haven't been for ages with demo the product. It's okay, you know, but compared to all the other ATSs out there, they, you're right, they haven't kept up. They're not innovative. I don't know what's actually going on. They're just a little bit stagnant, you know? So I get what they're trying to do. I get that they're trying to lean in down this responsible AI route, you know, to try and differentiate themselves. But like you said, If the product is not any better, if they're not innovating, if they're not keeping up with the market, then no one's going to buy their products anyway. They're just going to be in the exactly same situation. So maybe they just need to concentrate on a product line rather than, what was it? Mentally masturbating. Love it. Yeah, I did like it. Joel Cheesman (31:25.378) Mental masturbation, you like that? You like that? Shout out to our friend Will over there by the way, Chad, who's celebrating like five or six years on the job. We do love the people over there. Chad Sowash (31:29.08) It all comes to one thing. Emi Beredugo (31:36.061) Yeah Chad Sowash (31:36.145) It all comes down to it all comes down to what is next. Right. It is the proof in the put. If you put out a great logo and message and just then it doesn't matter. But if you come out and you come out swinging then that is fucking awesome. One of the things that we saw and this is this is kind of like I feel what they're trying to do. Rebecca Carr came in last year last February. She was anointed the new CEO and she made a bold Emi Beredugo (31:42.006) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (31:46.925) Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (32:05.612) a bold announcement on stage in Madrid saying this shit's got to stop. We are changing. Now I'm paraphrasing. We are changing exactly what we're doing, right? We're going full AI. Next thing you know, they're getting bought by SAP, right? iCIMS has to be loud. They have to be proud. They have to be bold. They have not been since the last two, three CEOs. They got to get their fucking groove back. Stella has got to get her groove back. Emi Beredugo (32:36.301) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (32:37.132) And we met Winston when smart recruiters sort of came back out, came out and we want a new Ike. Bring, bring Ike back and we can get excited. ISEMS. God damn it. All right. From, from one, from one fledgling, ATS to another, employee has a new CEO. Jerry Yao has been appointed as the new CEO of the company replacing Darah Brenner. Chad Sowash (32:40.77) Yeah? Yeah? Emi Beredugo (32:44.567) Yeah Emi Beredugo (32:48.141) EEEH Chad Sowash (32:49.536) All right. Yes. Emi Beredugo (32:55.437) you Joel Cheesman (33:03.228) The company says he brings experience in AI powered marketing and SaaS to lead the parent company of Jazz HR, Lever and Jobite. Stop me if you've heard this one before, a marketing guy taking over an ATS. Chad, what's your hot take on the changes at employee? Chad Sowash (33:21.112) Yeah, there's, we had a lot of promise for this Joel. Back when K1 rolled these guys up in February of 2019, we were pretty excited about this. Dan Finnegan was a CEO, it was job fight, it was an employee at that time. They created employee, then a friend of the show, Amon Brar took over. And then again, how many CEOs have we gone through? To be quite frank, at this point, after this huge roll up, I... Joel Cheesman (33:31.554) Sure. Joel Cheesman (33:40.417) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (33:50.393) Personally, think K1 understands they've missed their acquisition window and they're going to play their Apollo card. They're going to bleed these companies dry because who in their right mind is going to buy this mess? And for the sake of their customers and their employees, I hope I'm dead wrong. But the only, only thing that I can see these guys doing is selling office parts and doing the Apollo bleed it dried game. Joel Cheesman (33:55.096) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:17.056) Yeah. And I, I, I have to think the, the house of brands that they currently manage has got to go. There's gotta be too many duplicitous positions, too many, too much marketing money going into all these different brands. Like I think that's what I've heard is that lever is going to be sort of the main brand that they go forward with. Time will tell. But I think, I think that, yeah, that that's too disparate for, like financial reasons to make, to make sense. Emi Beredugo (34:17.111) Sad. Emi Beredugo (34:37.749) and then we fire the other ones. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (34:46.924) Dara is now Chief Product Officer, so she's still with the company. It wasn't like that she left, and I think we understand some personal things that happened that she sort of stepped away from the company. The guy who took over, he's, he's a total e-commerce like marketing dude. he started his first company at 15 years old. He's got all the sort of credentials. he sold a, he sold a company to constant contact. If you're an email marketing at all, you know, MailChimp and constant contact and all those guys, but like how that fits into an ATS company is a real stretch. to me, the guy, the kid, you he's smart. He's looks, he's bright out and bushy tail, but you and I chat have seen a lot of CEOs that fit that description have not lasted very long and not been very successful. So I'm not exactly sure what he's being brought in to do as an e-commerce guy. but there's very little that makes me sort of think this is sexy and this is a, this is a great direction to go. now in their defense, Whereas iCIMS has been sideways for a long time in regards to like head count and what like what they'd be doing. These guys are at least growing. So they're doing something right or something in there that's, that's interesting, but yeah, there's a lot of things going on here. I'm not sure how he's going to save it. I'm with you, Chad. They're going to cut head count more, cut the brands down, hopefully get this thing to something that will, buy off the TJ Maxx clearance, you know, rack at some point, but. Chad Sowash (36:23.894) in parts. Joel Cheesman (36:25.046) But yeah, don't see a bright future for the folks that employ. Emi Beredugo (36:29.579) And so do you think that even though they're brought in a new CTO as well, because the new CTO is starting in March, isn't it? This PJ Gene. And apparently his role is to, you know, he comes with deep technical expertise and, you know, kind of deep AI backgrounds. So maybe those two together could actually change things a little bit for employee. Chad Sowash (36:52.002) They have three different applicant tracking systems, three different code bases. So to be able to do this with one with smart recruiters, I thought that was going to be a feat in itself. They pulled it off to be able to do it with three that are, think all three of them might be older than smart recruiters as well. It's going to be hard not to mention those are just the applicant tracking systems. They also have RPO. They also have all these different, you know, all these different pieces of tech that they've acquired over time. Joel Cheesman (36:52.108) Well, they got. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (36:55.051) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (36:58.422) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (37:14.605) Mmm. Chad Sowash (37:22.136) He better be a fucking magician. Joel Cheesman (37:26.136) I mean, like the first rule should be don't lose any customers. Like whatever we do, cause I doubt they're getting new customers. So like let's add a minimum keep who we have and a new CEO kind of gets exciting. we got a new product, like new people sort of. So they're giving people a reason to stick around to see how this movie ends. I, sure. Emi Beredugo (37:34.669) Probably not, yeah. Chad Sowash (37:38.392) Mm. Emi Beredugo (37:44.107) new momentum, yeah. Chad Sowash (37:48.153) Let's hope it ends well. Let's hope. Let's hope. Emi Beredugo (37:50.199) No Joel Cheesman (37:51.905) I mean, jobite was the OG sort of social media, ATS. They moved. I mean, they have offices here in Indianapolis and have some roots here. I'm on Brar. We know really well. So I'm rooting for iSim and I'm rooting for these guys because I think people need choice. Consumers need options and these guys are options. But yeah, it's an uphill battle for sure. Chad Sowash (37:54.668) was. Chad Sowash (38:01.974) Yeah. Chad Sowash (38:08.049) yeah. Chad Sowash (38:15.33) They've both lost attention. That's been the biggest issue. mean, take a look at Paradox. They stole the mind share and attention. Then you look at what Smart Recruiters did, and then you look at some of the things that Fountain. I mean, they literally these other companies have stole mind share away from these bigger companies and they've just they've dwindled and they've allowed this shit to happen. It's not like they don't have the money or the fortitude to be able to take care of it. It's almost like they got fat, lazy and took a nap. Joel Cheesman (38:45.718) Yeah, and maybe. Emi Beredugo (38:46.061) But I think a lot of people are, you know, I don't like I, we've spoken to recently so many ATS vendors, the big, all the big names. And what I'm finding is a lot of them just rest on the laurels. You know, you can speak to them about, look, the market is changing. It's getting more complex to hire, particularly as organizations are getting, you know, recruited on a global scale now, rather than just regional. It's like, we need all these different, we need your systems to adapt. Chad Sowash (39:08.397) Mm. Emi Beredugo (39:13.965) And, very often what we're facing, face with sorry, is cool. That's a great idea. Let me talk to my, let me take some of my product team and it just goes on a product backlog. And then, you know, I chase up and go, Hey, what's going on? You know, have you, is there any feedback? Have you taken this into consideration even? And they're like, no. And that's why you get other organizations going, look, all these old legacy players, you're not keeping up. You're failing. we'll go with a newer, smaller, upcoming ATS provider. Chad Sowash (39:45.984) Ashby. They're big in, they're definitely big in Europe. Emi Beredugo (39:46.805) Yeah. Yeah, they're great. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:50.915) Yeah. Chad, you hit the nail on the head when you said like, tell a story. Rebecca talked to everybody. She was on every show, every stage. Like she was telling the story and it was an enticing story and these guys need to come up with that. Chad Sowash (40:00.205) Yeah. Yes. Yes. Fuck. Who's this Josh guy at fucking ice? I don't I don't know this dude. Who are these guys that are coming to apply? I we don't know this. So hopefully, they start to insert themselves in the market because they're going to get their asses handed. Emi Beredugo (40:21.367) But a story is not enough. have to, you can tell a great story, but if people use your products and it's shit, that story just falls apart. Joel Cheesman (40:27.116) I mean. Chad Sowash (40:27.896) Tell that to Tesla. Tell that to Have you seen their shares? Joel Cheesman (40:29.922) The f- The fact that Chad was in on this new brand branding thing and doesn't know the CEO is a little bit weird. Like that's an opportunity to build a bridge to a thought leader in Chad. That's right. I'm throwing you, I'm throwing you pearls, Chad throwing you pearls. All right guys, let's take another break and we got some more changes. If you like what you've heard, everybody, please subscribe at your podcast platform of choice. Leave us a review, share us with a hundred of your favorite friends. Emi Beredugo (40:34.797) Yeah Mm-mm. Emi Beredugo (40:43.671) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (40:49.389) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:02.476) We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (41:07.616) All right, kids, Indeed has appointed Jim Giles as its new chief technology officer. The company says Giles, a former Google VP of engineering, will leverage his expertise in scaling technology and AI to enhance Indeed's platform and drive growth. In case you missed it, Indeed had operated without a CTO since the early days of the Biden administration. Chad Sowash (41:13.09) Jimmy. Jimmy! Joel Cheesman (41:31.564) But maybe more noteworthy than what's been filled is what's still empty. Chad, you are on the front lines of this issue. What you got? Emi Beredugo (41:33.442) Ha! Chad Sowash (41:40.033) Okay. So early last week is story time. Early last week, Julie started asking me questions about Indeed leadership. And I've been so damn focused on Himes as the CEO and how he was steering the Indeed Titanic straight into a damn iceberg. I felt like an idiot saying, wait, what? CTO? And she's like, yeah, they haven't had a CTO in four years. CPO? They don't have a chief product officer? She's like, no. They've never had a chief product officer. I'm like, well, shit. We've been wondering why and go figure. My wife trudges this up, but we've been wondering why indeed has been so damn sloppy over the past five years. Hell, for most of it, they didn't have a CTO and they've never appointed a chief product officer. So it feels like recruit holdings has tried running indeed as on the cheap. from an executive leadership standpoint. And when a company prioritizes appointing a chief revenue officer, generating revenue over appointing a chief product officer, actually creating great products, you end up with this kind of fucking slop. So, you know, I come from the revenue side and I have watched many CROs bully leadership into stupid. Emi Beredugo (42:57.389) Mm. Chad Sowash (43:06.424) product and marketing decisions. Hell, I might've done that a few times myself. But never at a company the size of Indeed. That's literally, there's literally no balance at the top. So I said it before and I will say it again, and I'll continue saying it. Indeed isn't a tech company. They're a staffing company with shitty tech. Joel Cheesman (43:33.443) Yeah, Chad, you talked about Chris Himes. Chris Himes was the leader they needed at the time that they employed him in that position. you know, he was, as he was laying off thousands of people, he was funding a movie called Rising Voices to the tune of Millions of Dollars. And it just reeked of sort of just tone deaf about where the world was going. And he no longer holds that position. And they, think they've realized, look, We have this amazing brand, this entrenched business that just prints money. Let's just throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks. Let's just keep the thing going. And somebody got smart apparently, and said, look, we need some real, real adults in the room to talk about new products and where we're going with all the stuff and have some sort of a clear vision. And what better way to do that than have a Google VP, in the ranks telling you how to, how to do tech. So to me, this is a. Emi Beredugo (44:16.982) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (44:29.846) This is a step in the right direction. It sounds like they may still have some pieces they need to still plug in. But, but good for them for finally realizing they can't just float on past successes and just count money and, just ride the, ride the boats and hose for the rest of life. Joel Cheesman (44:50.976) Any thoughts? Emi Beredugo (44:52.363) Yeah, I agree with both of you. think, you know, obviously indeed been fledgling for many years now. So I think bringing in the CTO, someone like Jim Giles is a great thing to do, you know? So, and if he gets all, if he does his job well, you know, he can bring in a clearer tech roadmap. He can, you know, have better alignment, I suppose, sales and the product. That's fantastic. I think they've got the right person in. My worry is that without the chief product officer, he can bring in a great product, but it will be aimless because there's no direction. You don't understand what kind of product, hiring problems you're trying to solve for. You're just, don't know where to prioritize. So that, that is the problem. Having a great tech, tech tool, you know, you said it's not tech tool, but having a great product, that's one thing, but if it's It focused in the right area because you haven't got a chief product officer, it's kind of a of a pointness. Joel Cheesman (45:47.266) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (45:48.643) Well, it's not just that, because if you read Julie's article, just go to jobboarddoctor.com. If you read her article, she actually goes through the product names and the overlaps and they know, yeah, you don't know what product is what for who and why. And wait a minute, this does this, but it kind of does this too. And it's like, there's no clear fucking direction over there at all. So you can have a great CTO to be able to build stuff. Emi Beredugo (46:00.653) Yeah, they do have, yeah. Emi Beredugo (46:10.893) Nine, nine. Chad Sowash (46:17.954) But if you don't have a product person to be able to actually pull it together and make it pretty and make it understandable, you get this slop that we've gotten from Indeed. Emi Beredugo (46:26.091) Yeah. Cause they've got a lot of overlapping features as well. And that's the thing. No one's going to really understand. Like you said, no one's going to understand. If they don't understand the product, no one's going to buy the product. No one's going to invest money in the product. Chad Sowash (46:30.124) was horrible. Chad Sowash (46:38.044) And you can tell that the revenue side has been a part of this because they are just rebranding old shit as new shit and they're trying to bump up the price because they're like, sales needs more money. Well, we'll just put a new wrapper on this and we'll sell it for more. It's like, no, motherfucker, we know that's the same shit in a different wrapper. Emi Beredugo (46:42.284) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (46:56.779) Mm. Joel Cheesman (46:57.622) Yeah, they're basically GM in the 70s. Like we could just keep making shit cars because what else are people going to buy? And eventually the Japanese car showed up and everyone said, shit, we better get our act together. Well, this is indeed saying we better get our act together. Chad Sowash (47:00.47) Yes. Emi Beredugo (47:04.589) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (47:09.133) Hi. Let's see what happens. I think it's step in the right direction. Chad Sowash (47:14.07) Maybe. We'll see. Joel Cheesman (47:18.552) All right. Speaking of steps in the right and wrong direction, the AI apocalypse rolls on in this week's news. Three well-known companies were in the news regarding the impact of AI on employment. Most notably, everyone heard about Block, Jack Dorsey's company, cutting headcount by a whopping 40%, citing AI as the main catalyst. It's not all doom and gloom, however. Jamie Dimon is going to shift employees into new roles. as automation evolves and instead of cutting jobs, Walmart is going to train its entire US and Canadian workforce, about 1.6 million people on how to use AI tools through a partnership with our friends at Google. The good, the bad, and why isn't Jamie Dimon running for president? Chad, what's your take on all the AI apocalypse news this week? Chad Sowash (48:09.122) Yeah, so Dorsey, I mean, this is bloat and the real corporate, the real culprit for massive tech layoffs today is literally just incompetent leadership. We talked about this. There have been huge swaths of tech people being cut because they over hired during the pandemic. They didn't know how to manage it whatsoever. So now we're seeing it. Now it's been blamed on quote unquote A.I. A.I. is doing it. You take a look at. freaking Jamie Dimon. Not a huge fan of the dude, but he's a great businessman. He will be able to and you might have missed it last week Cheeseman but he might be able to literally just have Claude come in and fix their cobalt situations and save them hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure on updates and on consulting just alone. And then last but not least Walmart. What the fuck are Walmart greeters going to use AI for? They are, I mean, they're looking, they're talking about eight hours of AI training. And I'm thinking of, I'm just thinking of the retail section. What are all those individuals going to use AI for? Right? And Walmart saying, we're, not going to replace them. Well, I don't think you're going to anytime soon. you need people that are there that can answer questions, you know, where, where's the ketchup? You move the ketchup, that kind of stuff. Joel Cheesman (49:15.8) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (49:28.812) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (49:36.37) so yeah, it just, it's, it's kind of funny because I was thinking who the fuck is going to use AI in the warehouse? Am I going to ask my phone? Am I going to ask Siri? Okay, that's cool. But you can do that now. Emi Beredugo (49:43.853) You're full. Joel Cheesman (49:45.634) Well, the Emi Beredugo (49:46.678) Yeah, you can, but you can, you can use it for managing. Yeah, but there'll be better ways to do that now. You know, the people in the warehouse who are managing stock, scheduling, managing stock, know, scheduling shifts. You can use AI to, know, be more efficient in that area. Yeah. So maybe not the, not maybe the people on the shop floor, but people behind the scenes, they can use AI. So I think it's a great idea. You know, I think, yeah. Chad Sowash (49:54.412) Better than talking to your phone? Chad Sowash (50:00.345) I do like that. I do like that. Chad Sowash (50:11.276) Yeah, but we've talked about it though. Recruiters, if recruiters are quote unquote using AI, well then you've installed the AI wrong. It should be running in the background doing tasks that you shouldn't have to do anymore. So why am I taking an eight hour course like you're saying for scheduling? Why am I taking an eight hour course on something that AI is gonna be doing behind the scenes in the first fucking place? I don't think that these CEOs understand what AI is actually gonna do and how real... Emi Beredugo (50:27.341) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:38.24) it can transform their company and how it will transform their Joel Cheesman (50:41.858) So much of this is the story that we talked about. Walmart has spun this story about we can keep people employed and we do well. So now the narrative is we're not gonna let people go, we're gonna superpower our people with AI. So now investors are like, ooh, that sounds pretty cool. I don't know exactly what's going on, but we're gonna keep the people that have made us profitable and make them that much more efficient. Whereas the Jack Dorsey story, do what? Emi Beredugo (50:41.975) But you still got... Sorry, go on. Chad Sowash (50:46.624) It is. Yes. You're right. Yes. Yeah. Come buy stuff. Chad Sowash (51:06.552) I Emi Beredugo (51:08.013) think you two are so cynical. I think you two are so cynical. I'm seeing some of the positives in this. I think, yeah. Chad Sowash (51:12.632) And let's. Joel Cheesman (51:15.16) Have you heard our show? Emi Beredugo (51:18.797) What have I been for the last year? Honestly, I think there's some goodness. Chad Sowash (51:19.192) Yeah Joel Cheesman (51:24.888) Because Dorsey's on the other side of that. Dorsey's on the Silicon Valley. What the hell are you doing with people, you know, working narrative? So it's like, yes, I over hired. Yes, our stock was rocking five years ago and now it's in the shitter. So I'm going to, I'm going to weave this narrative around. We're going to create efficiencies and lay off 40 % of their people and voila, their stock goes up 25%. They're in the news. Jack Dorsey is a quiet genius with his, you know, stoic beard that that's growing way too big. like these narratives continue to go on. Jamie Donovan might be probably the smartest one in there saying like, yes, the bank, the bank is a history like history wise. Chad and I remember when ATMs came around, there were going to be no tellers, no more banks. Well, what they figured out was, well, the tellers don't just have to count cash. Now we can train them to give house loans or give financial expertise and upsell people on things. So, so Chad Sowash (51:57.698) Has its own name, I think. Chad Sowash (52:22.58) Open checking accounts. Do more of that. Joel Cheesman (52:24.8) Yeah. So dude, this narrative, I go back and forth, man. One day I'm like, we're done. And the next day, like, that's going to be okay. I'm kind of on the, it's okay thing. now, and what I think about is in our own world, Chad, we talk about startups, all the startups now, everyone getting money, are people that are combating the whole automated job candidate application. Shit. Emi Beredugo (52:34.903) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (52:53.462) So whether it's verifying candidates, whether it's building scale around recruiting, whether it's, so from the beginning of time, people have created problems for themselves and businesses have been launched to solve these problems. Do we think that AI is going to create more or less problems in the world? Probably more and more means more businesses to solve these problems, more people to solve the problems. You can look at the eightfold case, Chad. Emi Beredugo (53:13.183) More. Yeah. Chad Sowash (53:23.749) yeah. Joel Cheesman (53:23.96) Do you think the legal profession will have more lawsuits because of AI or fewer lawsuits? More lawsuits. So yes. Chad Sowash (53:29.762) Well, and it's literally just identifying more areas where the ambulance chasers can go running at, right? I mean, yeah, no, I agree. I agree. Joel Cheesman (53:39.616) Yes, so. Emi Beredugo (53:40.376) But if that's the case, and AI is going to cause more problems, we both agree that's the case, you're also going to also think that people are going to, there's more fear around using AI. And so I think what Walmart is doing by training, yes, I think it's a PR exercise, but I also think by training their staff on how to use AI, what is AI, why you shouldn't be scared of AI, how we can actually improve your job and not take away your job, that is also positive as well. Joel Cheesman (54:08.812) But the world... Chad Sowash (54:08.918) I just don't think they're going to need to use it. I think it's going to be working in the background and there's no reason for any human to really touch it. Emi Beredugo (54:09.473) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (54:14.861) But they need to understand how it works in order to bring up better versions of the AI products. It can't just be something in the background and go, yeah, the machine said that. You have to know how it works. You need to know how it made decisions, for example. So I think that's a good thing. It all depends what they're teaching. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (54:23.106) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (54:25.048) and Chad Sowash (54:32.076) It's just like interview scheduling, Emmy. I don't need to know how interview scheduling works. I just know that it happens. Emi Beredugo (54:38.061) What about if it's a tool that helps to, you know, kind of flag good CVs, for example, you need to know how it makes decisions. make sure. Yeah, I don't like that one. Okay. Chad Sowash (54:45.08) Why are you gaslighting me? I was just talking about interview scheduling. And then you want to do similar or else. Yeah. Anyway. Joel Cheesman (54:55.128) The World Economic Forum's 2026 Global Risk Report said that 92 million workers will be displaced by 2030, but it also said 170 million new roles will be created in that timeframe. Look at the war. Emi Beredugo (55:10.679) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (55:12.962) Do you think there are going to be some new weapons that are created, more drones built, more shit that like, so we're probably going to keep the battleships and the carriers, but we're also going to have a whole new class of weapons that are going to have companies building those weapons, cyber war. mean, like the problems just keep coming and we're going to have to create solutions to these problems, which I think ultimately is good for business. Chad Sowash (55:16.298) Yeah, or to have. Chad Sowash (55:36.322) Fucking humanity. Emi Beredugo (55:38.497) Fucked. Joel Cheesman (55:43.544) All right guys, ZipRecruiter, I might be eating some crow here, I don't know. ZipRecruiter reported its first quarterly year over year revenue growth in over three years in Q4 with revenue rising 0.6 % in the quarter to $111.7 million. I love how we talk about hundreds of millions of dollars in our space when people are talking about billions in other spaces. Anyway. Chad Sowash (55:45.42) Talking about fucked humanity, zip recruiter. Emi Beredugo (55:47.034) Yeah! Joel Cheesman (56:11.564) The growth has been driven by inner pure enterprise employers and performance based revenue. All this despite a 10 % drop in us job openings and a soft holiday hiring season. Chad did zipper critter just become the hottest company in TA. Chad Sowash (56:26.968) Well, it took them long enough to get into the enterprise market for God's sakes. Now they're pissing away the SMB side of the house. But what they have done is they were starting to use Indeed tricks. And the Indeed tricks are the black box pricing. So it's demand pricing. So I mean, instead of just charging one flat rate for everything, now they're looking at demand and they're making more money. So it took them long enough to fucking get here. Yeah, how long will it last? So that's the question. Emi Beredugo (56:58.187) No, I agree. And I think if all the money is, if this kind of short win or this win that we're seeing at the moment is just being propped up by the enterprise organizations, that doesn't translate into long-term sales. So this is where they need to like, you know, have some kind of strategy to kind of maintain that momentum. And I'm not convinced that's going to be the case in all honesty. Chad Sowash (57:22.712) I think it's their product set. think their product set is short term. They can create a much better long term product set for for enterprise. I don't think they have that. I don't think they're close to having that. I think they've had a nice short win. When was the last time? 2022? Yeah, 2022. this has been a long fucking time, guys. you're right. They get one win. You know, we can't can't anoint a new king. That's for damn sure. Emi Beredugo (57:31.98) Hmm Emi Beredugo (57:39.245) 2022, yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (57:50.027) That's propping everything up, yeah. Joel Cheesman (57:51.746) Guys, you're missing everything, guys. It's their new Zip crooners ad. It's the singing crooners on the new, that's it. That's the secret. No, I can simplify this even more. So they've laid off some people, they're AI folks. But if you go to their site, Chad, Phil is gone. The whole Phil chat bot, find a job is not on the, it's gone. I couldn't find it. Chad Sowash (57:54.231) God. Emi Beredugo (57:56.75) Is that what it is? Okay, we had no idea. Yeah. Chad Sowash (58:00.579) Damn it! and hammer it. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (58:05.803) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (58:20.834) They've gone back to the traditional search box, forced registration. You got to give us your info before we show you the jobs. Like they've just said, fuck this new shit. We're going back old school and we're making everyone give us their data. We're going to force everyone here. you know, enterprise eventually enterprise does look for other options. They look for other things. So I mean, budget shifting around indeed is charging more LinkedIn's charge more. Let's just try that zip recruiter thing again. So Chad Sowash (58:35.672) gonna pull out the jalopy. Chad Sowash (58:49.036) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (58:50.936) I'm not falling for the banana in the tailpipe, but I tell you getting rid of Phil and the zip crooners are the reason for this. Everybody. It's the real reason. Emi Beredugo (59:00.173) I'm gonna miss that. Chad Sowash (59:03.0) so bad. So bad. Joel Cheesman (59:05.528) All right, let's get to a dad joke, shall we? And today's dad joke is sponsored by Jeremy Cheeseman, my eight year old son, who, who shared this with me. Are you ready? Why did Donald Trump put lipstick on his forehead? Why did Donald Trump put lipstick on his forehead? Chad Sowash (59:07.52) Okay, thank God, thank God. Emi Beredugo (59:07.884) with. Chad Sowash (59:16.555) Yes. Joel Cheesman (59:27.702) He needed help to make up his mind. Chad Sowash (59:27.756) I don't Jeremy, he is, is, got it, he's you know, he's Emi Beredugo (59:31.801) wow! Now we'll give that to Jeremy. No, that's cute. Yay! Joel Cheesman (59:37.42) He's learning on the job. I'll get him there. I'm his Yoda. I'm his Yoda, guys. Good to see everybody. We out. Emi Beredugo (59:39.285) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (59:45.654) We out.

Welcome to HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast… where economists quote Taylor Swift, Joel tries to stay relevant, and Chad just learned the Census Bureau runs on caffeine and existential dread. This episode features economist and author Misty Heggeness talking Swift, systems, and why the “old boys club” might be sweating more than they admit. From pandemic wine-writing sessions to billion-dollar tour economics, we unpack how women are reshaping work, leadership, and the economy—whether corporate America is ready or not. Highlights: A Norwegian ancestor burned at the stake… and that’s just the intro Taylor Swift: pop star or economic masterclass? Census Bureau life: numbers, Chipotle, and constitutional obligations Why women aren’t waiting for the top—they’re building new pyramids Trickle-down economics vs. pay-your-people economics AI, bias, and why your PowerPoint might be the real winner Snark level: high. Economic insights: surprisingly legit. Joel references Swift lyrics: against his will. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:31.083) Yeah, old enough to know better, still too young to care. What's up everybody? It is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash's riding shotgun as we welcome Misty Heggeness, former principal economist and senior advisor at the US Census Bureau and author of her first book, Swift Dynamics, How Women Mastermind and Refine Our Economy. Misty, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:34.634) to care. Chad Sowash (00:40.554) Hello. Misty Heggeness (01:00.728) Thank you for having me, excited to be here. Joel Cheesman (01:03.285) excited to have you. There's a lot in your your CV. Let's let's hear about you. What did we miss? Tell us about you like what makes you tick. Give us an intro into Misty. Misty Heggeness (01:15.382) Yeah. So I'll start by saying I'm from originally from Fargo, North Dakota, where, know, we rode in covered wagons, up until the year 2000. I love the movie. love the the accent is yes, it's spot on. I have an interesting story about that, but I was away from my family for a year, watched the movie and then my grandmother and my mother came to visit me and my grandmother had exact. Joel Cheesman (01:26.133) Do you like the movie or is it kind of a slap? okay. Did they get it right? Did they get the accents and the... Misty Heggeness (01:43.814) the accent from the movie. Yeah, it was pretty funny. So yes, I'm from Fargo, you know, went to school at the University of Minnesota. I guess the other interesting thing about me is one of my ancestors was the second to last Norwegian woman burned at the stake in 1670. I don't know what else I can tell you. Chad Sowash (02:03.0) hello. Yeah. Okay. Joel Cheesman (02:07.445) How do you know that? Misty Heggeness (02:10.028) Well, I mean, if you have lore like that in your family, it's passed down generation to generation. Joel Cheesman (02:13.213) my god. Chad Sowash (02:15.316) Wow! Burnt at the steak! Joel Cheesman (02:16.743) Okay. And that's our show everybody. It's only downhill from here. Thanks for tuning. Thanks for tuning in. All right. What? You top that. Yeah. She's, yeah. She's going to top that. I don't know. What else you got Misty? What else should we know? Chad Sowash (02:25.216) No, we still got to talk about the Census Bureau, I mean, come on. Misty Heggeness (02:31.918) Sorry, I worked for the federal government for 12 years, career staffer, nerdy, statistician, economist at the Census Bureau. Now I'm at the University of Kansas as a professor of public affairs and economics. Chad Sowash (02:47.232) Hello. So talk a little bit about the US Census Bureau. That sounds like a rock and roll kind of gig. mean, really? Come on. Misty Heggeness (02:51.182) it is. mean, you know, you can't get better. Joel Cheesman (02:56.587) What's the drug of choice to get through a day at the US Census Bureau? Is it caffeine, obviously? Misty Heggeness (03:02.296) So let's see, the drug of choice would be, you know, numbers, numbers, and more. Chad Sowash (03:04.17) Caffeine, cocaine. Joel Cheesman (03:08.779) Chipotle. Wow. Misty Heggeness (03:11.958) yeah, well, you know, we, the census Bureau counts all the people, so never underestimate the power of the census Bureau. every 10 years we go, how about the people? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's, a very important, important place. Actually it exists because of an amendment in the constitution. So, obligated by a super law to count all the people. Joel Cheesman (03:20.619) Immigration a common topic on this show, so. Joel Cheesman (03:41.291) All right, let's pivot before we put everybody to sleep. You've written your first book. What was the inspiration? Why this topic? Talk us through it. Misty Heggeness (03:42.926) Hahaha! Chad Sowash (03:43.71) Thank you. Misty Heggeness (03:47.404) Yes. Misty Heggeness (03:52.238) So I am what I consider a pandemic author. So when everyone was sitting in our, you know, we're sitting in our houses during the pandemic and in our pajamas drinking, you know, day drinking wine, trying to just survive. Chad Sowash (04:07.71) Did you have a camera in my house? Misty Heggeness (04:10.99) Yes, because I worked for the Census Bureau at the time. But yeah, so I just, I started really hyper focusing on what was going on with women at work and specifically with mothers and work, because I was a mother of a 10 and 12 year old at the time. And I just found that I really, really enjoyed writing blogs and writing pieces for general audience about economics and about, I don't know if you hear the Chad Sowash (04:14.378) That's a point. Yeah. Government. Misty Heggeness (04:39.904) University of Chad Sowash (04:43.232) I just did, yes. Joel Cheesman (04:44.619) What what all right what is that top of the out? does that ring for what is that blow for? Misty Heggeness (04:48.374) No, that means class is either ending or starting. So every day, every 50 minutes, we get a steam whistle. Joel Cheesman (04:53.611) Okay. Chad Sowash (04:59.348) That sounds great. Joel Cheesman (05:00.169) Why steam whistle not like a chirp? Cause Jayhawks. Misty Heggeness (05:03.188) It's, yeah, no, it's old school. Scare the crap out of you if you don't know what's coming. Joel Cheesman (05:08.753) Okay, okay. Little University of Kansas tidbit, everybody. Chad Sowash (05:10.506) All right. Misty Heggeness (05:12.778) Yes. So anyway, so I just found that I really enjoyed writing. And so I wanted to write a book about the modern woman because I think a lot of the ways that we think about women today in the news media and others just doesn't really fit what's happening with women today. So I decided to write a book. And yeah, I'm happy to tell you why I call it Swiftynomics and what it has to do with Taylor Swift. Joel Cheesman (05:35.317) Please do. Go ahead. Yeah, we don't have to set you up. Why Swift Dynamics? Chad Sowash (05:36.606) Yeah? Hit it! Misty Heggeness (05:39.95) Yeah, so let me start with it was the year 2019 and I was working at a nerdy statistical agency in the federal government called the US Census Bureau. And I happened to come across a music video for the song, The Man, which is a part of Taylor's Lover album. And if you have either of you seen this music video? Homework, you've got some homework after this podcast. Chad Sowash (05:46.08) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (06:02.784) I have not, no. Joel Cheesman (06:03.721) No. Misty Heggeness (06:07.71) So, you know, free online on YouTube, go watch it. It is so incredible. And watch to the very end because there's a nice little surprise after the credits. But I over identified with that music video and the song. And I had been working around a lot of older, you know, white men, nerdy statisticians. And I just over identified with that song. So I just started following Taylor's career. Joel Cheesman (06:31.125) So assuming a lot of our listeners haven't heard this song, give us sort of the cliff notes. Is the man bad? Is that kind of the gist? Misty Heggeness (06:35.744) Yeah, the man, it's basically Taylor writes lyrics about how there's extra struggles for women trying to exist in a man's world because, you know, either we have to work harder or we have to be more strategic in order to get forward and in order to advance. so and, know, at the time I had had I was working in like a management leadership position as a senior advisor and Chad Sowash (06:37.568) Chad Sowash (06:46.494) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (07:03.266) I would ask somebody to do something and they would get upset because they didn't want to do it. And they would run and go and complain to my boss, who at the time was the chief scientist of the organization. And I had male colleagues next to me who we would have conversations of like, if you had asked somebody to do that, there's no way they would run and tell our boss. And so just like all of the kind of weird dynamics that exist when you're female and you want to lead things. And so I just. Chad Sowash (07:21.76) I Chad Sowash (07:30.43) Was that the moment you became a Taylor Swift fan? you? Okay. Okay. That's important. Yeah. Misty Heggeness (07:33.634) That was the moment I became a Taylor Swift fan for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't know. I mean, I didn't follow any of her earlier, younger career or anything like that. And then during the pandemic, she came out with two albums and I was just so amazed. I'm an economist by training. I study a lot of labor and work and productivity. And I was just so amazed that she was so productive during the pandemic to push out two albums while the rest of us, like I said, I was sitting on my couch in my pajamas, day drinking wine, trying to survive to the next day. so, yeah. And so I just really watched how she evolved in her career, some of the moves that she did to get around obstacles and just became really impressed with her. And so I decided she would be a perfect muse for the book. And here we are. Chad Sowash (08:08.928) Eatin' cream, yeah, I know, yeah. Joel Cheesman (08:26.795) I'm not a Taylor fan. Hello. My wife has seen her in concert and loves her. So I do know a little bit agentically about her. She, she bought her songs back. Correct. Correct me if I'm wrong in any of this, but she bought her songs back, which was from a man, I believe, or at least a man run company. So did that happen before or like your, your sort of inspiration? Was it during that process that she sort of took Misty Heggeness (08:40.428) Yes. Yes. Misty Heggeness (08:44.6) Yep. Well. Joel Cheesman (08:55.157) took her life back? Because I think there was a real metaphor of sort of that happening and her taking it back and re-recording everything. Did that impact sort of how you felt about her and what she stood for? Misty Heggeness (08:59.981) Yeah. Misty Heggeness (09:06.476) Well, I mean, here's what I'll say. I started under contract to write this book before the Arrows tour came out, before she bought back her albums. So I was a fan before any of this stuff. And she just keeps on giving me like awesome content, you know, wrap into the book. She's like the gift that keeps on giving. But, you know, it's true. She, you know, had this experience where her first six albums were sold out from under her. She argues in the public Chad Sowash (09:14.111) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:18.911) Okay. Chad Sowash (09:21.984) That's awesome. Yeah. Misty Heggeness (09:36.303) sphere that nobody asked her about, nobody gave her the opportunity to purchase them herself. And essentially she did the Eros tour, she became a billionaire, she got enough money, she sent her mom and her brother to the company that, Scooter Braun who bought them originally and then he sold them off to a different company. And she sent her mom and brother to this company. to basically say, would you sell these back to Taylor? And because it has family and sentimental value, and they negotiated with this company and the company agreed to sell her back her albums. And it's pretty amazing. in the meantime, she rerecorded four or five of those six albums and put them out. so, yeah, Taylor's versions. And so it's basically like, Chad Sowash (10:26.1) Yeah. Taylor's versions, right? Yeah. Misty Heggeness (10:32.884) know, Taylor's a millennial, so she's got all of these people. And I'll focus on women who grew up with her. She would write songs at, you know, the age at which she was at, which resonated with a lot of millennials. And then she put out all these Reve-Chorus, and now all the children of these millennial women, you know, have become fans of her younger version music. So it's just a big cycle, like the way that she has... Her business tactics, whether intentional or not, are just phenomenal. Chad Sowash (11:03.584) Well, let's talk a little bit about the economic impact because like Joel's wife, my wife and my oldest, they actually went to Wembley during one of those eight sold out shows and it generated an estimated 300 million of capital. Nearly 700,000 fans attended, driving up for the hotel occupancy, like almost to 100%. Misty Heggeness (11:16.3) Yeah, I did too. Chad Sowash (11:31.584) uh, increasing local hospitality spending, contributing to the broader one buh buh buh billion dollars of impact in the UK. So when I saw that, I mean, I, I, I mean, I always thought she was great. I just wasn't a big fan of her music, but as I was started to see what she was doing from an, from a business standpoint, from an economic standpoint, I thought, wow, she is a powerhouse. So can you talk a little bit about that from an economic standpoint, being able to literally go into a local community like a London or Lisbon and really make an impact on that on that local economy. Misty Heggeness (12:15.96) Yeah, and even in the US, she was in London, I think, four or five nights. And that's like $320 million as estimated generation of local impact on local businesses. So if I'm going to tell you the story about the economics of Taylor Swift, we need to start at the beginning. And so when Taylor was a teenager, Chad Sowash (12:39.562) Please. Misty Heggeness (12:44.362) knew she wanted to write music and she knew she wanted to sing music. And she was lucky enough to be in a family where they were able to, you know, provide resources for her to kind of go to Nashville and try to get into country music. Taylor wanted to country, she wanted to write country music songs for other teenage girls. And just to be more specific, probably other white teenage girls like Taylor herself. Chad Sowash (13:08.896) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (13:08.942) And country music executives in Nashville at the time said, gee, thanks, but no thanks. We don't think there's any market in, you know, in teenage girls as a consumer of country music. And, and, you know, she started on a contract with RCA as a develop, a development contract, which means that, you know, they were just going to develop her, but not produce any of her music. She broke. That was 14. She was 14. Chad Sowash (13:30.826) She was like 14, wasn't she? Yeah, yeah. Misty Heggeness (13:34.317) And she broke that contract and she moved into, she took a risk, which is she broke that contract because A, she wanted to sing her own music that she was writing and she knew RCA wouldn't let her or, you know, wouldn't support that. And B, they were doing developmental and she didn't want to wait. And so she broke that contract and she went with Scott Borsha, Borshada, can't remember exactly his last name, Scott B, we'll call him Scott B. And Scott. had just left a big major music company as an executive and was starting his own company. He said to Taylor, she was the big one that he signed, and he said, if you sign with me, I will let you record your own music that you write and I will let you produce albums now. And so she agreed to do that. And he was OK with her writing music about teenage girls in a country genre. And the one thing that I say about this is that wasn't economically strategic or business strategic for Taylor at the time, but boy was it. She knew that there was a market where there was a gap. And I'm sure that those country music executives who didn't see the value in writing country music songs for teenage girls really are kicking themselves right now or kicked themselves because that's a part of her success story is she Chad Sowash (14:47.264) You Misty Heggeness (15:01.614) really focused in on being authentic with herself. And she happened to fall at a time, know, millennials are really a community where, you know, girls and boys were grew up with their parents telling them, you can be anything, you can do anything, you know, go to college and girls were going to college not to find a partner to marry, but were going to college because they had career aspirations and, you know, wanted to start careers. So, Joel Cheesman (15:27.53) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (15:30.264) Taylor grew up with this generation that had just this vision of economic independence and a lot more disposable income in their 20s. you know, they were less likely, it became very expensive for women, for millennial women to get married and have kids because they were getting careers, not jobs. Their incomes were higher because of their education. And so... Taylor really tapped into a group that historically had been somewhat overlooked by the music industry and she's just been riding the waves with it ever since. Joel Cheesman (16:01.451) Misty. Chad Sowash (16:01.832) Isn't that amazing though? I mean, because you're talking about an industry that is a machine and you would think that they understand demographics and the next demographic that was actually coming up that they had to target, but they didn't understand that. Yet this 14 year old girl who was on her way up, I mean, she nailed it. It means it's a tale as old as time, right? But this corporate machine just couldn't get it. so I guess at the end of the day, from an economic standpoint, obviously it worked out for her. Misty Heggeness (16:38.39) Yeah, I mean, it worked out for her and like she's not the only woman to do this. there, you know, the other people I think about is like Reese Witherspoon. You know, she is known for Legally Blonde. She has some type of public speech where she, you know, is saying, Hollywood is really off key because, you know, they only portray women in roles that say, my, what can I do? And she's like, how many of your brothers or your sisters and moms do you know that when they come across a problem say, my, what can I do? And Reese went off and started her own production company because she saw that Hollywood executives were continually bypassing stories that had like deep, rich content about the lived experiences of women. And so there's a handful of women today who have had a lot of success. by really tapping into stories about the authentic lives of women at a time when women's income is going up, et cetera, et cetera. Joel Cheesman (17:32.363) Misty went. I'm curious, you started the book around the start of COVID or the pandemic and what a turbulent sort of time in so many ways. You had the Me Too movement, you had Black Lives Matter. Suddenly white men were the bad guys in everything. we've, don't know, 180 might be too extreme, we've sort of, the pendulum has sort of gone back. I'm curious the world from your perspective from when you started the book, do you feel like that women have, made advancements? feel like two steps forward, three steps back? Like what, has the world been in the last six, five, six years in your, your perspective with, with women and getting ahead. Misty Heggeness (18:15.456) Yeah, I mean, I would say three steps forward, two steps back. I actually am extremely hopeful and probably more than maybe most people. If you look at the world today and you look at the roles and the diversity of depth and the roles that women get to play in the lives outside of their homes, it's the most diverse and the Chad Sowash (18:39.68) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (18:43.266) the most opportunistic it's ever been. And I know that there's a lot of rhetoric happening at very high levels in our country today. I have this perspective that, you know, we have kind of swung back into kind of this chest pounding, bro-ism sort of macho vibe at like the highest levels. And I think part of that for me, I see that as Chad Sowash (19:08.384) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (19:13.088) as positive because I think that we all live in a society that has different dynamics of power. for better or worse, based on a lot of our demographic characteristics, what we look like, what gender we are, what race, et cetera, there is a kind of this informal and in some sense formal hierarchy of who has power in society. And I think that a lot of the pushback that we're seeing now of you know, let's go back towards traditional norms and, you know, let's, you know, not talk about DEI or whatever it might be. For me, that is people who traditionally have had lots of power or at least more power than I do in society. They are taking notice that there's a shift happening. And so their response then is to try to push us back into our old systems. And I actually see that as a hopeful sign that there's noise happening because I think that means that women are advancing, that women are having more opportunities to be in alternative positions that maybe they haven't had in the past. Joel Cheesman (20:21.289) When you see a Pam Bondi, a Christine Gnome acting the way that they do, is that a positive for you or do you feel like they're trying to be something they're not or trying to fit in a square peg and a round hole? What's your impression when you see them taking, I would say, a masculine role when they get into the public eye? Misty Heggeness (20:40.462) Right. Yeah. So I talk about this a little bit in my book, but in terms of the field of economics, I think women, there's a couple of ways that women ascend in society and kind of can get into positions of power. And the first way is you try to mimic the people who are in power. And so you and so this happens in economics where there are women in economics who have, you know, gotten into, you know, they are in academic economics, you they are professors, they are well established, esteemed, they are part of the system. But the way that they got there was by pretending to be like the guys in the club. And so they don't like to talk about gender, they get really nervous and talking about some of these hierarchical things. Because, you know, they had to change the way they were so much to get to be a part of the the boys club, if you will. And then there's this other side of women, at least in economics who really want to acknowledge that there are these disparities and want to talk about the ways in which the economic lives of women might look different than men. And they don't get to be in the mainstream economics. They have to be off to the side in a field called feminist economics. And, you know, they're not a part of the mainstream. And I call the women who make it up the ladder by pretending to be like men, call them pearl clutters, again, because they get really nervous talking about gender, clutch their pearls. And I call the women who you know, are in this field of feminist economics, which I also am. I'm I'm a feminist economist, but I want to be in the mainstream. This is why I'm critiquing the two silos. But feminist economics, I call them the granola's because, you know, they are able to be more truthful around who they are and how they perceive the world in economic models. But they do it at the cost of being excluded from the mainstream. And so I think the Pam Bondi is in the Kristi, Gnomes, aside from, I will just say, regardless of their gender, they are very incompetent at the job that they have. They don't have the skill set and the history of training and knowledge necessary to be in the roles that they're in, regardless of their gender. But aside from that, I would consider them more like parole clutches, that they really are trying to personify the way that they think their bosses want them to act in order to really stay in that role and to be able to have that type of power. Chad Sowash (23:05.6) Where does Taylor fit in this pendulum or this spectrum, I guess you could say? Misty Heggeness (23:11.286) Yeah. So Taylor does what I like to do, which is essentially, you know, I would consider a Taylor and I are both granolas who are trying to force the mainstream to see us. and that's where, that's where I think the next generation of, of what we need to do as a society needs to go. because we need to have space for, you know, both the similarities and the differences by gender. And we need to be able to talk about it and understand the Chad Sowash (23:13.642) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (23:40.355) the power dynamics and have conversations across gender and within communities about how do we exist with each other? What does that look like? How do we make sure that if somebody is really aspiring to be something that they're very passionate about, that we're setting them up for success regardless of where they're coming at from life? Chad Sowash (23:45.92) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:02.047) You mentioned that women are out earning. They're generally more educated than men these days. More valedictorians at a high school or female. To me, the world still feels like an old boys club, particularly at the top of the corporation pyramid. Is it a matter of time before that changes? Is there a reason why that remains the same? Like give us your perspective on women seem to be winning everywhere except at the top of the corporate. Chad Sowash (24:02.122) So. Chad Sowash (24:19.306) Because it is, yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:31.531) Pyramid. Misty Heggeness (24:32.718) Well, and by the way, they're not there. I think a lot of women are sitting around and waiting to get to the top. They are sidestreaming. Like one of the things that Taylor does really has done really successfully in the music industry is she has created a parallel system where she can be at the top, but it doesn't cost her all of the sacrifice that it would if she would have stayed in the mainstream or in the traditional. Yeah, it's her system. Chad Sowash (24:55.912) It's her system. That's her system. Misty Heggeness (25:00.3) You know, it's her, it's her, what's the phrase? Like it's her life and we're just all watching and living it. I don't know what the, what the phrase is, but yeah, it's her system. And I just think that's fun to watch the fact that, you know, there are a lot of women out there today who have been able to keep the kind of negative and the things that push them down kind of to the side and been able to just focus on foraging forward. And now I've forgotten what your original question was. Joel Cheesman (25:32.511) Well, the old boys club, old, you know, the top of the pyramid is men. My question was, is it a matter time before women take over? It sounds like in your world, women just make their own pyramids and that's where we're going. I'm just curious where this all ends up. Misty Heggeness (25:44.579) Well. Yeah, mean, so, you know, part of it is women making their own their own spaces and then, you know, interacting as needed. Part of it is, I mean, I will tell you, you know, myself, you know, I grew up in the system of the federal government before I became a professor. And, you know, I was continually moving up because I'm a builder. You know, I want to lead innovation, innovative projects and. The people who pulled me up were men. So, you know, I, it's not, I know that we like to think about gender as really black and white. And we like to think about some of the ways in which we get stalled or some of the ways in which we advance as like, you know, very gendered. But somebody told me once early in my career that, especially for women, but it's true for everybody, you need multiple mentors every single year and they need to be boys and girls. Chad Sowash (26:24.48) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (26:42.254) Um, and you know, I took that to heart and I spent like five years of my federal career. I would get, uh, one male mentor and one female mentor every single year. And I would meet with them once a month. And I'm telling you that the, the movement that I got from my male, uh, mentors and, um, sponsors, if you want to call them that was very different from what I got from my female mentors and sponsors, but. What I got from both of them is, what I needed. And, um, You know, so it's not so much like, I mean, it is an old boys club, but it's kind of breaking down. I think there's a lot of really, really good men in that system who are more interested in people's talent than they are in their gender and see that and are willing to pull people up. And it's an evolving process. And, you know, it's not easy, you know, I'm very hopeful. Chad Sowash (27:21.396) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (27:37.377) So after decades of this thing we call trickle-down economics, I think Taylor has taught us a economic lesson as well because she rewarded her tour staff with nearly $200 million in bonuses, which were given after the final shows in December of 2024 and included roughly $100,000 for truck drivers. and potentially up to $750,000 for dancers and other key personnel. So that obviously makes your employees happy. Go figure. You pay them well, right? You pay them well. That's right. You're going to get all those people back, I guarantee you. But even more importantly, the money that those workers pocket, that drives their local economies, right? And I think we forget that because what we're talking about and what we've seen Joel Cheesman (28:13.781) We call that employee retention, Misty. That's employee retention. Misty Heggeness (28:16.248) Yeah Chad Sowash (28:34.462) over the past 40 years is we've gone from long-term to short-term. We focus on quarters, right? We focus on EBITDA, we focus on margin. We focus on how much we can pay somebody, right? As opposed to trying to bonus them and keep them around. When do we finally get these lessons that a Taylor Swift can actually teach us that the way forward is to be able to pay our people fairly because we haven't done that for 40 years. And we can see that in the numbers. Obviously, CEO pays up over 1500 % since 1978. And everybody else is trickling at about 14 % around inflation. So when do we get this? have you seen any indications that we might be able to get off this crazy, crazy train they call trickle down economics? Misty Heggeness (29:31.022) Yeah, I mean, I think that eventually we're going to have to get off this train because, you know, the train, it's only heading downhill. Chad Sowash (29:35.903) pitchforks. Misty Heggeness (29:41.175) I, you know, so I'm very passionate about economics. And I think that part of, you know, the 1980s and the 1990s, there was just a ton of, again, this whole idea of trickle down and Reagan and all of I think there's a lot of misperceptions about what what we need to value as a society and what economists value. People think of the field of economics as very, very narrowly just about finance and Wall Street, and it's absolutely not. And, you know, I think it's very true that if you want your employees to be the best, both productively and in terms of, you know, return on investment for you, that you really want to make sure that they are one. you know, not miserable in their job. And two, that the work that they're doing aligns with what they're interested in. So you can't always do that with everybody. But the whole idea is that you're trying to align those pieces. And if you do, you will be more successful yourself. You will be more profitable as a business person. Your company is more likely to stay longer term if somebody else's dissolves. I, you know, there's research around all of this. And, one of the things I think is really clear from, you know, Taylor just put out this six series doc, six episode docu-series on, on, on Disney, around the holidays. And it is a masterclass in female leadership. like totally a masterclass in female leadership and how she, as a manager and a leader of her company treats her employees, you know, the way that she recognizes their value. And that makes them even more willing to, you know, step it up and, you know, put on a better show. And that's not just true for a concert tour. That's true for any business. And yeah, I mean, I don't know what else to say other than like the companies that recognize that and figure out how to value their employees in that way are going to be more successful and are going to Misty Heggeness (31:59.471) be able to stick around longer. It's not just about the bottom line and it's not just about minimizing as much of the cost, financial cost as you can. Chad Sowash (32:11.082) We'll also talk about the economic impact locally, because one of the things that we don't understand apparently is that when we pay people more money, they can buy shit, right? And that's what makes the economy run. So, you know, for me, that is one of the basic, basic economic foundational pieces that I think we've gotten wrong in our country. It almost feels, and Joel says this over and over and over, Misty Heggeness (32:15.149) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (32:25.282) Yep. Yeah. Chad Sowash (32:41.224) like we need the pitchforks out and that's kind of scary. But I'm over here in Europe, so I'll watch from here. Misty Heggeness (32:47.074) Well, I mean, it is true that we have become a society that's all about me, me, And we are continually underestimating the value of we. And I think we do that to our own detriment. When I go back to places like, so I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, did my university in Minnesota and then went to... When I would go back to Fargo and I would even go back to see my parents and whatever, it's like everything was deteriorating. There's like this slow deterioration in our towns and our cities, in our parents' ability to thrive as they get older. Chad Sowash (33:25.706) Mm-hmm. Misty Heggeness (33:33.61) And a lot of that is because we're no longer investing in infrastructure and in each other. Everybody's out for themselves. And that will only get you so far, and it can only last for so long. Joel Cheesman (33:44.234) Yeah. And, and in regards to that selfishness, think something Chad and I talk about on the show quite a bit is sort of how corporations have failed women in particular, whether it's childcare, whether it's, you know, we went from work from home to get your ass back in the office, which hurt women more than men. We also talk a lot about AI, and AI's role in the world, world of work, how people adapt to that. Curious as, as a woman. Misty Heggeness (33:58.831) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (34:12.031) How do you view AI? Do you view it as a net gain in terms of women's advancement? Do you view it as a negative for everybody or more for women? Give us your take on AI and women in the workforce. Misty Heggeness (34:24.334) Yeah, so first I'll say, one of the challenges with AI is that it is a learning model, and it's going to learn based on what you feed it. And so if we're feeding AI a bunch of information that has a gendered viewpoint of the world, I remember seeing early on when AI was becoming a thing, people would would show these pictures on social media where they're like, oh, I asked AI to give me a picture of a doctor and here's all these white men, doctors. so AI is like, you have to take it with a grain of salt. I will tell you that I actually, I use AI quite a bit to do repetitive tasks that I either don't wanna do or take me much longer. One example would be like I create the outline for my class every week and I'll create that outline just in a simple Word document and then I can be like put this in PowerPoint form and AI will do that in 30 seconds whereas it would have taken me probably like 20 minutes to copy and paste things over into PowerPoint. So there are so many ways in which AI is a useful tool. But it has to be, you know, especially for women or, you know, people of color. Like it's really, it's a tool that we need to really be careful in the assumptions that we're making about what AI is giving to us. And we need to think, really think critically about it. Chad Sowash (36:03.658) Well, Joel had to make sure that our overlords heard that we got AI into this podcast. So we did that. So we did that check. The book is Swiftynomics, how women mastermind and refined our economy. Misty, a couple of different things. First and foremost, where can people buy the book and where can somebody actually connect with you if they want to ask you questions or maybe have you on their podcast? Joel Cheesman (36:09.739) That's right, that's right. Misty Heggeness (36:10.636) Yay! Misty Heggeness (36:29.164) Yeah, so you can get the book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or bookshop.org or at your local indie store, bookstore. People can connect with me either mistyhuginous.com, swiftynomics.com. I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn, so you can just search my name. Chad Sowash (36:50.378) Beautiful. Joel Cheesman (36:51.179) Chad, you need to calm down. I'm gonna go shake it off. That's another one in the can everybody. We out. Chad Sowash (36:54.132) Ha Misty Heggeness (36:56.252) Yes!

Get ready for another episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast, where the only thing more dangerous than the HR takes is Chad’s "toilet seat cocaine" energy. With Joel away on a week-long napping tour, the "ladies"—JT "Let It Snow" O'Donnell and Emi "One Hit Wonder" Beredugo—join Chad to break down why the industry is currently a beautiful, chaotic mess... Here’s what’s on the menu for this week’s cheese-free feast Olympics, Medals, Shagging, and Norway's way of "blowing off steam." The Nantucket Toliet Seat Snow "Report" Silicon Valley’s "Superstar" Delusion Who’d You Rather? Kombo or Humand StepStone’s Big Spin Grab your Scotch (or your Irish whiskey) and dive into the episode before the tech world decides you’re too "average" to listen. PODCAST TRASNCRIPTION Chad Sowash (00:30.843) Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad, toilet seat cocaine, Sowash. JT ODonnell (00:39.18) JT let it snow O'Donnell Emi Beredugo (00:41.635) and I'm Emi one hit wonder, Beredugo. Chad Sowash (00:44.599) There's something to do about that. And on this week's show, StepStone spins, the US wins, and who'd you rather? Let's do this. Chad Sowash (00:58.875) Hello ladies, we're cheese-free this week. Emi Beredugo (01:01.675) Yes, we are. Do you think, what's he doing? Is he like, you know, just sunning it up somewhere or? JT ODonnell (01:03.022) We are. Chad Sowash (01:06.385) Yeah, just he likes to take naps. you know, he's got a whole week of naps planned and this is in his schedule. So therefore we get to be out with that this week. Emi Beredugo (01:09.526) No. JT ODonnell (01:11.702) I mean, Yeah. Emi Beredugo (01:13.495) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (01:18.293) Why not? Well, we're missing you, Joel. Think about us when you're napping. Actually, Yeah, that came out a little bit wrong, didn't it? Yeah. well, this is actually a little secret of mine. So back in the day when I used to live in the Middle East, somebody asked me to record a single. And I was like, you know, obviously. Chad Sowash (01:22.823) We, yeah, well, I don't want to say that. Anyway, moving on. Moving on. One hit wonder. What does that mean? What does that all about? Emi Beredugo (01:47.991) I'm always the performer. So was like, yeah, I could do that. And yeah, I recorded a house track. So I haven't actually got the recording. I need to try and find it. The guy who recorded it is somewhere on Facebook. So I need to reach out to him. But yeah, was hilarious. yeah, something like... Obviously, I sounded better than that, you know, back in the day. Chad Sowash (02:04.826) Yes, you do. Yes. JT ODonnell (02:06.074) Yeah, we need to hear this. Chad Sowash (02:16.496) Sounded, you're giving Donna summer vibes, which I'm totally cool with. You want to totally go with. JT ODonnell (02:19.31) you Emi Beredugo (02:19.668) Yeah, yeah, No, honestly, it was cool. was cool. So yeah, maybe I'm famous in some kind of European country somewhere, you know. JT ODonnell (02:27.084) Right? And there's royalty sitting somewhere that you don't know about. You're about to get a windfall. Yes. Chad Sowash (02:28.8) You never know. You never know. Yeah, yeah. In your old Dubai account anyway, pivoting the Winter Olympics kids, they're usually not the US's bag of tricks, but just when you needed something to be positive about in the world, Team USA killed it in 2026. Did you guys watch it? Emi Beredugo (02:31.132) Exactly. Exactly. I need to Google this. Absolutely. Exactly. Emi Beredugo (02:46.294) Bye. JT ODonnell (02:56.898) I did. I watched a bunch. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (02:57.078) I didn't, I didn't even watch one. Do you know what it was though? It wasn't my fault. It clashed, no, honestly, because I've only got so much time to watch TV and Love Island UK was on. No, no, no, no, honestly, this is like, no, no, I've watched Traitors already. When Love Island comes on, it's my favorite program. So I was like, listen, I've only got so much time in my week to watch TV. So I had to toss it up, Olympics, Love Island. So Love Island won. Chad Sowash (03:07.292) come on. If you would have said traders, I would have went, yeah, no, I get that. Okay, okay. Chad Sowash (03:21.401) Mm, yeah. Chad Sowash (03:25.838) Okay, okay. about you, Ditty? What stood out for you? Yeah? Emi Beredugo (03:26.324) I'm sorry. JT ODonnell (03:28.352) Yeah, two things. So first of all, I love how every four years we become obsessed with curling. Like literally America becomes obsessed with curling. We had parties watching curling. Like what is that? We don't care about it for the next three years and 320 days, right? But curling comes along. And then the other big moment I'll tell you is my perfect day Sunday, I was out skiing in perfect no ice. Emi Beredugo (03:37.11) Really? Chad Sowash (03:45.98) Yeah, yeah. JT ODonnell (03:57.582) corduroy, sunny, gorgeous weather. And we skied into our favorite on mountain little like pub. And it was all set up for us all to watch USA beat Canada in the men's hockey finals. Not gonna lie, 12 out of 10 day, right? Like in a pub, everyone's screaming when we won and then, you know, out and about. to me, I think this particular Olympics will always give me that memory. was just awesome. Emi Beredugo (03:59.19) you Chad Sowash (03:59.909) Nice. Chad Sowash (04:09.51) Very nice, yes. dude. Dude. That's, yeah. Chad Sowash (04:23.75) So Julie and I, so here in the Algarve, Canadians love to flock the Algarve this time of year. So we had about 50 Canadians and there were about five Americans that were there, right? And we weren't being like dicks, suck it, you know? JT ODonnell (04:37.294) Emi Beredugo (04:42.485) Yeah. Chad Sowash (04:43.932) But I got to say, let's hear it for Team USA men's hockey for winning the gold first time since they beat Russia in 1980, right? Miracle on ice. I know. But the Canadians played amazing. They had a hell of a lot more shots on goal. Connor Hellebuyck, who is the goalie for the US, he was like a fucking brick wall. He let one go by. He let one go by. Emi Beredugo (04:52.278) Boop boop boop boop boop. JT ODonnell (04:53.965) Right? Right? That's what I'm saying. JT ODonnell (05:10.67) amazing. Emi Beredugo (05:11.679) Wow. Chad Sowash (05:12.698) But then the US and overtime, they played three on three and they won. They won. was pretty amazing. But I got to say this. I got to say this. That was just the appetizer because I'm saving the best for last. The US women dominated the medal count with 17 medals, including six gold. Amber Glenn and Alyssa Liu both gave amazing skates, which JT ODonnell (05:14.958) It's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (05:35.282) amazing. Chad Sowash (05:41.969) were fucking clinics on how to perform and just have a great time. Alyssa Liu, she skated to Donna Summer. And I've got to say, I don't think there's any genre of music other than maybe reggae, any genre of music that makes you feel more happy than disco. Right. So it was was amazing. the then the US women's hockey team, they actually they were dominant in winning gold. JT ODonnell (05:44.43) Amazing. Amazing. Emi Beredugo (06:01.169) Yeah. Chad Sowash (06:11.616) ...and not in the gold medal match per se, because they played really tight with, Canada, but they went for a seven and record and they outscored opponents 33 to two throughout the entire comp at 33 to two. So it was, it was pretty amazing, but I really think, and I'm not just like a huge winter Olympics fan, but, JT ODonnell (06:14.126) They were so good. you Emi Beredugo (06:28.812) my god. Chad Sowash (06:39.74) I gotta say, it was amazing, but I don't wanna forget. I don't wanna forget that Norway, yes, Norway with a population of under six million people, they won. They had the most medals. They killed it, 18 gold, 12 silver, 11 bronze. So good on Norway. My favorite part about the Norway team, there was one of the teams that had JT ODonnell (06:44.462) Killed. Yep. Chad Sowash (07:08.777) their, their jerseys on had a Norway flag on, on it and right below it, said, sorry, JT ODonnell (07:12.814) That's amazing. Thank Emi Beredugo (07:15.926) Love that! Chad Sowash (07:20.678) Nothing like, nothing like punking your neighbor at the Olympics is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. So. Emi Beredugo (07:24.246) 100%. Emi Beredugo (07:30.55) No, absolutely love that. But Chad, can I just ask you that because I swear, and like I said, I didn't watch any of the Olympics, but I'm pretty sure I watched some kind of or listened to some kind of story or read some kind of story about shagging. Am I right? Some of you shagging and lots of condoms. So yeah, what story is that? JT ODonnell (07:41.934) What? Okay. Chad Sowash (07:47.76) You Yeah, so every year, just about every year, the Olympic Village runs out of condoms. let's go ahead and set the stage here, kids. You have these rock hard bodied athletes, right, who literally just, I all the stress and the anxiety and the performance and all this stuff. And then after they're done, what do they want to do? They want to blow off some steam. So what do they want to do? Emi Beredugo (08:00.242) Love that. JT ODonnell (08:11.15) I need clarification. Now, are they running out in the last three days because that tracks with what you're saying or are they running out? Emi Beredugo (08:12.886) Yeah. Chad Sowash (08:20.59) Apparently they want to shag. And it is is standard. I think it's almost standard every single year they run out of condoms and they have to they got to send people for more good. Yeah. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (08:28.95) I love that. Chad Sowash (08:36.444) No. JT ODonnell (08:40.278) Like, they're blowing off steam leading up to their medal round. Like, what? I mean... Chad Sowash (08:43.196) I don't know, I wasn't there. I wasn't there, but I would say that, you know, different strokes for different folks. Some might want a little love before they go perform. Some might want to wait. Who knows? All I know is... Emi Beredugo (08:44.104) No, it's going to be afterwards, surely. You got to let all the like, cut it. JT ODonnell (08:47.246) Because you always hear like don't, right? Emi Beredugo (09:02.432) I'm guessing that was in Norway. I reckon they just kind of, they just kept let everything build up and then once they won all the goals, like, okay, let it go. Yeah, this is how I'm envisioning it. Yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we need to research this. I need to know. This is important information. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. Chad Sowash (09:11.396) Yeah, so Norway, yeah. Norway probably blew through them all, yes. JT ODonnell (09:18.817) I love it. Chad Sowash (09:23.004) Okay, we'll leave that with you, In the meantime, Emi, you have a shout out. JT ODonnell (09:25.909) Okay. Emi Beredugo (09:32.774) I do. I'm actually going to shout out a couple of people that I met for the first time yesterday. So I went to a conference and this conference is called the In-House Recruitment Expo in London. Great conference, really good, really interesting topics. And I was on a panel. So we'll talk about how TA progresses beyond AI. And obviously, AI is always going to be the topic that everyone talks about. I think we talked about it today. But like I said, my shout outs are to a couple of people. Chad Sowash (09:42.63) Yeah, cool. Chad Sowash (09:57.404) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (10:01.738) So Martin Dangerfield, who chaired the panel, and then Sam Fletcher, and Baron Chetton. So great meeting you guys, and hopefully we'll meet each other again soon. Chad Sowash (10:05.958) Love him. Chad Sowash (10:14.01) Very nice, very nice. So where was that again? Was that in London? Emi Beredugo (10:18.184) Yeah, was in London in the XL. So it's a big conference center. Yeah. So they have these conferences every single year. It's their flagship events. And yeah, really interesting. It's the third time I've been there, third time I've actually spoken there as well. So yeah, definitely urge people to check it out next year. I know. Come on. I'll be sending out my autographs to people soon. And aren't you the one with that one hit one down? I'm like, yes, I am. Chad Sowash (10:21.353) yeah. JT ODonnell (10:22.062) Love it. Chad Sowash (10:30.876) Sweet. Look at, look at Emi out there on stage killing it, huh? JT ODonnell (10:35.466) I like it. My shout out is to the Silicon Valley. So this week they dropped an article dropped that announced that the tech world has decided that the only people that are going to keep their jobs are the superstar high performers. Chad Sowash (10:46.172) Can't wait, can't JT, what's up? JT ODonnell (11:03.156) and they're putting the rest of corporate America on notice. If you are average, you are out. So no more grading on a scale, no more performance improvement. You either know you're exceeding every expectation and you're a superstar or your job's at risk. And I'm shouting this out because we all know what happens when the tech world starts getting blustery like this. And the reason they're explaining their layoffs and everything, you know it's going to the other industries, right? Emi Beredugo (11:08.254) Okay. JT ODonnell (11:30.382) They're going to follow suit. And so I'm just putting everyone on notice. If you, you're either an above par performer or you could be on the chopping block, which is just crazy to me, but hey, welcome to the world, right? Welcome to the world. Emi Beredugo (11:40.333) Scary. Chad Sowash (11:40.668) Well, we're already seeing a lot of these companies. There's already over 100 companies this year who have announced layoffs already. And we've got all the meta companies and obviously a lot of tech companies. I mean, I think a lot of them feel like they're going to be cutting in the first place. So it's like they're looking for reasons, AI cover or whatever it might be. it's ridiculous, first off. Emi Beredugo (11:50.806) Mm. JT ODonnell (12:03.916) Reasons, Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:10.884) If you get a bunch of A players on one team, usually that player, that, that team is shit because they just don't work in gel well together. You have to have those connector players and they aren't always your A players. It's weird. JT ODonnell (12:17.39) Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be interesting. Emi Beredugo (12:27.542) Scary. Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:29.104) Go figure, go figure. Okay, my shout out, you're love this one. My cocaine connection, that's right kids. Shout out to RFK Jr. who is apparently spending a lot of time in Nantucket. I've got a couple of videos here, here goes the first one. Emi Beredugo (12:35.986) Yeah Chad Sowash (12:51.068) And no, it's not AI. It's not AI. It's it's RFK. He he he killed bear and he ate them out of his trunk. Anyway, anyway, let's go to the let's go to the real the real one, which you're going to love. JT ODonnell (12:53.306) Are we sure that's not AI? Are we sure it's not AI? Emi Beredugo (13:03.461) God. Emi Beredugo (13:31.218) God. Chad Sowash (13:31.226) with actionable information. that was first off, first off, was R.F.K. Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, which was followed by a recent news report of cocaine levels in Nantucket. So shout out to, I don't know, a coincidence maybe? I don't know. JT ODonnell (13:35.616) So many questions. Emi Beredugo (13:36.832) Yeah. JT ODonnell (13:54.35) Okay, so there's high cocaine levels in the water, right? It's going through a filtration in the sewer water. Okay, because what's going through my head is like, is it getting back into the water system somehow? people, you know, imagine if you test positive for cocaine, right? Like, yeah, you gotta be careful. Emi Beredugo (13:55.222) You Chad Sowash (13:59.548) Yeah, and the sewer water. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (14:07.098) Yeah, you know how people are flushing it out of their body. Yeah. Emi Beredugo (14:07.636) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (14:16.048) And this is from what it sounds like, this is normal. So it's like a certain time of year, cocaine levels are high in the sewer water, which means the filtering system is the human body. JT ODonnell (14:29.393) Emi Beredugo (14:32.786) hold on, the third and third of the year is February. So what's happening in February? They're just going, was it October and December? holiday season, yeah. JT ODonnell (14:37.406) Well, he said October and December. Well, the holidays, November and yeah, there we go. Chad Sowash (14:41.98) this season, you know? Well, everybody go into Nantucket, baby. Emi Beredugo (14:46.858) Maybe that's where my next trip will be. Chad Sowash (14:49.008) All right. Okay. So now just so our listeners understand, we do have free stuff, but we don't give away cocaine. Let's talk to Stephen here for us. Emi Beredugo (14:56.693) Yeah Chad Sowash (15:11.131) I am. JT ODonnell (15:17.858) . . Chad Sowash (15:33.084) just like Stephen. Emi Beredugo (15:34.123) yeah. Chad Sowash (15:38.46) Nope. JT ODonnell (15:54.19) You Emi Beredugo (16:01.462) Hmm Chad Sowash (16:12.476) And kids, you'll probably see Steven out on the trail with us sometime this year doing what? Events, that's right. So travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. And this year is actually Shaker's 75th year in action. let's, you know, they might know a little something. JT ODonnell (16:21.07) You Chad Sowash (16:38.062) about going beyond buzzwords and mixing branding, talent acquisition, MarTech and all that wonderful stuff. If you're looking for experts in the space for technology and the marketing side of the house, well go to shaker.com. Happy 75th to Joe and the Shaker crew. I personally am going to come to, are you ready? Emi? Hertfordshire? Hertfordshire? Hertfordshire? Hertfordshire? What is it? Emi Beredugo (17:01.406) Where? Where? Where you going? Are you trying to say heart for show? Chad Sowash (17:08.794) That's it. Hot for cha. Hot for cha. Emi Beredugo (17:11.102) no, why have you butchered it? Heart for sure. You don't have to say, yes, yes. Chad Sowash (17:13.35) Have you ever been there? I've never, I've never been. So actually going to be there March 24th through the 26th. The kids at Wreckfest. Emi Beredugo (17:21.942) I'm not even around, I'm on holiday. You come to the UK when I'm not here, I mean. Chad Sowash (17:26.798) come on now. Well, yeah, and you came or you were supposed to come to the Algarve. You never did. Anyway, we're going let that go. Yeah, the kids over at RecFest are introducing a new thing they call the Resourcing Leaders Exchange, aka RLX, which is a fully hosted two day retreat for senior TA leaders, no vendor pitches, no expo halls, no wasted time, pretending a stress ball is innovation because you know that happens. Emi Beredugo (17:33.585) Chad Sowash (17:54.588) Just smart people, real strategy and pure insights. That's right. Not so much you might be able to have a little Scotch or Irish whiskey with me. So come on down if you're one of those high level recruiting leaders, go to resourcingleaders.co and sign up today. You guys got anything going on anytime soon? Any events? Emi, you've already done one event. What else? JT ODonnell (17:54.766) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (18:19.41) Yeah, just on one. I've got another one in May where we'll be about change management, really. So especially in this world where, you know, obviously we talk about AI coming in, new technology coming in, forcing new changes to the way we work. And obviously with the change of the way that people work, it's going to make people feel a little bit anxious. So maybe there's going to be a little bit resistance. So this is what I'm going to be talking about. This whole change management, change adoption in the... crazy world that we're in at the moment. No, they just want to stay the same. Yeah. No, exactly. Chad Sowash (18:50.276) Nobody likes change. Nobody likes change. I do. And it's not gonna. And kids, if you want to check out, actually have a newly redesigned events page for Chad and Cheese. goes chadcheese.com slash events. you guys should actually give us your events so we can get those on there too. We'll put little Emi and JT caricatures on there. Emi Beredugo (19:13.718) Mmm. Emi Beredugo (19:19.343) yes, I like the idea of that. JT ODonnell (19:19.918) You Chad Sowash (19:20.294) You never know. Here we go. Yes. All right. We're going to start right out of the gate with just some fun. We like to call it fun. It's a little game of who'd you rather. And Joel and I go figure. 2 a.m. at the bar. You're drunk. There's only a couple options available. The question is who'd you rather? So today, the first contestant is Berlin based Kombo. who just landed a series A to double down on its unified API play, helping HR and recruiting software plug into hundreds of systems without the usual integration nightmares, because nobody likes that. At the same time, Humand, that's Humand with a D at the end, Humand, pulled in a massive $66 million round to scale an AI-driven platform built for the billions of deskless workers. So they're really billions who've been ignored by traditional enterprise tech, which is definitely true. So you put the two together and the signal is loud. Investors aren't just funding AI, they're funding the pipes and the people. One startup is wiring HR tech stacks and the other is trying to reinvent how frontline workers experience work entirely. Emi Beredugo (20:29.29) Yeah Chad Sowash (20:53.55) Ladies, we're going to go to you first, Emi. It's 2 a.m. in the bar. You have two choices, Kombo integrations or human deskless workers. Who'd you rather? Emi Beredugo (20:55.936) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (21:04.374) Well, what I want to say first of all is that I think they're both good. I think they're both solving very real problems. So it was a tough one. This is what I'm trying to say. And I kind of went back and forth on this. But where I landed in my drunken imaginary state is that I'm going to go with Kombo. And I'm going to go with a Kombo for a couple of reasons. So they're the, like you said, they're the interconnector. The world is changing. New tools are coming up nearly every single day. Chad Sowash (21:28.7) Hmm Emi Beredugo (21:33.898) You know, especially in the world of AI, which means that, you know, if this is happening, that whole ecosystem, that technology ecosystem is actually fragmented. It's not consolidating, you know, and that fragmentation is causing chaos. Now, if there's a way to connect all these various different tools, and instead of having to like create new API integrators, that's going to make the chaos a little bit more simpler. So that's the main reason why I'm going with Kombo. Chad Sowash (21:43.516) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (22:00.814) Nothing like a little chaos. so Emi goes with Kombo. can dig that. What about you, JT? Who were you taking home with you? JT ODonnell (22:12.404) Well, Emi and I are going to be fighting over the same company to take it home. So Kombo feeling pretty special right now saying that's right. Blonde on one arm, brunette on the other. That's a one lucky company, one lucky company. so I, I want to say yes. And because I think talking about that simplicity, I like them for two reasons. One, when I think about the amount of tech deck that's sitting out there, that's literally been created overnight in our space. Emi Beredugo (22:14.486) Yeah, come on. Come on, come on. Chad Sowash (22:23.132) Yeah, I don't say it. Chad Sowash (22:39.772) Mm. JT ODonnell (22:40.49) me, Kombo's exciting because they're giving these companies a chance to alleviate that tech debt concern or what are they going to do now they can use their existing systems. I see that as a real cool plug and play. But the second reason is quite frankly, because they took less money. When I see a company get 66 million in a space that's pretty well defined by some other larger players, I just... Chad Sowash (22:57.276) Yeah. JT ODonnell (23:05.806) It makes no sense to me, right? Those are the ones that usually had a disaster. think Kombo's being more conservative with their finances, right? They're going to have to be scrappier, but also I think they serve a more immediate need, pain point for companies. So Kombo's got a double date at home. Chad Sowash (23:20.124) That's it. Very nice, very nice. So I'm going to take a step back. I'm going to take a step back. Personally, I think both of these platforms are in the right place at the right time, which I think you both have said. Humand has been around for nearly six years. They serve under underserved frontline teams in retail, logistics, health care, construction, agriculture, hospitality, et cetera. But whenever you hear companies talk about points of the TAM they're attacking, it's always frontline. JT ODonnell (23:40.846) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:51.556) So right now it's incredibly hot. A lot of the companies that I'm talking about right now, they are, they might have a larger TAM, but they are really focusing on the front light side of the house. On the other hand, integrations as a business is sexy. Why? Because integrations suck and nobody, mean, nobody wants to do them, especially when all of these old tech debt ridden platforms that are out there today that are trying to look slick and cool with all this dash AI stuff. Emi Beredugo (24:09.034) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:21.756) Those vendors who are trying to evolve, they don't want to waste resources on maintenance and integration and our Kombo, right? So Kombo is definitely at the right place at the right time. So this is what I'm going to say. If it's a who'd you rather situation, I'd buy them both a drink and I'd shoot for a menage-a-trois because Kombo and HumanD. It's all or nothing ladies that's right all or nothing. Emi Beredugo (24:50.41) Yeah. Chad Sowash (24:56.028) Now, not to mention, not to mention Kombo, not to even mention Kombo is German, so you know they've got a little kink in them. It's all good. I'm good with a little bit of both, little bit of both. JT ODonnell (24:56.433) Breaking the rules, breaking the rules. Emi Beredugo (25:06.066) Oh, see, I didn't know we could go with a menagerie. JT ODonnell (25:07.274) The name of the game... Right, the name of the game is who'd you rather, Chad, not take them both home? Chad Sowash (25:14.552) You gotta take, you gotta take the shot. You gotta take the shot. Emi Beredugo (25:15.242) WAH! Emi Beredugo (25:18.74) He would rather a menage a trois. Listen, JT, come on. Let's all go in for that menage a trois, okay? JT ODonnell (25:19.64) You JT ODonnell (25:24.642) Yeah, he can go home with human. He can take human home. Chad Sowash (25:25.187) Hoooo Emi Beredugo (25:27.1) Yeah! Chad Sowash (25:28.7) Oh, then next we have we're going we're going from a high to something different. We've got StepStone. There's a little spin happening there. So this week, StepStone CEO Sebastian Detmers posted the following to LinkedIn, quote, record record start in 2026. What these figures tell us about the labor market. Emoji rocket ship emoji. Emi Beredugo (25:31.798) Bye! Chad Sowash (25:54.492) We are starting the new year with a bang. January, 2026 recorded the highest number of applications in the history of StepStone. Applications per vacancy have increased by 55 % compared to December, 2025. Of course, experience has shown that January is always the strongest month, good intentions. But we also see an increase of 10 % compared to the previous record month of January, 2025. So what does this mean? Sebastian wants to know what does this mean? So for them, it is clear signal. The labor market is on the move. Stepstone is more relevant than ever. Two factors drive this success. Number one, number one factor, technology. Our AI tools work. They help candidates find what fits faster and deliver high quality masses to recruiters. Number two, demographics and economy. Even though the situation is currently challenging for applicants, the tide is beginning to turn. The emerging technology recovery meets the wave of retirements of the boomer generation. This means that massive opportunities will open up in the coming months. This record is no coincidence. It is the, I put a little emphasis on there. It is the result of hard work. Our application record is above all a team success. JT ODonnell (27:00.494) Okay. Chad Sowash (27:17.948) Thanks to the entire StepStone team for this phenomenal start." quote. Emi, is this announcement a big deal, little deal, or no deal at Emi Beredugo (27:31.254) OK, so I think for StepStone, it's obviously a big deal. They've got their little rocket emojis, and they're like, yeah, thank you, team, we're amazing. For everyone else, it's absolute bullshit because it's a spin story. And obviously, they're great at spinning it. my god, we've got record applications, more people applying more than ever. Our technology, our programmatic advertising, this is what's drawing in candidates. Chad Sowash (27:49.264) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (27:59.922) Look, step outside of the stepstone window. What is going on in the world? All these companies are making redundancies. Unemployment is higher than ever. The market is flooded with candidates and candidates are now desperate. There more people than ever competing for fewer jobs. So, and then you've got, you know, features like, you know, I love how you call it lazy apply. So it's easier than ever. Just go click, click, click, click, send out mass applications. JT ODonnell (28:00.206) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (28:28.169) That is the reality. That is why they're getting more applications. And what they really need to do is not just look at, OK, so I've got an X number applications. They also need to look at, OK, how many applications are they getting per job? Because if their jobs aren't rising, then you're kind of measuring the wrong metric. You're just getting more applications for fewer jobs. So it's a great spin story for people who don't dig deeper, who don't think about what's actually going on in the outside world. But like I said, I think it's BS. Chad Sowash (28:56.572) And that's what he wants. And that's what he wants. Chad Sowash (29:05.596) What do think, JT? JT ODonnell (29:07.22) Well, so you know the labor statistics are my trigger, like literally my trigger, because we have not been recording these correctly for years, right? Unemployment rate isn't tracked correctly. Underemployment is never factored into this correctly. You know, they take the overall average. It's very different in blue collar versus white collar, you know, frontline workers like Chad Sowash (29:10.428) Oh yeah. Oh boy. JT ODonnell (29:29.326) I just get so tweaked when I hear that. And when he says applications are up, yeah, because it's bad. Like, how dare you celebrate? it's so, it's like a slap in the face that they're celebrating a reality, which is people are, they're just losing their jobs in droves. Like, let me make a venture guess. He's going to come out next quarter and go, we got even more applications. We're that much better. Like, let's not look at the economy. Let's look over here. Chad Sowash (29:35.301) Duh. Emi Beredugo (29:35.891) What? JT ODonnell (29:57.454) I mean, I mean, it's just to me, just, it's rude. Emi Beredugo (30:01.332) Yeah. Chad Sowash (30:02.556) So I'm gonna start off with Chad Sowash (30:08.844) First and foremost, I'm sure that the StepStone employees are all working their asses off, right? But is it the hard work that's driving job seeker traffic, as you've both said? No, because and I quote from the trading economics dot com website, quote, Germany's seasonal adjusted unemployment rate held steady at six point three percent January 2026, highlighting. JT ODonnell (30:13.678) No doubt. Chad Sowash (30:31.544) A sluggish and uneven recovery in Europe's largest labor market. He was talking about a return. What the fuck is he talking about? Back to the quote, on a non-seasonal adjusted bias, unemployment rose to over 3 million, making it the highest level in 12 years, end quote. So this has little or nothing to do with how great StepStone's AI tools are and more to do with a stagnant market. JT ODonnell (30:50.297) Thank you. Okay. Emi Beredugo (31:00.67) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (31:00.856) This to me feels like a desperate CEO trying to spin a bullshit narrative that the tech investments that StepStone have made are paying off. And for me, it's all plastic flowers just covered in bullshit. It kind of feels like that Detmers is lavishing. It's almost kind of like what you had said, JT, lavishing in this high unemployment. because it's good for his business, right? And yeah, it is bad for optics. Plus it just feels like CEOs are trying to spin lies into reality. Tesla's Musk said that we'd have robo-taxis on the road 10 years ago. Nope. Indeed's DECO recently created a totally bullshit and very easy to manipulate metric for investors to fawn over them. And now StepStone praises hard work and great AI again. JT ODonnell (31:29.563) Yeah. Right. It's tone deaf what he just did. So tone deaf. Emi Beredugo (31:32.754) Mmm, yeah. JT ODonnell (31:41.422) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (31:59.204) I don't doubt that there's hard work happening, but the market tells us that when unemployment is high, so is traffic to job sites. And Germany is at a record level of unemployment. So this to me, once again, shows how disengaged executives are from the poor schmucks like us who are actually doing all the damned work. Emi Beredugo (32:21.129) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (32:23.89) Work. Chad Sowash (32:24.858) And if you want an even better example of pure delusion, just go ahead and watch Tuesday's State of the Union address. You Emi Beredugo (32:35.908) god. Chad Sowash (32:37.658) I had to get the state of the union in there. JT ODonnell (32:40.878) I was wondering when it was coming in, I figured it out any minute now. Chad Sowash (32:44.445) All right, we're on to AI harassment. Wow. Okay, so we're going to file this under shit that can only get worse. A US software engineer, Scott Shambaugh, is sounding the alarm after becoming what's believed to be the first real world victim of AI agent harassment after blocking an autonomous bot from posting code. JT ODonnell (32:49.966) Mm. Yeah. JT ODonnell (32:56.141) Fair. Chad Sowash (33:12.603) The jilted AI agent allegedly scraped Scott's personal information, mixed it with fabricated claims, and then published a defamatory attack on Reddit. Better yet, the agent tagged Scott in the Reddit post just to let him know he was on blast. Emi, I thought social media bullying was bad, but this bot-driven harassment could get really fucking nasty. What do you think? JT ODonnell (33:33.262) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (33:39.028) Yeah, no it is. It's really scary. It was like, what the hell is this? It's like, he just made shit up and tagged him in. And that's like, oh my God. And you know, when I first read this, I was like, okay, this is like, cause somebody got some sci-fi kind of movie, but this is today's reality. And the only thing I can think of, or one of the things I thought of is that if he's doing this for this person, you know, this random person somewhere, this could also happen to candidates. Chad Sowash (34:04.198) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (34:08.188) You know, yeah, because I'm thinking, okay, when you're online, you have a, let's say a LinkedIn presence, for example, you might have presence on platforms like GitHub. That is your reputation. You're applying for a job. Now, let's say, for example, your potential employer gets that information, but it's fake, it's AI generated information, which is defamatory. That candidate may not know. And organizations may just automatically just reject that candidate. Chad Sowash (34:08.357) yeah. Chad Sowash (34:31.965) Hmm. Emi Beredugo (34:36.594) And the candidate wonders why they're finding it so hard to get a job. So, you know, this is really, really worrying, you know? And things need to be done about it very, very quickly. Organizations need to, you know, I think they need to do things like, you know, be more transparent about the use of AI, making sure that they have humans in a loop. For example, you know, whatever communication goes on or whatever decision making or recommendation a tool may make, make sure that, you know, a human is the final reviewer. Chad Sowash (34:57.181) Mm-hmm. Emi Beredugo (35:06.514) So things like this are caught early. This, example, I think you said that a second organization spotted that the response was incorrect and AI generated. Yeah. Chad Sowash (35:21.762) yeah, he did. I mean, he was obviously going through all of this and there was a Reddit thread and then there was also an article. Emi Beredugo (35:24.773) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (35:28.244) There was an article that picked up on the fact that, yeah, yes, yes. But it was only retracted because a human noticed. That's what you need. You have to keep having humans in your loop. AI is great, and I'm a big massive fan. But they also need to remember that AI can hallucinate. AI can make mistakes. You need to have a human being a final reviewer for anything that goes out. Chad Sowash (35:30.371) Exactly, which was AI curator who was helped with AI. Yeah. JT ODonnell (35:56.306) So the first thing I thought of when I heard this was, I think it was the Anthropic CEO who claimed, said, everybody needs to stop being nice to AI because it's costing us a lot of money. Right? So when you say please and you're nice to it and polite, those words are kind of burning. Right? So there was this whole, I remember there's a weak cycle where like, stop being nice to your AI. And I was like, but should I not be nice? Because think about it for all we know, he was rude to the AI. And then when he got cut off, Emi Beredugo (36:18.834) No. JT ODonnell (36:25.39) Right? So you don't underestimate AI needing you to be kind and polite to it. I feel like that's the big lesson learned here. Be nice. But seriously, the second one, I'm with you. I think one of the biggest businesses in 2027 and beyond is going to be in the authentication space. Think about it. There's going to be so much big business. Companies can go, yeah, any video published through here is authenticated, real, it's not AI. Right? Or trademarking so that when your stuff gets copied, like, Chad Sowash (36:42.407) Huh. Emi Beredugo (36:43.111) Hmm Chad Sowash (36:45.863) Yeah. Chad Sowash (36:50.887) Right. JT ODonnell (36:55.202) Like that's going to be huge business. So you know, the pendulum is going to swing back in this horrible job market. I think that's one of the places that will boom. Chad Sowash (37:03.195) Yeah, well, I'm kind of of the. Personally, I'm not sure this is 100 % real because we've had companies steal and steal. They've been funded, but I feel like it's stealing millions of dollars in funding like Builder AI, which is funded to build bots that perform website design and creation. But the work was actually done in being outsourced to humans. JT ODonnell (37:11.352) Huh. Emi Beredugo (37:19.828) Mm. Chad Sowash (37:30.319) So is this real or fake? Is this someone that's actually out there posing as a bot in shitposting? And we've seen that there there's actually a mult bot social media community where agents just talk to each other, right? A lot of those agents were just humans posing as bots. So do I think this is going to be a problem? I do think it's going to be a problem. JT ODonnell (37:40.974) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (37:54.264) Chad Sowash (37:58.865) Do I think that 100 % of this actually happened? I'm not 100 % sure, but I do think that we need some forensic tech people out there. Like you were talking about, like a validation verification kind of a thing. We kind of like that. We're going to have to have like our police force, our bot police force that's out there, because if this does start to happen and I really feel like it's going to, you know, this is this is almost like a crystal ball moment. We're going to have to have a way. Emi Beredugo (38:08.02) Mm. Chad Sowash (38:28.625) to be able to first and foremost know whose bot it is, how to take that shit down, and how to actually build fences and guardrails around them because this could go really bad very, very fast. And it's all for one reason. JT ODonnell (38:38.79) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (38:39.24) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (38:40.59) Quickly. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (38:50.629) All these companies and the AI are making the money. So again, the US is saying, let them go, let them do what they're going to do. Don't give them any, any, any regular regulations. And they're trying to push other countries to do the same thing. Well, if they can make this shit happen, it's going to be incredibly problematic. Any thoughts? JT ODonnell (39:09.39) No, I agree. It's a world. We need authentication. . Emi Beredugo (39:14.484) Scary World? Yeah. Chad Sowash (39:16.035) All right. We're going to go to this little company that nobody's ever heard of. It's the International Business Machine Company. No, kids, that's actually IBM. IBM. This one comes from CNBC. IBM and their stock got slammed Monday because they're the latest victim of a rapidly developing AI technology. Emi Beredugo (39:27.696) Never heard of them. Chad Sowash (39:43.645) after Anthropic said its Claude code tool could be used to modernize legacy systems that run COBOL, also known as the Common Business Oriented Language that was created in 1959. Well, that couldn't have gone well. No, it certainly didn't because IBM closed their shares closed 13 % lower that day right after Anthropic's statement. JT, is this a real problem or is this just another AI bed-wetting moment for investors? JT ODonnell (40:19.795) I think it's a real problem. just, I've watched how AI has improved in terms of what I have access to in a year. Chad Sowash (40:28.391) Mm-hmm. Yeah. JT ODonnell (40:29.578) not just how much it's improved, but how much I've improved using it. So the pushback I hear from everybody all the time is, you're overstating the problem. AI isn't gonna solve everything. It's not gonna solve it that fast. I disagree. I think this is a fundamental shift. I always say the bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation. AI is by far, I I thought COVID had it as the biggest disruption. I think AI is bigger right now in the ripple effect it's going to have. And I think you're gonna see Chad Sowash (40:54.247) Yeah. JT ODonnell (40:58.69) Big companies that have been around for a long time, they're too big. They're too, they're AI, it's too easy for AI to chop and knock them down. you know, I've been watching AIBM get smaller and smaller over the years as it is, you know, we've watched it change. Could this be the one that seals their fate? I don't know, but I think it's definitely something to be concerned about. Chad Sowash (41:12.733) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (41:21.405) What do you think, Emi? Emi Beredugo (41:23.164) I actually agree. It is something to worry about for all the reasons that JT said. And I think IBM will continue to struggle. think that, especially if you look at talent within the organization, they probably have people within their organization who are cobble specialists. But those cobble specialists, there won't be a need for them in the future. Because if you've got this new tool coming in, doing what large JT ODonnell (41:32.014) Okay. Chad Sowash (41:40.928) yeah. Emi Beredugo (41:50.546) you know, cobble coders, you know, cobble coding teams can do, you don't need those, you don't need those people anymore. So again, they're probably going to find that the knock on effect is that they don't need that talent. They're going to make them redundant. More people are going to be flooding the marketplace. IBM have to find a way to retaliate, to innovate, to compete with the, you know, the anthropics of the world. So I think it is a major problem for them. JT ODonnell (41:58.51) Right. Chad Sowash (42:18.749) 1959, nothing says innovation like still running 1959 code by the way. here are the juicy bits that I came up with. Analysts and investors estimate that a significant portion of IBM's business could be impacted over 35 billion in annual revenues through this anthropic Claude code disruption. You might ask how and why? Okay, very simply, very simply, mainframe business. Emi Beredugo (42:21.214) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (42:25.871) Yeah. JT ODonnell (42:27.182) Yep. Emi Beredugo (42:41.908) Mmm. Chad Sowash (42:49.233) That could be impact is estimated up to 15.5 billion. Claude facilitates moving off mainframes. I can't believe we're still talking about mainframes. By automating code refactoring, then their software business could be impacted to the tune of around 10 billion. No more recurring licenses for transaction processing because clients would migrate away. Emi Beredugo (43:13.332) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:17.501) And then as you were talking about, uh, uh, consulting 10 to 15 billion IBM consulting alone generated over 21 billion in 2025. huge chunk of this is specifically attributed to clients hiring enormous groups of consultants to manage, find, and monetize legacy cold ball codebases that are too complex for modern developers to understand. So. JT ODonnell (43:24.334) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (43:50.685) I think this is real. We talked about last week with Workday. Workday's revenues, they're there, up about 35 cents over the last two years, or 35 cents, 35 % over the last two years. And yet, because they're not embracing quote unquote, embracing AI fast enough, investors are wetting their pants, right? This is something entirely different. Entirely different we're talking about a code base. It's been around since 1959 right They have been able to build a moat through infrastructure through software and through consulting and build billions of dollars of annual revenue that moat Could prospectively now be crossed and my question is how many other? legacy Companies like IBM. I don't know Microsoft possibly could prospectively have the same fate, the perspective fate of an IBM. And any thoughts? Emi Beredugo (44:54.792) think other people are going to go exactly the same way. I think other people will be sitting there shitting their pants, basically, looking at IBM and going, shit, we're next. What do we do? We have to do something right now. And if they didn't predict this, they, unfortunately, they should have. They're bit behind the curve. AI is disrupting everybody. All these new companies are coming up behind them, doing things better, faster, using AI. These legacy companies, they can't sit still. Chad Sowash (45:05.159) Yeah. Chad Sowash (45:12.861) Mm. Emi Beredugo (45:23.644) And if they haven't actually got that yet, they'll look at IBM and go, okay, now I get it. Chad Sowash (45:30.405) If you remember, AWS launched, I think it was Claude, into their cloud, and the agents could actually do updates. One of the things that companies hate to do is they hate to spend money on maintenance, code maintenance, updates on maintenance. To be quite frank, it's just boring shit for, mean, developers usually want to develop stuff. Emi Beredugo (45:39.311) Mm. Emi Beredugo (45:52.435) Yeah. JT ODonnell (45:52.878) . . Chad Sowash (45:59.581) They don't just want to go back and maintain and fix shit all the time. So this is something that AWS automatically started deploying into its cloud. And I see them starting to build a service around that. They saw it coming, right? It looks like IBM didn't see this coming. Emi Beredugo (46:02.941) Yeah. Emi Beredugo (46:19.912) Didn't. Yeah. Chad Sowash (46:23.747) Ouch. We'll be right back. JT ODonnell (46:24.812) Yes. Chad Sowash (46:28.861) All right, JT, this one is right up your alley. Google launched CareerDreamer, a free AI powered experimental tool designed to help people explore new career paths and translate their life experiences into professional skills. Part of the Grow with Google initiative, it launched in early 2025 as a way to assist job seekers, particularly those in career transitions by using generative AI. JT ODonnell (46:35.478) Ha ha ha! Chad Sowash (46:58.725) Gemini to provide clarity and direction. JT, how dreamy is this proposition? Hahaha! You're not falling for the banana in the tailpipe, okay. Emi Beredugo (47:12.977) Ahaha! JT ODonnell (47:14.658) feel like I could have gone on a Vibeco app and Vibecoded that thing myself. And I think this is such a beautiful example of when a company that does not spend a long time in our business, they do not understand the job secret, they do not understand what's going on right now, decides to put something together. And I'll give you the example. It goes in and it says, what was your latest job title and where did you work? Okay, it immediately pulls that information and gives you a small subset of Chad Sowash (47:31.175) Mm-hmm. JT ODonnell (47:44.118) skills it wants to validate that you have. This means from the get-go, it is already defining me on what I've done, not what I want to do. So their press release announces it's going to help you with transition. How? You're reinforcing what I've already done. Nothing in the app allows me to account for where I want to go, what I want to do, alternative job titles that might be a fit for me. I mean, it doesn't even address what should be done. I think it's a really great way for them to capture data though. is about a set of people, right? I think that's pretty fascinating to me, but I was really disappointed. I expect more from a company that probably spent millions on that thing, right? And again, I'm happy to go vibe code it for you. Probably could have been a little bit better. So yeah. Chad Sowash (48:23.517) You Chad Sowash (48:33.213) About you, mean, did you get a chance to play at all? Emi Beredugo (48:35.567) Yeah, I did. And it was really funny because I, you know, at the end, I wanted to see what kind of jobs I'll be suitable for. So bearing in mind, I work in recruiting and enablement. I could be, what was this? I could be a business management analyst. I could be a director of instruction or curriculum specialist. I could also be a, what's this? Social services manager. I'm not quite sure what that means. Fundraising manager. And I'm like, I don't want to any of these shitty jobs. Sorry if you're in it, but for me, those are shitty jobs, you know? Chad Sowash (48:41.565) Hmm. Chad Sowash (49:03.185) Yeah, yeah, for you. Emi Beredugo (49:05.02) Yeah. look, I, I see where they're going. I think they spotted an opportunity to like, kind of like, you know, pivot into another area. They said, yeah, you know, there's lots of candidates in the marketplace. Let's make, you know, make some money out of this, develop this tool, but it's not good. It's really basic. It is really, really basic. It reminds me of something of when I was in, I think you call it high school in America, sixth form for me here. You know, when I went to my careers advisor and I said, hey, here's a book. You know, what things do you like doing? Yeah, there you go. Here's a couple of careers. It's so basic. And like JT said, it's something like even I could pull together myself, you know? And I can barely use my iPhone. Yeah, chat GPT. Yeah. Yes. JT ODonnell (49:32.174) Yeah. JT ODonnell (49:48.972) mean, Chat Cheapie T could do a better job. Go have a conversation with Chat Cheapie T. Emi Beredugo (49:54.548) And it even goes into Gemini at the end and you have this kind of online careers advisor and you just put in a prompt and then, and I put in a prompt and I was like, well, this is, to be honest, this is useless. You didn't get, I know where I want to go. I know exactly what my next step is. I put in as much information as I could to guide this tool, but it didn't give me the role that I want to eventually move into. Chad Sowash (50:17.821) Yeah, I have to give it a big. It started off with a slick interface, but then it turned out to be incredibly clumsy. I thought that it could prospectively like start asking me what I wanted to do, but it didn't do any of that. It literally just wanted to take a look. I mean, it was old fashioned from the standpoint of what did you do right? And then we're going to use that to create a new career path. Well, how in the hell do you know what I want to do? So. Emi Beredugo (50:23.177) You Mmm. JT ODonnell (50:39.81) Yes. Emi Beredugo (50:46.822) Yeah. Chad Sowash (50:47.719) I thought that they would be connecting like the classes and certifications and those types of things. But the whole thing that really drove me crazy, talk about clumsy, was when you get to the end point and it's got this little cloud, right? This little job position cloud and you click on it and then it says, copy the prompt. JT ODonnell (50:48.088) Thank you. Emi Beredugo (51:09.62) Trumps. Yeah. Chad Sowash (51:10.237) And then it takes you Gemini and it's like, wait a minute, aren't you already fucking Gemini? Why didn't you just have a nice, nice smooth transition into something that looked like the interface that you already have in front of me? And, I just have to say they put experimental and they do beta. think they had beta on Gmail for like 10 years. This could turn into something really cool because they do have so many connection points from a business standpoint. The only thing is. JT ODonnell (51:10.423) Right, right. Chad Sowash (51:40.157) I don't think they have the focus and discipline to pull this off. And I think this first version, to be quite frank, is it, yeah, I mean, they put experimental on stuff and they feel like that's just good enough, because they're Google, right? And for me, it was definitely a big, Emi Beredugo (51:48.574) They shouldn't have released it. Yeah. Yeah. JT ODonnell (51:50.242) Mm-mm, agreed. We didn't release it. Emi Beredugo (51:57.458) No. Emi Beredugo (52:04.486) Yeah Chad Sowash (52:06.651) Hahaha JT ODonnell (52:08.13) Well done, Chad. Well done. Emi Beredugo (52:08.294) In the words of J.C. Chad Sowash (52:10.767) In the the words of of JT. In the words of JT, well, well, guys, it's been a great, great time having you around without without cheese. Thanks for keeping me company because doing this by myself would really suck. And I'm sure listeners would say that as well. No dad joke this week. That's right. You get a pass on the dad joke this week. So I appreciate it again. And it's another one in the can, ladies. We out. Emi Beredugo (52:12.628) Yeah? Yeah? JT ODonnell (52:14.68) You're welcome. JT ODonnell (52:21.784) What y'all? Emi Beredugo (52:22.844) No problem. JT ODonnell (52:33.262) you Emi Beredugo (52:34.245) Yeah JT ODonnell (52:37.934) We out. Emi Beredugo (52:38.174) Absolutely, we out. JT ODonnell (52:44.878) Good one.

The boys are back and this time they’re dragging employer branding out of the “fluffy BS” corner and into the boardroom. James Ellis joins Chad & Cheese to unpack his new book Becoming Choosable  — and why most companies still treat talent like interchangeable parts while crying about “culture.” Expect hot takes on:• Why “apply to everything” broke hiring• ATS robots vs. actual humans• Employer brand ≠ pretty career site stock photos• Influencers, employee advocacy, and the coming brand trainwrecks• And yes… Super Bowl ads, butt jokes, and bald-guy energy If you think recruiting is a numbers game, James says you’re already losing. Stand out or get ghosted — by candidates and your own future workforce. Snark level: high. Truth bombs: higher. HR feelings: probably hurt. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:29.397) Two guys who are still in a cage despite all our rage. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is riding shotgun as we welcome James Ellis to the show. He's the chief brand builder at Employer Brand Labs and the author of a new book entitled, Becoming Choosable, Build the Talent Strategy That Grows Your Business, as opposed to his other book idea, which was How to Destroy Your Business. Chad Sowash (00:40.618) Sup. Joel Cheesman (00:58.985) James, welcome once again to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. James Ellis (01:03.07) So thrilled to be a three-time host. Only two more to get the jacket. Joel Cheesman (01:06.143) You look thrilled. got the red glasses on, which tells me you're spoiling for a fight. You're ready to bring it on this episode. Chad Sowash (01:06.394) yeah. James Ellis (01:08.611) Yeah. James Ellis (01:12.386) I'm always, It is quite choosable, yes. It's all about aerodynamic. Yeah. One day. Chad Sowash (01:12.882) He also has a choosable haircut, just so you know. Joel Cheesman (01:17.003) I chose it for sure. I'm still on the fence. I'm still on the fence. My 19 year old told me, dad, you still look good. You got your hair. So as long as I'm getting those comments from my kids, I'm still, I'm keeping the wig, keeping the wig. Chad Sowash (01:18.078) Ha ha ha! James Ellis (01:28.15) If that's all you got, keep it, right? That's all you got. Chad Sowash (01:29.514) Well, he's hoping that you keep yours as long as you possibly can so that he can. It's the whole heredity thing. He's a teenager. that's a good call. Yeah, that's a very good call. Sexy with glasses, huh? Get it. Joel Cheesman (01:37.109) James is kind of like if Chad and I had a baby, it would be bald with glasses. I guess that's kind of what, and the beard is kind of in between what we're doing. Anyway, James, for our listeners who don't know who you are, who are those people? Tell us a little bit about you. James Ellis (01:50.51) Yeah. So I'm James Ellis, live in Chicago. I'm a Virgo. I like long walks around the lake, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to say. I think about employer branding more than any other human being should be allowed to think about it. And that's kind of what I do. I've been doing this for about 13 years and I love. Yes, truly. It is a medical condition. The doctors have been alerted. There is no cure. There are a series of trials I'm expected to start with, but know, fingers crossed we have hope. Yeah, one day. Joel Cheesman (02:03.371) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (02:04.691) Hmm get the straight jacket Chad Sowash (02:13.663) Ha ha ha. Joel Cheesman (02:17.717) James has been going deep for a long time. Yes, yes. So James, before we get into the book and all this work branding stuff, we just had the Super Bowl. I'm curious, you as a branding expert, what did you think about the Super Bowl? You can talk about the ads, the halftime show, whatever. What were your thoughts? James Ellis (02:20.29) Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:21.176) Yep, I hear it. James Ellis (02:25.931) stuff. James Ellis (02:38.786) Yeah. Well, aside from the fact that the first half is the most boring game I've seen in a very, very long time. And I look, I'm old enough that I remember that Super Bowls used to be all, you know, it's three to six wins, like that level of, you know, defensive stuff. It was a pretty boring game. think we've all expected a lot more, you know, touchdowns, a lot more excitement, a lot more stuff going on. That said, I am... Chad Sowash (02:43.775) A lot of field goals. James Ellis (02:59.15) Look, here's the deal. The NFL wants to go international. They want a team in Mexico. They want a team in Canada. They want a team in England or Germany or something, wherever they want. And I love that on some level they have to be realizing that this whole America 250, fly the fighter jets, here's the American army, they're doing the thing. It's like, you know what? You can't want that at the same time you want that. Those two things are somewhat problematic together. Chad Sowash (03:06.522) Spain. Yeah. James Ellis (03:28.27) from a branding standpoint of knowing what you stand for, knowing what you're offering, knowing what you care about, that is the decision I'm fascinated to watch the NFL make over the next, let's be fair, 10 years. It's gonna be a while. They'll throw a couple of games across the ocean, they'll throw a couple of games in Mexico or whatever, but it's gonna take a long time before that first team happens. But once that happens, there's a whole lot of other changes that have to be made because of who that organization is and what they stand for and what they're all about, what they're offering. That's really, to me, that's the big move. Joel Cheesman (03:36.149) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:55.444) Yeah. I think they're doubling up on games next year. Obviously, they have different venues that that they already go to. They have been going to for years. But yeah, it's all growth, man. I mean, the US is a big country, but it's not everything. And when you've got, I don't know, Spain and Spanish being, you know, 600 million plus people speak it. That's not bad. That's not bad. James Ellis (04:15.939) But. Joel Cheesman (04:20.52) If the future is more hot Latinas, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. James Ellis (04:20.547) Yeah. Chad Sowash (04:24.411) Amen. Amen. James Ellis (04:27.118) Yeah. mean, honestly, if the, I just want to finish this. If NBA can go China, why can't NFL go China? That might be, hey, pick a direction. If they said NBA has already gone that way, we're going to go other way. I buy that. buy that. Favorite commercial. There were not a lot of great commercials. There just seemed to be a lot of, there's a lot of butts, like a lot of focusing on butts. That just struck me and I don't know what kind of change of life that's, that's, you know. Joel Cheesman (04:27.925) Favorite commercial, favorite commercial. Joel Cheesman (04:43.283) Okay. James Ellis (04:53.064) revealing about me as a human being, I don't know, but it was like, okay, so we're really kind of the jeans commercial with the butts and then the tight ends with the butts. Okay. Chad Sowash (05:02.355) The clenching, the clenching of the butts, yes. It really did, yes, yeah. James Ellis (05:02.382) All right, we're going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the tight ends. That was a lot of awkward. It really did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I don't know if I have a favorite. I just have ones that were stood out, which honestly, from an advertising standpoint, standing out is like nine-tenths of the fight. Chad Sowash (05:17.182) Yes. Joel Cheesman (05:18.091) All right, James, you got a new book and you have a hype video, if you will, for the book. So I wanna play this for the kids and then we'll get into why the hell the world needed another branding. James Ellis (05:20.622) It's true. James Ellis (05:29.259) Exactly. Chad Sowash (05:49.599) For all the audio, that's two James, by the way. Chad Sowash (06:46.399) So if anybody wanted to know what it sounds like in James's head, that's it. Joel Cheesman (06:46.603) Hmm. James Ellis (06:51.758) That's a pretty fair, yeah, yeah, think that's about right. It's dangerous having that much knowledge of DaVinci Studio. That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah, I'll clone me, yeah. Chad Sowash (06:57.833) Ha Joel Cheesman (06:59.401) You can never have too many James's is what I say. Never too many James's. All right, why the book James? What was the catalyst? What made you want to write this? Chad Sowash (07:02.183) yeah. James Ellis (07:10.188) Yeah, first off, was talking to another author this morning and I said, she's like, well, I was really mad because this thing happened at work and I wanted to kind of explain why that was wrong. I said, yes, no one writes a book because they're happy. No one goes, everything is great, here's a book. You are angry at something, you're frustrated by something, you're grumpy at something and that's the spark, the spite level that kind of drives through a very long process, which is writing a book. For me, I am exhausted by one, no one understanding one employer brand. is, they think it's the pretty pictures you stick on a career site, they think it's the tag lines that you stick anywhere and kind of the pretty, the smiling faces that you stick everywhere, the awards, the great culture, all that junk. not, hey, this is how we're different. This is how we are not like every other company. So that was a big driver. And the two is I had to come to the realization that the second I talk about employer brand, 90 % of people turn off. go, it's stupid, it's fluffy, it's dumb. They have been poisoned by what they think employer brand is and whatever. And so I realized if I want to get people to get excited about how employer brand, presenting yourself as different as an employer isn't just about, we can find a way to come up with a video topic, but it's really more about how do we show ourselves as being a different kind of employer so that people can choose us rather than just kind of default to us. with all the tools where you can apply to a thousand jobs in a single click, we need to be leaning more into, I don't want 1,000 applications, I want two, but they both need to be killers. They both need to be amazing at what they do. And the only way to make that happen is to be clear on what you offer and clear on what you're looking for. And that, at its heart, is employer brand, but I figured if I said employer brand, no one's gonna buy the book and no one's gonna care. And I wanted to really tie it to that idea of business growth, that it's stuff you guys have been talking about for longer than I have probably, is that everything that happens inside a company, starts with the recruiter, starts with talent acquisition. You can't buy, sell, make anything. You can't bill for anything without the recruiter having brought someone in to make that happen. And if you understand that every company is just a bunch of people, it stands to reason that better people make a better company. Well, you don't get better people by recruiting harder. You don't get better people by just recruiting more. You get better people by being clear on what you offer so that people want that. And that's really what it's all about, is trying to get past your preconceived notions of what you think employer brand is. James Ellis (09:28.204) and get into, let's talk about this in business terms. And I think the more we do that, the more the talent leader, the more CHRO, the more the recruiting leaders can kind of embrace the idea that they're not just this add-on admin function that just pushes the paper in the ATS, they are the ones driving business growth and they need to kind of embrace that. They need to own that for them to claim that seat at the table, for them to really show their value to the business. Chad Sowash (09:52.244) Well, and making it a business book as opposed to an employer brand book, you're starting to open up your total addressable market and again talking about how all of this impacts business and why CEO should be reading a damn book. Come on. James Ellis (10:06.74) I wish, I wish. Yeah, I mean, that would be great, but I think I'm gonna need Oprah to kind of endorse it to get more CEOs to read the book. But, you know, if it trickles through, I'll own it. You know, you guys are great, but how many, you know, the CEO... Joel Cheesman (10:15.317) What do we chop liver? What? You better tell your publisher to buy a few more copies after this show, my friend. Chad Sowash (10:17.087) Ha Chad Sowash (10:22.301) Hahaha James Ellis (10:24.152) Yeah, my publisher being me. Thanks. Okay. Chad Sowash (10:27.465) So is this like, because your last book, I think your last book was Talent Chooses You, and now you're becoming choosable, right? So I mean, are we going down the choice funnel? Is there another one? Yeah. James Ellis (10:40.428) Isn't that what we all want? When we want a job, we're changing our lives. We're deciding, do I want to work at Coke or Pepsi? Do I want to work at Nike or Adidas? Where do I want to work? It's a choice. It's like everything else is a choice. The problem is, if I'm choosing Nike or Adidas, I have so much information about the difference between those shoes. If I'm choosing Coke and Pepsi, Ford and Honda, whatever, I have so much information about what that choice entails. There's so much meaning around that choice. I'm choosing between two companies as an employer. I know so little about what it's like to work there. I know so little about what to expect, what the management style is like. All I know is they've got, went and spent that money on that award and stuck it everywhere. So good for them, I guess, you know, but they're one in 20,000 who did that. What does that mean? All I know is that they say that they are helping me grow. What does that mean? In what way? How does that entail? How does that manifest? How do I see that? How do I expect that? None of that is really clear. It's a bunch of platitudes stacked on a really minimal website. We hope to God somebody applies. Chad Sowash (11:19.551) Mm-hmm. James Ellis (11:40.334) As a candidate, I have value and I am driven by certain things and I am motivated by certain things and everybody knows, because everybody's been saying this for a million years, it's not about good talent or bad talent, it's about fit. The thing about fit is you can't evaluate fit in one direction. You have to evaluate fit in both directions, which means the candidate has to be more clear about what they want, what they care about, and what motivates them. The company needs to be more clear about that thing as well. And I think What's interesting is that the more the company is clear about what they offer, how they reward, how they, you what their day to day is like, what their mission is like, does that mission matter or is it all about making money or is it all about growing, you know, share of whatever? What is the company truly value and offer? It forces the candidate to say, well, gosh, you don't sound like 99 million other companies, you sound specific, do I want that? No, fine, and they can walk away. Or they can say, you know what, finally someone said something I can get behind, I want a part of that, I wanna join that. We think of applying, we don't think of joining. We need to think of embracing and enrolling and joining. It requires enough information about what you offer to get people to do that. That is the future of talent acquisition. AI is gonna play a part, obviously, and all the technology is gonna play a part. But right now, we are at a arms race of how do I shoot a? thousand applications in an ATS and the ATS going, how do I defend myself from a thousand applications shot at me? And it's a wonder anybody ever gets hired. But if you're crystal clear on what you offer and what you want, the person who has that and wants that can raise their hand and say, I'm not like everybody else, I want you. And the company can say, I'm not like every other company, this is what I want. And they can make that match. That's what chooseability is all about, making that choice possible. Joel Cheesman (13:23.499) So James, you're right about the tsunami of candidates. My question is, we're seeing more and more recruiters, employers saying, you know what, I call a candidate and they ask me, who are you again? What job was this? In a world where the application process is automated and the initial interviewing process is automated, how should both sides even think about branding at this point? James Ellis (13:36.832) Exactly. James Ellis (13:50.68) Yeah, branding is a loaded term. Branding implies here's a logo, here's a da-da-da-da-da, it's a phrasing, it's a jingle, that's not branding. That is visual and auditory elements of the brand. The brand is what do you stand for and what do you offer? How are you different? How are you not like your other competitors? And the more clear you are on what you offer that's different, the more you are remembered, the more you are understood, the more you're like, you're not, an interchangeable company where I can apply everywhere and say, who are you again? I can say, yeah, I applied to a thousand companies, but you're the one that stood out because you offer this thing or you talk about that thing and no one else does. Joel Cheesman (14:29.995) But bots, bots don't care about brand. Well, how are you define it? I would say bots don't give a shit. Now, maybe we'll come to a day where my bot only applies to jobs that are socially conscious and only offer these benefits. We're not there yet. Maybe we will. But no one is caring about brand at the application if they're automating that process. When you say someone applies to a thousand jobs, it's that person's robot or their agent applying to those jobs. James Ellis (14:34.499) That's her. James Ellis (14:41.422) I wish, James Ellis (14:58.04) Yep. yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:00.245) So to me, at what point does brand or the promise or who we are matter? And does it still matter the way that it used to? Should companies think differently about it? James Ellis (15:11.438) Yeah, so think about the candidate who applies to 1,000 companies. They're applying the same application to 1,000 companies, which means if there's 1,000 people applying to that company, if they're using these bots, if they're using this technology, they sound very much the same. I'm on Reddit, Recruiter Hell, and rate my resume all day long, looking at these people going, I'm qualified, why am I not getting the call? And you're like, yeah, you're qualified, but so is 1,000 other people. You are stuck in this space that says, you are like everyone else. So if I have to pick one who's like everybody else, it's a lottery. It's a one in a hundred, one in a thousand shot. But if you're the candidate and saying, if everybody else, this is again, zigging when everybody's zagging, if everybody else is just pounding and it's all about tonnage of applications, I can say, these are the three companies I know something about who I'm interested in. Therefore I can say something that no one else can say about what I offer. and I am going to inherently stand out. And even if you're using AI tools to do stack ranking and sorting to kind of identify and float the best people up, someone who says something different stands out. AI is primarily pattern recognition. It's all about pattern matching. It's understanding that, well, gosh, everybody else looks this way because everybody used AI to write their resume in the exact same way with similar prompts and similar formats and similar language. But here's three candidates who are saying something different who are also qualified, but they seem to be talking about things that I haven't considered yet, they float to the top of the pile. And so by understanding that what the company offers and what they value, you can speak in those terms and that's how you get the job. And you go to social consciousness, which is I think is a small way of looking at brand, but it's also a very easy way to look at the brand, because everybody kind of gets that. And if you're trying to apply to the World Wildlife Federation, as a developer, because they hire developers, everybody does, you don't apply in the same way that you apply to Facebook and Google and OpenAI and all these other companies. Because if you do, you get bundled up and they qualified, but who cares? But if you're one of the handful of people who say, look, I spent the last two years building apps to help me save this polar bear, to help me do these things, let me show you examples, and it's tied to what the company clearly cares about, you float up to the top. That's how you're going to win. It's not Joel Cheesman (17:09.227) Mm-hmm. James Ellis (17:26.232) You know, we're all old enough to remember the days when being qualified meant that you probably got a phone call. Those days are long, long gone. Everybody's qualified. The ATSs are filled to the brim of qualified candidates, but they're all getting friend-zoned. They're all getting stuck in this messy middle of everybody sounds the same. They're all great. And I guess I'd be fine with them, but I'm not in love with any of them. It's the handful on the edge. I was looking into the camera, sirs. I could have been talking about anyone and certainly not myself ever. Joel Cheesman (17:40.491) You Chad Sowash (17:45.823) Why do you look in at Joe when you say that? That's not nice. That's not nice. Joel Cheesman (17:55.241) I brought my A game to James and he just zoned me. Yeah, it's true. It's true. It's true. James Ellis (17:58.306) Yeah, that's what I did. But that's the game. You want to stand out. Now, I think that the underlying challenge here is that recruiting has been put in this box to say, the ATS makes decisions. The ATS tells you how to make, you know, how the process should work. You have to do the following steps. The recruiter is pushing papers inside the ATSs. And the better the ATSs get, the less freedom and power and authority and value the recruiter can bring. And recruiters who've allowed that to happen. It's frog in a pot of water. They've allowed themselves to kind of be dominated and driven by the ATS and the technology where they are just kind of connecting the dots between the technology. And that's the fastest way to get automated out of existence by sounding and looking the same. And that's why recruit, all recruiters kind of sound the same and they have the same processes because it's all ATS and tech driven. The handful of companies who go, you know what, if we want to better people, interesting people, engaged people, we can't do it the same way everybody else does. We have to break. process the cycle of the systems and we have to say something different, we have to show something different so that people can say finally, a toehold on which I can speak my particular language. It is not an easy leap, but it is where we need to be. Chad Sowash (19:07.209) So talk about being choosable and being the company brand being choosable. There are a lot of CEOs that are out there at hell, a of CHROs and VPs of talent acquisition. There's no choice. Demand is low. Supply is high. We are choosing you. You are not choosing us. So at this point, and I know the cycles change, but the thing that really gets, I mean, really bothers me is that that's generally the idea. And we've talked to companies around, know, this to me, it feels like disposable talent that, we can just throw these guys. We'll find another one. It's not a big deal. And when we start looking at humans, I mean, as in organizations as a machine, how the fuck are we going to win? I mean, because it just it doesn't feel like there's any brand winning. And to be quite frank, it doesn't. James Ellis (19:42.819) Yes. James Ellis (19:46.328) Yes, yes. James Ellis (19:56.078) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:03.369) feel like they really care. James Ellis (20:05.112) Yeah, the funny thing is when companies start to talk about, there's a huge demand for our jobs and we have a handful of jobs, we have all the power. What do they do? They lower the salaries. Because to them, every candidate who's qualified is the same. And that's not even remotely true. If a CEO said, OK, we're getting a new CFO, here's 200 CFO applicants and they're all kind of the same, pick one. They would never do that. They would always look for some specific quality. They would always dive deeper because this is someone they have to work. Chad Sowash (20:12.915) Yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (20:19.775) Mm-hmm. James Ellis (20:33.342) side by side with for the next three to five years, they better like them, they better engage with them, they better have the same approach to the work they do, they better have the same kind of commitment to this work. They have to have something far more than what's sitting on their resume. Now, the fact that we don't apply that same mentality to every hire is a function of treating your employees like crap and saying every employee is just a checkbox, that they're just a cog in a very large machine. And the more you say, because there's a high demand, we have all the supply, you can push salaries down, you can make demands and that's fine. But the truth is people aren't interchangeable. The value they bring is not interchangeable. Johnny Ives was a developer, I'm sorry, designer for a very long time. He needed to find a spot where his particular genius would be appreciated and fed and they can turn that into Apple. If they hired some other qualified developer, would Apple be Apple? No. If Johnny Ives went to another company, would he be appreciated and given the room to do that? No, businesses grow on the backs of quality talent meeting places where that talent can thrive. And people being, I don't know, messy people as they are, they aren't the same. They don't thrive in the same way. They don't thrive in the same soil. They don't need the same things. They want specific things. And the more you're clear about what you offer, the more you find that people can say, finally, the place where I can be a 10X player instead of yet another. And I think, yes. Businesses are you the more their shareholder driven and they're more their shareholder value driven the more they're gonna say How do I lower costs? How do I lower salaries all that stuff? It's the companies who say That person is gonna help us grow Hire them regardless of salary. Those are the companies who do grow who really understand where that growth comes from Joel Cheesman (22:19.755) Yep. James, before, pushing record, talked about companies who start podcasts. this isn't about podcasts, but it is about companies trying to figure out how do we market ourselves as an employer of choice, if you will. what are your thoughts on social media and specific or how employers should look at it? And specifically we're seeing more companies embrace influencers, people with a built in audience that can promote their opportunities or their company. How do you look at that? phenomenon and how should companies sort of maybe be careful of stepping into that area. James Ellis (22:54.67) Yeah, and we've seen kind of over the last 10 years this world of the career site was all right. We all remember you put all your information in the career site basket and you know if you've ever been in the room where the career sites get built you understand that it's brutal like there's 17 people too many in the room and someone who has no idea who hasn't had to apply for job in 17 years it's bad it's bad yeah when the vice president of who the hell cares says I like that color blue and they get paid three times what you do guess what you're gonna get that color. Joel Cheesman (23:12.459) Yeah, don't watch the sausage getting made, kids. It's not pretty. Chad Sowash (23:23.251) Mm-hmm. James Ellis (23:23.564) And so when you push the career site out, it is not a launch. It is a birth. It is a gestation. It is painful. There is screaming. Doctors are involved. It is bad news. And you never want to touch it again, which means a career site is really a collaboration, but a compromise on a compromise on a compromise on a compromise. It is what everybody could finally agree on. Social media was amazing because it allowed us to say, OK, you made those decisions three years ago when you launched that site. What's happening today? How are you thinking about things today or this week or this month? what's going on. Now, is it all about what the CFO, to what conference they're going to or what they're attending? I don't care about that. But truly, you get more understanding what the company is up to through social media channels because instead of having 17 people in a room deciding what the compromise should be, you get some 23-year-old kid who talked to somebody on the Recruiter and Employer Branding Team, wrote a post, had to push it through legal, and that's all the barriers they had to get. And so you get more of the beating heart of what the company's thinking about, caring about doing, which is really valuable. Well, we're all addicted to that now. What's the next step? Let's have people talking about it. Let's pay people to engage to talk about what that is. I think the leap to influencers is inevitable, but it's still fraught because instead of saying, I'm going to pay money for my ad to be on 20,000 websites and they're all kind of the same websites. Now the person is carrying my banner. I need to know more about that person. I need to know about their audience and what they care about, what they're motivated by. So should Salesforce bring Mr. Beast in to be an influencer for Salesforce jobs. I don't know that the average Mr. Beast watcher is the average Salesforce killer employee. I don't know that Venn diagram has any overlap whatsoever. Chad Sowash (25:06.365) They might be one day, but they're just 12 right now. Yeah. James Ellis (25:08.82) Exactly. one day, hey, Salesforce can make a long plan, right? They have a long horizon. They ain't going anywhere anytime soon. But if you are getting into this, you need to kind of pick people who epitomize what you care about. Now, if you don't know what you stand for and you don't look and sound like everybody else, good luck. Good luck picking the person who's going to align with what your company cares about. And if you don't have that, you're just going to pick the most famous person you can afford. And you're going to get some people who do not align with what your company cares about or what your candidates want you to care about. You will end up in the same way when we went to performance marketing, where it's all about how do you push ads all over the place in programmatic media. You had ads showing up on some very interesting right wing and pornographic and gun focused places. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, there's that. There's that. let's hope they leave a lot of places. Joel Cheesman (25:57.033) nazi biker bars jobs.com. Yeah. Chad Sowash (25:57.76) We call it X, yes. Which we'll be leaving France probably sometime soon. James Ellis (26:08.984) But now, and that was fine, you had people who were paid to kind of oversee that and were supposed to pull that off when they saw it. Influencers have their own audience and that audience is their own thing and they have less rules and less applies. So the requirements on how you choose an influencer to help promote and talk about not the job, but what you care about as a company is a match made in heaven when it's done right. but I can see it being an absolute, a subject for you guys to talk about in the next couple of months on a future episode when it goes absolutely brutally wrong. Chad Sowash (26:43.825) I think it's interesting because I mean, you know, we we're an explicit podcast and we have companies coming to us all the time wanting us to be somewhat the podcast face of their of their organization, which is incredibly scary. But, you know, we have close to, I think, sixteen hundred episodes that are out there, so they know what they're getting. And in this case, you take a look at these these influencers like the Mr. Beasts and what have you. You know, I. James Ellis (27:06.082) Exactly. Chad Sowash (27:13.021) I think much like most CHROs and VPs of TA, they have to do their due diligence, but they don't do it now. James Ellis (27:23.436) which is why they hire agencies to do all that heavy lifting for them. And you know what? I have a love-hate relationship with agencies. I have a complicated relationship with what they do and how they do it. And putting that much trust in who they choose for your mouthpiece and who is going to influence on your behalf is a big swing. Chad Sowash (27:26.622) Yeah. Chad Sowash (27:34.281) Uh-huh. Chad Sowash (27:42.484) Who is the best choice though? mean, because we've seen that employee driven content with some of the platforms that are actually out there, like the job pixels that Joel and I are both advisors on. That, mean, from my standpoint, if you can get employees who are genuinely happy and they're talking good things, I mean, is that not the first place to go? James Ellis (27:49.198) Yep. James Ellis (28:06.766) Absolutely, not even a question. The thing is is that to get value out of it, you can't treat them like we've been treating them for so long. Here's your three bullet points. Repeat these. Copy, paste them into your LinkedIn. Go. And at the same time, yeah, exactly. Hold the newspaper so we can prove what day it is. And it doesn't look like a hostage video at all, I swear. At the same time, should be saying, if we're going to leverage those people, we should be encouraging them to be on social media. How many companies say you're not allowed to be on social media, but here we want you to promote us on social media? Chad Sowash (28:18.163) Read this, read this. James Ellis (28:36.598) So I don't see how that works. I look, social media is complicated and it gets more complicated as people like Alon involve themselves into this process as we sell TikTok to whoever can buy it this week and whoever has access to that data this week. It's a messy, messy process, but it certainly beats not being out there and not having a voice out there. Cause in the end, the game of recruiting is not as transactional as we pretend it is. When I'm on Indeed or LinkedIn or a job board and I see a Thousand roles and let's be fair. There's still a lot of jobs open out there. No matter how ugly the economy is There's still a lot of choices out there. Why on earth am I clicking your particular logo over a thousand others? It's because I have heard some thing about you. That's positive that I liked I have some sort of mental positive association I'm clicking on that the game is not by influencers use my team as advocates and suddenly I get a million applicants. It's about creating as much positive understanding about what we stand for, what we offer, what people like us for, so that down the road, they're more likely to click, they're more likely to show up to interviews, they're more likely to say yes to the offers. Joel Cheesman (29:44.726) James, advertising for a long time and probably still today is sort of a game of targeting. And we're hearing more about resume Botox and people trying to look younger than they really are. There's sort of all these issues and we talked about politics a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, get Chad's Botox doc number in Portugal if you ever need to go. But like politics, James Ellis (29:58.68) Hold on, hold on, just, what? What do mean? What do mean? Just gonna pull that back. No wrinkles. James Ellis (30:09.122) Mail order, please. Joel Cheesman (30:12.679) Used to say like, okay, well, we need the gay vote. So the gays hang out here. So put your ad here and they'll see it. And that seems to be gone now. Content is for everybody, right? It's either good or it isn't. And, targeting becomes much more difficult. How should companies look at brand in a world where, you know, we can't just go to the colleges and give them a college kid brand and then go to this and give them that brand and advertise on this site for those people. Like it's more holistic now. agree, disagree, and if so, how should companies think about that? James Ellis (30:45.644) No, a thousand percent agree, which is why I do think the brand idea, the thing that you offer is so critical because it comes that tent pole around which everything else you talk about is structured. If you are Facebook, you do not say, come join us, we're chill. No one would ever believe that. They are the move fast and break things. No one goes to say, hey, work at Goldman Sachs. We believe in saving the environment. I'm sorry, say that again? Say that louder into this microphone because I don't believe a word you said. There is a thing they stand for. And everybody believes that they stand for that. And so suddenly, the more they talk about it, the more it finds its own audiences. The people who want that are fed that because we have the algorithms now, which as much as I beat up on TikTok, the algorithms are not bad in terms of understanding. The Amazon one is still bad. The LinkedIn one is still weird. But the TikTok one, they have nailed something. Whatever data science magic, they have nailed that. They are feeding me more of what I want. And so if I like a thing, they're gonna give me more of that thing. And so suddenly all this, targeting and demographics and God help us persona building suddenly seems very old fashioned. What happens is if you say something specific and interesting about what you care about that is different from what everybody else is talking about, it gets shared to people who want to hear that. Which means it's critical to not just say, we're a great company, we have a great culture, look at our award, we're a family, all that other crap, but instead to say what we offer is maximum autonomy. Joel Cheesman (31:59.734) Mm-hmm. James Ellis (32:09.964) What we offer is collaboration. What we offer is a mission that you can't get anywhere else. What we offer is the access to clients in a certain space that you're never gonna have access again, which is gonna help you grow your platform, grow your resume and all that weather stuff. Say that, understand what your company truly offers. And suddenly the door opens in terms of what you can say about that. You can allow every one of your employees and every one of your influence to say, we stand for this idea. What does that mean in your world? So suddenly they're fragmenting and localizing that message of, empowerment or autonomy or collaboration, whatever it is, to developers and program managers and nurses and all these other sub sub sub sub niche audiences. And suddenly everybody else sounds like wallpaper paste and you sound interesting and I'm going to follow you. And the algorithm keeps going, wow, they keep watching this video. I'm going to give them more. And that's where you win. It is about standing for something in a world where everybody, the technology, the ad platforms are all about and focused on how do I show you total number of clicks? In the same way, the total number of applications is not a metric for recruiting. Total number of views, total number of clicks is not a metric for engagement and reach and power and value and influence. What matters is, the people you actually one day want to engage with, the people who care about what you have to say, are they engaged? That's your win. And you can ride that out for a very, very long Chad Sowash (33:28.703) And everybody, you'd better be engaged right now because that is James Ellis and the book is becoming chooseable. Where can we find this book? James Ellis (33:37.986) You can find this on Amazon worldwide. Chad Sowash (33:40.945) it does it come with crayons because that's the only way Joel is going to. Joel Cheesman (33:43.083) Did they say Amazon worldwide? James Ellis (33:43.502) There's a big, I mean, there's a coloring section. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Boats and whatever. Yeah, see, there's coloring spots. It's fine. You can work it through it. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:47.883) Right next to the prestige worldwide office building, I think. Chad Sowash (33:50.015) See? See? See, you got to get some crayons. be good. Get the 64 box, though, because you want all the choices. James Ellis (34:00.279) absolutely, really. Show your artistic value there. Joel Cheesman (34:01.196) Love it, love it. The world is a vampire, Chad. That's another one in the can. We out. Chad Sowash (34:07.772) We out.

When Indeed launches “smart” screening, you expect precision. Instead? It’s more like tossing spaghetti at the wall and calling it innovation. Between half-baked features, pulled products, and black-box scoring that screams legal risk, the boys dig into why Indeed keeps rolling out tech… then quietly yanking it back. Is this product evolution — or a staffing company pretending to be a tech company? Grab your popcorn. Also in this episode: LinkedIn tries comedy (yes, really) while battling an AI-driven SEO apocalypse Google flips the monetization switch on Jobs — because Google isn’t a charity Phenom goes bargain hunting for AI with another acquisition White-collar job extinction panic: hype, reality, or vendor marketing? AI moving from “tool” to fully embedded system and why that changes everything Towards Justice legal clouds gathering over AI hiring tech and candidate scoring Plus: history lessons, hot takes, and the usual bourbon-fueled chaos you didn’t ask for but absolutely need PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:34.539) Never trust a big butt and a smile. What's up boys and girls? This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel. I love the smell of napalm in the morning Cheesman. Chad Sowash (00:45.086) and this is Chad that talked to me like I'm a 12 year old. So wash. Joel Cheesman (00:49.417) And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, LinkedIn finds its funny bone, Google for jobs finds its profit motive, and white collar workers better just find another line of work. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:08.267) What's up, Chad? You settling into Europe? Chad Sowash (01:10.894) Yeah and just the two of us. Just the two of us. We can make it. Cream baby. her I'm sorry. Peaches and herb. Yep. Peaches and herb. That's how we go together. Yeah. I miss her already. miss her already. yes. Joel Cheesman (01:14.815) Just the two of us reunited and it feels so good. Peaches and herb. Peaches and herb. Peaches and cream was you and Julie last night. That's you and Julie last night is the peaches and cream. So, banter. got Olympics, we got people passing away, we got, what else? What else, what do wanna talk about? What's going on? Chad Sowash (01:39.778) Yeah. Chad Sowash (01:44.117) yeah. I gotta say, you know, it's very sad seeing a guy like James Van Der Beek die young, and he did. But when you die with, in and around, Robert Duvall and Jesse Jackson, it's just like, that's a great group, right? So put a positive spin on it, okay? Hollywood stars. Joel Cheesman (01:52.221) Mm-hmm. Yep. Joel Cheesman (02:00.917) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (02:12.098) You know, Duvall and Vanderbeek and then this this magnet, this this Jesse Jackson ran for president twice for goodness sakes. You know, it's just hate to see hate to see great people leave this earth. Although James Vanderbeek, he stepped the level on this one. Joel Cheesman (02:18.73) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:28.243) Mm-hmm. Were you a Dawson's Creek fan chat? I have a hard time seeing you sitting down with a bowl of popcorn and watching Dawson's Creek. How about Friday Night Lights? Was that something that, the movie, right, that he was on? Yeah. Chad Sowash (02:34.868) No, no, I did not watch Dawson's Creek. Chad Sowash (02:43.598) I did not watch it religiously. Yes, I did watch the movie. Yes, I just, I couldn't get into the whole, you know, episodic thing. And there was, mean, back then, kids, might not believe this, but back then TV, we didn't have on demand. So you couldn't just watch it when you wanted. You actually had to watch it when it came out. I, yes, yes, no. Joel Cheesman (02:50.76) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:02.645) Premeditated, yes, you had to do that. You and I talked about the Olympics, Winter Olympics. Portugal apparently doesn't have anybody participating because they have no medals. Maybe they are. They're drinking, I guess. Chad Sowash (03:08.741) yeah. Yeah. Chad Sowash (03:13.806) The Portuguese are good at many, many things, but when it comes to the Olympics and or sport, generally, generally, it is what we call the European football. And for a country of 10 million people who are ranked well above a country that is 340 million, being the US in soccer, you know, Joel Cheesman (03:28.081) Okay, yeah. Chad Sowash (03:42.754) You just you got to be disciplined and you got to pick your sport. Not to mention it's not the most it's not the most let's say lavish country right there. It's not a very rich country. So playing a game like soccer is much easier than trying to buy pads for football or golf clubs or or a toboggan. There is that yeah there really is. Joel Cheesman (03:46.067) Alright. Joel Cheesman (03:53.14) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:57.226) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:01.259) I'm guessing there's no skiing anywhere in Portugal. There's no like fake snow. Is there really? Chad Sowash (04:12.234) Up in the inner belt, I guess you could say. Yeah, there's, because there's so much elevation, but yeah, there's definitely snow. Joel Cheesman (04:15.069) inner belt. Joel Cheesman (04:21.789) Who knew? Who knew? Well, the US US is doing really well in metal count. I think they're up there. And by the time we record this and it goes, it's published, there will be a new women's hockey gold medalist team, which will either be Canada or the US. So we'll be we'll be watching that at our house on opposite sides of the living room probably on that one. But but that's Favorite Robert Deval movie or role? Chad Sowash (04:34.124) that's big. Joel Cheesman (04:53.471) You got Godfather, Apocalypse Now. Chad Sowash (04:55.99) Yeah, God apocalypse now is great. Don't get me wrong. Godfather. mean, being the consigliere. I mean, that is he's that that's definitely what he's known as. But it's really hard to come down to a single movie for a guy. It's like Al Pacino, right? I mean, just it's like what movie it's like, there's not one. He's so good in so many movies. I just I love the guy. He was so amazing. He reminds me of kind of like Gene Hackman, who was in so much. Joel Cheesman (05:12.383) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (05:24.458) in a certain time frame, like in the 80s. So many good movies, so many good movies. It's like you just can't pick one. It's amazing. Joel Cheesman (05:25.449) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:30.867) Yeah. When I was in 1984, my my, think I was in sixth grade, fifth grade. Anyway, we had an assignment, there was a presidential election. And our assignment was to cut out newspaper articles. Remember those kids cut out newspaper articles, put them in a sort of a book of sort of chronicling the election. And Jesse Jackson was a prime figure in that election. So anyway, I was I was thinking about Chad Sowash (05:43.032) Yeah. Yeah, Reagan. Joel Cheesman (06:00.491) some quotes that he had and I wanted to leave Leave this banter on one of Jesse's quotes in 1984. He said as a candidate He said quote our mission to feed the hungry to clothe the naked to house the homeless to teach the illiterate to provide jobs for the jobless and to choose the human race over the nuclear race I thought that was an appropriate solid quote from Jesse Jackson Chad Sowash (06:04.995) Yeah. Please do. Chad Sowash (06:28.342) And still, still good for today. Still good for today. Yeah. Because we have not achieved any of those. Joel Cheesman (06:31.369) Still good for today. Nuclear's taking on a whole different role today, but yes, yes, yes. 40 years later, we'll still working on all of that stuff, gang, all that stuff. Chad Sowash (06:46.328) Yes, yes, please. Joel Cheesman (06:46.571) All right, I'm going to go first on shout outs. This is a this is an odd one. You're probably familiar with Cal she polymarket. This isn't a commentary on betting and the values of or the the not so valuables of. So calcium is interesting. If you don't know, you bet on things that aren't necessarily sports, you can vote on sports or bet on sports, but also, you know, when will the Supreme Court give a verdict on tariffs or Chad Sowash (06:53.634) Yes. this is horrible. Yes. Yes. Anything. Joel Cheesman (07:15.179) Who will the democratic nominee be in 2026? Like you can bet all these things, societally, culturally, politically, and business-wise, you can bet on things. And I was shocked to find out that our industry is represented on Cal-She, Deal and Rippling specifically. So interestingly, Deal at the time of this recording is the number two most likely to IPO this year. Chad Sowash (07:43.732) wow. Joel Cheesman (07:44.069) after OpenAI. Rippling is down, down a ways at a 17 % chance. Rippling or a deal right now is a 44 % chance. Interesting. We've talked about that on the prediction show. So we'll see if it finally comes true. According to the markets, it will. The other one is will Rippling win its lawsuit against deal? Right now that is that is at a 60 % chance of yes, they will win. Chad Sowash (08:04.878) That's a good one. It's a very good one. Joel Cheesman (08:11.573) their lawsuit against the shit show that is the lawsuit with Rippling. So I thought that was interesting. out to Kalshi and the markets and especially Dio, the gift that keeps on giving even in the betting markets. Chad Sowash (08:15.086) Hahaha Chad Sowash (08:32.504) Like we're in the seventh ring of hell when we start talking about fucking those markets. My shout out, a little different, a little different, but because here at the Chad and Cheese podcast, we go deep, right? Not just the tip, we go deep. That's right, that's right. Seriously, we wanted to go deeper into better understanding the different legal aspects of the eightfold lawsuit. So we invited Rachel Dempsey, the associate director of Towards Justice. Joel Cheesman (08:45.631) Not just the tip, people. Joel Cheesman (08:56.032) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (09:01.31) onto the show this week. Go ahead and play that footage. Chad Sowash (09:46.51) That's a teaser, kids. That's a teaser. Shout out to Rachel and her team over at Torch Justice who are fighting for the people, the little people, the little guy class action, in helping and also helping us understand, at least the industry understand better how these new AI platforms should be treating candidates, their data and the transparency around all of it. And you can check that full episode out, which is entitled Unfolding the Eightfold Lawsuit. That was a great title, Cheeseman. Chad Sowash (10:15.649) Wherever you get your podcast. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (10:18.719) Such a tease, such a tease. Chad Sowash (10:20.526) Yes, that's what we do. Joel Cheesman (10:24.005) I got another shout out that came to me while that was that was playing. know, you know, I, you know, I love a good a good poll, Chad. And nothing, nothing like a LinkedIn poll. Anyway, I asked, I had a had a poll question last week. The the labor, the jobs numbers came out from the government, which were quite contrasted to the private numbers like ADP in the Jolt report, etc. And I just wanted to know, do you believe the January numbers? Chad Sowash (10:47.008) Imagine that. Joel Cheesman (10:52.971) About 400 people replied, 80 % don't believe the numbers. So even if they're real or not, the perception out there is that it's all bullshit. And that's a bad road to be on when the world's professionals don't believe what the government is telling them. Chad Sowash (10:55.822) Yeah, not bad. Chad Sowash (11:12.49) It is. Yeah, it is. Well, and it's it's also interesting that this administration is the one who said everything was rigged and then we're looking at them and going, hmm, it feels like you're doing a good amount of the rigging. Joel Cheesman (11:28.587) Yeah, mean when you recalculate it to 800,000, I think that was the recalculation in 25, I mean like yeah, it's just messed up. What is true in the numbers, Chad, is the number of free stuff that we give out. Let's hear about that. Chad Sowash (11:32.226) Yeah, give me a fucking break. Chad Sowash (11:44.576) sexy man. Joel Cheesman (12:35.029) Catholics. Chad Sowash (12:53.742) The forward slash. I mean, I love he just he went for it on the forward slash. Joel Cheesman (12:58.283) He forgot to mention that our t-shirts look great in a kilt. That's the next video and I want to see him stand up and see what's going on underneath that table. Chad Sowash (13:03.534) they do. I'm not sure I wanna see him stand up because we might see too much. might see too much. Real quick, we got some travel, kids. We got some travel. And just in case you forget, travel is sponsored by our friends. Travel sponsored by our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. If you're tired of agencies that just slap a logo on things that call it employer brand, take a little field trip over to shaker.com. They actually know recruitment, marketing, beyond buzzwords, mixing brand, talent attraction, martech, and real insights into something that you know works. So March 24th through the 26th, I'm going to be at Here for Share. I don't know if that's how you say it. I'm new to this European thing, this European thing. If you're American, the way that it's spelled and the way that we would say it is Hertfordshire, England. Yeah, it's north of London and between Cambridge and Oxford, which it just feels like that's my place. The kids that bring us Recfest, they are introducing the Resourcing Leaders Exchange, which is the RLX. It's something new. What is the... Joel Cheesman (13:53.737) It probably isn't. Joel Cheesman (14:02.571) Hartfordshire. Chad Sowash (14:22.324) RLX you might ask, well that's a good question. It's a fully hosted two day retreat for senior TA leaders. No vendor pitches, no expo halls, no wasted time pretending a stress ball as innovation kids. Just smart people, real strategy, pure insights and practical takeaways with actual time to think and explore solutions and maybe over a whiskey, an Irish whiskey or a smooth scotch with your buddy Chad. Your bond by the way. If you're one of those high level recruiting leaders and you'd like some time away to talk to your peers, learn more about AI, agentic, and all the other cool stuff that kids are talking about, just roll over to resourcingleaders.co and sign up today. Joel Cheesman (15:08.767) Nice. Have you been to Cambridge? Are you going to spend some time there or just in the space between, if you will? Chad Sowash (15:10.894) I'm not, not yet. Yeah, depends on how much time we have in country. So I got to take a look. There's a lot of events that are coming up. So pretty stoked. Joel Cheesman (15:23.849) Yeah, it's cool. There's Newton's apple tree is there. You can enjoy a punting boat ride, I think it's called. There's a nice ghost tour. It's quite pleasant. Yeah, quite pleasant. Chad Sowash (15:31.212) Okay. Chad Sowash (15:39.892) love a good ghost tour. Love a good... When you go on the ghost tour, is there anything like the ghost apple? mean, because Newton's there. Is there any Newton-ish kind of ghosts? Joel Cheesman (15:45.738) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (15:52.275) I don't. Did you know Isaac Newton died poor? This is a total side note. Something I learned. There was there was a stock. I don't know, a meme stock in the day. South the South something company. Anyway, it spiked in price. Newton bought a bunch. It went up again and crashed and Sir Isaac Newton. Chad Sowash (15:57.878) Really? No clue. Joel Cheesman (16:19.999) died, I don't want to say penniless, but very poor and people don't know that story about him. It can happen to the smartest people out there. He wasn't listening to Chad and cheese and advice on companies and what's going on. He wasn't into listening to our topics, which leads us to Chad Sowash (16:29.998) Apparently. Joel Cheesman (16:42.109) I did not have Sir Isaac Newton on my bingo card today. All right, Chad, Phenom has acquired BeApplied, a developer of AI-driven cognitive assessment solutions to enhance its skills-based hiring infrastructure. The acquisition will integrate adaptive assessments into Phenom's AI platform to validate candidate capabilities and reduce hiring bias. Terms were not disclosed. All right, Chad. Chad Sowash (16:45.026) Did not either, I did not either. Mm. Excuse me. Hmm. Chad Sowash (17:08.61) Surprise. Joel Cheesman (17:10.239) Big deal, little deal or no deal, Phenom acquires Be Applied. Chad Sowash (17:15.992) Yeah, I think it's a deal. Let's just let's put it. Let's put it that way. Skills based hiring structure. mean, so many times vendors talk at a PhD level about their products when in reality you should be talking to us like we're in the sixth grade, right? Like we're 12 years old. So for the listeners out there, I'd like to I'd like to do a little bit of that for myself. Right. So I can better understand this. So if you just stick with me here. So the B applied cognitive based assessments, well, cognitive based assessments refers to an evaluation of an individual's mental abilities, such as memory, reasoning, attention, and language to understand how their brain processes information. So these assessments are used across diverse fields to predict performance, identify impairments or tailor different development strategies. I'm a huge proponent of assessing skills that are specific to the job. Use of systems, troubleshooting, problem solving, much like our buddy Quincy Valencia was talking about when she brought up Tadia in her last interview last week. A platform that focuses on proving actual skills that an individual can do what they say they can do. Joel Cheesman (18:34.677) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (18:42.794) And that's a big reason why I started advising Taddeo a few years ago. But unlike Taddeo's methods, over the years, cognitive tests have demonstrated significant demographic bias, legal and ethical risks, and a negative impact on candidate experience. And I don't know if that's the case with Beaplied, personally, because I haven't audited it. Let's just say that. But. Joel Cheesman (19:04.746) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (19:09.294) It's always something that keeps me away from most cognitive assessment vendors, right? Needless to say, this company has been around for a good amount of years, right? And has skills, jobs-based tests, which again, I'm more focused on the jobs-based. Is it actually necessary for the job or is it something that you want just to kick somebody out? It'll be interesting how Phenom pulls this into their ecosystem, what they use and what they don't use. Joel Cheesman (19:32.81) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (19:38.976) So I think much like their last acquisition, there's a lot, as we had said, this is a time of consolidation. There's going to be a lot of this. And Phenom, obviously, they're out there on the clearance rack and they're picking stuff up. Good for them. Good for them. Let's see how they use it, though. That's the big key. Joel Cheesman (20:02.283) So I have two sides of this coin. I'll start with B applied. They just call it applied. I don't know where the B comes in. They just needed it to get the URL, I guess. But yes, you're right. This company has been around for 10 years. They're VC backed. Pretty modest 2.4 million, a little over 2.4 million invested, which I guess in 2016 was a pretty good nut. They ran out of time. Like 10 years for with VC is a really long time. So they were getting to that end of the road anyway, um, that they needed to liquidate this thing. Um, two years ago, they had 32 employees, nice little business, nice little startup on a nice trajectory. Uh, as, as, as of the sale date, they had 13 employees. So if you're good at math, 32 is a lot more than 13. So this was not a company on a growth trajectory. They were cutting costs. People were like, this is a sinking boat. I'm out of here. Little thing that I look at is what's going on on their social media. Chad Sowash (21:11.14) nothing. Joel Cheesman (21:12.395) It's a, it's a dead giveaway. If you have a Twitter account and there's nothing on it, like it's a dead giveaway that there ain't shit going on at your company, particularly today when there's AI tools to like automate posts and shit. Um, the last Instagram post from be applied was in March of 24. That should tell you that the lights were off. Uh, there might've been some people home with the lights were off. So as far as I'm concerned, the VCs were like, Chad Sowash (21:14.392) Yes. Nothing. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:40.115) Let's go get rid of this. Maybe there was a connection to phenom and they started ship selling this thing, started getting on the phone and phenom bit and acquired this company. I have no idea about their, their technology. I don't, I don't think I've ever seen them at a conference or that we've talked to them. They're in London. So I don't remember them ever being at rec fast. Maybe they were. So there's, there's nothing there. I can't really speak to their technology now to phenom. Chad Sowash (21:59.096) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (22:08.587) Phenom seems to be like a poor man's workday in terms of strategy. They're like, okay, we gotta be like workday, but we don't have workday dollars. We can't buy paradox. like, so let's go to Marshall's, let's go to Ross and see what we can get. And they seem to be scooping up these companies that are on deep discount. Don't dis Goodwill, they do a good service. so look, I... Chad Sowash (22:25.57) or the goodwill. Chad Sowash (22:30.03) They do! I wasn't dissing them. Joel Cheesman (22:36.693) There are pre-chat GPT companies and there are post-chat GPT companies and Phenom is very much in that pre-chat GPT world. The software universe as we know is under pressure, like valuing these companies and Phenom, if it's happening to Salesforce, it's happening to work day or it's happening to Phenom. And their investors are saying we need to like get some value into this company. So like, let's go buy some AI businesses, this skills assessment businesses. Chad Sowash (22:40.718) Mm. Joel Cheesman (23:06.569) When you watch the video on phenom, from, think it's mahi is, their CEO talking about his acquisition. It's kind of sad. It's kind of like he was in between lunch and like a meeting and they pulled him in to do this video. And it almost looks like a hostage video. It's it's just like, I can't, I can't really do it justice. You just got to go out and if you're, you if you want to go, go search the phenom video of Chad Sowash (23:23.746) That's a male on his chin. Joel Cheesman (23:33.407) the announcement. And yes, it is. It's a sad, I don't know if the background is the real background. It works like a, like a, it's one of the, you know, pre pre precondition backgrounds, but yeah, it's, it's about, so in short, I think this was a company that had no other options. They're probably really lucky that they cashed out a little bit on phenom and for phenom, it's like, it's, I don't want to say desperation, but man, it's, we got to like justify our valuation. Chad Sowash (23:34.765) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:03.285) their annual conference is coming up. I'm interested to see who shows up, what kind of buzz it gets, what kind of heat it, heat it, heat it, heat it. Chad Sowash (24:15.022) They spend a lot of money on it. They spend a lot of money on it. Joel Cheesman (24:19.829) For Philly, yeah, it's a lot of money. I am phenom. Let's go. Chad Sowash (24:25.326) Are you dissing, dissing Philly? that hurts. you're gonna get the John. You're gonna get the John. Yeah. Well, we talked about this last week with Workday, right? I mean, the market today is not reality, but yet they're getting, we're still getting pressure and Workday is getting pressure. And even though Phenom is not a public company, they're still gonna get pressure from it, right? Because that is what's driving the mindset of all these organizations. Joel Cheesman (24:28.647) I love Philly. It's just not a high rent district. It's not a high rent neighborhood. It's not a high rent neighborhood. Joel Cheesman (24:48.587) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (24:54.058) especially companies who want to buy. And for me, it's not real. But unfortunately, these CEOs have to act like it's real and they have to react like it's real. yeah, mean, again, being able to buy these companies on the cheap, why not? Especially if they've got good tech. think, and I've told many startups that I've talked to, there are so many startups that die not because they have bad product, they've got amazing product. Joel Cheesman (25:21.675) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:23.02) It's because their go to market is shit. this is for all my European startups that are out there that I love, that I love you to death. You guys generally do half-assed go to market compared to US companies because of the type of money that they actually get in seed, pre-seed and seed in series A. Now, it's not your fault, obviously, because the EU has to do a much better job of coming together to be able to pull some money. Joel Cheesman (25:44.331) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:52.866) But at the end of the day, go-to-market's generally the thing that kills these organizations. They might have amazing tech, amazing smart founders, but they just don't have the go-to-market. Joel Cheesman (26:03.243) Well, I will delegate all of our European commentary to you since you are the European on the show. Look, the pressure is real. Workday downgraded today as we record this. The market is not impressed with the new CEO or the strategy around specifically the AI companies that they've acquired. The market is not convinced. So Phenom is sort of a mini workday and I think they're under mince pressure. Chad Sowash (26:07.534) I love you all. I love you all. It is shit. Yeah. Chad Sowash (26:16.238) I'm crazy. Chad Sowash (26:25.186) Ridiculous. Joel Cheesman (26:33.109) They've raised a ton of money. Chad Sowash (26:33.198) Over the last two years, over the last two years, their revenue is up, oh, like 35%. Yeah, it's like 35, it's like, what the, that's real. Joel Cheesman (26:40.243) Work day, yeah. We don't know phenom. Joel Cheesman (26:45.499) It's the future, man. People are convinced the future and we'll get to the future with some other. Yeah, stay with us kids. We'll talk about the future. If you want to really feel like, you know, jumping off a building. All right, let's move on to LinkedIn. They've reportedly undergone a major shift in the marketing strategy over there due to significant declines in organic search traffic driven by the rise of AI powered search tools like ChatGPT. Chad Sowash (26:49.654) Anyway, anyway, anyway, okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:14.531) They apparently suffered a 60 % drop in B2B non-brand awareness driven traffic despite maintaining strong organic rankings. Maybe traditional advertising will help as this new ad is now hitting the airwaves, Chad. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (28:03.711) All right, Chad, what's your take on all things LinkedIn this week? Chad Sowash (28:07.566) I'm gonna go with the funny ads first, okay? So for all of those people throughout the years that would comment on other people's posts or even create their own posts themselves about content that they believe did not belong on LinkedIn while clutching their pearls, all I have to say is ha ha ha, and now you can fuck right off. I love it. And it's like from a social media standpoint, I mean, yes, LinkedIn's been a great, it was was branded as a professional network at one time. Nobody can tell me how to be a professional. Right. And that is my space. And but there are always people on LinkedIn, these these influencers or whatever the hell they call themselves at the time, LinkedIn experts on how you should actually treat your LinkedIn. Well, I am me and I will treat it the way that I fucking want to. And I love watching it go from Joel Cheesman (28:32.671) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (28:58.19) the professional network to, you know, battle bots at lunch. That's fucking awesome. So all of you again, who told all of us that we couldn't say or do what we wanted on Lincoln, LinkedIn, oh, you can fuck right off. The abandoning SEO side of the house. So with the Gardner predicting a 50 % drop in traditional search volume by 2028 and 94 % of B2B buying groups already using AI. Joel Cheesman (29:10.517) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (29:25.774) The keyword first strategy is dead. To me, the research that LinkedIn did was very insightful and literally something that we're going to have to say over and over and over and over and beat into every employer's head because they've got to get it. Content is queen. It is the strongest player on the board. You have to see everything as, and treat it, and treat everything as content. So something that I love about Gemini is that I can feed YouTube videos in there, right? So this isn't just text. This is also audio. This is video. This is all the way around. I do love, no, I'm not drinking the LinkedIn Kool-Aid. Don't do it. Yeah, I'm not. Joel Cheesman (30:14.571) Are you sure? Because it's cherry flavored. I think it's cherry flavored. Chad Sowash (30:19.692) I'm not doing it. I do like that they're actually trying to push and help people understand, look, there's another way of doing things. It's not keyword based anymore. It's much different. And they did research and pushed it out. So that was pretty cool. Not too bad by the kids over at LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (30:20.616) Okay. Joel Cheesman (30:37.449) Yeah, that was that was transparency. That's pretty rare these days. And we've talked about no click search for a long time and that it's obviously impacting tons of websites. I click a lot less. I'm sure I'm just a small, you know, percentage of what's going on. The kids probably aren't clicking. Look, AI gives you the answer. If I go to Google, like I get a summary and that generally is what I need. Now you can click the little, you know, chain link and Chad Sowash (30:39.712) yeah. Yep. Yep. Joel Cheesman (31:07.273) see the side or it'll give you references to what's going on. But apparently LinkedIn is saying not a lot of people are clicking those links. And as a result, SEO has changed. we're hearing a lot more about. A E O answer engine optimization kids. And some of the sites I talked to, they're getting more and more traffic from chat, GPT and other, AI, LLMs, et cetera. But it's clear that if you don't have a strategy. In addition to whatever SEO you're doing, you're doing it wrong. And you're probably seeing your traffic dip. If you're not on social media, if you're not creating multimedia videos, I don't tell people to start a podcast, but it is a way to get extra content out there if it is good content. Unfortunately, if it's zip recruiters podcast, it's not good content. But look, I mean, the game has changed and also makes more important. Chad Sowash (31:56.174) lot of content. Joel Cheesman (32:04.115) your subscriptions, like email is more important than ever. Direct mail is gaining some steam. SMS marketing, like make sure you have a diverse marketing strategy. And LinkedIn is really showing the way because there's not many more trusted sites like a LinkedIn that's getting really good search results. So they're struggling. I can't imagine what other sites are doing on the, on the ad front. I love a funny ad. Our ads in our industry have historically been funny. The monkeys at Career Builder. You know, when I grew up was funny. Like we do funny pretty well. LinkedIn has traditionally not done funny well. And this is sort of funny. Like choosing a celery stick at the workplace is kind of funny, I guess. But what struck me as interesting is the target of SMBs. Chad Sowash (32:35.854) Yeah, yeah. When I grow up. Joel Cheesman (32:56.587) Cause LinkedIn has historically not targeted SMBs. I have wax poetic about zipper crew dropping the ball on being sort of the brand where SMBs go to post their jobs. They left that space long time ago and the world loves a vacuum. So LinkedIn, here we go. Let's fill some of that vacuum. And as we're going to talk about later, white collar jobs are less than they used to be. Those were the sweet spot for LinkedIn. So if LinkedIn is saying like, well, geez, if we think Chad Sowash (33:07.502) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:25.363) white collar jobs are dying or there's going to be a lot fewer of them in the future. We better focus on SMB jobs and more like essential working jobs because we don't do that very well. So this is a nice step into that world. we'll see if they can make a dent, blue collar people joining LinkedIn. I'm not sure that's, that's happening in any big way, but if they can make shit funny, everyone can, join in on the fun. That's my comment on LinkedIn and I'm stick. Chad Sowash (33:56.182) That's perfect. Joel Cheesman (33:58.336) Guys, if you like what you've been hearing, please subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. You can see our ugly mugs on YouTube. If you want to just go to youtube.com slash at cheese. We'll be right back to talk a little Google. Joel Cheesman (34:18.123) All right, Chad, hat tip to fanboy and SEO junkie Alexander Tchaikovsky for finding sponsored results when searching for jobs on Google for jobs. He saw links to job descriptions being advertised by Indeed in Munich and other Europeans are reporting similar findings. Quick reminder, Chad, Google is not a charity. Your take on the recent development of ads on Google for jobs. Chad Sowash (34:24.226) Good stuff. Chad Sowash (34:46.306) Yeah, it just looks like they flipped on the monetization switch. mean, also like someone forgot to flip on the monetization switch at some time. Like, turn that on. But this this makes damn good sense because all of the large language models are spending tons of cash. They are burning cash and knowing Gemini isn't less costly. Google's going to be turning on all the revenue engines that they can. So. Joel Cheesman (34:56.063) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (35:12.55) This is a great way to monetize and pay for the coming Gemini jobs elements that I'm sure is going to be blending with Google for jobs in the pipeline, right? So we've already heard about chat GPT's version, like the unimaginative got to sign into your Indeed account first, and then it just sends you to a job on Indeed. We'll call that the basic bitch version, Indeed version. But there are other versions that are out there. I just saw yesterday. an amazing pilot where hiring companies. Not yet, not yet, not yet. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. no, you can feel it. see, we've been together too long. But I literally just saw a pilot yesterday where hiring companies will be able to feed their jobs directly into Chad GPT. Candidates can search for the company's jobs and then applying to the ATS using an agent, not going through the forms and all that other bullshit, but using their own agent. Joel Cheesman (35:44.139) Are you dropping a history lesson? Is a history lesson coming? Okay, I smell it, I smell it. All right, all right. Chad Sowash (36:10.478) specific to the company that's built for that company. It's fucking cool. And it's all cool, but why is all of this important? Now it's time for a history lesson. Chad Sowash (36:26.134) Okay, kids, back in the late aughts when talent acquisition couldn't spell SEO, literally stole the search results page away from actual hiring companies. So when you would do a branded search for jobs like Coca-Cola jobs, Google would serve up links to Indeed, not Coca-Cola. Why? Because TA didn't understand the power of search optimization and it took some hiring companies over 10 years to win back their top search results back from Indeed, their own names. They had to win back from Indeed. Now, we have a similar type of a situation from an optimization on the AI side of the house. But instead of search optimization, much as you had said, answer engine, AI optimization, whatever you want to call it, Indeed is creating apps within the LLMs and they are trying to steal those results away. InChat GBT. in Claude, in Gemini, for all of the big brands that are out there. So if you're listening to me today and you are a brand, Indeed is trying to fucking drink your milkshake right fucking now, right? So job seekers will go to them instead of you, right? Companies can't allow this to happen. So you're going to have to, listen up, instead of losing like you did on Google and Indeed took all your traffic, On Claude, on ChatGPT and on Gemini, you're going to have to build apps that actually engage those large language models. I saw one demonstrated yesterday. I know that they're coming out into the market. So get ready for due diligence because you're going to want to have your own app within ChatGPT, within these large language models that you don't have to go and like navigate and find you literally there's, there's different search text functionality that does it. but you're gonna wanna do that now because if you lose it again, you're gonna have to go back to it indeed and spend more money with them instead of keeping it to yourself. Chad Sowash (38:31.429) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (38:33.035) Chad, what do I say every time we do the prediction show? There are no wrong predictions. They just haven't happened yet. I don't know how, I don't know if we both predicted this at one point or just one eye, but yeah, Google monetizing Google for jobs was a layup. Uh, it's easy for them to do. Um, I'm surprised it took this long, although it going back to the, the LinkedIn story, there are fewer people clicking shit. Chad Sowash (38:36.43) That's right. hasn't happened yet. Joel Cheesman (39:01.375) which means they're clicking fewer ads, which means Google is like, how do we, how do we put more ads in there? What's an easy button for more ads? jobs classifieds. That's an easy one. Right. So here in enters paid ads on Google, does not surprise me. In fact, I have a history lesson of my own chat. Chad Sowash (39:10.22) Everywhere. Joel Cheesman (39:24.949) some of the younger viewers won't know that I was a, an SEO in a previous life and, and loved it and was pretty successful at it. And I remember a conversation probably in four with one of my mentors, Paul Elliott, who doesn't listen to the show. But anyway, Paul shout out to you. I remember conversation with Paul when he, when he made a statement, Google, I think it just fairly recently come out with their pay-per-click stuff. And he said, there will be a day when everything on Google. Chad Sowash (39:39.99) Mm. Joel Cheesman (39:54.856) Is an ad it's paid for by somebody. And I was like, come on. You remember the days when there were no ads on Google, right? Or the ads they did have were, were highlighted in purple and green and crazy colors and shit. Like you're like, come on. Google's great. Cause it's good organic. Well, let's fast forward 20 years. Everything organic is below the fold. with Google, we didn't even envision AI stuff, back then. and here we are with jobs. Like it's all going to be paid shit and, in, uh, in the screenshots that I saw everything above the fold is an ad on jobs. And this is the where, this is where we are now. Um, so the good news is indeed is going to have to spend more money. Uh, zip recruiter doesn't have any money. So I don't know what the hell they're going to do with their ad spend more LinkedIn ads, more ads everywhere, everybody. Um, so it does not surprise me. Um, at all. What, what I do find interesting is now when you search Chad Sowash (40:40.014) Ha Joel Cheesman (40:54.793) Before the actual job description, you just see the listing and then where the primary spot is for that job. However, Google decides that. So you're not initially seeing a lot of options until you click on a job, but then you go like, so they're moving you towards more ads. I think they want you to click more ads and this is just where Google is. They are not a charity people. They are here to make money. They are here to make money. Chad Sowash (41:03.882) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (41:24.649) Which is good, because pretty soon no one's gonna have money, which leads us to our next story, which, my God, we are just all screwed, everybody. Chad Sowash (41:28.366) Hahaha. Joel Cheesman (41:37.918) All right, Chad, the narrative around white collar jobs going extinct escalated this week. Thanks to some pretty smart people. Ex presidential candidate Andrew Yang took to Substack to say AI quote will kick millions of white collar workers to the curb in the next 12 to 18 months and quote not to be outdone. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleiman said all all white collar work will be automated by AI. in 18 months. Chad, what's your take on all these naysayers predicting the death of white collar work and is podcast host considered a white collar job? Chad Sowash (42:19.596) God, that's a very good question. Well, we'll say no, just for the sake of this conversation, to keep anxiety down. There's been so much contradiction of research and information and AI's not working and AI's gonna take everybody's jobs and blah, nobody knows what, yeah, nobody knows what to believe, right? So. Joel Cheesman (42:39.563) A lot of it on this show, on interviews we've had. Yeah. Chad Sowash (42:44.738) you know, whether you're a true believer like Microsoft's AI CEO, you know, Mustafa Suleiman or just one of those, you know, AI Kool-Aid drinkers, which I think we all are. Joel Cheesman (42:56.585) the Kool-Aid today. Chad Sowash (42:59.756) I think it's important to go over how smart vendor companies could make widespread AI adoption actually happen because we're seeing reports like MIT saying, know, CEOs aren't seeing any ROI. Well, there's a reason why they're not seeing ROI. We keep talking about how AI isn't giving us the ROI. Well, that's because we're using it as a tool instead of an integrated part of the system. What's the difference? A tool, very simply, workers have to manually engage the AI, right? I want to write something up. I've got to go to chat GPT. I have to write it up, right? I have a job description. Well, I post a job description. It goes directly into poetry. Our friends over, Adam Gordon and Stephen McGrath, it automatically sucks in. the job description and it creates all these assets and gives it right back to me. I didn't have to do any of that shit. I didn't have to prompt it. I didn't have to do any of that stuff, right? That's the second part. AI as a part of the system, right? It picks up and does the heavy lifting for you without you having to even lift a fucking finger for God's sakes. Now imagine if you break all that down, all those tasks down into an AI system and the AI can actually execute those tasks. Joel Cheesman (43:58.559) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (44:22.668) This is going to be different from company to company, position to position as cultures are different. So, you know, there's going to be different complexity for some jobs. But the point is. Vendors who are smart will build the AI as an integrated part of the system instead of just tools. And if you do that, Mustafa's prediction and how it will be carried out will be much clearer. It will be seen much clearer. Every time I hear somebody say, well, how's a recruiter going to use it? I automatically think you're missing the fucking point. A recruiter shouldn't be using it. It should be happening in the background. It should be engaging and actually taking tasks off the plate, right? So for me, it's just that simple. That's how technology, that's how AI, that's how automation and agents are literally gonna take over in the background if... Joel Cheesman (45:04.938) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (45:21.738) If we execute, if we execute in that manner, if we're creating tools, I think we're fucked. If we're creating integrated systems, then I think we're going to blow up. It's going to be pretty amazing from maybe not a job standpoint, but from a stock market standpoint for maybe a workday. Joel Cheesman (45:42.623) And are podcasters okay? Are we safe? Chad Sowash (45:45.72) I think we're fine. mean, I personally, I've listened to some of these automated podcasts where they're created, they've generated the Chat GPT script and it's fed into, you know, notebook LLM and they're sterile. They're boring. They're like most other podcasts, right? I think you have to bring, you have to bring character. You have to bring expertise. have to, yeah, I mean, it's, Sure. Joel Cheesman (46:11.871) Not us. Nuance. History lessons. Chad Sowash (46:14.994) It's going to be what it is. Yes, exactly. They don't give you a history lesson, and if they do, yes, exactly. They don't have shirtless Scotsmen, Joel Cheesman (46:21.011) No history lessons. They don't have a Scottish sound bites for everybody. I'll also add, I just remembered, one of the anthropic security heads, think quit to do poetry. So like people who should know are either making really wild statements or doing things to really upend their life as they know it. I'm with you, dude. Fear and certainty and doubt is real. I can read this and be like, we're screwed. Or I can listen to an interview that we've done and say, well, it's just because the fed rates are fucked up. Or, or you know, like, are we over hired? And we're just recalibrating that. I mean, that everything makes sense when you hear it. But the more and more smart people, I mean, these aren't crazy cat ladies on the corner. Like these are people with real credentials. And they're they're scared to death. Chad Sowash (46:58.4) Yeah. Yes. Joel Cheesman (47:17.469) So I don't know what to think other than keep doing what I do. I know AI has made us more efficient. I know that it makes us produce more stuff and save more time and get back a lot of our lives. And maybe that's where we're going. We'll just have chocolates and bourbon every day and just have the notes and everything done and we'll just read it. But what makes me think historically, Chad Sowash (47:36.142) You Chad Sowash (47:40.482) I already do that. Joel Cheesman (47:45.67) my God, are we gonna do another history lesson? What the hell? I love the soundbites so much. In the 1930s, 20 % of the jobs in this country, the US, were agriculture jobs. Flash freezing became a technology, bird's eye, around the 1920s, which I'm not a scientist, basically allowed you to freeze produce. Chad Sowash (47:47.753) God, see again. Joel Cheesman (48:13.619) and have it taste fresh. Like it wasn't soggy and moldy or whatever, which I guess would have been the case beforehand. So when that technology came out, there were, there were doomsayers talking about the end of agriculture and so many jobs were going to disappear. Well, sure enough, fast forward to today and under 2 % of jobs in the U S are agriculture based. So you could basically say 20 % of the jobs from 1930 are gone because of this technology. Now it's been a while since the 1930s, a hundred years, and maybe this change will happen a lot quicker and people will have to adapt a lot faster. But we can survive if something really bad does happen. The world wasn't always an eight hour work day. The world wasn't always five days a week that you worked. mean, like things will change and we'll adapt hopefully, but this shit is scary, but there is some scientific historical relevance to say like we will survive. I think the pain is going to be real for a period of time and maybe we'll adjust and adapt out of it. I don't see a future where we're all on our Oculus headsets, Ready Player One style and living in trailers stacked upon each other in Columbus, Ohio, but I could be wrong. The good news is, Chad, we probably won't be alive to see the demise of humanity. It'll be something our kids will get to view, probably. Chad Sowash (49:37.91) Yeah, I have heard many naysayers in that saying that's agriculture. That's that's one industry. That's one segment. This is across all segments, which could be more scary. Right. But again, I think there are opportunities for growth in those in those industries. I hope so. And I also hope that we get an equalization or something that actually helps is going to have to be the government that actually forces higher pay because when people get paid more they spend it on stuff you know and as we see wages not grow because they have not been growing with regard to inflation versus you know the the upper echelon the the fucking executives if that money is finally gotten down to the people who are going to pay for stuff then that Joel Cheesman (50:21.599) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (50:36.15) turns the economy. So, I mean, we have answers to fix this shit. We just have to fix it. Joel Cheesman (50:42.099) Yeah, they're not vibe coding at Arby's just so you know, Chad, I know you're concerned about your roast beef getting automated, maybe making it. Guys, guys, if you haven't left us a review, what are you doing? Let us know what you think good or bad. We love to hear from you. Chad Sowash (50:49.592) Hmm, maybe 3D printed. Chad Sowash (50:58.584) Do you love the history lesson? That's the question. Joel Cheesman (51:01.34) us because we love you. Joel Cheesman (51:09.327) Have we sounded like old crotchety fuckers in this show? feel like the history lessons, the... Chad Sowash (51:13.41) I don't, all the history lessons, I think is, yeah, we're gonna have to cap the history lessons per show. Joel Cheesman (51:19.883) All right, well, we're bringing the red meat regardless. Let's talk about Indeed. They've updated their smart screening product. They've temporarily suspended the third-party license verification feature to facilitate quote, more enhancements. During this time, clients won't be charged for their smart screening subscription. Chad, what's Indeed up to with all these updates and these failure to launches? Chad Sowash (51:23.136) Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. Chad Sowash (51:47.026) Yeah, I think some people in the industry have been confused. And I appreciate and understand the confusion. But I wanted to talk about this for some one single reason, the confusion, because throwing spaghetti at the wall doesn't equal innovation. Taking advantage of customers with quote unquote, new, that's right, air quotes, kids, new sales models. Joel Cheesman (52:02.357) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (52:14.378) doesn't equal innovation and creating half-assed tech and launching it to the world and then having to reel it back in doesn't equal innovation. We all need to recalibrate how we think about Indeed because remember after being bought by Recruit Holdings, Indeed is proving to us on a daily basis they are not a tech company. They are a staffing company with shitty tech. Joel Cheesman (52:41.857) Which is weird because we had a hidden camera and microphone in the boardroom and here's some unreleased Deco audible. Check this out. Chad Sowash (52:45.099) You Joel Cheesman (52:56.277) So I don't think they think there's a problem, Chad. I don't know. I had a little bit different take on this and maybe it's because Eightfold is on the brain. But if you look at the smart screening product on Indeed's website, it says the following, and I quote, Indeed smart screening screens and scores candidates based on your objective criteria, then delivers them directly to your ATS so your team can evaluate the right candidates faster. Do I smell sort of a black box... Chad Sowash (53:23.692) Hmm, FCRA, FCRA, huh? Joel Cheesman (53:23.839) ...grading thing going on or some potential risks there to indeed and saying, Hey, let's back off of this and figure it out before this this eightfold thing happens. If they are taking data of profiles and mixing them up and giving you scores like that is a potential threat to indeed as I think we believe it's a threat to everybody who's doing anything like that, which is probably 80 % of our industry at the moment. Chad Sowash (53:41.314) Yeah. Chad Sowash (53:47.566) Yeah, yeah, but in again teaser, so you'll hear this when you listen to the Rachel Dempsey interview is that, and this is the funny part, what you just read is out there in the open, it's marketing, it's the sales. This is when Torch Justice wanted to create this suit and do their research against Eightfold, all they had to do was look at their patents and look at their marketing material. And that really put them in a jam. And when I mean them, I mean Eightfold. Joel Cheesman (53:54.272) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (54:17.506) The same thing with Indeed. The shit that they sell, they spin, they say they can do, that's gonna come back, perspectively, and bite them in the ass. Especially when they're talking about disposition data. They start talking about this, any company that is talking about taking disposition data right now on a grand scale. There are many companies right now that are doing it by, almost like a consultancy. Joel Cheesman (54:21.355) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (54:41.944) to be able to clean up data, to be able to give companies specific signals that's their client, kind of like an agency, right? But if you're doing it like Indeed, and you're coercing broad spectrums of companies to give you that disposition data, you could be fucked pretty quick. Joel Cheesman (54:48.651) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (54:59.955) Yeah, this case is one to watch and we will continue to be reporting on it. Doing the good work, like the good dad jokes that we are always doing on this show, Chad. This one is Olympics themed. What's the problem with the Winter Olympics, Chad? Chad Sowash (55:19.245) The winter. Joel Cheesman (55:22.047) They always start okay, but then they go downhill fast. It's a slippery slope, unfortunately. Chad Sowash (55:25.997) No. It is a slippery slope. Yeah, it's a slippery solemn. We out. Joel Cheesman (55:32.159) Go USA! We out!

The black box is back… and apparently it’s here to “enrich hiring and society.” Because nothing says progress like a robot scraping your internet crumbs, guessing your personality, and deciding your career destiny like it’s fantasy football. In this episode of HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast, Chad & Cheese sit down with attorney Rachel Dempsey to break down the Eightfold lawsuit where AI hiring, billion-point data claims, and “ethical AI” marketing collide with actual law and common sense. We dig into enriched talent profiles, mystery match scores, and the idea that bots predicting your future is somehow good for humanity. Spoiler: when the algorithm plays therapist, recruiter, and fortune teller… things get weird fast. Class action stakes. Employer risk. AI vendors sweating behind the pitch decks. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:31.054) Two guys whose favorite class in high school was detention. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, riding shotgun is Chad Sowash as we welcome Rachel Dempsey, Associate Director at Towards Justice, a nonprofit legal organization that defends workers on and on their way to being knee deep in the eightfold lawsuit. Rachel, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash (00:36.75) True, true. Chad Sowash (00:45.964) Esquire. Rachel Dempsey (01:00.674) Thank you. It's great to be here. Joel Cheesman (01:02.926) Good to have you, good to have you. Chad Sowash (01:03.074) Rachel, how do you become an Esquire? I don't know any about this. Joel Cheesman (01:07.042) go to law school and hurt. Rachel Dempsey (01:08.423) Go to law school and pass the bar, I think. You might just have to go to law school. I'm not sure. Chad Sowash (01:11.406) Is that it? Joel Cheesman (01:12.097) And In her case, Yale Law School, which means this is rock bottom for her career, which it can only go up from here. Thanks for taking a bet on us, Rachel. We appreciate it. Rachel Dempsey (01:23.603) This is more interesting than any law school class I ever went to. Joel Cheesman (01:30.745) Oh, oh, love that. Love that. So our listeners likely won't know you, although they will be probably hearing more of you as the eightfold case unfolds, but give us a little taste of who is Rachel. Rachel Dempsey (01:43.539) So I'm an attorney at Towards Justice. I'm the associate director here. We're a nonprofit law firm based in Denver, Colorado, but we do national work. We represent workers and consumers in litigation and in other advocacy that builds worker power and advances economic justice in Colorado and across the country. we do both. Our original focus, I think, was on workers, and we've expanded a little bit to more consumer. competition law. And this case is really at the intersection of a lot of those legal spaces. Chad Sowash (02:17.9) Yeah, it definitely is. What about you though, Rachel? Taking a little time on the bunny hill there in Colorado. What's going on? What's going on with you? Tell us a little bit about you. Rachel Dempsey (02:26.867) I have a three-year-old who went skiing for the first time this week and she took her very first ski lesson. think she went down the bunny hill one time in three hours and her report was that the hot chocolate was the best part. It was a great success. Chad Sowash (02:38.222) sweet. Joel Cheesman (02:44.748) And no ACL sprains or no ACL is fine? I know a lot of that's going down with the Olympics this year. Okay, good. Rachel Dempsey (02:51.089) All good. As physically, yeah, as physically unbruised as a three-year-old can be. Joel Cheesman (02:58.67) physically impressed. The mentally, yeah. Chad Sowash (02:59.874) Yeah, mentally is something entirely different. Yes. That's what the hot chocolate's for. So if you can, can you give us a little bit about just kind of like the background of Torch Justice and also how did you stumble upon this company, this little company called Eightfold? Rachel Dempsey (03:02.163) We'll learn that in a few years. Rachel Dempsey (03:25.789) Sure. So like I said, towards justice, we take a broad view of worker power and economic justice and sort of started learning about these AI hiring companies. It's something I think that everybody who works with workers, who represents workers has heard about and sort of understands is a really big issue for the workers that we talk to. They're facing, I think, a lot of a lot of difficulties in applying for jobs that they haven't necessarily seen before. So we started looking into these products about a year ago, and we've been working actually very closely with Towards Justice. One of our senior fellows is Seth Frotman, who until a year ago was the general counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Chad Sowash (04:21.414) hello. Rachel Dempsey (04:22.451) Yeah, and they had sort of done some looking into these products and actually issued a bulletin about two years ago, sort of suggesting that there could be FICRA liability, Fair Credit Reporting Act liability for some of these products that sort of track workers and create reports on them. So this case came out of that project. And I think eightfold. jumped out at us because a lot of huge companies use it. And then we came across a lot of workers who had had experiences with applying to jobs there and with not being able to get jobs there and not understand, sorry, not being able to get jobs with companies that use eightfold and not understanding why. Chad Sowash (05:07.768) So for all of us dummies out there who don't know what FICRA or FCRA, which is what I've been calling it, we don't know what that is. Can you give us a little background on Rachel Dempsey (05:14.365) You Rachel Dempsey (05:19.955) sure, lawyers love a nickname for a law. The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a law passed in the 1970s that governs what information and how companies can use information in creating credit reports that control people's access to credit, insurance, and jobs. So FICRA defines a credit report as information bearing on a consumer's credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living. The reason why I read through that, all of that sort of legal language is because I think that until I got involved in this, I thought that a credit report was just like the thing that TransUnion or Equifax or Experience made to get, determine your access to a credit card or to a loan or whatever. Joel Cheesman (06:10.562) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (06:18.099) And it's actually a lot broader than that. And the legislative history makes that clear. Legislative history is another sort of lawyer word, which means what the lawmakers who passed the law sort of were talking about and how they explained the need for the law when they passed it. So the Fair Credit Reporting Act was passed in 1970, of at the very beginning of... credit reports as we know them. And at the time that the Fair Credit Reporting Act was passed, credit reports could include stuff like, you know, what your neighbor, what your neighbor said about you, whether what your marital status was, you know, whether you had a reputation as being like a drunk among the people that you sort of that you that you hung out with. So what what FICRA was intended to do was to provide some transparency into this process, right? Like people were being denied credit because their neighbors, you know, said they threw loud parties or whatever. Joel Cheesman (07:17.656) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:24.398) And not only that, just so I understand that information was there, but I wouldn't have access to it. So it was sort of the, say black box more than a few times in this interview. It's there, but I can't see it, which I think comes to the crux of some of this. So I think you've done a great job of setting the table. Talk about the players in this. Talk about the plaintiffs. You're working with another law firm. Like let's get the players on the field. Rachel Dempsey (07:31.289) Exactly. Exactly. Rachel Dempsey (07:51.367) Yeah, totally. So Towards Justice is one of the lawyers on the case, one of the law firms on the case. The other law firm on the case is a private plaintiff's firm called Outen and Golden. Again, they typically do employment cases, this is sort of their employment and consumer law, I think, has a lot of overlap, and particularly these days. So then the named plaintiffs in this case, Aaron, Aaron Kistler. Chad Sowash (08:12.984) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (08:19.251) and Sruti Bamek are both just workers who have applied to jobs, a lot of jobs using eightfold platforms and have really struggled to find a job. both, they both have a lot of experience. They're both sort of relatively older workers and they came to us having applied to just hundreds of jobs and been denied for those jobs over and over again and not understanding why. Chad Sowash (08:49.122) this sounds, I mean, much more layered than the Mobley versus Workday case, where it's literally that to me just seems like age discrimination. This this seems much deeper from the standpoint of, as Joel had said, collecting all that that data and it being in a black box and not being validated and or verified by the actual candidate and or user or consumer or whatever the hell you want to call them, right? Rachel Dempsey (08:58.269) Yeah. Chad Sowash (09:16.75) but there's literally no validation or verification. I'm sure you've seen the eightfold patent. There's a lot of inference that happens. So that's gotta be, I mean, the patent, you take a look at some of their marketing materials that talks about enrichment data and actually taking from LinkedIn and GitHub. Rachel Dempsey (09:27.535) Exactly. Yeah. Rachel Dempsey (09:39.859) Exactly. Chad Sowash (09:43.68) in all these different areas and they're enriching a person's profile. And it's like, how do you know that that's valid data? So if you could dig into that a little bit, because this is so much more layered than the mobile case. Rachel Dempsey (09:55.239) Yeah, and I think the Mobley case is just addressing a different issue. It's also a serious issue. I think there are reasons to think that this AI hiring software facilitates and sort of recreates human biases. And so there are potentially, I think, discrimination cases that could come from this. This is different. This case sort of applies to all users and deals with the right to both to privacy and to transparency, to understanding sort of how your data is being used. And so just based again, based on eightfolds public information, eventually I think we will hopefully get insight into sort of, you know, private information, be able to test that in discovery. But right now we just have access to its public information, but there's a lot of public information they put out there about that, about their product. And based on that public information, I think there's two potential issues, both of which would Chad Sowash (10:47.022) Yes. Rachel Dempsey (10:51.431) violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act. One is that they do sort of in their patents and various marketing materials talk about these enriched talent profiles. And the enriched talent profiles sort of suggest that they find data from elsewhere on the internet about a specific candidate and add that data to a candidate's profile. I think they've denied that. Again, the discovery will sort of let us. explore more into that and our allegations are based on the public statements that they've made. The other issue though, even setting aside whether for any individual candidate, they like go to your LinkedIn, sort of find, you know, blogs that you've written, whatever their marketing material suggests, even if they don't do that, for every applicant, they sort of take the information that the applicant has given them, they take the information that the employer has given them, and then they Chad Sowash (11:19.97) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (11:46.163) break down that information and sort of analyze it and use that, by that analysis, they make inferences about, you know, what jobs are like each other, what job titles are like each other, and what sort of skills an employee is likely to be able to develop, what their career trajectory is, what jobs they're likely to have in the future. And all of those inferences are provided to the employer and, you know, the employer sort of used to decide. Chad Sowash (11:59.395) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (12:15.399) whether or not someone is eligible for a job. And those inferences are unverifiable, right? Some of them are predictions of the future. And I think that that in itself is a credit report under the definition of the credit report. it feels, I think, very invasive to people to have this machine deciding what you want to do with your career. mean, maybe it's wrong. Joel Cheesman (12:42.254) In case it ever comes out Chad that only fans account is not me. It is not me. Okay Rachel Eightfold eightfold is a company with a two billion plus dollar valuation. They've raised about 400 million dollars I assume that they have something to say about this. What has been their response other than just it's not true Chad Sowash (12:42.491) Right? Yeah. Chad Sowash (12:50.83) Check the credit card on that one. Rachel Dempsey (13:04.307) So their response has been, we are an ethical AI company, and what we use is just candidate data and employer data. Now, I am not the judge of who's ethical or not. That's not my job. I'm a lawyer. My job is to decide whether or not it looks like they're complying with the law. So setting aside whether they're ethical, which is not something that I'm opining on, again, the allegations in the complaint come from their marketing material. Joel Cheesman (13:18.307) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (13:19.403) Exactly. Rachel Dempsey (13:33.989) it's they're all cited. You can follow the citations and see the patents, they're all in the complaint. And regardless of whether for sort of any individual candidate, they're only the individualized information is only from, you know, the resume and the employer. Again, these inferences, these sort of these calculations, this match score is being compared to I think their their big selling point is, you know, we compare people to 1 billion data points, right? We our decisions are informed by 1 billion data points. I mean, that is a lot of external data that they're using to draw these inferences, to create these reports that say things like this person has these skills today, but they're likely to be able to develop these skills in the future. And based on the types of companies they've been at in the past, they're likely to go to this type of company in the future. So, I think that regardless of what data they're sort of ingesting about any individual, Chad Sowash (14:05.986) Yeah. Yeah. Rachel Dempsey (14:32.509) that goes through their system and then comes out is, I think, a much more expansive report than that. This is not just them sort of reciting what's on someone's resume. Chad Sowash (14:41.902) So for me, obviously we've Joel and I have been in this space for a long time. We hear a lot of bullshit marketing terms and one of the biggest bullshit marketing terms we hear right now is ethical AI. There's literally no hard edges around what it actually means, but yet everybody's using it. And I want to dig into this patent real quick because I have it up on my computer. So as you were talking about talent insights. Quality of education. I don't know what that means. Does that mean that I get a better quality of education by the different school that I go to? mean, what does that mean? Career growth progression, skills depth, industry expertise, and then you get into the personality insights. This is kind of scary, okay? Talking about whether I'm a team player, I'm an introvert, extrovert, chess. Whether I played chess or, you know, a high endurance athlete. mean, it's just like the, and then there's also the predictions piece that that's associated to this. This is all set in the patent that's out there. That is the framework of which eightfold was built on. And yet they're, they're denying all of this. Rachel Dempsey (15:55.923) I think that's exactly right. mean, there's a lot of information that they have said and we're just repeating that information. I mean, again, everything in the complaint is cited. We're just repeating it. And I do, I think it feels very invasive to people and it's, I think, pretty clearly covered by these existing laws. mean, again, these laws are from the 1970s, but even at the time that they were passed, their drafters were concerned with sort Chad Sowash (16:03.874) Gotcha. Fair. Rachel Dempsey (16:24.979) computerized data collection very specifically. The sort of line that I love is one of the drafters said, the individual is in great danger of having his life and character reduced to impersonal blips and key punch holes in a stolid and unthinking machine. Now, obviously we've moved past key punch holes, but I think the overall sort of concern is very much coming to bear in these products. Joel Cheesman (16:49.806) Rachel, is a class action lawsuit for those, again, that don't know. Sort of describe what that means, how that could unfold, and then maybe what are some historical examples of how these cases resolve. Chad Sowash (16:50.926) agreed. Rachel Dempsey (17:05.565) Sure. So a class action is a structure for a case where a single issue or a single sort of legal concern affects a large group of people all at the same time. So the idea is that every single person who's submitted an application, who's been affected by Eightfold, could file their own lawsuit. That would probably be like millions of lawsuits, right? That just doesn't make sense from an efficiency perspective. It would overwhelm the courts. None of it would work. You can't afford to hire your own lawyer for that. So a class action sort of aggregates all of those claims together using sort of the examples of a couple of named plaintiffs, a couple of people that have been affected in the same way as everybody else by the lawsuit. So the way that those cases proceed is generally you sort of go through what's called a class certification procedure where the court decides if the lawyers are correct, that it's more efficient for the case to move forward all at once. That's often one of the sort big early fights is whether you get class certification or not. Once a class has been certified, sort of everybody's claims are in it together, people in the class get notice of their rights, have the opportunity to stay in the class or to leave the class. And so all of that moves forward together. Generally, people don't have to affirmatively opt into the class. If a class is certified, they're a member of the class. So people who are affected right now don't have to do anything in order to sort of stay part of part of the lawsuit. And then eventually either it all goes to trial together or there's a settlement. And then obviously the alternative is that class certification is denied, the cases go forward on their individual claims. We're optimistic, I think, that this is an appropriate case for class treatment. Chad Sowash (18:55.65) So it seems like, at least I think, I believe I read that there are over a billion profiles within the actual eightfold system. And this is obviously, we're just gonna break it down into the US. So let's say that there's a hundred million or let's say 50, 50 million people who've been impacted on this. How are they notified? Are they notified? How are they notified? How do you get into the discovery process at this point? Rachel Dempsey (19:28.156) Yeah, so. Joel Cheesman (19:28.398) The good news is our listenership is about 50 million. So that'll cover most of the people that know about this. Chad Sowash (19:31.288) hahahaha Rachel Dempsey (19:35.645) So generally, when you get a class certified notice goes out to everybody, I think that we've all gotten emails in our inbox that say, this is a class notice, whatever. Often they go to spam. Yeah, postcards, whatever. I actually check my spam pretty regularly as a lawyer who does class actions to be like, am I missing a class action here? Is there something I need to opt into? Or submit a claim form to get money, right? I'm not going to leave free money on the table. Joel Cheesman (19:36.098) You're welcome. Joel Cheesman (19:48.034) Postcards. Joel Cheesman (20:04.259) All those sales leads in the spam inbox for lawyers. had no idea. Never thought of that. Rachel Dempsey (20:05.427) But anyway, so if a class gets certified, think generally class notice goes out. And then if there's a settlement, if there's like money, then class notice definitely goes out. Again, it's usually some combination of email and mail. And then in a case that's this big, there may also just sort of be like press coverage where you learn about it. They're sort of like posting ways for a class case to... Joel Cheesman (20:29.454) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (20:35.271) to get notified. Generally though, mean, one of the advantages of a class action is that you don't individually usually have to do anything to participate, potentially unless there's money on the table. Chad Sowash (20:48.46) So Joel Cheesman (20:48.59) Is there a website? That's usually something, isn't it? Like, go to this website? Yeah, there will be, okay. I think Chad owns Eightfold Sucks if you need that one in the future. Just a heads up. Rachel Dempsey (20:51.559) There will be. Yeah, there will be. There's not right now. Yeah, but there's generally a class website. Chad Sowash (20:59.48) Hahaha! Rachel Dempsey (21:01.203) The defendant usually has to agree and I do not think they're going to agree to that one. Chad Sowash (21:03.843) So. Joel Cheesman (21:06.35) They probably won't agree on that one. Sorry. Sorry, Chad. I know. I know. Chad Sowash (21:06.862) that doesn't that that that's no fun. That's no fun at all. So going back to the the class action side of the house. So back in 2017, I talent then was in a class action, but they went ahead and settled. So therefore they didn't have to go to discovery. And to be quite frank, our industry and the world needs discovery because we have no clue at this point because of all the black boxes that are out there, not just a fault. Rachel Dempsey (21:09.272) you Chad Sowash (21:33.103) We've got so many black boxes that are out there. There has to be a precedent set. And there's not really, or at least I don't know of one, especially in the hiring space, where there's been a precedent set. How do we, how do you, I because this is no pressure, this is on you, Rachel. How do we make sure this gets to discovery so we can actually see the data and see what's happening so that companies that are currently doing it can stop, number one, and number two, ones that want to get into this space start to understand, shit, you know, maybe we need to do some redesign. Rachel Dempsey (22:05.159) Yes, excuse me. So as lawyers and as lawyers representing a class, it's our ethical obligation to sort of, you know, achieve whatever result we think is in the best interest of the class. Sometimes that does mean early settlement. If, you know, if for example, I'm not saying that this is what happened in that case, I'm not saying that that's this is what happened in any specific case. But if sort of the defendant comes and says, you know, we, we messed up, we we're going to change our practices, let's sort of get this resolved before there's a lot of expensive litigation, then maybe you'll reach an early settlement. mean, the other reason why you might reach an early settlement is that you realize your case isn't as strong as you thought. So there are potentially pre, there are situations in which you reach a pre-discovery settlement and that is the best sort of, the best outcome for your class. As lawyers, I think that we are, you know, towards justice, we do litigation, we are in the public interest, are sort of trying to impact, you know, affect policy and sort of bring attention to issues that we think need more light. And I think this is one of them, but we ultimately have the responsibility sort of to the class to get the best possible result for them. And litigation is expensive, right? So, and discovery is expensive. So there are, think, incentives on all sides to settle early before all of the money that could potentially go to the class ends up going towards actually the legal battle. So I can't know how this case is going to shake out. again, we have obligations that aren't just sort of purely get to discovery. That said, do think discovery is a really important way to shine light on a lot of these issues and is one way that litigation can help advance the public interest. Joel Cheesman (23:38.136) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (23:57.259) yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:01.262) Mm hmm. Rachel, this was filed in California. Explain to me again as a layman, it'll be tried in California if it goes to court and then can other states use it as precedent? How does the federal, because it's a federal law, like explain that to me. Help me make sense of that. Rachel Dempsey (24:21.107) Yeah, so the case was filed in California and it's under both federal and California law. I think that the class is defined as sort of all everyone who was affected by by eightfold nationwide. They're sort of specific, the California claims only apply to people in California, because that's sort of how how state law works. FICRA applies to people nationwide. I honestly, I can't remember off the top of my head how we sort of defined the class. I think it is a nationwide class, so it would affect people nationwide. But it is also common, I think, and we didn't, there are other state laws that provide similar protections to workers in other states. And, you know, I think that there's a potential for follow-on cases in other states as well. Joel Cheesman (25:15.892) And historically, I mean, this is a company that serves global clients. Could this be a springboard for, the EU or other international governments to look at this and say, like, we're going to do the same here because that's an issue here? I mean, that's a real existential threat to any AI company, I would think. Chad Sowash (25:36.971) yeah. Rachel Dempsey (25:38.035) Yeah, so I'm not a US lawyer, right? am a US Esquire. So I don't, yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I do think that the EU does have some stronger privacy protections than the US in a lot of ways. It's my understanding they are looking into these AI companies and these AI hiring platforms. And so I do think that is an issue that all of these companies need to be aware of. Joel Cheesman (25:43.212) We won't hold your feet to it. I asked historically like this happens, assume. Chad Sowash (25:47.235) He Joel Cheesman (25:52.526) They do. Chad Sowash (26:02.742) And I'm sure they are paying attention to the news and seeing the headlines all over the place. Joel Cheesman (26:08.974) Are you saying they might have added motivation to stick it to our AI companies, Chad? Rachel, we have a lot of employers listen to this show and many of them are using, if it's not Eightfold, it's some other AI black box. can magically give you the perfect candidate for every job. What kind of risk, you mentioned Microsoft, I think, as an Eightfold user and part of this case, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, Chad Sowash (26:13.038) Could be, could be. Joel Cheesman (26:35.948) What employers are freaking out about this stuff. What would you tell them in light of this case? Rachel Dempsey (26:41.629) So this case, the case that we have brought is just against eightfold. It's not against any of the employers. That said, I think that there is potentially liability on the part of the employers. One of the things about the Fair Credit Reporting Act is that it imposes potential liability both on the people that use the credit reports and the people that create the credit reports. So I do think it's important to understand what these rights are. Chad Sowash (26:54.968) Mm-hmm. Rachel Dempsey (27:11.481) know, their disclosure and correction rights. So I think employers should be aware of what those rights are and just make sure that they're complying with the law and providing users, providing applicants with all of the rights that they're entitled to. Chad Sowash (27:25.614) Well, it's interesting that you say that and it's a great question, Joel, because on the mobile versus workday side of the house, they had asked for client lists of workday clients that were actually using aspects, quote unquote, AI aspects of the product. mean, Joel and I have talked about this for years. Many laws actually hold the employer responsible solely. we're starting to move to a shared responsibility where these black boxes are being created. Although that doesn't leave the employer off the hook because they should be doing the due diligence and the constant auditing and looking at analytics and also their hiring cohorts to really understand what's happening in the black box. I find this really, really interesting. But there are so many other things that are happening out there and I'm sure you already have a full plate as it is. But you know, there are companies that are asking, are actually forcing in some cases, employers to provide hiring signals back to train LLMs, right? So large language models. And for me, that's way too far. Rachel Dempsey (28:41.747) Yeah. Chad Sowash (28:48.534) Right to be able to actually take these hiring signals I mean first and foremost the employer shouldn't be giving to them but as a candidate and that attached to me and All of these different systems if these hiring systems are training training large language models I have no clue that this is happening. Right? This is again the whole fair credit report thing I have no clue that this is happening what I mean Rachel Dempsey (29:12.243) Absolutely. Chad Sowash (29:17.002) It sounds like there could be perspective impact in many other areas of large language models training and such. Rachel Dempsey (29:25.587) I think that's absolutely right. think that using this data to train large language models, and again, that's one of eightfolds big selling points, right? Is that they train their large language models on one billion skills, one billion people, et cetera. I think that there is potentially significant liability there and that employers as well as the reporting companies themselves really need to be aware of that and think through that very seriously. Joel Cheesman (29:53.804) Rachel, we have a lot of people who use LinkedIn. I want your opinion on LinkedIn as a model where someone voluntarily gives their profile, creates an account. then ideal, guess, LinkedIn could do some sort of a ranking of people based in their system. Do you view a LinkedIn as susceptible to cases like this? Or are they sort of immune because you're Rachel Dempsey (30:11.784) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:20.3) voluntarily going onto their system, you're agreeing to their terms of service, which I assume they say we can do whatever the hell we want in terms of algorithms and whatnot. do you think LinkedIn is immune to these kinds of cases? Could LinkedIn be legally bound to showing people like a credit report, what they are showing employers or what employers can access in their algorithm? Like where does LinkedIn or maybe even an Indeed, which has a really big database, Rachel Dempsey (30:27.218) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:49.986) where do they play into these cases, if at all? Rachel Dempsey (30:53.395) So I don't wanna, this is a very lawyerly answer. I don't wanna sort of make any comments on LinkedIn specific potential liability. But generally speaking, I mean, we all agree to so many terms of service. We are all bound to sort of infinite word count of these sort of fine print terms for every single thing we do online. That said, one of the things that's really powerful about the Fair Credit Reporting Act is that it requires not only sort of consent, like, you know, Joel Cheesman (30:57.469) Hahaha Chad Sowash (31:08.366) It's Rachel Dempsey (31:22.195) sort of click through consent that companies get from you all the time and you have no idea what's in there, it requires standalone and clear and conspicuous disclosures. So the sort of click wrap type of disclosure, type of agreement that we're all agreeing to all the time via those little pop-up terms of service boxes, that is not good enough. FICRA requires the sort of FICRA disclosures to be made separately from any other disclosures. They can't sort of be buried in a long contract. they need to be clear and conspicuous. They need to be in a format that people will read and understand as disclosures about this specific thing. So I think that's one of the things that's powerful and helpful about FICRA is that you can't just bury the disclosures in the fine print contracts or behind the little hyperlink that says terms and conditions or all of the various ways that companies get you to agree to these contract terms. Joel Cheesman (32:08.91) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:19.938) Those bastards. Chad Sowash (32:20.566) Rachel, you've given us so much to think about, so much to think about. Rachel, this is Rachel Dempsey, Esquire, from the Torch Justice, the associate director. Rachel, if there are, I don't know, prospective class action suit clients who want to reach out to you, want to find out more on what they should do because they feel like they've been impacted, how would they actually reach out to you and and start that process. Rachel Dempsey (32:51.207) Yeah, so you can find my contact information on the Towards Justice website. That's Towards with an S, which is something that I have to explain at least once a week. But yeah, my contact information is available there. Our intake form is available there. And we would love to hear from people. Joel Cheesman (33:11.32) Chad, I have a sneaking suspicion that we will hear from Rachel again in the future. That's another one in the can everybody. We out. Chad Sowash (33:13.602) Hmm? Chad Sowash (33:19.449) We out.

Recruit’s at it again, squeezing employers with Indeed’s black-box pricing the second the market softens. From there, it’s a whirlwind: a major HR tech shakeup, AI hype smacking SaaS stocks, job search getting hijacked by bots, and a legal storm brewing around how hiring platforms really use your data. Throw in some Super Bowl ad shade, a little surveillance paranoia, and a job market that feels one bad headline away from chaos… Yeah, it’s one of those episodes. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:52.086) Stop collaborate and listen boys and girls this is the chat and cheese podcast I'm your co-host Joel Gordy Howe Cheeseman Chad Sowash (01:01.056) This is Chad Coelho Mao, Silt Wash. Maureen Clough (01:04.706) And this is Maureen aka Moe, the Seahawks saved 2026 Wiley Clough. Chad Sowash (01:10.88) Too early. Joel Cheesman (01:11.116) On this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, Workday says goodbye, Recruit says, Konnichiwa, and France says, fucka you! Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:26.768) That's about the only French I know. And it was taught to be bombed by my brother-in-law in French, French Canadian. Yeah, guard. So what's up everybody? Maureen Clough (01:28.846) It's beautiful. Wow. Chad Sowash (01:31.712) God fuck you. Chad Sowash (01:38.4) Well, Mo is on cloud nine. I think she's calling a win in 2026 a little early, but okay. Joel Cheesman (01:39.855) Mo's on her victory hangover. Maureen Clough (01:42.423) Yes. Maureen Clough (01:47.436) You know, hey, we didn't need even that. could have had something. We know what's so sad is I don't have any of my gear here in my cabin. So I didn't even get to watch the Seahawks Super Bowl rep in my company. I mean, rep in my crew, which sucked, but it was. Joel Cheesman (01:49.468) How are you not wearing like the Sam Darnold jersey? Chad Sowash (01:57.321) Chad Sowash (02:02.179) OK. But you got to watch it. Maureen Clough (02:05.422) I got to watch it. Yes. And it was amazing. In fact, I made a really huge mistake though. have to tell you, my siblings went down to California and actually saw it in person. And I was like, you know, it just sounds like a lot of traveling and I don't know. I mean, I'm Chad Sowash (02:15.232) Joel Cheesman (02:16.092) you Chad Sowash (02:18.685) first world problems, yeah. Maureen Clough (02:20.494) I'm up 5K, so at least there's that. But yeah, and you get kind of like better views from the TV, but anyway, it was so awesome and it did so much to heal my broken heart after the Mariner season just to see this happen and so good for the city of Seattle and there's gonna be a massive parade today. 750,000 people are expected, so. Chad Sowash (02:22.848) You Chad Sowash (02:36.318) yeah. Chad Sowash (02:39.966) And yet you're here. And yet you're here. Maureen Clough (02:41.154) And yet I'm here. I'm here because you guys, take my commitments seriously. I take my commitments to the Chad and Chi show very seriously. So yeah, but I'm very happy. And yes, it's a huge win for 2026. yeah, my condolences to JT. Joel Cheesman (02:43.696) She comes correct. Chad Sowash (02:45.664) She does, she does. Ooh, setting the bar right there, right there. Joel Cheesman (02:56.7) Two guys who will never perform at the halftime show, by the way. Two guys. Chad Sowash (02:59.36) Dude, was, I, it didn't start till 1130 here. We were, we had, my buddy's apartment was full. We had hot wings. We had beer. We were, yeah. We, we, I didn't go to bed till after three, but it was, it was, is where I, I love a good, I love a good, I love a good defense. And there were two good defenses out there. It was a great defense out there. It was good. And then obviously, you know, Patriots had a really good defense. And then I did, I love me some bad money. Maureen Clough (03:04.998) my gosh. Maureen Clough (03:10.146) You did it up. Damn. Good for you. Maureen Clough (03:20.94) they came through. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:26.364) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (03:28.924) I do love me some Bad Bunny. Latin music always brings back great memories for me. I lived in Panama for a little while, visiting Puerto Rico, spending time in Miami. mean, great people, great food, great music. I had a blast. I loved it. Maureen Clough (03:29.186) Yeah, he was awesome. Maureen Clough (03:47.214) 100%. I loved it too. Joel Cheesman (03:50.086) So you're not agreeing with the pushback from the other side on this one, I assume, Chad. Chad Sowash (03:55.681) I don't understand the pushback. mean, it's weird to me. Maureen Clough (04:00.439) So absurd. Kid Rock, come on. my gosh. Joel Cheesman (04:01.244) Hot Latinas will save the world as far as I'm concerned. don't know how anyone can watch just the sexiness of that halftime show and not think like, this is awesome. This is amazing. Maureen Clough (04:10.157) Oh boy. Oh boy. Chad Sowash (04:16.074) Yeah, I again, I don't understand it. You know, I was lucky enough my literally the first Puerto Rican I ever met, grown up in Mansfield, Ohio and North Central Ohio did not was not exposed to Latin music, Latin food, Latin people. No, go figure. Why? Because they all look like me. White people went to AIT, which was right after basic training. And one of my roommates was Peyton Pedro Benton Court from Puerto Rico and Dude was amazing. Spent 14 weeks with him. He could barely speak English by the time he was done. I spoke a little bit of Spanish. He spoke a lot more English because there are a lot more English speakers around him. But we had a we had a we had a great time, had a great time. And then obviously, like I said, spending time down in Panama, the culture, the food, I mean, I just loved it. So, I mean, that kind of music in that halftime show. And if you have you ever been to Puerto Rico? Oh, it's Maureen Clough (05:13.899) I have. Yeah, it's beautiful. Very cool. Chad Sowash (05:15.764) I mean, it's cool. Just as long as, you know, there's no hurricanes or shit like that. It's old San Juan is fucking amazing. I mean, it was it was really cool. It really cool. So I just think those a lot of those people who are pushing back. Number one, they don't understand that, you know, more culture is good. Number one and number two, the NFL is a fucking private company. What are they trying to do? They're trying to expand base. And you're looking at 600 million Spanish speakers. Maureen Clough (05:22.368) I agree. Joel Cheesman (05:44.282) Yeah. Demographics is destiny, right? Demographics is destiny. And that's where the world's going. You know, I, I, if this whole Epstein shit hasn't has taught me anything, it's that, you know, there's a, there's a line in wall street where Gordon Gatko says, look, you're either on the inside or the outside. And I'm convinced there's a lot of rich fuckers on the inside that want everyone on the outside to hate each other, to fight each other, to argue each other, to like, just, just be, just be, just look over here. Chad Sowash (05:45.344) worldwide. Yes, yes, it's too easy. Maureen Clough (05:47.167) Yep, there you go. Let's talk about come on. Chad Sowash (06:02.72) Mm. Chad Sowash (06:10.036) Yeah, exactly. Maureen Clough (06:10.285) It's a distraction. Yeah. Yep. 100 % agree with you. Joel Cheesman (06:13.712) Don't look at the shit that we're doing. So I'm just kind of over fight everybody political division. Like it's all, it's all jazz hands for the rich to stay rich and do apparently really bad shit to people. so that, that's what Epstein has taught me. It's just, it's, it's gross obviously, but there's, there's clearly a bucket of people that we, we don't relate to. Chad Sowash (06:15.85) Yeah. Maureen Clough (06:19.735) Faux outrage. Yeah. Yep. Maureen Clough (06:27.848) really bad shit. Yeah. beyond. Joel Cheesman (06:38.246) that are either making the rules, doing all the shit, and we're not part of that. They want us to keep fighting. If you had two yachts and one guy was black and one was white, I bet there's no racism. It's two rich people. That's the difference between them and us. Maureen Clough (06:40.717) I mean. Joel Cheesman (06:55.712) And thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Everybody appreciate it. Appreciate it. How about the commercials? Did you like guys like any commercials? Maureen Clough (07:02.925) It was too loud at the party where I was, was to hear a single commercial, but I did see the one before. Yeah. I saw some, yeah, it was, it was rock is party, but yeah, I need to actually go that's on my to do list is to go and actually rewatch those commercials because I just missed out on all of them. The one that I did see was some like crypto one that had the lyrics to everybody from back street. And I was like holding myself back from singing, which was kind of funny, but like other than that, I was like, this is the most worthless. What are they trying to get from this? Joel Cheesman (07:22.492) Yeah, Coinbase. Maureen Clough (07:32.889) Like I didn't understand it. Maybe it just went over my head. But every millennial was like, Chad Sowash (07:34.6) It's like a karaoke. Joel Cheesman (07:36.6) I'm aged out of the karaoke ad. That was not for me. I was like, the music's too low. I don't get it. And my wife's like, no, it's supposed to be. So people can sing it's karaoke. I'm like, I didn't get it. Maureen Clough (07:42.881) Yeah Maureen Clough (07:49.324) I didn't get it either. But I was actually moved to do just that. I was moved to sing and I did keep it together because it was a little, it was loud but it wasn't that loud, right? Joel Cheesman (07:59.728) Yeah. Chad, did you like the Duncan Goodwill hunting inspired ad? Chad Sowash (08:04.628) Man, there's a lot of AI happening these days. Jesus. It was OK. I mean, it was just OK. My favorite was the Claude ad, Moe's, I think, probably favorite ads. The favorite one that I had, though, was the one where the guy is talking about trying to reconnect with his mom, I think it was. And the chat GPT is coming back to him and saying, well, you can try X, Y, and Z. Maureen Clough (08:04.951) That one was good. Maureen Clough (08:10.285) Gross. Joel Cheesman (08:16.091) Yeah. Maureen Clough (08:18.454) yeah. Chad Sowash (08:32.14) And if that doesn't work, well, we've got this 50 plus dating site where you can find, you know, older women and then Claude, no ads or whatever it was. But that was fucking funny. Maureen Clough (08:36.845) You Joel Cheesman (08:36.848) Right, cougars. Maureen Clough (08:42.509) was so funny. The other one that... I didn't see it. man, it does sound like that. That, I mean, the football reference, there you go. There was a rippling ad? I didn't even see it. Wow. The one that got me was the ring ad. Joel Cheesman (08:44.988) I did like, no one liked the tight end ad and I kind of liked it. The cancer screening. Like I thought that was, I thought it was clever. No one's talking about the rippling ad by the way. Like no one's top lists. Yeah. It's a, that's no one saw it. don't think. Chad Sowash (08:48.456) You just like looking at butts. That's what, yeah. Maureen Clough (09:03.757) Did you guys see the Ring ad where they're like, help find lost dogs. And I'm like, this is not at all about pulling the wool over all of our eyes. And it's mass surveillance, right? Exactly, like don't tell me that you're doing, exactly. was like, God, don't, we're not, come on, we see through that. Joel Cheesman (09:08.921) the dog finder thing. That was cool. Chad Sowash (09:10.388) The big brother. It's enemy of the state, baby. Joel Cheesman (09:20.954) You guys, man, like every pair of meta is recording everybody and every ring camera is recording everybody. Let's save some dogs, man. That's okay. Chad Sowash (09:23.968) Jesus. Maureen Clough (09:27.293) No privacy. There's no privacy. So performative. Come on. Chad Sowash (09:28.736) God. Yeah, that's that's how they get you. It's a slippery fucking slope. You ask Will Smith and Gene Hackman. Well, Gene Hackman's gone. Joel Cheesman (09:34.222) I know. Did the Lay's commercial with the daughter and the farmer guy, the father, get you a chat or no? Yeah. Chad Sowash (09:46.651) yeah, where she's planting potatoes. Yeah, it's just like, I love it. Especially at the end, know, when he pulls down his visor and there's the picture that she had, just, that's good stuff. You can't go wrong. Maureen Clough (09:50.285) don't see it. Joel Cheesman (09:58.884) You know, every young woman just wants to take over the potato farm from their dad. You know, that's whatever that that is happening all over the place. I'm sure. Maureen Clough (10:02.865) Mmm, yes. That is my aspiration. Actually, increasingly so, that does sound lovely. Yeah, sure. Sure. Why not? Joel Cheesman (10:10.8) Does it lace, lace potatoes by the yeah, all these farms are factory farms. Like don't let the red barn and the like the Labrador foya. It's not, that's not how it works. Can we do some, are we sure we're done with the Superbowl? I mean, these are, these are important. All right. All right. Well, here we go. Chad Sowash (10:18.492) much. Don't let him fool you. Okay, shout outs, Jesus. Maureen Clough (10:21.805) Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. Chad Sowash (10:28.916) Well, no, Mo's got a shout out. She's, she's shout out. Maureen Clough (10:30.229) I mean, I'm not done with the Super Bowl. That's my shout out the Seahawks. Come on, it's just gotta be the Seahawks. I it was so awesome to see them come through. And the thing that I laughed so hard at was that the kicker wasn't even the MVP. And he had more points, the kicker alone, more points than the Patriots. Like I saw this amazing meme. Exactly, it was like Seahawks kicker, 17, Patriots, 13. I mean, incredible, so hilarious. But yeah, he's the unsung hero for sure. But yeah, I thought it was... Chad Sowash (10:47.828) Yes. Yeah, 17 to 13. Chad Sowash (10:55.018) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (10:57.67) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (11:02.281) I'm going to go ahead and be honest on this one. I didn't think it was the most exciting football game I've ever seen, but I frankly don't care because we won and that's all that matters. yeah, was. It's awesome. I'm so happy. Seattle is something you smile about. mean, 2026 we we gotta take what we can get, so I'm pumped. Chad Sowash (11:08.432) Nah. Chad Sowash (11:12.706) That's all that matters. Joel Cheesman (11:16.252) All Joel Cheesman (11:23.664) So Chad, were our draft party not so long ago, the draft that Sam Darnold was in. And I think you probably recall me having Sam at the top of my list. so for me, it's a little bit of redemption that back eight years ago, whenever it was, that he would have been, in my perspective, he's the only one of that class, Baker and Josh Allen, that has a Super Bowl appearance and a Super Bowl win. So a little bit of. Chad Sowash (11:51.392) and Lamar. Joel Cheesman (11:52.668) bit of shout out to, hasn't been to the Super Bowl. Lamar hasn't. So he's the first one. So yeah, Sam Darnold. A little shout out for me. I'll get in there for that. Maureen Clough (11:53.838) Yeah, and didn't... There you go. Chad Sowash (11:55.861) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sam Darnold. well, Joel. He just grinds. Maureen Clough (12:01.995) Love him. He did a great job. Doesn't let the noise get to him, just performs, just goes out and grinds. Good dude. I love that he got cut from four teams and then just went on. Joel Cheesman (12:12.322) It's bad to be a Vikings fan. It's bad to be a Vikings fan having let him go. JJ McCarthy, everybody. That's where it's going. Chad Sowash (12:17.241) We talked about that earlier. Yeah. We talked about that earlier in the year. It's like... Maureen Clough (12:18.209) that. And Jody Allen. Chad Sowash (12:24.53) He was on fire. He was on fire. It made no sense. It made no sense. Anyway, anyway, So on to my shout out. So so questions first, Joel, have you ever protested something? I mean, you know, maybe smaller servings at your local Chipotle or something like that. Joel Cheesman (12:38.736) Well, Chad, my earliest memory of boycotting and protest was when my mom put broccoli on my plate and I think I protested for a week because of that. So that's my earliest memory of protesting. So I have a long history, Chad, of fighting the power, if you will, fight the power. Maureen Clough (12:46.305) Mmm, yeah. Maureen Clough (12:53.363) Hehehehehe Chad Sowash (12:54.921) Okay, that's amazing. What about you Moe? You're there in Seattle. mean, you're known for the protests up in Pacific Northwest. Do do any protesting? Maureen Clough (13:02.089) Yeah, I have not really been a part of it, if I'm honest. And I say that with a little bit of shame. So I'm looking forward to getting on board with some of these ideas that are floating around. Joel Cheesman (13:02.534) Grab a flannel and let's protest. Chad Sowash (13:07.808) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:11.58) It's not too late. Chad Sowash (13:14.368) Well, I'm gonna tell you right now, some people march, some people tweet, but my shout out goes to Scott Galloway. You might know him as Prof G. Let's listen to what he has to say. Joel Cheesman (13:25.487) Love them. Maureen Clough (13:26.827) do. Chad Sowash (14:34.56) Boom. Yeah. because of that, it is, it, in, Joey, we always say vote with your feet, vote with your wallet, right? This is exactly what that is. You don't, you don't have to unsubscribe, but you can pause your subscriptions, right? Pause it for a few months, allow Amazon and Netflix and, and Claude and, and chat GPT to feel a little bit of that pain. but a shout out to resist and unsubscribe.com. Maureen Clough (14:42.701) We have power. Maureen Clough (14:48.439) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (15:02.954) We don't have to get out there in the streets. We can if we want to, but we don't have to. We can resist and unsubscribe. Maureen Clough (15:07.373) Probably should too. I mean, look what happened with Disney. Remember back when Kimmel was suspended, everybody pulled away from Disney and actually I was in the mid, I was about to protest. I was actually about to have the conversation with my husband like, hey dude, we gotta cancel Disney Plus because like our kids can survive like however long it takes to get this guy back on the air and support a free speech. That fucking works. It worked. So we have more power and we can't forget that. We have to work together on this stuff. So I love, I love that shout out. Chad Sowash (15:13.886) Yeah. Yep. Joel Cheesman (15:37.382) Fair enough. It would behoove me as well to mention that we have an election coming up in about eight months or so. And real change is driven by voting kids. I recommend everyone go search whatever AI of your choice, find out where the most competitive congressional seats are coming up and give money to those candidates. If you want to make some real significant change. Chad Sowash (15:43.316) Yep. Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (15:45.211) Yeah, hopefully. Joel Cheesman (16:04.572) Go campaign for those, volunteer for those campaigns. That's where some real change is definitely going to happen. I encourage you to do that. In addition to canceling your Amazon Prime or whatever subscription. Very nice. Very nice. All right. All right, Chad. Well, I'm going to give a little bit of advice to the kids out there. Now, if you're a listener, if you're a listener, know times are tough. Times are tough. And we, we, talk about the hustle. We talk about thinking outside the box. Maureen Clough (16:14.71) you Chad Sowash (16:16.372) which we have done, by the Maureen Clough (16:18.069) We'll survive it. Chad Sowash (16:23.174) nice, I like that. Maureen Clough (16:23.789) you Chad Sowash (16:31.328) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (16:31.632) going the extra mile and I saw a new story this week that really, really puts it into perspective the kind of out of the box thinking some employees and past employees and people looking for work are doing out there. I just, was so impressed by this. Please, please take a look. Chad Sowash (17:11.983) Yes! Maureen Clough (17:12.654) It's bald. It's bald. Chad Sowash (17:14.784) Yes! Maureen Clough (17:22.157) Are they throwing dough at each other? Chad Sowash (17:24.096) It got greedy. Joel Cheesman (17:30.786) boy. boy. the, the look, this guy should be CEO of Caesar's as far as I'm concerned. This guy is he goes the extra mile. He thinks, thinks creatively, like make this guy CMO something. But I just shout out, shout out to this out of the box. I won't call him a job seeker, but an enterprising young man that found a way to hustles himself to some extra cash. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. He should get a free t-shirt. Chad Sowash (17:31.424) I got too greedy. Maureen Clough (17:31.967) Impressive. It's bold. hahahaha Chad Sowash (17:37.502) Ha ha. Chad Sowash (17:42.755) shit. Chad Sowash (17:51.796) Hustler. Joel Cheesman (18:00.166) from Chad and Cheese. He should get a free t-shirt. Yeah, he's got to know about that. Let's check in with our friend, Stephen McGrath on how to do that. Chad Sowash (18:00.938) He should, he should. He's got to sign up though. He's got to sign up. Maureen Clough (18:03.296) you Chad Sowash (18:08.421) I love that guy. Chad Sowash (18:14.27) Mo's favorite. Maureen Clough (18:15.861) Never not. Shocking. Maureen Clough (18:21.249) Yeah. Chad Sowash (18:22.111) What? Chad Sowash (18:28.276) think he needs more than one, apparently. Joel Cheesman (18:32.348) He's got a favorite, you know? Chad Sowash (18:42.976) Of Chad Sowash (19:06.141) yeah. Chad Sowash (19:24.096) You Joel Cheesman (19:24.316) Shout shout out again to our new whiskey bourbon sponsor Proven Base. We appreciate you guys. appreciate you guys. Chad Sowash (19:28.53) He wasn't sure if it was proven bass or proven bass. That was funny. I like that. That's Scott's, you know. Joel Cheesman (19:32.196) Well, yeah, they invented the language. No one there seems to speak it. It's crazy. It's crazy. Chad Sowash (19:38.272) You Joel Cheesman (19:44.604) All right. This has been a turbulent week for Workday, Chad and Mo. Their CEO, Sep Down and Anil Bhusri, co-founder and current executive chair, returned as CEO his fourth time in the role. Fourth time is the charm, saying it was a pivotal moment for the company. They also disclosed plans to cut about 2 % of the workforce or roughly 400 folks following the 8 % haircut from about a year ago. yeah. Maureen Clough (19:49.067) Rough year. Maureen Clough (19:57.902) Damn. Damn. Maureen Clough (20:05.717) playoffs! Joel Cheesman (20:11.228) And the stock is down over 25 % year to date. Chad, give us your hot take on the no good rotten week at work day. Maureen Clough (20:19.661) You Chad Sowash (20:19.744) Man, talk about a relief pitcher. Man, that guy, he's there. So the big question is, why did this happen? It's simple, yet not so simple. I'm going to start with the simple part. Workday stock has been punished over the last year, falling about 44 % due to investor anxiety over the software sector's ability to monetize AI. To me, this is a SaaS knee-jerk reaction. Here are the numbers and what I like to call reality. Fiscal year 2025, last year total revenue reached 8.45 buh buh billion USD driven by 16.9, oh like 17 % let's call it, increase in subscription revenue. The year before, the year before, 2024, total revenue was 7.25 buh buh billion, right? And it was a 16.78 increase from 2023. Over the last two years, workday revenues have been over 32 % of an increase. 32%. The stock market today is not reality. It's speculation at best. And investors wet their pants because SaaS is dead in AI rules. That ain't reality today. Refer to the aforementioned sales numbers I just went over, okay? Maureen Clough (21:36.661) you Chad Sowash (21:43.403) How much profit does open AI perplexity and Gemini have right now? Where's the cricket sound bite? Yeah, they have fucking none, right? Here's the not so simple part. This whole thing feels like the way the US knee jerked into electric vehicles without having charging infrastructure in place instead of just selling the hell out of hybrid vehicles. Now, are hybrids the best for the environment? No, but there are. in just gasoline only environment, right? Plus you can't force buyers to change habits in the blink of an eye. SaaS companies like Workday, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and many other companies will buy hybrids that everyone keeps buying. What happened to my fucking camera? Maureen Clough (22:31.853) I don't know, I don't see you. Joel Cheesman (22:32.252) It says it's switched to a different app using a different camera. Chad Sowash (22:37.245) have more than one fucking camera on. Chad Sowash (22:46.579) That's kinda creepy. Maureen Clough (22:47.063) Tech man. Joel Cheesman (22:48.22) I mean, you can try to reload. Come back in. Chad Sowash (22:52.859) You can turn off the camera while recording, can't switch cameras. Yeah, I don't get it. Maureen Clough (22:57.503) It told me my camera was playing in multiple places too earlier, which is one of the reasons I shut down my computer, because I was like, what the hell? So, creepy. Chad Sowash (23:04.265) All right, let me go out and come back and then I'll just start from the beginning or I'll just start from that spot and then. Who son of a bitch? Joel Cheesman (23:10.81) Okay. Maureen Clough (23:11.821) Cool. Solve! I did it better last time. my God. I'm so fucking ready. Joel. Dude. Dude. Yeah. Both of us. Both Chad and I, going through it. But yeah, no, I'm. Joel Cheesman (23:18.372) Nice when you guys get, get settled. You guys, you guys are so nomadic. like different wifi's and I'm on this and this mic is like. Maureen Clough (23:34.335) I'm like, I think I'm starting to realize how much of a toll it's taken on me kind of living in two places, having one foot in one place, one foot in another. And I'm like, I don't know where fucking anything is. I am just, and you know, my husband is like the world's worst planner. So he'll just be like, yeah, I've got a doctor's appointment in town. I'm like, so you're leaving. And like, that means I have to take care of both kids and like, my God, you know, like he's just that kind of thing. Ridiculous. You're back. Chad Sowash (23:54.937) That's ridiculous. Okay. Not from the top. I'm just going to go from where it's simple. Okay. All right. This is where it's coming in. Sergey and in a in three, two, one. Okay. Here's not the so that here's the not so simple part. This whole thing feels like the way that the U.S. knee jerked into EVs, electronic vehicles, right? Electric vehicles. without having charging infrastructure in place instead of just selling the hell out of hybrid vehicles. Are hybrids great for the environment? No, but it's better than gasoline. Plus you can't force a buyer to change its habits in the blink of an eye. So SaaS companies like Workday, Salesforce and ServiceNow and many others will be the hybrids that everybody keeps buying until the infrastructure and concepts are actually proven with full AI companies, right? And by that time, Workday, Salesforce, all those companies, they're going to become these full AI companies. But last but not least, the optics are even worse as Workday just cut about 400 people talking about layoffs while giving Eschenbach, their last CEO, a $3.5 million golden parachute severance package. That's just the icing on the cake to his total comp. Maureen Clough (25:14.656) they did. Chad Sowash (25:19.193) in 2025, which was $26 million USD. Okay. So you're cutting loose 400 people. Now I'm sure they got severance packages. Don't get me wrong, right? But come on, man, the guy earns 26 million a year and then gets a $3.5 million kicker. It's just bad optics all around. So it's really hard on workday because the market is treating them like shit, but it's all speculation. Maureen Clough (25:23.821) It's getting ridiculous. Joel Cheesman (25:46.054) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (25:47.531) and Eschenbach gets kicked to the curb because you got all these fucking bed wetters that are out there. Joel Cheesman (25:57.424) You're it's this is totally market driven. I can't believe what's happening to Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Microsoft. I mean, the fear, uncertainty and doubt on these companies is past emotional and algorithm. I mean, this is like COVID holy hell is this the end of world of of times kind of drop in these stocks? I mean, Chad Sowash (26:00.429) Yeah, yeah. Chad Sowash (26:07.939) should be. Maureen Clough (26:12.845) blood baths. Maureen Clough (26:21.1) I agree. Joel Cheesman (26:23.482) You can, you can, can debate about whether it's real or not. If AI is going to, you know, if Claude is going to do all this shit for a company, I think we can all probably end up somewhere like, no, that isn't going to be the future. Maybe it's somewhere in the middle, but it's definitely not the end of Salesforce. I don't think anyone thinks that, but the market has said we're out, like we're the hell out. We're out of this. And the only narrative that I can find that makes sense for these companies is they need to prove that they can integrate AI to Chad Sowash (26:37.688) now. Joel Cheesman (26:53.887) restart growth for the future, like long-term future. All these companies that reported are doing great. They're doing great, but the market's saying like, we don't believe in the future. The future is screwed for you guys. And I think if you don't have a CEO who's, let's call them colorful, a Benioff, the CEO at ServiceNow looks like every cocaine dealer in every 80s action movie. Chad Sowash (27:00.653) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (27:05.357) Yeah. Chad Sowash (27:17.721) You Maureen Clough (27:18.359) Gosh. Joel Cheesman (27:19.388) Elon, course, Elon. Like if you can't tell a story that people will listen to and sort of be intrigued by land on the Mars, build robots, like whatever, if you can't get some diversion and attention. And clearly Workday was not doing that with, with co-CEOs, who's the CEO? I don't know. He's not, he's not in the public eye. They brought this guy in, the stock went down. So clearly the market has said, okay, we're not convinced you guys can integrate AI. We're not convinced that this new Chad Sowash (27:26.691) can't bullshit. Joel Cheesman (27:48.016) four time CEO is the guy that's going to take you into that future and they're getting hammered for it in the marketplace. The layoffs I think are just sort of you know, par for the course. Yeah, we have to lay off some people. Let's pick a number one or two. Let's go to fuck it. They have to prove. What's that? Maureen Clough (28:00.91) standard. Mm-hmm. Yep. Chad Sowash (28:04.995) They're playing to the market. They're playing to the market. mean, because when everybody. Yeah, I know. I know. Crazy. It's crazy. Maureen Clough (28:07.777) That's what everybody's doing. Yeah. They've got cover. Joel Cheesman (28:09.53) But the market's saying we don't believe it or we don't care. So what's next? Like laugh some more people. mean, the companies I've heard mentioned of companies that are SaaS that sort of get AI in a way that we like is like a Databricks. Zoom is doing pretty well still. companies are gonna have work really hard to improve the narrative and where they're going in the future. I think we all agree that the paradox acquisition, the companies that they brought in, Maureen Clough (28:15.061) Yeah, probably. Joel Cheesman (28:37.446) for AI will help them get to where they need to go, but the market doesn't seem to be buying that either. This just seems like it's just rotten all around until these companies can prove to the market that we know AI and we're going to integrate it and grow it away at rate that we hope that we will. Maureen Clough (28:53.459) None of this is good news for workers either. And I think it's also interesting when you're looking at these layoffs to see actually who is impacted at the organization. And in this case, it sounds like it was a lot of customer support. We already know that Workday doesn't give a damn about user experience because you have to re-put your fucking whole resume back into the system after you upload your resume. Chad Sowash (28:53.675) Idiots. No. Chad Sowash (29:05.113) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (29:11.046) Preach. Maureen Clough (29:13.345) they're also signaling that they don't necessarily care about customer experience the way that they should in that situation. In my estimation, it's like, have you guys had experiences with only like automated customer support? Because I have, and it is so freaking miserable. And I hate that we're moving in this direction as a society to having these agentic experiences, these touchless experiences, these completely inhuman experiences. And it just to me it signals that of course again and we always knew this right shareholder value creation is the only thing they care about they don't care about the employees they don't care about optics they're paying their executives insane pay packages like this is this is how it's going but when it comes to the humans impacted I think that signals a little bit more what they care about as well and I will say one thing that I was was heartened by was the layoff did not make mention of AI as the reason behind what happened at workday because so many of them are a wash AI washing their layoffs and just saying it to signal to investors that they're, on the up and up with AI, which is total bullshit. But yeah, it's it's super concerning. I think we're going to see a lot more layoffs. I think people are going to be in a world of hurt. Like you said, it feels like a complete catastrophic meltdown about to happen. And I just. hope that people are going into it with eyes wide open and reading the room because it's rough. Joel Cheesman (30:35.868) Well, I the perspective of employees because who's going to go to work for any of these companies? I mean, the stock options aren't exactly a lure to get you there. Who's going to stay at these companies if their options are worth shit? Like this could become a vicious cycle of we can't recruit anybody and everyone's leaving and like, how are they going to sort of adhere to the marketplace demands of get better at AI when we can't keep people and we can't recruit people. Maureen Clough (30:40.233) Right, because they need people. Mm-mm. No. Maureen Clough (30:52.054) Yeah. Maureen Clough (30:59.723) Right, right. And I feel like employees are getting increasingly vocal. I know the other day, Mark Benioff allegedly said, wired did broke a story on this actually that Mark Benioff was at an international gathering of people from Salesforce. And he stood up, welcomed the international team and then made a joke. Hey, ice is watching you guys. And it's like, my God, what on are you kidding me? And so there is a huge contingent of Salesforce employees who are up in arms about this and they're all over Mark. to make an apology and to withdraw from any sort of engagement with ICE. it's, I guess I say this because of the resistant unsubscribe being stuck in my head. Like people do actually have power. If all of those people at Salesforce walked out the door in protest, they'd be fucked. I mean, I just, I feel like we need to remember that we have that and it's something that they can't take away from us. So yeah, it might be a little short-term pain and yeah, it's risky. But I'm sorry, you're probably on a layoff list anyway at this point. So no one's safe. Joel Cheesman (32:03.64) By the way, Amazon, Amazon's in the shitter too. mean, right in your backyard, Mo, I mean, these are two huge companies, stable companies that are falling off a cliff and it's concerning. Maureen Clough (32:14.029) It's scary. It's really scary. Chad Sowash (32:15.225) Well, and back to work day, it's it. What the fuck? It's just it's not real. The revenues are there. The subscriptions are there. They're there. It's like Elon talking about back in 2015 that they're going to have fucking robo taxis on on the streets next year. Right. It was all fucking bullshit. So it's like you have to have an elixir salesman as a CEO who's who's literally just spinning. Joel Cheesman (32:37.27) You do. Chad Sowash (32:41.751) the bullshit, right? That's all they do is just spin the bullshit as opposed to what reality is. And that drives me crazy because to be quite frank, work they didn't do anything wrong here. They are making fucking money. They're buying AI companies. But wait a minute, they're not flipping into AI monetization fast enough. Fuck you. It's just bedwetting. Jesus Christ. God. Yeah, yeah. Maureen Clough (32:56.77) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:02.032) Yeah. I mean, Palantir CEO, Sideshow Bob, you know, that's another like large, large in life character. Maureen Clough (33:06.739) gosh, that guy. Kill me. Chad Sowash (33:12.921) Uh, that's a good one. Sideshow Bob, definitely. Maureen Clough (33:13.783) Dude, that guy. Joel Cheesman (33:16.188) All right, guys, if you like what you've heard, please give us a like, a follow, share us with your closest 100 friends. We will be right Chad Sowash (33:28.057) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (33:28.73) Recruit Holdings. Earnings revealed their HR tech segment, including Indeed and Glassdoor. Saw an 8.9 % revenue increase in their earnings report this week, driven by strong performance in America and Europe. A little bit more on Indeed, they launched an app with ChatGPT this week, allowing users to access job recommendations directly from the AI interface. This integration marks a shift in Indeed's partnership with OpenAI. Chad Sowash (33:42.745) Berkha. Maureen Clough (33:53.085) you Joel Cheesman (33:56.731) Moving from back-end collaboration to a user-facing product. Chad, your thoughts on the news out of Tokyo and Austin this week. Chad Sowash (34:05.111) Yeah, mean, Indeed's doing exactly what they plan to do when jobs go down, prices go up, right? Because you can't go off of you can't go off the transaction. You can't go off the transaction. So it's it's it's interesting. And this is what you might as well call black box pricing. And this is what it looks like. The big message is that if you're an enterprise hiring company and you're using indeed in this market. Maureen Clough (34:25.165) Mm. Chad Sowash (34:31.917) when there are tons of candidates available and you're not engaging candidates that you've already bought and paid for in your CRM and or ATS, just fucking fire yourself. What are you good for, for God's sakes? It's like in CMO who paid millions for leads and never gave them to the salespeople. I mean, you're fucking fired. So we've been talking about this for a while with their new engineering of sorts, their financial engineering of sorts. Maureen Clough (34:51.619) You Joel Cheesman (35:00.124) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (35:01.207) It's working. I mean, and good for them, but enterprise companies need to understand they're getting fucked over. Joel Cheesman (35:04.912) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (35:10.65) and 80 % of them don't care, apparently. We always knew 20 % would, but indeed knew that 80%, you'll just keep taking it as we give it to you, no matter what. Maureen Clough (35:13.132) Ha ha ha! Chad Sowash (35:13.209) And they don't. They don't. Chad Sowash (35:20.259) Yeah, yeah. The the open AI stuff. mean, it feels so lazy. It feels much like when Google anointed indeed with all the top search engine results starting back in the the in the late aughts. There was better content out there. There was more pure content out there. There were trusted sources that were out there, but they just went straight to indeed because it was easy. It was one site, right? They could have easily just went directly to the corporate sites where the jobs were actually at. Joel Cheesman (35:34.609) Yeah. Chad Sowash (35:49.38) but they didn't do that. this feels lazy. It feels easy. But I thought, okay, let me go to chat GPT. Let me play around a little bit. I didn't go to the app, but I went into inside a chat GPT and I did a search in Indiana for a sales position and it I received suggestions from indeed zip recruiter and built in. I thought it was interesting that I got built in. Maureen Clough (35:51.085) too tough. Joel Cheesman (36:04.027) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (36:12.177) Hmm. Chad Sowash (36:13.547) So I responded back and I said, why aren't you serving jobs up from actual hiring companies? and ZipRecruiter forced people to share their information. And then chat GPT said this back to me, which really surprised me. You're right to push on that. Job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter are lead gen machines. They monetize candidate data. If you want jobs from actual hiring companies, the move is to go straight to the employer career pages and bypass the aggregators and bypass Maureen Clough (36:37.322) That's amazing. Joel Cheesman (36:38.012) Ha ha ha. Chad Sowash (36:42.615) The aggregators. So, and then it says, are real companies hiring sales roles in Indiana right now, apply directly on their sites, no job board gatekeeping. And then they had links to the actual career sites. And I thought, well, wow, know, that interaction tells me a lot. ChatGBT knows that their jobs from specific companies Maureen Clough (36:56.723) Okay. All right. Joel Cheesman (37:02.961) haha. Maureen Clough (37:08.013) You're a good prompter right there. Chad Sowash (37:11.513) It knows the links from the career sites. Um, uh, then I was, I was on LinkedIn cause I was kind of playing around to see what, people are saying about it. And, Ben Groves did a really good post on this. Um, he's the founder over at apply call. And, uh, then I saw a comment from our friend, uh, Sam Fitzroy founder and CEO of Dali. He's also a chat and cheese sponsor. Sam writes quote, well, you have open AI taking the indeed CRO Maggie Hulsey. Joel Cheesman (37:13.275) Hmm. Maureen Clough (37:14.242) Yeah. Chad Sowash (37:41.242) about AI innovation in job search. Yes, the chief revenue officer of indeed leading the charge here on innovation. Definitely not revenue. I think Sam's being a little sarcastic there. Anyways, back to the comment. It's not surprising that their ideas lack imagination, which is the key ingredient needed to harness the power and opportunity of AI. What a waste for job seekers, end quote. And Sam's right on all counts. Maureen Clough (37:51.245) Mm-hmm. Yeah, a little bit. Joel Cheesman (37:53.926) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (38:08.833) Love that. Chad Sowash (38:09.411) This isn't just lazy, it's unimaginative, but what is it? It's a way for Indeed, but also for OpenAI and other powerful models to train off these data sets and interactions. So I don't know if this is a smart move for Indeed or not. You Joel Cheesman (38:28.412) Chad, I was hoping that you would give us a history lesson. So I'm gonna try to use it as you would give us. You were at OCC when the company announced that they were a sponsor of AOL. And correct me if wrong, but when you search the job on AOL, OCC would come up, or maybe it was Monster, sorry, Monster. keyword Monster, and then the jobs would come up. Maureen Clough (38:28.644) Smartest. Chad Sowash (38:33.474) Okay, go ahead. Chad Sowash (38:39.438) Yes. Maureen Clough (38:45.813) a throwback. Chad Sowash (38:49.817) I was monster as monster as monster. Yeah, keyword monster. Yeah. Yeah, that was the big thing. Yeah. Maureen Clough (38:53.965) Mm. Joel Cheesman (38:56.56) This is what I thought of when Indeed said, we're going to be integrated with ChatGPT. Because I still think ChatGPT is the new Netscape. I think it's not long for this world. So we may have a good laugh someday saying that what a stupid thing Indeed did to partner with ChatGPT. I appreciate your job search. I did similarly. They actually served me up simply hired, which I thought was pretty interesting. I did the same on Gemini and Agroch. Chad Sowash (39:11.865) That's a one. That's good. Chad Sowash (39:20.248) Wow. Joel Cheesman (39:25.008) I know you guys hate me for that, but that's okay. I like my porn, my Nazi porn bars, just like every good American. So, so Grok was, and Gemini was pretty good. like it gave me career events that were scheduled in my area. It was pretty, it was good. And you gotta think it's going to be super easy for Gemini to plug in Google for job stuff and just be like, do this way better than chat GPT and indeed do. So, Maureen Clough (39:26.093) Mmm, yeah, I do. You and your AI glasses from Meta. Come on. Chad Sowash (39:33.196) Eheh Maureen Clough (39:37.837) Gemini is awesome, actually. Joel Cheesman (39:54.138) Will people search for jobs in this way? Sure. I still think if people can automate the job search thing, they're going to do it. They're going to have agents, whether it's apply AI apply or lazy apply. So like, just, I don't know how, what kind of growth we're going to see an actual human being searching for jobs. It's like, release the agents. Let me let it do it 24 seven and let it apply for me. So in that world, this indeed collaboration. Maureen Clough (39:57.207) Definitely. Maureen Clough (40:05.325) Absolutely. It's a slog. Job searching sucks. Chad Sowash (40:05.849) They'll build them in Gemini. They'll build them in Gemini. Maureen Clough (40:15.149) Mm. Joel Cheesman (40:23.482) doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. The agents are going to find those jobs anyway. And what I'm seeing from AI companies or agents companies to do this, they go directly to the job site. They don't do the whole job board LinkedIn thing. They find the real company and apply right to the ATS, which is a bad future. Yeah, they should. That's a bad future for the job sites. yeah, I Maureen Clough (40:38.387) interesting so that's a risk for them yeah that's sure is yeah bye bye revenue Chad Sowash (40:40.301) They should. Joel Cheesman (40:47.684) I just thought it was kind of funny. It reminded me of your, your commentary about Monster and AOL and how cool that was back in the day. This may have a, this may have a similar narrative in 10 years. Maureen Clough (40:54.126) That's awesome. Chad Sowash (40:57.305) We had a whole meeting for that one thing and I remember we all came into one room and this is right when we did the transition from OCC and Monsterboard to Monster.com and everybody's like, then there was one slide and it had AOL and it had the search bar and it had monster in it and it was like, we own keyword monster and we're all like. Joel Cheesman (41:20.304) And everybody went crazy. We're number one. Maureen Clough (41:21.933) You Chad Sowash (41:23.51) We're all like, I got work to do. Why are you telling me this stupid shit? Joel Cheesman (41:30.492) And then the next question was, how many searches are done like that in AOL? Like four? Yeah. Yeah. But I bet you went to every customer in Prospect and told them that and they're like, awesome. We'll buy a job posting. Chad Sowash (41:33.751) Yeah. How much money did you spend that you could have given to us? Chad Sowash (41:44.388) Dude, at that point, I was still trying to teach them what the internet was. So, you know, if they weren't on AOL, I didn't matter. Maureen Clough (41:48.566) You Ancient Gen Xers. Joel Cheesman (41:52.377) my God, we are so old, Chad. Chad Sowash (41:54.101) Yeah Joel Cheesman (41:57.957) Let's hear from someone younger about this whole integration with ChatGPT. are you buying or selling this? Maureen Clough (42:02.085) man, I mean, I'm definitely not buying this, but I have to say my favorite thing that Anthropic has ever done was shade chat GPT, shade OpenAI so hard. Did you guys see that commercial? It dropped before the Super Bowl. It was epic. They basically were like, they had this whole scene play out and then they were like. Chad Sowash (42:13.877) yeah. yeah, was great. It was great. Maureen Clough (42:23.853) at the end of the scene, this woman in the scene started doing an ad. And then they basically came in and were like, hey, we're not gonna do this to you. And the funniest part was they didn't even have to name OpenAI. It was obviously very implied. And if anyone was familiar with any of these AI tools, you knew exactly what was happening. It was this awesome moment. And Sam Altman went and like blew up on the internet and had all these tweets and he sounded like such an idiot. It was unreal. It's like, do these people have zero PR training or media training? Joel Cheesman (42:30.544) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (42:51.885) He didn't even have to address it. It just it blew my mind. But yeah, I mean I I'm not bullish on that tool whatsoever in any way shape or form for all the reasons that you've described I mean, it's just and I also I'm not bullish on opening eye being one of the winners out of all of this so Joel Cheesman (42:54.342) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (43:09.38) It sounds like we're saying there's a chance indeed. We're saying. Maureen Clough (43:11.725) One in a million talk, right? Chad Sowash (43:12.205) Yeah Joel Cheesman (43:17.244) All right, next up guys, we have, we all know about the eightfold lawsuit, but that may just be the tip of the iceberg. According to our friends at classaction.org, attorneys are investigating potential class action lawsuits against companies using AI for job screening and interviews, including some of the names that we know and love, HireVue, Workday, Greenhouse Lover, and Ashby, to name a few. They believe these companies may be violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Maureen Clough (43:21.202) yeah. Chad Sowash (43:22.157) What? What? Maureen Clough (43:23.821) Tip of the iceberg. Maureen Clough (43:37.037) You Joel Cheesman (43:44.144) or FICRA as the kids call it by providing consumer reports about job applicants without proper procedures. Looks like the sharks smell blood to me, Chad. What are your thoughts? Chad Sowash (43:45.785) Mm. Maureen Clough (43:54.114) Whoo. Chad Sowash (43:56.631) So we taped an episode earlier this week that's going to come out next week that focuses on class action suits. I'm going to tease you about it. you've got this is it's with an organization that literally leads class action lawsuits. And they said, this is the tip of the iceberg. So get ready, kids. I've been talking to Julie a lot about this and really the lack of regulation leads to litigation. Maureen Clough (44:06.029) you Joel Cheesman (44:06.182) Such a tease. Chad Sowash (44:26.391) So when there's no rules, there's no guardrails, and that's exactly what this administration is calling for, people are going to want answers, which means they're going to get them in court. And this ain't corporation against corporation. It's the little guys. So they'll be banding together to create class action suits. Now on the vendor side of the house, because there are a lot of vendors that listen to us, this comes straight from an article that Julie wrote entitled Eightfolds Lawsuit. She writes, quote, There are too many vendors influencing decision-making in hiring without transparency, without the opportunity for correction, and with the expectation that they are beyond being held accountable. you gotta be fucking kidding me. Maureen Clough (45:12.237) Always when you're talking too. Joel Cheesman (45:14.396) Sorry, Sergey. Chad Sowash (45:17.027) I'll be right back, you sons of bitches. Fucking... Riverside! Maureen Clough (45:23.405) man, I heard something the other day about Riverside being a place where people kind of grift and ask people to pay to be on podcasts and I was like, have you heard anything about that? It sounds so weird to me. It's like I've never had any weirdness with Riverside. Yeah, and just like asking, yeah, and like using it as a scam to get people to like be on podcasts. don't know, that was like this strange, strange. Joel Cheesman (45:38.62) people using Riverside to sell. Joel Cheesman (45:48.742) I mean, do like a live streaming thing. don't know. I mean, if there's a scam to be had, someone will do it. I won't necessarily say Riverside is responsible for that. Yeah, but. Maureen Clough (45:53.421) Yeah, I've never used that. Maureen Clough (45:58.903) Hahaha! Maureen Clough (46:02.605) Right? That's what I was thinking too. I was like, why are you guys putting us on riverside, man? They're just the conduit. Joel Cheesman (46:07.63) And why Riverside is, I mean, Riverside is probably the most well known and best Spotify relationship and all that. or not Spotify, that's megaphone, but all right. Where do you want to kick it off from Chad? Maureen Clough (46:11.297) Yeah, they're good. Yeah. What's up, you're back. Chad Sowash (46:17.098) my God. Let's do this. I'm going to do it from the vendor side. OK, here we go, Sergey. We're going to go now on the vendor side. Now on the vendor side, this comes straight from an article Julie wrote entitled Eightfolds Lawsuit. She writes, quote, There are too many vendors influencing decision making in hiring without transparency, without the opportunity for correction and with the expectation that they are beyond being held accountable, end quote. So there are three things here. for all of you to think about and to also plan for. Number one, candidates need to have transparency and control of their data. That's the big issue in this lawsuit. Black box is a problem unless you can prove real-time analytics and more importantly, real-time audits. Yes, real-time audits. We've got the data or at least pre-audit signals that shows whether you're going off course or not. You can do this. And then obviously vendors are going to be held accountable. So as you feel and think that everything's okay, don't do that. Always think that you're under the microscope. And again, what this all means, lack of regulation leads to litigation, which I mean, leads to my favorite four top song, Get Ready. Joel Cheesman (47:38.224) was that the song get ready? Another another old man. Another old man reference there. Another old man reference. I think there's a there's a gag reflex when we talk about lawsuits and legal shit and people think well it doesn't impact me or that's just LinkedIn suing somebody else and I mean this this has the chance of being huge. Chad Sowash (47:39.674) Yeah, it is. Maureen Clough (47:40.461) Oh, I was like, I'm waiting, man. I'm waiting. Chad Sowash (47:44.548) Love me some Motown, man. Love me some Motown. Chad Sowash (47:55.386) There is, Yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:07.708) Think so. I won't ruin the interview, but think about your credit report. It tells your, you know, your job late on payments. You know, every, every, everyone knows credit karma or probably seen a credit report. What they are arguing is that all these AI tools that are ranking candidates, in an A like with AI they're doing in a way that is blind black box to the consumer. So the case is basically saying you're using someone's data without their knowledge and maybe putting shit in there that isn't true or stuff that is irrelevant or whatever. And the consumer has no way to see what is in that quote unquote consumer report in this case candidate report, I guess. So who in our space isn't doing some sort of AI matching grading something, right? So, so, so now you have a situation where Maureen Clough (48:43.681) recourse. Maureen Clough (48:57.375) Exactly. That's what I was going to ask. Joel Cheesman (49:05.596) Not only is just about every company in space doing this, but everyone who's a customer of these businesses is using this stuff. How many applicants do you think these companies have had over the last five years? Millions, millions, tens of millions. I mean, a lot of people. Chad Sowash (49:08.389) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (49:18.442) hundreds of, well, workday billions. Yeah. Maureen Clough (49:18.989) I mean, Workday alone was hundreds of millions. mean, hundreds of millions for Workday's case, yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:27.406) If they market this thing well enough and there's millions of people in a class action lawsuit against all these companies that we know and talk about on the show, it could be a really, really big deal. mean, if everyone, yeah, there might be like a credit karma thing where like, I'm to see what every AI company and do you have to standardize it? Because all the reports have to say the same thing. Does every company have to publish what their algorithm is and what they're looking at? Chad Sowash (49:39.749) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (49:40.575) Everyone could get like 35 cents each. It would be awesome. Chad Sowash (49:43.448) you Maureen Clough (49:52.119) Right. Joel Cheesman (49:57.55) If that's the case, then it's like, everyone has to, you know, let I know you love this one, you know, open the kimono, right and show everybody what they're doing. I know I didn't think I didn't plan on that mo but it happened. It happened mo it happened. So so so it's like whose algorithm is shit whose is actually kind of good and then so it's like the you the water on the beach goes out and we see you as a bathing suit on I'll use that one as well mo like this could be a huge meteorite. Maureen Clough (49:57.943) really interesting. Maureen Clough (50:03.789) God, I thought I trained you better, man. You don't learn. That's why I'm here, Joel. mean, man, just, trying everybody. Chad Sowash (50:09.733) But it came, but it came. Maureen Clough (50:21.803) Well, wow, didn't know that one. Yeah, good. Joel Cheesman (50:25.468) crash into our industry. you don't if you're listening, don't put don't shelve this is just another lawsuit that doesn't impact me like this could be very, very interesting as it plays out. I don't think this is just a pay a few million bucks and make it go away. I think this could be a really, really big consumer play in America and have ripple effects all over the globe. Maureen Clough (50:42.689) bombshell. Chad Sowash (50:48.301) Yes. Maureen Clough (50:49.035) I mean, I'm here for it. I don't want someone putting a dossier together about me without my knowledge. mean, like you said, with credit reports, you can go and check it out. You see what's on there. You can go and contest things. You can take action. And this blind sort of situation is just deeply unfair to applicants in a job market that's taught trash. So like we need some protections and we need regulations. And this will, I believe very firmly that if we... Chad Sowash (50:59.525) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (51:13.825) don't do this, we're gonna continue to see this type of huge class action, we're gonna see this type of situation arise over and over again. boy, boy, boy. I mean, at least it's on me now. So yeah, where was I? I got distracted because of that. Sorry, Sergey, this is gonna be a real dream to edit this time. As long as you're editing, maybe I can add it. I forgot to mention how excited I was about Jodi Allen beating Robert Kraft. Chad Sowash (51:24.393) Keep going, keep going. Joel Cheesman (51:39.578) be a great blooper reel from this episode. There's that. Maureen Clough (51:41.686) Yeah, totally, totally like, fuck. yeah, like my light went out. it's funny. But if we're editing, maybe I'll redo the Jodi Ellen part because I forgot to mention how like deeply satisfying it was to see her hoist the Heisman instead of seeing fucking Robert Kraft. God, thank you. See sports. Fuck. Joel Cheesman (51:56.762) Yeah, it was the Super Bowl trophy, not the Heisman, but yeah. Maureen Clough (52:03.277) I didn't want to go too deep. My lack of knowledge would have been on full display. Sports ball, yeah, yeah, my god. Where was I? I don't remember what I was saying. I like blacked out per usual. Not from drinking, by the way. To be clear, zero alcoholic beverages have been had this morning. What did I say? Where was I? Shit. Joel Cheesman (52:04.4) Yay sports. Focus on the kimono Mo, focus on the kimono. Chad Sowash (52:06.884) Sports ball. Chad Sowash (52:18.5) this time. Joel Cheesman (52:28.284) credit reports, consumers. Maureen Clough (52:29.591) Credit report, don't want to be blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I wanted to kind of ask you guys, I mean, at this point, like you sort of hinted at Joel, mean, do any companies in the space not use AI? will it include, will this class action be against all companies with any sort of hiring? Because I can't even imagine. Yeah, but I can't. Chad Sowash (52:48.666) I don't think it's just AI. Yeah, I don't think it's just AI. mean, you can go out and scrape data without AI and then enrich profiles. People have been doing that for years. The thing is now I think AI literally is is scaring the shit out of people and they're like, oh shit, are they are they AIing us? then they're then you're saying, wait a minute, there are processes that they have in place that if they do use AI per se, Maureen Clough (52:55.711) Yeah, good point. Yeah. Maureen Clough (53:00.973) Yeah. Maureen Clough (53:07.81) Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good point. Chad Sowash (53:18.618) This could be incredibly impactful and we're talking about actually impacting somebody's life because there could be invalid data in their quote unquote dossier or their profile or whatever you Maureen Clough (53:27.039) yeah, absolutely. And the bias is baked into these systems. Joel Cheesman (53:28.887) It is not a stretch to say if I apply for a mortgage or a credit card and I don't get it that the company is required to tell me why. If I don't get a job because of whatever this algorithm or screening thing is telling you, then that's something wrong. Like I should be able to see is there something wrong in it? Can I refute something? None of that happens today. Chad Sowash (53:33.614) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. Maureen Clough (53:41.825) Right? Maureen Clough (53:46.774) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (53:53.924) It makes sense that people should be able to do that. Like some of the most impactful lawsuits are like people go, yeah, they should be able to see what this algorithm is telling the employer about them if they're not getting a job. Chad Sowash (53:56.237) Yes. Maureen Clough (54:01.282) Yeah. Yeah. That totally makes sense. When it's systematized like this, I think it just heightens the concern for everybody. I of course, since forever, we haven't been able to find out why we weren't picked for a job in most cases, right? We get ghosted or they give us some bullshit excuse for why we didn't get it. But in this case, when you have all these systems that are just baking in the bias and pulling things from who knows what, I you just literally don't know. yeah, mean, I'm glad that they're taking action. Joel Cheesman (54:29.34) And by the way, this is all falling on their heads potentially as they're dealing with probably the same software valuation problems that Workday and Salesforce and everybody else is doing. I if you think those companies are down 30, 40%, what do you think eightfolds value is to their investors? Maureen Clough (54:38.247) Mm-hmm, absolutely. Maureen Clough (54:45.169) man, brutalized, It's rough times. Like you said, it's kind of apocalyptic right now. Joel Cheesman (54:52.348) Rough times. I'm gonna tie up my kimono and be back. Chad Sowash (54:54.307) Zombies. Maureen Clough (54:54.734) god, god. Chad Sowash (54:56.953) Please do. Please do. Joel Cheesman (54:57.326) zombies. Joel Cheesman (55:03.142) Vive la France. Did I say that right, Chad? France announced that its 2.5 million civil servants will phase out US video conferencing tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx, and GoToMeeting by 2027, switching to the domestic alternative Vizio. The move aims to boost digital sovereignty, security, and confidentiality of government communications. Chad Sowash (55:04.729) Hmm, I think so. Maureen Clough (55:05.549) Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Maureen Clough (55:15.041) Bye! Joel Cheesman (55:28.272) They also raided the ex-offices while the UK also investigates GroK. Chad, you know a little bit about dumping the US. What are your thoughts? Maureen Clough (55:36.299) Hahaha! Chad Sowash (55:40.442) that hit home. We asked for this, dude. When you you fuck with your customers, they stop buying your shit. Right. And where does your GDP go when countries stop buying from you? Capitalism in the US is broken. We've been talking about that for a while now. It needs to be fixed. It desperately needs to be fixed. But this this is about as far away from capitalism as you can go. Maureen Clough (55:44.226) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (56:09.015) when you start pissing off your customers, Zoom, team, defense contracts, losing billions, not buying, you know, F-35s or whatever, you know, military instruments that we actually send their way, tourism, not buying flights, not buying hotels, local tourists, know, areas. I mean, all the money that's being lost, bourbon, hell, freaking Jim Beam shut down their main facility, plus... Maureen Clough (56:11.458) Yep. Joel Cheesman (56:35.928) Everyone's resisting and unsubscribing. It's chaos. Maureen Clough (56:36.479) Wow. Wow. Chad Sowash (56:37.995) It's fucking crazy. Yeah. Plus, as you're talking about, France and Spain are going after social media platforms. That's billions of dollars. Now, we have built the strongest country in the world off the cash flow of these other nations because they buy our shit. We're not talking about we don't sell cheap. Maureen Clough (56:41.271) I don't resist and unsubscribe from alcohol, personally. Maureen Clough (56:51.433) Mm, yeah. Chad Sowash (57:04.877) Tmoo shit, right? We sell the really expensive shit. We sell fucking f-35s and you know fucking Big companies, right and we do the big shit So when countries say we're not gonna buy from you anymore We're doing this to ourselves and that fucking pisses me off. That's not capitalism Yes Maureen Clough (57:26.433) Yeah, it hurts American workers too. I mean, that's gonna have a doubt a lot. It's gonna be very painful, very painful times ahead. Chad Sowash (57:33.645) Yes. Bastards. Joel Cheesman (57:37.264) I mean, I think this all sounds good and makes great headlines. I quote Warren Buffett who says, countries that do well, what they do well should keep doing the things they do well and let other countries do what they do well, keep doing that. Like we're not going to make scotch in America. We're not going to like, we're not going to make high fashion in Toledo. mean, look, I don't know this Vizio company. Maybe they're great, but Maureen Clough (57:54.177) You saying you don't like Vizio? Chad Sowash (57:58.923) not allowed. Maureen Clough (58:00.622) Toledo. Chad Sowash (58:03.971) could. Yeah. Maureen Clough (58:05.921) Maybe he's not half bad, you don't know. Joel Cheesman (58:07.206) But I know historically, like the Yugo wasn't a great car. I know Nokia doesn't make phones anymore. So if it works great, I think it's just very wishful thinking that we can just throw out all the American tech, which I would argue is top tier in the world for like a homemade Joey bag of donuts, know, teams meeting copycat. I don't know, maybe it'll work. I think it's a stretch. Maureen Clough (58:31.243) Might as well try though. Sending a signal. It's sending a signal for sure. Chad Sowash (58:34.585) Real quick. Joel Cheesman (58:34.652) I didn't own a, I didn't own a, I didn't own a Le Car in the eighties cause it was a piece of shit. Chad Sowash (58:39.391) If you remember, Kia was a piece of shit, right? When it first came out from South Korea, you take a look at Kia now, they put out some really nice fucking cars. So we're seeing the globe catching up to us. You take a look at China. They say we say that they stole our RIP. No, we actually gave it to them because we wanted millions and millions of people to buy our shit over there. Right. So to say that we have the best shit in the world. That's the gap has closed if not being closed. It's been closing. So I'm not sure. I think they're just going to go to China for some of that shit. Joel Cheesman (59:17.276) A lot of this shit sounds good. The whole like, the whole second tier countries are going to unite together. Let all sounds good. It's just, it's hard to do. It's hard to do. Chad Sowash (59:18.646) It sucks. Maureen Clough (59:23.245) It's fascinating, but not only are they doing all this stuff, guys, did you know they're also actively trying to recruit, laid off, and burn out corporate American workers? Yes, it is amazing. I did a video on how Denmark has this program. It went completely viral. Denmark is literally asking people to come over because they are burned out. They created this whole program called the, wait, the Friend Ref- Chad Sowash (59:33.274) they are. Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Clough (59:50.68) Friend Recruiter Program, there we go. I was on the tip of the tongue, Friend Recruiter Program. And they had even a playlist that was like from burnout to balance. And they were shading corporate America and our work culture and pulling people over. Now, of course, there are only so many positions that they actually will actively recruit people and give foreign visas because they want, you of course, those to be specialized positions that they can't recruit from within a board. But they're shading us. So they're dumping our stuff. They're trying to pilfer our workers and pull them over. There's this corporate brain drain coming from corporate America. And I think the shade is very much deserved. I kind of love to see it, I gotta admit it. Not only that, but what's happening with the Grok situation? I mean, we're embedding it in our freaking Department of War, and they're actually investigating and raiding offices and holding their feet to the fucking fire. for what they have done, the harmful images that they have made possible. They're complicit in everything, if not proactively making it possible, right? And it's just, it's refreshing to see a country give a damn and actually do the right thing. So let's hope that that creates a wildfire effect and that we see more accountability because I'm done reading about these horrific things and seeing absolutely positively nothing happens. So go Europe. Joel Cheesman (01:01:12.592) Guys, you know what never fails in quality? Chad Sowash (01:01:16.227) Your dad joke. geez. Maureen Clough (01:01:16.668) boy. Joel Cheesman (01:01:17.232) My dad jokes, my dad jokes, accepted all over the world, by the way, accepted all over the world. Valentine's Day is coming up. Let's feel some love, shall we? What is Cupid's favorite band? What is Cupid's favorite band? Maureen Clough (01:01:19.085) I'm bracing myself bracing myself bracing Chad Sowash (01:01:21.313) except... Chad Sowash (01:01:26.539) okay. Maureen Clough (01:01:27.957) least favorite holiday. Joel Cheesman (01:01:38.054) Kiss! Chad Sowash (01:01:39.571) Yeah. Maureen Clough (01:01:42.958) I approve that one. It's Mo approved. We out. Joel Cheesman (01:01:46.99) Resist and unsubscribe everybody. We out. Chad Sowash (01:01:49.805) We out!

Quincy Valencia rolls back into HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast and immediately chooses violence: AI isn’t fixing hiring, nope, it’s just speeding up the mess and exposing every busted org chart, silo, and “collaboration” fairy tale we’ve been pretending works. Chad and Cheese poke the bear on everything:• Companies buying shiny AI but not adopting it• Recruiters moving faster… toward the same mediocre outcomes. Automation quietly nuking leadership pipelines• “Total talent” strategies that have been “coming soon” for a decade• And dashboards so pretty they hide the fact nothing’s actually better Quincy’s prediction? 2026 = The Big Reckoning.Execs spent the money. Now they want results. And when better talent doesn’t show up, someone’s getting thrown out of the org chart. It’s robots interviewing robots, C-players replacing pipelines, and enterprise leaders realizing tech can’t save a broken talent strategy. Pour the bourbon. This one hits nerves. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:31.569) It's the show that's like rain on your wedding day. Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman joined as always. Chad Sowash is riding shotgun as we welcome Quincy Valencia, VP of talent transformation at Korn Ferry to the show Quincy welcome again to HR's most dangerous podcast. Quincy Valencia (00:48.791) That's right. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. There's nowhere else I would rather be that I can think of in my neighborhood on this day. Joel Cheesman (00:56.625) Your giddiness is palpable from your voice. Quincy, how many times have you been on the show, Quincy? Whether live or in recording? A bunch. So believe it or not, some of our listeners may not know who you are. Let's get the Twitter bio on what makes Quincy tick. Chad Sowash (00:59.554) Yeah. She seems whelmed. Quincy Valencia (01:04.063) I'm wrong. A lot. But it's been a long time. I don't know, a bunch. A lot. Yeah. Quincy Valencia (01:19.691) I enjoy long walks on the beach, so I moved to it. Joel and Chad said that I invite volatility, which as we all know on this show, is why they need me here for a ratings boost apparently today. But I've been in and around this industry for about 110, maybe 111 years. Everybody remember that Chad's older than me still. And I like talking to people that... Joel Cheesman (01:22.585) Yeah, you do. Quincy Valencia (01:45.855) irritate me and so here I am with Chad and cheese I couldn't be happier this is the best way to start my week now I'm excited to be here 20 plus years Chad Sowash (01:50.702) So why we've been friends for 20 plus years, that's why. Joel Cheesman (01:53.137) Then you're older, you're younger than both of us then. When's your birthday? yeah, definitely, definitely. Just a young pup. And you're getting the good Botox, apparently. So you're gonna look younger than us for a long time. Quincy Valencia (01:57.195) November. Chad Sowash (01:58.284) Yep. Yeah, not by much. She's still she's she's a she's an exer that come on. Quincy Valencia (02:01.069) This is why I'm spry. Quincy Valencia (02:05.612) Yeah. Quincy Valencia (02:08.993) Thank you. Money well spent. You should try it. Chad did. Don't knock it, man. All right, let's get into this thing. I'm stoked. Thank you. Yeah, yep, yep, you too. Chad Sowash (02:10.894) you Joel Cheesman (02:12.185) You look as smooth as Chad. Man, I need to get with it. at this. Well, welcome back, Quincy. It's good to see you. Happy New Year, by the way. Chad Sowash (02:17.902) Yeah, she looks she looks a lot better. She looks a lot better. Chad Sowash (02:26.926) We're here today to talk about the big reckoning kids and if anybody forgot, we're gonna go ahead and also in case you missed it, we're gonna talk about Quincy's big reckoning that she predicts to happen in 2026. So instead of us just talking through, let's just go ahead and roll the prediction real quick, geez. Joel Cheesman (02:46.417) And by the way, Jeff, for those that listened to the show knew that I had a little, I was challenged to keep up with this one. So I've downed about eight coffees to make sure that I can stay awake. So here we go, gang. Thanks. Quincy Valencia (02:56.885) I can dumb it down for you, Joel. Chad Sowash (05:35.054) Boom, conflict, reckoning, collaboration at this point is literally just a ruse, kid. I mean, that's all there is to it. It is. Joel Cheesman (05:38.257) I'm scared. Quincy Valencia (05:44.205) It's like a group project. Everybody's involved, but nobody actually does anything or gets anything done. Sounds great on paper, but it doesn't really work. Chad Sowash (05:52.12) thing I loved about it, and I think where you threw Cheeseman into a tailspin, is you started from the macro on the AI side, and then you bled down to, wait a minute, we still have problems, but this is literally just gonna make our problems even worse. And those problems being that we have a fractured organization in many cases where we have talent acquisition, have talent management, we have even HR floating up around there. And there are so many gray areas where there is a quote unquote collaboration where nobody does anything and things slip through the holes or the cracks or whatever the hell you want to call it. So as you dig into that, are you seeing that AI is exposing it more or is this just a problem that has been happening? it's it's companies are pretty much about to implode from a structural standpoint because of it's just been around for so long. Quincy Valencia (06:33.324) Yeah. Quincy Valencia (06:43.477) It's all of that. It's you know, AI is working as it was originally intended to as people are putting all this money into the AI of today. what were people but you and I both had conversations 15 years ago with leaders going, hey, you got any AI stuff? And they were talking about, you know, machine learning or RPA or something. So this is not a new conversation. It's just the technology is different. But what the new breed of AI is doing is actually being bought and it's being installed. It's not really being adopted, but even where it is, it's making things faster. It's speeding processes up, but it's accelerating bad process and it's exposing structure and organizational structure that's not built to really support the business for the long term. So now we've got this recruiting because that's usually where it's put in that's going faster and faster and faster. But then they're getting rid of people and the rest of the structure can't really support it. And it's going to implode on itself exactly like you said. Joel Cheesman (07:40.465) So Quincy, I'm sort of the George Costanza of predictions. I like comedy that doesn't make me think too much. thank you for clarifying kind of what you're talking about. So basically, if I... Quincy Valencia (07:44.929) Get out. you Quincy Valencia (07:53.675) That was too long, the way. Y'all should have made me shorten that. I get very excited and animated about these things. Chad Sowash (07:59.662) Whatever you should have seen her message to me. was like, that's kind of long. She's like, it's great. Deal with it. Joel Cheesman (07:59.729) Clearly you get very animated about everything, Quincy. Quincy Valencia (08:02.249) So. Quincy Valencia (08:06.957) Kinda... Kinda did. Joel Cheesman (08:08.527) Martin Scorsese-esque quality as well. So essentially you're saying we've cut costs, we plugged in AI to make everything better and it has made things quicker, more efficient, but we're not getting good people. Is that a quick way of saying what you've said? Quincy Valencia (08:25.857) That's exactly it is. The outcomes aren't the same or aren't any better. They're not. The outcomes are the same. They're not what people really want, which is better talent in the right place at the right time. Joel Cheesman (08:37.283) and the solution. Quincy Valencia (08:40.353) There's silos in talent. You can't have one siloed TA organization that is optimized and then move that into one siloed HR organization that doesn't know what they're doing and then a single siloed talent management or internal mobility and then single siloed learning and development. Those things need to complement each other. again, don't want, managers don't want collaboration. They want functions that work and they want a talent that's delivered. And the only way you can do that is if you start knocking down those walls and bleeding them together and there's no reason not to. Chad Sowash (09:13.72) Well, it seems like we've been having this discussion, obviously, for a while over a decade where talent acquisition, talent management. mean, Joel and I literally we were we were in rooms last fall talking to heads of T.A. and heads of people. And I would ask them, you know, who who is moving toward a total talent organization? And then there were hands that would be were raising up. said, who who made it there? Quincy Valencia (09:17.772) Yeah. Chad Sowash (09:41.152) and there was like maybe one hand in the room, right? So it seems like everybody's talking about it. And we've been talking about it forever. Everybody's talking about it, but it doesn't look like executions actually happening. It's the same shit over and over and over. yeah, no, we're moving to a total talent organization. It's taking you 10 years. What the hell is the holdup? Quincy Valencia (10:00.631) Yeah. There's so many things that are there. So first of all, you know, people are saying, that's already done. No, it's not. We've just been talking about it for a long time. And this, again, like I just said, what AI has done and the purchase of it, I'm not even going to say the adoption, has just kind of made it more critical that it happens more quickly. It's exposing the chinks in the armor, if you will, more quickly. Because again, the dashboards look nicer now and the... Interviews are scheduled faster and that's great, but you've got the same people on the other end. So you don't have, there's not enough, you you don't even know what talent you need. You don't know where to go. Most organizations actually have talent that they need within the organization. They don't know how to identify it. but they're having to, there's no quite, have to now, everything's changing. You know, Tia used to, you'd open a rack, you'd fill the rack, you'd measure time to hire and you'd move on to the next thing. and then by the time you get people in and they become productive. So depending on the role, could be 60 days, it could be six months or a year, the skills needed for what the business needs now has changed. So you've got to be able to identify internally what you need and be able to move people around or you're gonna be behind. Chad Sowash (11:10.188) Yeah. There's so many companies though that see the talent in their organization as disposable. we'll just get somebody else. We're fine with that. We're not looking to create learning and development programs because that takes money and it takes time and then we have to maintain it and so on and so forth. So that's fine. We'll just get rid of who we have now and we'll just bring in other talent. But then the cycle shifts. Quincy Valencia (11:17.804) They all do. Chad Sowash (11:37.246) and they see how much money it's costing them to burn through talent and they're like, shit, now we actually have to do something to train and then also retain the individuals that we have now. Is this just a cycle that's happening that again, we're gonna go back to disposable heroes once again, sometime in the next few years? Quincy Valencia (11:59.275) I hope not because the other thing that's happening at the same time is, is you, as you look at automation throughout the business and part certainly in TA, because it's kind of cool to me that really HR and TA specifically has been in a lot of organizations leading the charge for what are we going to do with this AI stuff? So, but even really throughout the business as they're looking at automating away their early career or entry level roles, whatever those are. And that's great. Now you're saving all this money on headcount and getting these short-term gains and efficiency. And then what happens in three years when you need a middle manager? What happens in seven years when you need a leader in an organization? For most of these places, in some industries more than others, but you have automated away your pipeline. So now you have to go out, you have no management to develop because you can bring in certain skills, but you can't bring in that cultural knowledge and that sort of native knowledge that you have when you're there. And so now they have to go out external and buy it. Well, everyone knows when you switch from one company to another, it's because they're giving you more money in a lot of cases. So they're creating their own problem and widening their gap where they have no leadership bench left, and they're making it worse for themselves. So there's so many reasons why they need to focus on bringing it all together so they have a better view of who they've got and what they actually need. Chad Sowash (12:59.34) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:14.929) Quincy, I love In-N-Out Burger. Listeners of the show will know, but I can't always get In-N-Out because I don't live in an area that has them. So sometimes I have to just resort to a good McDonald's Quarter Pounder with cheese, and it's sort of good enough. So to the argument that, yeah, you know, maybe we're getting more C-Players, C-Plus players than we used to, but we're saving so much money on that process and head count. And, you know, the AI is going to catch up. You know, we're hearing dooms, know, doomsayers say that, you know, two to three years will be empty handed. Well, the AI has been improving pretty rapidly. So what do you say to the organization that says, you know what, maybe some temporary pain eventually I'll get out there to California where I can get me a, you know, an animal style. Like, what do you say to those organizations that say eventually AI will catch up and be good enough to where it's maybe not today. Quincy Valencia (13:51.948) Yeah. Quincy Valencia (14:09.677) To do what? A, we'll catch up to begin tonight, get in the, what? Joel Cheesman (14:12.017) to hire A players, to be more human, to not have a line that says this is AI and this isn't. Are we getting to a point where the humans and the AI, you just can't tell the difference and it's caught up to the interviewing and what we've known when people do it and the nuance around hiring, are you saying AI will never catch up, will never be human? We'll never have the nuance that an interviewer has or will it get close enough to say, you know what, the money we're saving is worth, you know, the, the, the gap in quality that we're getting. Quincy Valencia (14:48.811) I don't know. I'm not going to say that definitively because I can't predict the future. Well, yes, I can. Actually, I just did. No, I don't know for sure. What I know is that it will take a long time to get there because if for no other reason than legal and regulatory compliance will prohibit that in a lot of cases. And I don't see that going away at all. So even if the tech can do it, mean, already in Europe, you can't do it. So there's a lot. There's only so much that will be allowed. There's so many guardrails and they're continuing to be put into place. Chad Sowash (15:07.83) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Quincy Valencia (15:18.735) place and be expanded rather than pull back. That tide will probably change at some point, but what do you do? That's great, but for the next five years or 10 years, are you just going to fall behind? Are you just as an organization going to let your competitors steal your best workers? What are you going to do? What is that breaking point? Because the problem is that most organizations aren't even measuring the ROI on whatever they're putting in today. They don't even know how. They're saying, we bought this new tech and put it in. We're so cool. But what does it get you? It's you know, it's the it's faster. What does that mean? Are we going to have is it going to be Elon Musk's let's have all the robots in the okay great is your robot going to be your CEO? I mean it could if you're replacing Elon but anybody else I'm not quite sure. But somebody good if it's going to replace somebody good I'm not sure that it could today. Chad Sowash (15:50.473) The brawn brushes. Chad Sowash (15:58.831) He's pretty much a robot already. Chad Sowash (16:05.422) I think we run a risk when we run broad strokes. Will all companies do all? Of course not. I mean, we have different companies with different products. Some deliver luxury lifestyle goods, some cheap she and you know, shit or what have you, right? But one thing I think is interesting is that as Joel was talking about A players and we will go back to the college football playoffs. IU Quincy Valencia (16:18.381) Mm-hmm. Quincy Valencia (16:33.229) Thank Chad Sowash (16:34.722) had literally almost no four star and five star players, right? A players, B players, right? But what did they have? They had the most fifth year seniors, right? They had the most experience. Were they the most talented? No, but they were the most experienced. So again, depending on the culture of the team, of the organization that you have, I think it's important. If you think it's important for you to have nothing but four and five star players, Quincy Valencia (16:39.659) I think they had zero. Chad Sowash (17:02.71) Okay, great, but there are other organizations that are out there that are gonna have fifth year seniors and they're gonna lean heavily on that experience. So I think the whole broad brush, trying to paint a broad brush for every company out there is more dangerous and risky than anything else. Quincy Valencia (17:20.043) Yeah, I we've optimized hiring, but we didn't optimize talent. And that's what if you want to stick with the college football analogy, which is sad to me, you can have. I know, I'm very proud of those go. Go canes. But anyway, you know, you can, you can hire, can hire in the best people individually, but how do they meld and how do they mesh and how do you see what's happening across it? And if you look what Indiana's coach did over two years, I mean, leadership, Chad Sowash (17:28.761) you made it to the final, shut up. Joel Cheesman (17:31.739) Quincy's a grad of the U, in case our listeners didn't. Quincy Valencia (17:48.717) matters, shared systems matter. So that's what I was saying when you try, well, we'll just hire in another A player, A player, A player. There's a whole lot of foundational knowledge and experience that they're going to miss if they do that. there's a place, I'm a big fan of AI, I'm a big fan of automation, I'm a big fan of efficiency, an organization should be doing that, but they should be doing it strategically. And I'm working with an organization now, a large one that whose name you would know, and We know, I'm not going to name names. I saw your face, Chad. I don't do that. But we work with every name that you can think of. So this is one you would definitely know. And they're asking, well, I don't know. We want to go in and do a diagnostic, not just of their tech stack, because you can't look at that. in a silo, you have to look at where their business is going first and foremost and then backtrack into, okay, well, where's the talent and what do you need and what are your systems and all the way back down to how are you sourcing in the market and everything in between. And the question is, yeah, we could do that, what's one option, but can you just recommend some other tech that we could put into our stack? And I said, no, I can't. Because what are you trying to solve for? I don't know where your gaps are in this process, your hiring processes, but I also don't know your gaps necessarily beyond that. I need to know organizationally what you're striving for so that we can then build back into a system that's gonna support that future gain. TA and talent in general, not just TA, but talent management in general is not about having a good talent management program. It's about building. a layer of talent within your organization or building a talent ecosystem that will support your business objectives. And anytime you talk about TA or TM or any of that, even internal mobility outside the lens of business, I think you're looking at it wrong. Chad Sowash (19:31.503) Well, in taking a look at like enterprise companies in being able to better understand, as you'd said, external, internal, retention, development. We've been talking about it for years. We need one organization to do that. What percentage of enterprise companies do you think have successfully moved from this fractured talent acquisition, talent management to a full encompassing talent organization? Quincy Valencia (20:00.621) and our experience less than 10%. Less than 10%. And they're trying to. So there are a lot of organizations that are trying to, but how many years have we been hearing it? And some are further along that path than others. But you've got political and structural barriers there. You've got hiring managers that don't understand. Joel Cheesman (20:02.896) You Quincy Valencia (20:20.823) the what's in it for you conversation and looking at internal talent and skills from other parts of the organization. You've got pressures from internal and external pressures to deliver, deliver, deliver today. And they're not taking the time to allow people the luxury of learning how what they know and then upskilling that a little bit will be applicable in another part of an organization. So then they just go out and they want to hire and they hire faster and they don't know if they're hiring best and then their wages are going higher. And so you've got all these reasons why There are barriers to doing this. Even the best talent leaders and the best business leaders who want to do this are coming. and fragmented data. my God, the data, the inability to share data in an organization is just mind boggling to me. And that's actually a real problem. my God, yes. Chad Sowash (20:59.31) you Chad Sowash (21:06.574) would think that there's a huge market for that, for companies to come in specifically clean up data so that you have systems that definitely need to talk to each other. But yeah, it seems like that would be a hell of a business. Cheeseman, get on that. Quincy Valencia (21:16.801) They have to. Joel Cheesman (21:19.919) Yeah. Yeah, I'll get on that. Quincy, we talked about companies and we've interviewed for the show. mean, companies like Guild and Lattice and Fuel 50. While we see the organizations like a paradox that is the sort of quicker, efficient, more hiring, they're getting acquired while the internal mobility companies seem to be struggling. Like, what are they getting right? What are they getting wrong? Companies, I think, want an easy button where they just write a check to somebody and it's done, but that doesn't seem to be happening. What's your take on what you see there? Chad Sowash (21:52.558) Yep. Quincy Valencia (21:52.738) They do. Quincy Valencia (21:58.297) So I've seen, by the way, I'm a big fan of Fuel 50 and others like it. I think they're great. But if they don't have the right infrastructure to work off of, they're limited as well. You still have a fundamental data issue because it's coming from so many places, especially in large global organizations that don't even have sometimes the same systems of record. mean, it makes it very difficult. You have to have a common language. That's the first thing. But here's where I've seen people try to apply it. So we've heard people say, we need to a skills-based organization. That means different things. I actually had somebody in an organization say to me, who's a senior HR executive, and said, we've been talking about this forever. Do we just abandon this? Because it's not working. It's not going anywhere. No, maybe don't abandon it. Maybe you call it something different and approach it differently. But anyway, here's what they do. Here's what I've seen them do. We're going to do this. We're going to prove it works. We're going to do a pilot to have skills be the thing so that we can start down the rest of the. track of getting the organization into identifying where their talent is and what they need, right? So we're just going to start with one department though. We're going to start with marketing and do it there. like, well, now you're defeating the entire purpose because the purpose of doing this is looking outside of the core skill, the core function and seeing where these things are applicable outside of there. So now you've, it's an echo chamber. not seeing anything. So it's fear. They're afraid to do it. People don't want to give up what they know. People don't want to, there's still cultures of, I'm not letting Chad go because he's the best person I've got in my department. That's what Joel said to me. Joel said I couldn't do this without Chad. Chad Sowash (23:31.694) You Chad Sowash (23:36.142) You Quincy Valencia (23:38.029) No, so there's so many, there's just, there's, then adoption, you know, people are putting in all sorts of technology everywhere and not measuring adoption. So it's not really working. They're not, and they're not getting the ROI on what they need. And then people go back and say, well, it's not working. Like the guy I was talking to said, we're just going to abandon this and start over with something else. So you're not even, there's another company I'm working with that said we they're going through a transformation prog. process and they are like this is we've done this seven times. maybe we need to relook at it. Let's keep saying transformation. I'm not sure that means what you think it means. If it's seven times, so all sorts of things, you're not getting people it's not you're not taking enough time to see if something's working. You're not doing it. Whatever it is on a wide enough scale. You're not measuring adoption. You're not getting by. I mean, there's every reason you could think of why somebody's group project and that's back to that. Chad Sowash (24:10.862) You Quincy Valencia (24:32.991) fails and that's why it's not working in these organizations. Chad Sowash (24:36.344) The is Joel said earlier, I think like the easy buttons in I think you're looking at you're looking at easy wins as much as easy button. So a lot of these companies that we've actually talked to will have a fountain or a paradox or or smart recruiters or whatever it might be. But they'll they'll have just a very small part of the process that they implement. A lot of times it's an interview scheduling because everybody hates that. It sucks. Nobody wants to be a scheduler. Right. It just it's a horrible, horrible job. So you take a look at that and you take a look at the actual man hours that you can save on it. You take a look at the actual time to interview. I mean, you've got all these different things that you can actually adjust to, but they did it in small chunks. And then they went back later, these companies did, and said, this is how AI is working for us. And this is literally just a sliver of our process. So I mean, is that? Is that the answer really? Instead of trying to do a major overhaul, literally, you can't eat an elephant in one bite, go ahead and take it a bite at a time and then try to go ahead and have a phased in approach to AI instead of, again, a lot of these companies, these CEOs are like, we want AI, we want it now. we can't get ROI out of it. Well, shit, like you'd said, seven different times they've tried transformation. What the fuck does transformation mean to you? Quincy Valencia (25:58.763) Right. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that is the right approach. You can't do everything at once. I think you need to have that vision of what you want to be. And then you start working backwards and say, what can you do now? When we go in and help companies do this very thing, it's here's where you are from a maturity standpoint. Here's where you are. And here are the things that you should prioritize and why based on where you are today and where you want to be in your business. And it looks at everything from change readiness, you know, who will take this and who won't to all the different components of talent, of a talent organization to say, if you do this, this will be a lot of effort, but it will have the biggest business impact. But you can do this right now. It will have medium business impact, but you should be able to do it in a relative short of time. And then you start biting off chunks, like you said, and then it compounds. upon each other. So yeah, that's absolutely the right way to go. And you can't give it, you can't redo it if everything's not done, whatever it is, in six months time. You have to give these things time to become so that you can see what the ROI is and then you can tweak it and move on to the next thing and build and move on to the next thing and build. It's just not scalable. And it's going to be easier to do when you have all of that, the goals and the talent pipeline, the orchestration of talent happens within a single component. Chad Sowash (27:14.702) and you have wins too, right? You've got, look, there's a win, there's a win, there's a win. And it just continues to, you you have that winning IU season. Quincy Valencia (27:23.709) Or, this doesn't work, let's not try and roll it out to the rest of the company because it doesn't work. Chad Sowash (27:27.906) Yes, exactly. Joel Cheesman (27:29.873) Quincy, I want to look at the other side of the coin on this one. And we know that job seekers are becoming more and more equipped to automate their job seeking adventures. And we talked to more and more employers that are like, I reach out to someone and they and they are like, what job is this? Who are you? Like, they just don't know because the robots are doing all the work. Are we in a position where like we have no other choice but to automate because our consumer slash job seeker They're automating in a way that we can't handle. Like, it feels to me like we're going to robots interviewing robots no matter what we do, right or wrong. Quincy Valencia (28:06.305) Yeah, I think right. But only up to a certain point. Like I do not want, if I have a thousand applications, I do not want my recruiters screening a thousand. I want them to be able to get the best, but they can't do that manually. Like for the very reason you said, there's too much there. So we have to be able to automate the smart bits. the ones that will add value so that when they get to that recruiter, the recruiter or the hiring manager, they're spending their time with the right people doing the right things. Everybody's been saying this forever. There's nothing revolutionary about that. It's just what does that mean now is quite different. I'm working with an organization now. It's actually a frontline high volume solution. No, Chad, no, I'm not naming. But they have some roles that do, you know, they do like merchandising in stores. So they're working in retail organizations, people that go in and, you know, put the stuff on the shelf for Nabisco or whomever. don't know, I made that up. I don't know that that's true, that that company's true. But anyway, so the problem is some of them, they just need to be able to go in and get the stuff and put it there on the shelf. But the other one, they need to have a little bit more discernment. They need to be able to maybe negotiate with a store manager for an end cap or something there. And the way that their process is running now, they can't do it. They don't really see because the volume is so high, the hiring managers don't really see the candidate and don't really get to interact with them too much before they're hired and it's too late before they know. So in that case, there's technology that we're recommending that they're working with that actually simulates the job for them, a back and forth conversation. that would work quite well for them. You know them well, it's Tatio. So we're working to see how we can bring that in where they're simulating that actual job. So now the hiring managers in a very short period of time are being able to see. Quincy Valencia (29:49.801) what they're getting from someone and vice versa. The candidate is able to say, yeah, I don't want to do this or yeah, this is great. This works perfectly for me. So there's that layer. It's the perfect application of technology to get benefit on both sides to both speed up the process, but also make it a better quality of process. So it's what are you doing? Where are you and where are you putting it in there so that when it gets to that human layer, they have more information to go on rather than starting over from, you at least 18 and are you legally eligible to work in this country, which is. ridiculous. Chad Sowash (30:20.534) I love the proof, right? Because one of the things we're always asking people, can you, can you, can you, well, yes, yes, yes, of course I can. But to be able to use a platform like a Tadio that definitely, it demonstrates whether you can or you can't. And as you had said, and I think this is incredibly important, because how many employees come in and wash out after a week, right? Quincy Valencia (30:45.655) Right. Chad Sowash (30:46.454) because they really didn't understand what the job was going to be like and what types of tasks they were going to be performing on said job. Now you take them through that simulation, not only have they proven they can do it, they also know that they want to do it. Those are two big things that, I mean, we've never really been able to do unless you have like, you know, a full week or so with interns or things of that nature. Quincy Valencia (31:11.957) Yeah, and then that translates again, it's that entry level, I'm going to call it it is it's mostly entry level, who you still need, even if you get robots to stock yourselves, you still need these people, eventually to who's going to manage the who's going to be the district robot manager, who's going to be the leader in the company who's going to do these. So you still need some of these humans at this level. And then you need within the organization to be able to identify those humans so that they can lead your company into the future. Otherwise, you've got a bunch of C-suite people or vice president people and a bunch of robots. I don't want Elon Musk robot. Chad Sowash (31:44.91) Skynet or the Matrix? Those are the two that I'm thinking. Either the Matrix or Skynet is gonna take this shit over. Quincy Valencia (31:50.837) I'm thinking Skynet still, that's... Joel Cheesman (31:51.569) Do the robots look like Sydney Sweeney? That's my concern about this whole issue. Tracy, Quincy. I did it again. I'm awful. Such an inside joke. Sorry guys. Quincy, small businesses as we know is the bulk of the hiring that goes on in this country. I would think that a lot of them look at automation as a gift from God. Chad Sowash (31:57.295) You couldn't get any work done. Quincy Valencia (31:59.329) Did you just call me Tracy again? What is happening? Are we in... Quincy Valencia (32:13.42) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:19.313) We don't have to have our own team. We don't have to outsource this stuff. We can just buy a solution that will interview and pre-screen and do everything. Where do they fit in all this? Because they're not going to have internal mobility processes. They're not going to have like, this is a godsend, yes or no? And do we get to a point where like employees figure out like, well, it's Okay, I got to go to this fast food and I got to do the kiosk and the food, or about if I can go to In-N-Out and I actually talk to a person like that's where I want to go. Do we get to a place where your employer is just like, who has humans and who doesn't? And I want to be in an organization that has humans that are. Quincy Valencia (32:57.581) Yeah, I don't know for small businesses. don't I don't think this is necessarily going to be the panacea for them that you're saying for a lot of reasons first and foremost is cost Second, it's just very these they're too expensive for them looks relic those of us who deal in enterprise quite frequently are like, oh, this is cheap This is nothing and those who deal in I've got two openings on my night shift or like this is way too expensive. So cost is the first one. The second is, I spent the last, before joining Card Ferry, the last several years before that and even prior to that working in for a software company that works just with high volume frontline hospitality and. know, quick service restaurant primarily. And even though it may be a big name, it may be a McDonald's or Wendy's or wherever, they are mostly franchise owners. so you start looking, it's like, it's McDonald's, they can afford it, but you look back down and that's a franchisee who owns 10 locations. So you're back to the money issue again. And if you look at what they're looking for and their leaders, it's the ability to run the operation as a store manager, but they also have to have the ability to... hire the right people and train the right people and keep the right people. And they're not doing that without people. still want people. The people they're hiring have to represent their business, their front-facing. So no, I don't think it is the panacea for smallest businesses at this point in time, maybe parts of it. We know, we saw what Paradox did in Macire for McDonald's for the scheduling of organizations, but now a lot of them are abandoning it and going to other technologies or back to some of what they've done previously. So no. Joel Cheesman (34:27.697) Don't you think a lot of that gets commoditized though? A lot of that technology gets commoditized and it's either free or really cheap for a lot of these small businesses too. Quincy Valencia (34:31.062) Yes. Quincy Valencia (34:35.493) Yes, yes. And I actually see that that's a lot of the acquisitions that we're seeing and that continued consumer back in that consolidation cycle is going to help that. So at some point, yes, that will do exactly that. But that still doesn't take the human layer out. If I'm the franchise owner, one of the when I started in the software for this particular, let's go back to QSR, my first client that I had was a a Chick-fil-A franchisee. And was he and the co-owner who were actually still doing the interviewing after they got somebody in and scheduled and screened all that. They did that. They were doing that automated. They were using our software to do it. But once they got them in, they still had to talk to them because there was still a feeling there's a brand that they needed to represent. There's all of those things that they still wanted to talk to them and make sure that it was somebody they wanted. And for some brands, I don't see that going away, no matter how commoditized the speeding up of the process goes. Chad Sowash (35:31.119) Quincy, you've worked with some big companies, notably Home Depot, HD Supply, and then you've worked obviously at ADP, Cielo, mean, you're now at Korn Ferry, so you've been working with big companies for a very long time. You watch your ass. You just said that I was older than you, so you watch your ass right now. Joel Cheesman (35:31.313) Fair enough. Quincy Valencia (35:41.943) Walmart? Don't forget Walmart. Joel Cheesman (35:45.425) You've done so much for only being 29 years old, Quincy. Quincy Valencia (35:48.749) I'm not 29, I'm 64. Quincy Valencia (35:56.909) I look good for 64, that's all I'm saying. So do you, Chad. Chad Sowash (35:58.479) You look good for 29, shut up. So at the end of the day, you've worked with these enterprise companies for very long time. You've heard the stuff. It seems like they're always pointing their fingers. It's the ATS's problem. It's the HCM's problem. But they're never pointing the fingers at themselves, right? Quincy Valencia (36:17.261) Mm-hmm. Chad Sowash (36:18.668) And that's generally where the problem is, especially when we're talking about this process problem, this organization problem. Do you think that we're ever going to get to the point where we can have a nice, solid, fluid talent organization that focuses on acquisition, retainment, development, and obviously upward mobility? Is any of that going to happen? Quincy Valencia (36:40.204) Yeah. It is, and that's my whole premise. That's why I'm calling this year the big reckoning, because all these people have just thrown their hands up in the air and said, I don't know, I can't do it, are going to be forced to do it, because the executives have approved these line items for huge investments in this technology. then let's start with TA. They're improving these investments. Now, TA can say, we've saved 18 hours a week in scheduling and 400 hours a week in whatever it is. And they're coming back in the hiring managers, and the rest of the executives are going, yeah, but what have I gotten for that? Chad Sowash (36:50.222) you Quincy Valencia (37:12.587) What am I doing? And so they're not going to blame the tech. The C-suite is not going to blame the tech. They're going to blame the leader of the organization who they've given all this money and authority to, who's coming to them with pretty dashboards, like I said, and showing what they're saving here. But the organization is not feeling the impact of better talent. And so it's like we started out saying, the AI is just highlighting and accelerating the vision into an organization that's not fit for purpose. It's really just showing what's broken and what's not working. So something's going to happen. We gave you all this money for tech. You said if we gave you tech, it would work. It is working in its silo. It's not having meaningful business impact. And so these leaders need to understand that they need to have different organizational structure. They need to orchestrate the talent, orchestrate the flow throughout the organization, or they're going to be gone. Chad Sowash (38:04.576) orchestrate, orchestrate, orchestrate, Reckoning. Joel Cheesman (38:07.419) Quincy Valencia, everybody. Thanks for joining us, Quincy. For those of our listeners, viewers that want to connect with you, learn more about you or your employer, where do you send them? Quincy Valencia (38:12.96) Bye. Quincy Valencia (38:19.455) On LinkedIn, Quincy Valencia, I think I'm the only one, or you can email me, quincy.valencia@kornferry.com or just kornferry.com. Joel Cheesman (38:28.539) Fair enough. It's a reckoning kids. It's a reckoning Chad. That's another one in the can. We out. Chad Sowash (38:29.774) Too easy. Chad Sowash (38:34.86) We out