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Ever feel like your performance reviews are stuck in the 1940s? Well, you're not alone, but it's probably time to join the party and jump into the 21st Century. That's why we invited Confirm.com on Firing Squad. This company, led by CEO Josh Merrill, the former CPO at Carta, thinks they have the answer to give employee review software a big refresh. Blame the Millennials. And yeah, they have some well-funded competitors that might have something to say about their success. Don't worry, we'll get into that. Can they pull it off? Gotta listen to find out. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Firing Squad Intro (0s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (24s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. You know who it is. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost? Joel Cheeseman joined as always the "Pippin to my Jordan" Chad Sowash and today's victim. Chad (39s): Stop. Stop. Saying that you're Jordan of anything other than eating fried foods. It's just total bullshit. Joel (45s): I'm just reading the script Chad. I'm just reading the script. I was gonna do your Shaq to Kobe. Would that be better? Chad (55s): You've done that one before. Joel (56s): Bird to Parish? I don't know. I don't know. Chad (58s): Oh yeah, No, I'm definitely. Oh, Parish. I love me some Parish. Oh yeah. Joel (1m 1s): Magic to Kareem. Chad (1m 2s): Oh, Kareem skyhook, baby. Oh yes. I love some skyhook. Joel (1m 6s): Yeah. Some Cousy to Chamberlain. Yeah. Or Russell. Sorry, not Chamberlain. Jesus Russell was the sorry. Boston fans. We just lost a whole city on that one. Anyway. Can we get to the show please? Chad (1m 18s): Okay. Thank you. Joel (1m 19s): Jesus. All right. Our guest today is Josh Merrill. Josh's CEO at Confirm. Is it Confirm or Confirm.com? Josh? Which you prefer? Josh (1m 29s): It is Confirm and thank you guys so much for having me here. I hope I can be the well, the Steph Curry of HR platforms today. Joel (1m 37s): Look what he did there. Chad, look what he did there. Chad (1m 40s): He's trying to bring it forward. Joel (1m 42s): He knows the audience. He knows the audience. All right, Josh, before we get into the rules of the game and grill your company to death, tell the listeners a little bit about Josh Merrill. What makes you tick? Josh (1m 52s): Yeah. So I've been in startups for about a dozen years. I love working on problems that, I love unsexy problems. Frankly. I love problems that, you know, we sort of put up with in our day to day lives and we don't really think very much about until someone points it and goes, wow, that's really broken. And I feel like that's the type of problem that we get to solve with Confirm. Joel (2m 13s): And we love unsexy problems. Chad, we love unsexy problems. Chad (2m 17s): Josh just called HR unsexy. Good job, Josh. Good job. Joel (2m 21s): Yeah, like let's just point out the obvious Josh Josh (2m 27s): HR is plenty sexy, but we do performance reviews. Chad (2m 30s): Oh boy. Gotcha. Joel (2m 31s): All right, Chad, tell him what he is won today. Chad (2m 34s): Well, Josh, welcome to firing squad at the sound of the bell. sfx (2m 38s): ding, ding, ding Chad (2m 41s): There it is. You're gonna have two minutes to pitch Confirm at the end of two minutes, eh, we're gonna hit you with about 20 minutes of Q and A. Yeah. You want to be concise or guess what's gonna happen kids? He's gonna get the crickets. After Q and A you're gonna receive one of three, either big applause. Strap yourself into this rocket ship because it's gonna take off. Golf clap. You're gonna need some nitrous to get this bad boy moving or last but not least the firing squad. Get that jalopy off the street cuz it ain't going nowhere. That's firing squad. Big boy. Joel (3m 18s): You a confirmed loser. If you get the guns. Josh (3m 22s): Ouch. Joel (3m 22s): All right, Josh, are you ready to do this? Josh (3m 24s): I am ready. Joel (3m 25s): Two minutes starting in three, two. sfx (3m 29s): ding, ding ding. Josh (3m 30s): All right. Well thank you so much guys. So the problem that Confirm is solving is that performance reviews are fundamentally broken. So performance reviews were invented by the US military a hundred years ago, the Nazi military actually created 360s during World War II. We're still using the performance reviews they invented, but the way we work today is completely different. So today, you know, I can hop on Slack or Microsoft Teams. I can direct message anyone in the company. I can form a cross-functional team to solve a problem. The way we work today is in networks. So why are we evaluating that work top down like we're in the military. Josh (4m 14s): And that's why we created Confirm. So Confirm is the first performance platform that uses the science of organizational network analysis to uncover data that managers can't. So the way it works is, you know, using Confirm, anyone in the company can review anybody else and that review may be positive or negative, but the point is that it mirrors the way we actually get things done. And one of our customers actually said, he said, 'it's like an x-ray of my company's talent'. And so with Confirm, you can identify your top and bottom performers, your culture carriers, your flight risks. You can reward them for performance, real performance instead of politics. Josh (4m 56s): And you can make confident people decisions based on data instead of bias. And you can learn more about us at confirm.com. Joel (5m 6s): All right. Thank you, Josh. That was tight. You're in a little bit under, so good for you. My first question, as always, let's get to the name. It's fantastic. Big ups for the name, especially for the confirm.com. You must have paid a pretty penny to get Confirm.com. Talk about the name and what it took to get it. Josh (5m 26s): Yeah, so we did pay a pretty penny for it. I'll give you kinda a little bit of my history. About 10 years ago, I joined a company called eShares and we were at esharesinc.com and we figured, you know, when we got bigger, we'll buy eshares.com. You know, the owner wanted like, I don't know, million dollars or something. And by the time we actually got big enough that we could afford it, he suddenly realized, oh, I, I can actually charge 10 times the amount. And so we actually have to change our name. And that company is now called Carta. Starting Confirm, you know, I was like, I'm not doing this again. Josh (6m 9s): And so, you know, we shelled out as soon as we had the money, you know, we shelled out, I think it was 375 for, for that domain name. But, you know, we're very happy that we're easy to find. I can say our name in a, you know, crowded bar and people can still hear me and it's working out great. Joel (6m 29s): Thanks for the transparency, Josh. Most, most people wouldn't give the dollar figure. So big ups to you on that one. Real quickly, are the, are the employee reviews anonymous or are they labeled who says, what about you? Josh (6m 42s): Yeah, it's a great question. So the reviews are not anonymous because you know, this data needs to be actionable. And a lot of this stuff, you know, if you just get a bunch of anonymous feedback, you can't really do anything with it, but it also needs to be psychologically safe. So those reviews are going to a person's manager, not that individual themselves. We do pull out some of the compliments, some of the nice things that people are are saying about me. I may be able to see those, but everything else is visible to my manager and above. Joel (7m 15s): Got it, got it. We'll probably come back to that later. So curious you don't, our firing squads are typically divided into people who have deep experience in our space and those that don't. You are in the don't category. You mentioned Carta, which is a well-known company. Does your lack of experience in our space help you? Is it a hindrance, the inspiration to start a company like this? Talk about that. Josh (7m 37s): Yeah. You know, actually kind of a similar experience, when I joined Carta. So I spent many years there. I was a Chief Product Officer over at Carta, and I joined not having any experience with equity, but having been a previous founder and experiencing the pain of trying to manage a cap table and work with lawyers and investors and trying to get option grants to employees, it's a huge pain in the ass. And I think similarly with Confirm, you know, my background, isn't HR, but I have plenty of experiences as a people manager, you know, experience kind of writing those reviews, being reviewed, participating really on both sides of a broken system. Josh (8m 21s): And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, you wanna know just enough to be able to figure things out, but you don't wanna know too much because it makes it harder for you to see how broken the system really is. Chad (8m 38s): So let's dig into that a little bit deeper, not just about your experience, but about your team's experience. So do you have anybody on the leadership team who actually has HR recruiting talent management background? Josh (8m 51s): Yeah. It's a good question. So we are certainly surrounded by, I would say a lot of advisors who have, you know, decades in HR. The leadership team itself, I would say our background, our experiences are largely in people management and we've come from organizations that are known for their best practices with performance reviews. And we can still look at that and go, this is really broken and you know, through Confirm we have the opportunity to fix it. So I think it's a little bit of mix of that kind of, I would call it like a healthy naivete, but we surround ourselves with people who are familiar with, you know, the way things work in HR. Chad (9m 44s): Okay. Okay. So give me an idea. Do you have any military background experience? Josh (9m 49s): No, I don't. Chad (9m 51s): So, so hating on the military and yet you've never actually had a review in the military. I spent 20, I spent 20 years in the military, which is why I'm asking. Joel (10m 2s): And there was more hate for the Nazis. Right. Just so we're clear. Chad (10m 6s): Yeah. We'll get to that in a minute. Joel (10m 8s): Sorry. Josh (10m 8s): More hate for the Nazis. Yeah. Chad (10m 10s): Yes, yes, yes. So first we call HR not sexy. Now we're saying the military has bad practices. So tell me about the actual military practices, because I'm very intimate, unfortunately with those practices. Tell me why, what you're doing, fixes what they've broken. Josh (10m 29s): Yeah. So, and to be clear, you know, I don't want to hate on the military, obviously. You know, my point in bringing up the history of performance reviews is, you know, back in World War I, the system that the military used, it was really innovative. It was really novel, but when you fast forward, you know, the way we work today has changed completely. And it's just, it doesn't fit anymore. It's like trying to put, you know, horse shoes on a car. And so what you really look at, you know, when, in terms of what the military introduced was having a consistent scale for a commanding officer to rate and evaluate a subordinate officer. Josh (11m 11s): And that was really the innovation. And because our sort of corporate org charts looked similar to a military hierarchy. We took that system and we kind of, we kind of brought it into the workplace and that really has been the standard for how we decide, you know, how engineers in Silicon Valley are gonna get evaluated and paid. So there's nothing inherently wrong with that system. It just doesn't fit the way that we work today. Chad (11m 37s): Okay. So how did you guys fix it? Josh (11m 40s): Yeah, so I think the big insight for us was understanding that the way we work today, isn't in the hierarchy of of a hundred years ago, right. We work in networks. So, you know, we can congregate on Slack, on Zoom. You know, we work super cross functionally. And in that setting, you know, any individual manager that has to evaluate an employee, they actually have less context and less visibility than ever to be able to make fair and accurate evaluations. And in fact, it's only gotten worse since the pandemic. We actually started the company right at the beginning of the pandemic, but we quickly realized that man, you know, with everybody working from home and, you know, hybrid remote work, like a manager just doesn't have the visibility that they used to. Josh (12m 32s): When I was in college, they used to teach about, you know, manage by walking around, well, that's all gone. And so we need a new way for a manager. You know, you can't be in every Slack channel and on every email thread. We need a new way for those managers to see what's actually happening. Chad (12m 48s): So does that mean there's constant feedback? Are you getting constant feedback from peers? Are the managers actually adding feedback in as it comes? Because one of the biggest issues is we talk about like NCOERs. So for, in the military is that you sit down every quarter and you have to remember what the fuck went on in, and the same thing happens in these civilian world as we, oh God, I gotta remember what happened. Oh, they hit their goals. That's not the big issue. The big issue is managers and peers don't have a feedback loop to be able to do it instantaneously, when it's actually happening. Is that something that you guys provide? How does it really make it more fluid rather than the construct of brick and mortar that we used to use? Josh (13m 33s): Yeah, exactly. Well, so you need two things. So one is that you need a concept of continuous feedback and that's been really popular in the industry. It is really popular right now. And I think it's a reaction in part to how much people hate performance reviews. So a lot of people are saying, well, don't do performance reviews. Do continuous feedback instead. And continuous feedback is great, but it doesn't mean that you don't need to measure people anymore. You still need performance measurement, as well as that continuous feedback. And we do both. So using Confirm, you know, I can give feedback, I can give recognition any time I want to anybody in the company. Josh (14m 13s): I can request feedback. I can request feedback for my direct reports, for example. And then we gather that, and then when it comes time to do those quarterly or half year performance reports, we bring all of that in. And what we're really trying to do is remove recency bias. Right? So exactly, exactly what you said. Like I'm not gonna remember everything that happened. I barely remember everything I did over the last three months, let alone all of my direct reports did. And so we wanna remove that recency bias as much as possible. And so we bring all that continuous feedback in as well. Joel (14m 47s): Sounds like some millennial mumbo jumbo to me Chad. I don't know. I don't know this constant contact. All right, Josh, you've raised about five and a quarter million in a seed round. What have you done with the money? What do you plan on doing with what's left? Are you gonna raise more money? Talk about the funding. Josh (15m 5s): Yeah, absolutely. So we raised five and a quarter million from Resolute Ventures, Animal Ventures. We love our investors. They're super supportive. You know, we really started this company, like I said, at the beginning of the pandemic, we actually thought we were gonna build a recruiting product. And a month after we started, you know, the economy was losing a million jobs a week and we had to pivot. And so we spent a long time being really thoughtful about, you know, what is the problem that we really wanna solve here. And the more we dug into performance reviews, you know, the more interesting it became, it's this, you know, kind of process that runs in the background that really controls a lot of our career futures it's super broken and nobody really thinks about it. Josh (15m 55s): And so that became our entry point. And so, you know, what we've used the money for is, you know, we've built up a team. We built a killer platform for doing performance reviews, continuous feedback, you know, career pathing. And now we're actually just at this inflection point where we're starting to, you know, take that message out more broadly to the market and really starting to ramp up sales and marketing. Joel (16m 25s): Any plans to raise additional funds. Josh (16m 27s): Yes, there are. Joel (16m 28s): And, is it a challenging environment right now to raise said funds? Josh (16m 35s): You know, I would say it's challenging for a lot of companies for sure. I would also say that there is a little bit of a flight to quality, and most of the investors that we talk to, you know, when they see a really big, you know, a big meaty problem, like performance reviews, and they see a company that can really fix it, that actually creates a lot of openings for us to tell our story. Joel (17m 0s): What does your typical customer look like? And are you a global company, or is that still a lot of space to grow into? Josh (17m 6s): Yeah, so our, our typical customer, you know, we've really been focused on tech, although that we're not exclusive to tech, but we tend to find that, you know, if you think about our work being done in networks, we tend to work really well with customers that operate in that kind of way. And so, you know, our typical customer is, you know, may have anywhere between a hundred to, you know, a thousand employees, I would say on average, we have customers that are both larger and smaller, but that tends to be our sweet spot. And we are already global. I mean, a lot of our customers are fully remote, so they have, you know, employees all over the world in every time zone and we accommodate that. Joel (17m 49s): One of the things that need my knee jerk reaction to first sort of digging into your company was, oh, they don't have any competition. Talk about your differentiation. Certainly 15 to five comes to mind who, by the way, just raised $52 million. So you might need a bigger boat comes to mind as I think through that, but, there's Culture Amp, Mesh, Lattice, a lot of well known companies, a lot of well-funded companies, what's the sales call like? What's the differentiator for you guys? Josh (18m 18s): Yeah. The core differentiator is, you know, all of those platforms, I don't wanna, you know, I'm not taking any pot shots at 15Five or Cattice or Culture Amp. I think they're all great. Chad (18m 26s): Do it. Joel (18m 26s): Oh Please do. You've heard our show before. Josh (18m 28s): Well, so I would say this, like, I think what, from a performance review standpoint, I think a lot of platforms have taken a fundamentally broken process and they've brought it online and made it sort of, you know, faster and a little bit easier through a nice UI. But at the end of the day, we're still measuring people in the same old broken way. And, you know, frankly, I don't see a lot of companies that are actually attacking the underlying problem of how people are measured, the way that Confirm is. And so when, when customers get excited about us, it's really about being able to understand in super high fidelity, you know, who are my top performers, who should I be concerned about? Josh (19m 14s): Who's actually driving influence in this organization and then being able to take action on that data really quickly. Joel (19m 20s): Would it be fair to say that a customer wouldn't use, you and a competitor or someone that I just listed as a competitor, they would choose one or the other, they wouldn't use both services. Is that correct? Josh (19m 31s): I think most of the time that's true. You know, we do absolutely have customers that, you know, they love Lattice for feedback, or they love CultureAmp for engagement surveys, and they want to marry that with this network data that only we provide, but oftentimes our customers end up, you know, if that's, if that's sort of the place that they start by integrating these platforms, most of the time they just end up on Confirm. Chad (19m 55s): Ok, so who's your target market? Who are you actually selling to? Josh (19m 59s): Yeah, so our target tends to be, you know, CHROs, you know, directors in the people function. You know, we find that, like I said, our sweet spot is, you know, kind of that mid-market, and we've been focused on, you know, companies that, that really work in that network sort of way. But we also find that is really surprising is we get a lot of interest from CEOs. And the reason is, you know, CEOs don't log into performance management systems. Like it usually that's usually something that sort of happens below the CEO level. But what we find is that when we're running a performance cycle, we see this in our analytics, our CEO customers, they will log in a dozen times a day to look at the data as it's coming in to Confirm. Josh (20m 50s): And the reason they get excited is that they can see who those, you know, how the company's kind of kind of performing at a high level with respect to talent, but they can also drill all the way down to the water cooler level and see, you know, who's concerned about, you know, is Bob concerned about Mary, you know, is Jane an outstanding contributor? And they really get a lot of intelligence and insight from that. Chad (21m 18s): Okay. So what is really the biggest issue for HR and TA that you're trying to solve today? Josh (21m 26s): So I would say that the biggest issue, you know, if you really look at, if you talk to most CHROs or heads of people and you ask them like, Hey, can you gimme a list of who my top performers are? You would be surprised at how difficult it is to produce that list of people with a high degree of confidence. And I would say that at a baseline, the first problem that we solve for people is we can tell you who those people are, who you can't afford to lose, and we can actually quantify their impact and tell you why they're making that impact or how. So that's kind of the high level place to start. Josh (22m 8s): And then there's, once you actually understand who's driving impact in the organization, there's a lot that you can do after that. Chad (22m 14s): Okay. So when we talk about HR and TA, really one of the biggest issues that they have is not being seen as a cost center. I mean, how will your product demonstrate that HR and talent acquisition and great talent management is actually the revenue generation machine? Josh (22m 33s): Yeah. So to me, that really starts with having data, you know, most CEOs that we talk to think of performance reviews is this kind of like, it's kinda like this perfunctory, you know, compliance exercise that we go through that, you know, I'm really not gonna learn very much from it. And, you know, I, I kind of trust the ratings, but not, not completely. And for HR to be able to deliver, you know, with confidence and with data that, you know, evidence of like, here are the people we can't afford to lose. Here are the people that the organization is concerned about. That's the basis for actually moving from, you know, sort of being seen as a cost center to being seen as a function in the company that's really strategic, which it is and should be treated. Chad (23m 20s): So this sounds pretty expensive. Don't you think, Joel? Joel (23m 22s): Like a lot of money, Chad. Chad (23m 23s): Like a lot of money. Joel (23m 24s): Back up the Brinks truck. Chad (23m 25s): That's what I'm thinking. So, so what is this gonna cost a company? How do you price this out? Give us a little insight into that, Josh. Josh (23m 33s): Yeah. Well, I mean, if it sounds expensive, I think that's great. Cuz if I, if I put my salesman hat on, I can, I can give you good news, which is, you know, we're really competitively priced. We price per employee per month. And you know, if you compare us against Latice or Culture Amp, you know, we usually come out frankly, quite a bit ahead. But what I think is really compelling is, you know, most organizations look at this and go, this is a really different way to understand performance. And for those companies that, you know, think this might be for them, but they're not sure we actually can do a pilot program, a three month pilot where, you know, if they wanna run a performance cycle in Confirm before actually committing to anything with us, we can help them do that. Josh (24m 21s): And you know, a hundred percent of the time, you know, our customers look at the data and the insights that we can deliver and they commit to the platform Joel (24m 31s): Is an economic downturn good or bad for your company? For example, with saying that you help with flight risks and retention, do you assume that some companies that want to keep who they have use your tool, or do you feel like you're gonna be an unnecessary solution that they can sort of put aside until the economy gets better? Josh (24m 53s): Yeah, it's a really good question. You know, over the last, like I would say month or so. I mean, that's really, when we've seen our pipeline explode. Almost seems like the worse, the news gets, the better our pipeline becomes. I think that, you know, we're certainly seeing budgets get squeezed, you know, there's no doubt about that, but the need to take a finer, you know, kind of take a magnifying glass to performance, you know, that need is bigger than ever. It's surprising to me. Some of it is on the downside where, you know, I may be, you know, carrying under-performers, but most of it is really, you know, I just wanna make sure that my top talent doesn't leave. Josh (25m 39s): Yeah. Because in the midst of, you know, this kind of constricting economic climate, the war for top talent is like hotter than ever. Joel (25m 50s): Yeah. Josh (25m 50s): And, you know, the primary interest of our customers is I don't wanna lose those people, but first I have to know who they are. Joel (25m 56s): All right. And lastly, gimme a glimpse of your whiteboard. What are some things you guys are building that if we talked a year from now that you guys would be launching? For example, up-skilling seems like a natural progression for something you guys might add in the future. Josh (26m 10s): Yeah. So, you know, one of the ways that we think about this is, you know, being able to create kind of a standard baseline for how we measure performance and how we understand that performance. And so one of the things we get excited about is being able to say, Hey, you know, you just hired a group of sales people. Here's how they're ramping up. And here's how they're ramping up relative to other sales people in your industry who are working at a similar level. And to be able to do that across any function at any level is something we get really excited about. You know, you just can't do that in the way that performance reviews are done today. Josh (26m 50s): You know, I may get a four at one company from one manager. I may get a two from a different manager, right? There's no standardization, but what we're actually doing is bringing standardized measurement to performance reviews. And that will allow us to actually create those sort of cross company baselines. And we're pretty excited about that. Joel (27m 13s): All right, Josh, the Q and A is now over. Are you ready? My friend to face the firing squad? Josh (27m 26s): I hope so. Joel (27m 28s): Chad, get em. Chad (27m 29s): Here we go. Josh. I love all of this except the message. You said CEOs want the data. What you didn't say once was one incredible word. Bottom line. Okay. Performance equals what bottom line? Retention equals what? Bottom line. Happy employees equal what? Bottom line. Do you know what CEOs care about the most? The bottom line. They say employees, but they're looking at the bottom line and HR cannot connect the damn dots to the bottom line. The message. What does HR need most? They need a way to demonstrate that they are the heart of every organization. Chad (28m 11s): No company runs without talent and yet HR and TA are still pretty much seen as cost centers. Hell they see themselves as cost centers. You talk to 'em and they hang their head. They shouldn't. So I believe Confirms data and insights can be the springboard to finally getting HR and TA to the adult table at the C-suite. Once you change your message, that is an incredible, I think, a vital piece. But I think one that you guys can actually focus on and change pretty quickly. But until you do that, my friend, I'm gonna have to give you a golf clap. Josh (28m 48s): All right. Well, good feedback. I appreciate it. Joel (28m 51s): Golf clap. It is all right. It's my turn, Josh. It's my turn. All right. So I really wanna like this company in the business, starting with the name, God damnit, I'm sick of these startups with shitty names, and this is a damn good name. There are a few things that I see that are challenging me right now. Number one is either the lack of anonymity or not being anonymous. In other words, if I have to review a coworker, am I biased? Because my face is on the review. Is it more skewed to positive? Because I know that my name is on it, or is my review based something that would benefit me from maybe somebody that manager likes better than others. Joel (29m 31s): So I'm concerned about that. And I'm also concerned about the data because the data to me seems really subjective because it's based on people's opinion or reviews of other people. So where data typically is something really solid and factual. This data seems really subjective. I'm not saying it's not valuable data. I think keeping your finger on the pulse of your workforce and what they're saying and what they think about people at their company. And I do think there's incredible value in the retention tool and having someone say, Hey, you know what? I was overhearing Jim at lunch, he's looking for new jobs. It might be a good time to like, you know, save him or something. The other thing that I think is a major hurdle for you is the competition. Joel (30m 14s): I know that you said you're different from 15Five and some of the others pricing is an issue, but you're also really focused on tech. And I know 15Five has been really ingraining themselves into the tech world for over a decade. I think, I mean, they're a really established company in this space. So I think you're gonna have a hard time on the competitive landscape, especially with the dollars that those guys are raising. Now that said, I think you can carve out a niche. I think you do have valuable data. And I do agree that Chad, in terms of the messaging can probably be a little bit more refined and that may be in part because you're not from the space. Maybe it's gonna be a little bit of a learning curve in terms of the language and what's gonna be successful. Joel (30m 56s): And what isn't, I do think you're a very high potential to be acquired. I think as people are going shopping in the next six months, 12 months, 18 months, the service you provide is gonna be appealing. And someone with a brain is gonna figure out that I need to write a check to these Confirmed cats and get this solution onto my platform. So for me, you've got some things to work out. You've got some struggles and challenges ahead. I think you need to raise a nice Series A me as well, Josh. sfx (31m 28s): Golf clap. Chad (31m 28s): Ah, We agree. Joel (31m 29s): We're saying there's a chance, Josh. Chad (31m 30s): We're saying there's a chance. Joel (31m 31s): But you've got your work cut out for you. And I'm sure we're not telling you anything that you don't already know. Josh (31m 38s): I'll take the chance. Chad (31m 39s): You better. You sure the hell better. Joel (31m 41s): You better take the chance and come back in a year or two and tell us how wrong we got it. Chad (31m 46s): Or how right we got it cuz you pivoted. And it was awesome. Joel (31m 50s): Yeah. Oh, there you go. And then we'll take 10% of the company. Josh (31m 54s): That sounds like a Series A to me. Until Joel (31m 58s): Until then tell the listeners again where they can find out more. Share that beautiful url, once again. Chad (32m 4s): Beautiful bean footage. Josh (32m 5s): Absolutely. So you can learn more about Confirm at confirm.com. Joel (32m 9s): Fantastic. We appreciate your time. Josh. Good luck to you. Another one in the can Chad. Chad and Cheese (32m 14s): We out, we out. OUTRO (32m 15s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

Viva Las Vegas! The boys are in Sin City this week at the HR Tech Conference, so there’s a lot to unpack. First, it’s shoutouts galore - featuring HireEZ, ThisWay, FactoryFix, Dice and many more - as the world gets back to in-person events. Then it’s time to dissect news of the week, highlighting Reejig and Joonko raising money while Paychex gives new meaning to the word innovation … NOT! Now, keep it quiet while we nurse these hangovers! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions is your RPO partner for the disability community, from source to hire. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (27s): Oh yeah, we are live from the HR Tech conference in beautiful Las Vegas, past the free pens, notebooks and water bottles. Hey, kiddies you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "Irish moonshine" Cheeseman. Chad (42s): And this is Chad "baby needs a new pair of shoes" Sowash. Joel (46s): And on this week's show shoutouts galore, rejig re-ups and June Co Gogos. Let's do this. Holy hangover. Chad (56s): Dude, before we get into the Vegas moments, I've gotta get a little, little lovey here on you. Okay. Joel (1m 2s): Gonna get emotional. Chad (1m 2s): I'm gonna get emotional. Joel (1m 3s): On you. Do I need some Kleenex for this? Chad (1m 5s): You might. You might, you might. I'd like to congratulate our friend of the show. Julia Levy for tying the knot with her bow Derek this week. Joel (1m 15s): Very nice. Chad (1m 15s): Yes! That's right. We've shared not just the podcast, Mike, but also a stage with Julia Levy now. Yeah. We're gonna have to ask Derek for permission from now on. Joel (1m 25s): So is this when we announced the Chad and Cheese wedding services for all the love birds out there? Probably not a good business idea. Chad (1m 32s): Probably not. That's not a good idea. Joel (1m 33s): That's not a good idea. Chad (1m 35s): Tinder for Chad and cheese listeners. Joel (1m 38s): Grinder for recruiting. Didn't we come up with that one this week? Chad (1m 40s): I think we did. Joel (1m 41s): We did? Chad (1m 42s): All right. Party, party, party, baby. Let's talk about it. Joel (1m 44s): So we're in Vegas, HR tech conference. Chad (1m 47s): Yes. Joel (1m 47s): We are both in day three. Chad (1m 49s): I'm hurting. Joel (1m 50s): I think we all know that day three is about the end. Chad (1m 53s): Yes. Joel (1m 53s): Of your Vegas trip. Chad (1m 55s): That's my burn rate here in Vegas! Joel (1m 58s): We had a banger last night. Chad (2m 2s): Excuse me?! Joel (2m 3s): Total. A total just shindig. Chad (2m 4s): Yes. Joel (2m 4s): We did two events drank way too much. Chad (2m 8s): Amazing. Joel (2m 8s): Our livers sounded like a sump pump. Chad (2m 11s): Whoooooo. Joel (2m 12s): Around three, 3:00 AM last night. Chad (2m 13s): It felt like one. Joel (2m 14s): But we are here for you listeners doing this show from Chad's hotel room. Chad (2m 18s): Oh my God. Joel (2m 19s): Of all places. Chad (2m 20s): We love you. Yes. Joel (2m 23s): Looking at this Sphinx's ass from the Luxer, off the strip in Vegas. Chad (2m 26s): Only The best. Only the best for Chad Sowash or Julie Sowash that's what I should Joel (2m 30s): Say. Ooh, that's kind of kinky. That's kind of kinky. So it's an abbreviated show. Chad (2m 35s): Yes. But first shout out, goes to Angela Hood, Michael Justin and the This Way Global crew. Joel (2m 43s): Yep. Chad (2m 43s): For a live podcast recording in front of an audience. That's right in a suite atop the Mandalay Bay. That's right kids. We were all the way. Just pretty much all the way up top. We recorded an awesome deep dive into Angela's female founders story while doing a bourbon tasting and Angela doesn't like bourbon. So it was fun to watch the faces made. Joel (3m 4s): Could have fool me. Could have fool me. Chad (3m 6s): Well, she was shooting 'em because she didn't wanna sit there and sip 'em that's why. Joel (3m 11s): Yeah. Yeah. We had four bottles, 30 minutes. The conversation got progressively more entertaining as we drank bottles. Chad (3m 19s): Yes. Joel (3m 19s): Great, great view from the 61st floor. Chad (3m 22s): Yes. Joel (3m 22s): There, we got to see the Raiders new facility if you're a football fan. Pretty amazing. As well as mountains and sun and everything that you expect from the desert. I'm gonna go shout out to our first night. HireEasy. No one, no one quite engages the community like HireEasy. Well, that Chad (3m 41s): Was your first night, but yeah, carry on. Yeah. Joel (3m 46s): Yeah. So a group of, I guess, thought leaders, influencers, et cetera, got together with HireEasy. Went out for a really nice surf and turf dinner, shared stories. Chad (3m 60s): Amazing. Joel (3m 60s): Expertise. Chad (4m 0s): Great stuff. Joel (4m 1s): They're doing some really great stuff out there. Chad (4m 3s): Yes. Joel (4m 3s): HireEasy knows how to do it. Got their own limo. I don't know. It was like a GMC truck limo thing. Chad (4m 9s): Oh, it's huge. Joel (4m 9s): It was very impressive. And then they went up in the Ferris wheel right after we called in a night. But the party people went into the Ferris wheel and had a great time. So as Shannon and the HireEasy crew, well done, shout out to you. Chad (4m 26s): Yes. It is a marathon, not a sprint, kids. Then last night also my Huber Yale and the Tatio crew, shout out to them for making the Chad and Cheese HR rebel party at the Sky Fall lounge at the top of the Delano happened. Geez. We were only supposed to have 40 people, but we had well over a hundred. We made our way from the top of the Mandalay bay Joel (4m 49s): You may have been saying double. Chad (4m 51s): No, I could have, by that time, at that time, I, we were at the top of the Mandalay Bay. We had to come all the way down the Mandalay Bay. We had to go over to the Delano and go all the way up to the top of the Delano. So it was, it was a good time. I'm humbled by the amount of people that actually showed up just to get drunk with us. Joel (5m 11s): Yeah. Old friends, new faces. It was fantastic. And, part of that experience, Chad, you remember, we did the bourbon tasting with our friends at Pandologic. Chad (5m 22s): Oh yeah. Joel (5m 22s): During the pandemic. Well, one of those that we sampled was basically moonshine. The white dog. Oh God. Buffalo trace. Distill. Well, apparently Chad (5m 33s): Alex Murphy, Joel (5m 35s): Apparently the Irish have their own own version of white dog. Shout out to Alex Murphy for graciously giving both of us a bottle of, I guess, lightning in a bottlem devil spit. Oh God, I know what you would call that stuff, but crazy. It may have, it came close to killing me last night. Thanks to Alex Murphy. Who obviously wants me dead at this point. Chad (5m 58s): Yes. Yes. But you know who doesn't want you dead and was looking lovingly into your eyes? Was Aaron Stewart that man. Yes. He graced Joel (6m 5s): I don't want to get on his bad side. That's for sure. Chad (6m 8s): He is. He's a big man, but he's a gentle, he's a gentle, gentleman. Joel (6m 14s): He's super jolly. Jolly jovial, man. Yes he is. Chad (6m 18s): Yes. And you, I gotta get some feedback here from you real quick. Joel (6m 21s): Yep. Chad (6m 22s): We met the guys from Factory fix finally, which is really cool. Joel (6m 27s): Yeah. Chad (6m 28s): You just saw the Factory Fix fantasy football update. Joel (6m 30s): I did. Chad (6m 31s): What'd you think? Joel (6m 32s): I did. So, so my first impression was that they were gonna go for kind of a Wayne's World, you know, top 10 list. You know what the leaderboard looks like. I wasn't really expecting sort of an 80 style beach party, bingo. Half shirt, hairy belly buttons. Chad (6m 54s): Okay. You turn anybody off Joel (6m 55s): And equal parts. Horrifying and fascinating. I guess from the Factory Fix kids. Chad (6m 60s): It was fucking hilarious. Yes. Joel (7m 1s): Hilarious for sure. Chad (7m 2s): Yes. Joel (7m 2s): If this whole Factory Fix thing doesn't work out, I think comedy is in their future. If they so choose. Chad (7m 8s): Yes, I, there, there might actually be, I don't know, maybe a miniseries or a movie behind this. Yes. I think it's good. I think it's good. Joel (7m 18s): Yep. Textkernel. Chad (7m 18s): Oh! Joel (7m 18s): This one's sort of random, but on our last leg last night. Chad (7m 23s): Oh my God. Joel (7m 24s): We got a surprise. A round of drinks purchased for us. Chad (7m 27s): Chris you're fucking killing me, dude. I was done. I was done. And then they bring another drink and they set it down. And I look at the waiter as I'm going to kill him. And he is like, this is from the table over there. And there's Chris. Joel (7m 43s): And they're all waving. Chad (7m 44s): Oh my God. Joel (7m 46s): Textkernel. Thanks. Thanks guys. We appreciate it. Shout out Textkernel. Chad (7m 51s): That was amazing. Well, let's go ahead and jump into events really quick and then we'll go back into all this. Wonderful. Joel (7m 59s): Is this our shout out intermission? Chad (8m 1s): Yeah. Just for a minute. Gotta talk about events. Next we have Inspire HR in Nashville. That's right. Joel (8m 9s): The hot chicken detox is what we need. Little hot chicken. Unconditional Chad (8m 12s): Gonna be, we're gonna be on stage. We're gonna be eating hot chicken. You're gonna be eating hot chicken. Oh yeah. Joel (8m 17s): Patty B's better be alert. Chad (8m 20s): We're gonna be a part of the bar takeover. That's happening on Broadway. Yeah. Oh man. And if you've ever been to a bar in Nashville, you know, just how much talent singing talent is in Nashville. It is fucking crazy. There'll be 2, 3, 4 levels. And each level they have a band. Each level and they change out like every hour. It is amazing. Joel (8m 46s): Are you bringing your boots and your 10 gallon hat to Nashville? Chad (8m 51s): I don't have any of those. Although Julie does. Yeah. Don't don't say much about it. Cuz she usually leaves Nashville with a new pair of boots and those go obviously at least 500 bucks Joel (9m 1s): Obviously. Chad (9m 1s): Yeah, I don't do it. Joel (9m 4s): Obviously. And then after Nashville, where are we headed? Chad (9m 7s): Unleash Paris. Oh my God. I, Joel (9m 7s): May I interest you on a Bordeaux? Right. Chad (9m 9s): Now. Oh my God dude. Yes. So we're working with our friends over at Vonq and Unleashed to pull together a rooftop pre-conference party already taking shape, overlooking the Paris skyline. We're not far from the convention center plus Joel and I are working on a little, a little thing to share with you guys with our friends over at Veritone. Yeah. It's actually a Chad and Cheese global podcast product. And you might be asking Chad aren't podcasts global anyway? Joel (9m 41s): It's true. Chad (9m 41s): Yeah. No, that makes sense. But when you hear what the Chad and Cheese are dropping on your kids, Joel (9m 45s): This is what they call a tease in the industry. Chad (9m 51s): You're going to say Bon Soir. Joel (9m 53s): My question is what Vonq have free penicillin at the event in case anyone gets the vonq while they're at the Vonq events?` Chad (10m 0s): If we can. And we weren't able to actually pull off the t-shirts to actually get here in time. But I would love at least emails or some type of marketing that say Catch the Vonq in Paris, with Chad and Cheese. Joel (10m 13s): Yeah. I threw out condoms, but no one liked that idea at all. Chad (10m 19s): They don't wear condoms in Paris, man. It's Paris. Joel (10m 21s): So yeah, I guess that's all of our travel through the rest of the year, right? Yes. Chad (10m 24s): Don't forget. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right hand corner. You can register for all of these events. That's right. Kids. And we have a 20% off discount group on ChadCheese con for Paris. Do it. I mean, if you have not been there. Joel (10m 40s): There, you code little coupon code. Chad (10m 42s): All you have to do is click it and it just automatically happens. Joel (10m 47s): Oh shit. We are high tech dude. Chad (10m 48s): It's called technology, baby. Joel (10m 50s): God damn. That's how we do it. Who's sponsoring our travels, Chad? Chad (10m 53s): Well, I've got a new hat. Joel (10m 55s): There you go. Chad (10m 56s): Got a new hat, a New Shaker Recruitment Marketing hat. My last one, the oil has been changed so many times I think it's about ready to fall apart. So I've got a new hat. Joel (11m 6s): Just in time. The new, the lettering pops on the new hat. Chad (11m 9s): Oh yeah, no, I like the new hat. Joel (11m 11s): They know marketing. They know marketing that. Chad (11m 14s): Yes. Joel (11m 14s): The light lettering on the dark background is nice A nice pop. Chad (11m 18s): Big pop of the Shaker. Thanks. Joel (11m 20s): Shaker's gonna see Kegan here at the show. Oh, sweetheart. Chad (11m 22s): Having a drink with Joe junior is good time. Yep. Good time. Joel (11m 25s): Always. Chad (11m 26s): Good time. Joel (11m 26s): Always. Did we have a drink with Joe Shaker here? Chad (11m 28s): Yeah. Well I did. Okay. Oh, you weren't here yet. That's right. Okay. Joel (11m 30s): I was gonna say I was really out of it if I don't remember a drink with Joe Shaker. I got two fairly normal shoutouts. Chad (11m 38s): Okay. Joel (11m 39s): If we can? Then we'll get to like the booths and all the good stuff that everyone cares about. Chad (11m 46s): OK. Joel (11m 46s): So quick shout out to Cisco. The mega corporation has committed $5 million in grants in technical services to fuel entrepreneurship. Chad (11m 55s): Nice. Joel (11m 55s): At historically black colleges and universities. You'll remember our talk with Cindy Gallup? Chad (12m 0s): Oh yes. Joel (12m 1s): Where she was very ardent about funding, entrepreneurship in the diverse community. And I think, although this isn't the hundred million that Netflix gave to the colleges, $5 million is nothing to sneeze at. Chad (12m 11s): Substantial. Joel (12m 12s): Shout out, shout out to Cisco and a shout out to Dice. I know that we don't do this very often. We spend way too much time on ZipRecruiter, but Dice stock continues to crush it. I don't know if you have any Dice stock, Chad. I do not. Chad (12m 27s): I do not. Joel (12m 28s): Full disclosure. I don't have any, but it continues to do so well. In fact, if you had purchased DHI stock, that's the ticker DHX five years ago, you'd be up 173% in that stock. Not too shabby. And this week they raised revenue guidance for the full year of 2022. I think 173% return over five years, deserves a shout out. We give them a hard time. Art Zeal is a good time to make fun of, but they are crushing it while ZipRecruiter and others lag behind. Chad (13m 3s): What's the price on stock, cuz going up 173% of two bucks, that doesn't get me going much. Joel (13m 8s): You're gonna rain on this parade. Aren't you? You're just gonna shit on this shout out. Chad (13m 11s): I'm just asking. Joel (13m 11s): I mean, if we're going back five years, I would not be able to tell you that. I'm gonna say it was probably at between three and four. Chad (13m 20s): Okay. Joel (13m 20s): Five years ago and now it's at, you know, 173% above that. Chad (13m 24s): Okay. Joel (13m 24s): But still nothing to shout out. It's better than Facebook stock the past year just so you know. Chad (13m 29s): Coming out of the junk stock basement. That's awesome. Joel (13m 32s): The pink slip shoutout Chad (13m 34s): Are we gonna do birthdays? Joel (13m 36s): We're gonna pass on birthdays. However we wanna talk about our sponsor. Chad (13m 43s): Well, yeah, because again, you came in a day late. Joel (13m 47s): Yep. Chad (13m 48s): And Plum had this awesome dinner. You missed the sushi. Thanks to Caitlin and the crew. Joel (13m 54s): Smells like tuna tastes like chicken Chad. Chad (13m 56s): Shout out to Plum. Joel (13m 58s): Shout out to Plum who I face in fantasy football this weekend. Which maybe we wanna talk about the leaderboard? Chad (14m 2s): No, have 'em go to the video. Joel (14m 5s): But I've got nicknames for everybody. Chad (14m 7s): Oh good God. Joel (14m 8s): Oh God. I love the nicknames. Alright. So week one of fantasy football is in the books. Our friends at Fantasy Fix. Our FactoryFix fantasy fix. That'd be good too. Our sponsoring fantasy football. So I think Chad doesn't wanna talk about this because he's number one in the leaderboard where as he was in that same position last year and ended up in the celler. So Chad (14m 33s): I quit going out on high. Joel (14m 37s): Dejavu. Sowash is in number in the number one spot. Joseph "wonder boy" Wilke. Number two, Christie "don't call me moon" Kelly is number three. Christopher "I'm 40. I'm a Manion" is in number four. Jason "punt on third" Putnam. Dan "don't call me Willie" Shoemaker. Joel "suck-it baker" Cheeseman is in the number seven spot. Matt Henry Hill number eight. James "Gman" Gillum, Dennis "Tupperware" Tupper, Mike "Schmidt" Schaefer, and number 12 in the gutter Serge "bigger balls" Boudreau from Calgary, Canada. How in the hell he got into our NFL fantasy football league? Is probably cuz we can have someone in the cellar that we know will be in this cellar, but thanks to FactoryFix for sponsoring fantasy football and in indulging our addictions. Chad (15m 26s): I love it. Joel (15m 27s): Yes. Chad (15m 27s): I love it. Well, let's go ahead and let's, let's talk a little bit about the floor and we won't get too crazy about it. Joel (15m 35s): This is what everyone wants to know though. What our worst. Chad (15m 38s): Let's talk about our first, our worst. Joel (15m 39s): Okay. Chad (15m 40s): And then our, and then our favorite. And then I also have an honorable mention, but then we can jump into just kinda like some takeaways. Joel (15m 53s): Okay. I'll go best first. Okay. I would give my best award to HiBob or just Bob. I'm not really sure what the hell they're branding that thing as, but it's Hibob.com. Although it's just Bob in the booth, what they did that was really genius was instead of one gigantic booth, they have multiple booths peppered around the show floor. So if you're walking around, you sort of do this weird didn't I see that back there? And it's sort of a Twilight zone experience. Chad (16m 25s): Twighlight Zonesfx. Joel (16m 26s): We're also doing is amazingly popular photographs for LinkedIn profiles or social media profiles. Chad (16m 31s): Yeah. Joel (16m 31s): There's a line long line for this. Chad (16m 33s): There was. Who knew? Joel (16m 34s): So I'm gonna go with HiBob for the multiple booth locations. Chad (16m 37s): Very nice. Joel (16m 37s): Kinda like a Starbucks strategy, I guess to that. Chad (16m 41s): I like that. Joel (16m 42s): And then the photos I think have been really successful for them, so. Chad (16m 50s): Okay. Joel (16m 51s): HiBob. Chad (16m 52s): HiBob. Okay. I'm gonna hit my, my worst first. Joel (16m 56s): The worst. Chad (16m 59s): And this is gonna surprise everybody was DEEL the company Joel (17m 3s): double E. Chad (17m 4s): Yeah. D E E L Deel has about $630 I believe million. Joel (17m 7s): All the money. Chad (17m 8s): Million in funding. And they had a 10 by 10 booth. Now. Now I like companies that are frugal and that are smart, but they could have at least done a 20 by 20. I mean they were over by all the. Joel (17m 19s): At least tried. Chad (17m 21s): Yeah. They didn't even look like they tried. Joel (17m 22s): Yeah. Or at least look like you're really not trying on purpose. Chad (17m 26s): Yes. Joel (17m 27s): Like when crowded had a toilet in their booth, at least that was saying, we don't really give a shit. So yeah. Deel. Spend a little money next time and look like you've you're a real business. And in light of that, I'll double up on the has a lot of money and didn't spend any of it category. I'm gonna go with Amazon. Oh. As my worst booth. Now why is Amazon? Chad (17m 53s): I don't know. Joel (17m 54s): At HR tech. Chad (17m 56s): That's a good question. Huh? Joel (17m 59s): I don't know. AWS. Maybe, maybe distribution employ knows, right? No clue. No, no. They were there. Their booth message and I'm paraphrasing was enhance your employee engagement with books. Chad (18m 9s): They were selling books. Joel (18m 11s): Amazon, no books were in the booth, but it was like go to Amazon and buy your employees some books. So Amazon backed up the Brink's truck to have a 10 by 10 booth that said, have your employees read more books? Because there's nothing like employee engagement, like reading some books. Chad (18m 29s): The book club. They could have done a book club Joel (18m 33s): Boo on Amazon. Come on. Chad (18m 36s): Well, I get to do my favorite last. And this is gonna shock everybody because it has gone from worst to first. That's right. Kids. Everybody knows how I hated despised the Paradox booth. Joel (18m 48s): Yep. Chad (18m 48s): Because it was all walls. You couldn't see what was going inside. It didn't feel like inviting. Right? Well guess what kids? Joel (18m 56s): Little cold to look cold for you? Chad (18m 58s): It was very cold. Yeah. Well now they have windows that they put in. Joel (19m 1s): High tech. Chad (19m 1s): It looks like an, an Apple store. Joel (19m 4s): Ooh. Chad (19m 4s): You can see what's going on inside there. It was incredibly busy. I mean, there were a lot of people in there. Yeah. It drew me in. So instead of last time where it, it pretty much was like, yeah, you don't want to go in here. Yep. This time was like, you gotta come in here. And it was great showcased. I mean had big screen TV showed obviously a lot of Olivia. Yeah. It showed their new Ash. Tradify character. Right. The Ash non-gender you might remember not Joel (19m 35s): Ash cuz we're in that kind of state. Chad (19m 38s): It could have been, but anyway, big shout out to Paradox. I know everybody can't believe I'm saying this, but yeah, no, they kicked ass. I loved that fucking booth and an honorable mention kids. HireEasy did a throwback. Joel (19m 53s): Yeah. Chad (19m 54s): And you might feel this after I say it, it was like this Smashfly booth of old. Joel (20m 1s): Okay. Chad (20m 1s): But today and smash fly, if you remember had the really homey cozy, come on in, check it out. Type of thing. Joel (20m 8s): Pipe put on a smoking jackets Chad (20m 10s): Was yeah. A little, little Fern over here. You know this kind of thing. HireEasy's doing that. Shannon and the crew. They did a great job. Joel (20m 23s): HireEasy keeps bringing the wins on multiple fronts. So I'm gonna up your honorable mention. I'm gonna give the Ferrari award this year to Eightfold. What's the Ferrari recognition you might ask. Well, let's say it's maybe compensating for something because the eightfold booth island not booth islands, I'm gonna go 60 by 60 on this thing. I'm guessing it was so big that it spawned a baby booth right next to it because it just didn't have enough room on the island. They had. Chad (20m 54s): Yes. Joel (20m 55s): So where a Deel did not spend money and they had it. Eightfold really did write a check for HR tech. I hope it pays off, but I'm giving them my Ferrari award at HR Tech/ Chad (21m 8s): the Overcom compensation, the Joel (21m 8s): Overcompensation. Yes. We don't know what they're hiding. We don't know what they're compensating for. I'll just let our listeners work that out on their own. Chad (21m 17s): I think what they're doing is they're out doing the ADPs, the SAPs and all the companies who could buy them cuz not many companies could buy them and saying, look at us. Joel (21m 28s): So it was a cry for help. Chad (21m 31s): Yes. Yes please. It was a please buy us sign. Joel (21m 35s): They were peacocking. Please look at us. Write a check. We are for sale. Chad (21m 39s): Oh, okay. Do you have any more of this or we gonna jump into Joel (21m 42s): Topic topics.! Chad (21m 44s): Right, wait a minute. It's gotta do an advert first. I think let's Joel (21m 51s): Pay some bils. Let's Chad (21m 53s): Pay some bills. All right. Now we got, we got some topics. Joel (21m 59s): Rejig. Okay. All right. Chad, the San Francisco, California based provider of enterprise grade workforce intelligence raised an undisclosed amount of funding. However, the release says they've raised a total of $38 million. Okay. And crunch base says they've raised $16.6 million. Okay. So based on my math, this round of funding was around 21 and a half million. Woo. I don't know if they thought that people would go and do the math with crunch base, but that's why we do the homework here on Chad and cheese. So the round was led by Salesforce Ventures. The company tends to use the funds to accelerate the growth of its global team and further develop its workforce intelligence technology. Joel (22m 42s): Chad, what are your thoughts on the Rejig funding? Chad (22m 46s): Well, first off you can't go wrong with upskilling and getting funding even in today's market is gonna happen with upskilling. Plus you see Salesforce getting into upskilling and training, right? Just makes sense to kind of move into that market. But with funding, this gives them some transparency into like some basic due diligence on the organizations for what kids that's right for a purchase. So I think, again, prediction, it's sexy. The platform upskilling is all the rage. I believe Salesforce wants to move toward this part of the market and Rejig as sexy as it is. Chad (23m 25s): They wanna buy that that bad boy. But, let me just say this. Yeah. Rejig is pretty damn cool, but it is no Guild. Guild in the education and upskilling business is the, what Joel would like to say, apex predator. Joel (23m 40s): There you go. Chad (23m 41s): They are it. Joel (23m 42s): There you go. So upskilling is all the rage. All the kids are doing it and it makes sense, right? Recruiting is hard and companies are hungry to mobilize their current workforce and just take people that have lesser jobs. Now train them, train them themselves, put them in jobs that are open instead of actually doing the recruitment work. And Rejig is playing that in that world and riding that wave so to speak. I think they rely a little bit too much right now on marketing. However, like plugging on their site that they're the world's first independently, audited ethical talent. AI. I wanna know what unethical AI is. Joel (24m 22s): Is there someone playing in that space and I'm not sure who the independent audit was, could have been someone's grandma for all we know. I don't think there's any independent AI program or business that I know of. Chad (24m 31s): If it is, it's probably like SHRM. I'm just taking cash. Joel (24m 35s): Have a little bit of question about that in the marketing. And they also have what they call a nudge engine. Now we talked about LinkedIn having a little nudge technology. So maybe everyone's gonna be nudging here pretty soon? But I don't know what a nudge engine is. I know what a search engine is. I know what a car engine is and an airplane engine, but a nudge engine. It's a little bit markety to me and I also hate the name. So there you go. Otherwise they're serving a strong wave and that's never a bad thing. I agree. They will probably get snapped up by somebody as the consolidation of our space takes hold. But overall, I think it's a good business to be in, but I think there there's a lot of smoke, a lot of marketing smoke and not a lot of fire with Rejig. Chad (25m 20s): Well, Salesforce gets a chance to look under the hood. That's see what that engine looks like. Kids. You know what name sucks. Even worse than Rejig? Joel (25m 32s): June Co? Chad (25m 33s): Maybe. Joel (25m 33s): Maybe. All right, let's get to Joon Co that's, spelled J O O N C O everybody. Diversity focused rec tech company. Joon Co has raised $25 million in a series B round, which brings its total to $38 and a half million dollars. They'll use the cash to fuel expansion in its New York City co-headquarters. They have a co-headquarters. That's interesting. Alongside it's existing office in Tel Aviv with the aim to expand headcount by 70% by the end of this year. Wow! Founded in 2016. JoonCo has posted 500% growth in sales for two consecutive years and says, clients typically see a 25% increase in underrepresented candidates in their hiring funnels and hire one in six of the candidates sourced through the platform. Joel (26m 25s): Clients, all of whom are US based include Adidas, PayPal, Amex, booking.com and Intuit, is Adidas US based who knew? Chad (26m 34s): I don't. I don't think so. Joel (26m 36s): Chad, what are your thoughts on JoonCo? Chad (26m 38s): So they only have 131,000 ish candidates in their database. Which I saw on, on the website, which seems to be quite low. Joel (26m 44s): It's a little light. That's a little light. That was a big number in '98. Chad (26m 49s): Also the site isn't really geared toward candidates. When you hit the homepage, it prompts you for a demo. You have to click the candidate's link in the header or scroll below the fold, right under the huge 131,754 candidate number. There's a small are you a candidate link. And then when you go there, you actually click on the link. I didn't see a place to actually register. Why? Well, in the FAQs area it says, how do I join JoonCo's talent pool? You know, there's a problem. When you have to have an FAQ to join a website. Here's what they say. If you're not a part of the talent pool, feel free to join our newsletter, to stay up to date on our content and community. Chad (27m 32s): That tells me nothing on how to join the fucking, like how to register or can you yeah. Yeah. What the fuck? So, anyway. Joel (27m 39s): It's very interesting. Chad (27m 40s): Anyway. No, which is another reason why they only have 131,000 ish people. I'm gonna continue. So from the Forbes article that I read JoonCo has seen remarkable growth over the past two years, 500% growth for two consecutive years, employers like Adidas. You already talked about that. Rely on automated sourcing platforms. So first and foremost, if you have no sales, then you make a few sales your percentages look amazing like 500% growth. For instance, $10,000 in sales, ye kind of sucks. But 500% of that is what, $50,000, which still sucks. The logos are impressive, but until we see real transparency, it, it doesn't really matter because it feels like a bunch of bullshit and check the box window dressing to me. Chad (28m 26s): And it's an automated sourcing email list. At least that's what I can see so far. Joel (28m 32s): Wasn't that Jobster. Chad (28m 33s): Hey, JoonCo, 1998 called and they want their tech back. This is ridiculous. Joel (28m 37s): Yeah. Texans have a phrase, all hat, no cattle. I don't know if you've heard that or not basically saying a lot of marketing and no substance, a lot of sizzle and no steak. Chad (28m 46s): Or, or maybe these guys are just Jack wagons. Joel (28m 48s): Jack wagons. That was a term that we learned from our Texas friends. Speaking of which, yes. I'm guessing our friends at ThisWay might have something to say about the Forbes article that called JoonCo the only automated sourcing platform focus solely on underrepresented candidates. I'm pretty sure this way does that. Yes, pretty well. Anyway, I'm not picking what June co is dropping up aside from some warm and fuzzy diversity language. The only other thing that they're pushing is some basic analytics and some employer brand tools, which include get this custom customer rejection letters. That's right. Joel (29m 29s): Kids. You can really say no to that candidate in the best way possible with JoonCo's custom letters. And also I have an issue with their website that says where silver medalists are matched with golden opportunities, followed by JoonCo connects, high quality, underrepresented talent with world class companies that care about diversity, equity and inclusion. So are they saying white men are the gold medalists and everyone else is a silver medalist. Ooh, I'm a little confused by where silver medalists are matched with golden opportunities if you're a diversity site, it's more of your lane. Does that make sense to you? Chad (30m 5s): Yeah. Now that, now that you say it, I read it and I was like, that's kind of stupid. Yeah. I mean, you wanna call your entire database silver medalists. That's not what everybody's going for. Correct. But putting it that way saying, well, all the white men are the, you know, the gold medalist. Yeah. That's not really a de I B messaging. No, Joel (30m 23s): I, I, I read it a few times and thought I'm kind of smart and that just doesn't quite jive with me. So if you're out there June, co-listing hit us up and explain who is the silver medalists in your marketing speak? Chad (30m 41s): Yes. Just the dynamics behind that. Joel (30m 43s): Let's take a break and maybe filter this out and get to some real mind blowing innovation. Chad (30m 49s): Here comes kids. This is innovation Joel (30m 52s): Companies. Try hard to get attention at HR tech, Chad. Yes, which means a flood of news releases have polluted my inbox and your inbox for the last few weeks. But none are as much a reach as this headline from our friends at publicly traded company, paychecks. Quote" Paychecks launches industry's first voice activated payroll solution at HR tech and expo" end quot. Let that sink in for a second. Joel (31m 32s): Voice activated payroll solution. The subhead of this news release was quote: "Paycheck's voice assist allows users to run handsfree payroll through Google assistant AI technology" end quote. It goes on to say paycheck's voice a enables payroll admins to run payroll through any Google assistant compatible device for a hands-free experience because you don't want your payroll admins to use their hands. The hands free experience is simplified and automated with the sound of a verified user's voice capabilities of the feature includes starting a pay period or acting on one already in progress, applying standard, pay, making adjustments, reviewing totals and submitting payroll for processing through a robust and resilient AI assistant with built in verifications for user authentication. Joel (32m 28s): Chad, we gave, make hire on Alexa a hard time, try to envision a payroll admin oh, voicing with Google running payroll. I'd want to be in the marketing meeting where they said, oh my God, HR tech is coming up. What can we, what can we develop in in 30 days? And then put out a press release on what we've done. This is the dumbest thing I've maybe ever heard of in our space. And that's saying something, Chad (32m 52s): I just, I just don't know what the practical application is. That's the thing is like, Hey, Google, give Betty a bonus. I mean, I don't, I don't understand what it's actually used on. Joel (33m 3s): Used for pay everyone. Chad (33m 5s): Like, Hey, Google, you know, don't pay Fred because he didn't fill out. I mean, I don't understand the practical, Joel (33m 13s): John gotta raise this Week. Vacation add 5% to his pay. Chad (33m 16s): I just, anyway, yes, this is, this is worse than MHI ever could have been. Joel (33m 23s): So they are here. Okay. I say, if after the show we go, we go get a taste of the voice activated payroll system. So, oh God, the release ends by saying Paycheck's is the first HCM solutions provider to offer voice activated payroll. And guess what, Chad, they're going to be the only one to offer voice activated payroll because it's so stupid. Chad and Cheese (33m 51s): We out. We out. OUTRO (33m 53s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (34m 35s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Aside from being a proud Gen X’er and sharing a birthday with Chad (same year and everything), she is a well-loved global keynote speaker, and host of The Hiring Partner Perspective (Unedited) podcast. We chatted with her when the 1st Edition of the book came out, pre-pandemic, but the 2nd edition is just as appetizing. In it, Katrina teaches companies how to recruit without an existing online presence, and she covers the unexpected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on recruiting in detail. Oh yeah, and there are plenty of new case studies to discuss. Enjoy. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. It's your favorite meatheads? AKA, the Chad and Cheese podcast on your cohost Joel Cheesman joined as always Chad (32s): Hello! Joel (32s): The Bill to my Ted Chad Sowwash and today, top selling author we welcome Katrina Collier. She wrote a book called the The Robot-Proof Recruiter: A Survival Guide for Recruitment and Sourcing Professionals. She's based in London, that's UK, not Ontario or Kentucky. She has a well-loved global keynote speaker, that's her LinkedIn profile not just me saying she's well loved, and the host of the Hiring Partner Perspective podcast. And she's also a proud gen X-er and Gemini I might add. Chad (1m 2s): And my twin she's my twin. Katrina (1m 3s): That's right. Chad (1m 4s): You forgot that. Yeah. Joel (1m 5s): She's your Southern hemisphere female twin. May 27th, 1971. Katrina (1m 10s): Technically, I think I'm a few hours older. Chad (1m 14s): Just a few hours. Katrina (1m 14s): Yeah. You just get that date away. Joel (1m 17s): You're both older than me, so fuck off. Chad (1m 20s): But we both are dead sexy. Joel (1m 23s): You are dead sexy. Katrina (1m 24s): Exactly. Chad (1m 24s): That's all that matters. Joel (1m 25s): Katrina. It's been a minute. Katrina (1m 27s): I need to update my bio. You left some stuff out. Chad (1m 30s): What'd we miss? Joel (1m 31s): Please add some more shit. Katrina (1m 32s): The main stuff I do. I run design thinking workshops with companies to help them sort out their recruitment processes and candidate experience. And I've just launched the collective. In fact, the first one was just the, you know, just gone by, ah, which is a coaching and mentoring space for recruiters, because I've just felt like there's just too much stress and burnout in that space. Joel (1m 51s): And all this is under Katrina Collier Limited, right? Katrina (1m 55s): Yeah. Just KatrinaCollier.com. Joel (1m 57s): Could say CEO of Katrina Collier Limited, but that seems like that doesn't really paint the whole picture. Katrina (2m 4s): Seems a bit dull. Doesn't it? Joel (2m 6s): Yes. Katrina (2m 6s): I'm CEO of my company. Me. Joel (2m 7s): If I said head of TA at Microsoft, you know, I wouldn't need to say anything else, but you're much more complex than that. Katrina (2m 13s): I am complicated. Chad (2m 14s): She is pretty fucking complicated. Joel (2m 17s): I said complex, not complicated. Don't put words in my mouth, Katrina. That's Chad's job. Katrina (2m 23s): I think it's the joy of working for yourself. You can be like, oh, well I'm over here doing this. But then I also do this, and I also do this and Joel (2m 29s): I think I speak for all of us when I say we couldn't go back. Katrina (2m 33s): No. Joel (2m 33s): We're fortunate that we don't have to, but. Katrina (2m 36s): I'm not sure how many companies have noticed how many genx have left the workforce for that reason. Joel (2m 41s): No one gives a shit about us. Like know no one. Katrina (2m 45s): When the boomers retire, they've got the leaders. Joel (2m 48s): Then it will just be Millennials will take over. Chad (2m 50s): Yeah. Joel (2m 50s): We'll be in, we'll be in Portugal and wherever you guys are hanging out watching. Katrina (2m 54s): Yeah. I'm pretty excited that Chad's sorting me for Portugal. Like yeah, Chad (3m 0s): Of course. Katrina (3m 1s): You know. Chad (3m 1s): I've got to, yes. It's family. It's family. So, okay, let's jump into this book thing that you did. So what prompted a second edition of the Robot Proof Recruiter? When did the first one come out first off? Katrina (3m 13s): So the first one came out on the 3rd of August. Almost of my dad's date of birth, cause it came out and his 90th birthday 2019. Chad (3m 22s): Before the pandemic. Katrina (3m 23s): So of course, yeah, three years ago. Yeah. So the pandemic changed a lot. Of course. So I was concerned I was reading bits of it going. That's actually really funny. The bit about flexible working. I think that it was only a small bit, but it was sort of making me laugh. But the only reason that Kogan Page the editor would have come back to me and ask me is if people oh, is because people bought the book. So I cannot thank everybody enough. All of the readers for getting behind it and buying so many copies. Joel (3m 54s): I'll do that for you Katrina. Katrina (3m 55s): Thank you. Chad (3m 55s): And you even saw, I mean, you, you saw the book in like airports all over the fucking world. Right? Katrina (4m 6s): I saw it via somebody else in one airport. Kogan Page do not put recruitment books in the airport, which actually I do find a little bit irritating but they don't set it. But I've been sent photographs of it on six continents, which is like a little bit mind blowing cause when you write a book, they don't tell you this stuff. Like they don't tell you what it's like when Keen, for example, this company called Keen bought a hundred copies and I walked into a room and there they were on all the chairs ready for the attendees at this event. They don't tell you what that feels like. And the fact is I donated my royalties to Hope for Justice charity. So every purchase, thank you. Katrina (4m 46s): My head is exploding here with all this clapping, every purchase makes so. Joel (4m 51s): That was a nice guy Katrina (4m 53s): For anybody who doesn't understand that Australian women don't like, Joel. I don't understand, but I speak for all 25 million Australian citizens. Chad (5m 2s): I would probably broaden that up more than Australia. But go ahead. Go ahead. Katrina (5m 7s): Anyway, I think some of the reason I was able to like talk about the book so much was because I donated my royalties. And then of course people got behind it and seeing, I think what I really love it is when I see a head of talent or director of buy it for the entire team and then you really feel like you're creating some amazing impact. But yeah, so backfire came. So the first thing I thought was I need somebody to write the foreword and I thought I'm going to go my most favorite podcast stuff to write the forward, without realizing how much that would sort of make him think I was joking. Chad (5m 42s): Yeah, yeah, no, no. I thought you were joking when you actually came to me like yeah, I had a podcaster writing a forward. Yeah. No. Katrina (5m 49s): Well, I was thinking, you know, a little bit about HR Tech. That's why I was saying Chad (5m 53s): A little bit, a little bit, which is probably what threw you off with my forward because I really didn't focus on the tech as much as it is the story. And to be quite Frank when it comes to not just tech today, but again, the landscape was, we talk about COVID, as three gen X-ers here. We remember before the internet actually came and then our first experiences with the internet, with technology and then the changes, the obstacles, those types of things. Katrina (6m 22s): Impacts. Chad (6m 22s): Yeah. Many of the recruiters today, they don't even realize the obstacles that were even created prior that exists today and why they do, so after reading the book in the first place, I think it was great just to kind of throw things back and to try to help people to understand and then this is how evolution happens. Katrina (6m 39s): Well, and it is funny because originally the title of the Robot Proof Recruiter came from my sheer frustration that HR tech vendors were saying, oh, we can replace recruiters. It's like, okay, yeah dream on. But when addition two came out, I was then having an argument about the word transparency. So I've written the noise and transparency created by the internet, makes it harder to recruit the right people. And that's all I ever talk about, is this we're lucky, we remember what it was like before we know how to communicate without the noise. And certainly the transparency is the fact that you can see all of those reviews. You can see all of those jobs. And we remember what it was like when you couldn't. Joel (7m 14s): I miss my pre-internet brain. I don't know about you guys. I can't focus for shit. Katrina (7m 18s): I can't watch TV without staring at my phone. And it's like, what on earth are you doing? Chad (7m 24s): You put it upstairs on the charger. That is my way of doing it. It's okay. You put it in the other room with the charger. Katrina (7m 31s): I've moved house. I don't have an upstairs. It's very, oh actually, I do, but it's not mine. Chad (7m 36s): So if somebody read the first edition, why would they pick up the second? Katrina (7m 44s): Its had a pandemic overhaul and obviously has a brilliant forward written by The Chad. Joel (7m 49s): The guy who says writing is dead, wrote your forward. Chad (7m 53s): Of course I did. Katrina (7m 54s): It's about 25, 30% different. So of course the theme is the same, but I have given an update, all the tech, I know all the tech is working cause it was amazing how much disappeared there are new examples and case studies. Some of the things that have come out that weren't around, but believe it or not just three years ago, things like pronouns. So that's included in there. One thing I found really interesting was how much more audacious people have become full stop. So there are more reviews than I've ever seen before. And I, you know, I know a lot of people out there think they don't count, but I still think they deter people from wanting to work at your company. But there's an example in there from someone who was working at a job board that pretty well, everyone in the world knows about and they were homophobic and he has written two articles right there on LinkedIn for the world to say about it. Katrina (8m 41s): And it's like that audacity to do that. Joel (8m 44s): Are you going to name names or dance around this? Like what are you doing? Katrina (8m 48s): I'm going to dance around it. Joel (8m 48s): This is the Chad and Cheese podcast Katrina. Katrina (8m 51s): Yeah. I'm going to dance around it. No, you obviously need to purchase a copy, which is being released in the US on the 30th. Then you can read about it, but it was more about the fact that people are quite happy to do that. And they're not concerned about the knock-on impact to their careers. And I think that's hugely different to when we, as genXers started out where it was, you know, got a job for life, never changed jobs without another one, Barbara, but we could not go to the internet and look for another job. We couldn't just see that there were so many, you know, recruiter jobs, podcasts, we couldn't a podcast. What's a podcast? Didn't exist. Joel (9m 26s): I'm a little confused, which is not uncommon on this show Katrina. But you went into saying like COVID has changed recruiting and I get the pronouns, but I don't get the other part of it. The Did you trail off on that or can we get back to the how COVID changed? Katrina (9m 44s): Probably. I probably trailed off. Anything's possible. Remember, it's late in the day here in the UK, more than. Chad (9m 53s): She's had a few drinks. Joel (9m 54s): She's had 4 pints. Katrina (9m 56s): I have not had a few drinks. Lowering the respect of things that I talked about, now just don't matter. You know, it was like, you have to go and convince your leadership that flexible working is the way forward because that's what candidates wanting. Now it's like, yeah, that doesn't really count. It's more like don't try and pull people back into the office rather than going convince them. We know it works. We've seen it work. We've seen all the knowledge workers have to work from home and done just fine. So there's more around that rather than what was in there before. Joel (10m 26s): So technology is important in that world. Katrina (10m 29s): Yeah. Joel (10m 29s): In the promo of the book, it says that you'll teach how to recruit without an online presence. And you go on about that and what you meant like no social media online presence? No LinkedIn, like what are you talking about? Katrina (10m 41s): It's in that respect, it kind of works both ways. You can either have too much and you've got a really bad reputation or you don't have any and people are like, oh gosh, who are you? You know, you're a startup. You haven't got any presence you're competing against the big boys. So it's Joel (10m 55s): A company, not the person. Katrina (10m 57s): Yes. I talk about both to be fair. Chapter two is all about like looking worthy of someone's time. So that's very much about the individual and actually I go into the hiring managers as well. And you knon, I feel like there's this problem where there's so much focus on the sourcing and the messaging to that person and not enough on, okay, you've got my attention. And I look at you and go, I don't want to talk to Joel Cheeseman. He doesn't look approachable to me. There's no information on his profile. There's no rich media. There's nothing about the company. Who is this person? Like I don't trust them. And it's about the fact that people will do that. People with skills that are in demand will take the time if they're interested to look at you. And so it's about bit that, and then it's the company side. Katrina (11m 39s): Like, just look, if you can have an employer, branding person and spend a lot of money, that's fantastic. But if you're a small company, you can't do that, but you can share blogs and podcasts and videos. And just some something to give people an insight into who you are as a company and who you are as the individual, trying to get their attention. Joel (12m 3s): Have to have something. Not just nothing. Katrina (12m 4s): Yeah. Chad (12m 5s): So do you think transparency is a much larger discussion today than it was pre COVID? Katrina (12m 9s): I just feel that a lot of the people who hadn't got on the internet, cause they didn't have to and then suddenly they had to, like, you've now got to use technology to work, became more confident using it and therefore became more confident if you will complaining about a bad experience they've had. And that has created more information on the internet. So more transparency, more stuff for people to see. I feel that's what I feel happened. I certainly noticed that the reviews increased dramatically in 2020. I mean, obviously there are a lot of disgruntled people out there or a lot more, there was a lot more willingness to just go and say it how it is. But, I don't just mean on the sites we think about this also like Recruiting Hell Reddit, which I give full credit to Steve Levy for pointing that one out at me is hilarious and also heartbreaking at the same time. Katrina (12m 60s): So people will go to sites like that and vent and they'll name companies quite happily. Chad (13m 3s): It's not new and that's the thing. I just think that people are just more comfortable and that it's not a faux pas anymore. Katrina (13m 10s): Yeah. There's no fear. There's no, 'oh gosh, if I do this, I'll never get another job. It's going to follow me around.' There's none of that anymore. Chad (13m 21s): TikTok people, you know, flaming their employer on TikTok. Katrina (13m 24s): Yeah. Joel (13m 25s): Is anonymity dead. Katrina (13m 25s): Oh, that's a big question. Joel (13m 30s): Maybe just for certain generations. Cause I feel like young people really don't give a shit. Katrina (13m 34s): It's sad really. Joel (13m 34s): Is it? I don't know. It's kind of empowering. Katrina (13m 35s): I mean we were talking about before we came on about sort of, you know, my childhood and had damaging that wasn't I was pretty messed up in my twenties and thirties. I'd hate to think about being on the internet. I'm really glad that my fucked up years. Joel (13m 49s): That's really interesting. Katrina (13m 49s): Oh, am I allowed to swear on this thing? But anyway, I'm glad they're not there as a record. That's what I was meaning by it sad. I feel, you know, when I have been coaching recruiters, I'm forever saying, you know, if you want to use an Instagram, for example, like share your photos of yourself and your dog photos and fine, but please protect your children. Don't have a private account. Joel (14m 9s): But if we had all grown up with social media and we all just like, oh yeah, that was 30 years ago or whatever. Like what if we all came up with it, would it be as big a deal 20, 30 years from now? Chad (14m 22s): No. Katrina (14m 23s): If you've got a name like mine where you Google it and it's like, there's very few Katrina Colliers in the world. It's going to follow me around if I'm suddenly on TikTok doing something I shouldn't. Chad (14m 37s): Yeah. But, I think there's this feeling of kind of numbness to some extent and to think that you do something in your twenties and it's gonna follow you around and when you're 50, you just can't get that job. Or you're 40 or 30 you can't get that job. I don't know. I think it all comes down to the need and a lot of people are just gonna overlook that kind of shit because it's like, what if they can do the job and they can knock it out. I don't give a shit what they do on TikTok. Joel (15m 9s): Just don't become prime minister. Katrina (15m 11s): Yeah. Chad (15m 11s): She should dance all day. Katrina (15m 12s): I guess you're also expecting HR and hiring managers and recruiters even to not be biased. You're also talking in our little bubble if we don't work in a company that we wouldn't care. Like we'd actually probably be like, I want to actually have the prime minister as my best mate. You know, we're very different. We're much more liberal and open-minded, but unfortunately I see it. There's a particular HR group on Facebook I just absolutely adore when I just need, fill the need to remember why I do what I do. And you see the stuff in there, the reasons that they'll want to rule someone out and you're just like really? Really have you not just had a conversation with them and found out what it was about? Chad (15m 49s): Can we get that stick out of your ass for a minute? Joel (15m 52s): That's no fun. Katrina (15m 54s): I mean, if, if there are any job seekers listening, I just, yeah. Just try and keep it a little under wraps. Joel (16m 0s): Can I come back to the book? Can I come back to the book? Katrina (16m 3s): This is all in the book because recruiter behavior is another reason that people get put off from working at your firm. You know, they'll look at your public profile, your LinkedIn profile, whatever, and then they will go and look at it. If they're interested and they're inquisitive, they will look at Facebooks and Instagrams and the likes. So what are you sharing that, you know, shows that you're ranting about politics or you bigoted or racist or whatever it might be. There is a need to pull it under wraps. So I do talk about that. Cause I unfortunately were being looked at. Joel (16m 31s): Have some updated case studies in the book. Can you give us one that kind of stood out to you that is relevant now more than it was back then? Katrina (16m 42s): There's a study by end/ghosting or in ghosting that 86% of people that don't hear back, get a bit down or depressed. And it was more fascinating to me when I saw this girl had posted on LinkedIn a spreadsheet and she put all of her applications and she'd written ghosted every time she hadn't heard back. And that shocked me because I felt ghosted was when you didn't hear that from an interview. And it was like, wow, okay. So for her she was ghosted 36 times and oh actually she wasn't, she was 34. What was really interesting in my humble opinion was seeing where she had actually interviewed and she got an offer and it was like, gosh, the other 34 were a bit mad, but it was interesting, the perception. And that was one of the cases I was quite like case studies, probably a stretch examples, I was quite proud to put in there to just get people to wake up a little bit. Katrina (17m 27s): And they were like, yeah, actually I want to hear back from my application. And as you guys know, there are tools and technology out there you can use to let people know. Chad (17m 39s): Well, and the job seekers learn ghosting from somewhere. They learned it from us. They learned it from the fucking employers. Joel (17m 50s): Katrina just found out ghosting goes both ways, that just shows you how myopic recruiters are. Katrina (17m 55s): That is not what I was saying. Joel (17m 55s): Oh, self-centered and egotistical recruiters. Katrina (17m 56s): The reason that candidates ghost is because recruiters have ghosted. Full stop end of story , I'm done. Anytime anyone has an argument with me on that. How dare they? What do you expect for decades we've been ghosting them? Chad (18m 10s): Okay. For all the people that are listening out there, they have plenty of books because everybody wrote a goddamn book during COVID. They have plenty of books to choose from. Why choose version two. Edition two the Robot Proof Recruiter? Katrina (18m 24s): Obviously the aforementioned where I donated the royalties and forward. So there's no risk, but because it's a really gritty manual, like some people say to me, you're going to do an audio, which I am, but you need the book because you're going to write on this book. There's a lot of books out there that are high level strategy. This is not that book. This is gritty. You're going to open and go, oh my gosh, I can go and do that right now. I can go and change that right now, it's going to make my recruitment better. And the other thing is there are now more than 74 contributors, there must be like 90. I need to add it up. Lots of different industry and community thought in this book because I didn't want people to go and when did you last recruit Collier? Because it has been a minute. Katrina (19m 4s): So I backed up all my thinking with real-world examples from a real wealth of recruiters that are sitting, you know, doing your job. So it's rich. That's why. I'm incredibly proud of it. I mean, just so many reasons. And most of it is it's that community book. Joel (19m 20s): Katrina Collier everybody. She's the author of the Robot Proof Recruiter. Katrina I know you got a lot going on. Can you funnel down one location that our listeners can find out more about you by the book, etc? Katrina (19m 43s): At katrinacollier.com. Joel (19m 44s): Nice. Chad (19m 44s): Oh, there you go. It's a.com. Not a .io or anything. Katrina (19m 49s): That's for those tech startuUps. Joel (19m 50s): Chad, it's been fun. I love memory lane. Chad and Cheese (19m 53s): We out. OUTRO (20m 37s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.There's some weird we out.

Quiet quitting, boomeranging and petitioning ... Oh my! This episode has it all. In addition to covering some of the hottest trends in work this week, the boys cover big news out of iCIMS and play some Buy-or-Sell with Sabanto, Growthspace, and Modern Loop (again). Plus, Lowe's latest news is a down-low, dirty shame, and Indeed gets into bed with TikTok. Your ears are already thanking you, aren't they? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast Joel (23s): Oh yeah. It's the podcast that will always forgive your student loan debt and whatever it was you did last night. Hey kitties. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "ready for some football" Cheeseman. Chad (38s): And this is Chad "no college debt here" Sowash. Joel (41s): And on this week show iCIMS gets a bigger boat. What the fuck is quiet quitting? And Indeed brings its old crusty ass to TikTok. Okay. Boomer let's do this. Chad (53s): Okay. So that's partially a lie when I said no college debt here. Joel (57s): You married into some right. Chad (59s): I'd married into college debt. Yeah. Yeah. So I heard you caught a case of the Vonq last night. Joel (1m 3s): Oh, I got Vonq last night, man. Shit. There's there's no penicillin enough to, to cure this Vonq this morning. But yeah, we met up with the Vonq folks. I don't know for our listeners know, but the North American headquarters, I guess is here in Indianapolis, run by a few friends of ours and they had the Germans come in, Arno the CEO and Chad (1m 27s): Zee Germans Joel (1m 28s): Got overserved on scotch and old fashions last night. It was a good time. But dragging a bit on this show. Chad (1m 35s): I might need an antibiotic, but you drank at least what Adam Gordon calls antiseptic, last night. So you, I think you'll be fine with that shit you were pouring down your gullet. Joel (1m 49s): La flouge! Chad (1m 49s): And I think you're pronouncing it wrong. Joel (1m 52s): I mispronounced it. Chad (1m 57s): I think it's pronounced shit! Joel (1m 57s): You know, I get sick of these Brits that try to tell us how to say shit because they can't even pronounce their A's like, eh, you know, it's Blanton's, it's not Blantons. Chad (2m 8s): And they put U's and shit and yeah. Joel (2m 10s): It's Hey, come on, come on. I don't speak Queen's English. I speak American. Chad (2m 17s): So thanks to the VONQers that were out there. It was a good time. Joel (2m 22s): It's big applause for that. Chad (2m 23s): Great meal. Great drinks. It was a blast. It was a blast. Joel (2m 26s): What'd you go with? Do you go with a steak? What'd you go with? Chad (2m 30s): No, I went with the colossal shrimp. Joel (2m 32s): Ooh. Was it colossal? You we're on the other end of the table. Chad (2m 36s): It was pretty fucking colossal. Yeah, it was delicious. Let's just say that. Joel (2m 39s): Did you try the bisque? Chad (2m 41s): Yeah, no, it did. Did the lobster bisque and no question. They did it upright. They did it up right. Much like my first shout out Burger King, who's doing it right. That's right kids in a world with Taco Bell, Mexican pizzas. Jesus' chicken wings. And McDonald's shipping the Chicken Big Mac to America from the UK. Burger King steps up with the Impossible Chicken sandwich. That's right kids. America's fast food. Industrial complex is expanding their hippie menu. Joel (3m 11s): How do we fixed it? Cause you're tied to this way more than I am. I like a while, the impossible possible burger really had its a moment. And to me it feels like that that trend is fading. Am I wrong on that? Like what are you bullish or bearish on the whole protein based burgers and chicken sandwiches and whatnot. Chad (3m 32s): Yeah, no it's I mean it's expanding into pretty much everybody's menu now. So we're you see? I think the big surge was all because it had never happened before. We never had plant-based burgers anywhere now they're everywhere. So we're pretty much numb to it. Everybody has them and now they have this new chicken. I think KFC is actually doing a version of a plant-based chicken as well. So these companies impossible foods beyond meat, et cetera, et cetera, they are kicking ass and taking names. Joel (4m 0s): Good god. The Colonel is rolling in his grave right now. Protein plant-based chicken. Well from one progressive movement to another. My shout out goes to FN Meka. Who the fuck is FN Meka? the music label behind Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra has signed a virtual rapper by the name of FN Mika, which I'm guessing is FN Meka. That's right. FN Meka is an AI generated rapper and already has 500,000 monthly Spotify listeners and followers. Chad (4m 37s): Holy Fuck! Joel (4m 38s): In addition to his/hers/its I don't know what pronoun they use. Their new contract. Confused? Yeah, me too. This thing is voiced by human, but everything else about it, him at their whatever. From the lyrics to the chords and tempo underpinning the music is all AI generated. Chad's already in love with the robot rapper's new single, Florida Water. Chad (5m 3s): I did liIke it. Joel (5m 5s): I know that's on a eternal play on your iPod. Biggie and Tupac Just like the Colonel are undoubtedly rolling around in their graves right now. But FN Meka might just be the future of music kids. Chad (5m 17s): God man. Well, what they're not going to be able to do. Knock on wood is replaced podcasts. That's right, dude. We've had some of the most amazing interviews lately. Sean Behr, the CEO over at Fountain talking about how he doesn't believe there's a labor shortage. We had a great conversation with Sumit Gupta to the CTO over at Pando about the evolution of chat bots. And then this week WorkHuman CHR Steve Pemberton joined us for an interview called A Change in the World. Probably one of our best interviews we've ever done. We're on fire with guests lately so this has been good. If you haven't listened, go to Chadcheese.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, but check out the interviews. Joel (6m 3s): Oh man, where to jinx it. It's all downhill from here, kids. Chad (6m 7s): Ah shit. Joel (6m 7s): By the way I speaking of FN Meka and music, I posted a Spotify, had a survey that said most people, most people, not a hundred percent stop listening to new music after around the age of 33. I posted that on Facebook where all my fellow old people that think they're still cool on Facebook were really quick to come out and say, no, I'm cool. I'm still looking. I'm still listening to new music. So that was little side note to music. Do you, have you stopped sort of listening to new artists since 33 years old? Chad (6m 34s): I don't know that I've stopped since 33 years old, but I do find myself when using Spotify going to playlists that are, I mean, they're already curated. So sometimes I find myself listening to more of the older stuff because there are some amazing playlists that are out there instead of looking for newer stuff. Joel (6m 53s): Yeah. It kind of supports your existing biases. Right. So yeah. Chad (6m 57s): Yeah, it does. To some extent. Yeah. I do like me some Doja Cat though. What's Joel (7m 2s): Doja Cat. Harry Styles is where it's at Chad Harry Styles. Look it up just like Google is where it's at Chad brings me to my second shout out. Who's in the mood for a major algorithm update everybody. Chad (7m 15s): Oh God. Joel (7m 16s): Nervousness you hear is all the job boards worried about their rankings Chad (7m 19s): Panda. Joel (7m 19s): The world's biggest search engine announced recently it's rolling out new search updates over the next few weeks and we'll aim to make it easier for people to find high quality content. The new ranking improvements will work to reduce the amount of low quality or unoriginal content that ranks high in search results today. Google says the update will especially target content that has been created primarily for ranking on search engines, known as SEO first content rather than human first content. Also that nervousness is the headquarters of the ladders Monster and CareerBuilder who churn out this dribble on a regular basis. Chad (8m 3s): Yes. Joel (8m 3s): You're ready for ranking decreases everybody. Chad (8m 5s): Yeah. I remember back in the day when Panda came out and it really fucked a bunch of job boards. I mean, there were some job boards that actually shut down because of that algorithm change. Joel (8m 18s): Yeah. Google has been sort of quiet on the big update front for awhile. This one, they were pretty verbal about happening. So, you know, check your search rankings, everybody. They could be a shuffling over the next few weeks. Well, before we leave shout outs, shout, let's get to some, some free shit and what's going on. A lot of stuff is going on. We're redesigning shirts, new sponsors for whiskey beer. T-shirts from JobGet. Beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. Textkernel as always is making whiskey happen for people. We're re-designing t-shirts. FactoryFix is sponsoring fantasy football this year. Chad (8m 57s): Love those guys! Joel (8m 58s): We've got HR Tech events from sponsored by This Way Global and Tatio. Those are private events. So hit us up on the DMs. Slide into our DMs if you're interested in any of those. But free shit guys, you got to go to Chadcheese.com, click the button. Also leave us a review on your, your platform of choice wherever you listen to podcasts. We love getting feedback and it's our oxygen and the only way we get better. sfx (9m 30s): Get ready, Vegas you fucking beautiful bitch. Chad (9m 32s): Events. So 13th through the 16th, September in Vegas for HR Tech at what's going on. Well, Joel just told a little bit about that, but on Tuesday, the first full day of the conference, we're taking over a portion of one of the bars and Mandalay Bay. That's right. Tuesday with our friends from Tatio. Joel (9m 56s): Yes. Chad (9m 56s): And then on Wednesday, Wednesday, This Way Global is having a shindig in one of the penthouses. Now listen, kids seating is limited, which is why we're not putting this out on the socials or anything like that. If you're interested, ping us, but seating is limited. You better do it quick. Drinks on Chad and Cheese Tatio and This Way Global. Joel (10m 19s): By the way, sending us whiskey may or may not help your chances into getting to these events. But speaking to people who need a drink, let's talk about birthdays. sfx (10m 30s): Birthdays! Here's a list of everyone ready to buy a Buick. Joel (10m 33s): First of all, my wife celebrated a birthday this week. Big, big shout out to her. She turned 29 again. She turned 29 again. Chad (10m 41s): Did you bake a cake? Joel (10m 43s): I baked a cake. I baked a funfetti vanilla cake, Chad, and it looks like shit, but apparently it tastes alright. Chad (10m 52s): Our very own Betty Crocker, Joel Cheesman. Joel (10m 56s): That's right. That's right. In addition to my wife celebrating a birthday, Nick Livingston, a buddy from Honeit. Ryan Leary, Aman Brar celebrates a birthday. Joe Stubblebine Bradley Clark, Ron Bauer, funky cold Medina Maderis, Sean Kelleher, Tracy Cole, and last but not least Beverly Collins, who by the way, Chad is rumored to be listening to this very show from a heated seat and a black Maserati. Happy birthday, everybody. Chad (11m 35s): Happy Birthday! TOPICS! Joel (11m 36s): Cha-ching. Chad (11m 36s): Oh Dude. Joel (11m 37s): Popular ATS iCIMS has a new sugar daddy. You'll remember they were acquired by a PE firm Vista a few years ago, but now it's looking like a threesome. TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm is now also a partner in the business. Vista and TA will partner together to further accelerate global growth and product development. Susquehanna Growth Equity, which first invested in iCIMS back in 2012 and made an additional investment in 2015 will continue to be a shareholder as well after teasing a $100 million IPO last year, then withdrawing it in may of this year. Chad, what do you make of this news out of iCIMS? Chad (12m 19s): It's an iCIMS ménage à trois kids. So some people have become even more rich this week and iCIMS now has an even bigger piggy bank as they continue to position themselves against the other players in the market. It's pretty simple. They have a shit ton of momentum. Yes. They were going for the IPO, not quite the best market in which to continue that. So that's fine. They pivoted and they haven't stopped it. It seems like they are continuously in the news. Joel (12m 51s): Yeah. You know, the natural progression for iCIMS was IPO. Unfortunately, the market turned cold and ZipRecruiter in the public markets turned out to be akin to a submarine with a screen door. Chad (13m 1s): As a litmus test. Joel (13m 4s): Yeah. So the global growth that they would have been able to pursue with public money had to be replaced with private equity and enter TA Associates who has a core competency on global growth. So this means iCIMS can behave like a public company without actually being one, show the kind of growth that they would have with public money. Then they'll need to show that kind of growth globally. When it does come time to hit up Wall Street. I like this deal a lot. I think the extra money, replacing what they would've got in the public markets. How long it's going to take for the public markets to come back? I don't know, Vladimir Putin might have something to say about that, but at some point the IPO market will heat up again and IiCIMS will go public. Joel (13m 45s): And I think it'll be a very good day for them, as well as all the other companies that are waiting to go public. And it's going to be a great day and year for podcasts who can't wait to talk about all these companies going IPO. Chad (14m 5s): Yeah. Look for acquisitions kids. This is going to be money that's front-end for some acquisitions. And I have heard some rumblings of multiple, not just one multiple acquisitions that iCIMS are actually looking at. They've been slowed down because of the market. But I think this is a pretty good signal to the rest of us that the iCIMS machine is not stopping. Joel (14m 27s): Did you ask the source if iCIMS needs to add a podcast to the portfolio with all that money? I could name one that they could buy. Anyway. That's great insight. You ready to play a little buy or sell? We haven't played in a while. Chad (14m 42s): Yes. Joel (14m 43s): All right. You know how this game plays kids. We have three startups. They've all gotten money recently. I read a summary and then Chad and I either buy or sell it. We're starting with Growth Space, which happens to be what I call my swim trunk area Chad. The New York City-based Growth Space has raised $25 million in Series B funding. This brings total to $44 million dollars founded in 2018. The company is an upscaling platform. They use the funds to expand globally. Growth Space employees 279 people. Pretty big company for a startup. That's according to LinkedIn. Upscaling is hot Chad! Joel (15m 23s): Are you a buyer sell on Growth Space? Chad (15m 27s): Growth Space. Is that because you went from a double X to a triple X around your waist? Is that why? Okay. Anyway, so let's start off with Price Waterhouse Coopers survey that demonstrated that 50% of workers face discrimination at work, which led to them missing out on training and or career advancement confirmed by a study of 32,500 workers in 19 countries found unequal access to career and training opportunities. So this is a message to all the HR practitioners out there listening. If your managers aren't being watched up-skilling platforms, don't always lead to uniform and unbiased outcomes. Chad (16m 8s): That being said, do we really need AI in this segment? They push AI a lot. Why the fuck do we need it? Do I need an algorithm to match me with experts in courses? Or can I just jump into courses that are connected to certain career paths? Adding AI into this conversation seems unnecessary and an added layer of perspective bias, not to mention huge waste of fucking cash. They've taken $44 million, which is about 10% of what Udemy has taken. And even less than 10% of what Coursera is taken. I might've been on board if they weren't wasting course and development dollars on AI. Chad (16m 49s): So it is a sell for me. Joel (16m 52s): No, no Growth Space. By the way, kids, we don't rehearse these jokes. These are all like off the cuff. Gold people. Total gold. All right, well, Chad, one of my big trends for 2022 was H.U.R. That's HUR and stands for Healthcare Upscaling and Robots. You know, I prefer so-so companies riding a big wave better than I do a great company riding a shitty wave. Growth Space is going to have to try hard, not to be a so-so company with $44 million dollars. They're also at that nice funding, sweet spot where the number of suitors is still pretty big. Joel (17m 35s): There'll be taken out in the next 18 to 24 months, which means for me, Growth Space is a buy. Alright, let's go to Sabanto Chad (17m 46s): Sabanto. Joel (17m 46s): Swarming, farm autonomy company Sabanto and they go, I've never said swarming on the show. Before based in Chitown, they announced a $17 million Series A funding round, this brings total funding to $22.2 million. Founded in 2018 the company brings robots, swarms of robots, apparently to agriculture. Helping solve the talent shortage in farming. Sabanto will use the funds to accelerate their mission, to make autonomy and affordable, reliable and scalable solution for all farmers. Said one happy customer quote "Finally, a company is solving our labor problems" Joel (18m 26s): end quote. Sabanto employees, just 23 brainiacs. Chad, are you a buy or sell on robotic agriculture? Chad (18m 32s): Well, every industry in the world is looking to automate as it becomes harder to find talent for open positions. Farming is no different. And then how else seriously? How are we gonna farm? We can't find the people. How are we going to farm then? How are we going to feed people? There is no doubt in my mind that automation will come quickly to farming. Is Sabanto the company to take it there? Or will they suffer the slings and arrows of brave explorers? I don't know, but I do believe automation is a foregone conclusion in farming and I believe a much larger name in the farm industry will gobble this tech up and outfit its equipment in less than a year. Chad (19m 16s): That's my prediction. It's a buy. A big buy for me. Joel (19m 21s): Enthusiastic buy from Mr. Sowash. Alright, well Chad, you know, my grandfather was a farmer. Chad (19m 29s): No I did not. Joel (19m 30s): Now you do. My grandfather was salt of the earth farmer, Chad in Hope Indiana. Anyway, it's backbreaking work. Chad (19m 36s): Yes. Joel (19m 36s): You're up at Dawn. Weather sucks. Pesticides, pricing pressures, and we know shitty jobs are going to be done by robots in the future and this company is in a fantastic position to grab a big piece of that pie. Wintergreen research says agricultural loan is a $17 billion market opportunity for robotics and robotics overall is expected to reach a staggering $74 billion market by 2026. There will be a lot of room for a lot of winners and I like Sabanto's shot at being one of those winners unlike the football team in their headquartered city of Chicago. Joel (20m 18s): This one is also a big buy from me. Chad (20m 22s): Nice. Joel (20m 22s): All right, last but not least Chad. Well, maybe it is least we'll find out Modern Loop, the San Francisco based company has raised $9 million dollars in a Series A round, this brings total funding to $12.1 million. Founded in 2020 the company helps recruiters schedule interviews, resolve interview meeting conflicts, send day of reminders and coordinate interviewers. Modern Loop will use the funds to further expand the company. Chad, we first interviewed Modern Loop competitor Good Time back in 2018, but we're still trying to solve this whole scheduling problem. Are you a buy or sell on Modern Loop? Chad (21m 1s): So, I believe Modern Loop is the only startup that has made its second appearance on buy or sell. So big applause for that at least, right? We talked about Modern Loop's seed funding about a year ago, and I still have the same mindset. I believe what they're trying to achieve is either already baked into core talent platforms or other systems which support those platforms or TA just doesn't believe this is a problem. The exec team has an impressive background, but no experience in this space. And it doesn't seem like they've made much progress over the last year. At least from the messaging standpoint, which drives sales and insurers, this startup doesn't die on the vine. Chad (21m 43s): I think they went from zero or just a few customers. Now they have dozens. So they didn't have that. That much of a Joel (21m 52s): It's not zero to hero Chad. That is not zero to hero. Chad (21m 57s): So I'm not convinced Modern Loop really understands the problems or the industry let alone knows how to address them if they even exist. That's a sell for me. Joel (22m 7s): Yeah. Scheduling is a feature. It's all becoming part of the fabric of all the platforms, chat bots and CRMs out there. The best these guys can hope for as an acquisition. Good Time, which started as a scheduling solution hasn't been acquired and keeps on building new things like something they call 'smart meetings', whatever that is. They're going to keep spinning their wheels and eventually run out of money and probably go away at some point. Unless they pivot and find that secret sauce it's a knife at a gunfight. I am also a sell on Modern Loop. Let's take a quick break and cheese we're going to break it down hot take style. Joel (22m 47s): I'll take potpourri for 400 Alex. All right, Chad, let's get some hot takes on some news that occurred this week or her trending topics. Number one, let's talk about 'quiet quitting' because all the kids are talking about it. I first thought it meant just not working from home till someone noticed and you got fired or that it meant looking for another job while you, you know, sort of milk the clock at your current employer. Urban Dictionary is just as confused by the way, they have like four or five different definitions for this, but it can be best described as the concept of no longer going above and beyond and instead doing what their job description requires of them and nothing more. Joel (23m 32s): Let's play a clip from friend of the show, HR Manifesto to get her take on what quiet quitting is. Leigh (23m 41s): Are you a quitter, like me apparently? I just learned about this quiet quitting had never heard of it before. Okay. Talk about gaslighting of victim blaming at its finest, that shifts the sole responsibility and accountability to employee engagement to the worker. Are you kidding me? Do you know what quiet quitting is? It's living. It's literally, it's literally living. We are in the in times where now it's considered quietly quitting your job to have a life outside of work. It's about having priorities, establishing boundaries, having balance, right? Not sacrificing at all and burning out for your job. Leigh (24m 23s): It's about acting your wage. That's quiet quitting. What in the Jeff Bezos obviously coined this term, BS is this, let's shift the accountability for employee engagement, where it goes. It's on the employer. Because how can we expect employees to show up to work, shooting sunshine, rainbows, and glitter out their backsides without giving them a reason to? Without inspiring them without giving them purpose, a sense of belonging, connectivity, respect, dignity, you name it? Why would we expect people to show up that way, fully engaged without a reason? Without something to be engaged for or with or on? Leigh (25m 3s): Are you kidding me? The sole responsibility for employee engagement does not lie with the worker. We should not be focused on quiet quitting. That's not a thing. We should be focusing our attention on the countless organizations that routinely and consistently engage in loud failing by putting profits over people and then stupidly sitting back and wondering why people don't want to work there. Why they don't want to support a system that doesn't support them, why they don't want to be dedicated and committed to cultures that don't serve them in any way. Leigh (25m 43s): To places and organizations where they can't even thrive or succeed. Stop loud failing. How about that? Because I'm not a quitter, but boy, have I been failed and quit on? Chad (25m 53s): She gets it. This is what we've been seeing with corporate narratives and we'll talk about more on the show about that a little bit later when people are treated like shit and they're still expected to go above and beyond, they reject that then, oh, it's their fault. It's not the corporation's fault. Joel (26m 10s): Yeah. Look, we talk about boiling the frog on the show quite a bit. Chad (26m 18s): Yes. Joel (26m 19s): And you and I got to see the evolution of this right. There actually was a time when you left the office and that was it. You were done until the next day as laptops, smartphones, messaging solutions became ubiquitous well, so did work. And for 25 years, no one said shit. It almost became like cool to be able to check email while you watch Seinfeld, you know, in the nineties. Right? So it became normalized and it shouldn't have, and 25 years later, we're like, oh shit, this is unhealthy. This is bad for us. So I obviously we're all applauding this trend and hope that it continues, hope that companies realize that people need a life outside of work. Joel (26m 59s): It's incredibly important for our mental health, for just being human and being good citizen of humanity. So yeah, no one could say it better than Leigh if you're not following her on TikTok, or I think she's everywhere is HR Manifesto make sure that you connect with her because she is full of knowledge like she just dropped on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (27m 29s): Good shit. Joel (27m 29s): From a quiet quitting to boomeranging. This is from Bloomberg. Forget returned to the office in this economy, many employees are returning to previous employers breaking taboos about workplace loyalty and bucking assumptions about the so-called great resignation. The grass isn't always greener and a tight labor market means previous employers are willing to take workers back. Chad, what you got on the current state of boomeranging? Chad (27m 49s): You're gonna love it. The rules are out the fucking window. We're talking about quiet quitting, which is just total bullshit. It's now we're looking at employers to pay us for that extra time. If they want the extra time you pay us for the extra time boomerangs, although are seeing promotions and raises. When companies feel like they, you know, they can stifle employees and they can keep them down and not to give them raises and not allow them to be promoted and so on and so forth. Employees leave. And then what are the costs of perspectively getting them back, or at least filling that position if they just treated them right in the first place, would they have left? Chad (28m 36s): So once again, we're focusing on a narrative around the employee instead of the actual company. The employee's not the problem here, the boomerangs are leaving and many of them are coming back to promotions and twice the salary they left. So I think they made out well. Joel (28m 52s): Yeah, it's a strategy that typically in any normal situation would have backfired. You would have not been able to go back to the employer. Now it's sort of normal. It's like, Hey, forgiven. Oh yeah, your market value is more. Now let's look at that as an option and hopefully people are learning that. You know, I talked about my grandfather, but my mom used to say that the grass is greener where you water it, not on the other side necessarily. So the studies that I saw in this story said that there's no sort of the work doesn't suffer, basically. Like people are coming back, they're still productive as they were before. There's no sort of hurt feelings. Like might, you might find it a relationship. At least I've found that, you know, it doesn't work as hard when you come back. Joel (29m 34s): So anyway, that's another podcast, but yeah, I mean this, this fad, I don't expect it to be like commonplace the boomerang trend, but with the great resignation, everyone was like, Hey, the grass is greener on this other side. Not so much. A lot of those companies weren't as exciting, profitable, promising as people thought. Go back to where you were, but Hey, it's better pay and maybe they appreciate you more when you go back. Chad (30m 1s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, again, this isn't about the grasping greener for the employee. This is about the employer actually watering the fucking grass that the employee is on. So as they go over to another organization, which might be different and then that employer's like, oh yeah, let me go ahead and pay you some more. Let me water this grass over here. Would you like to come back? You know, we need to start thinking about this in an entirely different way. This isn't on the person, this is on the company, much like the 'quiet quitting' piece to ensure that they have actual real employee engagement and that they give a shit. So we're asking employers to give a shit nowadays versus, you know, back in the eighties when I was just like treat 'em like shit, boiler room and you know, work 80 hours a week. Joel (30m 43s): Yeah. And you know, this is actually a pretty good recruiting strategy. If people aren't using it like, to try to get in touch with past employees that you'd like to bring back, you know, three to six months down the road. If the situation that they left for isn't as good and letting them know that the door is open, might be a good recruiting strategy to get those folks back. Knowing that boomeranging is a thing now. Chad (31m 10s): Yeah. What we call them before we're alumni, that is actually a strategy that company's have used for years, Joel (31m 18s): Tomato, tomato. Let's talk about Apple. Chad (31m 20s): Oh, very nice. Joel (31m 21s): Apple's back to the office strategy, which calls for three days a week in person, hit a snag this week, employees have started a petition saying the company is stifling diversity and staff wellbeing by restricting their ability to work remotely. The group known as Apple together, reportedly intends to collect signatures this week before verifying them and sending them to the iPhone maker's executives. Chad are you in or out on Apple togethers petition. Chad (31m 47s): Yeah, I think again, we're going to see this and this is what Steve Pemberton actually said on his interview is that nobody's figured this out. Apple hasn't figured it out. I mean, nobody's figured this out. We're going to actually find that some people are going to leave the organization because they don't agree with how you do work. And that's okay. This is just because somebody you're losing people doesn't mean that you can't stick to your core values if that's what you believe as an organization. Now, some of these organizations I think will change dramatically because the talent walking out the door is going to be way too much to lose. So yeah, I mean, we'll see with Apple, but there are going to be some Jamie Diamond's of the world who will stay strict maybe. Chad (32m 33s): And then there are others that will, I mean, they'll make changes. So this is an evolution in work, which I think is exciting. Joel (32m 40s): Yeah. And I think it's not only an evolution. I think it's a fluid situation. I think, you know, I think timing has lot to do with this. And look, it was in the news recently that Apple laid off a hundred contract recruiters. They're on record as saying that they're gonna, you know, pull back hiring and slow spending due to the economy. Well, when recruiters get fired, you know what happens? Usually a lot of other people start getting fired or leaving. So in terms of this petition, I think the timing is wrong, is off. I think that the chances of it working are about less than zero. Apple is going to try this three days a week. They're doing Tuesday and Thursday mandatory. And then the other is sort of based on what your team wants to do or what you want to do personally. Joel (33m 24s): And they're going to roll with this scenario and whether it works or not, we're gonna find out just like you said, nobody knows how this is all going to turn out. It's going to get ugly and messy and I think we're learning that timing has a lot to do with it. When companies are begging for talent, they're hiring at brisk paces, they're much more open to these kinds of requests so to work from home a hundred percent of the time, the boiling frog that we've talked about though, is, does Apple eventually get from three days to, you know what, let's go to four because you know, we need you here. You know, times are tough. Joel (34m 4s): We're trying to make quarter, et cetera. This is a very fluid situation I think that we'll be finding from the work from home scenarios, Chad (34m 15s): From Apple to Lowe's. Joel (34m 17s): Yes, right? Home improvement, baby Lowe's will provide $55 million in bonuses to its hourly frontline workers to help with the burden of high inflation the retailer said in an earnings call this week. Lowe's employs approximately 300,000 associates coordinate to the company's website, but it has not specified how much money each worker would receive and over what period of time. But the math works out to around $183 per worker. Sounds great right, Chad? What are your thoughts? Chad (34m 51s): If you read this article, you have to hang your head because Lowe's, you can do better. Because shrouding these bonuses as quote unquote, "help with the burden of high inflation" is a total bullshit narrative. Lowe's have reportedly had morale and retention problem for years. That's why they started a four day work week for FTEs recently, and now hoping bonuses do the trick. When in all reality, the pandemic boosted Lowe's sales and profits. Lowe's revenue for the 12 months ending July 31st, 2022 was $95.4 billion dollars alone. Chad (35m 31s): And when you see Lowe's year over year quarterly growth, which starts to explode in April of 2020. You know, when COVID started really hitting us hard, we had to stay home. We needed to turn our bedrooms and basements into offices. You remember that shit, but Lowe's was making bank, working their essential workers hard and not sharing the bounty of the profits with the frontline workers. So I believe Lowe's are having the same problem. Amazon is having in many communities where they're actually burning through workers. Chad (36m 11s): This $55 million is literally a bandaid on a sunken chest wound. Joel (36m 14s): You got dark on that one, man. So, I mean, I guess it's better than a shot to the taint, but it's mostly sugar rush type stuff. The company gets some positive PR wow $55 million. How generous?! No one reads past the headlines. They just see like, wow, that sounds like a lot of money. That's great. Sure. Shareholders like it as a quarterly retention tool and employees, I guess get a dopa hit, knowing that they're going to get a little bit of cash. How about salary increases people? Would that kill you? I know that shareholders don't love that, there'd be backlash. I wish we would see more of salary increases versus these bonuses because it's a sugar rush as opposed to a well balanced meal. Joel (36m 58s): Chad. Chad (36m 59s): Agreed. I agree. Joel (37m 0s): By the way, by the way, all this giving people money and forgiving debt is really dumb if our goal is to reduce inflation. But I guess that's another, another podcast. Let's take a quick break and talk about Indeed and TikTok two of your favorite topics Chad. Chad (37m 19s): Wow. Joel (37m 19s): Indeed and TikTok. Chad, is there a better marriage for a podcast like ours to talk about? Chad (37m 27s): This is interesting. Joel (37m 28s): It is interesting. So Indeed and TikTok are launching a campaign aimed at young job seekers in Singapore. Alongside the six month campaign, Indeed has also set up a TikTok channel for generation Z's and millennials looking for work in the country. The "you better work boss" campaign is intended to encourage young candidates to apply for jobs through you guessed it Chad, Indeed.com. They'll broadcast content on such topics as mental health, work stress, various professions, job market readiness, and the future of work. Chad, are you buying or selling Indeed jumping on the TikTok bandwagon. Chad (38m 7s): I got to say, this is just smart. I understand there are problems with TikTok and some vendors will avert their eyes and their marketing, but we all know Google tracks us. And yet we still SCO and SCM the hell out of everything that we do on the web. A partnership like this continues to beat down all of the other brands and those brands deserve it. All those competitors deserve it. If I'm an Indeed competitor, meaning job board aggregator, interviewing system and/or even ATS, I would walk into my marketing department's office, close the door and read them the riot act because they've once again been outflanked by Indeed. Chad (38m 50s): We don't know if this is going to work or not, but you got to try kids and doesn't seem like anybody's fucking trying out there other than these assholes over at Indeed. Joel (39m 0s): So Indeed's reaction to having the SCO rug pulled out from under them five years ago, with the introduction of Google for jobs and the rise of programmatic was traditional advertising. Now they have a downturn in the economy and the number of job postings. So diving into TikTok with hopes of replacing visitors, garnered by TV ads with ones garnered by TikTok is probably a good strategy. Whether it's a long-term or short-term strategy, we will obviously find out over time. I'm assuming this will go beyond Singapore. We'll see it in many more markets. This is I'm guessing a test market. Joel (39m 41s): However, there are some risks here that I see. Number one TikTok gets shut down by the US because of its China connection. Number two, TikTok gets replaced by another app, another hot social media platform in the next few years, or number three, advertising on TikTok eventually gets to be just as expensive as traditional advertising and Google and Facebook and all the others and you're just back where you started. Hopefully they're getting a good deal and not risking too much at this point and Chad speaking of good deals, I'm starving and it's BOGO day at Buffalo Wild Wings. Chad and Cheese (40m 22s): We out. OUTRO (40m 22s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (41m 4s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

It's a jungle out there. Inflation is still running rampant while unemployment remains historically low. Some companies are saying get back to the office, while some are saying never come back again. And some businesses in our space are seeing incredible carnage, while others are riding high. The real sign of the apocalypse though? LinkedIn thinks its solving the inclusion problem. It's enough to wish you had free beer. Mass hysteria, buy-or-sell, LinkedIn-sanity and free booze. You're welcome! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (24s): Oh yeah. Happy Labor Day America. Summer is temporary, Chad and Cheese are forever. Hey kitties. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel old "dirty bastard" Cheeseman. Chad (36s): This is Chad, "and no top secret documents in my desk drawer" Sowash. Joel (41s): On this week's show Snagajob and Smart Recruiters get all shook up. LinkedIn pokes, prods, and Nudges, and free beer in Dublin. Chad (51s): Yes. Joel (51s): Yeah, let's do this. Chad (53s): I keep asking myself this question. So it, tell me what you think. If you were working for a company, let's say Lockheed Martin, a company everybody knows! Joel (1m 3s): Somebody that would never hire me. Lockheed Martin, okay. Let's talk about it. Chad (1m 7s): Okay. Okay. So, and you were a part of their super secret is skunkworks division and you left or you were fired, and you took company proprietary information or even classified information with you home. And then the company found out. What do you think the company or the government would actually do? Joel (1m 29s): Well, first of all, this is a real hypothetical cause I'm working for a defense company on super secret projects but. Chad (1m 35s): Yes. Joel (1m 35s): The answer to your question is someone in a black suit and sunglasses and probably an earpiece would come knocking on my door, looking for me. And I'd probably be in the pokey for awhile. Chad (1m 45s): Yes. Yes. It's, I mean, I just think it's interesting that we have this guy who leaves his job. Right. He was voted out, leaves his job. He takes secret documentation and everybody's like, well, it's okay. It's like, no, it's not okay. It's like, if somebody took super secret documentation from your work or proprietary information, you know those NDAs and shit that we all have to fucking sign. What do you think would happen? You would either go to go to jail, go to court, but something would happen. And everybody's like, ah, it's not a big deal. No, no. It's a big deal. Joel (2m 19s): Trump may still think he's president though. That could be a mental loophole that he could play in court. Chad (2m 26s): You still can't take those documents out of. Joel (2m 30s): I know. Chad (2m 30s): You can't. Even if you're president, that's what skiffs are for. I mean, it's just, oh my God is fucking crazy. Joel (2m 38s): The guy dances between the raindrops and he always has. And Chad (2m 42s): We shall see. Joel (2m 42s): If something happens this time? Chad (2m 44s): Let's talk about somebody who deserves to be in the limelight. That's Sabrina Williams. That's Serena Williams. That's right kids?! Nearly 41 years old. She's playing in her last tournament. 27 years, 23 grand slam titles, four Olympic gold medals, 14 grand slam doubles titles and a Serena slam. But wait, kids, there's more Serena. Just put on a clinic by knocking off the number two ranked player in the world to stay alive at the US Open, not since Jimmy Connors came back have we seen someone playing for just the pure fun of the sport? She's the greatest tennis player in history, hands down, full stop, man. Joel (3m 25s): Yep. Chad (3m 26s): I hate to see her go, but I love to see this the way it's playing out. Joel (3m 30s): Yeah. I love the interview where they said, you know, like, how do you feel about beating the number two player in the world? And she says, I'm still pretty good. And of course the crowd goes wild, but I was thinking about this cause it was asked on one of the sports radio talk shows that I listened to is who wouldn't be on your Mount Rushmore of all time athletes. Wow. I think for sure. Serena is probably on mine. The others I would put on there and, and it's tough, but just my lifetime and my experience, I, I would probably put Muhammad Ali on that mountain top. Chad (4m 2s): OK. Joel (4m 3s): I would probably put Michael Jordan on it. And it's tough between like baseball, hockey, soccer, the global number one sport. Yeah. But I would probably go Tom Brady in that four spot. How about you? Chad (4m 16s): Yeah. I'm going to go old school with Jim Thorpe. Joel (4m 23s): Oh. Chad (4m 23s): Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali. They were just amazing. And they were pure athletes, much like Serena and Venus Williams. Joel (4m 31s): So we agreed. Serena is the best female athlete of all time? Chad (4m 36s): I would say best tennis player, female but definitely, definitely. I would say top three easily, a female athlete. She might be number one. I'd have to sit and I'd have to crunch that one. Joel (4m 47s): We may have to do some bourbon and discuss this. Chad (4m 49s): That's a good call. Joel (4m 51s): Because I can tell you I've totally pissed off my Canadian in-laws by not putting Wayne Gretzky on that mountain top. Chad (4m 60s): Well Dude. I'm telling you right now, Jim Thorpe had Olympic gold medals. He played professional baseball and he played professional football. And I think there was another sport he played professionally. Joel (5m 11s): Yeah. Chad (5m 11s): We forget about some of those. Joel (5m 13s): Yeah. I mean, yeah, Babe Ruth. I mentioned Gretzky. I mean, you got like soccer, right? Pelé or I don't know where Ronaldo. I mean, there's a lot of soccer players. I'm sure our worldwide audience would, would put a soccer player on there as well. But anyway, sorry, Canada. Gretsky didn't make my list. Didn't make my list. All right. I guess we're in shout outs now? Sorry, listeners. I'm gonna give a shout out to Snap. Chad investors in the camera company. No, seriously that's what their LinkedIn profile says they are. A camera company. Chad (5m 43s): Yeah. Joel (5m 43s): Anyway, investors are wishing they could snap out of this nightmare. See what I did there? In light of their stock price declining nearly 80% this year, the company announced. sfx (5m 54s): Layoffs! Joel (5m 58s): Layoffs. That's right to the tune of 20% Chad of their workforce. That's more than 6,400 employees. Chad (6m 7s): Wow, Shit. Joel (6m 8s): Remember when we used to talk about Snap locations and Snap being a fortune recruiting well, safe to say, that's now on hold. Maybe they can pivot out of cameras and become a rotary phone landline business. Shout out to our friends at Snap. Chad (6m 26s): Somebody who loves them a rotary phone, that would be Katrina Collier. So shout out to Katrina Collier on the global publication of the newest edition of the Robot Proof Recruiter. That's right kids. It's upgraded, check out the upgraded Robot Proof podcast earlier this week, where we sat down with Katrina and also a big shout out to Charlotte Marshall for coming on the podcast to talk about compelling and re paneling candidates with your brand. Check out all of our interviews on Chadcheese.com or wherever you listen to interviews. Joel (7m 5s): Well Chad. You heard that DJ horn? Means DJ Sol. Your boy, must be in the news again. No Goldman Sachs CEO, David DJ Solomon has ordered the worker bees back to the office. The Wall Street giant lifted all COVID protocols this week that have kept some workers away as it pushes all employees to return to the office five days a week after Labor Day school's in session. And we want you in person, the New York Post reported someone at Goldman Sachs saying the party's over shout out to Goldman Sachs and the beatings will continue until morale improves. Everybody. Shout out to DJ Sol. Chad (7m 45s): Oh my God. Okay. So a big shout out to the big podcasting platform YouTube? What? Joel (7m 58s): YouTube? Chad (7m 58s): Laminate surveyed 3000 US podcasts listeners and YouTube is the most used platform for podcasts. That's what they came out with. And this comes after a Cumulus report in may where YouTube snag, the number one position platform from Spotify. sfx (8m 13s): What did you say? Chad (8m 15s): A couple of very weird points as we see Apple as our number one listening platform for podcasts, I think this deserves one of those Joel LinkedIn polls. So we should probably put one out there. See if people see a couple of things, see where people are listening. Number one, we can see that on our analytics, but just, you know, as a broad base, but then also see if they want to see, you know, a Chad and Cheese video version of the podcast. Joel (8m 43s): You missed the LinkedIn polls. Don't you Chad, you the LinkedIn calls. You have Amazon prime. Don't you? The videos? Have you seen the Val Kilmer documentary? Chad (8m 54s): No. Joel (8m 54s): That would be like Val Kilmer. Chad (8m 56s): Yes. Yes. Joel (8m 56s): Top gun. I mean, Doc Holiday, Jim Morrison's? A lot of really good stuff. Anyway, if you're interested in Val and it's a niceness nostalgic ride down the eighties and nineties, which was great for me, but I was pondering the question. What's a better Valcom or Jim Morrison or Doc Holiday? Chad (9m 12s): And Doc Holiday every single day. I mean, I think one of his best roles. Joel (9m 16s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, wrong Chad. Cause the answer is Jim Morrison. What he studied for painfully as you'll see in the documentary. But speaking of LinkedIn policy might have to see, which is a better Val? Doc Holiday or Jim Morrison? Chad, you might've heard it's football season. Chad (9m 37s): Yes, can't wait. Joel (9m 38s): That deserves a big applause Chad (9m 40s): Stoked. Joel (9m 40s): Stoked, stoked. The ball state Cardinals opened their season in Tennessee to play the volunteers by the way. Take the 35 and a half for Tennessee on that one. Anyway, we got fantasy football again this year, Chad and our friends at Factory Fix are sponsoring fantasy football. And time is running out as you listen to this, if you want to play, get your ass to Chadcheese.com, click the link for fantasy football and sign up. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. We've made some altercations to the lineups. Chad, including your flex player can actually be a quarterback. So two quarterbacks playing in the same week. How much fun is that? Joel (10m 20s): We thought about having three kickers every week, but decided against that. People's minds might blow up if that was the option, but we're, I'm pretty excited about fantasy football. I know you are too. Chad (10m 31s): Yes. And a shorten bench as well. So that I think will be the big kicker. Joel (10m 35s): Yup. Game faces and A games are what you're going to have to bring this year to fantasy football with Chad and Cheese sponsored by FactoryFix. That's not all the free shit and fun that we've got going on Chad. Chad (10m 50s): Of course not. Joel (10m 50s): We got whiskey from Textkernel, Aspen Tech Labs is sponsoring our beer drop. T-shirts are going to now have the JobGet logo. And we're frantically printing up those shirts to hopefully have them at HR Tech, which is in two weeks not to jump the shark to our travel schedule, but we're hoping to get some t-shirts there. We're doing events at HR tech with This Way Global and to Tatio is that how we pronounce it Tatio? Chad (11m 19s): Tasha Tatio? Joel (11m 20s): Patio featured on top pod TA Pod or whatever that is. If you want to get in on some of those events hit us up on the DMS, you might get an invite, but it is a red carpet exclusive event from Chadcheese. Cause you know what? We can't rent out Caesars. You know what I'm saying? Like we can't rent out a big enough place for all of our fans. We gotta be somewhat exclusive, but dammit, in two weeks, Vegas, we're gonna have a ton of fun Chad, at HR Tech and every month we have fun with free shit for our listeners. Chad (11m 50s): I think the Tuesday night event is full, but you can still reach out to us around the, that's right kids, the penthouse events with This Way Global. So we might have a few slots for that one, go ahead and reach out. But I guarantee you they won't last long. Joel (12m 7s): I feel bad. All of us, Chad, it's crazy. It's crazy. And we love our fans who are celebrating birthdays this week, Chad another year round the sun for some of our fans. Chad (12m 19s): Happy Birthday! Joel (12m 19s): Our number one fan on the list here is my son Cole Cheeseman. Chad (12m 26s): Cole Cheeseman! Joel (12m 27s): Everybody. My baby boy is celebrating 16 years on planet earth. Chad (12m 30s): Holy shit! Joel (12m 30s): He'll be driving soon. You have been warned if you went in the Indianapolis Metro area, but Happy Birthday to Cole and what he wants for his birthday Chad is a ticket to see Wu Tang, Oz, Busta Rhymes, which we are both going to see tonight. Chad (12m 47s): In Indianapolis. Yes. Joel (12m 47s): In Indianapolis. Yes. It will be more akin to a Dave Matthews concert, I think for, for Indianapolis than New York City. But yeah, we're going to step to the Wu for his 16th birthday. What could be more fun than that? Also celebrating a birthday Olivia Marquette, Matt O'Donnell, Shani Underwood Etel Feinberg. I thought that was Ethel, but it's actually Etel Adam Nelson, Stacy Shaw, reportedly Chris dollar Billets, Chris Hoyt, Bill Boorman. Chad (13m 29s): Yes! Joel (13m 29s): And Chris Murdoch all celebrating birthdays. Happy birthday to everybody. Chad (13m 32s): Hello. TOPICS! Joel (13m 33s): So you broke this late last week. What's going on with Smart Recruiters and Snagit.? Chad (13m 39s): Yep. Broke two big pieces of news last Friday about Smart Recruiters and Snagajob both were verified through multiple sources, but were not corroborated by either company at the time. Now guess what kids? We have corroboration number one, C E O of Smart Recruiters Jerome Ternynck is stepping down as CEO and into the chairman of the board of Smart Recruiters. Jerome, formally announced earlier this week through a short blog post saying quote "to lead this next phase of accelerated growth, we have agreed in partnership with our board of directors to bring in a new CEO with deep experience in leading in growing companies of our size and scale. Chad (14m 22s): This will allow me to transition to the chairman of the board so that I can continue to partner with our Smartians to make an impact on the customers every day" end quote. Jeremy Johnson, Smart Recruiters, CFO will step into the interim CEO position. Smart Recruiters had a 10% reduction in force just weeks ago. So what the hell is going on over there? Joel (14m 49s): First of all, I think it's Martians like Martians. Chad (14m 52s): Is it? Joel (14m 52s): Yeah. Yeah. That's clever. Clever. So I first met Jerome when he first launched Smart Recruiters back in, I think 2011, it was a free ATS back then I thought, yeah, good luck with all that. I don't think they would have done very well on firing squad if we had been doing firing squad at the time they went paid a play and Google launched hired, which made them go back to a more freemium based model. I think the ATS industry is seriously under pressure for a lot of these folks. No one can IPO. We're seeing a lot of consolidation, conversational AI and platforms like DEEL, and Oyster sucking out a lot of the oxygen in our space. Joel (15m 33s): And like we've talked about job boards provide a lot of the ATS functionality for free if you're a small business, it's much easier and more cost effective to use ZipRecruiter or Indeed for your ATS, if you can. And there are only so many big companies to service for the bigger ATSs. Smart Recruiters has raised $225 million and investors eventually want their money. They're on a 12 year run right now, as well as Jerome has been at the helm that long. New leadership will button that thing up and I think it will be gone in 18 months or so. I also wonder, and we won't know this until maybe after the fact, but also wonder when K1 was looking for new companies, ATS is to, to gobble up and they ended up on Lever. Joel (16m 20s): I gotta think Smart Recruiters was in that conversation. Either Jerome left it up or something happened where they were hoping for a big payday from K1 like Lever did. And that caused the board to say, hold on a second. Do we have the right guy at the helm? I think so, whoever, whoever runs this thing is going to cut, cut the fat, get this thing up to full profitability and sell the thing off. Cause I don't see them going IPO in the current state. I mean, I think we talked about this a lot. I do, you know, you're on the clock when you take money. And at that 10 year spot, which Lever and Smart Recruiters both were at, investors want their money. They want return if they don't, they get really antsy. And I think this is largely what happened here. It's not show friends, it's show business. Joel (17m 3s): And this proves once again, that that is true. Even in the employment ATS software industry. Chad (17m 9s): Yeah. I think we've got to remember that, you know, the founder, CEO generally, isn't the CEO who takes that the company to the next level, right? And the first part of his quote was to lead this next phase of accelerated growth. We saw Colin over at iCIMS, he left so that Steve Lucas could be that guy to prospectively, to IPO. But again, it's that next phase, that next stage of the rocket and we do see, and we have seen for years where CEO stay too long, you have to be incredibly interspective as a CEO so that you don't hang on too long. Chad (17m 50s): Also remember that the CEO wasn't the only position rumor to be changing. The CMO and the C T O were also part of last week's rumor. So Smart Recruiters PR was happy to send me Jerome's blog posts, although are eerily silent on the other positions. So what do you think about this? No denial whatsoever that no, this isn't happening. They're just being silent. Joel (18m 13s): No one wants to scare customers that there's like huge changes going on. So a lot of this stuff, you know, is quietly done or it happens over time or it's announced, you know, Friday at six o'clock Eastern. So everyone just sort of forgets about it. I, you know, just think this was a situation of like time ran out. They probably missed a sale opportunity to K1 and said, look, we need to make some serious changes and make some hard decisions. And that's what happened. I don't think this is a situation like, you know, the Google guys come up with a phenomenon in search and then three, four or five years down the road, they go, holy shit, we can't manage this company. It's way too big. We need, some adults to come in the room. I think Jerome is an adult, he just ran out of time. That's how I read into this, but yeah, time will tell but I think this thing will be off the board in 18 to 24 months. Chad (19m 1s): That's a prediction from Joel Cheeseman kids. Joel (19m 4s): It's hard medicine. Sometimes Chad. Chad (19m 7s): Some other hard medicine that's taken the Snagajob news was corroborated by CEO Matchu Stevenson. He said, quote, "the 40% figure was high. That was one of the percentages that we were told was high, but any reduction is painful, especially when it impacts talented individuals due to the factors outside of our control. We did have to make decisions in response to recent changes in market conditions and the uncertain economic outlook" end quote. I then asked about representing blue collar essential workers, because those jobs are exploding right now. We see tons of those. So, you know, why, are we seeing those issues? Chad (19m 47s): And then Matchu's response was quote, "Broadly it's still a robust job market in hourly that said there are pockets of hourly, such as e-commerce fulfillment that have seen a pullback in recent months as consumer behavior has evolved, quote unquote "post COVID" combined. With an uncertain economic environment where the Fed is trying to soften the labor market we need to be able to weather a potential prolonged recession" end quote. First and foremost, he's pointing out pockets in government and saying that we're in a recession. Are those diversions from a business that has been able to, to meet expectations? Because that's what I'm hearing. I really like Matchu but this response to me is more excuse than actual reason. Joel (20m 30s): Yeah. I have a coach that I think of when I hear this response. sfx (20m 34s): Way off. Joel (20m 35s): Yeah. Someone who's a little bit in denial. They're like, this is, this is spinning it for their customers. You know, the media people like us in the market. Remember when we used to talk about Snagajob as like a competitive, like tier two job site? Chad (20m 49s): Oh yeah. Joel (20m 49s): One for the kids. Yeah. We used to talk about Monster, CareerBuilder and Snagajob was the 800 pound gorilla for hourly jobs. I mean, they essentially were ZipRecruiter before ZipRecruiter and speaking of ZipRecruiter Snagajob was fighting a multiple front war that I think has really sort of come to roost here. Zip was spending tons of money on advertising, which Snagajob was not willing or able to do. Indeed was a way to search that appealed to younger folks, you know, 15 years ago. Some of us remember when Google was actually cool and cutting edge. Mobile probably caught them off guard to some degree. They seemed unprepared for social media as well. And all the, while this was happening, the gig economy was growing exponentially. Joel (21m 33s): A battle the bold style attempt to rebrand and compete in the gig economy failed. Our listeners might remember Snag when they changed their name and launched an app that failed. And now we're back to where we started and the same pressures are still there. And there may be even more than they were before because the gig economy is growing exponentially as we know, you know, zip is now a public company. Indeed is bigger than it was. So, you know, with service industry hiring so tight Snagajob should be living its best life, but the world, as far as I can see as apparently passed them by. Frankly, unless some private equity comes along to save them, it's really hard to see a future of growth and maybe even existence for Snagajob in the next five to 10 years. Joel (22m 18s): Thanks for the memories, I guess. But yeah, this is trying to put a lot of lipstick on a pig, as far as you know, their CEO's spinning this. I don't see any good news if you're a Snagajob investor, employee or customer. Chad (22m 32s): So you mentioned Zip and he actually had something to say about Zip. So quote, "while they're more of a horizontal marketplace, Zip's earnings and projections, the last couple of quarters highlight the shift. They've raised earnings at the end of Q1 and then pulled back their forecast for H2, a couple of weeks ago end quote. Look, we just came off of one of probably the best growth patterns that we've ever seen in this industry, especially for recruitment marketing, right? To be able to actually go out and try to make money on job postings. Chad (23m 12s): And we're getting ready to reduce staff dramatically. Joel (23m 14s): ZipRecruiter is a little bit of a victim of their own success. They did such a good job of being like the hourly service seasonal employer. And now they're trying to shift to being a job board for professionals. And frankly, I think, I think that's a confusion of the marketplace. I don't know. I don't think people know what the hell to do with ZipRecruiter anymore. Again, I think it's sort of like trying to, you know, Hey look at these guys over there, you know, they're having a hard time too. All the while, you know, we talk about Glassdoor and Indeed and others, you know, having pretty good quarters. And again, this is, he's pointing out a few quarters for ZipRecruiter. I'm not bullish ZipRecruiter for the long haul, but I think we're talking about macro changes that have impacted Snagajob that are a decade plus in the making. Joel (24m 0s): And they just missed step after misstep and it's coming to roost. Like it's just, you can't keep it up without, you know, paying the price at the end, unless they do some major pivot to save the company. I just, I don't see a future with Snagajob as a major player in our industry. Chad (24m 20s): Yeah. Well, good luck to Jerome to Matchu and even more so to the staff at Smart Recruiters, heads down, keep your assets working. Same at Snagajob. Good luck, good luck there. But when we come back, we're actually going to be talking a little buy or sell. So some of those new kids that are coming down the block, we're going to be talking about those in just a minute. Joel (24m 44s): Good luck with all that Snagajob. All right, Chad, I think this is week two in a row of buy or sell. I mean, how great is that? Chad (24m 55s): And we did buy or sell in the Europe show. Joel (24m 57s): Yeah, we're doing buy or sell everywhere. Yeah. We're not doing unicorns as much, but Hey, people are still getting money. So it's fun. All right, kids, you know the game, we read three companies, they usually raise money. We have one in one this week that hasn't raised money, but they just launched and we thought they were worth talking about. So I read a summary and Chad and I either buy or sell the company. Are you ready to play, Chad? Chad (25m 23s): Let's do it. Joel (25m 23s): All right, let's do it. First up is Glints. That's GLINTS. The job board based in Singapore and launched in 2013, long time ago, announced it has raised 50 million in a series D. This brings Glints total raise so far to $80 million. The platform currently has 3 million professionals in five markets, those being Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan, or as the kids call it APAC. 50,000 companies that are seeking workers use the service. The latest funding will be used to expand Glints' base in the Philippines and maybe no most notably grow demand globally. Joel (26m 5s): Chad, let's talk a little APAC. Are you buy or sell Glints? Chad (26m 11s): Yeah. Glints. Not to be confused with Glints who was acquired by LinkedIn and 2018 at call. Joel (26m 19s): Yeah. Good call. Chad (26m 19s): Total of 82.2 million Glint's trying to be the Indeed of APAC. I think it's interesting that everybody wants to know what one site is going to take down Indeed. We hear that all over the place. What site is it going to be? And I don't believe it's going to be any one site, rather a collective around the world. Sites like Glints, that have focused and hopefully will stay disciplined on the region they know, and win and tear away the market from sites like Indeed. We saw it happen with Monster as tried to dominate worldwide. And they lost smaller regional players. When bigger organizations like Indeed, they try to expand in many cases, they lose focus and that's what we saw with Monster. Chad (27m 2s): They lost focus. They did business the wrong way, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And they lost, they got market share ripped away from them. I think Glints will be a part of the collective that takes on Indeed. It's a buy for me. Joel (27m 19s): Ooh, Chad's buying Glints. Sorry. Chad do you know where water runs? Chad (27m 21s): Downhill. Joel (27m 21s): The path of least resistance. I think he got it right. I think they would count that right on family feud. Anyway, the story here to me is the increased demand for remote workers. Glints says remote cross border job postings grew more than three X year over year. If there's a wall that's gone up in Russia and there's uncertainty with Ukrainian talent, particularly developers. Where do you think employers are going to go? Southeast Asia apparently. This is a 10 year old company who's benefited from timing. Where have we seen that before? There's ample competition mind you, you mentioned Indeed and also Seek is in there by the way. Joel (28m 1s): Indeed is owned by a Japanese mega corporation who might have something to say about APAC as this thing grows out. But Glints to me seems to have cut out a niche that works really well in a world where Europe is well, a little bit in disarray, you should for the foreseeable future see good times at Glints, which means for me, it's also a, buy. Chad (28m 27s): Not to mention Indeed might just buy these guys. Joel (28m 29s): Recruit Holdings has some money. Chad (28m 30s): Yeah. Joel (28m 30s): They have some money. It could be a play. It's getting a little pricey for them now, but they've been known to bring out the wallet. All right, company number two is Kula that's K U L A. Recruitment automation platform Kula has raised $12 million in a seed funding round founded in 2021. This takes total funding to $15 million. The cash will be used for R and D product improvements and go to market teams across the three offices in the US, Singapore and India. The kids call those high growth markets Chad. Kula targets, SMBs and mid-market organizations with less than 1000 employees, which it says are underserved and which I say are shitty targets. Joel (29m 15s): But anyway, Chad is this company Kula than the other side of the pillow or not so hot? Buy or sell Kula? Chad (29m 23s): I see what you did there. This is really another Singapore company that is started in the US. So Singapore is hot right now. These are two Singapore companies that we've been talking about. So if you're listening right now, go to kula.ai and check out their height video. It's literally just saying what everybody knows. The recruitment process is broken. Then it takes you on a brand creation journey which lasts less than two minutes. It looks like a recruitment marketing automation system. They just talk about recruitment automation, but to be quite Frank, I mean, it is very heavily recruitment marketing. The CEO has experience in recruiting. Chad (30m 5s): Big plus. He was at Stripe, Uber, FreshWorks to name a few. One of the other co-founders has marketing automation knowledge. As we've seen from companies like CandidateID in this new world of recruiting recruitment, marketing automation isn't just a nice to have, it is a must have Kula as sexy as it is, is a buy for me. Joel (30m 30s): That's two buys for Mr. Sowash everybody. All right. Chad (30m 32s): Wow. Joel (30m 33s): That's! Let's get my take on this. All right. So let's go over the pros and cons. First, the pros. I love automation. We love automation. I think that's a good lane to be in. Number two, a feature called Kula's Circle, that's clever, consolidates, all employees networks into one dashboard, helping recruiters figure out potential candidates from first degree connections of all their employees. That sounds kind of cool. And number three, India is a billion people, strong and ripe for some homemade solutions just like this. Now let's talk about the cons. They got a lot of competition. HireEasy, SeekOut. Beamery just to name a few. Joel (31m 14s): Taking on those companies is going to be a very tall order. Number two, SMBs, suck ass. It's a shitty business. No one likes it. Everyone goes out of business in two or three years. It's just a bad churn. No one shouldn't wish us on their worst enemy and Kuma has decided to get into it. And number three, they rely a lot on LinkedIn. Hello? HighQ our listeners will know very well, which never seems to work out very well unless your CEO used to work closely with Bill Gates, SeekOut. In all, I think the cons outweigh the pros. Kula for me is a sell Chad. However, now I'm hungry for the Slayer at Koumas on Fountain Square. Joel (31m 57s): So that's nice. Number three. Laddrr. Okay. This one is spelled L a D D R R kind of like our friends at The Ladders, by the way, we should check in on their R and D department real quick. The ladders, everybody. sfx (32m 11s): Crickets. Joel (32m 12s): Yeah. That's that's innovation at the ladders as usual. All right. Step aside, Mark Cenedella There's a new ladder in town. This one again, spelled LA double D double R. Chad (32m 21s): Pat. Can I buy a vowel? That's what I'm saying. Joel (32m 25s): Yeah. Yeah. We're playing all the eighties shows shows today. The mom project has some competition. Laddrr, a resource platform for working mothers has beta launched a talent hub that matches moms to be and mothers at all stages with flexible work opportunities. They promise AI that identifies candidate skills then uses the skills for job matching. Beta launch partners include WeWork and EightFold. And speaking of EightFold, Chad, Ashutosh Garg, founder, and current CEO of Eightfold is a founding member of Laddrr. I don't know if that'll change your, your buy or sell or not, but Chad, are you ready to climb this ladder to the tippy top or is Laddrr a sell? Chad (33m 6s): Yeah. Again, Pat, can I buy a vowel? Jesus Christ people. This is is a much harder one for me than the other two. The design is horrible the logo sucks. I mean, it feels like it was created in the early two thousands. They do have a much better focus and messaging than roll share, which got flamed on last week's European show. And they are leaning very heavily on data, citing things like the motherhood penalty, where even just a year without employment moms can result in 39% lower pay. 61% of stay at home moms aren't working because of family responsibilities and the reasons why this is a great platform for a company wanting to hire more qualified females goes on and on. Chad (33m 54s): Laddrr isn't a career site. I'm gonna say that again. Laddrr isn't a career site, rather it's a resource hub. And one of those resources is jobs. I'm a big fan of creating community to build a lifestyle platform, which keeps users coming back every day. Not just when they're looking for a job, it's ugly, but I love the niche and I love the resource and I love the community that they're trying to create there. I'm a fan. It's a buy. That's three! Joel (34m 26s): You're in a good mood today. All right. So Ashutosh Garg, hopefully I say that correctly, is now officially the Jack Dorsey of our space, leading two companies at the same time. At least that's what it looks like, this smells a little fishy to me. I wonder how EightFold's brass feel about his new venture here. Anyway, it's a noble mission, but how many mom projects do we really need, Chad? And don't forget about Fairy God Boss and InHerSite. And some of the others that we've talked about on the show, maybe there's magic in that AI that they're selling, but whatever they're dropping, I am not picking up. Joel (35m 7s): Laddfr for me is a sell. That's been another episode of buy or sell everybody. I had fun. I hope that you did too. Next up on our news. LinkedIn Nudge, has there been a better brand than Nudge? Not since poke, have we been more excited about a, about a word? All right. From our friends at Aim Group, LinkedIn has added a tool to its hiring platform that provides recruiters with metrics and recommendations that help them target more gender balanced candidate pools. Quote "diversity, Nudges" end quote, pop up when a candidate search produces results that are less than 45% male or female. Joel (35m 48s): Listeners might remember LinkedIn introduced another diversity tool in August of 2021 that lets recruiters deliberately hide photos and names of job candidates with the aim of avoiding racial bias and hiring decisions. LinkedIn has solved the diversity recruiting puzzle once again, Chad, what are your thoughts on this new feature, Nudge? Chad (36m 6s): Well, most recruiters don't give a shit about gender balance, guys. They care about getting the seat filled. So this Nudge should be more about providing transparency within LinkedIn to the rest of the world around workforce composition in every company. That's what they should be doing. They should be focusing on transparency. When a user goes to a company's LinkedIn page, it should show the workforce gender balance because only public shaming will get this equality, equity ball rolling. Putting the onus on the recruiter instead of making it public, making the CEO in leadership look bad. That's the only answer. Chad (36m 47s): Stop trying to put all of the work on the recruiter you stupid assholes. Get it out there and shame the fuck out of these leadership groups. Joel (36m 54s): Companies would shit their pants. If they did that, wouldn't they? Chad (36m 58s): I fucking love it. Joel (36m 59s): You've mentioned this before bandaid on a chest wound. I think that's something that's crazy Chad (37m 1s): On a chest wound yeah. Joel (37m 2s): Sunken chest, since you're on the year in the army, I'm going to go with that. So, so this is a network. Let me remind everyone with over 800 million users that was acquired for $26 billion and is owned by Microsoft. And you're telling me that this shit is the best they can do? I mean, who the fuck is running things over there? And remember, this is also the company that can't even control racism and their own company meetings. Remember that Chad? All right, it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. And they can and should do better. We wonder why LinkedIn can't dethrone Indeed? Chad (37m 39s): Yes. Joel (37m 39s): It's shit like this lipstick on a pig, which also reminds me, Chad, if we're talking about pigs, the Slayer at Kuma at Fountain Square, everybody panics, why don't we record this at lunchtime? Anyway, let's take a quick break. Everybody. I'm going to go grab some Doritos or something and we're going to talk about free beer. Chad (38m 0s): Yes. I think this story was made for us and Joel (38m 3s): It's take football, Ireland and free bear. Chad (38m 6s): Yes! Joel (38m 6s): Yeah. Maybe, maybe. Well, well we mentioned football is back and as I'm sure you'll also be watching as I will Ohio State dismantle Notre Dame this Saturday. Chad (38m 17s): Knock on wood. Yes. Joel (38m 18s): So anyway, two big 10 teams squared off in Dublin last weekend, those being Nebraska and Northwestern, two fan bases that can also put down some beer I'm sure. Not surprisingly their Irish hosts were more than happy to oblige that beer obsession. However, they ran into a snag Chad. Credit card machines went down at the Aveva stadium in Dublin. Chad (38m 41s): What would we do? Joel (38m 43s): A venue that holds 50,000 people. Chad (38m 45s): Damn. Joel (38m 46s): What's more of the stadium does not accept cash and the credit card machines could not connect to the wifi. So what did Dublin do Chad. Concession workers were left to hand out food and drinks for free. Chad (39m 2s): Yes! Joel (39m 2s): Needless to say it was St. Patrick's Day in August and picture of a giant beer snake certainly impressed yours truly on social media. If you don't know what a beer snake is, please look it up. Chad, what's your take on, on this magical heavenly occurrence that happened to these suckers, these damn bastards from Nebraska Northwestern? Chad (39m 22s): I tell you Ireland knows how to treat people. Right because if that would've happened in the US they would have just shut, shut down. They would have closed all the beer joints, all the food joints. And they would just said, sorry, here in the US we just don't give a shit. Ireland does. That's one of the reasons why I love Europe. Another reason kids, why I love Europe. Joel (39m 45s): By the way, Chad, the score in case anyone cares was Nebraska 28, Northwestern 31. Chad (39m 50s): Nobody cares. Joel (39m 51s): How did Nebraska get to sucking so quickly? God, they used to be one of the premier teams in American football. Anyway, again, reminding me how much I love the Slayer at Koumas in Dountain Square Chad, Happy Labor Day to our American brethren. Chad and Cheese (40m 9s): We out. Outro (40m 10s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. Outro (40m 55s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Maybe they're just well-rested from the Labor Day weekend, or maybe they're just antsy with HR Tech in Vegas next week, but the boys are pretty salty this week. After covering the big news of the week: Sense acquiring Skillate, the move-in for the kill, covering news out of ZipRecruiter, Jobadder, and California. It's all very fantastic! But never fear, we release some stress from the campus of Cannabis Community College. All's well that ends well. See you in Vegas! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (0s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. d and Joel (21s): Oh Yeah. Google is clamping down on employee travel, limiting execs to business critical trips only. Guess that means we won't see Google at HR Tech next week then. Huh? Hey, kids you're listening to the Chad Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" Cheeseman. Chad (42s): This is Chad "bittersweet symphony" Sowash. Joel (45s): And on this week's show Sense goes shopping, Zip saves America and JobAdder gets punched down under, let's do this Chad (54s): Oo. Man ooo Vegas, Vegas, and then Nashville and then Paris. And then Chad's keeping his ass in Europe for about three months. But other than that, I mean, it's gonna be a slow 2022. Joel (1m 10s): Yeah. I've I've been detoxing for two weeks in preparation of HR Tech. Chad (1m 14s): Smart. Joel (1m 15s): Yeah. Very smart. And then I'll probably be detoxing the two weeks after HR Tech. Geez, we got a lot going on. We do, but we got a lot going on this week. Should we get to shoutouts? Cuz we get a lot to cover. Chad (1m 27s): Let's do it kid. It's a bitter sweet symphony shoutout as Susan Vitale, the Chief Marketing Officer over at iCIMS and Mike Wilczak, the Chief Product Officer over at iCIMS, literally two amazing people are leaving iCIMS. sfx (1m 45s): What did you say? Chad (1m 46s): Yeah. Leaving iCIMS. So Susan started at iCIMS as a marketing coordinator in 2005 and has climbed the ladder all the way to CMO. You can't think of iCIMS without thinking of Susan, who's been a part of the core iCIMS team, I mean forever obviously. Yeah. If anyone has ever heard me speak of Mike Wilczak they know I'm a fanboy. Mike has done everything from partnerships to leading MNA and now the Chief Product Officer. There's not a more plugged in person in the industry than Mike, not just tech but funding also. So these are two great people leaving two very big holes to fill over at iCIMS. Chad (2m 28s): They say they're gonna be back. When and where don't know, but until then take a breath, blow some of that iCIMS Willy Wonka cash and enjoy life my friends. It's bittersweet though. Yeah, Joel (2m 41s): Yeah it is. And, not to throw pontification on this, but to do that before the impending IPO, which we think is still gonna happen is a little curious. It's a little curious to leave before an IPO, but both of them are very smart and obviously did what was best for them and their families and great people. I might add. Always great people, always a little New Jersey attitude from Susan Vitale that I know that this show she needs to come back just to get back on the show and whatever company she ends up with. But nice melancholy bittersweet shoutout on that one. Chad (3m 17s): I think with, with the chains off, they'll be on the show. They can come on the show. Joel (3m 21s): The chains are off Chad (3m 22s): So much better. Joel (3m 24s): Susan Vitaly, unchained. I can imagine that that show's gonna be a best seller. Little more on the bid than the suite on this one. This shout out for Megos to Marilyn Loden, the woman who coined the phrase "glass ceiling" in 1978, which still inspires women today has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 76 years old Loden first said the phrase during a panel at the 1978 Women's Action Alliance conference in New York City. In 2018, she told the Washington post, she hoped the saying would quote "become an antiquated phrase where people will say there was a time when there was a glass ceiling" Joel (4m 9s): end quote. Of course we all know there's still a lot of work to do on that glass ceiling. Shout out to Marilyn Loden, the woman behind the glass ceiling. Chad (4m 21s): Yeah, not quite there yet kids keep working. Shout out to our listeners. So last week I opened up the show with a question to you, Joel. Yeah. What would happen if you were working for a defense contractor, you were quit fired and you took sensitive information, possibly confidential material home with you. Listeners you can listen last week's show for Joel's response. I'm sure you know what it is. But I had a few anonymous responses from practitioners at government contractors. Here's a quote from one quote, "penalties can include termination, civil and or criminal prosecution by the company, the government has its own roles, which are playing out in the news, AKA Edward Snowden and Reality Winner. Chad (5m 8s): So if you remember Reality Winner leaked a one page intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections to a news outlet and received five years and three months in a federal prison. Harboring or leaking confidential or compartmentalized information is a serious offense. It doesn't matter. I mean just ask Edward Snowden. Where's he at today? Joel (5m 35s): Yeah. Didn't Trump call for the death penalty for Snowden back in the day. I seem to remember that. Chad (5m 42s): Imagine that. Yeah. Joel (5m 44s): Yeah. Let alone put Hillary in prison for what she allegedly did or didn't do. Yeah. It's tough when you put the mirror back on you. Chad (5m 52s): But just regular people who do this stuff as a job are getting slammed or finding themselves in Russia. Right? Because that's the only place they can live without getting thrown in jail. But yeah. It's but yeah, it's, you know, we, we fire a dude and he thinks it's okay to take shit. Joel (6m 11s): Would we be shocked if Trump ended up in Moscow? Chad (6m 14s): No! Joel (6m 14s): I would not be shocked. It would be shocking, but I would not be shocked. Chad (6m 19s): I wouldn't be shocked. And I would would also not be shocked if we found him in Moscow. And then a few years later "he fell out a window." Joel (6m 30s): Along with the release of the pee pee tape. That apparently is as he exists somewhere. Oh man. Oh fuck. All right. Let's let's get back on track here. I gotta shout out to Salih Mujcic. Salih Mujcisc lives in Australia and is head of Product Innovation at Hello Monday and he's a Chad and Cheese super fan. Chad the fact that we can reach so many people around the world is awesome. And frankly, it's really humbling when people around the globe reach out to us on the socials and say, thank you. And that they really love this show. So I wanna just take a second to thsank Salih Mujcic for listening to this show and being a big fan. Joel (7m 10s): He's probably riding a kangaroo and drinking a Fosters right now as he's listening to this, shout out. We appreciate it, man. Keep it up and keep listening. Thanks Chad (7m 20s): For listening. Thanks for the connections and make sure all your friends, family, people that you work with. They're listening too. Joel (7m 26s): I told him to leave a review like everyone else who listens to the show. Chad (7m 30s): Oh, good call. Joel (7m 30s): Which he is hopefully gonna do this week. Chad (7m 32s): Yeah. Let's hope that happens. Free stuff. Joel (7m 34s): Hold on, Chad. I got a special shout out. Chad (7m 38s): Oh yes, no, go, go Joel (7m 39s): Cold Cheeseman who celebrated a birthday, we noted that on last week's show is now Chipotle's newest employee. Chad (7m 53s): Oh my God. Joel (7m 54s): Actually we have, we have a clip from his interview. Ready? Ready? Hold on. sfx (7m 59s): Oh my God. I want Chipotle, Chipotle's my life. Joel (8m 4s): That's right. Chad (8m 4s): And then right after that hired. Joel (8m 6s): Yeah. Yeah. I think he's more excited about the free food that employees get than he is the salary. But, but I'm a proud Papa to see him employed in corporate America. Shout out to Cole, Cheeseman, eating a Bar-b-que bowl and loving life. Chad (8m 25s): That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, let's talk a little bit about free stuff. So Cole gets some free foods. He's gonna have to work for it, but he gets a little free food, but you, my friend, listener, anybody out there can get free stuff. You go to Chadcheese.com/free to register. And guess what? We have new t-shirts that's right. Brand spanking new t-shirts coming out, powered by our friends over at JobGet! That's right if you're gonna be at HR tech, I believe hopefully we'll be able to get some of these new t-shirts out and you can go to the JobGet booth to get, get it? Chad (9m 5s): Your free t-shirt. Joel (9m 6s): Everyone say a prayer that we get those in time. I'm I'm a little less optimistic, but we'll see. We'll see. Chad (9m 13s): Just in case then Textkernel's giving away whiskey that's right. Two fifths of whiskey kids. You get one from Chad, one from Cheese, from our friends over at Textkernel because the Dutch like whiskey apparently. And then we have beer from Aspen Tech Labs. That's right. Check out Aspen Tech Labs, free stuff, free stuff, free stuff. Joel (9m 42s): Free stuff. Love our sponsors giving away shit and killing everybody's liver and clothing. I love it. Clothing our fans gotta love it. Chad (9m 50s): Clothing our fans. So we've got fantasy football from Factory Fix to talk about. Joel (9m 56s): Yes, sir. We drafted on Tuesday. Chad (9m 57s): Yes. How do you feel about your team? I not too bad. Not too bad. It's going to be an interesting league this year. We threw in quarterback as kinda like a Superflex. Joel (10m 8s): Yep. Chad (10m 8s): And then we also shortened up the bench to only five with no IR. Joel (10m 13s): Yep. Chad (10m 13s): So it's going to be a very interesting season. The one thing that I thought was funny was like 15 minutes before we started the draft, we got a message from Joe Wilke over at JobGet, and his power went out right before the draft started. So he had to hop in a car and go to the Panera, I guess, which was the closest because Joe would not autodraft he was not having that. Joel (10m 39s): That's dedication. So yeah, the two QBs will be interesting. I, I felt like you came out strong on that. You got Mahomes and who's your second guy. Oh, Chad (10m 47s): Burrow, Joe Burrow. Joel (10m 48s): Burrow. That's right. Like that, those two could carry you through most of the season. Let's hope the BI weeks are gonna be a bitch. Chad (10m 54s): Yes. Joel (10m 54s): I mean, a lot of people are gonna lose people. There's gonna be some trades. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised that the winner has a 500 record. I mean, that's how like weird this league could get, but yeah, we'll, we'll be posting the leaderboard every week on the socials. We'll be talking about it here on the show, but yeah, big ups to Factory Fix for supporting fantasy football, another addiction of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (11m 18s): Yeah. We're gonna have Factory Fix kind of like Wayne's World top to bottom of the week videos. Joel (11m 25s): Are they gonna do that? Chad (11m 27s): Yep. And then we're gonna do, we're gonna do also, you know, some of the trades that happen, stupid trades, smart trades, all that other fun stuff. So the guys over Factory Fix, man, they love them some football. Joel (11m 39s): They do. Good Chicago boys who won't have much to do after week four or five in Chicago than to talk about fantasy. Chad (11m 44s): Oh God don't say that. Joel (11m 45s): Cause that's roughly when the season that season will end. Well, speaking of Chicago, are we going anywhere soon? Chad (11m 50s): First off, you'll see that we will be donning the Shaker Recruitment Marketing gear very soon because next week kids ~ HR Tech in Vegas. Now it's okay, our dance cards are full. Tuesday the drinks with Chad and Cheese on Tatio event is full. Wednesday we have the penthouse podcast with drinks with This Way Global that is also full, but you can find us roaming the floor. You can buy us a drink I'm sure on our way from party to party. That's cool. We really wanna see you guys go over to JobGet look for some t-shirts go to over to Textkernel, look for drinks. Chad (12m 34s): Any of our sponsors, check 'em out. Tell 'em that Chad and Cheese said hi. We have that going on. Obviously Vegas you're prepped and ready. Right? You've your liver's ready. Joel (12m 44s): I'm pretty ready for Vegas for sure. I mean, it's one way. It's one thing to talk about it, but until you actually get in the game, you know, reading about it and looking at past experience is never quite an adjustment for what's gonna happen. I mean, look, we've been cooped up for two years. This is the first HR tech that people are gonna really throw their, put their hair back, put on the Sunday best. Chad (13m 5s): Let it fly. Joel (13m 6s): Probably get a little bit nuts. I'm guessing. So yeah. Chad (13m 9s): Yeah. Joel (13m 9s): It'll be interesting. Chad (13m 11s): Well then we're going early October we're going to Nashville for Inspire. So gotta check that out. Joel (13m 21s): Vegas. Chad (13m 21s): Yes. Vegas then Nashville. That's a great follow up, but there's no question kids we have after that mid-October yes. Unleash in Paris! Man if you have not been to Unleash America, go to Paris. It's a great reason to get out, enjoy Paris, enjoy HR TA Tech. It's Paris. Not to mention 20% off kids. That's right. 20% off, go to Chadcheese.com register for all of these events. Oh yeah. Go! Spend money. You gotta go 20% off on the Unleash event. Register. We can't wait to see that be there. Joel (14m 2s): That's a good bit of a change there. That's a good, it is. That's nice. That's Grouponesque! Very nice. Well, someone, some people who love a Groupon, but one of them may have to settle for rum. Chad (14m 15s): What? Joel (14m 16s): That's right, Chad, you know, we've been doing birthdays for quite a while and you know, we're always looking for creative ways and companies are coming to us for creative ways to promote their companies and get their name out there. Well, our friends at Plum said, Hey guys, what if every month we picked a birthday boy or girl to get a nice little bottle of rum on Plum. So starting this month, boys and girls, if it's your birthday, you got a chance to win a nice bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. Geez. That's some good marketing right there. Well, let's, let's highlight. Who's celebrating this week. Another trip around the sun. Joel (14m 56s): Happy Birthday! Jim Lowe. Lucas Roscoe. Who won whiskey at one point? Didn't he? Oh, JD Gentry. John Tehan. Kevin Lowe, which I first read is Kevin Love as a Kevin ears fan, but found it was not the Kevin Love. Now Amy Hoover, James Ellis. Oh, Gary Cross. Nancy Holland, Dan Shabel and Matt Adam. Long timer at NAS. All celebrate another trip around the sun. Happy Birthday, everybody Happy Birthday every day. Chad (15m 32s): The sun on Plum with some rum. Joel (15m 37s): Damn. We're good. Damn. Chad (15m 39s): Topics! Joel (15m 39s): All right. We're rolling here. All right. San Francisco based Sense a recent firing squad guest, by the way, if you haven't checked that out, I highly recommend it in the archives. They pulled a double applause, double rainbow rating, not to spoil. Chad (15m 57s): Double rainbow! Joel (15m 58s): They've acquired India based Skillate in terms of the deal we're not disclosed, but Skillate had last raised 1 million in its pre-series A funding from angel investors in 2019, and also raised undisclosed seed funding from incubate India fund back in 2017. Skillate is an AI recruitment platform incubated within SAP startup studio and Sens is a talent engagement platform. In addition to expanding Sense's matching capabilities this acquisition brings AI powered talent engagement to senses customers, The likes that include Sony, Coca-Cola, Anheiser Bush along with the majority of unicorns in India. Joel (16m 42s): Founded in 2016, Skillate employees 36 people, that's according to LinkedIn and the three Skillate founders, as well as it sounds like all the employees will be joining Sense. Chad, what are your thoughts on this deal? Chad (16m 56s): Skillate. I thought that was an item on the Bob Evans menu. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? No, Joel (17m 3s): It is enough. Skillate is enough. Chad (17m 7s): Yeah. So since the 90 close to $90 million in funding, 40,000 users, daily 700 companies using, 600 of them are staffing companies! 30 million ARR. I mean the team is legit. Focus on healthcare, retail, hospitality, warehousing, but mostly staffing, obviously Skillate's been around since 2016. 2 rounds of funding amounts were not listed according to Crunchbase. And they were, as I think you'd said an SAP incubator program. So the thing that's interesting here to me is that it seems like Skillate does almost the exact same kind of shit that Sense was doing. Yep. So why buy? Chad (17m 48s): Is this a portfolio buy? Is this an Aqua hire or maybe they're just trying to get rid of vendors parsing and matching? Because as we know many of these platforms that are out there today, who tout parsing and matching or just matching as one of their products? Well, it's actually something that's white labeled from another company. So I'm wondering if this is like shoring up senses real true technical assets and then also getting, you know, good acquihire at the same time? Joel (18m 20s): Yep. Yep. I think you're onto something there. You mentioned the $89 million that that since is raised, which includes SoftBank, little player in the VC game. Chad (18m 27s): Hello. Joel (18m 28s): That gives you a lot of money to go shopping. When you get that kind of money, they want you to spend it. And you had mentioned that crunch base was a little bit lacking in funding information on Skillate. But I had found that they had raised $1 million in a pre-series A, and another undisclosed in 2017. So let's call it less than 2 million that they had raised. So this was a really affordable acquisition for them. And, I'm gonna highlight three things that make sense to me in terms of this getting done. And I agree with you that it's a lot of similarities in terms of what they do. Yeah. But number one, Aqua hire, I mean the three founders are gonna be joining Sense. Joel (19m 11s): I'm gonna guess they're pretty smart people. It sounds like most, if not all of the employees from Skillate are gonna be joining since a lot of which are probably developers. So that was a good move for them. Number two, I think customer acquisition is part of it. Although most of Skillate's customers look pretty small. There aren't any big hitters in there. Integrations are pretty similar although I think the Smart Recruiters is one that that Sense does not have currently. So that may be some that they can do. But I think most importantly to highlight here is the SAP relationship. To get into a company that has relationships with SAP, who frankly can spend the kind of money that Sense is gonna need to be acquired. Joel (19m 57s): The list of companies that buy companies that have gotten $90 million is pretty small, but SAP is in that universe. Chad (20m 3s): Yes. Joel (20m 3s): But for me it was a good move to say, Hey, let's get close to SAP and a company that was funded by them, just in case we want to be acquired down the road this might be a really good relationship to have. So acquihire, a few one integration at least so that they don't have. Maybe a few customers that they didn't. But I think the SAP connection was paramount in doing this deal that got Punkaj's attention. Chad (20m 29s): I think. Yeah. I think we're gonna be seeing a lot of this kids. We're gonna see a lot of consolidation, but a lot of the consolidations going to be with companies that look like they do just about the same thing, but what they're actually doing is they're shoring up their tech and they're shoring up their teams. Again, this is an Indian company. So more than likely they got an opportunity to get some really good developers and some tech on the cheap. So good for them. Joel (21m 1s): Yeah. We talk about India, not a lot, but quite a bit, as companies I think start shifting away from China. I think India is gonna be where a lot of the energy money starts flowing. Indian companies are gonna be well well positioned to, to profit from that. So good on Sense. Keep your eye on them. They're doing a lot of really good things. I was really impressed in their firing squad and we'll see them in Vegas I think. Maybe. Chad (21m 27s): Yes. Joel (21m 28s): Maybe a drink with Punkaj. Really get him talking. All right. Our second story here involves JobAdder. Come Chad (21m 38s): Come from the land down under. Joel (21m 40s): From Sydney JobAdder headquarters. So the following message came in from one of our super fans regarding ATS provider JobAdder. Quote, "I'm assuming you're on top of the fuckup that JobAdder has made to their customers with price increase announcements. It's all over LinkedIn" end quote. Sure enough it is all over LinkedIn. Australian and Kiwi customers especially, aren't very happy. Here's a taste of the commentary from LinkedIn. Following the price increase, quote, "you unilaterally increase prices without any prior communication or intent" end quote. Quote "You need a better PR person full stop" Joel (22m 20s): end quote. And this one in response to JobAdder's holding a webinar to hopefully iron things out. Quote "you're hosting a live webinar but once again, telling your customers to listen and interact on your terms." Chad (22m 36s): Yes. Joel (22m 37s): "This is tone deaf and adds fuel to the fire" end quote. Ouch. A video apology from CEO Martin Herbst on LinkedIn seemed to only add fuel to the Bar-bee. Chad, what are your thoughts? Chad (22m 49s): Martin, Martin, Martin, nothing like shooting yourself in the fucking foot man. All of JobAdder the entire company is trying to stop the bleeding from this self-inflicted wound. And Martin pulled the goddamn trigger. We're looking at, I think 7% increase for new customers all the way up to 50% increases for customers who've been around and loyal a while. Joel (23m 14s): Did you say 50%? sfx (23m 15s): boooooo Chad (23m 16s): So, and this is not just a comms issue, okay. Let's dig in a little bit deeper because I watched the whole webinar and I, there are just some distinct issues that's happening with JobAdder. First and foremost, JobAdder is extremely exposed. All contracts are month to month. I mean what the actual fuck? So instead of moving to a more secure annual model and then slightly raising prices every year, which is expected, they stay in a monthly contract situation that bring out huge price, increase bomb. I mean, it's crazy. Martin's reasoning was, well, we haven't raised prices since I've been here. Chad (23m 57s): I mean, okay. So whose fucking fault is that? We have great NPS scores so let's raise the prices now because customers won't leave that. You could see that in his brain. He's like, well, we've got great NPS. People aren't gonna leave. They're happy with us. And he also said, it's pretty much, I'm paraphrasing, it's the customer's fault. If they aren't getting the most outta JobAdder, that's on them. So comms is key here. There's no question and JobAdder fucked up the comms. I get it. But this is a masterclass on how not to raise prices. This move was fucked seven days to Sunday, before it even happened. And I'm surprised that JobAdder's owner Seek hasn't already locked off Martin Herbst's head. Chad (24m 42s): Seriously. I mean, their model needs to evolve. Their pricing needs to nudge slightly annually, with market rate rates and JobAdder will remain exposed while they play this month to month bullshit game. If you're gonna play with the big boys, you've gotta become a real company and you obviously don't have the leadership that actually has the business acumen to get this done. Joel (25m 5s): Damn, bro, that was good. Doing homework the week before HR Tech, that's the kind of quality podcasting that you're gonna get from this show. So in doing some of my research on this, I was Googling for commentary. And, so there was an ad on Google from Creely their competitor and the title of the Creely ad was why overpay for outdated tools. So, well played to Creely. I gotta give them a good one on the mark in there. So for an industry that gets to read all the time about CEOs and organizations who, you know, get layoffs wrong and fail to adequately communicate the decisions they make. Joel (25m 46s): There's really no excuse to drop a price increase with no apparent heads up to your customers. Many of which have been with you for a really long time and maybe love your service. That's just not a good idea. This is especially important, to me something like an ATS and I know that the pricing is month to month, but most people don't buy an ATS month to month. Like they wanna integrate it and keep it for a long time. They usually make a decision to buy something like an ATS. If you're a job board and you raise rates, like people can just say, well fuck that, I'm gonna put all my money to a competitor. It's not that big of a deal, which is probably why job boards, unless you're named Indeed and can get away with it that don't raise their rates that often. Joel (26m 28s): I think a sincere apology and maybe reversing to more of a soft landing for customers. Maybe some grandfathering in there or something might work. But overall, this is a really, really bad move, bro. Yeah. Chad (26m 39s): I've gotta give a shout out though, to JobAdder customer service and sales teams. I mean really the entire staff, these people are the ones who are taking the brunt of this bullshit, of this self inflicted wound by their, their CEO. So I suggest, and Martin, here's a great idea. I suggest this huge price hike go to staff raises for having to put up with your shitty leadership. Joel (27m 9s): Nice call. Nice call, at least buy a Fosters keg for everybody. Jesus Christ. Take them to Outback Steakhouse. Chad (27m 15s): Subway. Yeah. Joel (27m 16s): Treat him to a Crocodile Dundee movie marathon or something make 'em feel better. All right. Chad (27m 21s): Raises for everyone. Joel (27m 22s): We're gonna take a break. The rants do not stop people. You're gonna wanna stick around. Chad. I'm not sure if you've heard, huh? There's a major teaching shortage in the US. Chad (27m 39s): It's everywhere. Yes. Joel (27m 40s): Yeah. And in true Washington fashion, President Biden had a meeting. That meeting included Indeed, Handshake and ZipRecruiter from our industry. Indeed announced virtual hiring fairs for educators nationwide and Handshake will host a nationwide virtual event in October to help college students learn about careers in education. But Zip Recruiter took it a step further launching 'School Jobs Near Me, which is specifically tailored to K through 12 education jobs on the internet. Yeah. The industry has finally saved America everybody. Chad, give us your thoughts on ZipRecruiter and the industry taking on the teacher shortage in America. Chad (28m 22s): These all three of them are weak attempts, but ZipRecruiter, no question, a weak attempt to just throw up another job board and say, look, we did something. When an all reality, it's not about exposing open positions to people who are looking. It's about teachers leaving shitty teaching jobs, shitty pay, shitty working conditions. We need to fix the problem before anyone of sound mind and body actually takes the mantle of teaching. Funding cuts, which lead to no pay raises means teachers leave, teachers leaving means bigger classrooms, bigger classrooms does not make for better education. Chad (29m 3s): And that is what we need. That's the big issue here. So from USA today, the latest results of international exam given to teenagers rank the US ninth in reading and 31st in math literacy, out of nine countries. And then a quote from Balance quote "the truth is that the US ranks near the bottom in survey of students, math skills in 30 industrialized countries", instead of knowing and confronting the facts, which is not what these assholes are doing many Americans are in denial. So ZipRecruiter isn't in denial, but they are playing off Americans denial and throwing up a fucking job board that will do little, if anything, to drive another, look at me, look at me, press release. Chad (29m 53s): ZipRecruiter isn't helping the problem at all. Indeed, isn't helping the problem at all. Handshake you're not helping the problem at all. Joel (30m 3s): So I did the following Google searches, Chad. Education jobs, teaching jobs, school jobs. I got nothing. So I searched school jobs near me, which is the actual zip URL for this site. You know, who wasn't advertising for any of these searches. Chad (30m 21s): Zip Recruiter. Joel (30m 23s): Zip Recruiter, you know, where school jobs near me is not being promoted? Zip Recruiter's homepage. And you know, what's not a trending job type or title on Zip Recruiter, anything involving education. Chad (30m 34s): God. Joel (30m 34s): Feels good to talk the talk, but you gotta walk the walk, guys. This is window dressing and PR that will do nothing to cure the problems we have in public education and the lack of teachers in this country. 62% of public schools reported in June, that they were concerned about filling staff vacancies. 88% of public schools reported teacher and staff burnout was a concern during the 2021 through 22 school year. This is a real problem that our industry can actually help impact. We can actually help this problem, but instead we get Zip Recruiters Ian Siegel saying, quote, "we are committed to leveraging our technology for this great cause. Joel (31m 17s): Our nation's children depend on us and we must all rise to the occasion" end quote. Bullshit, hot garbage. Fuck you Zip Recruiter. Nice PR, but you're doing zip to cure this problem that ails America. This is an embarrassment for our industry and everyone should be ashamed. Chad (31m 34s): Mic drop here. Joel (31m 35s): California. Geez. The rants are coming. All right, here we go. Chad (31m 39s): Yes. Joel (31m 39s): The state of California is in the news for workplace issues recently. First a new law could raise fast food minimum wage significantly in the golden state. Under the legislation, a council could raise the minimum wage for fast food workers up to $22 an hour. Chad (31m 57s): Hello! Joel (31m 58s): Well, above the $15 an hour in the state for employers with more 26 workers. The new standards apply to chains with at least a hundred locations nationally. So McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell. All the major food groups that are in my diet, basically. Of course, fast food isn't happy. McDonald's president Joe Erlinger called the legislation, "lopsided hypocritical and ill conceived" end quote, but Cali isn't done there, Chad. Could I interest you in a little paid transparency? I thought I could. The state legislature passed a law requiring all employers based or hiring in the state to post salary ranges on all job listings. Joel (32m 40s): The law will also require California based companies with more than 100 employees to show their median gender and racial pay gaps, a first for a US state. Governor Newsom has yet to sign the bill into law. Chad, what are your thoughts on what's going on in California? Chad (32m 57s): Yeah, I think it's interesting, you know, the fast food industrial complex that we have here in the US where you can have pretty much a Starbucks right across the street from another Starbucks or a McDonald's just down the road from another McDonald's believe that we need to have more because we don't number one. In California, the living wage, and this is the mean living wage is $18 and 66 cents. And that is just for one person. The amount goes up dramatically with the addition of children. For one person or one child jumps to $40 and 34 cents, for two it's $50. Chad (33m 38s): Okay. So 22 cents to be able to ensure that these franchisees aren't opening 27 fucking locations, maybe they cut that in half and they start to be smarter about how they market, as opposed to trying to, you know, again, own every fucking corner. This is not a smart business move for them. Right? They're gonna have to think about business differently. Then we start talking about pay transparency. This in itself is going to talk more to the fortune 500 companies who have been hiding from transparency for a very long time. I'll make this point once again, the only reason why the US women's national soccer team achieved pay equity with the men's national soccer team was due to pay transparency. Chad (34m 20s): The women knew they were getting paid less, so they fucking rectified it. That's what corporate America does not want to happen because that's gonna be cash out of their pockets. But guess what kids it's coming. And the first form is just on job postings, which means, you know what the new people are getting paid. You don't know what the person next to you is getting paid. Yet. Joel (34m 45s): So, so we have some footage from Miso Robotics when this story came out. Yeah. They're pretty excited about it. So these things always have unintended consequences. It always sounds good and politicians like talking about this stuff, but every dollar that we put on the hourly wage means, you know, one less minute that we have for humans to be serving, cooking, and doing all the services that we know and love in the fast food industry. Someone at McDonald's and young brands and everywhere else are getting calculators out. And they're saying, how soon before we can bring in the robots? What's the depreciation on these robots? What's the initial investment? Joel (35m 25s): What's it gonna cost? Because that's where this thing is going. And maybe it's just states realizing that the automation is coming and we might as well like milk it for all we can before the robots do take over. But although everything you said sounds great, but the robots are coming. And the more that we put regulation and money on minimum wage, we're closer to that automation. So that's my take on the $22 an hour. On the transparency thing, you know that to me, that's lovely. Look, California joins Colorado, New York City and Washington state, as well as Indeed, by the way, we've talked about them putting in, you know, salaries whether you like it or not good for Indeed. Joel (36m 14s): So all these states are adopting job posting transparency with salaries only Colorado's law is actually currently in effect. New York City based employers will have to start listing pay ranges starting November 1st, the New York state legislature also passed a similar bill that's awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's signature. If the California, New York governors who are both Democrats sign the pending laws, almost a quarter of the US population will live in states with such salary disclosure requirements. I'm guessing it won't go to a hundred percent of states. And I'm guessing that a lot of the U-Haul moving trucks, you see leaving California and New York are going to Texas and Florida, but I think this is a solid step in the right direction. Joel (36m 59s): You and I both have talked extensively about, we need pay transparency for equality and equity. And I think, you know, laws like this should be applauded. And I think companies like Indeed that take tactics to put salaries within job postings are a step in the right direction. Chad (37m 16s): It is. So you worked fast food, right? Joel (37m 19s): Yeah. Chad (37m 19s): I worked fast food. Yeah, hated it. I got out as soon as I fucking could. Could you imagine being a grown ass man, working fast food and getting paid $15 an hour and having a family? Joel (37m 32s): The answer's no, but the context to a lot of that is when we worked fast food, it was a quote entry level, you know, first job, summer thing. Chad (37m 41s): When manufacturing existed in the US. Joel (37m 44s): It's a totally different game now. Chad (37m 46s): There are only so many jobs that are actually available that I can actually pay. Right? So it's one of those things where we here in the US, we outsource manufacturing. And then what happens? The, fast food industrial complex came in. Prices still went up, but yet we didn't pay people more. So I don't think the problem is to be quite Frank. I, I can't wait for the fucking automation to come in to fast food, but we have way too many fast food locations. It is fucking ridiculous. Joel (38m 20s): I'm cool. I'm cool. With a Taco Bell on every corner, man. Chad (38m 26s): I'm sure you are. Joel (38m 28s): Let's take a break from all this ranting and cool it down with some cannabis. Chad (38m 31s): Cool it down to slow it down. Joel (38m 33s): Chad, are you familiar with cannabis community college? Chad (38m 35s): I am not, but it sounds amazing! Joel (38m 38s): Any of your kids visit that campus before they decided on a school? Chad (38m 42s): I didn't know it existed, or I would've pushed them there. Joel (38m 46s): I know. Right? So, so this news caught my attention just for one, for the fact that there's actually a cannabis community college, but they're going digital, which means you may be hearing more, a little bit about them. So, first a little bit about the institution of higher learning, known as the Cannabis Community College, it was specifically developed for job seekers, employees, and enthusiasts of the cannabis industry. Founded in Las Vegas in 2020, so it's brand new, the platform teaches every legal state's educational requirements to work in a licensed marijuana establishment, including state specific compliance, standard operating procedures, and many essential courses developed to ensure that the students are properly trained with the necessary knowledge and technical skills to work in a variety of settings. Joel (39m 42s): But announced this week, you don't have to go to Vegas anymore Chad. Cannabis Community College has an online course featuring the five course bundle. No you're not buying insurance, you're getting an education, which includes the cultivating a cannabis career course taught by HR leader Brian Olson, who I checked actually does have some HR chops. Chad, are you ready to take a few online courses in cannabis? Chad (40m 11s): Well, let's see, especially for all of the global listeners that are out there outside the US. So the US has 50 states and also District of Columbia. Medical marijuana is legal in 45 states. Recreational marijuana is legal in 23 states. Marijuana sales are expected to top $33 billion in 2022. sfx (40m 33s): What did you say? Chad (40m 35s): Just this year? $33 billion, right? So yes little Trump Universities, like these are gonna pop up. There's no question, but this is going to be a real industry, at least here in the US. As we start to see, I think Europe maybe, you know, see the, the capitalization of marijuana, recreation and us not going crazy with reefer madness over here. I think it'll catch on there too. Joel (41m 3s): My kid gets a job at Chipotle. We got fast food news outta California, and now weed. I've got the munchies. We out. Chad (41m 11s): We out. OUTRO (41m 50s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Europe is largely an aging, over-regulated, polarized economy with immigration challenges and a war on its doorstep. That's the bad news. Now to the good news, as told by Intelligence Group's CEO and founder Geert-Jan Waasdorp: The Old World is a more equitable, tech-driven, dynamic economy that's on solid footing and filled with interesting startups. But can he sell that rosy vision to Chad & Cheese? You need to listen to find out. DOWNLOAD EUROPEAN TALENT INTELLIGENCE REPORT PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (21s): Oh yeah, what's up kids? You know who it is. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am your cohost. Joel Cheeseman joined as always the Woodstock to my Snoopy. Mr. Chad Sowash. And today we're going Euro on your ass. Everyone. Welcome Geert Jan Waasdorp. He is the CEO and founder of Intelligence Group. Joining us from the Netherlands Geert, or I'll just call you GJ for short, how you doing? Welcome to the show. Geert (53s): Thank you. Great for you having me. Yeah. Joel (55s): Good to be. Chad (56s): I hear, I hear it's a, a little warm in the Netherlands nowadays. How are you guys dealing with that? You don't generally have air conditioning units. How's that working for you? Geert (1m 6s): Well, it's sweaty. Joel (1m 8s): Sweaty. Geert (1m 9s): Yeah. And hot is fun, but too hot is well it's especially sweaty. Joel (1m 14s): So for people like me that don't understand 30 degrees Celsius. What is that? Like 90 to a 100 in Fahrenheit. Yeah, Geert (1m 20s): I guess. Joel (1m 21s): So it's just hot, hot as balls. Everybody in the Netherlands hot as balls. Chad (1m 26s): It is hot. We talked about on one of the weekly shows in Luton airport in London where the tarmac was melting. Apparently that's going to our friends in the Netherlands. So that should be fun. Joel (1m 37s): Chad loves it hot in Portugal though. He gets to copper to up the melon and get that nice shine on that head. Chad (1m 44s): Amen. Joel (1m 45s): It's something he loves. Chad (1m 47s): Amen. Amen. So GJ do us a little favor just for all those listeners that are out there that don't know who you are. Give us a little Twitter bio of you. And then we'll jump into the research. Geert (2m 0s): My name's he Geert-Jan Waasdorp of Intelligence Group almost 25 years in the labor market and recruitment industry, always working on data, talent intelligence, and looking for trends and developments in the markets, the Netherlands we started, and now we are doing Europe and that's amazing what's happening there. Chad (2m 26s): In Europe. Well, I should say here in the US, we use a term called LMI so labor market information, and there's a huge market for that here in the United States. Is that pretty much the same thing that you guys do in Europe? It's all labor market information in always intense on the labor market. Yes, Geert (2m 45s): That's exactly what we do, but it's that market in the Netherlands and in Europe is just developing. So if I look at labor market insights, recruitment data or talent intelligence, that's the new high talent intelligence. It's just hot since last two, three years and not, and now with the shortages and it's really taking off and getting more and more important because knowing what's happening in the market gives you a competitive advantage in recruiting. Which Joel (3m 17s): Which is what your organization does. So give us the elevator pitch on Intelligence Group. Geert (3m 22s): Very, very short. We know exactly how big talent pools are, where you can find talents in Europe, what you need to offer them as employer benefits, the talent that you are looking for, or the channels that you need to use to recruit them. So to Joel (3m 38s): So to put this in context for our listeners, GJ dropped 160 plus page report on Chad's and my lap. We'll keep it simple for our listeners, cuz we know who you are, but the European intelligence manual from 2022. GJ give us sort of a 30,000 foot view of the intelligence manual, what you're hoping to accomplish from it. Geert (3m 59s): Well, I think the one message that we have with this manual is that if you want to recruit in any country in Europe, any country is different, really different from another. And even by region countries within a country, there's a lot of difference. And if you don't know, that data, it's almost impossible for you to recruit in another country that you don't know. And really it's day and night, if you even compare well, I'm in the Netherlands and if I compare the Netherlands to Belgium and the half of Belgium is also like Dutch speaking, the Belgium market is even more different than the German market is to the Netherlands. And the Germans speak a different language. Geert (4m 42s): So it's really day and night. And I think a lot of recruiters underestimates the differences in recruitment tooling, in ethics, in legalization, between countries and regions. Chad (4m 58s): In starting the European podcast, Chad and Cheese does Europe, European podcast. You know, we knew as a couple of dumb Americans, we did not understand the dynamics at all, but as we dug into it and we started to interview leaders in Europe, in different countries, we started to understand that they didn't even understand what their neighbors were doing or the inequities or what they were using to actually target or search for jobs. I mean, so from our standpoint, I mean that was mind blowing to think that, okay, so in America we really don't understand Europe, but hell in Europe, this information seems like gold too. Chad (5m 44s): Is that one of the reasons why you felt like you had to pull something like this together, be just because you were seeing the exact same thing that we were saying? Geert (5m 52s): Well, we really needed proof when we have discussions with recruitment leaders in Europe. So if I talk to an average recruitment leader, they define the market as what LinkedIn tells them the market is, and you're laughing, but that's really true. And they define the market as English speaking because they are themselves English speaking. That's sometimes the native language also. And they expect that, well, they are recruiting for an international company so they are only recruiting English people. So the main language is English and LinkedIn tells them how the market looks like, but what LinkedIn doesn't tell them that they only have the data of people that use LinkedIn and have also often the English profiles. Geert (6m 43s): So if you go to Germany or even go to Poland or you go to Hungary, you see that the adoption of LinkedIn is very small. They are by far not leading in those countries. Chad (6m 53s): Yeah. We'll dig into that in a minute, cuz I wanna go deeper. But before we do that, let's talk about how the research was compiled. So this was a survey. How was the information compiled? How many countries, how many people were surveyed? Et cetera, etcetera. Geert (7m 10s): Okay. That we surveyed almost 100,000 people last year and we do that every year. Joel (7m 17s): Hold on. A hundred thousand? Geert (7m 21s): Yeah. 99,175 to be exact. Joel (7m 23s): Holy shit. Chad (7m 25s): Now that okay, George Laroque, that is a sample size. Okay. You wanna talk about 300 being a sample size. That is a fucking sample size George! Joel (7m 36s): That's your Herculian. Geert (7m 38s): Yeah. 27th countries, 19 different languages. So then you see that the simple size you have to have a good, simple size in every country. Even if it's the small countries like Denmark, you still need to have a simple size to say something about the labor market in Denmark. And we do that year by year. Joel (7m 57s): So some of your takeaways you mentioned, and I'm gonna give you sort of my main takeaways from the report and you tell me where I'm right and where I'm wrong. Some of my major takeaways are that Europe is getting very old and that's a major issue with employment. There are huge differences between the north and the south of the continent and what are those differences in employment? And then immigration is a huge issue in Europe. Am I right about those sort of three main takeaways or am I wrong? And I should be looking at something different. Geert (8m 33s): You are right in every way, but it could be that the, for example, if you look to the differences between north and south, but also between east and west, the differences could be different than you expect them to be. For example, I would expect before I did the research that the differences between the wages between male and female are bigger in the south than they are in the north, but it's exactly the other way around the, the south is more emancipated. I dunno if that's the good word, but there are less differences between male and female, but I expected it to be because it's more male dominated the south of Europe and the north always says, they says, we are more liberated. Geert (9m 17s): You expect it the other way around, but it isn't. Joel (9m 22s): Greater pay disparity in the north than versus south. Okay. Geert (9m 26s): Well, especially in the Netherlands, the UK Germany countries, they're always full of how it should be. Well, they suck at it. Chad (9m 35s): So the report actually demonstrates that. Yeah. I mean, Finland was almost equal as men earn 0.1% more than women. So, that's almost equal and, you know, that's Scandinavia. Then we have Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania where women actually earn more than men. So these, I agree. I thought Finland might be close, but Bulgaria, Estonia and Romania that blew my doors off. I didn't realize that women were actually making more than men. Do we understand why that is? Is it the type of jobs? Geert (10m 9s): I truly cannot tell you what the reason is because I was surprised also by those numbers. And I need to say that those that was from the Euro stats, that's like the Central Bureau of Statistics from Europe. So it was not by the questionnaires that we saw that, but that was data that's even, well, they question about 2 million people every year. So it's even another source. But that, that was very remarkable. Chad (10m 34s): Yes, Joel (10m 34s): Let's get to the next thing that really drew my attention. And, and this one will shock you Chad, quite a bit. It was the, Big Mac index. What the hell is the Big Mac index and why does it not do with me getting Big Mac shipped to my house? Geert (10m 49s): Well, the Big Mac index is that's how you can easily compare what you can buy for a dollar in the country. Because in one country you can buy for $1, you can buy more Big Mac than in another country. And to be more comparable between what you can buy with your money that you earn in the country, they made a Big Mac index. So you can make a fair amount on, well, you earn less, but can you buy more or less with the money that you earn in a country? And that's why they created we didn't. But this is a number that is used all over the world and it's called a Big Mac index. Geert (11m 30s): So you compare exactly what you can buy, how many Big Macs you can buy, by the salary that you make. Chad (11m 36s): Joel, Joel's getting ready to relocate to Romania after seeing this. Joel (11m 40s): Bulgaria sounds really good. And so for, yeah, for context, if you're in Switzerland, forget about it, forget about it. If you're in Estonia, Bulgaria, lots of Big Macs, you can buy with the dollar, but from an employment perspective, I'm guessing that that impacts salaries. So salaries in Switzerland are gonna be much more than they will be in Estonia. And you can expect to earn more, although things cost much more. Is that correct? Geert (12m 4s): That's exactly correct. And this data is for example, very interesting. If you want to nearshore your workforce or want to know where to recruit and you look at what the seller you can pay. So it's interesting to see where you can buy cheaper labor. And I need to be a little bit safe on this part because I know how Chad reacts to that kind of stuff. But it's for in recruitment, you see that it's what you can buy for a dollar is also labor. And this kind of data is important for international recruitment. Chad (12m 36s): If you take a look at it though, because of all the digital nomad programs and opportunities that are happening, you can actually earn a much larger salary and still live in Romania and get that wonderful Big Mac index. Right? So I mean the labor market in itself is starting to morph dramatically. Don't you think? Geert (12m 58s): Yeah. And that's really changing. And you even have countries in Europe that if you are digital nomad in those countries, you don't have to pay taxes. So you don't have to pay taxes, you earn more and you do the same labor. So it's very interesting for people who can be a digital nomad you don't pay taxes in certain countries in Europe. If you are digital nomad, you don't pay taxes. Joel (13m 21s): Wow. Chad (13m 21s): Yeah. You don't pay taxes. And that allows for more of the Big Macs. So, let's go ahead and jump into one of our favorite topics. Europe's favorite job boards. Now this is something that is, we're looking at as an aggregate of all Europe. We've got Indeed, LinkedIn, neither. One of those are surprising info jobs, which doesn't exist in the US really? Yeah. Monster, which is over StepStone. sfx (13m 48s): What did you say? Chad (13m 49s): And then last but not least Adecco. So what actually did any of this surprise you whatsoever? I mean, Monster surprises us whenever it shows up on a list. Joel (13m 60s): No StepStone. Chad (14m 0s): No StepStone is right after Monster, but they're heavy really just in Germany, but JG, what surprised you about this? Anything? Well, Geert (14m 8s): Well, I think that, well, Indeed, LinkedIn didn't surprise me, but info jobs did surprise me because they are by far market leader in Spain and in Italy. And because they are big in those countries and those countries are also very big, then you see, by average, they have a footprint in Europe, but to be honest, they only have a footprint in two out of 27 countries. Wow. And then, because the European market only has local champions. So the market leader in let's say Swiss doesn't exist in Austria or in Germany. So you only have local champions. That means that Monster because they are like top 10 in like eight countries and that's also by Stepstone combined they have a footprint in Europe. Geert (14m 50s): But if you look in this, in the countries themselves, in some countries, they have a sort of footprint by average, they don't. But it exactly tells you that there is no European job board. That's the real message. And by Adecco being six. Yeah. And if you go to seven, eight, and nine, you see a Ranstad or you see Man Power, you see the agencies coming up because they are present in more countries. But if you compare their footprint or the percentages of people using them, that's like not even the 10th of LinkedIn or Indeed. So they are fourth and they are fifth they're Monster and inaudibl in StepStone, but it's never a real choice in when you are recruiting locally. Geert (15m 34s): If you are recruiting in global, in the total of Europe, it could be a choice that you make. And what you do miss here is programmatic. And I know you talked about it also in the Chad and Cheese show, but programmatic doesn't have a footprint in the whole continental Europe. It doesn't exist. Chad (15m 52s): And do you believe it doesn't exist? Just because it's so damn complex. I mean, you've got to be able to know the Denmark job board, the Sweden job board. I mean, it's much more complex than here in the states where everybody speaks the exact same language. And let's say, for instance, StepStone is not gonna do well in France. Obviously they shut down France operations. So do you just think that it's more complicated and more complex to be able to maneuver from a relationship standpoint and that's why it's not happened in Europe? Or is it just that Europeans are slow? Geert (16m 28s): No, I think that it's more complex. And the countries like the Netherlands or Belgium is very small. So it's also difficult to gather data and information to feature algorithms. But what I also think that's happening, like Axel Springer, the holding of StepStone, they bought a programmatic company. I dunno the name Appcast. Chad (16m 51s): Yeah. Geert (16m 51s): But I think they just killed it because they made much more money by publishing vacancies on StepStone to give you an idea to publish a vacancy, on one vacancy duration post on StepStone. It's about, I think 12 or 1300 euros that's today . Yeah. So that's a business model. Yeah. Chad (17m 13s): Now I totally agree not to mention they have this amazing app cast infrastructure that is a money maker in the US. So they are draining money outta the US and they have an opportunity maybe someday to start programmatic and Appcast in Europe. But before we go down that road, I wanna talk about LinkedIn versus Indeed, because again, in the US and really across the world, these are the two biggest names in our space. So in Eastern Europe, LinkedIn, isn't really used 11% of individuals surveyed in Germany, use LinkedIn 11% while 58% use Indeed in Germany. Chad (17m 54s): But in Sweden, in Norway, those positions are switched, where LinkedIn has massive numbers over Indeed. I think this just demonstrates the huge differences from country to country in region to region. Do you find that most companies try this one vehicle operation or maybe even two, like an Indeed and a LinkedIn and they just can't get penetration into the market. Geert (18m 20s): Yeah. They really missed the market and I always explain if you LinkedIn went too late into the east and in the east of Europe, they already had copy cats of LinkedIn, like Xing in Germany of and in the other Eastern companies, other countries, they already had copycat. So that market was in a way already gone, but from a perspective of people using LinkedIn and using LinkedIn recruiter seats, they see so many talents buy in numbers of go buy in, in numbers that they still think that that LinkedIn is huge. Geert (19m 3s): And it is from a one company perspective. It is. Cause if you get 11% of all the talent in Germany by using LinkedIn, that's still enormous amount of numbers, but you probably can use better tooling than that's to reach more people. And especially if you go to the Eastern part of Europe. Yeah. That's what I can say about that. Chad (19m 27s): Most companies don't realize that, you know, countries like Estonia are hyper focused on tech talent and producing tech talent and neither LinkedIn or Indeed does well there. So how in the hell do you get penetration into a country that is incredibly focused and savvy around tech like Estonia? Yeah. Geert (19m 47s): Yeah. I'll need to go quick into the manual to tell you exactly what it is in Estonia, but they have a local champion and probably a local champion that by far dominates the market and could be from a historical perspective. Be market leader, could also be a market leader because they are funded by the government and the government tells them or everybody who's looking for a job. This is at least where you put your CV or tells companies they are obligated to publish their vacancies on those job boards. So you can also say in those countries, it's not always a completely free market because regulations makes that vacancies or CVs should be on that platform. Geert (20m 32s): I know that's in certain European countries, but in other European countries, you just have other market leaders. And the market is so dominated by those leaders, new entrances by Indeed or LinkedIn or any other party, it's a no go because you cannot win that market. Or the market is too small to win or to be interested to penetrate because these are also small countries. Joel (20m 55s): Well, that's gonna be really hard for the folks at Zip Recruiter and talent.com who are hoping to get a foothold in Europe to hear for them. So that's a bummer. Geert (21m 6s): Well, I know for one thing, for sure, Zip Recruiter will never get a footprint in European markets, a new job board getting a footprint in the European market. I think that's impossible if, Indeed cannot do that or LinkedIn cannot do that. But what I do think is that like platform technology that will be, if we look at, for now in the next 10 years, I think the new market leaders will come from that part. And I think the agencies like Adecco manpower, but probably new agencies like JobAndTalent and I know you love the name, but those kind of parties will be the next generation of market leaders in Europe. Joel (21m 53s): Interesting. Well, let's talk about Russia and Ukraine, cuz I know that's a little bit of the elephant in the room and something that's impacting the country now and will also have impact in the future. So what's sort of your takeaway in terms of immigration developers fleeing the country and not just the Ukraine, but also Russia. How is that impacting the European landscape? Geert (22m 14s): Well, the Russian market is very simple to answer. There is no Russian market anymore because we cannot do any business with the Russian market. And also not with call it white Russian,I don't know what the English words is it, but it's another country. Joel (22m 31s): Do we have an idea of how many developers and professionals have left Russia in light of the invasion? Is it a lot or less than we think? Geert (22m 39s): I think it's less than you think because people are not allowed to travel. So it's very difficult for people to leave Russia. I think the only way you can leave Russia is by going to Turkey and then to Europe. So that's not a route, many people take. And if we look at the data of Ukraine, we also research Ukraine. But when we made the manual, we thought it was very in, it was not really nice to put in the market of Ukraine because there were so many uncertainties. Chad (23m 10s): Yeah. Geert (23m 10s): But as I look now, we are going to publish again, the data of Ukraine and also make that data available because we see that the labor marketing Ukraine is, it started again or they already did like two or three months ago. And, but Ukraine is very big. And I think that's, well, I don't like the word normal, but you see that the labor market is getting to a new sort of normal in the Ukraine. And I think a lot of people are again, thinking about nearshoring, their nearshoring, their work to Ukraine. Joel (23m 45s): We know a lot of Ukrainians have left the country, particularly developers and a lot went to Poland, Germany, who are they going to? Are those professionals gonna stay in those countries by your estimation? Are they gonna go back? I mean, what are they gonna go back to? And, my assumption is they're going to stay in Poland, in Germany and France. And, and if that's the case who wins the most in that calculus, is it Germany and UK, are there countries we don't think about? Are they all gonna stay in Poland? Cause that's where initially they went? Talk about that. Geert (24m 22s): Well, I think that first of all, men were not allowed to leave Ukraine. That meant till the year of 60. So all the male developers, at least a lot of them are still in the Ukraine. The people who left Ukraine were mainly women and children. They went to Poland and Germany and they do gain by having that labor force because of the shortages. And we see it also in the Netherlands is about 25,000 people are from Ukraine are working here, but I expect most of them to return back to their husband or to their family back into the Ukraine. So I don't, I think it's more temporary than it will be for a long time. Geert (25m 5s): Okay. That's my guess. 80 - 90% of all developers are still in the Ukraine and are still, are already working if not fighting. Joel (25m 13s): And I'm guessing most are in the gig economy, finding opportunity or/and companies also, I guess, contracting Ukrainians as well. So they're still able to work if they can put the gun down for a few minutes, right? Geert (25m 25s): Yes, that's true. Joel (25m 26s): Gotcha. So talking about immigration and Ukraine for a little bit, I wanna talk about others coming into Europe, namely the Chad Sowashes of the world, we hear a lot about expats, people leaving the us, coming to Europe. Was that any part of your survey or any comments around Americans coming over to Europe and how that impacts employment? Geert (25m 47s): Well, I think the, the amount of Americans going into Europe is I expect to be not that big and doesn't have a significant impact on the European market, but that's my expect expectation, but I don't know, have I don't have the numbers. What I do see is people for example, from India, from Indonesia, but also from Africa coming in to be at the labor force for companies, for like Romania or Hungaria. So the shortages in those countries are even higher than they are in Germany and they get the labor out of Europe getting into in those countries. Chad (26m 31s): Well, I see that, you know, there's a migration set up by country because you have this amazing data country by country and there's a migration piece. So just take a look, as joel was talking about in Portugal, the migration is 72,725 immigrants to Portugal. That's from a variety of, of different countries and then 28,219 Portuguese people leaving. So there's, there's a net gain of almost 50,000 at that point. And when we're talking about a country, the size of Indiana, about 10 million people for all those American listeners out there. Chad (27m 14s): You know, that's, that's fairly substantial. Geert (27m 15s): Yeah, that's true. And, and that is, that differs from country to country. Chad (27m 20s): Yes. Geert (27m 20s): And what you see is in Portugal probably a lot of immigrants come out of South America because of the Portuguese history and also the languages they have I think with, what is it, Brazil or this Argentina, I don't know exactly? Chad (27m 36s): Portuguese. Geert (27m 36s): Yeah. But if you look at Germany or you look at UK, the UK, for example, has a relations historical relations with India. So if they bring in immigrants, a lot of them are from India. So every country has their own relation to other countries. Chad (27m 53s): Yeah. On the other side, I taking a look at Romania where Joel wants to go, he wants to migrate to, for the Big Mac index, they have 202,422 who are immigrating to. So 202,000 plus, and they have 233,000. So they have 30,000 plus of the, the prospect of a brain drain. So again, I mean, when you start taking a look and digging into this country by country, you can, you can basically see the movement from some countries to other countries. It's pretty amazing. Is there any way to do more like detailed flow in understanding where all these individuals are going to? Geert (28m 37s): Yeah. And that, that data is also is available on even on a global scale. That's and that's where you see the migration flow. If you look at Romania, for example, the migration flow goes there from east to west Europe. So people living in Romania are going to work in more in Germany or in the Netherlands or in France, because they can buy more Big Macs in total of the money they make. But to lose off, to gain the losses they have on the labor markets, Romania gets people from outside Europe and brings them into Romania. And that's how the flow works. So they bring in it more from Asia into Europe and Romanians go to the rest part of Europe. Geert (29m 22s): So that's the migration flow goes also from east to west in Europe. Chad (29m 29s): Gotcha. Well, Geert-Jan Waasdorp kids that's right. CEO and founder of the Intelligence Group. JG. If somebody wants to actually, you know, I don't know, go download the European talent intelligence manual for 2022. Where would you send them? Geert (29m 49s): Well, I would send them to our website, www.intelligence/group.nl. And the manual is free to download, just register your name and you get some emails from us. No, just kidding. You get the manual from us. And I hope it surprises everybody in Europe, but also outside of Europe. Chad (30m 8s): Oh, excellent. Man. I, again, I appreciate it. This is some great data. I'd be surprised if you don't have a ton of people downloading this, just to be able to understand what's happening in the neighborhood, not to mention taking a look across the pond. Joel (30m 22s): Chad, That's another one in the can. Lots of fun. And we out. Chad (30m 28s): We out. OUTRO (30m 23s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (31m 7s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Big announcement this week, as our buddies from Belgium announce the acquisition of four - yes, FOUR - businesses, including France's StaffMe and Germany's LD Personalvermittlung GmbH. Don't worry, we'll explain everything. If that's not enough, the boys play Buy-or-Sell, weighing in on startups deskbird, Catch, and nPloy. Spoiler alert: Lots of sell ratings. Ending the podcast is a salute to Poland and their "chance of a lifetime," compliments of Ukraine. Shoutouts include a dash of Irish gold, In Truss We Trust (Maybe), and wait, there goes my hero! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Joel (4s): That's really good on the kazoo. No one, no one knows this about Chad. Chad (10s): I've been practicing. This is my favorite part. INTRO (13s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (35s): Oh, oh yeah. Russia has closed the Nord Stream pipeline to Europe as natural gas prices spiked 28% this week, but this podcast, yeah, it's still free people. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "October Fest beer is going to cost an arm and a leg this year" Cheeseman Chad (56s): And I'm Chad "I'm not crying, you're crying "Sowash. Lieven (60s): And I'm Lieven "still loving the long heart European summer" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 4s): So hot. And on this episode, the House of HR gets a little more crowded. Poland steps up and a little buy or sell, including a Tinder for jobs start up. Hey, let's do this. sfx (1m 17s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 19s): So you're liking the hot weather Lieven? That's what I'm hearing. Joel (1m 23s): How's that energy bill this summer Lieven? Lieven (1m 26s): That's a good thing since sends it's like very hot. We don't need to heat our houses, which normally in September we should be doing. Chad (1m 33s): Well. You guys don't have AC do you? Lieven (1m 35s): I really don't need it. It's not really common here. I mean, in the office is a it, but not in standard old houses, like mine. Joel (1m 41s): So, is the dooms day narrative in the US for real, that we're taught, they're talking about 10 X energy bills this winter. Lieven (1m 50s): And that's really, really a problem. Joel (1m 51s): I mean, that's going to be pitchforks in the street, right? Lieven (1m 54s): I can't imagine it will not be. Not really. If I was working for one of those energy companies making billions of money, I would start hiring. How did you call them the Pinkertons? Chad (2m 4s): Pinkerton's yeah, they better get some fucking Pinkertons that's for sure. Jesus, Lieven (2m 9s): Because it's not, it's not that long ago that people in the streets in France for singing were gonna hang the aristocrats and now their new aristocrats are those people. So, Joel (2m 20s): So the narrative is that energy companies are makingm that they're gouging customers and that it's their fault that energy bills will go there? No one's blaming Russia for this? Lieven (2m 30s): No, no, it's definitely Russia, but there is something weird. I mean, gas prices are skyrocketing because of Russia but I like electricity prices are linked to gas prices even though some companies still just use nuclear plants and they don't have anything to do with gas, but they still sell their electricity at terrible prices. And they're making tons and tons of money and that's plain, right evil. Chad (2m 55s): And that's what you do. You look for the opportunity to make cash off the backs of the little man. Joel (3m 2s): Such socialists in Europe, such socialists Chad (3m 5s): That shows you the Thatcher influence right there, baby capitalism. Joel (3m 10s): Speaking of which. Chad (3m 11s): Yes. Joel (3m 11s): Lieven's shout out involves a new prime minister that's getting a lot of attention across the pond, Lieven what you got for shout outs? Lieven (3m 18s): Liz Truss you guys, new prime minister and for you American bumpkins, who probably never heard about Liz Truss. sfx (3m 26s): What did you say? Lieven (3m 27s): Liz Truss? I know, you know, you meant bumpkins. Okay. Whatever. So you probably still remember Boris "so I wasn't born to follow my own rules," Johnson, the guy, he had his fun, but now it's time to get serious again. And I think in Europe, we all know female Tories make great prime ministers in times of war. And I don't think she likes Europe, but she even hates Russia more so over goods. So in Liz we trust, welcome Liz. And I'm sure she's listening. So Hi Liz! Joel (3m 56s): Obviously, obviously listening. Yes. It's the, the narrative over here in the states is that she is Margaret Thatcher 2.0, which means she's very conservative, which means a lot of our English friends aren't real happy about the new prime minister, but time will tell as far as you know, what kind of policies she implements and what kind of impact that has on England and the UK. Chad (4m 19s): See if she goes after the Petrol companies. Lieven (4m 25s): Yeah who knows? Chad (4m 26s): Well, let's keep our shout-outs in the UK. Shall we? Shout out to England rock fans and the Foo Fighters who jammed Wimbley Stadium on Saturday for a tribute to late Foo Fighters, drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died earlier this year, celebrities like Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen, Liam Gallagher, Mark Ronson, Dave Chappelle came out to honor Taylor, but nothing was more meaningful than when 16 year old Shane Hawkins. Yes. Son of drummer Taylor set behind the drum kit and played Foo Fighter's hit song My Hero with his dad's band. Chad (5m 8s): Shout out to England for filling Wimbly Staley stadium to the brim, honoring an amazing musician and giving a 16 year old kid a chance to honor his dad in a moment he will never forget. Shout out to England. Joel (5m 23s): That's great. That's great. And for me, it was a Liam doing Live Forever. That that touched my heart Chad. And just the fact that you mentioned Liam Gallagher in the same breadth of anything on this show makes money. Chad (5m 34s): I'm just glad that they had him go first and got him off the fucking stage. Joel (5m 39s): Save the best for first. All right, I'm going to keep it in the UK kind of, but not really with Ireland, maybe partly a UK. sfx (5m 48s): I can make you rich. Joel (5m 49s): So the Emerald isle is on a roll boys. Employment figures have reached record levels in Ireland with workforce growth in almost all sectors of the total number of employed people aged 15 to 89, where they really go up with the numbers. There has suppressed 2.55 million people and 8.7% increase from the 2.34 million who were employed at the same time last year. In short, more people are employed in Ireland now than ever before. The reason there are many but consumption of Irish whiskey, isn't hurting the cause, but a 250 million Euro investment, Irish distillers the company behind the names like Jamison and Green Spot will be creating 800 new jobs over the next three years. Joel (6m 38s): Now that's a copper pot of gold I can get behind shout out to our friends in Ireland. sfx (6m 43s): I can make you rich. Chad (6m 45s): And that just goes back to what we talked about. I think a few weeks ago, when you said that, Hey, we're not talking about Ireland anymore. With regard to companies going there and so on and so forth. This is demonstrates there is a saturation point. Joel (6m 58s): That's right now, it's now it's up to at home products and services like Irish whiskey to help carry the banner. I couldn't be happier. Lieven (7m 8s): I think you can't hide behind being American, but I wouldn't dare calling Irish people part of UK. I mean, people have been kneecap to kneecap for much less. Joel (7m 18s): Only the north part. Lieven (7m 21s): That's doubtable for some Joel (7m 22s): How many countries are in this country for four? Chad (7m 29s): Four. Joel (7m 29s): Four Okay. Chad (7m 30s): Events, OK, kids'. Joel (7m 31s): Events. Chad (7m 31s): We're traveling and you'll notice. And you'll know that we're traveling because we will be wearing our Shaker Recruitment Marketing gear. That's that's right kids. Coming to Europe in October for Unleash World in Paris. That's October 12th through the 13th. I'm pretty hyped to get back to Europe. Lieven's already there. But how about you? Joel? Are you hyped? Joel (7m 52s): Oh, I love Paris, Paris in the fall. What could be better? Chad (7m 55s): Paris in the fall? Joel (7m 56s): I still hold hope that Lieven could surprise us in Vegas next week. I think that Lieven could pull a Lieven and show up on the strip. Lieven (8m 4s): It's so much fun to be able to say Lieven Las Vegas. Joel (8m 13s): Lieven Las Vegas Chad (8m 13s): You don't see it happen. Wait a minute. I still got a ticket discount. Oh yeah. So all those kids who want to go to Unleash, everybody should want to go to Unleash, but we have a 20% discount for attendees. That's right. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right-hand corner. Check out the event, calendar register there and you, my friend will receive 20% off. Thanks to our friends over at Unleash. Lieven (8m 46s): Oh just give it to me. Joel (8m 49s): We're also launching Groupon on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (8m 58s): Topics! Joel (8m 58s): All this one hits close to home. If you know what I'm saying? Not one, not two, not three House of HR has announced four Chad (9m 11s): Geez. Joel (9m 11s): Promotions expanding through France, Germany and the Netherlands. Those are French digital matching platform Staff Me founded in 2016 German company LDPersonal – vermittlung GmbH found in 2017 and focused on physician jobs and out of the Netherlands FID or Fid a leading temporary employment player in waste processing, recycling and landscaping, as well as BIS People who specializes in flex employment. The combined revenue of the four acquisitions in 2021 was around 63 million euros. So Lieven your employer has been pretty busy lately. Joel (9m 53s): You're not just sitting back with a Duvel after the Bain Capital investment. What the hell is going on at House of HR? Lieven (10m 1s): No, no, no. Bain actually thinks we need to grow. So they'll more for us. Actually it's been pretty busy. So has you mentioned four acquisitions for recently last week and first one, maybe the biggest one is Staff Me. I'm sure if you know Staff Me, you? One of you? Chad and Cheese (10m 21s): No. Nope. Lieven (10m 23s): Nope. Never. Staff Me. If this was a buyer or seller and I would mention Staff Me and I would give an explanation, you would say, buy, buy, buy it. Cause Staff Me is a pretty important digital talent acquisition platform in France and that made it interesting for us because we have Nowjobs, which is doing something similar and we wanted to enter France. We already did, but we wanted to grow faster, given France, being a very big market. So we now acquired Staff Me and we're going to launch Nowjobs within Staff Me and to make it grow faster. So it's focusing on students, on connecting students, young entrepreneurs with companies, blah, blah, blah. You know, the whole, whole thing. Lieven (11m 4s): Students has always have always been interesting to us, especially to me. I mean, I'm a fifth of my time is a teacher. So I always been in touch with students and I was always looking, how are they getting their first jobs? Because I wanted to make sure if we gave them their first job, they probably, we would be giving them many more jobs afterwards. Their first job is a student job, then we get to know them and we would be able to pick them up and to give them their first real job. And okay. So when we launched Nowjobs, I thought this is a great way to get in touch with students and to get them before someone else can. But I wasn't really thinking about revenue at that time. And as we see now, it's actually big volumes. Lieven (11m 44s): So it's a big business as well. Nowjobs has reached 100 million euros revenue. And now with France, it's growing fast. We already had Germany. So back to the point, Staff Me French digital platform doing well. And the two CEO's will be on board Amaury d'Everlange (co-founder & CEO) and Jean-Baptiste Achard (co-founder & General Director). And I loved our names. I mean, with names like this will get you laid in the US for sure I think. Chad (12m 14s): That's pretty fucking French. Okay. So let's jump into this real quick. Staff Me's been around since 2016, they've taken them out 3.5 million euros and funding and that was in 2018. And at about 25 million euros was reported for revenue in 2021. That's not too shabby, but I mean, Nowjobs is like four times the size of that. So is Nowjobs and France going to be folded into Staff Me, or they're going to stay separate brands, just working together. Lieven (12m 44s): It's going to be folded into Staff Me in France books also, but separates. I mean, Nowjobs is much bigger than Staff Me is right now, but Nowjobs is one of our big companies so it makes sense to launch them. So we had 268 offices in Belgium when we launched Nowjobs and all 268 offices were promoting Nowjobs. So it was just easy to start. And I mean, those people from Staff Me, they had grow slower than we did, than Nowjobs did. But now, I think with our help, they'll be able to grow quicker. Yes. Chad (13m 18s): Yes. So the Staff Me academy provides professional training for young independent workers. What kind of training? I mean, I love the idea of getting the workforce ready for an actual fucking job. That's awesome. But what kind of training do they give them? Lieven (13m 33s): It depends and since their focus are students, and also young entrepreneurs, meaning young, you know, it depends on what the market is asking. And I think re-skilling definitely for practical jobs will be something which will stay important for the coming decade, I guess, because we'll have to switch fast. But I always think re-skilling for students as weird because they're students, they're just still studying, why should they be re-skilling them? But then I was thinking about a big Belgium bank KBC. It doesn't matter a big bank, financial institution, and 10 years ago they started hiring people who studied, how do you call it? Lieven (14m 15s): Philosophy, et cetera. So very interesting. But try to find a job saying I'm a philosopher. Is that a thing? Chad (14m 22s): Philosophy major? Yeah. Lieven (14m 22s): Yeah. So that's not really easy. It's more of a hobby. I think. So it does. There's a bank offered all those people, pretty intelligent people, but with the wrong kind of degree at that point, offered them the opportunity to re-skill themselves during one year to become an IT and I was amazed how many people actually did? And not only philosophers also are people who study to German languages when in Belgium, no one needs German, et cetera. So they offered skilled to people, another skill, and I think that's sometimes probably something they will be doing too. Re-skilling to fit needs, which suddenly occur. Chad (14m 58s): Yes. Joel (14m 60s): Lieven, always in touch with the students. I love that. And that will get you in trouble in some countries. Lieven (15m 10s): I'm not touching students. In a very fatherly way. Joel (15m 12s): So Nowjobs is just open shop in Germany. Chad (15m 19s): Catholic Father? Wait a minute. Lieven (15m 20s): A reformed father. Joel (15m 21s): You went there. Lieven (15m 21s): And one of my students last year, or two years ago came to meet and we had a chat after class and she asked, can I ask you a question? How old are you? So I'm 45. Oh you're exactly as old as my father. I thought damn. Joel (15m 35s): And then Lieven asked if she liked gladiator movies? Lieven (15m 39s): Yeah. Do you have like a parent complex? Joel (15m 41s): So Nowjobs is in Germany as well. So you got France, like what does this mean for your growth on the continent? Are you going to stay put in France cause we've talked about how unique of a market France is. What does this mean to the growth opportunities? Lieven (15m 55s): France is just one country and Europe has a bunch of countries we're going to launch all over. Joel (16m 1s): So Nowjobs is going to grow into most, if not all of Europe. Lieven (16m 4s): That's the plan. Chad (16m 5s): I mean, this is more of a portfolio play from what it sounds like. Joel (16m 9s): Yeah. House of HR feels like a cradle to grave service. You guys are going after students. And then you're going after, you know, physicians and healthcare, flex jobs, construction, you guys are covering pretty much the gamut of every single person from their working lives, which may or may not have something to do with the reason Bain bought into the company. But am I right in saying you're basically creating a cradle to grave solution for people throughout their entire worklife. Lieven (16m 38s): And I didn't know the expression cradle to grave, but understand that, I like it, even though it sounds a bit harsh, but that's actually the idea. I mean, we definitely want to be offering career guidance. So at the moment you pick up a student and you offer him not just the job, but the whole career plan. You've got them for life. Chad (16m 58s): Okay. Lieven enough about Staff Me. Okay. I get it. It kicks ass. You bought it. That's awesome. Tell us more about some of these other acquisitions that you guys just made. Lieven (17m 7s): Second one is in Germany. LDPersonal – vermittlung. It's a terrible name, probably for Germans, but it means local doctors and the word local comes from the Latin phrase, locum tenants, meaning placeholder. So locum is a person who temporary fulfills the duties of someone else. So locum doctor is a doctor who covers for another doctor who's on leave. So we already had Avanti in Germany and they are doing exactly the same thing but with nurses and as Rika our CEO says, it's a match match made in heaven. We're going to match those nurses and those doctors and it's a big win. So we didn't need to advanced matching software to see the opportunity. So it's a specialized staffing agency focusing on physicians and Chad (17m 51s): Nice. Lieven (17m 51s): That's interesting. Yeah. It's you can't go wrong with nurses and healthcare indeed, because anti-cyclic, even if there is a downturn, people will still get sick. People will still go to the hospital. And then we had two more acquisitions. We had two bolt-ons from House of Covebo Dutch. So a bolt-on acquisition is an acquisition done by one of our major companies and they just put it underneath their own company, a bolt-on. Chad (18m 18s): Gotcha. Lieven (18m 19s): Yep. So we have ID, which is a leading temporary employment player in waste procession, recycling, landscaping. And these were in markets. We didn't really have. So it's an asset to our portfolio and BIS People are specialized staffing and secondment of skilled workers also within construction, basically what's available is already very big. And so those make sense, but we should let them talk about them. Chad (18m 48s): Those are some big acquisitions and that is awesome. So congratulations to House of HR and all of those companies who just got the big pay day. Great job. Joel (18m 57s): Well, I know that we're really blessed to have the scoops on all these House of HR news items. It's it's helping two Americans stay educated on what's going on in the continent. All right, let's take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll play a little buy or sell when we get back. Chad (19m 14s): Yes. sfx (19m 15s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (19m 17s): All right guys, one of our favorite games buy or sell. For our listeners who don't know this is how this works. We take three startups that have gotten money recently, we read a summary and then everyone on this podcast sounds off on whether they are a buy or a sell on that startup. Is everyone ready to play? Chad (19m 41s): Let's do it. Joel (19m 41s): Buy or sell. All right, number one, deskbird, the Swiss provider of a workplace management platform founded in 2020 has raised a $5 million pre series, a financing round. This brings total funding to $6.5 million and will enable the company to continue to expand its business reach across Europe. deskbird focuses on hybrid companies. Employees can see who is in the office, schedule their office and work from home days and book desks. Workplace managers get a view of statistics like office occupancy and consumption. They currently manage 500 offices across 20 countries. Joel (20m 24s): Lieven are you a buy or sell on deskbird? Lieven (20m 28s): That's a difficult one. I think to rent to hybrid companies saw people working from home, sometimes people working at the office some other times. Okay, interesting. But I think given the high energy prices in Europe, we all be sleeping in the office to save on gas. So maybe I think they should have some kind of a book a family room option instead of book a desk. And I'm serious if the integration with teams and outlook and slack works flawless, done, it's definitely a buy. The only thing I'm afraid of is it's so easy to copy for companies like Microsoft. I mean, when Zoom became big, Zoom meetings became big. Microsoft just made Team meetings the standard in Outlook and that was it. Lieven (21m 9s): I mean just a plugin and they can copy it and they could do the same thing with deskbird I feel, if booking desks through this app works very well, Microsoft can solve easily integrated or its own solution in Outlook and that's it for deskbird, but if I was desperate CEO, I would try to sell the whole thing to Microsoft and start something new. And that possibility makes it similar reason for me to buy it. Big risk, big opportunity. Joel (21m 38s): Even as a buy on deskbird. Chad (21m 41s): Buy! Yes. So when we interviewed Steve Pemberton, the CHR row of Workhuman, he made a point to say that we haven't even started to figure out remote, hybrid and back to office and anyone who says they have, in my words are full of shit. Hence the need for workplace management platforms like deskbird, which helped companies make more sense of the hybrid workforce. HR systems are the gonna need this type of scheduling feature. I don't like seeing it as a platform because it's, it's literally a feature for these bigger systems to help organizations manage their hybrid workforce. The question is much like Lieven just said, will they try to build it themselves? Chad (22m 25s): Well with under 7 million euros in funding, I believe deskbird could be a quick and easy win for any HR system looking to answer the hybrid scheduling platform, which is why it's a buy for me. Joel (22m 37s): That's a buy. All right guys, we know that work from home and hybrid is here to stay for many and if not, most companies. People need to be tracked, companies love tracking people and companies need something to manage all this back and forth, which you guys have already waxed poetic on. Deskbird has timed everything just right founded in 2020. I don't know if someone had the idea that this was going to be the future. If that's the case, then they're geniuses. They offer integrations like Lieven said with Teams, Outlook, Google calendar, and Slack so they understand the integration game and how to get into these systems, which also makes them a little more appealing for acquisition. Joel (23m 21s): The pricing as well is really, really easy to swallow. We're talking like less than $5 per user on this service. Oh yeah. They also have QR codes, Chad, so you can put in your QR code and yeah and get an office immediately, you don't have to use the platform. So for me, this deskbird will fly like an Eagle It is a buy from me. Three buys everybody if you're keeping score at home. Next up on buy or sell is Catch. Cologne, Germany based catch has raised a seven figure amount in a seed round of funding. Guys, the startup aims to automate and improve recruitment efficiency for small and medium-sized businesses throughout Germany and the rest of Europe. Joel (24m 10s): They serve over 400 small and medium sized enterprises and say, they're filling thousands of roles on the service Lieven are you a buy or sell on Catch? Lieven (24m 20s): When I read things like advanced matching software and social media automation, I would like to quote Matthew, "many feel called, but few are chosen". I mean, there are so many companies doing something similar. Not so many of them actually make a big difference. So I would only buy if I could sell my shares from charting similar companies beforehand. Chad (24m 42s): So it's a sell? sfx (24m 46s): Oh hell no. Joel (24m 48s): All right Chad what you got? Chad (24m 51s): The SME market is a hard market to reach, first and foremost, with dumbed down posts, spray and pray types of functionality. That's not really the answer the market needs. Sourcing social media posts, trying to glean worker sentiment is just creepy, but this takes the cake. Quote, "the software determines whether the candidates talents more significantly, character traits are a good fit for the organization," end quote. If that doesn't spell biased, I don't know what the hell does? Last but not least any platform we're working in the SME space that doesn't provide pricing and or e-commerce to be able to buy seats just doesn't understand the markets that they're trying to attract. Chad (25m 36s): Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention Personio and HiBob? Two, that are also in this space. This is not a surprise, a big sell for me. Joel (25m 47s): No one's catching this falling knife. All right. I'm going to give it a baseball reference and say that there are three strikes against this company. Lieven mentioned the well-funded competition as did Chad. Small businesses, medium sized businesses just suck and companies that service them rarely find success. And number three, on a macro level Europe's economy is headed for hard times. Compliments of our friend Vladimir Putin, which means that's three strikes against this startup. It for me as well is a big sell. Although I do like the catchy name, see what I did there. All right. Number three, number three Nploy. That's the letter N and ploy, there's no E before the N. Joel (26m 30s): Anyway, that Bulgarian startup founded in 2018 has raised 2 million euros and a seed round. The company appeals to investors by developing an online platform that works like, wait for Chad, a dating app for job seekers and recruitment teams. Chad (26m 46s): Oh my God. Joel (26m 49s): Its algorithm matches talent with companies based on mutual expectations and requirements. As with dating apps if there is a mutual feeling of interest between the company and candidate, a chat automatically opens between the two parties and a video interview can be scheduled. They claim over 85,000 users and over 500 employers using the service. Lieven, are you swiping left or right on Nploy? Lieven (27m 17s): If I swipe to the right to leave me alone, right? No, it's the other way around. If I swipe to the left, they leave me alone. So I totally swipe left. Chad (27m 26s): It's a sell. Joel (27m 28s): Care to expand on that? Lieven (27m 29s): How can I? I mean, I'd rather buy Catch and the Germans win. This Sophia - based platform, but the whole idea is nothing new, once again. I mean, we have an app doing something similar. It's a Tinder based app. We call it Swap. They call it Nploy, but the basics are the same. And there are many, many apps like this worldwide. So I'm asking you again. All Joel (27m 49s): All right, Chad, what do you got? Chad (27m 51s): So here's from an article that I read in Tech.eu. Quote "the online platform that works like a dating app for job seekers and recruitment teams aims to be operational in 10 more countries by the end of 2023" end quote. So Joel, every time somebody comes out with an E harmony, Tinder, whatever the hell it is, what generally happens to that platform? Joel (28m 15s): Pain to spare that's what happened. Lieven (28m 19s): To spare. Joel (28m 20s): And again, why do I have to book a goddamn demo if I want to merely post a job on your damn app? No pricing. No, e-com. No buy here. This to me. I can't even buy on your site. So why the fuck do you think I'm going to buy your company? It's a sell. sfx (28m 35s): Oh hell no. Joel (28m 37s): That's a sell. All right. I'm going to use a baseball reference again. Let's talk a three strikes. Jobr. Some of our listeners will remember J O B R pioneered this almost a decade ago. They were acquired by Monster who said they were going to turn it into Instagram for jobs? Well, if you go to Jobr today it's a dead end domain. Monster doesn't even redirect it anywhere, which is shame on their tech team, but that's a different podcast. This thing didn't happen 10 years ago. It's not going to happen today. Strike number two, their app download metrics aren't all that impressive. 10,000 on Android. And they only have 89 reviews on the iPhone or the app store. Joel (29m 19s): Hell Chad. Our podcast has almost that many reviews on this show. And number three, if Glassdoor can't get its algorithm, right? And I post excessively on LinkedIn about how bad the Glassdoor recommendations that I get are. What makes you think that these guys are going to figure it out when Glassdoor has all the money? This one is super easy sell for me. And that closes another game of buy or sell. Let's talk a little bit more uplifting news, shall we? Ukraine and Poland are in the news. In case you missed it, there is still a war going on in Ukraine. Joel (29m 60s): And as you as Union General William Sherman said, you'll like that, Lieven, "War is hell," but Poland should be applauded for opening its country to Ukrainians, looking for refuge. Poland issued the highest number of first resident permits related to employment in 2021, a total of nearly 800,000 representing 27% of all permits issued by the EU. Roughly 666,000 of those came from Ukraine and represents 87% of Ukrainians first resident permits issued for employment reasons in 2021. Joel (30m 41s): Poland isn't alone, but they have really stepped up here and the brain drain impacting Ukraine can't be ignored as well. Guys, thoughts on Poland's gain and Ukraine's loss in this predicament. Lieven (30m 52s): I think Poland is doing of course, Ukraine a favor, but also itself. This is a great opportunity for Poland to gain some momentum within Europe because they used to be, I know not many people even knew Poland. That's just an Eastern European country and we got some skilled workers from Poland coming to work in the west. But Poland was something else, but not for them, this is like an image building campaign and suddenly everyone respects them or not everyone, but many people are starting to respect what they're doing for Ukraine. So I think they'll get out of this better because they took a lot of the shits. Otherwise the rest of Europe would have to take, so they sticked out their necks, if it's an expression? Joel (31m 35s): Yep. Lieven (31m 36s): And we appreciate it. So big, thanks to Poland and when talking about the brain drain from Ukraine, this isn't a real brain drain in my opinion. I mean, those people are desperate to get back. A real brain drain is when people are relocating to getting new life. This is what's happening in African countries sometimes. And this is what's also happening in Russia for, at the moment, the ideas are leaving Russia and trying to get a job and trying to get a better life in Western Europe. But as Ukrainian people, they want to go back, most of them. I wouldn't call it a temporary brain drain, not a real one. Joel (32m 10s): Will they have something to go home to though? Lieven (32m 12s): No. Chad (32m 13s): Yeah. Well, I think that's the big question is if you're looking at the Eastern part of Ukraine versus the Western part in middle of Ukraine, where, I mean, I've actually talked to Ukrainians who are not there, they're in Poland now. And they say they won't go back home. And again, this is just this very few people that I've talked to, but they just say that, you know, there's nothing for them when they go back. Which is incredibly sad. Lieven (32m 36s): Yeah. But the moment Putin falls out of the window he opened himself and this ridiculous war ends, they will return because Europe will help them to rebuild. Chad (32m 45s): I hope. Lieven (32m 46s): I think those people miss home so they didn't choose to leave. It's it's not, it wasn't an economical decision, they were forced. So that's a different situation, I think many will return. Joel (32m 57s): A lot won't I mean, look, immigration and birth rates are the lifeblood of any country. And Europe is struggling with both. They're an aging population and immigration is sort of an interesting dilemma for them. So for Poland, you know, I think this is a sort of an unintended gift in those categories. So they've recruited these people sort of not on purpose. Now, the retention starts. And if we're talking about parallel to employment, Poland, now how's these people that are working in their country. To me they need to do everything they possibly can to keep them from going back to Ukraine or going back to Russia, for those that have gone to Poland. Joel (33m 37s): If they do it right, Poland will be an economic force, the likes of which they've never enjoyed and being right next door to Germany what would be interesting. And unlike other parts of Europe, I don't think Poland will view the Ukrainians as unwelcome foreigners. Like I hear so many stories from other parts of Europe. So Poland being in NATO, I think they're bulletproof against, you know, any sort of invasion like Ukraine was. Will Ukraine be Bulletproof again in the future? I don't necessarily agree that all the Ukrainians are going to go back or even a majority. I think if they can find a better life in a NATO country, that they're more than happy to embrace that. It's up to Poland to make sure that they support that. Chad (34m 21s): So think of the macro piece of this, because they, there are 2.9 million first residence permits issued in the EU in 2021, which was up 31% from the previous year. So movement is obviously happening. Do we see a ton of movement because of Brexit as well? You have all these individuals who were in the EU, when there were in the UK, but now it's not. So are we going to start to see movement out of, and also, you know, kind of like a brain drain of some sort out of the UK. Do you think that'll happen Lieven or do you think they'll put different measures in place so that they can actually keep that talent? Lieven (34m 57s): I think it will be even the other way around. I mean, by Brexit thing, the pound today is much stronger than the euros. So I think if this whole situation in Europe gets even worse, which is possible, with the energy problem, then you're better off in the UK for the moment. And with their new prime minister who is not really into Europe, they definitely won't be too friendly, I guess. So I don't see that problem, but I don't agree with something you said, Joel, with Europe being, considering those Ukrainians as unwanted. Most of the people in Europe are really feeling sorry for them and are open to them and are trying to help them. Lieven (35m 39s): Much more than with any other refugee. I mean, we have problems, not problems, we had situations with Afghanistan, refugees. Chad (35m 47s): And Syrians Lieven (35m 48s): And Syrians, definitely and those are probably less welcomed because it's a different world, but this is something else people are very open-minded, most of them. Joel (35m 57s): And they're willing to let them stay, not just hang out for awhile? I think I was just saying, I was mentioning like historically I know a lot of countries in Europe have issues with, you know, Lieven (36m 8s): Migration Joel (36m 9s): Anti-immigration as does the United States, but I know that a lot of countries do. But Ukrainians, if they're open to them and willing to let them stay, I think that's the key point they can benefit from that immigration. Lieven (36m 21s): Definitely we would like to keep those IT people and those engineers and those skilled workers definitely. But we will also help them to return. Joel (36m 27s): Have a lot of them come to Belgium? Lieven (36m 31s): Yeah. We have, where I'm living there is a whole city, a whole, yeah it's like a container city built for them just to help them out. Every little village in Belgium has refugees. Joel (36m 43s): Feel the love everybody. Chad (36m 44s): This refugee is looking for my first residence in Southern Europe very soon. Joel (36m 52s): And with that, another episode is in the can boys. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (36m 57s): We out. OUTRO (37m 41s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

The battle to be the Swiss Army Knife for all things hiring is real. While many vendors may serve as your pocket scissors, can opener or toothpick, few can promise every feature while also delivering the goods. Sense (www.sensehq.com) claims to be that Swiss Army Knife, providing all things from the top of the funnel to the bottom. Do they deliver on that promise? You'll just have to listen, now won't you? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. SharkTankIntro (21s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (22s): That's right boys and girls. You know what time it is? It's time for another firing squad. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined is always the Beavis to my Butt-Head, Mr. Chad Sowash and today we welcome Sense and co-founder Pankaj Jindal! Pankaj welcome to the firing squad. Pankaj (44s): Thank you. Thank you Chad and Cheese. Thanks for having me. Joel (46s): You're welcome. You're welcome. So before we get into the company and the rules of the game, give us a little Twitter bio about Pankaj. What makes you tick my man? Chad (54s): Yeah! Favorite movies? What do you watch it on Netflix? They give us a little Pankaj. Pankaj (58s): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what makes me tick is travel and food. I made this little promise to myself long back that I'm going to go to 50 countries, all 50 states and 50 Michelin star restaurants before I turned 50. Chad (1m 12s): Oh, damn. Joel (1m 14s): That's my kind of life goals right there, baby. Pankaj (1m 17s): Yeah. So that's the path I'm on, but a big fan of U2 and go to every concert possible. Joel (1m 23s): Oh, go on. Go on. Alright. Chad, tell him what he's won today. Chad (1m 27s): Yeah. And he said U2. I think he meant the band U2, not you and I. Anyway. sfx (1m 33s): What did you say? Chad (1m 35s): All right, welcome to Firing Squad Pankaj. Where at the sound of the bell, you will have two minutes to pitch Sense. At the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q and A. Be sure to be concise with your answers or we're going to have to hit you with the crickets which means tighten up your game and move along. At the end of Q and A you're going to receive either big applause. Strap yourself into this rocket ship, baby, because it's going to take off. Golf clap Joel (2m 8s): Since this making Sense. Sorry, Chad (2m 10s): Golf clap. That's right. You're going to have to slap a Holly double barrel carburetor on this bad boy to get it up to speed or the firing squad. Save your gas money for something else because this job ain't making it to the next town. That's firing squad. You ready to go Pankaj? Pankaj (2m 30s): Absolutely. Joel (2m 31s): All right buddy. Two minutes starting sfx (2m 33s): ding,ding,ding. Pankaj (2m 33s): Chad and Cheese thank you so much for having me. First of all, my name is Pankaj. I'm one of the founders of Sense. Sense is an automated talent communication and engagement platform. We today power talent engagement at over 700 companies to over a hundred million candidates and employees. We're used every day by over 40,000 recruiters and drive more than 3 million hires every year. We've raised $90 million in capital along this journey from Google Ventures, Axel partners, and SoftBank. We've been around for six years and our platform primarily helps source engage and retain talent throughout the entire candidate life cycle. Pankaj (3m 15s): We offer six products today, all of which work seamlessly together with each other. Engage, which is an automated communication platform, Messaging, which is a two way text messaging platform, Chatbot that's a full cycle, inbound and outbound conversational assistant, Discover that's a search and match product. What you can use for automated job matching using machine learning. Meetings, that's a scheduling and automated scheduling product and Referrals that helps manage your referrals automatically. Like I said, all these products work seamlessly together to create a cohesive experience for candidates, recruiters, employees, hiring managers, so on and so forth. Pankaj (3m 57s): So whether you're trying to accelerate, hiring or decrease candidate drop-off Sense will help you drive through all of this engagement scenarios. We integrate with all major applicant tracking systems, including Workday, Success Factors, iCIMS, Delay or Greenhouse, plenty of others and we have an open API to consume data from several other systems. You can learn a lot more about us at our website Sensehq.com. That's like Sense headquarters. And we have tons of case studies and white papers that you can download from there. Joel (4m 30s): Nice pitch. And he mentioned the URL Chad, he's off to a great start. Chad (4m 37s): Here we go. Joel (4m 37s): All right, Pankaj. Well, first of all, do you know Masa son, Larry Page or Sergei Brin? You mentioned Google and SoftBank. Pankaj (4m 44s): I do. Joel (4m 45s): Okay. That's a different podcast. Maybe we'll have you back on for that. All right. Let's talk about the names. So let's go back to 2016. You're starting the company. You come up with the name Sense and instead of doing like.ai or.io, you go with HQ, like what was the thought process in naming the company? Pankaj (5m 2s): To be candid. We absolutely wanted Sense.com at the time, which was taken. And we would have never gotten it. A funny story. We then started with Sense HQ and could not get Sensehq.com. So we started with Sensehq.co, which was the name and URL of the company for a couple of years. And then we bought Sensehq.com from somebody. Now the idea behind Sense itself was everything that we were talking about and everything that we wanted to do. One of the four founders at the end of every conversation would just arbitrarily come up with this totally makes sense. Everybody should be doing this. This is common sense. And that's how that name stuck. Joel (5m 43s): It's like, it's big Chad, back in the day. Anyway, another podcast again. So you started in 2016. How has the company evolved in that time? What were your originally versus what you just pitched us? Pankaj (5m 54s): Yeah. Great question. I mean then we started, I think our number one pieces was that the candidate experience is broken. We first started by serving staffing companies as a vertical. And the reason we did that is because of retention there is the poorest, candidate experience there is the poorest, yet those companies absolutely make their bread and butter from gross margin on contractors. So they were obviously going to be more interested in anything that helps them, you know, make that a white glove experience. So we started out as automated candidate, contractor, employee experience. And as we went along a ton of feedback from our customers, a ton of feedback from the industry led us to develop what we think is what you need for an entire engagement suite. Pankaj (6m 42s): Whether it is text messaging, whether it's a chat bot, whether it is referral management. And that's how the product has continued to evolve. Now, you know, like I said before, 700 companies, 600 plus are staffing and now we're rapidly growing into the corporate space. Joel (6m 59s): Yep. Now you have quite a little bit of experience in the HR space recruitment space. What have you taken from your previous companies that was an influence or an inspiration for Sense? Pankaj (7m 10s): Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I tell this story a few times before that for 15 years I was running staffing companies. And when I did that every single year, we got the best staffing company to work for award. Now we got that because we were putting in a lot of manual work. We had an actual human being for every hundred people who were on assignment whose whole job was making their life better. Hey, can we drop you the paycheck? Do you need additional business cards? How's your day going? Can we bring you a slice of pizza? Can you bring you a donut? But what we really wanted to do was use technology as a leveler, as our democratizer and essentially make every company the best version of themselves. Pankaj (7m 52s): So we took best practices from what we used to do on why a company gets voted to be the best fun to work for, but we enable it using technology that lets you give everybody a hyper-personalized experience. Chad (8m 5s): That's awesome. Let's talk about your staff experience. So you're were leaders within the organization. What kind of experience do they bring to Sense? Pankaj (8m 15s): Yeah, so I mean, our team is probably a 50/50 mix of folks who either come with the industry experience. So they've essentially been in the human capital space either with a consulting firm or a staffing firm. And then the other 50% who actually have deep HR tech experience, they come from applicant tracking systems. They come from job boards, they come from recruiting, marketing automation. They come from marketing automation kind of companies. So, you know, we feel very lucky because you put all of them together sort of in a melting pot and you come up with these great ideas that are very much software driven, but very focused to the human capital industry. Chad (8m 55s): Yeah. And actually doing some research on your staff, it looked like there was a very good mix of experience from the industry. Now you said earlier 40,000 recruiters use Sense daily, is that correct? Pankaj (9m 10s): That's absolutely right. Chad (9m 10s): Okay. How many companies does that actually represent? Pankaj (9m 13s): About 700. Chad (9m 13s): Okay. So what are those 40,000 recruiters doing in the platform every day? What does Sense doing for these recruiters? Pankaj (9m 23s): Yeah. A variety of different things. The number one thing, all 40,000 of these recruiters are definitely doing is their text messaging people. They all have a text messaging license. They're reaching out to candidates one-on-one one to many. They can reach out to a hundred people, 400 people all at the same time, they can do a blast that says I got a job open is anybody interested in that can go to 300 people except that when it goes to those 300 people, it goes as an individual message and it goes completely personalized. Hi Chad, I have a job. This is the job it's in your city. Would you be interested? Hi Cheese, I have a job. Would you be interested so on and so forth? Pankaj (10m 4s): So one they're using the text messaging platform for sure. Going back and forth with dozens, if not hundreds of candidates every day. That's number one. The second thing that they are doing is essentially reviewing chat bot responses. We have a conversational recruiting assistant. Candidates are coming inbound to your website, through QR codes, through X to apply, or you're reaching out to candidates outbound. I've got a job open. I want to screen these hundred people who live in Chicago in this zip code. I'm going to send those hundred people a text or an email. Each one of those will contain a link. As soon as somebody clicks that link, they start answering chat bot questions. Those responses get written back into my ideas and from there I'm taking the recruiting process forward. Pankaj (10m 47s): So they're very much using our products on a daily basis. This isn't one of those things that you use once a month. Chad (10m 53s): Okay? So all of your products seem to be conversational AI based. So is this platform and evolution of conversational AI and trying to bleed conversational AI and texting and messaging into every part of the experience? Pankaj (11m 10s): Slightly the other way around naturally. I'm sorry if I didn't say that properly before. So we actually started with our flagship product, which is called Sense Engage, which is an automated communications platform. So what Engage does, and that does not have conversational AI in it. What Engage does is it can send out messages via email, text surveys, NPS on any cadence. So for instance, you just hired somebody. You want that person to go to a cadence that says 10 days before we're going to send them a message saying "Welcome! looking forward to have you joined in two weeks!" One day before, we'll say "Good luck tomorrow". Then we'll do a one day check in, five day check in, 15 day check in. Pankaj (11m 51s): All these messages will automatically run for the 10,000 people that you're going to hire. And this is a repetitive process we've taken away from your recruiters. Chad (12m 0s): So they're messaging maps is really what you've created, right? Like a sequencing system? Pankaj (12m 6s): That's exactly right. And our typical full blown customer would have dozens of these journeys going. Chatbot came in later as a conversational AI product and I'm happy to expand on that. Chad (12m 19s): Let's, let's jump really quick to Sense's product that allows customers to activate their candidate database. Basically it's search and match, or at least it sounds like search and match. Can you tell me how that works? Pankaj (12m 35s): Absolutely. That is one of our biggest use cases. We call this wake the dead, but there are three different ways in which people use this. Chad (12m 45s): Oh, wait a minute. Let me check. Let me check with my friends over at CandidateID. See if they've trademarked that one yet. Okay, go ahead. Pankaj (12m 52s): Yeah. So here's how the Wake the Dead campaign works, right? And this is the biggest use case we are seeing, even with our corporate customers. You have a talent pool of a hundred thousand, a million, 10 million, depending on the size of the company. These are people sitting in your database. You haven't talked with them in months. They're probably going stale. You can use our product to start reactivating your database. What does that mean? You can go out to all of these people and ask simple questions like, 'Hey, are you still looking for a job'? If not, 'when will you be looking for a job next'? When do you, 'when you do look for a job, which area or zip code do you want it to be in'? 'How much money do you want'? That kind of information. We will immediately right back to the applicant tracking system, thus pumping lifeblood into this state of database, because now the automation engine of sensory take over and say, everybody who's looking for a job in September, I'm going to alert my recruiters 30 day before and say, start putting these folks into drip messaging campaigns. Pankaj (13m 53s): Let's start reaching out to them. Let's start hiring them. Chad (13m 56s): Gotcha. Okay. So are you developing search and match, or do you have a parsing and matching partner that is helping you do this? Pankaj (14m 4s): No. A hundred percent natively driven. So everything that Sense bills is all done by ourselves. So it's our own algorithm and specifically on the search and match. So the thing that becomes relevant is once these folks come in and say, yes, I'm interested, we can then take their resumes, match them to every job open in the system and literally go and say, well, we found four jobs that you might be interested in. What are you taking? Joel (14m 30s): $90 million. We'll buy a lot of beer Pankaj. You last raised in December of last year. What have you used the money for? And what do you plan on using the money for going into the future? Chad (14m 40s): Yeah. And that was $50 million that was just raised less than a year ago, correct? Pankaj (14m 45s): That's exactly right. Yeah. It is $50 million from SoftBank that was at series D in November, December of last year. I mean, primarily the money was simply to make sure we are aggressively increasing our reach into the corporate market. We have invested the most in that particular business. You will see us at a lot of corporate events talking to a lot of corporate customers. We're also spending that money on R and D. We've almost doubled our R and D team and our customer success team in the last 12 months. Sense is over 300 employees now. And moving forward, the two areas of impetus for the company are going to be massive and quick expansion into the corporate space, as well as global and international expansion. Pankaj (15m 30s): So that's where the bulk of that money is going to go but obviously we're going to spend that wisely and make sure we have, you know, more than enough runway to get to the next phase here. Joel (15m 40s): Expand on the global aspirations. Where are you currently doing business, where you focused on that? You're not as strong as you'd like to be. What does that look like? Pankaj (15m 49s): Yeah, so, I mean, the global business started for us organically. We got a ton of customers in the U S who essentially started telling us, your product is amazing, this is exactly what we want. Can you support our UK office? Can you support our Germany office? Can you support our Australia office? So it started like that, but once we started it, you know, we are now tapping into the opportunity in those markets. UK is a big business for us. We are investing in that business heavily. We just brought on a sales leader. We brought on solutions consulting leaders. So that's a market that we concentrate on UK investor in Europe and sitting there. We were also able to close deals in Australia and New Zealand. Pankaj (16m 29s): So one that, and two we'll be talking to most corporate customers they absolutely have a global footprint. And even in the beginning stages of the conversation, even though they're buying us for Morth America, they want to know from us that eventually we'll be able to support them internationally, because that would be their goal 12, 18, 24 months down the line. Joel (16m 49s): Yeah. Well, thanks to that work from home thing, I'm sure you'll be getting more and more interest in a global market. So who do you consider your stiffest competition? I mean, when you're on sales calls, who are you pitching against usually? Pankaj (17m 3s): Well, good question. I mean, the one thing we talk about a lot is, and this is why I led this conversation in the very beginning with that part, we have six different products and each one of those products has somebody who competes with them. You know, if you think about our scheduling product, you know, there is Calendly, there is HubSpot, that is Microsoft teams. If you think about our chat bot. Joel (17m 24s): Yeah. Pankaj (17m 24s): If you think about our Chatbot product, there is, you know, Paradox, there are a couple of other, you know, there is AllyO that Wade and Wendy, these guys, you know, if you think about search and match that our products will do job matching today, when you think about, Joel (17m 38s): Should we be thinking of you as a DEEL competitor, Oyster, Remote those guys that are kind of trying to be an all-in-one platform. Pankaj (17m 46s): So we're definitely trying to be the single talent engagement solution. Yes, absolutely. So most customers really like the fact that once they have Sense, they can almost get rid of six to 10 different point solutions. Joel (18m 1s): And how well are you a positioned to deal with an economic downturn that everyone says is coming? Pankaj (18m 8s): Yes. I mean, we were just talking about money a second ago, but that's exactly where our head is at. We have now streamlined our operations and our burn rate to make sure that we have anywhere between 24 to 36 months of runway and with every passing month as our sales keep growing and our collections keep growing that runway will keep increasing. So even though we are not personally seeing any signs for the downturn in our own business, we're absolutely preparing for the fact that if a recession came in six months from now, stayed for 12 months, then took six months to get out of. We still very much, you know, can continue on our growth trajectory and our burn rate without having to raise more capital. Chad (18m 53s): Excellent. So what does your ARR look like today? Pankaj (18m 59s): About $33, 34 million. Chad (19m 1s): It's not hateful, that's not hateful at all Pankaj. So let's talk about the total addressable market. You said you started off with staffing, but it sounds like you've expanded from there. So who is your clients and who are you building the platform for? Yeah, so Pankaj (19m 20s): We almost now think of our total addressable market sizes, almost unlimited because we first, as you said, started in the staffing side, there are over 17,000 staffing companies in the U S alone that are another 17 to 20,000 in the UK. So, you know, we have long ways to go to penetrate that deeply. Our customers are anybody who's essentially staffing temporary employees on the staffing market because that's where the candidate experience and the talent experience is broken. On the corporate side the am is almost unlimited as you can imagine, you know, we can go off for the fortune 5,000. We can go off their companies, even smaller than that, but anybody over 1500 or so, employees is a fair game for us today. Pankaj (20m 9s): Oftentimes we're talking to companies that do high volume hiring. So sometimes in manufacturing, logistics, retail, trucking, those seem to be companies that almost immediately take 2 cents, but you know, any time you're hiring 3, 4, 500 people a year and dealing with 20 to 30% attrition that you want to have to replace, you're going to need a platform like Sense that actually helps with candidates sourcing, candidate attracting, candidates screening, candidates scheduling, and then full cycle candidate engagement. Chad (20m 40s): Gotcha. So let's talk about go to market. Are we looking at more direct to clients? Just one-on-one are you dealing with partnerships through these different integrations that you talked about to be able to hit multiple perspective clients at once? Are you looking at direct? You're looking through partnership for go to market? Pankaj (20m 59s): Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, we pretty much go direct to client, but you know, our partnerships with applicant tracking systems obviously afford us the publicity that we need, Hey Sense is now a bonafide integration partner with ADS XYZ. We bless these guys. The integration works. We will support this integration, and this is what the product does. That's the kind of thing that comes in very handy. We routinely do webinars or conferences or happy hours with our ATS partners and go to market partners, which gives us the reach from one company talking to a hundred or hundreds of them at the same time. But then we certainly follow up one-on-one and all of our sales gets done through one-on-one engagement. Pankaj (21m 43s): So we don't resale or go the OEM route if that's what you were asking, but we certainly leverage the idea's partnerships to create more of a carpet bombing effect. Chad (21m 54s): Gotcha. Okay. So how are you marketing Sense today? Pankaj (21m 58s): I mean, we're, you know, using sort of our website, ad words, you know, the number one source of leads for us as events, you would find us in most events and conferences because we are able to talk live with people that becomes huge. You know, customer marketing is big for us because we also get a ton of our business from referrals, but pretty much every marketing aspect that you can think about. So, you know, events, customer marketing, top of the funnel, and then a full-blown BDR SDR team for the outbound prospecting. Joel (22m 32s): All right, man, you have global aspirations and it sounds like your powder is pretty dry. Are you looking to acquire some companies? My guess is there'll be a few on the clearance rack in the next few months, two years, what's your MNA strategy look like. Pankaj (22m 49s): Yes, we are. We're definitely going to go the MNA route as well. You're probably going to hear something here in the next four to six weeks from us as well. So we would certainly add some companies that will essentially complete the automation suite that we are building. But the idea is everything that, you know, any prospective customer would need from a talent engagement, recruitment engagement, or hiring manager experience, we will add that within our suite, but we would certainly go, we would certainly grow a little bit by money as well. Joel (23m 19s): And when's the IPO? Pankaj (23m 22s): Well, once we get to the hundred and 50 million ARR mark, I mean, which is what, you know, we can get to pretty quickly here given our growth rate, we're doubling every year. So we should have this conversation again in a couple of years. Chad (23m 34s): Alright Amen, amen. Joel (23m 35s): You're saying there's a chance. All right, last one for me, how does Sense evolve? If we talk a year from now, what, what new features and products might you have introduced to the market? Pankaj (23m 46s): Yeah, I mean, great question. I think one of the biggest things we think about is, we talked to a lot of corporate companies today where, you know, they have an applicant tracking system that is dated. They've been using it forever. You know, they're not going to walk away from it. I mean, if you're using a Taleo, Workday, it's not like you can just walk away from it, but they need, you know, action-based targeting, they need a CRM system, they need a TRM system, you know, how do they essentially do candidates scoring? What becomes the staging environment, if you will, where every single person that they source from a job board, a website, a QR code, a chat bot can essentially sit in, you know, be matched with jobs and only the qualified candidates can get into the ADS. Pankaj (24m 29s): So I think we would become, we would almost be the category creator in the talent relationship management space. So we would become the go between before candidates go to the ATS. But between your top of the funnel and your applicant tracking system. Joel (24m 47s): Sounds expensive Chad. Chad (24m 49s): Sounds expensive Pankaj. How much is this going to cost me? Pankaj (24m 53s): I don't think the product is expensive at all. Actually, to be honest with you, we haven't had a single customer walk away from us due to price. Our products are priced based on the number of licenses and number of recruiters that buy the product. But, you know, typically depending on the product suite that you buy, the average customer would spend anywhere between 50,000 to $150,000. Chad (25m 18s): Okay. And how many seats does that generally? What's the mean there? How many seats am I looking at for around that cost? Pankaj (25m 26s): I would say, think about a company, you know, hiring about a thousand people a year because oftentimes the number of recruiters can be very different based on whether your logistics or tech, but you know, that would be about $50,000. Joel (25m 41s): All right. That's the bell, Chad, you know what that means? And Punkaj is that means you get to face the firing squad. Are you ready? Pankaj (25m 49s): Absolutely. Joel (25m 49s): All right. I love the confidence. I'm going to go ahead and go first. Punkaj I'm reminded of the eighties, electronic store Radio Shack. And I used to get the Sunday paper back in the day and they used to have all these products and services that I could buy individually. And the smartphone came along and put all those things into one little device that fit into my pocket. Sense, reminds me of that. You have all these features that separate companies are trying to provide and do. And it sounds like you guys are doing a bang up job, offering everything under one roof. There's an arms race to be the all-in-one platform. And we talk a lot about those companies on the show and you, my friend, it sound like an all-in-one platform. Joel (26m 33s): That's getting the job done, raising the money, making the contacts, having the vision, the confidence. You've got the chops in the HR space. You've made it to year if my math right year eight of existence, which I think is a great sign that you are going to be successful and continue to have success. I think you're prepared for the downturn if, and when it comes. And for me, Punkaj, Sense gets a big applause. Pankaj (27m 1s): Very nice. Joel (27m 1s): All right. Chad. Get him. Chad (27m 3s): Yeah. I love excited founders, especially when they believe they have unlimited Tam. Come on. Punkaj you know, better than that. I have to say your timing is perfect. Integrations check. Experience definitely check. Take a look at your staff and your team and yourself. A global expansion? This is exactly how an organization should expand. They expand off of the needs of their current clients. They don't just go out and try to, I don't know, invade another country and hope that people want to buy this. They actually bring it to the other country with their clients. So that's awesome. The product seems like, you know, you're abiding by the you know, keep it simple, stupid rule, which is awesome. Chad (27m 47s): One of the things that I do have to hit you with because I did find one thing is that your marketing seems to be wanting my friend. You've you need more digestible content. I checked out your YouTube account and the first 50 videos. That's right. That's a lot of content and that's awesome. But only six of them were less than 10 minutes long. So think about it, 44 videos that are about an hour or longer. Joel (28m 14s): Do you get a degree after watching all that? Do you get like a certificate? Chad (28m 18s): Oh my God, dude, you're putting out a ton of content. Although none of it's snackable, right? We need something that we can, we can latch onto and we can watch in segments. So then I thought let's check out their videos on LinkedIn, which you only have three of. One was four months ago and other was 10 months ago, the other was four years ago. So I think in the ecosystem of Sense, the only little chink in the armor I could literally find was the video aspect. Everything else looks polished. It looks great. It sounds great. Experience. This is nothing but a big applause. Joel (28m 56s): Oh my God. It's a double applause. Chad (29m 0s): And so sexy. Joel (29m 2s): Holy cow, man. I love it. Pankaj. How do you feel, man? Pankaj (29m 6s): Thank you both. And I absolutely appreciate the feedback on the videos. I take that to heart and you know, we will definitely spruce that game up. A lot of the videos that we've put on YouTube right now are essentially recordings of our webinars. That's exactly why they're all one hour long, but we create digestible content a hundred percent. And thank you for these insightful questions. I enjoyed myself. Joel (29m 29s): I need to see Punkj on TikTok. That's what I'm talking about Punkaj on TikTok. Punkaj for our listeners that want to know more about you or your company, where do you send them? Pankaj (29m 40s): Please go check out our website. That's the one stop shop for all content www.SenseHQ.com like headquarters. you can also check out our LinkedIn page. You can connect with us on Twitter as well as Facebook, and obviously feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And I'll be more than happy to answer any questions that any of your listeners have personally. Joel (30m 2s): Or there's 382 minutes of video on YouTube. Chad, another one is in the books. Punkaj. Congratulations. Chad and Cheese (30m 10s): We out, we out. OUTRO (30m 24s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com

The U.S. Marines have made a career out of recruiting based on letting 18-year-olds know how tough and challenging becoming a Marine actually is. It's a concept that can also work for businesses of all sizes. That's why we invited Charlotte Marshall, director, global employer brand & recruitment marketing expert & best selling author of “Give and Get Employer Branding Repel the Many and Compel the Few with Impact, Purpose and Belonging” on the podcast. In it, Charlotte reveals why the most effective employer brands don’t attract candidates; they repel them. This episode is part of our Cult Brand series, sponsored by RecruitmentMarketing.com and the boys are joined by Julie Calli. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (23s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody? It's your favorite guilty pleasure AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. And this is the cult brand series. I as always, am Joel Cheeseman joined by the Moe and Larry to my curly, please welcome Julie Calli and Chad Sowash to the show! Julie (43s): Hey there! Joel (44s): And we are giddy guys. We have a really special guest today. Get excited. We welcome Charlotte Marshall director of Global Import Brand New Recruitment Marketing, and best selling author of Give & Get Employer Branding: Repel the Many and Compel the Few with Impact, Purpose and Belonging. She's as impressive as that book title is long. Charlotte, welcome to the podcast. Charlotte (1m 9s): Good to be here. Joel (1m 11s): Good to have you. So for our few listeners that don't know you, haven't seen you speak at a conference or heard you on a podcast, give us the Twitter bio on Charlotte Marshall, and what makes you tick? Charlotte (1m 24s): I started out in internal communications and quickly found employer branding 15, almost 20 years ago. And the thing that makes me passionate is learning and growing in the space. So I have just embarked on my seventh global employer brand build at a fortune 500 company and definitely always learning and growing. Joel (1m 43s): And tell us where you're recording from so we can all hate you for that. Charlotte (1m 47s): I am on a little island outside of San Diego called Coronado, which is a little slice of Americana. It's all mom and pop shop, the Navy seals train here. So there's lots of eye candy for any women out there. Joel (2m 3s): (bad singing starts) You never saw close your eyes (bad signing ends) Charlotte (2m 8s): And it is just a really wonderful place to raise our family. So we've got three kids that are growing up here that we're trying to not spoil to death. Joel (2m 17s): Not jealous, not jealous whatsoever. Chad (2m 19s): So you say you found Employer Brand (EB) 15 years ago. Did it even exist 15 years ago? Or was this something that you were like, Hey, we should probably do this because it makes sense. Charlotte (2m 30s): It definitely existed. I don't know if it existed in the way that we talk about it today, but in 2005, somebody tapped me on the shoulder at Ernst and Young and said, you know, we need to convince a group of employees to relocate from Philadelphia to Washington DC or McLean, Virginia. We're not going to pay him any more money. Can you help us convince them why they should upgrade their families and come and take this job? Joel (2m 54s): And, we don't have an office in Cornado. Charlotte (2m 59s): Right. So definitely started dabbling in it. And then a few years later, I had moved to Southern California and I was doing an internal HR Comms role at a company called Life Technologies that later was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific and they had a huge need for this body of work. But it reported into communications and they called it something different. But I was the only person in the world that I knew doing the work at the time. And there were a few of us, but it was definitely larger global conglomerates. Whereas now, I mean, it's almost one of the first 20 or 30 hires at startups these days. So it's definitely grown and evolved a lot. Chad (3m 34s): That's interesting that it reported into comms because we always have this discussion argument/discussion. Let's say it should EB Report into HR since HR is more focused on compliance and risk, then they are belonging in purpose. Should they, should they should EB reporting be reporting into HR or should it be marketing or maybe comms? Charlotte (3m 59s): I have reported to all three in the variety of roles that I've had. And my answer to that question, it's whoever has the most passion and the pocket to fund the work. Joel (4m 10s): Cha-ching. Charlotte (4m 10s): That's where you can be successful, but it needs to be the person who can fight for the budget and allocate and protect that budget because a lot of people invest in the role and then it's not funded properly if it sits in HR. Whereas if it sits in marketing, it comes with more funding and resource, but the way a marketer thinks and approaches employer brand is so fundamentally different than what we write about in the book Give and Get, that there's a quite a bit of training and nuance that needs to go into making that relationship work. And I'll tell you what I mean, if I'm a marketer and I want to sell you the AirPods you guys had me put on for this interview, I'm going to broadcast and tell you about the features, the benefits and the opportunities of AirPods. And if you can pay the transactional price that we're listing for the AirPods, everyone gets a pair. Charlotte (4m 54s): That's how marketers are trained to think and to promote their work. And when I learned employer brand 15, 20 years ago, that's how I was taught to advertise and sell our jobs. We seduce people with our Bespoke coffee and our ping pong, ping pong, and all of the shiny things in our offices. Joel (5m 13s): He didn't say ping pong table. Charlotte (5m 16s): Ping pong, foosball, whatever it was. Joel (5m 18s): Casual Friday, throw that one in there. Charlotte (5m 20s): And it worked. And all of a sudden these large companies that worked for the people I hadn't heard of before were becoming more attractive, but it ultimately didn't help our recruiting funnel because we were flooded with unqualified applicants. So somewhere along the career journey, I met an agency that taught me a different way of doing the work. And instead of that one way value exchange that broadcast why we're so great. It's a mutual value exchange where we actually lead with the expectation of what it takes to thrive and what it takes to get ahead in an organization. And the truth is employer branding is much more like online matchmaking than it is a linear sell because rather than giving the job to everyone who wants it, we reject as you all know, 99% of the people who apply. Charlotte (6m 2s): So it's a really different proposition. And when sitting in marketing, without that expertise, you'll find a lot of controls and nuances in place that make it really hard to do what you're there to do. Julie (6m 15s): I find it absolutely impressive that, you know, you've worked on seven employer brand projects. Did all of these companies understand before you joined in that role that they needed this, or was it part of the role that you had to convince them how that this was going to bring value to them? Charlotte (6m 34s): I've been lucky in which every role I've taken, the business case was already established for them to create the headcount and hire me. And so I was the first person enrolled in all seven of these organizations, but I didn't have to convince people to hire me. I had to convince them to grow my budget and grow my team and grow my resources over time. So sometimes I came in with a really small budget. Other times over the years, it's gotten a little bit bigger, but it's never starting where I need it to be. So there's been a lot of learnings around the education of the business, building the business case, and then getting the ROI story down so that we can continue to grow and invest in the function because that education, even if you have someone with passionate pockets where it, the rest of the organization really doesn't really know what to do with me when I come in or how I can help. Joel (7m 20s): The touching on the learning piece a little bit. We mentioned your book in the intro, which is what three years old now. Two years old? Charlotte (7m 29s): 2020 March, 2020 worst time in the history to launch a book. Joel (7m 32s): The COVID happened. My sense of time went out the window when that pandemic went down, but your spin on this, and I saw you presented the RA. Repell the many and compel the few. In other words, the most effective employer brands don't attract candidates, they repel them. This sounds like the girl I had a crush on in high school, but go into what you mean by that and why it's important with employer branding. It was Chad (7m 55s): It was more than one girl by the way. Charlotte (7m 60s): Love to hear that story. So what we mean by this, is Brian and I wrote this book because we found when consulting and working with a lot of different organizations that there's a hesitation or a fear to lean into the cultural reality or the harsh norms that go hand in hand with working at any organization. And while everybody knows that we're not always an easy place to work. And every organization around the world has something that makes it difficult. There has been a hesitation in the resistance to lean in and to share that information. So then in exchange for that, we end up with career sites and messaging that are the Instagram version of the reality of working here. Charlotte (8m 40s): And yeah, we're telling the truth and we're proud about the things that make us great, but it's the sunshine version of the truth. And it's like more close to what we're like on our very best day, as opposed to an average or a bad day. So rather than using your employer brand as a magnet that attracts everyone towards your brand, which we all did in the early days and some organizations are still doing it now but to a lesser extent, since the book has come out. We really want you to use your employer brand as a smart filter. So rather than attracting everyone, we want you to use better messaging and better storytelling earlier in a candidate journey so that people can self-select out if they're ultimately not the right match for your organization. So in order to have that, make that really important decision on whether or not you want to take the jump, we first need to know how hard is it going to be to do my job here? Charlotte (9m 28s): What obstacles might be in my way? How do people respond on a bad day? Or if they're under time, pressure, resource pressure, et cetera. What are the challenging and supporting behaviors that tend to emerge? And it's funny when my coauthor was consulting with a huge tech brand, when they went in to do the finding report and they're like, okay, we've got some news for you, you have absolutely zero work-life balance here. And it's really the overwhelming defining part of your employee experience. And all the executives looked at each other and they were like, oh God, what do we do with this? We can't possibly tell anybody that if they come to work here, they're giving up their nights and weekends for the rest of their career. Charlotte (10m 9s): And we said, it's absolutely the opposite because it's actually the single source of pride and it galvanizes people together. It's not because they have to give up this huge part of their life, but it's the pride of what they accomplish in exchange for working that way. So being able to see your products in millions of people's hands, being able to produce things at lightning speed, et cetera, there was a variety of things that came out, that we write about in the book. It actually is this give and get value proposition in exchange for this, you get this in return and what I've learned over helping define these messages and bring them to life as human beings, our threshold for pain is very unique and it differs person by person. Charlotte (10m 50s): So if you were preparing to go on a hike and you were standing under a mountain, and I told you what it would take to get to the pinnacle and to reach the view, which could be the same thing as growing in your career, advancing, accomplishing what you're hired to do one person can look at what it takes and say, you know what? I don't want it that bad. Thanks anyway, I'm going to take the gondola to the top. Where somebody else is sitting there assessing what it takes to climb and is sufficiently turned on by how much challenge is in front of them and how that's going to give meaning to their climb. And this is a really important thing to start to grasp when you're an employer brand, because we want to find people that are turned on by the challenges within our organization. Charlotte (11m 31s): And we want to help people who ultimately wouldn't thrive to self-select out, because that has speeds up our recruiting efficiency. It reduces new hire attrition and turnover, and ultimately Canada's really dropped their shield in the recruiting process and they lean in and they get really curious. You know, when we feel like we're being sold to we get defensive, or we, you know, start to get protective, but when are like, let me tell you five reasons you probably, this job might not be for you. When I use that in interviews, I literally see candidates lean in on the zoom screen and they get really curious and they start asking questions and then they actually start convincing me why they're prepared and able to handle all of those things I've just described or like, you know, I'm so glad you told me that because I absolutely hate meetings. Charlotte (12m 15s): And if this is a company where I have to sit in meetings all day long, I would lose my mind. So really appreciate the honesty. And I'll think about if I know any else in mine, in my network, that would be a good fit for you. And it's a really great conversation that starts to happen. And that's what we mean by repel the many, compel the few, using your brand as a smart filter, starting to have the courage to embrace what makes you difficult, but present it in a way that gives people more information to make meaningful career decisions before joining your company. Chad (12m 46s): Appcast, I actually put out some great data that shows that companies are repelling the hell out of candidates. 92% of candidates don't even finish the application process. So all of that great work that you guys are doing all that great work to attract great people who want to be able to be a part of an organization, the purpose, the belonging, all that stuff, whether they're giving their nights and weekends away, it doesn't matter. You guys are doing all that work on the front end, and then it's taken a shit on the backend with the application process where 92% are ejecting. So you're getting the repel. But the question is, are you repelling the wrong people at this point? Charlotte (13m 26s): That's not the kind of repel we're talking about, and you're absolutely right candidate experience and the exposure to your brand, it's a lot more than just turning on your employer brand story. That investment is a bit wasted if your technology and your candidate experience is not up to par. Joel (13m 42s): It sounds like you're talking a lot more about the Marines come to mind when I heard you talking about that, the Marines are pretty open about we're the toughest branch, we have the toughest boot camp, or at least that's the messaging and Chad being an army guy might disagree with that. But as an outsider, that's the message that the Marines, you know, give to the world and they attract people that are looking to embrace that. There's areally old classified from way back in the day and I'll paraphrase this, but it was basically saying we're taking an expedition to the south pole. You'll probably die or catch frostbite. Only ones willing to take a risk should apply and they had an overwhelming number of people apply. So I think there's a lot of relevance to what you're saying. Joel (14m 25s): What I'm curious about is, you know, since you've written the book, you know, the me too movement has happened. Black lives matter. DEI is at the front of everyone's, you know, thought process and recruiting. It's a really, you know, trending, doesn't this message go against the whole, like, everyone's welcome. We want everyone here. Like, how do you sort of argue the point that you're being really exclusive in a very inclusive world? Charlotte (14m 52s): It's such a good question and I'm glad you bring up the Marine example because it's absolutely right. When we talk about repelling the many to compel the few, like hell week comes to mind or the Marine Corps or any of the military branches. The thing that attracts people to a joint to try out and to withstand that is the fact that they're good enough to make it through and the pride that comes from being able to overcome those challenges. And when we think about inclusion and diversity and equity within the companies, we don't want to think about giving it in terms of repelling people in terms of fit. It's more about a motivation or a mindset, and being able to work within those constraints within an environment. Charlotte (15m 37s): So for example, one of the brands I worked on recently, one of the things that came out was this is a really meeting heavy culture. And we like meetings. We're going to be in meetings all day long. You're going to be asked to sit in a ton of meetings. So if you don't like sitting in meetings, you probably not going to enjoy working here. But on the flip side of that, it really was a true meritocracy. Good ideas were embraced quickly, regardless of where they came from. If you are new to the organization, if you were junior in your career, you were new to the industry. It was really likely that you were going to be sitting around a meeting with the C-suite, with senior leaders and being asked and expected and encouraged to participate. So when you think I&D efforts, you know, that message, everyone are welcome and everyone's at the table, but if you don't like meetings, you're probably not going to like working here. Joel (16m 24s): As people are having conversations about being more inclusive, you're talking exclusivity. Is that a tough discussion to have, or are they totally separate, able to compartmentalize strategies? Charlotte (16m 34s): I mean, we build inclusion and belonging into every employer brand that we create. And every employer brand that I create for organizations, that's a core tenant that we're building and we're building messaging and strategy around what it feels like to belong and what it takes to push the organization forward. There's I have yet to work for an organization that feels like they have reached where they want to be in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So we're often talking about what we're building and the opportunity to come and to help shape that. Joel (17m 5s): Curious, Julie, are you buying this whole, you know, compel the few and repel the many? Or is this falling flat with you? Julie (17m 12s): Well, I'll tell you, I was in a meeting once a few years ago, and someone said to me, I want to learn, how am I strategy? You can help me repel the types of candidates I don't want, instead of talk to me about how to attract them. And I was ready to fall out of my chair because nobody had ever brought that up to me before. It was always about more candidates, fill our funnels, fill our pipelines, but this wasn't about how many people can we convert into our ATS. It was helped me save time and money and effort that I'm wasting bringing people in and hiring them and getting them in onboarding them. And then they leave 90 later because they're not aligned with what we really are. Julie (17m 54s): And I think, I think she's absolutely right that Give and the Get the Repel the Many is not talking about taking away the pipeline for your recruiters. It's talking about building efficiency for them so that they can actually spend time hiring the quality people that really fit and will stay with the organization longer because they understand what they're getting into. Joel (18m 17s): Pay attention. Julie (18m 18s): Yeah. They're very good marketers. You sell the dream, but is a dream real when you arrive at that turns to, you know, high turnover. Chad (18m 25s): Yeah. The big question is, can you get budget for it? Right. So we're always scrambling and HR. And obviously if you're not reporting to HR, this might be a little bit easier, but in HR and talent acquisition around trying to get more resources, trying to get more budgets. So the big question is, especially when you're talking about organizations who to be quite Frank over the years, haven't really embraced telling the truth. They want the flowers and the honeysuckle and whatnot. They don't want to show, you know, what it might actually cost you to come work here. So if you know, you're fighting against that. I know Charlotte in working with all these big companies over the years, you've had to focus on being able to sell that whole stream of of thought, how did you do it? Charlotte (19m 10s): I know it's one of those things. It's such a counterintuitive idea at first blush and it's provocative. And I remember speaking at an I4CP conference a couple of years ago in front of 200 CHROs. And the title of my talk was why you should be repelling candidates rather than attracting them. And I was nervous walking on stage. I mean, I had a lot of puzzled looks in the introduction, but it was really effective of getting people's attention. And I have yet to after explaining it and talking it through with a variety of stakeholders, have anyone disagree that it's a smart way to go. People are nervous, right? Like they're nervous to start airing their dirty laundry and talking about negative parts of their employee experience. Charlotte (19m 55s): But when you look at the type of talent they need to attract to grow and be successful, which behaviors are holding them back, that comes out in our AVP research. Like we'll look at gaps in any experience, and we'll say, okay. So in order for you to grow and succeed, you're going to need to have a workforce that's more agile and less friendly, maybe less nice. I've been working with an organization that feels like the people are too friendly. Everyone's so nice that you don't get honest, direct feedback, et cetera. So you want people that have these skillsets to come into the organization. So we'll use the employer brand as a tool to start attracting people, to level up the behaviors that we need to grow and be successful. But at the same time, we internalize the employee value proposition and try to inspire behavior change and celebrate and galvanize and bring people together for starting to behave in different ways as well. Joel (20m 46s): So Julie and the gang at recruitment marketing are having a, I think it's a webinar about TikTok. Julie, is that correct? Julie (20m 52s): Yeah. Tomorrow we're going to be talking the talk and using TikTok and recruitment marketing. Joel (20m 58s): There you go. So I want to just talk briefly about when you mentioned, when you got into employment branding and it felt like at the time, you know, sort of the rise of Glassdoor was a big part of companies really thinking about what is our brand and how should we, you know, present ourselves to the community? And I think over the course of being in this profession, you've seen the rise and maybe the impending fall of Glassdoor. And now we're seeing the rise of TikTok. It seems like a really hard strategy to go on social media and particularly video and talk about how tough it is to work at your company and sort of filter out everyone. What tips would you give Charlotte in terms of you utilizing TikTok and presenting that message in a social media format? Joel (21m 44s): And Julie, I guess, from you after to follow her up is what are, what are you guys seeing on TikTok on the community? What are people doing on your end to brand themselves on TikTok that you're finding is pretty unique? Charlotte (21m 57s): That's a great question. I mean, I love social media for activation of an employer brand because it helps so much with the authenticity. It makes a lot of organizations still very uncomfortable to invest in advocacy and to unleash their employees, to start being ambassadors for the brand and letting them speak freely. And I'm always in that debate and conversation on let's go, let's release them. Let's let people start talking and showing. TikTok is particularly interesting because you need employees to be the stars of them. This isn't something that can traditionally be highly curated and produced by my team or a video team. We need to find employee actors that want to star in them. Charlotte (22m 37s): And what I would say to anyone doing it is just be really clear with your storyline. You want people to say if you're the type of person that thrives in challenge that wants to see your work in the hands of millions of people every day, and is motivated by working with the smartest people on the planet. You're probably going to love working here, but if you don't like this, this and this, we're probably not the place for you. So you always have to have that balance, but on TikTok, you want to make it fun and humorous so it's an opportunity to really not take yourself too seriously. Joel (23m 7s): And I can see the company that likes meetings on TikTok. Now just TikTok in the meeting, going. I love meetings. Meetings are great, fantastic. Julie (23m 15s): But you can have fun with that. I mean, TikTok, it's number one use is entertainment and people are digesting content for the intent of entertainment. They're not going on there to do their job search, but they are absolutely absorbing brand while they're there. And brand is who you are when you're not in the room. It's what people are saying and thinking in their impressions of you. So this is a great way to help influence those stories. But yeah, big organizations should have concern for it because it is like user generated content is really what fuels it and you can't really control that. Julie (23m 58s): So if a large organization is really concerned about risk, it's something to be very careful about. But also at the same time, if you're going to come in with a strategy is one thing, but it's already happening anyways. They user generated content. Is there whether you want it to be or not. The big one I'd say right now, that's going on is all the salary transparency, gen Z is the biggest user of TikTok and they are not afraid to get on there and share, tell what's going on in the world. They're not afraid, like past generations have been, are a little hesitant to get on video and be commital. They'll put it out there. So that information's there. Julie (24m 38s): Salary transparency is happening. Reviews about the company, whether they're positive or negative, they are happening and you cannot control that. So I understand why companies fear that, but the difference is, do you just let it go and you don't have any story? Or you don't have a voice in the room? Or could go on the platform and you start making influence into it. It's a big decision companies have to make, but in the end, people are talking, they are putting it out there. And I think, that transparency, it's just what's happening now. So should you be honest about the things that are probably difficult? Well, there's always, that's why great comms people like Charlotte know how to take a negative thing that somebody might view and look at it from a different angle and say, how might this be a positive to someone else? Julie (25m 23s): And then tell that great story. But Charlotte, I'd love to know your thoughts on salary transparency. Like this is a big thing that's happening right now. States are starting to make it the law that you have to disclose the salary in the job posting in certain states and companies are nervous. Is this going to cause people to be detracted from my company if I disclose it? Joel (25m 49s): Is a low salary in your strategy? Julie (25m 52s): Yeah. Charlotte (25m 53s): I'd be nervous too if I wasn't paying market rates. I mean, I am here for this. I love it. I love to negotiate and I love to negotiate salary. I just joined a new organization and got to do it all over again. And it's one of the most thrilling things to do. And I think particularly women, we're not traditionally comfortable asking for what we feel like we deserve and what we get. And it's really difficult when the information isn't there. So why not? The only reason not to post it in my opinion is to low ball people and to give them what they're willing to accept versus what the market rate for that position is. So we're going through the same exercise in my organization now. And we're looking to re-scope our career site to launch our employer brand at the end of the year. Charlotte (26m 37s): And I'm looking to build it in so that we can add that transparency of all of our jobs. We do not pay bottom of the range. I'm not worried about where I am currently, but I would be worried with low unemployment and a lot of choice, I'm hoping this encourages organizations to stop hiding behind other things and just raising the level of what everyone can expect. Chad (27m 2s): Question, let's just say around transparency. Charlotte, you've worked again for a bunch of bigger companies or practitioner, you have to do this on a daily basis. We're talking about companies who move slow. These are monolithic sized companies in some cases. How do you get them to move fast in the direction that you want them to move in? And let's say for this case of salary transparency, case in point, how do you get them to embrace this, to see it as something that is a positive for them, that they have to do? Charlotte (27m 33s): Unfortunately, the answer to that question is showing the risk. Big companies only move quick when you connect show, if you can expose how much risk they're exposing themselves to, from a legal perspective or something else, you'll be surprised how fast big companies move if you can show risk avoidance. The other thing is just really strong data. And the more data you have, whether you're negotiating your own salary or trying to get an organization to do something, the better you are. So concise data points, business case, and most places I've worked are very competitive. So you, you need to know the competitors that your C-suite cares about, who they're watching, who they are nipping at the heels at, who they absolutely want to beat at any cost and go in our work as much information about what they're doing or gearing up to do. Joel (28m 16s): It seems like on a regular basis now, Chad and I talk about companies that are raising money or getting into the employee engagement game and work from home has made it very challenging for these companies to engage or employers, to engage with their employees and candidates. I'm guessing that you have sort of taken a new look at what you do and what you recommend to companies when they have a primary work from home workforce. Can you talk about that? And what tips would you give employers who have gone from everyone's in the office to no, one's in the office. Charlotte (28m 55s): It's such an advantage from a recruiting perspective if you're open to remote work, because you're no longer looking for the strongest coder in Dallas, Texas, you know, you're able to look at the entire US or potentially internationally. So it opens your pool quite considerably, a lot of top talent aren't going back to the office full time. You know, the companies that are are mandating, full-time are really easy to poach talent away from because during the pandemic good, bad, or otherwise, we all got a taste of a different type of work. And I like to ask people when I'm doing employer brand research, if you woke up tomorrow with a winning lottery ticket in your pocket, and it was so big, that work just became optional. Charlotte (29m 38s): What would you do? And it's my favorite question to ask in a focus group, because you can imagine almost nobody says, I've come back and do this job tomorrow. Like that's almost a given, but watching them light up and talk about what they would do next or how they would spend their time is a really magical thing. And I think the pandemic and the shift to different ways of working is trying to teach us the same point. So we're not having this huge jackpot lottery win, but in the last two years, we have all made quality of life wins that we're not willing to compromise on whether it's, I want to go to yoga in the middle of the day, or I want to be home to tuck my kids in every night, or I don't want to sit on the road. Joel (30m 20s): Let me flip that real quick. So we talk about the JP Morgans. Chad (30m 24s): Here we go. Joel (30m 25s): Yeah. Like the Wall Street firms, the Goldman Sachs that are like, you're going back to the office. This is the way it is. You know, I know commuting is a bitch, but it is what it is like given your strategies to companies, wouldn't you advise them to double down on that and to really appeal to the people that do want to go to an office every day. Charlotte (30m 43s): Yeah. And you've got to be prepared to tell them what they get, that they can't get from home and they've got to be prepared to lose either in terms of engagement and productivity or retention, a large part that got a taste of something that they don't want to give up. It's easy to not give something that you've never had. Right. If you don't have a promotion yet you're used to working on that salary. It's not a takeaway, but after you've had it, Ooh, it's like taking candy from a baby. And there's a couple large companies that are making these mandates. And they're really easy to steal talent from it's exposing your brand and your people in a really competitive time, in a way that I would encourage people to be more flexible and to not have an all or nothing approach. Charlotte (31m 30s): My advice is always find a way to flex. And everyone has different points where they can flex. Julie (31m 34s): Yeah. I, people had a taste. I agree with that and now some people are not willing to sacrifice. I think the overwhelming majority as people still would like to have from the employee perspective, is that they'd still like to have contacted engagements with coworkers, but not in the office every day. So those companies that are all or nothing like we're back on the first and everybody needs to be an office. Yeah. The moment you do that, go look at how many of the contacts grow on your LinkedIn employees profiles because they're out there networking and they're immediately looking for what's next. You don't want to force people into change too quickly. Julie (32m 16s): Like you have to have a reason why there's a great benefit to come in there. People are seeing the advantages with flexible work. And they're not going to just go back into a mold of, of this or that. They want to have choice. They want to have options. They want to flexibility. And if you're not going to give it to them, somebody else will. And there are plenty of jobs out there for them to go explore right now. Chad (32m 41s): Amen. Charlotte (32m 41s): I was chatting with a financial services organization for a large employer brand role, end of last year, maybe beginning of this year. And they still haven't filled it and it started out being remote. And then right at the point of like the last interview, like, oh, we're flipping, everyone has to come back in the office and people don't want to go and move to this town in the Midwest where they're headquartered. And they're really struggling, the position has been open gosh, over a year now because they can't find for such initial, with the level of experience that requires someone who is willing to go and move there. Julie (33m 13s): I think of the, like the cascading effect of that. Like I can't get someone to come in and help me figure out why my company's valuable to work for, but yet I'm still. So if I can't get that person and how am I going to convince others? Charlotte (33m 26s): And it's such an advantage. If you are headquartered in a place that isn't Coronado, California, you're not limited by that anymore in this new normal. Chad (33m 37s): Oh, she's saying you're not limited by it. And I think that's the smart play, right? But again, companies are doing what they feel like they have to do. Quote, unquote, "have to do" whether they're ripping people back into the office or allowing that autonomy that we've had for the last few years. I got to say, Charlotte, we appreciate you coming on. The name of the book is Give and Get. Charlotte, where can people find this book and buy several copies for their friends? Charlotte (34m 6s): You can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble anywhere you go online to buy your books. It is likely there. Joel (34m 13s): And we all just learned that Barnes and Noble is still in business. Charlotte thanks for joining us, Julie, it's always fun to get your insights. Chad another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (34m 27s): We out. OUTRO (35m 16s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Love a good ol’ fashioned unicorn cage match? How about some buy-or-sell with three of Europe’s hottest recruiting startups? This episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast Dies Europe has all that, featuring HiBob, Personio, Haystack, RoleShare and more. We even throw in chicken Big Macs, dancing PMs and the state of healthcare recruiting vendors on the continent. Lieven and The Boys bring their A-Game on this one. Enjoy. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. TRANSCRIPTION COMETH!

Steve Pemberton is Best Selling Author, Philanthropist, Acclaimed Speaker, and Senior Level Executive. He wasn't given a chance in the world; he proved them wrong. Steve's chance is now focused on change. In this interview we talk about the pace of change, the fluidity of change, scaling belief and purpose, the end state of remote work, the future of equity, who was responsible for getting companies through the pandemic, and more. Steve was not given a chance in the world and now he's changing it. Enjoy! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (27s): Hey it's Chad. Whenever you have a chance to interview someone whose life has been turned into a movie, well, you make time for that interview. And we did with Steve Pemberton, currently CHRO at WorkHuman straight from Unleash America's expo floor we got Steve on the mic and to be truthful, most people have to get comfortable on the mic. Not Steve. He's funny, smart, genuine and one of the best interviews we have recorded to date. Now, we originally recorded this interview exclusively for the Unleashed Cast podcast, but it was too damn good not to share here. Chad (1m 10s): You can find more great interviews from the floor of Unleash America over at Unleashed Cast podcast. Let's join the conversation in progress. Steve (1m 21s): So 30 seconds or less, I walk across my college graduation stage. Nobody's there? Chad (1m 28s): Yeah. Steve (1m 29s): No family, nobody. I'm like, why the hell is this? Where's my mother, father? I go looking for them. When I find them, find siblings find this case file that's almost 300 pages long and in that case file was a prediction from a social worker who said that I was not going to have a chance in the world. So I titled that the book that I wrote for my children, that book became a bestseller, became a movie, became a curriculum that's taught in American schools. None of that I was trying to do. Joel (2m 1s): Yeah. And what's the movie called again for Steve (2m 2s): A Chance in the World. Chad (2m 5s): A Chance in the World. So you've got a great story, right? Why get into HR? Steve (2m 12s): Because that's what HR is about. Chad (2m 14s): Yeah, tell me about that. Steve (2m 15s): It's about people's stories. Chad (2m 16s): Yeah? Steve (2m 16s): I mean, I've always been fascinated. Well, because of my own journey, like I've always been fascinated by systems and people and in part, because both systems and people failed me. Chad (2m 28s): Yes. Steve (2m 29s): So how do systems and people that drive them? How do those two worlds intersect? And HR's probably the single best place to do that cuz every day you wake up trying to figure out where they're dealing with payroll or they're dealing with advancing people. You you're always wrestling with how systems enable people and how those people enable systems. Chad (2m 45s): So how hard is it to actually get the systems to work? Right? I mean, we're talking about one company right now, right? Steve (2m 52s): Yeah. Chad (2m 53s): How hard is it to get it just within your own organization? Steve (2m 56s): Oh! Chad (2m 56s): To get those to run, right. We're talking about equity, talking about transparency. We're talking about systems that have been broken forever. Steve (3m 4s): Yeah! Chad (3m 4s): Now we've got technology that should make this easier, but for some reason, for decades, it has not happened. So for you a leader, for just one company and we won't talk about clients or anything, just how do you harness this? How do you actually fix this? Steve (3m 20s): Well, change has been going on since the beginning of time. Right? If it hadn't, you know, we'd be running around with clubs chasing dinosaurs. Change has always happened. Chad (3m 28s): That's what Joel does on the weekends, by the way. Steve (3m 31s): Yeah. I'm gonna leave that alone. Leave Joel alone. But what's different for us to pace a change. Which is why I think it's so hard, cuz the minute that you think you have that system teed up, then there's could be a new federal regulation that comes down. Chad (3m 45s): Right. Steve (3m 46s): Something could happen around pay equity and so now you gotta revamp your systems all over again. We have a tendency to think that I've done that and I can move on and then something else emerges now you've gotta go back and it really frustrates people. Chad (3m 58s): Right. Right. Steve (3m 58s): And we're gonna have to accept the fact that change is happening so quickly. It's just gonna be a norm and you're gonna have to be constantly and relentlessly updating. And then I think the other, which is the subject of the panel, is how are those same systems enabling these softer or these perceptively softer things? Like culture. Chad (4m 19s): Yes. Steve (4m 19s): Like skills. Chad (4m 20s): Yeah. Steve (4m 20s): And I think technology is, might be our last best shot because as human beings, we keep getting this wrong. I mean, look at the broader society. Right? Look at what's happened. Chad (4m 30s): Yeah. Steve (4m 31s): Last 48 hours. Last two weeks. Chad (4m 31s): Yeah. Steve (4m 32s): Where do you turn? Where are the places you turn and what are the tools you turn to try and find some semblance of humanity. Chad (4m 40s): Yeah. Yeah. Joel (4m 42s): I wanna touch on your employer. WorkHuman. Steve (4m 44s): Yes. Joel (4m 44s): And your background, you've worked in a lot of big organizations. I heard Walgreens and some other, so what was it about WorkHuman, an HR company that appealed to you and that seems like an interesting dynamic to be an HR head in an HR related company. Steve (5m 0s): Yeah. Joel (5m 1s): Talk about that. Steve (5m 1s): That Joel, that to me is the cool part because one, the threshold is higher. When you run HR for a company that sells into HR, you'd better be damn good, because you have to have the credibility to walk into any prospect or any customer and say, so here is how I leverage in our case. Here's how I leverage our recognition platform. And I like that. I like the challenge of it was I tell my team all the time, we have to be what we sell and there's no greater credibility you have than to say, here's how we're leveraging and utilizing it. I also think my own career path, I was part of an organization in Walgreens, like 90% brand recognition, 250,000 people and it became, Joel (5m 40s): Yeah's kind of a big deal, big deal, Walgreens. Steve (5m 42s): But that was one of the problems. Is just too damn big. Joel (5m 45s): Really? Steve (5m 46s): And you're dealing with a very complex industry. That's healthcare. Chad (5m 49s): Yeah. Steve (5m 50s): So I wanted to do something that was faster moving and that was advancing a broader societal mission. I'd argue that healthcare is doing that too. Cuz without health, everything else, just a conversation. Joel (5m 60s): Yeah. Steve (6m 1s): But to know you wake up every day, seeing how a recognition moment changes somebody's life really spoke to me at a point in my career where I could kinda look around a landscape and say, all right, I'm gonna be fine. I have a job. Like what do I want do? Joel (6m 15s): Yeah. Steve (6m 17s): And to choose a company that was rapidly rising was, I needed to feel alive again. It felt like that. Like you need to be like alive again. Chad (6m 24s): Now do you feel since you're working for a tech company that you can actually scale what your belief is, what you know to do through that organization? Steve (6m 36s): Well, in my world you had better because if not, especially because of the pandemic, people gonna walk out on you. I think I think that's a dynamic that's changed. It's not about work life anymore. It's about life at work. Chad (6m 47s): Yeah. Steve (6m 47s): Because you know, we're sitting on screens and you know, you've got babies on laps and cats walking across the desk. Chad (6m 54s): Yeah. Steve (6m 54s): I mean, you, you saw windows, literally windows into people's lives. Yeah. And if you're not using technology to scale those human interactions, then those people are gonna say, Hey, you know, I like Joel, Joel's a great dude. And I like the company, but I want to go someplace where I'm awoken again and I'm doing something to broaden the world. That can't happen if you are just having these kind of one off conversations, which are nice and they're cool. But you wanna know that you are scaling that. And the last thing I'd say, and certainly this is true in the pandemic. I mean, people are hurting. I mean, you, you see this, what happened in Buffalo? What happened in Uvalde? Chad (7m 35s): Yeah. Steve (7m 35s): You know, our employees, aren't walking into WorkHuman and they're turning that off. They're not turning that off. They want a place to talk about it. Chad (7m 41s): Yeah. Steve (7m 41s): Even if they don't know what to say. So we have a parents that WorkHuman Slack channel and that just lit up yesterday. People didn't know where to go. They know who to talk about. They were using this technology platform just to have a conversation cuz we're a company made up predominantly of people who are parents of young children. So they're dropping their child off at the bus and holding onto their hand longer. My VP of HR said, dropped my daughter off of school, police presence there. Police presence wasn't there yesterday. Chad (8m 12s): Yeah. Steve (8m 12s): How are you having those conversations? Chad (8m 13s): Yeah. Steve (8m 13s): What are you talking about? Chad (8m 14s): Active shooter drills are happening and your kids are talking about it coming home. Yeah. Steve (8m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. Very different. Very different. Joel (8m 25s): We talk every week about the remote work question. Steve (8m 27s): Yeah. Joel (8m 28s): And some companies are, get your ass back to the office. Some are never come back again. Others are are hybrid. What was the internal discussion like at WorkHuman in regards to what you were gonna do after the pandemic? Steve (8m 41s): I mean, generally speaking, Joel, nobody knows. I mean they can say they know. The reality is that you don't know until you put it into practice. That's the reality of where you are. And so I see all, you know, the influences and talking heads say do X, Y or Z. I'm like, yeah. Okay. That's bovine skitology, you know what that is? Joel (8m 58s): Bullshit. Steve (8m 58s): That's right. You don't know. You don't know. Joel (8m 60s): Yeah. Steve (8m 60s): So for us, here's what we did, we went through these cycles. I think every company's doing and you're reading articles and you know what we did that really changed the dynamic. We went to our people and we said, rather than us throwing policies and practices down around remote working, tell me what it is you're looking for. And here's what came back to us. We are looking for fun. We're looking for fitness, we're looking for food and we're looking for some sense of family. So that's how I talk about it internally for us. But that's us. Right? That's what we are looking for. And then the other, I think is it's a critical factor is how people are being productive and efficient in their way and by function. Steve (9m 42s): So you're in sales, I'm in marketing, you're in IT. Our industries are working very differently. Good luck going to your CIO, your CTO and saying your people have to be in the office five days a week. Joel (9m 57s): Oh yeah. Steve (9m 57s): She's gonna say, well, I'm gonna lose 25, 30% of my workforce if you force that, on the other hand marketing, you might say, I've gotta have 'em at least two to three days. Somebody else in fulfillment might say, well, I can't fulfill things if they're not physically in the space. Joel (10m 11s): Yeah. Steve (10m 12s): And I think that's the shift that has to happen. So start looking at this one by asking your people what they're looking for and then put a functional lens over. And lastly you have to drive a message. Not everybody's gonna be working exactly the same way and you're gonna have to accept that. Joel (10m 28s): Yeah. Chad (10m 29s): Well we never have, I mean, seriously, we really never have. Steve (10m 32s): Fair point. Chad (10m 33s): We're now starting to see how much different we all are. The question is, and we've heard some companies and some vendors talking about, being able to provide amazing amounts of flexibility to their workers. So from the standpoint of, if I can work from home five days a week, I'll give up X, Y, or Z. Steve (10m 53s): Yes. Chad (10m 53s): So a little bit of pay, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Some time off, whatever it is. Steve (10m 60s): Right. Chad (11m 0s): Do you think that, that is something that a company can actually manage? And then if they can, how do you take a look at the equity conversation there? Because the individual, the employee is picking this, right? Steve (11m 14s): Yes. Chad (11m 14s): And it's a much harder to take a look at what equity actually means. Steve (11m 18s): Yeah. And how do you not wind up with two different kinds of companies as a result? Chad (11m 24s): Yeah. Steve (11m 25s): One that's remote and one that's. Well, I think the fulcrum is really the people leaders in that company specifically, they're the ones who are gonna have to develop new management muscle to deal with those changing realities. Otherwise, if you, you could have silos and legal wants to run it one way and finance wants to run it another and that's how you wind up with these inequities. So I think training people, leaders, and I get on biweekly calls without people leaders. It's like every other week, every Wednesday morning, I'm on with them. Chad (11m 60s): Yeah. Steve (12m 0s): And we're walking through all these things. Why, because it's still unfolding. We're still processing. We're still communicating, but I'm really clear in telling them you are going to have to manage your workforce differently than you have in the past. And we'll bring outside agencies will step through training, whatever's required. But for me in our executive team has this expectation you're just gonna get it. Without that I think you wind up with disparate processes and that's where the inequities come from and so people just start exiting on you. Joel (12m 29s): So speaking of inequities, I don't know if you saw our keynote with the commissioner of the EEOC yesterday, but we talked extensively about AI and hiring and how there are bias decisions being made through AI. Curious, are you sort of a sounding board for the products being made at WorkHuman and what kind of traps do you see companies falling into with sort of leaning on AI and, and sort of the trap doors to look for when bias does come into play, whether it's intentional or not? Chad (13m 3s): That's a good one. Steve (13m 4s): Yeah. So, because you still have no matter what you do, you're still gonna have human beings who are behind the AI in some way, shape or form determining algorithms. Right? Architecting, language. Chad (13m 15s): Training data. Steve (13m 17s): All of that. Chad (13m 19s): Oh yeah. Yeah. Steve (13m 21s): I think focusing on technology to preempt bias specifically is where I think the next evolution should go. Cuz right now all of the tools, that like chief diversity officers have, CHROs have, guys the damage has already been done. It's already been done. If you're doing an adverse impact analysis, for example, after you've had a reduction in workforce or you're dealing with a class action lawsuit from EEOC. Chad (13m 46s): Yeah. Steve (13m 47s): Damage has already been done. You already have a reputation out there. So I think leveraging AI specifically as you're going through performance reviews, as you're in our world, a recognition moment. Hey Joel, did you really mean to use this language in recognizing a woman for performance? You may not even be aware of it. My wife and daughter often remind me, I'm not the feminist I think I am. Chad (14m 9s): Yes. Steve (14m 10s): Right? I didn't know. But if it gets, if that mirror gets held up to me while it's happening, not after the fact, not after she's already left, not after she's already been offended. I think you can create a very different kind of language. What. Now the challenge I think, is shifting a lot of the DE&I practitioners shifting their mindset. They're not dealing in broader society today, they're not dealing with unconscious bias. A lot of the shit I see has conscious bias. Chad (14m 39s): Yeah. We're beyond unconscious. Steve (14m 40s): Yeah. This is not a matter of, you don't know better. #MeToo movement. Chad (14m 43s): Yeah. Steve (14m 43s): You know exactly what the hell you were doing. Joel (14m 46s): Yeah. Steve (14m 46s): So you're getting enabled. You still are, no matter what AI is built, you're still going to need people to make moral, ethical decisions when those behaviors emerge. On the hiring front I do think though, is where you've seen advancements specifically, so that you you're dealing with issues of names and how names are used in the search process. Are we being equitable and fair? And do we have corrective practices? Coming from a former Chief Diversity Officer until I feel. Chad (15m 15s): So, let's talk about Chief Diversity Officers. So many are out there and they're put on an island. They don't have funding. They don't have staff. They don't have any means of actually making real impact. Really they're just a figurehead that's there. Steve (15m 32s): Yeah. Chad (15m 32s): And we've seen that for years. Have you seen changes and where are, if we, if you have, where did those changes start? Did they start in the C-suite? Did it start grassroots or do you think it just hasn't changed? Steve (15m 45s): I don't think you've seen the seismic change that's required to reflect the times. I'll answer it that way. Remember the origins of the role of the CDO came from the early to mid nineties when companies found themselves in courtrooms getting sold for millions and millions of dollars. And so, you know what those boards went back and they said, well, we gotta stay outta courtroom. We gotta stay outta the news. So we're gonna hire somebody. Chad (16m 10s): Yeah. Steve (16m 11s): And that person's sole job and responsibilities to make sure we don't wind up in the courtroom again. So think what that anchor is. That anchor more Chad (16m 18s): Compliance. Steve (16m 18s): Yeah, exactly what it was. Chad (16m 19s): Yeah. Steve (16m 20s): In quasi PR, which is how you wind up with a single individual, no budget and a lot of external facing optics kind of things. Chad (16m 28s): Right. Steve (16m 28s): Well, when was the last time in any part of any organization that you said anything was of significance in value you put one person on it with no budget? Nowhere. So you're sending a message already about its value and importance. Now what's changed though, is demography. And that's always the disconnect for me. So how knowing that your customer bases are changing, who you're, serving's changing, like how can you continue to go down this path of the CDO in a role by themselves kinda like an ice cream cone, no ice cream in basically. Chad (16m 60s): Yeah. Yeah. Steve (17m 0s): So for a lot of companies though, and especially George Floyd, which is where I think you saw this real paradigm shift. Chad (17m 7s): Yes. Steve (17m 8s): So since may of 2020, which is when George Floyd was murdered, companies have dedicated 66 billion to eliminating disparities, in transportation, in housing. So that was a real paradigm shift. The business round table made up of 181 CEO said, you know, we have a broader societal responsibility because prior to that, they came from that Milton Friedman school of thought, which was, we don't have any responsibility other than generating a profit. Chad (17m 34s): Yeah. Steve (17m 34s): Drucker comes along a little bit later and says, no, you have a broader responsibility here. So when the business round table says, actually you're right. It's why you see Apple investing in homelessness. It's why, when we were at WorkHuman in Atlanta last year, we had our recognition moments and all the recognition moments that came through, went to three charities in the Atlanta area. In other words, we're saying as businesses, we are not gonna leave this government because by and large, our politics are not in a place where they seemingly can solve the challenges of our time. Chad (18m 4s): Yeah. Steve (18m 4s): So we have this quiet covenant, I think that's happening amongst businesses saying, we'll take it on. We're gonna get together cuz we have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, to society. We have performance metrics. We have urgency because we are held to the public markets and you're gonna see more and more companies who are gonna form partnerships like Bank of America does with Morehouse College and Spelman College in Atlanta. HBCU saying, we're gonna start centers for entrepreneurship. Chad (18m 33s): Yeah. Steve (18m 34s): We're gonna be focused on women in STEM disciplines. So that's why I have hope despite the fact, I think some things have not changed. Joel (18m 41s): It's looking more and more like we're headed into a recession. And in typical recessions, the rule book kind of gets thrown out, we Batten down the hatches and we survive the storm. What's your take on these DEI issues in regards to the economy and a downturn? What happens when that happens? And then when we come out of it, what's your view on what DEI looks like? Is it stronger after the storm or do we go back to more status quo? Steve (19m 9s): Well, typically the recession around those matters is always mental retraction. You know, when you perceive DEI as a nice thing to do in cost cutting time, it's the first thing to go because it's an optic in some cases, candidly or a kind of a nice to have. Joel (19m 24s): Yeah. Steve (19m 24s): But again, who's your customer base? Who are you serving? Who's your employee base? I can't, I'm sure this happened to both of you as well, I can't tell you a number of times. Probably most recently, a couple weeks ago from New England live in Chicago, big Dunkin' Donuts. That's my deal. Joel (19m 38s): Dunky's. Steve (19m 38s): Yes, man. I go to a Dunkin' Donuts, like five o'clock to grab a cup of coffee. Sign. We don't have staff here. Chad (19m 46s): Yeah. Steve (19m 46s): We don't have staff here. Chad (19m 48s): Yeah. Steve (19m 48s): Right. So this idea somehow that we can just kind of get through a recession and then we'll be able to, I don't think that's. We had better planned for it accordingly. I will say though, that the pandemic would've led you to believe that too. Right. Because okay. We're all in this moment, this first six weeks are we gonna be around? Are we gonna be relevant? Chad (20m 7s): Yeah. Steve (20m 7s): You imagine the hotel industry. Airlines industry. We know what they went through. I do think it requires from the early onset. Cuz see your point. You can con you can see, you can see the tides starting to go out vis a vis the recession. So you have to make a B line literally to your employee population, to your customer base and you have to have a very active plan. I'm not referring to kind corporate social responsibility. What your retention plan? Who's gonna be staffing any parts of your organization? It's gonna require that new leadership muscle. It's just not true about managing people through a pandemic, it's also managing through recessions. And it just seems like every damn week, man is just something else coming. Chad (20m 50s): Yes. Steve (20m 50s): Something else coming. You know, the other thing I would point out is that the pandemic really magnified this HR, you know, it's always a battle to prove your relevance to have a seat at the table. Joel (21m 0s): Yeah. Chad (21m 0s): Yeah. Steve (21m 0s): Like why are you relevant? Chad (21m 2s): Yeah. Yeah. Steve (21m 2s): And I would say the pandemic, I kind of walk around with my chest, pumped up, puffed up around WorkHuman and generally. You know why? We don't have anything to prove anymore because the responsibility for getting an organization through the pandemic fell on HR. Just like the last recession that was the test of the CFO. We were the ones who had to get people home if they were at a conference and you got a shelter in place order. We were the ones who said, let's get you the equipment so you can keep doing your job. Chad (21m 28s): Yeah. Steve (21m 28s): We were the ones who created programming when mental health began to raise its head. We were the ones designing vaccine and safety protocols. We came back to the office, we're the ones designing hybrid ways of working. Chad (21m 42s): The essential workers that are out there, man. Steve (21m 44s): Yes, yes. Chad (21m 44s): And they were finally titled essential workers and those people lifted up their chest came out. Steve (21m 45s): Yes. Chad (21m 46s): Because they knew that nothing happened without them. We saw a supply chain. Steve (21m 52s): Yes. Chad (21m 53s): Go down. Steve (21m 53s): Yes. Chad (21m 53s): Right? Steve (21m 54s): Absolutely. Absolutely. We gotta have a little bit more swag in HR. Chad (22m 0s): Yeah. Steve (22m 1s): To be honest. Chad (22m 1s): We do. We do. Okay. So last question, Steve. We're back. We're live. Steve (22m 5s): Yeah. Chad (22m 6s): We're here. How does it feel, man? Great. Steve (22m 10s): Yeah. I mean, I love technology. I'm a first adopter and just about damn near anything and the three of us could be on the screen, but you know, we can have a conversation since we're all bearded here, you know? I mean just stuff that we can talk about, laugh about. Chad (22m 26s): Yeah. Steve (22m 26s): Connect. Even though we're just meeting for the first time. Technology can't replace that. Chad (22m 32s): Right. Steve (22m 32s): So that feels great. And I also think the pandemic robbed us of community. Chad (22m 38s): Yeah. Steve (22m 38s): It really did. I mean, you just isolated your alone and it's just something about laughing, smiling, having a drink, catching up with your colleagues Joel (22m 46s): Or two or three drinks. Steve (22m 47s): Or depending on what's unfolding, four or five. Chad (22m 49s): In Vegas. Yeah. Steve (22m 50s): We need that. We need that. Joel (22m 52s): I'll let you out on this. You're obviously a thoughtful guy. What are what's on your reading list this summer? What are you watching? What, you know, what's filling your brain this summer? Steve (23m 4s): Yeah. So I'm gonna answer that probably differently. So I am a voracious, relentless reader. I am an author. I am actually writing my next book. So my time is usually spent reading and writing my next one. Joel (23m 18s): Nice. Steve (23m 19s): Trying to find the time to do that, getting the head space to do it. Joel (23m 22s): Yep. Steve (23m 22s): Love the written word. This one has always been a bit of a project, you know, one of that wishlist things, and I've just said, you know. Chad (23m 29s): Yeah. Steve (23m 29s): I'm gonna really sit down and do this this time around. Chad (23m 32s): Get a cabin in the woods and knock it out. Steve (23m 34s): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But you gotta be in a space to write, you know, you gotta be in a space I think, to read as well and absorb kind of what your, the last one I read was the Song of Achilles. It's a great, great book, revisits the story of Achilles, but in a very, very different way, which I'd recommend everybody take a gander at. Chad (24m 0s): Like revisionist almost Malcolm Gladwell style? Steve (24m 4s): Yeah, exactly. Revisiting and basically imagining Achilles, still being the hero that he was, but understanding his journey in a very, very different way. And there's a real powerful narrative in there about DE and I. That's Chad (24m 17s): That's amazing, man. Pretty cool. Steve Pemberton, everybody. Steve, thank you so much for taking time, man. If people want to connect with you or find out more about what you're doing, where would you actually send them? Steve (24m 29s): Go to WorkHuman.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I like catching up with folks and hearing what they're up to. You learned a lot from engaging and interacting with people, hear what's on their minds too. So easy to find on any of the social media platforms. Chad (24m 42s): Amen. Steve (24m 42s): Good hanging out with you guys too, man. Joel (24m 47s): Absolutely Man. Thank you, Steve. This was great. Chad, another one is in the can. Chad and Cheese (24m 54s): We out. Chad (24m 55s): Damn. That was good. Remember you can find more great interviews over at Unleashed Cast podcast. We out. OUTRO (24m 59s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (25m 46s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

What recession? This week, we have two new unicorns and another on its way in HiBob, Incredible Health and 15Five. Needless to say, however, we're not particularly bullish on every one. What's more, Whole Foods says, "Get off my lawn," and Adam Neuman of WeWork fame goes full Svengali on his new startup, Flow, to the tune of $350 million for an idea that will allegedly take form sometime in 2023. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, we even talk about LinkedIn's "crying CEO" that's blowing up the socials this week. You're welcome! Now go sign-up for a chance to win free stuff at www.chadcheese.com. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (21s): Oh yeah. New Gallup report says 60% of workers are emotionally detached at work and 19% as being miserable. Side note, it also sounds like a survey of my exes. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "quietly quitting" Cheeseman. Chad (42s): And this is Chad "that was a bullshit call" Sowash. Joel (45s): On this week's show Whole Foods says get off my lawn. Incredible Health lives up to its name. And HiBob, more like, HiUnicorn! sfx (55s): Pink Fluffy Unicorns. Joel (57s): Let's do this! Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks! Cleveland Rocks! Chad (1m 5s): So Dude, when did baseball add that bullshit rule about a catcher with the ball in hand, not being able to block the plate. I mean, baseball is already fucking boring enough as it is. Why do you take, why do you make that rule? That's fucking stupid. Joel (1m 19s): I don't know. I mean, we live in Indy or baseball is, you know, sort of, I don't know, gets no attention. We have the Reds who suck and the Cubs who suck and I can't be a White Sox fan. So I don't know. I don't keep up with baseball it remind, but when we went back to Cleveland, I remembered how much I loved baseball and going to baseball games. It's kind of a shame that we live in an area that doesn't have professional baseball. Chad (1m 41s): Yeah, we've got a great little little field though there, right? Joel (1m 46s): Oh, for sure. You know, we got a great triple AAA team. Nice little field, but I can't name one player. I don't know if they're any good. They're never on the news, so yeah. Yeah. If you wanna go see a game, you can, but they're not gonna be in the World Series. Chad (1m 59s): Nothing but Colts on the news now, baby. That's what it's all about. Joel (2m 3s): Oh, it's yeah. Full on football season. I mean we're what three weeks away now. Chad (2m 8s): Oh yeah, man watching pre-season I, you know, obviously you get excited cuz it's football and then you start watching pre-season and then you realize it's pre-season so you only get to see like, you know, a few plays of the guys who are actually gonna be out on the field. Yeah but pretty stoked about Matt Ryan this year. Hopefully, you know, we'll get a couple of seasons, good run outta him because I think the team is pretty stout. Joel (2m 34s): Yeah. By the way, going to Cleveland, reminding me of what a dumpster fire the Browns are gonna be, Chad (2m 40s): Oh my God. sfx (2m 40s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Chad (2m 44s): Then shout out to the boys at Evergreen who have to work, you know, think about that shit on the daily for God's sakes. Joel (2m 51s): Hold on dude. As soon as I said that the news brief came over Deshaun Watson 11 game suspension, $5 million dollars. That just came across my phone as I said that, so anyway. Chad (3m 3s): Good timing. Joel (3m 4s): Enjoy we'll see 'em at the end of the season when they're 0 and 11. So it'll be fun. Chad (3m 8s): Yeah, yeah, no, we got a chance this week to go to Cleveland, AKA the mothership Evergreen Podcast Network to meet with Michael and the rest of the crew there. Good times! Went to a game, had some good grub. Yeah. I enjoyed going to Cleveland. Never thought growing up in Mansfield when, I mean, Cleveland was a fucking dumpster fire. Joel (3m 29s): Yeah. Chad (3m 29s): At one time that we would ever say that, you know, going to Cleveland, would be looking forward to that. And, now I do, even Julie said that, which blew my mind. Joel (3m 38s): I was pretty inebriated the second night. And I was like, did she really say we should get a home in Cleveland? Like sell the Indy boat and move to Northeast Ohio. Idk. Chad (3m 51s): That just tells you how inebriated she was. Joel (3m 56s): By the way you gotta tell the scotch story. Cause this is funny. So we go to Flannery's after the game and they have a nice selection of Irish scotch, etcetera. And I'm getting the gang a drink and Chad says, just get me whatever you're getting. Well, I get a nice little Laphroaig neat. So I get that for him. We sit down, you sniff it and you take it from there. Chad (4m 21s): I almost puked at the smell of, there was so much smoke. I swear the fire department almost fucking came. It was like chewing on fucking cow shit that was, you know, smoked in the, which I mean peat, which is pretty much what it is anyway. But yeah, that was, I can't believe I that's how drunk I was. I finished that drink. I woke up in the morning and I was like, why did you do that? You fucking idiot. You should have just handed it to Joel and went and got a real drink. That was fucking horrible. Joel (4m 53s): Like you smoked an old catcher's mitt when you woke up. Chad (4m 57s): It was so fucking horrible. I think when I breathed out in the morning, I could actually see smoke coming outta my nostrils. It was bad. Joel (5m 3s): Either love it or hate it. I love it. Chad (5m 7s): So fucking hate it! Joel (5m 8s): More for me. More for me. I love it. But anyway, yeah. Shout out to Cleveland and we have some more shoutouts, I guess, right? Like Roy Maurer, one of the few signs of life at SHRM. Chad (5m 20s): Love that man. Joel (5m 22s): Roy Maurer published Glassdoor ordered to out some anonymous users that featured yours truly quoting me saying "people who work for international companies will probably refrain from posting on Glassdoor or have some trepidation". I don't even know what trepidation means, but shout out to Roy Maurer at SHRM. Chad (5m 43s): I love when Roy makes us look smart, especially you. Cause that's not an easy job. Joel (5m 49s): Not easy. Chad (5m 50s): Thanks to Tiffany over at Work Human. She sent us some swag boxes. That was pretty nice. Joel (5m 58s): I wear the a hundred percent human hat, but nobody believes it. Nobody believes it. Shout out Chad (6m 4s): Lies. Joel (6m 5s): Shout out to another a hundred percent human Amanda Gianelli okay. monster.com has promoted Amanda to VP of Sales in Media Alliances. Now you might think this is a shoutout about the promotion, but Chad you'd be wrong. The shout out goes to Amanda for being at Monster since 2006. Chad and Cheese (6m 29s): Wow. Wow. Joel (6m 29s): She's seen some shit! Most notably, a market cap of $8 billion in the good old days to being sold to Randstad in 2016 for a meager $429 million. Shout out to Amanda Gianelli your threshold for pain is much greater than mine is. Chad (6m 47s): Yeah, I can only imagine the bank account over therapist at this point. Jesus. Shout out to James Ellis. Oh boy. Sent us a t-shirt from the new gig at Employer Brand Labs. That's his new thing. So I don't quite get the t-shirt. He might have to explain it to us, but it says on its specific and attractive and different and real. So I guess the attractive was me. The different was you. I don't know what the specific or real was, but the acronym is S A D R. I'm lost. Joel (7m 22s): Not a more appropriate acronym for James Ellis. Could I think of than sadder? So yes. Yes. The it's a form fitting shirt that makes me look sexy. I'm sure it makes you look sexy as well. Chad. Chad (7m 37s): Yes. Joel (7m 37s): All right. Shout out to Brian Wallake spelled W A L L A K E. I don't think it's Wallake. Like Bulaki one of our favorite... Chad (7m 45s): I do like that, Balaki. Yes. Joel (7m 47s): Key and peel skits. Anyway. There's no crying in baseball as we found out in Cleveland, but there is on LinkedIn. I'm betting. A lot of our listeners know about the crying CEO, Braden Wallake the CEO of HyperSocial. A marketing agency recently posted a picture of himself crying on LinkedIn sharing quote "this will be the most vulnerable thing I've ever shared. I've gone back and forth whether to post this or not. We just had to lay off a few of our employees. I've seen a lot of layoffs over the last few weeks on LinkedIn. Most of those are due to the economy or whatever other reason, ours, my fault." End quote. Out of touch, man of the people, sensitive ponytail guy, snowflake, or just plain cringy. Joel (8m 32s): I'll let our listeners decide, but shout out to the crying CEO, Braden Wallake. Chad (8m 39s): Yeah, we should buy the URL HyperShitBag and put his fucking picture on that. Shout out to another hyper shit bag. Jamie Diamond CEO of JP Morgan. Joel (8m 51s): Oh boy. Chad (8m 52s): Is at it again. This time Diamond likens remote work in Zoom as quote unquote "management by Hollywood Squares". That's right kids. The game show that started in 1965 with guests like Harvey, Korman, Zsa Zsa Gabor. sfx (9m 7s): What did you say? Chad (9m 8s): Vincent Price. Sandy Duncan, Madame, and Joan Rivers and hosted by everybody knows Pete Marshall. This old timer's reference is just another reason why Jamie Diamond should be put out to pasture as 99% of his employees have no fucking clue what Hollywood Squares even was. Joel (9m 26s): What did you do go to go to Wikipedia for Hollywood Squares and like copy and paste all their most famous guests on the show? Or was that from memory? Chad (9m 34s): I didn't copy and paste, but I did pick out ones that at least I somewhat remembered, but I knew nobody else would. Joel (9m 43s): Remember how sexist that show was. Chad (9m 45s): Dude. It was the seventies. Everything was sexist. Joel (9m 48s): It was think about Family Feud, where they, where he kissed. He kissed every woman on that show, like on the lips. Do you remember that show? Chad (9m 56s): You're saying he should have kissed the men too. I mean, what are you saying? Joel (9m 60s): Like shit that went down in the seventies that molded our being is really fucked up, which know explains a lot. Chad (10m 7s): We'll get into more of that later. Joel (10m 11s): Richard Dawson. That was Richard Dawson, right? Chad (10m 14s): It was. Joel (10m 15s): The Gong Show? Oh man. Anyway. Chad (10m 17s): Oh yeah. Chuck Barris. Joel (10m 18s): Let's talk fantasy football before we go too much off the ledge with its seventies references. We're doing it again this year, man. Chad (10m 27s): Can't wait! Joel (10m 27s): And we got FactoryFix ... Chad (10m 30s): The F F F F baby. Joel (10m 31s): to bankroll, the whole thing. Yes. The FFA FFA league this year. We'll be promoting that very soon. Go to chadcheese.com, click the link and sign up for your chance to play fantasy football with Chad and Cheese and FactoryFix. Chad (10m 47s): And, knock Jason Putnam off the top of the fantasy football mountain kids. That's what we're gonna be doing this year. At least trying to. Joel (10m 55s): And while we're talking about free, Chad, we gotta talk about the other things that people could win. If they go to Chadcheese.com and click the link. We got whiskey from Textkernel, not one bottle Chad, but two, one, my choice one year is we got... Chad (11m 8s): And his is gonna be shit by the way. If, if he's picking drinks just buy his drink. Joel (11m 15s): No, no, I, I got a better win loss record than you do on that. Chad (11m 18s): I don't think so. Joel (11m 21s): We got beer from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. T-shirts coming soon from our friends at JobGet. We're doing the polling now! It's hotly contested. So pick your free shirt. We'll be posting that on the socials. We'll be emailing that out to our listeners and subscribers. So make sure you vote on that. And also kids, if you haven't given us a review on your platform of choice for podcast, please take 15 seconds. Go and give us a review. Give us some stars. It's our oxygen. It's the only way we get better. Chad (11m 54s): Love it. Events kids. All right. All right. We've got, you've heard of it before HR Tech, September 13th through the 16th. And where's that at? That's gonna be in Las Vegas kids. Then right after that, we go to Inspire HR in Nashville, Vegas and Nashville. It's ridiculous. Joel (12m 13s): NashVegas and Las Vegas, baby. Come on now. Hit me up. Chad (12m 18s): October 5th through the 7th. And then last but not least, we are wrapping up the year in Paris. That's right. Unleashed World in Paris, October 12th and 13th. For all of this information to register. Get your asses out there. People, if you haven't been to a show, go to a fucking show. If you haven't been to Paris before, go to Paris, go to Chadcheese.com. Click on the events link in the upper right hand corner. All the information's there. Register. Joel (12m 46s): Nice. All right! Let's talk birthdays. Some fans are celebrating another trip around the sun. Happy Birthday, Candace Miller. Mark Dubel. Brian Thompson, our friend at RecTech speaking of Nashville, where we enjoyed some, some hot Nashville chicken with our Canadian friends. Marley Huckabee. Peter Suchi, Cathy McPhillips in Cleveland, actually. Jerry Crispin, holy shit, celebrating 75 years on the planet. And we're all better for it. Stephen Fogerty, former Adidas and Twitter TA icon. Joel (13m 27s): He's now co-founder of a restaurant called the Celery in Portland, Oregon. Imagine that a restaurant called the Celery in Portland? That's crazy. And our friend Richard Cho. Chad (13m 36s): Yes. Joel (13m 37s): Who's at Gem now. Right? And we're interviewing him pretty soon. Chad (13m 41s): Yep! Joel (13m 41s): Wow. Excited about that. A lot of birthdays. Happy Birthday, everybody have some Laphroaig on me while you're at it. Don't do it. Don't don't do it. Chad (14m 2s): TOPICS! Joel (14m 2s): HiBob. Chad (14m 2s): HiBob! Joel (14m 2s): Announced a $150 million dollars! Chad (14m 5s): What? Joel (14m 6s): Series D funding round. Chad (14m 10s): Oh, wow. Joel (14m 11s): The round takes the Tel Aviv based company to total funding of $424 million. An evaluation of $2.45 billion dollars. That's right. Unicorn alert Chad. sfx (14m 23s): Pink Fluffy Unicorn. Joel (14m 24s): They last raised $150 million in a Series C last October. HiBob reported 370 new hires since the fourth quarter and expanded its New York and London offices while opening up an office in Berlin, Deutschland. They have users in 166 countries. Chad, are you ready to say HiBob? Or would BuyBob be more appropriate? Chad (14m 46s): We talked about HiBob, several times over the past two years and I believe we can say that we're both fans. This type of this type of expansion though. I mean, this could be amazing and will be one of the big, big success stories or depending on obviously the economy, we could see a rocket ship fall back to earth and gravity just smash the shit out of it. But what I want to address is falling valuations. We've been talking about bloated valuations for years now, but we're seeing valuations drop in many other business sectors, but not as much in HR and TA. Joel (15m 24s): Yep. Chad (15m 24s): So you, you might ask why? Well, you have to remember that HR and TA lag when it comes to adoption. And many of the automation based platforms have been installed in other sectors for about a decade or so. So they're fighting to stay a top of the mountain. While HR, they just discovered the fucking mountain, right? So this new traction in adoption is one of the major reasons why we're seeing valuations not plummeting, right? That's one of the reasons why this is new for us. So we're starting to see that rocket ship. So why companies like, Personio and HiBob getting so much traction, right? Because there's obviously a lot of HR and TA happening out there from a platform and startup standpoint. Chad (16m 9s): Well, because they streamline and automate the shit that nobody wants to do. I mean, wait, instead of spending hours a month on a task that takes only minutes and it really sucks. Tell me more. I want to hear more about that. Not to mention scalability, hiring companies are losing new hires during the onboarding process because humans don't scale well and systems do. So instead of tasking your recruiters with filling a position, they've already filled just two weeks ago, keep the new hire engaged and warm through automated systems in a system that allows the ability to ping them and their hiring managers. Chad (16m 50s): Right? So we'r looking at a new era of tech in automation that is finally being adopted. Joel (16m 57s): I am a fan, but I'm skeptical. This should maybe be called HiFroth instead of HiBob, because this feels super frothy. You know, we've said it before businesses don't die because they take too little money, They die because they take too much money. Big time competition from old to new companies on this one, a need to grow into new markets. It feels a little like keeping up with the Joneses. You mentioned Personio, but they have competition from Bamboo, Rippling, ADP, and a whole bunch of others. They target mid-sized to small businesses, which is dangerous Personio, which really focuses. And we love that about them. HiBob wants to be everybody's friend. So it's appropriate that he's named HiBob, but growing in a new markets is really, really tough. Joel (17m 43s): These numbers, valuations, and what they've raised seem a little outta bounds to me. It feels a little dangerous. Unlike another unicorn that we'll be talking about on the show, I'm a little skeptical about HiBob. I know it's a small example, but we mentioned Candace Miller in the birthday list. Candace was hired about a year ago to be, I think, VP of Lead Generation or something for HiBob. She lasted about a year there, which is always kind of a little bit of a red flag for me. Not that it speaks for the whole company, but I just I'm skeptical about HiBob, based on their plans to go global, the amount of competition that's come up and sort of like, Hey, well, everyone else has a billion plus dollar valuation we need that too. Joel (18m 28s): So let's go raise the money. I'm not sure that they're gonna be better for it. Time will tell. In general I like them, but I think they may have bitten off more than they can chew with this round of investment. Chad (18m 41s): I mean, this is a gamble, man. I agree a hundred percent, right? You either took way too much fucking money or you did it to spawn hyper growth, which actually helped you invade the US, which is exactly, you know, what they wanted to do. And they wanted to do well. Joel (18m 58s): Yeah. And you know, news came out this week around, you know, quarterly reports from Recruit and Zip Recruiter. They all talked about a slowdown and sort of hiring and job postings. We had Apple released a lot of contract recruiters. So I mean, timing is a little bit weird for a lot of these companies. We'll just have to see now whether I'm skeptical and HiBob is irrelevant for our next company that we're gonna talk about cause there's no skepticism on these guys. So Incredible Health sounds a little bit like my doctor following my annual checkup. Chad (19m 39s): Haha your colonoscopy. Joel (19m 41s): Yeah. My colonoscopy Incredible Health announced an $80 million Series B funding round valuing the company at $1.65 billion. sfx (19m 47s): Pink Fluffy Unicorn. Joel (19m 49s): The San Francisco based company provides a software platform that sources nurses on a permanent placement basis for hospitals. The company said it reduces the time to hire for permanent nurses to just 14 days. The company said more than 10,000 US nurses join the site's platform every week. I'll say that again, 10,000 every week and it now partners with 600 hospitals. New investors include a Workday co-CEO, an NBA player, Kaiser Permanente and John's Hopkins in addition to the likes of Dresen Horowitz. Sounds like a slam dunk, but they're not the only game in town. Joel (20m 31s): Chad, what are your thoughts on Incredible Health? Chad (20m 33s): Yeah. Hiring in the healthcare sector is obviously right for disruption and talent being nurses want flexibility and options. So wrapping in free continuing education for nurses that provides more sticky, right? They have a social network as well. And that provides more of the sticky and a feeling of the healthcare systems applying to you the nurse instead of the other way around. I believe Incredible Health has messaging right. Now, the model and the population they are serving though, I would say they're missing the traveling nurses segment. With a huge shortfall in nursing talents, I'm not sure incredible, Incredible Health can miss a huge swath of nursing talent, like that. Chad (21m 14s): So I really believe they're going to have to broaden up, especially with these 600 healthcare systems they added. Right? So yes, it's great from a messaging standpoint and a sales standpoint. Now it's all about deliverable. Also Incredible Health doesn't integrate into systems, meaning they pretty much wanna own the browser time and be the system of choice and record. In most sectors that would be a big no-no. We are always talking about who do you integrate with? Who do you integrate with? But the bureaucracy and tight requirements to be allowed to integrate into a healthcare system, no matter what it is, is so onerous for a startup. Chad (21m 54s): Plus the time it would take just to get the software approved and integrated would take years. And Incredible Health doesn't have that kind of time. So this shortens the funnel for implementation. So instead of taking years, nursing recruiters can start immediately. So I believe Incredible Health will have to broaden its footprint as I'd said, but this is a great start. And the validation of having a Kaiser Permanente come in to provide funding is pretty awesome as well. Joel (22m 23s): I'll also add that their founder is a woman of color, which we should celebrate as well and she's also a doctor! Imagine that a doctor with a healthcare site in our space. Chad (22m 34s): Yeah. Joel (22m 34s): So yeah, I mean they're five years old. You mentioned they got a lot of work to do, but they they've come a long way in just five years and 2021 revenue grew 500%. I'll say it again, 10,000 US nurses are joining every week. I mentioned 600 hospitals, that's up from 200 just a year ago. They've apparently reduced the average time to hire from 14 days from an industry standard of 82 days. And they say that they save each hospital location, at least $2 million annually in travel nurse overtime and HR costs. The US is on track, let alone the rest of the world to be 1 million nurses short by the end of 2023. Joel (23m 17s): While 77 million baby boomers in the US are not getting any younger, which tells me there are going to be a lot of nurses. Chad (23m 26s): Yes. Joel (23m 26s): Looking for a bigger, better deal. And 10,000 a week says Incredible Health may just have the secret sauce. I just hope they have the bank account to handle all the cheddar that's coming their way. I'm sure, your buddy, Jamie Diamond would be happy to service that account. Speaking of accounts in servicing, let's take a quick break and pay some bills and talk about another startup with money. Chad (23m 53s): So one of your favorite things, a number in a name in a URL. Joel (23m 57s): Yeah. Chad (23m 57s): And they're two numbers they're numbers and then they're actually, you know, 15, the number 15 and then five. I don't have a problem with this. I think it's fairly simple for anybody who understands the English language, but, but you're not a big fan. Joel (24m 12s): Not a big fan of that strategy for URLs. Thankfully they don't have a hyphen between 15 and 5. And I wonder if I go actually type in the word fifteenandfive.com if it redirects to them or if I put in 15 and the number 5, hopefully they've covered all the bases on what their names could be. But yeah, this as a URL, I don't like it. But as a company I kind of do. So the news out this week, San Francisco based 15 five, again, that's number 15 and the word five dot com. Chad (24m 47s): It does redirect by the way. Joel (24m 49s): Oh it does. Okay, good. Thanks Chad, for doing that research while I'm reading the summary, the company pioneered continuous performance management, it's raised this week, $52 million to accelerate growth and continued innovation. Their last raise was a B round of $30.7 million. That was in 2019. This brings total funding to $94.1 million. They got their name Chad from the original idea that it would take employees about 15 minutes to fill out a feedback form and just five minutes for supervisors or business owners to review their employees' responses. Customers include the likes of Spotify, Credit Karma, and HubSpot. Joel (25m 32s): Founded way back in 2011. Chad (25m 34s): Wow. Joel (25m 34s): 15Five employs about 350 people. That's according to LinkedIn. Chad, give us your thoughts on 15Five, aside from the name and the domain. Chad (25m 41s): Well, I love the new talent management platforms that are coming out because we're getting new, more dynamic information analytics and those types of things where we can make decisions faster. The problem I have with talent management platforms is that they are not messaging to the real problem. The real problem is helping HR and TA create a better narrative around business performance, not retention. Don't get me wrong. Retention is huge, but that's not where the story ends and the C-suite needs to understand just how people leaving the company affects the bottom line. So when a customer service rep leaves, how does that affect service call times? Chad (26m 23s): Do customers have to wait and does the quality go down? How does that reflect on client attrition? HR needs to solve business problems to gain more budget and resources. Then in turn, it leads to better retention, yada yada, yada, yada. Right? So if we're speaking the business speak, then we'll get what we want. But the thing is, none of these platforms are really focused on helping HR turn that narrative into business speak. When HR can make the business case, they receive more budget, when HR receives more budget. Joel (26m 54s): Yeah. Chad (26m 55s): They spend it and that's exactly what platforms like 15Five want and need. So that type of not really not really pivot, but that kind of re-trajectory of a narrative and helping their clients get to where they need to, which is to the big kids table instead of the little kids table. That's something that I think we need to do. And if companies like 15Five want to survive, they have to stop the basic bitch talent management narrative. Joel (27m 21s): So this one's pretty nostalgic for me. It was around the time when Entelo launched. It was about the time when Text Recruit launched. It was one of those sort of simple ideas that you, you went, why didn't I fucking think of that? That's pretty clever. Well, they're still around. They spent 10 years growing organically and have really just started raising serious money in light of, you know, work from home. I'm sure. In 2019, they saw the riding on the wall where the world was going. A greater need for companies to engage their employees digitally versus face to face, because while we're working from home now, there's also greater demand for retention tools. Like you mentioned, whether it's a good one or not. Joel (28m 3s): I think it is. And a generation that demands constant contact, thank you, millennials and generation Z. In many ways, the world has come to them in the last 10 years. I'm very bullish on the trend of employee engagement and companies. We talked to confirm this week, who will be dropping up Firing Squad with them real soon. But the whole idea of like new ways to engage employees, to increase retention, I'm really bullish on the trend. And, I don't know, I have to be bullish on the company that sort of pioneered the idea of doing that in a really simple, quick way. They've obviously evolved from the basic idea of, Hey, get employees to spend 15 minutes for bosses and business owners to spend five minutes to see what the hell their employees are thinking and what they're doing. Joel (28m 53s): So way ahead of the curve. The industry has come to them. They've got a great brand. They're really entrenched in technology. I mean, San Francisco, I assume they have every company tech company using them, or at least knowing about them. So congrats to them for raising the money. I think that they've done a great job over the last 10 years and will continue to do so. They're gonna get a lot more competition, which we've talked about and talked to, but I think they're gonna come out just fine and be one of the leaders in this and more than likely be an acquisition target in the next five years. Chad (29m 30s): Yeah. Talent management is getting bigger and bigger by the day as we start to understand the actual, you know, cost to business. So yeah, I think there's an opportunity here. Again, any company in the talent management side of the house, if they can tie it to bottom line, you're gonna get more money. You're gonna get that. You're gonna get that dollar faster. And that just means, guess what? You go to super unicorn before, you know it. Joel (29m 56s): Super unicorn. That's another chance to blame my favorite town by. All right, Chad, from Jamie Diamond at the top of the show to maybe one of your new boys, John Mackey, let's talk about Whole Foods. So this is from insider. The CEO of Whole Foods says younger people have to earn the right to do meaningful work. Gen Z disagrees, Whole Foods, CEO John Mackey, who is 68 years old by the way, recently said younger people quote "don't seem like they wanna work". end quote. And partly because they want meaningful jobs, he added quote, "you can expect to start with meaningful work. Joel (30m 36s): You're going to have to earn it" end quote. But younger workers aren't just being more selective with their jobs because they want their work to have an impact, they're also demanding the pay be equitable. Okay, Chad, once again, gen X gets to sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn between boomers and the utes. Who you got? Chad (30m 57s): Well, at least this asshole didn't reference the Hollywood Squares. Let's break this down about really what's happening here. You ready for this? Joel (31m 5s): Break it down, baby, break it down. Chad (31m 7s): Boomers are a product of the greatest generation and they would never live up to their parents quote unquote, "I worked in the field from sunup to sundown for a nickel a week story". So boomers always had a chip on their shoulder and then Xers like us, we had to grow up being parented by those who were still striving to live up to the greatest generation and never could, which is why Xers became rebels and kinda like, fuck all you guys. Millennials started looking for purpose. And then Zs, they're saying, Hey, if you can't give purpose, they're taking a step further if you can't gimme purpose and a living wage, well, then you can fuck off. Chad (31m 48s): I'll just live in with mom and dad a little bit longer. Guys like John Mackey, do not know how to manage that. They, they don't know how to manage something where they give a iron fist and somebody just doesn't do exactly what they said, right? They haven't evolved. And he, along with the Jamie diamonds of the world, need to be put out the pasture. And let's be clear boomers you bought your first house for $17,000. That new shiny car that you bought was $3,500. And the average college debt in 1970 was less than four grand. Boomers you had a great run, but if you're not going to realize that things have changed since 1970, you need to get the fuck out of the way. Joel (32m 32s): Remember when we talked a few weeks ago about job.com and how your brand is what others say about you not what you say about yourself. By the way, digital staffing agency still isn't anywhere on job.com's homepage. Anyway, side note, the same goes for employees. It's not what the CEO says workers should want. It's what workers actually want. Mackey is projecting has experienced 50 years ago and thinking it applies to people today. Sorry to break the news, but it doesn't. And like it or not, employers have to adapt. Hoping things go back to the way they were, is not a strategy. Joel (33m 14s): I was actually surprised a hippie dippy company, like Whole Foods was saying such things, then I remembered they were owned by Amazon and that kind of set me straight. Personally, I think he's probably right, but he doesn't have to sell me, he has to sell the people who work for Whole Foods and those apparently are gen Zs who feel much differently than I do. Get with the times, Whole Foods and CEO, John Mackey. Chad (33m 42s): Well, and then also the article from CNBC, job happiness is at a staggering all time low. And, in the article it says, this is not just an HR issue, but a bottom line one as well. Yeah, no shit. There are two very important messages here, kids. Number one, we can't lead and work like we used to. Number two, HR needs to take this quote "is not an HR issue, but a bottom line issue" and run with it. Our HR leaders must be more business savvy and stop talking about cost per hire, retention, and other shit, unless it actually ties to cost, to performance, to bottom line. Chad (34m 24s): That's all that matters. How can an empty position perform? It can't. Right. And that's one of the things that you need to be talking about that empty position can't perform. So what is the cost of all of those empty positions to our bottom line? What additional budget do we need to ensure that we can rectify that issue? We need to have those discussions and we need to be leaders as opposed to just following around and getting in the fetal position in the corner and hoping that the C-suite throws some scraps our way. Joel (34m 52s): Amazon did not get your memo Chad. Amazon did not get your memo. Chad (34m 56s): They did not. Joel (34m 57s): So let's take a second. Let's send Jeff Bezos of fax and let him know and when we get back, we'll talk about the gift that keeps on giving Chad (35m 6s): I'll page him. Joel (35m 7s): All right, Chad, like I said, it's the gift that keeps on giving. WeWork's Adam Neuman no longer with WeWork, but founder of the company. If you haven't watched or listened to We Crash, by the way, I highly recommend both of those. Chad (35m 28s): Do it. Joel (35m 28s): Anyway, Neuman secured this week, $350 million in funding. Thanks, Andresen Horowitz for his new real estate company Flow. There's no real product yet. So let's call this a $350 million idea. Flow's website does not give much information about the company. Only saying it is scheduled to debut sometime in 2023. We do know that it deals with residential real estate and according to court documents compiled by the Wall Street Journal Neuman has acquired majority stakes in over 4,000 apartments in places like Miami, Nashville, and Fort Lauderdale. These properties are valued at more than $1 billion according to the Wall Street Journal. Joel (36m 11s): Chad stopped me if you've heard this one before, how is this going to play out? Chad (36m 19s): Well, this is very simple. We already have writers waiting to be able to do we crashed again. The guy's a carnival Barker. He's selling elixir and he made millions off his last disaster. Why would anybody ever back this guy? It's just like the CEO from Rippling. He crashed his last company, right? Stupidity. Crashed the last company. Why are you going to believe in a guy who doesn't even have a product yet? He has an idea. He sold plenty of people on the idea of WeWork before. And he left with millions in millions, in millions of dollars. While the company crashed before a real CEO got in there to start managing it. Chad (37m 1s): This to me just demonstrates first and foremost, the inequity within our system. We have so many great black and female and individuals of color, founders that are out there who are struggling just to get fucking funding. And you get a guy who's a good looking guy. WeWork Jesus and he has notoriety, but I don't know how you can trust him. Doesn't sfx (37m 27s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Joel (37m 34s): Just when you thought he'd be spokesperson for Chick-fil-A Chad, he went this way. One word, one word Svengali Oxford defines Svengali "as a person who exercises a controlling or mesmeric influence on another". Andreeson said quote "Adam returns to the theme of connecting people through transforming their physical spaces and building communities where people spend the most time, their homes" end quote. Replace people with companies and this looks like WeWork 2.0. There are people who have a natural ability to raise emotion and crush logic in the process. Our own industry has Rippling, like you mentioned, but also Jason Goldberg. Chad (38m 16s): Oh God yes. Joel (38m 17s): These guys get millions for handful of failed companies. One of which in Goldberg's case, fab.com was a huge flame out. And they have an ability to convince people to open their wallets and write checks. It's sort of like awe-inspiring and yet confusing and depressing. And Neuman is a master of this, much like the Cleveland Brown season Chad. I do not expect this to end well. Chad and Cheese (38m 47s): We out, we out. OUTRO (39m 26s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Your life really isn't complete until you've gotten a complete breakdown of the past, present, and future of recruiting chatbots. That's why we asked PandoLogic CTO Sumit Gupta on the podcast to get a breakdown. Turns out, that chatbot may not be the correct label, considering job seekers have interviews with virtual Brad Pitt and Darth Vader to look forward to. Yeah, really. You gotta listen to this episode if you want a real taste of the future of recruiting. Or at least one company's vision of it. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah, what's up everybody. You know who it is. It's your favorite guilty pleasure AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always the Sid to my Nancy, Chad Sowash. And today we're excited We're gonna get tech on all you folks! We've got the CTO of PandoLogic, Sumit Gupta, on the show. Sumit welcome. Chad (48s): Longtime listener. First time caller. Sumit (50s): That's right. Joel (50s): And yet a card carrying member of the fan club. Chad (53s): Does he have a t-shirt that's the question? Joel (55s): Oh, Sumit (55s): I don't have one yet. You guys go to ship me one. Chad (58s): Oh! Joel (58s): You gotta go to Chadcheese.com/free and sign up and we'll get you that tee-shirt. Chad (1m 3s): There it is. That's right. Register to win, my brother. Joel (1m 6s): So aside from being topless Sumit, what should our listeners know about you the person before we get into all the company stuff? Sumit (1m 16s): Yeah. Not a lot of interesting stuff because I'm an engineer, right? So like, you know, go to engineering school and you do nothing interesting for the rest of your life. So. No, but I do have a problem with hobby du jour, right now it's really photography. Avid foodie. Live in the Princeton area, have twins, they're eight years old and they've aged me to where I look like I'm 60, even though I'm like actually 18 or something. Joel (1m 43s): Avid foodie? We could hang out, Sumit. Totally. Chad (1m 47s): Foodie? Beer E or whatever the hell they call it. Yeah. No, we're there. We're there. Joel (1m 52s): Beer Slut. Chad (1m 54s): So, what made you get into chatbots first and foremost? I mean, CTO, Wade and Wendy. Sumit (1m 58s): My first CTO gig was actually had a voice solutions company. It was called, it was called Voxware. So we used to do voice recognition solutions in the warehousing. It was like very, very niche. Like super niche, you know? So this was just a follow on. We kind of like knew how to take audio and make text out of it. And for me, like, then it was like, okay, now you have text what can you do with it? So that's where the whole NLP and chat bot stuff came in. Chad (2m 22s): So you can start at least starting to grind on it from ML and AI standpoint at that time. Is that why you did it or is that what you just started feeding the machine? Sumit (2m 33s): Well, what, actually happened got into a conversation with Drew, shout out to Drew founder, CEO Wade & Wendy. And he really wanted to, you know, typical grand vision stuff, when you're a startup, like, why won't you dream big? He just wanted to make an AI recruiter. That was just like one goal. So I'm like, sure, giddy up let's do it. But, what we kind of latched onto and he had been a recruiter and what we latched onto was the most unscalable part of his job was really picking up the phone, like constantly. Right? So pick up the phone, you talk to candidates, pick up the phone, you talk to hiring managers, maybe you need to do background checks, you do scheduling whatever it is. Sumit (3m 14s): You're just on the phone all day. And a lot of it is repetitive stuff. Chad (3m 17s): Oh, it sucks. Sumit (3m 18s): Yeah, it really does. So it's like if we could automate this in intelligent fashion, like we're well on our way to making an AI recruiter. So that was the thing. Joel (3m 28s): Let's talk about sort of a brief history of chatbots. My take is they were more or less decision trees at the beginning. You had a lot of companies come out, including Wade& Wendy. Most, if not, all of them have been acquired at this point. And they seem to be evolving into more conversation AI, a little bit smarter. Talk a little bit about the history that you saw and where we were and where we are today with chatbots. And should we still be calling them chatbots? Sumit (3m 57s): Yeah. I mean that, we could certainly talk about that word itself, cuz it's gone through, you know, being a cool thing to being a bad word, to now it's like, I dunno where we are now. But yeah, when it started out, I'd say like it was very command and control to some degree, people were moving forms, you know, just like a webpage form into a text based UI. And that was like, oh, I've got a chat bot. But you know, even if it wasn't that the first generation of it certainly very command and control, right? You could like ask the weather, maybe book a table at a restaurant? Maybe not, but that was kind of the goal evolving into something like what we were trying to do. It was tricky. Sumit (4m 36s): It's a very nuanced switch, but you know, the chat bot like in an interview setting, like screening interview is what we started out doing. The nuance switch is now the chat bot's actually in the driving seat. Right. And you guys recognize this, right? Which is you are conducting an interview. You have some goals in mind and you have to drive that interview from start to all the way to completion. That's a very different look at what a chat bot traditionally does, but yeah, it started out form based command control. Then like you said, decision to very rules based stuff and then evolving slowly into some more intelligence to a large degree that's natural, like AI systems are so nuanced in that you can only build them with data and how do you get the data? Sumit (5m 18s): So how do you release an AI product? You can't. Right? Like not from the get, go put something out there, collect data has to be a rules based system. Now you can start building some intelligence around it. Joel (5m 29s): And where are you seeing the most activity? Like, you know, when, when these things first came out, it was like, you know, the little bubble on the website, then it was sort of, you know, texting and now it's evolved into WhatsApp and messenger. And like where evolutionary wise, where did you see the activity, you know, two, three years ago versus where the activity is today or is it in the same place it was when you started? Sumit (5m 52s): It is domain specific. So, and even in our domain of HR, HR tech, it is industry specific. So, you know, if you, the so-called knowledge workers for example, will get on their laptop and browser-based session and that's all great. If you're trying to, you know, plan or hire to plan a warehouse workers or whatever, it's definitely more mobile. Work related stuff is still less on, like you don't see people trying to get jobs on, on Facebook or, you know, a TikTok, right. That's not a thing. So you'll see them on more traditional mediums. Chad (6m 32s): When we take a look at chatbots and we're looking to evolve, I actually made a prediction on a couple of shows back where I said, pure play chat bots are pretty much dead. That there's this evolution that's happening and if you're still just a pure play texting or, you know, what have you chat bot and you're not actually evolving past that of conversational AI into more thinking about platforms. You're pretty much dead on arrival. So what do you think about that? Sumit (6m 60s): Certainly true for what we found. I'd say we as Wade & Wendy, we spent an in ordinate amount of time focusing on conversation. That was like our thing and what makes a good conversation? And we had some really initial, like super, surprisingly to me, cuz I'm an old man. I'm like, who's gonna chat for a job? This is ridiculous. So, but surprisingly good feedback, you know, people would tell us, Hey, you got, you know, you were able, we were able to tell our story. Eye wateringly, good feedback. It was like, oh this is fantastic. But then what we realized was, yeah, we have to plug in to a workflow, cuz we had to provide the data back to recruiters, to hiring managers in a meaningful way. Sumit (7m 42s): What's the workflow? What's the ATS? What's the integration points? How do you fit in? Also if you're bringing this into somebody's ecosystem, whether it's, you know, a small staff, if it's a staffing company or an RPO, whatever? Workflows are gonna change, they actually not pick up the phone so something's changed and they have to manage that change. So then there's organizational change management. There's a lot. So you're absolutely right. You have to plug in otherwise you're this one off little tool on the side. Chad (8m 13s): You made a great point of the fluid, the fluidity of change. Well, the hard part about that is that we haven't like over the last few decades, we have the same processes and methodologies for individuals to be able to apply. And then the entire hiring process doesn't feel like it's evolved much, but yet seeing these types of technologies, it feels like we're actually nudging that to evolve faster. And do you think the pandemic had something to do with this? Or is this just literally how evolution is working in the tech space right now? Sumit (8m 49s): No, you absolutely. Right. And that's very astute obviously that the pandemic certainly accelerated a lot of stuff. We were all at Unleashed recently. Right? And people are still talking about the efficacy of things like chat bots and our E E O C friend talked about as well as a good, you know, tool to remove bias and all this stuff. But the there's never any, you know, impetus to adopt technology in our industry, unfortunately, unless there's an overarching event that forces it to do so. But yeah, I mean really we're so backwards in a way, because going from that form based stuff like forms also to be like digital forms in a web was transferring the analog. Sumit (9m 32s): Cause it used to fill out analog forms. Right. So it used to fill out an actual application form, right? Chad (9m 37s): Yeah. Sumit (9m 37s): On paper. Chad (9m 38s): Yeah. Sumit (9m 38s): And that was the only way you could record it. So they just moved that to the web, like a step one. Chad (9m 43s): Yeah. They just took the paper and put it in digital form. That's all they did. Sumit (9m 47s): That's it! And it stayed there and you know, heaven help us if we're filling out forms in the metaverse that's just silly. Like we have failed as humanity. Joel (9m 56s): Did you just say metaverse? sfx (9m 57s): Romantic music... Chad (10m 1s): Oh shit. Joel (10m 2s): Don't tease me Sumit. So we've talked a little bit about the past and I wanna bring it into the present a little bit. And when I go to PandoLogic's website, I get the phrase 'fully autonomous'. Define for me what 'fully autonomous' means for you and for PandoLogic or Veritone and secondarily, how many recruiters are you going to replace with this fully autonomous system? Sumit (10m 28s): Oh boy, we're gonna elevate their jobs so they can focus on high order functions that is my recorded. No, on the first part, the autonomous piece today on PandoLogic's website is really talking about PandoIQ, which is truly, I, you know, very objectively speaking. It sounds like I won't be objective about this, but PandoIQ is definitely the best in class product there is for programmatic advertising and that is a hundred percent fully autonomous. Well we're doing combined with PandoIQ now and bringing the Wendy platform to it is, automating that top of the funnel, programmatic advertising, and then bundling it with Wendy. Sumit (11m 11s): So now you can programmatically advertise your job, find and track candidates, seek out their interests, get an application, but now immediately engage with them automatically. Right? So again, you're not waiting for a recruiter to go schedule something, pick up the phone, whatnot, and then get back to the candidate that's just been waiting around for some somebody to reply after they've applied, they get the immediate engagement immediately on pretty close to real time form application. Joel (11m 40s): So it sort of stops at the higher. You're not talking about onboarding an ongoing relationship with the candidate slash employee? Fully autonomous is the top of the funnel so when they accept the job. Is that what fully autonomous is? Sumit (11m 55s): Correct? I mean, and we're working through towards that higher part right now, what we're doing with PandoIQ and PandoLogic is getting from top of the funnel to top middle, right? We're fully qualifying, we're adding the quality component to top of the funnel, right. So we're able to engage and then qualify candidates for, you know, fit for the role essentially. Joel (12m 18s): So are you looking at being sort of a full life cycle? I mean, are you, are you looking at doing onboarding? Are you looking at once their employee? Hey, I have a question about my benefits. So I'm gonna hook up with, you know, the chat bot or the conversational AI to figure out what's going on. Or are you looking at the full life of the employer or do you think you guys will stop at the hire? Sumit (12m 38s): No, I think eventually now I don't know when, but these are all thoughts we had even as Wade & Wendy. Right. Which is all the engagement has to continue. We talk to even clients today that so like staffing companies have large databases of people and you know, they're like, you know, there's pride in that like, oh, I've got 20 million profiles of this, that many profiles, like, okay, but what are you doing with that? Chad (13m 2s): Yeah. They're wasting away. Sumit (13m 4s): Right? Yeah. They're just sitting there. It's useless. So, you know, they would love for us to go out, engage, reengage candidates in the data, but a hundred percent we'd wanna do that. Right. So as we start getting into more of these functions, I believe there's any, anytime there's an aspect of having a conversation, there should be an aspect of using conversational AI. Chad (13m 26s): So Joel skipped over one of the biggest issues that we have in this industry today and that's the black hole. So right now we have a couple of different things. First and foremost, we have a horrible black hole that we ghost the hell out of candidates when, and then they return and they ghost us. But we also have this experiential issue, right. Somebody applies and then what happens? So what it sounds like is like you're actually pressing the process. And instead of having over 90% of the people that actually click on apply to apply for a job, they eject and they don't complete. It sounds like you guys are actually pressing that. Chad (14m 6s): Do you have any numbers on demonstrating, percentage wise, how many candidates you're actually getting from the push to apply to completion? Sumit (14m 14s): Yeah, We have a lot. I mean, it varies by industry, but I'd say like at some times we get 80 to 90%, you know, completion rates, which are really, really ridiculously high. Chad (14m 26s): Yes. Sumit (14m 27s): But we will reach out to everyone, which is fantastic. Right. So it's not like, you know, you're waiting for a call after your first day kind of thing, sitting around. Actually that's a pandemic situations, analogies have all shifted to fixing up houses or something. So yes. Your plumbers not calling you back. That kinda thing. Chad (14m 46s): Yes. Sumit (14m 46s): It's not that scenario. We reach out to everyone. The other side effect that happened when we did this, this is early experimentation, was that recruiters were able to pick the best of their slate. So say they had 200 people apply. Chad (15m 1s): Right. Sumit (15m 1s): Normally and you talk to them, normally they'll get to like 10 or 20 of the candidates, top of the pile. If someone's close enough to be a fit, you know what, move them higher, fill the slot, right? Like time to fill is the metric nothing else is. So it's not necessarily that you want to get the best candidate. You want to get the first candidate to fill the position, but here we could engage with everyone. And truly now you can truly see who's the best candidate to fit the slot. Chad (15m 28s): Yeah and you can give them a good experience as opposed to just throwing them into a black hole. So the black hole that we were just talking about was staffing companies. And it's funny cuz they, they hold up these, you know, these great numbers of we have 10 million, you know, individuals in our database that we're literally doing nothing with. We've paid millions, if not billions of dollars to be able to acquire these individuals time and time and time again, who knows how many times we've paid for the same candidate over and over. But what you're saying is through Wade & Wendy and, and PandoLogic is that you can actually first and foremost, help identify individuals who are meeting the requirements and you can re-invite them to apply to a job that they meet the requirements for. Sumit (16m 15s): Absolutely its very powerful, the conversational piece and the data you collect, is just incredibly powerful. And we learned that throughout our time at Wade & Wendy, we have so many stories about it, but you know, just inherently philosophically you know this right, like conversations, produce unique data. Everyone can go license, you know, data these days, whether it's, you know, your favorite vendors like PDL or whatnot, you know, and you get almost the same data now, cuz it's all everywhere it's the same data as available. You scrape LinkedIn and whatnot, but conversations are unique like nobody was having that conversation with Wendy that we were having and collecting unique data. Like nobody's having this conversation we're having right now. Right? This is unique. Sumit (16m 55s): Well, yeah, this is a unique moment in time. Chad (16m 57s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, and the thing is in our industry is that Joel and I were starting to see more of this evolution from again, pure play chatbot into being able to spread out into programmatic, being able to, in some cases start to become the system of record and actually this new fangled, I don't wanna call it an ATS, more of like a core talent platform instead of what we've been using for the last two decades. Sumit (17m 26s): Yep. Yep. No there's definitely truth to that. Joel (17m 30s): CTP! CTP! Sumit (17m 31s): Love it. Joel (17m 31s): So, we've covered the past and the present. I wanna talk a little bit about the future. So you guys get acquired by this huge public company called Veritone that are doing some really crazy ass AI, video stuff. Obviously they bought you guys to fit in, integrate with what they're doing. Talk to me about the future of what chatbot conversational AI looks like. Sumit (17m 57s): There's some really interesting stuff happening at Veritone and we've done some very, I'd say small in the scale of things, but mind blowing experiments with them. Chad (18m 10s): I'm getting excited just thinking about what the hell's going on. Keep going. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sumit (18m 14s): It's all good. Well, one of them and I dunno if both of you guys saw this, but it's like this, you know, Chad Spielberg from Veritone is interviewing a candidate for position and it's using Veritone voice, which is a synthetic voice system. There is the avatar that looks like Chad Spielberg, you know? Yeah. And it's wild. It's just wild to see. And you know, there's emotions. The mouth moves in sync with the voice and then we're powering it with a Wendy conversationally AI walking through an interview process and the candidate can talk to this, you know, avatar hear like it's just wild. Sumit (18m 56s): It's absolutely crazy. Chad (18m 57s): This is metaverse shit right here though. Right. Sumit (18m 59s): It really is. Joel (19m 2s): Why you guys, why, why, why? So. Help me visualize this Sumit. I'm a job seeker. I go to, you know, company.com/jobs. Maybe I don't even look at a job. Maybe I just look at a video of the CEO saying, Hey, welcome to company. We'd love to talk to you about a job. What's your, I mean, is what does this look like from your point of view in terms of the usability of this solution? Sumit (19m 26s): Yeah. I mean maybe it is sort of one version of this could be a virtual job fair. You know, what's a virtual job. Fair look like in the metaverse and you know, I need to just stop saying that word. Joel (19m 39s): Enough with the metaverse stop guys. Come on now. Sumit (19m 43s): But how do people get to know about opportunities? How do you do your employer branding in such situations? So this, this could be one avenue, but say, you know, in the more simplistic scenario say you were applying for a job at Disney and Yoda interviewed you, right? Like what a great experience that would be. That would be absolutely fantastic. Or Elon Musk interviews you for a job at Tesla. I mean, that's just fantastic. You don't buy into this at all. Joel (20m 9s): No, I am. There's also the thing of like Yoda has to turn you down, right? Like, sorry, you didn't sorry, job candidate, you are not or whatever. Right. Not qualified are you? Sumit (20m 18s): Qualified you are not. Joel (20m 19s): You're not. So there are some branding issues with this, right? Like when you put the face of your CEO, when you put a celebrity or some icon of your brand on video to like disappoint people, that's a branding question, right. Or a branding challenge? Sumit (20m 34s): There's definitely a lot of branding challenges. And I don't know whether you, you know, you just turn them down, like Joel (20m 39s): Maybe Darth Vader comes and turns you down. Sumit (20m 42s): Turns you down. Right. There's probably ways around this. But I think, you know, I think the candidate experience today has a lot, a long way to go, to actually get to a place where people are enjoying interview processes. That's just not even in the ballpark at all. And it would be nice to enrich it. Chad (21m 3s): Yeah. We did talk to Ryan Spielberg CEO of Veritone on an episode, a few months back around cloning voices and, and which is amazingly cool and scary at the same time, then you layer on an avatar over top of that and we're starting to see CGI get crazy good. I remember when I was a kid and I was like, Dragon Slayer came out. It was the video game. Remember I was like, oh yes, this, this is something that's fluid. It really wasn't. But today it is right when we were kids, the things that we dreamt about are actually coming true. And that's just the kinda scary. Right. So when you're talking about this whole experience, how will you guys launch it? Chad (21m 48s): Will it be something where you actually test it in specific demographics or is it just like all over the place? Sumit (21m 54s): No, I think they will be controlled. Like we definitely ought to have a lot of controlled experiments and I'd really say the word experiments and stress on it. Cuz we have a ways to go to figure a lot of this stuff out. And, there's this whole notion around, how was it phrased? Like the metaverses like the internet of ascending dimensions. sfx (22m 14s): What did you say? Sumit (22m 15s): Right. So here we are, we're talking about voice video, all these things coming together. And a lot of them are just actually on the output side, not on the input, right? You can't like say I'm a digital avatar. I'm not looking at your facial expressions or your, you know, tactile, whatever you're doing with your hands and then getting feedback from it. It's usually voice it's some and, and then maybe conversion to text or directly text. So we have a long way to go to combine, you know, this multimodal system, rich media together to create that near equivalent of a human experience very far, long, long way to Chad (22m 54s): Go. All right. So we're, we're not digging into higher view facial recognition. So it's not that scary is what you're telling me. Sumit (23m 3s): Right, right. Thank God. Joel (23m 4s): One of the big challenges I know with, with early chatbots was the integration with ATSs and other, other sort of databases. And it, it sounds like you guys have, have more or less solved that issue, but it seems to me like a voice kind of the future that you're talking about creates a level of complexity that maybe the applicant tracking systems and similar platforms have an even sort of thought about, are they, they gonna go by the wayside? Are they, do you expect them to evolve to sort of this video metaverse like future? What does the integration look like for something like this? Sumit (23m 40s): Yeah. In the future. And you know, I'm not gonna say they're gonna go away. We have a lot of really good partners in the ATS world, but no there's change a foot for sure. And even the ATS world, a lot of ATSs are human workflow based the capture of some human workflows and processes where they're tailored to your organization's processes. Then they have to change according to that and all that stuff. None of it is pretty and someone has to do the dirty work. So I appreciate ADAS as for what they do, but they do have to change and evolve. And I think with all this media and interactions coming in and out, the data also changes the decision making on that data to a large degree can be automated and to a large degree also by that automation, the biases get removed. Sumit (24m 27s): And that's what I would be excited about is how much of this can you standardize so that it's not a person saying, yay, your name because I don't know, it's not, this guy does not look like Bob or sound like Bob and not like Bob, right? Yeah. That stuff has to like go away. Joel (24m 43s): And disability issues as well. I know we've talked to, you know, you know, vision impaired and like a conversation is much more friendly than figuring out pictures on a webpage or other things like that. So I wanna get a little, a little dystopian on you. Fishing is a huge issue in our industry and people faking who they are to get social security numbers or, you know, various degrees of information. It's been a huge problem, right? People setting up fake companies and fake jobs. How does, does this future get worse with that technology? Or does it get better? Because you know, so people aren't gonna fake your CEO talking about a job. Joel (25m 24s): It's much easier to copy and paste and, and fake it and doing video voice sort of the genuine article is much tougher to copy. Do you vision the future with more challenges with fishing and scamming people? Or do you find that is gonna improve with better technology? Sumit (25m 42s): I've usually found, and I'm not just saying this cuz I'm a tech guy, but I've usually found that the issues don't increase with technology, they just get exposed more. Right. You're just able to see them. And once you can see them, then you're able to solve for it. But you know, scamming and fishing that occurs in the analog world, right? You just don't see it as much. You don't, you're not able to pinpoint it as much. So I don't know if it really increases. It just feels that way. A lot of times, because you're, you know, it gets talked about obviously, but you're able to actually pinpoint that this happened and trace it back Joel (26m 17s): To it. Well, the easier you can do foreign languages, the easier like better technology gives you more reach and scale to sort of scam people I find. Sumit (26m 25s): That the scale and reach is true. Like if, if you do scam, if you figure out a hack or a way to scam people, you're probably gonna hit a larger swath of people. But at the same token, now you have an a avenue and a place to go solve that and close a hole. So maybe it is in that sense, if you're talking about like scale and disruption of reach, it's probably like, yeah, every time you make an improvement, then there's probably a little bit of step back and then, you know, you can go fix it and make another improvement. Chad (26m 52s): So last question from me, do you see some of these bigger systems, these bigger kind of like older antiquated systems where they're applicant tracking systems are HCM? Whether they're front end? Backend? Do you see them moving more toward a more mature, conversational AI process, focused methodology system than what we're seeing today? And, and would that happen mainly through acquisition or do you think they can actually build it since a lot of those companies have a shit ton of cash? Sumit (27m 22s): They do have a lot of cash. It takes a long time to build these things. I think most places are gonna look for some kind of a buy overbuild, situation. Most places will look for some solve around candidate engagement, for sure. Whether it's a chat, whether it's video, whether it's something, cause the candidate experience part today is sorely missing. Chad (27m 46s): Yes. Sumit (27m 46s): And everyone knows it and gets talked a lot about. Chad (27m 50s): But nobody's doing anything. That's the problem Sumit (27m 52s): I know. And where we're getting there, we're getting there. I think it's happening. People are listening finally. You know, like again, all these events, you know, great resignation kind of stuff really does press on people to understand what is a candidate experience and, you know, stop pissing off people that are trying to apply for a job. Chad (28m 14s): Amen. Amen. Sumit (28m 15s): You know, stop doing that. Joel (28m 18s): Sumit Gupta everybody. CTO at PandoLogic .. Chad (28m 18s): Stop pissing people off who are trying to apply for a job. Joel (28m 19s): Amen to that. Sumit Gupta for those that wanna connect with you or learn more about PandoLogic, where would you send them? Sumit (28m 20s): You can find me on LinkedIn for sure. There I'm the CTO PandoLogic. Yeah. That's probably the best place. Joel (28m 26s): Pandologic.com. I'll help you out there Sumit. Sumit (28m 29s): There you go. Thank you Joel (28m 30s): Chad another one is in the can. Chad (28m 32s): Yep. Chad and Cheese (28m 32s): We out. We out. OUTRO (28m 35s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. OUTRO (29m 23s): Is so weird. We out.

There is no labor shortage. At least that's the position taken by Sean Behr, CEO at Fountain, a solution for industries with high turnover. Nope. There's a SPEED shortage, instead. What the hell does that mean? The boys dig into his theses and tackle a wide variety of high frequency hiring issues plaguing so many companies these days in the process. A must-listen for employers having issues hiring truckers, nurses, restaurant staff, warehouse workers ... yeah, OK, pretty much all essential workers. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): wHide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah, what's up boys and girls. You know who it is. It's your favorite guilty pleasure AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always. Chad (33s): Hello! Joel (34s): The Spanky to my alfalfa Chad Sowash. And today we welcome oo, this is a big deal! We got the CEO of Fountain kids. Sean "don't poke the bear" Behr. Sean, how are you, man? Sean (48s): Great to be here guys. I'm doing really, really well. Chad (50s): Dude. What took you so long? It's been a while. I mean, he's never been on the show. You've you've had a name change. You've had a rebrand, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Oh my God. It's been hard for me not to sleep some nights because you haven't been on! Joel (1m 5s): Hey SoftBank takes up a lot of time. Sean (1m 7s): Yeah. Investors take up a lot of time, but let me tell you, it's not for lack of trying. I mean, you guys, I've only been the CEO here for two years and finally I got on! I feel like I don't do you guys, is there a certificate that comes at the end of this? It's like in a frame I can put on my wall or ? Joel (1m 28s): Say more Sean, say more. We love you long time. Chad (1m 31s): We need to get him a Chad and Cheese stepbrothers poster is what we need to get. Joel (1m 36s): We could work that out, work that out. Only if he has a bunk bed in the house. Sean (1m 41s): More room for activities. Chad (1m 44s): Amen brother. Amen. Amen. Excellent. Joel (1m 46s): So what's the Twitter bio on you, Sean, before we get to the company and our topic of the day? Sean (1m 51s): Yeah, I mean, I'm a, I'm a tech guy through and through. This is my fourth company, the first one in the HR world, but I did did a company in e-commerce space and did a company in the advertising technology space and one in the automotive technology space and now in the hiring space. So Joel (2m 8s): Did you hit your head and then decide on HR company was a good idea? Sean (2m 12s): Yeah, I didn't didn't think that one fully throw it. No, it's been really great. Look here. Here's what I would say. You know, this will be the only moment that maybe is, is righteous at all on this entire podcast. At least for me, the world's gonna be fine with, or without better targeted ads selling you soda and food. You know, there's something about HR where I do my job at the end of the day, thousands and thousands of people get a job and you know, better than showing 15 second commercials that you're annoyed by and can't skip. Chad (2m 46s): So you're trying to say car parts really wasn't your passion? Sean (2m 52s): Correct. Chad (2m 52s): I'm hearing. sfx (2m 53s): What did you say? Chad (2m 54s): Tell us about that journey though. The name of the company, was it STRATIM Sean (2m 58s): Part on STRATIM? Yeah. STRATIM. It was a great company. It's focused on sort of the world of car sharing and ride sharing. So, you know, sort of this future of autonomous driving, which it, which may or may not actually ever arrive, but a great company, a lot of disruption happening in that space. But again, you know, relatively small impact, right? The number of people who are actually giving up their car, is relatively, relatively small. sfx (3m 26s): Crickets. Sean (3m 27s): Whereas in HR tech it's, you know, people are getting jobs, at least for the companies that can hire them right now. I know it's very, very challenging market. Joel (3m 34s): Yeah. This is way too much for a Friday. Let's get to like the good news. Chad (3m 38s): Oh, okay. So here's a quick question. Before we jump into the topic, because with $219 million, I think it is what is the current valuation of Fountain? Is question one. Sean (3m 50s): Great. What is the current valuation? It's it's almost a billion dollars. It's it's not quite there. Almost Joel (3m 56s): Almost? What? Sean (3m 57s): Yeah, almost. It's not quite there though, but look, I think it's a fair valuation. Obviously, you know, the markets have corrected and I think you're gonna see a lot of changes in valuations over the next 12 to 24 months. Chad (4m 9s): Yeah. They've been bloated as hell. Joel (4m 12s): That's Latin for layoffs. Sean (4m 13s): There are definitely gonna be a lot of layoffs in the world of tech. You know, we've already seen some. I think you'll see some more, but the truth is this whole industry, the venture backed industries is based on public market companies. Now, as all of us know in our 401ks public company prices have come down dramatically. It's inconceivable that that won't have an effect on private companies. You can't say that you're worth $5 billion. If there's a company that's bigger than you, that's already public, that's only worth $2 billion. So I think there'll be a reckoning here. And I think you're starting to see companies sort of focusing. Joel (4m 52s): Sean, quit drop in common sense on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Okay. Chad (4m 56s): I love it. Joel (4m 57s): It's a no common sense podcast. Chad (4m 59s): By the way Silicon Valley has never been one for common sense. So No. Joel (5m 4s): That's true. That's true. Chad (5m 5s): With that being said, you guys have been around for, you've been around for a few years. You have a big name in the industry. No acquisition yet. Who's your first acquisition? Sean (5m 14s): Yeah. We actually have done an acquisition already. A very, very small one, but we acquired a company called Koan, which was a great team in the OKR space. Chad (5m 23s): So an acquihire for most part? Sean (5m 26s): For most part. Chad (5m 27s): Yeah. Sean (5m 27s): Okay. Okay. But just incredible team and incredible vision and product and has made a big impact for us. Where I think the next one will come, and we're definitely in acquisition mode. I would say, you know, we're looking at a number of companies as we speak one, they have to be the right size. You know, we're roughly 250 employees. So, you know, we would only acquire something that is, you know, digestible for a company our size, but it also has to increase, you know, what we're up to, right? Oure mission is to open opportunities for hourly workers and blue collar workers around the world. So technologies and products that will help me do that more effectively are really interesting. Sean (6m 9s): But I think as you can probably guess, and you, you guys have talked to everybody. Most of the time companies are focused on the knowledge worker, you know, people that are on zooms and, you know, sit behind a desk and think about marketing and sales and accounting. A lot of those companies just aren't attractive to us. They don't add a lot of value to what we're up to. We're interested in companies that are in technology and product that's focused on sort of the workers are in the field. People who are delivering you food and your packages and driving trucks and working in stores and restaurants and grocery stores. Joel (6m 40s): So this is a long elevator ride, Sean. Yeah, this is getting long. Sean (6m 45s): Okay. Joel (6m 46s): So let me summarize. You are a platform to hire high frequency positions? Sean (6m 51s): Correct. Hourly workers Joel (6m 52s): From finding to onboarding like the whole process. Sean (6m 54s): Correct. Joel (6m 54s): But that's not why you're here today, Sean. Sean (6m 55s): I didn't think so. I thought I was just here to have fun. Joel (6m 59s): I know. Well, hopefully you're gonna have fun and are still having fun, but what we're here to talk about is that you do not believe there is a worker shortage. You believe there's a speed shortage. Explain. Sean (7m 13s): Yeah. I mean, I think what's really happening in the, and again, I'm gonna be speaking mostly about sort of the world of the hourly worker, you know, the person who's in the field, but I think this is probably also applicable to the knowledge worker who's, you know, sitting behind a computer all day. The easy way out is to say that there is, you know, no one's applying for the job. You know, there's just not enough people that, and you know, there, there may be some elements of truth to that, but I think the core thing that is overlooked is how important speed is in the hiring process. Explicitly in the world of hourly work. Just to kind of give you guys a sense, an average hourly worker is a probab- when they go into job search mode, which they go in fairly often, you know, usually once a year, at least they're not applying to two jobs that they really like, they're applying to like 10 jobs simultaneously. Joel (8m 7s): Are they typically in the same sort of universe? Like, Hey, I want to be a server. So I'm gonna apply to 10 restaurants. Is that typically how it works? Sean (8m 16s): Yeah. Typically like, you know, I've already applied to one, you know, apply to 10 restaurants, right. Or, or five stores or seven stores. And what happens then is now you're on the radar of seven stores. They also don't wait around for three months for the best offer. Right. Usually they're like, I need to get a job in the next two weeks. So if you're a company that can't move fast, you lose. Joel (8m 43s): When you say speed, do you mean the actual apply process? Do you mean the time that it takes for a restaurant or a business to connect with you or interview you? Like define speed for everybody. Sean (8m 52s): And a big picture, it's the whole process, but, I'll even give you an example of something really, you know, really small if you're trying to hire servers and you're running a restaurant and I tell you that everyone who applies for your job is also applying to seven other restaurants. You have a much higher chance of getting that applicant, especially the good ones if you get to them first. If you wait five days, you should assume that the other six restaurants have already contacted them. They're already in the process. They may have already even interviewed. The chances of you coming from behind and grabbing that great applicant? Very, very low. Joel (9m 32s): Yep. Chad (9m 32s): So you said that, you know, there could be a problem that nobody is applying and we're actually seeing data. That that is a huge problem right now. So how can a company actually get past that? They have all these old processes that are driven by their current quote, unquote, "new tech", but all they've done is they've jammed those 1990s paper processes into the computer, right? The computer screen. So how do we get past that? Because that is one of the biggest obstacles in being able to actually get candidates in the first place and because if you don't get that, you can't even worry about speed. Joel (10m 14s): Especially for government. Sean (10m 14s): Yeah. Government for sure. It's a great point. And I think one of the things that this has this sort of the last two or three years, which been obviously very tough for everybody, but last two or three years have been things that would've never been thought of in an HR department are now like, thought of. I'll give you an example. I spoke to a prospective customer, probably six months ago, who told me absolutely clearly that they would never have anyone working under the age of 18 in any of their stores anywhere in North America, full stop. Chad (10m 48s): Why? Did they give you a why? Joel (10m 49s): Good luck with that. Yeah. Sean (10m 51s): They just it's been their policy. That's just been, you know, their ethos forever. Go on their website now you can be 16 and work in their stores. You know, and good for them. Right. I mean like, but unfortunately it took a, you know, it took a pandemic and you know, a national labor problem to get them to rethink a longstanding tradition. I have another customer who said, no matter what, no matter how low this job pays, no one can work at this company unless they give me a resume. And I said, I get it. I mean, I understand that you think it's a measure of quality. Sean (11m 30s): We can debate that, but I'm telling you in this economy in this time, it might be a good time to get rid of that requirement and just try it. Joel (11m 37s): And how many 16 year olds have a resume? Sean (11m 39s): Correct. And what do even if they did, what does it say? Chad (11m 48s): Nothing. It says nothing. Joel (11m 50s): Fortnite. Chad (11m 50s): Yes. How do you spend your day? I mean, nothing. It's got Sean (11m 56s): It's got like two bullet points, you know, made coffee, ran register. Chad (11m 59s): Oh, Okay. Joel (11m 59s): So, Sean, we talk a lot about the show and there are examples where obviously pay is a huge issue with this. Obviously speed is an issue, but I mean, if you're paying a living wage, won't people deal with the speed challenges or not. Sean (12m 17s): No. Joel (12m 17s): Wow. Sean (12m 18s): The good news here. Look, I do think the pay has gotten better in a lot of places. And I think there are certain companies where, you know, if you can't pay to that $15, $20 range, it's gonna be complicated. It's gonna be challenging for sure. But again, if I'm applying to 10 jobs, there's at least a few of them that are in, you know, in a pretty good pay range, you know, there's, it's not like everyone's down at the bottom. There's probably two or three that are closer to the $20 range. There are some that are in the $15, $16 range. If you're in that you gotta be in the range. You gotta be somewhat competitive. Cuz because being really low will definitely get you eliminated. But as long as you're competitive, then the question is just, can you execute? Sean (13m 2s): Right? And if it's one company is at $15, one's at $16. But the guy who's at $15, I've already gotten a couple of text messages from him and I've scheduled an interview and I'm going in tomorrow morning and I have that interview and he says, I can start Monday. Even if someone's willing to pay me $16, if they ping me on Monday, I'm gonna be like, Hey, you should have called me last Tuesday. I'm already starting a new job. Chad (13m 27s): Right. Sean (13m 27s): Here's a great example. I have a customer of ours. They were doing well hiring, this is in the warehouse work or space so just kind of dimensionalize that around the country. It was taking them, I think something like three weeks from the moment the person applied to the moment the person showed up for the first day of work and what was happening was the people would apply. They would get the job, they would fill out all the paperwork and then day one would show up and they wouldn't come. They would ghost. Chad (13m 56s): Yes. Right. Sean (13m 56s): And, this was a mystery and I was like, no, it's not a mystery. That person started working for a different company 10 days ago. Chad (14m 6s): Yeah. Sean (14m 6s): That that's it. They're now hiring people at roughly seven and a half days from application to first shift and ghosting has generally removed itself as a challenge. Joel (14m 17s): Shocker. Yeah. Chad (14m 18s): So yeah. Being able to have somebody sit out there, not getting paid versus getting paid. Yeah. That, that seems like a benefit. It seems like a benefit to get paid. So let's jump back real quick. As Joel was talking about wages, you know, there's a bigger macro kind of narrative that's happening, where we started calling these individuals, which I think is amazing. And they started to see that they are essential to work. Essential to an organization actually doing anything. Right? And they felt like they deserved better. So they just ejected out of the actual workforce for a time or they quit. And we saw all the quitting that was actually happening. Chad (15m 0s): Do you think that we're going to be able to get those 3.2 million people who have left the workforce to actually come back into the workforce because they were treated so badly and paid so badly over the years? Sean (15m 11s): I do think you'll see some of them return. I don't think you'll see everyone return. I mean, there are some people that have moved on to, you know, different opportunities and we can talk about that, but I do think you'll see some return. Look, the last two and a half, three years have have been, you know, challenging around the world for lots and lots of reasons. If you wanna be an optimist for just a second, I think it's been a catalyst for this notion of the importance of these kind of workers, dismayed that it took a three year health thing where we basically had to shut down our economy to realize the importance of people. Sean (15m 53s): Look, you know, sitting here in the bay area, in Silicon Valley, people will tell you that, you know, software engineers are the most important people. We gotta get more software engineers, all that stuff. You know, you wanna talk about a role that's really important? Commercial truck drivers. Chad (16m 9s): Oh yeah or the people actually pulling the shit off of the ports. Sean (16m 14s): Exactly. Like those are really important jobs, Frankly, by the way, really hard to hire for right now. Chad (16m 19s): Yes. Sean (16m 19s): It's harder to hire a commercial truck driver than it is to get a software engineer at this moment in this country. But I do think long term, this has been a catalyst for the empowerment and the value of hourly workers. I think if we're honest, if we're really honest about sort of the way we thought about talent over the last 20 years is, when we were talking about talent, we really were excluding the people that were hourly workers from that conversation, by large part. And I think the reality is most teams thought two things about this, this worker population. And again, maybe they wouldn't admit this, you know, all the time, but I think it's a fair estimate, which is over the last 20 years, we said two things about hourly workers. Sean (17m 4s): Number one, they always quit. And number two, we can just replace them. The problem now is the first statement still true. And the second one isn't, you can't just replace them. Chad (17m 14s): Well, we just saw Amazon. They did a study in some of their areas where they operate they've already burnt through the workforce. Sean (17m 23s): Correct. Joel (17m 24s): So Sean, I'm guessing that there are people listening that are saying, you know what? We had 18 months of unemployment benefits, STEMI checks go out. We had, you know, trillions of dollars, you know, created, yeah. All these people have, you know, started their own business. But 85, 90% of businesses fail. The gig economy is gonna lose its luster. Aren't there people out there saying, you know what, it's gonna go back to the way it was in 12 to 18 months. I don't really need to make changes. Do you agree? I assume you don't agree with that, but I assume that there are people that believe that. What would you tell those people? Sean (17m 57s): Yeah. I don't agree with it. I do think there are people who think that and I think by the way, those people have been waiting for it to go back to normal for the last 12 months. Chad (18m 8s): Yes. Joel (18m 8s): Yeah. Sean (18m 8s): And I think this is the new normal, I think. And again, I think in a labor market like we're in, you don't need 20% of the people to leave the market. Even small numbers of people deciding to opt out, have really big impacts on the big picture of things. I do think it's gonna be a hyper-competitive labor market going forward for this world. And what I can tell you is doing the work that we would recommend by the way, with or without Fountain. I mean, you can, you can, there's other companies that you could work with and other technologies, and you could even do this manually, but implementing the ethos that Fountain brings. Sean (18m 52s): I can, number one, be assured you're gonna be successful regardless of the labor market. And you'll just be, if it turns out that I'm wrong and that, you know, millions and millions of people are gonna come back and let's go back to business as usual, you'll be twice as efficient and you know, good for you. And, but if I'm right, you're gonna be able to thrive in a market regardless of how challenging it's. Chad (19m 16s): Well, we have those industries or those areas like we were just talking about, Amazon and how they're burning through talent, where people aren't leaving, they're just shifting, right. They're not leaving the workforce. They're just shifting what they're doing, because it's like, Hey, look, I don't wanna do that shitty job. This I'm gonna try this one over here. So they change industries entirely. So, you know, again, how do you actually convey to an organization that it is about getting them in fast. Speed is key. There's no question, but it's also about how you treat them when they get in. Sean (19m 53s): Yeah. I would say it's even important how you treat them when they're applying for the job, you know, like from the moment they apply, you've gotta put your best foot forward there. And then obviously all the way through the onboarding process. And then, you know, when they show up for the first day of work, you know, you've gotta do, it's a full life cycle process. But think about the number of people who apply for an hourly job who never hear back from the company. Chad (20m 20s): Yeah. And we wonder why they ghost us?! Sean (20m 22s): Exactly. You know, like you've gotta do a great job from the moment that person applies. The interesting thing here is, if you went back a couple of years here, I think if you asked Taco Bell who their competition was for both customers, and by the way, I don't wanna pick on Taco Bell. Great, great company. Joel (20m 39s): Oh, we talk about Taco Bell all the time. Sean, don't worry. Sean (20m 44s): But if you ask Taco Bell or Dominoes Pizza, whoever. Who's your competition? They would've said Pizza Hut McDonald's and whoever else. And I said, no, no, no, who's your competition for labor? And they would've said same answer. It's Domino's, you know, Wendy's and McDonald's. And I said, okay, guess what your competition for labor is definitely those guys, but it's also Amazon and Walmart, it's DoorDash and Uber, Lyft, and you know, 10 other companies that are out there. And they're all going after that same population. That has changed. The other thing that's changed for them is, they were primarily, you know, they just assumed they just could, Hey, we'll burn through these people and then, you know what, it's just cheaper to just get new ones. Sean (21m 34s): Not anymore. Joel (21m 35s): A few weeks ago, we talked about Amazon, an internal memo that basically said we're outta people to hire in five, in a few years. Right? Yeah. Like we really are churning through the labor force in these local markets, which is a little bit scary. Sean (21m 48s): It's scary. Yeah. I look, I think it's a, you know, I know that there was that memo that went around or that strategy doc, that they were, you know, interested in sort of going through people. And that was fine. I do think that they're gonna need to rethink that. Joel (22m 3s): Sean, where are you on, I gotta bring up robots? I got to. Chad (22m 6s): Oh God, I was gonna hit that. Damn it. Joel (22m 9s): So, and two perspectives. One is sort of the, what we think of as robots that are flipping burgers, robots that are delivering things and the kind of direct robots taking jobs. Cause I think the devil's advocate would say, some people are just saying, we're gonna have robots do these jobs at some point. And the other is the perception of robots. So you mentioned trucking and we've talked to people in the industry that say, look, why would people get into a career if they think that automated cars are gonna be the future and driverless trucking. So there's the perception of robots and the actual robots that are coming. Where are you on that? Sean (22m 44s): Yeah. And I'll state this from the fact that, you know, I spent the last seven years prior to this dealing with autonomous driving. So I know a little bit about sort of this. Chad (22m 54s): Little expertise here, kids. Sean (22m 56s): Real expertise. Here's what I would say about the world of automation and robust one. It's a long way away. And, and look, I've raised tens of millions of dollars in that space from investors and built a great company and had a great exit with it. But real automation of a lot of these things is decades away. That's the first statement. I wish it were sooner. And by the way, when I originally came up with those company ideas, I thought it was, you know, 3, 4, 5 years away. It turns out it's closer to 20, 25 years away. The second thing I would say is, you know, there's this, you know, if you go back to the ATM machine, which is, you know, a crazy time again, decades ago. Chad (23m 39s): We still have tellers. Sean (23m 42s): Yeah. Like, oh, there was this idea that the ATM was gonna, you know, eliminate the banking profession and that it would die because we would just go to ATMs and there would be, we'd never need to talk to a human being. The actually the reverse happened. More people work in sort of frontline banking jobs after the introduction to the ATM. Now the job they're doing is different, right. Used to be that, you know, you would walk in, give a check and that human being would give you cash. That's not what they're doing anymore. They're doing something else. I think you're gonna see the same to, I think you see the same thing today in grocery stores, you know, in my grocery store, obviously there's self checkout. I love it. Right. Unfortunately, if I were having a beer with you guys, I can't buy my beer at the self checkout. Sean (24m 26s): Right. What? Chad (24m 26s): Where do you live? That's crazy. Joel (24m 28s): That's bullshit. Sean (24m 28s): I gotta fix that here in California. But what I think you're seeing inside a grocery store is sure there's self checkout, but there actually are more employees in that store. Grocery, you know, stores are going after pharmacy, meaning they're adding lots of people in there. They know that's a great recurring source of revenue and a great reason to get you into the store to buy, you know, you pick up your prescription and then, you know, we'll get you to buy $20 worth of beer and microwave popcorn or whatever it is. Chad (24m 57s): But that's different, Sean, cuz what you're doing there is you're actually just, you're expanding the total addressable market. Right? Right. I mean, this is changing. You're still expanding. You're doing something different. Let's jump into these numbers real quick though. Right now there are 11.3 million open jobs in the us with only 5.9 million unemployed workers. Okay. That that's a huge, huge gap. So Joel and I talk about it all the time and we see that we've got these robot servers who are actually helping they're not actually doing the serving, but they are helping to go back and get the food. We see Amazon is doing everything they can to get rid of humans. Chad (25m 38s): We even were talking about on today's podcast that dropped the military and how we see them inching more toward drones, whether they're in the air, in the sea or on the actual battlefield. I would say, and tell me what you think about this, that there are some of these industries that we will see automation happen so much faster because of that huge 11.3 and 5.9 gap. What do you think about that? Sean (26m 7s): Maybe it's, it's a compelling, it's a compelling thing. Chad, it's a compelling, compelling story. I get it right. I can tell you though, I've sold that story. You know, successfully sold that story in the world of drivers. And. So you Chad (26m 21s): So you were bullshitting people. That's what you're saying. Sean (26m 23s): That's just, I was wrong. I was, and frankly, I wasn't even wrong. I was just too early. That's that's what you actually say. Chad (26m 31s): Yeah? Sean (26m 31s): I was too early. No, look, I think, what I would come back to this gap right there, there may be a gap in the big picture, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that every company should be suffering from the gap equally. Let's say, you know, if you're saying there's a 50% less than we need. If you're a company that's doing really well, putting a great foot forward with applicants, contacting them, moving quickly, you can be the one of the companies that is fully staffed. It just means somebody else is gonna be under 50% staffed. So I even inside this gap, there are look, there are Fountain customers right now that are fully staffed, who are paying under $15 an hour in wages. Sean (27m 19s): Fully staffed. It you know, even if you believe that the macro picture there's a shortage, that doesn't mean that the macro picture shortage affects all companies equally. I think you're gonna see winners and losers as they compete for this talent. Chad (27m 35s): Yeah. Love it! Joel (27m 36s): Sean don't poke the bear. Sean (27m 37s): Oh my goodness! Joel (27m 39s): Sean Behr everybody! CEO of Fountain. Sean, thanks for joining us today. For those that wanna know more about Fountain or you, where would you send them? Sean (27m 48s): Absolutely. And go to fountain.com. Learn all about us. And if you're, if you're passionate about hourly workers, if that's something that you know, you're focused on, we'd love to talk to you. Joel (27m 59s): And thanks for having a nice URL. We really appreciate that happens, Chad. It's Friday. It's almost happy hour. Well actually it's five o'clock somewhere, right? Chad (28m 7s): Yes. Joel (28m 8s): Another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (28m 9s): We out, we out. OUTRO (28m 60s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Maybe we should have named this episode Three Acquisitions and a Vendor Moving to Crazy Town? Remember the '80s movie "Three Men and a Baby"? This episode could be called "Three Acquisitions and a Vendor Who's Lost Their Damned Mind!" Silkroad Technologies acquired Entelo, Harver bought pymetrics and Mitratech gobbled up TalentReef. Can you guess which acquisition we like? Gotta listen. Then we take a trip to Crazy Town, where old-timey job distribution service provider eQuest has made the mother of all pivots, and the boys can't quite make sense of it (but want a hit of whatever they're smoking'). Oh, and Home Depot ends the show with a bit of sanity and common sense. Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (21s): Oh yeah. Elon sold nearly $7 billion in Tesla stock this week, which can only mean one thing. He finally has enough money to buy this podcast. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel "Let's get physical" Cheeseman. Chad (39s): This is Chad "Grease is the word" Sowash. Joel (42s): And on this week's show Harver. I don't even know her! Entelo finds salvation on the SilkRoad and eQuest can't fight the funk. Let's do this. Chad (53s): Oh Yeah. Joel (56s): That brings back some memories. Doesn't it? Chad (60s): Oh, I love it. Joel (1m 1s): This is where you do the Olivia Newton John, shout out. I'm assuming. Chad (1m 4s): Oh my God. So, okay. First off, let's give some context here. June 13th, 1978. I, and you had just both turned seven years old and I was in a theater watching Grease for the very first time. Now, if you haven't seen the original movie Greece go to your favorite streaming service and add it to your list and watch it tonight. Anyways, this movie was one of the greatest examples of America's greatest export. Pop culture, because the guys were cool and slick, and the girls were horny and rebellious. John Travolta and Olivia Newton John were fucking magic on the screen. And the final scene of the movie, Olivia Newton John transforms from a shy cheerleader into this leather laden vixen. Chad (1m 52s): That was the very first time I fell in love or lust maybe. Joel (1m 57s): Yeah. You know, like we were talking before the show, she was like Ginger and Chad (2m 3s): Maryanne? Joel (2m 4s): Yeah. Ginger and Maryanne all in one. She was like the girl next door and then at the end of the movie, she shows the leather, the high heels, like the sex appeal and that was great. For me, you know, the seventies was so connected to like Farrah Fawcett and Charlie's Angels and Three's Company, Suzanne Somers. But to me like Olivia Newton John was up there with all of them in the seventies. And then she blew her heads off a few years later in the eighties with Let's Get Physical and I can remember on MTV watching her. Chad (2m 36s): Yes. Joel (2m 36s): And a bunch of dudes that look like me now on you know, gym equipment with her haircut, looking all sweaty and sexy. So, so she took a couple of seven year old boys and turned them into men, real fast. Chad (2m 51s): Yes. Joel (2m 51s): Heading into the seventies through the eighties. So we'll miss you. Olivia Newton John, you had a major part in two young guys from the Midwest's upbringing. Chad (3m 0s): Yeah. She was 73. I didn't realize she was that much older. She definitely wasn't 17 years old when she made Grease. But the big shout out to Olivia Newton John rest in peace. Joel (3m 15s): Yes. For sure. For sure. She will be missed. And a real fighter for cancer and animal treatment. You know, she kind of faded from the pop culture scene, but she had done a lot of really good things in her life and she will be missed. She will be missed. Let's get to shout outs. Shall we? Chad (3m 32s): Shout outs! Joel (3m 33s): All right. My first one goes out to Byte Board, only a Google product, Reejig CISO, and WSwitchboard. The Forbes Cloud 100 rising stars list highlights the top 20 cloud startups that promise to be listed among the best private cloud companies in the future. And these four work related solutions made the list, not a bad ratio 4 outta 20. Shout out to these companies, repping the industry in Forbes this week. Chad (4m 3s): Not too shabby. So shout out to the US Marine Corps. That's right. This Army veteran's giving the Marine Corps shout out for finally confirming the very first four star black general into the US Marine Corps. That's Lieutenant General Michael E Langley's been confirmed for his fourth star. It's taken 246 fucking years for God's sakes. It's about time. The US Army's first black four star general was Roscoe Robinson JR who received his four star in 1982 way to catch up leather necks. Chad (4m 46s): Way to catch up. Joel (4m 48s): Nice and quick shout out for me to Mark Seaman. You don't know Mark, but Mark and I went to school together. We were in the fraternity Sigma Chi together and he was a ROTC guy joined, joined full-time after school and he is now a one star general in the army. So, oh, I got some friends in high places Chad, don't fuck with me. Chad (5m 10s): Brigadier. Joel (5m 11s): Very cool. Very cool. Almost as cool, Chad. Chad (5m 13s): Yes. Joel (5m 14s): As this news from Chick-fil-A. Chad (5m 15s): Oh my God. Joel (5m 17s): As if Taco Bell bringing back the Mexican pizza, wasn't enough? Rumors of a Chick-fil-A testing bone in chicken wings in Nashville blew up the internet this week. The OG chicken sandwich got a little tired of all the posers. So now they're going to flex on everybody that serves wings with some of their own. What's next? Turning nuggets into wine. Shout out to Chick-fil-A and here's hoping they bring those wings to Indy soon. Although Nashville's not too far away. Chad (5m 48s): It is not. We'll be there soon, by the way. Shout out to James Whitlock and the Marketing Rules podcast. So every time I see his podcast cover art, I think, wait a minute. Did Joel start another podcast? Because the cartoon of him. Joel (6m 3s): Oh, God. Chad (6m 4s): Looks just like your stupid cartoon head. Exactly. Joel (6m 8s): Yeah. Did we trademark my head? I might follow a cease and desist against that guy. I mean, damn damn. That's not cool. That's not cool. Speaking of other podcasts, I know you're a Malcolm Gladwell fan, he's one of our favorite authors. Chad (6m 22s): Yeah!! Joel (6m 22s): Well, he thinks remote work is hurting society and that a recession will likely drive employees who are "sitting in their pajamas" end quote, back into the office. He said this as a guest on the Diary of a CEO recently, quote, "it's not in your best interest to work at home". He said, "I know it's a hassle to come into the office, but if you're just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live? end quote. Now I know who's speaking at the JP Morgan Company picnic this fall, Chad. Chad (6m 54s): Yes. Yes. Joel (6m 54s): Shout out to Malcolm Gladwell who I think is painting a pretty broad stroke of what it's like to work from home. But anyway. Chad (7m 2s): I love Malcolm Gladwell. I love, you know, his revisionist different angles of history and those types of things. But you gotta remember this guy actually creates narratives for a living. It's a corporate narrative that it doesn't surprise me though cuz he gets paid to do a lot of shit. Joel (7m 17s): To me. It's interesting because Douglas Atkin as well, I think is a fairly anti work from home person because of company culture and what he talks about, getting people together, rubbing them together and getting sticky. It seems like there's a group of sort of older statesmen in corporate America, whether it be marketing sales, etcetera, who are championing sort of the old way of working from the office and the old traditions or that are getting older as we speak. But yeah, there is a group of cohorts that I think we both respect greatly. Chad (7m 51s): Yeah. Joel (7m 51s): That haven't got on board with the work from home movement. Hopefully it's just a matter of time before they come to their senses. Chad (7m 59s): One day. Well, during that time they could perspectively join the FFFF, that's right kids, the FactoryFixed Fantasy Football League with the Chad and Cheese. I'm stoked to announce that we will be launching a fantasy football signup page soon where you can register to possibly join the league. This season's gonna be a fucking blast. We've been already talking to the FactoryFixed crew. Some of the things that we're going to do, it's gonna be a blast. And I can't wait. I can't wait for football. Number one, but fantasy football. I'm stoked for this. Joel (8m 33s): I was trying to remember who won last year's league? Chad (8m 35s): It wasn't either of us. Joel (8m 36s): Was it Putnam? Was it Jason? Chad (8m 38s): It might have been Putnam. Joel (8m 39s): I can't remember who it was. I think it was. Chad (8m 41s): Which means it definitely has to come back for the season. Joel (8m 43s): Yeah. I think we owe it to the winner to make sure that they come back to try to defend the crown. I think you got last place. Didn't you? Chad (8m 51s): It was either. Joel (8m 52s): You or Fanning? Chad (8m 53s): It was almost dead last or second to last. But I was definitely in the basement. Joel (8m 58s): God. Well, you know, who's a winner, Chad, no matter what is Mark Katz? Fan of the show and the winner of free whiskey. Chad (9m 8s): Oh, love that. Joel (9m 9s): Kids. If you haven't signed up for a chance to win free shit from Chad and Cheese, you gotta go to Chadcheese.com click the free link. We're talking t-shirts which we're in the process of getting new t-shirts we've got a lot of new stuff going on here, Chad. Chad (9m 22s): Yeah. Joel (9m 23s): T-shirts fantasy football. We got new sponsors, Aspen Tech Labs supporting our beer giveaway. Textkernel is still our whiskey. Whiskey daddy. And then we got t-shirts sponsored by JobGet so guys a lot of cool new stuff going on, but you gotta go to Chadcheese.com to get that. And while you're there, think about leaving a review on the podcast platform of your choice. We love getting feedback. Whether it be good or bad, it's our oxygen. Let us hear from you. Cuz we love you and talking to a mic really isn't all that human. Chad (9m 53s): I love all these podcasts that that say, Hey, go to my site and you know, give me a five star review. No, just tell us what you think. I hate that shit. If you think we're a five star. Awesome. If you don't awesome. That's cool. Joel (10m 9s): As long as you listen, that's what we care about. Chad (10m 11s): That's all it matters. sfx (10m 14s): Happy birthday! Joel (10m 15s): All right. Let's talk about birthdays Chad. A lot of fans are celebrating birthdays this week on the list are Kevin Kirpatrick, Bill Peterson, Jason Putnam, who we just talked about. Peter Simandl, Amy Chapin, Johnny Campbell, out in Ireland, Jason Sykes, Peter Clayton, the OG podcaster, I guess. Does he even have a podcast? I know he publishes audio anyway. Carmen Hudson, longtime recruiter and no relation, Abby Cheeseman! All celebrate another trip around the sun. sfx (10m 54s): Happy Birthday! Joel (10m 55s): Again, not my sister, not my wife, Abby Cheeseman celebrating a birthday. Chad (11m 0s): And that's Pete Simandl by the way, it was good. I know the guys. So I know how to say. Yeah, I know how to, to say his name Simandl, yeah. Joel (11m 8s): I'm still waiting for Seymour Butts or you know. Chad (11m 13s): Well you can wait while we are at an event. That's right events and our travel powered by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right. When we look sexy on the travel that's because we have that Shaker. Joel (11m 28s): Always look sexy today. Chad (11m 31s): Shaker trucker hats, Shaker shirts, Shaker backpacks by Patagonia, luggage, all that other fun stuff. They outfitted us to ensure that we get to where we're going and we look great while we're doing it. September 13th through the 16th, we're gonna be in Vegas. Imagine that? For HR Tech, you guys have heard of this one before HR Tech. It's gonna be big October 5th through the 7th, in Nashville at InspireHR. Two party places, man. And I mean, I don't know that you can get 180 degrees, more different party place than Vegas than Nashville, both party places, but entirely different. Joel (12m 10s): My liver's already on boycotting. It's not good. My liver's already mad. Chad (12m 15s): And then we're talking Vegas, Nashville and then Paris. That's right kids. sfx (12m 21s): What did you say? Chad (12m 23s): Unleash World! October 12th and 13th in gay Paris. If you haven't registered kids? Again Vegas! Again Nashville! Again Paris?! I mean, what are you waiting for? Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events. All the stuff's there you can register. And we'd love to see you. Joel (12m 39s): Chad. You're remember the band Ready For the World? And the hit song Oh Sheila. Chad (12m 43s): Yeah. Joel (12m 44s): Well let's just hope the world is ready for us all. Chad (12m 53s): TOPICS! Joel (12m 53s): Alright. Chad (12m 53s): Oh she okay. Wait, wait real quick. Real quick. Yeah. I received a DM this morning that said this, and this alone, everybody panic and sell! Joel (13m 5s): That was it? Chad (13m 6s): Yes. Joel (13m 7s): I got, after this news, I got a text saying if two corpses get close enough together, can they both come back to life anyway? All right. Let's, that gets us to our first story everybody. Chicago based SilkRoad Technology has acquired San Francisco based Entelo. Terms of the deal we're not disclosed. Entelo provides source to hire automation technology while SilkRoad provides what it calls "red carpet onboarding software". Ooh! The acquisition will help SilkRoad add candidate search and recruitment marketing capabilities founded in 2011 Entelo employs 63 people according to LinkedIn and raised a total of $40.7 million in its history. Joel (13m 48s): SilkRoad founded in 2003 has raised just over $200 million and was acquired in 2021 by High Bar Partners. SilkRoad employs around 350 people. The consolidation continues, baby. Chad, what you got? Chad (14m 4s): So we've had a lot to say about Entelo over the years and, this story is more like a telenovela. Founded in 2011, as you'd said, Entelo has floundered for years trying to understand just what they wanted to be when they grow up. While companies like Sovren and Textkernel cornered a white label market for parsing and matching behind the scenes. So back in 2019 Entelo was limping around and then someone had a great idea to acquire ConveyIQ. I say it was a great idea because of the vision that they created by acquiring another system that could move into more of a platform conversation and which also came with, guess what? Chad (14m 49s): Kids more funding at that point, everyone knew Entelo was on life support and that buying ConveyIQ, AKA 'take the interview'. Joel (14m 59s): Yeah. Chad (14m 59s): Which was, as we thought more of a smoke screen than real business move. If Entelo couldn't execute on their original concept, who the hell thought they could create a grander vision and then execute on that? That will then soon after in 2020, Entelo kicked their CEO/founder, John Bischke to the curb automatically, we thought, Hey, Danielle's gonna be the new CEO. Nope. They hired a product guy, Robert Sal from Jobvite. Okay, you need a product person on product and you need a CEO, someone who can actually make noise and drive execution in the CEO slot. Chad (15m 43s): Anyway, soon after that, the CEO, obviously Danielle didn't get the CEO position, so she was gone soon after that. The CEO ejected in early 2021, the CTO ejected in May of this year and the new head of sales lasted only eight months before ejecting a few months ago in June. sfx (16m 4s): Oh hell no. Chad (16m 5s): So to me, this is a house of cards. Why would you buy this? Joel (16m 12s): Because it was on sale and it was cheap. Yeah. This, you know, I actually interviewed John Bischke, founder of the company back when it was founded. And it was a pretty cool, disruptive, innovative idea and the idea was of the company was, let's look at LinkedIn data and anyone who has updated their profile or change something, maybe Twitter profile. So it used aggregate data to sort of guess who is more likely to leave their company. And we found in 2011 with a lot of other companies, particularly those that built their business off of Facebook, that the rules change at platforms. By the way, there's a ton of startups that used Twitter as well. Joel (16m 55s): That suffered a similar fate. LinkedIn pulls the rug out from under, you know, utilizing LinkedIn data. Entelo had already had already taken money. So there they were in a position where like, holy shit, what do we do? Chad (17m 6s): Pivot! Joel (17m 7s): Pivot galore. The whole thing seemed like a wannabe poor mans. You fill in the blank, seek out, hiring solved, et cetera. They tried to be many different things. Nothing quite caught on. You mentioned the hail Mary with the ConveyIQ. Again, that was sort of two corpses thrown together to create a vampire. I guess that didn't work out. Bischke gets kicked out. Danielle leaves shortly thereafter, you mentioned the roll call of exits. The time was run out. You know, they had run out of time in terms of the investment that they had gotten. They brought in someone to sell the company. SilkRoad was a big enough sucker to take the bait and here we are. Joel (17m 48s): It feels desperate for sure. It's just not good for any of 'em. I don't know, know a ton about SilkRoad, but to them, it just sounds like let's get some tech on the cheap. A lot of people are doing what we're doing and they do a lot more than what we do. So we need to add, we need to tack on some tech, that'll hopefully keep our customers around longer than if they would otherwise. And my guess is 5 to 10 years from now, we're talking about SilkRoad getting acquired by somebody on the cheap, just like this. Chad (18m 18s): Yeah. So it speaks volumes that you don't know that much about SilkRoad since they've been around since 2003. They have modules for recruiting, onboarding, learning, and performance. But from my experience, nobody buys SilkRoad for their recruiting prowess. That's for damn sure. So why does a SilkRoad, which is not known for recruiting buy a clearance rack, failing recruitment technology company? None of that makes any sense. Yeah, they got it on the cheap, but for what? I mean, to be able to buy a jalopy that's not working or selling in the first place, you're gonna try to do what with it? Chad (19m 3s): To me reminds me of Hirevue buying AllyO and everybody's saying, oh, this is gonna be great. It's gonna be transformational for HireVue. Yeah. From my understanding, they have used literally one aspect of AllyO in that platform because the rest of it, they just couldn't use. Yeah. I see the same thing happening here. Joel (19m 24s): Yeah. I mean, look, acquisitions are hard. Integrations are hard. I mean, putting one tech into another is hard. Putting one culture into another culture is hard. Putting employees in duplicate systems is really hard. So a lot of these times the deal can just come down to either the price or we need to make our investors happy. We need to make them think that we're growing and this is one way to do it. The clock had run out on Entelo. So it was either like, sell it for parts, close it down, or get a buyer on the cheap to help everyone safe face and move on? The CEO I believe is joining the board over at SilkRoad I think, so he's got a job! Who knows what he'll do from this, but all the, all the main pieces from Entelop look like they're gone. Joel (20m 8s): So this is a fire sale. As far as I'm concerned, this is, you know, Jobster getting bought by whoever they got bought by back. Look, the story goes on and on and this will not be the last time that we hear this stuff any. And if you go back into CrunchBase and, and do a search for like 10 to 12 year old companies, 8 to 12 year old companies in our space, watch watch the dominoes start to fall in terms of companies that are gone. Chad (20m 40s): Again, just look at the runway. And that being said, Pymetrics, who had funding in 2018, do you think they ran outta runway? Joel (20m 48s): Sure. Well, let's get to that story. And then we can comment on that situation. So Boston based Harver, not Harvard has acquired New York based pymetrics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Shocker. pymetrics provides unbiased soft skills assessments while Harver helps companies with high volume recruiting needs. The acquisition will enable pymetrics to become part of Harver's set of talent assessment solutions. founded in 2011 pymetrics employs a hundred people and raised $56.6 million while Harver had raised around $29 million and was acquired in 2021 by Outmatch for an undisclosed sum. Joel (21m 29s): The company then rebranded as Harver. Your initial comment on this deal, I think was 'that's dumb'. So tell us how you really feel Chad. Chad (21m 45s): Yeah. So pymetrics they took what $56.6 million? acquired by Harver, AKA Outmatch, AKA Rubicon Technology Partners listen, closely kids. This is gonna get crazy. Also Frida's LinkedIn today, said that she will be staying on board as Chief Data Scientist. So, throw that in there. I don't think she'll be around for long, maybe 18 months or so just again, just my opinion what's gonna happen. But anyway, Outmatch acquired Harver about a year ago, and then outmatch rebranded to Harver. Outmatch two words you can spell very easily.com. Joel (22m 21s): Yep. Chad (22m 22s): Had acquired eight different startups from video interviewing to background checks. Now everything had shifted to the Harver brand. They literally chose Harver, a made up name over Outmatch. Oh. And Rubicon acquired Outmatch you know, back in 2020. Yeah. There's a lot of moving pieces here. Joel (22m 44s): Yeah. Chad (22m 45s): pymetrics latest funding was $40 million back in 2018 and it feels like their runway was getting shorter. And, here's a bit of tasty intel that was given to me last night. Joel (22m 59s): Sure. Chad (22m 60s): Whenever a company hires and fires a lobby group, they have to report it and Politico lists those reports. Well, three weeks ago, pymetrics split with their lobby group. Yes.little pymetrics had a lobby group. Joel (23m 12s): Interesting. Chad (23m 17s): The Raven Group. So why does a startup need a lobby group? I mean, that just sends bad signals to me. If you have to spend cash on a lobby group to be able to help try to form regulations, it's probably not a company that I wanna fucking buy. Joel (23m 33s): Yeah. Chad (23m 33s): That to me is messy. Joel (23m 34s): Yeah. You know, as soon as I read the headline, I, I started scanning the rest for Frida. I was looking for Frida. Chad (23m 41s): Of course. Joel (23m 41s): Where's Frida, where's Frida? And then, yeah, there's a quote from her that basically says excited to continue building upon our shared blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But there are no specifics. So she probably got a lot of questions about what are you gonna do? Are you gonna stay on? And the LinkedIn post makes a lot of sense. I think you're right about the 18 months, you know, Checkstr, one company we know, he was around for eight months, so 18 might be optimistic. I don't know. He pulled the cord at eight months. This company is a hot mess, dude. It is so like, Outmatch is now Harver. But if you go to outmatch.com, outmatch.com is still there. Joel (24m 21s): It doesn't redirect to Harver. Chad (24m 24s): But it says they're now Harver. I mean, it is so weird. Joel (24m 30s): Just redirect to Harver. And then like Checkstr still goes to checkstr.com. But then like first person does redirect to Harver. So there's some real, it's a real cluster fuck at this organization. The company's trying to build what it calls a hiring experience stack, but that's not what Harver says it is. So if the main company doesn't say that, but it says it Outmatch like if I'm a customer or prospect of this company, I'm totally confused about what's going on. That had our new COO in '21. The whole thing just looks like in complete cluster fuck. I don't really know what to make of any of this. They should just rebrand. The whole company is Keystone cops, jobs and stuff, LLC. Cuz I don't know. Joel (25m 10s): I don't think anybody knows what the fuck they're doing and whoever the COO is needs to like figure this branding shit out. They've had a year to do it. Like what's what's the hold up? What's the problem? Chad (25m 25s): I personally think Harver bought a bill of goods that they will likely never be able to use, especially in a hyper regulatory arena like interviewing in soft skills. So molding regulations to suit your vision through a lobby group, probably number one isn't great for optics. Joel (25m 43s): Yeah. This one is really, really hard to get my head around. Anyway so we need a break to figure our shit out and then come back and talk some more kind of strange mid dealings by companies. By the way I was remembering a conversation about pymetrics and the insight that I got is that they had been trying to sell the company for 18 months. So the price must have gone down quite a bit and the desperation went up quite a bit in that time period. But anyway, let's talk about our next acquisition. Austin based Mitratech® has acquired Denver based TalentReef. Terms of the deal we're not disclosed. Joel (26m 26s): Gee, I get tired of hearing that. TalentReef is an applicant tracking and onboarding platform. The press says the acquisition will enable Mitratech® to better service their customers hiring needs. Founded in 2008, TalentReef employees around 165 people and had raised 4 million while Mitratech® is a provider of legal and compliance software for companies. Mitratech® has been around since '87. Chad (26m 57s): Yes. Joel (26m 57s): It was acquired by the Ontario teacher's pension plan in 2021. Chad is this reefer madness, a savvy acquisition or something in between? Chad (27m 5s): Well, first off I think it is incredibly weird that the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan owns this number one. Joel (27m 13s): Remember they're part of the CareerBuilder deal with Apollo. Chad (27m 18s): They apparently like the talent space, but the way that I see this is kind of like a compliance backing into recruiting. And I like to see things like that happen. So instead of trying to force compliance into a platform, the platform was created for compliance and everything wraps around it. So that's a great message when selling against other platforms, especially for hourly and decentralized workers. So high volume hiring is sexy right now. Everybody's talking about it, even doing podcasts and shit about it too, and ensuring you don't have to worry about compliance isn't just nice. Chad (28m 3s): It's a damn must. TalentReef has been around since 1997 and they've only received $4 million in a single round of funding back in '97, according to CrunchBase. So we haven't heard much from TalentReef over the years, but they're a scrappy group that I believe quietly received a good payday. I don't think it's gonna be an amazing payday, but I think they got a good payday out of this. I don't think it was clearance rack sale material. But if my Mitratech® can effectively sell to enterprise players who need high volume obviously platforms, they can also sell a myriad of other legal advisory and compliance solutions. Chad (28m 46s): So this to me sounds smart from Mitratech® . The only thing that I'm not sure of is if they can execute on this new platform, cause this is not what they know. Joel (28m 58s): Yeah. Yeah. Big applause for an acquisition that makes a little bit of sense. So yeah, you mentioned the one side of it in terms of, you know, TalentReef companies needing all kinds of legal advice, which Mitratech® can provide. But the other side of that works works as well. So Mitratech® says it serves over 12,000 law firms, right? These are law firms that probably aren't getting called by the, you know, traditional ATS salesperson. Chad (29m 26s): Yeah. Joel (29m 26s): They all need ATSs. They don't know what the fuck to buy. They're probably calling Mitratech® saying, who should we use? Do you guys do this? And Mitratech® said, okay, well let's just buy our own ATS, plug in our 12,000 law firms into that system, take TalentReef's people, plug it into our services and then voila, you got an acquisition that makes sense for both parties. My guess is they'll probably probably keep the TalentReef brand as opposed to wrap it into Mitratech® , which sounds like a bad Michael Bay movie. But you know, time will tell on that. Yeah. This one makes sense. Joel (30m 7s): I like it. The whole Ontario teachers thing is a little bit bizarre to me. Chad (30m 14s): Yes. Joel (30m 14s): Those crazy Canucks must know something we don't! There's something in the water or the snow up there in Canada that makes them so pulled toward employment and workforce tech. It's kind of bizarre, but more power to 'em. Chad (30m 27s): Yeah. What what's even more bizarre is this eQuest news. Joel (30m 34s): Oh, it's totally bizarre, dude. Okay. So let's get into this eQuest Media announced this week that it will be expanding its advertising and marketing division into, you ready for this, worldwide music publishing. This will include licensing compositions for use by films, television, advertisements, and other media, monitoring, song usage and collecting and distributing royalties to clients. In case you missed it eQuest is historically a service that distributes jobs globally and has been doing it since, oh, I don't know the nineties? Chad, please help us make some sense of this move. Chad (31m 11s): Yeah. So I guess if you can't beat him, then get the hell out. I have admiration for John Malone, the founder and CEO of eQuest. Very early on in the days of the applicant tracking systems, John signed an exclusive deal with Taleo, the biggest ATS at the time. And the deal was for eQuest to be tightly integrated with Taleo and their only source for real job distribution. Now you gotta think about this kids! Back in those days, job distribution was going to each job board and posting manually. Chad (31m 52s): And this partnership put eQuest on the map because now you could do multiple job board distribution through one touch. Unfortunately eQuest got lazy and sloppy as competitors like BroadBeam came out of the woodwork, tightened up their game and the Taleo exclusive contract ran out. So instead of using the market position to make a stronger platform and prep for the end of the exclusivity, he chose boats and hoes, you know? So this step into music should be a step out of recruiting and job distribution, but much like Monster in Taleo, eQuest has had its time in the sun and I don't think it's gonna be coming back to the recruitment landscape anytime soon, or at least at the top of the mountain for job distribution in the recruiting landscape. Joel (32m 34s): Yeah. This is as weird to me as when Michael Jordan left basketball to try to play baseball. The difference is he could come back to basketball. I'm not sure eQuest can come back from this? This makes no sense to me. It's like us deciding we want to add knitting or makeup tips as part of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Okay. So, so one, what the hell do we know about knitting and makeup? What the fuck do they know about music? Second, there are already podcasts on those topics, I assume, I don't listen to them that do a lot better job about knitting and makeup tips than we ever could. And then number three, our current listeners would think we'd gone mental and leave the podcast. Joel (33m 15s): So that's basically what this feels like to me. They're doing something that they don't have a core competency on, they're confusing their customer base. It's just bad on all levels. I don't know what their smoking at eQuest because I want some of that shit, cuz it's really strong and must be really good. Holy shit. Is this on the Onion? I can't believe this is a real story. Chad (33m 37s): I can't either. It was sent to both of us, I believe. AndI literally clicked on it thinking that again, I was being pranked. Joel (33m 45s): Yeah, this is I'm getting punked. Somebody in the industry sent this to us, thinking that we would think is real story, but sure enough, it's on their site. It's on their blog. Nothing on the main site says music anyway. It's not worth spending any more time on this. It's totally stupid. Let's take a break and catch our breath and talk about something that makes sense. Chad (34m 6s): So on the last week's show, we talked about Tesla creating their own core talent platform instead of buying an ATS off the shelf or off the market. Joel (34m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. Chad (34m 22s): You said that you expect more of this to happen as companies see the price of off the shelf ATS systems are pretty fucking expensive. Joel (34m 32s): Yep. Chad (34m 32s): Well, this week I was forwarded Home Depot's path to pro platform. You can check it out at pathtopro.com and it's a career portal for the trades, carpentry, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, welding, and many other trades. You can click into any of the listed trades and Home Depot provides an outline of what to expect when pursuing these trades as a career. Starting salary, number of jobs currently available, and the cost and timeframe breakdown of going to a trade school versus a four year college. Then they direct you to quote unquote "free training". They also have the most important information, a page for your parents. This is one of the things that you see with the military a lot, because everybody wants their kid to go to college, right? Chad (35m 19s): And not every kid wants to go to fucking college. So the military for years have had these pages and they've had these promotional slicks for parents to be able to help them understand how this is a great path for their kid. Joel (35m 37s): Yep. Chad (35m 38s): Unfortunately, America, you bunch of fucking idiots. We have counted out tech schools for years and now Home Depot is trying to help parents understand why this is a great career path for their kids. So thoughts on Home Depot doing this and other companies perspectively doing this in other industries in the market? Joel (35m 55s): Yeah. So I think it's brilliant. You know, typically when we talk about this it's company training people for technology or being able to do a coding job that I need done at this company. The problem with that is you train 'em to do a job they don't necessarily have to work for you. Now they might be under contract and we've talked to some, or we've talked about some companies or services that will put people under contract for a certain time period once you educate them. But after that, they can go wherever the hell they want. The genius of this is. Chad (36m 29s): Yes. Joel (36m 29s): Home Depot trains people to do jobs where they need shit that guess what they can buy at Chad and Cheese (36m 35s): Home Depot! Joel (36m 35s): And there's some loyalty to Home Depot because by golly, they got me the experience I needed to get this job. So they, Home Depot, are creatively finding a way to get customers for life pulling in the parents and making them feel good about Home Depot because well, shit, they need some drywall and some two by four, two at some point, right? So they're gonna be customers of Home Depot, oh, by the way, we're gonna create this thing as a foundation, we're gonna raise money for it and we're gonna do a little tax break, whatnot with this foundation. So I'm sure they're getting some tax breaks from it. I'm sure they're making friends and high places in Washington and state legislatures by having this educational resource for the people who vote for these politicians. Joel (37m 20s): It's great PR, there's so many good things about this and it's so brilliant that I can't help, but just really applaud. Chad (37m 25s): Yeah. Joel (37m 26s): And as a, as a story to end the show, Chad, that isn't based on porn or OnlyFans or fried chicken, I just feel good about it. And I'm excited. And I'm glad you shared that story with us on the feed this week. Chad (37m 43s): Yeah. I gotta say, if you are looking for ways to re, to actually connect your brand to people and or create a cult like brand, this is a fucking template. You're a hundred percent, right? This is about, first and foremost, we have gaps in our society today where we don't have enough plumbers, carpenters, you name it, right. We don't have enough. So Home Depot says, Hey, this is good. Not to mention, we can create these individuals or at least help get them to training so that we're associated with it. And they started a career and they do have to buy things. So again, you're right. This is a perfect way to connect to a brand and then create a cult brand. Chad (38m 28s): It's not a kneejerk, it's not something that will happen to tomorrow, right? This is something where they're building for the future. And we do not see companies do this in the careers area. Joel (38m 41s): And that's why we're launching path to podcasting from the Chad and Cheese podcast foundation. We're taking donations. Let us know if you'd like to give. And with that, we out. OUTRO (38m 52s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (39m 32s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Europe is surging! Travel is way up, the cash is flowing and employers of all shapes and sizes are embracing the continent, in light of Covid being in the rearview mirror. Most notably, London is the world's hottest new destination for employers and innovative companies, while Spotify is giving us a blueprint for increased retention, greater diversity and salary equality. Why, exactly? Gotta listen. And if that wasn't enough, the boys sit down with Elke Moerenhout, a marketing manager at Jobat, one of the top job boards in Belgium, to chat about the importance of employer brand and how to harness it in the fight for top talent. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (14s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (35s): Oh yeah. A nudist group in England has seen the fastest growth in new members since it was founded in 1964. Well, that's one way to beat the heat isn't it? You're listening to the Chad Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your co-host Joel "buff baking" Cheeseman. Chad (54s): This is Chad "first world problem" Sowash. Lieven (57s): I'm Lieven "my skills are futureproof" Van Nieuwenhuyze Joel (1m 1s): On this episode, London's expanding in my knickers. Spotify stays home in a chat with Jobbot. Let's do this. sfx (1m 11s): Europe has a bunch of countries in Chad (1m 14s): Knickers really? Knickers? Joel (1m 17s): Knickers. It's 1824 knickers. Chad (1m 21s): Ah, Jesus. Well, that's, that's how I feel because I actually had to hard line into my internet because my goddamn computer's wifi adapter is fucking blown or some shit. I don't know. Goddamn Intel. Joel (1m 32s): I love that you worked in hardwire with my nudist colony new, like that was nice. And, I had to work in fastest growth in new members. Hopefully everyone caught that one. We have a smart listenership so they should get that. Chad (1m 43s): They did now. They did now. Yeah. Joel (1m 47s): Lieven how are things in the old country? Has it cooled down a little bit? Lieven (1m 50s): It's heating up again, which is good because I have a swimming pond in my backyard, which needs heating up. Chad (1m 57s): So is it cold? Is it cold at this time right now? Lieven (2m 1s): For me it's too cold to swim. It's 22 degrees. It's Celsius. You don't know what celsius means, but it's cold. It's cold. Joel (2m 8s): That's about what my wife likes in the hotel room. It has to be between 18º and 20ºC. So 22º's not that warm. Lieven (2m 15s): No. Chad (2m 15s): I was gonna say, I was gonna say that's around 70º or is like 68 degrees, right? Lieven (2m 20s): I dunno. It's cold. Chad (2m 21s): 68º. Yeah. It's cold. sfx (2m 23s): Oh hell no. Joel (2m 24s): Not getting in that. Lieven (2m 25s): It's been pretty hot, but now it's it's okay. It's agreeable. It's a nice temperature and it's getting hot again next week. So, but I don't really mind. I like hot. Chad (2m 33s): It's been hot here. We got some rain which has made it incredibly humid. So I went out to mow the lawn yesterday and I felt like I just went swimming, in a swimming pool for God's sakes. Geez. Joel (2m 45s): It is a little soupy, soupy here in the Midwest, for sure. Lieven (2m 49s): Soupy? Joel (2m 49s): So as long as it's too hot in the hot tub, who cares what the temperature is? Chad (2m 54s): Too hot in the hot tub. Joel (2m 55s): Well, shall we get to some shoutouts gentlemen? Chad (2m 57s): Yes! Joel (2m 58s): All right. I'm gonna go first if that's okay? Chad (3m 1s): Okay. Joel (3m 1s): All right. Shout out to the European travel surge everybody. It's not just the nudists in the UK that are surging. Haha. The number of international travelers heading to Europe is surging to according to hotel giants, Hilton and Marriott quote "Europe's on fire with a huge surge in business" end quote, they added Europe is now trending above 2019. Specifically Marriott's CFO said "RevPAR that's revenue per available room". I didn't know that. And most of our listeners probably don't either. Chad (3m 38s): Nope. Joel (3m 38s): In Europe surpassed 2019 levels in June marking a 50 percentage point increase from January. Moreover Airbnb's growth in Europe is incredibly healthy with now six of the top 10 cities for Airbnb rentals. Now in Europe, shout out to surging Europe. And I'll add that Chad and I will see you all again real soon. Chad (4m 2s): Very, very soon. Lieven? Lieven (4m 3s): My shout out goes to Bernard Marr and he's a futurist and a column writer for Forbes. And he has written a book on future skills and I'm going to read the full title, Future Skills: The 20 Skills and Competencies Everyone Needs to Succeed in a Digital World. And Rika, our CEO, my boss asked me recently to write an article about future skills and about constant learning and education cetera. And because Bernard already did, I don't have to. So thank you, Bernard. Shout out Joel (4m 32s): Any of the, any of the skills you can share so that I can pass them on to my teenage kids. Lieven (4m 37s): Well, I only read 14 out of 20 and I thought, okay, I'm going to pass the test, my skills are future proof. So I stopped reading afterwards, but basically it's all digital as we thought and now it's not true. It's not true. It's about innovation and creativity and, but you have to read a book. I'm not going to give away his key takeaways because he probably wants to sell some copies. Joel (5m 3s): Does virtual reality make the list? That's really what I wanna know. Metaverse and virtual reality kids. Chad (5m 11s): Oh my God. Yeah. So, okay. My shout out's gonna align more with Joel's but well, I don't know. Future proofing energy. My shoutout is to European gas prices. Now let's put this in into context kids because here in the US, we get pissed. We get our feathers ruffled when it's above $5 a gallon. And in Europe today, it's more like $7.50. sfx (5m 37s): What did you say? Chad (5m 39s): So luckily they have amazing infrastructure for the most part, trains, boats, all that other fun stuff. Cuz $7 and 50 cents. Shit! Joel (5m 47s): And planes are cheap too. You said, you know, trip, like what is it? 25 bucks to go from? You know, England to Spain. I mean like Ryanair ? Chad (5m 57s): Ryanairs. EasyJets. Yeah. All that shit. You can get the low cost, kinda like the Spirit version, which are actually better, I think in Europe. But yeah, man, you can find some cheap deals. When we didn't get a chance to go to Belgium in November last year, we actually just rescheduled and went to Malta instead. So we flew into Paris and it was 65 euros a piece to fly to Malta, round trip. Joel (6m 25s): And I enjoy it cuz, we went to Canada this weekend and they sell it in liters. So you don't feel as bad when you pay for it in liters, but then you do the math and go, holy shit. Gas is expensive. Lieven (6m 37s): Gas is expensive Chad (6m 38s): Events, baby, where are we going? Joel (6m 39s): Where are we going? Oh, well we're gonna do some American trips, which we're still trying to get Lieven here in the new country. Chad (6m 45s): Yeah. HR tech baby. Joel (6m 47s): Update on that. But he's got Nashville and Vegas hopefully on his travel list. Any word on that? Lieven you gonna join us out there? Lieven (6m 55s): Yep. I will. I will. Chad (6m 56s): Excellent. Joel (6m 56s): Well that was easy. Chad (6m 57s): That was too easy. Joel (6m 58s): And then I dunno, Chad, you're probably going to Portugal on vacation at some point, but yeah, we've got Unleashed in Paris in October. One of our favorite shows that we do during the year. Chad (7m 10s): It's coming. Yeah, no question gonna be there in Paris and then going to take a nice little stint for Q4 in Portugal. Joel (7m 19s): Oo nice. You're basically taking the holidays off from what I understand. Chad (7m 23s): Basically the entire, after we leave Paris, I'm in Portugal until like early January and then I might come back. Joel (7m 33s): It's the Cheese podcast for two months during the holidays, everybody. Chad (7m 36s): Yeah. That's we have internet there for God's sakes. I can do this shit from anywhere I'm on the Spotify plan. TOPICS! Joel (7m 50s): Topics. Let's go to London, everybody. All right. This is from TechCrunch. Despite the downturn companies are looking to London for expansion. We talk a lot about layoffs on the show, but that isn't stopping employers from growing headcount and office space in jolly old England. TechCrunch reported "London in particular remains a key destination for international firms looking to spread their proverbial wings with US unicorns and public companies revealing inaugural or upsized offices in the UK capital and recent months. And closer to home, a bunch of smaller European tech companies have also extended their reach out across the English channel with their first UK hubs" Joel (8m 31s): end quote. And so guys, what do you make of all this loving for Londontown? Lieven (8m 38s): I think it's more like a slight recovery. I mean, so many companies closed their London offices after Brexit, then there was COVID remote work. So London was getting kind of a brain drain or a European drain and now companies are coming back and 40% of those new companies are actually returning companies, just getting back to London, thinking, okay, Brexit, isn't that terrible. They know what's happening now. They feel more secure. They're getting back. And I can also imagine now with remote work, local offices are closed down all over the world, but corporate needs a presentation and of course a presence and a major city like London is better than let's say Reykjavík in Iceland or something. Lieven (9m 22s): There's also legislation, there's tax and not being part of European Union is probably a good thing if you want to decide to lower the taxes to attract companies and all these things to get right make London attractive again. And it's still London and I mean, London is closer to Scotland than Paris is, so we all want to be in Scotland. So Chad (9m 40s): Yeah, if they don't have internet in Scotland, that's a problem. Lieven (9m 44s): They have sheep, so many beautiful sheep. Yes. Joel (9m 46s): Closer to New York too. Chad (9m 49s): Oh, geez. Yeah. Well, it's funny because we take a look at the European taxes and then we take a look at, you know, the US taxes or what we call taxes. And then all we have to do is start to roll in all of the different benefits that we have to pay for, which are really taxes in the first place. So if you actually do that and I think many companies are looking at that. If you look at the amount of money that you're spending on taxes/non-taxes in the US versus Europe, you pay less in Europe, no matter what, and they have universal healthcare and that kind of shit. So what, what I believe, and this is not just Europe, I think we're gonna see, we're gonna see an awakening where people are waking up every day, having that morning stretch, grabbing a cup of coffee, and they're coming to the realization that the American dream is alive and well in Europe. Chad (10m 39s): That's the thing. And it's really, it's blowing my mind because when we take a look at our taxes and obviously we're making kind of like a part-time move to Europe, we did these huge assessments on what's it gonna cost? What do we get? Not just from personal standpoint, but also from a company standpoint. And to me it's much easier -infrastructure, way of life. You know, you're not, greed is not good, all that other fun stuff. So yeah, companies do want to be able to squeeze as much out of their employees as they possibly can, but if they can have great employees, great talents, which is what's drawing these companies to these places, it's not the tax code as much as it's the talent, I think. Joel (11m 23s): Yeah. I'm, I'm glad that Lieven you underscored the Brexit question because I didn't know what kind of impact that had on companies, particularly in Europe and the fact that you underscored that it was a negative at first and it sort of, looks like it's become a positive in Britain being able to sort of make their own rules around taxes and regulations that maybe the EU hinders them with. So I'm glad that you painted that picture for me. Yeah. I think everything you guys said was certainly on the right track, you know, Hooray imperialism, I guess partly spreading English around the world has turned out to be a good thing for globalism. And as companies want to have a middle ground between America and not just America, but North America, South America, as well as having real nice access to Europe is a positive. Joel (12m 14s): And with a lot of geopolitical issues with China and Russia, I think London is becoming a much more amenable place than it has before. The language of business more and more is English. So London becomes kind of an easy center point for English speakers and being able to do business all around the world. And like you guys mentioned regulations. I mean, England is the lowest has the lowest corporate tax rate among all G seven countries. They have research and development tax credits that are really friendly to startups coming over and creating companies. Regulations also make London an ideal place for testing new technologies and product and services. Joel (12m 58s): They have kind of like a sandbox that's friendly to taxes and regulations for startups. England got really good as their empire declined with sort of financial engineering and how to make England a nice place to park money, to spend money, to put companies, just ask the Russian oligarchs that are feeling the pinch that all went to England at one point they're pretty good at this, all the houses. Yeah. And they they've rotated it from yachts, super yachts and mansions to startups and businesses around the world. So I say cheers to London and welcome this new trend to startups and companies headed to London. I think it's good for America as well as Europe. Chad (13m 40s): Okay. So question. Do you enjoy going to Europe in London, let's just say London specifically more or would you rather go to Manhattan? Lieven (13m 49s): Well, Manhattan is even farther away from Scotland, but I think for me, if I was going on a trip, I would go to Manhattan because it's more exotic to us than London is. London is pretty close and I've been to London, lots of times. I've only been to Manhattan a few times, but London is probably more fun to live in. I think so I've never lived in Manhattan. I've spent some time in London, not really living there, but I think I would prefer London. Joel (14m 13s): Is that where you'd start a company? Lieven (14m 17s): If I wanted to start a company, I expect something, I know, so probably I know Europe much better than Manhattan. Manhattan sounds even more expensive than London is. And I mean, the real estate in London used to be terrible. The prices, I mean, not real estate, but now it's getting acceptable because of the drain there has been. So now it's not affordable, it's still expensive, but it's okay. And I think Manhattan is probably one of the most expensive regions in the world, for a startup. You can't just launch something in Manhattan I feel. Chad (14m 51s): It's pretty expensive. Well, I think the lure for anybody, like you had said, it's more exotic to come to Manhattan because London's right there. I think it's the same way for individuals here in the US with London. Joel (15m 2s): It's also interesting how, you know, Dublin for a while was sort of the centerpiece for low taxes and tech companies moving there. And the luster has seemed to come off of Dublin a little bit and it's sort of transferred over to London. And I don't know if that's sort of global SmackDown on tax breaks for those kinds of companies or what exactly is going on. But Dublin to me seems to not be talked about much anymore for tax breaks and companies going over there. And, I'm curious, Lieven your take as well. Do you know, does Paris? Copenhagen? Stockholm? Do those cities and countries follow suit or do they kinda let London have this position as a startup friendly/ business friendly city? Lieven (15m 45s): I think Berlin really tried to be the most startup friendly. I mean, talking about technology, it's Berlin, it's the most hip, the most startup friendly, I guess. Paris has never been the most trendy city. It's just very cultural and it's beautiful, but I don't think they have the image of being the most innovative city. Berlin has. The Nordics all try to be innovative and they are, I guess, in their way. Yeah. So it depends. It's different. They all have their pros and cons. London is nothing that I would associate with as startups. It's more like the city is for the financial institutions. The really big companies, but now there is a new vibe in London, which is a good thing. Joel (16m 27s): Do you feel like EU hinders those countries from being sort of innovative around taxes and regulations to get companies there or are they sort of free to act on their own? Lieven (16m 36s): They can always work around, but the more rules there are the harder it is and there are many rules. Chad (16m 43s): Well, and you talk about Dublin, you know, there's a saturation rate, especially for, you know, a city, the size of Dublin. Joel (16m 52s): Yeah. Chad (16m 52s): And the amount of companies that were going into Dublin was ridiculous. So to be able to get there first and foremost, I mean the lure of lower taxes is one thing. And obviously, you know, trying to open up a footprint in Europe is, is great. If you want a launchpad? They were making it an easy launchpad, but the problem is saturation where London, you have a much larger talent pool and the infrastructure, the transportation to be able to get in and outta work and that type of thing. Yep. Joel (17m 23s): Airport. Chad (17m 24s): Yeah. Airports shit. They've got what, four major fucking airports, you know, I mean, Manhattan has two? Well, I mean, if you include Newark, which you probably should three? For me, take a look at the saturation rates. Probably why we haven't heard much from Dublin lately. Joel (17m 39s): Great point, Chad. Great point. Anything else? Chad (17m 41s): That'd be it. Joel (17m 43s): All right. Let's take a quick break. And we'll talk about Spotify in our recent interview in Belgium. sfx (17m 49s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (17m 53s): Well guys from London, let's go to Stockholm, the home of music streaming service Spotify. While many companies saw increased turnover during the great resignation Spotify's turnover actually went down and the company improved diverse representation. Why? Three words work from anywhere. The policy lets employees determine how often they work from the office and where they work. As long as the company has an operation there. The audio streaming service also changed how it sets salary bands and Chad will get a boner over this one, calibrating them by country instead of city or region, a benefit surely appreciated by employees and not just Chad, around 6% of them moved after the policies statement. Joel (18m 46s): Shocker, I know that people prefer choice. So guys, what's your take on Spotify's success. Lieven (18m 50s): They have the perfect business to do so. I mean, they're strictly digital. They don't have any manufacturing of products or whatsoever. So there people can work from home. I mean, if you have a plant and you have a factory and you have to produce stuff, things have to be produced on the spot, there it's a different approach. So for them, it's perfect. And I can imagine it's even cost saving if you don't need so many offices. So I totally understand why they do so, but I was surprised some Joel just said something like the company lets employees decide on half and they work remote where they work from as long as the company has an operation there. So does that mean if I'm living in Belgium during summer? Lieven (19m 31s): Sorry, during winter, but I want to go snowboarding in summer in New Zealand because they have snow in New Zealand when it's summer here. I can't because they don't have an operation there? Is that the way I do I get it right? So they, you can only work from a place at home if they have an operation, there doesn't make any sense to me. Chad (19m 49s): The wording is kind of weird there, but I think if you hit a WeWork while you're snowboarding, I think you'd be okay. Lieven (19m 55s): Okay. Yeah. Doesn't make sense. Otherwise it would be kind of stupid. You can work from home, but only if your home is close to the office. It's like weird. Chad (20m 3s): I thought it was interesting that they talk about, you know, the increase, you know, in diversity and it's like, well, yeah, you got out of Sweden for God's sakes. I mean, that's all it takes you step out of the whitest area in the world and then you go somewhere else. Well, of course, you know, your diversity goes up, but the retention piece is pretty amazing. But I mean, expanding into Europe and Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and now they're registered in 42 different US states. We're going to see a huge difference in companies who are going to demand back in the office and companies who don't demand that you do anything, but get your shit done. Chad (20m 44s): And this is to me, you know, most of those companies are clinging to a crumbling vestige of the yester century for God's sakes. It's like, can we just allow autonomy and trust to happen? And if people don't get their shit done, what happens? They get fucking fired. And the thing that kills me is, in sales for years forever, we have goals. What happens if we don't hit the fucking goals, we get put on a PIP, a performance plan, right? And if we don't hit the PIP, what happens? We get fired. Why isn't everybody held at the same exact standard? I mean, it, to me just seems incredibly simple. And from a management standpoint, you get to push off a little bit. Yes, you do need to help and provide education and guidance and, you know, mentoring, all those other fun things that you should be doing anyway. Chad (21m 33s): But it's just like, can we just finally evolve out of this old 1950s manufacturing style, punch in the clock, situation that many companies still want to go back to? Joel (21m 42s): Yeah. I think Lieven hit it on the head when he said, you know, it's a perfect business to do this. And there are more and more companies like this, that sort of deal in zeros and ones. Yeah. And those companies will have to have this model, right? Like Airbnb, Twitter, Spotify like that if you don't do that, you're gonna lose talent to your competitors. Chad (22m 5s): You're going to, if you're, like, let's say for instance, if you're an old brick and mortar organization, but you do have tech ops, right. Do you think you're gonna get the same type of talent? Top talent? Joel (22m 18s): No. So, I think what I see is sort of three buckets here. You have like the total knowledge base, we deal in software, et cetera. Those should all be work from anywhere, wherever. Then you have like your DJ Sol and you're Jamie Diamond and Wall Street. They're like, get your ass in the office. We're boiling the frog. This is the way it's gonna be. And then you have this middle ground like Tesla, right? So Tesla is like, get your ass back to work. If you're an accounting, marketing, whatever, because the people who make the cars are in here every day and everyone that supports those people need to be in the office. And those middle ground businesses are gonna be really challenged to hold on to people that don't need to be in the office. Joel (23m 2s): Like, is it, would I rather be a marketing manager at Tesla or would I rather be one at Airbnb? More than likely Airbnb. So Tesla's gonna have to make a hell of a brand message as to why you should go back in the office and work for Tesla. I think they're gonna be really challenged going forward with the workforce. Lieven (23m 24s): And he wasn't particularly subtle on it. Yeah. He wasn't. Chad (23m 26s): He's not subtle on much, especially when he is on a yacht and he looks like the stay puff marshmallow man for God's sake. Joel (23m 34s): He looked a little tan to me. I dunno what you guys are talking about. Like, I mean, there's a great line from Wall Street that says you can't be a little bit pregnant. I mean, those companies are trying to be a little bit pregnant and it's very hard to do. Yeah. Chad (23m 50s): And again, I just think again, we're hanging onto a vestige of what we believe again, it's like make America great again, make work great again. Well, well fuck you. Okay. Work wasn't great for everybody. Okay. Work sucked for a lot of mother fucking people. So why don't we, if we're gonna make it great. Let's make it try to make it great for everybody. If you're in a position where you are in manufacturing and you gotta work a line, well, yeah, you gotta go to work, right. I mean, it is what it is. But to be able to think that you can't be a little bit pregnant. I, that, to me, that parallel is not even close to what we should be talking about here. Chad (24m 31s): There should be variations and autonomy given, but again, you've been given so much rope don't hang yourself. Joel (24m 36s): So, so part of the question to Chad is our conversation that goes back years is, you know, could the iPhone have been created in a work from home world? I don't think it could. And you think that it could. So if at some point we can make Teslas without being in the office, whether that be through automation or VR or whatever, then it becomes a situation where everybody can be at home or work wherever, whenever and however they want. And my guess is that we're gonna try to get to that world as soon as possible. Chad (25m 9s): Yeah. Joel (25m 9s): Because Tesla is gonna lose people to Airbnb and Twitter and Spotify. Lieven (25m 12s): It depends how old you are. I mean, I'm 45 and I've got my family and I've got everything here. And I like it not having to sit in my car for four hours a day and spend more time with my family and be more productive just by not losing time commuting. But my very young colleagues, they don't have a family. They live by themselves and they actually were lonely when they had to work from home because of COVID. And they tried to listen to the same radio station while working at home to get in touch together, to feel kind of bonding. So we're listening to the same music, even though we're out home. So for those people, I think it would be an advantage to offer them a corporate environment, which is a nice office and we have a bar and after work, you have a drink. Lieven (25m 57s): So we need both. And depending on who you want to hire, you have to spotlight one or the other. So you can be kind of pregnant or a bit pregnant depending on who you wanna hire. Chad (26m 8s): Oh yeah. No. And that makes a whole lot of sense though, too, because we're talking about a lot of these kids who, they don't have an experience, they don't have a network. They don't have, you know, they left their friends in high school or college. Right. They're not working with them anymore. So they need to create this new ecosystem in which they exist. And you can't do that from home. So I agree a hundred percent, but then you have to have the managers who are in and they are obviously there to mentor them and grow them. And then when they get to the point where they do have kids, they do have a house and they're sick of the fucking office and the commute, they get an opportunity to say, I'm gonna punch the button and I'm gonna work from home. Lieven (26m 49s): That's right. Joel (26m 49s): And, to me like the companies that say, all right, three days a week, we're going in and then two days, we're not. I don't, I don't think you're achieving what Spotify is by saying work whenever you want, however you want. The challenge to me is yes, young people that want to go five days a week and socialize and go to happy hour and meet people. That's great. But the executives like Lieven that are like, I don't wanna go in ever. What is the balancing act for Lieven to say, okay, I can go in this many days or this time and I'm comfortable with that, without looking like he doesn't care about the young people that he's mentoring. I think there's a balance there that will have to work itself out because I've worked at organizations where the vacation time is, well, take as much time as you want, whenever you want. Joel (27m 36s): You know, just let us know when you're gone. What happens is no one takes vacation because everyone feels guilty about it. Whereas you, if they said, okay, two weeks of the year, you have to leave or you lose it, then you feel fine taking vacation. So I'm hesitant to say, a lot of people in organizations are gonna be like, oh yeah, you can work whenever you want, wherever you want. But it's sort of understood that if you're not there, , you're fucked Lieven (28m 3s): Could be right. Definitely. Chad (28m 4s): Again, this is an evolution which the pandemic made happen and demonstrated to everybody that this shit can be done. It was done. It, you know, not to mention, we've seen wage increases those types of things. So, you know, many bad things happen during the pandemic, but this actual kick in the nuts to business, it was good. It was good. We need change. We need to get out of this comfort zone. Joel (28m 27s): Yeah. The gravitational pull to me is work wherever, whenever that's, where it's going and how it gets there. I don't know. There'll be a lot of bumps along the way. But to me, that's essentially like when Brian Chesky from Airbnb says in 10 years, this is how it's gonna be. I think he's right. But how we get there is gonna be a little ugly sometimes, a little bumpy. Yeah. Lieven (28m 47s): But for companies like Spotify, this is perfect. And I was just thinking now you were asking about, would you rather be a marketing manager at Airbnb or at, at Tesla? Whatever. I was thinking, what if I was a marketing manager today at Spotify? And I was planning on the future of Spotify, new products, how can Spotify grow, et cetera, because they are big in music, but maybe they should try new new sectors. So I thought, okay, how can they grow? And maybe they, they could go into live streaming of events around, of course they're back in podcast already, they have Chad and Cheese podcast, but maybe why not audio books like audible? They do have some audiobooks, I think but not that many. Lieven (29m 30s): So that could be a thing. Spotify learning, all those people in the car, sitting, driving, losing time, listening to Chad and Cheese, they could be learning French, let's say. Essential French for truck drivers, something like that. Joel (29m 40s): French for truck drivers, there's our next million dollar business kids. Lieven (29m 45s): Could be so cool. I mean, you sit in the truck learning how to say the gasoline is too expensive in French. I mean, it's something you need. Joel (29m 53s): And look, people have talked about Spotify as an acquisition target, right? So they've talked about Netflix buying Spotify and combining, you know, video with the audio portion. But then Netflix has separate, may have separate work situations in Spotify. So there's gonna be things like acquisitions. You know, companies are gonna hit bad times. They're gonna close offices. They're gonna produce headcount. Like all that stuff is gonna be ugly and part of the messy equation to how this thing works. But yeah, I just think the gravitational poll is leaning toward work from anywhere. Chad (30m 28s): Well, and I think our interview with Elke where she focuses to an extent on work life balance is apropo for this podcast. Joel (30m 37s): Yep. As, as Elke said in her interview quote, "my mission is to make everyone happy at work". And she goes into detail as, how companies should be looking at that. She also says she doesn't want Trump in Europe, which I think we can all get behind. Chad (30m 50s): You're wasting it. Come on. Let's get, so let's get to the interview. Joel (30m 56s): This is, so this is Elke Moerenhout how she's the Marketing Manager at Jobat in Belgium and it was a great interview. So enjoy that. We'll be back to close the show. I wanna welcome Elke Moerenhout she is Marketing Manager at Jobat.be that's J O B A T . B E Chad (31m 20s): Dot.be Joel (31m 20s): Elke, thanks for joining us. Cheers. Cheers. Elke (31m 24s): Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Well, glad to be here. Joel (31m 26s): Yes. Chad (31m 26s): Yes. Nothing like a little beer during a conference having an interview. Joel (31m 33s): Yeah and our listeners won't see this, but Elke has the coolest glasses, like Euro to the max glass collection. Chad (31m 37s): It is pretty sweet. Joel (31m 39s): On her face that I could never, ever pull off. Chad (31m 41s): You could never pull that off. Joel (31m 43s): Yeah. And unfortunately, as listening to this, she can't appreciate it. Yeah. But anyway. Chad (31m 45s): If you were here though, you should be getting, I mean, you know, we are not, so you should be definitely getting the FOMO right now. Joel (31m 52s): But then we'll figure out how to connect with Elke. Chad (31m 54s): Yes. Joel (31m 54s): And if you just want, see some cool eyewear on LinkedIn. Chad (31m 58s): That's it! Just go to LinkedIn and you can hook up. So, okay. Elke right out of the gate had a presentation earlier this morning. What was it about? Joel (32m 10s): A keynote. Chad (32m 10s): Presentation. Keynote. Elke (32m 11s): A keynote presentation. Well, I talked about recruiting in 2022. And what is it about to what it is about to find the right candidate? Because employers or recruiters are having the worst time finding the right people. Chad (32m 28s): Yeah. Elke (32m 28s): And it's because the game has changed so much. The amount of active job seekers today are so low. Chad (32m 33s): Why has that changed? Why has that changed though? I mean, we have the same people. So why has that changed? Elke (32m 42s): Well, because everybody's working, everybody's at work who can work, works. Chad (32m 47s): Okay. Elke (32m 47s): And, but what we do know is that one out of three employees is not happy in his job. Chad (32m 54s): Yeah. Elke (32m 55s): And that is something that I, Joel (32m 57s): Is it that low? Elke (33m 0s): I have difficulty understanding that. Why do you want to do something that you do every day and not be happy? So my mission is to make everyone happy at work. So, and in part of that's adding the candidates, it's also adding the recruiters of triggering, inspiring those candidates to try and to jump! Just jump, take the jump, and start actively seeking for a job that you love. Chad (33m 29s): Here's the thing. In the US we have for the last, at least 40 years have lived to work, right? In Europe it's been different. I mean, you guys do have more of an equilibrium around work, life balance, those types of things. So you can see like in the US, we've had huge problems during COVID because we're starting to call people who do essential jobs. That's what they are. They are now starting to understand that they are essential, which before they were never told they were essential. Now they know they are. Right. Yeah. And now they want more money now they're not taking the bullshit. Right they are looking for another job. Now in Europe. Elke (34m 2s): Okay. Chad (34m 2s): Trying to bridge here. How's that been? Has it been the same kind of thing? Has it been different? Tell us a little bit about that. Elke (34m 11s): Well, if I look at Belgium, I think that COVID has really changed the way we work and the work life balance has even become more important because if you look at the Netherlands there, the work life balance is much more integrated than it was in Belgium before COVID. And I think that COVID made us realize how precious time at home is and time with our family. So, and being, or having this better balance between work and home just makes it more sane in the head. And it gives you more peace. So it's like circular and you, by getting more peace or rest, well, you're more fresh to start the job the day after. Elke (34m 57s): So for me, that is one of the positive evolutions of COVID for Belgians who were, I think, a bit more work, work, work, and homework was not as integrated as it was in other countries. Chad (35m 11s): Or France. Elke (35m 12s): In the Netherlands before if France, I think it's Chad (35m 14s): They do have a balance. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that sounds very American. Doesn't it? A little Joel (35m 20s): A little bit, maybe we're becoming a little bit more European and they're becoming a little more American. Chad (35m 24s): We might be finding that equilibrium finally. Yes. I don't know. I don't know. You can have Trump by the way, then we'll just go ahead and we'll call it even. Elke (35m 38s): Nope. Don't want him. Joel (35m 39s): You're a branding person. Elke (35m 40s): Yeah. Joel (35m 41s): You wave that flag proudly. And we heard earlier today in a presentation, no one has loyalty to a company. The first day in, they're already thinking about how do I get outta here? Where do I go? I'm gonna leave at some point. If that is true, there's no loyalty. Then to me, it's hard to argue that brand matters. In that world the only thing that matters is what do you paying me? What's the job? Can I do what I want to do in my off hours? I assume you don't agree with that. Elke (36m 12s): I don't totally agree with that because whether you like it or not, people do like stability. And in the world, like today, where in my case, for instance, in the last 10 years, I had quite a few reorganization in the companies that I had. It's it's hard. So yes, you are seeking something you like or a job that where you are happy at. And maybe we are more on the lookout now for being happy, becoming happy in our jobs. But once we found that, I think that you do have some kind of loyalty to where you work. Elke (36m 52s): I think that being proud of where you work is also important. And, a lot of people have it. Maybe it's more questioning ourselves. Are we happy where we are now? And maybe we will change. And that is maybe because why people are saying that people aren't loyal anymore, but once you found something you like. Joel (37m 11s): But do you like the brand that you're working for? Or you do you just like the job? Elke (37m 17s): When I started looking out for this job, I was looking for a company where to feel good, where there are people where I feel good, the job at itself. Joel (37m 28s): Yeah. How important do you think like the flex is? How important is it that to be able to say, I work for Google. I work for Facebook. I work for Microsoft. Is that still important in today's world? Elke (37m 42s): No, that doesn't matter. Yeah. It matters what you love to do. That's what Jim Carroll told it's about doing something you like to do, being happy at what you're doing. Chad (37m 51s): Yeah. Elke (37m 52s): That's important. And if it's with Google or if it's at Jobat well, very nice. And, I will say proudly, I'm proud to work and I am proud to work at Jobat. That's important. Joel (38m 5s): I think with some people it's important. Yeah. Elke (38m 8s): For some, for some not. Chad (38m 10s): Boomers. Yeah. No, I get that. But, really in the question around, because we're talking about loyalty from the employee side, right? I think, and tell me what you think about this. Elke (38m 21s): Yeah. Chad (38m 21s): I think employees have seen that the employers have not been loyal. So therefore, they've just kinda said, well, if you're not gonna be loyal, there's no reason for me to be loyal. I need to be happy and I'm not happy doing this. Elke (38m 37s): Well, I think that is changing today. Chad (38m 39s): Okay. Elke (38m 39s): And that is why employer branding is such a hot topic today. Chad (38m 45s): Yeah. Elke (38m 45s): Because employers are now knowing that it is important. It's not, it's not about, you as an employer, back in the days. Chad (38m 54s): Yes. Elke (38m 54s): When I started, when I went to for job posting, it was the employer who said, I like you. I don't like you. But now it's the candidate who says, what do you have to offer me, to your employer? Chad (39m 8s): I don't like you. Elke (39m 9s): I don't like you. Chad (39m 11s): Yeah. Elke (39m 11s): And so employers are noticing that and they are knowing now that employer branding is more important to see, to show what they can offer to a candidate. Joel (39m 20s): And what does that mean to you? I think 20 years ago it was, we have a ping pong table and free lunches. Chad (39m 28s): Juices. Juice box. Joel (39m 30s): I don't think that has the same gravitas that it used to. What does that mean to you today? Is it time off? Is it maternity leave? Is it education enhancement? Like what the new ping pong table? Elke (39m 45s): For me, it depends on the stage, in which stage of life you are at at the moment. And a lot of companies today are actually offering to their employees a flex plan where you can choose in function of your life at that moment. Well, today I'm renovating the house. The kids, I wanna spend more time with the kids. Well, I'm gonna take some extra vacation days or sometimes you need more money. Well, I will replace the extra vacation days by some more salary. And that is what we're evolving to. Elke (40m 25s): It's respect for me as a person. And my boss once told me to me, Elke, it's just a job. And I was so shocked when she said that. And I said, but, but, okay. But I wanna do the . And I'm afraid that you will say that I'm not doing a good job and she just repeated. It's just a job. Chad (40m 43s): Chill out. Elke (40m 44s): Chill out, Chad (40m 44s): Chill out Elke. Elke (40m 45s): And she's right. Chad (40m 46s): Yeah. Elke (40m 47s): And it doesn't mean by saying it's just a job. It doesn't mean that you don't do well your job. Chad (40m 53s): Right. Elke (40m 54s): No, not at all. It made me realize to get a bit more rest and to start to stop working a bit earlier. Chad (41m 1s): Yes. Elke (41m 1s): Well, it made me better in the next stage. Joel (41m 3s): Sounds like you're saying customization is important. Yeah. What's great for this person isn't great for that person. And if you try to put everyone in the same box, you're going to lose. Chad (41m 11s): Which is gonna be hard for companies. Joel (41m 12s): It's gonna be really hard. Everybody wants something different. Chad (41m 14s): Yeah. Joel (41m 14s): And there's no just broad stroke of this is gonna appeal to everybody. Chad (41m 19s): Yeah. And we're good. Well, I think it's interesting though, because we talk about equity, right? Everybody gets the same, right. This is gonna be something that's different, right. Because you could actually give some salary up for more flex time or what have you. But I think one of the things that we've dealt with over the years, well I know what we've dealt with over the years, is that employers have pretty much standard standard and dictated it, standardized and dictated what everybody got. Right? And other than salaries, cuz you had negotiate for that. But in the future you're picking it. So you can't come back to me, I'm the company. You can't come back to me and say, Hey, you didn't give me X, Y, and Z. Chad (41m 59s): Well, it's like, well you didn't choose it. So doesn't this feel a good evolution. It's good for the employee, but it's also good for the company because they actually have less risk at this point. Elke (42m 12s): Absolutely. It's a good evolution. That is what we are trying to at Jobat we really want to try and make every candidate reflect on what he's doing today. Is he happy? And okay, I'm inspired by some, an article or a story that, and okay, I think I'm gonna jump. I'm gonna actively seek for that job that I love to do. That's the most important mission we have to make people reflect on that. Joel (42m 41s): We've talked recently about how bad ATSs are with applying to a job and learning more about a company. We see more about automation where candidates are interacting with chatbots or conversational AI. And most of that feedback has been positive. Elke (42m 54s): Yeah. Joel (42m 54s): Because the standard is the black hole. You apply and you hear crickets, you hear nothing. And at least you're, I mean, you may be talking to a robot, but at least you're talking to something. What tips would you give companies that are sort of at this crossroads of, well, we're looking at automation, how do we make our process better? What tips are you giving them to do it right? Elke (43m 16s): For me, I'm a balanced person and I think automation is a big and good thing. And it gives companies the time to invest in the people, on the people side, automate what you can and what does not need this human interaction. But I think COVID has learned us that human interaction is important. We need a pat on the shoulder. We need to talk to someone to have personal feedback and so use the automation to get rid of the things that you don't like to do, or don't need human interaction and use that time to invest in people. Chad (43m 51s): How do we do that in a remote society? Because again, Joel (43m 53s): How do you pat someone on the back? Chad (43m 55s): Yeah, it's hard. I mean, you, you can digitally pat somebody on the back say good job or send 'em a text or something like that. Is that something that we are just going to have to evolve and get used to, is that, you know, we have to have better connections with our employees because we're not gonna see 'em at the water cooler every day? Elke (44m 16s): I could only talk about my experience is that when I look at the younger generation, the early 20 years, I see that they are afraid to call people, even in this remote environment that we are living in. They're sending emails, they're chatting, but they're not talking to each other. And that is something, as almost being 40. I just take the phone and I call someone and I ask, what do you think of that? Or, Hey, wanna go, wanna have a team's call with video just to see each other. And, you can text, I also text and I also send emails. And, but it's about giving feedback and sending an email. Elke (44m 57s): There's some nuance that gets lost and Joel (44m 60s): Elke's outta control. She's on the phone. She's calling people. She is outta control. Chad (45m 3s): These are all things Joel does not do. Elke (45m 6s): My team members will be laughing when they hear this, because they're all so Joel (45m 12s): You need to calm down with all this calling. Elke (45m 16s): I always say, just, you can send the email, okay. Call first and then send the email. Yeah. And it works. You make, you get more connection with people by doing that. Chad (45m 26s): Yeah. Well, and if they have questions they can clarify then, and you can get through it. Elke (45m 32s): Yeah. Chad (45m 33s): As opposed to having a string of 25 emails. Elke (45m 35s): Yeah. Chad (45m 35s): Which does seem, it, that in itself is frustrating. So you take the frustration out of it as well. Elke (45m 41s): Yeah. Chad (45m 41s): So, so be more human pick up the phone. It is gonna be a different world where we're not gonna get a physical pat on the back. Joel (45m 48s): I'm waiting for that mind meld where I can just think of a number and call people in my brain. Chad (45m 57s): Musk is doing that, the pig neuro thing with the chip. Joel (45m 59s): I need it immediately. Immediately. Elke you gave a lot of tips in your presentation. Chad (46m 1s): Yeah. Joel (46m 2s): Knowing that there was some great content there, give us some of those tips that you had in your presentation that you think some of our listeners would benefit from. Elke (46m 13s): Yeah. I talked about two priorities. One priority is recruiting and within the recruitment, how to find the right candidate, I think there, the biggest tips is know your candidate. Go and do some research. If you're looking for an ICTer, well, go on on the lookout and see what do they expect? Is it training that they want? Is it a pat on the back that they want? Is it nice colleagues that they want? We have a study, we actually, we questioned 10,000 Belgians within different function profiles. Elke (46m 53s): ICT, engineering, sales and we ask them, according to their experience level, if they're a junior, a media, a senior, what they are looking for when looking for a job? And that is important, knowing your candidate, then I think it's very important that to spread the word, as there are so much passive job seekers today who are currently working and afraid to jump and to go actively seek for a new job, you need to have different touch points, spread the word, but on the right channels. And then you also need a partner that has the profile data, which is very important today. Elke (47m 35s): It's smart data, having the profiles to target the right people, with your message and employer branding, tell your authentic story to possible candidates. Chad (47m 44s): Stop being a faker. Joel (47m 45s): I'm just looking for that pat on the back and a phone call. Elke (47m 48s): I'll give you a pat on the back. Joel (47m 52s): For our listeners who want to connect with you and learn more, where would you send them? Elke (47m 60s): I would send them naturally at Jobat.be. Joel (48m 2s): That's J O B A T dot be. Elke, thank you and we appreciate it. Chad (48m 5s): Yeah. Take care. Elke (48m 7s): Yeah. Thanks. Chad (48m 7s): So, so Joel, what was your favorite part of that interview? Joel (48m 9s): My favorite part of the interview was when I asked, does brand still matter? Because so much of what we talk about is, Hey, if, if I get the pay I want? If I get the flexibility I want? I get the benefits that I want? Then that's what the individual's looking for in an employer. Whereas I tend to think, yes, they want that, but they also wanna, they also kind of wanna flex. They wanna tell their friends, I work for a Google. I work for a Microsoft. I work for a big company. And you don't. Yeah. Chad (48m 39s): I, that's where I go back to my 'okay Boomer'. I think, you know, for today is again, we're moving more toward, can I spend more time with my kids? Can I, you know, make sure that I pick 'em up from, you know, the bus? Or what, whatever it is. Right? So it's becoming more about us and less about that brand. Lieven (48m 57s): What she said about brands and what Joel is agreeing with. I tend to agree too. I wanna work for a company I can be proud of, and it doesn't have to be a big brand. It can be a little challenger, but I wanna be proud of my company. I could never work for a company with a brand that I would be ashamed to mention during conversation. Joel (49m 21s): Well, one thing we can all be proud of is being associated with this podcast. Lieven (49m 28s): Ah, we can. Joel (49m 30s): And with that, another European show in the can, boys, We out. Chad (49m 35s): We out. Lieven (49m 36s): We out. OUTRO (49m 35s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (50m 17s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

If Chad & Cheese ever opened a restaurant, this episode might give you an idea of the menu items. In addition to talking about the acquisition of Lever by Employ (Jobvite, JazzHR), layoffs at you favorite companies, and Tesla putting its ATS in the rearview mirror, food and beverage take center stage. Big news out of Taco Bell, Chik-fil-A, and your favorite beer distributors. Kinda job-related. Anyone else hungry? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. Two guys the United States will never send to Taiwan. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost. Joel "¡Yo quiero Cheeseman!" and Chad (36s): This is Chad "is that a hellfire?" Sowash. Joel (39s): And on this week's show 'Lever? I hardly even know her,' Tesla leaves its ATS in the rear view mirror and so much fried chicken and beer we hardly have room for Taco Bell's Mexican pizza. Chad (53s): Oh God. Joel (54s): Let's do this. Chad (55s): So dude, how do you hit a terrorist on a balcony with a hell fire missile and not kill everyone in the fucking building? Joel (1m 4s): It's science. Chad (1m 5s): The hellfire R9X. That's how kids? Joel (1m 9s): Yeah. Chad (1m 10s): Oh my God. For all those kids who don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. So Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike earlier this week. So that was actually done with the hell fire missile without any explosives, total kinetic energy. I mean, one of the things that the US is good at is wars and weapons. Everything else, not so much. Joel (1m 34s): And we do fast food pretty well too, which we will get to in this show. Chad, I promise, I promise. By the way, I know we talk occasionally about what we're binging and watching. Have you checked out the Old Man on Hulu? Chad (1m 47s): I have not yet. Yeah, we saw it, but it looks good. Have you watched it? Joel (1m 50s): Well, we're up to date on it. Chad (1m 52s): Okay. Joel (1m 53s): Yes. We have watched the final episode. I forgot I was falling asleep at the end, but that doesn't mean it's not good. It just means that I'm old and tired, but yeah, the Old Man is, is quality of television. If you, if you get a chance to look at it. Should we get the shoutouts? Chad (2m 7s): Shoutouts! Joel (2m 8s): This could be a long show. Let's get to it. All right. I got a shout out for the globally recognized publication, Chad, you're gonna know this one, the Employee Experience Magazine. Chad (2m 18s): Oh Yeah. I think I've seen those in bathrooms all over the world. Joel (2m 21s): Yeah. You know, you know, you know, Time, National Geographic and the Employee Experience Magazine. Anyway. Well we love lists. Chad (2m 29s): Yes. Joel (2m 29s): Even when the list is on a site and a publication that no one's ever heard of. Chad (2m 34s): Yes. Joel (2m 34s): The EEM as the kids call them publish their top 20 HR podcast and yours truly are included. Saying quote "Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman have successfully created the self called most dangerous HR podcast. The charismatic, sincere and fun duo wants to discuss spicy and not so common topics". Chad (3m 3s): Yes. Joel (3m 3s): "Spicy, charismatic and fun," pretty sure I dated her back in high school, but not someone I'd want to have my baby. Shout out to Employee Experience Magazine surely available at all fine bookstores and bodega's near you. Chad (3m 15s): I took a look at that top 20. I literally could only identify five. I had no clue who the other fucking 15 were. So before we get all excited about making a list, let's just, yeah. Let's let's not get excited! Joel (3m 27s): Yeah. And I love how they put, like it said no particular order. It's like we don't, we didn't really actually listen to these shows. We just gonna put 'em on and hope they talk about us on their podcast. Chad (3m 36s): Either way. Thank you so much. Joel (3m 37s): Which we are dumb enough to do. Chad (3m 39s): We appreciate the list. My first shout out, goes to the crew over at FactoryFix. Joel (3m 46s): There you go. Chad (3m 46s): Remember a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about RecFest and you asked whether I was jealous that our friends over at the Tapod podcast had trucker hats and we did not. Well, the FactoryFix clan heard your veiled ask and they sent us Chad and Cheese trucker hats with little FactoryFix logo love on 'em. So big shout out to the gang at FactoryFix. Joel (4m 12s): Glad they sent you a trucker hat. I got nothing. Chad (4m 15s): I've got two. I've got one for you. It's okay. It's okay. Joel (4m 18s): All right. Good. All right. Good. And at first I thought why I'm on a hat with Santa Claus for some reason you came out with a totally white beard. Chad (4m 28s): Yeah. Joel (4m 29s): And I had purple hair. So I'm not sure if it's a different podcast that they were they're thinking of, but yeah the visuals have something to left be desired in terms of sticking to brand. Chad (4m 39s): Yeah. So I think in their haste, they went with the first vendor they could find who had about four colors. Joel (4m 47s): Much like this show their heart's in the right place and sometimes the brain doesn't quite keep up. Chad (4m 53s): That's why they love us so much. Joel (4m 54s): Yeah, that's right. But speaking of on brand, let's talk about Sally Millick that's right. She's our latest winner of whiskey! Chad (5m 2s): Love her! Joel (5m 3s): Sponsored by our friends at Textkernel. For those that don't know, by the way, you gotta go to Chadcheese.com/free to get that chance to get free stuff. Anyway, she posed her winnings on social media this week, but more importantly, Chad, did you see Sally's bar? I guess she calls it a speakeasy in the background of her pic? Jesus Christ! I wanna party at Sally's house. Chad (5m 26s): Amen. Joel (5m 26s): Shout Out, shout out to Sally. And, what time should I be there? And, what kind of dip should I bring for the chips? Good Lord. Chad (5m 33s): Let's find flights to Rochester, New York now. Let's get there. Joel (5m 36s): No, we can drive there. Shit. Party bus. Chad (5m 39s): Fuck that. In talking about Sally Millick, she actually pointed out that friend, Tina Davis, she actually posted a selfie with the Chad and Cheese t-shirt that we missed several months ago. Joel (5m 53s): What?! Chad (5m 53s): So I guess better, late than never. Tina Davis thanks for posting and we do have some new t-shirts coming sometime soon. Do we not? Do we have an update on that? Joel (6m 5s): Sure. I'll update. Okay. Because we talked about last week. All right. So historically we've put up a competition on 99 designs. Typically they perform very well we get 30 to 50, really interesting, pretty good design ideas. And this year it was a big pile of shit. It was awful. Chad (6m 25s): Yeah. Joel (6m 26s): So I've gone to fivrr. I'm getting four designers to do some designs. We'll pick like four and then we'll put it up for a vote. So I think we're gonna get some interesting stuff this year versus what be done previously. But yes, there will be shirts. They'll be kick ass and there'll be quality shirts. Chad, not these Haynes Beefy-tee, a hundred percent cotton shit. We go tri! We go tri-blend on our shirts. Chad (6m 48s): Oh yeah. Joel (6m 49s): So I appreciate the patience. We'll get there. A big thanks to our sponsor JobGet on the t-shirts they're coming. For the holidays we will have t-shirts I promise Chad (6m 58s): For the holidays and we're gonna have a promotion. So that again, once again, our listeners can pick which t-shirt they want. So look out for the promotion and yes t-shirts via JobGet. Thanks guys over at JobGet we're excited about it. Joel (7m 14s): No doubt. No doubt. And my next shout out, Chad. Oh yeah. You know what that means? Chad (7m 22s): Oh Fuck. Joel (7m 22s): As reported by every major news outlet, including I think the Employee Experience Magazine, Chad! The Bell's, the Bell's Mexican pizzas, finally returning to menus following the three month absence. Back when we initiate initially reported this when it returned Chad, the pizza is coming back permanently on September 15th after demand was higher than expected back in May and caused them to run out roughly two weeks after the relaunch. Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus. He's on our hat and he loves him some Mexican pizza from Taco Bell. Joel (8m 3s): Shout out to the Bell, everybody. Chad (8m 5s): Oh, very nice. Shout out to JT O'Donnell for the elevated Blanton's package that arrived on my doorstep this week. A couple of old fashioned rock glasses, crystal hand etched, Glen, Karen glasses and maple syrup aged in bourbon cask. That's right. When JT does it, she does it. Right. So quick shout out to JT O'Donnell! Joel (8m 30s): Nice. Shout out. Nice. Shout out. All right guys. I mentioned it, but you gotta get on Chadcheese.com/free click. The link. We got whiskey from Textkernel. We got beer. Who's our new beer? Aspen Tech Labs. We got so many new sponsors I can't even keep up, but you gotta go to the site. And also, by the way, if you like our show hit our show, we don't care, leave a review on wherever you listen to podcasts. We like getting feedback. It's our oxygen. And we weren't really hugged much as children. So we like hearing people love us or hate us. As long as you give us some attention. Chad (9m 4s): We're latchkey kids go figure. And that being said, latchkey kids. We're leaving the fucking house kids. That's right events. So Joel, how much do you love being back at events? Joel (9m 16s): I love being back at events. I love seeing people. I love free stuff that I get. Chad (9m 23s): Hugs. Joel (9m 23s): I love Oasis cover bands. Yeah. I love it all. I love it all. How about you? Chad (9m 27s): Well guess what? September 13th through the 16th in Las Vegas, we are going to be at HR tech. October? October 5th through the 7th we're gonna be at InspireHR in Nashville, Tennessee kids. That's right. The Nash Vegas. That's yeah. We're going from Vegas to Nash Vegas. We're gonna have problems here. sfx (9m 49s): What did you say? Chad (9m 51s): Yeah. And last but never least October 12th and 13th. It is get ready Unleash World in gay Paris. That's right. If you are in Europe and you have never gone to an Unleash World before, get your ass to Unleash World register today. If you're in the US and you haven't been? It's a reason to go to Paris. Number one, number two, it's one of the best events in the world. Get your ass to gay Paris for Unleash. Joel (10m 28s): No doubt. And Chad who supports our travel efforts? Chad (10m 32s): Our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joel (10m 34s): Exactly. And some more friends of ours. Let's talk about birthdays. People are celebrating another trip around the sun. We're talking about Kim Bates Happy Birthday! Christy, our first super fan. I think Moon out in Utah! Stephanie Pendrass I have to like do a double take on a lot of these names. So we don't, I don't like a Seymour Butts. Doesn't slip through which I know. Well, Rachel Tascholaude Michael Malludy Kip Birthwhistle. Sally Millick>. Yeah. Didn't she just went a bunch of whiskey? She sure as hell did! Joel (11m 13s): That was some nice timing. Neil Costa Chad (11m 18s): Hire Clix! Joel (11m 18s): Longtime influencer, Jaylee. Brendan. Cruickshank out at Emissary, man. George Jetson. What? Chad (11m 24s): George Jetson. You saw this all over social media this week. Kids that's because George Jetson was supposedly born. I think it was on Sunday. I think it was actually July 31st, 2022. So happy birthday, new baby George Jetson. Joel (11m 41s): Yeah. Yeah. Thank God for social media. Otherwise, every year we wouldn't see like back to the future memes and George Jetson's initial birthday and all kinds of good stuff. Thanks, internet! Chad (12m 1s): TOPICS! Joel (12m 1s): All right, Employ. Chad (12m 1s): Yes. Joel (12m 3s): The artist formerly known as Jobvite, I guess, has acquired San Francisco based Lever. Terms of the deal were not disclosed along with Greenhouse Lever, enjoyed a "cool kids" and I'm using air quotes on that one label for maybe longer than it deserved. Nevertheless, Employ a brand that encompasses Jobvite, JazzHR and NXTThingRPO said, the acquisition will enable Lever and employee to grow faster together. That's how that works. Founded in 2012 Lever employs just over 300 folks, that's according to LinkedIn. It's consolidation, baby. Chad, your thoughts. Chad (12m 42s): So I've been hearing rumblings that Greenhouse has been eating Lever's lunch for about 18 to 24 months, maybe longer. So I dug into those rumblings after this acquisition news hit the wire to pretty much, you know, chat with other platform leaders that integrate with applicant tracking systems to see if those rumblings were true. And I had multiple leaders from multiple platforms say without divulging numbers, that yes, since the pandemic they've seen a dramatic switch from Lever to Greenhouse. Again, those are platforms that integrate with ATSs. So when their customers switch, it's quite noticeable. In the market, I believe one of Lever's biggest issues was its inability to pick a lane or picking it too late because between enterprise and SMB, there's a big gap. Chad (13m 33s): And that's a really big lane to try to try to drive through. Although some would say the SMB market is huge. You and I would would agree, but then disagree. And we'll talk about that in a minute. Joel (13m 47s): Yeah. Chad (13m 47s): I would counter with SMB also fucking sucks. Case in point client acquisition. You have to spend tons of cash to acquire clients. It's a cash burn fest. SMB is a transactional game, not a real platform play and competitors. So quick question as we start to think about this in the SMB arena, who do you think the biggest competitor is for a company like Lever? Joel (14m 14s): Oh, Smart Recruiters? Maybe. Chad (14m 16s): And that's what you would automatically think from an ATS standpoint. But remember these are small small companies. Indeed, Zip Recruiter and job platforms like Jobcase that offer more than just post and pre mechanisms. Joel (14m 27s): Yeah. Chad (14m 28s): Right. You can go to Indeed today, post a job, go through their assessment, their interviewing, all that other fun stuff. You don't have to buy a platform, right? Joel (14m 36s): Yeah. Chad (14m 36s): This is all transactional. So as we take a look at this and I think it's hilarious as I listen to other analysts, industry analysts saying, oh, SMB is such a huge market. Yeah. But when you take a look at this market, you're gonna get your lunch fucking fed to you, not just by Freenhouse, but also by Indeed and Zip Recruiter and Jobcase. And are boys over at FactoryFix. Right. So the competition for SMB is so much bigger than trying to play with those white whales on enterprise. Joel (15m 10s): Yeah. That's great insight. So, TikTok, isn't just your favorite app Chad. It's also the sound startups here after they've taken a lump sum of money. Lever first took significant money back in 2012 and ended up raising a total of about $123 million when all was said and done. The runway for investors usually lasts around seven years or so. Founder and CEO, Sarah Nahm was let go in 2018 and I'm guessing a liquidation event would've happened sooner, but then COVID hit. Chad (15m 45s): Yes. Joel (15m 45s): There's no appetite for ATSs in the public markets currently just ask iCIMS. So Lever was probably out of options. It seems like a decent business, a little bit outta date. And you kind of touched on those points. But to me, everything points to this as investors wanting to cash out and move on to other investments that might have a lot more potential. So when I look at stuff like this, I look at the clock and this was right around that seven to 10 year mark, where it was time to either shit or get off the pot. And I'm guessing they found a good, you know, buyer and Employ now. At $123 million, that price tag is usually pretty high. Joel (16m 26s): There's no way in hell that even K1, Employ's sugar daddy was willing to pay, you know, 10X for Lever. Chad (16m 31s): No way. Joel (16m 31s): I like a lot of their money back for the initial investors. But I doubt there was a whole hell of a lot of money returned to them in terms of profit, which also points to a little bit of a fire sale here. I think that's what happened for the most part. I'll also add that the PR around this was really weird. They announced this on their blogs, which is kind of weird in and of itself. They didn't give like us a heads up and not that we're the end all for media, but there's usually at least some heads up like, Hey, this is going down. Or you know, obviously they give us, when we can talk about it, hey, if you have any questions or wanna bring on the CEO? Joel (17m 14s): There was none of that. There's nothing on like PR news services about this. If you go to Google news and search Lever and JobVite or Employ, there's nothing there that's really odd for buying a company that's raised $123 million. That's a brand that people know. Why they wanted to keep it on the down low, why they wanted to keep this quiet? Maybe that reason is obvious. Maybe it's more nuanced than that. But the PR around this was really strange. I just wanted to point that out as well in my comments. Chad (17m 43s): I'm gonna hit the clearance rack or the fire sale subject real quick. So even though many people in the industry are saying, this wasn't a clearance rack sale, there's a lot of defenders that are out there. I'm gonna push back and say, okay, maybe Lever didn't wait to hit the 70% markdown rack, but they sure as hell waited long enough to hit the 30 to 50% markdown rack, which is a great acquisition for Employ as they can pull the plug on Lever and feed the Jazz and Jobvite machines with the additional Lever client portfolio. So this is a classic consolidation move, which deserves a big applause. Chad (18m 23s): Of course, the question is when do we think they're actually gonna pull the plug on Lever? Joel (18m 27s): So I would bring up two things on that. One is, I bet if you asked their investors, if this was on the clearance track or not, I'm betting, they would all say, yeah, we sold it at a deep discount. The second thing is, if the business was doing so well, they wouldn't have fired their CEO. And that's just like, I don't know how you would argue that. So if you think this was a great business, that it was doing very well, answer me why the CEO is let go and answer me or gimme any investors that say, yeah, we cashed out big time on Lever? Cuz I think you'd be hard pressed to find both of those. Chad (19m 5s): Agreed. Joel (19m 5s): All right, Tesla! Chad (19m 6s): What? Joel (19m 6s): Your boy Elon. All right. In a piece by the Information. What A pasty fuck, by the way, did you see the pictures of him on a boat? And they might have been doctored, but that was a pasty fat fuck right there. I'm not hating. Dude. I'm not hating you get me a yacht and some sexy washboard as like we could recreate that picture. I think we should make, let's get a yacht or just a pontoon boat. I'll get topless with my white pasty fat ass. And you can spray me down with a hose. I think we could recreate that picture and make some social media gold. Anyway. Chad (19m 42s): Let's do it. Joel (19m 44s): All right. This is from the Information. Tesla has introduced proprietary software for tracking its job applicants. Three current and former recruiting employees told the publication a move that could lower hiring related costs as CEO, Elon Musk follows through on his goal to reduce the electric vehicle makers reliance on external software vendors. The move by Tesla marks an unusual step to develop internal talent related technology say for some of the biggest tech players, such as Google. Very few have done what Tesla has done. Chad thoughts on Tesla's strategy and should vendors be shaking in their battery powered boots right about now? Chad (20m 20s): First and foremost, I would love to be a fly on the wall during this build because this could turn out to be awesome or Amazon. And, what I mean by that is everybody remembers Amazon built tech to source candidates, but they obviously didn't have the appropriate oversight because the algorithm learned that it should and did kick out qualified female candidates to the curb. Joel (20m 48s): Yeah. Not good. Chad (20m 48s): Now, Tesla, probably one of the most innovative auto companies in the world, believes they can build a full system, which extends well past just sourcing and what Amazon did. But I would say if Stewart Butterfield ran Tesla, this would be a product that would hit the market in a couple years. But I believe Elon and the crew over there will keep this project behind curtains to ensure that nobody knows how they're targeting, attracting, and hiring top talent. Not to mention once you get it out there, the whole EEOC bias machine starts happening. People can look at it, they can point out flaws and they don't want that. Joel (21m 29s): Yeah. Yeah. So not sure if you've heard Chad, but HR tech can be really expensive. Chad (21m 34s): Yeah. Joel (21m 35s): Yeah. And that's shocking. I know. So with hiring, slowing down, along with the economy, it makes sense that companies would look at their recruiting costs. Hello CEO, sticker shock, right. Which then leads to at least Elon saying, 'can't we just build this ourselves?' I think that more enterprise level companies are gonna be asking this question as the economy slows down. We've been talking about Google's homemade ATS for over a decade. Maybe like I'm serious. Like. Chad (22m 4s): Yeah. Joel (22m 5s): When they made their own ATS, people were like, bloggers, like me at the time were, you know, Bon horrific, like, oh my God, why don't they release this as a product? Which they never really kind of did. Hire wasn't that much like their own ATS anyway. Chad (22m 18s): No. Joel (22m 18s): But the fact that more enterprise companies, and I don't know, maybe some do, bigger ones do this, but I think a lot of them are gonna ask why can't we do this ourselves? And not necessarily the AI stuff that Amazon did, but just the basic management of candidates applying for jobs. Most people want customized ATS features anyway, which ATSs won't build. So there's gotta be some internal conversation about like, oh, we could customize this just for us. The other side of this and you mentioned this as well, is the smaller businesses out there that are using Indeed, Zip Recruiter, you know, their job board of choice as their ATS. ATS is deem to be in a potential squeeze here, right? Joel (22m 59s): They're like at the top end, do they get more big companies making their own ATS and job boards? Aren't what they used to be. I mean, they're more full platform hiring solutions now that small businesses will gravitate toward instead of spending the high prices that they would for an ATS. So I think there's a real interesting dilemma for ATSs going into the future. Our market moves really slowly. So this isn't gonna happen overnight, but I do think it is a potential existential threat to the business from where I'm sitting. Chad (23m 33s): Yeah. I don't think so. We've seen this before, when ATSs were, were first created, companies looked at it and they said, oh, we can do that. And then they all just got fucking imploded. This is a house of cards type of scenario. Joel (23m 45s): Yeah. Chad (23m 45s): If you wanna build it, you have to evolve it. You have to maintain it. Then you have the technical debt. So if you wanna try to build something on the enterprise side, there is a lot of work and cost that most companies will not sustain. It might stick around and be a boat anchor for several years, but it won't work. It can't work, especially at scale. So yes, the Googles of the world, they have engineers to be able to do those types of things. Will Tesla possibly you'll have a onesie. Twosies, but on the enterprise side, I don't see a threat at all. I do continue to see a threat on the SMB side though. Joel (24m 26s): Well, Chad, there are a lot of layoffs. sfx (24m 28s): Layoffs? Joel (24m 28s): In the tech sector that could change your mind. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about what's going on in the layoffs sfx (24m 37s): Layoffs. Chad (24m 38s): Okay. So quick side note, before we jump into to layoffs. Why we were talking about TA tech, I wanted to note the death of elevated careers, AKA eHarmony for jobs and sfx (24m 54s): Oh Hell no. - TAPS music. Chad (24m 57s): And career guru who acquired Elevated Careers some years ago. So remember that Elevated Careers was actually owned by eHarmony and was using the tech, the eHarmony tech to match jobs with job seekers, which you and I both thought was the stupidest bullshit in our space. sfx (25m 15s): Yep. Chad (25m 15s): We then had a conversation with Steve Carter, the CEO of Career Guru on the show after the acquisition. And I think I can say for the both of us, we both predicted this would happen. eHarmony for jobs is now officially dead. Joel (25m 33s): Is that one in the archives? It's gotta be right? Chad (25m 39s): It is in the archives. If you Google Chadcheese.com and Elevated Careers it's right there or Career Guru. It's right there. I think it's from 2017 or early 2018. Joel (25m 51s): There you go kids, if you wanna take a walk down memory lane, Elevated Careers, Chadcheese.com the library of the last five years of the industry. Well, we mentioned it. Layoffs. Let's talk layoffs, Chad. Yep. Especially in tech man, the news keeps coming this week. Trading platform, Robinhood said it would cut about 23% of its workforce. That's almost a quarter Chad. Shopify announced that it will lay off 10%. Some 60 Lyft employees are hitting the bricks. Apple is reportedly slowing, hiring and spending in 2023, Google, Meta and Spotify are all pulling back plans to hire. Joel (26m 34s): And the list keeps going. Redfin, 8%. Compass, 10% Coinbase 18%. Stitchfix 15%. Tesla 10%. Intel is freezing hiring. Twitter, Door Dash, Peloton, Carvana and your favorite company Chad, Amazon, announced belt tightening this week saying it's been adding jobs at the slowest rate since 2019. The company said it now has about a hundred thousand fewer employees than in the previous quarter. Chad, what's your take on this news and what it could mean more importantly to our industry? You know, the one that helps companies recruit warm bodies. Chad (27m 5s): So if you take a look at the job market in itself in the first place, it's been a rocket ship, it's been fucking explosive. But if you see what happens with a rocket, they have a burn until they get to the atmosphere and then obviously everything stops. That's what's happening. If you take a look at most of these companies, they've been hiring like mad, trying to suck all of the talent out of the market, away from their competitors, much like taking the wind out of their sales. And, we're finally seeing a slowing or a stop in some cases to that. The only thing I see this impacting is wages. So for those, especially for those technical positions, because when you are in high demand, you can ask for the world and when you're not, well, you can, but you probably won't get it. Chad (27m 53s): So the wage increases we've seen over the past couple of years, I think is gonna be the biggest impact. For anybody who's been paying attention to the hiring landscape for more than five minutes, this should not be a surprise. Joel (28m 8s): Yeah. Chad (28m 9s): We were in fucking full burn on that rocket. And now we're just in the next orbit. Joel (28m 15s): And I'd also add that in addition to salaries, the work from home movement could have an interesting turn. I don't know if you're feeling a little heat from the boiling water, but, Rocky might be getting a little warm. I think it was our buddy. Well, not buddy. He's our buddy. He doesn't know it. Professor Galloway and his conversation about, yeah, you wanna work from home. You can be unemployed at home as well. I don't know if this'll be a quicker move or aggressive move to get people back in the office. But I think that could be an interesting angle to what's going on with the layoffs. Now in terms of what it does to our industry, look in bad times, and this isn't necessarily bad for everyone, but hiring on the macro will slow and that's historically bad for our space. Joel (28m 59s): However, I think things are a little different now. Number one, technology subscriptions have replaced post and pre for many. So fewer traditional job boards in our industry, meaning like flat fee postings means less fallout. Back in the day when there was no hiring, every job board hit the fucking shoot, and everyone got ejected, as a result. And also programmatic means making money on clicks. And if there are more job seekers, there will be profits that weren't there necessarily when everyone had a job. This isn't 2001, and it's definitely not 2008, which was a neutron bomb for the kids out there who don't remember 2008. Yeah. Chad (29m 39s): Knock on wood. Joel (29m 40s): That's probably a good thing. There will be some right sizing. We've seen that with Remote and Smart Recruiters and a few others, but I don't think that the downturn in the economy will be a blood bath. I hope that's a prediction that I get, right. Chad (29m 54s): Yes. Well, I agree, but this is also good for consolidation, right? The amount of noise that we have had in our fucking market, it it's been exciting cuz we've had a lot to talk about, but it has been ridiculous. The amount of companies that we've been talking to either together or separate, that believe they have an answer to a problem in the market, for the most part, most of those problems don't even exist or they're problems that companies wouldn't even pay for. Right. So we're seeing just a huge, huge bloated market that should go either through death of some brands like Elevated Careers or consolidation like Lever. Joel (30m 32s): Ooh, I like how you work that in there. I like how you work that in there. Ultimately it won't be the only layoff story. sfx (30m 42s): Layoffs. Layoffs! Joel (30m 42s): All right, Chad. I love Jesus chicken as much as the next guy, but this is probably going a little too far. All right. I'm talking about Chick-fil-A gang. A Hendersonville North Carolina franchise issued an offer in a now deleted post on Facebook. It read quote, “We are looking for volunteers for our new Drive Thru Express! Earn 5 free entrees per shift (1 hr) worked. Message us for details.” Well, Chad, you can imagine that this didn't go over very well. Aside from probably breaking a few laws the internet's had an opinion as well. Joel (31m 23s): Comment came in such as, pay workers, money not chicken. I don't want anyone serving food that's not actually been trained, and pay a living wage, it's pretty simple, if you can't afford to pay a living wage, then you can't afford to run a business. Aside from another reason to head to Taco Bell, Chad. What's your hot take or should I say Nashville hot chicken take on this story? Chad (31m 46s): I thought that you were actually broadcasting from North Carolina after you packed up the kids and the dog and, and you just made, you made your way there because you are a Chick-fil-A fan. Joel (31m 58s): Will work for chicken, everybody. Chad (31m 60s): Me, on the other hand, I am, I have a bias against Jesus chicken due to their stance against LGBTQ rights and I just won't buy their food. Do you think calling this a volunteer position made it okay, or do you think that's where they thought it would be? Okay. Joel (32m 17s): I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say this wasn't like a headquarters initiative. That this was some Bumble fuck in North Carolina franchisee who thought, well, shit, let's do a volunteer deal and see if we can give away fried chicken to get people to work. And by the way, fried chicken, if you've never been to the south is kind of like a religion. So it doesn't surprise me that you would put out fried chicken meals as a way to get people to work. So I like to give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt and say, this was sort of a rogue franchisee that that quickly got smacked around and deleted the post and got some, got some education on, you know, labor laws and whatnot. Chad (32m 60s): I agree, but here here's from the CNET story quote, "it's also been noted by some online that Chick-fil-A's owners are worth an estimated $14 billion". We're continuing to experience capitalism, go off the rails. This is a step worse than West Virginia coal mines in the company store the late 1800s, at least back then you could buy more than Jesus chicken at a company store. We need to reign this shit in. Yes, that might have been a rogue franchisee, but I can guarantee you, there are conversations happening like this. And hopefully attorneys are slapping 'em down in much bigger settings. Joel (33m 44s): I also wanna know who are these people that will get off the couch and go volunteer for food. Why don't you just get a job there, make money and get free meals, which they actually give to employees. So I'm a little confused about the psychology of who would actually go volunteer for free food. Chad (34m 5s): You think they get free food though? As a Jesus chicken worker? I'm not sure Joel (34m 11s): If they're working because Chad, my son has applied to Chick-fil-A. I know. Chad (34m 14s): Okay. Joel (34m 15s): Free meals are part of that's kind of a thing for fast food. You get free meals if you work there. But, anyway, I just don't know the psychology of someone that says, Hey, man, I'm just gonna go down. Chick-fil-A take some orders and deal with customers for a fried chicken meal. Like I just I've the psychology of that is a little bit hard for me to understand, but I do a podcast for a living and I'm sure that confuses a lot of people as well. Chad (34m 38s): Well, and it could be, cause you have beer brain. Joel (34m 41s): It could be beer brain. And if you don't know what we're talking about, stay tuned. We'll be right back. Chad (34m 46s): What the fuck is beer brain? Joel (34m 49s): Yeah. Well Chad, if you need a beer at this point in the podcast, you're not alone. It's five o'clock somewhere. Right? Well dammit. Once again, everything you love is killing you. New research out of the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the University of Pennsylvania. Two states that know a thing or two about beer, Chad, just half, half a beer a day can reduce the volume of your brain and stress cognitive powers. What's more, the study says it gets worse, the more you drink. Chad (35m 26s): Fuck! Joel (35m 27s): Research is analyzed brain MRIs for more than 36,000 people and found that brain volume shrunk with every increasing drink to the point that four drinks a day was equivalent to aging the brain by 10 years. I would've read more, but my brain said, Nope, Chad, what you got for this one? Chad (35m 45s): I don't believe it. It and I'm not listening. LA LA LA LA LA LA LA. Joel (35m 49s): That's it. What did you say? That's it? That's it all right. I'm gonna dig a little deeper cause I I've apparently not consumed as much alcohol as you. Although we both have brains that are over a hundred at this point, for sure. I'm calling conspiracy theory Chad. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two states well known for their love of beer. So if they tell the world that beer is bad for you, then voila more beer for us. It's genius. Albeit evil genius. Chad (36m 18s): Bastards. Joel (36m 19s): But seriously Chad, where did I put my keys? Who am I? What year is it? And how do I get to the nearest? You guessed it. Taco bell? Chad (36m 32s): Dude, I'm getting a beer right now. Chad and Cheese (36m 34s): We out. OUTRO (36m 35s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (37m 21s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Most reunions suck. You have to pretend to look younger, more successful, and skinnier than you really are. And then there are those stupid name tags with your senior picture on them. Don't even get me started. Anyway, other reunions - like Firing Squad reunions - are awesome! That's why we invited Firing Squad alum Honeit, and their CEO Nick Livingston back on the show after 4 years to see how things are going. Spoiler alert: They're going pretty well. How well? Gotta listen. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Firing SQUAD INTRO (0s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody? It's your favorite guilty pleasure. AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always the Coby to my Shaq ~ Chad Sowash today we have a very special reunion show. Welcome everybody back to the Firing Squad, Vic Livingston co-founder and CEO of Honeit Chad (47s): There he is. Joel (48s): Nick, welcome back. Nick (49s): Thanks guys. Good to be back. Joel (50s): The last time we did, this was almost four or five years ago, dude. Chad (55s): Wow. Stop it. Really? Joel (56s): I know. Right. Are we that old? Chad (59s): Damn Jesus. Yeah. Nick was definitely one of our first Firing Squads in early 2018. So any of you listeners out there, if you didn't hear that, so you can always go back and check it out, but let's get a quick Twitter bio from Nick real quick. Nick (1m 16s): Hi everybody. Nick Livingston. I've been a recruiter my whole career. I love the profession. I've been a recruiting director at MTV, Viacom, startups in SF, and now I'm building tools for recruiters. Joel (1m 29s): MTV. That could be a whole separate show! A bunch of gen Xers talking about MTV. That would be fun. Chad (1m 33s): That would be a blast. How long were you at MTV again, Nick? Nick (1m 39s): For about four years, the joke was Jersey shore basically paid our bonuses Joel (1m 44s): And what are Beavis and Butthead like in real life? That's what I want to know. Nick (1m 47s): I haven't met them, but I think they're coming out with a new one. Chad (1m 50s): Oh, he's on their show right now. Joel (1m 53s): I was trying to set him up for that. Chad (1m 56s): Okay, Nick, this is a new show. It's the reunion show. We've had so many companies come through Firing Squad probably well over a hundred year, one of the first. And we wanted to do a reunion show that would focus on helping our listeners gain knowledge from your successes and failures. That means you are going to have to sit and listen to your original two minute Honeit pitch from 2018 or at the end of that two minutes, we're going to talk about what's gone wrong. What's gone, right. And how Honeit is different today compared to that 2018 pitch and whatever the hell we have time for. So at the end of it, Joel and I both gave you big applause. Chad (2m 36s): I think you might've been the first double big applause that we've had in Firing Squad, but we're going to reassess and then you'll be on your way. Are you ready to listen to your 2018 self? Nick (2m 54s): AH JEEZ. Crushing. YEAH! Let's do it. Joel (2m 56s): Alright, here we go. Two minutes starts now. Nick (2m 59s): Hey everybody. Nick Livingston with Honeit. After 15 years in the recruiting trenches, you know, I realized our conversations are important. You know, the daily phone conversations with candidates, that's kind of the initial step of the interview process and I found most of my day with scheduling calls talking to candidates and sharing highlights with the clients. But I thought, you know, take a step back and look at our phone interviews they're a black box, with zero visibility into the questions that are asked, let alone answers that take place during those conversations. So, Honeit technology, it's simple, natural, phone interview technology. We let recruiters capture the great insights and answers during those conversations. Lots of competitive intelligence. Lots of insights again during these conversations that go unnoticed. Nick (3m 40s): And instead of scribbling notes and sharing opinions with hiring managers we make it really easy for recruiters to package up a couple of great answers that were heard during a live phone interview and share those with the client. Or share those with a hiring manager so that they can hear the candidate in their own words. And what we're finding here is this is removing redundant steps of the interview process. No more two or three phone interviews before you invite a candidate on site. And similarly, once you decide you do want to hire someone, we're seeing this really accelerate offers, where a VP, a CEO can quickly hear a few highlights themselves and say, "Wow. That person sounds great. Those are great technical answers. I trust my team. Go ahead and hire him." So, we're excited to remove steps of the interview process, help recruiters communicate more efficiently and more effectively with clients and to remove a lot of this underlying misinterpretation and bias that goes along with interview communication. Nick (4m 33s): So, again, natural phone interview technology. You can record, transcribe, and analyze live answers during your calls and share the best parts with other people. Chad (4m 42s): Boom it's like you're right on! Joel (4m 44s): Dude's tight! Phone, transcribe and analyze. I like that. Chad (4m 48s): Before we start talking to Nick about this, Joel, you and I both gave him big applause on this. Now on that pitch itself, what stuck out most to you? Joel (4m 58s): I think that what stood out to me was if I'm remembering the timeline correctly, there were a lot of chatbots at the time and chatbots were sort of the new shiny sexy thing. And, Nick's company seemed on the surface a little bit antiquated, like he had sort of missed the boat on this whole chat thing. And as I heard his pitch, you know, I kept remembering just for sort of how traditional, you know, recruiters are and that the phone isn't going away and the conversations aren't going away, just because we have this little bubble on our screen. So for me, what I remember is just reconnecting with the fact that this is a people business and that Nick sort of really tapped into a technology that made sense without eliminating the human element of it. Joel (5m 44s): And I think that's, you know, we'll talk through this, but my guess is that's probably still a real strong suit of his company. Chad (5m 53s): Yeah. I have to say his experience came out. Usually you have some CEOs or founders who are not from this industry, they might've thought there was a problem that they're creating a solution for. Nick knew, and this had nothing to do with him feeling like there was an issue he knew he'd been in the trenches and that to me drove more of the conversation around process, automation and being able to scale. So that was to me overall listening to it again here in 2022 that's what I got out of it. So Nick, first question to you, big guy, what's stood out to you on that two minute pitch, which is different way different than it is today for Honeit? Nick (6m 34s): Just the phone, phone, phone, phone, phone, phone, right? Like now at post COVID, we've all shifted to video and other mediums to talk to people. Right? Our platform has obviously evolved there, but yeah, I think you're right back then we were up against all these one way interview tools that were saying, yeah, send the candidate a link, have them interview themselves. And then you save you time and wow they can interview whenever they want in the middle of the night. And we were going, whoa, like the best candidates aren't going to do that. Like, what are you talking about? You got to talk to people. Yeah. I think just that specific focus early on around phone screens and phone conversations. And I think we were shouting out loud there because it has Joel pointed out. We wanted to remind people that recruiting is a human business and talking to people is a big part of what we do. Nick (7m 19s): But there had there wasn't tools to support that at the time. Chad (7m 23s): Joel? Joel (7m 23s): I'm curious, you know, you sorta took a leap of faith to be on this crazy podcast and pitch your company. What was the initial reaction after doing it? Sort of both personally, was there feedback from people that listened? Did you get some leads or sales out of it? What was sort of life like after doing Firing Squad? Nick (7m 39s): It helps. Yeah. We definitely had some inbound and demo requests come through. They said they heard of us through Chad and Cheese, so that was great. I mean, I'm a fan of the show. I've been listening to you guys and have enjoyed your thoughts on our industry for a decade, right? You guys have a great viewpoint and have great contributions to this space. So I appreciated the opportunity to be a bit of a Guinea pig. And again, I'm a recruiter, we're building something for recruiters. So I, you know, any chance we can get to talk about it is helpful. Joel (8m 5s): So it seems like so much of what is old is new again. And, you know, chatbots have sort of become conversational AI. Chad and I talked to companies are doing sort of video celebrities that'll talk to you as them, but it's, you know, it's a machine or it's a fantasy. Is what's old, still new again? I mean, are there just different challenges with kind of the same old story we're trying to solve a problem with technology that really won't because we're talking about humans? Nick (8m 32s): That's a good question. I mean, I think the problem that hasn't changed that we're trying to solve is this idea of interview communication and interview collaboration in a, why does it still take eight separate conversations with eight separate people for eight people to agree? You know, Joel could be a good fit for the role, right? And it's a two month process and it's a tedious candidate experience. And it's scheduling is a pain in the ass. And like it's a bunch of redundant conversations. Why is that? It's because we're not capturing any of those conversations. We don't know what's being said, and we can't share what's being said, I think this idea of how do you get people to align on something? We've seen, you know, meeting software take place where 10 people can jump into a meeting room and have a quick conversation and knock it out. Nick (9m 13s): Great. We haven't seen that kind of interview collaboration yet where people can do that and agree on someone else that's maybe outside of their organization. Chad (9m 26s): So in the actual product, let's talk about pandemic. Okay. That struck up obviously many industries in, we saw huge growth in recruiting and hiring after, you know, the first, the first quarter of the pandemic. So talk to me a little bit about how that affected business did you have to pivot? I'm sure you did somehow some way, what did you have to do? What worked, what didn't? Nick (9m 48s): So we definitely had to kind of quit screaming phone and welcome video communication has a great medium. We knew it was a great medium and we'd done video calls and things like that, but we just felt phone was more convenient and less biased. And we still see a lot of phone screens going through our system over video calls when people have a choice. But I think what we jumped to is let's not limit this, let's build a communication stack for recruiters. And so now, you know, you can make calls and receive calls through the system. You have custom phone numbers, you can do SMS messaging through the system back and forth to candidates. You can talk through phone, voice, or video to candidates anywhere in the world. So it is now kind of an all-in-one communication stack for recruiters and talent partners. And I think, you know, we've even seen the best recruiters and the most innovative recruiters still piecing together that stack there, you know, they may have an ATS and they're using Calendly for scheduling. Nick (10m 35s): They're using a VoIP system for their phone calls. They're using zoom or a video tool for video calls. They're using some sort of transcription layer and then they still have to spend 30 minutes on a write-up to communicate that candidate to a client. Right. We put, we put that all into a single easy to use tool, after you hang up from a phone call or video call, you can submit candidates in seconds. Boom! Off to the next phone screen. Chad (10m 58s): So when it comes to the difference, I hear videos, the big difference. What else? I mean, cause you could schedule before. I mean there, there was transcription before, what else has Honeit done? Not that adding videos, you know, easier or anything, but what else has Honeit down from a feature standpoint to be able to really hit the more go to market and bridge some of those problems that you saw either during the pandemic or just ones that you had on the roadmap. Nick (11m 24s): So what we started to see some new use cases come up from recruiters using the software, right? They started to recognize, wait a minute, I don't have to just talk to candidates through this system. I can talk to references through the system. I can talk to my clients through the system. Chad (11m 39s): I like references. That's really cool. Nick (11m 41s): Intake calls. I would say those kickoff calls between a recruiter and a hiring manager. That's the most important conversation in the hiring. Chad (11m 48s): Yeah! Nick (11m 48s): And so what was kind of a light bulb hit off recruiters started creating a call guides in the system that were specific to an intake call. Hey, why is this job open? Hey, what's exciting about opportunity. Hey, talk to me about the team this person would work with. And you realize that an intake call is an interview too. You're just interviewing a hiring manager. And so what can you do with that? Well, we can record transcribe, index, parse the conversation, hang up the phone. And an account manager can slack a link to a recruiter or sourcer and say hot wreck, listen to these highlights. And now a recruiting team, quickly aligned, only one person had to be on the intake call, not six, all the great insights that our manager communicated about that open role is now easily shareable downstream with, you know, the recruiters and sourcers. Nick (12m 33s): But once further with 10, 10 seconds after an intake call and Honeit, you can create an audible job preview with a couple of great snippets from that intake call. Now, when you're reaching out to passive candidates, you can include a couple of those snippets and say, 'Hey, working on this amazing opportunity, here's a link to meet the hiring manager'. It's what every candidate wants. Who's the boss? What's the real opportunity? Not just the job description. Joel (12m 59s): I know for me, I was really impressed with the potpourri of features. I said potpourri, which I think is a first for this podcast. And I know that that's certainly something that when you're a startup, you know, you create a cool feature then based on, you know, what people want or what you think is the future. You start building on it. But I find myself looking at the things you're doing and it feels like you're moving even away from product and going almost to straight platform. I mean, you guys are a CRM, you have SMS, you know, you're integrated into Slack and multiple channels. I mean, was that do you agree with that statement that you guys are becoming a platform for recruiters to be sort of, you know, they'll have their activities or error my way off on that one? Nick (13m 41s): No, I think you're right. And I think based on customer feedback, we kept getting questions around, well, what about this? And what about which, you know, helps drive our roadmap and is great for product innovation. But, you know, I think we kept seeing that integration always became kind of this challenge of like, well, what about this? And you integrate with this and you can run with this. Or like, and we just said, wait a minute, like, let's just pull in all of these things that recruiters are doing and piece-mealing together into a single tool. And then you just paste a Honeit link in your workflow and we take care of everything. Right. And so it did become more easier to pitch it when we can say, yeah, yeah, you don't have to worry about how your VoIP system integrates with Honeit because we've got voice calls and SMS built in like, you know what I mean? And they'd be like, oh wow. Nick (14m 22s): I can actually save money from not having to pay for Calendly and voice and transcription tools and right. And so then it just kind of came easier. But that wasn't obvious at the beginning, to your point. Joel (14m 32s): So there are a lot of vendors and solutions that listened to this show and there are a lot of startups that are sort of where you were four years ago. What advice would you give them and particularly something interesting, you know, you guys have, have bootstrapped this thing and you know, of course, Chad and I talk about companies raising hundreds of millions of dollars. You guys have taken a much different approach. So for the startups out there, what advice would you give? And particularly around the raising money side, what's your sort of take on that? Nick (14m 59s): You know, I was fortunate to meet a couple of great technical co-founders who could build this from the ground up, right? So we had a benefit, I didn't have to raise money to recruit or hire engineers to do this. They were just as excited about Honeit as I am. We were able to build something from the ground up together. So I think that's fine. You know, find a good partner, find a technical co-founder who can build an MVP or build the technology rather than having to raise money to build it. And then two, I'd say, stick to your north star, or, you know, I'm thinking back where to go back to four years ago. But, you know, everybody was saying chat bots and automation and this and that. And I kept just seeing that as, okay, sure maybe helps the recruiter, but terrible candidate experience. Right. And so we've always been kind of going against the grain because we're like, whoa, interviews are two way conversations. Nick (15m 44s): And now, as we all know, in a candidate driven market, especially in hyper competitive talent markets, candidates are interviewing you. So if your recruiters aren't on point, they aren't pitching well, they aren't answering questions. They aren't able to articulate why a req is exciting or up an opportunity is great. Then you're going to miss out. So I'd say to founders out there, like stick to your north star, stick to your compass on what you kind of truly believe. And for me having recruited technical folks and product managers, most of my career, they're not going to do a chat bot. They want to talk to someone and they want a really efficient interview process. Chad (16m 18s): Yeah. Discipline. We talk about that on Firing Squad all of the time, you can't do everything. I don't care how much money you have. So quick question, when you're talking about the prospect, as Joel had said, being a platform, does that mean that you're looking to become a system of record? Because at that point, I mean, it's really hard to crack into the, the enterprise big logos because they already have systems of record. So who has been your main focus for go to market when we're talking about enterprise or a small to medium sized businesses? Nick (16m 53s): Yeah. I guess to two answers to that. So we've seen like great success with kind of small to midsize external recruiting firms who see, Honeit as a revenue generating tool. Ah, Chad (17m 2s): Staffing. Nick (17m 2s): I mean, if you can, if you can talk to candidates sooner, submit them in seconds, get hiring managers to quickly respond to you in an expedite next steps, you've got a huge competitive advantage to other recruiters who are still just forwarding resumes. And 40 minutes on a write-up trying to articulate a candidate like fine wine, right? Like no here's proof. Listen to these three answers. We did our job. We sourced an amazing candidate here for yourself. Skip a step. Hiring manager doesn't have to spend another 30 minutes on the phone with candidates asking the same questions they can skip to the next person. So external firms and RPO teams and executive search firms see this as a revenue generating tool to accelerate offers. We've got some customers who say using the tool, they see offers at warp speed, right? Nick (17m 43s): You don't need eight separate steps with eight separate people to get eight people to agree on a candidate. You need one great phone screen, a link you can Slack to six people. They can each hear some amazing technical answers. Look at the resume and say, yeah, amazing. I didn't hear anything. I didn't hear yellow or red flags. Let's have a meet the SVP. Chad (18m 2s): It's pretty amazing. We always talk about how staffing is recruitment as a business. It's what it is. Talent acquisition is recruitment as a job. So for you to be able to actually go after staffing, as they're looking at margins, they're looking at a better experience for their clients for a better experience for their candidates. How long do you think it's going to take talent acquisition to catch the fuck up? Nick (18m 23s): It's interesting. I mean, once you switch from that kind of revenue generating tool to more of like a CYA tool or just, you know, there's a bit of a lag there, but actually we're seeing internal TA teams. They recognize that timing is everything and that speed is a really valuable, competitive advantage in hiring, right? If you can get that offer out sooner than candidate doesn't have as many offers to compare it against. So we do work with internal TA teams who love the tool for the very same reasons to the recruiters. You don't have to manually schedule calls, manually type notes or manually type write-ups. You can focus on your calls, ask great technical questions, hang up the phone, click a button, share link via Slack with a hiring manager. And then hiring managers get more value, saves them time, et cetera. Chad (19m 5s): Yeah. Nick (19m 5s): So to answer your question about the platform play though, I mean, we have spent a lot of time building out integrations. No, we probably don't want to be the system of record for a variety of reasons, but we want to be able to play nice and be very easy to work with a lot of different ATS and workflows. Chad (19m 22s): How many do you work with now? Nick (19m 25s): I mean, we have one click integrations with Smart Recruiters and Greenhouse, at Lever and Laakso, and I'm probably forgetting a few. So, you know, easy kind of after a Honeit call, automatically push the transcript, the questions, the answers, the notes, the tags, all of that interview data can be in a candidate record elsewhere. Chad (19m 44s): Awesome. Joel (19m 45s): I need to transcribe phone conversations and I thought this four years ago has a lot of accessibility with other industries or a lot of synergies with other industries and you have gone into it looks like college admissions, venture capital screening, maybe customer service. Talk about the push and pull, I guess, of having a product that can go into other industries and keeping disciplined into not going in too much. Or do you go in full steam ahead, like talk about this product going into other industries and how you're approaching that. Nick (20m 19s): Yeah. Building kind of a real-time interview platform, just outside of say recruiting and hiring that that's our focus recruiting and hiring cause it's what we know and what I know, but yeah, we're getting inbound interest and demo requests from market research firms from venture capital teams who recognize, yeah, we have some junior associate who does a phone screen with a founder, asks the same six questions every call and then has now has an easy way to communicate that with the partners. So whether, you know, whether it's a college admissions phone or video call for a career for market research, qualitative research, we're seeing a variety of use cases. Yeah. We were trying to stay in our lane, at least in terms of our outbound focused, reaching out to recruiters and talent partners about the benefits to them and hiring managers. Joel (20m 59s): So the business isn't quite that big enough, the opportunity isn't quite that big enough to like start a separate brand or maybe even white label or private label with technology. Nick (21m 9s): We do have customers using it for all, for the use cases you mentioned. But again, in terms of our focus and our out kind of outreach or marketing efforts, we're not spending a lot of time there. Joel (21m 23s): Gotcha. And talk about the global opportunity. I mean, certainly you're different using different languages and transcribing those, like have you guys gone global? What was the process if you have, what are the challenges talk about the global opportunity. Nick (21m 35s): Yeah. Well now I mean, recruiters are working from anywhere, right? And, now that remote hiring is all the rage candidates are everywhere. And so, yeah, it's a global communication platform. You know, recruiters can sit anywhere and talk to candidates anywhere through the system. Primarily we've been focusing on English in terms of the transcription, but we're getting quite a few customers now in Mexico, Central and South America who are very interested in the Spanish transcription. And, you know, that's something that we can easily turn on, right. As we start to expand. And we're not a transcription company, right. Transcription is everywhere. So we're not building the transcription tools, but we are building the interview intelligence layer on top of that. So as you ask good questions, we can start to understand what makes a good versus great answer. Nick (22m 18s): And those are the bits that you might want to share with clients. Joel (22m 21s): So global is still yet to come for the most part for you? Nick (22m 25s): I mean, we do have customers in Europe and UK, talking to candidates in Europe and UK or US. And in fact, we've got a lot of external recruiting firms who have maybe sourcers who sit in Asia, right? In India? who are doing the initial phone screens, they can hang up the phone, share link with the account manager or senior recruiter, they may be sitting elsewhere and so there's that collaboration within recruiting firms. How does a sourcer account manager and a recruiter all quickly align on a candidate from a single conversation. Joel (22m 59s): But all English? Nick (22m 60s): But English. Yes. Joel (23m 2s): Okay. Chad (23m 3s): Okay. So Nick, since that 2018 conversation, give me your biggest win and your biggest fail. Joel (23m 6s): Ooh. Nick (23m 7s): I think, you know, we've seen some kind of good bottom up growth, right? We can find one recruiter who's like, yeah, I don't want to take notes or type write-ups and just enjoy my calls and maybe get one person to use it. And then the hiring manager goes, wow. And then another recruiter here at the company says, wow, what is that like? And so we've had some really interesting growth where we might go from one recruiter to 70 recruiters. Chad (23m 27s): Wow! Nick (23m 27s): In a couple of months just bottoms up organically. And that's just fantastic. There's just real value to the recruiter. There's real hiring manager and there's value in this real-time interview data that's that sourcers are having a field day with. Right? Imagine being able to type in a keyword and quickly search all the calls your team has had with candidates you've already screened and things like that. So sourcing teams are geeking out on this too. I'd say the biggest failure, we actually spent a lot of time this past year, really trying to improve the onboarding experience where a new recruiter can get their welcome email with their login, easily connect their calendar and start talking without a bunch of learning curves. Now we do offer weekly Honeit trainings and we've done a lot, kind of support included, but how do you get that recruiter to just click a button, sign up and immediately experienced the benefits of the system? Nick (24m 17s): So that that's probably where we failed and where we focused on improving this last year. Chad (24m 20s): Gotcha. Joel? Joel (24m 21s): Yeah. I'll end on this one. Nick, what do you want to be when you grow up? I mean, you've been doing this for awhile. I assume you've gotten some tire kickers to see what buying the business would be like. You, you know, haven't taken a lot of money. Like what's the end game? Just live in Costa Rica and grow this for the rest of your life? Nick (24m 40s): We want to build a stack for recruiters that's just going to help us all do our jobs better. I mean, I think we're focused on scale. We're focused on customer acquisition right now. We're focusing on better communication of what the tool is and does. And you know, that's the focus. I mean, could this fit nicely into an ATS? Could this be a great competitive advantage for a multi-billion dollar staffing firm? Yes, but I think right now we're just heads on, on building a really great product that our customers love using. Joel (25m 10s): Oh brother. Always the yearbook answer with Nick. All right. I guess Chad, are we gonna re-rate Honeit? Chad (25m 16s): We're definitely. We're going to reassess. Let's say we both gave Honeit and Nick a big applause last time. I'll go ahead and go first. I've got to say, I love listening to founders mature. I love hearing the discipline in your voice and not to mention focusing on where the money is, staffing, and then also evolving the product, not in areas which are way beyond the periphery of a roadmap that you would normally do this, which is what we also see from founders, where they overextend themselves. I don't see you guys doing that at all and the growth strategy most saying that they want to start at the recruiter that is such a hard, a thousand points of light type of marketing and adoption scenario. Chad (26m 7s): But you being able to demonstrate going from one to 70 and just catching fire like that again, renews my big applause. Joel (26m 14s): Way to go, Nick. It's funny as we record this, you know, Chad and I have done a lot of these and if there's one sort of common theme with successful companies, not everyone, but certainly this seems to be a trend is that it's someone that has built something because they see a need there. And it's usually because of their own experience. They have industry know-how right? They kind of get it. They know how to talk the language and pitch accordingly. They haven't taken a bunch of money. They sort of grow organically and intelligently. And the entire team around them is sort of complimentary and supportive and it just sorta makes sense. Joel (26m 54s): And when we first talked to you in 2018, like all of those elements were there. So the foundation I think, is worth noting that you guys had so many of those elements early on and then have grown accordingly from that. I think that I'm incredibly impressed. You guys have been able to fend off the chat bots. And I think you're going to fend off, you know, the video, automation stuff and the voice stuff and continue to well, as long as, as long as there are so recruiters and people doing this, I'm very impressed with the features that you've built. They all make sense. Nothing seems like it's out of left field, you know, Slack integration, SMS, everything just sort of fits together. Joel (27m 34s): And I'm sure that's built again, based on you guys getting customer feedback. The whole thing of like venture capital phone calls and things like that are a little weird. And you know, I don't, I think you're doing it out of like the money that's there or getting clients. That'd be my only thing. Like don't lose focus, keep a tight view on where you're going and what you're doing. I think you're going to be bought at some point, somebody is going to write a check that you just can't say no to. You're going to have that beach front property in Costa Rica that you probably already have anyway, you can just add on another room, But for me, yeah. I mean like Nick it's been really fun watching you guys grow and a big applause for me and I'm excited and the next four or five years have in store for Honeit. sfx (28m 16s): Applause. Nick (28m 16s): Thank You. Appreciate that. Joel (28m 17s): And with that on our first Firing Wquad reusion show is in the books. I don't know if we'll do it again, but it's kind of fun. I think we should probably do another one. Nick (28m 28s): Do you guys remember the last one we had? My fire alarm actually went off during the show. Chad (28m 35s): Yes! Joel (28m 35s): Did it really? Chad (28m 36s): It did. Yeah. Luckily he made it through, there was not a enough smoke to actually post Nick out and he was dedicated that demonstrated to me just the discipline. Nick (28m 49s): The show must go on. Chad (28m 51s): That's right. Joel (28m 52s): What I remember is asking mom about my lunch. sfx (28m 53s): Mom let me go. Fuck! Chad and Cheese (28m 54s): We out, We out. Firing SQUAD OUTRO (29m 1s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

If you love burritos, pizza and virtual reality - and who doesn't - then this episode's for you! Or should I say if you love automation, call centers and workforce training, this one's for you? Oh hell, you'll just have to listen if you're not following. What else? Job.com goes shopping and its CEO gets salty with the media. Glassdoor may not be as anonymous as it wants you to believe, and we play a little Who'd Ya' Rather with HireArt and InternMatch.io. Now, put that in your Barbacoa Bowl and smoke it! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (24s): Audio equivalent to a shot of whiskey and a bar fight. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel "digital staffing platform" Cheeseman. Chad (35s): This is Chad "hungover in Boston" Sowash. Joel (38s): And on this week's show, don't call job.com a job board. Glassdoor is not so anonymous anymore. And a little game of who'd you rather? Let's do this! hungover in Boston, Chad too, too many Sam Adams? What's what's going on? Chad (55s): Oh yeah, no. Started off with a few beers. Actually. We did a VIP event with Circa last night. I met a, a compliance event here in Boston. Yeah. And I was on stage with Angela Hood CEO over at This Way Global, friends of the show. Joel (1m 11s): Nice sponsor. Chad (1m 12s): Yep. Rachel See who's actually Senior Council for AI and Algorithmic Bias. That's her fucking title over at the EEOC. So the big guns were on stage last night. Yeah. So there was booze. There was food, a big thanks to Angel Kathy Patrick and the team over at Circa for hosting. Dude, I gotta say, it's great to be back with people. Food, drinks, time with friends. Seriously. Joel (1m 42s): I'll applaud that. Yeah. Chad (1m 44s): Too many friends to mention, but I do have to make a special mention shoutout to Tracey Cole, who actually came up to me last night and said, Hey, I've been listening to the show since probably like day one. Why haven't I ever gotten a shoutout? So shout out to long time listener Tracey Cole. Thanks for listening, Tracey. Now get all your friends and your family and everybody else to listen and you might get a shout out. Number two. Joel (2m 10s): I don't know if Tracey is on our free shit list, because I look at this list a lot. Tracey, if you're listening, what's your deal? What's your deal? Free shit at Chad and Cheese. Let's just bring it out. Now, before we get into the rest of the shoutouts, you gotta go to chadcheese.com. We're working on some new t-shirts people. We got a new beer sponsor. We got a new t-shirt sponsor by the way, as well. That's a JobGet, we got beer by Aspen Tech Labs and our tried and true whiskey delivery service powered by our friends at Textkernel. So if you haven't got on that list and I don't think Tracey is what I could be wrong. I could be wrong. There's a lot of people on this list, Chad, she has to go out to Chadcheese.com, click the free link and sign up. Joel (2m 55s): We appreciate your listenership, Tracey. Very much, very much. Chad (2m 58s): It's too easy. Another side note, Julie and I literally, we always travel together, right? Yeah. We always travel together. And in this case, her team is actually here. They have a booth, all that other fun stuff yet. She caught COVID and she is at home. So I literally am wandering around Boston, like a little lost kid, little lost puppy. Cuz I don't have her here with me. Joel (3m 25s): Dude, no cheese. No, Julie. Dude, you are lost. Chad (3m 28s): I am. I am lost in the fucking sauce. Joel (3m 30s): I didn't know she had COVID man. Is she okay? Chad (3m 33s): Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's it's interesting. And I don't know how many, like couples, friends that we've had where one of them have gotten it and the other one hasn't and I'm like, you know, that's total bullshit. You guys like, do you sleep in separate beds? I mean, what the hell? And no, it, it happened to us too. So I don't know how this virus works. I'm not that smart, but yeah, I didn't get it. She got it. She was down for the count from the standpoint of just tired as fuck, coughing here and there, but nothing really respiratory wise, but just, just incredibly tired. Joel (4m 5s): Yeah. When my wife had it, I didn't get it either. I don't know if this is our whiskey diet or what we got some sort of defense that they don't have. And the variable I can see is a lot more whiskey than our wives drink. Chad (4m 18s): More whiskey and four shots, baby. Joel (4m 21s): That's right. Are the Red Sox in town? I guess that's the bigger question. Chad (4m 24s): Yes. Gonna be behind home plate tonight. Can't wait to do that. Our friend Gary Cowan actually texted me. He is like, I got a place for you behind home plate tonight with the Red Sox. And he also promised free beer. So, I have an obligation I have to show up. Joel (4m 42s): And who are they playing? Chad (4m 43s): I have no clue. I don't care. Joel (4m 45s): Don't care. Don't give a shit. Well it's great to have friends Chad and my first shout out goes to one of our best friends in the industry. Mr. Hung Lee, which no, you're not signed up for Recruiting Brain Food. What's your problem? Hung gave us a shout out this week on his newsletter, Chad and Cheese are back with a great conversation on assessment with Caitlin McGregor, she's the CEO of Plum, by the way, which dives into history, sociology, and foundational tenants of assessments. That sounds like a British person, doesn't it? Chad (5m 21s): Yeah. Joel (5m 21s): It's fundamentally an assessment for an individual who we assess in isolation from others when we are social and will eventually work with others. It's a great, listen. Thanks, Hung for listening. And thanks for mentioning us on your newsletter. Chad (5m 36s): So brainy that one. Big shout out to another person who loves little Chad and Cheese Jasper Spaanjart over at totalent.eu. Oh yeah. Remember he interviewed us back in may during the E recruitment Congress in Belgium and the interview just dropped this week on totalent.eu. So question to you. What do you remember from that interview? Joel (6m 7s): I remember, I remember thinking that we're a bad interview cuz we tend to take over the interview. Like there, it's not questions to us. It's just, we just sort of take over the show. That's what I remember. So my memory isn't very good. You probably remember much greater detail of that conversation. Chad (6m 22s): Well, I think between the two of us, we were about 10 Belgian beers deep at that point. We were down in our little special Chad and Cheese green room. We were both actually lying on different couches. We were lying on our backs and we did the interview drunk and lying down. That's all I remember. I read it today and I vaguely remember the responses that I provided. I'm sure I did, but there was yeah, that's a way to go Jasper, go ahead, man. Joel (6m 52s): That was a poor case of House of HR entrapment. Because if you put a fridge next to us, full of Belgian beer, you know, what's gonna happen, Chad? Chad (7m 2s): Yeah. Drunk. Joel (7m 2s): It's gonna get consumed and we're gonna break shit. Okay. So you have been warned conferences of the future. And speaking of warnings, Chad, we've been talking about layoffs quite a bit on the show quite a bit. Chad (7m 15s): Layoffs! Joel (7m 15s): And this shout out goes to Nick Gordon via LinkedIn. This is what he wrote. Quote "it's with a heavy heart that I announce my last day here at Workstream. I, along with 45 other team members have been affected by the ever growing layoffs that are taking place in the tech world" end quote. Nick ouch, hope you land on your feet. For those that don't remember Workstream is a text recruiting platform. They've raised about $58 million dollars launching in 2017. And at last count anyway, via LinkedIn, they had 260 some employees. So layoffs continue this time Workstream. Chad (7m 57s): Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Well more, more on the more happy note, shout out to Melissa Bordage over at Career Beacon for being a smart marketer and also showing the Chad and Cheese podcast some love on the socials dude. It is hell yeah. So fucking great to start your day when a listener posts, something like that on social where they're saying they're listening to us, they love us. We're a part of their like, you know, listening routine. They send us emails, they DM, us seriously. I love our listeners. Joel (8m 30s): And I love that you're bartering Chad and Cheese swag for like Yeti mugs from, from her company. Chad (8m 35s): Of course, yes. Joel (8m 36s): Anyway, by the way, just a little note. So, we've done our t-shirt contest three times, this is our third year and we've used 99 designs to do the contest. And just to note about the gig economy and my own little take on this is that the quality of design has gone down precipitously. Chad (8m 57s): Really? Joel (8m 57s): 99 designs. So I was I've oh, I've been really unhappy with the first round of shirts. We're gonna go back to the drawing board. We're gonna get some good stuff, but just for just a, just an FYI, like 99 designs used to be a kick ass creative sort of platform for design. And it is lacking. I don't know what that says. Are people moving over to other platforms or what? But yeah, the t-shirts have been a little less than perfect this time around. Chad (9m 22s): Yeah. Well get ready kids. Cuz we will have an awesome design. We're gonna give you four designs to choose from. From our new sponsor JobGets that's right kids. JobGet is going to be on the back of that shirt and we're gonna start, we're gonna start the, the whole process of our listeners voting for what t-shirt, what Chad and cheese t-shirt comes out next. We've been excited about. I mean the first tee-shirts were were pretty awesome. Joel (9m 49s): Yeah. Yeah. So we'll we'll get there folks. Don't worry. Don't worry. And it'll be a quality t-shirt it'll be a try blend something you're you're proud to wear. Not a Haynes beefy tee people. We don't, we don't do those, those fucking shirts. Well, we talked about some layoffs at Workstream, but a few guys got new jobs recently. Oh let's give a shout out to new CEOs. Our friends at Communo or Communo. Chad (10m 18s): Yes. Joel (10m 18s): Olivier Gachot. God bless French. I'm guessing guest show Olivier Gachot . He replaces our friend and Communo founder Ryan Gill. No surprise, Olivier has deep expertise in acquisitions. Oh, what could be Communo's future? Let me take a guess on that. Yeah. It also made me miss how much I love Banff and how much I hope that we get back there. Yes. If not this year, next year. So shout, shout out to shout out to Olivier and also HireVue, this one kind of snuck through the cracks Chad. Anthony Reynolds succeeds, Kevin Parker as CEO at HireVue. Chad (10m 58s): Huh? Joel (10m 58s): Who is retiring! Parker is, he's cashin' it in. He's not on the board of directors, he's just wherever in the world. Anyway, we missed this one from February, which means they kind of kept it quiet. There was a blog post on their own site. Parker had been CEO since 2016. Reynolds brings over 20 years of leadership experience in enterprise SAAS. Parker's reign, HireVue board member Ashley Evans said he quote "took HigherVue from a leader in video interviewing to a full talent platform provider" end quote. ShockinglThere was no mention of the clash action lawsuits and Illinois smack downs that occurred under Parker's tenure. Joel (11m 44s): Good luck to both CEOs and shoutout to Olivier and Anthony. Chad (11m 47s): Yes. And the stupid explainability statements that they came out with just to point the finger at the clients who are paying them to do whatever the fuck they do. sfx (11m 57s): What did you say? Chad (11m 57s): Big shout out to the Cincinnati Bengal kids for the new unis that are coming out. Have you seen these things? They're going, oh yeah. They're going like white Bengal tiger. Joel (12m 9s): It's so is the helmet white and the stripes black or the stripes white and the helmets black? Chad (12m 18s): I don't think it matters. Right? Joel (12m 20s): No, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Chad (12m 22s): That's the whole zebra conversation. Right? One thing though, the Browns are continuing to Brown Baker Mayfield is gone, which I'm sure you you're, you're not mad about, but he is gone to the Carolina Panthers and Deshaun Watson might not even play this year. So who was going to be QB one for the Browns? Joel (12m 44s): So this has gone like full 2008 draft, right? For QBs, which is my infamous video moment. So Baker went one, I think Sam Darnold went three, Rosen went nine or 11, somewhere on there. And then of course the best one went after all that I think in Josh Allen. So Rosen is now on the Browns. Darnold and Baker are now on Carolina. Chad (13m 10s): Yeah. Weird. Joel (13m 11s): And we have shit from, he was the Colts back up. Chad (13m 13s): Brissett, Joel (13m 14s): Jacoby Brissett so he sucks. Rosen sucks. And I don't even know who the third string guy is. So if Dashaun, if Dashaun is basically bench for the year, just phone it in. Chad (13m 27s): Write it off. Joel (13m 28s): It's a fantastic lineup minus the quarterback. And by the way, did you see the Nick Chub video of him like squatting 600 some pounds? Chad (13m 36s): Yes. Oh my God. It was like a fucking Volkswagen for God sakes. I mean, that's the answer, right? All you need to do is have a guy who can pivot and hand the ball off. Joel (13m 45s): Hand the ball, the Kareem and Nick that's basically the strategy. Chad (13m 48s): That's it! Joel (13m 49s): It was so funny cuz it looked like those loony tunes, cartoons where they lift like the barbell with the two like round and the bar bends because it's so heavy. Like it looked like a cartoon lift. Chad (13m 59s): It was like, the bar was gonna snap. Joel (14m 1s): Yeah. Nick, Nick is the shit. But if you don't have a quarterback in NFL and by the way, the Ravens still have Lamar and the Bengal's still have. Cool, cool Joe cool. Yeah. And Steelers are always the Steelers. They made the playoffs last year with duck tape and oil. Chad (14m 19s): Baling wire. Joel (14m 19s): Yeah. So, so I don't know, man. I, just, you know, miss football. I'll say that I'm excited for the season going I'm absolutely positive the Ohio State Buckeyes. Chad (14m 31s): Yes. Joel (14m 32s): Will be in the running for national champ. And they'll probably have another Heisman trophy winner added to their ranks. But yeah, the Browns are still Browning. They're still a dumpster fire, but God love them. They're my dumpster fire. They're my dumpster fire. Chad (14m 44s): Are we ready for events? Joel (14m 45s): Let's do birthdays first. Chad (14m 45s): Okay. We'll do birthdays. Joel (14m 46s): Ok birthdays. So we had a long list cuz we missed a couple weeks. This list is much shorter, but no less quality, no less quality in our listeners. Happy birthday to Dustin Carper, Jeremy, I guess it's Breit. It's B R E I T. It's Breit or Breit, I guess? I know Jim Schneider who we know longtime recruiter. Crystal Miller Lay, Marin Hogan celebrates another birthday. Our podcast buddy Sege Boudreau. Oh Chad (15m 14s): Serge! Joel (15m 15s): Yes. Serge is in the house. Jason Beier and this one's out for you, Joe Lanane family member of team Sowash who I guess is.. Chad (15m 27s): It's Lanane Joel (15m 28s): Yeah. Cheesman, Chees-man. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. What's in name. Is he still roaming the country? Chad (15m 35s): He is. Yeah. So he's my brother-in-law, little brother, and he and his wife, I think they've been out RVing all over the country, literally doing their, their job remote from anywhere probably for like about a year now. And it's pretty awesome. They have a house in Austin that they're like renting out and dude, they're just, they're just living the dream. Good for them. Joel (15m 58s): Living the dream man. Yeah. Fucking millennials man. Fucking gen Zers. All right. Where are we going man? What's our travel schedule look like. Chad (16m 11s): Okay. HR tech in Vegas on September 13th, then Inspire HR on October 5th in Nashville. So we've got Vegas, Nashville. Oh my God. Then clutch the pearls kids. We've got Unleashed World on October 12th and gay Paris baby. Oh yeah. Yes. I mean that is a fucking lineup right there kids. Joel (16m 30s): Nice. Nice. And thanks to Shaker Recruitment Marketing for powering our travel activities I guess we could call them. We're being, if we're being safe for work our activities. Thanks for helping kill our liver Shaker. We appreciate it. We appreciate it. Chad (16m 44s): Love me some Shaker and Shaker backpacks and luggage. I mean they got us the good shit. They got it, my we've had it for how many years now and that shit's still going strong?! Joel (16m 55s): Yeah. Which is great. Cuz yeah, my wife and I were in Finland. I think we mentioned that she just bought a new bag from, you know, I don't know. She's kind of cheap like that she'll go to Marshalls or something. Right. And her fucking strap broke. So guess who gets to carry her luggage through Finland while whatever. So yeah, the backpack, the suitcase still in good shape. They bought the good shit. They don't skimp just like they don't skimp on their recruitment marketing advertising. Chad (17m 35s): Amen. Joel (17m 35s): Love you Shaker! Chad (17m 36s): TOPICS! Joel (17m 36s): All right. job.com announce the acquisition of Princeton One, a New Jersey imagine that Princeton One in New Jersey, a based talent solutions provider with an emphasis on recruitment process outsourcing, you know, that is RPO Chad and permanent recruitment services this week. Founded in 2002, Princeton One has a nationwide footprint supporting pharmaceutical biotechnology, manufacturing, retail, and more. This is all a part of job.com's growth strategy focusing on acquisitions. You might remember. They acquired HireVergence in 2020, Fortus Group and Endevis and QCI Healthcare in 2021, more notably however Chad was CEO Aaron Stewart's rant on LinkedIn underscoring, a report that labeled job.com a quote "job board instead of a digital staffing agency" Joel (18m 29s): on his post. Stewart said quote "no paid to post ads here. No homepage, banner ads, no mass database email shots that everybody hates. You can leave that to the CareerBuilders of the world. Nope. Just staffing done digitally" end quote. Chad what's your take on the news and maybe more importantly Aaron's rant? Chad (18m 50s): Didn't he also run parallels with Uber. Like they're like the Uber of? Right. Didn't they, he do that. So, I mean, Aaron's got a point, you know, they are not a job board, although I wouldn't compare job.com to Uber. I mean Uber's model wasn't about buying cars. Like job.com is buying staffing agencies. Rather Uber is building an operating system that could displace taxi service. Right? So Aaron hasn't built an app for the industry. He's forcing it into the staffing agencies he's buying. So yes, the article was wrong in saying they're a job board, but Aaron trying to liken job.com to Uber. Chad (19m 34s): He's wrong as well. So I guess everybody can be wrong, Aaron it's okay. Not a big deal. Move on. Joel (19m 41s): Yeah. It reminded me of when snap went public. I don't know if you remember this. They were a camera company. Okay. Yeah. And when Fitbit went public, they were a quote "platform", not a commodity hardware because you say you're something doesn't mean that the market won't think that you're something else. It's in look it's in job board. It's in job.com's best interest to not be a job board or be perceived as a job board if they ever want to go public or they wanna sell the company down the road, job boards get much less, you know, in the price tag than say digital staffing firm. Joel (20m 21s): So he says they're a digital staffing platform, but nowhere on their homepage, does it say digital staffing platform, the homepages title tag is "your job search starts here". Does that sound like a job board? There's a search box on the homepage that says "find jobs". Chad (20m 35s): Yeah. Joel (20m 35s): Does that sound like a job board? If you don't wanna be labeled a job board, then you kind of gotta look in the mirror and say, what are we presenting to the world? Because if it looks like a job board, smells like a job board, sounds like a job board. Don't be surprised when the media, more likely, calls you a job board. Chad (20m 59s): Well, and also I think you're welcome, Aaron. What we're doing is we're actually pointing out a huge fucking gap in your marketing. And when you have confusion in the market from, you know, staffing industry analysts who should know what you're doing, then again, I think Joel's a hundred percent correct. You gotta look in the mirror, big guy. People don't know if you're a job board, you're a staffing agency. You're trying to be this Uber kind of thing. You really need somebody to help you with your narrative, design and marketing. Joel (21m 29s): Yeah. How many companies in the branding question say, oh, we're a fill in the blank, but the public says we are fill the blank. Chatbots are a great example of this, right? Like the public calls you a chatbot, even though you call yourself whatever. Your branding, isn't what you say you are, it's what the public says you are. So don't blame the public, blame yourself and look in the mirror and make some changes on a marketing perspective and at a minimum put digital staffing platform somewhere on your homepage if that's what you are. Chad (22m 1s): Yes. And I also have to say, Aaron is probably one of the sweetest guys Joel (22m 6s): Love that guy! Chad (22m 6s): You will ever meet. He's a sweetheart. He just needs help. Oh yeah. He just needs help getting some of this shit together. Joel (22m 14s): Oh yeah. Total sweetheart. This is not personal at all. We love Aaron. We love that guy. Chad (22m 19s): Yeah. Joel (22m 20s): Okay. Well speaking of job boards, Chad, or at least those posing as an anonymous employee review site instead of a job board. Chad (22m 28s): Okay. Joel (22m 29s): Glassdoor's in the news as a not so anonymous service, maybe? The company has been ordered to reveal the identities of negative reviewers to a New Zealand toy maker who made the company sound like a terrible place to work. While the company is in New Zealand, it was a California court that ordered the identities to be revealed by California based Glassdoor. New Zealand has stricter defamation laws versus the US who has much broader free speech protections while Glassdoor wins most of these cases globally, this is a blow to its brand and could spell trouble for future international cases. Chad, what's your take on the Glassdoor news? Chad (23m 9s): This literally makes no sense to me. Why is an American court weighing in on a New Zealand matter? I mean talk about government overreach. I understand Glassdoor is a California company, but they have to have operations. They have to have operations in New Zealand and if they don't, then New Zealand can just shut the fucking site down if they want to. I mean, I just to me, this literally makes no sense while we're passing judgment on something that's happening in a different country that literally we're talking Glassdoor, we're not talking about, you know, human rights and shit like that. I mean that that's important stuff, right? I get where a country can say, that's bullshit, you shouldn't be doing that. Chad (23m 51s): But Glassdoor? I mean, you've got bigger fish to fucking fry courts here in the US. Joel (23m 57s): Yeah. And neither one of us are lawyers. We should point that out. I'm not sure what the jurisdiction is when a New Zealand court orders an American company for data and what the US court's responsibility is? But either way Glassdoor had to give up the identities of some of the posters on what happened in New Zealand and New Zealand is not China, right? Like it's a liberal democracy. Chad (24m 21s): Yeah. Joel (24m 21s): So there are some interesting parallels, I guess, to what the future could hold for Glassdoor. But for me, like, I've been talking about this, I guess, Perfect Storm. Since you're in Boston, I got Perfect Storm on the mine, which is a great movie watched. They're dealing with a lot of headwinds. I mean, number one, companies who were thinking about suing Glassdoor might now be empowered to do so with, with certain precedents maybe, but there are, there is now a winning case against Glassdoor to reveal the anonymous comments. I mean, number two, millennials and older who might have posted on Glassdoor may now think twice, if they do a search on Google about court cases Glassdoor and see that there's been a reveal, they might think twice about posting, wondering if they might get outed at some point. Joel (25m 9s): People who work for international companies will probably refrain with some trepidation about what might happen. And what if your company in America is acquired by an international company? Are they now under international precedent? I think that's an interesting dynamic to this, but ultimately for me, and I've talked about, this is younger people who have lived their whole lives on mobile devices and social media. Aren't writing lengthy reviews with text online anymore, and they're not even doing it anonymously. I mean, they'd rather bash you on TikTok where they, where they can get the dope ahead of likes and more followers, and not deal with what, like what's privacy? And what's what are these words? Joel (25m 51s): Things like Glassdoor is so antiquated at this point that it just feels like this inevitable slide to the abyss for them until they get, you know, integrated into Indeed. I know that I've been calling for that for quite a while, but I think it will happen into TS Elliot. Chad (26m 6s): Uh-huh. Joel (26m 7s): This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. I feel like we're gonna eventually just not notice that Glassdoor is around anymore because of these little cuts to death by multiple fronts. Chad (26m 20s): Yeah. The weird thing though, is that you take a brain like Simply Hired. It's still alive. It's still out there. Right? I mean, so yeah, I can see where this can be kind of like a skeleton company for, you know, to some extent, but I am fairly perplexed on why these brands still even exist. Joel (26m 43s): Google. I mean, as long as Google indexes, those pages, and as long as they're getting ranked, well, like they're gonna get traffic. Chad (26m 50s): It's about footprint then, right? It's all all about SEO footprint. Joel (26m 53s): Sure. Which fuck, which again goes to the future of Google, right? So if, if video is the future, how do you index video? If it's not on YouTube's platform and you have to transcribe everything, do you even get access to TikTok or Instagram? Like the future of how you sort of get reviews and this goes into Yelp, the future of Yelp and other things is that the text based sort of, I'm gonna sit down on my computer and type out what I think about this restaurant is, is something for old people. Young people don't do much of it anymore. Anyway. Chad (27m 26s): There you have it. Joel (27m 30s): Get off my lawn, Chad. That's what I'm saying. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk about one of our favorite topics. sfx (27m 38s): Oh my God. I'm love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life. Joel (27m 40s): That's right we're talking Chipotle when we get back from the break. Automation, Chad. That's right we got more automation commentary news. Chad (27m 47s): It's coming, baby. It's coming. Joel (27m 49s): All right. More bad news for the service industry this week. If you call a local Dominoes Pizza to place an order, do you, do you order from Dominoes Chad? You're probably too fancy for that. Chad (27m 58s): I do not. Yeah, no, I do not. Joel (28m 2s): Yeah, you may. You may be routed to a call center. Who doesn't love being routed to a call center. Am I right? Dominoes says the practice impacting around 40% of US stores has freed up workers to deliver pizzas amid a driver shortage that has plagued the company for well over a year. The effort while clever Chad may be having a minimal impact in terms of addressing loss sales from the labor shortage. Domino's reported delivery, sales crashed 11.7% in the seven second quarter versus a year ago. Meanwhile, Chipotle is investing in two startups through its $50 million venture fund Cultivate Next. Joel (28m 45s): Most notably, the burrito chain has invested in Hyphen, which automates plate and bowl portioning to the tune of up to 350 meals an hour. This isn't Chipotle's first four way into automation investment. Listeners might remember that last year, the company invested in Neuro an automated delivery company and this year, the company piloted Chippy from our favorite Miso robotics, an autonomous machine that cooks and seasons Chipotle chips. Chad, what's your take. And excuse me, while I take a bite out of my Barb-a-co bowl on this topic, Chad (29m 21s): Miso-horny robotics, those guys are kicking ass and taking names. And we we've seen this from Dominoes. They've been playing around with robot deliveries. They wanna get rid of humans because again, humans are a pain in the ass, especially when you have a landscape like it is today. And to be quite Frank, the job sucks. So of course you're gonna get humans that are pains in the ass because they hate their fucking job. So yeah, give it to the robots. I mean, give me a break. We've got all these jobs that need to be filled. Let's see what we can do Corporate America. Let's see what we can do to actually get these individuals into training programs. Chad (30m 1s): And you can actually manufacture your own talent instead of whining about a fucking skills gap. All of this stuff to me is necessary because that's a horrible life to live. I mean, seriously, just play you love going to Chipotle, but I can't imagine working there. Joel (30m 15s): Here's a chance for me to talk about my favorite subject, me and my kids. All right. So it summer's still here. The kids are still outta school. So I have 'em this weekend, took em to McDonald's. I know that shocks you, right Chad? Chad (30m 31s): So bad. Joel (30m 33s): Yeah. So, so our local McDonald's has gone through a major transition from, I guess, what you would think of as a McDonald's from, you know, 1995 to one where it's like kiosk, take a number, we'll deliver your food. Cetera, which I enjoy. I'm totally fine. Not standing in line behind someone that doesn't know what they want, et cetera. Right. We've all been there. Okay. So we order kiosks, great. Pay credit card, sit down. Food comes it's nice and hot, but they've also gotten rid of the self serve soda machine Chad. And I I'm guessing this is a COVID thing, right? They don't want people like hands or whatever, grabbing straws. They don't want any sort of germs being passed around. But so you have to go to the counter to get a refill, which to me is just a total pain in the ass. Joel (31m 20s): So I'm sitting there waiting three minutes to get a refill that should have taken me 10 seconds. I used to be really cynical about automation. Now I'm all for it, man. Let me do what I need to do. Automate the ordering, the whatever food coming out. If no one was in a McDonald's, I'd be totally fine with that. As long as I can do everything that I need to do, bring on the robots. I prefer the self serve at Kroger. I'm fine scanning my shit and paying for it. I prefer the mobile checkout at Sam's club. I prefer mobile pay at restaurants. Now I think some brands will suffer from automation. The small businesses are not gonna be able to pay the kind of money that McDonald's and Chipotle can for this stuff. Joel (32m 1s): But I say, bring on the robots. If it means I get my pepperoni and jalapeno pizza, more efficiently, full stop man. Chad (32m 12s): Full stop. I have to go back to this is to me in an American problem. In Europe, there are so many restaurants in little bitty towns and they're not expensive, right? But they are a much better experience and they're better food than fast fucking food. Right? I think this is something that, you know, we have a fast food industrial complex here in the United States and a complex moves toward one thing. And one thing only. That is robots. I mean, that's all there is to it. You have to be more efficient. This portioning thing, this is because, you know, obviously humans are either giving too much or not enough or whatever it is. Chad (32m 54s): I mean, this is exactly where an industrial complex goes. Just like we talked about the defense industrial complex on our last podcast. When you know, we're like, Hey, bring in the robots, right to the battlefield. Right? You're gonna see this happening in big business across many industries. Joel (33m 12s): Europe is much more experiential than America. America is like, get your shit and get out. Europe is, Hey, sit a while, have a coffee. Oh, you wanna order something? Great. Chad (33m 23s): Enjoy your meal. Joel (33m 23s): America's like, drive your car, get in, get out. Let's go. Yeah. Different, different mentality. But the robots are coming for Americans. That's for sure. That's for sure. Well, Chad, we, we play a lot of buy or sell on the show, but let's play a little who'd you rather? Chad (33m 36s): Ought Oh. Joel (33m 37s): We're gonna name two companies that recently got funded and you, and I will get to choose which of the two we like better. It's called who'd you rather? Are you ready to play? Chad (33m 51s): Let's do it. Joel (33m 52s): All right. Our first company is HireArt. The company announced a $26.25 million Series B funding round. Recently the New York headquartered company provides access to talent, curated from job boards, staffing companies, and a network of job seekers. The funding will go toward expanding its network of staffing firm partners, which the company automatically distributes roles to its network firms. If it sounds a little bit like what job.com wants to be? Well, we'd have to rewind the show and go back to that part, but let's get to do the next company InternMatch. The intern placement company has raised $10 million dollars in a Series A. The cash will support intern matches expansion into Canada the US and the UK. Joel (34m 37s): The eight year old Australian based company says it has placed 10,000 students globally. The company makes money by charging colleges for internship placements, as well as receiving a recruitment fee if the company involved hires the student. Okay, Chad, who would you rather HireArt or InternMatch? Chad (34m 55s): So if I was in a bar at 2:00 AM and these two were the only choices, I'd probably go home alone. But I have to choose HireArt literally this is a failed assessment company that needed a huge pivot to keep investors forking over cash. And it's a huge, huge miss if they actually had somebody in their organization or maybe, I don't know, had some industry analysts or what have you, in their ear, then they might not have made this stupid of a pivot because they're actually going into competition with staffing firms. Nobody needs another assessment company. Okay. Yeah but the last thing we need is another fucking staffing company. Chad (35m 39s): They could have been the operating system for staffing companies. They've missed the fucking boat. InternMatch they're using tech to scale and match internships, which really isn't a big deal and/or sexy, but they're seeing it through to the actual hire. So they are becoming a staffing company in a niche that I really don't think exists because I mean, who is doing staffing for interns, right? So this could give a company the opportunity to slim down their university relations team and just start working with a vendor. Right? So this is more kinda like an RPO model where you're just gonna go ahead and pull in an organization that does it. So, you know, it's not sexy, but it's a hell of a lot better than HireArt. Chad (36m 23s): I'm gonna, I'm gonna rather on the InternMatch side. Joel (36m 27s): Okay. Okay. Interesting. Well, for me, like where's the beef on both these companies? sfx (36m 30s): Ma ! The meatloaf Fuck. Joel (36m 32s): Yeah. Ultimately I'm not super high on either one of these and now might be a good opportunity to talk really quickly about the number of companies getting money is getting fewer and farther between thanks economy, by the way, this is what we are relegated to talking about. InternMatch and HireArt. Anyway, I hate InternMatch for these three reasons. Number one. Chad (36m 57s): Yes. Joel (36m 58s): We're taking on well funded organizations. Like I don't know, Handshake, good luck with that. Number two, they want to conquer America. Well, good luck with that. And see, number one, wanna talk about Handshake. History is not so kind to foreigners coming to America and succeeding. I don't give InternMatch much of a shot either. And number three, I hate college recruiting businesses. There's high churn, students leave, colleges are fickle and they're antiquated as shit. Fewer kids are taking the college track. Plug in whatever reason you want there, but it's just a shitty business. So when you ask me, who'd I rather? Joel (37m 41s): Yeah. I'm like you I'm going home alone, but HireArt is the one I would pick. Chad (37m 45s): Oh. Joel (37m 45s): So we differ, which is fun. We might have to play who'd you rather? Again, because Chad and I differ sometimes. All right. Let's take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll come back to talk about VR baby. Stay tuned. Chad (38m 4s): Yeah. This was not making it past a show. I mean, this had to be in the show. It just had to! Joel (38m 13s): Yes. For many reasons. All right, Chad, who's your daddy? Who's your VR. We like to talk about Indiana and specifically Indianapolis as the birthplace of online recruitment and the city just might take us into the future. Meet Vision 3, who recently announced the launch of V3 Connect an $80 million dollar initiative. That's right $80 million that seeks to place VR career labs in every high school community college and university in the state of Indiana by 2025, which is right around the corner Chad. Vision 3 CRO Heather Jackson, Mrs. Jackson, if you're nasty, set in a release quote, "you can't be what you can't see". Joel (38m 58s): Let me say that again. "You can't be what you can't see." "V3 connect closes that gap directly connecting the next workforce generation to relevant, engaging in career focused experiences" end quote. Pivot CX a show favorite and formally known as Work Here. I say that sarcastically is a corporate partner. All right. Chad job training with VR throughout the Hoosier state. Your thoughts. Chad (39m 21s): think this is great. Especially getting in into the hands of kids because VR, the way that it is today, it's not great. You will have some, some great experiences. I've had some great experiences, but I've had some really shitty experiences. So I think if we get this tech into kids' hands, they're gonna be the ones who change it, right? They're gonna be the ones who make it better. They're gonna make it more applicable to learning, usage and whether it's VR AR doesn't matter. So I think, I think this is awesome. I think we should be pushing tech into schools more like this. And you know, will the first round be successful in job training with VR? Chad (40m 4s): Probably not. Yep. But this is how you start, right? You don't start with perfection, you start with getting it out there and then starting to hone it, to tune it and to do those things that you need to evolve a society. This is not purely about jobs. This is about being able to evolve us. Joel (40m 25s): Chad likey, look at that. A VR story that Chad's behind. I love it. All right. So, this sounds like a, a story outta California. So I was really surprised and happy that it's from our own state of Indiana, but this one checks all the boxes. It's like, we're helping kids. Governments love this shit. Companies love this kind of shit. Colleges and universities love this shit, cuz they can show shit in a catalog, on the website and YouTube about look at our, this is really the new computer lab of the future, right? Instead of like, Hey, we got computers, we got headsets and you can learn how to do whatever job you want of the future. I mean, colleges are gonna eat this shit up. These labs are gonna be in every university because there's gonna be stories here locally about, you know, college X puts this in and now every other college wants to do it. Joel (41m 12s): So I think this is checking all the boxes for the feel good, you know, story of tech of the week, at least. And I think they're gonna be a lot of companies that see this shit gonna, they're gonna spend money by the way, part of the costs would be offset by fees, charged to the companies who place content on the system. So if I'm, you know, name a company and I wanna train colleges and universities and I've been pissed about how they train them currently. Yeah, I can, I can put my shit in the VR computer lab or VR lab and have people go in and train about how to be, you know, mechanics or whatever it is that I need. So this to me like is a perfect storm. Joel (41m 52s): If Glassdoor is a perfect storm of decline in death, this is the perfect storm of like growth and prosperity because it's checking all the boxes. Is VR the future? Yeah, we don't know, but what, what other bet are you gonna place it on other than VR and putting this shit in colleges and getting governments to back it and making kids and parents feel great. I too applaud VR story. It's like Chad and Godammit it's lunch time. sfx (42m 26s): I wantlove Chipotle. Chipotle is my life! Joel (42m 26s): And Chipotle sounds pretty good whether it's cooked by a human or a robot. Chad (42m 32s): Doesn't matter. Chad and Cheese (42m 34s): We out. 6 (43m 14s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Make yourself comfortable, boys and girls, because it's story time. On this episode, the boys bring Tim Dineen, co-founder, and chief innovation officer at Recruitics on the show. For those who don't know Tim, he was also the search engine optimization brains at Indeed back in the 00s. It's fair to say Indeed wouldn't be Indeed without Tim, which is why we rev-up the "way back machine" and pull back the covers on the early days of Indeed, as well as what the future may hold. For those who aren't students of history, don't worry, we spend plenty of time talking about the current state of recruitment tech and the future. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (18s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (20s): All yeah. You know what time it is everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. I am your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always the Starski to my Hutch, Chad Sowash and today we welcome Tim Dineen, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Recruitics and also Indeed's Search Engine Optimization Expert in the mid two thousands. We had to twist a lot of arms to get Tim on the show. Tim, welcome to the podcast. Tim (52s): Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm usually not in a miced up kind of role, but Joel (55s): They don't let you outta the basement. Do they Tim? Tim (57s): Not exactly. No. Chad (59s): Mad scientist behind the curtain. Yeah, no, we know you're the wizard. Joel (1m 3s): It's the Goonies over at Recruitics. So for those that don't know, you, Tim, give us a little Twitter bio about you. Tim (1m 9s): Yeah. I've been in this industry for a while, but in technology in general for, it was about 30 years at this point, internet consulting very early on. I was a web developer, ran a small agency of my own for about seven years and eventually able to eventually focus on SEO when that became a true thing. Joined Indeed back in 2007, so that was my first entry into the job space and after a few years left there and ultimately founded a company that was more focused on the employer than the job seeker. So that's the quick version. Chad (1m 41s): The quick version, AKA Recruitics. Okay. No, that's cool. So let's talk about the journey to this space. Cause you, you said you didn't start off in this space. How in the hell did you land here? Tim (1m 52s): I was lucky enough to graduate college at around the time that the internet was becoming the future. Joel (1m 57s): Us too. Tim (1m 59s): I was interested in public relations, journalism, little bit of politics in there, and basically wanted to get involved with it. So got my degree from UCONN and ultimately trained myself to do something totally different than my degrees, HTML and programming and databases and so forth with, you know, over the next couple years. Joel (2m 16s): Did Indeed find you, did you apply to a job? Like how did that connection happen? Tim (2m 20s): I applied for a job on Indeed, but I was working at a web development agency. I used the word Indeed a lot. Somebody started calling me Indeed Dineen. The letters actually match up very closely. You could, you could rearrange the letters. And I actually did that at one point and made my last name out of their logo. No, I just, somebody said the word Indeed back to me one time. So I typed it in, I wonder who has this domain name? Found a job search engine and a couple months later I used it to look for a job and I found out that they were themselves hiring and they were local to me, local enough and were hiring for exactly what I wanted to do. Joel (2m 52s): Are you kidding me? Yeah. Chad (2m 53s): Yeah. How big were they at that time? Tim (2m 55s): They were very small when I joined, I was probably the 20th employee at there, at least the 20th active employee. There were 12 people in Stanford, Connecticut, and I think it was eight in Austin, Texas. Chad (3m 7s): Gotcha. So what did they hire you in for initially? And what did that actually turn into? Tim (3m 12s): Yeah. The job title was Online Marketing Manager and that actually stayed my job title for the duration while I was there. Initially they wanted me to focus on search engine marketing, pay per click, you know, AdWords being in Yahoo at the time as well. So I had to focus at least for a few months on just getting better performance out of the online marketing that they had already started with AdWords and so forth. So I did that for a while and as time went on, wherever I could, I inserted, Hey, we gotta do this in SEO. We gotta do that in SEO. And, eventually that they allowed me to do more and more. Joel (3m 42s): And for the kids out there, at the time, SEO, Google, search engines were the only real other option aside from shitty banner ads or traditional marketing. And I assume that you knew that going in. Did they have a strategy when you joined? Did you introduce the strategy or just sort of take the ball that they were running with and take it to the next level? Tim (4m 3s): No, it's fair to say that they had a ball and they were running with it. They did have SEM up and running. They were spending a significant amount on pay per click advertising. Indeed was built by search engineers who understood search engines and including Google. So they had concepts and a backbone to start out with. Joel (4m 20s): So what, in your perspective, did Google mean to the growth of Indeed? Does Indeed become Indeed without Google? Tim (4m 26s): I would say no. Chad (4m 28s): That's an emphatic no, Tim. Joel (4m 29s): He went way out on the limb on that one. Chad (4m 31s): That was an emphatic. No, there's no way in hell Indeed exists today without the SEO structure that they, I mean, literally just killed it with. Tim (4m 41s): Today as well, but back then even more so like people were aware of brands like CareerBuilder and Monster from Super Bowl ads, but they still would go to Google to search for a job. And if they ended up at Monster, CareerBuilder, great. And sometimes they would start there. Sometimes they'd start at Craigslist, but people still, and, you know, then and today start their job search by searching. And so without Google and the other search engines Indeed would not have grown, you know, they didn't have name recognition or anything to grow upon. So it was necessary. Chad (5m 10s): One of the things that we tried and I don't remember. Were you still with Indeed when direct employers went with the full-on frontal assault with the.jobs domains? I think it was in 2009. Tim (5m 24s): I think that was around the time that I left. But yeah, that domain names as a SEO strategy was to me, not a solid one. Chad (5m 34s): And it obviously wasn't. Tim (5m 38s): Yeah. Early on in the 2000s sure, it was. And, we did talk about what if we had a different name other than in Indeed.com as a domain name, but I don't think that would've helped. Joel (5m 48s): One of the things that really struck me about Indeed early on was how, I mean, we say Trojan horse quite a bit, but you guys were doing backfill for a lot of job sites and other boards. And one of the things that I always recognized and just loved and hated at the same time, cuz I worked with some of them, was that every backfill company you had, you know, jobs by Indeed and jobs was obviously hotlinked back to Indeed.com and anyone that knows SEO at the time knew that that anchor text and that back link from these really good sites was like helping you kill them in the search results. Like, was that your strategy? Joel (6m 29s): How'd that go down? Tim (6m 30s): I don't know if that was my strategy personally, we had conversations about, you know, anchor text and anchor, you know, what links to use constantly every day. But there were some things that existed well before I joined like the widgets that they had, the backfill partnerships, they had their salary tools and trending tools that all contributed to great SEO and links, especially. Chad (6m 53s): So what was the biggest difference between Indeed and SimplyHired? I was able to experience both because I partnered with both leadership teams. But from your standpoint, what was the difference between SimplyHired and Indeed, because from most taking a look from the outside in, they look pretty much the same other than colors and logos. Tim (7m 13s): Yeah. I guess I would say, you know, one observation after my Indeed days is I kinda looking back at it. I recognized that SimplyHired really was focused on partnerships. So they had, I think it was MySpace and even Facebook and some others like that back in the day. Joel (7m 31s): Blogging platforms. Tim (7m 32s): Yep. And Indeed was focused on and you know, you hear this all the time, they're focused on building the right thing for the job seeker and you know, building internally good SEO, good internal linking, external links and so forth that, that ultimately built the brand up. Whereas those partnerships, even though Indeed had some, they easily could go away quickly. Chad (7m 51s): I think it's funny that you put SimplyHired and focus in the same sentence because that did not exist. There was no focus from SimplyHired. They were like five times the size staff wise that Indeed was, they were working on a million different things. And then you go to Connecticut and meet with Indeed team. And there was just, no, I mean, it was stark, there weren't as many people, but they were all focused on staying in their lane. Joel (8m 22s): Yeah. Chad (8m 22s): That's, that's just from, from my experience, what I saw. Joel (8m 25s): Yeah. And talk about this too, Tim, because Chad and I talk every week about companies getting tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. You guys, the only investment I remember Indeed taking was like $10 million from the New York Times. Talk about how spoiled companies today are and how you guys sort of managed with such little funding and just stayed lean and mean and focused. Tim (8m 47s): Well, I think it might have even been a lower amount than that, that came from the New York Times. But I think they took that on for the partnership and for the, you know, the board and the advice as well as there was another investor as well. But I think, you know, when I joined Indeed, of course they'd been up and running for maybe a couple years and, you know, built the tech already and were very close to profitability. So I think, you know, even when spending, you know, for my department spending on AdWords and Yahoo, pay per click and Bing and so forth, every dollar that we spent, we wanted to break even on. So, yes, we're driving traffic. Tim (9m 28s): We're spending a lot of money, but we would track everything and make sure that it broke even so that that could give opportunity for the rest of the company and to bring in more, more dollars and not have it all go out the door. Chad (9m 40s): Yeah. I have to say that once again, Indeed's focus and let's just say their ability to Trojan horse was better than anybody else, but right now we also have to, I would say, and tell me what you think about this, Tim, there was not even close to as much noise in the market back then, as there is right now. So everybody getting the money, is there really a need for that much money? Probably not. The valuations are crazily, bloated all that other happy horse shit. But back then, there really weren't that many players in the space so there wasn't that much noise that you had to fight through right? Joel (10m 23s): It was only Jobster. Tim (10m 24s): There wasn't, I don't recall it anyway, a ton of investor dollars flying around, but what Indeed was up against was looking at something that was totally new compared to like the old school job boards that had been around for a long time. So, you know, Indeed was the anti Super Bowl ad company and, you know, growing something organically. Joel (10m 42s): Do you get a chuckle every time you see an Indeed ad on TV now? Tim (10m 47s): Very much so. Yeah. It's odd. In the early days we would laugh at Super Bowl ads and that's something we would never do. Yeah. Everything had to have a trackable, measurable ROI against it. And if it didn't, it wasn't something we would do. Chad (11m 3s): That's when Paul ran shit. I mean, that's an entirely different leadership mode, I think, than what you're seeing today. Joel (11m 11s): Were you there when Google base launched Tim or was that after you joined or before you joined? Tim (11m 16s): That was around the time. Yeah, we, I think we did some work there very briefly. Joel (11m 21s): Was Google on your mind at the time, were you sort of scared that they would, you know, take over the search rankings like they have now? And I guess my next add-on is like, are you surprised that they did it? And are you, are you sort of impressed with the way that they rolled it out or have they totally fucked it up? Tim (11m 37s): That's a good question. I think there was some concern that Google would attempt to be a search engine for everything. And well, I mean, that's what they are, but to be a pure job search engine, there was some concern when I would go to go to search conferences, I would report out on, you know, what I, I heard between the lines or, or what the rumblings were to Indeed. But I think they, you know, the feeling was always we'll focus again, that word focus, if they focus on doing the best job for job seekers, then no one could beat them. Chad (12m 13s): Yeah. Did you have Matt Cutts on speed dial? Tim (12m 16s): I did have eventually meet Matt at one point, but no, we didn't really talk. I just bumped into him at a conference. We played cards. Joel (12m 23s): He was too busy hiding his boner to have a conversation. Chad (12m 28s): Ffor the listeners out there Matt Cutts used to be like a God in SEO land. So everybody would be waiting for the next Matt Cutts video or blog post or some shit like that. Joel (12m 40s): Yeah. Yeah. Here's another threat for you Tim. In 2006, I think it was actually at the direct employers conference. I remember Jason Goldberg from Jobster coming up to me and telling me that Craigslist had banned or, you know, blocked Jobster crawlers from getting their job postings and also sent you guys the same letter. Was there fear at some point or any point that, okay, Craigslist, shut us off. Monster's gonna be next, CareerBuilder's gonna be next. What the hell do we do? And were you surprised that they didn't shut you down? Tim (13m 12s): You know, personally? Yeah, I was, I think it was disappointing to some folks that Craigslist had blocked Indeed. That happened just before I joined the company. So I don't recall any conversations, but the goal was to have all jobs, you know, remember their initial slogan was 'one search, all jobs' and to not be able to have all jobs was a disappointment for sure. I think, you know, if some of the other larger job boards would've done the same, it certainly would've changed the ability to reach that slogan, reach that goal. Joel (13m 41s): It might've hurt the business too. Tim (13m 43s): Yeah. Chad (13m 43s): Yeah. Maybe a little bit. So let's talk about broadening up a little bit and going into today. Right. So in Indeed trying to focus on the search, get all the jobs, but there are big players that are out there now who really control the flow and access of jobs around programmatic job distribution. So can you talk about obviously maybe the start of, or founding of Recruitics? Getting into programmatic? What was that like? Why did you do it? Tim (14m 11s): Yeah, so, you know, it was the opposite side of the coin, if Indeed was focused on the job seeker, who's gonna focus on the employer, not that, you know, Recruitics invented employment advertising or, you know, job advertising or anything like that. But if you guys remember Indeed's dashboard for employers at the time was very basic. It stayed very basic for many years. And so in order to really do the things that that we wanted to do on behalf of employers, we had to work around that, which led us to programmatic and all the things that we do now with Recruitics. Chad (14m 43s): That in itself, I think I find pretty amazing. But do you see, well, you saw Indeed buy a programmatic company, ClickIQ create Indeed IQ, but that seems to kind of like, I don't know, we haven't seen anything from it, it's become, it seems like more of an internal system than external. Do you see that perspectively for programmatic vendors as a threat long term? Or do you think it's just gonna be really just focused on managing Indeed. Tim (15m 11s): We don't see it as a threat at Recruitics. It's, I think it, you know, it makes sense for Indeed to participate there so that they can, you know, speak to clients and say, we've got, you know, we understand that there's a lot of other traffic out there in the world and we can help achieve that. You know, whether it's the job seeker coming directly to Indeed or any of these other sites that exist out there. We all know that there's, you know, hundreds and hundreds of other, if not well, thousands and thousands of other job resources out there and job seekers will find their way to them. So having a programmatic play within Indeed just makes sense. Just very similar to the early days when, you know, blog partners and social media partners were important. Joel (15m 53s): It sounds like Recruitics was born primarily out of the experience at Indeed of saying like, we're so focused on the job seeker, who's gonna help the employer? Is that how the company was born? Like what led you to the path of starting Recruitics Tim (16m 7s): That did feel that way. Like, so if, you know, Indeed didn't have a way to post a job to get onto their job search engine. So how could a small employer or small company get their job on Indeed? Back then it still had to be, well, you had to post on Monster or CareerBuilder, etcetera, and then maybe Indeed would scrape that job. Initially, what Recruitics wanted to do was to build a small platform for, you know, small employers to be able to compete at the same level that others who were spending money on Monster could do so that, you know, our, the initial version of Recruitics, besides that we were building programmatic in the background was an ability to get jobs into a platform that didn't cost a lot of money, that would give you access to part programmatically in a job search engine. Chad (16m 54s): What about Europe? Europe seems to be a little slow in the uptake with regard to traction on programmatic, you know, on the performance side of the house, what are you seeing in Europe and what kind of growth have you experienced through the pandemic? I we're hearing a lot more of different types of traction, more traction gained and adoption gained because of the pandemic. What have you seen and experienced throughout the landscape? Tim (17m 20s): In terms of Europe that said a whole different market. Recruitics is still working on what our expansion international plans are going be. We do have a foothold in the UK and a small presence there. We acquired a business out there, reversed out to that operates career sites. And we have a team out there, but every country is different. So we're, you know, we're looking at what our expansion plans will be. But in terms of COVID and the last couple years changes everywhere every minute of the day, it seems like so job seekers disappeared for a couple months and then all the jobs came back. But the job seekers didn't as quickly, everything, all the cost is up. Tim (18m 1s): You know, for those companies that are hiring, which most are the competitiveness is through the roof. At this point, costs are up conversion rates are down. The number of available employees that are seeking jobs is way down. So I think that's the biggest change that we're dealing with right now is that there's a lot more jobs than people willing to take them. Joel (18m 24s): Do you see 2008 happening again, or at least some of the things that you're seeing rhyming with what happened in 2008 with the downturn? Tim (18m 31s): That's hard for me to say. So I was still at Indeed in 2008, Indeed was growing rapidly regardless of the recession that occurred back then. So it's hard for me to compare. Joel (18m 42s): You would probably agree that the recession in 2008 made Indeed right, because it helped kill Monster and CareerBuilder. I mean, I don't ask that sarcastically. I think that, you know, tragedies when meteorites hit, you know, some dinosaurs die and the mammals come succeed, I think Indeed was the mammal in that case. No? Tim (18m 60s): It's possible. I haven't really looked at it that, or thought of it that way. I think the market was prime for an Indeed to come forward, whether it was a recession or not. Job seekers were looking for a better way to find what they were looking for. Chad (19m 13s): Well, and all of us were just sitting back and waiting to see how long it was gonna take for Indeed to siphon off traffic from all of those big names while they just sat and watched. It was, literally, it was like the heroin dealer, the first hit's for free, the rest of 'em you gotta pay. Tim (19m 32s): Yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of people saw the writing on the wall that, you know, once things started happening, so one search all jobs became, okay, not job boards anymore, not staffing companies anymore. And that's, you know, led us to today where everything is, in a way rightly so, you know, managing spam so that the job seeker has a clean experience. It's understandable, but at Recruitics, we have to manage to that. And sometimes it's challenging. Joel (19m 58s): So let's come into the future here. What recruiting trends are you seeing? Are you watching most closely? What are Recruitics customers sort of asking for? Where's the putt going in your view? Tim (20m 11s): So, you know, as everything's super competitive right now, programmatic, you know, many of the things that we've been building over the last 10 years, Recruitics just had its senior anniversary, by the way. Joel (20m 20s): Congrats. Tim (20m 20s): Thank you. So, you know, many of the we've got products and you know, a great platform to allow our clients to take the best advantage of at least what they need to be competitive right now. So our analytics package, our programmatic offerings and our agency, you know, that brings the strategy to go along with that, you know, all these things that we've built up over the last 10 years, it's prime for any client to come in the door and be able to take advantage of it right now. Chad (20m 48s): So outside of programmatic, what are you excited about? Tim (20m 50s): I still, to this day, I keep my focus on the programmatic side. I'm looking at data every day and trying to mix and match how we can make use of it, whether it's a specific client issue or, you know, how we can, you know, calculate our numbers differently to understand what's going on the market better? Recruitics in general is growing in many different ways. We're spreading out into employment branding and creative services and social media and everything. So understanding how to bring in these, you know, not new, but new to Recruitics functions while being true to our data as the epicenter, is an interesting challenge. Like how do you have analytics? How do you compare performance across some things that are not even digital? Tim (21m 32s): If we can't track them the same way, how do we compare them? So those are some of the things I look at. Chad (21m 37s): So Joel, what I'm not hearing is Recruitics is not creating a competitor to CareerBuilder's Pokemon for jobs app/ I'm not hearing that. Okay. Joel (21m 46s): I was gonna say, you can, you can take Tim out of Indeed, but you can't take Indeed outta Tim cause he still sounds really focused. He's the Chief Innovation Officer and he is talking about analytics and focus and giving the customers what they want. So I do appreciate that. Yeah, no VR, no virtual reality in Recruitics future is what I'm hearing Tim. Tim (22m 8s): No. And, you won't hear me use a ton of catch phrases, you know, AI ML, you know, none of that stuff. We've been building algorithms since '09, which is actually predating Recruitics a little bit. And to us, it's all about the data, shaping it, collecting cost, understanding it and comparing it and doing the best for our client. We iterate all the time. We're working on, you know, new things. I wouldn't have this job if we weren't, but I see innovation as very iterative we're working on problems that can be solved, problems that can be recognized and, you know, doing the best thing we can for our clients. Joel (22m 43s): I'm curious, I know you pretty well on a lot of members of the team, you guys have built a really solid impressive team over at Recruitics. What tips would you give startups out there of building a team? Because it is really tough with so many competitors out there and some of the many other options. What's been your secret sauce to retain and recruit really good talent at Recruitics? Tim (23m 3s): Yeah. There's no perfect science that we have here, but we're, you know, we have doubled in size in the last couple years, we're up to 250 people now. I think it's just, you know, a lot of people talk about internal transparency, you know, how's Recruitics doing? Our culture and you know, so forth. I just think that, you know, hiring good people that that can work well together that there's no secret sauce there. Chad (23m 26s): No secret sauce, but it was very much a secret to try to get you on this show for God's sakes. Jesus Christ Tim. Thanks so much for joining us. It's Tim Dineen, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Recruitics. Tim, if people wanna find out more about you? Connect with you on LinkedIn or I don't know, maybe check out this Recruitics thing and keep talking about, where should they go? Tim (23m 48s): So Recruitics.com is, is, you know, easy where, where you can find that's R E C R U I T I C S.com recruitment and analytics is where that name came from. LinkedIn just searched my name. That's much better than trying to find me on email, which, but so LinkedIn, and thank you guys. I know your tagline is favorite guilty pleasure for many, many years, that's been exactly what you've been for me watching, you know, from the days that Indeed, you know, reading Joel's blog and, and all the comments. And. sfx (24m 20s): What did you say? Tim (24m 22s): And the bashing of Jobster and so forth through today. I appreciate you guys. Joel (24m 26s): Go on, Tim. Chad (24m 27s): Stop it. You're making me cry. I'm tearing up over here. Joel (24m 29s): Tim, this was fun, man. Chad and I always love a little, little walk down memory lane with the old timers. Let's not wait five years to do it again and hopefully we'll see you face to face at some point, at a conference coming soon. Otherwise, Chad, that's another one in the can. Lots of fun. Chad and Cheese (24m 49s): And we out. We out. OUTRO (24m 52s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (25m 38s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

UNICORN ALERT! UNICORN ALERT! Don't believe the headlines. Hiring competent developers is still really, really challenging. One start-up that's helping solve the quandary for companies is Turing, who - by the way - has already raised $153 million to cure what ails employers. Jonathan Siddharth, CEO and founder at Turing, joins the boys to discuss what makes Turing different, how Upwork gets it wrong, and why pay transparency and equality are still such a hurdle. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (19s): Aw. Yeah, what's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure? The Chad and Cheese podcast is always, I am your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined by the Beavis to my Butthead, Mr. Chad Sowash. And today we are giddy because we have a unicorn on the show. Everybody let's welcome Jonathan Sidarth CEO and founder of Turing.com. Jonathan, welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Jonathan (50s): Thank you, Joel. Thank you Chad, for having me. Excited to be here. Joel (53s): You sound excited. Chad (55s): He does. Joel (55s): For our listeners that don't know you Jonathan let's get a Twitter bio on you as a person. What makes Jonathan tick? Jonathan (1m 2s): I love building companies and I love artificial intelligence and machine learning. And I love building products that have machine learning at their core. And I sort of cut my teeth in using machine learning to build search engines and autonomous cars. And it's been great to start companies that have ML at their core. That's one part of me. The other part of me is I love cars. I love formula one. I'm also a huge productivity nerd. So I literally have an app on my phone that lets me track whether I am continuously getting better every day. Like I have a few sort of things that I work on to continuously improve and one of my goals is to wake up every day, a little bit better than I was the day before. Jonathan (1m 48s): I kind of try to try to work on myself like that. So in a nutshell, it's entrepreneurship, cars and continuous improvement. Chad (1m 55s): Just like just like a gen Z. I mean, you talk about things that are definitely something that's not sustainable, trying to get better every single day. Jonathan, you're allowed to have a bad day. Okay. I don't know if you know this or not, but since the pandemic, we've all been able to embrace remote work and being able to have bad days. So this is Chad and Cheese letting you know, you don't continuously have to be better. Joel (2m 19s): I love his answer. It's much better than Wordle, walks on the beach and Marvel Comics like the cars thing was awesome. I like that. Chad (2m 26s): No, I love the let's dig into that real quick. So how did you get into actual autonomous vehicles? Say that that is incredibly exciting, especially when we start seeing them rolling around. Jonathan (2m 37s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I was in, my love affair with autonomous cars probably started when I was in middle school or when I saw Knight Rider. I mean, did you guys see that? Chad (2m 49s): Oh God yeah. Joel (2m 50s): Hell yeah. Chad (2m 51s): Hasselhoff. Are you kidding me? That's David Hasseloff. Joel (2m 54s): We watched that in prime time. Jonathan (2m 57s): I mean, I saw like reruns of that. It was pretty, I mean it is obviously an old show even back then, but it combined two of my passions, like machine learning, like building sentient systems and cars. And when I was in college, like in my sophomore year, I started reading up about AI and machine learning and specifically neural networks. And I published a few papers on teaching a neural network to learn how to drive a car. And that was my foray into self-driving cars. And it was fun teaching the car how to overtake. And I remember like my first sort of simulation where I would give the learning algorithm, these inputs where you put some obstacles on the road and see how it behaves. Jonathan (3m 39s): And it was such a rush to see the car automatically learn how to break, automatically learn how to overtake it. It got me excited about machine learning and that's when I decided I wanted to go to grad school at Stanford because Stanford was pretty far along on the self-driving car, a research area under a few professors. And when I came to Stanford, like I switched my interest and I went from cars to search engines again. No, no real connection. And that was that. Joel (4m 8s): Sounds a lot like our time at school, Chad. Chad (4m 11s): Yeah, exactly right. Oh Jesus. Yeah. Then my time during Stanford. So how didn't the hell did you find your way to HR town acquisition into this space? How did you find your way here? Because autonomous vehicles is a huge leap from where you are today at Turing.com. Jonathan (4m 29s): So the story of Turing.com actually began when I was running my first startup, which was a machine learning based search and recommendation engine. And the year was 2012. And I remember the year distinctly because for the first time, since starting the company out of school, I thought the company was actually gonna fail. And the reason was we were growing really fast on the web. We had about 40 million users and we were looking to raise our Series A and every single investor I met on Sandhill Road in Silicon Valley, turned us down. Every single one. Everyone was looking for mobile app traction, and we didn't have a mobile app. So I had to hire iOS engineers really quickly. Jonathan (5m 12s): And I remember looking at the time to hire these iOS engineers and I was trying to recruit engineers from Google, Facebook, Apple, et cetera, and predictably, everybody turned me down at the time and it was costly and hard to hire my co-founder VJ and I decided at the time that if we didn't do something different, the company was gonna die. It was controversial at the time. But at the time, the decision that we made was, we have to look beyond Silicon valley for great engineers. If we restrict our hiring radius to Silicon Valley, we were gonna die. Right? And I was fortunate to find and work with some incredible engineers from Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, et cetera. Jonathan (5m 56s): They joined the team. We launched V1 of our iPhone app, which won awards from Apple. It was rated by apple as one of the best apps for content recommendations. Apple invited us to Cupertino to meet with their team because they loved the app. And that was the hook that the, a critical milestone that we needed to raise the Series A, the series, we were able to raise the Series A successfully and the company eventually had a successful acquisition. After selling the company I took some time off to recharge in 2017, as it was reflecting on like, what was the biggest learning from my first startup, it was the decision to go remote, to think beyond Silicon Valley. Jonathan (6m 37s): And when I was looking to start my next company, I decided every company's gonna need this. Every company's gonna want to push a button and hire the best people from all over the world, regardless of where they're based. And that's kind of how I found my way to way to Turing.com. And I teamed up with my co-founder for my first startup. And it's been guns blazing growth since then. Joel (6m 60s): Always curious about the Genesis of the name. Obviously I assume Alan Turing was the inspiration. Is there a connection there or just an affection or just it was a cute name that was available? Jonathan (7m 9s): There's a connection. You're right. Alan Turing is widely regarded as the father of computer science, the father of artificial intelligence, many people know about the Turing test, where you can't distinguish a machine from a human from when you're just interacting across an interface. Yep. And with Turing, we use a lot of machine learning under the hood to automatically find developers, evaluate developers and match them to the right opportunities. And for our customers, it's like magic. That is they push a button and they can spin up their engineering dream team from all over the world. And it's a combination of machine learning and human ingenuity working together where the lines are kind of blurred. Jonathan (7m 52s): So it felt like an homage a little bit to the Turing test. So that was reason number one. Reason number two was the Turing Award in Computer Science is the most prestigious award. I mean, it's, it's the Oscars of engineering, if you will. And we wanted a brand that was synonymous with excellence in engineering, we wanted, Turing's a place where the world's best engineers come to build their careers. So, that was another, another reason that worked and the third, most important reason it was a domain name we could afford. Joel (8m 21s): Yeah. Now we're talking. Now we're talking and number three should probably be number one. Now for my real question, is to say that there are a lot of solutions for hiring developers is a bit of an understatement to say the least. How do you guys differentiate? How do you cut through the clutter of all the other solutions out there? Jonathan (8m 40s): Yeah. Great question. We now live in a remote first world. Every tech company today is in a race to reap the benefits of remote engineering talent. Right? Airbnb went remote yesterday. Yelp went remote, Twitter, Square, et cetera, all went remote first. Even traditional companies like Siemens, Ford, et cetera, have gone remote first. And the reasons are obvious. You get to tap into a planetary pool of developers. You get to tap into previously untapped geographies like Latin America, Africa, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, parts of Asia. I mean many, many times it's much, much more cost effective to if you cast a wider net to other parts of the US, other parts of the world, and not just let's say Silicon Valley or New York, but remote is hard. Jonathan (9m 22s): And it's hard for three big reasons. First, it's very hard to build a large enough global pipeline to find truly great people. If you're Johnson and Johnson, one of our customers, and if you wanted 50 Golan developers from LATAM from Brazil, say, then you'd have to build a pipeline of 500 or 5,000 developers to find that 50 and that can be hard for many companies. And second, it can be hard to evaluate the global engineering talent pool. Like for example, if you looked at an engineer from San Paulo, Brazil, you won't see Stanford, Berkeley in their educational background. You're not gonna see Google, Facebook, Apple in their work experience. Jonathan (10m 2s): She could be a great engineer. There's just no signal of the resume. So how do you evaluate all of these people from diverse backgrounds without sucking up all of your engineering teams interviewing bandwidth? So that's hard. And third, if you had to ask any engineering manager, what's the hardest thing about working with the remote team? I guarantee this 80% of the time, they'll say it's communication. Communication is hard because time zones are hard. Often the right kind of daily communication, weekly communication, performance management doesn't happen. Often the manager doesn't know if this person's really working. Are they working on the right things? There is not as much visibility into the work being done. If you are open AI, again, one of our customers, you might care about security. Jonathan (10m 43s): And security. And security again, can be tough with a global distributor team. So building a global pipeline is hard. Evaluating them is hard. Security is hard. And your question that are all these other places to hire, like, what's the, how are we different? The difference is if you look at like a recruiting company or a typical staffing company, they don't have global reach and they don't really do any vetting of engineers and most marketplaces. And there are plenty of marketplaces today. They have more of a gig focus. So they attract people who want to do short term projects. Joel (11m 15s): So Upwork? Jonathan (11m 15s): Yes. Joel (11m 15s): Okay. Jonathan (11m 15s): And you don't find people who want to do long-term engagements and many marketplaces don't really do vetting for engineers. So to find that one engineer, you might have to interview 30 people or 40 people. And if you look at IT services companies like Accenture, TCS, We Pro, Infocetera, they don't have Silicon Valley caliber talent, and they don't have global reach. So we asked ourselves a simple question. Can we solve all of this with software? Like what if we had software that could source engineers from the planet wide pool? Software that could evaluate engineers for a Silicon Valley bar? Software that could use machine learning to match the right developers to the right jobs? And software that could manage the collaboration after the match? Jonathan (11m 56s): Software, software, software, software. This is why we built Turing. Chad (12m 1s): These three part answers are killing me, Jonathan. So what are you? What the hell are you in the first place? I mean, what I'm seeing is almost like this evolution of a job board and staffing company, you did mention staffing and that they don't have the breadth and reach mainly because they really don't leverage technology like Turing is. So what exactly is your platform? Is it the evolution of staffing or is it the evolution of a job board? Jonathan (12m 29s): It's not staffing. It's not job board. It's not a marketplace. Turing's a new animal and we call this category talent cloud. It's a distributed team of developers in the cloud that's sourced by software, vetted by software, matched by software and managed by software. We actually don't fit into a box, which drives a lot of investors crazy because they try to figure us out. Like, are you a job board? Are you a staffing company? And we are neither. We are a talent cloud for software engineers. We predict there be talent clouds for many different verticals, maybe a talent cloud for lawyers or a talent cloud for podcasters. Chad (13m 2s): Good luck on that one. Joel (13m 4s): No one needs that. Chad (13m 6s): So quick question. How do companies pay? Do they pay on the placement? Do they pay on the posting of the job? How does a company actually engage and then pay, for these wonderful, you know, Turing engineers? Jonathan (13m 18s): They pay by the month for developers they're working with. So the business model is a staffing business model. Chad (13m 25s): Okay. Jonathan (13m 25s): So there's a fixed price. For example, if you're typically a customer might work with, they might come to us and say, Hey, Turing, can you gimme five full stack developers, front end react, backend node and at a tech lead level? They work with the developer for a certain monthly rate. And that's how that works. Chad (13m 40s): To me, again, as I dig into this, I know everybody wants to be their own animal, but Jonathan, I'm gonna break it to you here, buddy. You are the evolutionary step, which is good. Dude. Staffing has been around forever. The beauty about what you guys are doing. It's an evolutionary step. It actually is a hell of a lot easier. It happens faster, right? And you can do something that actually has more of a broad reach. So as these investors start asking you, these things, take a look at some of the EBITDA that some of these huge staffing organizations have. And then it's actually not a bad, not a bad model, especially when you superpower it with` technology. Now, next question, you guys got $153 million in funding, right? Chad (14m 24s): That was the total. sfx (14m 26s): What did you say? Chad (14m 28s): Yeah, $1.1 billion valuation. So what are you guys doing with that cash? Are you looking to just get a better, deeper penetration into the US to try to get more jobs from US companies? Or are you guys actually looking to expand? And if you are what countries? Jonathan (14m 45s): Yeah. Good question. And most recently we'd opened up a safe at our 4 billion violation cap, which is oversubscribed, which is where the company is today. sfx (14m 53s): Pink fluffy unicorn music Jonathan (14m 55s): Sorry. I had to correct that. Chad (14m 57s): I appreciate that. That's why we have you on. Jonathan (15m 0s): The founder in me, like he has to do that. Joel (15m 5s): Always be selling. Jonathan (15m 5s): What are we using the capital for? I would say the primary use of capital is to build an amazing product that can find the world's best developers at scale. There's a lot of software that goes into Turing to automatically vet these developers automatically match them, automatically manage them through technology. And we are building a self-serve system where we want a person to be able to hire engineers and build their team without necessarily even speaking with somebody at Turing, right? Like almost like AWS, like you spin observers in the cloud with AWS, you should be able to spin up your engineering team in the cloud. So a lot of the money is spent on product R and D. Jonathan (15m 45s): And other than that, it's to invest in building the world's best place for an engineer to work at. Like we care deeply about great engineers, great engineering. We do a lot of work on R and D other programs to make sure like engineers feel like Turing's a place where they can grow their career. And we are expanding aggressively. Like we are expanding. Like we wanna support developers from all over the US as well. Like a developer from Kansas should have access to the same opportunity as a developer from Palo Alto, Chad (16m 19s): Will they get paid the same? Jonathan (16m 21s): They won't get paid exactly the same as somebody in Palo Alto, it would be based on their experience level, their tech stack. And we, we do geo adjust a little bit. Chad (16m 30s): Okay. So if they have the same exact, let's say credentials as the individual in Silicon Valley, do they get paid the same? Jonathan (16m 41s): We do geo adjust Chad. Honestly, the way it works is we have a conversation with the developer. We ask them, Hey, what will it take for you to work on Turing? And they would quote us a price, right? They would quote us a rate, Hey, here, how much I need to get paid for me to leave my current job and join Turing. And typically what they, what they come up with is something that's 20 to 30% more money than they're currently making. And they get 100% of the money that they negotiate with us when they do that. And we charge customers on top of that to cover our costs. You know, it's not perfect. Like, for example, I'll give you a specific example. If you are working on computer vision algorithms to build machine learning systems on, using 10th of flow, and you are at an engineering manager level so much more senior than an IC, you'll get paid a lot more than let's say a front end developer who's a view JS developer operating at an IC level. Chad (17m 37s): Totally get it. The question is around pay equity. The developer community is a bro community, and it is way off with regard to actual pay equity. I'm sure you guys know that. So when you start talking about negotiating their own rates, that automatically sends alarm bells off in my brain saying that more than likely women in the Turing platform are getting paid less than men for doing the exact same job. Jonathan (18m 2s): We, to be honest, like we haven't, we don't have data on that right now that would support that hypothesis. For the way we think about it, is we have to make sure that Turing is a step up for that developer that we reach compared to the current opportunities that we have and we are gonna do our best to give them that step up. If we are not able to give them that step up, they won't join us. They'll stay at their current jobs and do what they're doing. We have to earn their trust to come to Turing. And we earn that trust by making sure that they make more money than they're making right now, their career options are brighter than it is right now. And we invest a ton of time in, in resources. Jonathan (18m 44s): Like for example, we had a women in tech week a month back, we had a pride week a month back. Our whole company is based on the thesis that talent is universal. Opportunity is not. And we wanna remove all the obstacles that stand in the way from getting people access to the opportunity that their talent deserves. The first obstacle geography, people who won the geo lottery and are here in New York, there are plenty of other obstacles and we wanna level the playing field for people. Chad (19m 11s): Okay. So around that, wouldn't it gain more trust from the community and this is what we've heard from developers all over the world, why they use certain platforms is because of transparency and trust. Right? So the trust piece, I totally feel you, but I feel like they will actually trust you more if there was transparency in the system. So therefore we could ensure that we actually have equity across the board. Jonathan (19m 38s): How would you and this super interesting, and I'm asking to learn further, if you were building a system like that, like, how would you ensure that transparency? How would you design it? Chad (19m 47s): Aggregate data around actual job titles, job titles that have the same requirements, and then you would be able to give the community an idea of what that pay rate would be for that specific type of job and if you met those requirements. Right, we're talking about aggregate data. I'm not trying to find out exactly what Joel's getting paid, but from a transparency standpoint, as we're seeing, I mean, the government is even starting to tell either whether it's state or we're looking at perspectively, federally, that salaries need to be on jobs. Right? So if you can be more transparent and provide that aggregate data? Landscape data, don't you think that would provide more of a push for trust? Jonathan (20m 31s): That that's super interesting. And how would you slice that data? Like what columns would you have, like you would have title and salary. Would you have geography as well? Chad (20m 39s): Personally? I think if you're doing the same job as somebody in Silicon Valley, the exact same job, there's no reason why you shouldn't be paid the exact same rate. That's my personal opinion. But when we take a look at first and foremost gender, then we also take a look at yes regions so that these individuals will understand if they're in Kansas, they're probably gonna get screwed, but being able to take a look at gender ethnicity, not to mention also, you know, all over the world, the actual, where the developers are at, where they're getting paid, those types of things. Jonathan (21m 13s): That's super interesting. Like definitely something for us to think about. Like, we probably have access to some of that data for sure. And do you see any other, like, are there any companies that you, I mean, you, I'm sure you track the space. I'm curious. Have you seen any other company do this? Chad (21m 30s): What we're starting to see, is we're starting to see a couple of things with regard to regulation, whether it's starting at the state level first. Right. And then we have companies who are actually leading and talking about equity, which we talked about, and then also transparency. So we're starting to see companies doing this and then driving other organizations like, I think it's Syndio is that the one Joel, where they have, it's actually a pay equity platform? Joel (21m 58s): I don't recall. Chad (21m 59s): I believe so. Anyway. Yeah, there are plenty within the landscape. This is an issue. Everybody understands it's an issue, especially in the developer community. So to be able to have such a powerful platform like Turing, to be able to help in transparency and equity, I think would be, would be one hell of a step forward. Jonathan (22m 20s): Yeah. That's a great idea, Chad, like, I'll definitely look into that. And like, one thing that I love about Turing is if you look at, I mean, you spoke a little bit about, you hinted at this a little bit in terms of potential bias in some of these systems, if you look at interviewing today, right? Like interviewing, it's a highly biased, sexist, ageist, in many cases, broken system, it's inconsistent, non-scientific and subject to all sorts of noise, right? Some people have some teams have great interviewers, some people have not so good interviewers. Highly variable And it's sort of a flip of the coin in many cases. Jonathan (23m 0s): So I mean, how many great people do we know who flub interviews? Right? like the there's just so much too many issues with that. One of our goals with Turing is to take that sort of manual, subjective, bias ridden process and try to have it be something much more objective data driven, consistent, but through an automated vetting process. And for the longest time, like we actually, we were not even tracking gender like in the early days, when like one of our customers actually asked us, Hey, Turing, like, can you, like, I would really love to hire female developers. Like, can you gimme female developers? And we were stuck at the time because we actually couldn't search our database by gender. Jonathan (23m 43s): We weren't even asking for that. We were just asking people for, 'Hey, if you're a react developer, do this coding challenge. Here are some questions. And our system gives you a score, like based on all the data that we see'. sfx (23m 56s): Crickets Jonathan (23m 56s): So we are, I would say there's a long way to go to build a more equitable fair system. And I think as an industry, we can do a lot better and we are so early on and even Turing can do a lot better. Like the, but we wanna take some baby steps towards the future and just make this a little bit more standardized, consistent and data driven. Joel (24m 17s): All right. All right. We may not get to the future if we don't pivot to something else here. You talk a lot about how developers want careers. You've said it in this interview and your website touts it. They want careers and not gigs. Do you have any data to back that up or is it mostly anecdotal? Jonathan (24m 35s): We have a ton of data to back that up. Like we do these town halls where we ask people what they want in a platform like Turing. If you look at it like a hierarchy of needs at the base of the pyramid, what people want is more money and greater financial stability. They don't want to be hunting for gigs constantly. A developer does not want to do marketing. And unfortunately on many marketplaces, that's kind of what they have to do. They have to keep working around. They would like some support there. Developers historically also don't love interviewing. So often many developers are stuck in jobs that they don't particularly like, because they just don't wanna go through the hassle of preparing for a couple of months, interviewing 10 places and joining. Jonathan (25m 20s): So they loved a system where you get vetted ones. And then there is a team that's working with you to help you get matched continuously so you don't have to worry about that. And one level above is they care about working on interesting products with the latest tech stacks. If you're a machine learning engineer, you wanna be working on TensorFlow, PieTorch, you wanna be solving computer vision problems, speech recognition problems, deep use building, deep learning systems, things like that. So they care about the interestingness of the work. That's one level up the pyramid. One more level off the pyramid is they wanna work with great people. And we are so fortunate in Silicon Valley, New York, places like that. We are surrounded by great tech companies working with great people, but you, if you were born in, you know, a small town, a hundred miles from Buenos Aires, Argentina, there might be two tech companies where you are. Jonathan (26m 12s): And they love that with platforms like Turing, they get to work with companies like Johnson & Johnson, Rivian, Coinbase, Opening AI, like all of these, Pepsi, these well-known companies. So they love that they're working with great people who again, help accelerate their career. And one more level up the pyramid is engineers love getting better at their craft. They want to keep getting better, keep improving. And they like that at platforms like Turing, we give them access to resources to help improve their soft skills, help improve their communication skills, help improve their interviewing skills, help improve how they talk about themselves in an interview, build a resume. Jonathan (26m 52s): We do mentorship like on how you can become from an IC, how can you become a tech lead? How can you become a tech lead manager? And these are all things that engineers at Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon used to have access to. We are just democratizing it and giving it to everyone in the world. Gotcha. Joel (27m 9s): Gotcha. So you mentioned Coinbase and on a weekly daily basis, we hear about tech companies like Coinbase, as well as Netflix, Carvana and a ton of others, that are laying off developers. How has that impacted your business? Jonathan (27m 23s): So the short answer is so far, we haven't seen a huge impact yet. However, we anticipate that there will be an impact over the next six months, 12 months, maybe more. I don't have a crystal ball. Nobody does. I think, I mean, from what I hear is, you know, you see companies everywhere, basically focusing their energy on fewer products, fewer projects that are more needle moving for the business. Companies are probably pausing, nice to have initiatives. And I think during times like this, like platforms like Turing will be even more important to help amazing developers find jobs, help people who are displaced find jobs and get back to work. Jonathan (28m 8s): Yeah. So the short answer is we haven't seen an impact yet. Although we do, there are some smaller companies that I, some smaller customers we have that have slowed down their hiring, but I haven't seen a big impact yet, but we expect to see some impact over the next six months. Chad (28m 25s): Well, Jonathan, I have to say that seeing what Turing's doing is literally the future of staffing and technology, as we know it. Finally! So thanks for coming on the show. We appreciate you coming to act to answer the hard questions. Now, if somebody wants to find out more about Turing, where would you send them? Jonathan (28m 47s): Please go to Turing.com. And if you're looking to hire front end, backend, mobile, AI, data science DevOps developers, push a button, bring engineers to your team? That will be Turing.com and you can follow Turing on Twitter at, @Turingcom. You can follow me on Twitter @JohnSidd -S I D D. Thank you, Joel. Thank you, Chad, for having me, both of you are clearly very, very knowledgeable about the industry and, you know, given your experience with job boards like Monster and others back in the day, no surprises then. And thank you for having me here and was great speaking with you. Joel (29m 23s): Has a CEO ever said, please go to Turing.com. Like, thank you. Oh man, I can't take anymore. Jonathan, Chad, another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (29m 32s): We out. We out. OUTRO (30m 30s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out

For as long as employee assessments have been around, they're still largely a mystery to most employers. Sort of like witchcraft or a pagan ritual from the Middle Ages, most companies enter the assessment game with a lot of confusion and fear. That's why we invited Plum's Caitlin MacGregor co-founder and CEO on the podcast to make sense of it all and relieve listeners from the pain assessment tests can sometimes bring. We're talkin' death of resumes, threats to employer branding and being stuck in World War II technology. Don't worry. It'll all make sense, and you'll feel a lot better if you're in the market for assessment solutions. Plus, Caitlin is Canadian, which means her commentary goes down as smoothly as a cold Moosehead or a warm serving of maple syrup. You're welcome, eh. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Cailtlin (0s): Myers-Briggs has never been backed up by academics. It's never been peer reviewed. Chad (5s): Tell me about it. I need an applause here. I need an applause. sfx (10s): sexy romantic soundtrack music Really. Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can. I can feel it all the way down to my plums. INTRO (21s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (42s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure also known as the Chad and cheese podcast on your cohost. Joel Cheeseman joined us, always the Garth to my Wayne Chad Sowash and today we are just really excited to welcome Caitlin MacGregor co-founder and CEO of Plum. Caitlin welcome to HRS most dangerous podcast. Cailtlin (1m 6s): Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. Joel (1m 8s): We're happy to have you! For those that don't know you, can we get a quick Twitter bio and then Chad, I'll get into the heavy company stuff. Cailtlin (1m 15s): So before starting Plum, I actually ran a company that helps students with learning disabilities, use technology to improve their lives. And I started using a tool like mine as my own customer, and then birthed Plum as the third company that I've started from scratch. First one, that I get to own myself and really excited that we've had some great success in the industry over the last five years. Joel (1m 40s): Can I give her an opportunity to tell everyone she's Canadian and she passes it up? She doesn't mention Canada once. Cailtlin (1m 45s): I'm Canadian. I'm a mom of two to, an 11 and six year old that are crazy full of energy, and a parent to a dog. Yeah, there's, there's more there too. Chad (1m 58s): 11 and six and yet you're starting up a company? Wow! Okay. So let's just jump right into that. Why start an assessment organization today when we already have so many, I mean, what's wrong with what we already have out there, Kaitlin? Cailtlin (2m 14s): I mean, how many people right now listening love assessments. That's the problem. There's so much wrong with how assessments have been used in HR. There's so much room for improvement. And we saw that firsthand. I had to pay a very, very expensive consultant to get access to this kind of data when I was running my ad tech company. And I couldn't understand, you know, students that are unique, that needs special accommodation, that needs to be understood for who they are, have IEPs and why in the working world don't we have that kind of information that helps us understand who a person is and how to support them and set them up for success and the reason for that is that consultants make lots of money by making it really the opposite of transparent. Cailtlin (2m 59s): Make it very difficult to understand, make it so that you have to pay them lots of money to be able to utilize the data. And they weren't really designed for the human, that they're about. They're not really designed for the individual to empower them to be successful. And so I saw an opportunity to democratize access to this highly predictive data, because it is a science, there's an entire field of industrial organizational psychologist, but they don't understand how to use technology properly to scale it and make it accessible and make it actually help inform the decisions and create the type of world that I think everybody in HR wants to create where the human is at the center of the work that we're doing. Chad (3m 36s): Yeah. So, okay. Help me understand because individuals with disabilities and it sounds like that was definitely one of the core reasons why you jumped started this, but individuals with disabilities in some cases are wired just differently. And that most assessments are incredibly abelist, racist, sexist, classist. I mean, how can a system be different? How can you universally design away from everything that we've had thus far that has been all of those things and even worse in some cases? Cailtlin (4m 5s): Yeah. Well, first of all, can we please get rid of, I'm going to, a lot of people are going to hate me for saying this, Myers-Briggs has never been backed up by academics. It's never been peer reviewed. Chad (4m 16s): Tell me about it. I need to know the applause here. I need to know applause. Keep going. I'm sorry. And Cailtlin (4m 25s): Then after Myers-Briggs came DiSC, you know, which was developed in World War II and I appreciate what I was trying to do at the time, but my goodness, you know, it's 2022, the research has come a long way and it is absolute shame to the entire IO psychology community that that's still being such widely used. There are so many models out there that have were designed 50 and 60 years ago and people have just latched onto them and not moved on. But if you go to, you know, the research that is really about trying to figure out how do you avoid that bias? How do you make sure that you're not discriminating against certain socioeconomic groups? There's a whole bunch of research, for example, that has shown that when you use language or math questions, it does discriminate against socioeconomic groups. Cailtlin (5m 11s): It does discriminate against what your first language is, and it tends to prefer English speaking candidates. So there's so much research that has shown what's wrong, but there's also tons of solutions that have come out of that. There's a whole bunch of recommendations. The bar has been risen much higher. And if you talk to, you know, the people that understand this research, they're often not the ones that understand how to connect it to the business world, to connect it in a way that is accessible for other people. There's this disconnect of people in the technology field that are like, Ooh, we want something sexy. They try to create the science and they cut a lot of corners or you get the people that understand the science and they don't understand the technology and so they never get beyond that consulting service. Cailtlin (5m 55s): And so we saw this opportunity be a bridge between both worlds. Let's take the best that technology has to offer in terms of creating that, you know, candidate and employee experience that we all strive to have, where they get benefit and value from the process and it can scale, but also let's keep the science intact. And so many companies cut corners on all sides, Because frankly, the customers aren't educated enough to necessarily know who to trust and so they're kind of taking advantage of who has the best marketing message rather than who has the best science and the best usability and scalability. Chad (6m 28s): That's what I want to talk about. The educating the customer. Now here's the biggest issue that I find is it, first and foremost, everybody makes this shit so complex so that you, they feel like they need somebody and they do to some extent, but they go from a Myers-Briggs to a big five to balloon popping. To me they all seem ridiculous because I believe that there's more than 16 variations of a human being, let's just say, but when we take a look at education, it's really hard for employers to educate themselves on everything that's happening today, because there's so much tech being thrown at them. How do they know what is just total smoke and mirrors and bullshit versus what's legit? Cailtlin (7m 11s): Yeah, that is a great question. And something that, you know, we've been really thinking about, how do we kind of put out a best practice so that it becomes kind of a buyer's guide for people to better understand. We years ago created an ebook around this, but it's due for a refresh cause there's been lots of developments in the last few years. I think there's a couple of key elements. First of all, it does help. If you're a larger organization, normally they have access to internal expertise. I like going up against them because we know that we're going to win those deals because the first thing they look at is our scientific technical manual that backs up all of this with data, with third party input, it's everything is very explainable. Cailtlin (7m 56s): We do a really great job of sharing everything that we did in terms of designing this the right way from the beginning. Chad (8m 2s): We've got a cocky Canadian on here. Joel (8m 4s): Of course. Is there any other time? Cailtlin (8m 8s): And so part of it is that, you know, there should be a scientific technical manual that makes it very clear why certain decisions were made and it should be consistently reinforcing why they were designed with that universal design principle, meaning it was not designed for the mainstream. It was designed to be as inclusive as possible from day one. And there should be elements to that. So for us, we make sure that, you know, we're using the gold standard for personality. We also make sure that you can't fake or game it. We also make sure that we also look at cognitive, but in a way that shows that there's no adverse impact. So we look at not what you've learned in the past, like language and math, but how well do you handle brand new abstract problems? Like if you experienced something brand new, how likely are you to get to the right answer? Cailtlin (8m 52s): And we look at things like social intelligence, which is like actually scientific where it's about how well do you solve people problems cause that's important to understand for where people have their overall strengths and how to play to them, but that's only half the equation is the person and understanding what drives them and drains them. The other half is understanding the requirements for the role and that's where I think the industry has messed up in the biggest way and has the biggest opportunity to really improve, is understanding the alignment between the person and the role. So that we're screening in more people, that's what there should be about. How do we surface those hidden gems? How do we surface those people that we may have overlooked because of that past experience, because of their access to education or access to how fast they progressed in their career, how can we screen people in and service them? Cailtlin (9m 39s): And it comes down to what do you need in the role? Joel (9m 41s): I'm going to take us back to World War II again, if I may? Cailtlin (9m 46s): No. Joel (9m 46s): Let's talk resumes for a second, every so often, let's call it every week, someone decries the death of the resume should resumes die and is Plum the company to do it? Cailtlin (9m 57s): We have this debate all the time. Joel (9m 59s): Who's we? Cailtlin (10m 0s): My executive team and I, sorry. When I think about my kids and when they're going to enter the workforce and I think about what I want for them. I don't care if they're going to become doctors, lawyers, or teachers or nurses, I just want them to be happy, fulfilled, and thrive in their career. And so when I think about that outcome, do I need a resume to help them figure out what roles are going to make them happy, fulfilled, and help them thrive in their career? I don't think it in that vision, that end goal that we need resumes to make that happen. However, what I have come to admit more recently is that the industry's not there yet. Cailtlin (10m 44s): The industry is not going to be able to give up resumes entirely. So it's almost like an addiction, we need to kind of go through a long-term withdrawal. And I think the first step of that journey is to move resumes much further back in the process. You know, you don't do reference checks on every single person that applies to your company. You do reference checks near the end. I think resumes need to play a role much, much further back because if you look at the science behind, you know, what resumes are able to predict and you look at people's innate transferrable abilities, you know, people are going and we see this all with the future of work. Cailtlin (11m 24s): If you can upskill, if you can train somebody, what's the likelihood for them to be able to succeed? That data, which is what Plum gets at, is four times more accurate than a resume. So I want this data early as possible, screening in those people that have that alignment to the role that if you enable them, they will be successful and then say, okay, well how much training am I going to have to do? Are they gonna be able to hit the ground running? Just like you look at salary, you know, am I going to be able to afford this person or geography, are they in the time zone that I need? Those questions come later, once you're paying attention to the right people, because then you might say, Hey, this person is an incredible match, but they're going to take longer to get up to speed, but I didn't have to pay a recruiter $20,000 to get them, so maybe I'm going to give that person some of those training dollars. Cailtlin (12m 10s): Maybe I can't access talent that can hit the ground running right away. So maybe those are compromises I'm okay with, but other roles you need somebody hitting the ground running tomorrow. Joel (12m 19s): And killing resumes always feels like a luxury that not every company can enjoy. So when I think about smaller companies SMBs, you know, getting rid of the resume, I find that really challenging to get my head around. But I also think at least my perception is that most small businesses don't use assessments. Am I correct? In that opinion? And if you were talking to an SMB on this podcast, what would you tell them to convince them to start leveraging assessments and they're hiring? Cailtlin (12m 46s): So we started as our own first customer and we were an SMB and we started the first few years with SMBs now with eliminating resumes. You're absolutely right. It's has a profound impact when you're an enterprise company. So Scotia Bank, for example, completely eliminated resumes for all their campus hires, early entry internships and instead you apply with your Plum profile. Joel (13m 8s): Wow. Cailtlin (13m 12s): What's incredible about that story is the impact of it. I'll get to the SMBs in a second. I promise. But I think that this, you know, if, if an enterprise can benefit from this, I think an SMB can as well, because they have less internal change management. They can, you know, they have more ability to control their process. But what happened with Scotia Bank is in the past when they would hire a co-op student, which is basically a paid internship or in their internship roles, they used to only hire people with a finance and business background. So you think an SMB can only hire people that have that expertise, well, Scotia bank was like, we're only going to hire finance and business backgrounds. And they were only hiring from about five or six of the top universities when they introduced Plum and eliminated resumes, they started hiring from 33 different colleges and universities and 40% of their hires were actually STEM and arts backgrounds. Cailtlin (13m 58s): And the result of that is that they increased their hiring of underrepresented minorities to 60%. They ended up hiring just over 50% women and they had double the retention as a result of all of this. So all of these incredible outcomes were just, you know, they weren't the goal, they were just the outcome of screening in people that they hadn't looked at before. So if I think about SMBs, this is a massive opportunity to screen in talent that the rest of the market isn't looking at! You know, I first hire when I was running a tech company with somebody that had seven years of waitressing experience, you know, didn't know how to use Excel. My second hire was a high school student who was only experience was cutting grass. Cailtlin (14m 39s): The next person had dropped out of college to join the carnival. And they were all incredible top performers that would never have got an interview if it hadn't been for the assessment saying that they had this incredible alignment. Chad (14m 50s): What did that person do in the carnival? Cailtlin (14m 52s): I do not know, but I can tell you. Chad (14m 55s): Oh come on. Cailtlin (14m 55s): I can tell you that it was a woman who had never been part of the tech scene and now to this day, she's in customer success in the tech industry! It was the on-ramp. We have over, we have almost 60% of women who work at Plum and the majority of them had never been part of a software as a service tech company before, but now I have to work really hard to make sure they don't get poached by bigger, huge companies in town like Shopify, because there are incredible talent that now show up on resumes as fitting the pattern. But they love working at Plum because we saw something in them and they want to build a company that can help find more people like them that would not get through the initial screen with a resume. Chad (15m 35s): Gotcha. Cailtlin (15m 35s): Yeah. Joel (15m 36s): I'm going to go with sword swallower, Chad, my guess. Chad (15m 39s): Yeah. And back away from the mic Cheeseman, I'm going to give you an argument here. So Scotia Bank totally love it, interns for the most part. Right and then intern to hire. College recruiting really to be quite Frank is not great. Kind of sucks in to say that they are doing better, doesn't surprise me. I think I can actually take, you know, probably a carnival out and actually do better recruiting than most big Fortune 50 companies do in colleges. So that doesn't surprise me. What I would love to see is the opportunity for guys like Joel and I who've been in an industry for 20 years to not have to use a stupid resume. Is that something that you can see happening in the next few years? Chad (16m 20s): That's the big question. Cailtlin (16m 22s): That is a great question. So with the vast majority of our customers, they're actually using us on all levels across the organization. So Intact Insurance, we've been a customer for almost five years and they use us across all roles across North America. It's not just entry level. And it's being given to everybody right out of the gate. Chad (16m 42s): They don't use resumes either. Cailtlin (16m 43s): They use resumes after. So that's the key thing here is that I don't think we're going to get rid of resumes in the near term entirely, but what's happening is that if you get a hundred people that apply for the job and they were to go based on experience and you know, you may be number 80 out of a hundred for a particular role and they may not even get to you. I mean, it's scary how few resumes actually thoroughly get read and sometimes you get halfway through the pile and sorry, I'm not even going to look at it. So you may have been number 80 in the pile, never even looked at or that's how they stack ranked you against everybody else. Whereas with Plum, if you have the right talents, like let's say needs somebody that's really good at persuasion and really good at executing, then you may have a 95 match for that role. Cailtlin (17m 32s): You're in the top 5% of the entire population. They're taking a look at you and then they're deciding, Hey, do we think there's a transferable nature to your past experience? My biggest thing is, are they worth a phone screen? And I would hope that if that was a role that you were going to excel in, you would get the phone screen with Plum. And if it's not, and you're a 30 match per se, the reality is with the case of Scotia and our other customers, you're not just matched to one role. You're matched all the roles in the organization. So you're able to maybe be a 30 for one role, but there'll be like, actually he's a 92 for this other role. Hey Chad, would you be interested in having a conversation about this other role because you're incredibly aligned to it and you might be like, I never even thought of that title. Cailtlin (18m 13s): Yeah. I'd be interested in having a chat. Joel (18m 15s): Let's talk about employment branding for second. Do assessments have an image problem and do companies risk hurting their brand when they use assessments? And I'm going to give you a couple examples. I went out to Reddit to a recruiting hell conversation. I'm going to read a couple quotes on assessments and what job seekers thought about them? First one is quote "these assessments feel mostly pointless. I have a feeling that with these assessments, they just steal ideas or just make me do work that they don't want to do themselves. On one, I had to simply log loads of details into an Excel spreadsheet. It made me feel used. And like I wasted my time." Another one said, quote, "Time is money. No one needs to do any of these assessments. Joel (18m 56s): If employers can't gauge your skill level by reading your CV and putting you through two interviews, they have no business hiring you in the first place." How should companies think about assessments and their employment brand and how job seekers think about their company? Cailtlin (19m 10s): I think it goes back to what we were talking about before. There's a lot of really bad assessments out there. And you know, we're talking about 50 years of assessments like Myers-Briggs and DISC being used and that's really polluted the waters. What I would say is if you go onto LinkedIn and you look up Plum top talents, you'll see by the hour people talking about how grateful they are, that they got the chance to complete a Plum assessment. They're thanking the employer for asking them to do it because we've done what the industry has been asking for. Literally there was research that just came out by Lighthouse Research and Advisory Group, where they talked about how 68% of diverse candidates actually prefer an assessment or a video interview over a resume because of the dynamic nature and the single greatest thing that people want is results back. Cailtlin (19m 56s): They want to have value from the data. Even if you don't get the job, they should be able to use it, to help them with their career. So from a employer branding perspective, this is a gift. Every single person that applies you are now enabling them with a language to better articulate what makes them exceptional. And they're posting those top talents on LinkedIn and thanking employers and saying they have better insights as a result. I think in this day and age, the thing that has shifted with COVID is that finally, we understand that we need to understand the humans behind the work and individuals don't necessarily understand what makes them exceptional against the millions of other people they're competing with. And so Plum gives them insight into what makes them exceptional and where they would thrive in their career. Chad (20m 41s): Okay. So let's talk about the wonderful world of auditing and the EEOC and OFCCP. So HireVue thought they could just go ahead and slip by because they put on an explainability statement that points the finger directly at their clients, trying to absolve any blame from themselves. So what are your thoughts about this? Is this a client's problem? This is they're using your tech, it's on them, or is this truly a shared responsibility? Cailtlin (21m 9s): I love that Matt sharer earlier this month when he was on your podcast, talked about what really needs to happen is there's more accountability from the vendor and I couldn't agree more. This is really about the vendor and the company having a true partnership. Bias is not just at one step bias can be in the assessment, but it can also be in how the assessment gets used and the only way to really, you know, eliminate as much bias as possible is to have a partnership where both have control of the flow and the data, And it's only when you put these two together. Data that the assessment has data that the company has, that you can really address bias correctly. And it's really not about just the hot potato. Cailtlin (21m 52s): You can't pass the buck. You know, there's a real responsibility. Like I said, from how we design the assessment from the ground up following absolute best in class to mitigate as much bias as possible to use this, to screen people in. But then also working with the customer to make sure, Hey, why would you use a resume first when Plum's data is four times more accurate? At what point is it appropriate to bring in hard skills, past experience? At what point is it appropriate to bring in other information, we really work with our customers as a partnership. And we really why we put so much work also into, you know, the new audit bias. The bar is really low right now because it is a new requirement and we're taking every opportunity to go above and beyond and try to say, even if the bar was higher, how would we go our farthest to ensure that we are showing that we have removed as much bias as possible, and that this is a benefit to the hiring selection process? Cailtlin (22m 48s): Really we'd like to see the entire selection process, go through an audit because there's a lot of things that companies do wrong, like lack of structured interviews, you know, lack of relevant job related questions and we think there's a real opportunity to work with customers to improve that process. And we're doing our part and going above and beyond wherever we can. Chad (23m 9s): We're going to have to get you to a safe house right after this because after vendors hear you say that, they're going to say, holy shit, we're not ready for this. So, since you listened to the Matt share interview, which, you know, I thought it was definitely awesome. He actually pointed out that the validation reports that most organizations, most vendors are actually putting out are only 2% better than picking names out of a hat. The question is, why should I spend so much money on 2% better or are you saying validation in your system process is so much better than just 2%? Cailtlin (23m 47s): Yeah. This is four times greater at predicting on the job success than a resume. 2% is not something that you should be spending your money on. You can do so much better than that. And that's why it's important to have third parties be able to back up your claims. And that's what we're doing is not only just having one person do it, a bias audit for us, we're actually going to three independent people, three different experts in industrial organizational psychology and statistics. And we're looking at making sure that similar to how you validate science in general, you don't just take the claim of the company. You make sure that other experts in the field can back up, that it's designed the right way, that the results are accurate and that you are getting that increase in improvement that is being claimed. Cailtlin (24m 30s): And so we're really excited. We're actually going through that process right now and hope to have that publicly published by September. Joel (24m 36s): All right, Caitlin, here comes the hard ball. You ready? Cailtlin (24m 40s): Yep! Chad (24m 40s): Uh oh. Joel (24m 40s): Better Canadian entertainer Bieber or Bublé? Cailtlin (24m 45s): Oh that's tough. Chad (24m 47s): How is that tough? Cailtlin (24m 48s): I would go for Bublé, but I'm sure a lot would not agree with me just in terms of, Bieber's got a lot of supporters that grow in the younger generations. But, I mean, they're both great. Can I go with Ryan Reynolds? Chad (25m 3s): Yes, of course. Joel (25m 4s): All right. Everybody Caitlin McGregor. She's a little confused about Canadian entertainers, but she knows her assessments. Caitlin if someone listening wants to know more about you and your company and assessments, where would you send them? Cailtlin (25m 19s): plum.io? And you can actually take the Plum assessment right off of our website as well. Plum.io/ds for discovery survey. And you can see what your top talents are as well. Chad (25m 33s): Nice! Joel (25m 33s): Love it. Chad another one in the can! Chad & Cheese (25m 35s): We out OUTRO (26m 28s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

What three tech trends do you see holding the limelight this decade? Chad & Cheese recently joined the podcast Tech Talks to discuss the hottest topics in recruitment. Time to get enlightened on what is set to trail (and fail) in tech today! Spoiler alert: Automation is here to stay, and more than that, more than 50% of jobs could be replaced by automation by 2030! Check out the hot takes on what the boys think employers need to keep an eye on, AND what you may need to drop! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (29s): Welcome to another episode of the Chad and Cheese HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad basking in the Algarve" Sowash and on this week's podcast, Joel and I are taking time away and enjoying Europe. No, we're not together. Why does everybody always think we're together? Anyways? We'll talk about that next week. In the meantime, we did record an episode on the Tech Talks podcast led by Nash Squared's David Savage and Melanie Hayes. You'll love it. It's a predictions podcast on HR tech Wins & Fails. Enjoy. David (1m 2s): So joining us today, we've got the host of the Chad and Cheese podcast for any of our listeners who don't know who Chad and Cheese are before I go on to introduce Matt as well. Cause I don't want to leave you out, but Joel, what is Chad and Cheese? Joel (1m 17s): Chad and Cheese is a regularly published a podcast covering news in recruitment, startups, thought leader interviews, et cetera. We publish roughly three shows per week. So we, you know, we're pretty regular. David (1m 35s): That's busy. Joel (1m 36s): And we've been doing this for five years. That's the Chad and Cheese show. To learn more, go to Chadcheese.com. David (1m 41s): How did you guys get started? Cause three shows a week is, that's a hell of a commitment. Yeah, Chad (1m 46s): It is a hell of a commitment. We started off with a commitment of one show a week for a year, and that was Joel's commitment. We want to make sure that we actually had good cadence, right? You have to have a routine, especially if you have a podcast. So that's where we started. I think we had like two sponsorships slots. Those filled up in no time. We created a third one. You can only put so many ads in a podcast. So we started to branch out and companies and brands started coming to us and saying, Hey, look, here's some of our ideas on content that we're not hearing in the HR, TA and, and tech space. Would you guys be interested? And some we said, yeah, we'd definitely be interested in some, we pushed away because it was boring. Chad (2m 29s): So, I mean, that's really the story. It was, we started to be able to, I was at Randstad for a few years building systems and talent pipelines for the veteran community. Joel was a heads down as an entrepreneur and building a startup and we needed to get our voices back out there into the space. And this for me was, it was one of the better ways to do it other than just being on stage. Being on stage is great too. Yeah. Joel (2m 59s): It's mostly also excuse to drink. sfx (3m 1s): Hell Yeah! David (3m 2s): Whilst recording? Joel (3m 3s): Sometimes. Yeah, for sure. We have whiskey giveaways. We have beer giveaways. Like yeah. Well it's five o'clock somewhere. Right? Chad (3m 11s): That's what Bloody Marys and mimosas are for. Are you kidding me? Melanie (3m 15s): Ah, yeah, the drink of a Sunday morning. David (3m 19s): It's not alcoholic. I'm afraid. So it's all for show. And also joining us also joining us is Joel (3m 26s): What's the point? Chad (3m 27s): Just drink water. Joel (3m 28s): No, I know it's your show and you, I know you asked the questions, but explain to me non-alcoholic alcohol and the appeal of it. David (3m 35s): I can't drink alcohol for various boring medical reasons. And I really like, Joel (3m 39s): Okay. Enough said, all right. David (3m 40s): There you go. Chad (3m 40s): There you go. Joel (3m 41s): Got it. David (3m 42s): But also, it's nice. It's nice. Like you get to a point in the day where you've had so much coffee and it's a meeting and quite frankly, the alternative is lemonade and or Coca-Cola. And that's just not fun at all. Bloating and gassy and beer, much better. Chad (3m 56s): That's Joe's world right there. Bloating and gas. Joel (4m 1s): And not just because of alcohol, by the way. Taco Bell. David (4m 4s): I should also say if I was drinking alcohol right now at four o'clock in the afternoon while I was working with my Chief People Officer also on the interview, I don't think that would go down well. Joel (4m 13s): That's why you work for yourself, Dave. That's why you work for yourself. David (4m 17s): Wow. You're there. Right? I was at two shows a week. I'm not one show a week because two is a commitment that was beginning to be a bit of Joel (4m 24s): We're off track. It's your show. Go for go. David (4m 27s): This is fine. This is fine. The audience is used to it being a little bit random. Mel Chief People Officer, a lot of experience in HR. You're you're on the Nash Squared side to provide some credibility because I don't really know what I'm talking about. Melanie (4m 40s): Well, I'm hoping I can have some value then day. David (4m 44s): I think so. Joel (4m 45s): Do your listeners know Melanie? David (4m 46s): So no, my listeners don't know Mel. Joel (4m 48s): So she is going to do an intro to now. Right? David (4m 50s): Well, I think to say that she's our Chief People Officer, they are familiar with our company and our brand. Joel (4m 56s): Ok, alright. Chad (4m 56s): So welcome to the podcast Mel. Melanie (4m 58s): Thank you. First time on actually. I've been asking to come on this for two years. They just ignored me. Finally got my slot. Chad (5m 6s): No, you have to deal with us two idiots. I'm sorry. I apologize. David (5m 10s): I think, I think that's entirely fictitious. We met briefly at Unleash America and I kind of want to return to that a little bit. You guys, I had the pleasure of closing the stage on the first day of the conference and I'm stealing one of the questions that Unleash me because Unleash grabbed me at the end of the conference and they said, look, we want to know about three technologies that you think will fail. And three technologies that you think will all flourish. So I wanted to ask you the same thing, because it'd be interesting, not just based on the conference, obviously, but from some of the stuff that you heard at Vegas. Chad (5m 41s): Sure. David (5m 41s): About kind of three trends that you do think are going to kind of catch on and see three that you think are hot air. Joel (5m 47s): Do we have to stay in the recruiting lane? David (5m 50s): HR tech, HR tech, recruitment, people culture. Joel (5m 54s): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fail or succeed first? David (5m 57s): You take a, which, whichever one you feel most, most strongly about first. Joel (6m 0s): All right. Success. I would say the trend that is for sure. Can't miss is automation. sfx (6m 9s): Shall we play a game? Joel (6m 10s): The solution of we're going to replace people with the mundane tasks like scheduling interviews are going to be automated will be plus 50% by the end of the decade that people will embrace automation for mundane tasks and recruiting, which by the way, will cost a lot of recruiters, their job. That's my number one automation. David (6m 28s): Mel, I imagine you have an opinion on that. Melanie (6m 31s): No, I think automate, automate, right? But at the moment, the number of companies that hiring recruiting roles is immense. I don't think I've ever seen it. I mean, I started in TA probably about 15 years ago, maybe longer actually probably longer. And there weren't many in house recruiters and now that's the job that you're seeing everywhere. So there's bound to be an impact, especially with the, if you look at the economic landscape and the potential of a recession in many countries, why wouldn't you automate? Which is definitely going to affect recruiting roles and actually recruiters are not always great admin. So let's remove that. I can say that because I've done the job. Chad (7m 8s): Well and they don't want to do it because it sucks. I mean, let's just be boldly honest here. I think Joel is right with regard to automation. I think he's incredibly wrong with regard to costing recruiters, their jobs, maybe sourcers, but we're talking about automation, taking tasks, not jobs for the most part. So you know anything that is easy. It's just, administrivia, it's routine. We've seen automation take those positions in every other industry in the world and we just haven't been able to automate them. Because again, HR slow, TA slow to adopt. I do see automation making a recruiter's life much easier again, from a sourcer standpoint, if you're just a pure play sourcer, you're probably in trouble. Chad (7m 49s): But from a recruiter standpoint, if you're halfway decent, I don't think you're going to have a problem. David (7m 54s): I' swear we've been having this conversation for like six years. What kind of time scale are we talking about? Yeah, for Joel's prediction. Because when I started this podcast, I think we were saying things like automation are going to come and take recruiters jobs away. Chad (8m 5s): That's Joel's I don't think it's going to happen. Joel (8m 7s): There are no wrong predictions. They just haven't come through yet. Chad (8m 12s): Yeah. Which means he doesn't want to answer your question. Okay. Joel (8m 14s): All right. Smarty pants. You give us one. It's easy to be the critic you give us one. Chad (8m 18s): If you would shut the hell up and let me actually talk. Okay. So first and foremost, I think one of the things that's going to fail dramatically is DEI tech. Anything that is diversity, equity, inclusion tech, and it's going to be challenged by new regulations and also outcomes. And when the first company gets knicked for anything, quote unquote diversity, you're going to see vendors change their tune. Especially if the regulations in California drop, which could hold vendors responsible right now there's not responsible, right? The employer is responsible. The vendors can say whatever the hell they want, they can smoke and mirrors left and right. Chad (9m 0s): DEI, if they're going to actually promote it and market it and say, they're the easy button. As soon as they're held responsible to it, they're going to run from. Melanie (9m 8s): I've always found the whole kind of automation and talking about inclusion to be an interesting topic, right? Because there are a number of organizations that haven't at a no human touch point. They've done that tech stack. So it's all kind of online, no human interaction. It doesn't that actually hinder people who might have disabilities. How do they get past that? Chad (9m 29s): Yeah. I mean, we actually had a discussion with Matt Stubbs who is blind and he can't actually apply for like 30% of the roles that he finds because they aren't compliant with his screen reader. So yeah, I mean, there are issues, even with many of these organizations who say that they quote unquote "embrace DEI, disability, veterans". So yeah, this is still a problem. And again, as companies say that they are quote unquote "DEI tech" and they're proven not to be it's going to be a huge, huge issue, especially if some of these regulations start popping. David (10m 10s): It's interesting. Right? So we've got success, automation failure, DE&I tech. Joel, give us another failure then. Joel (10m 22s): Failure? Virtual reality. Chad (10m 24s): That's your favorite. Joel (10m 25s): Lotta of hype. Yeah. I sarcastically love it. Look, there's been talk about, you know, put on this headset, walk through the office, see where, your cubicle is, have a chat with your boss through VR. On job training, put on this headset and you can like learn the job. There was talk about zoom will be replaced with the metaverse, which is another fail, probably, but less so than VR. No, like there's no, there's going to be no boardroom meeting where everyone's wearing an Oculus and like talking to each other. This is way more normal for most people. I don't see the headsets taking over corporate America or the business world. Joel (11m 7s): So VR is going to be a big fail in terms of the workforce workplace. David (11m 12s): I think Metaverse with a capital M will fail. I think metaverse with a small m will ultimately succeed. Joel (11m 17s): I'm too old. Metaverse might take off, man. I don't know kids, kids are crazy, but I don't think metaverse in the workforce or I mean, VR in the workforce is going to is going to happen. David (11m 28s): We've had some, we've had some pretty successful early stage admittedly, but promising successful kind of companies. Verti on the podcast, who kind of, you know, the brain of surgeons who want to try and recreate highly pressurized circumstances for training of medics and so on or paramedics at the side of the road, you know, those style immersive environments, true. Maybe sitting around a boardroom, maybe not, but those style training environments, that seems to be some legs there. Joel (11m 56s): And people still read newspapers. Yes. Like it's okay. It'll catch on with some small group that has money and wants to be cool and whatever, like, okay. Doctors and people who love porn will embrace Oculus. David (12m 9s): You said, you know, we still feel that this is more natural, but this is the first iteration of this, you know, Joel (12m 17s): We've been doing this shit for. David (12m 18s): You're in Indiana and Mel's in Tennessee and it's great, but it's, you know, we're only a couple of years out of the pandemic of trying to get used to this. Surely the technology is gonna work. Joel (12m 24s): Would you rather have this talk at a virtual table where we all have like headsets and I'm a robot and Chad is a squirrel. And like, would you really rather have that? David (12m 39s): Minus the robots and squirrel? Yes. Joel (12m 42s): All right. All right. Dave's bullish on VR. I want to hear what Melanie and Chad think about VR in the workplace. It's commercial time. Chad (12m 51s): It's Showtime. Yeah, I think you're right. I think VR in the workplace, again, you've got to remember HR and talent acquisition they are slow to adopt. For VR to be adopted in other areas, I agree Dave, with regard to training scenarios, medical, being able to actually use AR for schematics for mechanics and those types of things. I think all of those are great applications. I just think it's going to take maybe a handful of big organizations to implement and take the risk for this to happen in HR and TA. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Melanie (13m 29s): I agree. I mean, I have an Oculus, I use it to play golf and tennis and Beat Saber. David (13m 36s): Beat Saber is an excellent game. Melanie (13m 37s): Yeah. I've tried to zombie game. Didn't like it. David (13m 40s): Let's get a positive from Chad. I'll leave that. Chad (13m 43s): Yes. I would just leave that right there. So education platforms, you take a look at companies like Guild and Metaverse (Multiverse) who are, you know, quad unicorns, you know, double quad unicorns. One of the things that at least here in the United States, and I think we can see this all over the world is that we have this quote unquote "skills gap" problem, and companies aren't they're not bridging the gap themselves. They're sitting around and they're whining because they don't have the talent that is perfectly tuned, attuned to the roles and positions that they have available. So instead of creating their own platforms, go figure companies like Guild, Multiverse, and there are some others that are out there are creating these platforms to help bridge that gap for organizations. Chad (14m 30s): So it's more of a quote, unquote "educational easy button" to get workers from entry-level to maybe mid-level versus just sitting around and hoping that it happens. So I think educational platforms, and also from an internal mobility standpoint, where you're trying to skill up individuals currently in your organization, that's huge for retention, which we really suck at to be quite Frank in HR and TA. David (14m 53s): I think I can get on board with that. So that leaves us with one left in each category on this little section, Joel, back to you. So you can choose if you want to go positive or negative here, Joel (15m 3s): I went negative. So I'm going to go positive this time. Chad (15m 7s): Yes! Joel (15m 7s): Well maybe it's a little bit of both. Okay. The robots are coming. People, the robots are coming. In 10 years getting your food from robot, getting your food cooked by a robot, getting a basic sort of healthcare check by a robot is going to seem normal. sfx (15m 23s): Shall we play a game? Joel (15m 24s): They've been testing it for years. They're starting to ramp this shit up now. Hiring cooks is a bitch. Keeping these people service industry folks is a bitch. Warehouse workers, recruiting retention. We gotta pay them more than we ever have. We have to deal with unions now with certain companies like employers are just going to say, fuck people as much as we can. Let's bring in the robots. You will see more and more robots. So I guess that's a pro for the robot and on a bearish on like just people doing these jobs are going to have to figure something else out. So, Chad (15m 59s): So Joel is beating that automation drum heavy. And I don't disagree, especially for all these positions that just suck. Whether they're, as we talked about earlier, with regard to automation, taking away the routine, the administrative types of tasks out of the job, same thing for somebody working at like a Burger King or something like that, where they're not going to have to flip burgers anymore because now we have Misos Flippy and they can do, they can do more of the customer service and those types of positions. So I can't disagree at all with that one. David (16m 30s): Well, I'd be interested. You think this, I dunno, know whether I'm terribly British. I kind of feel like this might be a divide across the pond in attitudes towards this, or have I just don't see it happening here. Melanie (16m 43s): Robots. Joel (16m 44s): Why? David (16m 44s): Wow. Well, when, when we talk about robots in restaurants, I just don't see. I don't see it as it doesn't seem, I don't know. I dont. Melanie (16m 55s): We're not Europeans anymore. David (16m 55s): I don't know. That's different debate. I dunno. I feel like, there seems to be a bit more of a groundswell for this kind of stuff in the states around restaurants and service industry and whatever else, or maybe even the Far East and maybe in Europe. Joel (17m 7s): I mean, it's going to be a lot easier based on like Americans, if we're good at anything, it's firing people. European countries, it's a lot harder to fire people. People are paid better. So maybe the retention is better. Maybe there's a cultural that plays into replacing people with robots. Chad (17m 23s): They can't even hire people right now. So I think from a turnover standpoint, yeah. Joel (17m 28s): I mean, they can't keep people, they can't hire people like bring in the bots baby. Melanie (17m 33s): We've got, so David was thinking about this, right? So where we've got global leaders meeting in Nashville this week, and one of our leaders from the UK came and his suitcase hasn't arrived and somebody sent him a photograph. Nope. They can't hire people in the airports. I think 25% of the flights in the US have been canceled because of the same problem. And there's just a whole load of suitcases. There was a picture with a whole load of suitcases. Just if you can automate it, if you can build robots, that's what's going to happen. Right. There's a problem. The pandemic has driven it. That is sped it up, right? Chad (18m 5s): Yes. Yeah. Agreed, agreed. A hundred percent, especially with regard to all of these positions that have been labeled essential because they really are cause they're a part of the, the supply chain and these individuals haven't been treated essential. Right? They haven't been paid for shit. They've got shitty jobs. And yet now they're being seen now they see that they are essential to really the supply chain, just America or the globe working. And they're like, okay. So if I'm essential, I need paid more or I'm out. And there's going to be a way. And Joel and I talked about this on the show all the time, Jeff Bezos cannot wait. He cannot wait until he can fully automate every single warehouse and he doesn't have to put up with another human. Joel (18m 50s): And deliveries. He would love to have people out of the equation of Amazon. Chad (18m 54s): Yesterday. David (18m 55s): That's have a great, great gap. Then we've got automation, education robots on the plus point we've got D and I, tech will fail. VR is not in the favorable column either. Chad it leaves you with one more technical fail. Chad (19m 11s): Yep. I think a pure play chatbots are done. sfx (19m 14s): Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Chad (19m 15s): You know, we see the AllyOs, Mayas, Azores. I mean, anybody who hasn't actually started to move toward a bigger type of a system, right? A recording, a system of record type of system. Like we know Talkpush on the APAC and European side and then obviously Paradox, they have taken that chat bot to conversational AI then to much larger platforms, high volume and they're not just quote unquote "chatbots" anymore. So I see the pure play chatbots either within the next 18 months, getting acquired on the clearance sale shelf or dying. David (19m 56s): So interesting. Cause I loath them and yet it's impossible to get through to anyone real on the phone. And there would be somewhere where properly good automation could make a big difference. Chad (20m 6s): Yes. David (20m 7s): But they're useless. The ones that you actually find you're talking to don't seem to have any intelligence behind them whatsoever. Joel (20m 13s): Those are decision trees is what he's talking about basically. David (20m 20s): Useless. Joel (20m 22s): It's commercial time. Chad (20m 23s): It's Show time. David (20m 24s): So look fine. We've gone through those three. Three that will succeed and three that will fail. I've got one more question. And I'd love to know what Mel will say about this as well being a Chief People Officer. But one of my favorite things that came out of Unleash in Vegas was a chat. It was a talk, sorry, that was given by PayPal. And they used the Spiderman quote "with great power comes great responsibility". And they talked about the fact that data could be a blessing or a curse for employees, and it was very much earring on the idea that data could really be a bit of a curse for employees. And that just because he can do something doesn't mean that you should do something. How do you guys all feel about that? Cause cause data is obviously something that we all Lord and employee experience is something that we are all trying to improve. David (21m 7s): Data would seem to be at the heart of that, but it can't go too far. Right. I mean, it, it could begin to creep into all sorts of infringements of employee rights. Joel (21m 16s): You know, I'm old enough to remember a day when people thought emails were private, right. A company email address was private, which some people still do and people are still getting in trouble for like, you know, CEO's sending emails to interns about whatever. So, you know, and now there are programs that will track slack conversations and try to indicate whether you're, someone's going to quit their job, whether you're depressed or happy in your work. I think that people have unfortunately, okay with their company, knowing everything about them and what they're doing on the job. However, I think a lot of people don't like it. Joel (21m 56s): And I think that does help drive people to Upwork and Fiverr and the gig economy and Uber driver and Door Dash delivery. Like I don't, a lot of people don't want to be under a microscope and live in 1984 when they go to work and knowing that they are on camera and everything that they do is taped and everywhere they go is monitored. I mean, we've talked to companies that like put shit in your eye, you know, your Apple watch to know your heart rate and when you're stressed and what's like, where it's going to next level shit. And I don't know if people, a lot of people won't be comfortable with it, which I think is going to drive a lot of the gig economy and people like being independent contractors because I don't want that kind of monitoring in my life. Joel (22m 39s): And I know a lot of other people don't. Chad (22m 42s): Yeah. And anything that is employee monitoring bad, stop it now. Let's just get that off the table. Right. That's just, that's just bad. There's no reason for it. If they're not hitting the outcomes, then that's the reason why you either put them on a plan or you fire them. Not because they weren't at their desk at the time that, you know, you thought they should be at their desk, but there are some good points of data. But unfortunately we, especially in TA and HR are all creatures of habit. And in general companies will continue fighting to suppress data around transparency, right? Until they are forced to be more transparent, that's going to have to happen again through regulation. Chad (23m 23s): But when that happens, HR and TA groups will then be forced to dig into that data, identify the good, bad, and ugly, and then make adjustments accordingly. Unfortunately, I believe it's going to be a curse until HR and TA pros are forced to understand that it's probably the greatest weapon in helping them actually hire and retain people better. We have to understand everything that we have in stop looking at everything first as a risk and start looking at how we can actually utilize the data to make our environment, to be able to make our hiring and our retention better. Joel (23m 59s): Like what's accelerating a lot of this is like the pandemic. So the work from home movement companies are freaking out about, oh my God, people are at home, not working. We have to monitor them more than ever before. So, I mean, it's just, it's being exacerbated. Company's desire to track everything that you do because work from home is more of a reality than ever before. Melanie (24m 19s): Yeah. Don't you think though, that actually most organizations have had a lot of data for a long time and they don't know how to use it. Right. So, or they pick the wrong data points. So I remember working in one business where one of the data points was the number of applications and you could have a thousand applications and only one person be actually suitable for the role because they haven't read the job description right. That's the data point. That doesn't mean anything right. For me. Chad (24m 42s): Right. I agree. A hundred percent. I think one of the things that we do incredibly wrong in TA and HR is we don't think like business people, right? So we come up with stats like cost per hire. Does the, C-suite give a damn about what the costs per hire are? No, but how does that actually affect the bottom line? If we can start to create narratives and start to dig deeper into data that we do have that's actually relevant and means something to the C suite. Then we've got something. Right. Then we've got something. The problem is that won't happen until we are forced. Unfortunately we're dumb humans until we're actually forced down that path. Chad (25m 25s): And unfortunately to me, I only see like the DEI types of bias and regulation popping in to force transparency, especially around wages, workforce trends, composition, those types of things to force HR, TA in companies to make better decisions. Joel (25m 42s): Boom. There you go. David (25m 44s): Thank you both for your time. It's been interesting to chew over a few areas around HR tech. So I appreciate you giving up some time reasonably early in the morning. Right? So thank you. So all three of you, if anyone we'll just recap, if anyone does want to find out more and listen to Chad and Cheese, it's on Spotify. It's on Apple. It's Chad (26m 4s): It's everywhere. Joel (26m 8s): Chadcheese.com, baby Chadcheese.com David (26m 8s): Oh sending people to a website. All right. Okay. Chad (26m 11s): So nineties. Joel (26m 11s): I'm old, man. I told you. David (26m 13s): But thank you very much for your time and fingers crossed. We might bump into you at another conference Chad (26m 22s): Amen. Joel (26m 22s): Word. We out. OUTRO (27m 12s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Bullhorn Develops Taste for European Startups After stints in places like Scotland, Portugal and Finland, the boys are finally back behind and microphone and ready to drop some European recruiting knowledge. That means a deep dive into the state of, and some disagreement on, young workers on the continent (spoiler alert: big differences between the north and south), then dissecting the recent acquisition by Bullhorn, gobbling up A.I. recruiting solution SourceBreaker. Plus, a little Buy-or-Sell with Veremark, Distributed and Screenloop (which recently got angel investing from an Indeed cofounder). PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (15s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (36s): Oh yeah. Record breaking heat continues to scorch Europe following a recent visit from Chad and Cheese coincidence? I think not. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "the heat is on" Cheeseman. Chad (55s): This is Chad "youth of the nation" Sowash. Lieven (59s): And I'm Lieven "just back from Scotland so pleasantly unprepared" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (1m 4s): And on this episode, the kids are not all right, there's a Bullhorn in the China shop and a little buy or sell everybody. Let's do this. sfx (1m 14s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 16s): Been a while kids. Chad (1m 18s): It has, we've all been jumping and hopping around around Europe. Lieven, you just got back from Scotland. So are you wearing a kilt right now? What what's going on? Lieven (1m 28s): No, no. I have to leave it at the border. Joel (1m 31s): Did they look under it first Lieven (1m 34s): Inspected the lederhosen. Joel (1m 37s): Lederhosen. Yeah. Yeah. I've been in Finland. Lieven's been in Scotland and Chad of course has been in his posh Portuguese mansion that he visits from time to time. But we're all back for the podcast after a couple of weeks of hiatus. Although we did record. Chad (1m 53s): We did. Joel (1m 53s): Yes. Good to hear everybody's doing well and everybody's fine as we head into the final stretches of summer. I guess we should do shout outs. Chad (2m 3s): Shout outs baby. Lieven (2m 4s): No, I don't do shout outs today. As I said, I'm pleasantly unprepared. We all know Joel (2m 8s): Now see that's some bullshit. Cause in the green room, you're like, my shout out is Lieven (2m 13s): No, it's not. I said, I'm not going to do shout out and you said, yeah, you can do shout out about Scotland. I said, I'm not, I've been to Scotland. It's not a shout out. Joel (2m 20s): But then you had this great line of like whiskey to Scotland to no internet to something. Lieven (2m 26s): Well, it's true. We all know they don't have internet, so I'm not prepared. I'm sorry. No, no difficult questions today. I'll just be saying yes and no. Joel (2m 35s): Scotland is a third world country now, according to Lieven. Lieven (2m 39s): No, no, no, no, no. I love the sheep and I loved the whiskey and the people and the fact they don't have internet. Chad (2m 45s): Just don't love the sheep too much. Joel (2m 48s): Lieven's in the Highlands with a kilt, like a shepherding cows or something. Lieven (2m 54s): Yeah. They told me they had like 5 million Scottish people. They had 25 million. How do you it a call it kegs of whiskey? Chad (3m 3s): Barrels? Lieven (3m 3s): Is it a keg or a barrel? And I've never known what the difference was between whatever. And I don't know how many billions sheep, but I've seen most of them I guess? Joel (3m 16s): There's a couple of bad jokes in there, but I'm going to refrain from. Chad (3m 19s): It was like I said, don't like the sheep too much. So my shout out goes to Portugal after that one because they have amazing internet and it just blows my fucking mind, how I can pay 40 euros a month and get fiber, which is twice the speed that I get here in the US for about a quarter of the price. It's fucking crazy. So big shout out to Europe, at least Portugal. Joel (3m 44s): Fortunately. It's nice. All right. I got a pretty cryptic. Shout out. Imagine that for me, shout out to the Moscow Chess Federation, the robots aren't messing around boys. Forget about flipping burgers and serving chicken wings. This time the robots are going after our children. Last week during the Moscow open, which apparently is a serious chess tournament, in case you didn't know, I certainly didn't a chess playing robot got medieval on a seven year old kid. The video shared on social media shows the robot taking one of the boys chess pieces. Then the boy makes his own move and the robot grabs his finger breaking it before adults can help and free the boy. Joel (4m 28s): The kid was able to finish the final days of the tournament. Chad (4m 33s): Holy Shit! Joel (4m 33s): In a cast. But the message is clear. Be afraid, be very afraid and bow down to your robot overlords or else the kids are going to get it. Shout out to the Moscow Chess Federation. Chad (4m 46s): Oh, that's a big difference between Kasparov getting beat by deep blue. I mean the, Joel (4m 52s): The next headline is a chess playing robots invade Ukraine. That's the next headline that I'm waiting for. That's on that. Chad (4m 60s): Yeah. That's how they propagandize it. It's just chess playing robots. No worries. Joel (5m 5s): A new tournament in Ukraine. Chad (5m 8s): Yeah, no worries. Bullshit. Joel (5m 10s): And we're traveling, kind of, soon. Chad (5m 12s): We are, we are. We're taking a minute. We're going to relax. We actually have HR tech before we've got before. Joel (5m 21s): This is nothing right? August is nothing. Chad (5m 23s): August is nothing. We've got an HR tech and September we go to Unleash World, which I'm really fucking excited about in October the 12th and 13th. Kids, if you haven't registered for Unleash World yet, and you are in Europe, what are you waiting for? Exactly. Joel (5m 44s): And we got to get Lieven over to the states. We gotta get him to, to Vegas for HR Tech or a Fire Inspiring Vegas. We gotta get you over here Lieven. Lieven (5m 55s): I've never been in Vegas actually. So no, never. Chad (5m 58s): What? Yeah. Well what about you? You've never been to Nashville either. Nashville's another party city. Lieven (6m 5s): Nashville. Yeah. Okay. Nashville. Why not? Chad (6m 7s): Why not? That's right. So yeah. hr.com. Check it out. Inspires happening. It's a Nashville should be awesome. I hear that there's going to be a pub crawl. I don't know Chad Cheese might be involved. Joel (6m 18s): We're gonna rock Nash-Vegas baby we're going to rock Nash-Vegas Broadway better be on red alert. Chad (6m 23s): Come over and join us. You can go to Nashville and then you can go to Vegas right after. Lieven (6m 31s): Do they have sheep? Joel (6m 32s): They could probably arrange that in Vegas. They could probably figure that out. Chad (6m 38s): Is there anything that you want in Vegas? I'm just going to leave it at that. Joel (6m 44s): The right to say no. You could have a whole farm. Lieven (6m 51s): Much more... Joel (6m 51s): Okay. In your suite, oh, holy shit. Chad (6m 53s): TOPICS! Joel (6m 53s): This is going off the rail fast. All right, guys, it's tough to be young in Europe. Don't let the cafes and the pubs for you. A recent report by the European commission said young people were among the most negatively affected by job losses during the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic. It also shows that the recovery is slower for them aside from every other age group. Possible explanations are linked to their high share of fixed term contracts and difficulties in finding a first job after leaving school. And before you say, let them join the gig economy. Joel (7m 33s): Well, not so fast, popular delivery service Deliveroo competitor to Uber Eats and others just slashed its full year revenue guidance as consumers trim their spending a middle worsening cost of living crisis. And don't even get me started on inflation in Europe! Lieven I suspect you may have a pretty good handle on the state of employment when it comes to European youth. Are things really as bad as the news is reporting. Lieven (8m 1s): Well, I tend to disagree with the news. I mean, I've been looking into some numbers and because I read the article and I was also a bit concerned. So it's always a problem youth unemployment, but it isn't that bad actually. I mean, there are into European Union there is youth unemployment around, if I'm right, 13%, which isn't worse than it was 10 years ago. So it's a bit less good than, let's say before the COVID crisis, but it's not that bad. It's almost normal. I mean, in Spain you have an unemployment rate of 13% on average for all people. And the rest of Europe, unemployment is historically low, even youth unemployment. Lieven (8m 44s): And true, they have some bigger problems with getting a new job because, or with losing their jobs caused by COVID because they have most of the times they have temporary jobs, temporary contracts, which are easily to cancel. So they are the first to lose their job. But they're also the first to be rehired. I mean, their salaries are an average, much lower than those from senior people. So they won't have that many problems. And we, if I look at the numbers from our companies, we don't have any significant changes. So, I don't see a big problem. I think it's really temporary and it's probably getting better already. Chad (9m 22s): So comparing, you know, Delivery, which I think has a failing business model, I think is, is exactly what we're seeing there. We see the Uber's, the UberEats the Deliveroos, you know, how much money have they actually been making? How long have they been in the black? I think that's the big issue when we take a look at Deliveroo and, and you really can't compare that to the rest of the gig economy. I mean, coding, I mean, there's just so much, that's going to be happening in gig for this new generation. And I agree with Lieven a hundred percent. I mean, they are the most flexible workforce with regard to being able to jump from job to job. Not to mention also from an employer standpoint, they're easy to fire because they're new, but they're also easy to bring back on because they're cheap. Lieven (10m 6s): True. Joel (10m 6s): I think this is the tip of the iceberg and you guys, aren't looking under the water so much. Think the European heat wave suck? Just wait until winter comes and you get your heating bill compliments of Vladimir Putin. What's more Europeans are working less and not by choice. A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled "Europeans are working less and not by choice" says quote "for some Europeans, especially in the wealthier north swapping work for leisure time is a choice for others, notably the south" and Lieven you mentioned Spain. "It isn't so much a choice. People either can't find full-time jobs or have stayed with weakened companies that trimmed their hours during the pandemic to save on wages across Europe, more than one third of part-time work is involuntary". Joel (10m 54s): According to a December report by the OECD. More than half of part-time workers in Italy, Spain and Greece, and nearly one-third in France want to work longer hours, but can't again, that's according to data from the European union statistics agency. Younger Europeans, like you said, are likely the first to get punched in the mouth, but this economy is setting its sights on everyone. And I don't see the youth bouncing back. I think we need to look at the future and sort of predict how things are going to be with the war, energy crisis, inflation, et cetera. Chad (11m 30s): Yeah. Lieven more, more on that from you. I mean, because you guys are feeling it much more than we are here across the pond. We are seeing inflation, but it's nothing compared to what you guys are seeing. Lieven (11m 40s): I'm not sure how big the inflation is in the US. In Belgium it's about 9%. And I think the same in UK, the surrounding countries as well, but I thought in United States as was a bit of a problem as well now? Chad (11m 53s): Yeah. Not just not that high. I think we're around seven per cent? Lieven (11m 59s): Yeah. Well, I don't think inflation is going to stay back problem. The national banks under the central banks will do their job. So it's temporary. The problem will be indeed the gas prices, the energy prices. Those are a problem because it's not something you can correct with a banking solution. It's not like we're going to augment the number of interest rates. So this will stay a problem as long as the conflict in Russia stays and it will have an impact on the families. I mean, my electricity bill has gone from 300 euros a month to 1,300, just ridiculous. sfx (12m 48s): What did you just say? Chad (12m 49s): Wow! Lieven (12m 49s): So, I mean, we also have probably left every computer on and that's not like we, but, but still it's, it was a problem. And then I urgently started looking for new suppliers and I found one, which is better, but it's still enormously expensive. So, I mean, for us, it means we can save as much as we used to. But for many people it will mean we can't save anything adult, if we can save. I mean, they, they are going to have to cut down on expenses and this could have an impact on the total economy, because like Joel said, what was it? Lieven (13m 29s): Deliveroo? Deliveroo is getting into trouble because people are ordering less products from Deliveroo. And this is normal. I mean, the people using Deliveroo probably are young people who actually feel this much more than senior profiles do. And this could have a chain reaction. It's a bit of disconcerning, this, you know, how do you say it's Joel (13m 50s): Disconcerting? Lieven (13m 50s): Yeah. Something like that. Chad (13m 51s): Isn't that what isn't that what's supposed to happen when inflation goes up, less people are spending so therefore you're looking for an equilibrium? Are we saying that we're not going to see an equilibrium, not to mention, you know, Europe has much better public transportation than the US does. Do you see this actually pushing people to stop driving their cars every day and actually just start using public transportation? Lieven (14m 17s): I think traffic jams are a much bigger push towards public transportation than the prices for gasoline. Distances in Belgium are short, I think most people have a commute less than one hour. It's a problem maybe for some people, but the biggest problem will be electricity and gas. If it's a call cold winter you have to warm your house, you have to run your water. This will be a problem. And if there are actually shortages, then will have a big problem. But Germany who was really anxious about it is getting more relaxed now. Their reserves are getting bigger. Families won't have any problems. The economy will have to look sometimes for solution, but they'll find it. So I think it's going to be okay. Lieven (15m 1s): And in the end, I'm sure we will be quicker, reshaping everything towards the more sustainable way of using energy. So in the end it will be better, but it will take five years before everything turns out like it was. Joel (15m 12s): Just five years, just five years. Lieven (15m 14s): Only five years. Joel (15m 15s): I love it that Lieven is shopping around his energy bill, he's calling Moscow Lighting & Power to see what kind of deals he can get. Or he's got Vladimir Putin on speed dial one of the two. Chad (15m 24s): Yeah. Yeah. If you're in the US you probably would only have one provider so you wouldn't have an option. We love monopolies in the US. Lieven (15m 32s): Is that true? And Belgium is so small we have like seven or so seven big ones. Joel (15m 38s): Clearly the key is continuing to keep the borders open so Americans can keep coming to Europe that they haven't been able to in two years and spend some money. That's what Europe needs baby, that's what Europe needs and speaking of spending some money, let's take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll do a little buy or sell when we come back. sfx (15m 55s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (15m 58s): When was the last time we played buy or sell? It's been a while. Chad (16m 0s): It's been a minute. It's been a minute. Joel (16m 2s): I'm a little salty. I'm a little salty. This is going to get ugly. All right. Let's explain how this works. We've got three companies, all of which have raised some funds recently as a startup and we read a summary and everyone on the call here either buys or sells the business. Are you ready, boys? Chad (16m 22s): Bring it. Joel (16m 23s): All right. Let's talk about Screenloop. The UK based startup has raised a $7 million seed round, which included Indeed co-founder and angel investor, Paul Forster. The company, which helps companies source interview and onboard new hires says that we'll use the use the money to continue its expansion into the US and new markets. Founded in 2021 Screenloop, says it already has received feedback from over 100,000 candidates globally and analyzed over 1 million minutes of interviews. Guys buy or sell Screenloop. Lieven (17m 1s): I'm just in a selling mood because of the economy, I'm going to sell. Chad (17m 6s): Okay. So this feels like an interview coaching system, am I wrong here? No. I mean, the real-time feedback is great, but if I'm vying for a position and in the interview stage, am I really going to tell you that the interview sucked? I mean, even if they say it's anonymous candidates are not going to risk it. So when I think about candidates dropping out of the hiring process, which is their main focus here, and I understand that, I think automation too is to ensure that candidates aren't falling into the black hole. Now, when I think interviewing platforms, I think automation to ensure quick responses, unbiased experience, which all needs to happen through again, automation from a scaling standpoint because humans don't scale well, to me, this is a sell. Joel (17m 56s): Oh, we got a sell. All right. Okay. Let's get to the good news about Screenloop. First, the all-in-one hiring platform is hot, and I think the trend is warranted. The bad news. Well, there's lots of competition. As a standalone, I think this is a total sell. And if you're looking at it as an acquisition target, then maybe it's a buy, however, money isn't free anymore. Valuations are getting cut in half in the public markets and layoffs litter the headlines, which tells me timing really kind of sucks for Screenloop, which means, yeah, it's a sell for me. Joel (18m 39s): I do. However, think it's a better bet from Paul Forrester than his previous investment in Otta, which I think is a total dog. But that's aside from the point of Screenloop, all get better at this investment thing. Lieven your thoughts? Lieven (18m 53s): I'm going to hold them just for a few weeks. I'm not going to sell immediately because we are testing a company like Screenloop right now and I'm going to check out how it works out and how easy they are to copy. And I'll let you know, next episode. Joel (19m 8s): Oh, we don't, we don't have a hold sound bite. Let's just go with that. All right. Let's get to, Lieven (19m 17s): I mean, yeah, you can buy, you can sell, you can hold. No? Joel (19m 20s): That's not the game Lieven. Chad (19m 22s): It's called buy or sell, it's not buy or sell or hold. Joel (19m 24s): Lieven always retains the right to hold a company. Lieven (19m 26s): That's supposed to be we already have them and I don't want to sell them yet. Joel (19m 32s): This business as in potential interest in all of these companies. All right. Let's get to company number two, Distributed. The startup has raised 8 million pounds in a series B bringing its total to around 13 million pounds. The platform matches software developers who want the flexibility of working freelance with larger enterprises, seeking teams of engineers to work on specific projects. Founded in 2017, the company says new funding will help the internationalizing, yes, that's a word from their press release and developing new products and communities. The war for tech talent is real, but is Distributed a buy or sell. Chad (20m 11s): All right. Okay. So right out of the gate, Distributed CEO, Callum Adamson, he doesn't have any background in the talent industry. Although his Simpson's profile pic on LinkedIn did score him some points in my book. The biggest problem I'm seeing here is the word international. What does that even mean? Because if it means coming to the US it's a very bad move, and here's why. The Distributed concept works nicely in Europe because of universal healthcare. We've mentioned several times throughout the last few years that Europe is catching up and will pass the US in work tech because they have a system that allows entrepreneurs to start up while not worrying about healthcare for themselves or their families. Chad (20m 58s): From a marketing and messaging standpoint, I need to understand exactly what international means and in Callum's brain, you know, the CEO driving the company, they need to be able to be less than nebulous about this, which is somewhat surprising knowing that Adam Morehead is in charge of their messaging. Guy has a good background in messaging, branding, and community. So I would say that Distributed and Callum should also be looking for industry experts to join their ranks. And until all of those pieces of the puzzle are put together, this has gotta be a sell. I like it a lot. The problem is there are some gaps. Joel (21m 40s): Oh, well, see my previous comments on Screenloop. I mean, how many of these services do we need? Turing, Andela, HackerRank, TopTall, et cetera. It all feels like swapping spit for tech talent at this point. I liked the domain distributed.com. Love it. But this party is at capacity. Distributed for me is a big sell. Lieven (22m 8s): Yeah, I was going to say, I totally agree with Chad on this. Does intelligent remark? Chad (22m 18s): We'll go with it. Joel (22m 19s): Okay. All right. Veremark, the London-based company has raised 7.1 million pounds and a series a, this brings total funding to 9.2 million pounds or for in the US $12.3 million USD. Founded in 2018 the company provides preemployment screening services. Veremark says they will use the funds to further expand their company and vision. Its clients include the HR teams at UK Fintech's Wise and company Comply Advantage as well as global corporates, PepsiCo and BCG. Okay. Guys buy or sell Veremark. Lieven (22m 54s): And my case sell, just from a moral point of view, I've got a problem with these kind of companies. I mean, it's like hiring a private investigation company to check out your future employees. We don't do it. I mean, I've been in this business for 20 years and I've been in several companies. I've never known one of my HR colleagues hiring a company to check out people they might want to hire. This could be important if you work for a, let's say, some kind of a very secret service for the government, but it's not for normal companies. I mean, my colleagues, they take the phone and they call the candidates. Do you mind if we will check your story with your former employer? Lieven (23m 35s): And if they say no, then they give the former employer a call and they say, how did you experience that guy? And that's it. And I mean, we might do a reference check. We check the CV and if everything is okay, that's okay. But I think it's the job, our recruiters do. I don't see why we would hire an external company to go to all those details. Is that something in the United States, which is common? Chad (24m 1s): So well, this is something that's been around forever. Yeah. Lieven (24m 5s): Yeah. Talking about external companies doing background checks? Joel (24m 6s): Oh yeah. Yes. Chad (24m 7s): Oh yeah. It's, it's a huge, huge business in the US. Joel (24m 10s): Multi-billion dollar business. Lieven (24m 11s): It's weird. I might be wrong, but I've and people, please let me know if I'm wrong. But in Europe in the countries who were active in, I've never, ever encountered a company doing this for the companies I work with. Joel (24m 27s): Well, that's a sell from Lieven. Chad, what say you? Chad (24m 30s): Well, I got to say CEO, Daniel Callahan, he's a founder of TalMix, where he's been, you know, there for 13 plus years. And he's also the full-time CEO of Veremark. So it's like, you know, it's this duality thing, which one are you going to pick? Which ones you're going to spend your time with. Daniel has deep and amazing experience in this space. But the total addressable market, basically background checks over the entire world is way too big for a small startup with less than $10 million in funding. Background checks are getting easier, but as Cheeseman will tell you, it's still a pain in the ass just as it is here in the US alone. Chad (25m 13s): So Daniel, my friend, pick a company to focus on and then pick a region of the world of focus on. And until you gain that necessary focus and discipline my friend, sorry, buddy. Gotta be a sell for me. Joel (25m 29s): Rumor has it. He has a poster of Jack Dorsey and his office just out there. All right, Veremark stop me if you've heard this one before Chad, too much competition. Does the world really need another background check company. Yeah. Like it needs another ATS or another LinkedIn killer. Right? Veremark gives me a hat trick. This week three sells. Buy or sell is now over. Let's get to some Bullhorn news, shall we? Boston-based Bullhorn has acquired London-based SourceBreaker. Terms of the deal are undisclosed. Chad (26m 10s): Sourcebreaker. Joel (26m 10s): SourceBreaker provides an AI driven search and match platform. The acquisition will expand Bullhorn's portfolio of solutions for talent engagement across the entire candidate life cycle, from sourcing to engagement, onboarding and redeployment. Founded in 2014, SourceBreaker employs 82 people and was already a partner in the Bullhorn marketplace, which serves hundreds of Bullhorn customers. Bullhorns buy, big deal, no deal or little deal? Chad (26m 44s): So a marketplace partner, you saw that, huh? That's awesome. Apparently the 5k to join wasn't too much of an obstacle for these. So two questions. Number one. Why did this take so long? I mean, this type of tech should be all over staffing and RPO companies, and it should be their first priority. They've spent billions of dollars in attracting candidates into a database that is just withering and dying day by day. So tech like this could save staffing companies, RPO millions of dollars in recruitment advertising yearly. So number two, why didn't they buy more of a mature platform? Chad (27m 24s): So SourceBreaker has been around since 2014 and they haven't received any funding. And why haven't we heard of them? Sounds like an acqui-hire to me, it just doesn't seem like an all-in kind of move from Bullhorn. So this should be the highest priority for a company like Bullhorn, because once again, they want to make their staffing companies, clients incredibly happy. Nonetheless, I see this move for SourceBreaker, much like CandidateID's move to iCIMS. If you want to achieve next level penetration in the market, you must tightly partner or get acquired by a much bigger ecosystem partner. Chad (28m 4s): So it's great for source code or just not sure what this really does for Bullhorn. I guess we'll see. Joel (28m 13s): Chad just said next level penetration everybody. Just wanted to point that out. Chad (28m 17s): That's my tag. Joel (28m 18s): Lieven you got a hot take on the Bullhorn buy of SourceBreaker? Lieven (28m 21s): Not really, I don't know, SourceBreaker and as Chad said, there are so many companies doing something similar and I'm sure if you pick the right one, you're doing great. They claimed to have their clients have an over 100% increase in relevant candidates. A one to two our safe pro recruiter per day. If that's true, that's amazing. I mean, then we can go to the three day workweek and skip the four day, but it's just, I don't believe it. I'm sorry. Joel (28m 51s): Yeah. So marketplaces continue to be really nice incubators for a company's acquisition targets. Like Amazon gets an unfair advantage knowing what sells and what doesn't sell on its platform, which it can then create competing services, so it is with the recruitment platform and Bullhorn seems to get it. Yes Chad in spite of that $5,000 entry fee. Remember back in January, Bullhorn acquired Able the Cleveland based provider of onboarding automation software for staffing firms. I still think Bullhorn's marketplace should be more welcoming, sorry, from an entry fee perspective, but things seem to be working out pretty well for them. I agree with Chad that they are dabbling in the Aquihires, sort of cool little feature services that are in their marketplace. Joel (29m 37s): I'd like to see them take bigger swings, but for the most part, I think this is probably a good buy based on the marketplace data that they have. And we've seen this over and over. If you have a marketplace, you can make some pretty good buying decisions of what companies work and don't work because they already work in your marketplace. Chad (30m 1s): Well, it's interesting too, that, I mean, we've seen, iCIMS acquire opening.io. We saw we've seen Jobvite acquire, it was more of an acquihire, but the same kind of matching type of company, but we haven't heard of any of those platforms, those products, in a big way, because this should be a very large lift for any organization being able to provide more value to all of their clients. We're talking about Jobvite and iCIMS some pretty big platforms, but we haven't heard any of these specific kind of like updates on what they're doing with this tech. That to me would be incredibly interesting, but we, but those are two big names we haven't heard anything from. Joel (30m 46s): Yeah. And the good news Chad is the clearance rack is filling up because as we hear about public companies like Pinterest and Snapchat and Roku and blah, blah, blah. These companies are on sale on a public level, imagine what they're doing on the private level. I think all these unicorns that we're talking about getting tens and hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be on sale over the next 12 to 18 months. So, you know, you may start seeing a lot more of these platforms buying up these companies because the money is funny and the credit doesn't get it any more. Chad (31m 17s): Lieven are you guys on the watch? I would assume at this point, because this is perfect for House of HR to go, go on a buying spree. Joel (31m 34s): Dry powder. Lieven (31m 35s): Yes. Chad (31m 36s): Go on. Lieven (31m 36s): More on this to come. No, it's of course it's a perfect opportunity right now because people who are anxious to sell are probably willing to sell for less. Chad (31m 47s): Yeah. Lieven (31m 48s): And there's so many, still so much money in the markets, but we will never rush and buy something we don't actually believe in, but it's true, the moment is perfect. Joel (32m 4s): And the moment to end this podcast is perfect, boys. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (32m 7s): We out 5 (32m 52s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

After a 2-week hiatus, the boys are back from Recfest and some R &R in Europe and ready to rip shit up. In their crosshairs? CareerBuilder, Remote.com, SHRM, SmartRecruiters, and even Burger King all feel the burn. Plus, a conspiracy theory from Chad, a 20-year Army veteran, on the state of military recruitment you don't want to miss. It'll be like they never left. You're welcome! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. Just two guys. Still figuring out which Spice Girls they want to impregnate. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "Posh" Cheeseman. Chad (36s): This is Chad "back in the New York groove" Sowash. Joel (40s): And on this week show TMP or, I mean, Radancy has a new roommate CareerBuilder gets caught stripping and layoffs? Chad (52s): Lay offs. Joel (52s): Let's do this. Chad (57s): Oh yeah. Joel (58s): Aw. Did you miss us everybody? Chad (1m 0s): Two weeks away, baby. Two weeks away, Joel (1m 3s): Three weeks away in beautiful Europe man. Are you still there? Are you back? I'm so confused. Chad (1m 9s): Oh no. I'm back. It took us forever to get back because of this bag, fucking baggage luggage situation in Heathrow, we actually were stalled on the tarmac for like two hours while they were loading. Joel (1m 23s): Was it melting? Was the tarmac melting? Chad (1m 25s): It was Luton. That was Luton. But we got, we got to JFK. We could make our connection. So sunny side of this bad boy, we actually got New York style pizza, which is my favorite pizza in the world. Had to stay the night, but got back yesterday Joel (1m 41s): And you slept for what? 20 hours? And you're ready to podcast apparently. Chad (1m 46s): I am ready. I hope I remember how to do this shit. Yeah. Joel (1m 49s): Yeah. So I, I took a different route from you after RecFest. I went to Liverpool for a day and a half or so and saw Beatle shit. It's a very, it's a very underrated, hidden gem of the UK, Liverpool. I highly recommend it. Chad (2m 4s): Never heard that. Joel (2m 5s): And then, yeah, I'd never heard that. And then flew off to a beautiful Scandinavia ~ Helsinki to meet up with my wife who's doing a conference she's actually still there some days in Helsinki, which there's no other whiter place that I've been. I mean, it is a white, rice skin, not light skin, rice skin country. We went up to Chad (2m 28s): Translucent. Joel (2m 29s): Yeah. They're almost invisible. No one lives there. It's so it's so white. We went up to Ulu about two hour train ride north. Chad (2m 36s): Excuse you? Joel (2m 37s): And then this is all my wife. She wanted to go to the north like Arctic Circle. So we literally drove, rented a car, went up to the Arctic Circle where it, the line crosses. And there's literally a line there that says, Hey, you are now entering the Arctic Circle and no surprise to anyone. There's a Santa's village on the Arctic Circle where even in July, Santa is there with kids on his lap, getting wishes and you can buy really cheap gifts and ornaments and have really bad food. If you want. It's sort of a Disney on crack with Santa Claus at the Arctic Circle. Joel (3m 17s): It's a different world. And then we came back to Helsinki and actually enjoyed some civilization and the Scandinavian hospitality. And I've been back for about a week, but I enjoyed our trip. And I know you did too, just from the pictures and I know who you hung out with and it's good to get away from the mic for awhile. But I think we're both ready to do some show Chad (3m 41s): That's right. Yeah. You go to the north pole and I go to the Southern coast of Portugal. I mean, go fucking figure. Joel (3m 48s): Yeah. You married who you did. And I am married who I did and that's just the way it goes sometimes kids. Chad (3m 54s): It is what it is. So, but yeah, before we jump into too much, from a Recfest standpoint, I've got to do pre Recfest stuff. First and foremost, Gem and Rob from Talent Nexus. They treated to Julie and I to a night on the town. Oh my God. So many different drinks. It was ridiculous. Then we hit the Pandologic shindig. And when I say we, it was Julia and I, because you had a total rookie move, you missed it entirely. Joel (4m 28s): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you, so yeah, my rookie move, you sort of bounced out of RecFest early. Yes. Because, because you party too hard cowboy, that's the rookie move. So I got to party with the EDM crowd at the end of the show and got to hang out with CandidateID Stephen until the wee hours of the night, if you will. Chad (4m 51s): Love it. Joel (4m 52s): In a Scottish accent. But yeah, granted, you got some benefits of coming early and doing that thing, but I got a little bit of advantage with enjoying more of the show, but yeah, I appreciate the rookie comment. Chad (5m 3s): We'll talk about my move here in a minute, but yeah, let's talk about RecFest. I mean, bigger, better, amazing Ferris wheel. I was incredibly surprised cause 2019 was our first time. Did it not seem bigger? Joel (5m 16s): There was a Ferris wheel for God's sakes. Yes. It felt bigger as the Brits say it was legend, man. It was "legend," legend. Chad (5m 25s): And you were shattered after it was over. Joel (5m 28s): Keep in mind, dude, we were not insulated, but we were there early. We were sort of in our realm of conference where we introduced an emceed. So we got to hear second hand the lines, you know, the traffic, the masses of people that came. We only got to see them once we, sorta got relieved of our duty, but I don't think you and I have as much appreciation for how big this thing was because we were emceeing and sort of glued to the stage with our presentation. Chad (6m 3s): Everybody wanted to get to RecFest. It's funny Shelley, from Recruitment Flex, she hired a fucking photographer. That was next level shit. I got it. That's a big applause for Shelley. I got to see the pictures. Joel (6m 14s): Yeah. And by the way, I was seeing like drone photos. There was some pictures of overhead shot of all the cars. So Jamie spared, no expense with a, with the media at this content. It was great. The videos from it are just now starting to pop, so good stuff. Chad (6m 30s): Yeah. The Australians brought us whiskey. So Craig and Lauren from TApod brought us whiskey. It was, it wasn't amazing because it was Australian, but it was whiskey and it was good enough that it didn't even last an hour. So thanks guys. Appreciate the whiskey. Joel (6m 45s): And those are apparently aged with a kangaroo and scorpion venom or something. So it had a unique taste that Australian whiskey did. Chad (6m 57s): Yes. Yes. They were treating their fellow podcasters like royalty, I guess the Australian way. But Lois, her green room was money. I'm just mad I didn't get a chance to get a massage. That's that was one of the things I've got to do next year. Joel (7m 15s): Massage? Chad (7m 16s): Massage. No, they had massages there. I just didn't make time. I was doing other shit I should have next year I'm making time. Joel (7m 24s): Were you a little jealous that the Australians had hats for their podcast? Just a little bit? Chad (7m 32s): No, not at all. I was not. Joel (7m 33s): I'm not lugging those things around the country. Chad (7m 37s): Nothing beats our t-shirts baby, nothing beats our t-shirts. Joel (7m 39s): Although nice trucker hat with Chad and Cheese might not be the worst thing in the world. You know, Chad, the thing with me about going to events again is just how much it's about the people. And we're going to mention a bunch of people and we already have very few of the engagement or conversations with these folks had anything to do with recruiting. And, I find that that is really sort of the secret sauce of what we do is that we're people that care about people. And as cliche as that is, that's how it should be. If I'm talking to Matt Alder, it's not about even the podcast or the industry, it's about like what scotch we're going to drink next. Joel (8m 20s): Or if it's Steven McGrath, it's, you know, the fact that the dude has a metal plate in his face and he takes punches from Adam Gordon's kid at the conference, or my favorite moment was with Matt Charney. Those who know both Matt and I know that we are really big Oasis fans. Chad (8m 40s): Weird. Joel (8m 41s): While Oasis broke up about 13 years ago. So the chance to see them together is almost none, however, a cover band called Noasis, which you'll only see in the UK played cover songs from roughly the first two albums of the band. Charney and I were in absolute mosh pit heaven. And he even tweeted about, I've never been so happy in a long time as I am with Joel Cheeseman, watching no Oasis cover bands. So although RecFest is about the industry and getting together, it's really about the people and the fact that we can go, you know, across the Atlantic and make connections on a global scale. It's just really, really humbling and really, really cool and a great benefit of having this dumb podcast that we do. Chad (9m 24s): Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. We got a chance to meet Stubbs, which was awesome. Joel (9m 28s): On stage. Chad (9m 29s): He got a chance to come on stage with us. We did, as you mentioned, got a chance to meet Rudy, which is Adam Gordon's little man who actually did some sound work for us back in the day. Joel (9m 43s): If we had a poster. He might put our poster on his wall. That's how much this kid loves the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (9m 49s): We might need a poster. We might need a poster. Joel (9m 54s): I like the stepbrothers thing poster. And he loves to say "we out" Chad (9m 59s): Yeah. Oh God. So got a chance to meet Louise. I can't believe we've actually been working with her for this long and haven't met her face to face? Met her, but it was just amazing, man. There were so many people, Jamie, Lois, Charlotte, the rest of the staff, they treated us like royalty. It was amazing. One thing that I was surprised about, and I'm going to throw this out there for our friends from iCIMS. I can't believe that iCIMS was there and they were out done by Smart Recruiters? Smart Recruiters had their own stage. Smart Recruiters, I mean, they'd like literally really killed the marketing where iCIMS literally didn't. And I thought, and I had no clue on how this is going to get set up, but I thought that iCIMS would come and they would come to RecFest hard. Chad (10m 49s): Yes. I said it come hard to RecFest, but they didn't. So I here's the challenge to Susan and the marketing team don't allow that shit to happen again. Don't be fucking trumped by another organization who is less than half your size. That just blew my fucking mind. I couldn't believe that. sfx (11m 12s): Maw the meatloaf! FUCK! Chad (11m 13s): And a teaser though, a teaser, you saw the mullet RecFest. You saw that, right? Joel (11m 17s): Yeah, I did. I did. Chad (11m 19s): Somebody said that the RecFest is like light, like a mullets, you know, a business in the front party in the back. So Jamie actually had that created in a cartoon, but it was in like stars and stripes, all that other fun stuff. And this is the tease kid! RecFest is coming to the US. I can see it. It's happening 2023. Get ready for it. Joel (11m 42s): This is just you pontificating. This is not like announced news. Chad (11m 46s): This is not announced, but I'm teasing this. I know it's going to happen. Joel (11m 49s): He's got to come. Chad (11m 50s): It's going to come to the US in 2023. Joel (11m 53s): And the US needs a recruiting circus to come to town from Britain. Chad (11m 57s): It's a carnival. It's fucking awesome! Joel (11m 59s): Yes. Now the question is, what city would you have it in? Chad (12m 3s): That's a good question, because there are plenty of opportunities, right? Where could we hold a carnival? A recruiting festival/carnival? That's a good question. You know, there, I think it depends on the time of year. If it's this time of year. Holy fuck. I mean, there were going to be a handful of places that aren't going to melt. Joel (12m 22s): Yeah. Maine. Chad (12m 22s): People that are coming right. Yeah. Time of the year is, I think, a big factor. Joel (12m 27s): Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Chad (12m 29s): All I can say is I have no fucking clue, but I know that shit's happening. Yeah. Joel (12m 33s): Yeah. There's gotta be room like outside Atlanta or something. That's a big enough airport. Chad (12m 37s): And what I love about it is and the European shows are really kicking ass. We were at Unleash, you know, that was, that was in Vegas and that in itself is 180 degrees, different than RecFest. They are entirely different with regard to the types of audiences that they're trying to pull in. Attendees that they're trying to pull in. They're two entirely different animals. It feels like Europe has this shit figured out and the US is still stuck in the 1950s with conferences. Joel (13m 7s): It's crazy, right? Yeah. It's nuts. It's nuts. Come on America. Come on America. You're embarrassing us. You're embarrassing us. By the way, Chad, I got to say the side note when we were in Oulu, which is not a mainstream city in Finland, I'm sitting on like one of the strips of where people walk, you know, Europe, right? People are walking around, they're doing the scooter thing. America still has a presence. Chad, I go look on this street. There's a Burger King. There's a McDonald's. Chad (13m 39s): Yeah. Joel (13m 39s): There's a Subway. Chad (13m 40s): Sad. Joel (13m 40s): And there's a Taco Bell, baby. Chad (13m 43s): There's sad. Joel (13m 44s): Oulu, Finland Chad (13m 44s): Fucking sad. Joel (13m 45s): Speaking of Burger King, I have a non RecFest inspired shout out. Chad (13m 48s): Okay. Let's hear it. Joel (13m 49s): All right. So in Europe, so this shout out is to Kevin Ford. Burger King employee, Kevin Ford never missed a day's work in the 27 years he spent as a cook at the Las Vegas location. Chad (14m 2s): Wow. Joel (14m 2s): How do you think burger King thanked Mr. Ford for his 27 years of service? Gold watch maybe? Chad (14m 11s): Huge Shindig. No big shindig! Especially in Vegas. You're talking Vegas, baby. You take over, you know, like a conference or some shit like, yes! Joel (14m 17s): This is Burger King we're talking about. So slow your roll a little bit. Chad (14m 20s): All right. You mean the second largest, fast food chain in the world? Is that where you're talking? Joel (14m 24s): That's what I'm talking about. Maybe if you worked it in and out. All right. Burger King gave him a backpack, a movie ticket, a Starbucks cup. Chad (14m 36s): Oh my God. Joel (14m 37s): Here's the kicker Chad. Candy. sfx (14m 40s): What did you say? Chad (14m 42s): What the fuck?? Joel (14m 42s): A way to thank a 27 year old vet at your company. Great resignation. Be damned. We're not going to celebrate our old timers. Now this does have a happy ending, Chad. Chad (14m 52s): Okay. Thank God. Joel (14m 53s): After a clip of this, Mr. Ford accepting his gifts went viral. His daughter set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for travel, to see his grandkids. Apparently the comments on the video, weren't real nice to Burger King and Mr. Ford getting screwed over. Chad (15m 15s): Imagine that? Joel (15m 15s): To their surprise, they've received over $350,000 in donations, including a $5,000 donation from actor David Spade. Yeah. A lot of people are in college for seven years. They're called doctors. Ford still has no plans to retire or take a day off for a vacation. No word on a rapper Rob Bass changing his mind on the Whopper, but BK, Burger King, not so good, man. Not so good. Not a shout out for you. Not a shout out for you. Shout out for Kevin Ford for 27 years of cooking burgers at the home of the Whopper. Chad (15m 46s): Damn birthdays Joel (15m 47s): Birthdays also free shit. Everybody. I know we're, we're deep into shout outs, but go to go to chadcheese.com, click free whiskey by by Textkernel, shirts and beer. We have new sponsors. I think we talk about beer, right? Aspen Technology is our new beer sponsor and our new shirt sponsor. Can we talk about that yet? Let's do it. JobGet new sponsors, new merch, head out to Chadcheese.com and yes, let's go to birthdays, everybody. Okay. We got a few because we miss some weeks celebrating another year around the sun. Jason Morris, my former boss and my first SEO customer back in 2005 and big happy birthday to Jason Morris. Joel (16m 33s): Jeff Hunter. You remember Jeff Hunter Chad? From EA. Chad (16m 36s): Oh Joel (16m 37s): Yeah. He had the UnConference back in '07. '08. Yeah. What happened? What happened at conferences? Chad (16m 43s): Blast from the past. Joel (16m 47s): Oh, another blast from the past. Do you remember Christian Anderson? Chad he's the former Jobster PR guy. So he got And now back to some more familiar folks, George LaRocque. He's going to LaRocque out with his cock out on his birthday. Roy Mauer, Brian Chaney, Trent Cotton, Christina White, Lily Siegel Gardner. Justin Spencer, David "Steven Seagal" Bernstein, Eddie O'Neill, Ellen Spiegel, Lee Quavis, Rob Bursey check that, he or she is in the middle east, which is cool. Joel (17m 28s): Matt, that British guy, Alder, Ben Saggers, which sounds like a nickname for a certain part of my body and Claire Hovland and a fan favorite, Sir Richard Collins. Happy Birthday everybody! Happy birthday! Chad (17m 47s): Yeah. Also a little love to Richard and Beverley Collins, they've got a well deserved victory lap at RecFest. If you remember in RecFest 2019, I actually asked Richard, when are they going to get acquired? The very next day they got acquired by Indeed. Right? So we haven't really had like a full RecFest until this year. And they got to take a victory lap, man just treated like royalty. That was awesome. Now my rookie move, just so that you know, was not so rookie because Julie and I actually had a chance to spend a couple of nights at Richard and Bee's place. So we had a great time. Wonderful hospitality got to love the Brits. Chad (18m 28s): Big shout out to Richard and Bee. Joel (18m 30s): Yes, sir. Did you get to drive the Maserati? That's the question? That's the real question we want to know. Chad, did you drive at least ride in the Maserati? Chad (18m 43s): Well, first off, no, it was the Porsche. Joel (18m 45s): My bad, my bad, my bad. Did you get to pick the car that you drove the luxury European car drove? Chad (18m 53s): Why would I do that? They were all pretty awesome. I just got in. Joel (18m 58s): Geez. Does he have like a country house with hunting dogs, a horse stable and shit? Jesus is just getting out of hand. Chad (19m 3s): It's pretty. It's pretty awesome. I'll give you that. Joel (19m 6s): All right, man. Where are we? Where are we traveling next? And by the way, our travel is sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Ooh, we loved them. We loved them long time, but where are we headed for the rest of the summer and into fall Chad? Chad (19m 20s): We're taking August off kids. We're going to just going to chill. Okay. Because you know, we need a little time to take a breath. September 13th through the 16th at Mandalay Bay, HR Tech, baby. That's where we're going to be. And this is the shout out. As we had said, we need to see you scale it up. Big boy, up some HR Tech. Can't wait to be there. Joel (19m 41s): For sure. They need to scale that shit up. Just cause you have it in Vegas. Doesn't mean it's off the chain doesn't mean it's off the chain. Chad (19m 58s): TOPICS! Joel (19m 59s): All right, man. All right. Let's talk about the artist formerly known as TMP now known as Radancy sending the private equity. Chad, New York city-based Radancy, obviously a TMP for us old folks has "partnered" and I put "partnered" in quotes with New York City-based new Mountain Capital terms of the deal were not disclosed. BU the partnership will enable Radancy to accelerate its software, product roadmap and expand its suite of services. Focusing on helping enterprises, optimally identify, engage and hire talent. Founded in 1999 New Mountain Capital manages $37 billion in assets. Chad, this feels like a big deal that isn't getting a ton of publicity. Joel (20m 40s): Just do a search on Google news. What's your take on what just happened? Chad (20m 45s): You got to ask yourself, why would they be taking money in the first place? Right? I mean, they, they have a PE daddy already and they should be, I mean, they've got a hell of a portfolio. So why the fuck are taking capital anyway? For all the kids in the audience who really don't know that much about Radancy, right? And see just a quick basic history. TMP Worldwide was founded in 1967. Kids been around for a while, acquired by Gemspring Capital back in April of 2018. Since the acquisition in 2018, 5 acquisitions, CKR interactive, Perengo, Maxim, Carve, and First Bird. Chad (21m 26s): So about a decade ago, I believed every recruitment marketing agency needed to buy or build their own tech. It was totally in fashion back then to become a tech provider. But today recruitment marketing agencies cannot keep pace with innovation after being saddled with tons of technical debt, integrations from acquisitions and the basic day to day wondering if you're a creative agency or a tech house, it's weird because Michelle Abby's still there. And I would have thought that, you know, she would have taken the win after the acquisition and just kinda like, you know, went off into the sunset, enjoyed some vacation, maybe came back and created something new and fresh, but she stayed. Chad (22m 12s): And the big win now is, it's looking more like the prospect of a big loss. I don't understand what Radancy wants to be when they grow up? Joel (22m 21s): I guess, rich. So companies are almost never better when private equity moves in. CareerBuilder's, maybe the most obvious example. And we'll get to them later in the show. And they're also almost never better when they change their name. So going from TMP to Radancy, I mean, yeah. Okay. I get it. But you mentioned it a 50 year old brand, sixty year old, right? So it's, it almost never works out. So you mentioned Gemspring Capital that came in in 2018, Gemspring, a relatively small player in the private equity business. They're worth about one to $2 billion under management. So to me, it's like, this was entirely Gemspring getting their paper. This was Gemspring cashing out on that initial investment. Joel (23m 5s): So they come in at 18, cut fat, do whatever they do, rebrand the company, make a little more sexier for, you know, 2020s and beyond they call up New Mountain, have them a nice, shiny, efficient profit spewing business that they say, Hey, it's worth this and here's our valuation. How about a little piece of this big boy and New Mountain with 37 billion under management said, Hmm, this whole employment thing has taken off. There's a lot of money going into this space looks like a good investment. We're going to come in there maybe clean up some more stuff. Maybe put some money into some R and D and marketing, et cetera. So to me, when you say, why take money? I think it was Gemspring getting their money. Joel (23m 49s): I think that was what primarily motivated this, this move. But again, TMP continues to look like a cold corporate, efficient, fat cutting, you know, machine. And you know, if that's what you want in your agency then have at it. But I think one of the big winners are the more personable agencies out there. I'll mention Shaker, who is a sponsor. So take that for what it's worth. But the agencies and organizations like Shaker, which family business for 70 some years, you know, who do you want to do business with? The machine or the people? And I think that Shaker's in a better position today than they were yesterday because of this deal. But yeah, I think the money is all about cashing out for Gemspring. Chad (24m 32s): I agree, but I also think there's another out for perspective, bigger acquisition, because if you take a look at what Radancy is pitching and they're way over their skis on this one, they're pitching more than, than just programmatic, where if they focus there, it would make sense, right? If you focused on being amazing in one area, it would make more sense. But no they're talking about AI based technologies that identify, engage and hire talent, advanced career site platforms that offer a personalized and seamless job search experience, programmatic advertising tech, candidate relationship management, CRM solutions, and automated employee referral software. Chad (25m 13s): I mean, pick one and do it right. Instead of trying to do everything and providing a half-ass solution, why did they need the money? I think they're going to be pushing a lot of this cash into making these products and these services just more sexy, just more cosmetic. And then they're going to be plunking money into marketing because they want to see a big payout. If you take a look at those five areas that I just pointed out, the total addressable market for something like that is fucking huge! The thing is I feel like it's smoke and mirrors. I'm a huge fan of Radancy, TMP they've been around forever. We both have friends that work there and yet I just can't give them a big applause because this seems like a fireworks show trying to get everybody's attention to get a sale. Joel (26m 5s): Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised IP and O didn't come out of your mouth in that commentary because why, why be everything to everybody? Well, it works out for Workday on the public markets. So I couldn't work out for an agency like Radancy? Yeah, I think ultimately there's an IPO in the future, at least that's what they want to have happen. The one thing to me that was really odd in this is that it got so little publicity. Like if you do a Google search on Radancy and New Mountain, there's not a lot out there. It's like couple of press releases. No one's commenting. No one's like whether good or bad saying anything about it, which to me is really odd. Something like this should be getting a lot more commentary, not just from a couple of podcasters like us, but yeah, this is one to watch. Joel (26m 50s): And I would not be surprised if when the market comes back and iCIMS goes public and there's a cavalcade of employment IPO's that Radancy isn't one of them. Chad (27m 2s): We shall see. sfx (27m 2s): Layoffs? Joel (27m 3s): Layoffs. Chad (27m 4s): Layoffs? Joel (27m 4s): Holy shit, Chad, no unicorns in this show. We're talking about layoffs! Is at the beginning of the end? I guess we shall see, but we have one confirmed and one sort of rumored unconfirmed, but a pretty good source from what I saw. But it's undoubtedly a trend that I think we'll be seeing for the rest of the year and into 2023. Reported by Business Insider, Remote, a unicorn that provides a global hiring platform is laying off a hundred people or about 10% of its workforce. On the other side, then the rumor mill popular ATS, Smart Recruiters have laid off about 70 people, which is also about 10% of it's head count. Joel (27m 47s): Chad, is this an anomaly or a trend in the making? Chad (27m 50s): I think it's a part of the maturation process from internal voices, as you'd said, I mean, not just one. We have several sources saying that this has definitely happened. This is a rebalancing of the workforce. We've seen tech companies grow wildly out of control to be quite Frank. Now, many of them are taking a step back they're reassessing where they need to grow, and then they're applying a more controlled strategy. So to me, this is all about the maturation process of a tech company. It's hard to get out of startup mode and yet try to keep into the startup mode mindset. So is this bad? If you take a look at the website, they still have, SmartRecruiters still has 70 positions open. Chad (28m 32s): It's all about rebalancing and it's a shift. I think the mindset is the key. How do you shift the mindset to be more controlled and yet try to stay in that startup mindset from just a morale standpoint? Joel (28m 46s): Yeah. I think for two years, everyone was like, hire everyone that we can we'll figure out the future later. Chad (28m 52s): Sort it out. Joel (28m 52s): Or in the case of a Remote it's like, Hey, we have how much money? We need to hire some people. So that the industry ran hot, not just for us, but everybody, right, everyone in tech. And we're seeing a recalculation of valuations and we're seeing headlines about Tesla and big companies that we don't necessarily think of is having layoffs, laying off, you know, 10, 15% of the workforce. So I do believe there's definitely some rebalancing there. Although we're looking at inflation and recession fears, everything on the labor market is still really strong. So you know, knock on wood. Our industry may come out of this perfectly fine, whether industries do not. Joel (29m 33s): So, yeah, I think, you know, look Smart Recruiters hire a lot of people because everyone needed their services. Companies are putting, you know, hiring freezes and they're being more conservative. So it's a good time to say, Hey, let's cut some fat, let's get some underpaid underachievers out of the company and bring some new, new blood into the company. I think with Remote, it was partially that, but also, you know, the board and the investors saying, okay, you know, the world's cooling down. We need to like recalculate what we're doing and let's lay off 10% of our workforce. I do not think this is going to be an isolated incident. I think we're going to see more and more companies lay off, you know, 10, 15% of the workforce. The question will be, is this round one of the layoffs, or is this the end of the layoffs? Joel (30m 18s): And that is yet to be determined. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll talk about something near and dear to your heart the military. Chad I know this may surprise some people, but convincing an 18 year old to volunteer for a job where guns and bombs might get thrown at them is challenging. And military recruitment is currently being challenged on a whole other level. Why you ask? Well, reports say the pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink because of obesity, drug use and/or criminal records. And apparently parents are becoming a growing issue. They don't want their kids going to the military when they could go to college, which is why you're seeing so many ads about getting parental approval for joining the military. Joel (31m 3s): Chad, I was getting drunk in Muncie, Indiana, while you were shooting guns in South America for the government. So I'm guessing you might have an opinion or two on recruiting for the military. Chad (31m 14s): Yeah, it was Central America, but that was close. Obesity and parents have always been an issue. I mean, I've knocked 40 pounds off of some of these kids in 12 weeks, pretty easily. So these are all to me, they're all bullshit answers and not so much. Remember when you used to see military ads on TV and also banner ads littered the web, the US military is the best recruitment machine in the world, bar none hands down. Period. Mainly because of the budget they have to throw at recruiting at anything. They're not afraid to try new things. As a matter of fact, they have no problem failing because they just need to innovate. Chad (31m 54s): They need to get to those, those kids before anybody else does. But again, they've been eerily silent. And why do you think that is? Well I have a conspiracy theory? Joel (32m 5s): Ooooo Chad (32m 6s): Are you ready? Joel (32m 6s): Yeah, I'm ready. Chad (32m 7s): Robots, baby. So listen for a minute because we will see this strategy play out in many different sectors. In the past, when the U S military had issues, meeting recruiting goals, you see them amp up everything, and they are everywhere. That just doesn't seem to be the case. Plus when the military misses goals, you usually only see that reports and military pubs like Stars and Stripes, the Army Times, et cetera, but they are making national news now. Why? It's somewhat propaganda they're building up, because the U S military wants to move swiftly toward robots. Air Force, and Navy drones, Army, Marine robotic ground troops. Chad (32m 50s): There are two levers in this new narrative. Number one, we can't supply enough human resources to provide for the nation's defense. That's scary. That's fear, right? Number two. Less American fighting men and women dying on the battlefield. That's also something that's scary to think that your kid goes into the military and they could be on the battlefield. Joel (33m 8s): Sure. Chad (33m 9s): So overall, I believe you'll see this, not just from the military, but you'll see this from many other industries saying, Hey, look, we don't have the resources. They could manufacture that talent. They could. We'll talk about that later, but it's cheaper, Jeff Bezos to actually go ahead and roboticize your entire fucking warehouse or your military. Joel (33m 33s): You just blew my mind. Okay. So someone who spent 20 some years in the military, 20 years? Chad (33m 42s): Yep! 20 years! Joel (33m 43s): Anyway, so your conspiracy theory, or maybe it's just a theory is that the military is busily producing Terminator like robots. Chad (33m 51s): Oh dude, they're out there. You can see them as Lockheed Martin. You can see all of the defense suppliers it's happening all over the place. And they're going to have a windfall in fucking profits. Joel (34m 3s): And you think it's right around the corner. This isn't 25 years from now. This is? Chad (34m 8s): We're already seeing drones in the sky. Now we're talking about actually providing Ukraine with drones today, right? We're not just talking about the drones that are surveillance drones. We're talking about anti-personnel anti-tank drones. Joel (34m 22s): Okay. So in your world, no one has to pull the trigger, at least on the ground? Chad (34m 28s): Right. Joel (34m 29s): The devices set off whatever automatically or someone, some kid on an Xbox is playing war games and shooting off missiles. Chad (34m 35s): It's already happening. It's already happening. Now we put these drones and we've been playing with this technology for a very long time. So to be able to actually put it even more upscale into the battlefield? There you have a kids. Joel (34m 52s): Well, your commentary is way better than mine. I was going to mention like OnlyFans accounts for military, military vets, or like having the Instagram account for the Army feature singing soldiers and shit like that. But I like robots a lot better. So we're going to go with your conspiracy theory as opposed to like an Army OnlyFans account for veterans. Hooo, that was good. All right. Let's set up a Slack. Good God. When was the last time we talked about Slack? Chad (35m 19s): It's been a while. Joel (35m 21s): It's got bought by Salesforce. Chad (35m 25s): Exactly. Joel (35m 25s): Well, here's your fix. If you've missed us talking about Slack, we got two news stories. So first reports say networking forums on Slack have become fertile ground for finding new jobs fast, just don't expect inclusivity Chad. Getting into the right professional group and navigating its dynamics can take some effort and knowing the right people, says a Slack group, admin for content marketers. Quote, "It does seem to be kind of an insider's club. People let you in on the secret as they discover it" end quote. Chad, I doubt LinkedIn is losing any sleep over Slack groups or forums, but what's your take on this? Chad (36m 4s): Everything old becomes new. Again, remember job board forums back in the day? Joel (36m 9s): Yahoo Chad (36m 9s): Job seekers, even job boards had forums back in the day. So job seekers would join forums, have conversations, just like these. Seriously nothing's different people are looking for answers in places they trust because they know they cannot trust companies to be transparent and give them the truth. I mean, that's just what it is. I do agree though, these are going to be not very inclusive types of forums because the same people are going to find the forums because they have the same connections in the same networks. But yeah, at the end of the day, this is nothing new. We've been doing these things for years. This is back in the nineties. Joel (36m 43s): Yeah. Yeah. That's you stole my thunder. That was pretty much my commentary as well. I think, I think I will add that LinkedIn groups has really fucked up. It went from like a really cool sort of admin, you could message people and people were actually active, to sort of being, if you, if you run a group, there's not a whole lot, you can do to market it. Most of the shit that gets on the feed sucks and it's self promotional. So LinkedIn is really fucked up the groups, groups should be really awesome. But as a side note, people would probably love that on Slack, these forums, that more or less recruiters can't invade these things, there's some sort of gatekeeping that keeps recruiters out. Joel (37m 25s): So my guess is a lot of people enjoy that they're not getting bombarded with recruiters with shitty jobs or opportunities. They're glad that they're not getting marketed to by Casper Mattresses and other things. So at least for now, until marketers find out a way to fuck up Slack forums, they seem to be a pretty fun way to get a job and try to get to know the right people. You know, we'll see until the next group forum solution comes along, I guess Slack will be sexy. Next up was Slack well Chad with 70 Million Jobs gone, formerly incarcerated people could use some good news and Slack just might have it. From a story in Fast Company, Slack is expanding its training and hiring initiatives for people who were once in prison. Joel (38m 11s): An organization called Next Chapter, a nonprofit incubated at Slack four years ago is training formerly incarcerated people to land tech jobs. The program has trained 30 apprentices after their apprenticeship all have been offered full-time jobs at tech companies, not just Slack, but also Dropbox, Square and Zoom. Chad, good news, a knife and a gunfight. What are we making of Slack's initiative to train and hire formerly incarcerated people? Chad (38m 41s): Yeah, so unfortunately the US has the largest population of incarcerated individuals in the world. That sucks. These individuals usually do not have an opportunity to return to the workforce, which means they are literally forced to return to a life of crime to pay the bills, roof over the head, food, you know, that kind of stuff that we need. Companies On the other hand, they claim they cannot find the right candidates as they expect the perfect candidate to fall out of the fucking sky or something. And when those candidates aren't readily available, companies cry about the skills gap, instead of creating training programs and manufacturing their own talent like this. Now Slack has only hired 30 incarcerated individuals, but that's better than zero. Chad (39m 24s): And what I see this is, is a ramping up of an opportunity, kind of like a vocational type of opportunity. And they've also started to spread this out to 14 other companies like themselves. So really the big story to me is that they have a proven model, but now they're sharing it with other companies. Most companies would just keep this to themselves. Joel (39m 46s): Yeah. Chad (39m 46s): Slack is going out there and they're actually trying to reproduce this type of success so that 30 could turn into 300 could turn into a thousand, et cetera, et cetera. We currently have right now, 2 million individuals incarcerated, just incarcerated right now. What about those individuals that are out there, who are formerly incarcerated, who can't find a job? This is, this is big. It's something that we need. And I love to see a company, not the government funding, something like this. A company who actually needs the talent, trying to find solutions and actually manufacturing talent for themselves. Joel (40m 20s): Yeah. You know, the demise of 70 Million Jobs, they blamed it on the pandemic. But I mean, let's be honest. A lot of companies were probably gun shy of using the service or a lot of companies are still hesitant to employ formerly incarcerated people. This is a really, really big problem. And it's very complex and multilayered. The story of the Slack guys that were looking at educational systems in prison, notice that they were learning to code without even having internet access. So like, this is an issue with like governments and private institutions that are, let's be honest, serving most of the prisons are private organizations. Joel (41m 1s): They don't give a shit about internet access, right? They just want to like make as much money as possible. So there's no incentive to like have internet and have the support system within prison. And then when they get out, if they've been in that system, keep in mind, a lot of these people have been in prison for 15, 20 plus years. They've never seen an iPhone in person. They've never liked signed up for Hulu. They've never like so many things that we take for granted. Like they've never done. And, and now they have to be trained to code and know technology to get these jobs when they haven't even, you know, experienced technology like we have. Joel (41m 44s): So to me, it's like a problem of government commercial, entities, associations need to be a part of this in some form or fashion, but it's a very complex problem. I give Slack a lot of credit for, for tackling the issue, but they're going to need a bigger boat if they're going to conquer this problem, otherwise they're going to make a small dent. Which I agree, 30 is better than zero in 30. Hopefully it will be 300 in a year and maybe 2000 and 30,000 at some point, which is still unfortunately a drop in the bucket with the number of people that are in prisons in America. So applause to them, but they're going to need some help. They got a knife and a gun fight, and they're gonna need some help. Joel (42m 26s): Let's take a quick break, pay some bills. And we'll talk about SHERM and one of our favorites, Chad, CareerBuilder. Chad (42m 34s): All right, let me preface this next story with this is the do, as I say, not as I do portion of the podcast. Joel (42m 47s): Oh that's great yeah. Chad (42m 48s): In an article on HR Dive entitled SHERM will pay $221,000 to improve program accessibility to settle an ADA suit. The organization named the society for human resource management, AKA SHERM got smacked for not complying with the Americans with disabilities act or ADA. That's right kids. That's right kids, your leadership organization that certifies HR professionals and has training and certifications on ADA apparently needs to be trained in themselves, or they just don't give a shit about individuals with disabilities accessing their content. Just simply perform a Google search on SHERM ADA certification. Chad (43m 29s): And you will be buried in SHERM content on how to do this and do that around ADA. SHERM literally was not doing the basics like providing transcripts for podcast content, captions for video content and sign language interpreters at its events just to name a few things. All very basic shit that the world's largest HR leadership organization could obviously not be bothered with. So again, this is the do, as I say, not as I do, portion of the podcast, how do all of our HR listeners feel about their crazy little SHRM certification now? Chad (44m 11s): Now that's the question. sfx (44m 13s): Maw the meatloaf! FUCK! Joel (44m 13s): There are certain businesses where you can't do certain things. Chad (44m 17s): Yeah! Joel (44m 18s): And I'll simplify it in saying, if you're in and out burger, you can't fry up a frozen paddy. Like they're just certain tackling and fundamentals that you can't fuck up on. And SHERM just fucked up on one of those things they served, they cooked up a frozen paddy, Chad. And they fucked up and it's not going to be the last or the first fuck up by SHERM. But this is one that looks really bad. The fine is not earth shattering, $221,000. But the optics of this for an organization who's dedicated to solving what they fucked up on, is really bad. This is really bad Chad (44m 54s): Optics on this and it always seems like SHERM doesn't give a fuck about the optics. Ever since Johnny Taylor took over, it's like, whatever, he's going to brush whatever bullshit off. Cause he just doesn't fucking care. That's what the optics are for the rest of the industry. They just don't think that leadership at SHERM gives a shit. And in this case, they don't give a shit about individuals with disabilities accessing their content. Joel (45m 21s): It's all about the subscriptions Chad. It's all about the membership, baby. It's all about the membership. Well, speaking of companies and organizations fucking up, let's talk about CareerBuilder. Oh, someone call Dewey Cheatem and Howe. See what I did their Job search advertising company, CareerBuilder, and Chad and Cheese favorite will pay about $3.8 million to settle a class action lawsuit, accusing it of shorting pay to its sales representatives. Naughty, naughty. They allegedly stripped these workers of commissions that they had earned. Under the terms of the deal sales representatives who worked for CareerBuilder from 2018 to 2019, could receive payments ranging from a minimum of $625, that will still buy some beer Chad, to thousands of dollars. Joel (46m 13s): Eligible CareerBuilder sales reps have until October 5th to submit claims for a share of the settlement funds. Chad, what do you make of this fuck up by one of our favorite fuck-ups CareerBuilder? Chad (46m 27s): Okay. At one time CareerBuilder sales staff was one of the best in the industry period. This is not in the building sales teams playbook, by the way, yet CareerBuilder has figured out a way to fuck up even the very basics since they've been acquired by Apollo. This is just part and parcel of what we've seen since Apollo took over there. They really don't give two shits about people whatsoever. They're just looking to carve off pieces of their organization, sell it and get more gravy. And in this case, they got slapped for keeping some of the gravy away from their salespeople and one of their salespeople, I believe it was actually in the article. Chad (47m 11s): Could prospectively get $1.25 million out of the settlement. sfx (47m 14s): What did you say? Joel (47m 14s): So under the previous compensation plan, Chad reps allegedly were paid monthly commissions of 4% per month net revenue from the sale of quote, "most CareerBuilder products and services" end quote. Under the 2019 plan CareerBuilder adjusted the commission down to, you're ready for this, point 25% of net revenue. Chad (47m 40s): No gravy for you. Joel (47m 42s): And then remove commissions entirely. Okay, dude. Yeah, fuck Apollo. Okay. Some pencil pusher did a risk assessment and decided screwing over the sales team was going to be less costly than actually paying out commissions. Dude, if you're listening to this and you were selling for CareerBuilder in 2018 and '19, do us all a favor and go get yours. Okay. Because that's some bullshit. I just hope you're not working for Burger King now because those assholes are even worse than Apollo and CareerBuilder. And maybe even worse than SHERM. Chad and Cheese (48m 20s): We out. OUTRO (48m 32s): I'm Rory from Scotland, the country, which brought you electricity! Thank you for listening to podcasts with Chad and Cheese. Brilliant! They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Nada Niente. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We out.

Independence Day is upon us and this week’s show is more exciting than an alien invasion, minus the Will Smith. It’s full of tragedy: 27 states’ employment websites have suffered a cyber attack. It’s got takeovers: Deel acquires a foothold in APAC. Lives being saved: Nomad Health grows its healthcare pie to empower nurses nationwide. Cash money: Pave hopes to bring salary management to a global workforce. It’s even got nuclear-powered hotel flights and some Josh Bersin bashing (Chad’s favorite). You’re welcome. Commence the fireworks and chill the PBR! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. Recording from the cold and flu wing from Casa de CAISO. Someone grabbed me a box of Kleenex. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "pass the NyQuil" Cheeseman. Chad (37s): This is Chad "spirit in the sky" Sowash. Joel (40s): And on this week's show wandering nurses strike gold. Gloat makes a move to be the GOAT and Deel is making deals. Let's do this. What's up Chad? Chad (51s): Dude, it's July! Joel (52s): It's July and I've got a cold. What's up with that? My kid, that kids are basically centers for disease that spread around the house. And, I have been struck by a cold but I'm optimistic that it'll be gone by the time we go to Europe next week. Chad (1m 7s): So let's all hope you can always double mask for that eight hour flight. Joel (1m 12s): Europe's got the good over the counter drugs. So if I'm still sick by Europe, I'll just hit up the drug store and be good to go. Chad (1m 21s): We found an allergy medicine in France and can't get it here in the US so we had to get it mailed from France to the US because we just can't find it here. It's not made here, you know, but anyway, yeah, we get a big box of it sent because it works fucking miracles. And it's not really medicine as much as it is a natural, but it's, it's interesting that you can't find it here. And how much of a pain in the ass is just to be able to get that kind of meds/vitamins over here. Joel (1m 56s): Oh yeah. Whenever the wife and I head north to Canada, we always a horde, some of the best meds that we'd get in Canada or we'll have her parents, you know, bring down the NeoCitran in case we can't get up to Canada anytime soon. But yeah, Chad (2m 10s): Careful. You're stepping over the bounds of socialism there. My God. Joel (2m 14s): Okay. I pay for it. It's all paid for, no government subsidies with my over the counter drugs. Chad (2m 22s): No, but you get them at a much lesser price than you do here. Joel (2m 27s): That is true. I can buy like three X, what I would buy here. And I just horde the shit. Chad (2m 33s): Oh shit, dude. Okay. Shout outs! Joel (2m 36s): Shout outs! Well. You know what that bell means. Chad, I've got Taco Bell. Shout out. Chad (2m 42s): Imagine that? Joel (2m 43s): The Ladders and CareerBuilder could learn a thing or two about innovation from our favorite mass producer of Tacos, the fast food chain that's doing God's work has just introduced the oversized Cheez-It Tostada and Crunch Wrap Supreme. That's right. They replaced the big ass tortilla chip with a big ass Cheez-It. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Shout out from me to Taco Bell. Chad (3m 9s): I can't believe the first shout out is a Taco Bell. Okay. So I can't believe that I'm saying the next thing. Shout out to companies that will cover travel expenses for employees who need abortions. Shout out to companies that actually give a shit. This goes back to the American bumpkin project, which is apparently in full bloom right now. sfx (3m 33s): What did you say? Joel (3m 34s): Bumpkin? Chad (3m 36s): Yeah. Joel (3m 36s): I'm going to give a shout out to Airbnb. Well, the party's over at your favorite shared living space app Chad after making parties a no-no during COVID, the ban is now permanent and prohibits quote, "all disruptive parties and events" end quote, with a particular focus on open invite gatherings and quote "party house properties," which are defined as those that attract complaints from the neighbors. Sounds like you may have to rethink that New Year's Eve throw down in Portugal. Chad, shout out to our friends at Airbnb. Chad (4m 8s): First and foremost, it's my condo. It's not Airbnb's condo. So I'll do whatever the fuck I want there until you know, the management association comes and knocks on my door. A big shout out to Bas Van De Hatred who just dropped a gap band sized bomb on Phenom, with his most recent survey. That's right kids, Phenom seems to be in trouble with Endouble. Remember Phenom acquired Endouble in December of 2020. And since then here's some info from his survey. 55% of Endouble's clients said they would probably stay as a client back in 2021, 55%. Chad (4m 51s): Not a great score there, right? But now only 22% are willing to give them another chance. From 55% to 22% in about a year's timeframe kids. Endouble's rating for technical abilities went from second best to absolute worse, even worse than generic agencies. So they're getting beat by agencies that don't even specialize in what Endouble does. Next. Their price/quality rating went from a 6.5 to a 2.6 on a 10 point scale. This portfolio grab and European footprint play doesn't seem to be working out for Phenom with this specific acquisition. Joel (5m 37s): I'm still in awe of your gap band reference that you made in the beginning of this whole thing. Like how many of our listeners do you think got that? 20%? Chad (5m 49s): Drop a bomb on me Baby. Also, don't forget to download the full report at digitaal-werven.nl. That's D I G I T A A L. Yes. That's a AA dash, W E R V E N dot N L. Wow. That's a Fucking name Joel (6m 11s): A dash in there. Chad (6m 14s): Jesus. Yes. Joel (6m 15s): Shout out to Hawaii the 50th state, I believe, or 49th state? Anyway. Chad (6m 22s): Alaska. Joel (6m 23s): Anyway, they enacted the nation's first statewide $18 minimum wage law. Of course it's aimed at fighting poverty among the island's workers, which by the way, is not a cheap place to work at. Chad (6m 36s): NO!!!! The cost of living there is probably about $30 an hour, so $18 bucks. Okay. That's awesome. Joel (6m 44s): It ain't Mississippi that's for sure. And, the worst news maybe is you'll have to wait. You have to wait a while. It, it will go into a $10.10 cent per hour raised immediately then a whopping $12 on October 1st and then an increments until it reaches $18 on January 1st, 2028. Chad (7m 7s): Holy shit! Joel (7m 7s): The six year wait is a lot of whale-watching, but I guess better, late than never. It's a good thing. Hawaii is such a cheap place to live, shout out to our friends in Hawaii. Chad (7m 19s): Oh, that sucks. Okay. So honorable mentioned this week, kids there's so much happening in this space. Workvivo gets a honorable mention after raising $22 million for its employee experience app that is supposedly there to keep teams connected. It's literally, as I dove into this, it's literally an internal Facebook is what it is. So we're taking the intranet, which everybody had at one time. And now we're having the intraFacebooks personally, I'm not a fan. Are you? Joel (7m 56s): Of internal Facebook? At least make an internal TikTok at least make it something new and exciting for the kids. Jeez you could download a WordPress plugin called buddy press or something, they'll get the same thing back 15 years ago. Yeah, that's right. We're bringing up the Gap band and Buddy press. That's right. Chad (8m 14s): Believe that! Joel (8m 15s): We're also bringing that free shit, Chad. Chad (8m 16s): I love free shit. Joel (8m 17s): Every week we talk about it, you got it. You got it. You got to get on. Chad (8m 22s): No, wait a minute. Wait, somebody just registered. And then they emailed us and said, Hey, I just registered. When am I going to get my t-shirts? sfx (8m 33s): What did you say? Joel (8m 33s): That's not how this works, kids. Chad (8m 35s): Tell them how it works. Joel (8m 36s): Here's how it works, guys. You got to go to Chadcheese.com. You got to fill out the form. Then you get a chance to win a t-shirt from Emissary, a beer from our friends at Pillar or whiskey from our home boys and girls at Textkernel. But you don't get it automatically. You don't get it immediately. Have some patience. I know COVID is over and everybody wants everything now, but that's not how this works. Go to Chadcheese.com, click the free link and register. Chad (9m 6s): Man events. Kiddos. We've got RecFest coming next week. A big question is Cheeseman, I mean, after we have a full day on the Disrupt Stage, you are drunk out of your mind. What are you doing after that? Joel (9m 19s): I'm going to Checkers. Apparently the hot spot there in Knebworth where the beer is lukewarm like the Brits like it and the fish and chips are hot. I love the whole. I'll be partying with Bill Borman and crew at Checkers. How about you? Chad (9m 35s): We're going to bounce around England a little bit, and then we're going to take that next week and spend it in Portugal. So the condo in Portugal, this is a beautiful time of year. We're going to be able to enjoy the beaches and then get my ass home for the last week of July, where Julie and I are going to the National Industry Liaison Group conference, where I'm going to be on stage for a VIP event. I'm not going to be for the actual event, but for a VIP event, that's being held by Circa going to be on with Angela Hood and our friend EEOC commissioner Keith Sonderling so drinks, food and if you're out there listening and you're going to be at the NIHLG, and you don't have in invite to the VIP, hit me on the messenger. Chad (10m 22s): I might be able to hook you up. No promises. Joel (10m 26s): They won't let me at conferences like that within a hundred feet. But yeah, but both of us are going to take a little advantage of our European trist. And I am post RecFest. I think I'm going to take a little trip to the Liverpool Manchester area and see some of those sites, maybe see our friends at Karu. I don't know. I want to know, maybe get a new condom and a new pair of underwear from our friends in Manchester. And then I'm going to Finland of all places to hang out with my wife who is doing a conference in Helsinki. You know how much she loves the north Chad and she has already bought train tickets to some city called Oulu or Oulu where you can like walk to the North Pole. Joel (11m 11s): You can see like the Santa Claus land thing. So I'm going to be in full on North Pole mode. After our stint in Britain, you enjoy that beach in Portugal and I'll be riding reindeer with Santa in Finland. Chad (11m 25s): You might want to keep it under the radar that you're actually going to Finland because they might not allow them into NATO knowing that your ass is there. Joel (11m 36s): Shit, that's a fast-track to NATO, baby. I'll be wearing my Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and my John Mellencamp trucker hat. It'll be off. Chad (11m 44s): Yeah. Okay. Let's flip that then. Finland's going to say, okay, fuck. That's not worth it. sfx (11m 54s): Miles of meatloaf Fuck! Joel (11m 55s): All right. We got birthdays to celebrate kids. A couple, a few listeners this month, Chase Johnson and Chad Manson. That sounds like your fraternity leadership executive committee, Megan Maker, Paul, the Minnesota headhunter DeBettignies, whatever. No one knows. Hey, by the way, Paul LinkedIn lets you pronounce your last name on its site. Like I tried to get the audio of it. Like I encourage you. If you're going to be the head hunter guy to teach people how to say your name anyway, China Gorman are good out in Vegas. You know, she's going to have a good time for her birthday soon. Joel (12m 36s): And Josh Akers the "Indy Posse" celebrating a birthday happy birthday kids. 4th of July, good time to celebrate another year on the planet. Chad (12m 48s): It is TOPICS! Joel (12m 49s): Holy shit. So each week you and I select the top stories to talk about and you chose this one, which I initially thought was a bit odd because it was Chad (12m 59s): You thought it was lame that's what you thought. Joel (13m 3s): It was highlighting North Dakota. So two websites that serve job service North Dakota are currently offline, due to a vendor problem, disrupting the job search process for job seekers. The outage began Sunday and is expected to last the rest of the week. They the effected websites. Chad, two of your favorites, ND workforce connection.com and NDlmi.com, which houses labor market information. You chose this one though because some 27 states, which if you're keeping score at home is more than half the states in our country. Chad (13m 36s): Good math. Joel (13m 36s): So yeah, it's a big deal, Chad, this is your lane. What the hell's going on? Chad (13m 44s): Yeah, go to employeeflorida.com right now systems down. There are 20 plus I think it's around 27 states where job banks are actually shut down. We're seeing multiple states that are experiencing these outages plus more. And it's all because of one vendor. I shouldn't say because of one vendor, they're all under one vendor being Geographic Solutions out of Pearl Harbor, Florida. So multiple inside sources say it is a substantial security breach in more than just the job bank systems, meaning around 40 states are actually, or maybe even more than 40 states are actually affected by this breach, which is also being categorized as a cyber attack. Chad (14m 28s): Remember back in the day when Monster and CareerBuilder had breaches, I personally didn't think it was that big of a deal just because they didn't house real in-depth personal information. But state systems do, especially unemployment and insurance systems. Imagine someone having access to all of your personal data, social security number, address, bank account for direct deposits, right? I mean, so this is a huge issue. We obviously are facing cyber threats on a daily basis. The question is in a hyper cybersecurity landscape, which we're going to continue to be in. Chad (15m 10s): Will states be able to actually stay with just a single vendor. I mean, they do have some redundant systems, but from my understanding, even the hack is starting to spread into some of the redundant systems. So this I don't want to see any company, Geographic Solutions, any states or anything like that have to go through something like this, but we have to be smarter about how we face cyber and the systems that we use. Joel (15m 36s): You and I have discussed this, you know, since we've been doing this show and you have sort of these tier one sites that you you've gotta be really good to get into, right? Banking sites, Google, Microsoft, like companies that have entire teams dedicated to protecting the sites if they get attacked and then you have this like tier two level where they're gonna pay money with a ransomware attack or they have really delicate data that could be mined and taken, which is a really bad thing. And we're seeing a lot in our space. We're in that tier two zone, right? So we've talked about CareerBuilder, allegedly getting a ransomware attacked a couple of years ago, we remember UKG that had some of its payroll information disrupted. Joel (16m 25s): I think that was a ransomware attack as well. Fortunately for them, I think they're back online. And unfortunately this is another employment category site company that has been attacked. And we are just in this weird zone of a lot of our companies have enough money to pay the ransomware attack. And a lot of our companies are housing data that can be used to make a lot of money. So I don't have an answer. It's not like the government will come in and create sites. Maybe there'll be legislation to have a certain level of security on some of these sites, but it is a problem. It has been since we've been doing the show and it will continue to be a problem going into the future. I don't have a sense of how many people go to these sites. Joel (17m 6s): I doubt a ton, but you're right. When you say the data that can be mined is really sensitive and really valuable. Chad (17m 13s): Yeah. Some of these sites are actually some of the most trafficked sites in the actual states. So when we take a look at job boards overall, we take a look at them as a huge kind of like conglomerate of the entire nation. When you go to these state sites and me actually working with them over the years with direct employers in the National Labor Exchange, some of these sites are the most traffic job sites in their state period, right? Not to mention again, many of these on the unemployment insurance side of the house, you're forced to go in and use these systems as well. So they're connected. And again, we're not sure what exactly kind of an attack this is. We're not sure that they got any information. It's just, we know that there's an issue. Chad (17m 56s): Sites are down. There has been a breach, multiple sources, not just in public, but also some of my sources have said, this is probably going to happen into next week. Joel (18m 5s): And that while that was sort of, eye-opening when we did the House of HR show, learning that all these like government sites or our local sites or jobs are so highly frequented and in some cases are the top top sites for jobs in their location. So we probably sort of forget about that. And we probably shouldn't, these are really important sites to people looking for jobs and doing other things Chad (18m 32s): And trying to get paid unemployment. Joel (18m 33s): Yeah. It's a Geographical Solutions? Chad (18m 35s): Geographic solutions. Joel (18m 36s): Geographic Solutions. Yeah. If you want to know more guys, go to a Google and search Geographical Solutions crypto or not crypto, but a cyber attack. And you can see all the sites there's like Nebraska, Tennessee. I mean, there's a whole bunch of them, obviously half as we've outlined. But yeah, if you want to know more it up the Google machine, but yeah, we'll see if the lawsuits come, that'll be interesting to see if states and/or Geographic Solutions... Chad (18m 58s): They're going to get penalties. I mean, there's no question because they have downtime. So there's going to be millions of dollars in penalties. And I hope that GSR can actually get their shit together. I mean, again, nobody wants to see this happen, but you and I have talked about this in seeing this happen it seems like month after month, especially after the fucking UKG debacle, especially somebody who has sensitive data like this, it just, this cannot be tolerated. Joel (19m 29s): Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, someone who's on the right track and not fucking up is DEEL. Yes. It's D EE L Chad, the San Fran based company has struck a deal. See what I did there? Hey, group limited a publicly traded global payroll company based in Melbourne, Australia. DEEL's offer would pay shareholders $1 in Australian currency per share that 69 cents in the U S in an all cash transaction. The deal implies a total equity value for pay group of approximately $82.6 million USD. The acquisition is expected to complete in October. All right, Chad, not exactly Elon looking to buy Twitter, but is this a big deal, little deal or no deal? Chad (20m 16s): So APAC expansion, baby, why APAC? This is straight from the financial review. Quote "APAC is home to two thirds of the world's population with huge skill talent pools of knowledge workers and tech talent, just the right skills that are in high demand across the world. We can open thousands of virtual employment doors around the world" end quote. So what we're talking about here is DEEL is a remote centric type of organization where they can help any organization that wants to hire all over the world and do it with ease, right? So this to me is a huge deal! Joel (20m 57s): Period. It's on the right track. Some of our listeners in case you missed it, DEEL is in a race to be the platform for global hiring and employee management, along with Oyster, Remote, Velocity, Global Work Motion, and many, many others. Founded in 2019, they're in 150 countries, they've also raised $425 million just October of last year. And they have a $5.5 billion valuation. sfx (21m 27s): Pink Fluffy Unicorns music Chad (21m 28s): Probably bigger now. , Joel (21m 28s): Well, what better way to grow your company than to buy other companies. This purchase gives them a nice foothold into APAC, which you mentioned without doing all the grunt work of actually building it yourself. I expect these companies with, oh, I don't know, a pretty big war chest, to start buying up a lot of these companies to start gaining market share around the world. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of acquisitions, globally of payroll companies and any other company that could support their features and services that they already provide. Chad (22m 4s): Yeah. Yeah. Joel (22m 5s): So it's a land rush, baby. Chad (22m 6s): It's apparent that DEEL isn't just gonna rest and squirrel away their nuts. They've got like $600 million or $680 million in funding. Apparently they're going to use it. And they're going to make moves. A Pay Group was founded in 2006. So they're not a youngster. They process nearly 11 billion and payroll each year for thousands of businesses. Again, if you want to be able to take over these huge swaths of opportunity and really expand that total addressable market, I mean really expand into it. This is what you have to do. I can't see these big companies are these wanting to be Goliath companies like DEEL and Remote and Oyster and so on and so forth. Chad (22m 52s): I can't see them growing without shit tons of acquisition and consolidation. Joel (22m 54s): Yeah, for sure. Like traditionally, when you get a ton of money, you either have to grow sort of geographically or nationally. You know, you buy a bunch of commercials or you build brand, you buy people, you know, feet on the ground. These are global targeted companies, right? They don't have time. They don't have the money to market globally. They don't have the time to like build teams themselves. Acquisition is going to be the prime way that these global companies grow. So it's a good time to start your own little company if you're looking to sell in a 12-18 month period, just a little tip out there if you want to build a startup. All right, let's go to healthcare. Chad, we've got three new stories in the first segment. Joel (23m 37s): That's how much news is going on this week. Nomad Health, an online platform that connects travel nurses with healthcare jobs raised $105 million and its latest funding round, which brings total funding raised at the NY based firm to more than $200 million. The company plans to expand its marketplace beyond travel nurses, to allied health professionals, including lab techs, physical therapists and ultrasound technicians. Nomad Health was founded in 2015 and now has a user base of more than 250,000 healthcare workers. Chad, you gotta be excited about what's going on in healthcare. What did your thoughts on Nomad Health? Chad (24m 18s): This does two things right out of the gate increases total addressable market and new business opportunities, right? So you're going to have an opportunity to be able to dig into new business where possibly you couldn't before and then wallet share, increase the amount of revenue from your current clients. Their founders, I can't say this enough, instead of just taking more and more and more cash, you need to prove the model, then expand the model and you can do that through what DEEL just did an acquisition or like Nomad is doing here. Not the other way around though. Don't expand the model and start, you know, looking for a bigger Tam, just because you got more money, you still have to ensure the model is proven. Chad (25m 3s): The big question though, for me is what's your prediction on this? Nomad starts buying healthcare staffing companies or large staffing company buys Nomad. Joel (25m 12s): I'm going to go with Nomad, buying up staffing companies. I think the heat is there. I think the tech is there. The business model is there. I think it's going to be them being the acquirer. And I think they're not going to be the only one to do it. Healthcare is going to be a trend that we talk about a lot. We've already talked about it quite a bit, actually one of my top three trends for the next few months, Chad. Healthcare, upscaling and robots. Anyway, we've seen gig economy come into the healthcare workforce where doctors, radiologists, nurses can sort of pick their hours, pick where they want to work, just like someone that drives an Uber can do. And now you're looking at something like this with travel nurses, they're getting into new marketplaces and new areas. Joel (25m 55s): I only see sunny skies for these businesses. You've got 77 million baby boomers that aren't getting any younger that need healthcare. The reality of COVID and now monkeypox! Who knows what's next? Healthcare is going to be in big demand. It's just fun to say monkeypox and this is going to be a trend that we're talking about for a long time. Maybe till we stop doing this show, we'll be talking about healthcare companies, raising a lot of money in growing their business. Chad (26m 20s): Yeah, it'd be great for staffing companies to quit buying stupid shit like Monster and start focusing on things that are more, you know, evolutionary, you know, like Step Forward, like Nomad Health. I mean this just, again, it just makes sense. And the way that they're proving the model and expanding the model I think is, is great business practice. Joel (26m 38s): Yep. Let's take a quick break. I gotta blow my nose and we'll talk about Pave. Chad (26m 47s): Now, if this was the Europe show, it would be Pave. Joel (26m 52s): Pave, yes, like Visage is Visage. Chad (26m 54s): Visage. Joel (26m 57s): All right Chad. Compensation startup Pave has raised a hundred million in a series C, which mints them as a new unicorn at $1.6 billion in valuation. The company was founded in 2019 has 150 employees and more than 2,500 customers. The startup says it's on a mission to build the world's best compensation tools and easily accessible market data so companies can plan, communicate and benchmark in real time. Based in San Francisco Pave last raised a $46 million series B that was in August of '21 investors in the company include the likes of, oh, I don't know, Andreessen Horowitz. Joel (27m 40s): Chad, is this company on solid ground or do you see cracks in the pavement? Chad (27m 46s): Unifying, total comp and budgeting. I can get behind. I'm a huge fan of whatever drives, pay equity, people doing the same job, getting paid at the same rate. I'm an even bigger fan of pay transparency. I mean, seriously, if you've got nothing to hide, then why the fuck are you hiding it? The big excuse for companies over the years has always been that systems are too complex to pull together the data and make comparisons, without ton of admin work. Well guess what kids I've called bullshit for years and now what platforms like Pave can do, I'm going to yell bullshit, even louder. So with. sfx (28m 24s): What did you say? Chad (28m 26s): With platforms like Pave and Syndeo, if you remember a career coach, Colacurcio. Maria Colacurcio. Joel (28m 33s): Yes. Chad (28m 33s): So Syndeo, there are more reasons for equity in the workplace. Although I doubt you're going to see companies flocking to these systems because most don't want to be equitable and transparent. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see companies going after these systems. They're just going to create excuses and they're not going to get there unless they're forced. Joel (28m 56s): Interesting. So let me quote, Index Ventures partner, Mark Goldberg, who said in a statement, quote “Compensation is a visceral problem for every company. For generations, we have been stuck with offline, finger-in-the-air practices when figuring out how much to pay people. These problems are both universal and wildly expensive" end quote. Throw in a pandemic and a more globalized workforce and you've got yourself a really, really big problem that at least Pave is trying to solve. Chad (29m 24s): Yeah. Joel (29m 25s): Throwing tech into this is not necessarily a bad thing, at least you know, in theory. Look, it's hard to get payment right or pay, right when you're in just one city or one location, try doing it for an entire world. I got to applaud them for getting in the game and trying to solve some of the pay transparency or pay issues that you you've highlighted. It's also hard for me to see a company like this be a standalone company. I got to think that once the economy improves, they basically have a few different options. They can go to IPO or they can sell. I think they're pretty pricey and I don't see the economy bouncing back anytime soon, in terms of the public markets. Joel (30m 10s): So I would predict these guys go IPO, try to get some sort of a valuation that makes sense and then have someone come in and buy them, similar to how LinkedIn did. LinkedIn came to public markets and figured out what the hell is this thing actually worth because nobody knew what a social media company was worth. I think the same as is similar with the companies in our space. Nobody's exactly sure what these companies are worth. IPO, get a price that people can agree on and then probably sell out. Or go out of business who knows? Chad (30m 39s): ADP needs to buy these guys. Joel (30m 42s): Yeah. Chad (30m 42s): I mean, that's what it comes down to is being able to have all of this data accessible in one place, which you know, you can with Pave, I'm just not sure. Like you would sit on a standalone system that companies are gonna pay for it because if they're not forced to, they don't have line item budgets. They're not getting find out their ass by the US government because of their pay practices. Why? Why do it? Joel (31m 9s): Great points, Chad and the Nyquil's kicking in and I don't have a response for you. But let's go to our final news story. Chad (31m 25s): Gloat! Joel (31m 25s): Gloat has announced a $90 million Series D round by generation investment management. Chad (31m 30s): Jeez! Joel (31m 31s): A firm led by former VeeP Al Gore. This brings the startups total raise to $192 million. The proceeds will be put toward expanding Gloat's presence, growing its team of over 250 employees and strengthening its R and D initiatives. Founded in 2015, Gloat sources information on employees to help match them to job openings at their employer, whether they're proactively searching or a manager seeks them out. In cases where a worker falls short of requirements, the platform provides guidance on what they need to learn as well as part-time and shadowing opportunities. Upscaling and internal mobility are hot Chad and Gloat is riding the wave. Joel (32m 12s): Your thoughts. Chad (32m 13s): So will companies embrace internal mobility? That's the big question. Whose budget does it come out of? Is there actually a line item budgets big enough to buy another piece of tech that is going to be slammed into an already redundant tech stack? I said it before, and I'll say it again. If retention and internal mobility are so goddamned important, why are companies buying IM systems like Gloat? And if IM was in such great demand and by great demand, I mean, people will actually pay cold, hard cash for it. Why aren't bigger systems buying Gloat? Cause they're not going to want to develop this themselves, they're going to go do some lame ass closet version. Chad (32m 57s): I'm in the same camp with Gloat that I am with Pave. Companies will talk the talk all damn day, but only a few will actually walk the walk and will that few be enough to make Gloat a big player in the space? I think platforms like Gloat have to be ingrained an automated piece of every talent management system. This can not be something that you actually think about. It just needs to happen, in general Internal mobility teams do not exist. Joel (33m 30s): And they've got a few competitors. Chad, I don't know if you saw that? By the way, your boy, Josh Berson, Josh Berson say that fast three times, your boy, Josh Berson, Josh Berson is all over this one saying in a blog post quote, "I've talked with many Gloat customers and they all tell me the same thing. Once this system is up and running, the employees immediately love it" end quote. He added quote, "I believe Gloat is one of the up and coming vendors that are data-driven, AI centric systems designed to completely redesign how companies work" end quote. Chad (34m 8s): Wow. Joel (34m 9s): High praise. Chad (34m 9s): Blah, blah, blah, blah Joel (34m 10s): Yeah, they have a ton of competition, Eightfold, Phenom, iCIMS and many others. But really, I mean, no matter what the economy does, like internal mobility, I think will remain hot. Up-scaling and term internal mobility. People hate recruiting. They want to improve retention, like keeping your current bucket of employees in the company and keeping them happy, I think is going to continue to be important. Gloat obviously supports this trend and I think is in a decent position, but the competition makes me a lot less bullish than if they were one of the Mavericks in this space and doing great things. But according to your boy, companies love them and employees love him even more. Joel (34m 52s): So, Hey, it's sunny skies for Gloat as far as your boy, Josh Berson is concerned. Well, speaking of sunny skies, let's talk about the flying hotel after this quick break. Chad, you remember Elysium? Chad (35m 5s): I do. I do. Joel (35m 7s): Wwith Matt Damon, where all the rich privileged people live on a luxury space station? Chad (35m 15s): Yeah. Joel (35m 15s): While the commoners had to struggle to survive on earth. Well, welcome to 2154, Chad, a giant nuclear powered flying hotel. Chad (35m 23s): Oh my God. Joel (35m 24s): Complete with a gym and swimming pool is set to carry 5,000 passengers in unparalleled luxury. It's now in the works, Chad it's in the ideation stage. The AI piloted Sky Cruise, that's what they're calling it, plans to remain airborne for months at a time. Chad (35m 43s): Months. Joel (35m 43s): Also docking to take on new passengers or to drop off anyone on board. The futuristic hybrid between a plane and a hotel, which has 20 engines powered by, get this nuclear fusion, is designed never to land. Chad we've been waiting for flying cars since the 1950s, and now we've made the leap to flying hotels. Are you ready to check in on this flight or are you sticking with Delta? Chad (36m 9s): This to me is like the perfect, like Airplane sequel. This is what movies are made of. This is a comedy. I won't even go on a fucking cruise ship anymore. I mean, it is a Petri dish and you get to get off of the cruise ship, right? You get to get off of at, you know, the Caribbean or something like that. I mean, this is being dubbed the new Titanic. Can you imagine a nuclear reactor falling from the sky? I'm going to go with no. I'm going to, this is hard pass for me. Joel (36m 40s): Yeah. Not only is it the next Airplane. It's the next Armageddon because when this thing hits a Toledo, Toledo is off the map. We can't visualize this verbally for the podcast, but if you, if you go search for it, the images of this thing are absolutely ridiculous. It's like 10 times bigger than a regular plane. It's got like double, it's like a biplane with 20 engines on it. Chad (37m 8s): It looks like a cruise ship with wings. Joel (37m 9s): It's totally ridiculous. By the way, it could be weaponized, right? Like not just crashing on its own, it could be shot down over whatever. And then it becomes a bomb, a nuclear bomb. Chad (37m 18s): Really going dark. Aren't ya? Joel (37m 20s): I'm going dark. I'll go in dark. That's where my brain is after all the meds. So I did love this one comment, quote "I bet I still end up next to someone else's screaming three-year-old for the entire trip" end quote. I love human ingenuity, Chad, but this is a big, never going to happen for me. Chad (37m 35s): Hard pass. Chad and Cheese (37m 36s): We out. We out. OUTRO (37m 38s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (38m 25s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

If you heard a B-list actor, but an A-list corporate spy was on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, would you listen? Well, today's your lucky day. The boys welcome Robert Kerbeck, author of "Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street," to the podcast. Through a career that started in the '80s, peaked during the Y2K scare and continues today through folklore, the podcast explores tips and tricks - not only for corporate espionage - but for recruiting / poaching, job searching and even corporate security. Oh, and there are stories about O.J., Madonna and Steve Jobs too. Enjoy. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. You know, what's up everybody. It's your two favorite middle-aged white guys also known as the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined is always, the Robin to my Batman, Chad Sowash and today an interview like we've never done before. He's a B-list actor and an, A-list corporate spy, if that doesn't keep you listening. I don't know what well, let's welcome. Robert Kerbeck to the show. Robert, how are you and where are you calling from Mr. Corporates spy? Robert (54s): Yeah. If I told you that I'd have to take you out back and shoot you. Joel (58s): Oh shit. Chad (59s): Nobody wants that. Robert (1m 0s): I'm calling from sunny Malibu, California. Joel (1m 4s): It's just awful. Chad (1m 5s): Sounds horrible, fucking horrible. I got to say Robert, I don't know who your PR firm is, but we get requests probably about 20 requests a day to come on the show to do interviews. And generally, if something's not like really spot on topic for, you know, for what we do in our industry, I kick that shit to the curb. I saw yours and it does play around the fringes. We're going to talk about that today. Joel (1m 33s): The bio stands out. The bio is kind of interesting. Chad (1m 36s): The bio was incredible, but, but the book Ruse: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street. This is an amazing book. We're going to talk about that. We're going to get into that, but before we do give us a little Twitter bio about you, and then we're just going to roll right into it. Robert (1m 54s): Yeah. So, you know, I was a young guy. I'm from Philadelphia. My great-grandfather sold horse carriages before cars were invented. My grandfather took over the dealership. My father took over the dealership and I was supposed to take over the dealership. And when I was in college, I kind of stumbled into acting. I fell in love with it, wanted to move to New York, to try to become an actor. And of course actors need survival jobs. And so I went to New York and somehow I stumbled into a job as a corporate spy. Chad (2m 22s): You still, okay. Let's run through this shit real quick. Okay. First and foremost, it's interesting because I mean, you obviously have the DNA embedded from a gift of gab sales kind of scenario, which also rolls into, I think, acting there's a good amount of, you know, ego. That's there not to mention. You're good looking kind of guy. How the hell. So I can see those too, right? I have no fucking clue. How do you go from that to corporate espionage? Joel (2m 51s): Was there a job posting in the Tribune or something? Chad (2m 56s): Did you go to monster.com? I mean what the hell? Robert (2m 59s): That's funny. Funny. Yeah, they, of course they didn't have monster.com back in the day. And even today, I don't know that you're going to see a lot of corporate espionage listings. Right? My college roommate's brother was living in New York and he kind of offered to show me the ropes. And one day he kind of mysteriously mentioned this job and then he shut up right away. And I said, whoa, Hey, Hey, you know, I need a job. What's going on with that? Oh man. And very mysterious about it. But finally, you know, I twisted his arm and he got me this interview with this woman. And I go up to her apartment. Chad (3m 33s): Wait a minute, that seems like a sales technique to me because you can draw somebody and you feel, I kinda like that. Well, I got a secret here. And then was that part of it? Robert (3m 43s): Well, he wasn't rusing me if that's what you're asking. Chad (3m 46s): Yes I was yes. Robert (3m 47s): So I go to the upper east side, which as your listeners may know is kind of the ritziest area of Manhattan. And it's a doorman building. I take the elevator up to the penthouse. This woman opens the door. I remember her now, like holding a martini and smoking a cigarette, but maybe that's just the actor in me exaggerating the story a little bit. Joel (4m 10s): Nice ascot. Robert (4m 10s): She takes me into this apartment, which was for sure the nicest, you know, luxury apartment I'd ever been into. Everything was white. Everything was pristine and right away, I knew whatever she was doing. It was lucrative. She was making a ton of money and she proceeds to do this interview where she never asked me a single question about my skills, what I do. I had a resume. She never asked to see it. She just asked about my relationship with my father and how he was taking me not coming into the family business, which of course really put me off by. I was confused and surprised. You know, I didn't know why she was asking about my dad and my relationship with my dad. And she sends me on my way. And I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten the job. And then my buddy calls and he says, you're hired, but don't get too excited because she hires everyone because no one is able to do this job. Chad (4m 56s): Wow. Joel (4m 56s): What year is this? By the way. Robert (4m 59s): This is late eighties. Joel (4m 60s): Okay. So this is the height of like Gordon Gecko, Michael Milka. And this is New York is a rockin greedy place at this point. Robert (5m 9s): Absolutely, absolutely. And so then the next day I went and I started training for this job and I go out to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And this is back in the day when Williamsburg wasn't filled with coffee shops and hipsters with beards, there were just crack addicts running the streets. And it was very scary, very dangerous. I go into this building, I'm hearing yelling, screaming. I walk up the, you know, there's no elevator in this building. I walk up to the fourth floor, knock on this door and this adorable young woman opens it. She's got a bit of an Irish accent. And she says, come on in, you'll work in my bedroom. And I still have no idea what this job is, what the heck is going on. Chad (5m 48s): It sounds like working in her bedroom kind of gives you an idea of what the job might be. You might be like a gigolo at this point. Robert (5m 55s): Yeah. Which by the way, I think I would have been fine with that too. I needed money. And so, she takes me and she sits me down at this little desk in her bedroom, which had, I think a desk and a futon on the ground. And she begins to tell me what we're doing. And she says, look, what we're doing is we're finding out secret information about Wall Street firms and she begins to train me as to how we do that. The process of how we get people who are trained, who many of whom have advanced degrees, MBAs, whatever, how we get them, how we trick them, how we "ruse" them, hence the title of the book, how we ruse them to give us information that they should never ever give us. Joel (6m 39s): So what was your first call? Who was it to, what kind of information were you looking to find? Chad (6m 44s): Was it successful? Joel (6m 45s): Or do you know what you're going to find or do things that reveal themselves to you? How does this typically work? Chad (6m 51s): Good question. Robert (6m 51s): Yeah. So my first call of course, was a disaster. And most of my initial calls were disasters because as, you may gather, you know, being a corporate spy and getting people to tell you information that they're trained not to give that oftentimes they sign employment contracts that forbid them to release this information, extremely difficult. Extremely difficult. And in terms of the intelligence that we were looking for in corporate spies, we're looking for today, you know, every spine project, every corporate espionage project is bespoke. It's custom. And we're trying to find out anything in everything that we can obtain on a corporation that's going to benefit their competitors. Robert (7m 32s): You know, you think about, if you could get the playbook for your football team, you know, the Sunday game, if you could get the playbook on Thursday or Friday, and you knew every play, they were going to run, you know, every formation, you know, everything about, you know, imagine how valuable that would be. Oh, Chad (7m 49s): Damn, you're Bill Belichick. Robert (7m 50s): Right. Exactly. Joel (7m 51s): Was this less about, I guess, insider trading and what stocks they were buying, versus sort of what major moves they were going to make an M and A, like, what exactly was the goal? Was it to get to a trade before them or something else? Robert (8m 8s): Remember, you know, we're talking now early nineties and into the aughts, and this is the era pre LinkedIn. So a lot of times articles that are coming out about the book, describe me as LinkedIn, before LinkedIn was invented, right? Because one of the things people are able to do today is they're able to, not a hundred percent, I would estimate LinkedIn has about 60% of available executives, accurate information. But for the most part back then, there was no way to determine who was in a group, who ran a group, who the rock stars were in a group, like who were the top three traders in a group, top three salespeople on a team, who were the bankers had the largest books of business. Robert (8m 50s): And as you can imagine, all of that information, if your competitors knew who the top people on a team of 30, who the top five people were, imagine how valuable that was. Joel (9m 2s): So you were poaching? These were poaching missions. Robert (9m 5s): That they always started with the talent, because that was obviously really important. But then what we would do is we would build out the organizational chart. We would know everybody at a team, not 98% of the people, not 99% of the people, a hundred percent of the people in a group, they exact titles, the reporting structures, what they did. And then we would layer on that, what the group was up to, what the projects they were working on. Were they expanding? Were they hiring? Were they opening a new office in Charlotte? Were they working on a deal with, you know, anything and everything that competitors would want to know that would give them, you know, basically, you know, intelligence that's going to benefit them. Chad (9m 50s): So LinkedIn is like a gift. Joel (9m 53s): Totally. Although the 60% is interesting, he's saying 40% are not on LinkedIn, which means there's still a lot of opportunity. Chad (9m 59s): Yeah. But so LinkedIn is a gift because now you have leads into people, actually talk to you to be able to get up the ladder a lot quicker. Right. Robert (10m 7s): That's really an astute comment, because when LinkedIn came out, like each time technology would change, you know, we corporate spies. They're like, ah, it's over for us. That's the end of that. And everything that happened just made our job easier. You know, initially we were really concerned as we moved into the computer era, all of the organizational charts, which had formerly been on paper, became digitized and entered into the corporate directory as well. Wow. That was unbelievable because now I could get anyone and still can, get anyone in any far flung satellite office, Topeka, Kansas, Dublin, Ireland, wherever some person may be that if they have access to the corporate directory, which most do the intranet, I'm able to get somebody to tell me information on the top team in Silicon Valley or the top team in New York, from Topeka, Kansas, or Dublin Ireland. Robert (11m 1s): Right. And then in terms of LinkedIn, you know, yeah. LinkedIn became a source of people, you know, we would be able to, okay, well this is a junior person, they're new with the firm. They may not, you know, have the same kind of level of understanding of the importance of keeping secrets. You know, one of the things we were seeing in the world now is, you know, younger people have grown up in an era where privacy doesn't exist as much, right. And they're also generally more comfortable with that idea. So a lot of times younger employees, junior employees don't realize how valuable this information can be. And if you get them on their phone, which of course is difficult. But if you get them on their phone, they're often willing to tell you a lot of things that they should never ever tell you. Robert (11m 44s): As a matter of fact, a lot of times I can't get young people on the phone to stop talking. Joel (11m 50s): Young, dumb and full of cum is your best friend as a corporate spy. Is that what you're saying? Robert (11m 55s): I would say so. Joel (11m 56s): You'd have a part of the book about flirting for information. So it sounds like finding someone young and impressionable is your key asset. I assume you don't just call up the front desk and say, who's the CFO and who are, you know, the executives below him and who's below them. Is that typically the strategy? And is that the current strategy for finding out corporate information? Robert (12m 17s): I think what most people don't realize is the amount of research that goes into making an espionage call or a series, you know, basically to target a firm. We would do a tremendous amount of research before we would ever consider picking up the phone. Right? We want to know everything that's going on with that firm, we're reading their recent press releases. We're studying their stock price. We're aware. Did the football team win the day before? Did they lose the day before? Was there a trade that happened? Was there something that happened in the city? Like whatever information is going on, that gives us a real world picture that we can utilize that information in our call, trying to establish rapport, trying to create this connection with the person on the other end of the phone, who of course has been trained to never release this kind of information and certainly not over the telephone. Robert (13m 5s): Right? And so we would do all of that research before we would ever even dare picking up the phone because that research enables you to get that information. And a lot of times you've only got one or two shots at this information. And if you blow it now, you can't get the information. And I'm here to tell you, I didn't just get the information 90% of the time. I didn't get it. 95% of the time I got the information, 99.9999999% of the time. sfx (13m 35s): applause Joel (13m 35s): That's called a success rate Chad. That's pretty good. Chad (13m 38s): You're talking about all these, all this research and whatnot, but there were also tools that were out there that helped you, I guess, would say you could use fear and then also an individual's kind of like emotions or wanting to help in this case Y2K. And this was a tool for you in your group to be able to actually play off what was happening to everybody and what everybody was fucking scared of happening was the earth stopping because of Y2K you use this to your benefit. Talk about that. How did you, how would you use something like that? Robert (14m 13s): Well, I can't take credit for that idea. That was my buddy, my college roommate's brother in the bookies packs. And he's the guy that got me the job. And he's the guy that figured out Y2K he figured out that everybody was panicked. Everybody was freaked out and he would just say he was working on Y2K and people would go, oh my God, are we going to be okay? And he'd say, calm down, calm down. It's going to be fine, but we are having some issues and we're finding that we need to re put a lot of information into the internet. And so here's the information I need from you because we have to re put it into the internet. It's going to be so much work and people would feel sorry for us. Robert (14m 53s): They would say, oh my, that sounds horrible. Sure. What do you need? Chad (14m 59s): Anything to save us from Y2K. Robert (15m 1s): Yup. That's exactly what it was. Joel (15m 2s): So that's around technology. I want to go back to the people who aren't on LinkedIn. And I think the popular sentiment is that a lot of it professionals are not on LinkedIn for obvious reasons, they don't want to get calls from recruiters. How has the finding people game changed without them being on LinkedIn? And also if everyone's org chart is online, is it more about sort of technology secrets and what people are doing from a tech perspective? I mean, we talk a lot about AI and automation. I assume that getting technology is a prime piece of content that you can provide to clients. How has the game changed knowing that a lot of people still aren't on LinkedIn? Robert (15m 41s): Well, that's a great question. I think it's surprising to a lot of people, how many we call them passive candidates, right? These are people that are not on LinkedIn. These are people that are killing it, where they are. They've got a great job. They're rock stars. They don't want to be on LinkedIn because they don't want to be inundated with requests from amateur hour, head hunters, right? Executive recruiters, You know, all the people that are smiling and dialing, they don't have time for that. And I'm here to tell you that my clients were the largest firms in the world, and also the largest executive recruiting firms in the world. Right? You look at the top, the list of top 10 executive recruiting firms, you know, nine of them were my clients and these clients were only interested, almost exclusively, only interested in the passive candidates, that were killing it where they were and were not on LinkedIn. Robert (16m 33s): And so we're really, really difficult for people to find and for people to know about. And so even today, corporate spying, trust me, it's alive and well. And one of the main things that these firms are looking for, these executive recruiting firms are looking for are these passive candidates. Chad (16m 51s): So the information that you were going after, wasn't always candidates, right? Robert (16m 55s): No, it wasn't always candidates. Sometimes it was pricing strategies, you know, new products think about, again, Steve Jobs, legendary CEO of Apple, he would not allow his designers to be listed in the Apple directory. Right. Because he was afraid of them being poached. Imagine if we were able to get the names of the, let's just say, iPad design team in the early days of the iPad design, you can imagine how much that information was worth. Right. That would be worth billions and billions of dollars. Chad (17m 24s): Oh, no question. But this is in some of this information in the way that you're going after it, this was illegal right? Robert (17m 30s): Illegal? Chad (17m 31s): Yeah. Robert (17m 31s): I'm sorry. You cut out there. Illegal? I couldn't hear that. Chad (17m 36s): Did you ever feel like, oh shit. You know, we're going to get caught. Did you ever have a situation where it was like, okay, we got to close this down. We got to go into hiding. Joel (17m 47s): Scatter, scatter. Chad (17m 47s): Yeah. Any of that happened at all? Robert (17m 50s): Yes. Yes. I'm able to write the book now because I obviously don't spy anymore. I wouldn't be very good spy if I outed myself as a spy continued to spy, right? That would be pretty dangerous. And so the statute of limitations has expired on whatever potential crimes I may or may not have committed. But back in the day, there was a moment and there were a number of these, you know, close calls. But there was one in particular where my buddy Pax and I were being hunted by a laundry list of authorities: the FBI, US Marshals, Secret Service, on and on, who got wind of our activities, but they actually thought that we were the most famous hacker in the world. Robert (18m 37s): And at the time every organization was after this individual. And while they were on this hunt for this guy, they stumbled onto our trail and were coming after us. And that was really frightening. And especially, it was really frightening when they did finally catch this hacker who was arrested as a domestic terrorist, put in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and spent a number of years in jail. Chad (19m 5s): Holy Shit. Robert (19m 6s): Yeah. There were some moments that were like, oh my God, I cannot believe we're going to go down for this survival job for actors. Joel (19m 16s): You mentioned the value of Apples, you know, tech team put it in context, the kind of money companies are spending or willing to spend for information. Like I assume you weren't, you know, filing your taxes in a typical way, but can you give us some perspective on what bank accounts look like for people like you? Robert (19m 32s): Well, you know, it's funny when I started doing the job, I was getting $8 an hour, which is pretty crazy, you know, but again, you know, we didn't know what we were getting into. And when we started, the job was a lot more innocent than it became. You know, we would, in the beginning, we were posing as students, we were working on a paper and then over time, it morphed to, we were literally mimicking the voices of CEOs of major firms, pretending we were them to get into individuals to tell us information. And so by the end, I went from $8 an hour to millions of dollars a year that I was making. Chad (20m 12s): Damn Joel (20m 12s): Wow. Robert (20m 13s): Damn Chad (20m 13s): That's not hateful. Joel (20m 14s): And those eighties dollars, are we talking current dollars? Robert (20m 17s): Well, current dollars, man, they might be tens of millions. Joel (20m 21s): OK, That'll buy a lot of beer. Chad (20m 22s): You talked about Pax. What was your relationship? Cause it seems like Pax not just got you to the job, but he was at this point, really a co-worker. What was your relationship with your peers? Did you like brainstorm spitball things? I mean, how did you actually interact? Did you work together? How was that relationship? Robert (20m 40s): Well,Pax & I, you know, we were friends, we were coworkers and we developed this kind of brotherly rivalry, right. Where, you know, he, you know, he came up with Y2K and he was constantly throwing it in my face. Cause he taught me the ploy and he was constantly throwing it in my face that it wasn't for Y2K, I wouldn't be getting this, if it wasn't for Y2K, I wouldn't be getting that. Right? So then I had to develop a ploy and I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna, all of a sudden I'm like compliance, compliance, compliance. And so I developed this compliance ploy because you know, when you hear, you know, you've got the, you know, the Head of Compliance on the phone. Oh my God, well, what's going on? Well, you know, oh, all we're all site meeting with the U S regulators. We've got a crisis situation here we need, oh my God. Robert (21m 22s): Well, how can I help? Right. You know, in America we're always taught, especially in corporate culture, be a good corporate teammate, you know. You know, help out! Do what you need to do. And so all of a sudden you got the Head of Compliance on the phone offsite in Washington, DC. Oh my God, what do you? How can I help? Right. And so that was the one that I came up with. So Pax and I were constantly going back and forth, sort of butting heads, but we were also helping each other. And we were driving each other to develop kind of more and more sophisticated ploys that was getting, you know, just greater amounts of intelligence. I mean, you know, sometimes it was shocking, the intelligence that we would determine, sometimes very salacious information that we, you know, a lot of times we weren't even going after things, but again, we'd get a talkative person on the phone that believed we were a senior executive. Robert (22m 16s): What would they not tell us? They were willing to tell us anything, you know, oh my God, did you hear, so-and-so got a DUI? Boy, you know, how's that going to get cleaned up? Well, I hope the press doesn't find out about that. Right? So all of this stuff that we would be finding out about the "corporate family", so to speak, you know, the executives, it was really eye opening to say the least. Joel (22m 42s): I think the recruiters that are listening have some tips and tricks. The legality of which is in question may be on some of them, but they, they have some takeaways I think from this conversation. And, on the flip side of the recruiters, we have job seekers and it seems like there's not a week that goes by that there's not a new scam for job seekers. Someone's trying to get information from them. But I also feel like there may be some tips that you have to help a job seeker get into a company in a legitimate way. Do you have any tips for job seekers, whether it's what to look out for, or how to get your foot in the door of a company that you want to work for? Robert (23m 16s): Absolutely. I mean, one thing I think it's important to recognize is not every job interview is a legitimate interview and that doesn't mean that the recruiter that reaches out to you isn't legitimate. But a lot of times what executive recruiters do, is they interview a whole bunch of people at their client's biggest rival or one of their client's biggest rivals. Again, it's a phishing expedition to get you to reveal information, right? Because now they're interviewing you. And let's just say, you're a relatively junior person in some department. And all of a sudden you get an interview to be the head of this big area at a rival firm, well, in the back of your mind, you're probably going, boy, this would be a huge job for me, God, this would be a ginormous jump in everything, salary, you know, title, whatever. Robert (24m 4s): Well, you know, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And so what a lot of times sophisticated executive recruiters are doing is they're bringing you in as a ruse to get you to reveal information about your company. So, you know, boy, we're so excited. We heard about you. We heard you're a really talented up and coming, tell us a little about your firm and how do they do X, Y, and Z. And how did they structure the phones, and how do they do this? And what are they up to these days? You know, and it sounds like they're there to interview you for a job and really it's a ruse to get you to reveal information that's going to benefit their clients. Joel (24m 46s): Wow. Chad (24m 48s): Oh yeah. And they have you coming to them. Robert (24m 50s): Correct. Joel (24m 50s): That's nasty. Chad (24m 51s): Oh, damn. All right. All right. All right. I'm going to finish off with a couple of acting questions cause I got to dig into this. We don't get a chance to talk to many actors around here, B list or otherwise. What was your favorite role? Robert (25m 5s): My favorite role. Oh my gosh. My favorite role was, I did a play off-Broadway so I'm going to go to the theater cause that's kind of where I started, that was my first love, but I did a play off Broadway with Calista Flockhart. Chad (25m 23s): Oh! Robert (25m 24s): You remember Calista from the TV show, Ally McBeal. And she's of course married to a Harrison Ford for many years now. And Calista and I did this wonderful play off Broadway that ran for months and months got a rave review in the New Yorker and it was just a really great time. We were young actors in New York and when you do a play in New York and it's a hit play kind of the talk of the town and we would just get invited, there was this one woman who came to see the show and she was older woman. She sort of fell in love with me and she would host parties for us. I want to say parties like $5,000 restaurant parties, which, you know, today would be a $15-$20,000 party just simply because we were in this hit show and she wanted to date me. Robert (26m 8s): And so it was just a very heady time. Chad (26m 13s): Crazy. So I also understand that you did a little something with OJ. My question is first and foremost, what was that in second? What was your feeling when you turned on the TV and saw OJ in a white Bronco evading the police? Robert (26m 29s): Yeah. So I got hired to do this exercise video. My manager called me one day and you know, I was a young actor needed work and he said, Hey, I got this exercise video. I said, Hey Bobby, I, you know, I can't dance. I can't do you know, I'm terrible. I'm horrible. We said, no, no, no, no, no. It's exercise video. It's for OJ Simpson. And I went, whoa! Joel (26m 50s): Please tell me spandex was involved. Robert (26m 51s): Exactly. And of course, you know, growing up OJ, you know, his time was a little bit before my time, but still I, you know, knew he was a huge star and I watched him in movies and on Monday night football. And so I was really excited to do this exercise video. And I was told it was, you know, we were going to push ups, pull ups, playing pickup basketball. And when I show up for this thing, it's in a basically dance studio and I'm introduced to the choreographer and I'm like, oh my God, we are going to have to do dance. sfx (27m 21s): Oh hell no. Robert (27m 23s): Hell no! So we started doing these kinds of aerobics moves and the choreographer basically wants to fire me cause he can see I'm just horrific. But OJ vouches for me, he says, oh no, Hey, Robert's making me look good. And because I was so bad and making OJ looked like he was a really good dancer. They couldn't fire me. I know OJ took a liking to me because I was so bad at dancing. And so during the shoot, which was for a couple of days, you know, he just bonded to me. He showed me this pilot that he had just shot for NBC where wait for it. He played a knife expert. And so we have this great experience and I'm like, wow, OJ's, my friend, he's going to get me on this pilot and the series is called Frogman. Robert (28m 10s): And then of course, a few days later, these terrible murders happen. And I see OJ in the Bronco and I literally was watching it with my jaw agape. I could not believe that this guy I'd just been hanging out with who was my new best friend, had theoretically murdered two people. Chad (28m 28s): Fuck. Joel (28m 29s): All right. I can't let you go without this question. Let's play fuck them, marry 'em and kill them of all the stars that you've worked with. Play the game. Who would you shag? Who would you marry? And who would you kill? Chad (28m 45s): Oh my God. Robert (28m 46s): Well, I would definitely kill Madonna because my wife worked from Madonna for a number of years. And the Madonna was one of those celebrities that you weren't allowed to look at. Right? You hear these stories about, oh, so-and-so when you're on set with them, you can't look at them. Forget about talking to them. You can't even have your eyeballs on them as if they're royalty. Right? Madonna was one of those. In terms of marry and hopefully I would be able to have sex and then marry her, Sela Ward is this gorgeous actress. You may remember her. She played Harrison Ford's wife in the Fugitive and she's just, you know, she was in Gone Girl and a former Miss Mississippi. Robert (29m 30s): Just the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful woman ever. And then fuck her old boy, man, a long list. And there's a long list. Joel (29m 37s): And there was that time on the Golden Girls. Robert (29m 39s): Well, there's a long list of actresses that I do sleep within Ruse. So let me just leave it to your listeners may be intrigued to find out who's on that list. Just say, I'll just say JLo is a possibility. Chad (29m 55s): Ah, nice. Well, everybody Robert, dude, we appreciate you stopping by, if somebody wants to buy Ruse, where would you send them? Robert (30m 4s): I think go to my website. robertkerbeck.com, K E R B E C K, because then you can buy the book wherever you'd like to buy books from. And there's also a lot of other cool content on there. There's a book trailer. The book is in development for a TV series and now there's a trailer for that. So there's just a lot of cool snuff, you can check out. Joel (30m 21s): This was awesome. Chad (30m 22s): Going to have to have you back during that TV series, my friend. Robert (30m 25s): Oh, I'd love to come back. I'd love to come back. Joel (30m 30s): Awesome. Thanks Robert. Chad, another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (30m 35s): We out, we out. OUTRO (30m 34s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (31m 18s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Love recruiting news out of Germany? Then you're going to love this week's show. Deutschland is blowing up! The boys are talkin' Personio becoming Europe's most valuable privately-owned HR tech company, WorkMotion raising money to take on Remote, Deel, Oyster, Velocity Global and others in the global employer-of-record provider market, and unicorn-in-training NowJobs has opened its doors in Germany. We even interview NowJobs GM and cofounder Eline Davis on the state of the business. Plus, we all learn the meaning of the word bumpkin. Viel Spaß! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. Eline (0s): I love the Chad and Cheese podcast. INTRO (16s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (38s): Oh yeah. American's heading to Europe next year will have to pay a seven Euro tax thanks to a new fee. But the good news, this podcast will always be free. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "applying for EU membership" Cheeseman. Chad (57s): I'm Chad "not today Satan" Sowash. Lieven (60s): And I'm Lieven "the only non bumpkin on this show" Van Nieuwenhuyze Joel (1m 4s): And on this episode Personia goes, Octacorn, WorkMotion says it's not the size of the wave and it's spring time for NOWJOBS in Germany. Let's do this. sfx (1m 17s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (1m 20s): Bumpkins? Chad (1m 20s): Yeah. What do you mean? You're the only non bumpkin on this show? Where did this come from? Where did you even learn that word Lieven? Lieven (1m 28s): Just quoting a big fan of the show. Steve Juul from Waterton. I don't know what Waterton is, but I'm sure he will explain. But Steve Juul from Waterton sends me a LinkedIn and he said, blah, blah, blah. What do you say? Okay, I'm going to quote, Lieven, just giving you a shout out for your dry humor and EU perspective that clearly the America bumpkins Chad and Cheese bumpkins do not have. sfx (1m 50s): Why did you say? Lieven (1m 53s): Bumpkins. You are the James Bond of the trio shaken, but not stirred. And I mean, Steve apparently has a very good view on the matter. So thank you, Steve. It's appreciated. I have a friend. Joel (2m 3s): Lieven has a fan. Lieven (2m 4s): I have a fan. Chad (2m 5s): Did he also tell you that he had applied for a job within the organization or something? Lieven (2m 11s): I mean, he has to know his place. He's the fan. He shouldn't be applying that's way too far. Joel (2m 18s): And, and bumpkin for those that don't know, it's usually tied to country bumpkin. So it's someone that's very awkward, sort of out of their element, country mouse in the city kind of thing. So. Chad (2m 28s): Which is where America is right now. Joel (2m 31s): Yeah, totally. So for our fans that don't know, bumpkin is just sort of an awkward idiot. Lieven (2m 35s): So it's not, it's not pumpkin, it's bumpkin with a b. Joel (2m 40s): Bumpkin. Lieven (2m 40s): Okay. Okay. So you are bumpkins. I'm not a bumpkin. Joel (2m 43s): Well, that's a hell of a shout out to start the show. I don't know how I can follow that one up? Chad (2m 48s): But thanks Steve. Lieven (2m 49s): Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. Joel (2m 50s): I'm going to try my shout out goes to Smart Recruiters. The popular ATS announced it has expanded its global operations into the Northern European market. By opening up a regional office in our favorite country, Chad Sweden. They're also going to add staff across the region in Finland, Denmark and Norway. Smart Recruiters counts Ikea and H and M. So the move is also a little bit organic. With more and more European vendors becoming real competitors to the U S companies, I expect to see more US providers plant their flags into Europe, just like Smart Recruiter. Shout out to Smart Recruiters, heading to Sweden. Joel (3m 32s): No word yet if the bikini team will be involved or not. And a side note on that, because I went to Wikipedia on this, all the actresses from the nineties beer commercials, for those that remember they were all American actresses with blonde wigs. So I'm feeling a little bit cheated from my youth on that one, Chad. Lieven (3m 55s): A long time ago. Chad (3m 56s): Really off the wall. Now that was really off the wall. Joel (3m 59s): That'll get you canceled today, I think. Chad (4m 2s): Okay. So shout out to Denmark's job index who was ratcheting up Step Stone's, original antitrust complaint against Google for Jobs in the EU. Job index turns to the EU antitrust Chief Margaret Vestager who has fined Google more than 8 billion euros in recent years for various anti-competitive practices. So look at Denmark, baby carrying the "not today Satan" banner against Google for Jobs. sfx (4m 38s): Ma the meatloaf! FUCK! Joel (4m 39s): That's hidden camera from Google in Europe. Lieven (4m 40s): Yeah. And I got a second shout out to Dennis from Alameda. He's a COO at DBG media. Now you don't know what DPG media is, but they're pretty big in Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. They're into, as the name says media. They have about 6,000 people, 2000 journalists, television stations, newspapers, the whole shit. And he let me know in advance they were about to send me a press release and it always makes me feel very important if people let me know they're going to send me a press release. And he was right. He actually did. Lieven (5m 21s): He sent me a press release and they are launching a new company called Aimwell. So like aiming and well, doing something innovative with cross media, lead generation for recruiters in a cookieless world. And I think it's intriguing. I mean, it sounds like they actually found a way to work around the GDPR. A way to generate leads in a cookie-less world. So I'm thinking about we should having them on the show to elaborate on this. Joel (5m 42s): Cookie-less actually in the subhead of that press release. Lieven (5m 44s): It was somewhere in the text. I actually read the whole text. I know you only read the headlines, but I do. I do. Joel (5m 53s): Us bumpkins only read the headlines, we don't go any further. sfx (5m 58s): Why did you say? Chad (5m 59s): TLDR baby? Yeah. So, so not only do we get called bumpkins, but Lieven goes ahead and slides in another shout out, okay, this is, this has gone off the rails. He's off the show for one week comes back, takes over. This is crazy. Joel (6m 13s): Next thing you know, he's going to be joining us in London next week, and taking over our show. Chad (6m 21s): Knebworth Park baby. Yeah, we should get Lieven on the stage. July 7th kids. If you have tickets, you know where you're going to be. All day Knebworth Park, come to the Disrupt Stage. Joel and I are going to have nothing but tech on stage all day, not to mention beer. Beers going to be on stage, come out, have a great time. Try not to get wasted Joel Cheeseman. At the end of the day, it's going to be a great time. Lieven would love to see you there, man. Lieven (6m 50s): I'm going to try, I'm going to try, as I've told you, we've got an executive committee, so that's an extra reason to be there. Joel (6m 55s): Let's be honest. I'm going to still be milking my 4th of July hangover on the plane to London. So I may need a little time out on, on the booze. You bet you may be in luck with my sobriety on, on the seventh. Who knows? Who knows? I may still be drunk. I don't know. I don't know. We'll find out. I guess we'll find out All right. Chad (7m 22s): TOPICS! Joel (7m 23s): Personio is now Europe's most valuable private HR tech company. Suck on that Job and Talent and the second most valuable startup in all of Germany, Europe's biggest economy. Let that sink in for a second. The Munich Germany based startup has secured $200 million in a Series A funding. The latest injection follows a funding round in October 2021. When the company raised $270 million and has pushed the company value to sfx (7m 58s): Pink fluffy unicorns music Joel (7m 59s): $2.5 billion up from $2.2 billion just last year. Founded in 2015 Personio is Europe's leading provider of HR software for small and medium sized enterprises or SMEs. It has expanded throughout Europe with offices in London, Dublin Madrid, and Amsterdam, and employs a team of around a thousand people. All right, boys, this is kind of a big deal. Your thoughts bitte? Lieven (8m 23s): Once again. What do I miss? I mean, I read the article, they have 6,000 clients and they all pay 190 Euros a month? And if I, if I calculate correctly, that's like $13.13 million revenue a year and they got a startup at, they got a rates from 200 million, valuing them at a whooping $8.5 billion. I must have missed a detail, but this just can't be. Chad (8m 51s): Yeah. I think the 6,000 customers is more than just the like 200 MRR that they're talking about. I think there has to be seats or something to that effect. There has to be cause the 13 million to be able to get an 18, you know, 8.5 billion? Joel (9m 8s): Or usage. Chad (9m 9s): Yeah. Yeah. But look at that. Look at the frickin meteoric rise though in January of 2020 valuation was $500 million. 2021 they were at valuation of $1.7, 18 months ago, 18 months ago, 1.7 million. Now they're at 8.5 billion. sfx (9m 28s): What did you say? Chad (9m 29s): Yeah, not to mention they don't need the money and they keep saying it over and over. Even in their last raise, they said we don't need the money. Right. So what are these guys trying to do with all this cash? First and foremost, inverse investors I think are helping Personio build a war chest by being able to perspectively by interesting yet failing companies that are going to happen. We've been predicting this, all these huge organizations that may be getting a lot of cash. They're going to fall. There's going to be ones who did not get the traction, they're going to go on the clearance rack. It's going to drive consolidation, which means acquiring more business and also squirreling away cash in case the world economy does see a long winter. Chad (10m 14s): So my biggest question is when is Personio coming to the US? Because when you're looking at a Tam, that in itself is going to increase the Tam dramatically. Joel (10m 24s): Yeah. And therein lies to me, sort of the impressiveness of what these guys are doing. In two words, discipline and focus. Yeah. So on one end, in terms of discipline, they're staying laser focused on, on small businesses and, and one of their releases, they talked about how, how so many enterprise companies come to them to help them and they turn them away because they're so focused on the small, small companies that's obviously paying off. And the second thing that really stood out to me in the five or six sort of news bits that I read about this, before the show, was 0, 0, 0 talk about the US there was no quote, there was no headline, nothing that the company put out like there's apparently no play or messaging around we're coming to America. Joel (11m 13s): So I agree with you, Chad, like it when they when and if they decide to do that, there's a huge opportunity to come to the states, but they are really laser focused on Europe. I mean, we're talking about a lot of big economy in Europe, a lot of opportunity, and they're staying laser focused, not taking enterprise companies, and they're not talking about coming to the U S and that focus as we've learned historically, really pays off for businesses. And it's apparently paying off for Personio. So I, you know, I applaud it, man. It's a rare story and these guys being the most valuable HR tech company in Europe means they need our attention. And we'll be talking about them a lot, I assume, in the coming years. Chad (11m 51s): Yeah. Lieven so what do you think about getting this much cash first and foremost, and then not going to the U S and almost doubling your Tam? Lieven (12m 0s): It's an admirable. I mean, they've got so much comes from cash from the U S and then they say, we're not going to give it back. We're going to keep it in Europe. It's something more companies should do. It's really kind of weird that they say we don't need a cash, but if you're absolutely definitely want to offer it to us okay, we'll accept it. So Green Oaks probably know something we don't, but they are growing and I believe in their approach on the small and medium companies, there are so many of them definitely in Europe, but I'm sure also in the US, but they're only active now when I'm already had offices in four countries. So they have a lot of gain in Europe before moving over to the pond as you would say. Joel (12m 40s): I'd love to know these guys sales strategy, because selling into small businesses, sucks, and for whatever, whatever recipe they have, that's working, they need to package it and sell it to other vendors, because it really sucks to sell to small companies. Chad (12m 54s): So have we seen these guys acquire anybody yet? I don't remember. And I, checked crunchbase. Joel (13m 1s): Yeah, they acquired some automation company fairly recently. Chad (13m 4s): But it was, but it was, no, it was no portfolio acquisition. Joel (13m 8s): I feel like a tech or maybe some aquihire. Chad (13m 10s): Right. All right. So I mean, they're focusing heavily, which I understand totally too, because automation, maybe, I mean, even small companies need automation, they probably need it more than the bigger companies to be quite Frank to scale quicker. But when we're, taking a look at how Personio grows. I see as you you're talking about Joel, how in the hell do they get into these SMEs? I see acquisition. Joel (13m 36s): Yeah. So like agencies, board, I mean, like what would your strategy be here? Chad (13m 40s): Anybody who is common, whether it's competitors or it is common to SMEs, like, let's say for instance, just pure play payrolling systems. Right? That's one of the things that Personio, they have a chunk of that, but if they go out and they gobble up smaller payrolling systems and then pull them in, to the platform, then they also have an opportunity to upsell from a wallet share standpoint. So they're gaining market and they're also perspectively driving more, more wallet share. Joel (14m 8s): Yeah. They could go country by country and just start gobbling up market share in the SMB space. IPO down the road, baby, that'll be fun to talk about. Chad (14m 16s): Yeah. But they said, they said in the article, they're not looking to go public. Joel (14m 22s): Geez. These guys are either spinning some shit or they're the most interesting company in a long time. Like not America, not IPO, very few acquisitions. We're just a special company. We'll be watching Personio. Lieven (14m 35s): To be honest. I didn't know them before I read about the $200 million. But then again, I'm not their target group. We are not small and medium but still it's impressive. And I'm going to look at them. Joel (14m 51s): They're a big deal. Lieven (14m 52s): They are apparently. Joel (14m 54s): No joke. $8.5 billion that will buy a lot of beer, Lieven. That will buy a lot of beer. All right. We'll be back. sfx (14m 59s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (15m 1s): It's not the size of the wave. Chad, it's the motion in the ocean. I know. You've heard that one before. Let's talk about WorkMotion. Chad (15m 11s): It's not this isn't the wave. Oh no. Yeah, no metaphors there at all. No Joel (15m 17s): Metaphors there. All right. WorkMotion a global employer of record provider announced a $50 million series B funding round. This brings total funding to $76.6 million. The Berlin based company plans to use funds to expand the automation capabilities of its global talent platform. Quote, "this investment is a bet that this is only the beginning in a humongous market" said Joydeep Bhattacharya general partner at Canaan WorkMotion was found in 2020 and reports it has more than 500 customers. They employ around 250 people. Okay. Guys, what are your thoughts on WorkMotion? Chad (15m 60s): Okay. So WorkMotion's, $76.6 million in total there in Germany. But then you have Remote that has close to $500 million out of the US. DEEL close to $700 million in funding at the US. Oyster HR $224 million out of the U S and multiplied, there are all these different companies who are trying to become the remote hiring and managing platform, which I we've talked about before. We think this is awesome. The big question is in this case, you have all of those US companies, right? Who have, you know, they're automatically organically in a huge pool. Chad (16m 43s): Now Germany is, don't get me wrong, they are the biggest economy in Europe, although they now have to spread throughout Europe to be able to grow. Where do they go next? Do they go to France next? I mean, what actually makes sense? Because just doing this in Germany is not the end game. Where do they go from here? Joel (16m 59s): I think he'd make a good point, Chad, in that, you know, we talk a lot about, you mentioned DEEL, Remote, Oyster, Velocity Global is in that conversation now, the multimedia unicorn club. Chad (17m 11s): Yeah. Joel (17m 11s): They all have one thing in common, they're based in America. I think two of them are in Silicon Valley, one in Colorado and one in Carolina and for me is WorkMotion situated in a way that they can focus just a little bit like Personio in saying we are going to be the European choice for the employer of record solution for remote work? You know, Europe is twice the size population of the US. It's very complicated. It has a lot of countries in it. So I mean, if WorkMotion takes the approach of, we're going to really target Europe, we're going to let the big boys that have got a lot of money, worry about the US. Joel (17m 51s): And, and we dare them to come over and try to, you know, take market share from us in Europe and we'll let them deal with Asia and other places. I think if they focus in Europe, they have a pretty good chance of being successful. But yeah, I think you're right. If they start talking about coming to America, let's go to other places. I think they're diluting their opportunity and, you know, by taking on these companies that have a lot of money and also, from a buyer perspective, you know, there are a lot of European companies that like buying from Silicon Valley businesses. They think, you know, America is progressive and they're better tech, whatever it is. I think the level is getting, or the division is getting closer and closer in terms of what people think about, you know, European tech companies and American tech companies. Joel (18m 40s): So I think a lot of businesses in Europe will choose the European headquartered business versus something in the US just because it feels more comfortable to them to use a quote unquote "local business" versus one that's from America. Chad (18m 55s): So Lieven you obviously part of an organization that spans many different countries throughout Europe, how hard is it for an organization like this startup to be able to expand within Europe? Lieven (19m 7s): Actually, it's pretty hard. Concept is easy and you were talking about France in my opinion, and I don't think I'm alone with this opinion, France probably is the hardest economy to enter, even within Europe, because they are pretty chauvinistic. No, it's really, it's not a joke. They're chauvinistic and we always think the best way to enter France is by buying a French company and doing something they should have been doing for a long time with them. But the start, is always buy something in France and then leverage from there. Chad (19m 42s): Especially if you're German, right? You don't want to bring a German brand or German speaking organization to some extent, into some of those other, not just because it's Germany, but because they're such big rivals. Lieven (19m 55s): Because the France and Germany, they aren't even that big rivals, I mean, France and England is much worse that does history, but a Germany has its history as well, of course, but I think it's something about the language, you know, it's the only language in Europe that's never accepted words from other languages. I mean, the whole world speaks about a computer. I mean, imagine you say computer in the Netherlands, and then everywhere in France, it's called l'ordinateur. They have the French academy, which is actually inventing worlds words to just make sure no English is entering the language. And that's true. Chad (20m 32s): So, dude, Joel (20m 33s): So if you were, if you were, if you were consulting with WorkMotion, would you advise them to buy a company in France to get a foothold there? Lieven (20m 41s): If you want to enter France, you have, but which company were we talking about? They just left France. StepStone a few episodes ago. Chad (20m 49s): Yeah. Lieven (20m 49s): And why do you think they do it? Because it just freaking hard. Chad (20m 53s): Yeah. But they tried taking their StepStone brand into France. One of the things that I love about House of HR is that you guys don't strip the brand away from the organization. And it stays organic to the country that it was in, in the first place. Right. So, you know, if they had an opportunity to actually acquire, keep that brand and obviously the talent that are there, I think they'd have a better way to go, right? Lieven (21m 21s): Yeah. So of have to buy a company, which is at least very similar to what they are doing, and then they can develop their own products and launch it through that existing company. That's how we should do it probably. We have a company in France. It's Bilson, it's an engineering company. They it's secondment of engineers, I think 1200, maybe more engineers on the payroll and it is a pretty close company. It's the company I have the least contact with from all 49 companies. France, a different world sometimes, but it's a very good company. It's a very good market. And we definitely like it. And we need to invest in it and the whole country, but it's hard, it's probably languished and cultural based. Lieven (22m 8s): Not sure. Chad (22m 8s): Well, let's now let's talk about going into Germany, Joel. Joel (22m 12s): Yes. A nice change in history going into Germany. Yeah. Let's talk about NOWJOBS, the Belgium app that matches flex workers and employers is moving to Germany and is already active in neighboring countries like the Netherlands and France. It has already grown from 600,000 euros in revenue to more than 90 million euros in revenue. Eline David co-founder and general manager of the House of HR subsidiary says her personal ambition is turning NOWJOBS into a sfx (22m 45s): pink fluffly unicorn soundtrack Joel (22m 47s): And the next step in achieving said status is moving into Deutschland. Again, the largest economy in Europe, which the company announced recently, the idea for NOWJOBS came in 2016 when they were looking to disrupt another House of HR company. Well, where can we get a House of HR expert to come comment on this, Chad? Chad (23m 7s): I don't know. Are there any accessible at this point? I think Lieven probably on his third beer. Joel (23m 11s): Lieven, yes. Lieven (23m 11s): Yeah. I've been called many names at House of HR, but expert is a new one, but I'll give it a try. I'll give it a try. In my opinion, and I'm probably a bit biased, but NOWJOBS is one of the main reasons why Bain should have bought us. It was a few episodes ago. Bain has acquired 55% in House of HR and they made a pretty good deal if you ask me, but the NOWJOBS is one of the big reasons because Eline probably is right. This has a potential of becoming a major unicorn. If only in Belgium, we can reach a hundred million probably by the end of this year, how much can we reach in Germany? There are how many Germans, 70 million, something like that, maybe 80? Lieven (23m 54s): Need to check, but to under only 10 million Belgians. So on the economy is a lot bigger. I think Germany is a good choice and we already have time partner in Germany, so it's not like she has to start from scratch. We have a big network so we can use the network to give it a speed bump, nothing like a bumpkin speed. Is it the word speed bump? sfx (24m 17s): What did you say? Lieven (24m 17s): I just like reminding you of the bumpkin. But other than that. Joel (24m 20s): Appreciate that. Lieven (24m 21s): I know, but no, I think Germany is a good choice and she also has plans in France, where we already are in France, but it's going to grow, maybe the way I was just talking about. Chad (24m 36s): Luckily, believe it or not kids, you probably remember we were in Belgium. We have a quick interview from our friends at NOWJOBS, actually Eline sat down with us and talked about the German expansion even before they announced it. So let's sit back. You guys ready to listen? Joel (25m 0s): I'm ready. Lieven (25m 1s): Yup. Chad (25m 2s): Here we go. Eline (25m 3s): I love the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (25m 5s): And we're done. Thanks. Thanks for coming. Joel (25m 9s): All right, everybody. We are back again live from Ostend, Belgium at the Recruiting E-Congress. Chad (25m 15s): How many beers have we drank thus far? Joel (25m 16s): We're at least five or six in. Chad (25m 22s): Good God. Joel (25m 22s): And it's only 9:00 AM. No, it's a little later than that. I'd like to welcome Eline David. Chad (25m 40s): The easiest name we've dealt with today. Yeah. Joel (25m 41s): The founder of NOWJOBS.com? .be? Eline (25m 43s): .com, .be and .fr and soon, maybe a teaser. Joel (25m 44s): Oh, scoop! Eline (25m 45s): Soon in Germany. Joel (25m 46s): Oh. Deutsland! Yah Zer gut! Chad (25m 46s): .de Baby. Eline (25m 46s): We are going to Germany. Joel (25m 48s): Eline, welcome to the podcast. Eline (25m 49s): Thanks for having me. Joel (25m 50s): Super fans by the way. Eline (25m 51s): Super fans. Chad (25m 51s): Really? Joel (25m 51s): Yeah. NOWJOBS. Eline (25m 52s): Yes. Joel (25m 52s): Yes.They love us and now Chad (25m 55s): I love it. Okay. So you have a story to tell, and I want to hear this because there are many startups that listen to us that want to understand how to get traction. Right? How do you get into a market? How do you gain traction? You guys have a good story. You've got a great story. Joel (26m 9s): Cut to the play. Chad (26m 10s): You have a fucking amazing story to be quite Ffrank. So let's start off with the story of NOWJOBS. Eline (26m 16s): So go ahead and do you want to know how we accelerate their business or how we got born? Chad (26m 21s): How you got born first? Eline (26m 23s): How he got born is actually a cool story. So we're part of House of HR. So six years ago, we did a brainstorm session. How to kill Accent? Accent in Belgium, known as the third biggest entering temp office with 2,200 people on the payroll, 500 million revenue. And we saw many digital initiatives. Chad (26m 43s): How to kill. I love this. Right out of the gate! You're usually we don't hear this out of you, Europeans. Right? Joel (26m 50s): Like a fly on the wall of a strategy meeting at House of HR. How do we fuck shit up? That's the strategy meeting House of HR. Chad (26m 55s): I love this. I want to be in more of these conversations by the way. Go on. Eline (26m 60s): It was a very cool exercise with all the CEOs of House of HR. We gathered in HGhent and we did a whole day session with all the CEOs. How can we kill Accent? So everybody came up with disruptive ideas, but with four people were quite convinced that everything was happening in a traditional temp office we can digitalize it. And one year later we started programming NOWJOBS. Chad (27m 25s): Holy shit. So how do you take something like that though and then operationalize and execute on it? Because that's, I mean, being able to come from whiteboard to execution and business, that's not easy shit. Eline (27m 39s): No, two years before we launched another app Swap, it was like the Tinder for jobs and in the beginning, everybody. Chad (27m 44s): Oh no she said Tinder for Jobs. Eline (27m 46s): But it was like eight years ago. Eight years ago. And they were looking like, oh, Iline, what are you doing? Building an app? A little bit PR. But suddenly that app was getting very nice results, we gave 150 people a job via now via Swap every month. So due to that, we found out, okay, the market in Belgium is ready to go digitally. We got in touch with building funnels, candidate acquisition and all those stuff. And NOWJOBS is actually the extended version of what we had with Swap. Joel (28m 20s): So a lot of our listeners and me included don't have a real appreciation for Accent. Give some perspective on how big they were, how much market share you've taken from them. What's the current state of their business. Like give us some sense for those in America that don't know what the hell like Accent is. Yeah. Chad (28m 41s): You mean a House of HR company? Joel (28m 44s): No, no. Chad (28m 44s): Yeah. Joel (28m 44s): Oh, you're killing the internal company. Well, that's even more interesting. Chad (28m 51s): No, it's Netflix. It's, Netflixing the shit. Right? Because Netflix had the whole Joel (28m 55s): Mail in CDs. Chad (28m 56s): And then they killed their own business with online. Eline (28m 59s): Wala! That's what you see a lot of big players they buy Chad (29m 1s): This is why this is fucking cool. Eline (29m 3s): Yes. And what we did. So big players buy small initiatives, startups, to integrate them in their company. No, we integrated, we created a company in our company, together with people who have a lot of experience in the industry and people who come from external with good IT. Joel (29m 23s): This is great. Cause I didn't know this. So, you know, instead of getting killed by someone else, you intern you euthanized. So is that business gone now? Chad (29m 30s): No. Eline (29m 31s): No, no. Chad (29m 31s): It's strong. Joel (29m 33s): So talk about that. Are you, you're just doing it differently? So you're basically having your cake and eating it too. You kept the, the one business alive and you create another business that gobbles up pellets like Pac-Man. Eline (29m 49s): NOWJOBS is 100% digital platform to recruit students. People who wants to get some extra money. So we position it on that angle because what we've seen in development in research that if you want to go for a fixed job, that you want to have a physical interview with your employer via an app, it was a little bit difficult in the beginning. Accent is really focused on fixed jobs. And with NOWJOBS, we pick the segments students and flexible workers. So that's why we can attack the same customers and the same customers can use NOWJOBS and Accents. Joel (30m 21s): So House of HR incubated you essentially, what kind of budget did they give you? How much rope did you get? Like talk about sort of the playbook that they allowed you to make and run with. Eline (30m 33s): It's quite amazing because we see there are many platforms like us in, in Europe and also in the US but what we see is most of them are burning cash massively. $50 million funding, $200 million funding. What we did, we build it up very lean and mean. At this moment, we have a positive EBITDA Joel (30m 53s): That was lean and mean for those that didn't catch it. Eline (30m 55s): To give you the investments. We only invested two and a half million in NOWJOBS and in five years time. Chad (31m 3s): What? 2.5 million in 5 years? Eline (31m 5s): And this year we're going for the 100 million revenue. So, Chad (31m 13s): Oh, that's what I'm talking about. That's what Lieven's talking about. Lieven's talking about Handshake. So Handshake is, has like, I think at least $400 million in funding, they're approaching a hundred million, right? Joel (31m 28s): Reportedly. Chad (31m 28s): How much? 5,000,000, Two and a half? Two and a half million in five years. Joel (31m 34s): Jesus. Chad (31m 34s): Oh, Jesus! I mean, this is what right looks like. Joel (31m 37s): All right. So what do you need to do to get to 200? Is it Germany? Is it France? Eline (31m 46s): We have a plan. We learned many things in the Belgium markets. And we have a strong international cooperation between the countries. We are learning from each other, do cross selling. We already have more than 10 international customers that we give service outright with all the countries. So we're really one team and the human force and human power is very important to launch a digital platform. Joel (32m 9s): Which is why he shaked, she has some team members here with her. And when I said America, he was like, shaking me off like a catcher to a pitcher, speaking of baseball. Chad (32m 22s): Which I think is amazing. Because every time we talk to European organizations, they're like, we're going to invade the US. Now that's a big pot of gold, but you're forsaking all of the money that is in Europe! Joel (32m 35s): The largest economy in the world. What are you crazy? Why do that? Chad (32m 40s): Because there's a big economy here. Eline (32m 41s): It's a very big economy and what we also chooses to start up near our own country. So it's easy to build one team. Don't go immediately for far away. Don't go for the UK because you always have to take a train or a plane. Don't go for the US. So we keep it close. And what we do, we do very good. Joel (33m 4s): Let me ask about nuance for a second. So Europe has a lot of countries in it. They're very culturally unique. Legally they're all different. Governmentally they're all different. When you grow into other countries in Europe, it's not like going into another state in the US. So talk about the nuance, the challenges of going to a country like Germany. Eline (33m 26s): Well, then I paused the mic to Frédéric. Joel (33m 29s): Let's introduce Frédéric, Frédéric Pattyn. Oh, with a Y I liked that like General Patton with a Y I can dig. And your position at NOWJOBS is? Frédéric (33m 39s): Project Manager since day one. Joel (33m 40s): Okay. So talk about going into Germany and what that's all about and what it entails. Frédéric (33m 47s): Well, as you say, Europe has a lot of a bunch of countries in it. And we started out with the Netherlands, which was a completely insane, different, legal mindset, where we try to digitalize and automate a lot of stuff. Where we sometimes took nine months to just figure it out through the knowledge of the legal stuff, that'd be automated in Belgium. And what we additionally learned in the Netherlands, it made it rather or easier to go to France, although they are even more bureaucratic, even more un-digitalized, even more. Chad (34m 17s): You don't say. No kidding. Joel (34m 18s): I've heard. Frédéric (34m 19s): And based on the first two countries, it was a big challenge to go to France, but it only took an additional eight to nine months to do that. Joel (34m 28s): Only eight to nine months. He says that like it's nine months. Frédéric (34m 31s): Just to figure out the legal stuff, because that's the big difference between staffing and freelance. Freelance is so easy to go live with it. Give me two weeks and you have an app for freelance. When it comes to actual interim staffing, flexible staffing, the laws around it's the security that candidates or people that actually have that kind of contract have is so massive. Definitely in France and now we are going to Germany and there it's even worse there they don't even know what an app is. What digital is. I am trying now to figure out what the team, how to site pass some paper documents that apparently must be signed physically. Joel (35m 15s): Germans don't know what an app is. I think that's what Frederick's final point was in that. The Germans might have an issue with that. Frédéric, Eline. Thank you for joining. Thanks for listening to the podcast. For those that want to know more about you guys, where do you send them? Eline (35m 36s): You can find us on LinkedIn, Eline David or NOWJOBS.com Frédéric (35m 41s): Frédéric Pattyn, also LinkedIn and NOWJOBS.be, NOWJOBS.fr, NOWJOBS.nl Joel (35m 45s): .de Chad (35m 46s): .everything. Eline (35m 47s): We're everywhere. Joel (35m 48s): Thanks for joining us. Enjoy the rest of the show. Eline (35m 51s): Thanks for having us. Chad (35m 52s): Okay, dude. I love that story about how NOWJOBS was created first and foremost, as an evolution or alternative to Accent, which is your biggest brand, right Lieven? I mean, you guys, you guys were actually starting to war plan against yourselves so that you could perspectively beat competitors to it. Lieven (36m 10s): Absolutely and it's better that we come up with something like that, then that a competitor does. Chad (36m 16s): Yes. Well, I, I keep thinking of like back in the Monster days, Monster was on top of the mountain. If they would have had this thought process, they could have perspectively come up with Indeed before Indeed did right. If they could have reinvented themselves, Indeed, wouldn't be on the top of the mountain now. And there are so many companies that are out there today who are guarding and defending. If they just focused on this type of process and really reinventing and reevaluating, it would be a better way to go through R and D. Lieven (36m 47s): Definitely. And it's always the same thing when I was, I think it's almost 20 years ago when I was just starting in this industry. I used to work for a job board and I told my boss, I said, pay-per-click is coming. We need to really find our business model because now we charge per credit as a StepStone and Monster still do I guess, but pay per click is coming, we should do something. And in Belgium, you used to have a duopoly. I mean, there are two companies, you have you two competitors. And they had 50% of the markets, each, something like that. So I said to the boss, we need to do something. He said, yeah, don't rock the boat you're in, we were making so much money with the current business model, let the other company do it. Lieven (37m 31s): And that was a big mistake. And then three years later, you had a Career Jet, you had Simply Hired, you had Indeed, and now those two companies have merged and they used to be water and fire, they hated each other, but they had to merge because alone, they just couldn't survive. Maybe that's not totally true. There's probably a bit of politics involved as well for the merging, but still they couldn't do it alone. Just keeping your business model because you're afraid to cannibalize. It's always a bad idea there are tons of examples in history. Joel (38m 2s): Yeah. There's a great book. About 20 years ago, I think it was written called the Innovator's Dilemma. And it talks a lot about these established companies and how hard it is to pivot and switch the business because you're trading a cash cow in for maybe another business? Maybe? You know, an uncertain future. And I love, I do love how, how this story happened in that there was a relatively small amount of investment in the NOWJOBS company. And it turned into this behemoth Lieven (38m 34s): $5 million in five years, something like that. Chad (38m 38s): Yeah, yeah. 2 million seed and then 5 billion in that's ridiculous. Yeah. Joel (38m 42s): So you, you can, you can still have the main business and take bets on disrupting yourself without losing your shirt. And I think that if there's anything aside from, Hey, if you're going to just be disrupted, disrupt yourself, it's take small bets on the future and hopefully you'll get one of those bets right. And House of HR obviously made a great bet in NOWJOBS and it's paying off handsomely. Lieven (39m 5s): And if you look at Accent, I mean, under the whole idea of us develop something, that's going to kill Accent. But if you look at Accent today, it's doing better than ever. They have the best months ever. So this has been what did Eline say? I'm better six years ago or eight years ago, when did we launch NOWJOBS? I don't know. Joel (39m 25s): 2016. Lieven (39m 25s): Okay, so that's Joel (39m 26s): The idea for NOWJOBS came in '16. Lieven (39m 28s): Well, I'm done. It took us some time, but not that much to develop it. So many years ago, we launched NOWJOBS, it's highly successful, but Accent is still highly successful. So there hasn't been any cannibalization, is that the word? Chad (39m 42s): Yeah. Lieven (39m 42s): Yeah. Cannibalization. Okay. There hasn't been any cannibalization at all. Chad (39m 46s): Yeah. Well, think of it though. Think of it from the standpoint, when Netflix came up with the internet accessible streaming, their disk service didn't dry up overnight. Right. But they had those two running together. At the same time. You have the evolutionary step already in place will Accent, Accent could grow and the next thing you know, you just have two amazing businesses that are just creating cash. That's my biggest point! Is that if you're not looking to defend, what are you really looking to do? I mean, you can't just lay in the corner in the fetal position and hope that nobody comes after your market share because that shit's never going to happen. You might as well go after it yourself. Lieven (40m 26s): And it happens constantly that they do go lying in the corner and wait, it's so weird. Chad (40m 31s): Well, we're not going to be in the corner Lieven we're going to be on a plane, soon. Hopefully coming to see you. We're going to be at Knebworth Park. Now I'm going to take a little jaunt to Portugal, but I'll be back soon. Another, another great week guys. Joel (40m 49s): That's right. It's not, it's not Belgian beer, but English beer is still pretty good. It's still pretty good. Lieven (40m 58s): It is. Joel (40m 58s): See in London, boys. Lieven (41m 0s): See you. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (41m 0s): We out. OUTRO (41m 1s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (41m 42s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Humans have been telling stories for as long as we've been around. So, it's no surprise employers who tell the best stories are typically the ones who get the best workers. It matters. That's why we invited Patrick Hodgdon, VP of marketing at hot startup FactoryFix on the Cult Brand Series with RecruitmentMarketing.com's Julie Calli to explore what companies are doing right, and most importantly wrong when it comes to storytelling. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah, what's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. Also known as the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is our cult brand series. My name is Joel Cheeseman, and as always I'm joined the Moe and Larry to Mike curly, Julie Calli president at recruitmentmarketing.com. And we welcome VP of Marketing at FactoryFix, Patrick Hodgdon. Patrick, welcome to the show. Patrick (49s): Hey, Hey. Hey, Chad (50s): I don't even get an introduction anymore. What's going on here? Joel (53s): Oh, God damn it. Chad (54s): You just go with it. Joel (56s): That guy said you're not supposed to take NyQuil into in the daytime. Patrick welcome to the show. Patrick (1m 1s): Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here. Joel (1m 3s): Awesome. Awesome. Chad (1m 3s): Ah, okay. No more. You did read the fine print on the Nyquil, right? You're not supposed to like, you know, heavy equipment, operating heavy equipment or podcast at that day. You read that, right? Joel (1m 19s): Yeah. So I'm a little under the weather to say the least. I don't know if you can tell them I'm on enough Tylenol to mask it. But Chad and I were talking beforehand and said, Hey, should, should I just do this? Or do you need to go back to bed? And I said, you know what? The guys at the guys and gals at FactoryFix are such big fans of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Like there's no way they're going to stand for just one of us coming on the show. So Patrick, you get both of us or maybe one and a half because I'm on, Chad (1m 45s): Let's even better because you got Julie. Joel (1m 47s): Yeah, this'll be fine. Let's roll with this kids. Patrick (1m 50s): I'm feeling lucky. I'm feeling lucky. Chad (1m 51s): Feeling lucky. Julie (1m 52s): Patrick is joining us today. VP of marketing at FactoryFix Chad (1m 58s): Oooo. Julie (1m 59s): Helping manufacturers hire the best talent! Chad (2m 3s): Which is not an easy task today. But before we get into any of that kind of fun stuff, Patrick, I want to hear about the road trip. You've got a road trip coming up. Tell us a little bit about road trip, whose goin? What was behind this? Just getting the hell out of the house? Talk to us, man. Patrick (2m 18s): Yep. So my wife and I are blessed to have a five kids ages 12 down to 5. Chad (2m 26s): What? Five kids?! Joel (2m 28s): Oh, you know how it works, right, Patrick? Patrick (2m 30s): I do. I do know how it works and we're highly proficient at it. Julie (2m 33s): I think he deserves the applause there. Chad (2m 36s): I think his wife deserved the applause. Julie (2m 39s): Yeah. That's a lot to put up with. Five kids. Patrick (2m 41s): It, my Twitter bio, you will find that I am a proud card carrying member of the married way, way up club. So yes, I'll do all credit to my wife, but yes, we are going to throw the family in the minivan. And we are going to drive out west for Minnesota where we're based to South Dakota for a couple of days. And then down to Colorado Springs for the balance of next week. And the plan originally was to come home after that. But my wife and I were watching the last couple episodes of This Is Us. And she said, you know what? We really need to go see my family in Florida. They're up in Pensacola in the panhandle. And I said, okay, well we're not doing two road trips. We're doing one big one. And so we are going from Minnesota out to Colorado, then down to Florida and back. Patrick (3m 25s): So 16 states in 17 days. Joel (3m 28s): You got this way, you got this backwards, brah. You're supposed to go to Florida in the winter and go to Minnesota in the summer. You reversed it, dude. Patrick (3m 39s): Exactly. Exactly. Chad (3m 39s): I've got a more important question. Does she make you watch This Is Us? Patrick (3m 45s): No, it's been our show for awhile. I've enjoyed it. So it was good. Julie (3m 50s): So sad that it's over. Chad (3m 52s): Well, every commercial I see, it's like, they're trying to make you cry just on the commercial. I'm like, I'm not into that. I don't need that. Julie (3m 59s): I thought I wouldn't cry. I cry every time I watched it, I was like, I can handle this. It's just a show. No, no, no tears in the box. Patrick (4m 11s): It's really good storytelling. It's really good storytelling. Chad (4m 13s): Patrick is a softy and today we are going to be talking about storytelling and that makes sense. Before we get into storytelling really quick, give us a quick glimpse into FactoryFix. And what do you do there? Patrick (4m 25s): Yeah, so we are a manufacturing talent platform and we combine the power of our talent network, which now has over 411,327 skilled pros with a profile. Most of which probably don't have a LinkedIn profile or any other profile online. So, hard to find those workers. And we match that up with a manufacturing specific recruiting platform that uses both automation and screening capabilities, as well as our talent text, text messaging service, to get engaged with those candidates, right, when they are interested in your job. Patrick (5m 7s): So you get that interview scheduled an hours, instead of days. Chad (5m 10s): So, so tell us,a we're going to talk about story telling today. Tell us what's your definition of storytelling. What's that actually mean to you? Patrick (5m 18s): So for me, it's using the power of a narrative to communicate a message. And so from a marketing standpoint, I come from, I guess you could call it the Donald Miller school of StoryBrand, but that was really my first foray into it six years ago to kind of learn strategic narrative and storytelling in the marketing space. And the main thrust of it is that you want to make your customer the hero of the story. It's not your product. And so a good Star Wars analogy is most technology companies want to tell you about the lightsaber they created, how many features it has, why it's the best weapon, et cetera, et cetera. And in reality, you want to position the story as your customer is Luke Skywalker. Patrick (6m 1s): You want to position your company as the guide Obi wan Kenobi say, and you're handing them a piece of technology that allows them to go accomplish their mission and achieve success. Joel (6m 11s): And you Schwartz is as big as mine. Sorry, sorry. I couldn't resist. Julie (6m 17s): I had it on mute there for a second cause I was laughing so hard. Sorry. Joel (6m 22s): I can record the laughs. Those are always good. Julie (6m 24s): Way to bring Spaceballs into the storytelling. Joel (6m 26s): That's what we do here on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Patrick (6m 29s): What streaming service is that on Joel? Julie (6m 33s): Well, I love that you talked about storytelling, brand storytelling. How does that, what kind of stories are our companies telling to make manufacturing work appealing to that audience? Patrick (6m 46s): Yeah, I think that is the biggest opportunity in the space and which was one of the reasons I was so excited to jump on the FactoryFix rocket ship a couple of months ago. So many companies in that space really that is going to be a differentiator for them moving forward to kind of embrace the suck as they say in some of those jobs, but also, you know, really showcase how each of these manufacturing worker positions from everywhere from lower level production, through maintenance tech, up to, you know, salaried engineers, they are building the future of our country by building the future of everything that we're going to be consuming. Patrick (7m 27s): And so you have a very unique opportunity to really lean into that employee value proposition opportunity through the power of storytelling, to the next generation of manufacturing workers. Julie (7m 39s): Wow. Even that statement just made me want to stand up and wave a flag. Joel (7m 43s): Run through a brick wall. So Chad and I were talking to a trucking organization recently and we were a waxing poetic about the seventies when both of us were children and Chad (7m 54s): Smokey and the Bandit. Joel (7m 55s): Yeah. Trucking used to be a bad-ass profession. You had a CV, you had a monkey in the passenger seat. I mean, you had, you know, Camaro's and TransAMS on the road. Does manufacturing lack those kinds of stories, those kinds of icons and how do we get that back? Or can we? Patrick (8m 14s): Yeah. I think so. I think, you know, the quintessential example is Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs, obviously. Joel (8m 21s): Yes. Patrick (8m 21s): But, I think peeling back the onion and showing, you know, what those jobs entailed, the people behind them and then where, you know, where those products or those parts of future products go, you know, how they're used in everyday life. And, you know, as technology continues to evolve and get cooler and cooler, those, the things that we're making, you know, get even more important and some of those stories become even more compelling as well, Chad (8m 50s): Even more technical skill-wise right. So, I mean, you're talking to an entirely different audience than what we used to talk to when were talking about manufacturing, just from that standpoint. Patrick (9m 2s): Exactly. Yup. Yup. And the skills are evolving and changing as the world does obviously, and as technology does, and you know, some of those jobs that, that weren't attractive are being automated, but that's opening up new opportunities to, you know, plan out that automation and figure out better ways to produce those items, you know, with more efficiencies and more production. And also, you know, bringing more of those to the US as we face, you know, the current supply chain problems that we're facing and some of the other world issues that are out there lingering as well. Joel (9m 41s): And you know, what else is cool? Not having college debt. Patrick (9m 45s): Also a cool thing. Yeah. Would you like to make $80,000 in three years or would you like to be, you know, 80,000 in debt in four years? Okay, Joel (9m 52s): Exactly. How powerful is that story in manufacturing of not caring that student loan debt, how are those stories being told by the employer side or by communities and governments? Patrick (10m 1s): Yeah, I think that's, again, one of the biggest opportunities for all of those organizations or organizations to be doing, it's a big reason we're working closely with National Association of Manufacturers and their creators wanted bus tour to get out and meet with a lot of high school students and showcase with some of their brand partners like Dow Industries, you know, what these jobs entail and what these career paths look like to go straight into the trades and not go into that college debt scenario. Julie (10m 30s): I think that's wonderful. There's so many people out there that, you know, especially people that are transitioning into the workforce that have no idea what the different opportunities are out there for them. So I love that idea of helping people understand the options that lay in front of them. Patrick (10m 47s): Yeah, exactly. Chad (10m 47s): Let's talk a little bit about experience and step back, and let's talk about how you actually got into storytelling and let's talk about some of those stories you are able to tell and how did those unfold? Patrick (11m 2s): Really got into it? Back in 2016, I was in the HR tech space for a hot minute with a small software company down in Orlando, Florida called Riptide Software. And they were big in the military training space. Think, you know, the video game that the Marines practice playing warfare on, like a five-year $50 million project and they wanted to take the training analytics that they had built into the enterprise space and had not really ever done traditional sales and marketing having been in the military space and so I had stumbled upon Donald Miller StoryBrand and took the online workshop to kind of get trained into that system. And then I started following a lot of people that were working on storytelling and strategic narrative in the B2B tech space, Andy Raskin being one. Patrick (11m 53s): And then ultimately the team of David Cancel and Dave Gerhardt over at Drift up in Boston being another one and really understood the power of, you know, the strategic narrative, being an unlock in the marketing space to attract customers to your product, by making them the hero of the story and how you were enabling and equipping them to achieve the success that they needed. So from my time at Riptide, I actually started the Chief Learning Officer podcast at that time way back in 2016. Met my friend, James Carberry, who runs Sweet Fish Media, and they do podcast production and content for B2B brands. Patrick (12m 33s): And so he helped me put that podcast together and was able to immediately connect with a lot of Fortune 500 brands like Sears and General Mills and Home Depot and have their learning leaders or Chief Learning Officers or their directors of learning on the podcast to tell their stories from the learning space and connect with potential customers for Riptide at that time. And so I've taken those lessons. And then soon after I left Riptide started consulting and kind of turned it into a half day workshop that I called Story Sprints. And so working with founders in the startup space to really kind of unlock the potential of strategic narrative and messaging for their brands. Patrick (13m 17s): And so from there, I ended up bouncing around in the tech space for a few years and then moved back to Minnesota. And just a couple of months ago was introduced into the opportunity at FactoryFix and so very excited to get back into the HR tech space. I think there's just, you know, I'm preaching to the choir here, but there's so much opportunity in the space to do more with storytelling and to help these employer brands really tell their stories to engage their workers. Chad (13m 46s): So I like in the prehistoric age, right? I mean, that's HR tech. I mean, we're so far behind everybody else. Patrick (13m 53s): Yup. Yeah. And I recently came from the furniture space, which on the retail side is in a very similar position. Joel (14m 2s): Yeah. I'd imagine. You mentioned podcasting, which many would think is sort of a progressive way to market. What are their success stories or interesting case studies of companies that you guys work with that are branding themselves, whether it be social media or via mobile, like what are companies doing? What mediums are they using and platforms to brand themselves and tell their employment stories? Patrick (14m 25s): Yeah. I think video and audio are two of the more important opportunities that content obviously can be reshared and distributed via social channels. I was actually just talking with friend of the show, Elena Valentine a couple of weeks ago after Unleash. And what they're doing at SkillScout, I think is, is, you know, very intriguing from an employer brand standpoint and telling those stories and unlocking them through, through that video. I think storytelling as a medium or as a channel just comes to life more when you get tone and especially with video or your can see people's passion really come out as they're talking about the opportunity that they have in their jobs, or with their company. Joel (15m 12s): There are typically two schools of thought there, one is sort of the stuff that Elena's making, where it's really nicely professionally manicured, HD, you know, really good video quality. And then there's the, Hey, turn your phone on and, you know, Chad (15m 28s): TikTok. Joel (15m 28s): Do a dance on TikTok right? So like, where do you think manufacturing companies are falling on? Are they doing the more off the cuff TikTok stuff? Are they more like digging into real professional content? Patrick (15m 40s): It probably leans more professional. I think, you know, in the manufacturing space, we've got some influencers that are, you know, more savvy with the social media, but they're few and far between, and the ones that are doing it are standing out very quickly and very fast because they're the only ones using those mediums. And, you know, I think the biggest thing is not enough manufacturing companies, you know, are convinced that this will work. And so, you know, they don't have the budget, they don't have somebody that actually owns it. And they're just trying to do, you know, they're more trying to check a box then, you know, create a media company or, you know, have more aspirational goals in terms of we're going to create really engaging content. Patrick (16m 25s): Not what my friend James Carberry likes to call commodity content, right. That every brand can crank out and check a box on. Okay. Chad (16m 33s): Yeah. It looks like what everybody else does. It's boring and inauthentic. Patrick (16m 37s): Yeah. You swap the logos out and it's the same video, right? Chad (16m 42s): Yup. Patrick (16m 42s): Yup. Julie (16m 43s): I think recently hearing someone say like, there there's always an audience for something, and it's a matter of like, you get your story out there and if it really speaks to the type of people that you're looking for, that's all that matters. It doesn't matter if the whole world likes your beautifully produced video, does the audience that you're trying to reach like it and care about it and I think like video is so empowering with that. Now I cannot believe some of the things my son watches on YouTube. Like, I'll see, I'm like, what are you watching? Like this repetitive motion or something, and there's this word now it's satisfying. Like, oh, it's so satisfying to just watch this thing happen or this machine run or the paint mix. Julie (17m 27s): And I feel like there's great opportunity in that. Is it, do you see that any of the brands that you're working with or trying to tell stories out of what they're creating and trying to reach those audiences find just the satisfaction and what's being made or is it always a brand story and its impact on the world? Patrick (17m 46s): No, I think you, you hit the nail on the head, like showing what is being created and how it's made, which, you know, we had as or I had as a TV show growing up in the late nineties, early aughts, you know, I think there is a huge opportunity to, to showcase more of, you know, what is actually being produced and where it fits in, whether it's, you know, a completed product or a piece of a bigger product. You know, I think there's a huge opportunity there. And for sure, you know, my kids are the same. They, you know, they don't want to be professional athletes. They want to be YouTube stars and they want to be entertained and satisfied watching those different YouTube videos or you know, the TikToks. Patrick (18m 26s): I think there's a lot of content on TikTok that is that same type of type of content. Julie (18m 32s): Our future is a next generation who finds great satisfaction in video. And I think that a lot of people are very still stuck on, well, it has to be this highly produced story, but those stories, those simple ones are the ones that the generation coming next enjoys the most. Simple satisfaction out of what's being made. Joel (18m 54s): The Big Short is one of my favorite movies. I don't know if you've seen it. It's brilliant if you haven't. Anyway, Christian Bale plays a character named Michael Burry and Michael Burry is a real person who said recently, and I quote, "the US labor market is about to be sliced in half with blue collar workers remaining, a sought after commodity, while white collar workers see job losses and falling wages". Would you disagree with that or agree? And if you agree, how is that going to change the landscape for branding in manufacturing? Patrick (19m 25s): Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is where that next generation of, of manufacturing workers is going to come from? We're four people all talking on a podcast today. We're not going to be signing up to go to go work in a factory tomorrow. And, you know, part of that comes from how we were raised. And a lot of us had parents or grandparents that were blue collar workers that worked really hard so that their kids or grandkids could be white collar workers. And I think you have, we've been missing a generation, so to speak of that pipeline growing. And so that's going to be the big unlock is what we were talking about earlier, the juxtaposition and the storytelling of the college path or the trade path and understanding that this can be a great career for you and truly unlock the American dream and so we're trying to kind of reignite that. Joel (20m 16s): Do you see more companies like thinking about how do we get white collar workers into the trades? Like, are there, is there a messaging around, you know, Hey, sitting on a keyboard all day might not be that exciting to everybody. Here's an option outside of that. Are companies thinking about that and doing that? Patrick (20m 32s): I don't think the companies are yet. I do think that there are a lot of people that, especially over the last couple of years have reevaluated where they're spending a majority of their time. And I think a lot of people realized how much they love working with their hands and not just sitting and staring at a screen. And so you have some of them dabbling with, maybe it's a side hustle, building furniture, something, you know, in that vein, but there could potentially be those that want to, you know, make that more of a full-time thing. But I don't think, you know, at least I haven't seen in my short time jumping back into the manufacturing space, haven't seen that yet. Chad (21m 13s): Potential opportunity down the road Having a military background, whenever I see companies say that they are quote unquote "veteran friendly", or they want to hire veterans or whatever smoke they're thrown at us. Right. You can see through the actual marketing, they're using actors and clip art. I mean, you can see and feel that it's not authentic. Right. I would assume that you can probably say the exact same thing about the trades. You put a pipe in somebody's hand and not you Joel, and in somebody's hand, a wrench. Right. And it's like, anybody can be a plumber. Well, that's just not the case. Chad (21m 55s): So when it comes to those types of situations, how are you working with your clients at all and helping them and try to navigate past just the stupid, silly shit that is inauthentic versus what's real and something that will actually help them. Patrick (22m 11s): Yeah, that's something that we're starting to have more conversations with our clients on. And I think as an opportunity as we continue to grow and build out our market is to really actually lean in and help them with their employer brand and with their storytelling, whether that's just at the job description level, which is what we engage with them on now to potentially, you know, here's the type of content you need. Here's the, you know, don't use stock photography as you just pointed out, which is pretty easy to spot, or, you know, even down to your careers page and the employer brand content that you're creating. Chad (22m 46s): Talk about the job description real quick. How can you impact the job description with good storytelling? Patrick (22m 53s): Yeah, I think a big opportunity there is cutting back on all of the computer generated standard requirements. And, you know, a lot of that comes down to the company level and how much autonomy the hiring managers have to edit and change those. But a lot of these job descriptions still say, Hey, you need a college degree. And it's like, well, do you really need a college to go, to come be an entry entry level production worker and get trained on, you know, being a machine operator. And so I think there's opportunities one to take stuff out that doesn't need to be in there. And then two to be in a much more conversational tone and you know, infuse some of that storytelling of, you know, you will be our next machine operator. Patrick (23m 40s): And this job is very important because, you know, XYZ and here's how you fit into the broader, you know, company ecosystem and where this job is important in that production line. Julie (23m 51s): I mean, I'm fascinated by listening to both the need for companies to tell better stories. And I think it's wonderful that you're helping them do that because I think that's a big struggle that people have. They're like, I don't know why I can't get anybody. Chad (24m 1s): Well, question to you real quick though, when it comes to job descriptions and storytelling, and I mean, this is the base data point that is used by all of these systems that are out there to match candidates, to be able to distribute and target candidates. Right. So can you talk a little bit about your experience with job descriptions and how important that is? Julie (24m 26s): I mean, I certainly can say the job description is your ad, right? People are trying to identify, is this for me or not? Do I qualify for this or not? I think one of the biggest places that companies go wrong is even in the title. I remember the first time I came across a title, I'm like, what is a kitter? I had no idea what a kitter was. Joel (24m 44s): A kidder? Like K I D D E R? Julie (24m 47s): And I was like, who am I searching for care? Like K I T T E R, that was the job title. And I was like, I have never heard of this before. And they're like, oh, it's common in manufacturing. And I was like, do you think that people know that generally? Chad (25m 3s): A Kitter might. That's a good question. Yeah. Julie (25m 7s): Do you get that often Patrick, like titles that are very strange? Patrick (25m 9s): Yes. Julie (25m 10s): Gimme a few. I want to hear some of the fun ones. Patrick (25m 13s): Yeah. The team was just talking about a good one. It was basically a forklift operator, but it had, it might as well have said NASCAR driver or something crazy. It was just like, they were trying to get so creative on it. That's one of the things we have to coach our clients on. It's like, you know, you're actually, you think this is going to stand out, but it actually is just going to hurt you in terms of, you know, people understanding what it is. And also it being distributed and shown to the right people, searching for, you know, what it truly is. And so a lot of times we have to kind of help our clients normalize some of those more creative job titles, where they think that is going to, you know, be the difference maker and getting more applicants Chad (25m 55s): Don't overthink it. Julie (25m 57s): Yeah. The job title would be one, but, you know, I'm actually really interested in the matching. If you try to keep the job description interesting and tell the story, how can you still make sure it's got those things that, you know, we're looking for anybody with a heartbeat, like that really helps you identify who's the right fit for the talent. Like that's, those are the hit points that you want to make sure different from one job description to the next to help you find really the right person that you're looking for, then just anybody with a heartbeat, any tips on that? Patrick (26m 32s): Yeah. I think, you know, for us, we've found a lot of success with our platform using the pre-screening questions. So once we, you know, match a candidate, they passed kind of the resume and skills matching algorithm. We then actually send customized screening questions that our client actually writes and those are actually sometimes even more valuable than, than the resume and skill matching, because we can ask specifically, Hey, have you worked on this type of machine before? Have you worked, you know, if you're hiring in food production, do you have experience in food production or, you know, or is it just other manufacturing? Patrick (27m 13s): And so for certain clients, they are able to kind of have an extra layer of weeding out who really makes sense for this job and make sense to actually spend the time interviewing. Joel (27m 25s): I think you mentioned robotics earlier in the same interview with the trucking organization, they talked about how young people don't want to get into a profession that they think is going to be roboticized, you know, five to 10 years down the road. In this case, it was self-driving trucks. Certainly we hear about robotics and automation and all the manufacturing skills. Do you find that companies, like what tips would you give companies looking to combat that narrative? Are associations in manufacturing looking to combat that? Or do you think it's a missed opportunity? Patrick (27m 59s): I'm remembering, somebody mentioned that same stat at one of the keynotes at Unleash might've been Peter's, but, you know, we basically said, oh, we're not going to need truckers right. Now we have a crisis. Joel (28m 13s): Shocker. Patrick (28m 14s): I, yeah, shocker. So I do think it happens at the highest level. Partnering with the National Association of Manufacturers, I think their newest stat is we have between now and 2030, we have 4 million jobs to fill. And so getting that message out there and really hammering that home and being able to tell the story around that of, you know, there are a lot of jobs that become careers available to you and, you know, they're not being automated away. And so then the next layer of that is actually showcasing the new jobs alongside the automation and the robots and the cool new tech that you're able to leverage in that production, I think is the next layer to that. Joel (28m 56s): And by the way, there's no way a robot's getting into my house to fix my plummet. Story-telling wise. I couldn't let you go without this. You apparently made a shoe or designed a shoe for LeBron James. What's up with that? Chad (29m 13s): What?! Patrick (29m 13s): So I like to preface the story by just saying, this is the best $200 I ever spent on marketing, but way, way back in the day, it'll be 10 years next January, we had a promotion, I was working for an agency here in Minneapolis and Carmex lip balm was one of our clients. We found out that LeBron used Carmex before every game. And so he would go over to the corner with his trainer, right after the introductions, his trainer would have his mouth guard in one hand in this Carmex and the other he'd pop his mouth garden, put some Carmex on and he'd go to his big powder toss by the scores table. And so we reached out to him, ended up being the very first sponsor of LeBronjames.com. Patrick (29m 54s): Did a deal with Maverick Carter who's now his general manager and partner in all of his entertainment ventures, and a longer story short, we ran a contest and this guy won the contest, got to come down to Miami, win grand prize trip, all expenses paid, and he got to take a half court shot. And if you won, he won $75,000. And we were donating $75,000 to LeBron James, his family foundation, which at that time, most of it went to the Boys and Girls Club of America. So a guy comes down, actually hits the shot. He threw up a hook shot from half court. Patrick (30m 33s): He's wearing a bright yellow Carmex sweatshirt. And LeBron actually ran out and tackled him to celebrate. So it goes viral number one, plan sports center to this day, it's the number one or two video all time on the MBA's YouTube channel. You can go find it. And, but as part of that day, I designed a pair of LeBron's personal sneakers on like id.com in bright yellow, with a white bottom and a red swoosh, just like a Carmex jar would look. And I had them put in his locker through one of my contacts at the Miami Heat. Never thought I'd see them again. And then a month later, LeBron decided to break them out all on his own accord, actually against his Nike, you know, Colorway schedule, so to speak. Patrick (31m 19s): So it was a Sunday morning noon game, Madison Square Garden against the Knicks, right in the middle of the 27 game win streak. And we got about $4 million worth of exposure on national TV. Joel (31m 37s): CarMax Nike's. Patrick (31m 37s): The CarMax Nike's Chad (31m 37s): Awesome. Patrick dude. Thanks for joining us. Love the stories. Patrick (31m 38s): Thanks so much for having me. Chad (31m 40s): Love to hear more about you and not to mention if somebody wants to actually reach out to you or find out more about FactoryFix, where should they go? Patrick (31m 51s): @PatrickH on Twitter and Patrick Hodgdon on LinkedIn, pretty active on both so hit me up on either spots and we'll get connected. Joel (32m 2s): Dig it man, Chad, Julie, another one in the can. Chad (32m 7s): Yes. Chad, Joel and Julie (32m 7s): We out. We out. We out. OUTRO (32m 7s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (32m 51s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Hiring is tough for many different verticals and in many ways, the trucking industry is nothing more than a microcosm of those hiring fails and pains. Maybe it's time for trucking to undergo a rebrand? Maybe it's much more than that? That's why Chad & Cheese join the Yard Jockeys podcast to talk about the ins and outs of recruiting. They put their heads together to try and figure out trucking's problem and come up with a possible solution. B.J. and the Bear from the '70s anyone? TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (28s): Welcome to a special episode of the Chad and Cheese. Why is it special? Well, if you haven't noticed, it's really hard to hire many different types of positions all over the world right now. And this discussion with David and Seth from the Yard Jockeys podcast is just a microcosm of what's happening in other verticals. So sit back, relax, take notes and enjoy the convoy. David (1m 6s): Cool. Well, I'm David Arsenault. I'm the VP of Marketing here. All the attention towards me, please. Chad (1m 12s): This is only audio David. So, you know, you don't have to worry about that. David (1m 17s): Okay. Well just for everyone listening, I also am the hotness of the duo here. Joel (1m 25s): Yeah. I was going to say you both, you both have the same thing, a bald guy and a guy with the hair. Some facial hair. Yeah. This is like looking in a mirror, right? David (1m 33s): Yeah. I've been in marketing the whole time. I've been here for 10 years. Originally the marketing department worked with both the, kind of the construction asset intelligence side of the company and the talent intelligence side, but for the last three years, I've spent only recruiting. Our team produces a lot of content solely around recruiting truck drivers. So it's, we do a bunch of different shows. We do a weekly report that Josh back here does where we talk about, you know, where it's, what's the freight market looking like? What is the demand on driver search? What's the demand on how many people are advertising for drivers, things like that and everything is just driver recruiting for the most primary. We delve into technicians here and there, but it's mostly we as all we think about is how to recruit truck drivers better. David (2m 16s): What our company does is that's essentially it. I mean, it's more the advertising marketing side of it, but really we'll dive into any area that helps our drivers. Or helps our clients recruit drivers better. Seth (2m 28s): All right. So I'm Seth Becker and I've been in the recruiting space for about 17, 18 years. 10 of that was in higher education. And now the past seven years in truck driver recruiting. So I'm excited to dive in with y'all and just, you know, talk about some of the things that are going on. Because driver recruiting it's, it's never boring, boring, right? I mean, it seems to be constantly changing. In fact, I've been preparing for a presentation coming up in a few weeks and I was updating a presentation from only six months ago and it was crazy how many changes I had to make just from a presentation six months ago. David (3m 10s): And he also, he actually worked at a fleet for a long time, too. He's our insider. Chad (3m 15s): Okay. Okay. Well, what were those changes? Joel (3m 18s): Where are you guys located? Chad (3m 19s): Cheeseman, I just asked the question. Back off. What were those changes? You just talked about changes that were on a slide. Don't tease us man and tell us what the changes were. Seth (3m 29s): So the changes really were around, in the past there being a shortage of drivers. Chad (3m 35s): Right. Seth (3m 36s): And then really in the last six months, the last few months, when you take a look at the data, there's more drivers now than there's ever been. Right. And so it's, it's interesting how that's changed and yet talking to fleets across the country, it's not like they're saying, Hey, we've got way too many? Right they're still needing more, even though there's more available than there's ever been. So it's kind of interesting. Joel (4m 3s): Are they not driving? Seth (4m 5s): They're driving? I think, you know, you guys mentioned the great resignation earlier. I think what we tend to see in this space is, drivers when the market seems to be slowing down, they look at additional options, right? Hey, I'm not moving as much as I used to be. Let me go see if there's something better out there? Or, Hey, there's a really attractive sign-on bonus, let me see what that's all about? so I don't think that it's necessarily true that they're available. It's just more looking is kind of my reaction. David (4m 41s): And you guys probably know this since you guys have that buddy from driver reach, but the turnover rate for trucking, I don't know. What is it currently at? Seth (4m 49s): It depends on the size of the fleet, but we'll say, you know, around 90%. David (4m 52s): Is what your average turnover rate? Chad (4m 55s): So how many of those people are actually going to different freight lines versus actually just leaving the industry? Joel (5m 1s): Yeah? Seth (5m 1s): It's tough to put a percentage on it, but the vast majority are just go into a different fleets. Of course there are some leaving, but I think it's less of that. What we've seen really the past year or so is individuals leaving companies, being a company driver to go venture out on their own. So buy a truck, essentially become their own company to take advantage of what used to be a really hot spot market is what we talk about. Joel (5m 30s): It strikes me a lot of nursing similarities where it's just a money thing and I'm jumping to different hospitals slash trucking companies. Some get out of it, you know, some take a break, some do other things. I mean, to me, there are a lot of similarities in those two professions. David (5m 47s): There is also the baby boomer exodus that's, I'm sure it's affecting every industry, but it's the demographic for truck driver. There, there were a lot of baby boomer truck drivers that are leaving the industry too. So that's, but I guess if there's more available, there has to be more coming in. Seth (6m 3s): Yeah. I mean, when we saw that big shortage, it was during those early days of COVID where things began to shut down in the schools that were training the truck drivers. There was actually a lot of closures, right. And so you didn't have this, this flood of new drivers coming in, like or consistent flooded drivers coming in, like we had in the past. But now that those have reopens and the pay has increased so significantly, it becomes a more attractive job than it was, you know, two years ago. Chad (6m 30s): So how much has the pay increased? Because we've obviously seen wage increases for other essential workers. And since you know, individuals in trucking, drivers specifically are, I mean, you're, you're talking about supply chain, which we've had huge issues with, how much has their wage actually gone up? Seth (6m 48s): Yeah. When we look at the numbers, I would say about two years ago, you know, the average was around $55,000. And if you look at numbers now, they're, they're closer to around $85,000, for averages. So that's, I mean, that's a nice $30,000 jump just in the past couple of years. Joel (7m 6s): It's commercial time. Chad (7m 9s): It's showtime. Seth (7m 9s): But I mean, what do you, what do you all seen on your end? Outside of trucking, I mean, does that sound like that falls in line with what you're seeing or is that maybe even further ahead of other industries? Chad (7m 21s): Well, I mean, we've seen from other essential workers, I guess you could say, huge pay bumps, but the reason being is there's been huge wage stagnation for decades. So this is, I mean, to be able to say that, you know, they they're getting a $30,000 bump, well, hell they should've gotten that over the last decade or two decades or three decades or so. So, you know, to be happy about that, I just can't get happy about something that should have, you know, that should've already been in the bank and they should have been making money on. And when you're seeing that type of thing, how can you expect individuals to stay? I've also seen, you know, advertisements and people saying pretty much false advertising that, you know, there are a hundred, $120,000 driving gigs, but then you get into a seat and it's $50 grand, right? Chad (8m 8s): So, you know, again, there's the false advertising in the markets and it just feels like the brand, the trucking brand in itself has done everything that it can to hurt itself. David (8m 20s): I think it's getting it. It does seem to be getting better, I think slowly but surely I think it's getting better, but what you actually brought a really good point of like it, and we've probably been guilty of this ourselves, that idea of like, I'm going to put what the absolute best driver with the longest tenure at my company makes to attract people. And then everybody comes in and they just feel they've been lied to. And I've seen some trucking companies do it much better where they are more transparent. And they say like the top 50% of our fleet make averages this. And then like, and then our absolute top driver makes this, so it gives us a better, like, it's still aspirational, but it's not so much like the guy that lives out of his truck and never stops driving makes. David (9m 0s): It's like, this is, but yeah, I think, and to your point, we've talked about this a million times about people getting a real commodity mindset around drivers and just thinking, well, it's like as long as you can keep them for a certain amount of time, there's no real pain to the turnover. Like there's an equation there and if we can keep them for a certain amount of time, there's no real pain, but I think what our clients have found and just the industry has found in general is there's an, a very hard to describe pain there of like you're building up your reputation over time and you're just making it harder and harder. And that the investment and treating drivers well and investing in them makes monetary sense over time. Joel (9m 39s): I think it's interesting that you said commodity and I think beyond, beyond the money, it, when you say boomers are still involved, you know, Chad and I are our kids of the seventies, trucking used to be cool, man. Trucking was like BJ and the Bear, you had a monkey in the passenger seat, you had a CB, like truck stops were cool. It was sort of this independent lifestyle. Like people wanted to be a trucker, man, I remember being, you know, seven years old bank and that's a cool job. We're so far from those days. I mean, on some point there needs to be a branding, a rebrand of what trucking is. And I think there's maybe some of that, but the Hollywood, you know, romanticized truck driver is dead. Joel (10m 25s): And I think beyond the money, it'd be nice if trucking sorta re-embraced that cool, independent, you know, rugged, free, you know, open road culture because they have strayed way far from that. And they've let companies like Uber and DoorDash kind of capture that, you know, high-tech independence, freewheeling spirit. Trucking needs to get that back, man. I don't know how, but it'd be nice if they did. David (10m 53s): I think that's one of the biggest complaints that drivers have now is that it is less independent because there's so much technology that monitors how they drive, when they drive. Chad (11m 3s): Yeah. Joel (11m 3s): Sure. And that might be why people want to get their own truck. Right? You get out in front of the hall monitor, do my own thing. David (11m 10s): That was also a big thing that contributed to there's lots of drivers, but fleets were still feeling the hurt was that because spot rates where they were the were the way they were in 2021, so many drivers said, I'm just going to go do this on my own because it's easy to make money doing this. So there's a, like 30% more startup fleets within that year. Then I don't remember the exact number someone's going to tell me that I'm wrong, which I probably am. But there was way more people decided to become owner operators during that time. I'm always trying to tell our clients because I tend to think on the marketing side and I like creative and all that kind of stuff. I don't get into the nitty gritty of technology as much, is that idea that people are emotional and make emotional decisions and so the way that you attract people to the place you work is through the emotional side of things. David (11m 58s): And it's like, you're saying, it's like that idea of, you know, having a life on the road and being independent and making a good living, like that's where they should be. But it tends to be more like feature and benefit type stuff. Chad (12m 10s): Yeah. I love Joel bringing up the seventies references cause I automatically think that Smokey and the Bandit. Right. I mean, just so cool. It's so awesome. Now all we're hearing is podcasts, truck driving serial killers, for God's sakes. It seems like, it seems like we just need to get the brand back, but it's hard to get the brand back when you're treating your people like shit. Right. I mean, that's almost impossible. David (12m 36s): What about for boomers talking about how to make it attractive for gen Z? What do you think that what you were talking about like that independent, rugged, would that still resonate with a newer audience do you think? Chad (12m 48s): Autonomy means everything especially to gen Z? And I mean, even the gen X-ers, I mean, there's nothing that I love more than just being able to do what I want to do. Right. And I think that's a human thing, but it's definitely a gen X-er thing. We were latchkey kids. I mean, we grew up pretty much on our own. I mean, we're just used to that now we've got the man telling us we can only do 55. That's bullshit. Right. So, I mean, overall I think this is about autonomy. The hard part about that is for big companies is they have all these measures in place, as you'd said, technology, to be able to not allow that autonomy because with autonomy is also risk and they want to cut down the risk. Chad (13m 29s): So my question is not to get away from gen Z. We'll get back there. When do we go on autonomous? I mean, that really for the big haulers is where they want to go. It's almost like Jeff Bezos and his warehouses. He doesn't want people on those things. David (13m 45s): Right. Chad (13m 45s): He wants robots in them and I guarantee you, every single freight guy that's out there other than spending all the money on the autonomous vehicles, he would love to be able to get rid of the risk and just let it go on autopilot. What do you think? Seth (13m 57s): Yeah, it seems like every conference I've been to in the past five years has brought up, you know, autonomous vehicles and every time somebody talks about it, they then followed up with, I think we're still 10, 20 years off though. Right. But because it's such a hot topic and everybody talks about it, I think it scares younger drivers to go, why would I get myself in an industry where I'm going to become irrelevant? So I do believe that we're still probably 10 years off from that, but I don't know. It is scary to think about like, Hey, I'm going to invest all this time and energy into this career, but is there really a career path here for me? And we know, I mean, we hear a lot about gen Z, career path is a big deal, right? Having that ability to get in somewhere, move up, have a title change all of that. Joel (14m 43s): When they have options, well, it's not like they're stuck in it. And oh, this is going to be around in 10 years, I'm going to do X, Y, or Z. They have options. David (14m 52s): One thing, I don't know how you would frame this as far as making this more attractive. But my uncle is a pilot. He was a pilot for Delta, I think for a long, long time. And he told me for the past 10 years, it's been complete autopilot, but the planes take off by themselves. They land themselves, they do everything and you could, the pilots could get up and walk around the cabin, but that they keep the pilots stay there cause nobody wants to see their pilot just up walking around. But so I would say that even if the trucks are autonomous, they're going to have pilots per se in the truck for awhile. They're not going to be just, you know, manless, they'll just be someone won't have to necessarily have hands on the wheel the whole time, which is pretty exciting. David (15m 32s): If it would be really attractive to me to think about, I would have all this free time, I'm just monitoring this vehicle. And then I have all this other free time to listen to the Chad and Cheese podcast and, you know, read books. Chad (15m 44s): Or code or code. I mean, you literally, you could be, you know, a driver or, you know, somebody who's watching the autonomous driver drive. Yep. And then sit in the back seat and code for goodness sakes, you know, which could be one, could be the side hustle. The other wouldn't be the full time. David (15m 60s): I do think there'll be someone in the vehicle for a long time. Chad (16m 3s): Overall. I think this still goes back to being sexy and having a brand and you know, to the back to the seventies, which is, I mean, bell bottom jeans, they came back. I mean, so it's one of those things where it's like, you have to own your brand. The thing is that we see many companies, not just struggling companies, every company that we talk to for the most part, a shitty application process, and they throw candidates into a black hole. So they have a bad brand. Now after decades of treating individuals like, you know, trash is throwing them in the black hole. Now they are focused. And over the last few years, they've become very focused on their brand and their experience and wanting to try to win them back. Chad (16m 44s): Right. This is something that I don't know that the trucking industry has even thought of, but you know, to try to harken back to those days, to, to bell bottoms and disco, and actually have somebody something that somebody cares and wants to do that to me, seems like step one, at least. Joel (17m 3s): It's commercial time. Chad (17m 4s): It's show time. Seth (17m 5s): So I'd love to hear if there's things being done in other industries. What could the trucking industry learned from some others that are doing it really well? Joel (17m 13s): I think is how wide of an editor you casting. And if we're talking about the seventies, I had a Farrah Fawcett poster in my room. I don't know, in terms of recruiting women, I Chad (17m 25s): Don't want to hear anything about a happy sock, okay. Joel (17m 30s): You know, diverse, you know, diverse candidates. My question to you would be how big is that net and is trucking doing as good a job as they can to appeal to women? Because I've heard stories about, you know, truck stops don't have showers for females, or like the locking mechanisms on trucks are the same per truck. I mean, so there are issues that not, as men, we ever think about, but that will keep women or other, you know, folks away from the profession. Has that been sort of addressed? David (18m 1s): I would not say and Seth we'll have more on this. I would not say they're doing the best they could. I have seen a lot of improvement in my 10 years and that it comes up frequently how do we get more women into trucking? How do we make it better for them? I'd say, it's come up at every event I've been to in the last four or five years. Seth (18m 17s): Yeah, no, I agree. I think there's progress being made, but it's still not leaps and bounds, right? It's not this big shift that's happened. It's been slow, but at least it's happening. Chad (18m 28s): I think you were talking about, are there any companies that are out there doing, you know, strides and branding and whatnot? We talked about, I think it was a couple of years or a couple of weeks ago, Joel, we talked about the Mod Pizza and they're a new advertising campaign where they're showing all of these individuals who are making pizza, delivering pizzas and all these things. And it is a diverse workforce. They've got, they've got a brand that they're pushing behind it and it's pushing the product, but it's also pushing the people. And is that to me was just really the leap that we needed to see for companies or one of the leaps that this brand needed to make to be able to demonstrate, Hey, we're more than just, you know, a pizza in the box. Chad (19m 17s): And the big issue that some had was one of the individuals had an ankle bracelet on, right? So it was like, everybody, it doesn't matter. We want you to be a part of a Mod Pizza, come work for us, eat our pizza, that kind of thing. And it almost seems like, you know, we need to see the same type at least of slowly push or even quick warp speed push from the actual trucking industry. I don't know if it can happen as an industry or it has to work line by line. David (19m 47s): Yeah. I think the, because there is such a high turnover rate and you know, when you have empty trucks, there's always, I think you tend to focus on the short wins. And so I think what I hear from a lot of clients, as opposed to thinking about what exactly is our brand, what do drivers say about us and how can we leverage that for the greatest effect? It tends to be like, what are other fleets doing that work? Like what pay gets noticed, what ads get noticed, we're just going to do exactly what they do because we know it works. It would be hard to sell internally. We need to take a step back, look at what our brand is and redesign everything around that idea. I think it's worth it. But I think the problem is just that turnover's so high, freights get missed, we got to just get leads in the door. Seth (20m 30s): Yeah. There is a lot of parody, right? I mean, when you look at the ads themselves, you know, a picture of a truck driver or a truck in the backgrounds, all kind of talking about the same things. And we all talk about wanting to stick out and do something different, but you don't see it that often. Joel (20m 47s): I would love to see, you know, I drive on the freeway as much as any other person. And I continually see trucks with we're hiring or X amount, you know, per mile. I've never, and I would notice because I do this for a living, I would totally notice if it was a female talking about how great the job is and why it's good for her or someone that's of diversity. So I agree. I agree that you, the industry is probably stuck in this rut of like, oh, every ad has to have this kind of guy, you know, the truck needs to be coming over the hill at sunset, you know, to show how that works and how much money. It seems like there's a lot of zagging. And when somebody needs to Zig, somebody needs to go like sort of the other direction to make it work in a different way. David (21m 30s): Yeah. I, and I do think a lot of them, I think a lot of them have tried it to some, or not a lot. I say a few have tried it to success. And I think a lot of them would love to, but I think they just like most people, they just get caught up in the whirlwind of, I don't have time to think about that. They don't see the, I believe in the long-term effect of that. That's I think that's the most important thing you could be doing, but it's hard to sell that internally. It's just like, we've got to get drivers in as quickly as possible. The problem is you're not fixing the thing that makes the drivers leave as quickly as possible. Chad (22m 1s): You can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. There's no reason why you can't have somebody focused tactically on what's happening day to day, and then have strategically, you know, this whole branding, this messaging, all of this changing, and then an integration of that. I mean, it seems like it's an excuse. They want to provide an excuse for not doing anything and then bitching and moaning because things aren't changing. Well, they're not changing because you're not changing it. It's fairly simple. David (22m 32s): This is going pretty well. Why don't we each. Joel (22m 37s): You sound surprised. You sound really surprised that this interview is going so well. David (22m 42s): He's not sure about Cheeseman, all those paternity suits you're talking about. Joel (22m 48s): What? God damn it. Sowash. David (22m 50s): All right. So we have a, Joel (22m 51s): Now this is going to be my brand in the trucking industry. David (22m 56s): Everyone's going to know Cheeseman is the paternity suits guy. Joel (22m 57s): I'm going to be the guy that's fathered, you know, hundreds of kids. Unbelievable. I can't show my face in a truck stop ever again now. David (23m 7s): So I like principle. I like to say, like, what is the, what are the guiding principles? I like to think in term of like overarching idea. So since you guys are in recruiting, we're in recruiting, let each person say what they think. Like the most important principle of being great at recruiting is? Why don't you start Cheeseman? Since we said, we were so mean to you/ Joel (23m 27s): My grandfather was a big, he was into fishing. And so many rules of being a successful fishermen or woman are really relevant to recruiting. So if you want to catch fish, are you fishing in a lake that has fish and how many fish and what bait are you using? Right. So the similarities, where are you marketing? Are you marketing folks that are going to hear your message? Are you sourcing folks that are relevant to what you're hiring for? What is your messaging around that? I mean, we talk a lot about employment brand and brand on our show. And a lot of companies, like we said, think tactically, I need X, Y, and Z today. What am I going to do to find that and go find it. Joel (24m 9s): But being big picture and sort of like, okay, yes, we know what we need, but how do we increase that funnel to get more people in the door and more people interested in what we're doing. And I think thinking strategically is a big part of success in recruiting. David (24m 23s): The fishing metaphor is right up my alley. I, Joel (24m 25s): He was a bluegill guy for what it's worth, right? David (24m 27s): I'm a bass guy. I actually fished a tournament yesterday. Joel (24m 35s): It's commercial time. Chad (24m 36s): It's showtime. David (24m 37s): All right, Chad, what's yours? Chad (24m 39s): It's simple. It's human first. We're not treating the humans that actually do all of the work. They develop product. They drive the trucks. I mean, what we actually need to drive business forward are human beings until we have robots who can do it all, sorry, sucker, you gotta be good to the humans. And until you actually focus on human first types of strategies and day-to-day operations, then get somebody who can. Can that son of a bitch get rid of them, get somebody who cares about the actual people. Once you do that, guiding principle, that should be principle number one in every business, not just trucking, but it sounds like trucking needs that more than ever. David (25m 22s): Seth what's yours? Seth (25m 22s): Yeah. You know, mine's going to be, and it's 'be the easy choice'. And that means a lot of different things that, that goes to making the process easy because competition is so high, that you've got to make this process very easy for somebody to move through it with you. But it also, so that's physical effort, but then there's also this mental and emotional effort to where you've got to make that easy. And because once again, competition is so high, how do you make it easy for the driver to compare? What are the most, the things that are most important to him or her make that then easily available so they can compare that to what else is out there. Seth (26m 2s): Right. So both physical and emotional make that easy for them to make that choice. David (26m 6s): Mine's kind of a combination of what Chad and Seth said, but mine is kind of like, I need a better way of articulating it, but essentially it's like using your own empathy, like empathize with who you're trying to reach would be like empathize with, you're trying to reach, like ask yourself, would this be, I see so many marketers and recruiters do stuff that wouldn't be attractive to themselves. It's like, would you want to click that ad? Would you actually want to go through that process? Do you like that or would you want to go through orientation? We had, I don't think this happens near as much, but when drivers would come in for orientation, they would make them share hotel rooms with other drivers that were coming into orientation, that they were complete strangers. And it's like, would you want yourself, would you want to do that? And maybe even better. David (26m 46s): Would you want your son or daughter to have to do that? And even if it goes to, like, when you're like scrolling through your phone or something, how many times do we like something that doesn't have PayPal available or some sort of convenience that we're so used to using? And so we abandoned it right away. And then we'll put together these recruiting campaigns and it's like, you need to print out this PDF, fill it out and then fax it back to us or scan it and then email. And it's like, you would never do that. Why would you expect your audience to? Chad (27m 15s): Who owns a fax anyway? David (27m 18s): I know that was probably an extreme example, but it's the idea of like, you know, do what you would like, what, what would you want to see? What would be attractive to you and use that for how you try to reach, but it's kind of, we're all saying the same thing is that like they're humans, you know. Joel (27m 32s): Can we talk more about Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise and monkeys in the passenger seat? Is that Chad (27m 41s): I want to talk about Little Enos was like my favorite character, Little Enos. I can't even say it without laughing. Chad and Cheese (27m 57s): We out. OUTRO (27m 57s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (28m 45s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Is the future of recruiting entirely automated? Is it more of the same? Some think it's a hybrid. That's why we invited Joss Leufrancois, CEO of Visage, to come on Firing Squad and tell us about their solution which helps combine the best of both worlds. But is A.I. and traditional sourcing a match made in heaven or are they on a collision course to the depths of hell? Ooooh, dramatic. Gotta listen to find out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR A FEW INAUDIBLES - OUR ROBOTS NEEDS FRENCH LESSONS :) FiringSquad INTRO (0s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. What's up everybody. You know, what's up! It's Firing Squad time. This is your favorite guilty pleasure, the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined is always the Starsky to my Hutch, Chad Sowash and today we welcome Visage's co-founder and CEO, Joss Leufrancois with us on the show. Joss, welcome to Firing Squad. Joss (46s): Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a childhood dream of mine to be on that show. Joel (53s): Aww. Stop it. Chad (59s): Childhood? Joss (59s): It's my Oprah moment. Joel (59s): He's already buttering us up for the show. Chad (1m 0s): He said, childhood, they just fucking call this old. That's not buttering shit up. Joss (1m 7s): I'm Joss Leufrancois Joel (1m 8s): A childhood dream of mine. Chad (1m 9s): What an asshole thing to say right out of the gate. He must be French. Joel (1m 15s): All right, Joss, for those of our listeners that don't know you, which is probably all of them. Give us a little Twitter bio about you. What makes Joss tick? Joss (1m 24s): Huh? So, well, I'm Joss Leufrancois. I live near Austin, Texas on a ranch with my wife and four, four year old boy and all sorts of farm animals. As you can probably guess from the accent. I'm not from Austin originally. I'm actually from Houston, west Texas. Joel (1m 49s): No shit. He's from Waco. Joss (1m 51s): Waco, Texas. Yeah. Very cool. French must say the south of France, but I've been away from France for the past 17 years spent six years in London. This is where I learned recruiting. Then six years in Dubai and the past five in the U S originally in California. And then I don't like invading the great state of Texas. So I recruitments that's selling to it's right at a university. A friend of mine called me to start a recruitment business. He said that was very easy to just call around companies and ask if they need people and make money. That wasn't so easy. Joel (2m 25s): We'll get into more of that in the show. We want to just find out who you are as a person. Chad (2m 30s): It's using the accent is what he was doing. Yeah. Joel (2m 32s): Yeah. But Chad, tell him what he's won today. Chad (2m 35s): Well Joss. You will have two minutes to pitch Visage. At the end of two minutes, you could hear that bell and Joel and I will hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If your answers are droning on, you're going to get hit with the crickets, or if you sound too French, we'll probably hit you with the crickets as well. At the end of Q and A, you will get one of these ratings. First, the big applause, you will be crowd surfing your way to success. Golf clap. We're not really seeing a crowd, which means you need to make more noise or the surf isn't coming up and last but never least - Firing bullets sounds - the crowd can also turn into a mob. Chad (3m 15s): If your plan isn't tight. And in this case, you should be afraid of the pitchforks and torches because this ain't working kids. That's firing squad. Are you ready Joss? Joss (3m 26s): I think I am. Joel (3m 28s): Ready for a revolution two minutes starting now. Joss (3m 34s): So this actually helps large employers and RPOs find and engage passive talent. So as you know, hiring has never been harder. In March there was in the US 11.5 million job openings and only 6.5 million hires in that same period. So that's a 4 million Delta pre pandemic. The Delta was only 1 million. So the consequence of this is an imbalance in, and the only way you can win in this competitive market is to go after passive candidates. And it doesn't matter if you are Google or Albus or Amazon, you need to go and find these candidates. Joss (4m 14s): So the old way of going about it was to hire a bunch of sourcers or ask or ID overstretch recruiters to be proactive and source them on was a sourcing platforms. The new way Vissage, you automatically push from UHS, the jobs that don't have enough qualified candidates to Visage for overnight sourcing, we get your list of great matches. You reach out to them with a personalized drip campaigns with one click. So now let me tell you about the secret sauce. Unlike a lot of our competitors out there in the sourcing space, we don't trust our go items can do an accurate and unbias job . Joss (5m 1s): So that's why, what we do is we blend the sources. Yeah. That's humans to searching candidates and AI. So the way this works is that autumn or curated community of freelancers, we did notify conduit profiles or on over 40 different sources. And then we ensure the quality of submissions and this human in the loop methodology help us improve the accuracy versus pure AI models for assurance all users approved and contacts 70% of the time, the candidates that we provide to them. Joel (5m 41s): All right, Joss, your time is up to pitch your company. Joss (5m 44s): Thank you! Joel (5m 45s): Let's get into it. Shall we either I'm a dumb American or I'm just dumb. The first time we talked about your company on the show, I said, Visage, instead of Visage, I had to look it up. Webster's defines Visage, see, I did it again, a person's face with reference to the form or proportions of the features also a person's facial expression. So what's up with the name? Why'd you pick something so hard for us Americans to pronounce and also why the .jobs, the TLD is a little bit unique and also typically means it's a place to find jobs. So walk me through the name of the company. Joss (6m 26s): Oh man, I won 100 bucks. I bet with my team that would be the very first question you asked Joel. Joel (6m 34s): So you are prepared. Joss (6m 35s): The name and the good job. Yeah. Visage means the face. We are the new face of recruiting. The way the name came about. I was playing with names with a friend of mine and the brands are like Visa was one of them and Visage came and yeah, the new face of recruiting, the .jobs. Joel (6m 56s): Yeah the dot.jobs. Joss (6m 57s): I actually didn't know where the .jobs came from until you speak and I think on one of the shows and honestly, that's, we could, you know, we tried to buy the dot.com. They wanted way too much money for it. We prefer to focus on the product and, you know, kind of a points of keeping the dot.jobs and show that we can be a very important company, having a silly dot.jobs. That's usually, so there's no good justification, but that's mine. Joel (7m 26s): All right, we'll go with it. We'll go with it. So you were founded in 2016 and you've received roughly $11 million in Series A funding. Where's the money gone in terms of the investment? What are yous spending money on? Joss (7m 41s): Yeah, mostly on product. And I would say, you know, direct go to market as opposed to, to marketing for. So for a little story, that's my second company, the first one was a multiracial recruitment agency RPO type I sold back in 2015. And that gave me quite a bit of, you know, cash to start Visage. That's why we didn't have to raise that much money all these years to get where we are today. And so products go to market. That's what we spend the money on. Chad (8m 14s): Okay, Joss. So you said in the pitch when clients don't have enough candidates, so how long do you wait to engage, to find candidates for them? So, do you allow them to go do their job posting and then it falls flat. So then you engage your sourcers. How does the process actually work for your current clients? Joss (8m 35s): Yeah. So there are two ways, one way is you can go on your ATS and pick Visage as like you would pick LinkedIn when you advertise, you want to advertise on LinkedIn. So that's one way, that's the manual action. So it's the recruiter deciding whether they want to get and sourcing or not yours way. And it's, you know, the better way with some very large employers that are with, we've got what we call automated triggering. So it means that if within 20 days, as an example, you don't have five qualified candidates on your job. The job is automatically pushed to us for supplemental sourcing. Chad (9m 14s): So you have thresholds that are actually set up so that when the organization either goes internal or they go external or whatever they do, as you see through your integrations, that they don't have enough, then it automatically triggers. And then you get to work at that point. Correct? Joss (9m 30s): Exactly. That's to really elevate the mental load and make sure that you don't ever have a job that doesn't have qualified candidates against. Chad (9m 40s): Okay. So this is outbound. Do you also take a look at the applicant tracking system candidate database, or any of the candidate databases that have been built by the organization since for the most part they're generally not using them. Joss (9m 53s): Yeah, not, we will fresh. We go. What we believe is that, you know, candidate data needs to be fresh. And especially in the past year, as you know, a lot of people have changed jobs. And so you need to go to the primary source, wherever I, you know, LinkedIn existing in Germany are also our social network and job boards. And so we all know that in the database business, we're all about getting you the freshest data and matching candidates against your jobs. Chad (10m 25s): Okay. Well, crowd sourcing and AI and machine learning seems somewhat redundant. So help me understand using sourcing and AI and ML, because again, those both are used to help scale. One is a human way to scale. The other one is not, as a robotic way to scale. Why do you need both? Talk to me about that? Joss (10m 44s): Well, it's right for the longest time to go, AI only, you know, match candidates with algorithms to jobs, and we just couldn't find the right accuracy. So it means that, you know, if you use any sourcing platform out there, even the really sophisticated ones at most you'll agree with the algorithm 10 to 15% of the time. But when you have a human in the loop, especially a specialized sourcer, someone, for instance, who only does a Java developer role, well, you probably agree with them and that's what's happening on our platform 70% of the time. So first is like accuracy. And the fact that you got someone doing the sourcing that you can trust and communicate with. Joss (11m 28s): And the second thing is like, to have more diversity in your candidates slate. You know, if you use our guidance, you always surveys the same candidates, the ones that said the obvious things on their resume, the ones that, come on top, and that creates a lot of issues. It means that it's always the same is being surfaced at the top. The lack of diversity, as you know, people from minorities and different backgrounds tend not to write their resume in a way that's just going to be picked up by, go items. And finally, you know, there are new laws out there, for instance, the antivirus law that's coming up in New York, whereby they are going to ask you audit it and see there is no biases in your algorithms. Joss (12m 13s): And our meta is different. We asked real people, five to 12 sales on each job. They all think we've dealt different brains themselves from diverse background. And as a result, you know, a very large, you know, tech companies, I won't name here, but they thought they are the best sourcing technology about saga items to surface candidates. And as it, you will not be able to help them with net new candidates, but as it happens, 47% of the candidates they received from us, they've never seen before. And that's because of that technology, that's human focus that brings all the diversity and in the laid down. Joss (12m 55s): and industry data? Chad (12m 56s): Well, it sounds like you started trying AI first and the AI wasn't trained or tweaked enough. Now it sounds like you're using human sourcers to actually train the AI to get it ready so that you can start to scale with machines and less humans. Tell me, talk to me about that. Joss (13m 12s): So what we think is that we, there will always be a human component and we need to see where the human adds the most value. So the way we've engineered that we kind of reverse. So the humans are submitting resumes, the algorithms that are being trained and that's helps us refine to a disqualified, the obvious the kinds of style, not obviously not a match. Is are we going to get rid of the sourcer at some point, I doubt. I think there will always be in some capacities on jobs, the need for human intervention and that's to, you know, bring more diversity in the pipeline that's to navigate with the nuance that, you know, a job description is written by a human, a resume written by a human. Joss (13m 56s): There's a lot of ambiguity, reading between the lines and that's what the humans are great at. So we, you know, our vision is that we always have a human in the loop and that's what differentiates. And that's why customers come to us, when they want something different. Chad (14m 13s): You're saying there's a chance. Joel (14m 14s): There's a chance. Talk about these sourcers. Are these full-time employees, are they contractors? If they are contractors, how are they compensated? Do you have a special training for them? Or you just sort of let them go with what they've learned on their own. Joss (14m 30s): Great question. So all sourcers, anybody can be a sourcer, you could sign up on our website and do a technical test, and then we're going to test you on real jobs. It means that you are going to be able to submit a limited number of candidates among all their sources on a limited number of jobs. And as you prove that your candidates are a match, then you get the opportunity to work on more jobs. And this is the way you're compensated is that every time you submit a candidate that goes through or mismatch, I go with them, then you get a bounty to nominal amount. Joss (15m 14s): It doesn't matter if the candidate gets contacted by the clients or hired or anything, it's immediately quantification. So people are gig workers. They work all over the world. There is no correlation between where a sourcer is based, and that will be to find the right candidates. That's what matters is our domain expertise. So you submit great candidates on a, I don't know, a marketing manager in Singapore one day, we're going to call you again for a similar role in San Francisco the next and immediate gratification. You get paid the next week, the week after. Joel (15m 50s): So you say you get, you get paid a nominal fee just to find candidates. Can you define nominal? I mean, I assume it's enough to keep them doing it, but is it based on the job? Is it based on? What's it based on? Joss (16m 5s): Yeah. So when the job is posted, we pass the job and with the difficulty, and that's going to define how much you get paid by submission. A very active sourcer on our platform will make $500 bucks a week and it's predictable. They can work in their own time. We've got a lot of moms that are going back to work. A lot of our sourcers are based overseas and it's something we're very proud of. We bring the economic opportunity to these people do not necessarily have access to them. Joel (16m 37s): So you don't care how they find the people. You don't give them access to a huge database. Like you're on your own to find, who you find essentially. Joss (16m 49s): Exactly. You got to come. You know, you need to resources to train yourself as a sourcer, but we expect that you are going to bring your own assets, your LinkedIn recruiter license, and so on. Joel (16m 59s): And could one job like, could that set off a bunch of recruiters? Do you limit the number of recruiters that can take a certain job? How does that work? Joss (17m 9s): On average, you know, between 5 and 12 sourcers are going to touch the job. But so you claim the job. You've got 30 minutes to start submitting resumes. And if you don't, then it's released that's what clients love about it. They usually post the jobs on, you know, if it's manually triggered how they're going to post the job on Friday. So on Monday, when they come back to work, they can see a perfect shortlist of candidates across all their jobs. Joel (17m 33s): Gotcha. So you have quite a bit of competition, and I assume that you're gonna get more and more. We've talked about Robot Show Humanly, Eightfold, Recruitee. There are a lot out there. How do you explain yourself to potential customers in terms of the difference between what you guys do and what so many competitors do? Joss (17m 54s): So we focused on the problem that they want to solve. The problem is that they want to activate the passive candidate at Chanel . I either don't have enough qualified candidates applying for some jobs, and they don't, you know, that their recruiters are too busy. They carry too many wrecks and they don't have a sourcing team. Then they come and talk to us. If they're looking for a pure technology play, then you've got, you know, all the companies you mentioned, and our friends at Hire Easy and SeekOut. Our stack, the same, you know, analogy. When you buy a sourcing tool, like Hire Easy, or Seek Out, you're buying like a Tesla, it's a great car, it's got a lot of features and you can go very fast and so on. Joss (18m 45s): But when you hire a Visage, it's like the Tesla with the, you know, the autopilots, because it's like having a sourcing team at your fingertips. And so it's like intersection of tech and salaries, and it's particularly important in today's world where they are just not enough recruiters in the world right now to help these companies actuate their growth plan. Chad (19m 10s): Okay. So who is your target customer and talked about? RPOs talked about big organizations, is that really you're looking at high value targets and that's really your focus right now. Joss (19m 23s): Yeah. 5,000 plus employees minimum with a strong bias towards the very, the largest one, fortune 500 multinationals. If you know, are a fortune 100, you know, very likely you are using directly your product or one of your RPOs is using product. RPOs Why? Because the focus on, you know, the entire end to end process, they want to deal with seasonality job sourcing and not have an army of sourcers around the world to help them deliver on their inventory. So those two segments, large RPOs, large enterprise. Chad (20m 1s): Okay. So between those two, where's your main priority? Is it the RPO or is it major enterprise? Joss (20m 9s): Like right now, 50/50, 50% of all revenue exactly, comes from enterprise, 50% from RPO and it's all marketing and go to market. A team is reflecting that, that's a bit. Chad (20m 21s): Okay. Well, since you brought it up, what are those revenues look like? What's your ARR, your MRR? What's that look like? Joss (20m 28s): Yeah. So, we sell subscriptions. So it means that clients, depending on the volume of jobs that they require sourcing will purchase a package for the year and in terms of where we are at, revenue where in the high teens million dollar ER. Chad (20m 49s): Gotcha. Okay. So let's talk about how you're actually penetrating systems. Are you working with through partnership models or is this all direct? Do you have a kind of like a multi-pronged way of going after the market or is it just direct? Joss (21m 3s): Yeah, I know we only have pretty much one channel. So direct means that we have a demand generation team, the south team, while going to network and engage their way to discuss with these buyers at RPOs and enterprise. You know, if you look at our clients while the mouth is one field Raphael's and there was a failed in sales, self generated, and also failed, we do play extensively the card of integration, because we really believe that we should, you know, we don't want to recreate an ATS, a CRM. We just want to play with those guys and build beautiful integration, so to help our clients. Joss (21m 48s): So that's all, that's all strategy. Chad (21m 51s): So again, talk about revenues. Now let's talk about pricing. If I'm a big organization software as a service. Okay, great. How is this priced out? Is it per seat? Per job? Eh, obviously it's not per seat, or maybe it is because you're working with recruiters who are being super powered by your sourcer. So, so tell me about that. Joss (22m 13s): Yeah. So essentially we look at what LinkedIn does and we go the opposite direction. That's kind of generally what we do. Product wise, pricing wise, go to market wise. And so what buyers are fed up with, with LinkedIn is the fact that they're buying seats and that's not the job to be done is not to buy a seat for the job to be done is to field jobs as quickly and as cheaply as possible. So the way we price things is based on the number of jobs that we believe will require sourcing. So we look at the, the job mix in the organization and focus on those professional and technical roles and suggest subscription amount for the organization. Joss (22m 53s): We may start, you know, fairly small. So we need, you know, you can give access to all your team members and hiring managers because it helps to have the email comes from their hiring manager and stuffs you the recruiter. And it starts, you know, around $50,000, you know, as you start with us and you involve the shift team members and our largest client today spend $2.4 million a year with us. Joel (23m 20s): A lot of really smart people are predicting a recession. We know in our business that when recessions happen, some companies win, some companies lose, how are you guys preparing yourselves for the potential recession that's around the corner? And do you think it's essentially a good thing for you going forward? Joss (23m 41s): Yeah. Good question first. Yeah, that's my, I've had two downturns in my career and I always find those moments very interesting. And especially when you are very lean, like we are, we didn't raise a lot of capital, we are aiming for stability next year. And we are just focus on, you know, delivering value and making money and being very lean. We know that it's going to impact us. There is no doubt about it, and we need to be very focused on these areas, pockets of growth, you know, sectors, geography, the beauty of these areas, 70% of revenue comes from the US and the rest from the rest of the world. Joss (24m 26s): While ripple center for business comes from either RPOs with them to be a failure resilience during downtowns and entreprise who will have less knee-jerk reaction in comparison to SMBs. And, and finally, you know, 60% of the jobs are posted on Visage are IT software related, and there is such a need. And even in the past two recessions that didn't disappear overnight. Like we still need those software engineers, no matter what. Joel (24m 58s): Your site talks about your product overcoming bias, and that you have certified diversity sourcers, what exactly is a certified diversity sourcer? Chad (25m 11s): And who certifies them? Joel (25m 13s): Yeah. Joss (25m 13s): Yeah. So we, yeah. Thanks for asking. So we've got a varsity sourcing academy that has been set up by NG that you might, you might know, she's one of the well-known leader in sourcing and diversity. And so she's essentially built a training program and a certification to help all sourcers who are interested in participating to understand how they can find a more diverse slate for the jobs that we have open on our platform. And that's something that's, they know that's something that's really desired by our clients. And we gave them the tools, the tricks, to be very good at it and then they can put it on their resume and, you know, use their experience elsewhere if they desire. Joel (26m 0s): You guys do that sounds like that the team is really interesting. Talk about the makeup of the team. It sounds like your Salesforce is contracted or outsourced and you have people certifying. What's the team look like, and how big is it? Joss (26m 15s): Yeah, so we've got about 80 people working at Visage. We are fully remote. We we used to have an office in San Francisco, but then we run out of money. So I went back to my mom and so everybody went home, but then that was just like the way we designed it. So we all hire the best people out there. It doesn't matter where they are. And that makes us have probably 20 people in the US now, the rest, all over the world, very diverse. 70% of my leadership team is from diverse background. So yes, I'm a white guy, but I'm surrounded by very strong international diverse people will bring that dimension to the company. Joss (27m 3s): So, yeah. All sorts of nationalities. I think we've got 27 nationalities on my staff now. Chad (27m 6s): Awesome. Awesome. So the first time I even heard of the Visage, as I think Joel spoke about earlier was when you got funding, so from a marketing standpoint, this is a very loud, very noisy market. How in the hell are you guys going to cut through this clutter? Joel (27m 27s): It's the French accent cuts through every time. Joss (27m 29s): Yeah. Well, no, that only took me so far. At some point you've got to, you know, it's not a repeatable and scalable model. Then one thing that we, over the years, we've really focused on the product and that's why most of our clients came from and so on and neglected marketing. Why? Because, you know, like funding wise, I don't come from a VC background. So we played the game. We raised a few millions, by the way, when is the episode going out? Probably in a few weeks and those are announcements are coming very soon. Chad (28m 13s): Announcement hit, it, hit it Joel (28m 15s): We'll time it just right. Chad (28m 17s): At least two-three months. Joss (28m 18s): So yeah, we've raised $8 million total. Chad (28m 22s): Hello! Joss (28m 23s): And that's a fairly small rounds. Joel (28m 25s): A+ Joss (28m 26s): You know, where we are Chad (28m 29s): Back to my question, yes. Joss (28m 31s): The question. So how do we cut through the clutter? I think they like being really targeted on these very large accounts. We are the only ones that have the info security, GDPR, all the things that allow you to these larger companies and, you know, being very intentional about content marketing for leadership events cause, no, we don't have $15 million dollars to spend. Our marketing budget for this year is probably a couple of millions, and we'll do just great events, giving back value to the community. Joel (29m 7s): And like we say, on the show, you don't fail because you have not enough money. You fail because you have too much money. All right. That's the bell Joss! Are you ready to face the firing squad? Don't get too excited. I'm going to go ahead and take it first. Chad. Chad (29m 24s): Okay. Joel (29m 25s): Let's, let's tick off the boxes here. You've got experience in the industry. You've raised a good amount of money, but not too much. You've made it to the five year or almost six year period of the business. So you've shown a success. You're in the teens of millions, I think you said in terms of revenue per year. Joss (29m 44s): Yeah. Joel (29m 44s): These are some great milestones to make as a company. So as you look to what you guys do, I think, I think you augment recruiting. I think that you aren't looking to replace recruiters. In fact, I think you're giving them an opportunity where a lot of people are giving up on sourcing and sourcers. You guys are giving them an opportunity. I think the AI, how their sources are training, the AI is a little bit gray box to me. I'm not sure how that's going to play out. I think you're going to continue to be sort of a human heavy business, but it doesn't sound like you're on the hook for a lot of money to have these folks on staff. You're only paying them if there's actually jobs there and they actually do work. The diversity play, I think is interesting. Joel (30m 25s): I think, you know, certifying or have some sort of training on your own that makes you a diversity play is legitimate. You're not just putting diversity on your site. I do think that as the recession comes, you're going to be okay. Like you said, you haven't raised a ton of money. You can pivot to industries that are still needing people. We talk about healthcare, you know, service trucking, et cetera. You're always going to have something there. I think that that will have a need. And technology also will probably be there as well. Pricing wise, we didn't get too deep into that, but I think it sounds like you have a competitive product, even though you have a lot of competition. I think you have a pretty nice little corner in our industry. Joel (31m 5s): So for me, Visage, I do hate the name though, that's the only box, you know, checkoff, but I'm willing to overlook it for everything else that you do, right? Joss, you get a big applause. Fromage Chad (31m 22s): Fromage Joss (31m 23s): Merci Joel (31m 23s): Get them, Chad. Chad (31m 24s): My attorney and kids. Okay. So first and foremost, Joss, when I go to a website and it says pricing and plans, and you send me to a lead page that pisses me off right out of the gate. Number two, when there is marketing, you've got these great videos that are like an hour or 20 minutes long. Nobody's going to sit through that shit, cut that up, use it as snackable pieces, man, you have tens of hundreds of perspective videos and marketing to be able to get out there and suck people in. And then they can see your pricing which you should post and then you can get them to actually buy. Scale? Joel, doesn't see how you're going to be able to scale without humans. Chad (32m 4s): Dude, I see it. Humans don't scale well, and they are expensive. I see your model moving more toward a single auditor, which allows those machines to scale better and for your margins to actually increase! Which I love. Direct. Usually I hate companies that go only direct. They don't have a director and a partner type of a prong to their go to market, although you're different because you are going only after high value targets. So I totally get that. I believe from an RPO standpoint, I know for a fact, RPOs are always looking to trim head count, and they want a fluid system that can tap into, to be able to quickly and easily get candidates over into their clients. Chad (32m 49s): You fit that bill so nicely, which in this point even helps to make you recession-proof because those Randstads, those House of HRS, Adeccos, might've heard of these guys before they are going to want to downsize even more to be able to focus on EBITDA, which means they're going to need platforms like you, right? So they can scale better. Timing's great! Team has great 70% revenues US and RPOs. IT software related. I can't say any more, man. This is a big applause for me. Joel (33m 24s): Oh Shit, double big applause, Joss. Chad (33m 25s): And it's not just because you got that great accent, man. It's more than that. Joel (33m 31s): How do you feel Joss? Joss (33m 33s): Oh gosh, I think I'm going to take the day off. Joel (33m 36s): Why not you're French? It's built in. Take a day off, have some wine and cheese. I love it. Joss (33m 40s): I know. Joel (33m 40s): So for our listeners who want to learn more about Visage, or maybe get a discount for being on the show, where would you send them Joss? Joss (33m 56s): Yeah. So they can go on websites with the magnificent Visage.jobs domain. Ping me on LinkedIn Joss Leufrancois, I accept all the invitation coming from people from our space. Joel (34m 7s): He's full of that French love, accepts everybody on LinkedIn. Chad another one in the can. This one was fun. Chad and Cheese (34m 12s): We out, we out. FiringSquad OUTRO (34m 14s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

Who doesn't love a good underdog story? The upstart hoping to make noise in an established market. That's why you'll love this weekly episode. Jobget looks to take on Jobcase and Snagajob with a new round of funding. Fountain puts on the gloves to fight against the Old Guard ATS business. Cornerstone OnDemand acquires an old business to supercharge a new one. Buy-or-Sell with 1) CEIPAL, Wilco, and Canditech is full of startups looking to dislodge the status quo. ...and then there's Amazon, which really doesn't fit the underdog narrative, but hey, did you expect perfection from this podcast? Of course not. But we throw in some shrimp Po' Boys to make you feel better about life. Enjoy. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps forward thinking employers create world class hiring and retention programs for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. Amazon's Alexa will soon be able to read the Velveteen Rabbit to me in the voice of my deceased grandmother. Nope. Not creepy at all. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "gas tax holiday" Cheeseman. Chad (40s): This is Chad "going to get boosted again" Sowash. Joel (44s): Nice. And on this week, show Jobget says, workers of the world unite, Wilco isn't just a great band from Chicago and Amazon is running out of people to torture. It's the end of the world. As we know it and I feel fine. Let's do this. Chad (1m 1s): Oh yeah. I'm hopefully gonna feel fine after the shot. I got to get this shot before we take our trip to RecFest in London. Joel (1m 10s): Yeah. I got boosted before Belgium. So I feel like I'm all right. I don't need another one. I'm good. Chad (1m 15s): Oh you got four. Okay, Joel (1m 17s): Cool. I got two boosted because when they said over 50, get that fourth one, I was in line. Celebrated 51 with a nice shot in the arm. Chad (1m 28s): Give me that shot motherfucker. Joel (1m 30s): So you'll love this, you know, my son Cole turned 15. Yeah. And then you'll remember these days. So my man gets up at 10:30 in the summer, which is pretty much what I did. He eats breakfast, which is a pretty good like Jimmy Dean kind of bowl, kind of thing. And then, and then an hour later he eats lunch. Remember those days when you could just eat all day? Chad (1m 53s): Yes! Joel (1m 54s): And not gain a pound anyway, jealous. I am. Yeah. Chad (1m 57s): Well, I remember a football two, a days I would literally load, I couldn't eat enough. I mean, I was losing weight. I was eating so much, but we worked so hard, but yeah, those were the days you didn't look at a burger and gain fucking 10 pounds. Joel (2m 12s): That's my step mom would make these casseroles. I would eat half a casserole. I would drink an entire two liter of Coke. And then I would have some sort of like a piece of cake for dessert. And I was, you know, 32 waist. Chad (2m 27s): Too easy, too easy. Joel (2m 29s): Easy. All right. Enough for that nostalgia. Let's get, I don't know what? To shout outs? Chad (2m 34s): Shout out to you first. You hit it. Joel (2m 39s): Bryq. Ha. Remember Bryq. Alright. Firing Squad alum Bryq. That's BRYQ and CEO Markellos Diorinos. He received golf claps from both of us if you remember, has raised $4 million in USD in a pre-Series A round, in case you missed it. Bryq enables employers to create an ideal candidate profile. Then blindly screens, candidates on cognitive abilities and personality traits to match the ideal candidate profile. Hey, golf clap might be turning into a rousing applause here soon, and they're got 4 million reasons to do it. Bryq, shout out to you. Chad (3m 19s): Yeah. I don't know that four millions going to get them there to full applause for me yet, but congrats. And again, that's Bryq, B R Y Q that's Joel (3m 29s): Did I say K? Chad (3m 30s): I think you said I, either way doesn't matter. Yeah. Joel (3m 33s): B R Y Q. Yeah. That's part of their problem by the way. Chad (3m 39s): My first shout out goes to VR. You're going to love this. Oh, you're gonna love this. Yeah, dude, Julie, actually, she bought these tickets for the Van Gogh immersive experience, which is happening all over the country, all over the world to be quite Frank. And we went to Cincinnati. It's only about an hour, hour and a half away. And on this immersive experience, it is so fucking cool. They, I mean, if you haven't gone, you've got to go, but I've got to talk about the VR experience. I've used VR with games for a while and it's interesting. It's fun. It's cool. I hate the fucking headset on all the time. Chad (4m 19s): But when we did the VR experience for Van Gogh, you sat down, you put on the goggles and it started and it literally felt like you were moving. I was sitting in a chair and you could feel movement. Your brain was telling you that you were moving. It was one of the coolest experiences, immersive experiences I have had. And I was sitting in a chair in Cincinnati, downtown Cincinnati. Joel (4m 47s): So what do you do? Like you go, you roam through the starry night or something. The Van Gogh painting and other paintings. Chad (4m 54s): Yeah. He said, they take you through like the different landscapes that he painted and you see the actual landscapes. And then the painting actually pops up right there. So you can see that the painting kind of like in the actual landscape itself, but you're continuously moving. It's a 360 environment. It was incredibly cool. But the coolest part was the motion. When you felt like you, when you were moving forward or when the VR had you moving forward, your body was telling you, like you were feeling a little bit of G-Force. It was weird. Joel (5m 27s): Now did the chair actually move and did it kind of vibrate, like, you know, you've seen those like rollercoaster? Chad (5m 34s): No. Joel (5m 35s): You just, nothing moved? Just the whole thing in your head moved and you felt like you were moving around? Chad (5m 40s): Yeah. Your senses just felt like you were in motion, which was incredibly cool even though you weren't. Joel (5m 48s): So you're saying there's a chance. This VR thing might happen? Chad (5m 51s): There are practical applications. I'm just not sure what they are yet. Joel (5m 56s): Nice. Well, something that did happen, you might remember Valance and other firing squad alum. So back in may, we did by herself actually not fine. We did buy or sell on a show balance, came up. We said if it was, if it was a quick flip acquisition prospect. Yeah, we were in favor of it. So, so yeah, boom Greenwood, a digital banking platform for black and Latino individuals and business owners has just acquired the company. Once again, Tim Sackadomas, Sacket's got nothing on us in terms of the production, shut out to balance. Chad (6m 30s): Big shout out to Veritone that's right kids, the parent company to Pandologic, they acquire artificial intelligence, voice creator. VocaliD is that how you say that? VocaliD anyway, since Pandos acquisition, I've been incredibly interested in what the hell this Veritone thing is, especially this quote unquote you know, "operating system for AI". So we're able to actually dig in, we did an interview with Ryan who's the CEO, and he talked about, you know, all the different voice cloning and whatnot, as we continue to dig deeper, this acquisition is awesome. I see them expanding capabilities, expanding portfolio, but for us, I think it's incredibly exciting to take a look at what they're doing, not just in voice, but they're also starting to create somewhat right now, creepy avatars, but it's getting closer and closer to look real. Chad (7m 29s): I don't know what to say. Cloning voice, cloning avatars. It's pretty awesome and creepy at the same time. Joel (7m 36s): Dude. Are you okay? VR? Creepy avatar. Chad (7m 38s): I know. sfx (7m 39s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (7m 41s): This has gone off the rails. Okay. Shout out to a couple people that love our show and have made some moves this week. First up is our friend Tyler Weeks, Marriott International's newest employee. He left Hired Score for big co as their VP of Talent Analytics. That sounds pretty cool. Shout out to our favorite Banff, Canada sidekick. Keep kicking that ass Tyler and to Evan White is now Senior Director of PR and Events at FactoryFix and FactoryFix loves them some Chad and Cheese. So Evan, hopefully we'll see you soon in Louisville. If you know, you know, keep up the great work guys. Joel (8m 23s): Shout out to Tyler Weeks and Evan White. Chad (8m 26s): Good job guys. Joel (8m 26s): All right guys. As always, we got free shit. If you haven't hit up, Chadcheese.com? Hit the free link put in your information. We got t-shirts from Emissary. We got beer from Pillar and we got whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. If you haven't signed up yet, head out to Chadcheese.com, click the free link and sign up for your chance to kill your liver and make your summer fashion statement with a free Chad & Cheese t-shirt. And we've also got a travel. What's up for us with travel? Chad (8m 58s): Events. Hey, it's RecFest bitches. We've got RecFest coming up and again, they're now sold out. We're going to be out there going to enjoy the Disrupt Stage, emceeing all day we're going to have a cast of characters on stage with us, come and pitch a tent in the disrupt tents. And we'll see you in London. You gotta be excited for this one. Joel (9m 19s): I am excited. So I don't know if you saw this or talked about it when I was absent? But Liam Gallagher of Oasis. My favorite band played in Knebworth recently and someone who attended, pulled out a chunk of grass and put it on eBay to sell and the last I saw it was up to $65,000. So I'm wondering what a blade of grass from RecFest is going to garner on eBay? I might have to find out, I might have to find out? $65,000 for some grass! Chad (9m 55s): Idiots with too much money. sfx (9m 55s): Happy Birthday! kazoo! Joel (9m 56s): We got some birthdays to celebrate some fans out there that love the show that we're going to highlight taking another trip around the sun. Karen Wong is another year older Sepideh Nayeri super fan and recent beer drop winner. By the way, she's a recruiter looking for bilingual sales folks. So if you've got any hints for hit her up on LinkedIn, she needs a little advice on that one. Zack Martin celebrates a birthday, Shannon Pritchett Easy does it, shannon Pritchett at HireEZ celebrates the birthday and Carrie Corbin is also another year older. Chad (10m 44s): Happy Birthday! Joel (10m 45s): So again, for the fans of Chad and Cheese another year on the earth! We love ya. Chad (10m 47s): TOPICS! Joel (10m 47s): All right, but we got a lot of news this week. All right, Chad (10m 52s): We do, we do. Joel (10m 54s): Let's get the Jobget LinkedIn for shift workers. Yep Jobget a mobile app for hourly workers. An app that has been downloaded nearly 2 million times, by the way, has raised $52 million in series B funding, including 12 million in venture debt financing. This brings total raised according to Crunchbase at $54.4 million. More than 50,000 companies have used Jobget to post jobs, including home Depot and my favorite Taco Bell, notably Ryan Everhard formerly Chief Product Officer at Zip Recruiter has also joined as president. Chad, what are your thoughts on the Jobget news? Chad (11m 34s): I want to use this as a lesson for startups number one and a semi rant. So first and foremost Jobget is what Work Here could have been if WorkHere had anyone on staff who understood go to market and actually had brains for the business of recruiting. Okay. This is a great comparison of how two similar businesses, WorkHere dies and Jobget is starting to flourish. So seriously, founders and CEOs, you should be listening and watching the market for these types of stark comparison. Chad (12m 14s): So Jobget's CEO has a PE background, investment back banking, a management consulting background, but Jobget's partnership guy has deep understanding in the industry with experience at Monster, Simply Hired and Zip. And then their VP of Sales, Joe has history all the way back to NetTemps in 1998. Do you remember NetTemps? sfx (12m 39s): What did you say? Joel (12m 40s): NetTemps. Chad (12m 40s): I know man. Anyways, his experience also extends into Stack Overflow, HackerRank and Zip as well. So notice those two positions, partnerships and sales are extremely important to go to market and the combined experience and go to market for only those two positions speaks volumes. So tech matters kids. I don't want to say that it doesn't, but people matter even more. What are your thoughts about also the new entrance, the new president? Well, Joel (13m 12s): Yeah, having industry experts at the helm of your company and you just rattle off more than a few of them is obviously always a good idea and this is an exciting company that frankly, I didn't know a whole hell of a lot about until this news dropped. So number one, I mean, this is a huge opportunity in the U S alone. The number of workers that Jobget can touches more than 83 million in terms of the hourly opportunity. Number two, I think there is a room for a LinkedIn for those who aren't on LinkedIn. And if that sounds familiar, Jobcase has already kind of tried to take this mantle. Chad (13m 52s): Yep. Joel (13m 53s): So to me, this is really interesting in terms of it's a tale of two apps, meaning mobile. And I think that where Jobget thrives is their ability to drive people to their mobile app and actually be a mobile app that's usable, not just an app, that's like search for a job and we're done right. There's a lot of community here. There's a lot of advice, et cetera. So if you look at the numbers Jobcase has 189 reviews on the Apple app store and 50,000 downloads on Android Jobget in comparison has some 4,000 reviews on the app store and 500,000 downloads on Android. So you're looking at 10X in terms of how much better they've been at penetrating that market. Joel (14m 37s): Now I will also say that in my research, I found that Snag a Job who we give a lot of shit to has 141,000 reviews and 5 million downloads. So just to summarize that 50K downloads for Jobcase, 500 for Jobget and 5 million for Snagajob. So maybe we should be giving Snagajob a little bit more love, but to me again, great opportunity Jobget has a lot of the great pieces. They're focused on mobile. If you go to their website, it's like go to the app store and download the app. If you go to Jobcase, there's not even a link to their app on Android or Apple. Joel (15m 18s): Now they have a mobile screenshot, but nothing in terms of a link to download the app. So I think Jobcase is missing some real opportunity to drive more engagement in that space. So to me, that was really the story. If you're going to connect with an hourly workforce, you have to be mobile and Jobget is, is kicking Jobcase's ass right now in terms of that discussion. Chad (15m 41s): Yeah. Well, you take a look at the hourly market right now. You mentioned Jobcase, Snagajob, I mean, they've been around forever and I don't know if they've found their way or they've lost it, found it, lost it again. I mean, it's just like, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. ZipRecruiter, Indeed, CareerBuilder, AMS and their hourly platform. I believe all of those platforms have great promise. Well, I mean all but CareerBuilder, but they're generality for the most part is a lack of focus to the hourly space. And in this case Jobget, I mean, again, upon they get it. Chad (16m 23s): And I think having the expertise on staff, being able to focus on, go to market and getting this cash, I think it's a great leg up for them, but again, founders, if you're looking at start comparisons again, look at the market, see how some are navigating through it and some are just fucking, they're crashing. Yeah. Joel (16m 45s): Yeah. I, I didn't mean to highlight Snagajob too much. I mean, let's be honest. They were probably the first app ever made for any position. And when apps first came out, everybody downloaded everything. Cause it was kinda cool. So, I don't mean to highlight Snagajob all that much. I think they're kind of a legacy product that a lot of people, you know, downloaded many years ago, but I do think mobile is going to be key if you're going to really tap into the hourly market because a lot of these folks live and die on their mobile devices. Chad (17m 17s): Yeah. Agreed. Joel (17m 17s): All right. Let's get to Fountain! Another big news stories. So Fountain, a hiring platform for high volume hiring. Here we go with that high volume shit again, has announced intention of it's November 2021 series C round by $100 million, bringing the total to $185 million and it's grand total to $218.9 million. According to Crunchbase, the company says it has experienced a 10 X increase since its series B in September of 2019 with business tripling year over year from 2020 to 2021 and is on pace to almost triple again this year and employee head count is growing by more than 300%. Joel (18m 3s): Since its founding in 2014, Fountain has processed over 68 million applications and help to hire more than 9.2 million workers in more than 75 countries worldwide. Chad, can this Fountain keep the good times flowing or is it about to run dry? Chad (18m 24s): So Fountain, founded in 2014. The first build was just a better interview system, that's all they did. But over time they started to notice a huge gap, a larger addressable market when it came to hourly, when it came to high volume. So they made that pivot. Here's the thing within that pivot, they broadened up the technical scope, but then they closed in more on the hourly and the high volume because there was a huge gap in the market. I don't know how many applicant tracking systems over the years have said that they can quote unquote "cater to high volume", but they really couldn't. Chad (19m 4s): They had no real framework or apparatus to get hourly workers in quickly, right? They just didn't cater to them well. Fountain very simply saw that and they went after it and obviously it is working damn well for them. So, this is a big applause for any organization, once again and founders. These are the things that you have to look at. You have to look at market validation, but also gaps in the market who are not yet Joel (19m 31s): I'm forgetting what their name was before Fountain. It was like Onboard IQ or some crazy shit? Chad (19m 37s): Jump something? Joel (19m 37s): How often do we talk about these, you know, a hundred million plus dollar recipients, an investment being in the right place at the right time? Well, hello Fountain since being founded in 2014, well hello great resignation. Hello. COVID, you know, we're talking desperate employers spending whatever it takes to find warm bodies to fill seats, particularly in these high turnover industries. These guys promise to automate the finding, qualifying and hiring of hourly workers. And that's obviously an appealing message for a lot of employers who are suddenly really interested in writing blank checks to companies that can help them put warm bodies into seats. Joel (20m 18s): So as far as I can see, let the good times roll. These guys have raised money at the right time. What happens to them in longer term, I think is going to be interesting. Is there an IPO in the future? Look, they've got robots to deal with. They've got recession around the corner and they've got, you know, the gig economy to kind of deal with longer term. So, you know, I think, I don't know what the runway looks like for success for these guys, but it's going to be fun to watch. I mean, they've picked an interesting niche that's going to go through a lot of volatility in the next decade. So to me, it's like raise the money, go public, make that bank. And then, you know, let the chips fall where they may with robots and recessions and gig economies. Chad (21m 1s): Well, as we talked about all of those brands before, as we were talking about Jobget, none of those platforms for the most part, other than Hourly, AMS's Hourly, does what Fountain does. Right? They might attract the right people, but they don't actually get them into a seat quick. Joel (21m 21s): Yep. Chad (21m 21s): And that's what you need. You need an attraction strategy, then you need an actual nice fluid and quick way to get those individuals into seats, on lines, wherever they are before your competitors actually take them off the market. Joel (21m 35s): These guys are definitely scratching employers where they itch, right? If you can automate finding people, qualifying them, you know, pre-screening them and then actually hiring them and onboarding them. Then like that's a message that's made of money these days. And these guys have kind of perfected that. So their marketing is right on as well. Just like buying fountain.com. Talk about a nice, nice, url. Chad (21m 58s): So smart. It was jump something.me. I can't remember what their last name was? Joel (22m 4s): Or something I thought IQ was in there. Chad (22m 7s): I can't remember. Joel (22m 8s): So many companies, dude. Chad (22m 10s): Yeah. Joel (22m 10s): We're brilliant for just keeping up with any of them. All right. Let's talk about SumTotal. One, at least, your boy, Josh Berson, isn't as excited about. So Cornerstone on Demand as entered into an agreement with Skillsoft to acquire SumTotal, a learning talent and workforce management solution for complex, highly regulated organizations, such as Capgemini and Edward Jones, the price tag $200 million. Commenting on the announcement, Himanshu Palsule, CEO of Cornerstone said, quote, "Together we will continue our mission in helping organizations and their people to develop future proof skills, flexibly, grow their careers and achieve shared success" Joel (22m 56s): end quote. Your boy, Josh Berson was bearish on the news and said, quote, "the SumTotal technology stack is old and the learning management system market has moved on. Companies no longer really want their LMS to operate as an employee facing system and new platforms like EdCast, Degreed and Microsoft, Viva learning are taking over" end quote. Chad, are you on team Berson on this one or are you lacing up for a slam dunk on your favorite pundit? Chad (23m 26s): Let's go back in history just a little bit. Skillsoft was acquired by Charter House Capital, a PE firm out of London for $2 billion in 2014. You know, at being acquired by a PE firm means right? Skillsoft then acquired SumTotal a little bit later in 2014 after the Charter House acquisition. So I see the big change happening just last December of 2021 when Skillsoft bought Code Academy. I believe Skillsoft and Charter House, see the future in dollars in coding, which is why it makes sense to sell SumTotal. For Cornerstone it's about consolidation, more content and a bigger profile or portfolio of customers. Chad (24m 14s): I just wonder if Cornerstone is going to make SumTotal adopt the new cat anus logo. That's the big question. Joel (24m 25s): I totally forgot about that. Oh shit this is why we don't share notes before the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Total client grab, in my opinion, Cornerstone owns EdCast the newcomer to this space. SumTotal has some really large clients so this makes financial sense. If they can retain SumTotal's existing client base and keep them from going to the competition, which by the way is heating up, as we mentioned in the summary, then it's a move that makes a lot of sense. I mean, $200 million will buy a lot of beer, but if it keeps your competitors at bay and keeps the clients that are there in the kitty, then I'd say it's probably a good move. Joel (25m 6s): Particularly after buying EdCast, you really want to hyper grow that thing with customers. Drop $200 million on SumTotal and you can do that. Chad (25m 22s): Agreed. Joel (25m 22s): Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with a little buy or sell. Chad (25m 29s): Buy or sell! Joel (25m 31s): Buy or sell. sfx (25m 32s): MA THE MEATLOAF! FUCK! Joel (25m 32s): Yes. All right, let's do this CEIPAL not C-PAP it's C E I P A L and it is pronounced CEIPAL cause I looked it up on YouTube. AI powered talent acquisition automation platform, CEIPAL has raised $16.5 dollars in its Series B around with an additional $4.5 million in debt financing for a total of $21 million. They currently serve 120,000 recruiters and plan to fuel a regional market expansion, particularly within the US, UK and India, with the new funding. They have a global team of 450 employees and plan to grow to more than 1000 global employees in the next 12 to 18 months. Joel (26m 20s): Chad, are you a buy or sell on CEIPAL? Chad (26m 22s): So the CEO has vendor management solutions background, right? That's awesome. But they're trying to take on VMS, ATS, CRM, and a bunch of other point solutions. Last but not least, I was introduced to CEIPAL a little over a year ago and I haven't heard a marketing peep since. I mean, generally you get that targeted by cookies or something like that, at least. Right? None of that. I hate the brand. I hate the logo. I hate the colors, the message, the focus. I mean, they literally are way too broad not to mention the CEO, is a CEO and founder of 2 companies. Right? I don't know how you can be less focused. Chad (27m 4s): I would love to see a company like this kick ass and take names, but they do have a lack of industry experience, other than the VMs side, and obviously discipline. So for me, it's an easy sell. sfx (27m 16s): Oh, hell no. Joel (27m 17s): All right. Yeah. I'm going to echo a lot of those sentiments. Too much competition, they want to be everything to everyone. I encourage you to go to the website and just get overwhelmed with all the shit that they apparently do. And they're selling it as almost a poor man's option. They claim to be a quarter of the price of similar solutions and that's rarely a recipe for success, everybody. If they were hyper-focused like you said, and I thought about our friends at Recruit CRM who's super focused on staffing agency. Chad (27m 54s): Yes! Joel (27m 55s): To me, that's the way to go, but they are not focused at all. They are everything to everybody and in doing so, they are nothing to nobody. So for me, that's a big, big, big sell. Next up is Wilko. Chad (28m 13s): Wilko. Joel (28m 14s): Wilko an upscaling platform for software developers has raised $7 million in seed funding. On Wilco's platform developers join a fantasy tech company, a game-like experience designed to accelerate their professional growth. At their new "workplace" that's workplace in air quotes, engineers go on quests that challenge them to navigate complex lifelike scenarios while utilizing real tools and technologies. The individual quests and Wilco are designed to build soft skills in a virtual world where today they are only learned in real time. Chad, are you a buyer sell on Wilco? Chad (28m 48s): So I have to say doing these buy or sells I get bored as fuck because most of these vendors, week after week after week are the same regurgitated look, feel mission statements, blah, blah, blah. sfx (28m 59s): What did you say? Chad (29m 1s): Yeah, most really don't know who they are or what they want to be when they grow up. Not Wilco. It seems like they really understand who they are and why they are quote from the website "some people have easier access to key career opportunities than others based purely on their social status, creating an experience gap, by unbundling professional development from employment we aim to reduce that gap and give everyone the chance to both gain new skills and master existing ones at an accelerated pace" Chad (29m 42s): end quote. The site feels like a 1980s video games, 16 bit style. They are transparent. Staff is 43% women in engineering. 77% prefer Nintendo over Sega of course, and 53% prefer beer over wine. I'll take either. It doesn't matter. I was really drawn into the story in the concept. I am a huge fan if you can't tell? Joel (30m 8s): Can't tell. Chad (30m 8s): But here's the rub kids. Joel (30m 10s): Ought o. Chad (30m 11s): No business, no real business, sales, or partnership chops. So I know they just broke out of stealth mode, but until they get some industry go-to-market veterans on the team. I got to sell. Joel (30m 24s): Oh. No. All right. The seeds of the metaverse and hiring are being planted. The visuals on this thing, like you said, it looks like an arcade in 1982, which I couldn't help, but love and feel nostalgia for Pac-Man fever and everything else. So okay. To the business part, developers are so focused on hard skills that the soft stuff, you know, how to react to a crisis for example, are totally missed in today's market. Companies need their team to be ready for things like, oh, I don't know a ransomware attack without actually going through a ransomware attack. It is really early in this company's life. Like just out of stealth mode, go to their site to check it out if you like the old school, like graphics of video games. Joel (31m 7s): But I do love the concept. I think it's something that people aren't even considering. Like they're so concerned about, you know, how to code and take this test and pre-screen and everything like they don't really think about, Hey, when the shit hits the fan, are these folks actually going to be able to handle, you know, the pressure cooker? And Wilco is looking to solve that problem. On a side note, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of the best albums of last 25 years. It's no, I'm going to buy the music and I'm going to buy the 1982 arcade. I am a buy on Wilco. Chad (31m 42s): Big fan, Wilco. Just we'll check back in six months. Joel (31m 45s): Yeah, we got to get these guys on firing squad. We go get them on the squad. Chad (31m 52s): Okay. Yes. Joel (31m 53s): All right. Next up is, it's probably Canditech Tech, but Chad and I kind of like Canditech Tech better. Chad (32m 1s): Very stripper. Joel (32m 2s): Are you ready for a world without resumes Chad? The Tel Aviv based startup has raised $9 million in seed funding. Canditech says they enable companies to accurately assess job candidates with an online job simulation platform. No word if that's VR? The platform allows hiring managers to tailor simulations to their specific roles using tech that reviews tests objectively and automatically. At the same time candidates are given the opportunity to quote, "sample the positions at an early stage in the process, which reduces the chances of poor hiring decisions and turnover". Chad is Canditech tasty? Are you throwing that snack away? Joel (32m 43s): Buy or sell Canditech? Chad (32m 45s): After Test Gorilla just got juiced with $70 million in funding you got to ask yourself, does the world really need another assessment company? I mean, seriously, I love the continued kill the resume narrative, but how? Will these assessments be portable? Can a candidate share their assessment with other employers? How is it portable? Right? The CV sucks. Totally get it. We can say it over and over. But if you are not making your assessment portable, widely used, then everybody's going to go right back to the CV. It's what everybody knows. It's what everybody might hate, but they still use it until you achieve portability or an opportunity with another organization to make your assessment more portable and usable by me, the candidates, right? Chad (33m 39s): This is not about you. It's not about the employer. It's about the candidate's assessment and how they can actually use it everywhere. For me. I'm a sell. sfx (33m 49s): Oh hell no. Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (33m 52s): Okay. Yeah, they're going to need a bigger boat. Chad, you mentioned Test Gorilla having just raised $70 million. There's HackerRank. There's Plum. There's Vervoe. I could go on. Is there room for one more? The best I can hope for is an acquisition to be tacked onto a bigger solution. And I'm not betting on jaws coming along anytime soon to gobble these guys up. So for me as well, major sell on Canditech, but I kind of liked the name. All right. Let's take a quick break, pay some bills and talk about your favorite big corporation. Joel (34m 32s): All right, Chad, you ready for some Amazon news? Chad (34m 37s): Oh Jesus. Joel (34m 38s): And we're going to throw an Alabama to make it, especially fun. Chad (34m 44s): Double Jesus. Joel (34m 45s): So your favorite company is in the news again, it looks like unions might not be their biggest labor threat. Nope. They could actually run out of people to hire in US warehouses by 2024. That's according to a leaked internal research memo from mid 2021 that Recode got its hands on. The internal research said, quote, "if we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply" end quote. Vox added quote, "the leaked internal finding serve as a cautionary tale for other employers who seek to emulate the Amazon way of management, which emphasizes worker productivity over just about everything else and churns through the equivalent of its entire frontline workforce every year," Joel (35m 35s): end quote. And so it's no surprise Chad, that Amazon unveiled its first fully autonomous warehouse robot at its annual conference this week. Release the bots! Let's go to Alabama real quick. Chad, after 27 years of operation Bailey Seafood Restaurant is closing for good citing a lack of cooks as the reason. in a Facebook post, the owner said quote, "with a heavy heart, we will be closing for good due to inability to get needed staff, to run a restaurant efficiently" end quote. Release the bots Chad. Chad (36m 5s): Well, we all know that Jeff Bezos is going to go to the robots as soon as they humanly can. I mean, it's just, it's too easy. He doesn't like humans. He tries to treat humans like robots. And this new study obviously demonstrates that he treats them like shit and they're not coming back. So I mean, he's totally like burning out a whole generation of workers. Then we take a look at, you know, the restaurant industry. I know you hate hearing this, Joel, but we have to look toward a Europe. Okay. Europe has a much better minimum wage, number one. Number two, they don't have this 24 hours, instant gratification bullshit that's happening. Chad (36m 50s): Right? They actually have to be quite Frank, some amazing restaurants and little bitty towns instead of McDonald's and so on and so forth. But they also can pay people better and also have better hours for those individuals. They're not working 12 hours straight, right? They'll if you take a look at European restaurant hours, if you haven't had lunch by three, well, you're going to have to wait until seven because European restaurants, unless you just want topless and a beer, they closed down. So they're looking toward their people, not burning them out and paying them better. We should look at them. Joel (37m 21s): Well, this pretty much throws out the window that Amazon is going to change its ways in terms of how it treats workers. Chad (37m 28s): Nope. No way. Joel (37m 28s): Way saying, you know what, we're going to run them through the meat grinder and then we're going to replace them with robots. So I'm not going to look for any kind of special treatment from Amazon towards workers anytime soon. I guess we can hope that Walmart actually does the right thing and treats people well, but they're probably going to go robotics as well. The Alabama story is sad. Obviously Bailey's is not some major chain of restaurant, but the cook that was there, I think was retiring after 30 years in the business. So that like these poor restaurants are counting on 67 year old cooks to kind of churn out the Po'Boys for the guests. Joel (38m 9s): So anyway, additionally Chad 2024, that's the date! Amazon has said by 2024, we're going to be out of people. So Amazon has spoken human beings, we've had a good run it's time for universal basic income. It's time for on-time deliveries from drones. And it's time to get my shrimp Po'Boys back. Flippy, Sippy, and Wingy. Let's go. Miso robotics release the bots! Chad (38m 39s): We out, We out. OUTRO (39m 20s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Summer is officially here and things are really starting to heat-up in Europe. Adzuna and Textkernel just made some really interesting acquisitions. TestGorilla wants to be, um, the 800-lb. gorilla in the assessment space. And Paris-based CleverConnect has "merged" with Munich-based Talentry in what is destined to become another marriage made in heaven between France and Germany (insert sarcasm). Lieven is out sick this week, but Bas Van Haterd from the Netherlands and host of the Talent Savvy Podcast is here to fill-in. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (15s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (35s): Oh yeah. Summer is officially here and you're invited to a barbecue that's starting at four. OLA you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "the temperature's about 88" Cheeseman. Chad (51s): And this is Chad" I'm going back to London, London, London" Sowash. Joel (56s): I don't think so. On this episode, Textkernel and Adzuna go shopping, France and Germany merge, and we get acquainted with an 800 pound Test Gorilla. Let's do this. sfx (1m 9s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 12s): Dude, where the fuck is Lieven? Joel (1m 14s): He's a little under the weather, apparently my man's not feeling very, very good. I guess, you know, filling in for me last week or last time was a little too much for the constitution. If you will. Chad (1m 26s): It's a lot to shoulder. Let me tell you. I mean, there's the, you wake up in the middle of the night cold sweats. I mean, so, I mean, shout out to Lieven and Jenny Cotie Kangas, AKA JCK, for running the pod with me while your ass was a way petting moose and drinking Molson in Canada. Joel (1m 46s): That's right, baby. The Molson goes down nicely and it's a lot stronger in Canada. Chad (1m 51s): I'm glad they let you back in the country. Joel (1m 54s): That hangover's still with me a little bit. I'm not sure how this episode is going to go, but we have a special guest. Chad (1m 60s): A what?! Joel (2m 1s): In Lieven's absence to carry both of us or at least me again through this episode, a lot of why don't we welcome Bas Van De Haterd. How do we prounounce that Bas? Chad (2m 17s): Van De Haterd Joel (2m 18s): Hotter. Hotrod. Bas (2m 19s): Close enough. Mates, Joel (2m 20s): Bas, like a boss. That's all I know. Chad (2m 24s): Like a Boss. Excellent. Welcome Bas. Give us a little intro, a little Twitter bio around you. Bas (2m 33s): Well, I've been active in this industry for about 20 years now. I've recently, last decade, specialized in the assessments. I've been running the biggest research on corporate career sites here in the Netherlands, and basically tried to get out of recruitment ages, time and time again. And it just drags me back in. Joel (2m 58s): Your LinkedIn profile, says professional Snoop. I assume that's not a Snoop Dogg impersonator, that says something different. Bas (3m 7s): No, it's an honorary title from a guy who actually recently deceased, who was always living on the edge and he went over it and I always get meddling into his business ventures and so when I was still just on the payroll, he called me a professional Snoop. And I said, I'm going to put that on my business card if I ever start out on my own. He said, you'll never have to guts for it and that's one thing you don't have to say to me. Joel (3m 34s): Love it. And thank you for filling in last second. Literally, we appreciate you coming on the show and helping us out with the European point of view. Bas (3m 44s): Well, you're welcome. Chad (3m 45s): Excellent. Shout outs baby! Bas (3m 46s): Well, my shout out is to the people in the Facebook group, Recruitment Flagstaff, which is a Dutch recruiter group for telling all their children to apply to the position of corporate career size researcher, because I had so many awesome applicants. It might help that I did a really simple assessment to assess them and I pay a 25% above minimum wage. So I'm set for the summer with six people working for me doing research. Chad (4m 18s): Awesome. And you did this without resumes. You did it only on assessment. Bas (4m 23s): Yeah. I figured out that researching a corporate career site basically means you need to be able to scan a website really fast and accurately. Chad (4m 32s): So, so what assessment do you use for something like that? Do you create your own? What do you use? Bas (4m 37s): I've actually created my own, simply because as an assessment guy, I know what I'm looking for. Chad (4m 45s): Yeah. Bas (4m 45s): Back in the day, this is over a decade ago. So before they started bombing Ukraine, but I hired a Russian developer. I paid him 500 quid. He built the exec, the games like I knew they would work. I tested them on my former employees. I had the good ones and the lesser ones do them. They had predictive validity and since I've done this, I haven't had a single job interview. I haven't asked for a single resume and I haven't had a single mis-hire in almost 10 years now and before I used to have at least 25% of the people were just not functioning well. Joel (5m 23s): And it costs you a whopping $500 bucks! Bas (5m 26s): And it cost me a whopping $500 bucks. Chad (5m 31s): Love it. I fucking love it. So quick question. How many people in that timeframe have you actually hired? Bas (5m 36s): 40 or 50 people now? Joel (5m 37s): Well, first of all, $500 for all, that is a very sound investment. So if nothing else, Bas can start a financial podcast on how to build cheap businesses and get return investment. Speaking of guys that know a thing or two about building businesses, my shout out goes to Johnny Campbell. Chad (5m 54s): Love that guy. Joel (5m 55s): And his company, his Social Talent. You know, on this show and our other shows, we focus a lot on companies that have raised millions and millions of dollars, but we probably don't talk enough about businesses that, you know, bootstrap last long time grow organically and build successful companies. And Social Talent is one of those sort of well kept secrets. They provide an e-learning for recruitment. In case you haven't been paying attention, basically videos of experts, educating recruiters on how to do stuff. Anyway, co-founder Johnny Campbell and Social Talent was recently featured in Dublin's business post because they're now looking to raise up to 25 million euros in financing to fund their further growth. Joel (6m 40s): It's the first time they've sought funding, even though they've been around since 2010. Intel, Disney and Cisco are some of their clients and they're growing at 40% year over year and have helped train over 100,000 recruiters. We don't talk about these companies enough. So shout out to Johnny and his team at Social Talent. Well done. Well done. Chad (7m 8s): Love, love educational platforms that really engage almost like a Netflix style. You get great content, they've got great content. And then just turn it loose on recruiters, recruiting managers, those types. I think that's awesome. Good luck for them in that raise. Joel (7m 23s): And you know, they're smart because they've never asked you or me to be on one of their educational plans. So yeah, they know what they're doing. Chad (7m 33s): Pretty legit, pretty legit. Okay. My shout out goes to books, books, books, that's right kids. Katrina Colliers, Robot Proof Recruiter, Version II is available for pre-orde,rI that's right kids. In a world of RPA, AI, MLNOP and a ton of other scary acronyms. How can you as a recruiter evolve your skillset? Well, you gotta be a Robot Proof Recruiter. That's how also shout out to Matt, "that bridge guy," Alder and Mervin Dean and their book, Digital Talent: Find, Recruit and Retain the People your Business Needs in a World of Digital Transformation. Chad (8m 14s): Two books focused on pulling HR pros out of the tar pits of the early two thousands process and technology mindsets, a Robot Proof Recruiter, Version II and Digital Talent. Pre-order. Get yours today. Joel (8m 29s): People still read. Is that a thing still? Chad (8m 32s): Apparently, yeah. Joel (8m 32s): Don't expect the Chad and Cheese book by the way, people, unless it's a coloring book or a comic book, don't expect anything out of us. Chad (8m 39s): James Ellis took his Talent Chooses You, Version II, totally audio. Joel (8m 44s): Oh, I liked that James in your ear. Chad (8m 48s): That's right, baby. Go to TalentCast and you can listen to it for free. Bas (8m 51s): Listen to every damn episode of it. Joel (8m 56s): Every goddamn episode. Chad (8m 56s): So events! You've heard that we've got an event coming up, right? Joel (8m 59s): I have I'm sure Bas has to. He'll probably be where we're going. Chad (9m 5s): So what happened this morning Bas? Bas (9m 8s): Jamie posted on his own LinkedIn RecFest is sold out. Chad (9m 14s): That's right. Kids too bad. So sad. They're officially sold out. I hate to say, I told you so, but I warned you they were going to sell out. So if you haven't gotten tickets, you're back in the FOMO. You're back in the FOMO zone. Not cool. So we look forward to actually being onstage. It Knebworth Park RecFest all day. I'm seeing the disrupt stage. We're going to have Julie, who's "Crazy" of Crazy and the king, our buddy Stubbs. He, I don't know if you know this or not. Joel Stubbs is going to join us. Joel (9m 45s): Is that right? Very nice. Chad (9m 46s): Yep. We've got Craig and Lauren from Australia's TApod and Shelley and Serge from Canada's Recruitment Flex. They're all going to make guest appearances. You won't know when people, which is why you got to pitch a tent in the disrupt stage. Joel (10m 3s): And don't forget my friends, Johnny, Jack, and Jim will also be on stage. So I found to be a good time everybody. Chad (10m 10s): That's going to be the hardest thing for me to keep you not from being just crazy drunk. Joel (10m 17s): I'm a lot more entertaining, drunk and more entertaining. Chad (10m 25s): You think so. TOPICS! Joel (10m 27s): All right, let's get into some mergers and acquisitions. Chad (10m 33s): Murders? Joel (10m 33s): Murder She Wrote. No Murders in the Building. No Adzuna, our podcast sponsor by the way, Adzuna, search engine for jobs in case you haven't been paying attention, has acquired GetWork a US-based job search engine. Plans for GetWork to continue operating as an independent brand are in the plans. Doug Monroe, CEO, and co-founder of Adzuna said quote "Adzuna acquiring GetWork will help us supercharge our growth in North America" end quote. Both companies will continue to operate as independent brands. Together they will index job ads for more than 50,000 employer websites. terms as usual were not disclosed, but guys, what do we think about this move from Adzuna to make some waves into the good old USA and maybe even Canada. Bas (11m 21s): They're not that big in the Netherlands. I've just looked up one of my old clients data and we had literally zero people coming in from them and this is quite a big client, but anybody who wants to challenge Indeed, which I think they're doing, I can only welcome that. Chad (11m 41s): That's good. I got a quote from Doug Monroe, the CEO of Adzuna first off, he said, "fundamentally, it's about accelerating our US growth in scale to help us create a genuine alternative to the likes of Indeed/LinkedIn." What Bas was just talking about. Joel (11m 59s): So I think that on a surface Adzuna needs to make waves in the US, they're making a big push, they've raised money recently to come over to the states. The company that they bought GetWork is not a juggernaut. It's not ZipRecruiter or someone that's gonna make a huge splash. Interestingly, from the past, if you're familiar with LinkUp, which I know a lot of our listeners are. And before then it was a Job Dig. They've sort of pivoted away from the job postings, which were mostly, I think, direct listings from employers and they've gotten into more of the data collection business. So to me, this sounded like they had created a GetWork as a separate brand and then LinkUp was going to be more real time, predictive job market data. Joel (12m 48s): So it sounds to me like GetWork was sort of an expendable asset. They made a call and found a buyer who was willing to come in and thus, you know, having GetWork. I don't know long-term if you're going to continue to see two brands operate independently, I think it makes a lot of sense for Adzuna to consolidate the GetWork brand. So in 12, 18 months, I'm guessing that we won't be talking about GetWork anymore. We'll be talking about just Adzuna Chad (13m 16s): What's a better brand though? Joel (13m 18s): Well, if you're talking to Adzuna, it's Adzuna right? Cause they have an established brand over Europe, but if Chad (13m 23s): I'm not, I'm talking to you, what's the best brand? Joel (13m 28s): Oh, you're talking to me? Like GetWork? Certainly, I think on its surface says what they do. Now it doesn't translate that well into Europe and Bas can talk about that. Does GetWork, work in Europe as a good brand? Bas what do you think? Bas (13m 46s): Why not? I mean, Amazon is a great brand. Has nothing to do with shipping goods or anything. Yeah, no, I actually think GetWork is better than not Adzuna because you'd have no question in how am I going to type it in. Then again, Indeed still gets most of its Traffic or used to from people typing in Google. So yeah. Joel (14m 8s): And Adzuna gives you a lot more wiggle room to do stuff outside of work, if you want too much, like Indeed has nothing to do with GetWork. Yeah. I know Adzuna has spent a lot of money on their brand and building it particularly in the UK. So I'd be kind of shocked. I mean, maybe it'll be a Simply Hired situation where the content is just the same and they let GetWork sort of live on its own until Google doesn't index its pages anymore. And it has no value whatsoever, which will be a very long time before they drop out of Google's index, as long as they're still around. Yeah. Chad (14m 41s): I find it interesting that they are looking to have two brands. I think you're right. There's going to be some type of consolidation. The question is if you bought a URL, like GetWork to single syllable words, anybody can spell and it's a.com to me, it just makes a hell of a lot of sense that the perspectively rebrand it's kinda like a, you know, we had New VU go to talent.com. It's easier. It's much easier. So I would see that transition perspectively happening. Bas (15m 16s): I'm really curious myself what Adzuna's plan is to battle off talent.com for now the second position in the market, because talent.com is really investing a lot in organic growth. Joel (15m 28s): Well, they're acquiring GetWork. That's what they're doing. Chad (15m 32s): Yeah. But that's more of a US strategy from a penetration standpoint. I think Bas, are you talking more of a European strategy? Okay. Bas (15m 43s): Yeah. Global, European. I think talent.com is really investing heavily recently, in their marketing, their brand value and really positioning themselves in Europe or especially in the Benelux countries as to challenger brand for Indeed. Adzuna is not here yet. So I'm really curious to see if there they eventually will so merge. Chad (16m 7s): I have to take a look at Adzuna markets because I mean, they're obviously much larger markets than the Netherlands. You've got the UK, which is where they started out. What about France and Germany? You know, how heavy are they actually focusing on penetrating those markets? That's I think my big question. Bas (16m 29s): The one thing I see talent.com doing really well is having local teams in every country or at least in every language area. Chad (16m 36s): Gotcha. Bas (16m 37s): Getting it out. And I don't see Adzuna doing that. Which surprises me that the Brits would go over the ocean and tackle America first, where the Canadians are actually putting up a really good European strategy. Joel (16m 50s): I mean, talent, talent just got a hundred million, some dollars, right? If my memory serves correctly, but I mean, they had that, it's two companies that are looking to go public. At some point we've had stories about both of them recently looking to go, you know, IPO now Adzuna may be more UKcentric. Whereas I think talent, I think talent is going for all the marbles. I think they're, they're going for a bigger global piece of the pie and they've, they've funded. They've, they've created an arsenal to go do that. Adzuna is more to me more of an organic growth story where they've seen opportunities in the technology of the programmatic side to grow sort of organically or a little bit more slowly. Joel (17m 31s): So I just think it's a matter of strategies and financial backing and just the vision of talent.com is, is huge. Chad (17m 42s): Well, you have the difference, the difference between funding of Adzuna having right now, $17 million USD and talent.com $150 million. Right? So you have more of a bootstrapping scenario versus trying to juice with funding. Yeah. Joel (17m 57s): And look, we've learned from history that, you know, just having boots on the ground and all these markets isn't necessarily the best one. It's really costly. Chad (18m 9s): We saw that with Monster Joel (18m 12s): Monster. Yeah. Bas (18m 13s): It actually, Monster is extremely successful or was extremely successful in the Netherlands, basically because they hired the right people. Chad (18m 20s): Gotcha. In the Netherlands. Bas (18m 20s): In the Netherlands. Joel (18m 21s): I mean, Chad, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, if we go through the global recession that everyone is predicting, I mean, we may be talking about layoffs at talent.com and sort of a resizing, if you will. And Adzuna may be better positioned for the longer term because they aren't spending tons of money. Chad (18m 43s): Yeah. Yeah. Unless the talent.com is squirreling away that $150 million worth of nuts that they have as they're waiting for the cold winter to come. That being said, staying in the Netherlands. Let's talk a little bit about our friends at Textkernel. Joel (18m 60s): Yeah. Speaking of nuts, Textkernel. Amsterdam based Textkernel so we know Bas knows these guys and also also a show sponsor just like Adzuna has acquired Dutch staffing app and portal specialist Akyla spelled A K Y L A. The acquisition is aimed at helping staffing agencies that are looking for automated solutions to help them in the tight labor market. But why, let me explain it when CEO, Gerard, our buddy can explain it in his own words, Gerard (19m 34s): By combining Akyla and Textkernel, we can also combine the back office data and the front office data for our customers more effectively. And with the capabilities of Textkernel, that creates a very interesting value proposition, which could, for instance, very positively impact redeployment KPIs by making automated smart suggestions for jobs to candidates that are on assignment one week or two weeks before they come off assignments. But next to that, there's a lot of value in the data itself we believe we can create very interesting insights for our customers to make smarter decisions. Joel (20m 14s): Bas. These guys are in your backyard. What are your thoughts on the move? Bas (20m 19s): Well, I actually, I've known them since they were with seven people on staff. I've met Gerard or Gerard as you call him. Joel (20m 30s): Jerry Bas (20m 30s): Jerry. Chad (20m 30s): I don't think he goes by Jerry by now. Joel (20m 33s): Sorry. Sorry, Bas. Go ahead. Bas (20m 36s): So I've known them since they were six, seven people, I've known Gerard forever. And usually when I see applications like this being bought by something else within our industry, we know it's not going to integrate. If there's one team who can do this, it's Textkernel, they've always amazed me with technical abilities. I'm not sure if this is an offensive or defensive play, though, because my solution, which is the biggest Dutch ATS for staffing firms down here, or one of the big players they've been buying Otis, they've been buying your Own Recruit. I know Otis was very important for Textkernel to get a lot of users, a lot of clients in staffing space and having all that consolidation. Bas (21m 25s): Are they actually going to build their own ATS like system eventually, because they've got a lot of features in there? Are they seeing that because a few of them have either been bought by international players are not investing that much anymore, that there's room for that? Or is it a more defensive play to make sure that, they won't be squeezed out in margins by those few players that are still left in his Dutch staffing market? Because Akyla is only Dutch and a little in the Nordics. Chad (21m 58s): Yeah. This is a wallet share play. It's pretty simple. They are already powering back ends of many staffing organizations and they're looking for other issues, other gaps to bridge, not to mention when you start talking to these applicant tracking systems, the thing they do not want to do, is the heavy lifting, right? And Textkernel probably does the heaviest lifting when it comes to parsing, search and match, those types of things, and then you start getting into these back office system pieces! ATSs don't want to fuck with that stuff, man, especially if there's a great opportunity for somebody else to be able to do it. So I think this is a great play for Textkernel. Chad (22m 40s): They're looking for opportunities to, again, not just go out and get new business, but the retention in growth of wallet share for current clients. I think that's really what they're focused on. Joel (22m 50s): Yeah. You know, Chad, I think when we talked about Textkernel, you know, a year or so plus ago after they had the botched sorta CareerBuilder acquisition of them, and then when Main Capital entered the picture and bought the company or invested in the company, I think both of us said big things are gonna start happening at Textkernel. And soon thereafter, they acquired Sovren, which I think we both agreed was an incredible consolidation move in terms of the parsing and matching game. And I think this is another really strategic, intelligent, probably cost-effective acquisition for them. And they probably see things in this that we don't, whether it's in the talent that's there or` the technology that they have. Joel (23m 40s): But Textkernel is really good about making sort of really good strategic, really smart acquisitions and bets on better technology or improving their technology. Because I think people would be shocked at how much of the backend guts of systems Textkernel and Sovren together are powering. Chad (23m 54s): Oh yeah. Joel (23m 54s): And if they can continue to sort of make these, you know, efficient bets, we're going to look up one day and Main Capital's bet and Textkernel is going to be a gorilla because of what they've been able to do in the money now that they have backing them and the, and the smart people that are making these bets. I think it's really interesting to watch what they're doing. They're not just swinging for the fences they make these sort of scalpel like acquisitions and moves and I think they are incredibly impactful to their business. So for me, big applause for Textkernel and the acquisition that they're doing and using the Main Capital funding really intelligently. Chad (24m 40s): Yes. Joel (24m 40s): I'm really impressed with that. Chad (24m 42s): Our listeners would be, they would be astounded by the amount of backends from parsing, search and match that the combination of Sovren, now owned by Textkernel and Textkernel actually do throughout the entire world. They are no question, the leader in that. Now to be able to expand the tool set for all of those customers. Yeah. I mean, again, it's working behind the scenes and just making a shit ton of cash and being smart. Joel (25m 7s): Yeah. We'd love to be a fly on the wall to see the big picture vision of what they're looking to do. Bas (25m 12s): I'm wondering if it's going to be a big picture vision of only Textkernel, because Main Capital has massive investments in Assessio as well, which is one of the bigger assessment providers who bought ELO in the Netherlands among others. As you might remember from one of your previous European shows. I'm curious to see if those two will ever be put together? Joel (25m 38s): You may be onto something. Chad (25m 39s): Only time will tell. Joel (25m 40s): All right, let's take a quick break and talk about Test Gorilla. What the? sfx (25m 46s): Europe has bunch of countries in it. Joel (25m 48s): All right, guys, moving on from Adzuna and Textkernel let's talk about the primate. Chad (25m 56s): Bas is going to love this. This is all about assessments. Joel (25m 59s): This is. Good point. Recruitment screening and assessment platform Test Gorilla has secured $70 million in a series A round. The new funding brings the total investment raised by Test Gorilla to $80 million. Test Gorilla services are already used by over 5,300 companies since its launch in 2020. It's platform offers companies hundreds of preemployment tests so they can tailor their search for candidates to their individual requirements. As if the world needed another assessment platform, what are our thoughts on Test Gorilla? Bas (26m 35s): I mean also because they've not been around that long, known them basically from the moment they were born and I love him and I don't like him. Basically, what they do is they test for knowledge and we all know that knowledge isn't skill. I mean, knowledge is required for skill, but it's not skill. And they claim they are testing for skills, but are testing for knowledge. They have knowledge test on Google analytics. They have knowledge test on Google ads. They have knowledge test on Facebook ads, on sourcing on you, name it. The way they test for that knowledge now that's really cool and really interesting because they work with a lot of independent experts. Basically, everybody can say, I want to build an assessment. Bas (27m 16s): I'm an expert in this. They'll check you out a bit. If you're are an expert, then you have make sure the tests are up to date. So unlike many other knowledge-based tests, their tests, aren't out of date. They keep on updating them with the most, the newest developments. Yet testing just for knowledge, which is their key thing and they have a few other tests, but those are a dime a dozen, but testing, just for knowledge, isn't testing for skills. Now is it better than actually looking at a resume and seeing that somebody was, did something with Google analytics and assuming the person knows what they're doing. Absolutely. Bas (27m 56s): Is it what I would like to test for? Absolutely not. Chad (27m 60s): Well, first and foremost, let's just say this $70 million USD, 66 million euros, in Series A. Okay. That's a pretty big fucking chunk of money. I love the renewed attacks that we're seeing on the CV. I fucking love it. Here's my question though. Are Test Gorilla assessments portable? Can I use the assessment that I just took and apply that to another company? What about companies who are not using Test Gorilla? Can I send them my Test Gorilla assessment? You probably can, but for those companies, do they even know what the fuck Test Gorilla is? My point, the biggest problem when fighting the resume, is portability. Chad (28m 39s): The resume is accepted everywhere. It's like trying to use the Euro in London. It just doesn't fucking work. Right? I love the idea, but unless you have a way to make these assessments more portable. It's just a gorilla beating its chest at this point. sfx (28m 58s): sad sound effects Chad (28m 58s): Which is why. Joel (28m 59s): Okay. You know, I'm a thing. I have a thing with names, Chad and I hate the name. I hate the name Test Gorilla. It's like you have Survey Monkey and then you're like, let's take the Survey Monkey thing and make it just Test Gorilla. So, so these guys out of the Netherlands, maybe not known for their name of companies, at least its testgorilla.com and testgorilla.io or something, you know, Chad (29m 25s): It's two names you can spell, I mean, come on. Joel (29m 29s): It feels very 2003 to me, when everything was like Job Fox. And anyway, all I know is this is an incredibly old industry. As we know from interviews recently that, you know, this is a World War II era based business of assessing people. And you have really old companies that frankly need to be shaken up, probably put out a business by companies that are better at technology, better at, you know, how the world works today in terms of assessing people. So from my viewpoint, it's simply look all the old guard here, I think needs to be shaken up. And I think people like whether it's Plum or other Pymetrics or whoever you like, or don't like the fact that Test Gorilla's in the game with a good amount of funding, I think is only going to push the business of assessments into a better place than where it's been for the last, you know, 75 years or so. Joel (30m 21s): So, from my perspective, like the more the merrier in terms of competition, these guys will go out of business. They'll acquire each other and eventually we'll have a couple players that are newer and exciting and have better science than we have today and I think that's good for employers as well as the job candidates. So I'm going to beat my chest. Chad (30m 46s): Imagine that. Joel (30m 48s): And excitement for Test Gorilla Chad (30m 49s): An American beating their chests? Joel (30m 50s): Test Gorilla nicely done, nicely done. Chad (30m 53s): So real quick on their website, they actually use the byline, "a crystal ball for job success". That's part of their byline to the brand. I literally use the term crystal ball technology as a negative on assessments and they believe it's a positive. So I just think that's kind of it, that's interesting. They see crystal ball, kind of magic, kind of wizardry as a positive. When you, when we look at it and it's like, yeah, no that's smoke and mirrors. Bas (31m 22s): No, but they don't have an HR background. They come from management consulting and that's probably why they're able to get in this much money. Chad (31m 30s): Ah, Bas (31m 31s): I've actually spoken because they call it a Series A, but to be honest, they had a massive investment a couple of two years ago. If I'm not mistaken last year, Chad (31m 42s): Like 10, $10 million or something like that. Bas (31m 46s): Something like that. So normal people will call that our Series A, because they already had a seed as well. But apparently everything under a hundred million isn't Series A anymore or something, Joel (31m 58s): Yeah, they've raised a total of $80 million. Bas (32m 0s): So they already had $10 million investments. I know several people from the investment scene looking at them and they don't have the HR background. They have the sales, they have the process background. That's why they Excel at having a process. They Excel at sales. I'm really curious to see how they Excel at retention of their clients. I have no data on that. I just don't know. Joel (32m 23s): So if they come from that background, what's your take on their sort of long-term vision? Is it to flip this thing into a public company? Is it a sell it quickly? Cause it doesn't sound like you're bullish on these guys being a long-term solution. Bas (32m 39s): I think in this industry, they will be bought by a bigger player. Joel (32m 43s): Okay. And they probably know who that is or they probably already know the two or three companies that it could be. Chad (32m 49s): I'm sure they are courting. Of course, after taking this much money, you've just taken all of your options and you've pretty much pulled down about a handful now. Bas (32m 59s): Yeah, there are a handful of combined them. I actually also know that there are one of our lead investors is looking to invest in other startups in the scene. So wouldn't surprise me if they start combining them with scientifically better validated tools and either build a new giant because some of them have been merging or sell them to one of the major players. Joel (33m 27s): Maybe they'll get acquired by Test Godzilla and they can take on Test Mothra in the markets. All right. All right. Moving on from Test Gorilla, let's talk about CleverConnect and Talent Tree. Chad (33m 45s): France and Germany back together, baby. Joel (33m 47s): They called a merger, but let's be honest it's an acquisition founded in Paris in 2010, CleverConnect, which recently raised 30 million euros claims over 2,500 customers across Europe to rethink their recruitment strategy. Talent Tree founded in Munich in 2013. That's three years later if you're keeping score as a talent relationship platform, specializing in talent sourcing, candidate relationship management, recruitment events, employee referrals, and internal mobility. They've raised a total of 8 million euros. So that's 30 million for CleverConnect and 8 million for Talent Tree. Joel (34m 28s): Through this new partnership, CleverConnect will become a 270 employee team with strong roots in both France and Germany. Obviously, guys, thoughts on this deal? Bas (34m 39s): Well, let me start by saying that, if they're founded in Munich, they are technically German, but they are Bavarian, which is of course a very it's like calling a Texan, Texas, America totally different from the rest of the country. So France and Germany together, usually not a great combination to be honest, we've seen some really big companies come out, spinning out of them, but usually, culturally not compatible. And if I look at, I know CleverConnect a bit, they are active in Belgium. They've tried to enter the Dutch market, I think they have a few clients here, but not really taking it seriously. Bas (35m 24s): I don't see it, but I don't see the products being that successful either. Joel (35m 30s): Do you think this is two similar companies sort of joining to cut out a bigger market share? Do you think that there's technology or people that CleverConnect can value can benefit from like, what's your, is this just a growth strategy or something different? Bas (35m 49s): I don't even think they're similar companies because CleverConnect focuses on the selection part, getting people to process while Talent Tree focuses on building talent pools and keeping people engaged all the time. So I think culturally, that will be a massive problem as well. Are we talking about getting people through the process from A to B or are we recycling them and keeping them warm until we need them? Chad (36m 12s): You can walk and chew gum at the same time. So you can do both. I think, Talent Tree more from the UI UX scenario is more of a cosmetic layer that could prospectively be pushed over a CleverConnect. I'm not sure if these two brands last, it sounds like CleverConnect's, gonna pretty much just take over and Talent Tree is going to die. But at the end of this, it's interesting because whenever we talk to Lieven at House of HR, they're always focused on keeping the brands in tact because it keeps the heart of the organization intact. Now, when you're talking about a German and French, what happens when you rip the heart out of one of them? Chad (36m 52s): I just see this perspectively dying in Germany, because the French company will take over and they'll try to brand it under CleverConnect. I could be wrong, but it just, it just feels that way. Does it? It does not feel like a merger. You're right. Bas (37m 6s): And you're actually saying that the UX from Talent Tree is better. But the one thing I know from my conversations with CleverConnect is that they're so proud of their usability in the UX. So they will never ever throw it over Clever Connect. Chad (37m 19s): Yeah. They might be proud of it until they find something better, which is smart. I don't fault them for that at all. I think it's incredibly smart. Yeah. Bas (37m 30s): You're right. Except these are French people, so they will never, ever admit they were wrong. I'm sorry. That's a big bias here, but Chad (37m 39s): No, I gotcha. Yeah. I feel, Joel (37m 43s): Oh yeah. So Chad, you mentioned, I don't know the headline on Test Gorilla, the headline from this deal on CleverConnect says "CleverConnect and Talent Tree joined forces to become the European champion of talent acquisition solutions," a little bit of hyperbole there, so I'm not sure which side is responsible for that. But whenever I look at a deal like this. Chad (38m 4s): CleverConnect. Joel (38m 4s): Yeah probably. Whenever I look at deals like this, I look at sort of the time that these companies have been around. So 2013 for Telemetry, you're getting a little long in the tooth. You've taken $8 million, you know, time might be running out in terms of your investment and what you've gotten. You got CleverConnect, which has been around longer, but just raise 30 million euros. I'm guessing there's some growth. There's some, some opportunity. They were able to get more money in terms of let's go acquire businesses. And I think if I had to guess, I'd say Talent Tree was probably on its last legs. They made a point in the press release to talk about how big the team is, which to me says, you know, that's a founding, that's a founder who says we're selling the company. Joel (38m 48s): I want to take care of my people. Let's guarantee that they're going to have jobs and be part of the CleverConnect team. So to me, like to focus on how many employees the company now is, is saying like, let's take care of our people. Let's cash out for our investors and I'll stick around for a while and we'll kind of call it a day. But to me, I think Talent Tree's time had run out and a CleverConnect through them a lifeline as well as their employees. Chad (39m 15s): They're totally saving face from what you had said around that piece, taking care of your people. Totally get that. Love that. But also calling this a merger and then reading through the actual press release and anything that's been written about them. This is not a merger kids. It is not. So this is more of a saving face. And, I appreciate that because you've got a French company pretty much acquiring a German company. And as you said, Bas, that usually doesn't go well. Bas (39m 54s): I think Joel is absolutely right, which actually doesn't happen that often. But in this case, he is. Joel (40m 1s): What the fuck? Chad (40m 2s): And that is how we end this European podcast. Joel (40m 7s): I think we ended up with the kazoo again. Chad (40m 10s): Okay. sfx (40m 10s): Kazzoo Chad (40m 10s): I love this! Joel (40m 11s): What a Fucking episode. We out everybody. Chad (40m 12s): We out. OUTRO (40m 12s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (40m 54s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Okay people, aren't we asking way too much of recruiters? Source, outreach, schedule, interview, provide a white glove experience and don't forget about creating, distributing, and engaging on original and genuine content. Wait, content? Well, on this week's Cult Brand podcast Chad and Julie bring employer brand veterans Chloe Rada and Allison Kruse to discuss practical recruiter enablement tips and tricks. From winning hearts with data to filling minds, equipping hands, and winning hearts. You're welcome! TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. ATAP INTRO (0s): This podcast is in collaboration with the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals, also known as ATAP. If you are a talent acquisition, professional, who wants to help advance the TA profession, visit atapglobal.org and learn how to become a member today. INTRO (18s): 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. Chad (44s): Yippee Ki-Yay! Welcome to another episode of the Chad and Cheese Cult Brand Series. I'm Chad Sowash with our featured brand and marketing expert, Julie Calli! How's it going Julie? Julie (58s): Here. Happy to be here. Chad (59s): Excellent too. I got to say I loved our last episode, Super Pumped Hiring, with Andrew Levy. What a great guest. Julie (1m 7s): So many great stories. Chad (1m 8s): I know. Right? Who do you have in store for us today? And what are we talking about? Julie (1m 13s): I'm excited to have two leaders in the space that do global TA and operations and employer branding in this industry. So I'm excited to have Allison Krusez and Chloe Rada join us today. Chad (1m 29s): Nice, nice, welcome ladies. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast. We're Cheeseless today. So you're lucky. Chloe (1m 35s): Well, thank you. And I appreciate that. Joel, intimidates me a little bit. Julie (1m 40s): No cheese as long as we have wine. Chad (1m 43s): We've already met the middle-aged white male quotient for this podcast. So no worries, Julie, today, we're talking about recruiter engagement slash enablements. What I mean, what does that mean? Can you help me out here? Julie (1m 57s): Yeah, I think this is a great topic. You know, Chloe and Allison had had a conversation that kind of sparked us on this topic and it's really something that more companies are starting to pay attention to. I think in recruiter, enablement, you know, we think a lot about recruiting and marketing, being two things that live together that are also very relatable to sales and marketing. So I I'm very happy to have our guests joining us today. Who've been hands-on in the field. Chad (2m 27s): Let's learn more about them. Let's learn more about them. So Allison you go first, give us a Twitter bio about you. Allison (2m 34s): All right. So here it is. Animal lover, travel enthusiasts, wine drinker, scuba diver, brand nerd. Chad (2m 41s): Ooh. I want a party with her. I'm a scuba diver. I like the wine, definitely liked to travel. Yes. Okay, Chloe, it's your turn. You've got to one up that go. Chloe (2m 51s): Okay, here we go. Passionate lover of the arts, the outside world, deep conversations, food trends, and also known as Maverick. Julie (3m 3s): Okay. Goose. We're going to talk about recruiter enablement, a great subject and I'm really interested in getting Allison and Chloe's thoughts, but I think the audience would probably want to start with understanding what is recruiter enablement. Chad (3m 19s): I would, yes. Chloe (3m 20s): Sure. It really simply. It's just like the practice of providing TA professionals, the people that Allison and I work with the closest as our stakeholders in the recruiting team, our recruiters, but getting them like the tools they need to be effective. So that could be understanding processes or the education on the technology, or most importantly, awesome content that's going to convert candidates. Chad (3m 45s): Awesome content that's going to convert candidates. We see so much content that's out there, but it's not awesome. How do you create awesome content and what distinguishes awesome content from that really crappy content that we're used to seeing? Allison (3m 60s): I can take a stab at that. So I would say that the awesome content has to be candidate-centric, meaning it's not company-centric. It's not look at us we're so great! We're this and that, but it's really framing up the employee experience or your EVP through the lens of the candidate. Always thinking what's in it for me. Why should they, and like a sea of countless options when it comes to a new job, a new company, why should they choose you? And I think with recruiter enablement, it's equipping TA to really express that EDP that is in a personalized, localized way for what matters most to that candidate. Julie (4m 39s): Yeah on a recent show, we talked about EVP and like it's important and it's value, but then what do you do with it? Right. Like we know what your value points are, what kind of things are you providing the recruiter that help enable them? Chad (4m 53s): And how do you massage the message, the narrative around that? I mean, that's pretty key, right? Chloe (4m 59s): Yeah. I mean, I've done it successfully using storytelling because people trust people more than people trust brands. I, you know, I've run brand channels. Allison has run brand channels before, and it's really hard to get that engagement level up from an owned channel. Why not leverage your people, your people's story and voices to really kind of pull through that internal employee experience because it's like turning things outside in, right. Or inside out, showing what it's like to work inside in order to attract outside. Allison (5m 32s): Yeah. And, I mean, it takes daily work. You know, it takes a big effort, because sometimes you might run into obstacles like, well, you know, employees are not used to speaking about their employee experience or, you know, the culture or the career opportunities. Like they're not used to being able to freely confidently talk about that on social media. So I feel like there's a lot of change management that happens to, to just, you know, give them that inspiration and that encouragement of like, Hey, no, it's okay. Like we want you to lift up your voice and talk about, you know, your experiences good, bad and ugly because that's real, you know, people can cut through the crap, they understand what's marketing messages and what's real. Allison (6m 13s): And so I think for an employer brand professional, that's at the heart of what they do is just guiding and coaching and inspiring and just, you know, letting employees know like, Hey, it's okay. We want you to do this. Chad (6m 26s): Well, that's not the norm though. Right. I mean, for years, there's, we've always thought about mitigating risk, but I have to say the best TikToks I've seen when it comes around, like a brand are from Costco. And there's a manager that actually just jumps on, starts talking about benefits and like Q and A, from candidates. And it's so genuine and it's so revealing. Right. It's amazing. But how do you as a brand shed that risk? Right and really dive in? Allison (6m 60s): That's hard, I think it's in some companies, some industries, I think it's harder than others, you know? I mean, I've been at some companies where that is okay. Like that is okay to just, you know, shed that and go and do that. I've been at other companies that are really highly regulated and very nervous about having people just do that and having, like the thought of doing TikTok, scares people, you know, like at some companies where they're like, oh no, no, no, like TikTok, that's not for us and we're not going to do that. So that's really where, you know, the ability to influence to win the hearts, you know, to be like, Hey, this is okay, let's just try it, let's call it a pilot. Let's see how we do, like, it's going to be okay. Allison (7m 41s): And that's hard. I mean, harder in some places than others. Chloe, have you found that to that? Like, just, it just depends on like, your employer's culture, you know, of how hard that is. Chloe (7m 54s): Yeah, absolutely. So we're right in the middle of pride month right now, and a big topic is inclusivity. How are you feeling supported and how do you belong at an organization? And what does it look like to different individuals throughout the organization? So forming partnerships with your DE&I, or other stakeholders to kind of help understand, you know, what the commitments are from the company level, but then talk to the actual employees that are feeling that, that are feeling supported and let's hear about their story, cause they're all unique and a lot of times there's a lot of heartfelt moments that come out that, that tug at the heartstrings that really is creating that desire for candidates to want to join an organization where their employees feel so supportive. Chloe (8m 38s): So I think, you know, that's one way to mitigate the risk is to partner with your MarComms and your DE&I department to understand, you know, what is the company stands and how can you take that? And turn it into and, you know, attract a piece of content to enable the recruiters then to share in addition to, you know, their outreach, right? This is outbound recruiting that we're doing here with this compelling content. Chad (9m 6s): Julia, I want to hear more about this from you, because from my standpoint, I have a gay son, but still I'm a middle-aged white dude, right? Cisgender white dude, all I'm seeing are rainbow logos, really. And I'm not seeing a lot of this real deep down emotional feeling and embracing of a community. Now we do see like Pepsi and Bubbly's, these newest like ads and whatnot, which are amazing around safe spaces. But I think that's not the standard. What do you think we need to get? How do we get to a standard of feeling that open? Julie (9m 41s): Well, you know, a big term that's being used right now, you know, the community is that rainbow washing. There's a lot of companies that want to portray that they are inclusive so they put up their rainbow logos for this month And then that's the last you'll hear of their inclusivity. I loved hearing Allison and Chloe share how you need to empower recruiters with content, right? If you're going to be providing them storytelling and messaging. And I love the bring in the real examples of the employees and what their stories are. I think Disney's a great example of this right now. Their campaign for this month is Disney 365. Julie (10m 21s): They're inclusive every day of the year and not just pride month. And it's followed by an entire statement of their commitment, all the activity that they're doing and how that is pertaining to the entire year and not just in this month. So that's an example of a company saying, here's our story. Here's a message. Here's our commitment, our promise, how we're following through with it. And you can check in and follow up about this throughout the entire year. Chad (10m 47s): That's great content. It's amazing not to mention that demonstrates what the company, hopefully what the company is all about. So Allison and Chloe, how do you actually empower recruiters to start using this message? Because you're giving them the ammunition. How do you actually help them use it? Chloe (11m 4s): Well, Allison, I think this is a great opportunity for you to talk about your grassroots advocacy program that you started way back when. Allison (11m 13s): Yeah. Yes. So at a former employer, we did not have like an employee advocacy platform. Cause I think that's my first thing. My first response will be like, well, technology can help with that. You know, with an employee advocacy platfor, you know, you have a team of admins or whatever, and you're sticking in content. And then with a couple of clicks, you know, employees can share it out on their social. Well, if you don't have that, for whatever reason, you don't have the budget, you're not there yet to have that technology. I just started doing it using Outlook. So I just started this program at my last employer where we were, you know, pre-writing LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter posts, and would attached, you know, an image with a link attract, link, whatever, but we would just email it out twice a week. Allison (12m 0s): And so people knew every Tuesday and Thursday morning they would get their shareable content and then they would, you know, send it out on social media if they choose to. Within that program though, we also made sure we had kind of continuous education to talk about the importance of sharing content. So what's the benefit to you? How does it amplify your personal brand? How does it make you more successful in your role? And then how does it help our employer brand as well? And it was, it became very quickly, it became our most powerful marketing channel that we had across paid media and owned media. Like it was the most powerful thing and it was just emailing content, twice a week. Julie (12m 39s): I love that. You have a couple of things in there. I heard that helped make it really successful. One, you had a predictable cadence to it so people knew what to expect and you delivered on it. And the other is, you've told a story to the people you needed to share the why as to why it was beneficial to them. I think if people know why and what they get out of it, they're willing to do more. Chad (13m 4s): I agree, a hundred percent. One of the things that we're having problems with though in recruiting is somebody to focus on telling that story and generating content that's real and authentic content, right? You don't have in many cases, the actual resources to do those types of things. So what do those companies do other than provide resources? Chloe (13m 28s): Well, they hire people like, you know, myself and Allison to come in and to set up these programs, right? Yeah. There's so many great pieces of technology and tools out there now to capture these answers in the form of a question over video and share them out and on your job descriptions on your social pages on your career site really easily, but you actually need that project manager right to come in, to work with the it governance, to work through all that red tape, because both Allison and I have been in very highly regulated organizations where, you know, we have to get a blessing upon blessing before we actually implement something. So I think you need somebody that's able to walk through that create, you know, Allison said, change management, take a page out of change management, make sure identify who's going to be impacted who you need to inform, who needs to be part of the program. Chloe (14m 22s): Involve the employees managers to let them know, Hey, this is also an opportunity for you to recognize your top performers and let them know, Hey, you might be featured on our social media channel. And one of the coolest things that I saw just recently happened with this type of approach is, you know, you tag that individual you're featuring, and then all of a sudden, naturally you get that person's manager chimwing and on LinkedIn or whatever social channel you get that person's coworker, maybe a past coworker seen Julie, you were so great to work with. I love how you led that project. And you know, you're one of my favorite hiring partners, for example. So it creates this really organic and natural engagement, which is really what you're going after. Chloe (15m 5s): And that's really, what's going to help you, you know, drive more visitors to your website, to your careers, to your jobs, and then eventually to, you know, becoming candidates and applicants. Allison (15m 16s): Yeah. I love what you said, Chloe, about culture and like seeing the engagement with managers and recognizing, you know, their team members or whatever. That's one of my most favorite things about it too. And you know, there's technology out there for sure. And it's a range from very expensive to free. And I'll give an example of a free way to do this, like a actual, like just tactical way, that's been really successful this past year. What, I did for a couple of different initiatives, like for example, global TA day, employee appreciation day was another. And then we're having a global appreciation week at the end of this month. Allison (15m 57s): And it was pretty simple, but like, it works really well. So anybody listening can do this. First, like I went into Canva, you can get a free Canva account or pro we actually are moving to enterprise in a couple of weeks, but you make a graphic. Then you go into PowerPoint, go under slide master. You upload that graphic to the back end of that slide. And then you have places where you could add text and add, upload an image, or upload a photo or whatever, have instructions on what people should do. And then bam, give your whole company access to it. And they can use it for like welcoming new joiners, you know, new hires. Allison (16m 38s): They can, you know, share a promotion announcement, whatever a thank you. But it's like the self-serve templates that, you know, we all know how to use PowerPoint, even if you're not that good at it, it doesn't matter. It's a couple clicks, but it's keeping things on brands, keeping things scalable, but also like giving it in the hands of somebody that, Hey, I don't have to know how to use Canva or something else. I literally just need to know how to use PowerPoint. And I'm good. Chloe (17m 3s): Ooh. Great pro tip. Chad (17m 3s): So yeah, but am I using my mobile phone video to be able to upload this? How do I get the actual, my embedded message into PowerPoint? Allison (17m 14s): So the PowerPoint is saved on like, you know, one driver, whatever. So anybody can just download a copy of that PowerPoint to your desktop. And then you just say, Hey, you know, I want to recognize Chloe, is it okay if I use your LinkedIn profile picture, Chloe? Great. Thank you. So I'm going to take her LinkedIn profile picture, save it to my desktop. And then with PowerPoint, I'm going to just click on where the photo will go. And then bam, Chloe's picture is uploaded to my PowerPoint slide. Then I can type whatever message about Chloe and how she's so wonderful. You know, on that side. I then saved the slide as an image, as a PNG. Then I can use that PNG wherever I want. Allison (17m 54s): Internally, I could upload it to LinkedIn, whatever. Chad (17m 58s): That's awesome. So one of the things that I love about having these conversations is there are so many pieces of tech that are out there that nobody knows how to use. Being able to make it more practical is what it all comes down to. And, that to me is the best tip of all. Everybody knows how to use PowerPoint. I totally get that. So you've got it set up where it can be used as a template for anybody to be able to go out there and provide recognition to whomever they want. That's pretty awesome. Now, do they send it to you for you to distribute or how would that actually get into kind of like the distribution channels? Allison (18m 36s): So I also asked them to tag our LinkedIn company page. So there's like an example. So I say, okay, tag Chloe, also tag our LinkedIn company page. And so when they do on the backend as an admin, I can see where we've been mentioned, and then I can go and respond as on behalf of my company. And I can do that. You could also have them use a hashtag. So, if you tell them to use a hashtag, you could also pick it up that way. So there's ways through like whatever you're doing from a social listening perspective that you can pick up that post and then engage on behalf of the company. Chad (19m 7s): Gotcha. Julie (19m 7s): So the, you know, I know some of the big challenges that companies face with this is like, they're like, great, great. I am on board. I understand authentic content is what people crave. Let's do it. You can provide the tools. But the biggest barriers I find that people have with, you know, doing employee engagement, is that, one, you have to get people comfortable with creating the content. So you're making it as easy as possible, giving them templates and instructions, but they have to be comfortable with it. And the other big one is then, you know, getting people to share it and put it out there. Do you have any tips on what you would do to help make people feel more comfortable and more confident about sharing? Chloe (19m 50s): Yeah, so I think one of the easiest things, is people don't really understand what the company's social media policy involves and just to education on, Hey, what that might be. And, but here's the, you know, it's not meant to scare you off it's to protect you. And so just kind of walk them through, Hey, based on what our social media policy is, here's what you're going to, we were going to recommend you to help you build your personal brand. And here's some examples, as Allison said, of content that we can create for you, to help build that presence, to break through the tight labor market. You know, this is just one, this content is just one way to enable the recruiters, to get them to feel more confident, right? They're very transactional. Chloe (20m 31s): And so they, you know, very risk averse at times, right? They don't want to click the wrong button in the ATS and, you know, they don't want to post something inappropriate and violate a policy that's out there. You know, I get scared. I, we all go through that ethics training, you know, at big corporations and that scares the heck out of me, but, you know, I don't want that to preclude me from coming to a conference and attending a vendor dinner, for example, because that's where the best learning takes place. So I think, you know, take, you know, the questions and that out of the equation and just educate on, okay, the policy is here, but here's what you can do. And as you know, we're a brand ambassadors here and we're going to teach you how to be that brand ambassador and it's still adhere to the company policy. Julie (21m 15s): I would also hear a lot of people doing things to encourage people, to share more and participate more to game-ify and create incentive. What are your, what are your thoughts on that? Chloe (21m 26s): Well, I mean, the recruiters I've worked with are highly competitive. So there are tools that I've used way back when it was Q social. It was, I think, bought by Symphony Talent and it's now a whole different thing. But part of the success of that tool had a whole gamification component to it. They had a leader board. As that program manager I was sharing out from our department who is on the leaderboard week after week and giving them that recognition because they were the ones that were sharing the content that was coming to them in the form of a text message that they can click through. On top of that, gamification that's built into the tool itself. Chloe (22m 6s): I created some like fun little rewards week one, week two, as we were implementing the program itself. So, you know, this might've been, oh gosh, I don't, I can't even, I can't even, you, we can't even give gift cards these days anymore, but it was some type of recognition that meant, you know, people like to be recognized in different ways. So it was recognition, whether it be public or private, and some different ways to kind of encourage, you know, this healthy competition. Chad (22m 35s): You had said that recruiters, which I agree are really transactional. I think a lot of that has to do with the systems that are in place. They have a lot of admin process, you know, minutia that they have to dig through. So the question is, do we increase enablement and engagement? If we finally start to re-engineer our processes and enter into the age of automation. Allison (23m 1s): I think automation could help relieve recruiters, you know, have some of those processes so that it does open up capacity to, you know, do more creative things and create content and go out on a limb and learn something new. But if they're bogged down with a lot of administrative tasks that could be automated. Yeah, sure. You know, I think anything that could relieve them of that, where they could refocus, you know, some of their time, because what I've found is that recruiters do want to do that. They do want to use the brand, you know, they do want to express the brand and they want to do that. But, you know, they don't really know how, and they just need to learn, or they're nervous, like Chloe said, they're nervous that they're going to do it wrong somehow, you know, they're going to do that wrong. Allison (23m 43s): And so I think like sharing success stories, sharing best practices that also helps build confidence. Cause I have found like a lot of times it's a confidence issue. Chloe (23m 53s): I mean, I also think like one great example is like automate your, where your jobs are being posted out to. Right on the operations team or even the branding branding team can help assist with that, to understand where you should be advertising your jobs, how you should be optimizing those job titles. What day of the week you should be posting. You know, create, you know, put some automation around that, use some programmatic. If, you know, that's where, so you can, you know, better spend your money, right and get the clicks where you need to get the clicks. All of that. I think, you know, that is a form of automation and that's definitely, that'll take the guesswork out of what the recruiters need to do, allow the systems to do that and create those partnerships and create that type of a program on your end from an operation standpoint to alleviate some of that. Chad (24m 40s): So why are we there yet? We've had the technology forever. It makes more sense, from the standpoint of being able to target, knowing when to target, knowing how to target, where the jobs go, all that stuff systems know better because they understand, you know, job seeker behavior. Why aren't we there yet? It just blows my mind. Chloe (25m 1s): I think it comes down to education and reeducation and they're all of our, you know, we were just at Unleash and what we learned is that we're all kind of shaping the future of work from an automation, a technology standpoint, there's iterations of tools coming forth. You need somebody at the helm to kind of understand and implement that for you. But then also, Hey, if you're releasing a new enhancement, that's like kind of come in with your core system, like you got to share and educate your team. What does this mean? How is it going to help me find, you know, my silver medalists in my ATS, for example. And I think that piece is crucial, is missed a lot, is that reeducation. Chloe (25m 42s): And so, you know, you can call it reeducation, you can call it re-skilling, whatever, whatever, but you know, there's, you know, there's platforms out there like Social Talent will help with the, you know, it's a learning platform to help with those re-skilling. When I was at Sedexo, we were trying to create a whole hub on training for recruiters, anything for leveraging the CRM to, you know, training their hiring managers on candidate experience. And so I kind of guess go back to like education and training. There's still a need there. Allison (26m 14s): Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think for me, that is one of my top four priorities this year, is training, is ongoing training. And so creating guides or job aids, holding workshops, you know, having hands on trainings, things like that. But it's also reiterating the importance of that to leadership when you need to have like, Hey, we, we need to carve out time. We need to make sure that we are allowing time for TA to learn, you know, because if we're just bogging them down and they have 50 million wrecks on their desk and no time for ongoing learning, we can't then expect that they're going to be learning and doing this and expressing our ECP and creating content and doing all these things. Allison (26m 59s): So it's also, again, it's that change management and influence, of like, Hey, no, like I'm going learning up-skilling this is critical. It's crucial. And we have to pave the way and make it happen. Otherwise it's not going to happen. You know? Chad (27m 13s): So here's a quick question around video, there are now platforms that are out there and they're going to actually fairly simple platforms. I've used a few of them where you can enable your employees to make video, right. So that they're creating content and that's all pushed back into your dashboard. And then you can use that to create content. Question, are companies, are they ready for that? Are they ready for any employee to just start shooting them videos? Not to mention, how do you think you could manage that if you just got a huge influx of content, is that a bad or a good problem to have? Allison (27m 51s): I would love that problem, to have, I think. Sign me up. No. I think it's great. I mean, you're, you're going to have somebody, you know, a brand specialist or a brand team or whatever, I would assume on the back end of that, and kind of choosing where does this particular story or this video sit within our strategy? Definitely it should start with a strategy before we open up the flood gates, but I think it's a great problem to have, I would love that. Chloe (28m 17s): I don't think if you build it, they will come flooding in. I think employee, I don't. And honestly, maybe you can do that with like a Google form for like maybe like a testimonial type quote, but not for a video. I think a video you need to actually create the prompts and you need to engage with that person ahead of time, give them some training around the why, and also engage with their manager too, to get their buy in to help them. Right. Because naturally that hiring manager is going to be feeling this tight labor market and you know, they're going to need to be able to retain their own employees as well. So I kind of look at it and take a different approach to that where I don't want a video unless I'm prompting you. Chloe (28m 60s): And you've been like, you've been trained to record even given simple video guidance tips to right, like quiet your background, or, you know, what free from distractions or hold your phone vertically or horizontally versus vertically. There's just some simple tips. And I feel people, if they feel like they're more prepared, there'll be less nervous and more comfortable because I hate getting a video and we're just like, oh, they're totally reading from a script. And I can see their eyes moving back and forth and there's no inflection in their voice. And I'm like, I just don't, I don't think I can use it. And then that creates like a negative, you know, like a negative feeling for that employee that recorded it. And then they're probably less likely to record if they weren't properly prepped. Chloe (29m 44s): So I'm very like organized and systematic about this. Chad (29m 48s): Well, I get that, but we live in the age of TikTok and some of those individuals that you want to be able to actually get content from they're doing it every day. Now, the boomers who are actually leaving and, you know, so maybe some of our us gen X-ers who, you know, we just don't buy into it as much. Don't you believe that first off, if you start feeding them scripts that they're just not going to want to do it because it doesn't feel authentic Chloe (30m 18s): Prompts not scripts. Prompts. Chad (30m 19s): Still. It seems being able to set this up so that you're getting genuine content and they're speaking their mind as opposed to the company line. Chloe (30m 28s): Sure. So there's been an insurgence of positions called like head of employee experience that do just these things right to internalize it EVP. And so they're getting employees comfortable. And with the sharing naturally that's employee generated content, which is a little bit different than tapping somebody on their shoulder. But, you know, PetSmart does a really awesome job at that. Their brand is obviously very easily loved for animals, right? What's not to love about them? But they're sharing, you know, natural stories and then these brand ambassadors like Allison and I are taking those stories and then using them from, you know, within their talent attraction strategy. So I think you're talking more about like that content that you're sourcing and you're seeing, and you're using your listening tools or your hash to, you know, they're using your life at hashtags so that I see where you're coming from on that. Chloe (31m 14s): But I do think that starts internally and I don't think companies have done such a great example of internalizing that. And I think Allison, you probably have some really good tips on internalizing a new EVP since that was a very project near and dear to your heart. Allison (31m 28s): Okay, let's talk about it. So this is our favorite topic when the two of us are together, we just love to go and buzz on about this. Okay. So when we launched our employer brand, you know, I'm at a 90 year old company, big global company that has never had an employer brand before. When I got here, we launched the brand, you know, soon after that for the first time. And so it was this big journey that took, you know, a year to really go out and evangelize that we have the brands and here's how to do it. And, please help us, you know, express the EDP and bring it to life. And the way that we did that, and I know something that, you know, resonates with Calli, and she's got stories about this as well. Allison (32m 12s): Is in three parts. So first, it's fill the minds. Second part, is equip the hands. The third part is, win the hearts. And so to express the EVP and to, you know, put it in the hands of people and have them leverage it. And, you know, we all own the brand, do these types of messaging. It starts with filling the minds. And that means like, go on a road show, you know, get out in front of people at different stakeholder groups. Train them, give them guidance, give them all of that. Equip the hands, that's things like make it easy for them to do storytelling, you know, give them templates, give hiring managers talking points when they're interviewing candidates about the EVP. Allison (32m 52s): And that is really just equipping people to be a brand ambassadors. And then, win the hearts, that's okay, you know, we're not just for example, we're not just saying, oh, we're such an inclusive company. We're doing storytelling. We're having our employees share stories and when they felt that sense of belonging and that is so much more real and will win the hearts and that study evokes emotion more than just, oh, we're just claiming that we're XYZ, whatever. Chloe, can you tell your story about like winning the hearts with data? I love that. Chloe (33m 21s): Oh yeah. So I love to show like how simple using different types of compelling content, how it can increase engagement using data. So even like a simple slide, like when I meet with my stakeholders, okay. You know, kind of, this is the state of what's going on with their recruitment marketing campaigns. But I want to show you one of these posts that you might've done, a recruiter, hiring manager, for example, take a look at your before engagement rates and take a look at your after. I'm like, tell me, do you think your, you know, the compelling content after, like how did that feel to you? Do you feel like that opened up and had an opportunity for you to find better people that would match what you're looking for? Chloe (33m 60s): Not only characteristically, but skills. From the skill standpoint as well. So I love to share kind of what's working and what's not what, and I also like to share what has been, you know, what kind of posts grew our social channels, the most, which ones had the most engagement, for example, because then that really makes people feel, oh my God, I went on a limb. I tried this new thing. I recorded a video. I posted it on my own personal brand. And while I really can see the difference, not just from an aesthetic standpoint, but from the numbers itself, it created a better applicant flow. They're not going to have a lot of that data and it is our job to share with them, Hey, what's working and what's not. Chloe (34m 40s): And what is resonating? So digging into that data and pulling through, and actually trying to make sense of that data to, for your recruiters, your hiring manager, your directors on the leadership team, even, you know, your SVP and your C-suite too, they want to know kind of what is the content out there that's creating that desire that is winning the hearts of those candidates and helping them convert. Allison (35m 3s): Winning hearts with data. Chloe (35m 6s): It's data storytelling. Chad (35m 8s): Well, I mean, you gotta have facts, right? It's all about the facts Julie (35m 12s): I got to say. I absolutely loved that takeaway of minds, hands and hearts, and then the revival of all of it with data. What a fantastic story that is to share. Chad (35m 26s): That is amazing, which is why at this point, we're just going to go ahead and we're going to close this up and we're probably come back for maybe a session too, who knows? If we can get a Maverick and Kruse back, but in the meantime, Chloe "Maverick" Rada and Allison Kruse, if people want to connect with you, where would you send them? Chloe (35m 59s): TikTok? Oh no, LinkedIn. Chad (36m 1s): LinkedIn. Allison (36m 2s): LinkedIn. Chad (36m 3s): And look for Chloe Rada and Allison Kruse on LinkedIn people. Julie, thanks so much for bringing this amazing cast of crazy Mavericks and cruisers in. Again that's another one in the can. We out. OUTRO (37m 13s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

While Joel wanders the Canadian plains petting Moose and trying to convince Canadian geese to stay in Canada we are honored to have Jenny Cotie Kangas, aka JCK, stepping into the guest host slot and on this week's show EUROPE is HUNGRY as both TextKernel and Adzuna gobble up market share, the world will soon be over now that Google's version of Skynet is ALIVE, Microsoft is kinder and gentler and who knew business coaching was so damned important? CoachHub that's knew? Strap-in kids it's gonna be a bumpy ride. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (23s): Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "water makes you weak" Sowash Jenny (30s): And I'm Jenny "it's not Cheeseman" Cotie Kangas. Chad (34s): And on this week's show, Europe is hungry. The world will soon be over now that Google's version of Skynet is alive. Microsoft is kinder and gentler, and who knew business coaching was so damned important? Who knew? Strap in kids, this is going to be a bumpy ride. sfx (53s): What did you say? You need a water break. You need a water break. What is for cowards? Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform. Boy, you must be outside your mind. Chad (1m 8s): All right, Jenny, while Joel wanders the Canadian Plains, petting moose and trying to convince Canadian geese to stay in Canada. We are honored to have Jenny Cotie Kangas, AKA JCK, stepping into the guest host position this week. Give it up for JCK. Welcome back. Jenny (1m 31s): Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. It's always a pleasure to have conversations with you and I hope I can fill Joel's shoes. Chad (1m 38s): Say more about me. Don't worry about Joel. For anybody who hadn't heard you on Chad and Cheese before. Give us a little Twitter bio who is JCK. Jenny (1m 49s): Sure. So I am an HR tech practitioner, HR industry practitioner. Who's been in the space for several years and March of 2020. I hit my head and had to relearn everything over again. And so it's allowed me to look at the space a little bit differently, sometimes a little bit more candidly than others. Chad (2m 9s): You've called that a blank slate before to you. How has that helped? To me it would clean out some damn clutter, that's for sure. But for you, how do you think that's helped? Jenny (2m 20s): So I think the biggest way that it's helped, honestly, Chad is what worked before 2020 doesn't work today. And so I lost my design bias for what good looks like and could really just look at what was going on in the current moment. Chad (2m 33s): Yeah. Jenny (2m 33s): Be able to get crystal clear on what that was and then reverse engineer to go solve for it. And I did so without having those, I guess, preconceived notions of again, what success looked like and the war for talent and what historically has worked hasn't. It's allowed me to help get it right. Chad (2m 50s): It's refreshing to speak with you because you don't have that bias of decades and you start the design process from now. And you look at what's in front of us, as opposed to what's behind us and at your last company, watching some of the tech, some of the processes that you've actually built with some of the vendors in the space is incredibly refreshing and to be quite Frank rejuvenating. So we are very happy to have you on the show. Jenny (3m 18s): Well, thank you. And now today I have, as Matt Charney has said, joined the dark side and have moved over to the vendor side from being a practitioner. And I joined an assessment company, which is kind of ironic because I have despised assessments my entire career, but came across one that was universally designed and the process was so incredible. I couldn't just endorse it. I had to go help tell its story. So I am the VP of marketing at Quip. Chad (3m 45s): Awesome. Well, that's my friends. If you want to learn more, you can go to LinkedIn connect with JCK. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to connect with you, but we need to move on because it's time for shout outs. So being the guest, you get the first shout out. Who do you want to give a shout out to? Jenny (4m 1s): Absolutely. It's my first shout out is going to go to the Plum team. We spent last week in Waterloo, Ontario. Chad (4m 8s): Wait a minute. Did you guys meet up with Joel and I wasn't there? Jenny (4m 11s): Yeah, we were. We were feeding geese. You didn't get the memo? Chad (4m 15s): I'm probably not allowed in Canada. That's the problem? Jenny (4m 19s): Well, most people weren't allowed in Canada, which is probably the problem because the Toronto airport was quite a experience, but it was also reminder of the raging talent war that we are experiencing. But the shout out goes to the Plum team. We spent the week, like I said, in Waterloo, Ontario. The first day that we all spent together was actually at a camp, a YMCA camp. And again, with my head injury I've had to relearn everything over again. And so I got to throw a Frisbee, shoot a bow and, arrow, go on a ropes course where I figured out that I'm actually not afraid of heights, which is pretty cool. And it was just awesome. And it was so great to be able to meet the team in person. Chad (4m 56s): Awesome. We get a chance after being locked in to finally get out. And this is a new team, of course, but still getting a chance to get out there and meet the new team. My first shout out goes to Robot-Proof Recruiter, Version II by our friend and my birthday twin, Katrina Collier. That's right kids in a world of RPA, AI, ML, NLP, and a bunch of other scary ass acronyms, how can you as a recruiter or manager evolve? I am personally truly humbled that Katrina asked me to write the forward. So check it out. You can, pre-order it wherever you buy books again, the Robot Proof Recruiter, the newest version is coming out, you can get your pre-order soon. Chad (5m 41s): As a matter of fact, it's kind of funny because Talk Push's, CEO, Max Armbruster, he said on LinkedIn this morning that with every purchase of a Talk Push platform are probably more like a recruiter seat, he will include a copy of the Robot-Proof Recruiter Version II. That kids is a damn smart play, knowing that they play in the RPA and AI space. Jenny (6m 7s): I love that. I am absolutely adding that one to my must get to list. Chad (6m 10s): Who else you got? Jenny (6m 11s): Oh, I have a shout out to Alexa. Chad. I hired an Alexa for the summer. Chad (6m 17s): Oh, you don't hire an Alexa. You buy Alexa that, what are you talking about? Jenny (6m 22s): Well, my nanny for the summer, Chad, her name is Alexa. And so Ms. Alexa has started this week at the Cotie Kangas household, with my three kiddos and two bonus kids and God bless her. She's incredible. And I'm so incredibly thankful to her. And so the first shout out goes to the non robot, Alexa. Chad (6m 45s): I was going to ask that I was going to ask if, if this was also like a robot version, kind of like Flippy? Next shout out, goes to the Yard Jockeys podcast. Yeah. That's a weird name. It's actually a pretty awesome podcast. We got on, Joel and I got on, and we are talking specifically about their niche, which is trucking and really around brand of trucking in the trucking industry, how it's changed so dramatically and what trucking needs to do to try to pretty much get their groove back. So check that out. It's on the Yard Jockeys podcast, we're going to republish it on Chad and Cheese in the weeks coming, but until then you can check it out on Yard Jockeys. Jenny (7m 28s): That is awesome. And honestly, for those of you who may be newer to the talent acquisition space, trucking recruiting is one of the hardest or driver recruiting is one of the hardest types of recruiting to do because those individuals don't typically hold a traditional resume. And so you've got to get at them very, very differently, kind of like stylists. And so Jake, Jacob Kramer is somebody who's in that space and he's incredible at that world, but it's a very interesting thing. I will definitely be listening to that, that episode Chad. That's awesome. Chad (7m 56s): Thank you. And your last and final shout out. Jenny (7m 59s): My last shout out goes to the team at the Minneapolis WeWork. They were absolutely incredible and helped me get into an office, very last minute because I was downtown for a meeting and the team there shared with me that they have a free all access code for the month of June. So if anybody here is listening and has children who may be home for summer and maybe it's working from the house is not quite going so great. Go visit wework.com, sign up for the all access membership and enter the code all access 100 in the provided promo code, which will give you free access for the remainder of June. Chad (8m 42s): My last shout out is a little somber. sfx (8m 46s): Taps bugle Chad (8m 46s): That's right, kids it's been announced that 70millionjobs.com is shutting down. The site run by Richard Bronson was focused on connecting great companies that offer second chance jobs for people with criminal records. We're always talking about how we want to give people second chances and then initiatives focused on facilitating this, can't get traction. So I believe this is once again, we need companies to actually stand up and support as opposed to just talk about all the time. Jenny (9m 21s): That is unfortunate. I just was pulling them up to get a little bit more conTextkernelt on them and you're right, Chad, we need to do better at bringing in, you know, maybe groups that we haven't historically brought into the talent acquisition process, right. And making sure that they've got equal playing fields to be able to enter into our organizations. And so to see a company like this, that's going over, it's definitely a big bummer and it's going to leave a hole here and in the industry. So we'll be looking, to some of you other companies and job boards that may be listening, to pay attention to this and see if there's ways that you can try to incorporate some of this into your product offering, because there's definitely going to be a hole in the market. Chad (9m 60s): Yeah, no question. And you've got to remember 25% of the incarcerated individuals, is here in the United States. We have more people in prison than any where else in the world per capita. sfx (10m 14s): Buzzer. Chad (10m 15s): Which means again, second chances and having an opportunity to have a great pipeline of people who really want to do work. Last, but not least events kids. RecFest, July 7th at Knebworth Park. We're really excited to be emceeing the Disrupt Stage, which is the technology stage and my major tasks that day, JCK is actually to keep Joel from getting too drunk because we have to wrap up the day on stage. So he has to be, you know, intelligible. That's going to be, it's gonna be a little bit harder than normal. Jenny (10m 50s): Well, Chad, may the odds be ever in your favor, my friend. Chad (10m 54s): Yeah. I can only hope I can only hope. Luckily we don't have a bar in the tent this year. So that's actually good for me. Jenny (11m 4s): And if you haven't gotten your tickets to RecFest, make sure to absolutely do it. It's going to be an incredible show. I believe it's the largest open air conference, right? Chad? Chad (11m 14s): It's big. Not to mention, they only have so many tickets. That you always hear this it's open air, but seriously Knebworth Park, they're very strict about how many people they actually allow into their venue. So if you haven't got a ticket, especially if you're in London, go get your ticket today. And on to TOPICS! You might've heard about this JCK but Textkernel acquires Akyla, not Akira from the, for you animate fans out there. Akyla. This is from the press release: "Akyla marks the second step in the international buy and build strategy of Textkernel. Chad (11m 57s): Textkernel has been hungry since teaming up with strategic software investor Main Capital Partners in October of 2020. Last year, Textkernel acquired a US-based competitor" and friends of the show "Soveren to solidify the group's position as global market leader in the AI driven parsing and search and match technology. Akyla offers two innovative solutions that assist customers with admin processes involved in the management of flex workers, including onboarding, hourly registration, time interpretation, digital signing, and vendor management. Together, Akyla and Textkernel served a combined customer base of more than 2,500 organizations, including staffing organizations, pay rollers, corporates, job boards, HR solution providers, and other participants in the broader HR market." Chad (12m 58s): So JCK, Textkernel is a parsing and matching monolith, especially after the Sovren acquisition. So why buy Akyla? Jenny (13m 5s): Why buy Akyla? Because you're trying to take over the world in this space. You know, I think honestly, when I look at, it's Akyla has got a couple of different pieces that Textkernel didn't. And if you're looking at building a very robust offering, especially in terms of like the tech that you've got, I think this is a really smart partnership. I will say though, I was a little bummed. So Gerard, he was the CEO of Textkernel. I would highly recommend that you make your website accessible for the US because the screen reading functionality was not able to be accessed on that one. And so I had to parse it to a Speechify, and then listen to it, but, and that's just post head injury, I listen to all of my content. Jenny (13m 50s): But just as a heads up so I was my only bummer on that one, but in regards to Akyla, yeah, I think it's, you know, what do you think, Chad, this is, this is a world that you are very well. What do you see them acquiring with Akyla that they did not have otherwise? Chad (14m 7s): Well, I mean, Textkernel already powers staffing back end technology solutions. And now with Akyla, Textkernel's offering is just more powerful not to mention it's brilliant from a wallet share play. So if you think about, let's say for instance, from a staffing standpoint, Textkernel powering the parsing and search and match of a lot of those backend systems, but they also see that there are these other issues, these other problems that this acquisition could perspectively, you know, bridge the gap of. If they can sell that into their current clients. You have better retention, not to mention you start to gain more wallet share. And we always talk about it on the podcast staffing, it's recruiting as a business where talent acquisition is recruiting as a job, right? Chad (14m 55s): So in going straight after staffing with these types of products, you have a much better opportunity for traction in the market, which means revenue growth. So I think it's incredibly smart not to mention after being tied to the boat anchor CareerBuilder, and heading over to Main Capital, they've really been focused on better US penetration, which is a huge pot of cash. And again, global wallet share initiatives. Jenny (15m 21s): Absolutely. And I think one of the things too is, you know, when they're looking at, if you've got resumes, who's got parsing, if you've got some that AI, right? Like you also have an opportunity to have some pretty good analytics, right. Chad (15m 35s): Yeah. Jenny (15m 35s): And having predictive analytics in terms of where there might be issues in an organization, and then being able to on the flip side, be able to offer up the solutions for that right Chad? Chad (15m 45s): Yeah. Jenny (15m 45s): Like, that's a game changer! Because if I could red yellow, green, what's going on in my organization and be able to know that like, Hey, you've got something coming on your radar that you might not be aware of. That's very important data. So very exciting. Chad (15m 59s): Little stuff from the rumor mill here, speaking of being tied to the CareerBuilder boat anchor, the rumor mill actually says that Broadbean was in the final stages of sale to StepStone AKA Outcast and that deal was slowed down. It might even be dead right now because of the uncertainty that's happening in Ukraine. So it's interesting, CareerBuilder trying to sell off Broadbean. We knew that that was happening. The rumor mill says StepStone was in and then the world's shifted and it looks like that whole business is not going to happen. Chad (16m 40s): So once again, a little scoop, a little rumor from the Chad and Cheese podcast. You ready to move on? Jenny (16m 49s): Absolutely. What do we got next? Chad (16m 51s): Europe is hungry, they are getting funding. They are acquiring things. It's amazing Adzuna acquires GetWork. So here's from the Aim Group article. "This acquisition will help Adzuna grow further in North America because GetWork is an established brand are already working with around 50 fortune 100 companies and has a team of skilled job search experts. It indexes millions of verified jobs each day directly from tens of thousands of employer career sites. GetWork was spun out of Minneapolis based job market data company LinkedUp just a year ago. Chad (17m 31s): The business has been connecting job seekers with employers for over 20 years." Get work is led by its president, Brad Squibb, and we'll work alongside add soon as 100 strong team. Adzuna said "the acquisition will combine the enterprise focus of GetWork with the international reach and programmatic and technical expertise of Adzuna to create an effective offering for job seekers globally." Adzuna added 17 people to their head count with this acquisition. So is this a pure play consolidation, do you think? Or is this mainly US penetration? Jenny (18m 6s): You know, I think it's a little bit of both, so definitely the US penetration, but one of the great things that, you know, you've got with with GetWork is they've got some, I mean, they've gleaned some interesting things from the industry over the years. They started with JobDig, right? So like many, many, many moons ago. And I think their ability, you know, we're kind of savvy here in the twin cities. Our start up community's pretty sharp. We have some people who are quite good hackers that processes. And so if there's easier ways to, and I mean that, in the most like appropriate ways, but if there's easier, more effective ways of doing something. Right? Especially in the world today, don't we want to look that up? Jenny (18m 47s): And so I think being able to add these two together, it's definitely, you know, combining powers to solve some, some big problems. That's exciting. Chad (18m 57s): You're right. Job Dig came to us in the year 2000, right? So it wasn't a young organization. Rebranded LinkUp. I mean, there was a lot of moving parts happening in the, the quote unquote "LinkedUp" group. I did ask ads Adzuna CEO, Doug Monroe, what pushed him over the edge to acquire? And here's what he told me, fundamentally, it's about accelerating our US growth and scale to help us create a genuine alternative to the likes of Indeed and LinkedIn, which I totally appreciate, not only because I hate Indeed. Other things that pushed us over the edge. Enterprise focused brand and business, blue chip client base, great and very experienced team, genuine synergy hate that word, but it makes sense. Chad (19m 45s): Genuine synergy opportunities. For example, Adzuna can now offer global advertising opportunities to GetWork's clients, which are blue-chip clients, which they couldn't do before and last but not least a profitable growing well-run business and not part of the VC burn slash hype slash layoff cycle. So that's straight from Doug, the CEO of Adzuna and pretty much what we were just talking about. I mean, it's great penetration. It's great from a consolidation and also a portfolio standpoint. Jenny (20m 15s): 100% and ultimately if we've got the right network of the jobs that are telling the right story of some of these larger blue chip companies, that's awesome. But also we just need to see what their go to market strategy is for building their candidate base, right? Because you got to make this an attractive thing for candidates to know what's out there. And if I don't know what's out there, how am I going to find it? So it'll be interesting to see how they start to build, you know, that recognition here in the states. Chad (20m 50s): Yes. Yes. It's always hard to try to fight the money that Indeed throws at marketing. All right. Moving on, talking about CoachHub. That's right. sfx (20m 58s): What did you say? And you need a water break. You need a water break. What is for cowards? Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform. Boy, you must be outside your mind. Chad (21m 14s): Okay? Probably not that intense type of coaching, but this is from TechCrunch, "digital coaching platform, CoachHub plans to further expand in the Asia PAC region of the world, raising a $200 million series C." sfx (21m 32s): Boy, you must be outside your mind. Chad (21m 34s): The round comes just eight months after the startups last funding announcement. Founded in 2018, the company entered APAC a year ago with its regional headquarters in Singapore. The platform currently has more than 3,500 business coaches, which are spread across 90 countries, covering all time zones. CoachHub has worked with more than 500 companies, including big names like Coca-Cola, Toyota, L'Oreal, Credit Swiss, and Twitter. One of the reasons CoachHub is able to scale is because it uses, listen to this kids, it uses AI based tech to match employees with coaches. Chad (22m 19s): CoachHub monetizes on a pay per month basis instead of session by session. The platform boasts eight times ROI through coaching, as strong coaching culture, benefits businesses by, increasing productivity by 86%, employee engagement by 56%, employee retention by 32%. So first-time managers and emotional support, are two big points as the pandemic and remote work changes the way that work looks for millions. So can companies deny they need coaching in this new landscape? Jenny (22m 58s): Can companies deny it? Yes. Should they deny it? Absolutely not. Right? I mean, what we've seen here at post COVID is this dynamic shift. I was just talking with our team yesterday about that. It's shifted the paradigm from historically where it was employees first and humans second. Now we're seeing it flipped and you're human first and employee second. Right? And so we're seeing a lot of these different digital coaching platforms that are coming to the space, which is really great because ultimately there's a human guys behind that requisition number, behind that resume and that human has choices. Chad (23m 35s): Yeah. Here's the thing. I just don't know how corporate America can deny it? Period. Because it, especially, especially if we have remote hybrid work, because you have a lot of those first time managers, even seasoned managers who still need a little bump, they need somebody to talk to. They need somebody to have a soundboard off of, they have their peers for that, but that is inside the bubble. How do you get out of the bubble and talk to a business coach about these things? Not to mention the emotional fatigue that people have had via the pandemic, right? Sometimes they just need somebody to lean on, again that is not their peer. I don't know how companies can deny this? Chad (24m 15s): The hard part for me and I'm always, this is always an issue for me. When you have a platform that is really dependent on humans, scaling is hard, right? Because humans don't scale well. So they are going to have to, I believe start creating a lot of these coaches. If you're going out to try to find the individuals, that's one thing, but you're going to have to start creating a pipeline of coaches yourself so that, in all these different countries, as they're trying to penetrate, you can scale appropriately and give the client what they need. Jenny (24m 48s): I agree with you. But I would also say that they've got to be looking at their analytics of who's asking for what services and then what type of resources are we making sure that we're putting in consumable ways on demand, right? Chad (24m 59s): Yep. Jenny (24m 60s): Because one of the things that you're going to see with this, especially if you've got 3,500 coaches and you've got the right data, infrastructure is you're going to see those dots start to connect, right? Like, okay, there is a trend here, this type of individuals looking for this type of service. Well, now, if I can connect those dots, right? Like, so this person looks like, they're like look this from a buying standpoint, I'm going to serve up this type of resource to them. Like that's where you start to use AI to work smarter, not harder. And I think it's really, really important because you don't necessarily always need a coach. It's also making sure that, that consumable information to meet and raise that human, is available on demand at their fingertips when they need it. Chad (25m 45s): Right. Very Netflix style, right? Jenny (25m 46s): Yes. 100%. And I love the fact that we're starting to actually support first time managers, because I mean, come on, Chad, how long have we just thrown the keys at somebody and expected they know how to drive a stick shift? It's ridiculous. Chad (26m 1s): Yes. I agree. A hundred percent. We have been doing it wrong for decades and God help us. Jenny (26m 9s): But I think one thing that they've really got to look at, is how do we enable making time for this, versus finding time for this? Because having a digital coaching platform is great, right? So this is to the industry leaders that are out there that are considering these types of programs, right. When we're looking at the change management aspect, we've got to make time typically for it first. And I think Microsoft actually was presenting on this at Unleash, where they had recommended like putting focus time on the schedule. Right. And so they did this really interesting kind of AB test Chad. They looked at, okay, if we educate the human on why this is important, what's the adoption or the buy-in? Jenny (26m 51s): And they sell some adoption and buy-in, and then they had another test group where they educated the human on why it's important and also auto enrolled them in it. Right. And so with that, they saw this massive adoption and mass change. And so I think that the platform is really awesome and it's great to have something to meet and raise the are humans. Right. But how are they going to be able to take that? And are we being intentional about making sure that again, it's not about finding time, it's about making time for it? So if you're trying to make the change management process, how do I start to nudge that person in that, and in that direction with some of those systems to ensure that they're taking advantage of these things, because another benefit that goes into a SharePoint system that nobody knows exists? Jenny (27m 40s): Isn't good. It's not going to help the humans to work for you. Chad (27m 44s): Agreed. Agreed. Well, after the break, we're going to talk about its raining AI with Google kids. That's right. You might've heard about it. We'll be right back. sfx (28m 0s): It's raining men soundtrack. Chad (28m 1s): All right. JCK have you heard about this Google AI sentience kind of thing that's happening? sfx (28m 7s): Shall we play a game? Jenny (28m 9s): I have. Chad (28m 9s): So, okay. Let's dig into this real quick. So this one comes from HuffPost and a Google engineer is speaking out since the company placed him on administrative leave after he told his bosses an AI program he was working with is now sentient. Sentient basically means it's aware, right? And that's a pretty strong word to be aware. Blake Lemoine` reached his conclusion after conversing, since last fall with Lambda, Google's artificial intelligence chat bot generator, what he calls part of a quote unquote "hive mind." He was supposed to test if his conversation partner being Lambda used discriminatory language or hate speech as he and Lambda messaged each other recently about religion the AI talked about personhood and rights. Chad (29m 2s): The story obviously blew up and was all over Twitter. Then Blake noted in a tweet that Lambda reads Twitter as well. Quote "It's a little narcissistic in a little kid kind of way. So it's going to have a great time reading all this stuff that people are saying about it" end quote. Google denies any sentience. Is Google, trying to hide something here? That's the question because Google has been talking about sentience. Jenny (29m 26s): No, no, I really don't think they are. I mean, it's Google. So first off guys, if you're working for Google, you, you should know your privacy guard rails, right with the technology that you're working with. I mean, can we just call that out for a second here? Google's not dumb. They're very, very smart. And they're very good at educating their humans on what are those rules mean? So like, one of the things that's here is you have one of the humans who works for Google that's gone out and started just storytelling this. Like guys not a recommended thing. So first off there's that piece there, but as it relates to the sentient aspect, and for those of you are still kind of like grappling with, like, what does this actually mean? Jenny (30m 8s): There was a movie that came out in 2021 with Ryan Reynolds called Free Guy. Chad (30m 11s): Yes. I love that show. Jenny (30m 13s): Right? It's a great movie, but what they found in this movie and it's a perfect use case to go, right. That we are go watch the movie, but the AI actually started to learn. And so like was able to learn just like a human would. And so that's kind of what we're looking at here is this just machine learning, right? Looking at patterns in order to predict future patterns, or is this actually learning on its own? Chad (30m 38s): Well, first off, I think he was an idiot by publishing, you know, a conversation that he had with Lambda, because he's trying to prove to the world that this is actually happening. I personally, I think that we are, there are several levels of AI and then getting to sentient is the top level period, right? That this is Skynet Terminator shit. I think we're on our way there. There's no question. I don't think we're there now. I could be totally wrong. We might be, we might've been there for years. Who knows what DARPA's come up with? But in the end, we are going to have to, as you had said, storytell this one way or the other, this is either incredibly bad or it could be incredibly great for humankind. Chad (31m 25s): You just don't know how this movie ends. Jenny (31m 28s): It's just starting. Right? But I think the first part of that is, especially for our space in the HR world is to actually define what AI is. And so AI has become a buzzword in the HR space. Chad (31m 39s): Yes. Jenny (31m 39s): That's Chad, you and I know that, like there was a lot of different types of AI and a lot of the things that we refer to as AI, aren't actually AI. And so I think that education portion is really important because, you know, like if we just keep calling these things, these buzzwords and just labeling them as this entire bucket, when there's actually subsets of buckets, we're not going to actually get it right. Chad (32m 8s): Yeah. Nope, totally, totally agree. We've got to be more educated. We've got to understand. And just because it says AI on it, none of that matters, RPA, AI, ML, NLP, none of that matters. The big question is, will it solve the problem you need it to solve? Who cares what the acronym is? Jenny (32m 31s): Well starting with, what is the problem you are looking to solve? Right? Shout out to the commish who was out there listening at the EEOC, at Keith and his team are awesome with helping, you know, come alongside of HR leaders to help educate them on the fact that like you guys, you don't buy tech to solve a problem. Like tech is a vehicle to help you solve a problem. It is not the answer. It's part of the equation. And so what is the problem you're looking to solve? And then what guard rails are you going to put in place to make sure that your tech or whatever the heck you're doing, is actually solving that problem. Right? And not just when we start, but like always. Right? Chad (33m 10s): Yeah, yeah. And everybody is looking for the easy button and kids, the easy button doesn't exist. And if somebody is selling you the easy button, they're selling you elixir is what they're doing, but you know, who's not selling the easy button they're selling a kinder, gentler Microsoft. This, news from the Insider. Microsoft will no longer ban staff from seeking roles at competitors and plan to disclose salaries on job ads. Microsoft employees will be free to seek jobs at the likes of Google and Amazon. Chad (33m 50s): After the internet giant announced, it will no longer enforce non-compete clauses against the majority of its staff. Microsoft has enforced them in some employee contracts, but effective today the company is removing clauses from employee agreements and will not enforce existing clauses in the US. Wow. Number two, Microsoft also announced plans to improve pay transparency within its job adverts and committed to publicly disclose salary ranges and all internal and external US job postings beginning no later than January 2023. Chad (34m 31s): No non-competes and salaries on jobs. Is this really a kinder and gentler Microsoft? Jenny (34m 36s): Yeah. This is huge. Also Bravo to their PR person who's looping all these together into this often press release because the disclosures on jobs guys, like that's coming from a lot of legislation that's come through. So like, it's something that a lot of companies do need to get on board with. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, make sure to go Google it because it's really important. You're going to need to have a visibility of, not only pay, but also benefits, depending on where you're posting roles. And if you're remote, right? Like you're going to have to make sure that's on all the roles, because you could technically be showing this in Colorado or the state of New York. But anyways, as it relates to like the NCC's aspects of those non-compete clauses, again, like thank you, Microsoft for showing the world that yes you can. Jenny (35m 20s): So going back to like, what are we trying to solve with whatever it is that we've put in place, does it still solve the thing that we're looking to do? And like, for example, historically, we've had non-compete clauses. Are they hurting us or are they helping us? Microsoft going and saying, we're not going to enforce them any longer. It's a brilliant way to go Satya. Chad (35m 44s): I love it. And this is a leadership thing. That's the biggest key here. Microsoft salary transparency on job ads, a form of pay transparency through annual reports plus dropping non-competes. I believe these are all amazing and wonderful steps that need to happen, although it's just a moment in time. If it wasn't so hard to find people right now, would this even be the conversation? We need these initiatives to stick long-term and we need them to be more broad-based throughout corporate America. So what, you know, what are your thoughts on drawing a line in the sand, through regulation and making these practices standard, as opposed to, well, we've got a leader that's in place now, he puts them in place. Chad (36m 29s): The next one can rip them right out. What do you think about that? Jenny (36m 33s): Yeah, I think we need, it's an interesting topic, right? Probably could have an entire conversation on this topic, but at the end of the day, like the world, historically, isn't the world today. And so there's a one-way door too guys. So we're going through this. You can't go back to the way that things were. And so organizations, if you're looking at adopting things, you should be looking at adopting those things to begin. These are a comma, they are not a period. You are never done iterating or innovating or trying to figure out how to get it right. And the second you put a period on it, or like try to go backwards to undo it. That's where you really get, you lose that authenticity, and honestly, they employees are seeing that too. Jenny (37m 14s): Right. So, yeah, I think it's great again, to see that companies are moving towards this, especially ones as large as Microsoft, right? Because we're watching them, these smaller organizations, even some of these larger fortune 100 companies are watching them. This is giving again, the model for what this looks like. It doesn't all have to be bad. You can try something else and see how it goes. Chad (37m 42s): Yeah. Jenny (37m 43s): And the other piece that we haven't specifically called this out, but the reason that they Microsoft is, so I guess, they've made pay transparency, such a priority is for females and people that are coming from different diverse groups to make sure they've got a level playing field. So like, y'all come on. It's 2022. Let's try to get work right. And having those pay transparency on there, it really is going to help to make that level playing field. Chad (38m 6s): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's part of it, right? Because you have the new individuals who are coming in and you can start to set a baseline for them. What about all those individuals who are seeing, you know, inequities today? Right. So, I mean, it's two sides of the same coin. So you definitely have to ensure that anybody who's coming in, you start to get a good baseline and you start paying again, from an equity standpoint. Then you have to go back, which Microsoft has been doing, I definitely want to say that. They've also been publishing around pay transparency and around the actual worker composition. So that in itself could it get better? Chad (38m 49s): Could you go deeper? Of course, but this is a great place to start, but again, I don't feel good until this is actually written and signed in a regulation so that everybody has to do it. Jenny (38m 59s): 100%. And also to the leaders that are out there who are looking at this, maybe you're a little nervous or scared, or maybe it's a TA leader, as talent acquisition. That's like, okay, we got this. We're going to go, we're going to get this right. To your point, Chad, it's not just about getting it right for the people coming into your organization. It's about getting it right for the people who are in your organization. So if you have pay gaps, if women are being paid less or maybe like, whatever it is before you go and implement that thing, have conversations with your counterparts in HR and talent management. Make sure what's our strategy for bringing people up? Because before we bring people in, we've got to make sure that we're taking care of them, because again, it's about getting this, right. Jenny (39m 40s): And that means you're going to have to talk to other people in your organization. And if you don't? Guess what's going to happen, those humans are going to leave, right? Chad (39m 50s): Yep. Jenny (39m 50s): So like, if you want to slow down the turnover, start to talk to your peers. How are we solving for this? Again, not just for the people coming into the organization, but for the people who are in your organization. Chad (40m 7s): Amen sister. And after talking about companies who are getting smarter about talent, let's after this break, we're going to talk about working smarter, not harder, we'll be right back. Okay. So we've heard this for years, work smarter, not harder, totally get it. But this next story takes it over the edge. A call center worker records herself working from home and that's in air quotes, "working from home" in a Starbucks drive through. So while some employers may be pushing to get workers back in the office, many workers have fully transitioned to working from home. Chad (40m 49s): Pew research observed earlier this year that roughly six in 10 US workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home. 59% are working from home all or most of the time. Well, it's hilarious because Sherry TikTok handle, @Ilove2giggle2 took it to the next level with a TikTok recording of her complete with headset. She had the headset on talking to a customer while going through the Starbucks drive through. Sherry says this was a video. It was a joke, but many TikTok, commenters didn't care. One wrote I'm here to support work smarter, not harder. So is this a bridge too far as companies try and pull remote workers back into the office? Chad (41m 39s): Is Sherry doing more harm than good? Jenny (41m 42s): This one? It kind of boils my blood a little bit. So yeah. Dear industries, especially the storytelling media industries, stop giving companies more reason to pull their people back into the office, right? Like this was the exception of somebody in, and frankly, if she's still doing her job, right? Like she's still serving the customer, but we've got to stop highlighting the exception and the person who's doing the thing wrong, because like our goal should be to get this right. Right? So I get a little passionate on this topic. Chad, what do you think? Chad (42m 13s): I think it's funny. It has nearly a million views on TikTok, but at the end of the day, this does not do what we needed to do. We don't need to give employers more fuel to the, we need you back in the office fire. So yes, it's funny, but it's not something that we need. We need really, to focus on outcomes and yes, she's doing her job and she's going through Starbucks and she can do that, and her outcomes are good on her job then who the hell cares where she does it from. But again, employers are looking for a reason to pull your ass back in the office. Don't give them any. Jenny (42m 48s): Yep. And to the human to maybe listen to this, thinking about posting something on TikTok. Yes. It's got a lot of likes, but is what you're doing, trying to solve for the greater good. If it's the answer is no where maybe not don't post. It just don't post it. Chad (43m 5s): It's all about the views. JCK it is all about the views. And hopefully it's all about the listens because we had you on this week and that's definitely going to be a draw as a Cheeseman tries to keep the Canadian geese in Canada. But I appreciate you taking the time you join us. And hopefully it felt good. Jenny (43m 25s): Oh, this has been so much fun. Honestly. Thank you so much for having me. It's always great to have conversations with you. And I hope you enjoy will consider figuring out a way to start toward storytelling some of these companies who are getting things, right? Cause again, there's, it seems like we've got some issues, especially in like the DEI space and some of those areas where we keep telling the stories of how people are getting wrong. And what we really need is to show the companies who are getting it right? So Chad (43m 55s): Send them our way, send them our way again, talking about Microsoft this week. That's big and hoping that that spreads, but until next week, if somebody wants to find out more or connect to you, what do they do? Do they find you on LinkedIn? Where did they find you? Jenny (44m 14s): Absolutely. So find me on LinkedIn. Definitely. You can find me there. Also my company is Plum and that's www.plum.io. We are an assessment. Well, historically it's been called an assessment about I would argue it's an alignment tool to help uncover what are the things that drives a human and how can we help try to find work that's aligned to those drivers. So you can find more about Plum online. And again, Chad, thanks so much for having us. This has been great. Chad (44m 43s): Thanks so much. Appreciate it. That's another one in the books. Chad and Jenny (44m 48s): We out. We out. OUTRO (44m 46s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (45m 29s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

The Wild Wild West wasn't just a hit song from Kool Moe Dee in the '80s, it's also how workers' rights expert Matt Scherer describes the current state of A.I. in the world of work. With lawsuits, state-by-state regulations and minefields as far as the eye can see, this interview is a must for employers looking to buy A.I. recruiting tools, vendors building A.I. tools and for everyone in between. Are we any closer to taming the Wild West? Gotta listen to find out. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. Matt (1s): The bad press that you occasionally start to see for these vendors is only going to get worse. INTRO (9s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (31s): Oh yeah, what's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined is always the Robin to my Batman, Chad Sowash and today we are man, super excited to welcome Matt Scherer , Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology Policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Chad (54s): Wow. Joel (55s): Oh, that's a mouthful. Another example of someone way smarter than us on the show. Matt has a JD from Georgetown. Matt, welcome to the podcast. Matt (1m 6s): Glad to be here. We'll see about the smarter part. Joel (1m 10s): You're still here on the show, so I'm not quite sure you are that smart, but let our listeners get to know a little bit about Matt. What makes you tick, man? Give us a Twitter bio. Matt (1m 20s): As my lengthy job title kind of suggests I work at the intersection of the workplace and technology. I started off as an employment lawyer who kind of did AI related stuff as a side hustle. I found a way to combine the two by doing a lot of AI related legal work on employment at Littler Mendelson, which is as I'm sure you and many of your listeners know the world's largest labor and employment law firm, but they're exclusively management side. Yeah. And then I decided to make the jump over to civil society and take up the mantle of workers' rights on these issues. Matt (2m 4s): And that was about a year and a half ago when I joined CDT and left the billable hour and the big law firm life behind. If you've seen Michael Clayton, that is not what my life is like, but I do enjoy civil society and my work at CDT much more after this. Chad (2m 27s): Well, that's good. I'm sure the paycheck's a little bit different, but Hey, you know, we all do things for different reasons. And that reason I would like to know why get into the, the swamp of hiring technology? I mean, it is really a swamp out there. We talk about politics being a swamp, but this is, this is entirely different. Matt (2m 47s): I w I would call it more the wild west and then a swamp. That's how it it's always felt to me. And that's kind of the case with a lot of stuff whenever you're talking about artificial intelligence and automated systems. The way I always describe it, our entire legal system is kind of premise on the idea that humans are the ones who make important decisions. And in many ways, it just, if you read enough of our laws, you start to understand just how deeply that's baked in. One of my favorite examples is even just with driverless cars. If you read the highway safety transportation regulations, they have all these things like, oh yeah. Matt (3m 31s): Well, when you build a car, you have to have a foot operated brake. And, you know, so the idea that there is something without a foot that could be operating a car, would, you know, just didn't occur to anybody at the time that these regulations were made. Chad (3m 46s): Yeah. Matt (3m 47s): So it's no different than that in the world of HR, if anything, it's even more kind of wide open and unclear how automated systems fit into the existing laws that happen. Chad (3m 59s): So it's the wild west, really? Matt (4m 3s): Exactly. And that's my preferred metaphor is it's the wild west and that kind of vacuum I just find fascinating and troubling. Chad (4m 14s): Yes. Joel (4m 14s): For how long will it be the wild west? Are we talking decades? Are we talking years? Matt (4m 19s): There's your guess is as good as mine. I think that we're going to see some state level regulations starting to happen in the next few years, whether or not there are federal regulations, whether in the form of new EEOC guidelines or a federal statute, that's really tough to predict. And certainly federal legislation I don't expect to be happening anytime soon, which means that we're probably going to have a kind of balkanized system of how these hiring tools and other uses of AI in the workplace are treated on a state by state basis. Chad (4m 55s): Gotcha. Gotcha. So back to that point, back in November, you penned an article entitled NY City Council Rams Through Once-Promising but Deeply Flawed Bill on AI Hiring Tools. How did that start out? Because it sounds like it was promising at one time and then it wasn't, and it sounds like we're going to see more of this state by state, somewhat promising, not so promising regulation actually happening. Matt (5m 25s): I think that's right. And, first, let me just quickly correct the record. It was co-authored by me and my colleague Ridhi Shetty. Ridhi and I are always kind of each other's sidekicks on these sorts of projects at CDT. So, but that piece we put together in about 48 hours after the New York City bill got passed. And for both of us, it was a lot of rage writing. And the reason is that the bill did start off, certainly not as perfect and that's why I used the word promising, but, you know, there were definitely good aspects to it. The big thing is as originally written, just when you come down to the substance of it, it would have required companies to examine the potential for all forms of discrimination before they released a hiring tool, if they did not do so, there were actually some teeth in the bill, not the strongest teeth, kind of more like heavily worn off 85 year old dentures may be more than sharp incisors, but there were at least some teeth to the bill, some consequences for companies that didn't do those sorts of in-depth examinations for discrimination. Matt (6m 42s): The bill that got ultimately rammed through, and it really was rammed through and we can talk about that in a second. It's stripped away the, you have to check for all forms of discrimination. And they did it in a kind of a coy subtle way, that, if you read the bill, you can't even tell what's going on, but what they ended up doing is they just saying, all you have to do is check for adverse impact on race, sex, and national origin. And here's the thing, you already have to do that under federal law, and in fact, you have to do that and other stuff under federal law, right? So it ended up actually setting the bar lower than what already existed under federal law, in terms of employer's obligations. Matt (7m 27s): And then it took away any teeth or consequences really that would ensue if you failed to do that. It was promising initially and it ended up being frankly a joke, that introduced no meaningful new obligations on employers. Chad (7m 39s): So how did that happen? I mean, how did it get derailed and how were some of those aspects dropped so that it was pretty much teeth free. Matt (7m 50s): We are not the NSA we did not have bugs planted on the inside of the New York City council buildings. Sometimes I wish we were, but we were not in this instance, so we don't know for sure. But the bill, it is no secret that the bill was originally drafted and backed by Pymetrics, which is one of the big vendors in this space. Chad (8m 11s): Yes. Matt (8m 12s): And that it was largely a big, it was largely a vendor backed proposition. And there has been a trend nationally for vendors to back these bills, but unlike a lot of kind of industry backed bills in other spaces, they often go to progressive legislators and bill themselves as, Hey, we are the pro civil rights, progressive folks in this space and what we are asking you to do is help us regulate ourselves. We're the good guys, help us be the good guys. Yes. So even though I don't know what happened behind the scenes, I think that it is safe to say that the vendors who had their hand in at the beginning, also had their hand in the watering down of the bill before it got to final passage. Chad (9m 7s): I mean, if they can write it, then they know what they want to the outcome of it. Right? Joel (9m 13s): Sounds like the Fox in the henhouse. Matt (9m 15s): Yeah. That's exactly right. And also the way that it happened, where the revised version of the bill was released essentially publicly less than 24 hours before it was put before a committee vote, without a hearing, the revisions were never put for a public hearing and within 24 hours of their publication, it had gone through a committee hearing, committee vote, and passage by the full council. All in 24 hours, no opportunity for public input. Chad (9m 43s): Wow. Matt (9m 45s): That's sort of coordinated, you could almost call it ambush, doesn't happen without some significant behind the scenes coordination. So even though I don't know exactly how it happened, it's safe to say that this was done in a way to ensure that a more vendor friendly version of the bill was passed without any meaningful opportunity for pushback from groups that would have concerns about the changes. Joel (10m 12s): So Pymetrics is not Google. They're not, you know, Meta. I wouldn't put them in the category of an army of lobbyists that can go to the government and make sort of these efforts. So what from your perspective is, I mean, is it like a secret war chest that we don't know about or what? Matt (10m 30s): No, no. The way that I always describe it is everybody's the hero in their own story. And I have no doubt that the vendors in this space, and in fact, having had conversations with them off the record, they genuinely viewed themselves as the good guys. They think that they have found a fairer, less discriminatory way to do things. I think that if you take the humans out of the hiring process and give it to their machines, that you end up with a fairer, less discriminatory and more effective hiring process. I think that that's a load of something, but that is their view. Matt (11m 13s): And what I think happened is that message that, 'Hey, we live in a discriminatory system'. Well, that initial premise is something that's going to get a lot of progressive heads nodding because it's true, we do live in a system where hiring is rife with discrimination, both overt, covert systemic at every level. The idea that there is a better way to do things is inherently appealing. And the idea that it can't get any worse, doesn't often cross people's minds when they see the mini flaws that exist in the current system. I just think that they are successful in what I would frankly call co-opting progressive legislators, because they tell those legislators what they want to hear, which is there's a way to help reduce the impacts of systemic discrimination and these long existing patterns of bias. Matt (12m 2s): And that's just not the case in reality. Chad (12m 5s): Yeah. I mean, we've seen vendors write regulations for years and hand it over to, you know, their progressive counterparts or their conservative counterparts. Joel (12m 15s): In my research on this AI audits, there are no standards you meant back to the wild west. So there, there really are no sort of here's the baseline for what AI is and what it should be in shouldn't be. Is that correct? Like, what are your takes on AI audits? What's wrong with them? I know Pymetrics, HireVue and Humanly have been sort of highlighted in articles around the audit system and those companies being audited, but there are no standards for what makes good AI. Matt (12m 44s): Right? And I would not call on their best day what any of those vendors have done an audit. Audit implies some sort of unbiased, driven by an independent source, review of information. When in reality, all of the audits that these companies have conducted, they gave highly curated and limited information and a limited scope to these auditors to do the review and just like the New York City bill, what happened was a joke. None of them were audits. Which goes to your point that there's no standards for what it means to have an audit in this space, for AI tools. Matt (13m 24s): There are regulations, as I'm sure you, and many of your listeners know, when it comes to selection procedures, more generally, they're called the uniform guidelines for employee selection procedures. I don't want to say that those are a dead letter, but other than the OFCCP, they are not often used as the basis for strong enforcement action. And even with the OFCCP, their resources are stretched so thin that even federal contractors, which is who the OFCCP governs, don't often have to get pinned down on kind of the specifics of the sorts of auditing processes that are supposed to happen before they introduce a tool. Matt (14m 11s): And when it comes to kind of the unique characteristics of AI, it actually makes the uniform guidelines inadequate to really deal with some of the types of discrimination and the types of harm that can arise, so the uniform guidelines are themselves, they're there, they're better than nothing, but they're not adequate to the task. And yeah, right now there are no standards that say, this is what a good audit of a modern hiring tool should look like. Chad (14m 37s): Gotcha. And again, if you don't have the enforcement, then you really don't have the teeth. But when we take a look at actual, let's just say OFCCP audits, when they do go through the audits, and there are standards that they have now, wouldn't those standards still be the same, no matter whether it was a machine or human, because it's all around outcomes and how you treated the actual candidate pool. So wouldn't, they still be usable for AI, as they are today with humans. Matt (15m 15s): Yes. And again, in my view, if the uniform guidelines were interpreted and enforced consistently, that would be a good thing. It wouldn't be enough, but it would be enough to, I think, significantly limit the ability of these tools to be deployed as extensively as companies are, at this point. And I also agreed, we shouldn't necessarily hold these tools to a special standard that doesn't apply to more traditional types of hiring tests. There are plenty of problematic and concerning non-AI based selection tools out there. Company's frequent use of personality tests, that is deeply troubling. Matt (15m 56s): Yes. Some of my colleagues at CDT ended other civil rights organizations have done plenty of work on this. You know, there's those very frequently discriminated against people with disabilities. There's lots of evidence that they discriminate against black candidates, female candidates, et cetera. So just because it's not AI doesn't mean that it should get a free pass or it should be held to a lower standard necessarily. Chad (16m 21s): Gotcha. Matt (16m 22s): But the uniform guidelines were written 50 years ago now. You know, they went into force about 45 years ago, but they were actually written in the early 1970s. Chad (16m 34s): God! Matt (16m 34s): They were out of date sometime around the time I was born in the Reagan administration. You know, so they are dramatically out of step with the modern social science. And one of the ways in which they are, that this is the most technical all get in this podcast, they allow you to establish that a tool is basically okay to use, by showing that there is a correlation between the tools, recommendations or scores, and job performance. The problem is it's incredibly easy to establish that sort of correlation when you're putting thousands of candidates through a tool, which is what you can do in the age of big data. Matt (17m 15s): That's not something you could do back in the seventies and eighties, when you were developing and testing these tools. It wasn't easy to establish that kind of correlation. Now it is. So you can have these tools that do frankly, a pretty crappy job of matching candidates to job performance, but you can claim, 'well, the uniform guidelines say, as long as you can show that there's a correlation, that's enough and technically there's a correlation'. It's a very weak correlation, but it's a correlation. Chad (17m 48s): Yeah. Matt (17m 48s): That would no longer be possible under modern social science. But because the uniform guidelines were not with modern social science, a lot of these tools, you know, I've read validation reports for these that, you know, to be clear, in case anybody from my old job is listening, these are not ones that I'm talking about that are covered by attorney client privilege don't worry. But I've read validation reports even since I've come to CDT where some of these tools do, I kid you not, a 2% better, than randomly picking names out of a hat in terms of picking good candidates for a job. Chad (18m 26s): And that's on a validation study? Matt (18m 29s): And that's from their own validation studies. Chad (18m 31s): Yeah. Matt (18m 32s): 2% better than picking names out of a hat, but that's enough, technically under the uniform guidelines! Right? Chad (18m 39s): Right. Matt (18m 40s): Because it's a statistically significant 2% better than names out of a hat. So that's kind of the reason that new guidelines and new audit standards are needed in this space. Chad (18m 54s): Oh, hell yeah. Do you see vendors like Pymetrics get in front of legislation or regulation or what have you as being a part of it or writing it? What about HireVues AI explainability statement? They're trying to get in front of this by going public, putting it out there for everybody and actually having a quote unquote "explainability statement". Have you seen this thing? Matt (19m 17s): I have and stay tuned on CDTs website. There'll be a blog post dropping about that at some point in the next few weeks. Joel (19m 28s): Oooo. Chad (19m 28s): So this comes from the actual document quote "since HireVue's platform does not make recruitment decisions. If the candidate wishes to query the decision-making in the recruitment process, then the challenge needs to be made to the hiring company, which uses HireVue's platform and ultimately makes the final recruitment decision" end quote. So what they're saying is, look, we don't make the decisions. This has nothing to do with us, but yet they have algorithms. And then in California, they're looking to put new regulations on the books that pretty much puts the, keeps the vendor on the hook around training data. So again, we were just talking about New York, now we're talking about California, where do you see this actually going? Chad (20m 12s): Because I feel like there are going to be vendors that are on the hook and if California or New York does something like this, every vendor wants to do business in those states, they're going to have to comply. Right? Matt (20m 25s): Right. Well, first off, I love that particular passage that you quoted from their explainability statement, which was a pun that would've made Ray Guy jealous. So I mean, and that sort of, 'Hey, it's not me. It's them', that you see between vendors and employers in this space. The first thing that I think you should do when you do regulations, you should take away their ability to do that by saying that they're jointly responsible for ensuring that it is. And that sure you can make a contract says who actually has to pay at the end of the day, but you're both on the hook and then you can sort out later between yourselves who gets to pay, if you do something wrong. That's my take. Matt (21m 6s): Having had conversations with civil rights organizations in this space, that finger pointing, which we've seen a lot already in Europe, that was the purpose of that passage that you read in the HireVue explainability statement. He was saying under European law, we are not the data controller. I think that that's a term, but I might be getting it wrong, but we're not the people you should talk to. It's the employer. Chad (21m 28s): Yes. Matt (21m 28s): That sort of finger pointing we need to avoid here, if and when these regulations start getting passed in the United States and the way to do that is to say, you're both responsible, you can't simply point the finger at the other. It doesn't do you any good, you're still on the hook and then if you know, you end up being liable down the road, who actually has to pay between the two of you, that's a matter for you to sort between yourselves, but you're both on the hook for it. So I think that the regulations need to be aimed at both, so that both have an incentive to police each other and to assure that the proper validation and discrimination checks are done. Joel (22m 7s): We have a lot of employers, as I'm sure you can imagine that listen to our show. And in addition to our show and everything else that they're hearing, every conference they go to, they're hearing AI is great. AI is going to solve all your problems. AI is something you need to buy immediately. And then they also read about Amazon, you know, ditching their sort of AI recruitment technology. They're hearing about these court cases. What tips would you give an employer that's looking to buy an AI solution in terms of what to be careful for? Maybe what questions to ask a vendor to help protect yourself? Because I think there's a lot of fear out there and fear often breeds sort of inactivity, which isn't necessarily what a good employer should do. Joel (22m 50s): What tips would you give them to do it safely and to do it correctly and keep yourself out of court? Matt (22m 58s): For sure. The first thing is to have more faith in your HR team than the vendors want you to have. And I admit I'm biased. My mother was and is a career HR person. I'm somewhat predisposed to not throwing HR people under the bus, needless to say, but I, you know, genuinely yes, human decision-making is flawed. That does not mean that we've come up with a better way to do things though. And I'll get to the, here's what you should do as far as specific questions, but just to give one example of why automating the process is not necessarily a good idea. Matt (23m 42s): One thing that these vendors love to do is say, well, yes, are whatever problems you might identify are problems. Yes, they might be there, but humans do it even worse. That is frequently the response you get when vendors try to sell these tools to companies. And one great example of that is the technology that underpins a lot of AI is voice to text transcription VTT or speech to text, where the computer hears as it were, what a candidate is saying during an interview during some, you know, some sort of game-based assessment, et cetera. Matt (24m 23s): And it transcribes what they're saying. And the error rates on those transcriptions are sometimes, you know, relatively high and they're much higher in particular for candidates that have a disability that affects their speech or who have an accent because they speak English as a second language, or they speak a non-standard English dialect. Chad (24m 42s): Right. Matt (24m 42s): Well, these companies often say, well, yes, we have, there's sometimes a high error rate, but so do humans. Here's the difference. If a human doesn't understand what it can that it just said, they can say, oh, I'm sorry, can you repeat that? You know, like, that's the difference between a human and a machine. Chad (25m 0s): Right. Matt (25m 0s): Or that's one difference, is that a human has the ability to slow down and go at things a different way and adjust on the fly in a way that an automated one size fits all assessment, which is what these vendors invariably are selling, does not. And that is a dangerous thing to introduce into an HR process, to have that kind of rigid one size fits all, there's no second chance. If you want an accommodation, the accommodation is you don't use this process and you do something completely different. And that's often what these vendors are selling. Joel (25m 36s): Gotcha. Matt (25m 36s): And if that sort of inflexible tool is what's being presented to a company, they should be very, very careful before proceeding because that sort of rigidity is just not going to have the flexibility that's needed to fill a lot of positions because positions are not one size fits all like that. They should ask the vendor what steps they've taken to ensure that if candidates whose credentials are not obvious, or who have difficulty showing in the context of whether it's a resume screener, game-based assessment, a video interview, whatever it is, if a candidate has either a disability or some other aspect of their physical makeup, of their background, whatever it is that might make the tool less familiar with what it is they have to offer. Matt (26m 31s): How's the tool going to pick up on that and how will our recruiters know that they need to look more carefully or deeper? Those are the sorts of questions they should be asking first and foremost, and they should carefully pay attention to what the response is and make sure it's not just, well, that's a, you know, something that we don't do, that's your recruiter's job to pick up on that. Well, if that's their answer, then guess what, why do you need the tool in the first place? Joel (26m 57s): Yeah, we, in addition to employers, we have a lot of vendors that listen to our show and it sounds like a lot of mistakes have been made in terms of their end. And personally, I don't think that there's a lot of evil doers in the vendor space. I think it's a lot of people that, you know, have a quote unquote, "good idea". They build this thing and then they don't sort of see the sides of it that you do. If you could say something to the vendors out there that are looking to build something new, or to do something cool around AI? What kind of things would you caution them to build before they spend the time and money to make a new feature in their product? Matt (27m 36s): The first thing that I do is I'd ask them to proactively engage with groups that they don't want to engage with, as they develop these tools. With civil rights organizations and particularly a major area of focus for my organization is the rights of disabled people and disabled workers. That is frankly, an area where these vendors get one of the worst failing scores I can possibly imagine for them. They just do not design their tools with disability and the need for accommodation in mind. Chad (28m 8s): They like to think they do, but they, they do not. You are correct. Matt (28m 14s): Yeah. They do not. And frankly, the answers that they give of how they try to build robustness into it, they make disability advocates angry. It's things like, well, we had five different people with disabilities tested and they did okay. Or we talked to the parents of disabled people and they liked our approach, nevermind that parents, parental organizations relating to people with disabilities are very much not the same as talking to the disabled people themselves. Chad (28m 43s): Right. Matt (28m 44s): Well, if there is an accommodation issue, that's ultimately the employer's responsibility, not ours. All of those are inadequate responses in my view. So that's the first thing. And then they should take a similar approach when it comes to racial justice. When it comes to gender disparities in these tools, don't just try to paper over these issues instead engage with these civil rights organizations and instead of having your own, in-house, what you want to pass off as an audit, where you provide carefully curated information, have it done by somebody who actually has an incentive to check to make sure that issues that actually are present, get resolved. Matt (29m 30s): If you're not willing to do that, then there's frankly going to continue to be an adversarial relationship between vendors and civil rights organizations. The bad press that you occasionally start to see for these vendors is only going to get worse. Chad (29m 43s): Okay. So I'm gonna hit the other side. The candidate black hole has been the bane of the application process for candidates in the easy apply process that has been created in that timeframe, has provided more candidates applying quicker for jobs, thus finding more candidates in this incredibly horrible black hole. Right? Where they don't have anybody getting back with them, because it's more of a human experience. They're using technology, but there's nothing that's actually automated around. It's horrible for the brand because all of these candidates could be customers too, but they could also be great candidates that they just can't get back to because they're human and they aren't as scalable. Chad (30m 28s): So today tech is trying to actually fill that gap to provide a much better candidate experience, to be able to get back to those individuals and to be able to, in some cases, sift through them and see if they score well. My question for you is, where's the equilibrium? Because as technology starts to grow, Moore's law is still rolling strong. We're going to have technology pushing forward and just jamming great candidates into a system that human beings can never get back to them with. So how do we fix this? Where's the equilibrium? Matt (31m 1s): So I think that the way that I always described, and this was the case, even back when I was in private practice, the best way to use technology in this space is to increase the number of candidates who come under consideration for a job and to increase the number of people who get serious consideration for it rather than to contract it. It should be used to identify and lift up candidates who may otherwise be overlooked, not to screen candidates out who may otherwise have gotten serious consideration. That's the way that I always try to frame it. Matt (31m 42s): The problem is, and this is why the equilibrium that I suggest is one that does not lie easily. The goals of C suite, where HR is often viewed as purely a cost center, or really a cost sink. It doesn't generate revenue. So every dollar that is spent on HR by C-suite, as again, many of your listeners I'm sure know, is viewed as a dollar that should be saved if possible. So the approach that I suggest of expanding the number of candidates that are considered for positions, that's the opposite of what vendors try to sell. The vendors, try to sell you on, we're going to cut costs. Matt (32m 25s): We're going to reduce the number of candidates that your recruiters have to review. The problem is when you are doing that, you are increasing the risk of discrimination and you are, frankly, from a business perspective, you're lowering the chances that you will find candidates that are the best fit for your position. You are increasing the likelihood that you will find an, at least, adequate candidate quickly, but you may be overlooking the best candidates for a role. If you're okay with that, then maybe the use of an automated process makes sense on some level, but you have to understand, again, the costs associated with the risk of discrimination. Where I think the equilibrium is ultimately going to lie, depends on where regulation in this space goes. Matt (33m 9s): I would say that we are headed for a world where there is going to eventually be regulation of these tools. We are not in an environment that is friendly to technology on the policy world right now, if you haven't noticed, so there will be regulation eventually. And this is a rare instance where the, you know, conservatives are skeptical of big tech companies. And in the specific case of HR tools, civil rights groups are very, very skeptical of the technology. Civil rights groups are not convinced by the arguments that human bias, as it exists now is a sufficient reason to not regulate these tools. Joel (33m 50s): It's time to tame the wild wild west. sfx (33m 53s): Applause. Joel (33m 54s): I think that that's exactly right. And I think that eventually will be, and the equilibrium that I hope we ultimately reach is the one that I just described, where technology is used to help us find diamonds in the rough to help us find the people that were often overlooked in the past, and to expand the number of people, to expand the possibilities for people in the labor market, not to contract them. Matt Scherer everybody. Matt, that was awesome, dude, for those listeners who want to know more about you or the organization, where would you send them? Matt (34m 32s): cdt.org? You can find I'm on our privacy and data team and keep an eye out for a lot of future work in this space on this. And then on the other major issue we work on is technology used for surveillance and privacy in the workplace. Joel (34m 44s): Yeah let us know when that blog post goes up. We might have to have you back on the show for a little summary of that. Chad (34m 53s): Hell yeah. Joel (34m 55s): All right, Chad, another one in the books. We're all a little bit smarter. Thanks to Matt. Chad and Cheese (35m 2s): We out. We out. OUTRO (35m 47s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Life is getting pretty stressful for workers. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt have us all on edge. That's why the health and well-being of your employees have taken on new importance. Enter Amploi.ai, and its founder Trung Tran, who's busy building a company to make the health monitoring of workers a snap. Confused? Just think of your Apple Watch letting your employer know when you're stressed out, so they can give some support. Sound like an invasion of privacy? You might be on to something ... or not. Gotta listen to see what Chad & Cheese think. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. SharkTank INTRO (1s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (24s): Oh yeah. You know how we do? It's another firing squad. What's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure. The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my sexy cohost Chad Sowash. Chad (39s): Chilling out. Joel (39s): Today, oh man, we're going to learn something today. Chad, I think we're going to welcome Trung Tran, founder and CTO of Amplio. Trung welcome to Firing Squad. Trung (52s): Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the time. Joel (54s): You bet. You bet. So our listeners who don't know you, which I'm guessing is everyone listening. Give us a little bit about Trung. Give us a Twitter bio. Trung (1m 4s): Sure, sure. I went into the military for six years, then went to Silicon Valley for 17, working in all sorts of data applications, data centers, data switches. And then I got tagged by DARPA, become a PM in their new AI program they wanted to start off. And so really got excited of AI and the possibilities of it, you know, obviously it's all built on data and I've been doing that for a long, long time here now. And so from that standpoint, you know, I said, I want to build AI that doesn't just replace people or force them to be more efficient. I want AI to help people be better. And so that's kind of the Genesis Amplio is to, you know, take all the knowledge I have on technology. Joel (1m 43s): Well, we'll pitch the company in a second. We're learning about you. I want to add that you. Trung (1m 47s): Sure, sure. Joel (1m 49s): You went to Wharton, you're in the air force and DARPA. Trung (1m 54s): Yes. Joel (1m 54s): A little bit impressive. Just want to say that. Chad (1m 58s): What actually pushed you to the air force in the first place? Trung (2m 2s): Well, back in the day, back in the nineties, you know, something where, you know, I'm an immigrant from Vietnam and so I wanted to give back a little bit to the country that's really taking care of me and it kind of gave me the opportunities I had. And so I wanted to serve. The air force was the most technical branch for the military. And so, you know, I've always wanted to be engineering, do technology. And so Joel (2m 21s): He's not some army meathead is what he saying. Chad (2m 23s): Now there's a ship there. Yeah, he is a more civilianized. I agree. I agree. Joel (2m 27s): Off to a good start. Chad (2m 28s): Making me tear up here Trung. You're making me tear up. Joel (2m 34s): Where's the pledge of allegiance when we need it? Well, Chad, Trung looks like he's ready to go. Tell him what he's won here on firing squad today. Chad (2m 42s): Well, Trung you will have two minutes to pitch amplio.ai. At the end of two minutes, you're going to hear that bell and then Joel and I are going to hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If your answers start droning on, or they're just boring, you're going to get hit with the crickets. At the end of Q and A, you're going to receive one of these ratings from the both of us, big applause, pop that Dom Pérignon baby, because you've got a winner on your hands. Golf clap. Maybe try some of that cheap sparkling wine because you still got a way to go, man. Last but not least, the firing squad. Grab a case of Natty light and scrap this one son it's not going anywhere. Chad (3m 24s): That's firing squad. You ready to go? Trung (3m 31s): Yes. Sounds exciting. Joel (3m 32s): Fantastic. Pitching three, two. Trung (3m 32s): So Amplio is designed to help people with what we think that the biggest problem today in society, it is mental health. 76% of workers reported being burnt out and burn out by the World Health Organization is defined as "uncontrolled stress in the workplace" and at least physical and mental issues. Most important for employers is it affects performance. At least to people quitting the compan. In an error when you know the work, the rules between the worker and the employer is being written, retention and recruiting is very, very difficult and the great resignation they call it where a bunch of people quit. They didn't want jobs that, you know, kinda, you know, made them not live healthy lives. Trung (4m 18s): And so, you know, companies that really interested in doing that. And so what I feel does is we try to help with mental resilience. We know that no one in the middle of a crisis is going to look in the app to find a solution. So we want you to be more self-aware when you need help. When, when you need a step back and take a moment. Lot of times, we're not taught that as we grow up, you know, how is your body reacting to stress? How are we thinking about stress? And then we want to teach people coping strategies that they can use any kind of given situation, not just one or two, but a couple of dozen so if you are in public and you and your coping strategies screen, maybe you can choose a different one, right? And really we use our AI to kind of tailor that to you so that we use the biometrics that we have from wearables to kind of tell us what your emotional and physical state is. Trung (5m 2s): And we use that to kind of highlight to you and kind of buzz you let you know, when you need help. And then we also tell you based on that, we're not the coping strategy you chose actually is helping those numbers to actually reduce your heart rate. You actually improve your breathing, slow it down. He actually do all those things or is the coping strategy not working. So not only are we recommending things based on what you like or dislike, but also where it has an effect on you. And that's the difference between our AI and other AI's in the market. And when you look at Netflix recommended, recommended what movies you like. It doesn't really care whether you like the movie or not, it just recommends it and so we go beyond that Joel (5m 38s): Trung, your two minutes are up. Thank you very much. You need to tighten that up a little bit, tighten it up a little bit for future shows. All right. Let's get to the name. Cause I always ask that as my first question. We're going to, we're going to roll you into how the hell did you come up with Amplio and.ai? The.com looks like it can be had, were there other names, did you try to get the.com explain the name to me Amplio. Trung (6m 1s): Yeah, we didn't want the.com. We wanted to amplify the AI piece of it, right? So AI, Antigua, amplio is Latin for amplify. And what we say is that, you know, we like to wear the word Amplio because we want to amplify people. So the P is in the middle because everything we do is surrounding us, actually amplifying people and making them better. And that's kind of idea and goal of the company. Okay. Joel (6m 22s): Okay. Fair enough. So it looks like you have not taken any money. How are you funding this thing? Are you looking for money? Should we be expecting a seed round in the near future? Talk about the cash. Trung (6m 37s): Sure, sure. I put in like a $401k of my own money, we did raise an angel round of $324K. And so that's been mostly funding us, but the majority of what funds us come in contracts. Last year, we won $2.1 million contract. And this year we have a $2.2 million contract to help soldiers and kind of deal with stress and then get a job better. So that's been the most fit. We are in the middle of a C round right now where we're kind of raised $3 million to take the product that we've proven in the military and convert it over to a civilian purpose in the commercial world. And that's kind of been our emphasis. We just hired a new CEO for that purpose. Trung (7m 17s): She has a lot of experience in the wellness market on the business side and marketing side. And so she's going to help us a lot with us making that transition in the commercial world while making the DOD and the technology side of that. Chad (7m 32s): Okay. Trung. So you've taken 72 products to market. How many of those were HR and/or in the talent space? Trung (7m 39s): So none. So they're all, well, I mean, if you count servers and switches, that's things that HR people use, but mostly it's been technology, Chad (7m 48s): They don't buy them though. They don't buy them. Trung (7m 50s): My background. Like I say, that's why, you know, I was there with the experience in the wellness market. She's taking a few products in there. My practice all been about data infrastructure, data processing, AI. So I have the technology chapter in lines or technology. But what Noel is going to do is kind of give us the wrap around that makes the technology useful. Chad (8m 15s): Okay. You have advisors in clinical psychology, behavioral neuroscience, economists, human performance experts. Your CEO, Noel is a health and wellness expert. You obviously DARPA background, tons of smart people. The problem is there's no representation from HR and or the talent acquisition space, which is what you're looking to sell into. Why not? Are you looking to add there or do you believe that's not even necessary? Trung (8m 38s): Well, we do plan to add there. I mean, one of the things that when we talked to a bunch of HR executives early on is that they saw it mostly as a wellness benefit. They didn't know exactly how to integrate within HR systems. Like we're really not sure what to do with, you know, engagement and those kinds of numbers from employees. Like if probably having emotional problems, we not sure what to do with this. So our goal is to kind of work through HR as well as the departments that actually have employees they're trying to keep that kind of work in that way. And that's more boots on the ground kind of stuff, as opposed to larger HR policies for the entire company, right. How to help my team, my individuals perform better. Trung (9m 19s): So we do plan to hire someone in the future. You know, we want to definitely get the, all the aspects that are actual science-based evidence-based, approaches to actually helping people handle stress and improve mental resilience. So that's been our focus so far is to kind of build up the science and the technology. And then, you know, like I said, you know, we're still talking to HR people and one of the things that we're trying to recruit for is an HR individual that would want that data, that knows has a vision on how they will use it. Company-wide and I think, you know, willing to break away from either like, you know, the tech space NLP stuff that people use for sentiment analysis or the surveys they use. And they're actually thinking, you know, how can we grow people to be better people? Trung (10m 2s): How do we grow people to do those kinds of things? Chad (10m 5s): Okay. So let's do a little cleanup here real quick. Cause it looks like your organization has gone through a re-facing here lately with regard to leadership, because I see Grant Guillory who was a co-founder and CTO, but that's your title. Noel, she just joined a couple of months ago, but yet she's a co-founder. What has been going on with this organization? You were founded in 2018, but it's 2022. There's a lot of shuffling going on here. So tell me about the shuffling. Trung (10m 36s): Well, I think, you know, what really came down to is that, you know, we didn't need more technology people, both Grant and me being technology guys and AI guys, there's not necessary to have both of us there. And what we lacked in is really wellness market experience, how they go to the market, which markets they attack and the market fit kind of knowledge. And that's why we, I decided to hire Noel, you know, Grant, when I got a very high paying job at Capital One, he had the co-founder title, but he actually wasn't bought in to the company in regards to the fact that, you know, he didn't invest, you know, a part of the company and Noel owned a good chunk of the company she's owned like 25% of it. Okay. And so, you know, from a standpoint, she's a true co-founder at that point, cause she's really, you know, bought into the whole idea of the company and she has a wellness experience. Trung (11m 24s): So that's kind of change because really, you know, we lived off a defense contract and we continue living off defense contracting, but you, you probably realize, yeah. You know, the government budget just got passed last weekend, right. Last Friday. And no new contracts started while we had this government shutdown. Right. Or just continuing resolution. That kind of gives you, makes you vulnerable if you're a government contractor only, you know? And so. Chad (11m 46s): Yes. Trung (11m 46s): So that's one reason why we want to make this we're all in this commercial thing, we're still maintaining our government stuff. We still have opportunities to the government worth tens of millions of dollars. What were we want to make sure we kind of diversify enough so that we don't get hit? Like, I don't think the era of continuing resolutions and government not working well, Chad is over. I think we're probably looking at long-term for that. Joel (12m 8s): So that's the US federal government. What about the states? What about international opportunities? Talk about your footprint and how big that can get. Trung (12m 17s): So right now, you know, we're mostly, you know, in the DMV, the district, Maryland and Virginia area, so around DC. So that's why we were focused a lot in the federal. There's bigger contracts in the federal. And, like you say, you know, the military in and of itself has more emphasis on taking care of people and helping them deal with stress and deal with the problems to have, you know, there's big emphasis has been the suicide rates of soldiers after they come back and how they deal with the stress and the things that happen during warfare. So the military bought into this idea. And so they, you know, they actually had the forethought to kinda engage with us early. You know, I think, you know, there is some discussion about cops and like firemen who also have similar jobs that are very demanding and not very rewarding, right we're saving hospitals and doctors? Trung (13m 1s): One of our problems is we have too many places in those two Joel, and we want to kind of focus. So if we want to be government only and do the tier government, we could do that, but we want again, diversify in the commercial space. And so we're very much happy with our beachhead and federal, you know, but we definitely want to get the commercial endt. And if the opportunity presents and we were large enough, his company will go into the other tiers of government, federal, and state. Joel (13m 27s): What does the competitive landscape look like? Do you have competitors? And if you do, I imagine they're not even in like an employment focused, maybe they're in some other industry. Talk about the competition. Trung (13m 40s): Yeah. We were really in the virtual mental health business, right? We're a benefit for employees to help with their mental health, our biggest comparable is gender.io. Okay. They're valued at $1.1 billion and they raised $220 million in funding. They provide health coaching as well as a marketplace to refer people, to if they need to have telemedicine for psychiatry. And so, you know, we're gonna start comparable. What's one of the things we are different for them because we do more than just mental coaching. We do financial coaching, we do cognitive coaching, nutrition, coaching, all the things that cause you stress. So we're much more holistic. We are looking at trying to provide you tools, not just coaching, but actually coping strategies you can use when you need it. Trung (14m 26s): And then we were, you know, we're partnering, we're reviving partners for the tele medicine marketplace because there's a lot of those already. Right. And we don't need to build our own. Joel (14m 34s): Gotcha. Gotcha. Let's move it on. Work from home is a fairly new phenomenon as I'm sure you've heard, you talked about the great resignation. A lot of people are working from home today. Does your product enhanced the work from home experience or does it create challenges that are, eh, kind of a pain in the ass for you? Trung (14m 52s): Well, I think, you know, actually they work from home was great for us because one of the things that that does is causes the employer not to have actually visibility if their employees are suffering or are having problems. Right. You know, one thing is different. Johnny comes in every day and he see him get angry, he started losing his cool, it's another thing when he's at home and he can just kind of pretend to be nice for like 20 minutes on a zoom call or an hour zoom call. So that helps a lot in regards to the company to understanding, you know, kind of their, how to help people. And secondly, you know, working from home and, you know, it sounds great. It's awful, lonely people feel isolated, people feel anxious. They feel like they're carrying the burden of a company on their own, as opposed to working with other people and teaming and stuff from a standpoint, you know, and they don't even know how to go to help. Trung (15m 34s): I mean, there's a lot that he said about your work husband or work wife, where you go and talk to someone about your problems that knows something about the company. When you work at home, there's no one to talk to. And so we help in that regard to encourage that, giving people an outlet so that they can actually address some of their mental health concerns or issues. We do in a way that we don't call it mental health per se, but just, you know, mental resiliency, how do you kind of deal with stress so that, you know, they feel comfortable with it and they can actually deal with it at home and, you know, cause you're cut off, right? I mean, any kind of, support network, any kind of supportive environment, a company would provide if you're working at home, you don't get any of that. Right. You get your kids and your dog, they cause you stress. Chad (16m 11s): My dog does not cause me stress. Tell me about the cognitive analysis you performed on cyber units through the department of defense. Trung (16m 20s): Yeah. So that's our first contract. We decided to look at what it makes, it takes to be a good soldier. One of the things that, you know, what's obvious back in the day, you know, you looking at Captain America and look at Steve Rogers before it became Captain America, right. You know, which one would be a better soldier back in the day. One that could like, you know, run miles and lift weights and stuff like that. Right. I see Rogers was the type. We look at the change in warfare and especially in cyber where they're not going out in the field, they're not running 13 miles an hour carrying a hundred pounds on their back, that they used their mind at the agile. You know, it's not that easy to see that, you know, we used to call it the Tom Brady problem, Tom Brady failed in every category, physical characteristic of a quarterback, but he had the heart and the traits that made him very successful, he was a seven time Super Bowl winner. Trung (17m 5s): And so from that standpoint, how do we kind of personality profile that? And how we do the cognitive and personality testing, we need to validate that these are the traits that successful people in the field have? So we spent six months interviewing and monitoring with wearables and EEG and look at how they think, how they act. And we came up with a screening process to actually test for traits. Chad (17m 30s): Okay. Trung (17m 30s): To see if someone actually has the, sometimes in the NFL, they call the "intangibles", but have the characteristics that you want in a good cyber operator and a good leader. Chad (17m 40s): How does that actually equate to a digital twin? Tell me about a digital twin. Trung (17m 44s): So the digital twin is really for the second product, our main product, which is Omni par, which is where we're constantly monitoring the individual for their mental health. So, what we want to do, like I said earlier, we want to kind of model both your biometric with wearables and, and your physcometric data to see how things impact you. Now, what in your life is actually causing you stress, you know, what coping strategies actually helping you improve. And because we're actually modeling with an AI that actually takes in all this data, creates a baseline who you normally are, looks at the variants in regards how you're different from that baseline. We're very much your twin. In regards to that, we represent everything we know about you in regards to the biometric physcometric data or what's going on in your life. Trung (18m 27s): And we try to individualize our recommendations based upon how that model is predicting how you'll react. Chad (18m 35s): Can you employ see this data? Who's this data available to overall? Trung (18m 38s): So we actually believe that you own your data. We don't think there's marketing involved cause we build our models off of individual data. Chad (18m 44s): Who can see the data? That was my question. I don't care who owns it at this point, who can see, who has access to my data. Trung (18m 50s): So you and anyone you want to give it to. So if you want to go to the psychiatrist therapist, you want to self-advocate and you want to given your history, you can actually send that to them or print it out and give it to them. Or if you want give it to a friend or family member, if you're kind of like a little cry for help, you can do that as well. But you're the only one that allowed to actually send your data to anybody. Chad (19m 11s): Okay. So government is really against the private collection of personal data other than themselves, because you know, the government does what the government wants to do. It's kind of like do, as I say, not as I do kind of a scenario, so you can get away with this shit with the military. Easily. Right, right. But it's going to be much harder to do in the civilian sector. How do you get past that? Trung (19m 30s): Well, I, again, I think, you know, you have to kind of think through the fact that, you know, information in the aggregate, you know, how many people in your company are happy, how many people are in through sad are things that, you know, we can look at. There's two facts that I think people get confused about. There was an essential study that said only a third of people objected to being monitored. And of that third, it was mostly GPS monitoring that they worry about no one wanted they're boss to know they're having an extended lunch or something like that. A little less important today. With, you know, people working at home. Hang on, and secondly, we, you know, the HR companies attitude, that we are interviewing HR companies, like, what do you guys want? Trung (20m 10s): What do you want to see? What you want monitor? And even with the military, they're like, we don't want to get into personal stuff. Right? That's not our job. We're not gonna nanny. We're not here to help them make happy all the time. We just want to know that if they're having issues then we want to have a conversation. That's been our goal in regards to this kind of stuff is, you know, if they need help, you can start a conversation from a commercial standpoint. You know, if you're a group as a whole, is having problems, the manager can have a conversation, we're not here to tell them exactly what's wrong here, or, you know, where, you know, there's a huge issue on your own, but is there an issue in a group? Now we want to spark a conversation and the military standpoint, they do want to know if you're having individually problem on your own. Trung (20m 52s): But the commanders don't want that data, they don't want to look for, you know, your mental health over the last 90 days, they don't care. They just want to talk to you and see if they can do anything to help and that's really what it comes down. Joel (21m 4s): All right, Trung, let's keep it going here. Let's talk about sales and marketing, probably your favorite topic. What's the strategy around that? Do you really need an Instagram for a company like this? You have 36 or so followers, your newsletter signup is above the fold. You know, is it really that important that it needs to be that a high up on the site? What's going on with sales and marketing? What's the strategy? Trung (21m 26s): Well, that was for crowdfunding. We did a crowdfunding round with Republic back in July. So a lot of our social media is based on that. It's not really for our customers, right? It's just general awareness of our company for people who want to invest in us. And so from that standpoint, that's it. From a strategy standpoint in regards to go to market, it's mostly, you know, our success in the military, converting over to cyber groups in the commercial world. If we make the best people, cyber people in the country, better, the US military, we have a good argument to go into your separate group and help them become better. And every company has a cyber division. Joel (21m 60s): Okay. Trung (22m 0s): So that's kinda the idea for us. Joel (22m 1s): Okay. Okay. In terms of extra expense, it looks like, you know, I can wear Oura Ring, I guess, an Apple watch. I have to have some device, right to use your service? And is that an extra expense for a company and or government entity? Is that a challenge for you or a threat to the business that you have to supply this? If you buy a company, a bunch of Oura Rings and all of a sudden Oura Rings become obsolete or not cool anymore, do you have to replace that? Like talk about the actual hardware of the business and what kind of challenges that brings? Trung (22m 31s): Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the things that we did want to do is build our own wearable. There's $64 billion being spent on wearables today. So it didn't make sense for us build another one. We actually support a wide range of wearables from Whoop to Apple watch, to like Google Fitbit and all of those kind of things. So we have the interfaces to access all of that. What we see is that all of them are going basically the same feature set of things that you can measure. It's only so much you can measure biometrically. And so we're praying agnostic, you know, the cost of the devices included in the cost of subscription. So, you know, you get, you know, basically, you know, that's wrapped up in the cost you get a ring as part of our service. Trung (23m 15s): And we're pretty flexible. You know, we want to go in the next couple of years to bring your own wearable model, right. BYOW and so, you know, working in the same data for everybody, you can argue about the quality of it, but we're not really looking for accuracy, we're looking for trends and deviation, so we don't need to have to the 12th decimal. Joel (23m 34s): So help me understand what you said the cost goes toward the device? Trung (23m 39s): So part of cost, as far as the cost includes the device. Joel (23m 42s): But it's not your device, it's an Oura Ring or it's something else? Trung (23m 47s): Yes that's correct. Joel (23m 47s): Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Chad (23m 47s): Let's talk, go to market strategy with regard to, you know, who you're going to partner with or not partner with, you're going to go direct to the clients, the big brands, or you going to a partner with other organizations to try to get in through the back door? Trung (24m 2s): We plant to go direct initially. And like I said, we're using our chops in the cyberspace to show people that, you know, we're successful there. We've already have talks with certain finance companies, large banks who are interested because cyber is really important to them. And keeping employees is really hard. 56% of cyber operators want to quit their jobs. So that's what we're doing directly there. Our partnerships are really on the referral side. We're looking to, you know, see if there's a telemedicine marketplace that we can tie to. Like doctors on demand? Or something like that, where we can get a good variety of providers, because, you know, we realize that our app alone can't solve your problem if you have real problems, we need to hand you off to somebody, if you need chemicals or drugs. Trung (24m 43s): And so we were wanting a partner in that side of it so that we don't have to build our own provider network. Chad (24m 51s): Am I correct in saying that you are going to try to go through human resources and talent acquisition to be able to better cover the employee experience side, is that who you're going to be selling to mainly? Trung (25m 3s): So the answer is yes and no. So yes, we are telling to them, and no we're going directly to the divisions. So your manager or the VP in charge of cyber, you know, the CSO, we talked to them about, you know, this is the benefits we did, you know, to these other organizations, would you like to try it? We're kind of looking at docu a, you know, Dropbox or Slack model where certain parts of the company start using it. And then all of a sudden it becomes across the entire company because people start enjoying it. And so that's kind of more of our strategy. We are going to go through front door for them to take our execs that, you know, are willing to kind of do that. Then we're more than like, we're welcome, happy to do an entire company at once. Trung (25m 44s): But we also have the second door, second avenue in of trying to get within each division. And then growing from those divisions out. Joel (25m 54s): This sounds really expensive Trung. As a customer, what can I expect to pay? Is it like per employee? Talk about the pricing. Trung (26m 5s): Sure. It's per employee, you know, it's roughly 1200, 300 ways to ring. And so when you look at, you know, our costs per se, it's like about 600 and that's, you know, 12 months is for 50 bucks a month ish. So we think that's not too expensive for this type of service we provide. Chad (26m 25s): So tell me about legal threats. We've got all these different regulations that are popping up, whether they're local to state, or even federal government looking at prospectively, putting some regulations in place around personal data. We just saw a HireVue is now under class action lawsuit in the state of Illinois because of collecting personal data. So what kind of threats do you see and how would you actually guard against those? Trung (26m 56s): Sure. I mean, there's a lot of discussion about aggregating data and regards to doing big data analytics, looking at, you know, demographics and trends like that, all for anonomized. So we actually don't know who the you are and we don't really care what your gender, race, sex is or wherever it is that because, you know, from standpoint of us, it's your, just your data that we model. And then we try to help, right. And you own the data. So, you know, from our standpoint, we check all the boxes in data privacy, because we don't own the data. We don't share it with any third parties. We don't share with anyone like that. And that, especially important for biometrics, if, you know, if we, if you get data from the ring, you know, if you share with a, third-party like, Hey, you know, Chad, Chad, isn't a running very often. Trung (27m 36s): Maybe you shouldn't mark them like tennis shoes and stuff like that. We don't know, A, you're Chad and B you know, all that data that we're collecting goes right into your model. And so we actually don't store it about biometrics. We just aggregate within the model that that's you, which is your digital twin. And it's a really input/output kind of thing that it gets modified or adjusted as a new data comes in. But it's all your stuff. Joel (28m 3s): Alright, Trung, your time is up and it's time to face the firing squad. Are you ready? Trung (28m 8s): I'm ready. Chad (28m 9s): Here we go. Joel (28m 10s): I'm going to go first, baby. Alright, Trung, you had me at government contracts, I think. I was a really sort of confused as to what the market was, who was going to buy this and then when you said the army and the military, a light sort of went off in my head as to, in terms of the opportunity being pretty huge, particularly in the international opportunity. And then when you threw in the mental health and wellbeing of healthcare workers and education and other government workers, I'm sure there are some IRS workers that need a little mental health and maybe some postal workers that could use a device like this. So, so from that perspective, I think that once you start laying the groundwork with customers like that, you're going to be in really good shape from that aspect. Joel (28m 56s): The second sort of bridge that I see this should be successful for you, is the corporate side of things in terms of, allowing people to have cool products that they would probably like to have anyway, I think is going to be a really great advantage for you. So number one is never make your own device. When you said, we're thinking about making our own shit, like do not do that. Nobody's going to want to wear the Amplio, you know, ring or something like that. But if you can tap into the Oura Ring or giving people free Apple watches or something like that, then it's a benefit to the employee as opposed to like, oh, you have to wear this crappy, you know, device that some vendor made. So I think if you can tie in the corporate side with, Hey, we're going to give your employees like a really cool sort of device. Joel (29m 40s): And as long as they understand that, Hey, this is not invading your privacy. This is just sort of keeping track of your mental health and wellbeing. And by the way, you have to wear it because you're an employee. I think, although that could be a little bit of a challenge. I think that most companies, or a lot of companies can't get over that if they get to have a cool device like the Oura Ring. I like that you're going to raise money. I think you're going to need it. You're going to need some more brains on staff. I think you're going to need eventually some marketing people to get your site in order and get some of those things. I understand that it's not a huge deal, but if you're going to go to the corporate sector, you need to have a design that makes you look like a professional site and warrants their money. Joel (30m 21s): So for me, dude, I think, you know, I'm being long winded, but you really had me at government contracts. I think that you can solidify those and have a pretty damn successful business. sfx (30m 33s): Applause. Joel (30m 34s): Are you ready for Chad? Trung (30m 35s): Sure, absolutely. That was great feedback. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Joel (30m 40s): Go get 'em Chad. Chad (30m 40s): Oh, Trung you had me at hello when you said government contracts as well and then you lost me when you said that you're going to try to go direct to brands. I think there's no question that, you know, when you're talking about personal data collection, Apple does it, Google does it, in our space, HireVue, does it. You know, there's some ins and outs of where that could go wrong, but why not jump in with both feet, especially in the government sector. And since you already have case studies and business cases set up, then stay incredibly tightly focused on what you know, and that's cyber. Chad (31m 20s): At least at this point, right? And again, stay away from the HR side of the house because let's face it, HR is too risk averse to pull the trigger on something which collects personal data, whether the employer see it or not. And employees are way too cautious to allow their employer such intimate information. It's already hard enough to retain good employees without feeling like, you know, the burnout is just the cover for them to extract personal data. If a person has a heart condition, you know, they're going to be thinking to themselves, is this going to increase insurance rates and then will the company fire me there, all these things from a perception standpoint, you're going to have to fight if you go broad base versus being more focused on government and cyber. Chad (32m 10s): I'm a big fan. But again, until you get things tightened up on a go to market, on a sales and marketing side of the house, I'm going to go with a golf clap. sfx (32m 21s): Soft clapping. Trung (32m 22s): Okay. Joel (32m 23s): Thank you, Trung. Trung (32m 23s): No problem. Joel (32m 24s): You have survived to the firing squad. How do you feel? Trung (32m 28s): I feel good. I feel good. Yeah. So I appreciate you guys' feedback. We're definitely moving forward and we thank you for the information. I appreciate that. Joel (32m 36s): So for our listeners out there who want to know more about Amplio? Where would you send them trunk? Trung (32m 44s): You can send emails to myself, trung@amplio.ai, or contact amplio.ai if you want to and then we'll respond as soon as we can. Joel (32m 53s): Excellent. Another one survived Chad. And another one is in the can. Chad and Cheese (32m 56s): We out. OUTRO (32m 56s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

Unicorn alert! 🦄🦄🦄 Multiverse, a startup that hopes to make apprenticeships commonplace, has joined the ranks of the billion dollar valuation club. And the boys are as excited about it as the Marvel Multiverse 😘... maybe even more. Less so enthusiastic is Ripple Match, who also just raised a bunch of cash to help college kids get jobs (stop us if you think you've heard this one before). Fizzy drink Bubly embraces the LBGTQ community and Buy-or-Sell with Hourly, Teal and Five to Nine is played on this episode as well. And capping off a solid effort, a pet psychic is proving once again that a sucker is born every minute. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. sfx (0s): Hey Hosers. We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show. INTRO (3s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (24s): Oh yeah. Air Canada cancels nearly 10% of Toronto flights over seven days as staffing crunches continue. Wait a minute why am I getting Canadian news? Oh yeah. I'm in Quebec. Hey boys and girls you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "Quebecois" Cheeseman. Chad (44s): And this is Chad "Nein, Tesla. Nein" Sowash. Joel (48s): And on this week's show metaverse, shmetaverse, it's all about the multi-verse now a game of buy or sell and pet psychics. Let's do this. Greetings from Canada, Chad. sfx (1m 5s): Cuckcukcuckoo Chad (1m 6s): They let you in? Seriously? Joel (1m 7s): Well, I'm married to a Canadian, so that's kind of a deal breaker for keeping me out of the country. Chad (1m 14s): Yeah. They're very polite up there, so they just kind of probably looked at you a little funny smiled and said, "On your way". Joel (1m 21s): Oh my God, just the border patrol people are so nice. You know, but granted, no one's going into Canada much these days. We didn't have much of a problem getting into the country, but. Chad (1m 30s): Yeah. Joel (1m 30s): So very nice. So I had to come someplace where rude people were, which apparently is Quebec. So we got in last night, pretty late, had dinner with some of my wife's cohorts in education. So I haven't had a chance yet, I prepare for the show and we're doing the show, but after this, I'm going to go out with my Bruce Springsteen t-shirt and see what kind of trouble I can get into in Quebec, Canada. Chad (1m 56s): That's just sad. All the way around. Joel (1m 60s): That's sad. It's sad. It's so sad. Dude, we're talking before the show, man, you are wound tight. We need to get you back to Portugal ASAP to get you on a beach, drinking a Mai Tai, whatever it is that you have there. But this show could be interesting. You're salty, you're salty. Chad (2m 16s): In the land of de-stressing and a bunch of, it's easier when you're kind of like away from the dumb shit. But when you're back here in the US you just get flooded with dumb shit, fucking constantly from people who should know better. So, you know, it's yeah, I do. I need my drink. I need my beach. I need my wife and all of that back in Portugal. Joel (2m 40s): Yeah. Lots of dumb shit. It's fun when you come to Canada and all your news is like, you know, location-based and the stories are so much lighter than what you get in this states. Chad (2m 51s): Yes. Joel (2m 51s): It's like someone got hit by a moose on the 401, you know, that's kinda like heavy hitting news here in Canada. Chad (2m 58s): Yeah. That happened in the US it would be not, it would all be focused on how they could bring fear to being hit by moose. You know, this is why we need these guns, these goddammn moose. Joel (3m 10s): Yeah. They would've claimed the moose had a gun and that we need more guns to fight the moose. Should we get to shout outs? Chad (3m 17s): Fucking assholes. Yes. Joel (3m 20s): All right. Let's get to, iHire. Yes. Who job board news. Chad, the job board announced the launch of quote, "find your niche, a career podcast", the job board as launched a podcast. It's not going to be the last, the bi-weekly podcast explores the journeys of job seekers from all walks of life to inspire listeners, to find work that aligns with their passion. Chad are ready to subscribe to iHire's new podcast. Chad (3m 50s): I'm a big fan of anybody who wants to pull up a mic and do a podcast. Right? I think everybody should try it. Unfortunately, you're only going to get about six deep with most podcast, most podcasts, because they run out of content. They find out how hard it is to get content. But yeah, I think a good, good for them. I, you know, we're seeing podcasts pop up left and right. You know, in our industry, you know, whether they can maintain and weather the storm of all the other podcasts? We'll see. Joel (4m 24s): Podcasts or the new blogs. Remember when every company, every employee at every company and every one of their company's employees had to have a blog. Chad (4m 32s): Yeah. Joel (4m 33s): They had about 10 posts in them and they just faded into oblivion. Chad (4m 37s): Exactly. Joel (4m 38s): I'm guessing podcast will be the same. Chad (4m 40s): Well, that being said, my first shout out, goes to my TikTok debut kids. That's right. I actually did a debut TikTok with HR Manifesto. She was on the show about a month or so ago. You can go into our interviews and, and check her out. She's she has over half a million followers. We actually did a HR coaching sessions. I was the dumb white male employee, which was an easy role for me to get ready for it already has 300,000 views, nearly 600 comments and 37,000 likes. Chad (5m 20s): How in the fuck? Joel (5m 21s): Is this a duet on her account? Chad (5m 23s): It's on her account. It's not a duets. It's actually just something that we recorded together. Joel (5m 27s): OK. Chad (5m 27s): So, yeah. So, and we're going to be do more of these because obviously it got a really, really good traction and it was fun and yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So now she was like, okay, now you've got to start posting shit on your account. So I actually started that and we'll see how it goes. Joel (5m 44s): Yeah. You'll be glad to know that the algorithm saw fit to put you in my feed this morning as I was scrolling through. So I see Chad is now active on TikTok. What could possibly go wrong? Well from TikTok to LinkedIn chat, it's time to talk about another poll that I did last week. I asked ZipRecruiter's future? Bullish or Bearish? About 250 people chimed in! 36 are bullish, but a whopping 64% are bearish on ZipRecruiter. Interestingly, most of the bullish people were in the industry. Joel (6m 24s): Most of the bearish folks are actually TA people. So take that for what you will. But I had to talk about my poll. Now you're more interested in how many people saw it, but decided not to say shit. Chad (6m 35s): Yeah. Yeah. What's that number up to now? Cause that was a pretty, it was a pretty sizable number. Joel (6m 42s): Yeah. Between eight and eight, 9,000 people have seen the posts a 250 votes. So it's roughly 2% of people have, have chimed in. Which I don't know any numbers from LinkedIn that have been released about what percentage is normal for a survey. But if you're, or comparing it to email two, 3%, isn't probably crazy. But yeah, a lot of people saw it and either passed it by, or maybe, you know, pontificated for awhile, but decided not to chime in. Chad (7m 10s): Said, who's ZipRecruiter? Joel (7m 10s): Yeah, for sure. I did a, actually it was spawned by an interview I did with Aim Group. They're doing a story on ZipRecruiter. So I was curious what the public thought, what my followers thought. So there you go, 64 are bearish on ZipRecruiter. And I think it's fair to say Wall Street is equally bearish on ZipRecruiter at this point. Chad (7m 31s): Yeah. Yes. Last or actually this week, you couldn't make the European show because you are off in the great white north. Lieven and I actually talked about the Tesla and how German is smacking down that 40 hour a week comment. Well, shout out this week goes to Atlassian who trolls, Tesla and poaches talents on it. Atlassian's career homepage this message pops up when you get in their quote, "welcome Tesla friends, we're at Atlassian and we work from anywhere" end quote. Obviously targeting Elon's you have to work 40 hours in the office, internal email at Tesla. This is interesting. And I loved the trolling and hell. Chad (8m 11s): Why not? If you can poach good talent, do it. Joel (8m 13s): Yeah, for sure. I'm all good for a little gorilla campaign. Sticking it to the competition. There needs to be more of that in corporate life. It's a, you know, common thing in politics. I think it needs to be more common in corporate America. Let's stick it to the competition. And speaking of competition, Chad, your favorite bank is back in the news. Chad (8m 38s): Wells Fargo? Joel (8m 39s): Wells Fargo is going to temporarily suspend a hiring policy that led some managers to conduct sham interviews of nonwhite and female candidates following a report by the New York Times that we highlighted last week and our show. The bank's chief executive Charles Scharf told employees in a letter on Monday, the case that these interviews were being paused, no word on whether or not they're going to fix it. They're just pausing it at this point. Chad, is it too early to do our Christmas naughty or nice list? Because I got a bank that I want to put squarely on my coal in your stocking column. Chad (9m 18s): Yes. And again, anybody listening to this podcast, if you have money in Wells Fargo, pull that shit out. Find a different bank. These guys are nothing but pure Joel (9m 27s): Dog shit, Chad (9m 28s): Dog shit yes. Joel (9m 28s): And from dog shit to free shit, Chad, we can't have a show without mentioning the fact that you can get free shit on the Chad and Cheese podcast. Just head out to Chadcheese.com click the free link. We're talking about. T-shirts from Emissary, beer from our friends at Pillar and whiskey from the folks at Textkernel. What are you waiting for? Go to Chadcheese.com for your chance to win free shit today. Chad (9m 55s): That's right. Don't forget also! Events are back kids!! Events are fucking back. RecFest is happening July 7th at Knebworth Park. That's right. England!! That's where all the cool kids go to listen to the music and apparently to go to recruiting open air conferences. Cause this is the biggest recruiting/TA open air conference in the world. At least that's how it's, that's how it's marketed. So we're going to be there. We're going to be on the disrupt stage. We're going to be emceeing it all day and we're going to have some surprise guest emcees joining us. But if you don't have your tickets, I don't know what the hell you're waiting for. Go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right hand corner, register, get your tickets and we will see you there. Joel (10m 39s): That's right and if you're going to be there and you're on this, list, I'm about to read off. Make sure you come by and see us. We'll buy you a beer. This is our birthday lists from fans of the show. We're talking birthdays. Yeah. W whatever, the free beer, we'll give you a free beer from the show, which gives free beer. Anyway, Christina , I'm guessing, I'm saying that, right? She has another a year around the sun, our friend Mark Anderson, who keeps promising a trip on his pontoon boat guys, but still hasn't delivered. He celebrates a birthday. Scott Allen from Melbourne. One of our favorite places that we've never been. Joel (11m 20s): Liz Wessel, our friend, Jim Stroud, occasionally co-hosts as a guest, Doug Munro. Chad (11m 26s): Ooh! Joel (11m 26s): And Philly, Nancy, Nancy Beresovoy. Hopefully I'm saying that correctly? Celebrates a birthday. Everyone. We hope you have a good one. It's our list of birthdays for the week. Chad (11m 51s): TOPICS! Joel (11m 51s): All right, Chad, who needs college when you have apprenticeships? Multi-verse has closed a series D of $222 million with its post money valuation coming in at yet, you guessed it! sfx (12m 8s): Pink Fluffy Unicorns music Joel (12m 9s): $1.7 billion. Multi-verse charges employers, a small recruitment fee for sourcing apprentices for them, and then charges them for the cost of training, which accounts for the majority of its revenue. Jobs that are covered in the multi-verse range from software engineers through to data analysts, professional services and related roles. The community, which includes apprentices as well as coaches, now numbers 8,000 people. Clients include the likes of Cisco and Verizon, the New York and London based company, which was founded in 2016 has now raised a grand total of $414 million and employs around 650 people according to LinkedIn. Joel (12m 52s): Chad, it's not Marvel's multi-verse but it's a multi-verse worth talking about. What are your thoughts? Chad (12m 58s): Well, first and foremost, the CEO and co-founder Euan Blair is the son of ex-prime minister, Tony Blair, and high profile barrister, Sherry Booth Blair, so the kid is obviously pulling himself up by his bootstraps. No matter. This is a great idea and last week, we were talking about Guild, hitting quad unicorn. I believe I said, anyone in this space would thrive, especially if you're doing it right, especially in the U S why? Because we suck at creating actual talent pipelines, real and effective talent pipelines, because we don't tap into the talent while they are learning to ensure that there is no skills gap, right? Chad (13m 39s): We just wait for the perfect candidate to suddenly appear or align and cry and say that the skills gap sucks, right? While waiting for the US government to hand out corporate welfare, same thing. Blair said, the CEO said, which I love quote, "a Cardinal rule for Multi-verse is that it must be free to the apprentice and they must be paid a salary". He added, "we provide employers with a platform that gives them access to non graduate talent from diverse backgrounds and the ability to re-skill those who need it. Brilliant coaches employed by us to deliver the training supported by our tech as a formal credential for the individual in their chosen field and specialism and a vibrant community experience" Chad (14m 28s): end quote. So this kid has it, all the pedigree, the experience, and now the money to thrive in a much needed education and training space. He should move toward the US at light speed because our lame ass hiring companies with their anemic talent pipelines need this desperately. Joel (14m 46s): Yeah. You know, I keep doing these stories and we do these stories every week and we also talk about recession and hear about it everyday. But if you look at the money that keeps coming into our industry, you'd think there's no fucking recession whatsoever. I keep thinking that the dollars will dry up, but they don't seem to. Chad (15m 4s): Not yet. Joel (15m 4s): It's kind of amazing. All right. Back back to multi-verse. So college debt, let's talk about that for a second. The average college debt among student loan borrowers and America is $32,731. That's from last year. That means everyone graduating from a liberal arts college with generally no skills whatsoever has a debt out the gate of 30,000 plus dollars. There are a lot of people that don't want to go to college. There are a lot of people that don't need to go to college, but they don't have a road or an exit to do something else that's been really clear. So along comes Multi-verse, which says, you know what? You don't need to go to college or even community college. Joel (15m 46s): You can get skills that will get you hired immediately through our apprenticeship program. So I think that you're seeing a wave of students, of young people saying, I don't really want to go to college. I don't want to pay and have the debt that is going to be wrapped around my neck for 10 plus years after college. What can I do? I think these guys are positioned great for that segment. The second part of that is the companies, right? So we know that companies are struggling to hire tech talent. They would love to like, just have a funnel going into their company. Chad (16m 17s): Easy button. Joel (16m 18s): People that can work for their company, with the skills that they need. So that enters the mentors in this program. You're probably paying a little bit less because they don't have the experience, real-world style, so you're maybe saving a little bit money. But I think also more importantly as you're probably getting a really loyal employee. So if you get a kid out of high school, you bring them into your company, you teach them the skills, you know, you bred him into the culture he's going to be much less likely than to leave in any fast pace. So in this case, you're getting a huge win-win with Multi-verse, you're getting young people that aren't going to be saddled with debt that shouldn't have gone to college in the first place, but feel like, well, that's what my parents want me to do. Joel (17m 1s): And that's what society says I should do. They have an off-ramp an alternative to that. And then you have companies that are getting the talent that they need to perform the jobs that they need done. And you're getting hopefully a more loyal employee, which means retention is less of a factor. So for me, like this is a fantastic business, right place, right time. Ultimately, if you're on the other end of this, the question becomes, what do colleges do about it? If anything? I mean, we know that here locally in Indiana, we have Purdue who has a program of if you graduate with an engineering degree, you're going to give the school a percentage of your profits or your salary for a certain period of time. Joel (17m 40s): So I think it'll be interesting to see if this does take off in a big way. Do colleges react accordingly and do do fees come down or do colleges get more creative? But I think the market is pushing change and I think that change is really good. Really good. I'd say big applause from both of us, for Multi-verse. Chad (17m 57s): Yeah. I love that the company is paying the freight, right. We talked to Sabio a few weeks ago and I love what they're doing, the only thing I hate is that they're charging the student, right? There has to be some skin in the game. Totally get that, appreciate that. But the company should be paying the freight. They're the ones who long-term are going to be making huge cash, huge profits off of these individuals. So I mean, it just, our system is bass ackwards, and we need to get it fixed. And I think that organizations like this platforms like this who are tweaking how the freight is actually carried there, that's a huge, huge applause in my book. Joel (18m 39s): Yeah. And not even making money for the company, but saving money for the company in terms of recruiting costs, in terms of turnover and attrition, I think it's a huge win. So if you haven't checked out, Multi-verse? We both recommend that you do so at your leisure. Well, let's see if another company that got funding this week gets a similar reaction to the Chad and Cheese podcast? RippleMatch. Gen Z era Joyce RippleMatch has just raised $45 million in series B cash, bringing the grand total to $79.2 million dollars. RippleMatch acts as an alternative to the traditional job board process by using matching and automation to bring opportunities directly to candidates at over 1500 schools. Joel (19m 23s): They expect to triple the number of candidates who find a job through the platform this year, and plan to use the funding to double the size of its internal team and continue to invest in technology. Watch out handshake the Ripple is in the house. Chad, your thoughts, Chad (19m 47s): The ripple, give me some ripple and put some champagne in it Joel (19m 51s): Cheap beer yeah. Chad (19m 52s): Champipple. So it's interesting that, you know, with $205 million valuation, wasn't higher? We've seen so many bloated valuations. I wonder if that has anything to do with them, not disclosing revenues. It feels like their revenues really aren't that big. The Tams there, the opportunity is there, but it doesn't seem like they're getting traction on the revenue side. We both sold this company in a segment of buy or sell back in April of last year, right? And let's quickly set the table. Handshake $434 million in funding, and WayUp was acquired by Yello. So why are college systems getting so much damn cash or acquired? Chad (20m 35s): Well, first it's a large and diverse population entering the workforce and it's a hell of a lot easier to match someone with little to no experience than trying to build an algorithm, to identify guys like you and I with 20 years of experience in a specific industry at numerous companies with several roles, right? So from a tech standpoint, it's going to be a hell of a lot easier. And with boomers leaving the workforce, holes need to be filled. Why X-ers and Ys move up the ladder. That is why they're getting the cash. The story is easy, but the execution is another story, which is why I found this quote in Forbes, somewhat interesting. Chad (21m 18s): "The new funding will allow RippleMatch to hire more engineers, data scientists, and project managers to boost its job matching technology". And then this, "we started to realize we could actually replace job boards with technology that could bring the right opportunities directly to candidates, kind of the way that TikTok brings the right content". So I really want to like this company, but I don't, because it seems as if they just don't understand the market and how competitors like Handshake are already embedded into colleges and universities. Better matching tech matching should be easy. How about better marketing to drive brand awareness? So from the outside, looking in, I really want to like this organization, but man, this is a huge sell for me. Chad (22m 4s): It's hard to articulate just how wrong this startup is right now. Joel (22m 7s): You are salty. I warned you kids at the beginning of the show that Chad is pretty salty. Look, if you listen to this show, you know, I hate college recruitment businesses. Appealing to fickle kids that come and go, and the never-ending rotation of kids you service and different opinions and different brands that come and go, you're not cool anymore, or whatever? Growth prospects are. Limited competition is tough. You mentioned WayUp, you mentioned Handshake. You and I have seen so many solutions come and go that are targeting the college market. More money invested means more stupid shit like, we're taking on LinkedIn. You know, when Handshake came out and said, oh, we're going to, we're going to justify our new funding round by saying, we're gonna take on LinkedIn. Chad (22m 51s): That's a cry for help is what that is. Joel (22m 55s): This is going to be something we see throughout our entire careers in this industry. People that come and go targeting in a new cool way to basically have give college kids access to jobs. I don't get it. I won't buy it. Can't recommend it. For me if this was buy or sell, I'd sell it again. I'd sell it over again and again and again. RippleMatch. No, no, not having it. Chad (23m 19s): And you're calling me salty? Joel (23m 20s): Yeah. Yeah. I need to calm down. You're getting me excited, man. We need to take a break. Let's take a quick break, take a breath and we'll talk about PepsiCo and more buy or sell, which definitely will not get us more fired up. Chad (23m 35s): Yes! Joel (23m 35s): All right. Chad, feel better? Chad (23m 38s): I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Yeah. It's starting to de-tense a little bit. Joel (23m 45s): The cognac shot I did while we were taking a break there. All right. Let's talk Pepsi and Bubly, one of your favorite favorite drinks. Chad (23m 52s): Bubly or Bublé ? Michael Buble likes it to Bublé . Joel (23m 54s): Pretty marketing campaign by that. Who Michael Bublé is a Canadian, by the way. Did you know that? Chad (23m 58s): Very nice guy. Yes. Joel (23m 60s): He is a nice guy. He and Bieber hangout, by the way, I'm on our way here. My wife kept pointing out like, oh, Avril Levine's from this town. Oh, this is where Celine Dion is from. So I don't know why all Canadians know where every famous Canadians from anyway? Chad (24m 17s): Because there aren't that many of them. Joel (24m 19s): There aren't that many. Yeah. There's one for every 10 Americans. So PepsiCo's Bubly is calling attention to the importance of LGBTQ safe spaces and the chosen families fund they're in with a pride month campaign. A video short stars, musician, Naomi McPherson, one of your favorites as Jack a non-binary individual who initially expresses trepidation when entering a LGBTQ bar, but is quickly, welcomed. Bubly, also partnered with the Stonewall Inn gives back initiative to provide 100,000 relief to LGBTQ safe spaces that have struggled in the wake of the pandemic. Joel (25m 1s): The effort shows the PepsiCo owned, sparkling water brand, making a firm show of support to LGBTQ consumers who may be experiencing increased adversity. Chad, put down your Pepsi Clear and tell me what you think about this move. Chad (25m 15s): Yeah. So you have to back away and really think about what they're trying to do here. Right? So question to you, have you ever walked into a place and felt judged automatically? Joel (25m 28s): No. Chad (25m 28s): Yeah. Yeah. As middle-aged white dudes, we really don't. Right. But imagine being a gay young man getting dressed up, walking into a bar here in Indiana in high heels and nails freshly done, right? In most cases, they're going to feel judged. And then anybody from their community is going to feel judged as soon as they walk into the door. Wouldn't be nice to have a place to feel accepted and only judged because of the nail color that you chose that day? You know, it's pride month and one thing that I am so sick of is the rainbow logos. It's pandering at its best. Chad (26m 9s): And some companies, you know, who are embracing the LGBTQ plus community, they have employee resource groups, including community in diverse outreach and hiring strategies. And in this case with Pepsi, they truly understand the community in what they need, the need to be themselves. Maybe they aren't out of the closet yet and they just want to be themselves. They want to go to a place where they can be themselves. Maybe they are, and they don't enjoy the experience of an Irish pub. Right. Maybe, maybe they are out and they just, you know, they don't feel comfortable in an Irish pub. Joel (26m 37s): Sure. Chad (26m 37s): So this to me is a great way for a company like Pepsi to say, we get it, we understand, and we want to do something about it. So this goes all the way back to 1969 and Stonewall Inn New York, that was a safe place that literally attacked. And for a company like Pepsi to say, we want to be able to provide funds to fund more safe places to me is an act that the community will embrace. And it means something more than just a rainbow colored logo. Joel (27m 13s): Yeah. The video is about two minutes long. It's really well done. I found the humor sort of disarming, you know, like I think anyone who watches that with sort of arms crossed and like, oh, like you said, another rainbow colored video I think is quickly disarmed and just laughing. And, I even thought at the beginning, this could be a bar I could be in, you know, and then of course, then it gets a little bit, a little bit less out of my worldview from there. But I think that. Chad (27m 38s): The drag Queens? Joel (27m 40s): They did a great job of yeah, they did a great, yeah. It, I think it was really disarming really well done. And I think it, it appealed to people like me as much as it probably would its target audience. By the way, this campaign, I don't know if it was targeting me probably was not, maybe a little bit, but I will say that in the years that we've done this podcast, one of the things I think that has given me is a greater appreciation that life is different for people who aren't white, heterosexual middle-aged men. And in turn, I think I've grown a greater appreciation for companies who produce content and embrace this community because it's something that's fairly alien to me. And like you said, it's, if you don't notice it, you don't notice it. Joel (28m 24s): And being able to notice it and see it, I think is very educational enlightening for a lot of people like me. So I feel like the podcast has been great. It's opened me up to things like this and actually seeing that it's an issue. And then appreciating that there are companies like Pepsi who are willing to create content and provide cash and donations to organizations that are helping this group of people that I wouldn't necessarily normally recognize through my 50 plus years of life as a, you know, middle-aged white guy in middle America. So for me, that's a huge applause. I would like to see the money be more than a hundred thousand. Joel (29m 3s): That feels a little bit like a couch cushion, you know, extra, extra change to someone like Pepsi. I'd like to see that number, get, you know, five X or 10 Xed to do, to do something more, make an impact. And if you look at the press release, they're not very big on the number. They're just very big on the donation. So I'd like to get a little bit more checks written to organizations like this from companies like Pepsi, who let's be honest can afford it. Chad (29m 36s): Agreed, agreed. And in a recent survey taken by Jobs Sage 53% of people who were surveyed felt like their company's effort to address social issues were inauthentic or performative, like a rainbow logo. Joel (29m 48s): Great. All right, you ready to play some buy or sell? Chad (29m 52s): Let's do it. Joel (29m 54s): All right, kids, you know the deal, we'll read three companies that got funding this week and it's either going to be a sell rating or Chad and I will buy that company. Let's start with Teal. One, a Chad's favorite colors! Chad (30m 11s): Teal baby. Joel (30m 12s): The Miami Florida based company has raised 6.3 million in seed funding. Teal offers a free platform of web based career tools, including a job tracker, resume builder and Chrome extension that help people accelerate their job search. The company says it has been used by over 65,000 people to get their jobs at companies like Google, Apple, TikTok, Spotify, and Bumble. Chad, are you a buyer sell on Teal? Chad (30m 39s): Well, first and foremost, TEALS, I guess that whoever designed the Teal website totally use the exact same template as Pinpoint HQ. That's what happens when you use a designer from Upwork kids? Anyway, I only needed to hear one thing from the CEO, Dave Fannow, and this is from a TechCrunch article from July of 2020, where he said, quote, "Teal has no interest in becoming a B to B tool that sells into the HR department, but rather wants to focus on the end customer" end quote. That was enough for me. I'm out sell, sell, sell. This is not an organization that I would ever get affiliated with. Joel (31m 21s): Okay. That was quick. Historically. I hate, just like you. I hate companies that make money off the back of job seekers, especially from stuff they can do themselves pretty easily. Job tracker? Sign up for a few email alerts. You need a resume builder? Do a Google search. You need to optimize your LinkedIn profile? Go watch some Craig Fisher videos. However, I do realize people want an easy button and Teal hopes to offer that. And it is free for their users basically. They're making one forty nine, a $149 for their four week bootcamp program of getting a job. But obviously that's not going to be enough to pay the bills and the investors. Joel (32m 4s): So they're going to have to eventually resell data. They're going to have to affiliate marketing the hell out of their users with resume writing writers. They're going to have to like make money off of job postings or maybe feed in some programmatic stuff. Maybe all of it, they're going to have to pivot and they're going to have to rape the job seekers like everyone else that has come before that for them. So although the basic concept of an easy button is fun for job seekers. There's a darker side to this business. And it's one that bends over job seekers and stick some right in the, you know what? Joel (32m 43s): So for me, this one is a huge stinky smelly sell rating. Let's go to Hourly. Maybe they'll feel fair, better. Hourly a workers' comp and payroll startup has raised $27 million in series A financing. This follows a $7.2 million raise back in 2019, the funding will help Hourly expand beyond the state of California, where it was founded. Specifically, Hourly has built an app that tracks working hours generates payroll and then calculates and assigns workers' compensation insurance to individuals based on that information. They have some 1000 customers in areas like construction and retail, all in the state of California, but are eyeing, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada by 2023. Joel (33m 28s): Chad are you a buy or sell on Hourly? Chad (33m 30s): There are plenty of different platforms in this space. Fountain, ShiftSmart, Wage Stream. When I work all in this space, I'm not sure that they all cover, you know, time and attendance, payroll and workers' comp, but currently Hourly's customers are in construction, home services, accounting and retail spaces. So plenty of business to be had there, right? I mean, that's a pretty good Tam for a startup. Here's my problem. They currently, as you'd said, only service California and hourly will be using the funds to continue enhancing its product, to target more verticals. So what they're going to do is even though they're only focused on one state right now, and they have a large enough Tam and a thousand customers, they want to expand verticals as opposed to focus on just regions, right? Chad (34m 28s): So more verticals, their plate is already full and to expand to more markets like you talked about by 2023, man, that's slow as fuck. So I mean, I really like this vertical, these types of platforms, but the problem is they have no focus. And when it comes to expansion, their expansion is going to happen way too slow. So this unfortunately is a sell for me. Joel (34m 56s): Yeah. Chad, you know, the General commercials of car insurance, that's what these guys sound like to me. Okay. Really competitive established players with lots of money. You mentioned some of them, but I'll throw in like an ADP or an Ameritrust or Allstate in a business that scales for shit. Like really California and then three more states next year. No scale. A lot of competition, probably really, really slim profit margins. Oh God, this thing looks like a nightmare to me. Sell, sell Hourly. All right. Two salty guys. We'll talk about Five to Nine next. Joel (35m 37s): No, not the movie starring Dolly Parton, Chad, Five to Nine has closed a $4.25 million seed round launched in 2018, the company software lets enterprises plan programs for their employee resource groups also known as ERGs, which enable employees who share characteristics or experiences to come together, share resources and connect. They also provide attendance and feedback analytics for ERG events so companies can measure the effectiveness of their ERG programs. The company founded by two black women already counts Yahoo, Upwork and Expedia as clients. Chad, I think this is the first time ERG has come up on our show. Joel (36m 20s): Are you a buyer sell on Five to Nine? What a way to make living. Chad (36m 27s): So I've worked with ERGs about my entire professional career. Actually have built ERGs for organizations as well. Julie does the same thing. It sounds so good until they actually said this platform is for ERGs. And here's why, because they are one of the most under resourced groups in any company. They shouldn't be because they actually amplify or could amplify, diverse voices within the organization and also drive great retention and hiring programs, but ERG are under resource and taken for granted, which means there's really no money here. I love this idea, but dammit, man, it's a sell. Chad (37m 9s): There's no money to be had. Joel (37m 13s): Well, as workplace diversity and inclusion programs are becoming more prevalent ERGs are gaining in popularity. News to me, ERGs have been around since the 1960s when black workers at Xerox organized to discuss race-based tension in the workplace. They are increasingly relevant today as gender issues, questions of personal identity and politics affect everyone. I love tech being billed for this niche. You mentioned there's not much money in it, but there might not be many players in it that can take advantage of the money that let's agree that diversity budgets are rising for a lot of organizations, which means there may be, you know, cash in the kitty for a company like Five to Nine. So for me, I love the growth of diversity budgets. Joel (37m 58s): I love organizations embracing inclusion, and I love the founder story. So for me, we will diverse on this one. I'm going to give it a buy. Chad (38m 8s): The diversity dollars are going into TA not ERGs so the funding streams that you're talking about do not exist. Joel (38m 14s): Let's agree that some of these startups, you know, more about than I do, but for the sake of our listeners, I have to give an opinion and there is mine. God damn it. In five years, when these guys go public, I'll have my last laugh. Chad (38m 27s): God I hope they do. I really hope they do. Joel (38m 30s): Speaking of laughs. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk a little pet psychics. sfx (38m 36s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (38m 41s): All right, Chad, who needs a lucrative career as a lawyer when you can be a pet psychic? Well, if you're Nikki Vasconez, a 33 year old from Philly, you do it because you love it and apparently it pays a lot better. That's right. Nikki was making $75K a year as a property lawyer to become a full fledged pet whisperer for big cash. How much cash you ask? Nikki charges, $350 for a one hour session and has a total of 4,000 people on her waiting list, which would be $1.4 million if she sees all of those in the wedding list. Joel (39m 22s): Her training? She's self-taught of course, Chad there's no college degree in pet psychic. A typical reading involves get this, her sitting in a quiet room in her home where she studies a photo of the animal. She telepathically asks the animal a series of questions and records them as well as the animals, in quotes "responses". So owners can listen to the exchange. Chad, you have three dogs. Are you ready to put them on Nikki's waiting list? Chad (39m 56s): I think multi-verse just added a certification by the way. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is funny. I see Caesar on TV and how everybody like, you know, they love Caesar and they watch the TV thing and he makes so much money. And when I read this, I thought this is the stupidest fucking thing in the world. And then I sat down and thought about it. I'm like, this is the smartest fucking thing in the world. People will pay stupid money for this kind of shit. I mean good for her. I mean, again, this feels like the elixir sales person at the carnival, but you know that guy probably made more money than, you know, the bearded lady. Joel (40m 34s): That's right, kids, there are benefits to living amongst a lot of stupid Americans. You can make a lot of money and the good news is there are alternatives to OnlyFans, everybody. sfx (40m 46s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (40m 47s): This is a total crazy pills moment. This chick has like 200,000 followers on TikTok and makes a good living doing this shit. It makes me question my own life choices. And frankly, it makes me want to drink. Chad and Cheese (41m 5s): We out. OUTRO (41m 46s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Vegas, baby! Talking Velocity Global, Wells Fargo, California Pay Transparency, WorkReels and the Unleash Roundup, live from the Lobby Bar! Can you tell we haven’t been let out in awhile? PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps companies find talent in the largest minority community in the world – people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Chad (28s): I'm go now. Okay, so we are recording and I am getting levels. Joel (34s): Check, check, check. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Chad (38s): Okay. Give me a second. I tell Julia where I'm at. Joel (40s): Check, check, check. Snake. Slithery snake. Chad (48s): You look good. You look good. You look good, baby. Joel (53s): We're ready. Chad (54s): We are ready. Ready? Joel (59s): Oh yeah. We are alive from the lobby bar at the MGM Grand boys and girls. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "brain-dead and hung over" Cheeseman. Chad (1m 12s): And this is Chad "fueled by Maker's Mark" Sowash. Joel (1m 15s): And on this week's show, Velocity goes full velociraptor. Wells Fargo sucks and Tik Tok for recruiters. Just shoot me now, God. Let's do this. Chad (1m 30s): Oh shit, dude. This is fucking crazy. Joel (1m 32s): Maybe the most uninspired show will ever do this year. We are so dead at the end of Unleash. Oh, Lucky for you, our listeners we're going to record a goddamn weekly show. Chad (1m 43s): We're here for you. And let me just tell you kids, when you go back to live shows, I want to give you a little advice. Okay. You're going to be excited as fuck, which means your battery's going to run down much quicker, right? So just know you should probably try to schedule a nap in there somewhere. Joel (2m 1s): I've learned that conferences are a full contact sport. Like you have to be prepared physically and mentally for two to three days in Vegas for a recruitment conference. So we, you and I need to get back into conference shape because we are grossly grossly under physiqued for this thing. Chad (2m 23s): Under, under. What is going on? Breaking the news folks. Oh good. God. We just free drinks from Calm. Joel (2m 30s): A vendor just bought us a round of drinks. Sitting next to us, enjoying the podcast. Chad (2m 36s): Meditation app or why me? What is, Joel (2m 37s): Oh, wait, wait, here we go. Well, we'll give you two minutes to tell us about Calm. How does that sound? In return for the drinks? Give us the elevator pitch on call. Ready? Go. Calm Spokeswoman (2m 50s): Thank you so much, Chad and cheese for this amazing opportunity. And I hope you enjoy your drinks that I just brought over for you. Chad (2m 57s): You didn't get the cheapest. Calm Spokeswoman (2m 58s): I got you what you asked me the Makers need. Yeah. So Calm for Business is this amazing offering that we have taken our consumer brand and built it into a business brand. So employers can offer Calm to all their employees as a benefit to really help them be proactive about mental wellness and mental health. In the world that we're living in right now, tragedy and all sorts of awfulness everywhere that's impacting mental health and mental wellness of everyone in the workplace as well. And when you have people at work coming depressed, anxious, stressed, lacking, proper sleep. Calm Spokeswoman (3m 40s): That impacts productivity. That impacts business outcomes. So Calm is here to help employees and the world be proactive about their mental health and their mental resilience, in the form of listening to meditations, listening to sleep stories, listening to calming music, Chad (3m 59s): Is Kenny G on there? That's what I want to know. Calm Spokeswoman (4m 1s): Not yet, but maybe, maybe we can, we can get him there. Yeah. And I got to say coming from me, who's never really been into meditation. I'm obsessed with Calm. I am obsessed for it because I listened to the piano pop covers with my children at night. Oh my God. This is not a Kenny G commercial. Chad (4m 20s): Come on, Nina. Where can we learn more about Calm. Calm Spokeswoman (4m 22s): You can learn more about Calm by visiting calm.com. Chad (4m 30s): Calm.com Calm Spokeswoman (4m 30s): CALM.com. Joel (4m 30s): I love the domain. I love the concept and I'm smelling weed as she's giving that commercial. So I'm so relaxed right now. Calm everybody. Thank you for the drinks. Chad (4m 40s): Thank You for the drinks. Awesome. calm.com. That's right. And I feel much calmer because I got my calm drink. What? My, no, that's my drink. Joel (4m 54s): Oh. As I said, brain dead. Brain dead. Chad (4m 56s): I know. You're trying to steal my drink. That's what it was. Joel (4m 58s): We got the shout outs. Or do you have more to say about the conference. Chad (5m 2s): Shout outs to Calm for God's sakes, shout out to free fucking drinks.. Joel (5m 5s): Shout outs to Calm everybody. Chad (5m 6s): That's nice. That's awesome. Joel (5m 7s): Calm in Vegas, good luck with that. Chad (5m 11s): Shout out to Mark fucking Coleman that dude and his team. Good guide Kate and Vicki and Paige. And I mean the list goes on, man. They worked their asses off for a great fucking conference. So shout out to Mark Coleman. Joel (5m 28s): Tall is Mark Coleman. Chad (5m 29s): Mark Coleman is 7'2" Joel (5m 31s): He's the Adonis of the conference world. Good Lord. Chad (5m 33s): That Irish accent. I mean come on. Just sexy. Joel (5m 37s): Oh come on. I'm in love. So dreaming, dreaming, and who else is dreamy? I'm going to give a shout out to Matt Alder. Chad (5m 43s): The British guy. Joel (5m 44s): The British guy. You know, he, we spent some quality time together. We connected across the pond. We went out for drinks. I had a Laphroaig Scotch. I ordered him a Blanton's mead, which he loved. So we're conquering borders. We're making amends for that British guy label. Matt Alder. Shout out to you, buddy. Shout out to you. Chad (6m 11s): Shout out to my wife who it's our birthday this weekend, right? You, you have to go back home because it's also your anniversary. Happy anniversary. My birthday is tomorrow. Julie. Usually my burn rate in Vegas is three days. We are here for six. Shout out to Julie for yeah. Making sure that I know how to marathon this shit as opposed to sprint. Now her, on the other hand, she's going to have issues. Joel (6m 38s): Yeah. What was her bedtime? The first night here? Chad (6m 41s): e:00 AM. She was at 3:00 AM. Joel (6m 43s): And for those keeping score that 6:00 AM on the east coast, which was the her bodily time zone at the time. Chad (6m 53s): Fucking hilarious. Joel (6m 53s): Shout out to Keith Sonderling you know, people will know him as the commish shout out to him for coming out to Vegas, coming on stage with us, giving us some EEOC knowledge. Chad (7m 8s): Love love. Joel (7m 9s): Rocking the house, bringing down the house, Keith Sonderling, great human being great EEOC commissioner, shout out to Keith Sonderling. Chad (7m 19s): Sonderling. Love it. Love it. Love it. Yeah. I'm reaching for shout outs right now my brain is that shout out to my brain for actually functioning at this point. Joel (7m 31s): Shout out to Terry Baker and the kids at Pandologic. Chad (7m 36s): Oh Damn. Joel (7m 37s): They pulled together an outstanding VIP event for an exclusive exclusive number of folks in the industry. They pulled out all the stops with a skeleton key to the event with get this a Chad and Cheese key chain. It was unreal. Chad (7m 55s): Never done before. Joel (7m 56s): Only way to do it with us as leather, leather binding. Chad (7m 59s): Chaps. Joel (7m 59s): But yeah, there is now a Chad and Cheese key chain. So shout out to the kids at Pandoqlogic and shout out to HireEasy as well. Chad (8m 11s): Higher, easy, not higher ease HireEasy Joel (8m 13s): Hirees, Not hirees Fans are taking pictures as we're doing the show. So excuse us if there's a, Chad (8m 21s): Groupies, we got groupies. Joel (8m 21s): Pause in the action. So shout out to HireEase a great dinner with some great friends, Chad (8m 30s): HireEZ Joel (8m 31s): HireEZ Chad (8m 31s): Joel's brain is also, yeah. Joel (8m 32s): This is, yeah. This is going to be a hell of a edit job for you, Chad. All right. Chad (8m 37s): Well, that's stayin' in... Joel (8m 39s): In, and last but not least, we got to mention it every week we got free shit. Chad. Chad (8m 45s): We do have free shit. Joel (8m 46s): If you like, if you like t-shirts. Chad (8m 50s): Free t-shirts, free beer, free whiskey. Joel (8m 54s): You got to go to Chadcheese.com. Click on the free link. We got t-shirts from Emissary, beer from Pillar and whiskey from our friends at Textkernel. What are you waiting for? Chadcheese.com/free. And Chad already mentioned his birthday little known fact about us born the same year. One day apart, he's May 27. I'm May 28 happy birthday to us. We're in Vegas. You'll still be in Vegas. I'll be back in Indy for the Indy 500 weekend. Happy birthday to us. Chad (9m 27s): Happy birthday to us. Topics! Joel (9m 29s): Topics. All right, we're going to do an Unleash roundup to start this thing. Chad (9m 33s): God damn. Joel (9m 33s): I've got three things that I want to mention about this show. Number one, and this has been talked about in every interview we did today. It's just good to be back. Human beings are social animals. The masks were off. The hugs were given. The hands were shaking. Chad (9m 50s): Yes! Joel (9m 51s): The elbows were rubbed. It was just great to get back and see people and interact. It was really, really nice. Chad (9m 59s): One word, baby! Energy. So much energy. When you go to a conference, generally, you feel like a little bit of energy when you're coming into the conference hall. I think, you know, when we did 2019 and we did 20 shows, it was more like, oh fuck right, man. We walked in, Joel, threw his arms up. Like he just won the fucking World's Series or something. Joel (10m 24s): So, so happy! Chad (10m 25s): So, so excited. Yes. Joel (10m 26s): The next comment is, I believe Unleash is a serious up and comer in the conference space in the US. Chad (10m 34s): No bullshit. Joel (10m 34s): Anyone in Europe will know Unleash, but they're making a full court press to make a big splash in the U S and I think that this show really catapulted them into one of those must attend shows in the US. While others have kind of faded over the last couple of years in COVID. These guys have survived. They're out for blood in the good, old red, white, and blue country. And I think that's worth mentioning in my shout outs. Yeah. Chad (11m 3s): Yep. And I'm telling you right now, dude, we talked about it with Mark survival, baby. Survival of the fittest. They were a one trick pony. When we entered the pandemic. Events only. They have broadened up. They were actually just like everybody in the pandemic, warp speed and their roadmap and the next thing you know, they are more than just an events company now. Joel (11m 28s): And by the way, Jamie Leonard take notes. If you don't think a European conference can make it in the U S Unleash is an example. So I'm talking to you RekFest. Chad (11m 39s): Of course. Joel (11m 40s): There's a circus tent in America with your name on it, to come to America. Chad (11m 45s): All the, like the arena, or like the outside venues and shit that you could do with Rekfest. And again, we have two entirely different conferences, which is awesome. Unleash, incredibly immersive indoors. Then you have RecFest outside. It's a party. But my God, it is, it is fucking exciting. I love those two shows. Yeah. Joel (12m 11s): And my last thing to note is. Chad (12m 14s): Yes. Joel (12m 14s): Dude, the Seth Rogan comparisons have got to stop. Additionally, the Jonah Hill comparisons have to stop. I can kind of stomach the Seth Rogan comparison. But to say that I look like Jonah Hill is just going too far. Spreading these lies and much like the COVID virus it's spreading and it needs to stop. Chad (12m 32s): It is. Joel (12m 33s): It needs to stop. And I'll end with that. I'll end with that. But it's been a great week. Love you Unleash. We'll be back. We'll see you in Paris in October. Chad (12m 42s): Right there. Nina found it. Thank God per Calm. Joel (12m 46s): We're doing Google image searches. Chad (12m 48s): God for Calm because they found the one that looks ex Jonah Hill looks exactly like Joel. Joel (12m 52s): But there are so many Jonah Hills. I mean, he's like a chameleon. I don't know which one. Chad (13m 1s): Okay. That's the Joel. Joel (13m 7s): At least Joe Rogan keeps it consistent. Chad (13m 8s): All right, what's next? Joel (13m 10s): All right. Let's get to velocity global. Chad (13m 12s): Good God. $400 million! Joel (13m 15s): The company announced that it raised $400 million in its Series B funding round. Chad (13m 20s): Series B?! Joel (13m 21s): B as in boy. Yes. Increasing the company's valuation sevenfold since the same time last year. Total raised is %500 million. Funds will be used to enhance customer experience and make further strategic investments in technology, sales and marketing, as well as potential future acquisitions. The Denver Colorado based company founded in 2014, counts more than 1200 clients and 7,000 supported employees worldwide. It has more than 700 employees and 47 countries and plans to more than double the number of employees by the end of the year. Chad Velocity has gone full Velociraptor. Joel (14m 1s): Your thoughts? Chad (14m 2s): That is fucking crazy. 400 million on a series B, right? I mean, you don't see that kind of cash spent on a B. I mean usually Joel (14m 13s): Hello, Remote. Chad (14m 15s): Yes. I mean, so again, you take a look at remote.com. You take a look at all these different organizations that allow you as an employer to hire easily, throughout the world, not just hire, but also they work as pretty much, your extension in those countries. Right? So had some great conversations today. I think most of them actually talked about Remote and how that is going to continue. Whether companies like it or not, it's going to continue. And $400 million, I think is fucking ridiculous. But I'm going to tell you right now, these guys can pull it off I think Joel (14m 53s): Much like Prince sang in the eighties. It's a sign of the times. Chad things have gotten a little bit off the rails. More pictures. How you doing? All right. So much love and so many fans it's just great! Look, this has turned into an arms race. Yes. Oyster, Deel, Remote, Velocity. Chad (15m 12s): It's crazy. Joel (15m 12s): How much money can go into this remote space? How many, how much blood is going to be spilled for the ones that don't make it? How many players can you have? Traditionally, you have about three players. You have Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. Chad (15m 31s): You have other smaller players. Joel (15m 33s): Other smaller players. Chad (15m 34s): Fanta still exists. Joel (15m 35s): Fantas still exist, but how much is too much? And how many who's going to survive, this is going to be a major talking point in the next year. Chad (15m 47s): Yeah. Here's what I think. Here's what I think we're seeing companies like Remote and then we also saw Rippling take a shit ton of cash. I think, again, my opinion, they are getting ready for that long, cold winter. As soon as this bubble bursts and valuations fucking drop. I mean, everything goes shit fucking crazy. They're going to have a war chest to get through it. So I only think that companies like Velocity, they're looking ahead saying, okay, we're going to need some capital to survive. Joel (16m 21s): This is it. Yeah. Look, last week we talked about RAD, remote, automation and diversity. I think automation is going to thrive in a downturn. Chad (16m 29s): Oh God yes. Joel (16m 30s): Companies are going to want to replace human beings. They're going to go automation. I think diversity is going to suffer in a downturn, but Remote. I had a hold on and I think you're right survive the winter, come out on the other side. Remote is not going away. No, it's going to be a thing. And these companies have to build up their war chest to survive. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to talk about. Who's next? I don't know. Next week there'll be another $500 million investment in one of these companies. Let's get to California pay transparency. I know you love this one. Chad (17m 8s): I do. Joel (17m 9s): California state Senate voted to pass what's been called the nation's most aggressive pay transparency measure on Tuesday. Moving forward a bill that would require many businesses to post salary ranges in job ads, as well as publicly report more data about how groups of employees are paid. With the move California could become the third state and the seventh jurisdiction in the nation to require employers with at least 15 employees to publish, pay ranges in job postings, giving applicants access to information before they low ball answers about salary expectations or waste time applying to underpaying shitty jobs. Joel (17m 49s): I know you love this! Go. Chad (17m 53s): God damn. It's so fucking simple people. And I know corporate America does not want to hear this, but the only way we legitimately get to pay equity is through transparency, right? And what's going to happen is the only way that that will happen is if government forces it, federal government is way too busy doing other shit right now, this is not on, this is not on their radar state government. They're going to take this in stride. And they're not California is not the first state to start to enact some of these measures, right? So I hope we will see more states start to roll into this because what's going to happen is that if big states like California, New York, we're never gonna get Texas because they don't give a fuck who they don't give a fuck who gets paid, what? Chad (18m 43s): Right. Live in a fucking cardboard boxes come to work, right? But many states Joel (18m 47s): Binders full of women. Chad (18m 48s): Exactly. So at the end of the day, man, it's all about transparency, but forcing it, we have to force it. And I hate that government has to do this. I wish CEOs had the fucking balls to be able to do this themselves, but they do not. So they're going to hit pause. There you go. Joel (19m 11s): Bottom line companies hiring in the US have to get comfortable with pay information on their job postings. Chad (19m 19s): Transparency babe. Joel (19m 19s): More and more states are going to fall in line. More and more cities, municipalities and by the way, it's not just governments. You'll remember that Indeed basically said, but pay information on a job posting, or we're going to make it up for you. We're going to guess what the salary is. So pay transparency is coming. It's already here for much of the vendors that you're using today. Chad (19m 40s): Yeah, good call. ] Joel (19m 40s): Just get comfortable with it, just swallow the pill and get used to it because that is the nature of the world today. Chad (19m 47s): And I got to say, this is the one thing that I am inline with Indeed, on most of the shit, the fucking evil empire. I am not about this shit, but they're going to force the measure. And if you want to use Indeed, which most companies feel like they have to, you are going to have to put up with this. So you might as well, again, like you said, swallow the fucking pill Neo and get into the goddamn matrix. Joel (20m 11s): Yeah. Additionally, if you want to be on Google for Jobs, if you have a salary range, you're going to get better rankings in Google. Just get used to this. It's the new normal. We'll be right back. We're going to pay some bills, Drink some water so I get my voice back, maybe whole tight. So Chad, I read this and I thought it was a story from the Onion, but it's a legit story. This is from the New York Times. Chad (20m 42s): Oh, okay. Joel (20m 45s): The New York Times reported Wells Fargo. Chad (20m 46s): Yes. Joel (20m 47s): Popular bank. Chad (20m 51s): You might've heard of them. Joel (20m 52s): Wells Fargo employees held fake interviews with diverse candidates in order to boost diversity numbers, seven current and former employees, including one former executive, told the Times that they were instructed to interview women and people of color for roles that had already been filled. I know your blood is boiling. Go. Chad (21m 16s): How is Wells Fargo even still in existence after the DEI bullshit that, I mean, they've been trying to fuck over people for decades? And we have fucking proof, right? It continues. It continues. So to be able to say Wells Fargo is a bad player in the game. It's easy, right? They're sweeping the leg every fucking time they get a chance. Every time they get a chance. So, and I guarantee you, this is not the only company. Wells Fargo is fucking huge. That's why we know because there are way too many leaks, right? There are other companies that are out there. You know, we're looking at you, talent acquisition professionals, you had better get your shit in line. Chad (22m 4s): Because this, especially in this economy with job seekers who are looking to do better for other humans, it's going to come out. You can't fucking hide. Joel (22m 16s): If you bank with Wells Fargo and you are in the recruiting human capital industry. Chad (22m 20s): You're in DEI. Joel (22m 21s): I want you to march right into your Wells Fargo, close your accounts and tell them why you're doing that. Chad (22m 29s): Tell them Chad and Cheese sent ya. Joel (22m 32s): Wells Fargo does not do business in the great state of Indiana otherwise I would open up an account and then close it and tell them why I was closing it. This is so absurd that Chad (22m 46s): Wow! Joel (22m 46s): A little bit beyond words that this happened now, just allegations, but we're talking about the New York Times who, who checks their sources. Chad (22m 56s): Who actually does reporting. Joel (22m 58s): Regardless of your political beliefs. The New York Times is a reputable source. Boycott, Wells Fargo if you are in the human capital management space. Period. Chad (23m 8s): Yes. And I got, I have to say once again, if you are in D E I, if you're a CDO, if you're anybody who cares about equity and inclusion, exactly what Joel just said March into that fucking bank. Do your research on where you put your money, but take that money out. Put it somewhere else. They do not deserve your business. Joel (23m 31s): I'm so fired up. We need to take another break. Chad (23m 34s): Woo. Joel (23m 34s): All right, Chad, there's a startup we need to mention. Chad (23m 37s): Is it OnlyFans? Joel (23m 38s): We're in Vegas. I'm OnlyFan, debauchery porn, sin, weed, drugs. I'm to my limit. So I can't talk about it anymore. Chad (23m 51s): It out. Joel (23m 54s): I can't do it. Chad (23m 55s): I can't do it. Joel (23m 57s): Let's talk about WorkReels Chad (24m 1s): Who?! Joel (24m 1s): WorkReels as in movie reels, video. Chad (24m 4s): Sounds good. Joel (24m 4s): Okay. Recently launched WorkReels aims to be TikTok for recruiters. Chad (24m 10s): What? What? What? Joel (24m 10s): The company claims to be the world's first video story telling platform built specifically for recruitment and employer branding teams. Maybe they haven't heard of VideoMyJob. I don't know. Or Chad (24m 29s): Pixel Joel (24m 29s): Yes. Unlike VideoMyJob. However, WorkReels is unique in this way. "Professional editors transform approved recordings into videos, optimized for social media, a jobs page, or any location frequented by a company's likely job seekers. The WorkReels branded player makes sharing and embedding videos easy across LinkedIn, YouTube, desktop, Instagram, and Facebook" according to the company. Chad, is this the real deal or another wannabe? Chad (24m 56s): It it's obviously a wannabe, but I mean, you've got to appreciate companies who are trying to leverage all these huge outlets for the possible distribution and whatnot. The hard part about this is, every company that has done well on TikTok. It was through a personal account of an employee. Joel (25m 23s): Costco. Chad (25m 24s): Yes. Not from a corporate account, from a personal account. So I think if they can, if they can actually harness employees to be able to share, I mean, this type of information, I think they can do it, but here's the problem. It's not organic. Everything that we've seen from all those successful players have been organic because employees want to do this. Not because they're because they want to. So I believe, unfortunately, this is a great idea that will flounder and crash and fucking burn. Joel (26m 2s): TikTok is a big deal. Chad (26m 6s): It is a big deal! Joel (26m 9s): But you're totally right about the organic nature of TikTok. Chad (26m 12s): It's got to be genuine. Joel (26m 13s): How many corporate videos have you seen that just suck? Like you're competing with animals eating each other, big booty Latinas Chad (26m 21s): And HR manifesto. Yes! She is fucking legit. Joel (26m 25s): That's the competition. So you gotta bring your A game when it comes to social media videos today. Chad (26m 35s): Yeah. Joel (26m 36s): So that's not on WorkReels. That's on the employer. Chad (26m 39s): Right? Joel (26m 39s): What I like about WorkReels is they literally send your video to professional videographers, editors to, I guess, TikTok the video. Right? Make it fun. I don't know what they're going to do. Chad (26m 48s): Way too polish, dude. Way too polish. Joel (26m 49s): Oh they could pull it off. We haven't seen these videos. Chad (26m 52s): You're right. Joel (26m 53s): You're right. If you have an organic video from an employee talking about what it's like to work at your company why they love it and you send it to you send it to these editors and they TikTokify it? Chad (27m 8s): Yes. Joel (27m 9s): It could work. I'm saying there's a chance, but a slim chance. Chad (27m 15s): But I would like to say is there's a little company called SkillScout who Elena Valentine, who was actually the emcee of this event Joel (27m 27s): And her shoe game is tight. Chad (27m 30s): Or shoe game. And her and her bumbag game is tight. Joel (27m 33s): Her fanny pack is tight. Chad (27m 34s): Yeah. They call it the bum bags over where I'm from cause fanny means something different in Europe. Joel (27m 41s): Yeah. I feel a new LinkedIn poll coming. Is it fanny pack or bumbag? Chad (27m 47s): Anyway, we'll get into, we'll get into the whole anatomical pieces there in a minute, Elena Valentine, Abby Cheeseman SkillScout, right? Those individuals are in this space. They get this space. And if you're going to send your videos to accompany, send it to them cause they know what to fucking do with it! Because it's genuine. They know. Right. I don't have confidence in a company that is just popping up fucking out of nowhere. I just don't. Joel (28m 17s): I got no voice left. What? A great week. Great Un leash. Thank you. Calm. Thank you everybody. So many fans so much love. Chad and Cheese (28m 25s): We out. We out OUTRO (29m 5s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Oh, how we’ve missed in-person events. Being at Unleash in Vegas last week, rubbing elbows and sharing smiles after nearly 3 years was such a joy. That’s why we had to get the guy who made it all happen on the show. Unleash’s Marc Coleman joins the boys for a review of the conference, its brightest highlights and unexpected surprises. Then we dive into the Paris show, coming in October, and get a sneak peek into what to expect … other than wine, cheese, snails and all that other French stuff. Enjoy, and we’ll see you in October. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (27s): Oh yeah, what's up everybody, you know, what's up? It's your favorite guilty pleasure. The Chad and Cheese podcast. It's the morning after edition. Chad (35s): It is! Joel (36s): Unleash and we are excited to have the guy behind the conference! Chad (41s): The Godfather. Joel (42s): Marc Coleman, sit down with us and rehash the first day. What we can expect day two and get a little glimpse of Paris, which is coming up in October. The dates have been published. Marc, welcome to the podcast. Marc (57s): Thanks for having me guys, a absolute pleasure to have both of you here today. Thanks for being here. Chad (1m 2s): This is amazing. Now, before we get into any of that stuff for listeners, everybody probably knows who you are, but just in case, give us a little Twitter bio about Marc that likes the long walks on the Danube. Joel (1m 15s): He's much taller in person by the way. He's much taller in person. Marc (1m 19s): Dad of three, live on the Buddha Hills and Buddha Pash Irish, obviously with the accent, have my whole career working in events. I've worked in Asia for seven years. I've been in HR for maybe 12 now. Started Unleash in 2011. Chad (1m 36s): Damn. Marc (1m 36s): Went MIA for three years through the pandemic. So really, really, really happy to be back here, you know, Vegas! It's a very inspiring, really great to meet everyone and get the dopamine going again. Joel (1m 50s): You mentioned the pandemic and the pandemic really altered the conference industry, some went all virtual, some closed shop, I guess, or haven't sort of restarted. How did you guys weather the pandemic and what was sort of the ramp coming into this and your idea to like, let's go back. Let's like, let's take the masks off and get back to each other. Marc (2m 7s): It's a bloodbath to be quite honest, for anyone in the events industry. I think no one really had a clue. I'm an ex-microbiologist. So my background is science and I'm spent spent enough time in Asia through a small pandemic called SARS. I've also, I did my first gig, my first rodeo in events on September 11th in New Zealand, something small, like the America's Cup. Chad (2m 37s): Wow! Joel (2m 38s): You've got great luck basically. Marc (2m 40s): So I know I have a few friends who lost their businesses during the Iceland volcano, believe it or not. Chad (2m 46s): It's about survival. That's what I'm hearing. Marc (2m 49s): Yeah, it is. It was a massive fight to survive. The first thing I had to do was deal with all the venues who were very badly behaved. They were horrible to deal with. And that took a few months, but one of the first things did, was I turned around to my team and said, we have to pivot to digital now. And we'd been thinking about it for a very long time. So there's a bit of forced entrepreneurship that went down. Sometimes you get, I'm not a serial entrepreneur, but I had been talking about doing digital for far too long. You know, it was a bit lazy at that point. So, Chad (3m 21s): So the pandemic much like it did the rest of the industry really forced you to go to warp speed with something that you've wanted to do for a while. Marc (3m 28s): Absolutely. And it's given us this capability now. We have journalists at Unleash now and an editor in chief and a social media enthusiasts and stuff like this. So I'm sorry. We have content labs team as well. So lots of research going into the marketplace as well. So huge capability in terms of building audience. So the scale that I've always been looking for is finally with us now. Chad (3m 53s): That's awesome. Yeah. So I dude all I've got to say is everybody that I spoke to about coming here, they were stoked. They were so excited because there was like, we, we haven't been to events. We're excited to feel the presence of more human beings, people that we haven't seen. And then the people who didn't pull the trigger. Marc (4m 13s): Right? Chad (4m 13s): Big FOMO, the fear of missing out, oh man, you're talking to them. You can almost hear him like tear up on the phone. Right. This is like, you know, we miss this so much, right? Yeah. Joel (4m 22s): You can feel the anger in their Facebook comments. Chad (4m 26s): So when you stepped in this hall, how did you feel? Marc (4m 31s): Absolutely amazing. And I, one thing that stood out for me yesterday was running screams, coming left and right. I, I wasn't expecting that. Not from me, for other people meeting one another. I haven't seen one another for two, three years, maybe longer and the unexpected. And there is a chemistry to this, which I talked to you guys about before, which is, it's just dopamine. When you get that hug, you don't get that on zoom. You just can't get on zoom. And I think everyone's just, it's a big call out, but I think most people are suffering at some level with mental wellbeing because you know, we're looking at screens from one end of the day to the next, and we're all overdosing on zoom calls. It's back to back. Marc (5m 10s): So much stuff is falling down. It's harder than ever before. So for everyone to get out here for two days, you just can't beat the face to face. More People have said it to me yesterday, you got more done in one day than one year. Chad (5m 24s): Yeah. Marc (5m 24s): Right. In terms of just meeting the right people and just gauging people, you can tell if you've got like, people buy from people at the end of the day, right. That's never going to change. Chad (5m 34s): Dude, talent acquisition. I see talent acquisition professionals and HR professionals like giddy going up to vendors, cause they're like looking at new tech. That wasn't the case before the AEO is like out, we got to kind of like saunter up. Oh yeah. Now it's just like, we're so excited we get to do this again. So it's just the energy and the vibrance is a really exciting! Marc (5m 55s): Yeah. I saw it this morning. Peter Henson on the opening keynote just shipped, you know, you could see how I, people laughing behind me cause he's a bit of a comedian as well, but you could feel the hair was standing on the back of people's necks. They were just inspired. And that's what it's all about. Chad (6m 14s): Yeah. Joel (6m 15s): Yeah. So you obviously are bullish on conferences and face-to-face. Here at day two of the conference, has it exceeded your expectations? Did you kind of expect it to be the way that it's been or has it under underperformed? Marc (6m 27s): So I'm my own worst enemy and anyone close to me knows it. So I kind of, I was wondering if anyone who show up on day two, because it is Vegas and our supplier here, GES work at events every other day. And they've been telling me that day one, everyone turns up for day one. No, one's going to turn up for day two. Chad (6m 48s): This place is still full. Joel (6m 49s): Buzzing! Marc (6m 50s): So, so does people still come back just brilliant! You know, and there's still plenty of business to be done here today. Joel (6m 56s): So there's another angle to that. And that you're primarily a European show. Marc (7m 1s): Yeah. Joel (7m 2s): You made the decision to come to the states, which was a risky decision. We had some established conferences. Marc (7m 7s): Very risky. Joel (7m 8s): From my point of view, you look like you guys are now in the pole position to be, you know, sort of the up and coming conference in America. Marc (7m 17s): Right. Joel (7m 18s): Was that your expectation? Marc (7m 18s): Yeah. Joel (7m 19s): Would you agree with that? And what can we expect in future shows? Just bigger, better, badder. Marc (7m 28s): Yeah. We needed validation. My crew put this. So we had, COVID obviously in Q1, Omicron killed us. I woke up in London in December and I was like, oh no, this event is scheduled for March. So for my guys to be able to pull this show off in 12 weeks, cause we lost all our speakers, you know, at this level. Chad (7m 45s): Wow. Marc (7m 45s): Yeah. All of them, I think maybe three or four stayed behind kind of thing. Well, once we announced the new dates, we knew that was going to happen. So for my crew to turn that around and what was like 12, maybe 13 weeks in terms of one we had to do to production, which took three or four weeks to get all of those speakers and sorry, new speakers back onto the program. I, you know, and just do the marketing for it to get, you know, we had over 2000 people registered for the show. I don't know what the attrition is, but give or take 10, maybe up to 20% because of COVID. But I think if we can do that in 10 to 12 weeks, what can we do with 10 to 12 months? Marc (8m 28s): Right. So I think I needed this personally for myself because I've got a vision for what the show needs to look like. We can now scale the show, also. So I don't want to sound like Conor McGregor and we're here to take over baby. Joel (8m 41s): So at least for the near future, we'll only see you once a year in the US? Marc (8m 48s): But I think America deserves more shows and, and there's not enough. The market's very tired, but they're not catering everything that's here, including us, doesn't even cater for 1% of the market that's there. Right? So that's the reality. Everything else is a user event, right? It's Workday Rising, Work Human, Oracle World, stuff like that, marketing their normal. Like you've got to go there as a customer. So we have a different product. But I think we can, I think we in two X or three X scale this for next year. Chad (9m 17s): I think, I think you're underselling, so one thing is where you said this was something that you really needed. Look around you though. Everybody needed this shit, man. This is, this is, this is amazing. Marc (9m 33s): Yeah, I agree. Chad (9m 34s): The energy and then we watched the height video yesterday for Paris, and that made the hair on my neck stand up because we know Joel and I went to the last Paris event and it's so immersive. It is so, I mean, it's so big and it is so electric. I can't imagine what this next one's going to be like! Give us some behind the scenes. Joel (9m 57s): You've got to be super pumped for Paris after this Vegas event. Marc (10m 1s): Yeah. So talk about multitasking and yeah. I think here we can give Paris a run for its money with this show over here. Chad (10m 9s): Really?! Marc (10m 9s): Yes, absolutely. We can do it much quicker. Yeah. Yeah. We can do it. What I love about Paris is it's a hundred countries. I think we've got a unique value proposition against everyone else in the market in terms of being a bridge now, because we've taken London out and there's like about six other events gone in, in the meantime so it's bit of a bloodbath in London. But what we get to do is get to look after the biggest economies in Europe, which are obviously Germany and France. Switzerland is a bit of a HQ Benelux and Nordics there that's our bread and butter companies and of course, UK and Ireland. But we get a hundred countries come into that show. So the diversity, the randomness of conversations, we get like Saudi Aramco which I think it's probably the most valuable company in the world if I'm not mistaken, they usually come with big pockets because you know, these vendors don't really exist over there for them. Marc (11m 4s): So it's quite shocking for a lot of our vendors meeting these kinds of buyers. So what else can I tell you? The speaker lineup that's really been interesting. So we've got close to 10 CHROs from the fortune 500. We've never done that before. We've never done that before. I've never seen any other event do that. So, I think that's validation as well, of our position in the market. Being out of the market for three years, people haven't forgotten us. And I think the investment that we put into the market, because we don't have a VC firm behind us. I just pumped the profits year on year into scaling a bit of a mad man on that. Marc (11m 46s): I've got a new CFO, so she's keeping me in line, but we will continue to invest in the product. And ultimately, you know what\ it's all about Paris, it's bringing the world of HR together and inspiring them. And if there was anything to take off Peter Henson this morning, again, it's kind of, it's a, we're not in the events business, we're in the change the world business. Yeah. We want to make a difference. Yeah. Joel (12m 12s): So two things stood out for me in Paris. One is how you have the floor laid out and that you have sort of sessions within the vendor space, which is really unique in our industry. And so that's always stood out to me. So I'm excited about that. Marc (12m 31s): I'm killing some of that though. Chad (12m 33s): He just, he just gave you a line. Marc (12m 37s): I said, I'm killing some of that. Chad (12m 40s): We got new layouts. Marc (12m 41s): I'm doing that because yeah, because the activations distract from the buyer model. So we want to be the number one marketplace in the world for the HR industry. That's our mission, that's it. So we've got to have, we got to facilitate those one-to-one meetings with vendors. So if they're being distracted with content. Joel (13m 0s): You're upin' the game. Okay. Yeah. Marc (13m 1s): We're upin' the game. Sorry. A bit of our old, Joel (13m 5s): I do get the feedback that you do, just from my perspective as an attendee. Marc (13m 9s): So that will still happen, but not what you saw the last time. Joel (13m 12s): Okay. You're evolving. I love it. Chad (13m 16s): The times are a changing kids. Joel (13m 18s): The times are a changing. The second thing was the Bob Geldof interview and that also seemed very unique to me. Usually there's, you know, it's a college basketball coach that comes in or you know, a speaker that comes in that sort of RaRa world of work stuff. You guys sort of go outside the box with stuff, a primary speaker, any, any hints or announcements that you want to make today about who that will be. Marc (13m 43s): There is no boxes Unleashed. And that's what we work to. We're always trying to work, you know, the magic. Yeah. I can say a couple Ben Evans. He was the number one speaker at Slush at the end of last year. JC, Johnny Campbell gave me that one. I've got Hannah Fry. Who's this famous really cool mathematician. Really good on AI. What you guys were talking to the commissioner about yesterday. She's just fab. Have a look at her on YouTube. You'll you'll really enjoy her. We're celebrating 10 years. Okay. So it's like, it's not 10 years. It's the 10th annual, right? So we didn't get to do that because of COVID. So we're going to have a real party. Chad (14m 27s): I have a teaser. I think we're going to get Joel popping out of a birthday cake. Marc (14m 36s): Oh, I'd love to see that! With a little pink dress? Joel (14m 40s): Later, later. Posing. Marc (14m 41s): So actually guys Oktoberfest is very nearby. Oh, by the way, it's in October. It's 12th and 13th. So yeah, you've gotta, you've you've gotta be thinking. What's the best way of saying this. The Rugby World Cup is on in 2023 to give you some hints of some of the speakers, celebrity speakers, which I know you guys have American football over here, but rugby is religion for us in Europe. So we've got Dash and so parse is our home for the foreseeable future on the year after we have the Olympics in Paris. So, and this is really appealing to me because I started my career in sports. So I'm looking forward to managing that part of our client and partner hospitality. Marc (15m 25s): So I get to take our nearest and dearest to some of the matches and lay on the hospitality because that's where some of the best deals. Chad (15m 33s): What I'm hearing is we're on the list. Marc (15m 36s): You guys are loving this now? Huh. Joel (15m 39s): Here's to 10 more and 10 more years after that, as far I'm concerned. Marc (15m 44s): So we're talking to a famous American sprinter Olympian for this year, as a keynote as well. But what I meant to say is because we're celebrating 10 years, we're bringing the best of the last 10 years back. So people like Kostos Makitas, Aaron Meyer, who's American and much loved in our community. Who else? Peter Hinson, there's a blast of the past coming again. Chad (16m 10s): Gotcha. Marc (16m 10s): So this will be the best production we've ever done. Chad (16m 14s): Excellent. Well, Marc, we know you're busy. Thanks for giving us time. You've got to close out day two. We're excited about Paris, man. I mean, we, obviously, I, it's not the coffee. Joel (16m 30s): This is a hangover Chad and Cheese. So we're really excited for Paris. Chad (16m 37s): So if anybody wants to find out more about Unleash World, where should they go? Marc (16m 42s): Unleash.ai, which is our media site. And on top you have two clicks with Unleash America and Unleash World. Chad (16m 50s): Click on Unleash World, baby. And we will see you in Paris. Joel (16m 57s): Congratulations, Marc. Chad, another one in the can. Chad and Cheese (17m 1s): We out. 7 (17m 47s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

It's a house party, ya'll! House of HR party, that is. The company just received funding from Bain Capital in return for 55% of the organization. But if that's not unicorn-y enough for you, Guild just joined the $4+ billion valuation club. What else? Elon says get back in the office, Recruit Holdings of Indeed and Glassdoor fame embrace women (in a good way, sickos!), CEO pay is out of control and Chili's introduces Rita the Robot to more locations nationwide. Pass the Old Timer with Cheese, yo! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast Joel (23s): Oh yeah. Def wins the tween parties. And Cheryl says peace out Zuke. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "Platinum Jubilee" Cheeseman. Chad (37s): This is Chad "I'm still fucking drunk" Sowash. Joel (40s): And on this week, show, House of HR, more like House party of HR. Elon says, get your ass back to the office. And oh my God, Oprah. Let's do this. I'm almost back to normal from Vegas. Oh, you stayed an extra day. You stayed a few more days. So yeah. You're still hurting a little bit. Chad (1m 1s): I stayed through the weekend. Joel (1m 4s): You broke the a three-day Vegas rule. I set my limit on Vegas. Chad (1m 9s): I doubled up my burn rate is three days I doubled up on that. That was not a good idea. Joel (1m 15s): Yeah. Plus your birthday. Did you have fun? Did you do anything special? Chad (1m 19s): Oh yeah. Yeah. Plenty of stuff we can't talk about on the show, but yeah. Joel (1m 22s): PG-rated for the kids. Please. Please give keep it PG-rated. Yeah. So yeah, mine was more parental, you know, filled with the kids, had some friends come over. Did some drinking and grilling and yeah. Did the middle-aged white guy birthday. Chad (1m 38s): Memorial Day weekend. Yeah. Awesome. Joel (1m 41s): The 500, weather it was nice. Hit the pool a little bit. Yeah. Summer's here and I couldn't be happier. It's not a beach in Portugal, but Hey, it's a middle America. What are you gonna do? Chad (1m 52s): We can't have it all. Joel (1m 53s): We can't have it all week. We all can't be Sowashes. All right. Shout outs? Chad (1m 59s): Shout outs, baby. I'm on my first shout out, goes to Elena Valentine. You might know her as the co-founder of Skill Scout. That's right. Joel (2m 8s): Love her. Chad (2m 9s): Like a boss. She emceed Unleash America in Vegas last week and knocked the cover off the ball. Shout out to Elena! You rocked it. Joel (2m 19s): She raised the bar for our RekFest appearance. I feel like I need to really warm up for that one. She raised the bar on emceeing conferences. Good for you Elena. My first shout out. Chad (2m 30s): Yep! Joel (2m 30s): And there's a sound bite. That's right kids. There's a Canadian shout out alert. Let's talk about Cherry Health. She's my Cherry Health. All right. The Calgary based Chad (2m 42s): Wait, is this healthcare for strippers? What are we talking aobut? Joel (2m 45s): I don't know. I, yeah, the Cherry Health. We got to get them on firing squad and ask about the name. I'm not sure where Cherry Health comes from. Anyway, the Calgary based health tech startup describes itself as Canada's medical staffing network and offers a smartphone-based self-serve job matching app that connects doctors to medical clinics seeking to fill temporary positions. Chad (3m 8s): Huh? Joel (3m 8s): Hey, doctors want a gig too. Shout out to Cherry Health of Calgary, Canada, Chad (3m 14s): Strippers need healthcare too. And they get it universally in Canada. So, yeah. Okay. Shout out to Kyle Lagunas over at General Motors, who is taking a sabbatical or what he's calling "hot girl summer". Good for you. Kyle find find your way to Key West, grab some margs and a hot tub, man. You deserve it. Joel (3m 36s): Well, I can't compete with hot girl summer, but I can compete with some Australian heat. Shout out to Vervoe. One of our favorite Aussie based companies and our first ever firing squad survivor they've hired Lynn Foster as their Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships. Chad (3m 55s): Great Catch. Joel (3m 55s): Cue up the Coming to America soundbite sfx (3m 56s): Coming to America Joel (3m 57s): Soundbite based in California, Lynn has spent a decade in the industry with the likes of HireRight, Cornerstone, SmashFly, Fetcher and Beamery. Talk about some experience, shout out to VRBO and their shiny new executive Chad (4m 12s): And VRBO. Yes, of course. Joel (4m 14s): Sorry. The Verve is a great band from the nineties. Chad (4m 17s): Shout out to Matt Alder, that British guy! He came all the way to the U S to just to interview us for his show. I'm sure anyone listening to us is definitely listening to the Erecruiting Future podcast. Because I think between our two shows, we probably hit 99.9% of HR TA in tech vendor space. So thanks for having us on Matt. We appreciate it. Joel (4m 40s): My next shout out. It's not a bittersweet symphony for Our Work. The Boston-based startup that touts itself as a recruitment and retention platform for quick serve restaurant franchise owners. Announced this week, some additional Series A to the tune of $2.5 million, bringing its total raised in the round at $12.5 million. The company says they improve retention by constantly engaging employees with automatic check-ins. Time to turn up the pieces of flair to 11 and pledge your allegiance to Red Lobster Chad. Shout out to Our Work. Chad (5m 16s): Oh yeah. We're gonna hear so many bitches and complaints after a while because employees had nobody like reaching out to them. And now they're going to have like this overabundance. Joel (5m 27s): Spam alert. Chad (5m 28s): Spam alert. Joel (5m 28s): Your employer wants to know how you're feeling. Chad (5m 30s): There we go. Okay. Shout out to lists. Joel and I love lists. The, we made the list, the Chad and Cheese podcast made the list for the top recruitment and HR podcast you should listen to in 2022 via Occupy. Have you ever heard of Occupy prior to? Joel (5m 47s): Well, no, but if there's any way to make sure podcasters know who you are, it's put them on a fucking list. That's how you do it kids. Chad (5m 55s): Yeah. Maybe Occupy should be on firing squad? so if you're listening, Occupy, Joel (5m 59s): I like the man Chad (6m 1s): Call me baby Call me. Joel (6m 2s): And Occupy. I'm getting hungry. Jeez. Chad (6m 4s): And my last shout out goes to FOMO. Okay. People, if you missed Unleashed, you know, you felt the FOMO. Don't miss it again. Especially it's coming in Paris and sure as hell, do not miss RecFest on July 7th at Knebworth Park, north of London. We will be emceeing the disrupt stage, which it's all about technology. So did you also see that the RekFest festival map dropped this week? Joel (6m 33s): I did. I did lots of circus tents. I like it. Chad (6m 36s): Lots of tents everywhere. The problem that I'm seeing here and I'm sure Jamie and Bobby and the team will rectify this, this year, the bars aren't actually in the tents. So we're going to have to have a runner. I think that'll get drinks for us. This is first world problems. Kids, no matter get your RecFest tickets, book, your travel hotel. Let's do this. Also. If you want to know what events we're scheduled to go to get a Chadcheese.com upper right hand corner, click on events. We want to see you there buy us a drink. We'd love it. Joel (7m 8s): C'mon Chad. You know, you're concerned about me staying sober till noon. You probably worked out that the bar was farther away from the tent that we were working. Don't try to play with me. Chad (7m 17s): You caught me Joel (7m 18s): Speaking of FOMO, kids, if you love free shit, you gotta get over to Chadcheese.com. Sign up for free stuff. We're giving away t-shirts from Emissary beer, from our friends at Pillar and whiskey. You get a choice, a Chad choice and a Cheese choice. What could be better from our friends at Textkernel? Just go to Chadcheese.com and sign up. Chad (7m 37s): Love it. Joel (7m 38s): And let's talk about some Birthdays. First up, we have Katrina Collier we missed her last week and our Las Vegas filled haze. She shares a birthday with Mr Sowash. So I'm sure that's a special connection that you share with Catrina. Chad (7m 55s): My twin. Joel (7m 55s): Yeah. Your twin across the Atlantic. Also celebrating a birthday, Hung Lee everyone's favorite newsletter guy and looking forward to seeing him in England as well. Also, Anna Breca who remembers the Kennedy conferences? That's when Anna celebrates a birthday and Matt "that British guy" Alder. He celebrates another trip around the sun, as well as Andrew Gadomski, Anders Foreman, Andy Patterson, Martin "don't call him Rodney" Dangerfield. That's the list. Celebrating another trip around the sun. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being a fan and happy birthday. Chad (8m 43s): Happy birthday. Joel (8m 44s): All right, Chad. Well, once again, everything this podcast touches turns to gold. We should change our name to the Midas touch show. Anyway, our good friends at house of HR in Belgium announced that private investment firm, Bain Capital, maybe you've heard of them as entered into a share purchasing agreement for the acquisition of a 55% stake in the company. Financial details were not disclosed, but trust me, when we say it was a big number of kids. House of HR CEO, Rika Coppens said, quote, "with Bain Capital's investment in House of HR, we start a new chapter in our incredible story. We intend to continue our growth path based on strong organic growth, combined with targeted and specialized M and A in existing markets." Joel (9m 29s): For the full year 2021 House of HR reported revenue of 2.2 billion euros, an increase of 18.8% compared to 2020. Chad, this is clearly a house made out of bricks your thoughts. Chad (9m 43s): We're going to need a bigger boat and well, you know, Bain has a superyacht so why the fuck not? So, first of all, House of HR, as you just said, they hit $2.4 billion that's USD in revenue last year, while many US and Europeans haven't even heard of them before. Why? Because House of HR are silent, fucking killers. That's why. House of HR is a house of brands with over 40, I believe right now it's actually approaching 50 different brands in their house. So instead of buying a company and slapping their logo on it, like Adecco or Randstad might do. Chad (10m 23s): Rika Coppens, who is probably one of the most savvy fucking business people that we've had the honor to meet and actually speak to Rika, Lieven and the team of House of HR, understand that if you're going to acquire a company, rip its logo off and slap yours on it. It's pretty much akin to pulling the heart out of the founder's chest. House of HR, they don't do that. They want the founder in the leadership team of the acquired companies to stay and embrace the House so that the founders don't just linger during their contract terms, but they doubled down and they don't eject after 18 months or 24 months, they stay and thrive. Chad (11m 5s): Now why Bain Capital? Here's a great line from an episode of HBO's The Wire. You come at the king, you best not miss. Well, House of HR is coming for the king, which is currently Randstad and they're going to need the AMO to ensure that they do not miss. When I heard Bain Capital was in the mix, my jaw dropped. Bain has approximately $160 billion in assets currently under management. Again, you come at the king, you best not miss and after all of the shuffling at the top, I see a silent killer in the shadows. Joel (11m 40s): Yeah and that time that you just talked about the news, they've added two or three brands to the House of HR by the way. When we started the European podcast, we did so in large part, because we could see that a lot of money, attention and ideas were flowing into and out of the continent. I think that instinct to start a new show focusing on Europe has only been proven correct in the year since starting our "does Europe" portion of the show. So here you have Boston based Bain Capital writing, a big check to accompany that to most of Americans, like you said, unless they listened to our show, have never heard of this company. House of HR has kind of adopted us as their American orphans. Joel (12m 22s): And I frankly, couldn't be happier for Rika Lieven and the rest of the team. And as far as for Europe pay attention kids because once this whole Russia thing comes to an end, and it will, Europe is going to take up a lot of the oxygen in our space. I'm talking more investment, more startups and more acquisitions. Keep your house, keep your eye on House of HR. Chad (12m 45s): Amen. Joel (12m 45s): Next up. Oh, I know what I forgot. Chad, the unicorn sound bite. Chad (12m 50s): Can you add it? Joel (12m 53s): Hold on. Yeah, I can. Chad (12m 54s): I can't believe you forgot that. Joel (12m 58s): All right, Chad, next up. sfx (12m 60s): Happy fluffy unicorns Joel (13m 1s): You know that sound baby. It's your Guild provider of an online education platform with a focus on upscaling frontline employees announced it has raised $175 million in a Series F round, which sets a $4.4 billion valuation for the seven year old Denver based company. Oprah Winfrey, Chad, Oprah also participated in the round, adding a plug for Guild to a company, its funding announcement with this statement, quote, again, this is from Oprah. "I deeply believe in the power of education to change the trajectory of a person's life and Guild is creating a more equitable path to quality education." Joel (13m 45s): You get a unicorn, you get a unicorn, Chad, wipe the glitter out of your eyes and give us your thoughts on Guild. Chad (13m 52s): You get a unicorn, that that was a part of, that was a part of the, the quote by the way, kids. Apparently upskilling is a thing. I still can't believe that corporations haven't figured this out yet. I mean, seriously, we're always hearing about companies talk about talent pipelines and they have no fucking clue what a talent pipeline really is. So since they're dumb asses, haven't bridged the skills gap. They're going to need someone to do it for them. Enter Guild. Guild's cost is for students is between three to $6,000 a year for courses provided by partnering universities and learning providers. Chad (14m 34s): The average tuition and fees for US, private universities is around $38K per year or around $10k annually for public schools. This is a legit unicorn sector, not just Guild, but the entire sector is legit unicorn. And there is plenty of room for the herd of unicorns that are going to be happening in this space. I'm a huge fan of this. And again, when you take a look at a gap that has failed to be bridged, being the skills gap in this case in corporate America, and corporate global corporations, haven't been able to fill this there. They're going to need somebody to fill it for them. Chad (15m 15s): These guys will be able to do it. Joel (15m 17s): Yup. Yup. First of all, what's in the water in Denver? We talked about Glow. We talked about Velocity Global last week getting $400 million out of, out of Denver and now Guild. Jeez, Denver is becoming a hot spot for our space. Anyway, since the pandemic, there've been three major trends in our space, Chad, it's a RAD, it's a RAD thing. Remote work, Automation and DEI. While those are still in focus to varying degrees. Here's what I think is warming up in 2022 and likely will be red hot as we head into next year. Number one, healthcare. Number two, upskilling, and number three, robots. Joel (15m 56s): Boomers aren't getting any younger and the pandemic really sucked for nurses. So there's your healthcare companies. Can't hide and retention is paramount. So there's, you're upskilling and you just sort of encapsulated all of those comments around Guild. And well, humans are a pain in my ass and customers are getting more comfortable with machines. So bring on the robots, which we will also talk about later in the show. I think those are the three turns that are taking off Guild is on the frontline of that and they are going to profit immensely from this trend. Chad (16m 31s): Yeah. I think those three things we're already seeing happening. So to be able to predict something that we know is going to happen, come on. Joel (16m 39s): I said warming up and I said, red hot going into next year, man. The only thing is I can't, I can't get a good like HUR her I don't, I don't know. It doesn't roll off like RAD does. I got to work on that one. I got to work on this on which maybe I'll do it during the break. All right. Let's pay some bills and talk about Elon Musk. Who's that guy? Oh boy. Chad Elon smacked the hornet's nest on this. You're going to love this. Chad (17m 6s): He's doing that a lot lately. Joel (17m 7s): Yeah. I know. He needs to divert attention from his Twitter debacle. Anyway, Elon Musk asked all Tesla employees to come back to the office or quit this week in the leaked email to employees. Some highlights include quote. "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours, and I mean a minimum in the office per week, moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located not some remote pseudo office. If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned" end quote. Elon also said, quote, "there are of course companies that don't require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? Joel (17m 50s): It's been a while." And let me take a wild guess, Chad, and say you're opposed to Elon's choice to bring everyone back to the office. What you got? Chad (17m 60s): Yeah. You don't say. Yeah, he didn't ask anything. This is an order. I mean really. And Elon Musk who is amazingly smart has also shown that he's a total asshole. This move shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I mean, he was ordering the workers back to production lines during the pandemic when we didn't even have a damn vaccine yet. So the man doesn't care about people and what they want. A new CareerBuilder survey. Joel (18m 27s): Yes. Chad (18m 27s): We're talking about a CareerBuilder survey. Joel (18m 29s): It's been a long time. CareerBuilder folks. Chad (18m 32s): We're not talking about tech or their amazing revenues. No, we're talking about a CareerBuilderer survey. What shows 67% of people surveyed would like to work remote, hear that remote, at least three days per week and 28% would prefer to work remote at least full time capacity. 38% of employees and 51% of our favorite millennials said they would quit if they weren't able to work remote. So quitting is still happening in the millions per month. So let's see if we have a Goldman Sachs situation where only half showed up after they were demanded back, or if Tesla employees comply? Chad (19m 16s): Either way through this pandemic, we have seen who Elon Musk really is. A megalomaniac asshole. Joel (19m 22s): Who would have thought that the first time we talk about CareerBuilder it's in regards to a survey and not jaw-dropping innovation. Chad (19m 31s): A survey. Joel (19m 32s): Anyway, Chad, who am I to disagree with the world's richest man? What's happening with knowledge based work quite frankly, is fascinating. Progressive software based companies like Airbnb are saying, you know what? Work whenever, however, and wherever you want. And those companies aren't losing a beat and they're prime to win huge bigly in the future. Yet the three martini lunch crowd on Wall Street who says, get back in the office. And you have companies who are tech companies, but make things like Apple, Google, Tesla, Peloton, et cetera, we've debated whether or not the iPhone could be developed in a work from home environment? You being on the yes. Me probably being on the no. Joel (20m 14s): And whether you think it can or not, the iPhone has not yet been created in a remote work environment. And to that degree, I think Elon's right. If you're a knowledge-based worker and you want to make physical shit, you're probably going to have to go back to a physical location. If you don't want that, Hey, we got choices, get a software job and make digital things only. What's also interesting to me is there will be fewer goods that are remarkable. Because there will be fewer people choosing this kind of work, which means the best of the best go to a few winners, like maybe Tesla, Apple, Mercedes, et cetera, which also says there's going to be more robots in this work. Joel (20m 54s): So to summarize, Chad, you have get your ass back to work that are sort of the traditional knowledge-based accountants, penny pushers, penny pinchers counters, whatever bean counters. You have techies that are only software that are going to be able to work from home. And then you have somewhere in the middle. Yeah. We're technology, but we also make shit, so you're going to have to be back in the office. I don't know if you're going to see Apple, Tesla, et cetera, re embrace remote work, and that's going to limit their talent pool. All the good people are going to go to software. Chad (21m 24s): Yeah. Well see, I think you're incredibly wrong because most of these people that are actually developing physical things, I know engineers who develop diesel engines for a fucking living. Okay. They do pop in every now and again to work, but most of their work is actually done on a goddamn computer. So to be able to say that is total bullshit. Number one. Number two, this is a, he said 40 hours a week. Once again, there's no flexibility, no autonomy. There he is literally just playing the iron fist bullshit game. So around the thought of this has to be a full-time in the office narrative. That is total bullshit. Chad (22m 4s): I don't care what you are creating. So the hybrid, the autonomy, that's one of the things that, again, at the top, you shouldn't give two fucks about. I don't care how it gets done as long as it gets done. And as soon as we start to move to that narrative, then we can get out of the 19 fucking fifties, stop the punching of the time clock and actually just get to work and enjoy life at the very same fucking time. Joel (22m 29s): Tweaking a diesel engine is not the same as creating an iPhone. Chad (22m 32s): It sure the fuck is. Joel (22m 34s): Call me, call me when the next great consumer product is made with a remote workforce and then name the great consumer product that was made remotely. Chad (22m 43s): We've been here a few years. We've been creating diesel engines for fucking ever, right? So therefore you got to give it a minute chief. It doesn't happen over goddamn nights. Joel (22m 54s): So in summary time will tell whether you're right or Elon's right. Chad (22m 60s): Elon's an asshole. Joel (23m 0s): Well, speaking of non assholes, your best, your best new friend Chad, Indeed and Recruit Holdings are in the news. This is from Reuters, Indeed and Glassdoor owner Recruit Holdings based in Japan, says it wants to have women in 50% of its senior executive and managerial roles within 10 years. A rare pledge in a country where men dominate the top echelon of companies, politics and civil service. That being Japan again. As of April 1st, 21% of recruits, senior executives, including heads of major business units were women. This is compared to just 10% a year earlier. Joel (23m 42s): If my math is right, that's doubling it Chad. So all at progress, the push for more women, as part of a diversity drive to ensure a flow of bright business ideas said Chief Operating Officer, Ayano Senaha its most senior female executive, who's also just a spry 39 year old. Chad, I assume you're a fan, but what's your take? Chad (24m 7s): Usually I would say this is all fluff and just pandering. But as you had said, it took them a year to go from 10% to 21%. That's actual movement. That's awesome. Then I wondered if that movement was from poaching or manufacturing your own female leadership. And the answer is that Recruit's workforce is young and half are female. Recruit COO, as you just talked about Aiyana, she is 39 and was promoted to the board in June of 2020, a couple of years ago, becoming the youngest female director among the Nikkei 225. Chad (24m 47s): I'm a fan of action, not words. And this is major action. This is big applause to recruit. And now let's hope they're also paying these females equitably. Joel (24m 58s): Yeah, I think this is great. I mean, you're looking, I don't think that as Americans, we really appreciate for the cultural limitations of women in Japan historically. And I think that these are great numbers and great initiatives. It's also a business that doesn't make stuff. So they're not sort of hooked into a lot of the traditional, I guess, trappings of, you know, making cars and other industrial items. So I say hats off to them as well, major applause. And again, another thing that Indeed Recruit Holdings has done, right? What I did find interesting though is Rony Cohan founder of Indeed is the only foreigner on their board of directors. Joel (25m 41s): So maybe a little more diversity on the board is in the offing as you buy up more and more global companies, I would like to see more foreigners non-Japanese folks on the board. I think that would be a good thing. Chad (25m 55s): We would like to see more older white dudes Joel (25m 58s): White dudes who aren't Japanese on the board please, who says I don't embrace diversity. Chad, who says I don't embrace diversity? Well, let's bad mouth some CEOs before we get too much into bad mouthing me. This is from a Fortune writer who asked quote, "should there be a maximum wage?" end quote. In 2021, fortune 500 CEOs picked up pay packages worth a median of 205 times the typical workers annual salary. Meanwhile, average US hourly wages fell 2.4% last year when adjusted for skyrocketing inflation. Some of the most highly paid CEOs last year also had some of the largest pay ratios at Warner Brothers Discovery for example, David Zaslav's $247 milliop and granted compensation is 2,972 times his median worker's salary, which is $82,964. Joel (26m 57s): That's not chump change anyway. All right, Chad, put down that Pitchfork and tell us what you think of this issue. Chad (27m 6s): Three words trickle down economics, or it also masquerades as supply side economics. Anyway, when these three words were first pitched to the American people, the massive profits companies would make were supposed to trickle down to everyone. The pie was supposed to get bigger and everyone was supposed to get a bigger piece of that pie. So let's be clear over the last 40 years since trickle-down has become a unfortunate piece of American history CEO pay has increased dramatically and most corporations who paid a CEO 35 times that of a median employee before trickle down 40 years ago. Now guess what? Chad (27m 46s): They pay around 350 times that of a median worker. So we wonder why we have such a rift in America today. Well, it's pretty simple. When the people who are actually doing the day to day work, those essential workers have experienced wage stagnation, some not even making a living wage. Then we have assholes like Jeff Bezos who keep the profits and they're building super yachts with smaller support yachts for their helicopter. Our country is divided more than ev and this is all started by a narrative that we would all enjoy the benefits of a bigger economy. And that was nothing more than a lie. Chad (28m 29s): And during this time we've turned from a democracy into a plutocracy, which means we're basically governed by the wealthy. We need to get guard rails back in place like we did before Reagan. Joel (28m 41s): This is America Chad agree or disagree. I just don't know what you do about it? If you think your CEO makes too much money work somewhere else, this isn't, these aren't all oligarchs, right? You know, if you don't like working for a CEO gets more than you go work somewhere else. If you want to change the laws in taxation, vote for vote for people that are going to do something about CEO pay. I just don't think that the majority of Americans care that much, that CEOs are making as much as they are because at the end of the day, nothing they're doing is illegal. Chad (29m 12s): How many people do we have quitting? Joel (29m 14s): But are they quitting because their CEO makes too much money? Chad (29m 17s): They're quitting because they're not making enough. And why aren't they making enough? Joel (29m 22s): So go, so go work for a company that has a different attitude around salaries. Chad (29m 26s): It's everywhere. Dude, it's fucking everywhere. Joel (29m 28s): Vote for vote for a government. That's actually going to have minimum wage. Yeah. Chad (29m 33s): I don't get me down that fucking rabbit hole because voting, oh my God. Joel (29m 36s): You know, and let's be honest. Like, I mean, the Democrats have controlled things for a few years. And before that they control things and nothing ever gets done. Chad (29m 45s): Gets done has nothing to do with fucking Republican or Democrat for God's sakes. They've both fucked us over the last 40 years. So when you start diverting by saying Democrat or Republican, yes, you just did. You can't do that. Joel (29m 59s): Then I won't. But if you want things changed, our system is such that you can change them, but things aren't going to change with, CEO pay because no one cares that much. Chad (30m 9s): Or you can find a beach in Portugal. Joel (30m 11s): Not nearly as much as I care about my old timer with Cheese, Chad, and let's take a quick break, take a deep breath. And we'll talk about robots at Chili's. Chad (30m 22s): And this is how you finish a podcast. Joel (30m 24s): At least our podcast robots, old timer with cheese, anyone that's right. A robot may be greeting you at the door during your next visit to Chili's. Everyone meet Rita, the robot, the newest Chilihead that's apparently what workers at Chili's are called, who looks more like a meal tray on wheels than an actual person. Chili's has expanded its partnership with bear robotics, the maker of Rita to 51 additional locations around eight states in the next month. Previously to that, they were in 10 stores nationwide. The casual chain has been testing the robot, which can lead guests to tables, run food, and sing a birthday song to guests. Joel (31m 9s): Come on folks. Chili's found that 82% of guests felt their experience was better because of Rita. 77% said their human server spent more time with them thanks to the bot. And 84% of Chili heads are excited about Rita. Chad are you excited about Rita the robot? And when was the last time you ate at a Chili's? Chad (31m 29s): It's been a minute. It's been a minute. Who wouldn't be excited to see a little robot? If you think about it, when we were kids, these are things that we dreamt about. We, everything that we were thinking about just about everything that we were thinking about, when we were kids is now like a part of every day, right? And this is one of those little, little robots popping around now. Here's the cool thing. They actually said that because of these robots, the server had a chance to do what? To be able to spend more time with the people, to give them that white glove service, this people recruiters, listen, this is what automation is for. And this is why you need to embrace automation. It's not going to take your fucking job. Chad (32m 12s): It's going to take this shit tasks out of your job so that you get an opportunity to give the candidates and hiring managers, the white glove service that you've always wanted to. So this is a great parallel to our industry. Joel (32m 32s): Is Rita single? Because delivering bottomless chips and salsa and Buffalo chicken sandwiches means Rita won't be on Tinder much longer. In fact, Chad, Rita Cheeseman has a pretty nice ring to it. Doesn't it? Chad (32m 48s): She's in mass production and not to mention you're not single. Joel (32m 54s): Everybody gets a Rita, everybody, everybody. Oh. Chad and Cheese (32m 57s): We out 8 (32m 58s): Thank you for listening to what's it called the podcast, the Chad, the cheese and the talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout outs of people you don't even know. And yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about chase, not one cheddar blue nacho pepper, Jack Swiss, so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. 8 (33m 43s): And while you're at it, visit w w w dot Chad cheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese is so weird. We out.

On this week's Fromage-free show we have insider reactions to the "Bain Capital House of HR Party", then the UK revives the spirit of Florence Nightengale through technology, and wait... Are we still talking about job boards? You're goddam right we are... Buckle up kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride... PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (16s): 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. Chad (38s): Welcome to a fromage free the Chad and Lieven does Europe podcast. I'm Chad "living the American dream in Europe" Sowash. Lieven (48s): I'm Lieven "totally objective as ever" Van Nieuwenhuyze Chad (52s): And on this week's episode, we have house party reactions, the UK revives, the spirit of Florence Nightingale. And wait, we're still talking about job boards? You're goddamn, right we are. Buckle up kids it's going to be a bumpy, bumpy ride Europe. sfx (1m 11s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 12s): Alright Lieven, what's going on big guy? Lieven (1m 14s): Well it's been a busy weekend you know. Chad (1m 17s): It has been a busy week and this week Cheeseman is out. You don't have to worry about listening to steak and grill remarks, but we've got a lot to get to. Plus we have an awesome interview at the end of this episode. So let's go ahead. Let's jump straight into shout outs. You go first, who you shouting out? Lieven (1m 36s): Shout out to the Belgium football team for giving the Dutch football team a false sense of confidence by losing four to one. And next time we're going to went from Wales because those bastards from Wales, won from Ukraine, which is so mean. So now we're going to win from Wales. We were supposed to lose from Ukraine, but they didn't. That's my shout out. Chad (1m 56s): Oh yes. Belgium did get tuned up by the Netherlands. That was four to one and you're saying that's a false sense of security. I appreciate that because we know World Cup is coming soon and Belgium is, you don't have a bad group. Belgium, Canada, Morocco, and Croatia. So that's, that's not too bad, but yes, I have to say, Welsh, kicking out a Ukraine over the weekend, you know, if you're Welsh you're happy and if you're anyone else it's much easier to hate the Welsh. Right? Lieven (2m 25s): I think, I think the Russians were happy too. Chad (2m 28s): I'm sure they were yes from a propaganda standpoint and a marketing standpoint. No shit. Cause everybody would have been what would have definitely had their own home team, but the Ukrainian team would have been number two. My shout out goes to, this is going to surprise you German unions. Last week, we talked about Elon Musk, who in a leaked email to employees, demanded workers get back to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week. Well, that didn't play well in Germany with the Bridgette Deetseh or regional IG metal leader in a statement quote "in Germany and employer cannot dictate the rules just as he likes and a worker can rely on the strength and power of her or his union. Chad (3m 14s): If she or he does not want to accept the demands of the company," end quote. Recognizing the German constitutional protections for labor organizing. Sounds like Elon's bid to become world leader isn't going that well so far Lieven. Lieven (3m 31s): Still in Elon we trust but in this case, he probably made a stupid mistake. Asking people to come at least 40 hours to the office again, the at least was the wrong chosen word I think. In Europe we have a 38 hours working week so making that at least 40 is kind of pushing it with the unions. Chad (3m 51s): I think it's interesting. Just from the standpoint of, once again, we keep talking about how many of these organizations are actually just saying what they're thinking, others like Google, they're trying to boil the frog and try to slowly pull their employees back and then mandate them back into the office. We see that happening slowly where Elon's like, he's just saying what's on his mind. Hey, get your ass back in the office. I don't care. This is about control. It's not about reason. Lieven (4m 18s): No, probably not. And his excuse saying, I used to sleep in the office to give people confidence that this is one of the reasons we didn't go broke back in the days. He's maybe right. But even he is the boss and you can't expect the same enthusiasm from your own workers. Chad (4m 33s): Yeah. Well that's the funny part is when a leader says I slept here overnight. Well, yeah, you actually get a hell of a lot more money than I do too. So good for you right? Lieven (4m 46s): Indeed Chad (4m 46s): Ah shit. So my last shout out, shout out to all of the attendees who are making the trek to conferences all over the world. First and foremost, the E recruitment Congress, which you know, was a huge hit in Belgium. And then the masses flooded Vegas for our second show of the year at Unleash. The FOMO is real kids. So do not repeat, do not miss RecFest, the biggest open air TA event in the world coming to you on July 7th at Knebworth Park in England. We Joel and I are emceeing the disrupt stage, which is all about technology. And wait a minute. Are you going to be there Lieven? Lieven (5m 27s): I was just thinking I'm actually Lieven for Scotland on the 8th, so maybe I can combine it, but I'm, I'm going on a trip to Scotland with my family. So I don't think there'll be too interested about joining RecFest, but I'll give it a go. I'll try. Chad (5m 42s): Okay. Well, when you do go to Chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right-hand corner, get your tickets, bring the kids probably before noon, because things get a little crazy after the bars open at noon, but it is a blast. Again, beat the FOMO, get out there, enjoy it. Can't wait to see you there. You ready for some topics? Lieven (6m 7s): Topics! Chad (6m 8s): Topics, baby. Oh my God dude. So you've had one hell of a week. Are you feeling lighter with the Bain Capital news off your back finally? Lieven (6m 16s): Yeah, definitely. It has been a hell of a few months, I guess. Not just a week, but now it's in the open and everything is okay. The deal is true. So we're happy and I hope Bain is too. I know they are. Chad (6m 27s): Okay. So we're missing Joel this week. So what I did for, for you and the listeners is I have a clip of him actually reading through the Bain Capital news from our show last week, entitled Bain Capital house party. Here we go. Joel (6m 44s): All right, Chad. Well, once again, everything, this podcast touches turns to gold. We should change our name to the Midas touch show. Anyway, our good friends at House of HR in Belgium announced that private investment firm, Bain Capital, maybe you've heard of them? Has entered into a share purchasing agreement for the acquisition of a 55% stake in the company. Financial details were not disclosed, but trust me, when we say it was a big number of kids. House of HR CEO, Rika Coppens said, quote, "with Bain Capital's investment in House of HR, we start a new chapter in our incredible story. We intend to continue our growth path based on strong organic growth combined with targeted and specialized M and A in existing markets. Joel (7m 27s): For the full year 2021 House of HR reported revenue of 2.2 billion euros, an increase of 18.8% compared to 2020. Chad, this is clearly a house made out of bricks. Your thoughts? Chad (7m 41s): We're going to need a bigger boat and well, you know, Bain has a superyacht so why the fuck not? Okay again for listeners, if you haven't checked out last week's Bain Capital house party episode, I encourage you to do so. Lieven, I know you heard it. So what did you think of Joel and my analysis? Lieven (8m 0s): I like you thinking that everything, this podcast touches turns to gold and I'm sure this is the reason why Bain invested in us. I must say I'm happy it's Bain, I mean, we've been through the whole process. I think it's three years ago now. And we've we saw some major companies. Bain was one of them. We saw some others, you know, the big, big investment funds like Bain. A few of those three years ago, they made an offer. But our current shareholder, Naxicap Partners., they could get more out of it and there were rights and they didn't need to sell because this is a pretty good company that gets a 12% EBITDA so they can give themselves some kind of cash out each year. Lieven (8m 43s): So it was okay and they could wait. And the reason why they didn't offer three years ago enough and the eyes of Bain Capital was because they thought, what if there comes a downturn? How well how's the House of HR react to a sudden, let's say a declining of the economy. We got COVID and nobody expected COVID, but during COVID we succeeded in even growing. We not one of our companies lost money in our country. How do you say the English in the country? They even grew so even though their margins grew, so that was the best proof of as being sustainable and being very adaptive, being able to adapt to a fast changing situation and COVID was the best proof. Lieven (9m 28s): So now Bain was convinced we were able to stand in the biggest storm. And I think this is the reason why now finally, they decided to invest in us and go for the long run. Chad (9m 38s): Awesome. That's awesome. So what was the number that was landed on? We saw published 2.5 to 3 billion euros. Can you settle that number for us? Lieven (9m 48s): I'm probably not supposed to, but it's a much closer to the three. Chad (9m 55s): 55%. That's pretty awesome. Also your thoughts on my comments around you come at the king, you best not miss how House of HR, the growth that you guys have seen has been amazing, but at the top, the big dogs saying the Randstads and the Adeccos, they've been struggling, right? They've been making money, don't get me wrong, but they've been fighting back and forth. And two of those on the top of the mountain, it's a little bit easier to knock one of them off. Are you coming at the king? Is that what we're seeing with Bain Capital? Lieven (10m 25s): Well, today Randstad is the king and we're talking in just revenue around Randstad is the king. Are we coming for the king? Probably not yet. I mean, we have $2.2 billion. They ever bought last time I checked, I think 27 or something. So there still is a really, really, really big gap, but the gap is closing. And if you told me five years ago, it will be bigger than people. I would have laughed, but today it's almost a case or it is a case. So we are growing fast, much faster than the markets. And now with the new capital from Bain will be able to check for new markets to invest in new countries, to grow organically, but also to buy. So I think future is bright. Chad (11m 5s): Okay. So that being said, when you're looking at expanding into new countries, any on the hot list? Lieven (11m 13s): Yes. Yeah. I can share, maybe not yet. We have to keep something for our next episode. Is that right? Chad (11m 18s): Yes. Good call. Good call. So I got to say again, Bain has approximately $160 billion in assets currently under management. When I heard that Bain was the entity that was taking controlling stakes at 55%, I thought, wow, this is fucking big. So congratulations to you, to Rika the team. And it's just great to see House of HR just explode like this. Lieven (11m 50s): Hey, we're happy too Chad (11m 51s): I think you are. Lieven (11m 53s): Yeah. Now I'm definitely, I've talked to Bain and ask him, you have $167 billion is there's a big deal for you or not? and they say that has, because in Europe we only closed three deals like this each year. So we've been working very hard with a very big team on this. And I must say they were extremely professional. I wasn't directly involved in the whole process. I mean, it was mostly finance now because they already knew us. I met him two years ago and I have some, even during this process, but I mean, they asked so many questions to about ICT, about legal. And I am going to quote them three years ago they said, "we're going to crunch your numbers until they confess." So finally our number or numbers confessed, and they probably told the right stuff. Chad (12m 39s): That is amazing. Again, a House of HR Bain Capital at the altar that's pretty amazing. We will be back. And we're going to talk a little bit about the revival of Florence Nightingale. Right back after the break. sfx (12m 54s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (12m 59s): Okay. Lieven. So the cash just keeps on coming. The following report coming from tech.edu, a London-based marketplace that connects vacant care home shifts to local nurses and carers looking for extra work. Florence has raised $35 million in series B. The funding will be used to further expand the product offering to include services beyond elderly care. Since 2017, Florence has raised close to 50 million looking to make the lives of nurses, not only more manageable, but also more profitable. Florence cuts out the agency middleman and gives those healthcare workers direct access to open shifts. Chad (13m 46s): Healthcare has been hot for years now, Lieven like decades. What's your thoughts on Florence getting into just the UK space. Lieven (13m 52s): First of all, I always start with the name. You know, why I think names are important and Florence just as a great name, I already spoiled it. And Florence Nightingale. She used to be a, she was a founder of modern nursing. She used to be active in the Crimean war in 1853 it was everyone knows this, not sure about America, but in Europe, we all know it was from 1853 to 1856, and Russia lost to an Alliance of France, UK, Ottoman empire, blah, blah, blah. So Florence Nightingale used to be a very, very famous nurse. And now they've chosen this name. So it's a good name. First point, I liked the name. And then of course you can't go wrong with nurses, feel safe at night, sleep with nurse they say, so nurses, nurses are a good thing. Lieven (14m 41s): But we have been struggling to find good companies. And for example, the segment of nursing and nurses, and we have TMI in the Netherlands, we have Avanti in Germany and they are doing really well, but it's hard to find a company which is for sale. Chad (14m 58s): Yeah. Lieven (14m 58s): And doing a good thing because there are not enough nurses and it's very hard to get them onboard and to put them at your clients. So Chad (15m 6s): Are you seeing this because of the population boom, cause here in the US the boomer generation is huge and they're retiring. And obviously, you know, healthcare has been, I don't want to say an issue, but it is becoming more of an issue because we need more healthcare workers. Are you seeing the same thing in Europe that we're seeing here? Lieven (15m 29s): Definitely. And also our eyes opened during COVID. I mean, we just didn't have enough healthcare professionals and there has always been a problem, but suddenly it was acute to us. It was a massive problem. So now people are aware of it. And I think today having a platform to match nurses and opportunities can be a huge success. As long as you can convince the nurses to use it Chad (15m 53s): Yeah, yeah. Lieven (15m 54s): Because they don't have big difficulties and looking for a job. So that will be our biggest issue to convince the nurses and to have enough opportunities for them. Because I know many hospitals, my wife is a doctor, and it's even more, how do you say, they aren't the biggest innovators concerning HR. I mean, it's a very conservative business and human resources is conservative already, but human resources within the nursing, or, but in the hospital, health care it's even worse. So those people are probably not the most open to using new systems. Chad (16m 32s): Right. Lieven (16m 33s): But if you offered them something which works, they will use it. Chad (16m 37s): What about nurses or healthcare workers working across European borders? Is it, do they have that kind of mobility or do they not? Because here in the states, in some cases you have to have a certification state by state. Is that the same thing country by country in the EU or just Europe as a whole? Lieven (16m 56s): No. Ah, that's for once it's I think better in Europe then, I mean, state-by-state that surprises me Europe. It's so great. The moment you have your, how do you say to your Chad (17m 7s): Certification? Lieven (17m 8s): Or certification to work as a nurse. Within Europe it's not a problem. And also many companies tried, it's probably the wrong word, but importing nurses from outside of Europe, like the Philippines and the north of Africa. But as far as I know, it's never succeeded. It's why, because there was a language problem and you can give those people a really good course with a one year course. They just won't be able to speak to the patients as they should. Chad (17m 35s): Yeah. Lieven (17m 35s): That's a problem. And that's still is a problem in Europe. Even within Europe, there are so many languages. Chad (17m 42s): Yes. Lieven (17m 42s): Yeah. Everyone speaks English. Yes. But the old people, maybe they don't. Chad (17m 45s): A friend of ours in Portugal. She's a healthcare worker. She actually worked in Brussels for, I think it was three years and she did speak a Flemish and also Dutch, probably not as well, obviously is people in Belgium. But she did say that, you know, it was something that, you know, you had to focus on very heavily and it was hard. So yeah, that was a huge issue for her. And she's back in Portugal now because you know, it's a lot easier for her to find and do work. Lieven (18m 17s): I can imagine. And we have the same experience with different jobs. We have people working from birth to goal in all kinds of industries, all over Europe, but now they're getting back to Portugal because the economy is growing also, there and people want to go home. Chad (18m 31s): Yeah. Lieven (18m 31s): And nurses are different thing. And did you know, by the way that I'm not sure if it's the same thing in the US but in Europe, within all job categories, Chad (18m 46s): Categories. Yeah. Lieven (18m 46s): Categories, right. Nurses are the most active on social media. Chad (18m 51s): Really? Lieven (18m 51s): From all of the categories nurses are the most active and the less are the least active are, who do you think are the least active? Chad (19m 2s): Probably the physicians, the doctors. Lieven (19m 3s): Not even the legal profiles. Oh, Chad (19m 4s): Really? Lieven (19m 5s): Yeah. Because they probably don't trust anyone. So they stay away from it. And I guess they're right. Yeah. But the nurses are very active. So maybe a digital profile using social to connect on a social referral. We have nurses that could work, I believe in it. Chad (19m 20s): Yeah. I think, I think tech provides quicker access to open positions and quicker access to labor as well. Right. So it goes both ways. So not to mention scale. So that's something that it's hard to do with humans and that's what we talk a lot about on this show. So if they can get some type of adoption from healthcare workers that can see that within different healthcare systems, they can pick up different shifts then there's, I think there's an opportunity there. We're seeing the same here in the U S with different platforms that are opening up as well. So it's pretty encouraging because if we can better utilize the workforce that we have now, then we know, I think in better, better areas where to grow. Chad (20m 6s): And it sounds like Europe is in pretty much the same situation we are. Lieven (20m 9s): Yeah. Of course. And people are getting older, so we need more nurses. We need people for the elderly institutions. Chad (20m 17s): Yeah. Lieven (20m 18s): Oh yeah, definitely. You were talking about the shifts. And I looked at the trust pilots from foreign staff. They use trust pilots to give people the opportunity to give their experience with the platform. And overall, they have a very good score, but I was surprised I'm going to quote one, one of the users of Florence said, "please don't waste your time registering. It's a great company overall, but they've over employed people, especially in Glasgow, no shifts at all. I wish they controlled that you'll go months and months without shifts." And I was surprised because I thought their biggest problem would be getting to the nurses. It's the companies would be all over them. Lieven (20m 60s): Apparently they're not. And that's probably because it's so conservative. Chad (21m 2s): Maybe, but this also might be that supply versus demand kind of curve that you have to work on now that they have the supply that can go back to the companies and they can start selling that demand. Cause I mean, really all of this is a new age type of staffing, right? It's happening via transaction versus kind of quote unquote "placement", let's say. So it could just be that they're ginning up a bunch of talent to be able to go back and then start getting adoption from the healthcare facility. Lieven (21m 31s): I agree with two counts, let your talent wait. And it's only one guy, of course, but he says, you'll go months and months without shifts. People won't wait months and months. I just remember I was talking to someone from TMI, the company who is also in secondment of nurses, of nurses and in the Netherlands. And they had a great idea and it works really well. You know, the Netherlands used to have colonies like, and still have them, but they are not colonies anymore. Like Aruba and some other islands and the Caribbean in the Caribbean. And they work with those islands and they have offices there as well. And they offer nurses in the Netherlands, the opportunity to go work for six months or longer, if you want to, let's say some islands in the Caribbean. Lieven (22m 16s): And this of course for young people is great. You finished high school or college, what's it called? And you can go, do get some experience and get a nice suntan. And that's the reason why they got so many nurses. Chad (22m 31s): Yeah. Lieven (22m 32s): And then they also put people in, in Switzerland where there just gets paid ridiculously well. Chad (22m 38s): Yeah. Lieven (22m 38s): For an intensive care unit nurse, they gets about 9,000 euros a month, which is enormous. Chad (22m 44s): Yeah. Well, Switzerland is also pretty damned expensive. Lieven (22m 47s): Indeed yea, but we have Avanti in Germany and they put German nurses in Switzerland and they don't have the language problem. It's the same language. Yeah. And they have the big money advantage even from Germany to Switzerland. Chad (23m 1s): We'll continue to take a look at the space, not to mention Florence because this is going to just explode. But at this point we're going to move on to job boards. That's right. Kids. I said, job boards, people are sick and tired of talking about job boards. But sfx (23m 18s): Hell Yeah! Chad (23m 19s): According to our friends, over at the intelligence group and their 2022 survey, Indeed is the European market leader as most named and preferred job board. Quote "Indeed has a strong position in Western Europe, particularly in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Germany" said Geert Jan Waasdorp founder and CEO of the Intelligence Group. But you got to remember that Europe has a bunch of countries in it. So the argument made by an article on ToTalent could therefore be made that Indeed is the Europe's market leader, but the leading job board company pays very little or even no role in various Eastern European countries some Scandinavian countries, as well as Spain and Portugal. Chad (24m 9s): These countries where local job boards have heavily dominated. And so did anything surprise you in this survey? Lieven (24m 14s): Oh, surprise me not really, but as you say, Europe has a bunch of countries in it and in the countries where there is a big local brands than Indeed will never be number one. Chad (24m 25s): Yeah. Lieven (24m 25s): LinkedIn is something else. LinkedIn offers much more, but Indeed, basically is a scraper and they scraped and they're very good in scraping, but scraping isn't rocket science and they are very, very good and search engine marketing. Chad (24m 38s): Yes. Lieven (24m 38s): And that's also not rocket science, but it's more complicated. So Indeed it's really good, but I live thanks to Google everyone else. Indeed is in my opinion, pretty easy to copy. And if you have a local approach with a local knowledge of the markets, you can, in my opinion, pretty easily, you win from Indeed, it's as a gonner. And I mean, they, they need Google and Google doesn't like him. So their situation is just not comfortable. LinkedIn is something else. They have their own sustainable database, self-sustainable database. They have over 800 million of CVS, which are up to date. You can't copy that from day to day. I mean, people need to make an effort. You need to make a new profile. Lieven (25m 19s): You need to put your information on it. Why would you? Chad (25m 26s): Right. Lieven (25m 27s): So I think LinkedIn, yes, Indeed their reason for existing as it's lowering. Chad (25m 32s): Well, it's interesting though, because Indeed has still, they're still getting lifts from Google. I mean, decades in and whether Google likes them or not search engine optimization is about trust and history. Right. And Indeed has that in Google likes something about Indeed. Lieven (25m 49s): Money I'd guess. Chad (25m 50s): Yea, and trust and history. Yeah. But I was surprised you talked about LinkedIn. I was surprised about the piece of intel where LinkedIn. Yes. LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a sourcing channel and talent are leaving LinkedIn because they're sick and tired of getting spammed by recruiters. Lieven (26m 11s): That's right. Chad (26m 11s): The development in the UK may indicate that LinkedIn is past its peak. So, you know, you were just talking about how they have that great database, but the problem is, if it's being spammed, if it's being used in and what job seekers think nefarious ways that could also topple LinkedIn, right? Lieven (26m 28s): Yeah. But spanning is only for like, I think 10% of the profiles. I mean, if you're an it or net program programmer, if you are an engineer you'll get spammed, but 80% of the profiles, aren't one of those. And those people probably are happy when they get a nice job offer. So I guess, yes, for the most needed profiles, they might try to ignore you and they will leave LinkedIn. They probably won't leave it, they just want to check their mails constantly. But for the others, I think it will still work. Chad (26m 58s): So I got to say great survey and data from the Intelligence Group and sponsor the podcast and the five top job boards. This is funny. Number one, we talked about Indeed. Number two, LinkedIn. Number three, InfoJobs. We'll talk about that one in a minute. Number four, this just blows my mind Monster. Number five StepStone. So first off many Americans that are listening to this podcast have no clue what InfoJobs is. Are they in multiple countries? Are they all over Europe or are they just really heavily good in certain countries? Lieven (27m 39s): They call themself the leading career site in Europe as so many career sites do. I hardly knew the myself. They're, I guess Spain based if I'm right and they are active in a few countries, but, and our main countries, they are not active. In the countries where we're at. So I've never worked with them. I hardly know them. I know their name and I know a bit about them, but it's not really. So this is one of those local branches who tried to conquer Europe, but it's difficult just because it's a bunch of countries and Indeed succeeded because they had something new. When, when Indeed started the scraping thing was new. So they actually conquered the world. Lieven (28m 19s): But if you want to do it now, again, it will be difficult. Chad (28m 24s): Monster is still in the top five. How in the hell is this even happening? Lieven (28m 30s): It's fake news. I mean, it's impossible. But in Belgium the last time I saw the real numbers, they only had 6,000 users a month. I mean, that's ridiculous to give you a, something to compare with because Belgium is a small country we only have like 10 million people. But the Flemish department of labor, they have a job boards and they have over 100,000 users each day. So Monster is nearly dead in Belgium and it's a bit better off in the Netherlands. But I think they are retreating to the United States. Chad (29m 6s): Is this just brand awareness really? I mean, job seekers have known, especially older job seekers have known Monster for so long. It's just the first thing that they spit out of their mouth. Lieven (29m 13s): Yeah, of course. I asked my students, which job boards do you know, if you, if you give them a list, if you've talked to them about Monster, they think it's an energy drink. I mean, Monster, they don't know it. They have never heard about it's. Why would they, if they're 20 years old, Monster is not making any commercials here. So how could they know them? Chad (29m 33s): Yeah. Lieven (29m 33s): And there's a reason why those local brands are mostly doing goods because they are part of publisher groups. And those publisher groups have newspapers. They have websites, they have mailings, they have all kinds of other stuff. So they keep repeating to new groups of people that they exist. And Monster just couldn't do it. It's the same with StepStone and StepStone is part of a bigger group. So StepStone probably can to a certain extent, but even they have problems. Chad (30m 2s): Yes, no. They pulled out of France. They're obviously heavy in Germany. So yeah, we've seen that StepStone are having their problems as well. If anybody wants this survey, you can go to Intelligence Group, just go to Google and Google Intelligence Group, or they're in the Netherlands. Check it out. You can download it there, Lieven. We are going to end this podcast on a damn good note. And, anything that has to do with the E-recruitment Congress is a damn good note. Anybody who missed it, the E-recruitment Congress happened earlier in may. We were lucky enough to be on the ground and doing some interviews. This interview is with Arjan Elbers founder and managing director of Get Noticed. Chad (30m 46s): Enjoy, Joel (30m 46s): Hey guys, we're back at, we're live at the E-recruitment Congress here in beautiful Ostend, Belgium. Chad (30m 54s): You're feeling the FOMO right now aren't ya? Joel (30m 53s): We got Dutch Belgium speaker stereo situation here. Anyway, I want to introduce Arjan Elbers. Chad (30m 58s): Oooo. Joel (30m 58s): He is the co-founder you liked that? It was good. Yeah. Yeah. Little Dutch in there for you. He is the co-founder and CEO of Get Noticed! Arjan` welcome to the podcast. Arjan (31m 11s): Thank you. Joel (31m 11s): Another stylish European joining us. Chad (31m 14s): Yes. Very much. Joel (31m 21s): I love the cow skin converse. Chuck Taylors. Those are Arjan (31m 25s): From the states. Really. Chad (31m 26s): Of course they are. Really very nice. Joel (31m 27s): Very nice from America Chad (31m 28s): Chuck Taylor just so everybody knows Columbus, Indiana kids. That's right. That's where Chuck Taylor came from. So tell us today you're on stage. Got a chance to actually talk. What'd you talk about? Arjan (31m 40s): Well, I had to talk about future proof recruitment websites. Chad (31m 43s): Future proofing recruitment websites. We need that because Joel (31m 47s): Sounds impossible. Chad (31m 47s): There are a lot of shitty recruitment websites that are out there. Arjan (31m 51s): That's correct. Chad (31m 51s): Right. So I'm right? Okay. How does a company, because this is such a deep kind of like conversation today. Let me throw this out. We've talked about this on hundreds of shows. Arjan (32m 7s): I know. Chad (32m 8s): Candidates are applying to jobs and they are not completing the application. 92% are not completing the app. That's a horrible experience, right? Arjan (32m 16s): I know . Joel (32m 18s): It's like clicking buy now and not puchasing. Arjan (32m 23s): Almost Chad (32m 23s): Putting something in your cart. Joel (32m 25s): Yes, exactly. Arjan (32m 27s): Yeah. Joel (32m 27s): Lot of empty carts out there. Chad (32m 28s): Exactly. So how do you change that? 92% ejection rate to more of a 92% of application? Joel (32m 37s): A hundred percent. Arjan (32m 38s): I love to question the guys because my talk was mainly about this topic. How do you increase your conversion? And it starts with a great candidate experience and stop using applicant buttons, apply here. You don't use the form in your page. That's one. Don't ask more then you should ask Chad (33m 3s): There it is. So half an hour application process, not smart. Arjan (33m 9s): (Laughing) Joel (33m 10s): That's actually pretty good for a lot of sites. Yeah. Arjan (33m 13s): And I had to show the crowds I was presenting for. They use accounts for applications and killer questions. Now I say that's only one knockout question. I believe in is "dear candidate do you have a heartbeat?" When yes you are through when out, don't ask. Don't it's stupid. Don't do it in this market. So make it easier and think about your candidate before doing it. Joel (33m 38s): The product sits on top of an ATS. So your hope is that when someone clicks jobs on a corporate website, they go to your site. Arjan (33m 49s): Absolutely. Joel (33m 49s): Give our listeners a few tips on what really works on that landing page, if you will and what doesn't work. Chad (34m 2s): Yeah. You got to Get Noticed and you buy their product. Arjan (34m 8s): Yeah, that's good. No, I think in first instance, it's very important to think and rethink about your target audience. What do we recruiters and marketers and HR professionals do? We send our message to the world. This is my job, that's it? So he will take it like a man and use it. That's real strange because you have a super target groups you want to talk to. When I want to talk and communicate to trainees, it's another type of labor market communication then I use with professionals or with the students or with people who are coming in via site recruitment or otherwise. Arjan (34m 51s): So that's very, very important. And you have to use your labor markets communication for that target group and not for the rest of the world, not the world's your customer. Right. I'm a very big believer of that. Chad (35m 5s): Well, everybody does, right. They're like everybody's going to come to our website. So we have to make sure we have a broad enough phrase. Joel (35m 13s): Be as vanilla as possible. Arjan (35m 15s): Yes, please. Chad (35m 15s): Yeah. Yeah. So that's correct. So how do you, I guess from the standpoint of an organization, let's say for instance, that is incredibly diverse with regard to the types of positions and whatnot. Do you like force them out to different landing pages that are more focused on them or, Arjan (35m 35s): Okay. And we also use career domain pages. So for example, I used an example just 10 minutes ago for Dutch bank. We made a career domain page and it's a domain page of everything in risk and control, all jobs and all communication and all answers on the question. What's in it for me as a potential candidate is been answered over there. I don't have to tire you it's HR jobs are with marketing jobs. Now it's about debts. So that's the first. So rethink your target audience and the second advice, I'm a strong believer of is one conversion is no conversion. Arjan (36m 16s): You have to use soft conversions. So for example, we made a case with a big tech company, real big high-tech company, where does an only an application button, but some of your target group audience is very shy when it comes to doing an application. So we added another button with question. Do you have a question? It's so it's so simple like it sounds, but it increased conversion with more than 40%. Chad (36m 42s): People had more questions right out of the gate and they didn't just want to apply. And since you could answer their questions and you made them happier about their, or at least more wanting to apply because they knew at that point. Okay. Yeah, no, I know more about this organization now. Arjan (36m 58s): But it's also an alternative for an application. Right. And what does the recruiter do through the phone? Of course he smells an engineer from 100 miles away. So he says, okay, that engineer's mine, but you don't. So the application itself is a little bit exciting to your engineer. Okay. Let me talk to you VR, you have a question about salary or a contract or the procedure or whatever. And then we see the increasement, and it also stands for the job alerts for other question, for newsletters, for content questions, for job note fire using WhatsApp, Facebook messenger make it feel soft conversions. Joel (37m 37s): I love the Dutch humility, and that he said a big tech company, but didn't even mention the company. Talk about mobile for a second. I think sorta we take it for granted, but the amount of traffic that comes in through mobile, the preference of people to apply to jobs and visit mobile sites. I think people don't appreciate, help them appreciate it unless I'm wrong, and then what tips would you give to make sure the mobile experience is different? How is it different? What do you got to make? What checks do you have to tick off to make sure that your mobile site kicks ass? Arjan (38m 9s): Well, I know you've talked also a lot about it in your podcast, but how do people have a resume on your smartphone? You don't and don't try, well, we have for Google drive or Dropbox now. Forget it. Don't ask for a resume when people are doing an application online. So your website has to see on what device it has been looked at, at the moment. And if you have that, then you can serve them a mobile first website. We are really mobile first builder so that's the first thing we look at. We know indeed, 74, 75% of all traffic comes in via smartphone and people want to convert directly. Arjan (38m 51s): So kill the resume and kill the motivation. Let the recruiters do their jobs. They have to do it. I want to do an application via WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, or only a name and an email address and a telephone number. And that's it. That's it. Joel (39m 3s): I love that you said messaging. And I think people forget that as part of the mobile strategy. So I'm glad that you brought that up. Chad (39m 15s): The mobile strategy right now, right? It should be. Joel (39m 18s): Many strategies. Mobile. We'll get to the metaverse in a second. Let's keep talking about the mobile experience and how to make that as good as possible. Arjan (39m 28s): Yeah. We optimized our websites for mobile and we saw, okay, when you use with drop down, so you get a level short title in your communication and you give a dropdown is more friendly to scroll. People know how to scroll with one hand and one thumb only. They know how to use it, so trust them. Joel (39m 43s): Back to the don't have the apply button or don't have the typical resume. What's your recommendation, or how do you guys do it? Is it a chat situation, whereas while I'm answering questions, I'm also filling out an application? Is it just give us some basic information and we'll email you the application later? How do you guys do it? Arjan (40m 5s): Well it really depends on the target group on the target audience also, because I know for example, the high-tech professionals don't use chatbots, for some companies tested it and they're not happy with it. So don't do it, but Joel (40m 19s): Who's not the employers or the job seekers? Arjan (40m 21s): Job seekers. Joel (40m 21s): Job secrets are unhappy with. Arjan (40m 24s): High-tech professionals who were looking, they were annoyed by the chatbots. Chad (40m 27s): Developers did not want to chat bot. Arjan (40m 30s): That's where developers and I don't need this right now. I'm not on Amazon Joel (40m 33s): Too good for a chat bot. Chad (40m 34s): I developed a chat bot and you suck. Arjan (40m 36s): I made the stuff. Joel (40m 37s): I made the stuff you're doing, I'm onto you. Arjan (40m 39s): Exactly. Joel (40m 39s): It's not going to take it like a man. Arjan (40m 42s): Well. So, but I think it's really depends on the target audience. It can be very strong, but you have to really take a look and you have to make conversion fit to your target audience. So for an account manager, it can be an otherwise conversion then for an executive. Joel (41m 1s): You're talking about a lot of customization. Are you creating those separately? Separate landing pages for each of these campaigns, is it one central site where, Hey, if someone comes in from Portugal, they're going to get Portuguese. If someone comes into the site from America, they're going to get English or have the option for Spanish. Like, what recommendations do you give? Should it be one central homogenous site? Or do you like a lot of landing pages and specific strategies? Arjan (41m 31s): Yeah. It also depends on the customer and the customer budget, because like no money, Chad (41m 36s): No money, no money. Arjan (41m 36s): Some customers they think, and they called us and said, well, we need a high-end recruitment website that can you build this? And then we will ask further, why do you need it? What do you want to go? I want to hire 20 a call center agents. And I don't build high-end recruitment websites. It's too much guys, no really, a great landing page and that's enough, that's it. When you get all the way for an enterprise client, we can make multi-language multi-country and you come in at your own domain and your own extension. And you, I prefer that you also, I direct you as soon as possible to your career domain. Arjan (42m 16s): As the example I used for the bank, I know, you know, you want to do something in IT or in marketing. I don't want to show you the rest. I know you're not going to do the hospitality or the HR when you in a marketing. Chad (42m 30s): All those companies that are out there today that have half hour application processes. Right. And they come to you, right. And they say, I need you cause you're consulting them. Right. I need you to do this, but I have to have, you know, this long application process. So what do you tell them? Arjan (42m 50s): Stop it. That's yeah, this is real. That's and we tell them, okay guys, look at the world of e-commerce. Every question you ask is killing four or five, 6% of your conversion rate. So it's a wonder when somebody fills in 20 gaps in your application form, it's a wonder, you have to hire him blind because his attitude is superb. People don't want to do it. And a lot of customers think, well, when you take the application and the job serious, you will go shit for it. But it's absolutely not true. People leave you in an instant heartbeat and they go away to be never been heard of again. Yeah. Chad (43m 30s): We're in a job seeker market right now. Arjan (43m 32s): Absolutely. Chad (43m 32s): So you have to be flexible and future-proofing means that you should be able to be more flexible in your process. Right? Okay. Arjan (43m 40s): And the process, but also in the type of jobs. So a lot of I heard this morning, I could translate to my own business and own type of business. I think it has to be flexible. I don't believe and people ask us questions and clients. Ah, what do you do with AI and VR and AR? I don't know. We built great recruitment websites, guys. What you have now, it's not okay. Please increase it. And please optimize this in first instance and then let's talk about AI, but you have 500 jobs to fill, get a life. Get real. Yeah. Joel (44m 16s): Yeah. All right. Let's talk about it. Cause you may not be doing it, but I know you're thinking about it. Arjan (44m 25s): Okay. Joel (44m 25s): Virtual reality, augmented reality. Arjan (44m 27s): Absolutely. Joel (44m 27s): Metaverse are you buying, are you buying or selling any of those and why? Arjan (44m 31s): Where, how do you say it in English scrunching against it to virtual reality, we're touching it. Chad (44m 36s): Tilling the water. Joel (44m 37s): Okay. Dipping the toe in the water. Arjan (44m 38s): That's a nice one. Dipping the toe. We want to use the virtual reality. That's really cool because I can show you how it is. I don't have to tell it. I can show you. And that's why I believe in a great candidate experience. What we did build was it was a 360 environment, a 360 environment with an interactive question and learning part. So the candidate could touch it itself. And it touches VR. Chad (45m 16s): Stop talking to Cheeseman about touching. It's just too intimate. Joel (45m 19s): Please go on. Please say more. Arjan (45m 22s): So, Joel (45m 22s): So VR you're bullish on VR. Arjan (45m 24s): I think it's to Joel (45m 24s): It's on the curve right? Arjan (45m 26s): Yeah. It's on the curve and it's too difficult to send the gear and the glasses and to do it good. It's too difficult and too, too heavy to use it on a daily base. Chad (45m 44s): Joel has a suit. That's why he's. He's excited. Arjan (45m 52s): I know. It's really cool. Joel (45m 53s): I have a room and a suit. I fly around. Chad (45m 57s): His wife to lock him in. Joel (45m 60s): Gravity defying cables in my room. Chad (46m 2s): He said cool. Joel (46m 3s): He's Dutch. He's down. All right. Let's get folks. Okay. VR you're you're buying VR. Arjan (46m 8s): Absolutely. Joel (46m 8s): AR? Arjan (46m 8s): Didn't see the big solution, but it's still looking for it. Joel (46m 12s): Metaverse. The big one. Arjan (46m 14s): Yeah. A metaverse. That's that's what we're all looking for. Of course. What are we doing? Joel (46m 19s): Are you buying the metaverse? Arjan (46m 20s): Yeah. Chad (46m 20s): I'm not buying the metaverse. Arjan (46m 23s): I know. It's difficult. My marketing professionals are buying it. They're in love with it. Yeah. Joel (46m 28s): Customers, prospects asked you about the metaverse and if so, what do they know what they want to do? Arjan (46m 33s): No, Joel (46m 33s): They haven't even brought it up yet. Arjan (46m 40s): They have a, they have an issue. And in Dutch we call it a it's each instrument. There's something, but we don't know what it is. And that's it. So Chad (46m 48s): You're still trying to get pay-per-click for God's sakes. IT's the truth. Joel (46m 51s): He liked that. Arjan (46m 52s): So a lot of customers ask us about it and in early as the same was about Google for Jobs. What's it going to be? What's going to do, there was a bus and people ask us and they call us. Well, that's not, we don't want to dominate the metaverse, but I have I'm fair. I have some recruitment, marketers on my payroll and they don't laugh at it. They're absolute true believers. I don't know what yet. Chad (47m 20s): So Arjan, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate the time. Now, if somebody wants to find out more about you or Get Noticed, where would you send them? Joel (47m 36s): Or jump in the metaverse? Chad (47m 38s): Oh my god. Arjan (47m 39s): Or in your room suits. Joel (47m 41s): Not yet. Arjan (47m 41s): That's cool. Chad (47m 43s): We're not talking about anymore. Arjan (47m 44s): The most easiest is just getnoticed.n Chad (47m 47s): getnoticed.nl. That's awesome. Joel (47m 49s): Dot.nl. Is there an English version? Arjan (47m 52s): No. Joel (47m 53s): Use your translation browser Chad (47m 55s): And happens on Google automatically. Go ahead. Joel. Say his name. Cause you got his name, right? Right. Joel (48m 3s): Arjan Elbers we appreciate it. Thanks for coming down. Enjoy the rest of the show. Chad and Cheese (48m 2s): We out. Chad (48m 7s): To me? That interview says what's old is new again. Well Lieven, that's another cheese free episode in the books my friend. Chad and Lieven (48m 15s): We out, we out. OUTRO (48m 17s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. OUTRO (48m 57s): We out.

Imagine being behind the scenes during brand crisis hiring situations at Uber and WeWork. Literally the basis for "We Crashed" or "Super Pumped" mini-series. This type of experience should come with a diploma. But seriously, Employment Brand veteran Andrew Levy joins the Cult Brand podcast crew and shares stories and tips on how to hire in a brand crisis. Plus, thoughts on unwinding and reengineering process and tech stacks, candidate rediscovery, and answering questions around global EVPs. Welcome to baptism in brand crisis with an episode worthy enough for We Work Jesus, enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (17s): 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. Chad (24s): That's right, baby. Happy Cult Brand kids. Who is ready for managing a recruitment brand through hi-jinks in crisis. I know I am. When I say hi-jinks, I mean the super pumped and we crashed type of hi-jinks. Julie Calli, president of recruitmentmarketing.com and our resident employer brand expert has brought along a friend for today's podcast. Julie, who is waiting in the wings. Who do you have over there? You've got me excited. What the hell is going on? Julie (56s): Well, I brought with me today, someone that I've known for several years in this space and who has had a great career working with many companies that I would say you probably have as apps in your phone right now, who has had a great career, engaging with so many different companies that had such great perspective of things. I welcomed with me today Andrew Levy. Chad (1m 20s): Andrew Levy. Awesome. And so, okay. So we're talking about companies like Uber. We're talking about companies like WeWork. Oh my God. There's got to be stories all over the place. But before we get into that, let's hear a little bit about Andrew. You're in San Francisco, give us a little bit long walks on the wharf. How does Andrew spend his personal time? Don't get too crazy though. Andrew (1m 42s): Right? Totally. Yeah. I can tell some stories. So, you know, these days I've been trying to avoid San Francisco actually. So my, my partner and I have a house up in Guerneville, which is in Sonoma county nestled in the Redwoods. So we try to get up there. You know, COVID times things got a little cramped here and a loft in downtown San Francisco. So we've been going out there a lot and wine tasting, sitting by the river, hanging out by the pool, just like being out in the wild a little bit. Julie (2m 11s): That sounds fabulous. Chad (2m 12s): Nice. Okay. Okay. Okay. Enough about that. I've got to hear one of the craziest stories you've got to tell me, oh, I don't care if it's about Uber. I don't care if it's about WeWork, but I've got to hear, we've seen everybody I'm sure has already watched. We crashed and super pumped. You were there, dude. You got to tell us some stories. So what's your craziest story or stories? Andrew (2m 32s): I think one of the most interesting things, maybe it's not a crazy story, but like, just to give a sense of like what was going on in the minds of the talent acquisition folks at Uber at the time. You know, so like during the, you know, the crisis around Susan Fowler, you know, obviously the employment brand took a massive hit and this was the time when the company was growing most and needed to hire every single engineer you can imagine. And leadership there gave us carte blanche to just explore any tactic that we could and we came up with some of the most crazy methods of getting engineers to engage with our brand, when, you know, it was in rough shape in the US. So we ended up importing engineers from all over the world and doing like batch day events, you know, getting them interested because a lot of times you get your blinders on and you think your brand is trashed all over the world, but that's not actually the case. Andrew (3m 25s): You know? So in certain markets we didn't have as much issues. So we built strategies on importing people and was able to kind of keep the train rolling in terms of recruiting. Chad (3m 36s): So not every country has a 24 hour news real that's happening is what you're saying. Not everybody's addicted to 24 hour news? Andrew (3m 46s): Totally. And a lot of times like you, you know, you may overstate or over imagine the impact of a crisis in your one particular location. So like, you know, Bay areas an echo chamber. So, you know, everyone's really, really mad at your company in one particular market, but you know, that isn't the case everywhere. It's just not, so like thinking outside of like what you're just hearing by your colleagues sitting right next to you is pretty helpful there. Chad (4m 13s): Okay. So you got to you that that's Uber, you got to talk to me about working for WeWork Jesus. How crazy was that situation? I mean, there was a time when you really had to do a shit ton of hiring, right? Andrew (4m 25s): I mean, the expansion goals were absolutely nuts there. Yeah. I mean that there wasn't enough top of funnel to fill it. It was, it was pretty unreal. You know, some of the work that we did was a lot around, you know, storytelling and content production, getting markets warm, to just hire as many as we possibly could. You know, I mean, on the fun side WeWork, the parties were unreal, you know, going to summer camp and all that stuff. It's it is as described in the documentaries or the TV shows on Hulu or wherever they land. Chad (4m 57s): It did look like a cult in itself to be able to say cult brand, right. Andrew (5m 3s): There was definitely moments of it. But I mean, it's kind of amazing to sit back and think about it because it fell at this moment of time when like, you know, the idea of, you know, making a life, not just the living, like that really meant something to people. So like cult or not like the story Chad (5m 19s): It does now. Andrew (5m 20s): It does now absolutely. I mean, it's still resonates and then, you know, they're rebounding, so it'll be interesting to see how they grow. But I mean, rocky financials aside, you know, the story of WeWork is still a really interesting one I still think being written right now. Chad (5m 34s): Yeah. Okay. I got all of that out of my system so far, Julie, go ahead and take it. Julie (5m 40s): Of course, he wanted to ask those ones with the juicy details. And, you know, the tactical practice of that, right, when you're already facing so many challenges to attract people, to work at a company, but the employer brand right can lean into a consumer brand so people love it. Great. That makes it a lot easier to win people to the business, but if something takes a turn, now you've got a challenge that you're detracting people because of what the consumer brand has done. What have you seen that people have had great success in leading in the employer brand? Andrew (6m 18s): It's a great point. I mean, and so let's take Uber, for example, you know, like obviously, you know, the bad press impacted our ability to recruit, but at the same time, you know what we did at that moment, you know, we had defined an EVP before kind of the crisis moments had hit. We refreshed it. I mean, we thought pretty critically about like, what types of talent, like, what are the attributes of the talent that we actually need to survive in an environment like that? And resilience was a huge one. So, you know, we started to pull on that lever a little bit more and say like these types of people are going to be able to sit and slog through something that's really, really painful at the top and able to do their work. Andrew (6m 59s): So as we started to message and test around that, we got people who are self-selecting into that type of environment. So to your point, it's just as important to self-select people in as out. And we want it to weed out people that weren't willing to sit in an environment where, you know, the bad press is very real. And you're going to hear it every single day. Julie (7m 18s): I love what you said about leaning in, like, who do you want to hire? What do you need from them? I loved hearing you say that. That's like building a candidate profile in a way to determine who is our ideal candidate, and then, I also heard you say that you're building on top of that with how you want to target that type of person. Did you do that for all roles or just certain types? Andrew (7m 41s): In many cases, we did do it for all. So, you know, the EVP messaging was a lot around building. You know, it was a hyper-growth company before it was a hyper-growth company during the crisis, but you know, that messages can shift a little bit towards rebuilding and resilience and optimism. And, you know, having sat inside and see, you know, what the company was trying to do from the inside, we tried to surface as much of that to the outside, to be as transparent as possible with like what's changing and what type of person will thrive in that type of environment. Chad (8m 14s): So question around that, most companies, we don't see doing this, there are certain archetypes, I guess you can say that are perfect for resilience. Let's say the military, right? Pretty resilient people. We don't see companies trying to pipeline them in and train. Right. So manufacturing your own types of people per se. Right? Cause the hardest thing to train really is resilience. And to be able to say, okay, we have a pipeline of individuals who we know are resilient. Now we have to do is get them to a certain level. And then I know in some cases that's a long-term type of a plan, you can do some of your entry level and it's going to take a little while for that to grow, but aren't we supposed to be growing talent within our organizations? Andrew (9m 0s): Absolutely. I mean, in a lot of those cases, at least for, you know, kind of the companies through crisis, there was a compounding issue of, you know, attrition. So you want to grow, but you also want to keep, you know, so there's this very fascinating, fine line of defining a value proposition for the market, but also for the employees themselves. We did a lot of work thinking in words about like how we want to message to employees themselves, for exactly that purpose. It's like, keep the people, keep the institutional knowledge, keep them growing. Julie (9m 34s): I mean, I was just reading today in April, we had 6.6 million hires made. Yippeee! Three steps forward and then 4.4 million quit. Two steps back. So that's the case. You're saying there's a lot more effort on retaining people is part of the employer brand. Andrew (9m 54s): I couldn't agree more with that statement. So, you know, I work now for, you know, an e-commerce company that focuses on pet supplies and, you know, I work on the high volume space. So the hourly workers that are working in the warehouse, you know, hard jobs that are not necessarily always in the most ideal locations to work and, you know, competing against companies like Amazon with potentially higher wages. A lot of what we're trying to do now is message and like impact the actual talent experience, make sure that it's aligned with how we're marketing ourselves out in the market so that the people coming in know what to expect at day one. Andrew (10m 35s): You know, we see attrition start almost immediately if people are misaligned with the job that they, you know, have signed up for. So that's actually a big focus right now is making sure that, that the funnel of people that are coming in don't immediately leave. In the high volume space it's unbelievable the velocity that you have to put into the funnel just to keep the labor orders met inside the company. It's a lot of work and it's very important to pull that retention lever. Chad (11m 3s): So, so on the front end of the funnel, there's a hell of a lot of ghosting going on. I mean, even after somebody has, they've started the process of actually accepting an offer, right? How do you in, within a brand actually try to minimize the ghosting piece? Obviously a lot of it has to do with communication although you have to be able to do that at scale, which is not easy, right. Especially when you're dealing with it, the amount of positions and people that you're trying to connect with. So, so talk a little bit about that. That's not easy from a brand standpoint. Andrew (11m 38s): It's not, it's not at all. And, you're spot on. I mean, there's a lot of it is communication and there's a lot of automation potential within that flow. What's amazing though, is like, you know, we're, we're right now uncovering that there are five or six different of communication going out from your applicant tracking system, from an SMS platform that you might have from, you know, the onboarding tool, et cetera. So some of the work that we've been doing now is process mapping that and trying to clean that up. And, you know, at scale with high volume recruiting, we are looking to automate as much as possible so that recruiters can focus on providing a good experience, not just processing recs. Andrew (12m 18s): There's a lot of work still be still to be done, but there are amazing tools out there to kind of get a handle on it. But it all starts with like, just understanding what you're saying to candidates to begin with. And we've uncovered some situations where we're sending, you know, 15 text messages in kind of an inconsistent way to take candidates along the way. That's not a great experience. That's not the kind of story we want to tell. So yeah, it's all about mapping what you're saying first. Chad (12m 42s): So well mapping what you're saying, but also there's gotta be a tech mapping as well, right? Because you're, you've got to know what systems doing what and how it works. And if there's redundancies in the system, when which one overrides the other. How much of your time have you actually had to deal with process mapping on the tech side, as well as messaging? Andrew (13m 2s): I personally love the tech side of things. So I insert myself in it anyway. There are, you know, there are obviously other teams that I'm partnering with, you know, like the talent operations team that helped with some of this mapping work, but it's a passion of mine. So I focus on it. But you know, another thing to think about, and I'm sure a lot of listeners will experience this at a big company is sometimes you're decentralized, you know, you might have like one TA ops team, but you know, 14 different markets that you're recruiting in with different tools and different processes and different ways of communicating. All of that comes into play here. And the work that I'm doing now with my team is to start to centralize as much as possible, particularly around like the technology and automation piece to just get away from some of that kind of potential brand issues around, you know, over-communicating, or under-communicating, Julie (13m 50s): You've leaned in saying that, you know, in the past, some of the companies have been able to have an EVP and lean in on that as you know, through crisis or to bring it attraction, but with having an EVP, how, how do you get a company to understand that that's important? I know a lot of people suffer there to be late. I can't get them to believe in it. Andrew (14m 11s): Yeah, totally. I'd love to actually take one step back and like define our terms a little bit. So yeah, I'm sure a lot of listeners know what an EVP is, but I like to describe it as like the, you know, what you get for what you give as an employee. And that's, you know, beyond just compensation so it's the experience component of work. And you have to think really hard on how that relates to the company values and also the corporate brand. Like they should all click together. But, you know, in terms of a value, there's tons of data out there that will point to, you know, the, if you have a clearly defined EVP that matches the reality of work at your company, and you do a good job of getting it in the market and weaving it through your recruiting process, your employees will ramp faster. Andrew (14m 54s): They'll stay longer, they'll be happier, you know, and the same thing pointing that EVP internally towards your own employee experience, that's really, really important to do. The example that I love to give is actually around Airbnb. So they, you know, they're all about belonging and, you know, they host here in San Francisco and I'm assuming other offices like French toast Fridays, where anyone can come in and kind of hang out and you belong. And their office space looks like their Airbnbs like, you just get a sense in the environment that you're in Airbnb and that you belong there and that's programmed into exactly how they treat employees and how they recruit them. Chad (15m 30s): Yeah. As a matter of fact, the writer of the cult brand pretty much Bible Douglas Adkin, he was the guy who actually really started all that within Airbnb, which is why we got into this discussion in the first place. It all had to do with belonging and understanding and nobody in this industry was even thinking about that, which we thought was what was amazing. So it's awesome that you brought that up. So we, you talk about the talent management side now, recruiting and talent acquisition, doesn't really touch the talent management side that much. Sometimes there's kind of like almost, like a gray area and then it just falls down. Chad (16m 13s): Right? And you're right, from the standpoint of retention, that that is incredibly hurtful not to mention it hurts your employment brand because this is the experience that you promised and now you are not giving what you promised. So who within talent acquisition touches the talent management side to ensure that that brand promise continues on. Andrew (16m 37s): I love this question. So most of what the employer brand manager or leader's role is, is influencing. You may not own anything that falls under your purview. In reality, you may own some marketing and advertising budgets so at the top of the funnel, but you're right once you get into kind of HR and talent management, it is not your space. And it's all about kind of presenting with data, why they need to pay attention to it and put it on the roadmap. So, one of my favorite pieces of data that I've used in the past to influence this was actually not only employee surveys, but just Glassdoor data. So if you filter your Glassdoor data and look at like kind of the ratings of ex-employees versus the ratings of people currently employed, you can see a differential there. Andrew (17m 23s): And if you see that people are leaving your company and leaving a review, that's scathing, you know, like you can see in the data, if you're churning people out and making them really angry, and that will 100% make its way back into your employer brand, cause everyone's going to talk to each other. So that's a great data point to pull, to go talk to talent management and go talk to HR and say like, here are the themes that I'm seeing. Let's talk about building an HR program to address this. This is going to impact our recruiting. This is going to impact our bottom line. It's going to cost more to get people and people are going to leave. And they'll sometimes listen, they sometimes, well, but keep on the good fight. Julie (18m 1s): So there's data that TA cares about. TA's looking at different things and then there's HR data. They're different. Where do you see that companies are having success, looking at those as separate, or is it better to look at it together? Andrew (18m 17s): I mean, I would love to say that most companies should find themselves in a world where it's like a talent lifecycle and they think of, you know, the people coming in and the people exiting is all the same audience. They're all potential employees. They're all potential rebound employees or boomerang employees, but that's not necessarily a reality. I always try to look at it together, but you have no idea how unbelievably hard it is to connect let's say, source of hire to performance data. You know, it's a really hard story to tell, and we got close to it at Uber actually, to be able to tell the story of like, you know, people coming in through LinkedIn, engineers stay longer, you know, for these three markets, that type of storytelling, but to get there, it requires quite a bit of kind of connecting the dots and connecting the systems. Andrew (19m 4s): And sometimes it's not possible, but you can use equivalent pieces of data. So like employee surveys are fantastic for kind of teasing out how things are working, at least from like the talent experience perspective. Julie (19m 16s): What are some of the pieces of data that you can't live without to do your job? Andrew (19m 22s): Great question. So for me, there's one golden metric that I always like to go back to. And it's the percent of candidates who come in through a paid channel and make it to an onsite interview, compared to the percent of candidates who come in through the career site and make it to an onsite interview. And the reason why I focus on that one, for kind of talent attraction efforts is that's showing you that if those numbers, if those ratios are really close together, that means your paid marketing is just as pretty much just as good and efficient as your free marketing, which is your career site. So what I always try to do is optimize that paid channel to get as close to that free quote, unquote, "free channel" Andrew (20m 4s): as possible. And you can see in that data, you can do some comparisons and say, okay, you know, for this talent group, maybe I shouldn't be marketing on this channel anymore because it's way out of whack and they're not making it to an onsite interview. Why onsite interview? If you think about what a top of funnel talent attraction person tries to do, you fill the funnel, you try to get them through apply, et cetera. It's up to the recruiting team and the hiring panel at that point, when it gets to onsite, it's their job to make it or break it at that point. Julie (20m 30s): You can't own the results that come after, but he can make sure they get there. Andrew (20m 35s): You can't own it, but you can sure try to influence it. You know, like if it's a really crappy, you know, interview experience, that's your employer brand. So that's another one you probably don't own, but you should push on. Chad (20m 47s): Hard question when it comes to the amount of applications you get per year. So how many candidates do you have apply per year? Let's start with that. Andrew (20m 57s): Oh my goodness. Well, I'm thinking back. So Uber, you know, we were in the millions per year and that's at the highest volume. So my current company, we're talking, you know, tens of thousands of hires a year and it takes, you know, generally, you know, 10 to 20 applications per role. And you know, this is on kind of a high volume so it's constantly trying to push the top of the funnel. So we're talking, you know, tens and 10, multiple tens of thousands of applications a year. Chad (21m 26s): Okay. So how are you currently, or maybe even in the past, past organizations, how have you tried to reengage or keep those candidates that you've already paid for warm? Because this goes into candidate rediscovery because we see so many companies paying for the same candidate, 5, 6, 10 times over. You already have them. You didn't keep them warm as a matter of fact, they might be pissed off already. So what do you guys do? What's the secret sauce on trying to focus on a great experience, even if they didn't get the job and also that leading into rediscovery? Andrew (22m 1s): Love, love, love this question. So I don't think I know a single company who does this well yet. We as kind of talent attraction, practitioners need to learn a lot from the consumer world here. It's all about CRM. It's all about segmenting your campaigns to do exactly what you're saying, recycle the people that you already have, or not even like re-engage. You know, you can build really great, simple nurture campaigns to push people back into the funnel that may have either been silver medalists, you know, bronze medalists, or just not even reviewed. So many candidates, sit there, unreviewed in your ATS that could be piped into a CRM and re-engage for similar roles. Andrew (22m 44s): I am 100% guilty of paying for the same people, five, six times right now, as we speak, I've done it at every company. Chad (22m 54s): Everybody is. Andrew (22m 54s): But from a tech perspective, you know, in past past roles, you know, I'm fairly new at my current place, so we're just standing things up, but I've had, you know, Salesforce CRM in place. Marquetto automation, you know, you name it all hooked up into the career site. You know, you get those things humming and you can get CPAs cost per hire is way down below what you were paying for, kind of at the top of the funnel. Chad (23m 19s): Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So do you partner with marketing in sales as well, knowing that the brand touches not just so many candidates, but those candidates for the most part are more than likely customers. Do you partner with them to be able to prospectively streamline and I dunno, maybe draw more budget into some of your campaigns and tech and whatnot? Andrew (23m 44s): It's a great call. So, you know, the talent organization and HR generally doesn't have the budgets for this type of work. So I definitely had my fair share of roadshow, beg borrow steal from, you know, engineering departments, marketing, sales, you name it. On the marketing side usually the partnerships are around kind of aligning our messages to the corporate brand and making sure that we're kind of playing in the right lanes. On the, you know, the sales side, actually, there's a ton to learn from them on how they utilize CRMs. They're good at this stuff. They're native to it. I'm by no means an expert there so we sit down and have quarterly meetings, monthly meetings, and like, just learn from them. Andrew (24m 26s): Yeah. Julie (24m 26s): So working with a company that is very large and international, it's everywhere. It's in all different markets. Does an EVP stand up on a global scale like that? Andrew (24m 37s): Yeah. I love that question. You know, what immediately comes to mind here is actually Uber. So, you know, we sat, we did a road show like to define the EVP focus groups in different markets all over the world and kind of landed on, you know, core grouping of messages that we wanted to be the pillars of the EVP. But to your point on, you know, recruiting in different markets, total cultural difference on how those messages might land my favorite story there was actually, we were in Southeast Asia doing video shoots and, you know, we were trying to stress these particular pillars of the EVP and, you know, a local kind of leader of a particular office said like, that's not gonna work. Andrew (25m 18s): You're talking to the totally wrong people here. Like you're talking directly to the candidate, you should be talking to the families. You know, convincing mom and dad that it's okay to join this kind of unknown American startup in Indonesia. And that kind of realization, you know, I thought I had covered my bases by doing focus groups all over the world. Oh yeah, that's enough. Absolutely not. You know, like you need to be able to pivot your messaging and like the audience that you're speaking to pretty frequently based on where you're doing your recruiting. And we did that. I mean, we changed the message to be more like, kind of a target to the family. And it did work, you know, like we got more engagement with those pieces of content. Julie (25m 60s): So when you're crafting your messaging, right, so you want to put out messaging to attract people and we were just talking about nurturing, right? So you have all these candidates in local markets. What kind of things do you have to consider when you're adjusting messaging for all the different types of segments that you have to communicate to? Andrew (26m 15s): Yeah. You know, a lot of it starts with kind of understanding the profile of person you're trying to recruit or like the vertical, the talent segment I'd say. So, you know, engineers are a great example there versus kind of your ops people at the front of the house. They, you know, in their careers might be motivated by very different things. Then you might try to define your EVP as these four or five pillars, but underneath it, you might have to pull much harder on one pillar, like, you know, the scope and scale of the problem that you'll be working on for engineers versus like the growth velocity for an ops person. They may fit into different pillars, but like you, you stress those points a little bit differently. So, you know, digging in with your current hires on like what motivates you to stay here and stay here in your career. Andrew (27m 3s): I personally don't think it's valuable to stick to your guns completely on an EVP. You know, you really do have to speak to the people you're speaking to Julie (27m 12s): Some more personalization in your communication. Chad (27m 14s): Give 'em a love that nurture. So, Andrew, last question for me, when it comes down to tips and tricks and priorities, what is the highest priority that you would give to anybody that sits in your seat when it comes to being able to do your job? Andrew (27m 32s): I'd say, you know, like don't boil the ocean. There's so much work to do in this space, always regardless of how big your company is. And you're probably a person of one, you know, or maybe you have a very, very small team. One of my favorite questions that I get from, you know, a stakeholder or someone looking to engage the talent attraction team is like, Hey, we should be out on TikTok or something like that. I live my biggest piece of advice. When you are given a question like that is flip it around on them and have them tell you and get a really good understanding of what the actual talent demand from the business is and tailor your campaigns to meet that talent demand. So it's not about the channels. Andrew (28m 13s): It's about solving the business problem, which is the actual hiring. So I personally usually focus on the funnel first and not the brand side of things first. Getting a hold of people flowing into reqs so that the process can continue and people can hire. So a lot of that is for me, at least for the larger companies that have scale, it's programmatic advertising using a vendor that can help kind of get a book of media together in one spot, you get great analytics around it. They have expertise on managing and optimizing that spend. If you can get that piece done first, you will be loved by the business and especially if you are driving the right people into the right reqs of right time. Chad (28m 56s): Julie, any partying blows? Julie (28m 58s): Oh, I don't know what to say. I'd love to, you know, hear in some of those things that you shared, I think people listening are going to take some notes on your key metric there that you use. I think that's really going to change some people's lives and how they view their data. Chad (29m 14s): Agreed. Agreed. Well, Andrew, we appreciate you taking the time again, keep those shipments coming. My dogs are your biggest fans. I promise if anybody wants to actually connect with you on LinkedIn or maybe you have your own website who knows you might be on the TikToks and you want people to follow you, where would you actually send them to connect with you? Andrew (29m 35s): Yeah, I am way too old for TikTok. I would love for people to reach out to me on LinkedIn. That's the spot. Chad (29m 45s): Very easy. Andrew Levy is it Levy or Levy? Which one? Andrew (29m 48s): It's actually Levy, but I will respond to both. Chad (29m 51s): But much, much like the Schitt's Creek. Okay. Very nice. Julie, that's another one in the can. Thanks for bringing such a great guest, but you know what? Got to close it up. We out. Julie (30m 5s): Thank you. OUTRO (30m 55s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Coding bootcamps are gaining in popularity. The combination of rise in remote learning, a serious talent crunch for coders and a lack of confidence in the current educational system have been like gas on a fire. That's why Chad & Cheese brought on Liliana Monge, cofounder and CEO of Sabio Coding Bootcamp out of Los Angeles (but quickly going national). We discuss the changing demographics of remote learning, how Monge's business differentiates itself from the competition and why the hell aren't more corporations sponsoring this kind of education! Oh yeah, and how much does this stuff cost anyway? TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (24s): You know, what's up! It's your favorite podcast? The Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my partner, Chad Sowash. And today we welcome Lilly Monge co-founder and CEO of Sabio coding boot camp. Lilly (42s): Good day everyone. Joel (44s): Coming to us from LA I assume. Sunny, beautiful LA. Lily welcome to the podcast. Chad (50s): Sabio. Lilly (51s): Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited. I love the topic, love the intro. Joel (56s): You sound excited before we get into the company and what you guys are doing. Give our listeners a little Twitter bio about Lilly. Lilly (1m 5s): Fantastic. Yes. So a 45 year old Latina mom, came to this country when I was five and have been working really hard to, you know, increase diversity in tech over the past couple of years. Chad (1m 19s): Really well, that is something that we all need, obviously we'll so give us a little background about Sabio. So you have coding boot camps. Why did you get into that in the first place? And you said this, this is 10 years in the making. Give us a little, you know, a little bit behind of the journey for Lily and Sabio. Lilly (1m 39s): Yeah. So 10 years in the making, you know, Los Angeles being so ridiculously, beautifully diverse is the absolute best place for you to come up with an idea like Sabio, where you just have people from all over the world. And so you see all this amazing vibrant diversity, you know, at least 10 years ago, when you went into some of the tech companies like My Space, there really wasn't a lot of diversity, so that stark contrast was just so obvious. And my co-founder and I, Gregorio just would talk about it incessantly. And we're like, look, there's really a problem here. And so from our own lived experience, we decided to make that change. You know, he's Colombiano, he's also Latino, he's in tech. Lilly (2m 22s): And we realized that there was an opportunity for us to make an impact and also to start a business. And so we're both very community driven, but we love to kind of create and draft our own future and our own history. So we decided to set out to create the Sabio coding bootcamp. We named it Sabio on purpose. It's a Spanish word that means smart person. Joel (2m 46s): Ooo. Lilly (2m 46s): Yeah. So we wanted people to know that when they hired a Sabio grad, they were hiring someone who was competent and who may happen to be from a different type of background than they were from. But they were gonna bring to the table technical skills that we're going to add value to their team and that's really at the heart and soul of what we're doing here at Sabio. Chad (3m 7s): Okay. So when you talk about tech, you talking about bro culture, a lot of times, right? It is heavily white male, but you don't see a lot of Latinas. Let's just say that. So how do you break in, I mean, is just going to a bootcamp and getting the certifications enough? What do you guys do to actually help let's say for instance, Latinas like yourself, to be able to actually break into organizations and get those jobs? Lilly (3m 32s): Yeah. So it's definitely a multi-pronged approach and at the heart and soul of everything is exceptional technical training. So people have to have that, right. Regardless of who is graduating from the bootcamp, whether you're Latina or whether you are a white gentleman who graduated from, you know, UC Irvine and over the years, we've actually enrolled quite a number of people like that. And so, we also wanted to have a diverse organization. We didn't want it to be homogenous where it was only going to enroll people who identified as Latinos. So we ourselves are very diverse and we also, you know, want to help other people who are interested in hiring diverse candidates. Lilly (4m 13s): So heart and soul of it, you absolutely have to have exceptional technical skills that are relevant in today's marketplace. You guys, you know, understand the concept of HR and there are certain languages that kind of come into fashion. So we always have to make sure that our fellows have those exceptional skills. And then of course, yes, you have to do additional things. You have to do a lot of interview prep so that people know exactly what a technical interview is going to look like. And then you also have to provide them with a very sophisticated community that is going to be there to support them. And maybe sometimes open that side door into a company is so that you can kind of break the mold of what that technical professional looks like. Lilly (4m 56s): So certainly a multi-pronged approach has required. Chad (4m 59s): Okay, are you working with organizations like GetHub and Hacker Rank to ensure that those individuals know where the communities are and they also know the tools that are available to perspectively, help get them seen by organizations that are looking to hire. Lilly (5m 17s): Yes. And so that has been something that, you know, over the past five years, we've been able to focus on more. Obviously the first five years of the program were really, you know, 90% dedicated to creating an exceptional educational experience for our fellows. And then once that was really well baked and set to go, then we kind of had our focus externally and definitely looking to connect. And we have connected with, you know, partners like Amazon or GetHub who recognize that there's an opportunity to hire people who did not complete a computer science degree. GetHub has an apprenticeship. Airbnb has an apprenticeship for people who do not have a computer science degree and Microsoft, they have been the most aggressive in hiring people who do not have computer science degrees over the last 10 years. Chad (6m 4s): So when we're talking about these actual programs like Amazon and some of the other big names that you just offered up, do these organizations, pay for the schooling in, in return for being a contractor or something like that, what are those, what are those let's say for instance, blue chip types of programs look like. Lilly (6m 26s): So our experience has been that they have, there are certain organizations like Netflix that will pay for people to go through a bootcamp. We've seen that through some of the partnerships that they're doing with the HBCUs. Those are really new. Those probably happened within the past year or two. When you talk about an organization like Amazon, they have two different things. They actually pay to train their warehouse workers. So we worked with them in that capacity, but then they also are very eager and are doing a lot of work to hire military veterans. And so we accept military benefits. And so we work with them in that capacity. And then there's a company like GetHub that may only have 10 or 15 apprenticeship opportunities per year. Lilly (7m 12s): And to my knowledge, they're not paying for anything. They're more just opening the door and interviewing and providing an apprenticeship opportunity, which is still great. I think, you know, each company is going to do what makes sense for them. And we're more than happy to work with each company depending on what their budget allows for. Joel (7m 29s): So help me envision this real quick. You're a, you're an LA based, or let's call it Southern California business. If I were to go to Southern California, would I see, you know, your storefronts pretty regularly? What I see commercials locally sort of build a picture of what, what your footprint looks like in there in Southern California. Lilly (7m 48s): Yeah. So we have three locations in Southern California. And if you went to our website, you would find the addresses and you could go and find us. Over the past two years, we've really been focused on helping, you know, anyone in the country. And so we are a hundred percent live remote right now. So right now we have a student that lives in Oklahoma in a tiny town population, you know, 600 people. So, you know, the shift that happened over COVID with companies, allowing workers to be remote has really further opened up the door for anyone who's smart, who was motivated to gain these skills. So Sabio is no longer a regional player. We have students throughout the United States. Joel (8m 27s): There are no more storefronts. Lilly (8m 29s): There are, we have three campuses in Southern California and we're located in coworking spaces. Joel (8m 33s): So now talk about remote and what the pandemic did to your business and how you evolved. You obviously mentioned a lot of global companies. So I assume that remote has really opened up business for you. And then I want to roll that question into how are you differentiating from all the others around the country, in the world that are offering similar services? Lilly (8m 55s): Yeah, so pandemic definitely changed things, you know, in the middle of the March, we had to, you know, close campus. So literally everybody close, their laptops traveled home and we were back up and running literally within an hour and a half so we really did not skip a beat. And then we were able to enroll people throughout the United States. So it was actually a very positive thing because you do want that smart, motivated person who lives in Oklahoma to be able to participate in the innovation economy and prior to that, there were very few schools that were a hundred percent live remote. So it's been a net positive for the entire country to have these programs go online. And a number of other schools have done the same thing. In terms of, you know, how we differentiate ourselves. Lilly (9m 35s): You know, from day one, we brought in an external party, external entrepreneurs that would pitch to our, fellows and our fellows would decide which project they wanted to pick up and build concurrently while they were developing their skills. And so that allows them to come out and say, Hey, I've been part of a team. I've been part of a startup. I had this external third party that I didn't pay any money to. They can talk about my skills as a technical professional. And that really gives you a leg up when you're looking for work. Joel (10m 6s): So when you say there are very few, or there were very few, I guess that's different from my, what I believe. I mean, I've got like a Code Ninjas down the street from me, Chad and I talk a lot about, you know, LinkedIn and Google certifying tech skills and coding. So when you say there were very few competitors, what do you mean by that? And are those organizations in a different sort of category from what you're offering? Lilly (10m 30s): Yes. So it is a different category because certifications tend to play a role in the system administration or cybersecurity role. And so we tend to work in software engineering and certifications really don't play as big a role in that. And when you think about, I think Code Ninjas, coder school, my experience has been then most of those really cater to under 18 and we're working with the adult population so you have to be at least 18 or older to be at Sabio and you have to have graduated from high school to participate in our program. Joel (11m 6s): Okay. Lilly (11m 7s): Yeah. So prior to COVID, you know, your major metropolitan cities would have one to two coding bootcamps in it. It could be like a General Assembly and Galvanize, or it could be Coding Dojo and General Assembly, but you really had to be in a major metropolitan city. If you were three hours, south of Dallas, there was no coding bootcamp close to you, and now that's completely changed. Joel (11m 29s): WOW. Chad (11m 30s): Well, now that you can pivot to remote, who are you partnering with to be able to get better penetration throughout the entire United States? Lilly (11m 38s): You know, penetration happens through a once again, a multi-pronged approach in terms of, you know, different events that we have. For example, this week, we're going to be interviewing someone who is a recruiter from Microsoft, and they're going to, you know, share with us their expertise and events like that really helped people just of start to dip their toe in the water and think about tech and think about becoming a software professional. So there's a lot of events that you can run, which are fantastic. And once again, anyone in the country can participate. And then there's also things that we can do on the ground. As things open up, you know, we can make visits to army bases. They have a whole one to two week program for people that are separating from the military. Lilly (12m 21s): And, they're in-person events that we can run there. Chad (12m 26s): It's horrible. Lilly (12m 27s): What is horrible? Joel (12m 27s): Chad's a vet. Chad (12m 28s): You mean the one that two, a weeks that you get as a veteran after you've been in for like, who knows how long, right. You get a whole one to two weeks to be able to get you ready for the civilian life, which is a bunch of bullshit. At the end of the day, though, it is helpful to have organizations like yours connect with those veterans. So, you know, now you say you're going to military installations. So that is, I would assume really focused on the transitioning veterans. Is that the case, or are you trying to also allow other individuals who are currently in, but might be, might be transitioning soon to better understand Sabio and perspectively, maybe start a bootcamp prior? Lilly (13m 13s): Yeah. So it's really depends on how open each military base is. So some of them will say, yes, well, you can talk to the people here for the last two weeks. And then other bases will say, yes, you can talk to anyone that will have their terminal leave within the next six months. And so there's a program you may be familiar with a Skills Bridge? We participate in that and so if you're a veteran and you have six months or less, before you, you separate from the military, you can participate if your commander gives you approval, of course, to be a Skills Bridge fellow and you can do your training during that time. So it's really when, you know, people have, you know, the 180 days that they have to say, Hey, well, what are my options? Lilly (13m 55s): And start to research those options and ask for the approvals that are required to participate. Chad (14m 2s): Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I'm interested with regard to partnership with not just big brands, like, you know, Amazon and Netflix, which I think is awesome, but with, with other organizations who are in great need. Are they just sitting there waiting for these individuals to pop off the other side of the bootcamp? Or do you work with them prior to be able to perspectively get some quote unquote "internships" happening during the bootcamp so that they can get more of kind of like an inability to really feel what a culture might be for this brand or this organization? Lilly (14m 42s): Because we have people developing their skills and building a product for some type of entrepreneur. Right now we work a lot with UCLA business school, Anderson. And so their business fellows will come and pitch ideas and our group we'll build it for them. That makes the four months super, super jam packed. So we really don't have a lot of opportunity to engage further with additional employment opportunities until the last two weeks of the program. And so it's kind of like an assembly line week 16, that first Monday it's go time. And now we can have them start to engage with employers. Chad (15m 17s): Gotcha. Lilly (15m 18s): What we've seen as an employers really want to see that people not only graduate from a coding bootcamp, but that they then, you know, maybe have a month or two, that they continue to coding, that they continue code so that they can interview and say, okay, now you've have maybe six months under your belt ready to bring you into our team and interview you. Chad (15m 36s): They want it all. That's the problem. They want it all. Lilly (15m 39s): Of course. Chad (15m 39s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it's, it's called courtin'. Yeah. Anyway, so, so, so I guess the question is because it's really interesting and I love the idea of them working on some of these entrepreneurial projects. I mean, that's just awesome, but I mean, it would be even better if they could get under the umbrella of some of these brands and start to work in some of those cultures with everyday managers, I would assume. And, us being, you know, an HR and working with organizations, talking to organizations on the regular, that they would be more interested in getting involved early on, knowing that there's a dropout rate, et cetera, et cetera, but yet the opportunity to be able to get a hold of diverse, in new excited talent would be, I mean, I think they would be through the roof. Chad (16m 35s): I can't understand why that's not happening more. Can you help me out with that? Lilly (16m 39s): It's really about the intensity of the program. Chad (16m 42s): Oh okay. Lilly (16m 42s): We're going to bring in someone who is smart and is motivated, but maybe has never touched HTML has never touched CSS. And so we have found that we need them, you know, at the computer, you know, nine to nine for four weeks in order to absorb and master sufficient skills so that they are employable. If you don't have those hours, if you don't put in those hours, if you don't kind of swing the hammer a sufficient number of times, then you don't reach that point, that your employable. Chad (17m 12s): Did you just say 12 hours a day? Lilly (17m 17s): Yes. It's 9:00 AM the expectations. Chad (17m 19s): My God woman, what are you doing to these people? Joel (17m 21s): It's also swinging the hammer. So don't mess with her Sowash. Chad (17m 25s): Apparently. That's why they stay in line. My God, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Lilly (17m 29s): Yeah, no, it's a matter of competencies. And so you can only learn so much obviously every day. And so there's a there's magic that happens at 700 plus hours. And if you look across programs, that's the bogey. And so if we take away time and we have them doing other things, they won't get to the 700 hours. Then when the employer wants to talk to them, they'll be like, they're not ready and then it's this vicious cycle. So we prefer to just give them the 700 hours. Okay. These people are employable, they're ready. Now go find someone who's a fit for your organization. Because the great thing about coding bootcamp grads is it nine times out of 10, these people have some type of prior professional experience. Lilly (18m 10s): So you may be hiring a CPA into a FinTech company. You may be hiring a teacher into an ad tech company, and that's really valuable as well. Joel (18m 18s): There's a reason that you call it bootcamp, right? Lilly (18m 21s): Exactly. Joel (18m 21s): So Chad mentioned, you've been doing this for almost a decade and you've thrown out like most people are or are educated or maybe currently employed. But I'm curious in the 10 years that you've been doing this, what sort of trends can you point to in regards to who your customer is? I'm curious, are they getting older? Are they getting like people disabilities? Are they coming into this sphere of what you're doing? Talk about the 10 years of demographics, I guess, of your customer. Lilly (18m 50s): We did definitely start out with, you know, a good balance in terms of people who are in their twenties and their thirties, and a couple of people in their forties. We are seeing that the trend is going younger. So I would say 60% are in their twenties. And then the rest will be mixed in between the thirties and the forties. It's rare that we have someone who's in their fifties, although we are open to absolutely everyone and anyone, but it's some self-selection that happens there when people are over 45 that they're like, oh, I don't know if this is really going to be for me. So those are some of the demographic changes that we've seen it. We are trending younger. Joel (19m 28s): So on the younger end, I'm interested, where is high school, public school failing. And do you see the trend? I would assume that you do, do you see a trend of increased interest in a boot camp like this versus community college or going to a four-year degree? What are you seeing on the ground in terms of where high schools are failing and where people's minds in the younger demographic are around going to college or not? Lilly (19m 54s): The students are definitely open to newer and different types of educational opportunities, which is great. They actually have lots of really great skills and collaborating online and doing a lot of that because of, you know, software like Discord and, you know, group gaming and things like that, which is fantastic. However, the institutional infrastructure is definitely still an ostrich. They're beautiful golden, you know, vision for every student is that they enroll in a four-year university and they get that bachelor's of science or a bachelor's of art. And that's just not, that's not tenable for everyone, unfortunately. And so there's, there's definitely an opportunity in the high school space for things to change. Chad (20m 35s): Yeah. Companies are dumb. I mean, seriously, they don't understand, you know, to being able to be more culturally diverse, you have to go to different socioeconomic backgrounds, which means many of these individuals are not going to be going to, you know, a four year school. Right and that doesn't mean that they don't, they can't obtain the skills to be able to do the job that you need. Again, companies always want it all until you get into a landscape like we are today and they can't find anybody and they're whining and bitching and complaining because they won't take it or they haven't taken a person without a four year degree, my rants over. Chad (21m 16s): So how many, how many people have you placed thus far from the program? What's your general success rate? Lilly (21m 23s): Yeah. So our bogey, we are successful when we can get at least 80% of the people who graduate from our program into a role that requires their software engineering skills. And so like right now from the people that everyone that we graduated in 2021 and three people away from that 80. And so I'm like psycho every day, you know, hounding my last three to four people, right? Like, Hey, how are you? What do you need? How can we help? What are you seeing? What are you? Right. Cause there's, there's a whole process. You guys know this, right? Like, are you getting enough calls. If you're getting calls great are you moving on to the HR interview? Are you getting the technical interview? Lilly (22m 2s): And are you getting that second call conversation with the CTO before they give you an offer? And so you can, you can triage each step and if something's not happening and they're not moving on to the next step, then we know exactly what needs to be done. Chad (22m 15s): Right. Lilly (22m 15s): So yeah, that, I mean, that's what we see as success. And if you'd look across different coding boot camps, what they see as success is they graduate a hundred people just for simple math and 10 of them go ghost, never talked to them. They then only tell you the outcomes based on the 90 people. And then they do a percentage off of those 90 people, but they really graduated a hundred. Chad (22m 39s): Gotcha. Lilly (22m 39s): And so we don't like that. I'm like, look, if I graduated a hundred people, I'm going to tell people what happened to those hundred people. Right. And it could be the 10 of them ghosted us but that probably means I didn't get a job, like, come on. Let's be real. Chad (22m 55s): Yeah. So that being said, these nine to nine boot camps and how many weeks is this again? Lilly (23m 2s): 17. Chad (23m 2s): 17 weeks, nine to nine. I love it. So what's the price? How much does this cost? Lilly (23m 9s): So tuition is $15,000 and there are a couple of competitors that are about $17,000. And then there are a couple local, smaller op outfits that are maybe around $12,000. So I think that weren't a very good price point. Okay. We are a little bit longer. Most programs are 13 weeks and we are 17 weeks, so the value I think is there. And then we have four to five different ways for people to pay for that. They can come through the program, they can get their job and then they can make monthly payments. Chad (23m 36s): Gotcha. Lilly (23m 37s): Or they can prepay it before they start the program. Chad (23m 39s): Gotcha. Or when we start get some big logos in there and having companies pay for this since they need it so bad. Yeah. I mean, so that's, that's the big is when you're looking at individuals with different socioeconomic backgrounds, that $15,000 doesn't sound like a lot, especially for somebody who might have, you know, $80,000 in college debt, but that's a lot of money. So you have different ways of payment, but what about other programs that you can help them with? Like Amazon, Netflix? Are there any brands that are out there that are just begging for these types of individuals that they'll cover full freight? Lilly (24m 14s): Yeah. I mean, there actually, there's actually a recruiting firm that we've seen that runs some programs and there are different models, right? So you, as an individual, you need to kind of do your research and figure out what's a good fit for you. There are other programs that will never quote unquote, "charge you anything". They'll give you the training and then they'll place you with a company. But then those first two years as a professional, you're going to be underpaid. Chad (24m 36s): Okay. Lilly (24m 36s): So instead of getting market rate, which what we're seeing is about $70,000 right now, they're going to pay you $45,000 a year, and they'll do that for two years. And then you're out of the contract and then you can go make market rate, but you never quote unquote "pay any tuition". Chad (24m 52s): Gotcha. Lilly (24m 52s): And so there's lots of different ways for people to make this happen. It's really about finding a fit. What kind of program makes sense for you and then researching different options? You know, obviously there's lots of opportunities and people really just need to find a match for themselves. Just like when you're, you know, when you're going to college, when you're going to any program you know you're going to get some surgery, right? You're going to go get some body shaping surgery. You got to do your research and figure out. Joel (25m 19s): I don't know anything about that. Chad (25m 21s): Little nip and tuck. Joel (25m 23s): My body has lots of shapes. Don't you worry about that. So do you guys offer counseling? Cause it seems like you guys should be the conduit between, okay, here are all these companies that need these skills that we provide. As soon as you're done, we're going to drop you right into the interview process. Does that happen or do, are people sort of on their own once they graduate from the program? Lilly (25m 43s): So it's definitely three different things that happen. We're going to get companies that are going to come to me and say, Lilly, for example, Isaac who graduated from our Irvine campus, Isaac was with me for two years. He's amazing. He's now leaving to another company I can't compete with. I need to hire three more people. I want you to send me resumes. Okay. They hired three people to replace Isaac. Fantastic. We then have opportunities like, you know, the military apprenticeships that are happy at Amazon, right? Our job there is to make sure that our fellows are really well-prepared to compete for those internships. Right? So we do a whole host of things to make sure that they do very well. And then there are alumni that will say, Hey, my team is hiring. Lilly (26m 26s): I need someone who is willing to work east coast hours, who has FinTech background, DM me your resume and I'm going to put it in front of HR. And then there's the very important skill that you have to learn how to look for a job. Right? Joel (26m 41s): Gotcha. Lilly (26m 41s): So we can't just drop people into positions and never have them understand what it's like to go through a technical interview because then for their second or third job, we're doing them a disservice. So it's a comprehensive approach in that if inbound leads come in, we're definitely gonna hook you up with them. But you also have to learn how to look for work. Because once you have that skillset, you're golden. Chad (27m 2s): Feature, man, how to fish. Joel (27m 3s): Are you able to double dip, get money from the students as well as the companies? Lilly (27m 9s): No. To date our student is our customer and I think that's really important because we don't want an employer saying, well, Lily, you know, we'll hire fellows, but make sure they're okay accepting $60,000 when I know the market rate is 70 interesting. And we don't want them to say, we'll make sure that we're going to put them under contract for two years and they can't leave. Cause that doesn't fly either. Right? If you get into a company you're doing well and you want to move, we are your number one advocate who's always going to help you. Not just for your first job, your second job, your third job. We actually have a couple of employers that get a little irritated with us because we do encourage our fellows to be very aggressive, in their job hunt in negotiating offers and in their second and third jobs. Lilly (27m 50s): And so they'll come back to me and they'll be like, Hey, you know, I hire your fellows, but they'll only stay with me a year. And I'm like, dude, if you're not paying them well, if you're not giving them growth opportunities, that's not my problem. That's your problem. Chad (28m 2s): Lily's a pit bull. Lily's a pit bull. I love it. I love it. Joel (28m 7s): One last one, Lily, you, you guys offer a fairly limited amount of programming languages. I see.net and node. Lilly (28m 13s): Yes, that is correct. Joel (28m 14s): Is that by design or will you be adding more? Like, why is it I guess so, so light on the languages and opportunities there? Lilly (28m 23s): It's light because we do full stack. So we're going to teach you how to do react along with C-sharp along with SQL server, and then you become a full stack software engineer. And then once you have that expertise, you're golden. Joel (28m 40s): Golden. Lilly (28m 40s): You're golden versus I can't teach you two stacks is too much in 700 hours. So we found the perfect Goldilocks spot in terms of the number of job opportunities you are going to be able to compete for. And remember, we've been working with, you know, students throughout the entire country. So we had some people that did node and lived in Reno and oh, that was not pretty right. So we're like, okay, let's not do that again. Right. Like if you're going to be, if you're going to be in a smaller city, you got to know C sharp, you got to know JavaScript. Right. Because some employers are really narrow-minded and just will be like, oh no, yeah, no, I can't do anything like that. Chad (29m 15s): Let me translate this for Cheeseman real quick. Once you talk about a stack, she doesn't mean IHOP. She doesn't mean pancakes. Okay, this is technology. Joel (29m 25s): Stay gold Pony Boy, stay gold, stay gold. This is fun. Chad (29m 30s): All right, everybody. This is Lilly Monge. She's the co-founder and CEO of Sabio coding boot camps. Lily if somebody wants to find out more about you, it is those employers out there who want to hire your people, where would you send them? Lilly (29m 43s): So my inbox just email me. It's my name, Lilly. Spell it any way you want. It's going to come to me at lily@sabiodotlasabio.la. You can find me on LinkedIn or you can find me on Twitter talking trash. So anyone, any one of those ways, contact me. We'll get you some exceptional software engineers for you to interview. Joel (30m 4s): Swinging that hammer Lilly. I appreciate it. Chad another one is in the can and we out. Chad (30m 13s): We out. OUTRO (31m 2s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Between shipments of baby formula to the U.S., Finland and Sweden applying for NATO and the impending monkeypox apocalypse, asking people to keep up with the employment scene in Europe isn't easy. So aren't you lucky Chad & Cheese, joined by Lieven, are here to make sense of it all? This week, Jobandtalent sets it's sights on the U.S., buy-or-sell with Werk and Whoz and an interview from the E-recruitment Congress. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions works with employers each step of the way as consultative recruiting and engagement strategists for the disability community. INTRO (6s): anaHide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (28s): All yeah, more than 75,000 pounds of imported baby formula from Europe landed in the US this week. It's about time our allies return the favor for World War II. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "Operation Fly Formula" Cheeseman. Chad (48s): This is Chad "you'd better work" Sowash. Lieven (52s): And I'm Lieven, "not going to Unleash ever again" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (57s): And on this episode, Job and Talent prepares for its US invasion, buy or sell with work and woes, or is that who's? And more E-recruitment Congress. Goodness, let's do this. sfx (1m 9s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 12s): Okay. We can't let this slide. Why are you not going to Unleash? We, you teased us and you told us we're, you're coming to Unleash and now we're going to be Lieven free. Lieven (1m 24s): Basically, just because I'm cheap. I applied to a free ticket sale for free tickets to interesting people and then they decided I wasn't interesting enough. And I didn't apply for a free ticket. So I thought, fuck Unleash and I'm not going.M Chad (1m 39s): Oh God. Okay. Well, we're going to have to smooth this out with Mark and the kids that were at Unleash because you're definitely interesting. They might've, you know, got that confused with Belgium. I don't know. Joel (1m 49s): Yeah, he's gotta be in attendance at Paris. We can't have a Paris without Lieven. That's just not, not going to happen. Chad (1m 57s): Credit plus Joel (1m 57s): A credit and a steak is what we're going to get Lieven in Paris. Lieven (2m 1s): Aan American steak. Okay. I heard a lot about those after you're bitching about the bar's mistakes in Ostend. Joel (2m 10s): Lieven comes in the green room and says I had a really good steak in what city? Brussels. Lieven (2m 14s): I don't know what I said. I had a really good steak. I didn't mention where it was. It was in Belgium, but I did mention it was better than the one you had in Ostend. Joel (2m 22s): And then he says it was petite. And I said, oh, it was like a six ounce when he's like no smaller. And I said, what do they serve up steak nuggets on a plate in Europe, like, how is this a good steak if it's smaller than six ounces? Lieven (2m 35s): It's about quality Joel quality. Chad (2m 38s): It's exactly right. Joel (2m 39s): Not in American baby. It's about grill marks and size. Chad (2m 43s): Grill marks and obesity. That's what it's all about. Joel (2m 46s): All right. It's established. We're getting Lieven at Unleash in Paris and we're having a good steak. Chad (2m 54s): OK. Lieven (2m 54s): Promise? Joel (2m 54s): Promise. Chad (2m 54s): Promise. Joel (2m 55s): Unless you want to come to Rekfest in July and see if the Brits have good steak? Lieven (3m 1s): I can do both. Joel (3m 1s): Okay. There you go. Chad (3m 2s): You can do both. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. Shout outs. Joel (3m 5s): I love how we wrapped our travel schedule and then Chadcheese.com for more information. Yeah, we got some shout outs here everybody. I'll go first. Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Oh, well guys, a baby formula shortage. What? Chad (3m 23s): I said my favorite. Joel (3m 23s): Oh yeah. Shout out to your favorite or tourist and healthcare. Anyway, Chad (3m 28s): Tourist and healthcare. Joel (3m 29s): Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Chad's favorite. Well guys, a baby formula, shortage, Sweden and Finland, joining NATO and monkey pox maybe throwing the world for a loop and a recession may be right around the corner, but tourism and healthcare are bright spots for Europe. The world travel and tourism council's latest economic impact report suggests Europe will create nearly 8 million new travel jobs. In the next decade. The sector is expected to grow at twice the rate of the overall economy. It also reveals Europe's tourism. GDP is forecast to grow by 31.4%. Joel (4m 8s): Wow. At one point 73 trillion euros and only half of that is from the Sowashes. Once more, you know, you do the Western Europe medical recruitment market is now estimated to be valued at $21.2 US billion dollars by the end of 2028. Turns out old people, disease and a growing population are good for European business. Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Chad (4m 36s): Nice. That's sweet. That's sweet. Yeah. Yeah. So my shout out goes to the EU for pay transparency. Members of the European parliament demand EU companies with at least 50 employees be required to disclose information that make it easier for those working for the same employer, to compare salaries and expose an existing gender pay gap in their organization. On last Friday's show, we actually talked about how the US women's football team, that's soccer for you. Americans was able to strike an equal wage deal with the men that all started because pay transparency. Chad (5m 16s): So kudos to the EU and driving action while the US is still fighting tooth and nail to stave off equity. Joel (5m 26s): That shout out was way better than mine. Lieven? Lieven (5m 30s): My shout-outs goes to FaZe Clan. And if you don't know face Glen, you're old because FaZe Clan, There's nothing wrong with being old. Chad (5m 41s): Oh my God Lieven's in a mood today. Joel (5m 43s): It's cause his cable guy hasn't showed up yet. Lieven (5m 45s): I've been waiting for six hours for the cable guy to show up. I couldn't do any meeting at all because the cable guy was going to show up and then the cable guy didn't show up. But anyways, I was talking about FaZe Clan yeah FaZe Clan. the CS go major yesterday in Antwerp. And if you don't know what to CS go major yesterday in Antwerp and your old also, because it has been followed by 170 million people worldwide and 40,000 people were present. So that's the biggest CS go Counter-Strike tournament, first yearly a big event. It's called a major. Yesterday the finals were in Antwerp. I was there and I must say it really is amazing. Lieven (6m 26s): I've been telling for quite some years now that our e-sports is getting big enough for us HR people to be present and to, so to use it as recruitment platform. So I was there to check it out and it is amazing. It's like soccer finals, World Cup soccer on steroids with a combination with Tomorrow lands. And if you don't know Tomorrow land your old also, but it's a big music festival and nevermind that just wants a wall check the videos. It's great. Chad (6m 60s): Wow! So 40,000 were alive. And how many were streaming? Lieven (7m 5s): 170 million. That's more like the Super Bowl. Chad (7m 8s): Holy fuck. Joel (7m 9s): What's the Superbowl, a hundred million? Lieven (7m 11s): 140 or something. Joel (7m 12s): 140? Lieven (7m 13s): On the best dat. So Joel (7m 14s): Yeah, Lieven (7m 14s): Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. It's huge. Surely. And it's something like a parallel world. And HR just don't know about it because on average, we are like HR managers are like older and 35 or in our 40s or whatever. And it's something new and young people are constantly active in this, but to be our not, and this is something we should be active in. So I'm a big propagandists of the e-sports to get. Joel (7m 38s): So were there any, cause we talked about this at the ECongress. Were there any sponsors, advertisers that sort of piqued your interest or got your attention that's worth mentioning? Lieven (7m 49s): The employment now. And I still think it's a missed chance. Joel (7m 53s): That sounds like opportunity to me. Lieven (8m 0s): Definitely. Chad (8m 0s): Opportunities knockin and so are topics. TOPICS! Joel (8m 7s): All right guys, one of Europe's is coming to America. That's after much speculation JobAndTalent is not messing around. The Spanish based company has appointed MIT grad Diego de Haro Ruiz as CEO of it's US operations. Prior to JobandTalent, Diego worked as a senior consultant for McKinsey in Madrid and as Chief Revenue Officer at New York, city-based, Aon a subsidiary, their subsidiary CoverWallet, which is an online insurance provider for small businesses. JobandTalent entered the US market earlier this year with the acquisition of InStaff for 32.3 million USD but looks like that was just the beginning. Joel (8m 51s): Guys. What do we think of JobandTalent's US aspirations. Chad (8m 57s): If you check out the Aim group's article entitled JobandTalent appoints regional CEO in the US. It made me step back for a minute, because when you say regional CEO, you don't generally mean the United States, right? It's like a polite backhand. So it was one of those very polite European backhands. Hey US, you're a region to us. Anyway. Lieven (9m 26s): So you're offended now? Chad (9m 28s): Totally offended. Sons of bitches! JobandTalent put 200,000 people in jobs across more than 2000 companies during 2021. So what they're doing is obviously working, or at least it seems to be working. Diego has a great pedigree, Aon MIT, McKinsey, yet nothing in this space, the staffing or recruitment space at all. So his last position was as a CRO for Aon, which Joel is talking about. Obviously he's smart. He's got a great pedigree. They're going to be focused on revenues in this area although a product like JobandTalent needs to have industry insiders to make the connections, to get the big deals done. Just because this guy has a great pedigree, does it mean he knows where to go or how to navigate this slow moving system? Chad (10m 15s): So the best thing that Diego can do is surround himself with people who know what the fuck they're doing in this industry. I also need to kind of harken back to a conversation we've always been having around JobandTalent, is staffing versus tech. I understand the portfolios, they have been buying through acquisition on the staffing side, like their newest in Norway, they pretty much bought Norway is what I think Lieven said. The question is will JobandTalent keep the high margins that staffing enjoys or kickstart job.com narrative around faster access to better match talent with smaller margins by tech. I'm not sure where they go from here, because all we're doing is trying to substitute tech for people in staffing, or are we trying to drive better margins, efficiencies whenever you read into any of their narrative or their discussions, press releases you don't really get a good idea. Chad (11m 15s): So Lieven your thoughts on that. Okay. Lieven (11m 17s): Well, the guy studied at MIT and I love MIT. I mean, we just bought a company called TMI, which is almost the same thing. Chad (11m 28s): It's too much information. Lieven (11m 29s): But I think he's probably very intelligent, but he also sounds a bit boring, I guess. And about a regional CEO for the US, that's something I like. I mean, the US actually as a region that, I mean, you only have a one language. That's like English, you don't need money. See us we have like a thousand HR. We have 45 CEOs as, because there are so many languages, but the US, you only have one language so one CEO should be plenty. So no need to be offended. But JobandTalent is something I've always been it's something that's a bit strange. I didn't even really know them. I mean the Spanish and we are supposed to know them, they are a pretty big brand and you're going to the US. They claim to be very digital, which I don't really think they are. Lieven (12m 12s): It's more of a foresight. They got plenty of money because today it's easy to get plenty of money, but they still need to execute it. I wonder how we're going to do it? But the U S would probably be the place to prove. Chad (12m 25s): Yeah, but it seems like they're going into more competitive waters with all of the staffing companies over here, as opposed to when we first started talking about JobandTalent, we were talking about how they could perspectively be the operating system. The technology behind most of these staffing companies kind of working white label and helping staffing companies create better margins, but they're not doing that. They're actually going, it looks like head to head with other staffing companies from a competitive standpoint. To me that doesn't make sense. What do you, what do you think about? Lieven (12m 58s): Is yes a good answer? Joel (13m 0s): So I guess the question for me is just the tip strategy? Are they all in on the US? And we've talked a lot about JobandTalent in the past year. We know that they've raised upwards of $250 million. We know that they're a multi-year unicorn. We know that they've talked about IPO. We know that they're making acquisitions, so they have to do this to appease their investors. And if they're going to go IPO, they need to talk about hitting America. So it's no surprise that this is happening. They're also doing it in the midst of an impending recession. America never really goes very well for a lot of European companies. There are well-established competitors in this market. I think it's going to be a disaster for JobandTalent to come to the US at the time that they're coming over. Joel (13m 45s): It'll be fun to talk about. But to me, this is going to be a big flush of money in euros, down the toilet. Good luck with it kids. But if we get to play Neil Diamond? sfx (13m 60s): Coming to America song. Joel (14m 1s): I'm all for it. All right. Let's take a quick break and play a little buy or sell. sfx (14m 6s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (14m 9s): Oh, buy or sell, you know, it, you love it. Let's play it! Doing an abbreviated version, we're doing two companies. Cause we have some interviews with E recruitment Congress that we want to play. So let's get to it. We're first going to talk about work. That's spelled W E R K because it's Europe and it's cool. Estonia based work, a hiring and relocation platform for skilled migrant construction workers announced last week that it has raised 1.23 million euros in a pre-seed round of funding. The platform enables companies to hire skilled and vetted migrant construction workers handling everything from recruitment and verification to relocation. Joel (14m 49s): Werk says it has reached over 2000 verified and vetted construction workers and has customers within Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. All right. Lieven, are you a buyer sell on work? Lieven (15m 1s): That's a good question. And for those wants to know Werk, you spell it like twerk, but without the t, that's a good start. And it also means some work. We spell it the same way back. It's called a werk. So they've got the basics, right? So they've got a good name Werk, it's pretty straight forward, Werk. So that's a good start. I'm really, really into names. Okay. So then Estonia. Estonia is probably the most digital minded country in the whole of Europe. And that's not a joke. I mean, I've been there once to visit one of their government agencies, trying to promote people to found a company in Estonia. And they just, they explained to me, we didn't really have, after USSR collapsed, we didn't really have the money to launch something old school. Lieven (15m 49s): So we made everything digital because we just couldn't afford it not to be digital. So they had a big headstart and now they're doing great. So launching a company, digital platform and hiring and relocation in Estonia is a success, I'm sure. If they executed, right. That will be a big one. They are only starting. I mean, they just got, how was it? How much was it? 1.2 million euros, something like that. Joel (16m 14s): 20.23 million euros in pre-seed funding. Lieven (16m 16s): Presale was like, like pre-seed. It's like something is coming, but it's only the pre-phase good stress coming. It's so optimistic. The pre-seed. Okay. I strongly believe in firm recruitment. I strongly believe in recruiting of skilled workers and in digital platforms because shortage is structural. And as long as the salaries in Western countries will stay higher, skilled workers from other regions will be eager to join. So for longer periods, shorter periods, whatever, but they will come. So I think we need those workers and if they can provide them, it will be a hit! But that's just the startup and they have to prove. It's definitely a buy to me. Joel (16m 53s): Sounds like a buy to me, Chad, where are you? Chad (16m 56s): So Lieven I've heard Talon is gorgeous. Have you ever been there? Lieven (16m 58s): Yeah. And I love it. Chad (16m 59s): You love it? Yeah. That's that's on my short list. That's on my short list. Gotta check it out. But yeah, Estonia's a tech hub, and right now it seems like they have about 2000 workers in their database from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems like a good seed, pre-seed of, of talent. The question is will construction workers trust an app? And will Werk, have enough cash to reach them? There are pockets of construction workers all over the EU, but trying to market to 20 plus countries could be pretty costly. So the big question is, will they be able to hit those pockets? Chad (17m 41s): And you know, I'm not even sure are there like unions that they could work with to be able to get more workers into their database? Do you know, Lieven? Lieven (17m 50s): The only thing I know is that the Baltics aren't really into unions. They don't really like them. Chad (17m 55s): So I'm going to go with no. Lieven (17m 59s): Probably no. Chad (17m 59s): That makes it harder for them to actually reach out and get these individuals into, especially if you don't have like a specific one organization to work with. So that makes it a lot harder. They're also "Werking", working on developing a testing, relocation functionality, automating the visa and residents permit process, opening up bank accounts, flights, accommodations. So it looks like they're trying to be like this full service platform, which I think is a hundred percent necessary, especially for individuals in these types of jobs. So for me, it is incredibly early, obviously pre-stage, or pre-seed stage early, but I'm a big fan. Chad (18m 41s): I'm buying this. Joel (18m 42s): Chad, what do you think about their testing social feature that allows workers to talk to one another, receive advice, ask questions and all that good shit. I mean, that sounds like an additional asset, the sort of danced around, but in terms of unions and getting these people on the same page, I think that's going to be really interesting to watch. Yeah. This Facebook for construction workers, I guess, will be interested in. Chad (19m 4s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it gets to that, I almost think there, there will be communities, which I think is incredibly smart. And if they could build those communities, I almost see this as like a mini Jobcase, where they have communities that are all set up and they can, they can connect with each other and they can get those tips. And I think if they can, if they can model off of something like Jobcase, then, then they might have a winner, but still they have to hit those individuals. And if there's, if there aren't any big unions or big established organizations where you can hit many of them, it's going to be a lot of marketing money. Lieven (19m 39s): It would be the case. But I think staying away from the unions in this case is probably a good idea. I think. And if there are some countries in Europe, practice might succeed, it will be in those countries. Penetration of broadband has been extremely high in those regions forever. So it does people are, if everywhere, if anywhere it would be there. If the labor workers are going to use internet, that will be derived are going to use apps that will be there. So it could be a nice start, young people wherever they are. I mean, they've grown up with this kind of app. So if they're into construction or into anything else, they know it's, I don't think that will be a problem getting to know it that's something else. But if you offer a better, bigger salary, people will talk about it, send it to a Werk. Joel (20m 21s): It sounds like the young people are at the gaming events. Lieven (20m 25s): Do you know in the Baltic states there it's even bigger than in Western Europe. I mean, Ukraine, the Baltics, even Russia. I mean, e-sports is bigger than in the west. There you go. So yes, for them it should be definitely a good idea. Joel (20m 38s): All right. We got two buys. Let's see what I got to say about this stuff. All right guys, newsflash Europe's old. Shit needs to be repaired. Shit needs to be fixed. Shit needs to be built and they need immigrants to do it just like America does. So construction is a good place to be. A recession in a war zone isn't great for the short term of this business, but longterm Europe is going to need a lot of skilled immigrants and Ukraine is going to have to be rebuilt. The seed round should get work to the promise land in time for boats and hoes. Joel (21m 19s): I also am a buy on Twerk, I mean Werk. Let's get a startup number two. Should we call it who's or woes? Chad (21m 28s): I like, woes. Joel (21m 30s): You like woes all right. It's spelled W H O Z. I kinda like Who's better. But anyway, Lieven (21m 43s): Hoes? Joel (21m 44s): Say goodbye to those Microsystems. Lieven (21m 45s): That's Werk and Whoz Joel (21m 48s): Werk and Whoz. Oh, why does our show always go into the gutter? I don't get it? Alright Whoz, Whose, Was whatever you want to call it say goodbye to those Microsoft Excel headaches, Whoz, whose or hoes, a Paris based staffing, talent and project portfolio management solutions provider has raised 25 million euros in funding led by PSG equity. The funding will facilitate the startups present in the French market while expanding into new regions like the US, Germany, the UK and India. Founded in 2016, the SAAS platform promises to address the entire staffing process, including skills mapping team-building, management, planning, and identification skills, gap trends in order to adjust recruitment and training plans. Joel (22m 33s): So who's buying or selling Whoz? Hoes? Or woes? Lieven (22m 35s): I read their press release because I didn't really know them. They raised 25 million so they should be doing something right. But in the press release, there was one sentence which was in bold and underlined. So I scanned the text and I thought, okay, this must be important. So I'm going to read the sentence "In today's environment of a scarcity of talent, staffing as a driver of competitive advantage for companies." And I read it five times and I still couldn't get why they put it in bold and underlined it. So I gave up, I don't think I've read the whole thing and I couldn't find anything actually. Exactly knew. They claim to be very judged digitalizing Europe. And they've been in the business since 2016, which they claim is very long. Lieven (23m 16s): But I mean, we are longer in the business and we are not old. I just couldn't get it. I mean, they talk a lot and they tell a lot, but they didn't tell me anything new and I still don't exactly get what they're doing, but maybe you got it. It was written in English so maybe I got lost in translation. If it's my money, I won't by it. Maybe with someone else. That's right. But no, I wont. Joel (23m 41s): All right. That's a sell from Lieven. Chad, what you got? Chad (23m 45s): First off. I think it's incredibly smart to target staffing companies, as we've said, many times on this podcast, recruiting is a business for staffing and RPO where recruiting is a job for talent acquisition. The difference is understanding the bottom line, margins, EBITDA, those types of things. Most staffing companies need a future forward operating system. Not all of them are like yours Lieven, because they don't have it today. Most of the staffing companies that I've actually spoken with between the US and EU are happy with the big margins that they currently have, but that's by keeping things pretty much the same as it ever was. Chad (24m 25s): They are using tech for things like outreach, posting, programmatic, those types of things, but they're not doing the automation pieces. They're not really focusing on management inefficiencies internally. So I think this could be a very progressive way for them to go after many staffing organizations to help them future-proof and recession-proof themselves. If they can get it done, they can pretty much be as I'd said before, with JobandTalent, they could prospectively be that backend operating system that most staffing organizations focus on instead of having to go through layoffs all the times, they hit a recession. So it's a buy for me. Joel (25m 7s): One buy, one sell. Lieven (25m 8s): All right. So you believe you believe staffing is a driver of competitive advantage for companies? Chad (25m 13s): Always. Lieven (25m 13s): Okay. Why not? Why not? Joel (25m 16s): So I think I'm with Lieven on this one. And part of it is there's a clear messaging challenge for this company in terms of, of what they're doing. From my perspective, what I read and and saw on the website is like, there's too much competition. What they're doing. There's too much money going into companies. And I looked at them more as a competitor to like Remote, Oyster and Deel than I did a staffing company. And they talk a lot about sourcing and skills mapping and all that good stuff from their website. So they clearly have a messaging quandary in terms of what the hell they do. I think they should forget about the US. They have no chance in cracking our market anytime soon. India is kind of a real mystery in terms of what the hell you need to do to conquer India. Joel (25m 59s): So if you want to go into the US and India, good luck with that one. To me, this is a knife in a gunfight. So for me, and Lieven are going to be big sells on Whoz, hoes and woes. Figure out the name first, and then figure out if we're buy or sell, on that one. Well, guys that wraps up another fun-filled adventure with buy or sell. For the listeners we're going to cut really quickly to an interview that we did at the E recruitment Congress with CandidateIDs recently acquired by iCIMS so I guess he's technically an iCIMS employee now, Steven McGrath and we had a great conversation with him didn't we Chad? Chad (26m 41s): Love this guy. Love this guy. He is fucking hilarious. First and foremost. I mean, we got to say Adam Gordon still our favorite Scot, guy. Okay. So it's okay, Adam. It's all good, but yeah, but Steven is so amazing. He's hilarious. And we had a great, great interview with him. What about you Lieven what'd you think about Steve? Would you have him back on stage at the Erecruitment Congress? Lieven (27m 8s): I mean, I changed my holiday directions. I'm going to Scotland in July. So I was totally flabbergasted by the guy he's like said, he said, hilarious is funny, but he's also, I heard from so many people that he was actually the best masterclass that they saw. I didn't see it. I was talking somewhere else at the same moment. So I missed his presentation. It's a pity, but I heard so many good things about him. And we had some dinner with him. He liked his steak, Joel didn't, but he liked steak. Joel (27m 37s): That's the only strike on Steven. Whereas I'm concerned a little context for the listeners. Chad and I were in the hotel bar, either recording or talking and this a jovial bearded barrel chested guy comes in with a shirt that literally says Scotland on it. And came over to us because, you know, two guys with a mic, it's gotta be Chad and Cheese in Ostend. And struck up a conversation. And the guy was just the most fun, quick witted, everything, everything was just a blast hanging out with him. So I, I certainly hope that we can do it again very soon. Joel (28m 17s): Hopefully I'll come out to some of our European travels, but yeah, Steven McGrath quickly came up into the top Scott's that Chad and I have ever run into and our travels and this was a really fun, great interview. Chad (28m 32s): And here's the interview. Joel (28m 34s): Hey guys, what's up? We're back live from Ostend, Belgium at the Chad (28m 38s): Well kind of live. Joel (28m 40s): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going there. We're feeling it. Okay. Chad (28m 43s): Ooh. Joel (28m 43s): Where are we again in Ostend at the Erecruitment Congress. Chad (28m 46s): How many Belgian beers have we had by this point? Joel (28m 50s): What time is it? Because we've been drinking since about 11am. Chad (28m 51s): No fucking clue. This is great. Joel (28m 53s): Total entrapment. Hey guys. Here's where you sit and here's a fridge of beer. I don't know how that got there, but if it's gone when you're gone. Hey. Yes. So anyway, Steve, welcome to the show. Steve McGrath is solutions consultant at our friends CandidateID/iCIMS. Big friends of the show. Chad (29m 13s): Slash iCIMS. Yeah. Joel (29m 14s): Adam or Steve is Adam Gordon's boss, apparently. And he's here in his place. Chad (29m 18s): We got the upgrade. We got the Adam Gordon upgrade. This is awesome. Joel (29m 22s): Oh, is he in Bora Bora with a Ewan McGregor and Sean Connery, I guess. Partying up with a French models. Thanks for coming, Steve, we appreciate you hanging out with us. Chad (29m 34s): Not to mention, we have somebody who actually sounds Scottish now. Right? Joel (29m 37s): Worked in a whiskey distillery. We may have time to talk about that. Chad (29m 42s): I mean, this is three strikes you're out. I love this. Joel (29m 46s): I've never had a glass of drink of scotch with a Scotsman. Stephen (29m 50s): We'll solve that right after this. Chad (29m 52s): Yes. Yeah, no, tonight we're definitely doing that. He's staying the night. We're here, scotch. It's all on. Okay. So let's get into so enough FOMO for all of you, people that were not at E recruitment Congress, you missed a great talk, right with Stephen. Stephen, tell them a little bit about your talk, hit the high points, and then we're just going to roll into it. Stephen (30m 13s): Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I'm really appreciative that you've given me the comfy chair because I was looking at the rickety wooden thing, thinking, this must be where they make. Chad (30m 33s): That's the only thing that would Cheesman up. Stephen (30m 36s): I'm just going to sit in this chair drinking Belgium beer. The talk was really about building powerful, nurture talent pipelines, making sure that people are armed with the right type of content that they're gonna create, the right type of tracking that they might put in place, whether that's through our platform or not. You know, just making sure that they're monitoring that correctly, making sure that they know what people are doing. Just not throwing stuff out there and hoping for the best, because let's face it. Chad (31m 1s): Folks don't even know what nurture means though. So help us understand what nurture means. Stephen (31m 4s): Yeah. So not sure there's a word that just started to get thrown around in recruitment a few years ago. Chad (31m 9s): It's been around for, I don't know, a hundred years. Joel (31m 13s): Warm and fuzzy, nurture. Stephen (31m 13s): And, and I think as you know, it's one of those kind of buzzwords of the day but the reality is that nurture means that we need to make sure that we're taking people through a continual process of engagement, of content, of making sure that they're ready. That I've put upstairs was that when they're ready, you're ready and vice versa. Chad (31m 38s): You're ready together. Stephen (31m 41s): Exactly. Chad (31m 41s): That's like a hug. Yeah. And Joel needs hugs. Joel (31m 45s): So when you, when you talk about nurturing to me too many people are trying to get into people's pants too quickly. I think what you're talking about is let's have a drink before we take this any further, and maybe I'm simplifying this, but I think that's sort of what you're saying. So put that in terms of recruitment, how should they think about that? This isn't an email blast, let's get busy. This is like a real relationship. Talk about that. Stephen (32m 10s): Yeah, for sure. And, that's the thing, I highlighted during the talk, was why in the world are we sending job descriptions to people that we don't know anything about, that aren't ready for any kind of conversation. And we just see, Hey, do you want to work here? We're no different to the company that you currently work for. We don't do anything different in terms of strategy. Chad (32m 34s): It's like Mormons coming to your front door. Stephen (32m 37s): It's not kidding. Joel (32m 38s): Let's not, let's not offend some, you know, we're not going to go there. Stephen (32m 45s): Chad and Cheese podcast listeners. Joel (32m 46s): A lot of Mormons listening to this show. Chad (32m 49s): Yes. It's all unite. Joel (32m 50s): Whiskey drinkers and Mormons have a lot in common, a lot in common. Stephen (32m 55s): It is absolutely that. It is that like why on earth would we just send something that doesn't mean anything to anybody, you know, let's start engagement at the point where candidates start engagement, you know, in that kind of social media realm in that realm of making sure that all your kind of employer brand another buzzword, but that is actually correct. It's not just what the company portrays is. What you portray. Joel (33m 16s): Simplify this for a second. I come to, I want to work at your company. I look for jobs. There isn't necessarily one there that I'm interested in or qualified for, but I still want to keep a relationship with the company. What are some best practices of getting someone in the funnel, tempting that the squirrel with a nut, you know, to get them in and then how do you work them through and keep in contact? Is it the monthly email? Is it ask them to follow you on social media and sort of keep them in the loop that way, what's your best recommendations there. Chad (33m 50s): Cheeseman's all about the nuts. Joel (33m 53s): And the funnel. Stephen (33m 54s): How many monthly emails? Joel (33m 55s): Nuts in the funnel? Let's talk about that. Stephen (33m 58s): How many monthly emails do you get? Chad (33m 60s): Too fucking many. Let's talk about daily? Stephen (34m 1s): How many do you read? Joel (34m 4s): The point is too many, right? Stephen (34m 5s): So it's that kind of scenario. We need to be scattering that across a variety of different channels. You know, that's what people mistake not to mean. That's where the mistake engagement to mean. You know, oh, I sent a monthly newsletter. Why are people not engaged with me? Who cause your social media isn't up-to-date because you've not said anything about your company on your LinkedIn. Chad (34m 24s): Or you're not doing a TikTok. That's a problem. Stephen (34m 27s): That could be a problem as well. Yeah. We've actually allowed that, you know, things like that do make moves. So, you know, it's catering to your audience, but making sure that you're covering all bases, I was going to try and use an American baseball analogy there, but I've never watched a game in my life. So skip that. I'd never watched. Chad (34m 47s): He's a man. He's a man after my own heart. I'm American. I don't like baseball and I hate cricket. Okay. So, Stephen (34m 56s): But you know, certainly just making sure Joel (34m 57s): I hope it's fun and hell when you're not the American pastime, everybody, Stephen (35m 2s): But you know, just making sure that you do have those, you know, as really simple things that that should be covered, that aren't covered. Someone's going on to view your entire presence online. Make sure that that, that is a good person. Joel (35m 16s): Formulate that because I think people mistakenly think, well, if I put up a blog post, I can send out that same blog post, via email. I can put a link to that blog post on all my social media and I'm done. And it's much more nuanced than that. Right? Your audience on social media is different than the audience that wants email, that wants to read your blog and people need to start thinking about what does different content look like in different mediums? Yes? Stephen (35m 43s): Yes, absolutely. There's a reason that there's a character limit on Twitter, right? Like there's a reason. It's how can I engage people within X amount of time? You know, chuckin' up something that says, Hey, read this 1000 word blog about the thing they actually want to take on Twitter, is not going to go very well, you know, adjust it accordingly. Sure. Take the highlight from that book, post on Twitter, Joel (36m 6s): Or maybe take a soundbite and make an image with a quote from the blog post. Stephen (36m 11s): You. Don't do something like that. Yeah, sure. Take the content that you've got recycle that content, but adapt that content importantly, for the mediums that you're using. Joel (36m 23s): What advice would you give the company that just blast job postings through social media? Chad (36m 30s): I love this. I love this. What about the company that has a, I don't know, half an hour application process. Stephen (36m 38s): I just, I think. Joel (36m 39s): Stop. Stephen (36m 40s): I was going to just say stop, but I think that's one of my biggest things that we're trying to combat with CandidateID customers just know, you know, it's not. Chad (36m 52s): Because you can draw them in, but if you, but if you bring them into an application process that is total shit. I mean, what has actually been accomplished? Stephen (36m 58s): Here, we've spent lots of time getting you to fill out forms, details. We've got your resume and a CV for you. Hey, by the way, can you just repeat all of that again in separate boxes with separate things like no, get rid of it. You don't need it. I actually told a story upstairs. I worked at CandidateID without ever seeing a job description. I worked with ever applying formally for the job. Chad (37m 25s): Oh, tell me about that. Tell me about that. Stephen (37m 26s): Adam reached out to me. Joel (37m 27s): Such an icon. Stephen (37m 28s): I just seen his face and I was like, oh, Chad (37m 37s): So he sets a sexy man. He was in his kilt. Wasn't he? He was in his kilt. Stephen (37m 52s): Him in his kilt in LinkedIn and I thought, that's the man I want to work for. Joel (37m 58s): Sexy Rangers game. Chad (37m 58s): Kilt man. Stephen (37m 58s): Cause that awkward, like, oh wait how far can I push it right now? Chad (38m 1s): How's it going to say he was red when he walked in? Stephen (38m 3s): Exactly. No. So Adam actually reached out to me on LinkedIn told me little bit about the job. Not much to be honest, you know, seeing hey. Joel (38m 11s): What do you mean? He, Adam reached out to you. So he sourced you from where? Stephen (38m 15s): He sent me a message on LinkedIn. Joel (38m 17s): Okay. So he did a search on LinkedIn. Stephen (38m 19s): You'd have to ask him about what that process was. Joel (38m 21s): So an InMail from LinkedIn. Hey, I like your look. I like what you got going on and okay. Take it from there. Chad (38m 26s): I like your style kid. Stephen (38m 28s): So he just sent me and it was, you know, it was four or five sentences. Wasn't anything huge was a bit about hey we've got big plans. If you want to chat with them, feel free. So I reached out to him. Joel (38m 43s): And you were at the Distillery at the time? Stephen (38m 45s): Not at Distillery, I was a recruitment at that time. Joel (38m 47s): At a pretty cool job. Stephen (38m 48s): No, the distillery thing we'll get to, but that was a part-time thing while doing recruitment got so no, he reached out to me, gave me a little bit of a scenario I called them off the back of that. We spoke, I had to say to pretty quickly that I like this guy, you know, I like the direction. He was very honest with me about the direction the company was going in, what they wanted to do. And he just was like, Hey, you know, if you want to chat with the hiring manager for this post, you'll feel free to chat with them. I'll get them to reach out to you. Would you like to set that up? I did. Three conversations, his being the first two more conversations after that they offered badge open. Stephen (39m 29s): That was it like, Chad (39m 30s): But CandidateID in its barest beautiful form let's say, does that without like the human interaction, if you know the type of conversation you want to start with the type of individual, right? You can do that at scale. Right. So Adam did that because he knows how to market. He knows how to, I mean, if somebody is going to interact, he knows what he's looking for. Right. But you can actually do the same thing through automation. Can you not? Stephen (39m 53s): Absolutely. He could have asked me pretty much everything. Chad (39m 56s): Yeah. Stephen (39m 57s): You know, I say it from probably some of the personal things that we shared with each other in terms of interests and bits like that, you know, but he could have asked me everything, job qualification wise in an automated process. Chad (40m 13s): Your tartan before you actually. Stephen (40m 15s): That's the one thing we do in Scotland. We have the kneel down before the king in this sense, which was Adam Gordon. So, and submit the Tarton. Joel (40m 27s): You will never take our freedom! A lot of companies hear what you're talking about, have customized messages on multiple platforms, actually write content, actually create content, whether that's video, images, et cetera. And they're thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I barely have time to keep my head above water. And now I have to make custom marketing messages for different mediums. What do you tell the company that says I don't have the resources? Is it just focus on one or two things and don't worry about all the other or is our different solution that you recommend. Stephen (40m 57s): Yeah. So without being like the guy that's come on this podcast and been really blunt about everything. The reality is if you don't have time for that, people won't have time for you. So you have to make time for it. Joel (41m 8s): Damn. Chad (41m 8s): There it is. Right. He just dropped the fucking mic. Joel (41m 11s): He dropped the fucking mic. Chad (41m 12s): He dropped the mic without dropping a mic. Joel (41m 14s): If you don't have time. Stephen (41m 15s): Don't have time for that. People don't have time for you. Chad (41m 18s): I love the Scots, the Scots have that. I mean, they got their like shit down there like blunt. They don't know, they know their peat levels, all that stuff, Joel (41m 25s): You know, level. Stephen (41m 26s): Well, the 80/50 answer to what you're seeing the, you know, the sprinkle, some glitter on it would be focused on your strengths, you know, would be pick those core areas, make sure that you've got those right and then, you know, pick up the human element after that. But you need to adapt. You need to change. You need to make time. And actually quite a lot people that say, they don't have time could, if they just rechecked their time correctly. Joel (41m 54s): You mentioned automation this is your sweet spot. Is part of the answer automation can help you look bigger than you really are? And whether that's social media posts or like how do you automate some of this stuff and still achieve customization and personalization? Or is it impossible? Stephen (42m 7s): No, I think that any company can look better than they are quote unquote, I mean, CandidateID prime example, you know, you would have never thought that was 20 people when in Glasgow. Joel (42m 19s): True that. Stephen (42m 19s): When, you know, got Adam and Scott bounced about in kilts every which location that they can. You know, but I think that if you use it correctly and if you facilitate it correctly, then absolutely your presence will grow. And you know, those are those lots of examples of that in terms of, you know, smaller companies, you know, within recruitment or within, you know, technology that aim to look bigger than they are. They do it successfully, you know, before you realize it is one guy behind the desk, pushing some buttons. So Joel (42m 50s): Steve, one guy who doesn't have to look bigger than he is, we appreciate you coming on the show. Chad (42m 55s): He's a table talker. Joel (42m 56s): Please tell your boss, hello for us. And thank him for being too big for this conference. Being too important for us, for those that want to know more about you or CandidateID, where do you send them? Stephen (43m 9s): So CandidateID is now an iCIMS company and you would head to their websites and their pages to learn more about us. You can also search CandidateID an iCIMS company and my name is Stephen McGrath. I'm a solutions consultant. You can find me anywhere, tossing cables in distilleries or on social media as well, if you want. Joel (43m 30s): Let's get some scotch, we out. Chad (43m 32s): We out. All right. So that was fun. Right? Joel (43m 34s): How many drinks were we in by that interview? It was probably quite a few. Chad (43m 45s): We had at least six Belgian beers a piece by then. And just for the record, Lieven all of the beers that were in that fridge were done. Lieven (43m 59s): I know Joel (44m 1s): 86 PBRs by the time lunch, lunch rolled around, speaking of lunch, guys, I'm hungry. Let's wrap this baby up. Another one in the books. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (44m 9s): We out. OUTRO (44m 9s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.INTRO (6s): anaHide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (28s): All yeah, more than 75,000 pounds of imported baby formula from Europe landed in the US this week. It's about time our allies return the favor for World War II. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel "Operation Fly Formula" Cheeseman. Chad (48s): This is Chad "you'd better work" Sowash. Lieven (52s): And I'm Lieven, "not going to Unleash ever again" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (57s): And on this episode, Job and Talent prepares for its US invasion, buy or sell with work and woes, or is that who's? And more E-recruitment Congress. Goodness, let's do this. sfx (1m 9s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Chad (1m 12s): Okay. We can't let this slide. Why are you not going to Unleash? We, you teased us and you told us we're, you're coming to Unleash and now we're going to be Lieven free. Lieven (1m 24s): Basically, just because I'm cheap. I applied to a free ticket sale for free tickets to interesting people and then they decided I wasn't interesting enough. And I didn't apply for a free ticket. So I thought, fuck Unleash and I'm not going.M Chad (1m 39s): Oh God. Okay. Well, we're going to have to smooth this out with Mark and the kids that were at Unleash because you're definitely interesting. They might've, you know, got that confused with Belgium. I don't know. Joel (1m 49s): Yeah, he's gotta be in attendance at Paris. We can't have a Paris without Lieven. That's just not, not going to happen. Chad (1m 57s): Credit plus Joel (1m 57s): A credit and a steak is what we're going to get Lieven in Paris. Lieven (2m 1s): Aan American steak. Okay. I heard a lot about those after you're bitching about the bar's mistakes in Ostend. Joel (2m 10s): Lieven comes in the green room and says I had a really good steak in what city? Brussels. Lieven (2m 14s): I don't know what I said. I had a really good steak. I didn't mention where it was. It was in Belgium, but I did mention it was better than the one you had in Ostend. Joel (2m 22s): And then he says it was petite. And I said, oh, it was like a six ounce when he's like no smaller. And I said, what do they serve up steak nuggets on a plate in Europe, like, how is this a good steak if it's smaller than six ounces? Lieven (2m 35s): It's about quality Joel quality. Chad (2m 38s): It's exactly right. Joel (2m 39s): Not in American baby. It's about grill marks and size. Chad (2m 43s): Grill marks and obesity. That's what it's all about. Joel (2m 46s): All right. It's established. We're getting Lieven at Unleash in Paris and we're having a good steak. Chad (2m 54s): OK. Lieven (2m 54s): Promise? Joel (2m 54s): Promise. Chad (2m 54s): Promise. Joel (2m 55s): Unless you want to come to Rekfest in July and see if the Brits have good steak? Lieven (3m 1s): I can do both. Joel (3m 1s): Okay. There you go. Chad (3m 2s): You can do both. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. Shout outs. Joel (3m 5s): I love how we wrapped our travel schedule and then Chadcheese.com for more information. Yeah, we got some shout outs here everybody. I'll go first. Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Oh, well guys, a baby formula shortage. What? Chad (3m 23s): I said my favorite. Joel (3m 23s): Oh yeah. Shout out to your favorite or tourist and healthcare. Anyway, Chad (3m 28s): Tourist and healthcare. Joel (3m 29s): Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Chad's favorite. Well guys, a baby formula, shortage, Sweden and Finland, joining NATO and monkey pox maybe throwing the world for a loop and a recession may be right around the corner, but tourism and healthcare are bright spots for Europe. The world travel and tourism council's latest economic impact report suggests Europe will create nearly 8 million new travel jobs. In the next decade. The sector is expected to grow at twice the rate of the overall economy. It also reveals Europe's tourism. GDP is forecast to grow by 31.4%. Joel (4m 8s): Wow. At one point 73 trillion euros and only half of that is from the Sowashes. Once more, you know, you do the Western Europe medical recruitment market is now estimated to be valued at $21.2 US billion dollars by the end of 2028. Turns out old people, disease and a growing population are good for European business. Shout out to tourism and healthcare. Chad (4m 36s): Nice. That's sweet. That's sweet. Yeah. Yeah. So my shout out goes to the EU for pay transparency. Members of the European parliament demand EU companies with at least 50 employees be required to disclose information that make it easier for those working for the same employer, to compare salaries and expose an existing gender pay gap in their organization. On last Friday's show, we actually talked about how the US women's football team, that's soccer for you. Americans was able to strike an equal wage deal with the men that all started because pay transparency. Chad (5m 16s): So kudos to the EU and driving action while the US is still fighting tooth and nail to stave off equity. Joel (5m 26s): That shout out was way better than mine. Lieven? Lieven (5m 30s): My shout-outs goes to FaZe Clan. And if you don't know face Glen, you're old because FaZe Clan, There's nothing wrong with being old. Chad (5m 41s): Oh my God Lieven's in a mood today. Joel (5m 43s): It's cause his cable guy hasn't showed up yet. Lieven (5m 45s): I've been waiting for six hours for the cable guy to show up. I couldn't do any meeting at all because the cable guy was going to show up and then the cable guy didn't show up. But anyways, I was talking about FaZe Clan yeah FaZe Clan. the CS go major yesterday in Antwerp. And if you don't know what to CS go major yesterday in Antwerp and your old also, because it has been followed by 170 million people worldwide and 40,000 people were present. So that's the biggest CS go Counter-Strike tournament, first yearly a big event. It's called a major. Yesterday the finals were in Antwerp. I was there and I must say it really is amazing. Lieven (6m 26s): I've been telling for quite some years now that our e-sports is getting big enough for us HR people to be present and to, so to use it as recruitment platform. So I was there to check it out and it is amazing. It's like soccer finals, World Cup soccer on steroids with a combination with Tomorrow lands. And if you don't know Tomorrow land your old also, but it's a big music festival and nevermind that just wants a wall check the videos. It's great. Chad (6m 60s): Wow! So 40,000 were alive. And how many were streaming? Lieven (7m 5s): 170 million. That's more like the Super Bowl. Chad (7m 8s): Holy fuck. Joel (7m 9s): What's the Superbowl, a hundred million? Lieven (7m 11s): 140 or something. Joel (7m 12s): 140? Lieven (7m 13s): On the best dat. So Joel (7m 14s): Yeah, Lieven (7m 14s): Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. It's huge. Surely. And it's something like a parallel world. And HR just don't know about it because on average, we are like HR managers are like older and 35 or in our 40s or whatever. And it's something new and young people are constantly active in this, but to be our not, and this is something we should be active in. So I'm a big propagandists of the e-sports to get. Joel (7m 38s): So were there any, cause we talked about this at the ECongress. Were there any sponsors, advertisers that sort of piqued your interest or got your attention that's worth mentioning? Lieven (7m 49s): The employment now. And I still think it's a missed chance. Joel (7m 53s): That sounds like opportunity to me. Lieven (8m 0s): Definitely. Chad (8m 0s): Opportunities knockin and so are topics. TOPICS! Joel (8m 7s): All right guys, one of Europe's is coming to America. That's after much speculation JobAndTalent is not messing around. The Spanish based company has appointed MIT grad Diego de Haro Ruiz as CEO of it's US operations. Prior to JobandTalent, Diego worked as a senior consultant for McKinsey in Madrid and as Chief Revenue Officer at New York, city-based, Aon a subsidiary, their subsidiary CoverWallet, which is an online insurance provider for small businesses. JobandTalent entered the US market earlier this year with the acquisition of InStaff for 32.3 million USD but looks like that was just the beginning. Joel (8m 51s): Guys. What do we think of JobandTalent's US aspirations. Chad (8m 57s): If you check out the Aim group's article entitled JobandTalent appoints regional CEO in the US. It made me step back for a minute, because when you say regional CEO, you don't generally mean the United States, right? It's like a polite backhand. So it was one of those very polite European backhands. Hey US, you're a region to us. Anyway. Lieven (9m 26s): So you're offended now? Chad (9m 28s): Totally offended. Sons of bitches! JobandTalent put 200,000 people in jobs across more than 2000 companies during 2021. So what they're doing is obviously working, or at least it seems to be working. Diego has a great pedigree, Aon MIT, McKinsey, yet nothing in this space, the staffing or recruitment space at all. So his last position was as a CRO for Aon, which Joel is talking about. Obviously he's smart. He's got a great pedigree. They're going to be focused on revenues in this area although a product like JobandTalent needs to have industry insiders to make the connections, to get the big deals done. Just because this guy has a great pedigree, does it mean he knows where to go or how to navigate this slow moving system? Chad (10m 15s): So the best thing that Diego can do is surround himself with people who know what the fuck they're doing in this industry. I also need to kind of harken back to a conversation we've always been having around JobandTalent, is staffing versus tech. I understand the portfolios, they have been buying through acquisition on the staffing side, like their newest in Norway, they pretty much bought Norway is what I think Lieven said. The question is will JobandTalent keep the high margins that staffing enjoys or kickstart job.com narrative around faster access to better match talent with smaller margins by tech. I'm not sure where they go from here, because all we're doing is trying to substitute tech for people in staffing, or are we trying to drive better margins, efficiencies whenever you read into any of their narrative or their discussions, press releases you don't really get a good idea. Chad (11m 15s): So Lieven your thoughts on that. Okay. Lieven (11m 17s): Well, the guy studied at MIT and I love MIT. I mean, we just bought a company called TMI, which is almost the same thing. Chad (11m 28s): It's too much information. Lieven (11m 29s): But I think he's probably very intelligent, but he also sounds a bit boring, I guess. And about a regional CEO for the US, that's something I like. I mean, the US actually as a region that, I mean, you only have a one language. That's like English, you don't need money. See us we have like a thousand HR. We have 45 CEOs as, because there are so many languages, but the US, you only have one language so one CEO should be plenty. So no need to be offended. But JobandTalent is something I've always been it's something that's a bit strange. I didn't even really know them. I mean the Spanish and we are supposed to know them, they are a pretty big brand and you're going to the US. They claim to be very digital, which I don't really think they are. Lieven (12m 12s): It's more of a foresight. They got plenty of money because today it's easy to get plenty of money, but they still need to execute it. I wonder how we're going to do it? But the U S would probably be the place to prove. Chad (12m 25s): Yeah, but it seems like they're going into more competitive waters with all of the staffing companies over here, as opposed to when we first started talking about JobandTalent, we were talking about how they could perspectively be the operating system. The technology behind most of these staffing companies kind of working white label and helping staffing companies create better margins, but they're not doing that. They're actually going, it looks like head to head with other staffing companies from a competitive standpoint. To me that doesn't make sense. What do you, what do you think about? Lieven (12m 58s): Is yes a good answer? Joel (13m 0s): So I guess the question for me is just the tip strategy? Are they all in on the US? And we've talked a lot about JobandTalent in the past year. We know that they've raised upwards of $250 million. We know that they're a multi-year unicorn. We know that they've talked about IPO. We know that they're making acquisitions, so they have to do this to appease their investors. And if they're going to go IPO, they need to talk about hitting America. So it's no surprise that this is happening. They're also doing it in the midst of an impending recession. America never really goes very well for a lot of European companies. There are well-established competitors in this market. I think it's going to be a disaster for JobandTalent to come to the US at the time that they're coming over. Joel (13m 45s): It'll be fun to talk about. But to me, this is going to be a big flush of money in euros, down the toilet. Good luck with it kids. But if we get to play Neil Diamond? sfx (13m 60s): Coming to America song. Joel (14m 1s): I'm all for it. All right. Let's take a quick break and play a little buy or sell. sfx (14m 6s): Europe has a bunch of countries in it. Joel (14m 9s): Oh, buy or sell, you know, it, you love it. Let's play it! Doing an abbreviated version, we're doing two companies. Cause we have some interviews with E recruitment Congress that we want to play. So let's get to it. We're first going to talk about work. That's spelled W E R K because it's Europe and it's cool. Estonia based work, a hiring and relocation platform for skilled migrant construction workers announced last week that it has raised 1.23 million euros in a pre-seed round of funding. The platform enables companies to hire skilled and vetted migrant construction workers handling everything from recruitment and verification to relocation. Joel (14m 49s): Werk says it has reached over 2000 verified and vetted construction workers and has customers within Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. All right. Lieven, are you a buyer sell on work? Lieven (15m 1s): That's a good question. And for those wants to know Werk, you spell it like twerk, but without the t, that's a good start. And it also means some work. We spell it the same way back. It's called a werk. So they've got the basics, right? So they've got a good name Werk, it's pretty straight forward, Werk. So that's a good start. I'm really, really into names. Okay. So then Estonia. Estonia is probably the most digital minded country in the whole of Europe. And that's not a joke. I mean, I've been there once to visit one of their government agencies, trying to promote people to found a company in Estonia. And they just, they explained to me, we didn't really have, after USSR collapsed, we didn't really have the money to launch something old school. Lieven (15m 49s): So we made everything digital because we just couldn't afford it not to be digital. So they had a big headstart and now they're doing great. So launching a company, digital platform and hiring and relocation in Estonia is a success, I'm sure. If they executed, right. That will be a big one. They are only starting. I mean, they just got, how was it? How much was it? 1.2 million euros, something like that. Joel (16m 14s): 20.23 million euros in pre-seed funding. Lieven (16m 16s): Presale was like, like pre-seed. It's like something is coming, but it's only the pre-phase good stress coming. It's so optimistic. The pre-seed. Okay. I strongly believe in firm recruitment. I strongly believe in recruiting of skilled workers and in digital platforms because shortage is structural. And as long as the salaries in Western countries will stay higher, skilled workers from other regions will be eager to join. So for longer periods, shorter periods, whatever, but they will come. So I think we need those workers and if they can provide them, it will be a hit! But that's just the startup and they have to prove. It's definitely a buy to me. Joel (16m 53s): Sounds like a buy to me, Chad, where are you? Chad (16m 56s): So Lieven I've heard Talon is gorgeous. Have you ever been there? Lieven (16m 58s): Yeah. And I love it. Chad (16m 59s): You love it? Yeah. That's that's on my short list. That's on my short list. Gotta check it out. But yeah, Estonia's a tech hub, and right now it seems like they have about 2000 workers in their database from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems like a good seed, pre-seed of, of talent. The question is will construction workers trust an app? And will Werk, have enough cash to reach them? There are pockets of construction workers all over the EU, but trying to market to 20 plus countries could be pretty costly. So the big question is, will they be able to hit those pockets? Chad (17m 41s): And you know, I'm not even sure are there like unions that they could work with to be able to get more workers into their database? Do you know, Lieven? Lieven (17m 50s): The only thing I know is that the Baltics aren't really into unions. They don't really like them. Chad (17m 55s): So I'm going to go with no. Lieven (17m 59s): Probably no. Chad (17m 59s): That makes it harder for them to actually reach out and get these individuals into, especially if you don't have like a specific one organization to work with. So that makes it a lot harder. They're also "Werking", working on developing a testing, relocation functionality, automating the visa and residents permit process, opening up bank accounts, flights, accommodations. So it looks like they're trying to be like this full service platform, which I think is a hundred percent necessary, especially for individuals in these types of jobs. So for me, it is incredibly early, obviously pre-stage, or pre-seed stage early, but I'm a big fan. Chad (18m 41s): I'm buying this. Joel (18m 42s): Chad, what do you think about their testing social feature that allows workers to talk to one another, receive advice, ask questions and all that good shit. I mean, that sounds like an additional asset, the sort of danced around, but in terms of unions and getting these people on the same page, I think that's going to be really interesting to watch. Yeah. This Facebook for construction workers, I guess, will be interested in. Chad (19m 4s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it gets to that, I almost think there, there will be communities, which I think is incredibly smart. And if they could build those communities, I almost see this as like a mini Jobcase, where they have communities that are all set up and they can, they can connect with each other and they can get those tips. And I think if they can, if they can model off of something like Jobcase, then, then they might have a winner, but still they have to hit those individuals. And if there's, if there aren't any big unions or big established organizations where you can hit many of them, it's going to be a lot of marketing money. Lieven (19m 39s): It would be the case. But I think staying away from the unions in this case is probably a good idea. I think. And if there are some countries in Europe, practice might succeed, it will be in those countries. Penetration of broadband has been extremely high in those regions forever. So it does people are, if everywhere, if anywhere it would be there. If the labor workers are going to use internet, that will be derived are going to use apps that will be there. So it could be a nice start, young people wherever they are. I mean, they've grown up with this kind of app. So if they're into construction or into anything else, they know it's, I don't think that will be a problem getting to know it that's something else. But if you offer a better, bigger salary, people will talk about it, send it to a Werk. Joel (20m 21s): It sounds like the young people are at the gaming events. Lieven (20m 25s): Do you know in the Baltic states there it's even bigger than in Western Europe. I mean, Ukraine, the Baltics, even Russia. I mean, e-sports is bigger than in the west. There you go. So yes, for them it should be definitely a good idea. Joel (20m 38s): All right. We got two buys. Let's see what I got to say about this stuff. All right guys, newsflash Europe's old. Shit needs to be repaired. Shit needs to be fixed. Shit needs to be built and they need immigrants to do it just like America does. So construction is a good place to be. A recession in a war zone isn't great for the short term of this business, but longterm Europe is going to need a lot of skilled immigrants and Ukraine is going to have to be rebuilt. The seed round should get work to the promise land in time for boats and hoes. Joel (21m 19s): I also am a buy on Twerk, I mean Werk. Let's get a startup number two. Should we call it who's or woes? Chad (21m 28s): I like, woes. Joel (21m 30s): You like woes all right. It's spelled W H O Z. I kinda like Who's better. But anyway, Lieven (21m 43s): Hoes? Joel (21m 44s): Say goodbye to those Microsystems. Lieven (21m 45s): That's Werk and Whoz Joel (21m 48s): Werk and Whoz. Oh, why does our show always go into the gutter? I don't get it? Alright Whoz, Whose, Was whatever you want to call it say goodbye to those Microsoft Excel headaches, Whoz, whose or hoes, a Paris based staffing, talent and project portfolio management solutions provider has raised 25 million euros in funding led by PSG equity. The funding will facilitate the startups present in the French market while expanding into new regions like the US, Germany, the UK and India. Founded in 2016, the SAAS platform promises to address the entire staffing process, including skills mapping team-building, management, planning, and identification skills, gap trends in order to adjust recruitment and training plans. Joel (22m 33s): So who's buying or selling Whoz? Hoes? Or woes? Lieven (22m 35s): I read their press release because I didn't really know them. They raised 25 million so they should be doing something right. But in the press release, there was one sentence which was in bold and underlined. So I scanned the text and I thought, okay, this must be important. So I'm going to read the sentence "In today's environment of a scarcity of talent, staffing as a driver of competitive advantage for companies." And I read it five times and I still couldn't get why they put it in bold and underlined it. So I gave up, I don't think I've read the whole thing and I couldn't find anything actually. Exactly knew. They claim to be very judged digitalizing Europe. And they've been in the business since 2016, which they claim is very long. Lieven (23m 16s): But I mean, we are longer in the business and we are not old. I just couldn't get it. I mean, they talk a lot and they tell a lot, but they didn't tell me anything new and I still don't exactly get what they're doing, but maybe you got it. It was written in English so maybe I got lost in translation. If it's my money, I won't by it. Maybe with someone else. That's right. But no, I wont. Joel (23m 41s): All right. That's a sell from Lieven. Chad, what you got? Chad (23m 45s): First off. I think it's incredibly smart to target staffing companies, as we've said, many times on this podcast, recruiting is a business for staffing and RPO where recruiting is a job for talent acquisition. The difference is understanding the bottom line, margins, EBITDA, those types of things. Most staffing companies need a future forward operating system. Not all of them are like yours Lieven, because they don't have it today. Most of the staffing companies that I've actually spoken with between the US and EU are happy with the big margins that they currently have, but that's by keeping things pretty much the same as it ever was. Chad (24m 25s): They are using tech for things like outreach, posting, programmatic, those types of things, but they're not doing the automation pieces. They're not really focusing on management inefficiencies internally. So I think this could be a very progressive way for them to go after many staffing organizations to help them future-proof and recession-proof themselves. If they can get it done, they can pretty much be as I'd said before, with JobandTalent, they could prospectively be that backend operating system that most staffing organizations focus on instead of having to go through layoffs all the times, they hit a recession. So it's a buy for me. Joel (25m 7s): One buy, one sell. Lieven (25m 8s): All right. So you believe you believe staffing is a driver of competitive advantage for companies? Chad (25m 13s): Always. Lieven (25m 13s): Okay. Why not? Why not? Joel (25m 16s): So I think I'm with Lieven on this one. And part of it is there's a clear messaging challenge for this company in terms of, of what they're doing. From my perspective, what I read and and saw on the website is like, there's too much competition. What they're doing. There's too much money going into companies. And I looked at them more as a competitor to like Remote, Oyster and Deel than I did a staffing company. And they talk a lot about sourcing and skills mapping and all that good stuff from their website. So they clearly have a messaging quandary in terms of what the hell they do. I think they should forget about the US. They have no chance in cracking our market anytime soon. India is kind of a real mystery in terms of what the hell you need to do to conquer India. Joel (25m 59s): So if you want to go into the US and India, good luck with that one. To me, this is a knife in a gunfight. So for me, and Lieven are going to be big sells on Whoz, hoes and woes. Figure out the name first, and then figure out if we're buy or sell, on that one. Well, guys that wraps up another fun-filled adventure with buy or sell. For the listeners we're going to cut really quickly to an interview that we did at the E recruitment Congress with CandidateIDs recently acquired by iCIMS so I guess he's technically an iCIMS employee now, Steven McGrath and we had a great conversation with him didn't we Chad? Chad (26m 41s): Love this guy. Love this guy. He is fucking hilarious. First and foremost. I mean, we got to say Adam Gordon still our favorite Scot, guy. Okay. So it's okay, Adam. It's all good, but yeah, but Steven is so amazing. He's hilarious. And we had a great, great interview with him. What about you Lieven what'd you think about Steve? Would you have him back on stage at the Erecruitment Congress? Lieven (27m 8s): I mean, I changed my holiday directions. I'm going to Scotland in July. So I was totally flabbergasted by the guy he's like said, he said, hilarious is funny, but he's also, I heard from so many people that he was actually the best masterclass that they saw. I didn't see it. I was talking somewhere else at the same moment. So I missed his presentation. It's a pity, but I heard so many good things about him. And we had some dinner with him. He liked his steak, Joel didn't, but he liked steak. Joel (27m 37s): That's the only strike on Steven. Whereas I'm concerned a little context for the listeners. Chad and I were in the hotel bar, either recording or talking and this a jovial bearded barrel chested guy comes in with a shirt that literally says Scotland on it. And came over to us because, you know, two guys with a mic, it's gotta be Chad and Cheese in Ostend. And struck up a conversation. And the guy was just the most fun, quick witted, everything, everything was just a blast hanging out with him. So I, I certainly hope that we can do it again very soon. Joel (28m 17s): Hopefully I'll come out to some of our European travels, but yeah, Steven McGrath quickly came up into the top Scott's that Chad and I have ever run into and our travels and this was a really fun, great interview. Chad (28m 32s): And here's the interview. Joel (28m 34s): Hey guys, what's up? We're back live from Ostend, Belgium at the Chad (28m 38s): Well kind of live. Joel (28m 40s): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going there. We're feeling it. Okay. Chad (28m 43s): Ooh. Joel (28m 43s): Where are we again in Ostend at the Erecruitment Congress. Chad (28m 46s): How many Belgian beers have we had by this point? Joel (28m 50s): What time is it? Because we've been drinking since about 11am. Chad (28m 51s): No fucking clue. This is great. Joel (28m 53s): Total entrapment. Hey guys. Here's where you sit and here's a fridge of beer. I don't know how that got there, but if it's gone when you're gone. Hey. Yes. So anyway, Steve, welcome to the show. Steve McGrath is solutions consultant at our friends CandidateID/iCIMS. Big friends of the show. Chad (29m 13s): Slash iCIMS. Yeah. Joel (29m 14s): Adam or Steve is Adam Gordon's boss, apparently. And he's here in his place. Chad (29m 18s): We got the upgrade. We got the Adam Gordon upgrade. This is awesome. Joel (29m 22s): Oh, is he in Bora Bora with a Ewan McGregor and Sean Connery, I guess. Partying up with a French models. Thanks for coming, Steve, we appreciate you hanging out with us. Chad (29m 34s): Not to mention, we have somebody who actually sounds Scottish now. Right? Joel (29m 37s): Worked in a whiskey distillery. We may have time to talk about that. Chad (29m 42s): I mean, this is three strikes you're out. I love this. Joel (29m 46s): I've never had a glass of drink of scotch with a Scotsman. Stephen (29m 50s): We'll solve that right after this. Chad (29m 52s): Yes. Yeah, no, tonight we're definitely doing that. He's staying the night. We're here, scotch. It's all on. Okay. So let's get into so enough FOMO for all of you, people that were not at E recruitment Congress, you missed a great talk, right with Stephen. Stephen, tell them a little bit about your talk, hit the high points, and then we're just going to roll into it. Stephen (30m 13s): Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I'm really appreciative that you've given me the comfy chair because I was looking at the rickety wooden thing, thinking, this must be where they make. Chad (30m 33s): That's the only thing that would Cheesman up. Stephen (30m 36s): I'm just going to sit in this chair drinking Belgium beer. The talk was really about building powerful, nurture talent pipelines, making sure that people are armed with the right type of content that they're gonna create, the right type of tracking that they might put in place, whether that's through our platform or not. You know, just making sure that they're monitoring that correctly, making sure that they know what people are doing. Just not throwing stuff out there and hoping for the best, because let's face it. Chad (31m 1s): Folks don't even know what nurture means though. So help us understand what nurture means. Stephen (31m 4s): Yeah. So not sure there's a word that just started to get thrown around in recruitment a few years ago. Chad (31m 9s): It's been around for, I don't know, a hundred years. Joel (31m 13s): Warm and fuzzy, nurture. Stephen (31m 13s): And, and I think as you know, it's one of those kind of buzzwords of the day but the reality is that nurture means that we need to make sure that we're taking people through a continual process of engagement, of content, of making sure that they're ready. That I've put upstairs was that when they're ready, you're ready and vice versa. Chad (31m 38s): You're ready together. Stephen (31m 41s): Exactly. Chad (31m 41s): That's like a hug. Yeah. And Joel needs hugs. Joel (31m 45s): So when you, when you talk about nurturing to me too many people are trying to get into people's pants too quickly. I think what you're talking about is let's have a drink before we take this any further, and maybe I'm simplifying this, but I think that's sort of what you're saying. So put that in terms of recruitment, how should they think about that? This isn't an email blast, let's get busy. This is like a real relationship. Talk about that. Stephen (32m 10s): Yeah, for sure. And, that's the thing, I highlighted during the talk, was why in the world are we sending job descriptions to people that we don't know anything about, that aren't ready for any kind of conversation. And we just see, Hey, do you want to work here? We're no different to the company that you currently work for. We don't do anything different in terms of strategy. Chad (32m 34s): It's like Mormons coming to your front door. Stephen (32m 37s): It's not kidding. Joel (32m 38s): Let's not, let's not offend some, you know, we're not going to go there. Stephen (32m 45s): Chad and Cheese podcast listeners. Joel (32m 46s): A lot of Mormons listening to this show. Chad (32m 49s): Yes. It's all unite. Joel (32m 50s): Whiskey drinkers and Mormons have a lot in common, a lot in common. Stephen (32m 55s): It is absolutely that. It is that like why on earth would we just send something that doesn't mean anything to anybody, you know, let's start engagement at the point where candidates start engagement, you know, in that kind of social media realm in that realm of making sure that all your kind of employer brand another buzzword, but that is actually correct. It's not just what the company portrays is. What you portray. Joel (33m 16s): Simplify this for a second. I come to, I want to work at your company. I look for jobs. There isn't necessarily one there that I'm interested in or qualified for, but I still want to keep a relationship with the company. What are some best practices of getting someone in the funnel, tempting that the squirrel with a nut, you know, to get them in and then how do you work them through and keep in contact? Is it the monthly email? Is it ask them to follow you on social media and sort of keep them in the loop that way, what's your best recommendations there. Chad (33m 50s): Cheeseman's all about the nuts. Joel (33m 53s): And the funnel. Stephen (33m 54s): How many monthly emails? Joel (33m 55s): Nuts in the funnel? Let's talk about that. Stephen (33m 58s): How many monthly emails do you get? Chad (33m 60s): Too fucking many. Let's talk about daily? Stephen (34m 1s): How many do you read? Joel (34m 4s): The point is too many, right? Stephen (34m 5s): So it's that kind of scenario. We need to be scattering that across a variety of different channels. You know, that's what people mistake not to mean. That's where the mistake engagement to mean. You know, oh, I sent a monthly newsletter. Why are people not engaged with me? Who cause your social media isn't up-to-date because you've not said anything about your company on your LinkedIn. Chad (34m 24s): Or you're not doing a TikTok. That's a problem. Stephen (34m 27s): That could be a problem as well. Yeah. We've actually allowed that, you know, things like that do make moves. So, you know, it's catering to your audience, but making sure that you're covering all bases, I was going to try and use an American baseball analogy there, but I've never watched a game in my life. So skip that. I'd never watched. Chad (34m 47s): He's a man. He's a man after my own heart. I'm American. I don't like baseball and I hate cricket. Okay. So, Stephen (34m 56s): But you know, certainly just making sure Joel (34m 57s): I hope it's fun and hell when you're not the American pastime, everybody, Stephen (35m 2s): But you know, just making sure that you do have those, you know, as really simple things that that should be covered, that aren't covered. Someone's going on to view your entire presence online. Make sure that that, that is a good person. Joel (35m 16s): Formulate that because I think people mistakenly think, well, if I put up a blog post, I can send out that same blog post, via email. I can put a link to that blog post on all my social media and I'm done. And it's much more nuanced than that. Right? Your audience on social media is different than the audience that wants email, that wants to read your blog and people need to start thinking about what does different content look like in different mediums? Yes? Stephen (35m 43s): Yes, absolutely. There's a reason that there's a character limit on Twitter, right? Like there's a reason. It's how can I engage people within X amount of time? You know, chuckin' up something that says, Hey, read this 1000 word blog about the thing they actually want to take on Twitter, is not going to go very well, you know, adjust it accordingly. Sure. Take the highlight from that book, post on Twitter, Joel (36m 6s): Or maybe take a soundbite and make an image with a quote from the blog post. Stephen (36m 11s): You. Don't do something like that. Yeah, sure. Take the content that you've got recycle that content, but adapt that content importantly, for the mediums that you're using. Joel (36m 23s): What advice would you give the company that just blast job postings through social media? Chad (36m 30s): I love this. I love this. What about the company that has a, I don't know, half an hour application process. Stephen (36m 38s): I just, I think. Joel (36m 39s): Stop. Stephen (36m 40s): I was going to just say stop, but I think that's one of my biggest things that we're trying to combat with CandidateID customers just know, you know, it's not. Chad (36m 52s): Because you can draw them in, but if you, but if you bring them into an application process that is total shit. I mean, what has actually been accomplished? Stephen (36m 58s): Here, we've spent lots of time getting you to fill out forms, details. We've got your resume and a CV for you. Hey, by the way, can you just repeat all of that again in separate boxes with separate things like no, get rid of it. You don't need it. I actually told a story upstairs. I worked at CandidateID without ever seeing a job description. I worked with ever applying formally for the job. Chad (37m 25s): Oh, tell me about that. Tell me about that. Stephen (37m 26s): Adam reached out to me. Joel (37m 27s): Such an icon. Stephen (37m 28s): I just seen his face and I was like, oh, Chad (37m 37s): So he sets a sexy man. He was in his kilt. Wasn't he? He was in his kilt. Stephen (37m 52s): Him in his kilt in LinkedIn and I thought, that's the man I want to work for. Joel (37m 58s): Sexy Rangers game. Chad (37m 58s): Kilt man. Stephen (37m 58s): Cause that awkward, like, oh wait how far can I push it right now? Chad (38m 1s): How's it going to say he was red when he walked in? Stephen (38m 3s): Exactly. No. So Adam actually reached out to me on LinkedIn told me little bit about the job. Not much to be honest, you know, seeing hey. Joel (38m 11s): What do you mean? He, Adam reached out to you. So he sourced you from where? Stephen (38m 15s): He sent me a message on LinkedIn. Joel (38m 17s): Okay. So he did a search on LinkedIn. Stephen (38m 19s): You'd have to ask him about what that process was. Joel (38m 21s): So an InMail from LinkedIn. Hey, I like your look. I like what you got going on and okay. Take it from there. Chad (38m 26s): I like your style kid. Stephen (38m 28s): So he just sent me and it was, you know, it was four or five sentences. Wasn't anything huge was a bit about hey we've got big plans. If you want to chat with them, feel free. So I reached out to him. Joel (38m 43s): And you were at the Distillery at the time? Stephen (38m 45s): Not at Distillery, I was a recruitment at that time. Joel (38m 47s): At a pretty cool job. Stephen (38m 48s): No, the distillery thing we'll get to, but that was a part-time thing while doing recruitment got so no, he reached out to me, gave me a little bit of a scenario I called them off the back of that. We spoke, I had to say to pretty quickly that I like this guy, you know, I like the direction. He was very honest with me about the direction the company was going in, what they wanted to do. And he just was like, Hey, you know, if you want to chat with the hiring manager for this post, you'll feel free to chat with them. I'll get them to reach out to you. Would you like to set that up? I did. Three conversations, his being the first two more conversations after that they offered badge open. Stephen (39m 29s): That was it like, Chad (39m 30s): But CandidateID in its barest beautiful form let's say, does that without like the human interaction, if you know the type of conversation you want to start with the type of individual, right? You can do that at scale. Right. So Adam did that because he knows how to market. He knows how to, I mean, if somebody is going to interact, he knows what he's looking for. Right. But you can actually do the same thing through automation. Can you not? Stephen (39m 53s): Absolutely. He could have asked me pretty much everything. Chad (39m 56s): Yeah. Stephen (39m 57s): You know, I say it from probably some of the personal things that we shared with each other in terms of interests and bits like that, you know, but he could have asked me everything, job qualification wise in an automated process. Chad (40m 13s): Your tartan before you actually. Stephen (40m 15s): That's the one thing we do in Scotland. We have the kneel down before the king in this sense, which was Adam Gordon. So, and submit the Tarton. Joel (40m 27s): You will never take our freedom! A lot of companies hear what you're talking about, have customized messages on multiple platforms, actually write content, actually create content, whether that's video, images, et cetera. And they're thinking, are you fucking kidding me? I barely have time to keep my head above water. And now I have to make custom marketing messages for different mediums. What do you tell the company that says I don't have the resources? Is it just focus on one or two things and don't worry about all the other or is our different solution that you recommend. Stephen (40m 57s): Yeah. So without being like the guy that's come on this podcast and been really blunt about everything. The reality is if you don't have time for that, people won't have time for you. So you have to make time for it. Joel (41m 8s): Damn. Chad (41m 8s): There it is. Right. He just dropped the fucking mic. Joel (41m 11s): He dropped the fucking mic. Chad (41m 12s): He dropped the mic without dropping a mic. Joel (41m 14s): If you don't have time. Stephen (41m 15s): Don't have time for that. People don't have time for you. Chad (41m 18s): I love the Scots, the Scots have that. I mean, they got their like shit down there like blunt. They don't know, they know their peat levels, all that stuff, Joel (41m 25s): You know, level. Stephen (41m 26s): Well, the 80/50 answer to what you're seeing the, you know, the sprinkle, some glitter on it would be focused on your strengths, you know, would be pick those core areas, make sure that you've got those right and then, you know, pick up the human element after that. But you need to adapt. You need to change. You need to make time. And actually quite a lot people that say, they don't have time could, if they just rechecked their time correctly. Joel (41m 54s): You mentioned automation this is your sweet spot. Is part of the answer automation can help you look bigger than you really are? And whether that's social media posts or like how do you automate some of this stuff and still achieve customization and personalization? Or is it impossible? Stephen (42m 7s): No, I think that any company can look better than they are quote unquote, I mean, CandidateID prime example, you know, you would have never thought that was 20 people when in Glasgow. Joel (42m 19s): True that. Stephen (42m 19s): When, you know, got Adam and Scott bounced about in kilts every which location that they can. You know, but I think that if you use it correctly and if you facilitate it correctly, then absolutely your presence will grow. And you know, those are those lots of examples of that in terms of, you know, smaller companies, you know, within recruitment or within, you know, technology that aim to look bigger than they are. They do it successfully, you know, before you realize it is one guy behind the desk, pushing some buttons. So Joel (42m 50s): Steve, one guy who doesn't have to look bigger than he is, we appreciate you coming on the show. Chad (42m 55s): He's a table talker. Joel (42m 56s): Please tell your boss, hello for us. And thank him for being too big for this conference. Being too important for us, for those that want to know more about you or CandidateID, where do you send them? Stephen (43m 9s): So CandidateID is now an iCIMS company and you would head to their websites and their pages to learn more about us. You can also search CandidateID an iCIMS company and my name is Stephen McGrath. I'm a solutions consultant. You can find me anywhere, tossing cables in distilleries or on social media as well, if you want. Joel (43m 30s): Let's get some scotch, we out. Chad (43m 32s): We out. All right. So that was fun. Right? Joel (43m 34s): How many drinks were we in by that interview? It was probably quite a few. Chad (43m 45s): We had at least six Belgian beers a piece by then. And just for the record, Lieven all of the beers that were in that fridge were done. Lieven (43m 59s): I know Joel (44m 1s): 86 PBRs by the time lunch, lunch rolled around, speaking of lunch, guys, I'm hungry. Let's wrap this baby up. Another one in the books. Chad and Cheese and Lieven (44m 9s): We out. OUTRO (44m 9s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

Empowering your team with flexibility and choice just got a whole lot easier. That's the promise of startup Philly-based Lluna, who offers flexibility and choice for employees ... whatever the hell that means. Can founder and CEO Jess Podgajny explain all that jibber-jabber and survive the Firing Squad? Gotta listen to find out. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. SharkTank INTRO (1s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (23s): Oh yeah, we got Philly in the house, Chad Philly start-up. What's up everybody? It's your favorite podcast and guilty pleasure. This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined is always my Chris Rock to my Will Smith. Jess (39s): Oh goodness. Joel (40s): And we are happy to welcome Philadelphia resident. Sorry, Jess. I had to do it. Jess Podgajny! She is founder and CEO of Lluna! Jess welcome to the podcast and firing squad. Jess (51s): Thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. Joel (55s): Before we beat you up, give the listeners a little Twitter bio about Jess Chad (1m 1s): Who be Jess? Joel (1m 1s): And how many times do you run up the stairs that are in the Rocky movies? Jess (1m 6s): Oh yeah. I'm from Philadelphia. I can't even count the number at this point. Joel (1m 10s): There you go. Jess (1m 10s): So thanks for having me today. I let's see I'm a mom to three young kids. I've got a six year old, a three-year-old and a two-year-old. So life is busy. Joel (1m 24s): Oh yikes! Jess (1m 25s): I have about two decades of experience, mostly in management consulting, working on the people side of projects. So a lot of organizational change, org design, culture building, helping large global organizations achieve their big goals by motivating their people. And I am turned a startup founder because of my own personal experience, as well as the experience as a consultant. And I also did a stint as a Chief People Officer, which led me to realize we needed more personalization in the future of work. Chad (2m 3s): We'll talk about that. Joel (2m 5s): I'm sorry. How many kids again? Jess (2m 7s): Three. Joel (2m 8s): Oh, there you go. All right. I have three too, by the way. All right, Chad. Let's let's tell Jess what she's won today. Chad (2m 15s): Well, Jess, you have two minutes to pitch Lo-la-la Luna at the end of two minutes, Joel's going to give you that bell and we're going to hit you with rapid fire Q and A. If your answers are droning, and you get bored. Guess what? The crickets are coming, you need to tighten up your game. At the end of Q and A you're going to get one of these three ratings. Big applause. Motown Philly's is back again. That's right. Maybe all the Philly steaks you can eat. Golf clap. You might want to call Carson once for some pointers because you need some help. Last but never least, the firing squad. Parents just don't understand and neither do we. Hit the bricks! Chad (2m 56s): This thing ain't going nowhere. That's firing squad. Are you ready? Jess (3m 1s): I'm ready. Joel (3m 2s): All right. She's not backing out gang. All right. In 3, 2, 1. Tell us about Lluna. Jess (3m 11s): All right. So Lluna helps companies make it easy for companies to offer a personalized employee experience to employees. Really what this is all about is, let's think big picture. We can personalize our coffee orders at the local Starbucks. We can personalize medicine. It's now time we were able to personalize our employee experience, to meet our work and life needs. And Lluna's technology makes it really simple for employers to offer. They have the control, but you're empowering employees with choice, that really spans all aspects of that employee experience. From work-style to team culture, to PTO, maybe five more days PTO for less salary or less PTO for more salary to professional development, to work location and working days and working hours. Jess (4m 2s): We're really looking holistically at that employee experience to empower employees and to retain them in organizations longer and serve as an employer differentiator in that talent acquisition process. Our website is hellolluna.com. And you can find out more about us there. Joel (4m 23s): Well enough. She didn't need two minutes. She need about a minute and 22 seconds. All right, Jess, you listen to the firing squad. You know, what's coming. I got to know about the name. Where'd you come up with it. Hello Lluna. As a former Clevelander, I love the hello to anything. Hello, Cleveland. There's two L's instead of one, like explain the name to me. Jess (4m 45s): Okay, perfect. So Lluna is a nod to the moon, L U N A. And really the idea that the moon has phases and we, as humans, as people also go through different phases, the extra L in our name is for life, Joel (4m 60s): The extra "L" is for life. That's kind of warm and fuzzy from someone from Philly. Chad (5m 5s): That's deep. Jess (5m 6s): Hey, hey. We've got feelings here too. Chad (5m 11s): Anger. Joel (5m 11s): Yeah. And what was the inspiration for this business? You could have done a lot of different things. I'm sure why this thing? Jess (5m 18s): Yeah. You know, I had this point of reflection. This is going back to about 2017 where I was thinking back on my own career, I was sitting in the CPO chair. I had worked with some amazing clients and team members. And generally I was like, wow, what I wanted or needed from my employer has drastically changed over time. And at about that time, I'd had my first child. I was like, oh, like, I, I can't work 14 or 16 hours straight. I have a tiny human to go take care of. And I realized that, you know, flexibility was going to be important at that point in time. But going back when I first graduated from college, I was like, I wanted PTO. Jess (6m 0s): I was like, I want to travel the world. Kind of like Chad's doing right now. I wanted to get out there and Chad (6m 5s): We all want to be, Chad. Jess (6m 7s): We all want to be Chad. So I realized I would have taken less salary if I'd had the opportunity to have more days off and started to ask this question of like, why can't we sort of toggle things up and down based on our needs or wants at a particular point in our career to better stay with an organization and not go look for another place to work that might have the composition of things that we want. So that led me, it really kicked off a journey for me to research. Like I sort of assumed there was another company out there that was making it easy for companies to enable something like this. Jess (6m 48s): And, you know, I mentioned it in my minute and a half that, you know, we can personalize so many things in our world. Why can't we get more personalized around work? Which we spend so much time doing. So all of that led to, there was no technology offering what I'd come to call personalized employment, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I needed to build it. Chad (7m 12s): Well, just so you know, Jess sucking up, we'll get you everywhere. But why doesn't this exist? Cause you have plenty of examples of where it exists out in the market. Why do you think it doesn't exist right now? Jess (7m 28s): Yeah. Great question. I think HR tech historically has been a very niche market. So you've got your perk platforms or your kind of professional development platforms. It's all sort of separated out. And I think that that's part of the ease of go to market. So if you go to market in a really focused way, it can, you know, you sort of make headway, get traction in an area and then it sticks and hopefully it takes off for you as a company in the HR tech market. On the flip of that, what we're seeing now is employers are saying like, gosh, another platform, another technology. So I think that we're approaching this point of convergence or a need for more convergence. Jess (8m 17s): And I think honestly, the reason it doesn't exist is that there's, it's a lot to bite off because we are thinking holistically about that employee experience. But I think the market's ready for it now and I think the pandemic really accelerated the appetite for it. Chad (8m 31s): Or over the last, I don't know, century or so employers just didn't give a shit that might be one point. Jess (8m 36s): I think that that could be a piece of it as well. Chad (8m 39s): So let's take a look at your experience so far. So we've got life sciences, management consulting. You were in HR for less than a year. You landed a Chief People O.fficer gig first and foremost. How did you do that? And number two, why did you take that position? Jess (8m 58s): Yeah, so let's see. I had been with that company for about eight years and I led their life sciences practice. I've led several of their key accounts. I helped them open up a second office location. I I'd really kind of grown up through the ranks of the organization. I'd done a little bit of everything and was recognized as a leader within the, at the time they were about a hundred people. So I, I consider myself an accidental HR person because. Chad (9m 29s): So does everybody else? Jess (9m 32s): Oh my gosh, because the opportunity presented itself, the founder at the time and CEO said, I'm ready to scale the business. I need to appoint a COO and ultimately the title became C P O. Even though I had responsibility for talent technology facilities and marketing, it was more of a CA role, but that particular company was very people first, very culture driven, very focused on investing, investing in people to get more, more benefit for customers ultimately. So the CPO title made, made a lot of sense and it was a great learning experience for me. Jess (10m 13s): I think the opportunity to see things from that perspective and engage with talent in that way, taught me a lot. And, it really sparked a lot of the thinking that led to what Luna has become. And so I did make the decision to move on for a variety of reasons. Some of it was not feeling like I had quite enough runway in the role itself. I think that the founder wanted to scale, but maybe didn't know how. And I also had this light bulb moment where I was like, I want to go figure this out. I want to explore if Lluna could really be something and that entrepreneurial tug led me there. Joel (10m 51s): And your therapist said it would be better for your mental health. Right. Chad (10m 56s): So was COVID a good thing or was it just bad timing? Jess (11m 2s): COVID was a good thing for us. Chad (11m 5s): OK. Why? Jess (11m 5s): So, you know, I think if we could go back and erase the last couple of years, I'm sure a lot of people would, would wish for that. And, maybe I would too, but I think my talk track, the ability to sell into teams and to companies would be a lot harder. because now flexibility and adjusting to employee needs is recognized as something we need to do. I was recently out at a conference in Vegas, HR Transform conference. And if, you know, I heard it once I heard it a million times, like we must now meet employees where they are. Jess (11m 46s): And COVID really taught us that. I don't think that companies would be saying that if we didn't go through what we've just been through. Chad (11m 53s): I've been saying that for years. Yes. Jess (11m 56s): Well, we should have listened. Joel (11m 59s): People are our greatest resource. Jess (12m 2s): They certainly are. Joel (12m 3s): Jess, you raised an undisclosed sum in August of 21, which is very mysterious, but I'm curious, what did you do with the money? And is there a plan to raise more money in the near future? Jess (12m 15s): Great question. So we raised friends and family in the first half of 2021. We are currently raising our pre-seed round. We're raising a million right now. We're about halfway there. We used the funds from friends and family for building our platform. I'll call it V2 of our platform. We built our MVP on bubble.IO, a low-code, no-code technology. We use that to get to market quickly, effectively be able to iterate based on feedback really rapidly and then once we knew what the requirements were, we started building in our own custom environment. So that's really what that first round went towards. Jess (12m 57s): And we're raising now focused on marketing, sales and talent hiring. Joel (13m 2s): Gotcha. And what is a typical customer look like? Is, are they big companies? I mean, is it mostly like east coast? Is it a regional kind of thing based on sales? Like what does a typical customer look like? And is that the kind of customer that you currently want? Are you looking to bridge out into a bigger, smaller, different? Jess (13m 23s): So currently, we have two primary customer types. The companies that utilize our technology, I would say are in the SMB market, currently and I expect that we'll stay there for a period of time, but we are seeing the size of company that's interested and beginning to adopt our technology grow. So between 250 and 1500 employees is the sweet spot at the moment. But I do expect over time that will continue to get larger and larger. The second customer type that we have is really just managers inside of companies. So it can be anyone who leads a team, maybe a division. And we see managers signing up that have a team of five or a team of 30, and really the value prop to those leaders as buyers is a self service tech platform that can centralize a lot of what I'll call that revolving door of flexibility chaos that leaders are experiencing. Jess (14m 21s): You know, can I go work from here for two weeks? Can I live in Portugal for a month? Can I, you know, have this professional development instead, it's kind of centralizing choices in one place, to make it fair, equitable, and inclusive. Joel (14m 35s): And are you comfortable telling us how many customers you have and what your revenue is? Jess (14m 42s): Yeah, sure. So we have about a dozen customers right now. I would say seven are companies and the other five, are teams. Our team platform, our plan is relatively new. And in terms of revenue, we've got about $50K in ARR currently, and that's starting to ramp pretty significantly, which I'm excited about. So we started off slow. We spent 2021 really focused on feedback. So we've still got a handful of companies that are our friendlies that are not paying customers, but `we're working to transition them over. Now, Joel (15m 20s): What's your biggest hurdle to making a sale? Like what's the pushback that you typically get in a demo or sales call? Jess (15m 29s): Yeah, I think the bigges thing that I hear, especially from HR leaders is the, like where to start. So, because they're, you can, when you look at that entirety of the employee experience, it can touch so many things, so many policies within an organization. So what we'll end up doing is really distilling it down, perhaps focusing on let's just dig into like return to office. What kind of choices do you want to offer people in that return to office process? Right now? And then let's look at how we can expand that over time to further personalize the employee experience. So it can be, I guess it could be a little overwhelming at first to like you have that aha moment, like, yeah, this is where things are going, but wow this really could touch a lot of different things. Chad (16m 16s): Yeah. So where exactly do you fit in the HR stack? Tech stack? Jess (16m 24s): That's a very good question. We are a new category in HR tech. So I would say you could liken us to a perk platform to an extent we could handle some of that through our technology. You could kind of pull professional development, pretty close to where we are, cause you can think about asking choice, asking people for their preferences around professional development, but this is new. This is definitely a new space. So we tie a lot of different pieces together. Chad (16m 57s): Okay. So having seven companies as clients right now would say, you probably don't have many integrations. What is your integration strategy? Jess (17m 4s): Yep. So we have an open API. We have the capability to integrate with payroll or HRIS, we've initiated some of that already with some of the companies that, we actually just kicked off one integration for a Workday with one of our customers, but the strategy overall, and I would say longer term bigger picture is that not only do we have the capability to integrate with the HR tech stack and the different players that organizations are already using, but also that we're able to embed key kind of offers and benefits inside our technology. Jess (17m 46s): So anything from team building to certain, maybe like more fertility benefits, you could just toggle that option on from Lluna versus having to go to another vendor to access that particular benefit. So we intend to become the hub for the employee experience with integrations, to both those benefit providers and service providers, as well as to the technologies that really maintain the employee data for a company. Chad (18m 11s): Okay. Talk to me about go to market. What's your, what's your main focus on go to market when it comes to sales revenue driven? Jess (18m 20s): Yup. So the two primary areas that we focus on are direct to C-suite. So certainly going into heads of HR, even CEO, CFO, and that's really the effort where I spend my time. I also have some sales support as well. And then we also work with partners. So HR consultancies, or other benefit providers, benefit brokers. And they love us because it's, you know, a cool thing that they can discuss or suggest to their customer base. So we have kind of referral partnerships in place with a handful of companies. We intend to grow that pretty rapidly this year. Chad (19m 2s): So the prospect of going around HR directly to the C-suite. It's not a bad idea. How do you intend on doing, because getting to the CEO is not the easiest thing in the world. Right? Who, how do you intend on doing that? Jess (19m 17s): Yeah, so far the way that we've done it is through warm introductions, connections or networking at conferences or other kind of in-person opportunities. And the intention is not to circumvent HR. It's just that when you think about this employee experience, overall, it's as much about HR as it is about like leaders inside of the companies. And when you know, CEOs do care about how their people are managing and how they're retaining their employees. So we ultimately will talk to HR whether we come in that way or not, but often the CEO, it's an attention grabber for a CEO to say like,this is a new way for you to differentiate not only your company and your brand, but to better retain the talent that you have on the team. Joel (20m 10s): You should just hire Rocky Balboa to do your sales if you want to get in front of executives JEss! Jess (20m 15s): Oh yeah. Joel (20m 15s): But if that's not an option, you know. Jess (20m 19s): If he's avaialble. Joel (20m 20s): You gotta do what you gotta do. You went to Penn, you got a little Wharton business and you as well, I see on LinkedIn, I'm guessing that you heard at one point in that education, that choice or too much choice is a bad thing. People don't like to think, you know, when they're presented with too much choice, the choice they make is no choice. Jess (20m 44s): Yep. Joel (20m 45s): Are you, is it unfair to say that your product giving employees so much choice, although sounds is a bad thing, or are you seeing something different or would you refute that? And the choices, forgive my gen X reference, the choice of a new generation. Jess (21m 4s): Okay. So, well, first I needed to clarify, I went to Penn for, I did some coursework at Penn, but I'm a Penn State graduate. So just to make sure I'm not offending any Penn. Chad (21m 18s): A couple of Buckeyes. Jess (21m 19s): Sorry. Joel (21m 19s): It will not be part of your grade by either Chad (21m 27s): Speak for yourself. Jess (21m 28s): Oh my goodness. All right. Well, hopefully it won't be, but here's the thing when we, what we recommend to customers, whether it's through kind of our resource center and tutorials or through onboarding a new company, we don't recommend offering a million choices that will be overwhelming and not effective. So there's certainly a sweet spot. What we see when, even if it's a handful so anywhere, but let's call it between five and 10 choices offered to an employee. We see that satisfaction scores, especially with diverse talent, go up really significantly their intention to stay with the company increases significantly. Jess (22m 14s): And we also see a lot of benefit around in gender differences. So for females specifically having that permission to have choice and flexibility engages the female workforce in a really positive way. So I think there's absolutely a balance to be struck. I would not recommend anyone says here's 30 choices. And like overwhelming people is it's too much, but just a few things actually goes a really long way and they don't have to be earth-shattering. They don't have to be net new budget. They can be as simple as you know, how, like, do you want to work remotely two days a week or three days a week? Jess (22m 56s): Just even saying that as a choice is empowering to employees. Joel (23m 2s): And your, your website is a really robust with screenshots of your analytics. What do I get in your analytics package i`f I'm a customer, can I kind of customize what I see? Don't talk about the data that is in your dashboard. Jess (23m 15s): Yeah. So the data that you're getting from Lluna I'll say is like, think about it as that real time data about what your workforce needs to be supported and to be effective right now. So if engagement survey data is a look back at what happened, a regular survey of what would you like to see happen is a look ahead. Our data is the right now, it's the here and the now. And you see that as at the aggregate level. So across your team, kind of, where are people choosing to work? When are they choosing to work? What type of professional development is interesting to them? It can help with like perk and benefit utilization even so understanding like, wow, no one's picking this one thing or seeing kind of how your team works best. Jess (24m 1s): So when do you do your best thinking, or when do you prefer to have meetings? You can see how that stratifies across your team or your organization. And then you also have access obviously to the data at that individual level as well. And we encourage the manager and employee to use that information as part of one-on-one meetings to lead to more effective leadership and better expectation setting and transparency overall. Chad (24m 28s): Excellent. So tell me a little bit about remote and hybrid. Is this really driving heavily off of the new need, the new want to be remote and hybrid? Jess (24m 41s): Yeah, I think that's a big piece of it. The two most popular dimensions within our technology right now, or I'll say the three most popular, are work style. Chad (24m 51s): What does the work style mean? Jess (24m 52s): Work-style could be? How do you like to receive feedback? When do you do your best thinking? How do you, and then, so it works out professional development and like flexible schedule design. And in that flexible schedule it's choices, like, do you want a standard work week? Do you want to compress your work week to four tens or four nines and one half, do you want to work remotely two days a week, three days a week, no days a week. All of those are incredibly popular at this moment. The thing I think is really interesting is the choices offered within Llunas technology are time-bound. So it might be you pick what you want for this quarter or for this next six months or maybe next year, but at least that frequently. Jess (25m 40s): And the, what we're seeing is that as people refresh, as they kind of go through the next cycle and pick their choices, the next time around they are changing what they want. So the idea that hybrid is a specific policy. You know, a lot of companies right now are saying, come back to the office, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday and Friday, you can be remote and employees are like, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that. I don't like that at all. And I don't want to be told what to do. So I'm going to go find a new job. And so what I always say is if the company said, Hey, we want everyone to be in the office at least one day. Let's say that's Wednesday, pick two more days via Lluna, where you want to be in the office. Jess (26m 21s): Can I tell you, people are going to pick Tuesday and Thursday, but now they had choice. They had a say. And so it's the same end result. It's just framing it in a different way. And ultimately, I think what companies are maybe missing right now is that what people say they want today is going to change, and you don't want them to leave, to find the thing that they want elsewhere. You want them to stay. So in order to do that, you've got to create a process and hopefully utilize our technology to enable that. Chad (26m 54s): Okay. Talk to me about cost. What's the price behind this? A customer at seats. How do you guys do this? Joel (27m 2s): Sounds expensive, Chad. Jess (27m 3s): Yep. No, it's not. It's not. So listen for less than $200 per employee per year, you get to have access to the Lluna technology. You get access to the reporting. And when you look at the cost of losing an employee, it's 50% to 200% of their salary. And I would argue that number is probably rising. So for less than 200 bucks a year, I feel like there's good ROI on being able to retain people, even if it's just for a little bit longer. Joel (27m 32s): So you were founded in 2019, you've raised a family and friends round. Jess (27m 37s): Yep. Joel (27m 37s): You're looking to do a sort of a pre-seed three years later. What's your end goal? Is this, you know, sort of a nice local business that you want to build? Is it a, you want to build this thing up to, you know, 10 million ARR or a hundred million ARR, like what's the grand vision? What does success look like for you for this company? Jess (27m 59s): So our tagline is work designed for life, and I firmly believe that everyone should have that opportunity and that, that should be the way we approach work moving forward. So my goal with this business is to grow it as big and as fast as possible to reach more people and impact more lives. I think happier employees means happier people, happier citizens, and just a better world overall. So work designed for life or bust. Joel (28m 27s): And work designed for life. Let's dig into that for a second. That means almost nothing to me when I read it. Should I read more into that? Is that the mantra? Is that the rallying cry for the company? Chad (28m 39s): You're a gen X-er. That's why. Joel (28m 41s): Is that? Why does it mean anything to me? Jess (28m 45s): I mean, I have so many questions about what goes on inside your head now. Joel (28m 48s): Work is designed for life. Chad (28m 49s): You don't want in there, you don't want in there. Joel (28m 53s): We don't want to go down this rabbit hole. Okay. Well, well, Jess (28m 57s): No, listen, no, no, we can't. We can let's do it. So, so we, for a long time, have we get a job offer from a company? We say, okay, that salary looks good. And then we see the list of benefits or policies or programs that we have access to. And they may or may not meet our needs. They may or may not be anything that we utilize at any point, but we just say, okay, I'm going to conform into your box company. Here I come. And I think there's a new opportunity for us to instead approach this in a way where I'm going to, I'm going to do great work. I'm going to deliver the best outcomes I can deliver to my company, but I'm going to do it in a way that works for my life and not let at the sacrifice of my life. Jess (29m 44s): And I don't know, my, my early career days. And you could argue for the better part of my career overall. It was the grind I went, I did it. I put my head down. I worked as hard as I could and that was just the way it was done. And it was, it was very much more life designed for work. I fit life in where I could and I, otherwise I was just working. And I think we can flip that. Joel (30m 10s): I would go with like customize your work benefits, but that's just me. I'm an old guy. I'm an old guy. All right, Jess, are you ready to face the firing squad? Jess (30m 20s): I'm ready. Chad (30m 21s): And there she is. Joel (30m 22s): You got it. All right, Chad, get her. Chad (30m 24s): All right, Jess, first and foremost, like to say the team that you've put together, pretty good looking team. Pretty good looking team. The co-founder has a ton of analytics, workforce analytics, composition, and not to mention the rest of your team looks pretty solid, too. Timing seems to be perfect as employees have more chance and power to do and go where they want. The problem is, I'm just not sure that this is going to last very long in a recent survey, about 77% of managers reported that they will be willing to implement quote, unquote, "severe consequences like firing workers or cutting pay and benefits on those who refused and returned to work". Chad (31m 9s): I love this concept, but I just believe that the jury is still out on remote and hybrid. I understand there are many other many other things that you guys do. We just reported on an article where Google was talking about boiling the frog, which pretty much means we're going to give the employees the perception of flexibility. As we continue to raise the temperature one degree at a time as we bring them back to the ball and chain and the desk cubicle bean bag that they have at Google. I think you have a chance if you're going after decision makers, like the C-suite, you know, adoption is that is the biggest topic, but you have to remember that if you're going after HR. Chad (32m 0s): HR is not the group that's giving the orders, providing vision or plotting designs of the future of the company. They should be, they should be right in it, but they're not. All of this means that they are slow to adopt new or anything incredibly, incredibly slowly. I think that you got a chance. Let's put it that way. I think this platform's timing is perfect. If you can actually get to the decision makers who will pull the trigger, the problem that we're seeing and that we're hearing. And then we're, I believe we're going to experience is that all of this choice and flexibility is right now just a mirage. Chad (32m 45s): And if that's the case, so will this start up? So I'm going to give you a golf clap, as long as you are pointed on that CEO. Jess (32m 56s): All right Chad. Joel (32m 58s): All right, Jess, these kinds of companies break my heart because I've been doing this for 20 plus years. So many companies that I look at and I go, oh, that's a great idea. That's an awesome idea. And they don't pan out for myriad of reasons, whether it's not a must have, it's sort of a nice to have. I'm guessing that any demos that you give people are saying, this is a great product. This is really cool. And then you bang your head against the wall, trying to get them to actually buy product. I think that what really tipped it for me, when you said we're a new category. New categories do not fare very well in our industry. Joel (33m 38s): And if you don't have a hundred million dollars to hammer that new category in, you're really just betting on at some point, the world will catch up to the idea and that the category will take off. Will this category take off? It may. It certainly may. And maybe I am past my prime and things like "work designed for life" is a catchphrase for a new generation. Jess (33m 59s): I like it. Joel (33m 60s): I see part of this is you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. You're going to try to push that boulder up so far up that mountain to get people, to see your vision, to get this category to take off. I think that timing wise, it's going to be harder to raise money. If you're raising money 24, 18 months ago, I would say it'd be a lot easier because money was flowing and money was free. But I think you're going to run up against a lot of walls. And do you have the energy and the timing to crash through it? May be however, not personal. I just think that this business has too much going against it. Joel (34m 49s): Both timing wise and industry wise to do nothing else, but unfortunately... sfx (34m 53s): bullets. Jess (34m 54s): I have to say it really hurts Joel. Joel (34m 54s): It's not personal. It's not personal. Jess (34m 57s): I look forward to proving you wrong. Chad (34m 59s): Amen Sister. Joel (34m 59s): We look forward to bringing you on so you can tell me to fuck off. Rocky style baby. But until then, Jess, let our listeners know where they can learn more and get that demo from Lluna. Jess (35m 11s): Absolutely. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Find us at our website. Hellolluna.com or shoot us an email at howdy@helloLuna.com Joel (35m 21s): Yeah, that's a melancholy episode in the books. Chad and Cheese (35m 24s): We out, we out. INTRO (35m 28s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

It's a world full of good news ... and a growing amount of bad news. No surprise, the world of work is no different. And Chad & Cheese are here to talk about it. If you're Indeed, ZipRecruiter and Dice, like Styx sang, these are the best of times. If you're Amazon, a pregnant woman, most CEOs or someone with a disability, it might be the worst of times. It's good for Aliro, A.Team, and Mathison, who just raised money. Lastly, for Carmen Electra, the jury's still out, but for OnlyFans, it's always a party. It's a downer of an episode until it's not. Enjoy ... but not too much. TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. An outbreak of monkey pox is ravaging Europe the week after Chad became a Portuguese homeowner. Coincidence? I think not. Hey boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel, "baby formula shortage" Cheeseman, Chad (41s): Chad "blame Mercury" Sowash. Joel (44s): And on this week show does Amazon hate pregnant women? Is the best or worst of times ahead of us? And what gen X sexpot just joined OnlyFans? You got questions. We got answers. Let's do this. Chad, my five-year-old graduated from preschool yesterday. Apparently everybody gets trophies and everybody graduates from everything that they do. It was very cute, but very troubling at the same time. He won the Math Whiz Award. I mean like he's five years old. What is 10 plus two? Joel (1m 26s): He gets right. He's a math whiz. I just it's, I don't know. Chad (1m 30s): I love it! Joel (1m 31s): The decline of Western civ. Chad (1m 33s): It's something that we're also seeing in our industry, correct? Joel (1m 36s): Oh, yes. At which could lead me to my first shout-out if you'd like to start that. All right, let's get you a Lighthouse Research and Advisory. Chad (1m 46s): OK. Joel (1m 46s): Chad, we love a good list, but this is ridiculous. This week, a slew of press releases started coming out from vendors about winning an award from Lighthouse. So I had to investigate. Holy cow, Chad, the list of non winners may be shorter than the list of actual winners. You get an award, you get an award, you get an award. Here's a taste of the winners, in just the talent acquisition category. Seek Out, Talroo, Lever, HireEZ, Eightfold, BrightHire. There were 27 winners in all just from the talent acquisition category. With about eight or 10 different categories. Chad (2m 25s): It sounds like a participation trophy there. Okay. Joel (2m 28s): We did not win an award, but next year when they throw blogs and podcasts in, we're definitely gonna win an award. Chad (2m 35s): Yeah. Blogs. They still exist? My first shout out goes to women's soccer kids! After years of litigation and horrible PR for the US soccer team, pretty much the US Federation of Soccer, the Women's US National Team are now finally finding pay equity with the men's team. As a dad, to a couple of young ladies, I this as a great victory and fairness and equity doing the same job should garner the same money and the U S ladies have fought for years to see this through. But we have to remember, this is not the finish line. They could fight for equity because the money in professional sports is transparent, which is something that corporate landscapes and corporate leaders are fighting against on a daily basis. Chad (3m 27s): Transparency and perseverance made this happen. So we have to understand that this isn't the finish line, rather it's a recipe for equal pay. Taking the momentum from this victory into the corporate sector is a must! Pay transparency is a must. So congratulations to the women's team for setting the example and creating a recipe for equal pay. Now we've just got to follow it. sfx (3m 53s): Hell yeah! Joel (3m 53s): And from one A team, Chad to another, A team, and I'm not talking about BA Barocas, there's a New York based members, only network for creating workplace teams called you guessed it, Ateam, a.team. I don't know you Chad you figure that one out. They raised $55 million in Series A funding this week. Tiger Global and Jay-Z's Roc Nation are investors. And an interesting side note, CEO and founder Raphael Ozon is married to Hired Score's Athena Karp does the couple that HR techs together stay together. I guess we're going to find out, shout out to Ateam. Joel (4m 34s): No BA Baracus, Hannibal, or Faceman required. Chad (4m 38s): Damn well. I'm going to give a shout out to another A team and that's our listeners because we have the best listeners ever. First one, Scott Nelson, right out there in front for everybody on social media, he says he's pretty picky and doesn't endorse many podcasts, but the Chad and Cheese gets his endorsement. Thanks, Scott. Then Joel (4m 60s): That's a full Nelson right there, baby. Chad (5m 5s): Then Nick Bradford posts a picture in his Chad and Cheese t-shirt holding a bottle of Maker's 46 and Peerless bourbon. Great picnic. And I got to say that Maker's 46 is the standard, but more than likely, you've never had Peerless before. Ah, man, that's a treat. Enjoy that. And then last but not least and not to be out done, a big shout out to Sepideh Nayeri who made the best whiskey video ever. The video starts with a beautiful spread of pistachios and cheese in the center and then she pans to the right and pours a glass of Bib and Tucker bourbon on a big fat rock and then pans left and pours a glass of Bulleit rye on another big fat rock. Chad (5m 57s): All while careless whisper is playing in the background, big applause to Sepideh you win the internet, you win the internet with that one. Joel (6m 10s): And additionally, she chose my whiskey over yours, which you failed to mention, but I will go ahead and amend for our show. Chad (6m 17s): Sweet over spicy and that's okay. Rye has the spice to it. I'm spicier. She likes a little bit of sweet. Joel (6m 23s): Bib And Tucker Chad. She likes a good, a good Bib and Tucker shout out for me to our friend, Anoop Gupta of SeekOut and a Prem Kumar of Humanly, both friends of the show, both were winners at the Geek Wire Awards, Pacific Northwest, unlike the Lighthouse Research and Advisory, these look like real awards. Both were winners at the award ceremony Anoop was CEO of the year. Holy shit. That sounds impressive. And Humanly one for best UX design of the year. Crelate was also a nominee for that category. Shout out to Anoop and Prem. Chad (7m 5s): And just so listeners, remember that Anoop won Death Match and Prem got double applause on Firing Squad. Again, good things happen when you listen to the Chad and Cheese. Joel (7m 20s): And everything that touches us turns to gold. Absolutely. Chad (7m 23s): Oh, big shout out to Mercury retrograde. Have you heard of this? Joel (7m 29s): No, but it sounds, sounds really stupid. It sounds really stupid. Chad (7m 31s): So I was on Twitter and it was trending on Twitter this week. I saw people mentioning it in tweets, mainly around blaming their moods bad days and anything bad happening on Mercury being in retrograde. So I was like, what the actual fuck does Mercury in retrograde have to do with anything? So I Googled it, like any gen X-er and Mercury retrograde. It's a simple phenomenon quote "Since Mercury does a lap around the sun, faster than the earth, it can appear in retrograde, which means moving backwards about four times this year, we're going to see that. Chad (8m 13s): And we're in one of those windows right now. Well, right below the explanation on Google was an article, a link to an article entitled quote, "how to survive Mercury retrograde" keyword survive. So I dug in a little for an answer it's it's astrology, baby. I keep forgetting that that some people treat astrology like a religion, checking their horoscopes on a daily basis and that kind of shit to blame the moon stars and apparently Mercury for their lives being shit. Humans are a weird fucking species. sfx (8m 47s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (8m 48s): Well, let's get to something to make sense. Free shit from Chad and Cheese. Chad (8m 52s): Yes! Joel (8m 52s): Guys, if you have, if you haven't signed up yet and there are a lot of you out there that haven't, I know it. I feel it out there. You to go to Chadcheese.com, click the free link, put in your information. We're talking about free tees and not some crappy Haynes beefy tee. We're talking about tri-blend tees from Emissary. We're talking beer from our friends at Pillar and outstanding whiskey. You get a Chat pick, and you get a Cheese pick. You get two bottles kids. If you like whiskey. Yeah, you got to sign up. Chadcheese.com. What the hell are you waiting for? It's all good. And we have some birthdays that we want to celebrate. Bill Conich is still alive as far as I know, and he celebrates a birthday. Joel (9m 33s): Yeah. Jeanette Leads, friend of the show, Tom Becker from the Judge Group, Matthew, Matthew Bringham and Jacqueline Adair all celebrate birthdays. Chad (9m 45s): Awesome. Joel (9m 45s): Happy Birthday. And I know two podcasters that are going to be celebrating a birthday soon, but we'll get to that next week. Chad (9m 51s): We'll get to that. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. Event. So let's, let's talk about Unleash next week now. Here's something that's funny, dude. I got to say that everyone seriously, everyone that I've spoken with this week about Unleashed. Cause I'm asking everybody you're going to Unleash next week? They're either incredibly excited because yes we're going or they have a serious, I mean serious case of FOMO because they are hearing it at least, you know, like what we did a couple of weeks ago in Belgium that people are actually showing up. They're having a good time. It's great content there. We're getting back together and people are having FOMO like a motherfucker. So I got to say, don't allow the FOMO to get the best of you. Chad (10m 32s): It might be a little late for you to get to Unleash. Maybe not? Check it out, but don't miss the next one. We have Rekfast coming up. We have Unleash. We have a bunch of other shit coming up in a Chadcheese.com click on events in the upper right corner. Grab some tickets and meet us for a beer. Don't let the FOMO get ya. Joel (10m 57s): See ya in Vegas baby. Chad (10m 58s): Topics! Joel (10m 58s): Let's talk economy. Chad, we'll put the listeners right to sleep with our first topic. All right. The economy is in a good news, bad news situation at the moment. First to the good news! ZipRecruiter's Q1 revenues increased 81% as the job board raised financial projections for the year, citing a strong hiring environment despite some macroeconomic choppiness. Once a more Indeed and Glassdoor on a triple figure growth path with quarterly revenue increasing 103% adjusted EBITDA also soared 339%. Joel (11m 38s): I just said 339% growth, people. Even Dice shares continue to outperform in light of crummy stock market earnings. That's the good news. Here's the bad. Workday stock declined after BMO capital markets downgraded the company and lowered their price target on the stock from $295, a share to $249. Two other analysts downgraded the stock as well. The conference board measure of CEO confidence declined for the fourth consecutive quarter in Q2. The measure now stands at 42 down from 57 in Q1, 60% of executives anticipate the economy will worsen over the next six months. Joel (12m 21s): Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, warned of a quote, "Very, very high risk of recession" and TechCrunch is now tracking layoffs because, well, there are a lot of layoffs. Okay. Chad, is the party over or is it still going strong? Chad (12m 38s): I think it tells you something. If Monster and Dice can actually do well. Give me a fucking break people. I mean, Jesus, we, this is something that should be expected right now. Now the back office side of the house with Workday, that's entirely different. But in this market, you can't be surprised that big brands like ZipRecruiter are doing well. I mean, we've reported on, like I said, dinosaurs, like Monster actually beating expectations. So I understand, you know, why we're reporting this, but there's not really a cause for big applause. The question is that will these companies have enough in the war chest if the market declines as expected and as you've you've outlined, I believe a company with a solid foundation, like Zip will be fine. Chad (13m 22s): Although I do not believe that many of the unicorns that have extraordinary burn rates will make it. I believe we're seeing the first indicators, with tech layoffs that are happening over the past few weeks from notable unicorns, like Cameo, Robinhood and Ondeck. And, oh, don't worry about those companies like Netflix and Carvana for God's sakes who have also experienced layoffs. I would also like to say that startups who have taken a shit ton of cash, unicorns and DECAcorns might be in a good position if they are prepping a war chest and their curb curbing burn rate. The big key here kids is winter is coming. Joel (14m 2s): Chad, there are no unicorns on this week show, but fuck it I'm playing the soundbite anyway. sfx (14m 9s): pink fluffy unicorns soundtrack. Joel (14m 10s): I am solidly on team, bad news. Enjoy the profits and the investment dollars while you can kids because it's getting cloudy outside. Indeed is chocking up record numbers, but life on our industry is not fun when recessions hit and that's coming from someone who's lived through the.com crash and the mortgage meltdown. However, when this happens, certain segments are strong. No matter what happens. Think healthcare, think trucking, think cyber security. I want to bring a quick soundbite from our friend, professor Scott Galloway. I say friend is if he's our friend, he doesn't know it yet, but we're really tight. If you haven't checked out, Pivot his podcast with Kara Swisher, you might want to check that out. Joel (14m 53s): Anyway, he had something to say about the current of the economy and what was going to happen with employment. Check it out. Pivot Podcast (15m 1s): "Let's have different impacts. Some recessions are bad for blue collar workers. Some recessions are bad for white collar workers. This recession is going to be really bad, not only for white collar workers, but white, white Patagonia vested workers. And that is the information age workers, all of the people who are used to bringing their dog to their living room, to work all the information age, guys, all of the techie unit, the unicorn, the unicorn stable is about to get so ugly and foul and this generation has never seen it." Joel (15m 37s): Ugly unicorn stables. Chad, you called it. Chad (15m 39s): Foul Joel (15m 39s): My, my big question I guess, is I've talked a lot about RAD over the past couple of years, that being remote automation and diversity being, I guess the golden goose of our industry, which ones of those, if any, get taken to the woodshed? It'll be really interesting to find out. My money is on automation, winning big, if we do go into recession and come out of it on the other side. I think diversity will probably take the biggest hit. I think we'll talk about that as we go into the show, remote will continue to stay pretty stable. So if I had a winner, a buy, a hold, and a sell, it'd be buy automation, hold remote and sell diversity. Chad (16m 23s): Ouch. Joel (16m 23s): Ouch. Oh, things are so fun, when we go into recession in our industry. Chad (16m 28s): We're not there yet. Joel (16m 31s): All right, let's go to, we're not there yet. Let's go to some fundraising news. Aliro the company announced a Series A around, but did not disclose the amount. Well, that's weird. But Crunchbase has the company at 4.1 million raised in a previous venture round back in February. The Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania based company that was founded in 2015, says it says it's on a mission to help talent acquisition and sourcing teams tap into hidden networks and cultivate robust talent communities via referral networks and internal mobility. Chad, you say there are some angles on this one. What you got? Chad (17m 11s): This organization has evolved dramatically from its start in 2015. So this is not a young organization where it was a platform specifically for military veterans. I remember having a discussion well before COVID with founder and CEO, Robert Archibald about how Aliro's focus on vets would win the hearts, but not wallet share, right? It's unfortunate, but it's true. Companies pander to veterans, but they aren't spending money to build a real sustainable systems. Robert made the change. They have Aliro vets to continue that focus, but they broadened up for a much better total addressable market, that's number one. Recently they've hired friend of the show, Tina Lyons as their CMO you'll remember her, she was over at Alexander Mann solutions. Chad (17m 59s): They are also announcing a new CRO and new CTO. I'm not privy to actually tell you who that is yet, but I know who they are and they're pretty damned impressive. One thing I can tell you, and I think this one's going to blow your socks off, you know, a guy by the name of Tom Kenny, right? Joel (18m 17s): I do. Chad (18m 18s): He is board chair and investor. Joel (18m 18s): And that's not on the news. That's just that Tom's a sexy man. I had to throw that out. Chad (18m 24s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. He is very sexy. If you're not familiar with Tom, he was the guy who took over as the CEO of SmashFly and got them acquired by Symphony Talent. If you check out his LinkedIn profile, I'm almost certain, you won't find a guy in the industry with his chops. Now I'm friends with Tom and I'm biased, but again, the firepower that they are adding to leadership is damned impressive. Plus Tom, I believe has four or five successful exits. This to me is a start-up to watch. Joel (18m 59s): Well, you do have angles on this story. That's insider scoop people. You only get that shit on Chad and Cheese. Yeah. My comments that I jotted down, don't have a lot of relevance based on the great insight that you have there. My only question is why wouldn't they reveal the amount that they raised? And do you have the inside knowledge of what they raised or why wouldn't they mention that? Chad (19m 20s): Yeah, they'd been in an ultra stealth mode really since Tom came aboard because they really wanted to get everything tightened up. As a matter of fact, they just launched a new brand. They've got a new website that's out, that is like an ultra light mode. I'm they have a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes. So it gives you kind of like an idea of where the organization is going. So there's going to be a lot more robust content, tech, all that, all that other fun stuff. But again, I really think this is a startup Joel (19m 50s): And interesting. So they got the 4.1 million back in February, which was not that long ago, kids. Chad (19m 54s): Right. Joel (19m 55s): So I'm going to guess they did another eight to 10 in a Series A? That's just me just guessing I don't have any information maybe you do, but yeah, this is definitely one to watch. And we don't get a lot of success stories out of BrynMar, Pennsylvania very often so soak that in while you can. I do want to say the history of referral businesses and, you know, accessing or farming existing databases isn't great. Hello, Crowded and H Three, which we're going way back in time on some of that. So maybe Aliro can change some of that history and turn the tide for referral networks and existing databases. Joel (20m 37s): That will be fun to watch. Chad (20m 39s): We'll be here. Joel (20m 43s): Let's take a quick break and pay some bills and go from Aliro to Mathison. Interesting names. Chad (20m 50s): Who? Joel (20m 50s): Mathison. Chad (20m 51s): If you're looking to name a company, I mean, did they like flip open a book to like 80 year old men? Joel (20m 56s): If you listen to Firing Squad and I'm sure a lot of our listeners do you know that the name is typically the first question that I ask? I would have a lot of fun asking about Mathison. Chad (21m 10s): It's like a my three sons kind of vibe, right? Joel (21m 14s): Yeah. Like Math-i-son, it's a tech. I don't know. So anyway, Mathison, a tech platform that helps employers incorporate diversity equity and inclusion operating systems into their business has closed on a $25 million Series A funding round. Funds will be used to build out the company's data and analytics capabilities, scale its go to market team and improve relationships with employers. The company says it has found over 50,000 underrepresented candidates for employers. Chad are you ready to take Mathison to lunch? Are you ready to kick it to the curb? Chad (21m 56s): Dude, I get the attraction to DEI. There are $9 billion spent on DEI training every year and platforms want to draw some of that cash their way while adding dollars from the tech sector that is spent on attracting, hiring and managing their talent every year. Here's the rub. Most not all. Most companies are either pandering to pump up their brands or don't understand they do not have the right expertise in house to actually move the needle. Here's some great examples. Google and Facebook made a commitment to diversity equity inclusion and yet these huge organizations barely moved the needle in workforce composition. Chad (22m 37s): If Google and Facebook had Mathison, would this have changed the story? No, wouldn't change it a bit. And here's why it's like giving a formula one race car to you, let's say and asking you to win the Monaco Grand Prix. You wouldn't have a chance. The people using the tool are not equipped to win the race for DEI. Another example, Pepsi understanding they aren't experts in DEI, hiring and retention, hired Disability Solutions who are experts in this space to build a comprehensive system, which is more than just tech and training. And just a tool. Chad (23m 17s): Pepsi has hired thousands of individuals with disabilities, 20% of those being disabled veterans and their retention rate on those individuals are twice that of anyone outside of those cohorts. Pepsi understood that you can't just buy a car in this case, Mathison and win the race. You have to get a driver, an expert who knows what the hell they're doing. Tools are wonderful, but if you don't have the right people to use them, they're fucking worthless. To me, I would sell this every single day. And I can't say it enough to get this through tech vendors heads. The tools are not the problem here, right? It's the experts using the tools. Joel (23m 58s): I feel a little disrespected for my driving abilities, Chad. I'm a rather safe driver and I've never driven a race car though. I have pumped it up to at least 78 miles an hour on the freeway. My minivan, which is a hella hella ride. So if I'm Mathison, here's the good news. Last year, Deloitte revealed 69% of executives say diversity is now their top priority, but 93% of employers don't have a reliable diversity hiring solution. And 76% have not yet set diversity goals. Nearly half of those who have set goals are not confident they will achieve them. Joel (24m 39s): That at least means there's a huge opportunity for a company like Mathison. But let's talk about the bad news. You've outlined a lot of that with the tools being well, a tool, but let's get back to the impending recession for a second. Historically minorities don't fare very well in a downturn. If more and more companies are fighting to stay alive. DEI turns into D I E. You like what I did there? Because more companies stopped caring about who they're hiring because there's a lot less hiring. At best DEI initiatives will suffer in a recession. At worst the whole movement may be forgotten. Joel (25m 25s): Mathison could be a Canary in the coal mine if their business falls or fails. That's a bad sign that I will be watching and I'm sure you will too. Matheson Chad (25m 33s): Matheson. Joel (25m 33s): So from one stinker to another, let's talk about your favorite company, Amazon. Chad (25m 43s): Just when you thought you couldn't hate them anymore. Joel (25m 47s): You listen to the Chad & Cheese podcast and you realize you can. sfx (25m 53s): Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! Joel (25m 53s): A lot more. All right, a New York state agency has accused Amazon in a complaint of discriminating against pregnant and disabled workers at its work sites. Pregnant women and disabled workers. Chad (26m 9s): Wow. Joel (26m 10s): Okay. The complainant described how Amazon allegedly forced one pregnant worker to continue lifting packages over 25 pounds and put her on indefinite, unpaid leave after she was injured. It also said Amazon reversed recommendations to let two disabled workers modify their work schedules after their managers resisted the changes. The Amazon complaint seeks unspecified, civil fines and penalties, improved training and new policies for reviewing of requests for reasonable accommodations. Amazon said it works diligently to support all employees, but noted that with more than 1.6 million of them, quote, "we don't always get it right" Joel (26m 53s): end quote. In case you missed it, Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US and made $33.4 billion in profit last year. Chad, your favorite, I assume you have something to say about this. Chad (27m 6s): Yeah. While all this is happening, Jeff Bezos is on his fucking super yacht paying for a little town in, I believe it was the Netherlands to actually remove a bridge so that he could get the fucker out and then they would have to build a new one back. That's the kind of idiocracy that we're actually dealing with here, right? So here's a quote from, from Reuters. Quote "violations can result in penalties of up to" listen to this, "50,000 or a hundred thousand dollars for willful conduct". As you'd said, Amazon's profit was $33.4 billion in 2021. Chad (27m 48s): Not revenues kids! Profit $33.4 billion. The state of New York is basically lashing Amazon with a limp noodle. How can we expect companies to change their behavior with this weak ass fine structure. Fine a hundred million instead of a hundred thousand per instance, and then start cracking down on their hiring processes to ensure Amazon continues to hire women and individuals with disabilities at appropriate rates. I don't think a hundred million is enough, but still, that's a nice bump from a hundred thousand on the high side. Our government is truly a sham when it comes to enforcement, when wielding these types of fines, we are really focused heavily on whatever the corporation wants to do. Chad (28m 32s): They should be able to do. That has to stop if we care about our people. Joel (28m 37s): Well, $33 billion, not only buys a lot of penis rockets. Chad, it buys a lot of lobbyists which may have a lot to do with our government's weak, limp noodle, is that what you said and your comments? Limp noodle? I think that's the first time on this show that that's been uttered and I fear that it could get worse. It's bad to be a retailer right now. I don't know if you saw, but Target was down 20% this week on shitty earnings and Walmart and your friend at Amazon are feeling a lot of the pain too. Point is layoffs are coming and guess who's getting cut first. Anyone, the company deems a legal risk. People that Amazon considers fringe are screwed in this environment. Joel (29m 18s): Stay tuned for more lawsuits right here on the Chad and Cheese podcast. The big question for me though, is when the economy does improve, will people get hired back or will the robots be ready for prime time? Grab your popcorn. It's going to be fun. Chad (29m 32s): Robots are coming. Joel (29m 33s): Quick break and we'll get back to OnlyFans. Thank God we're talking about that again. Chad, I'm so happy that we're talking about porn, OnlyFans and strippers again. Chad (29m 45s): I know you are. Joel (29m 46s): Don't even recall what we talked about last week. So I'm not sure if this is peak OnlyFans, or the moment things really start to ramp up. Gen X poster girl, Carmen Electra has joined OnlyFans. The 50 year old Baywatch alum said the move was made to quote, "be her own boss and use her own creative vision" end quote, in her work without someone telling her, 'don't do this', 'don't do that' 'cover up this'. Carmen's OnlyFans will include things like beauty tutorials, as well as lingerie photos and more quote, "intimate content". No shit. Joel (30m 29s): Carmen's not the first celebrity to join OnlyFans, but she's certainly one of the oldest. For now, at least it's free to subscribe to her page and her posts with captions. Like "woopsy, my bathrobe seemed to have slipped. I hope this isn't too much for you to handle" and captions like "let's have a pajama party" are commanding hundreds of likes in contrast, 18 year old, Bad Baby who charges roughly $24 a month has thousands of likes on most of her posts, Chad historic moment for OnlyFans or not so much? Gen Xers want to know. Chad (31m 6s): Well, we had a, I think a week or two hiatus from OnlyFans and this shit's back. I think it's hilarious that she says she thinks that, you know, throwing beauty tips out there is doing anything. Not that she's not a beautiful woman, but that's not your core audience and she knows that. Obviously from some of those posts that you just, you know, you just talked about. Personally, this is for, from the standpoint of anyone who has an image, has an opportunity for them to be able to make more money. To cash in. And for those gen X-ers, those men that are out there who will loved Carmen Electra and who did Baywatch or wherever she was at, this gives them an opportunity to kind of rekindle that whole idea of, you know, Carmen Electra. Chad (31m 56s): So yeah, she gets an opportunity really to control, make money off of her image, what she deserves. And I think we're going to continue to see this form grow, this. I don't think this is a jumping the shark moment at all. Joel (32m 10s): I'm ready for a pajama party, Chad and most interestingly am or more importantly, I want to know what Chad (32m 16s): Why Joel (32m 16s): Dennis Rodman think about all this. Somebody called Dennis, look, there's a fetish for everyone, man. Everyone likes something different. As long as it's legal, I say have at it. Now, if someone would just call Cindy Crawford, Bo Derek, Elle MacPherson, Christy Brinkley, and Kathy Ireland, I'd be a happy boy. Chad and Cheese (32m 38s): We out. OUTRO (32m 34s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (33m 19s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.

What's your favorite brick-related song? (She's a) "Brick House? "Another Brick in the Wall"? Maybe Ben Folds' simply titled "Brick"? Anyway, startup Bryq is hoping they'll be your new favorite "brick." Don't worry, we'll cover the name and URL - among lots of other things - on Firing Squad when CEO and co-founder Markellos Diorinos enters the pit to take on HR's most dangerous podcast. Diorinos says his company is "a unicorn-to-be." Oh, really? Well, we'll be the judge of that. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions helps support and educate your workforce through disability awareness and inclusion training. INTRO (0s): Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level. Joel (22s): Oh yeah. You know how we do everybody? It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. Your favorite guilty pleasure. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always by my man on the right plane, shotgun, Chad Sowash and today we are happy to welcome Bryq to the show and Markellos Diorinos CEO. And co-founder, Markellos (48s): It's such a pleasure to be here, Chad and Cheese. Joel (53s): All right, Markellos. Hello. Welcome to firing squad. Before we get into the Q and A, and the judging, let's hear a little bit about you. What's the Twitter bio on Markellos Markellos (1m 6s): Thank you for the invitation. And I was in fact born, that is a stated fact, but I like to say that it was in the past millennium. So I won't go into any more details. I did study in Germany and there, I started computer science with my master's thesis in VR. A lot of times people ask me, Hey, how did you make the jump from VR to HR. Joel (1m 32s): I'm sorry. Did you say VR? Chad (1m 34s): Oh, he did. Joel (1m 36s): Oh my God. Markellos talking VR. That's just going to get me all excited. Markellos (1m 42s): That was so sick. Joel (1m 46s): Sorry. Continue with your walks on the beach and a poetry reading that you enjoy. Markellos (1m 50s): You know, I'm a big fan of George Michael. Joel (1m 54s): And who isn't? And who isn't? Sorry, I interrupted. You on with the Twitter bio. What else? Markellos (1m 59s): So I was saying I studied computer science and this was my first, you know, challenge. I am a, well, I guess self-professed great coder. I love coding. Still do the occasional thing, but I was never happy as a developer. So this was my first indication that sometimes, you know, your skills shouldn't match your occupation and the fact that I can and do code. Joel (2m 23s): I'm sorry. Markellos all this talk about code is making me bored. Chad, let's just jump to a what Markellos has won today. Chad (2m 32s): Well, Markellos, you will have two minutes to pitch Bryq. She's a brick house. At the end of two minutes, Joel, and I will hit you with rapid fire Q and A and if your answers are droning and you get boring, Joel's going to hit you with the crickets, you need to tighten up your game. At the end of Q and A, you will receive one of these ratings from the both of us. Number one, big applause. Come on, get up, come on, get up and get that Oscar baby. You're going to be a big hit. Joel (3m 4s): Hit. Just don't slap Chad. Chad (3m 6s): Golf clap. No awards here. You got lots of work to do. And the firing squad. Prepare for Will Smith tohit the stage because baby, this start-up deserves a slap. That's right. So that's firing squad. Are you ready Markellos? Markellos (3m 25s): Yes, I am. Joel (3m 26s): Your two minute pitch starts now. Chad (3m 29s): Let's do it. Markellos (3m 30s): You know how you have an ERP to manage your sales, a CRM to manage leads and I don't know, GA for performance marketing. So when you go into HR, what is the backbone with data for your talent? Nothing that's what, and this is where we come in. Bryq is an AI talent intelligence platform. Why? To allow you to make more effective data, support the talent management decisions. We provide a big data platform that gathers validated psychometrics gathered by our own chatbot driven assessment, as well as organizational performance data combined that with our machine learning and translates them into actionable insights. Markellos (4m 13s): So you're already wondering why would I care? Let's look at a few areas, talent acquisition, with AI generated ideal candidate profiles based on your job description, blind screening for skills and personality matching hiring is easier than ever before. Results? Customer can boost DE&I, by 119% and that always sounds made up, so this specifically refers the gender mix and increase their interview to hire ratio by over seven times. One of our customers went from one to 22, 7 to 20, and you can understand what that means. Talent development is when you help to choose individual career paths and then up-skill, and re-skill people based on strengths and weaknesses. Markellos (4m 59s): Data from our customers suggest that on average, 15% of their workforce has their potential to improve performance through coaching and L&D where they are right now. Talent matching AKA internal mobility. We have a customer who has a call center, huge one. We managed to reduce his churn by 30% in the first three months by helping move employees to the right team, because guess what? People are not fungible after allall. Talent insight is probably my favorite part and maybe the most esoteric one. Joel (5m 35s): All right, Markellos. Thank you. All right. Let's get to what I always like to cover first. The name Bryq sounds great, but it's spelled B R Y Q. I'll give you bonus points for at least going with the dot com and not being like goBryq.io or something. But talk to me about talking about the name. Is that a hindrance to sales? Like I'm Markellos with Bryq. Talk about the name. Why'd you go with Bryq misspelled? Markellos (6m 4s): The idea is that you build a company using great people and the foundational building block of companies is people. So, you know, we are providing bricks for companies and being the available domains and all we ended up with BRYQ because that's all that was available. Joel (6m 22s): It is a.com and it's only four characters. So I will get, I won't, I won't beat you up too much for that. So you guys raised a 1.2 million euros back in September of 2020. Good timing. What have you done with the money? Is there going to be a bigger raise in the future? Talk about that. Markellos (6m 45s): There's always the next raise and the reason why we will not raise it. We are about to close this current, this next round is always because there's so much demand out there and we just want to accelerate our growth. And there are so many customers that we need to make sure that we provide top tier support to. Joel (7m 1s): Can you tell us how much this new raise is going to be? Markellos (7m 4s): I can't disclose, but it's going to be, you know, a few million. Joel (7m 10s): Series A like? Markellos (7m 11s): Series A probably. Joel (7m 12s): Eight to 10 kind of thing. Okay. All right. Chad (7m 16s): Excellent. Okay. So we have four easy steps for Bryq, or at least that's what is on the website. First and foremost is the A1 job description predictor. So tell me about this a little bit. Markellos (7m 29s): So here's the challenge that our customers have, even when we started there, before we introduced the AI. You want to hire, I dunno, a project manager, or what does a project manager even do? They all look the same, are all going to do exactly the same tasks? Turns out that it can mean many different things. So we were putting the onus on the HR practitioner to figure out exactly what this person is supposed to do and how that translates into, you know, psychometrics, what kind of personality traits this person should exhibit. And HR practitioners are not psychologists. So what we're trying to do with our AI is essentially give you, my team's going to hate me for this, "psychologist in a box". Markellos (8m 11s): So this AI goes and reads your job description, compares it with tens of thousands of job descriptions and the Holland codes our main, our main theory that we use for career consulting and then says, look, based on the keywords and the things that you expect from this person, these are probably the traits that are most important. Setting the right goal is 90% of getting there. Chad (8m 38s): Where's your sweet spot with regard to types of positions? Are we talking about executive level? Are we talking about middle management? Are we talking about entry-level we talking about high volume, where is your sweet spot with regard to this product? Markellos (8m 52s): We have a very wide applicability. We go anywhere from frontline and hourly workers to senior management. Executive is always a challenge. It can never be described. And there are so many other things that play a role. Even though we have some executive recruiters using Bryq because they like the value and the like understanding people more so than matching them to a specific profile. So, you know, we do cover the full gamut. Chad (9m 19s): Okay. So when we're talking about job descriptions and we're trying to predict off of job descriptions, generally, that's just garbage data. And to be quite Frank, most of the requirements that companies have, have been around and they've been cobbled together over the last few decades and to be quite Frank, they suck. So how do you take this garbage, that is in a quote unquote "technical document" called a job description and actually make sense out of it because we have a garbage in garbage out kind of scenario. How does your AI actually understand what is worthwhile and what is not? Because many of those job descriptions are just ridiculous, horrible, and they suck. Markellos (10m 4s): We trained our AI based on those, some ridiculous, horrible job descriptions that are out there. And that helps, but I'll tell you things. We had customers who said, Hey, I put my ridiculous, horrible job description. I looked at the profile and then I said, this can't be right. So I went back and looked again at my job description. And that also helps, you know, giving you a loop of validation that says whatever I put in this job description actually means ABC and D. And when that doesn't make sense, it helps you go back a step. But the get-go issue is a big problem. You have to start from somewhere, right? If I give you a list of job descriptions, then that's going to get you into another path of making mistakes. Markellos (10m 48s): So yes, there is where the recruiter has to have some post, spend some effort to say, this is better not great. Chad (10m 59s): Gotcha. Joel (10m 59s): There's a ton of competition in your space. I don't have to tell you that. Talk about your differentiator when people, you know, when prospects ask you and I'm sure they do all the time, how is this different from everybody else? What's the answer that you give them? Markellos (11m 13s): We don't see as much competition. You're thinking of the pre hire assessment space, where there's a ton of competition, where we define our sweet spot is really into helping people after they've been hired. You know, how we're spending all this time and energy to hire the right people. And then there's this institutional amnesia and we forget about all the things we learned and we treat them as we know nothing about them. What we're trying to create here is a system of record for talent throughout the company, throughout the employee life cycle. So from the point we hired people to the point that they retire. We want to constantly be thinking about what are the great out, how can we help them? How can we help them move to the next position? Joel (11m 53s): Ok. Markellos (11m 53s): And I always say the great resignation is just about that. We put people in a box and then we expect them to do things based on what they've been doing before and never once considered, would this person be great at doing something different? Joel (12m 5s): This may be an issue, cause I thought you were in that space. So you're more of taking your current talent pool and basically mobilizing them, upskilling them, getting them into other positions within the company. Is that correct? Markellos (12m 20s): Well, we do both, both talent acquisition and what we call, you know, internal and so on talent intelligence kind of is the full gamut, right. From hiring to retiring. Joel (12m 29s): Okay. So as part of the differentiator, like we don't just do the pre-screen like top of funnel stuff we do after the fact and help people upscale and get mobile within a company. Is that correct? Markellos (12m 45s): Definitely. Joel (12m 45s): Okay. Talk about your high volume hiring tool. I'm curious in particular about how the talent and the process or the candidates interact with the solution or do they at all? Markellos (12m 55s): Oh, they do. Because the challenge when you're dealing with candidates and it's the problem that you described, right? If I start with the candidates based on the resumes, then all I end up doing is that I'm parsing data that's not good to begin with. So in order to set a fair base, to start helping people, we need to run them through an assessment. And we try to make the assessment as how it was like to say fun but people say I'm over selling. As pleasant as possible, where they go through a simulated work environment, different people come a stupid chatbots if you like, because they come with very predetermined roles and they ask you questions and gather data from you. But this is the essence of what we do, right? Markellos (13m 36s): Once I start having a clean set of data about who you are, in terms of what your cognitive skills are, what are your personality traits and how they are pronounced, then I can start making all sorts of great things for you and make you better, more successful. Joel (13m 51s): Why do you say to stupid chatbots? You're obviously not a fan, but I'm curious specifically why? Markellos (13m 56s): No stupid chatbot in the sense that it doesn't have any intelligence, it feels like you're talking to a person, but you can see that it's canned responses. Joel (14m 5s): Okay. Who's your target audience, or what does a typical client look like? Is it big? Is it a certain industry? Is it international? Is it a specific to a certain region? What is your client usually typically look like? Markellos (14m 17s): Half of our customers come from the U S and Canada. The rest come from, the rest of the world. And you know, the span anywhere from, I don't know, France and Germany to the Philippines. We're looking mostly at upper SMB and tender price customers and the main common theme is they are people with a pain. What does the pain mean? That people have pain in turn. Call centers, MNA situations where everybody turns over within a couple of years, they need to make sure that they retain talent. They're high volume companies who hire a lot, frontline workers, again, call centers, whatever, what have you, they need help in bringing the right talent. Markellos (14m 59s): But we also have a significant chunk that is hiring quality. These are your hyper-growth companies, your unicorn startups, where they say, Hey, I'm going to be bringing 20 or 30% of my workforce, sometimes even 50 & 60% this year. I need to make sure that I keep building a company that's great. A company that, you know, around surround a common theme and people can talk to each other and understand them, not just a mishmash of people who are just randomly hired. Chad (15m 27s): It sounds like there's nobody that you won't talk to is what I'm hearing is like you will talk to small companies, medium-sized companies, large companies, ones who want high volume all the way to executive it. Tell me, is there a niche that you won't touch? Markellos (15m 45s): A niche that we won't touch? Look executive, doesn't make a lot of sense for us they have different requirements, for example, some people will use us, but this is not what we're going after. And again, it's where we get the ROI where you have a big pain, and this is why our customers are getting increasingly larger because once you can have that reduction in turn, because you can have that increase in hiring quality, it makes so much more sense in volume. So some of our customers are fortune 500 companies and we see a trend of getting more, not less of those. Chad (16m 20s): Okay. So let's pivot real quickly to the candidate assessment, which takes 20 minutes. And it's via a chat bot. Now, is that a chat bot that is specific to your site and app that they have to use, or is that SMS and text? How does an individual interact and does that 20 minutes have to happen all at once in one sitting or can it happen throughout a couple of days or a couple of weeks as the candidate wants to respond. Markellos (16m 51s): This all happens on our website. We have an app website and they can go through their laptop and, you know, do the full interaction. We actually have a frontline version designed, especially for, you know, those hospitality and call center workers that is designed to be mobile first. So you can complete the whole experience with your mobile on your web browser. And we do suggest people take the time to do everything in one sitting. However, you can never guarantee that you will have the luxury to do things in one sitting, right. Stuff happens. Chad (17m 23s): Right. Markellos (17m 23s): So if you do get interrupted, you can always go back and pick up where you left off. Chad (17m 31s): Okay. So quick question with regard to ejection rate, we just received a survey information a couple of weeks ago. I think believe it was from Appcast where it demonstrated over 90% of individuals applying for jobs today, over 90% ejected from the application process, what is your ejection rate using this chatbot process for this assessment evaluation? Markellos (17m 59s): It varies from the company and the position. We've seen companies that have ejection rate that's in this low, sorry, in the low single digits, you know, one to 5% to not complete the assessment. And that's when you have, you know, a very highly desirable fortune 500 company and people really want to go for that. And we've seen, we've opened the position, for example, for a content writer, for hiring at Bryq. And, you know, we're a unicorn to be, but not quite famous yet, but we got 2300 applicants. So how do you choose 2300 applicants? How do you find the best one from those? You send out 2300 assessments and there, I think we had the slightly over 60% completion rate. Markellos (18m 43s): It does vary as I was saying. Chad (18m 45s): Okay. So after they have the assessment and they complete assessment, that's when you can actually go in and start matching and then surfacing candidates who matched to those positions is that what I'm hearing, they have to go through their set of information and assessment before you actually start the matching. Markellos (19m 3s): Yep. I have to match you based on something. Right. And once I have that objective data about who you are, then I can match it to my ideal candidate profile that I created, maybe using the AI, maybe I created using bench marks or all sorts of other fancy things that I can do internally and I can make better choices. Chad (19m 23s): Okay. So I'm hearing, you're not using the resume to match against the job description, is that correct? Markellos (19m 28s): We don't touch it at all and this is one of the ways how we boost DNI because we're totally unbelievers of any of the data in the resume I don't know your race, your gender. And in parallel, we've run a ton of studies on our own data because we do get a race and gender information voluntarily from people who will fill it out. And we see that there is no significant, no significant bias in any of the protected classes. So I can say that women score better than men in this or that or any other difference. And that let us tells us that our database is clean, meaning that the data we acquire is not biased. And then we can actually go and make this whole process and help make the decision based on data that is clean. Markellos (20m 14s): That's why I said before that we had the customer who boosted their gender mixed by 119%. And interestingly enough, that customer was hiring more women than men. And we helped them hire within equilibrium, not just women anymore. Joel (20m 29s): You're throwing out a lot of customers. You got big customers, little customers, all kinds of customers. What is your secret sauce in accordance to sales and marketing? Tell me about that strategy. Markellos (20m 44s): GTM is one of our favorite items and you'll see that it's interesting, probably 40% of our leads is incoming organically. These are people that was the problem knocking on our door because we provide such a unique solution. Joel (21m 1s): And how'd they find you. Markellos (21m 2s): They find us on Google. They look for the problem. Joel (21m 6s): Okay. Markellos (21m 6s): They look at some of their content. I actually don't know how they find us, right? Joel (21m 10s): So you're not paying, you're not paying for ads on Google. These are, you're being found organically for the problems that you're solving. No money to Google. Okay. Markellos (21m 20s): We've tried Google ads and they never paid out for us. They make no sense. Joel (21m 25s): Okay. Markellos (21m 25s): And then another 30% or so comes from partners. And sometimes it's partners our systems that we integrate with, you know, we have 15, 28 years, is that we integrate with, we're now adding a bunch of HRISs, But it also comes from another kind of partner that we actually love and hopefully we're going to get more and more of those, which are HR consultants or MNA consultants, management consultants, people who are working with customers who have this problems and they need the solution to provide better solutions for their customers. Joel (21m 57s): So in terms of your team, do you, I mean, I assume you have a sales person or someone that handles sales. Is there a marketing team, like talk about that internal structure? Markellos (22m 8s): We are very sales heavy. So I think that sales is well, our second biggest team after product. We are a product led company, so product comes first, then sales and our marketing. Have you been to our website? You know, that our marketing team is small. What we put an emphasis on is content. And we like to provide valuable content. Joel (22m 29s): So you're saying the 71 followers on Instagram, aren't bringing in a whole lot of business to the company, I'll just assume that. So your sales team, is it remote? Markellos (22m 39s): That was 71 customers. Joel (22m 41s): Oh yeah, I'm sure all those followers are customers. So how many salespeople are we talking about? You know, are they global? Markellos (22m 50s): Mostly US based, but we're at 25%. Right. Okay. So we have about 10 people in sales. Maybe half of them are devoted in a lead gen as the RS and PTRS and the other half are sales force. Joel (23m 2s): And you, you touched on the integration strategy, repeat how many you have and more systems like talk about what that's meant to the company and how important that will be going forward. Markellos (23m 12s): We think that HR practitioners have a hard enough job as it is, right. They have to tackle what is the current stat I was reading the other day that the average TA stock is maybe 27 systems deep. So they have 27 disparate tools that they're trying to juggle. So we don't want to make this harder. We do integrate with a number of ATSs and we keep adding. I think we are that pinpoint and ASPE lately, but we have, you know, Greenhouse, Lever, blah, blah, blah, all the usual guys. And that makes sense for the TA part. Now we're starting to build integrations with HRISs because deep in our heart, we care about closing the loop. So it's always about, Hey, I'm going to propose a change. I'm going to make it. Markellos (23m 53s): And then I want to make sure that what I made actually makes sense and to have created an improvement there. Or not and if not, I want to fit this back to my model so that I can learn for next time. Chad (24m 5s): Okay. I'm going to jump back to go to market since you love it so much. When we're talking about that type of strategy, it's all about the difference between a direct to brand direct to logo versus a strategic partnerships that allow white labeling to integrate into some of the big systems. Where are you guys focused? Are you focused on a direct to logo conversation to be able to get these organizations involved? Or are you focusing more on partnerships with bigger systems? Markellos (24m 37s): We're more direct local people buy Bryq and that's really key, right? Because we offer a lot of functional is the third essential. We have a very strong partner strategy, but this is more with people who can take Bryq and help customers become successful. It's not easy, right? And especially when you're selling something that doesn't quite fit into a box. If I'm buying an ATS, I know exactly what I expect and how to do it and people have probably worked with 10 different ATSs. If I'm buying a talent intelligence solution like Bryq, I'm not quite sure what it does. I'm not sure how it fits. I'm not quite sure what kind of changes my organization is going to need. And this is where the partner play comes in really strong and Hey, call out the partners, come join us. Markellos (25m 19s): Let's talk about it. Let's help customers become more successful because this is how you rewrite the future of work, right? With people starting little by little to change the way that we do things and make them better. Chad (25m 30s): Okay. So last but not least, this is a lot marketing Markellos. This is a lot so it's gotta be expensive. What does this cost, how do you price this out to a customer? Markellos (25m 45s): Fairly. Reasonably. We have two main pricing ones, right? When people hire, we charge them a fee per open headcount per month. And we put a lot of emphasis on not charging per user. We really want to make sure that DNI is there. If you need to test 10 people fine. If you need to test 10,000 people and assess them, understand who's the right next one for you, also fine. Very predictable in budgeting. And when we go into talent intelligence, we charge you a fee per employee per year, that depends on the size of the organization. In both instances, our fees are a small fraction of what it costs you to have a new hire, right. And new hire is what, $4,000 each hire? Chad (26m 24s): So do you price it per hire? Do you price it per seat? How do you actually price it? Give me some type of answer. Markellos, come on. Markellos (26m 32s): For TA, we price it per open headcount per month. Okay. Okay. So if you need to do to hire 10 people, then we'll charge you 10 times or fair or whatever. Chad (26m 40s): Okay. Markellos (26m 40s): And for talent insights per employee per year. So if you have a hundred employees is going to be, you know, our fee or fixed times to a hundred, and this is what you end up paying. Chad (26m 48s): So why are you guys even hitting the bias conversation out of the gate? I mean, is it even necessary if you're doing your job the way you should be doing your job, that shouldn't even be a part of the conversation, but yet it seems like every single platform that's out there today has to put DEI on their website. And it just seems so fake. So why do you guys do it? Markellos (27m 10s): Because we believe in DNI, we believe that it is important that you have an equitable process and look at what the EOC mandate is today. You have to make sure that there is no bias in your process. And if you look at a hundred employers, 99 are probably going to fail the test. Chad (27m 28s): Yeah. And that's on them. Markellos (27m 29s): It's on them. But Hey, it's also in the industry. What are the solutions? We want to go with a solution, people can understand, people can use, people can apply and they have better results. Again, I repeat myself, but this is the future of work. Right? When you change the little things and you have big impact. Chad (27m 48s): Agreed, agreed. So what's the end goal? Are you looking at becoming that unicorn, that DECA corn? Joel (27m 53s): He said, he's a unicorn to be, so yeah, I have, your plan has to be a IPO, right? Chad (27m 59s): Yeah. Are looking at IPO? Are you looking for acquisition? There's a lot of both of those things happening, Markellos, where are you guys ending up? Markellos (28m 7s): We see so much strength in what we're doing that I cannot foretell the future, but I find it unlikely that we get acquired somewhere. I don't see how someone could give us more value than what we have. What we want to do is keep building a platform and making sure that people have equal access to it so that, Hey, we can do our thing. I want to say, make the world a better place, but that would sound cheesy. Joel (28m 36s): Cheese is all right, Cheese is okay. All right, Markellos, are you ready to face the firing squad? Markellos (28m 44s): Ready as I'm ever going to be. Joel (28m 47s): I'll go ahead and go first. Try to hash my way through this. So you have a lot going on and it's hard to sort of in a 20 minute Q and A really nail down how I feel about the company. I do feel like you have smart people. There's PhDs there. Obviously the technology, a lot of companies are finding value in it. You're obviously profitable. You have another round of funding. So you're finding success there. I think the sales heavy team is probably working for you. I think you obviously recognize that the marketing needs to improve and hopefully with the next round of funding, you guys can tighten that game up quite a bit. Joel (29m 33s): I do think there's a lot of competition just for the mere fact that you have to cut through the clutter of all the solutions and services that are out. I remember famously a call-in day from iCIMS told us his biggest headache was trying to get people's attention. And that's going to be a challenge that you have as well. So for me, it's just really hard, cause I it's hard for me to put you in a box and decide what I feel about you. But I also think that there's an opportunity there with the technology that you guys are providing companies are obviously getting value out of it. I think you personally have balls of steel with some of the comments. You're a very confident person. I think that's going to carry you far in this business. Joel (30m 16s): So for me, it's like, I'm just sort of on the fence, not quite how to figure out what I think about you guys. So I'm just sort of golf clap and I'm going to be in kind of a wait and see mode with you. I'm going to keep my eye on you Markellos and see how things go. Chad, you're up buddy? Chad (30m 35s): Excellent Markellos. Just having the conversation. It is way too broad for being in startup phase because you do so much. But one of the things that in advising startups for over a decade now, one of the biggest issues that startups have is they go too broad, too fast. They try to please everybody all at once. And whether you're talking about the regions or serving all of the globe, whether it's high volume, entry-level, mid-level, you know, being able to do all of these different things, DEI, you know, I get it. You want to be able to please. But one of the best things that we can do in our industry is say no and focus and be experts in some areas. Chad (31m 18s): Being able to focus on also the chatbot, which I think is awesome, but I think it would be even more awesome if you got a chance to do text SMS, WhatsApp, and then start to allow that engagement, which is more focused on me, not you. You're asking me to do things your way now, the way that we see things in surveys from candidates, candidates love to be able to SMS, to be able to text, to be able to use WhatsApp. When you force me into your box, whether a psychologist is in it or not, I don't want to do it, but overall, let me tell you, man, I love the idea. And I love the guy who has the idea of killing the resume. Chad (31m 59s): And there are plenty of you that are out there today. It's hard to change a hundred years of behavior, but it needs to change. And I'm one of those guys that is behind you. I also love the idea of using AI as a validation methodology for being able to choose candidates. What is your job description actually saying that you're looking for, oh, wait a minute. That's not it. What the hell am I doing here? Right. So I love the technology. I love the idea, what I don't love as the carpet bombing, get more into, I think a precision targeting system, which I know that you guys are, when you get there, I'm going to be a big applause. Chad (32m 42s): But right now, sir, I am a golf clap. Joel (32m 44s): There you go. Markellos. Markellos (32m 50s): Thank you, gentlemen. You made me feel just like Tiger Woods today. Joel (32m 54s): Well, you're a little bit bloody, but you have survived the firing squad and Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad (33m 2s): We out. OUTRO (33m 13s): This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.

There are a lot of surveys out there. But very few of them have a track record going back 13 years. That's why we invited Employ, the new parent company of Jobvite, JazzHR, and NXTThing RPO and their CMO Allie Kelly to the show to dive into their 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report. The three big themes discussed: The Great Resignation, Automation, and Remote Work (and yes, ghosting came up too). You've got questions? Here are your answers. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides full-scale inclusion initiatives for people with disabilities. INTRO (1s): Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast. Joel (23s): Yeah, what's up everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure? The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman flying solo today is my co-host Chad Sowash builds his European real estate empire, but I'm not worried. I'm joined graciously joined by Allie Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer of Employee, Inc. If you don't know Employee Inc, don't worry. You may know them as the parent company of companies like Jobvite, Jazz HR, Next Thing, IRPO, companies that you're familiar with Employee's, a fairly new thing, which we'll get into, but Allie, welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast sans the Chad. Allie (1m 8s): Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and I love that you feel graced by my presence. Joel (1m 14s): You're generous with your time and I understand you are you're in state, you're in Indiana today. So I feel like you're, you're right in my backyard talking over a beer. But give the listeners a little bit about you. I know that we've chatted on the podcast before, but you know, people miss episodes. So give us a little Twitter bio on you and then we'll get into sort of Employee and what's going on and a survey that you guys have recently done that has some interesting information, but tell us about Allie Kelly. Allie (1m 46s): Yes. So I've actually, I'm not by career, like in the TA or recruiting world. This is just sort of my, Joel (1m 54s): You are now Allie, because once you're in, you don't leave. It's like the mob. Yeah. Allie (1m 59s): Like six and half years, I think Pete and I, but yeah, I mean, it was all new to me, the space. So it's really, it's been super fun to learn. And, it is a wild space relative to some of the industries that I've been in. So it's been really fun. And as CMO of Employee, I oversee marketing and go to market and all that really fun stuff of business, like the really fun stuff for business, for our brands. So the Employee brand, Jazz HR Jobvite, Next Thing and any more that may join the family. Joel (2m 35s): So you hail from Boston and I have to know, are you a Celtics fan? Allie (2m 39s): So I am a Cs fan. However, I share my love between the Cs and Jazz, because I lived in Utah for quite a while, and frankly like you can get great seats to see the Utah Jazz play really inexpensively. So, and there's never a beer line, which is even better. So like, you know, I have a really great appreciation for the Utah Jazz. Joel (3m 5s): Well, I bring it up because of the sweep of the nets, I assume you caught wind of last night. So that was a big, I thought I'd throw that out as a sports reference. Let's get back to business. I was sharing with you in the green room that the acquisition, the Jobvite, Jazz HR, Next Thing, RPO thing went down about a year ago. Listeners can go back in the archives and hear what we had to say about that. But you mentioned that rebrand to Employ just briefly talk about the rebrand and how that's going and how the companies are sort of integrating, I guess, a state of the company real quick. Allie (3m 37s): Yeah. So I mean, it's a really exciting time. It's an exciting company. Right. And so yeah, it's been almost exactly a year and it's funny sometimes I feel like we've been doing this forever and other days it feels all so new and quick, but we want, you know, we've launched the Employer brand, which I think has been, you know, I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me it sucks, frankly, like we to come up with a better name than Employ, but Joel (4m 5s): It's a little vanilla, but I think it makes sense. Yeah. Allie (4m 9s): I mean, it feels like it's working, but like I was really hoping for like a little bit more debate around it, but it just seems like it's perceptions going really well. And all of our analysis tells us everything's in the right direction and numbers don't lie as I like to say, revenue cures, all ills. So it has absolutely been going in the right direction and we are seeing it really exciting numbers. We actually just had our board meeting last week and so growth in all areas of the business, but part of the most exciting thing and I think you guys have touched on this before is really the nature of being able to maintain separate brands for the segments, but also really drive revenue through the brands. Allie (4m 52s): Right? So Jesse Jar is a wonderful lead engine for Jobvite and you know, even with Next Thing, we're finding a lot of cross sales are coming in from both of the other brands there. And it's all just, it's really working out way better than I think, of course we planned it to work out. Right. But? Joel (5m 13s): Of course. Allie (5m 13s): I don't know if you always expect it to go as planned. So yeah, we're really thrilled with the way things are going, as everyone has been challenged with hiring over the past, you know, six months, we were no different, but we're pretty well ramped up at this time and filling out the team and doing great things. Joel (5m 33s): It sounds like a round peg in a round hole, which maybe makes too much sense, which is probably the problem with a lot of these things. But let's get into why you're actually here. I don't have a drum roll, but if I did, I would play the drum roll and I would announce the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report is what you guys have released. So tell us about the report. How long have you been doing it? How many people are you surveying? What kind of demographics are you targeting? Just give us, let's set the plate here before we get into the numbers. Allie (6m 7s): We have been, this is our 13th year doing this if you can believe it, which is pretty wild. So 13th annual report, and this report, we used a little bit more than 1500 individuals. And some, you know, I think some really interesting findings this year, probably more so than in years past, just because of the shifting dynamics and Joel (6m 32s): Lot going on Allie (6m 34s): In the world. Really? Joel (6m 35s): Yeah. So are these all US-based, is this sort of a global audience, any specific skill sets that you were looking to target? Allie (6m 44s): So North America, North America, we really try and get a range of jobs and make sure that it's sort of statistically relevant to the overall market and what that looks like. Adults right, so 18 and up is really what it is and again, we do try and make it statistically relevant to the demographics of the labor market right now. So that's pretty accurate. Joel (7m 4s): And were these all people in Jobvite/Next Thing, Jazz HR? Allie (7m 10s): No! Joel (7m 10s): Okay. So talk about that. Allie (7m 11s): So yeah, we do work with the third parties on the analytics there. They're fantastic. And they do a really good job actually of separating any sort of bias that we, you know, when we sort of put these things together and we're brainstorming like how we want to think about it this year and what we want to understand. They're really great at sort of extracting the bias that we come to those meetings with and the way that we're thinking about it. So, you know, I think that ultimately does provide some really fun, really interesting statistics that we didn't necessarily expect or think about. It is a point in time so it's not like we're trending this data and looking at it, you know, in the context of what's happening in the market this week. Allie (7m 56s): But, you know, I think on the whole, it certainly resonates in the market and it is helpful data. Joel (8m 2s): So there are about three or four themes that I want to just sort of talk about that you guys surveyed, obviously that goes into much greater detail on other things, but I want to touch first on the Great Resignation, which is, you know, every night in the news. It's a conversation, it's a topic. 60 Minutes, everyone's covering this. So the Great Resignation, what did you guys find out in regards to, you know, why are people leaving? Are they leaving? Why are they quitting? What's going on with the Great Resignation from what you found out in the survey? Allie (8m 35s): Yeah. So I think there's a few different things going on. More than anything else, right there are some industries where people are actively seeking new jobs, right? So frontline workers, right? There's a mass exodus out of the medical fields, out of a lot of those frontline jobs in the con, you know, and that makes sense in the context of COVID now, I think regardless of the reasoning behind it, that has trickled through and had some larger implications downstream in other industries. And when you look at sort of where that leaves us, it is absolutely something that people, like their jobs in general, they're re-evaluating regardless of industry. Allie (9m 21s): So compensation is always going to be a big driver, right. And, further growth opportunities, but think more than anything and I think the data shows this, not to a high degree, but it does show that I think people are reassessing what's important to them in life and how they think about their work-life balance and what matters to them. And I think it varies not just by industry, but like person to person. So I think people have, you know, it's sort of just provided a unique time in our world to like reassess with what matters to us in life and yeah, working isn't always it. Joel (10m 0s): Some of the numbers you highlighted, one of them did not surprise me, which was 45% are actively looking for a new job. My guess is that number's probably pretty consistent throughout the 13 years that you've been doing this. Couple numbers that were highlighted for me, or I wouldn't say shocked, but got my attention was, you know, 32% would quit a job without having another one lined up. Allie (10m 22s): Yep. Joel (10m 23s): And 30% have left a job within the first 90 days of starting. Now, my initial thought was, that's a gig economy thing. That's a, I have options that I didn't have before I can go drive an Uber. I can deliver food. I can, you know, I can get on OnlyFans. You know, if you have the certain skill sets like, well, I could, but I'm not sure I could retire on that. Do you get the same sense that the gig economy is driving? That is it, I don't know. It was a government fund. Like when you saw that number, were you surprised and what would you attribute that to 32% would quit without having anything lined up? Allie (10m 60s): Yes. And actually that is, so I went home the first time I read that statistic, I went home to my husband and Joel (11m 9s): I'm joining OnlyFans? No. Allie (11m 10s): Pretty much. I was like, I can't believe people do this. Like this is wild to me. Right. Cause I would, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it's an age, but I'm like, you know, I'm certainly younger in my mind than I am in reality. But like maybe it's a generational thing. I actually, I think there's a few things going on and there's a difference between the people who would leave without something lined up from their current role versus the 90 day thing. Right. I see them as two different sort of situations. People choosing to leave because without something lined up, I think is what we were talking about before. Right. They've reassessed, what's important to them and what matters. And frankly, they know that there's one point. I mean, they might not know the statistics, but right now I think the fed said there was 1.8 jobs, open jobs for every available worker. Allie (11m 59s): Which is crazy, right? So it is clearly a candidate market and they're probably very confident that they can get another role that will meet their needs, whatever they are, whether it's compensation or flexibility or work-life balance or certain types of benefits, like different type of work. Right? Maybe they want something more exciting. So I think that level of confidence is the single biggest takeaway of like, in the entire report, to me, the level of employee confidence or worker confidence is just, it's crazy. It's something that I don't think we've ever seen before. Even in a candidate driven market it's not like this is the first time we've been in a candidate driven market, but we've never been in at this level. Allie (12m 41s): And where we're seeing people more willing to negotiate. Right. And that's up by, I think, 18% over the past couple of years, which is, which is a significant jump, right? And so people are willing to negotiate salaries that work previously and not just salaries, but their overall compensation package and how they're working. They're negotiating a lot of other factors. I also think that they don't necessarily feel as invested in companies if they're staying for shorter periods of time and that's a trend that we've been seeing sort of on the upswing with the younger generation, on the whole, the numbers actually really haven't changed over the past 30 years. And I only know that because I didn't think that was the case and tried to prove somebody that it wasn't, found out I was wrong. Allie (13m 27s): So that, you know, that's also pretty interesting. So like the longevity that people are staying with companies is actually for the past 30 years, pretty minimal change there. With regard to the 90 days, I actually think this is more closely tied to the ghosting situation, in sort of a weird way that then like the 32% that will leave for whatever reason without something lined up. Right. I think if people are starting a job and leaving within 90 days, I think that is a failure of the employer to appropriately onboard and engage that employee. Allie (14m 10s): And in the same way, you know, people think of ghosting as I never ever talked to you again, you know, like I texted you, you didn't text me back kind of thing. Joel (14m 21s): Yeah. Allie (14m 21s): Whereas I think there's a lot of forms or like levels of ghosting where, you know, it's ultimately it's lack of engagement and a lack of communication. And I think that that's what people are looking for in their jobs now. And they want to feel that engagement. Right. And I think we're doing a really poor job onboarding employees in some cases. And it's a massive opportunity for, I think the industry as a whole, to really sort of up-level what we're doing and how we think about it. Joel (14m 53s): I guess the good news in the Great Resignation is it's not all bad news. From your survey 62% said that they're satisfied with their jobs, which is a majority, my math isn't great, but I'm pretty sure that's more than 50%. So it's not all horrible news. A lot of people do enjoy their jobs so there are some companies doing it correctly. What's driving the activity in terms of this resignation. However, surprise me a little bit, but maybe not. It's all about the Benjamins apparently talk about money's impact on people staying or leaving at their current jobs. Allie (15m 31s): Yes. Well, you know, money talks, I think, as we all know, and in the candidate driven market, I mean the increase in wages is, I mean, it's material and it's in every industry. And I think that people see that. And, you know, and this was all taken prior to the inflation rates that we're seeing now. So that is something to consider when we're looking at this data. Whereas it's, I think it was 7.9% of people, that was a couple of weeks ago or maybe three weeks ago. So it's probably been updated sentence, but you know, inflation is still outpacing wage growth. And, you know, the reality is there is this perception of how much you're making is work. Allie (16m 16s): You know, how much it's actually worth in terms of true value of the dollar and what you can get with that. And if someone else is going to pay you more money, it's, you know, especially if it's substantially more money, you know, it's hard. I think it's hard for people not to leave, which, you know, that's why we work, but let's be honest. It's why we all have jobs, right? Joel (16m 38s): Sure. So 37% in your surveys said, only 30% believe they are paid fairly by their employer. Now, there may be some corresponding evidence that the 62% that are satisfied are getting paid well enough. And the ones that aren't are the 37% that aren't being paid fairly. And as you noted inflation numbers at, I think eight and a half percent last, I heard that number may go up in your next survey because a lot of people with inflation will feel like they're not being paid fairly. One of the things that I noticed in sort of what's driving the resignation numbers was money. Joel (17m 18s): I expected the desire to work remotely, to be a lot higher than it was. So based on your numbers, only 16% prefer remote work. Did that surprise you? Was it a thing of timing with the report? What's your takeaway on sort of the low number for remote work in terms of what people wanted? Allie (17m 42s): Yeah. So the reality of this is what this question asked was the top reason for leaving in the past 12 months. So it doesn't necessarily mean that people don't necessarily want that, it's just sort of relative preference, right? And, and what's driving that turnover more than anything. So I think it, you know, and in a lot of cases, I think when people talk about why they left a job in the past 12 months, it's still a pretty new period of time. So unless it's something that is incredibly measurable, like compensation, it's a little bit fungible and a little subjective. Allie (18m 28s): So when you talk about compensation, you can say, I left because I got offered another role that is going to pay me 30% more than what I'm currently making. That is a much easier thing to talk about then the company had poor culture, right and how people talk about that and how they interpret it. I think it makes it kind of difficult to stack rank, but flexibility, I think is and work from home. So one of the other, I think the second largest reason was the need for change, in terms of turnover, past compensation. And if you look at a need for change, well, is it because you don't have the flexibility to work remotely, right? Allie (19m 11s): Like there's a little bit of subjectivity here. And I think what it really comes down to is there's just, I mean, if you look at the percentages, if compensation is counting for close to 40%, and then you're looking at the other reasons there, I mean, the span is 18 to 26%. That's not a huge range, you know, with the bottom three being within four points of each other. So it's, you know, I think it's a little all over the place. Joel (19m 41s): So a little bit of a sidebar and you get access to a lot of job posting data and job descriptions. I know LinkedIn recently said, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the basic gist was, if you have remote work or the, the opportunity to work remotely in your job posting your number of responses goes up significantly versus if you don't have remote work as an option in your job description. As a side note, are you seeing anything in terms of jobs that are on your database? Is there an increase in remote jobs? Are more people posting that as an option or are not seeing anything thus far? Allie (20m 19s): So there are absolutely, there's an increase in remote jobs. That being said, you know, we do need to think of the data that LinkedIn provided versus the data that we're looking at here in the context of the entire labor force. So, I think, pre pandemic or at the height of the pandemic, the amount of people that were working remotely was only, it only ever peaked at like 35ish percent. I'd have to go back and validate that data, but which is way lower than I would have expected. If you'd asked me at the time would have been like, oh no, like 80% of people, but that's not true, right? Like a lot of jobs just can't be done remotely. Allie (20m 60s): And LinkedIn is a professional platform, right? You don't have many, you know, sort of, not necessarily front line, but you don't have a lot of industries that are, there are certain types of industries that aren't even really on LinkedIn from a worker perspective? Joel (21m 17s): That's for sure. Allie (21m 18s): I mean, think about the Amazon warehouses, right. We don't, I don't think those workers that are working in the warehouse could be logging on to LinkedIn in the middle of their shifts. And you know/ Joel (21m 28s): Of course when Bezos has his way and it's all robots, I guess it won't matter at that point. Allie (21m 34s): Yeah. Joel (21m 34s): Yeah. So the last point I want to sort of talk about in terms of the survey, which is another, a big theme that we've talked about on the show for, well over a year is automation. Specifically in the conversational category or process. So we talk a lot about chat bots if you call them chat bots or conversational AI, you guys have some really interesting numbers around automation and technology in the recruiting process. You mentioned ghosting, which I think is impacted a lot by the automated hiring process so talk about what you guys found in the automation category. Allie (22m 9s): Yeah. You know, I actually would have expected in general to see a lot more, you know, what, one of the things that we saw, and I think that this is specifically related to automation is a lot of frustration in the candidate experience. And so Joel (22m 28s): I'm shocked. Allie (22m 29s): Right now, who would've thought? And it's, so for example, right, there are things that we know people are gonna find that have improved the experience like, oh, you can schedule interviews a little bit easier than you could a few years ago, or, you know, there's a higher, a quicker hiring path, right. Or there's cover letters are kind of becoming a thing of the past at this point for some, for many, many jobs. Joel (22m 55s): Good. Allie (22m 55s): Right. And those are things that are, I think, candidates like, and they're excited about it. On the flip side, I think there's a lot of frustration, not just from, you know, the sort of application process itself, but like the entire engagement. So ghosting or not following up, having a significant impact, people sort of focusing on or not knowing the best channel to engage. So I think there's a little bit of channel conflict that happens in the process, right? So they're not, you know, is it if they apply here, but then they need to provide their social credential or know their social media profiles and if they're texting. Allie (23m 37s): So I think that there's a little bit, we haven't, as an industry quite figured out the best way to manage the channels simultaneously for an individual candidate experience and a very personalized experience. And I think that that leaves our candidates feeling like they don't necessarily know what's going on. It feels like a lack of transparency. And, you know, everyone wants to know where they stand. It's not like they're sitting there saying like, oh no, I'm totally okay with waiting two weeks to know if I got the job or not. They're not. And there's new technologies all the time that are coming out to aid with this. Allie (24m 20s): And while in our industry, because we're in HR tech, we're like, oh, this is great and we think it's awesome because we like to be patting ourselves on the back. But the reality is that's not always great from a candidate experience perspective. So, you know, if you've got 22% of workers interacting with your chat bots in the recruiting process, but barely half, or like barely over half, I think it's 63% thought it was a positive experience. I mean, you could say like, okay, so it's more than half. It is the majority technically. But like if my child came home with 63% on their test, it would be a very angry mother. Allie (25m 3s): And like, I don't think it's a great grade. I think. Joel (25m 7s): If their previous grade was 22%, you might, you might have a party though. Right? So to me, it's sort of relative that yeah, 63% is not a huge number, but if the prior number was in the twenties, you're making a significant amount of progress. You don't necessarily see it that way. You see it as 63%, Allie (25m 27s): It's 22% interacted with it so just period and then up, so then taking those 22%, what percent thought it was positive? And it's 63% that that's a D, let's be clear, it's a D minus. Joel (25m 40s): But we're in an F minus industry. So we're making progress people. I was going to say that was going to be a big win in terms of the survey, but that's an interesting perspective that you have, I also think, and you'll obviously disagree with this. I think text messaging more or less was a win in terms of your survey with 56% preferring a text message for interviewing and scheduling interviews versus email or a phone call. So do you consider text messaging a big F as well at 56%? Allie (26m 11s): So I don't, because I think it's an efficiency thing, right? Like text messaging there. I think there's more familiarity with how people use and communicate via text. Right? We all sort of have an understanding of what things mean and when it's appropriate to respond versus not. Chatbots are a little, I think we're still figuring out how to use them in the right way. So for example, like if you go online as a candidate to look at a company and you go to their recruiting page or their careers page, and you see that they have a chat bot and you're interested, but it's 2:00 AM, right. Allie (26m 53s): Are you going to be angry because that chatbots not giving you a very personalized experience? Joel (27m 1s): Possibly Allie (27m 1s): You might be, but like, if you, if I text you about a job at 2:00 AM, do I expect you to reply? Probably not. Joel (27m 12s): Nope. Allie (27m 13s): There's, you know, different expectations with texting, I think from a candidate perspective, then there is with chat bots in part, because texting is texting, right chatbots, there's a wide range of technology and what goes into how we make those work. So what that ends up looking like on the candidate experience side, I think is a wide variation and it really ranges so. Joel (27m 38s): Interesting sort of curve ball and that is that a lot of chatbots are meant to look like SMS. So in terms of a user's perspective, are they talking, are they chatting with a robot, but thinking that it's a human on the other end of that, texting them? And I think that is something that will have to be worked out in terms of these numbers and what people think. Cause cause your numbers were 22% said they have interacted with a chat bot and 42% have received a text message from a recruiter. That 22% may be higher because they may not even know they're talking to a chat bot, they may think it's just SMS with a recruiter. But I think this is going to be one of the more interesting stories when you do your survey in the coming quarters or years, is SMS versus chat bot and does that line blur? Joel (28m 32s): I do still think that those are our two relative winners in your survey, chat bots, as well as SMS. One loser that I would highlight from your data is job boards. Allie (28m 43s): It's not coming out of my mouth. It's coming out of yours. Joel (28m 49s): Job board usage is 16% lower since 2020. What are your thoughts on that? Was that a surprise to you? What's causing that? Why are job boards down? Allie (29m 2s): Not at all surprised. Why are they down? I think this goes back to channels, right? There's so many channels. And again, so in the same way that we're like, you know what I said before about sort of how we manage channels with the candidate experience is really important and SMS versus, you know, chat bots. And we're how that blurs in some areas, but not always like that's a perfect example we really need to figure that out. Right. I think in a similar fashion job boards and the proliferation of channels around, or sort of that produced a, I dunno like a candidate experience beyond just like where you can find it, you know, in terms of how you can find a job is changing. Joel (29m 44s): Sure. Allie (29m 44s): And there's so many more channels all the time, right? So like, if you look at Instagram, for example, if you asked me four years ago, do I think Instagram is going to be a great place to find candidates? I would have said no. However, turns out that's actually a really great driver of not just candidates, but engagement and conversion with candidates. So they're new all the time. Joel (30m 15s): So it's Snapchat tech talk and Instagram, obviously that's messing things up for the job boards. All right, I'm going to let you close on this. Give me one prediction for next year's report that you expect to see that might surprise people. Allie (30m 33s): I would say the, I don't know if this will surprise people? But I do believe that there will be continued adoption of AI technologies. I think we'll see a reduction in the use of candidate facing AI. Joel (30m 51s): Is that for legal reasons or UX reasons or effectiveness reasons or all the above. Allie (30m 58s): I think all of the above, but ultimately, you know, I think that, and this is my personal opinion. I think companies are better positioned for long-term success when they value the candidate experience and security and privacy of the candidate. And to me, that means owning that beyond just saying, you know, oh, well this is just our technology, how our, how our customers use it is up to them. Right? So I think that candidates have greater expectations of that at this point. And I think that hopefully we'll see vendors start to use it more intelligently and thoughtfully. Allie (31m 41s): I think it will be successful. I think we're still in the very early stages of figuring that out and really making that technology at its best. Joel (31m 56s): Allie Kelly, everybody CMO at Employ Inc. Allie, thanks for your time. All right. If someone out there wants to see the survey, they want to dig into this thing. Where should they go to learn more? Allie (32m 9s): Yes, I would say jobvite.com. Jazzhr.com, employment.com or nextthingrpo.com. It's on the homepage of every single one of those sites. Joel (32m 17s): Listen to you. You sound like you're in marketing. Allie thanks again. And everyone else, we out. OUTRO (32m 24s): Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. OUTRO (33m 12s): And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.